Walter: "Is it over?"The strongest man in the world looked down at the dragon and Ro as he said so.
Walter: "Have you finally realized you can"t defeat me?"
Even after seeing the terrifying display of pyrokinesis and healing, the two had still tried to attack him. However, none of their attacks had landed.
The dragon had even tried to aggravate him so that Walter tries to kill the dragon and ends up dying himself but he had gotten his limbs torn off and asked, "Do you get how ineffective that ability of yours truly is?"
After that, Walter had healed him back to health with all his limbs re-attached to his body and asked him, "Do you two have any other tricks up your sleeve or shall we call it quits?"
The two had become well-aware of their chances of victory and how slim they were. So, they had given up on trying to win and decided to just buy time since that was what they needed to do anyway. But,
Ro: "You … b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
Ro cursed him as he tightened his grip on his severed arm.
Walter: "You can call me whatever you want but please answer me already, are you done with your little charade?"
Ro: "Tch!"
Ro clicked his tongue. The dragon, on the other hand, asked Walter,
Dragon: "Do you even have a weakness?"
Walter sighed.
Walter: "If I had a weakness, I wouldn"t have been given that t.i.tle of the world"s strongest."
He said as he looked down on the dragon who was covered in blood.
Walter: "It is because I left anyone who could be more powerful than me so far behind that this t.i.tle was given to me."
He wasn"t bragging, but just plainly stating the facts.
Walter: "It was because I became invincible. Now, do you two still want to try fighting me?"
He asked while looking down on the two. However,
Ro: "d.a.m.n!"
Dragon: "Tch!"
There was simply no way to oppose him. Ro"s contact with his right arm had been severed within a blink of an eye and the dragon had seen the same happen to all of his limbs. They knew full-well they can"t stop him no matter what they may try to pull.
Ro: "Why didn"t you just made us unable to move or something from the start?"
Ro asked him as if to say, "If you"re gonna look down on us, at least show us your true power from the start?"
Walter: "I am not a big fan of pointless violence."
He said while sighing.
Ro: "Tch! You did more violence by repeatedly tearing our limbs off."
Walter: "That can"t be denied. And I suppose doing that might have actually ended up saving me the trouble of defeating you multiple times. Still, what"s done is done."
He turned to the direction where Barry and Dyne would be.
Walter: "I suppose I should go help Dyne now. We have lost quite a bit of time after all."
He looked at the two as he said,
Walter: "Aren"t you glad you bought a fair bit of time for them?"
He started walking away without waiting for an answer. Having left behind, the two wondered,
Ro: "I don"t buy it."
Dragon: "What exactly are you talking about?"
Ro: "That excuse of pointless violence."
Dragon: "That, huh?"
The dragon looked at Walter while saying,
Dragon: "Yeah, I don"t buy it either. But what do you think his real intentions were?"
Ro pursed his lips on hearing that question.
Ro: "I wonder, and this is just a guess but,"
He looked at the dragon with uncertainty written all over his face.
Ro: "Did he want to let Kais, Sona and the girl get some time to go into the tomb?"
Dragon: "That wouldn"t make any sense."
Ro: "I know. But, his phrasing about us being glad for having bought them some time just seemed off to me. He understands well-enough that we are just thwarting their mission by trying to buy those three some time but he doesn"t stop us. Why?"
Ro"s concerns were very understandable and his guess, if correct, would explain the reason for it. But then his real intentions in coming to the island become clouded in the mist.
Dragon: "d.a.m.n! I hate to admit it, but your guess could actually be on the spot."
The dragon said as he looked at Walter in confusion and irritation.
Walter, on the other hand, listened to that conversation through his clairaudience and smiled.
Walter: "Dyne, are you okay?"
Walter asked his Spectre partner. But before Dyne answered him, he saw for himself the scene of the battle between him and Barry. Dyne"s uniform had burn marks all over it and Barry"s clothes were torn apart from places to places. The cuts on both of them were deep enough that if they had a physical body, blood would have been coming out without pause.
Dyne: "I"ve been better,"
Dyne responded to Walter"s question anyway.
Dyne: "And worse."
He referred to the situation in front of Walter"s eyes as – neither the worst nor the best Dyne has seen.
Barry: "I suppose you defeated the two of them."
Walter: "Are you disappointed?"
Barry: "No, I expected that would happen."
Walter: "Not confident in your friends?"
Barry: "Regardless of whether any of us would call the others our friends, I know how powerful you are."
Barry wasn"t lying, not about thinking of none of them as a friend, and not about knowing how powerful Walter is.
Dyne: "If that is the case, do you still want to try to fight us?"
Dyne asked Barry if he would fight them knowing he would have to take on both of them.
Barry: "I doubt I stand a chance."
Walter: "I think you might actually be able to do me some heavy damage though."
Walter wasn"t mocking or provoking him, he was just saying what he thought of Barry"s abilities.
Barry: "I know I will do you some heavy damage. The point is that it doesn"t matter anymore."
Dyne: "It doesn"t."
Barry: "I can"t sense Kais" or Sona"s aura anywhere on the island. That would mean they have entered the tomb. My mission is accomplished."
Dyne: "Tch! I took too long."
Dyne got irritated at himself and Barry as he heard that but,
Walter: "I wouldn"t worry too much. We just need to bring Kais on our side, right? It"s not like he would stay in the tomb forever. We can just talk to him when he comes out."
Dyne listened to him with a suspicious gaze. He wasn"t suspicious of Walter but of what he is saying and was trying to think of anything that may go wrong with that approach.
Dyne: "Still though, there"s a big chance he might not come with us. Who knows what he would learn in the tomb?"
Walter: "I can"t deny that."
Walter said as he turned towards Barry, who had fallen on the ground out of exhaustion.
Walter: "But if you remember, we had two missions while coming here."
Dyne: "Yeah, I remember."
Dyne said as he stood up straight and turned towards Barry as well. Seeing that, Barry gazed at them in surprise but soon his lips curled into a faint smile as he looked down on the ground.
Barry: "I see."
Dyne: "You already understand what we are talking about, huh?"
Barry: "Yeah, you were told to kill me, weren"t you? Well, I am already dead, so I guess it will be more accurate to say ending my existence."
Dyne didn"t say anything, letting the silence be the reply.
Barry: "It makes sense. Now that the war is almost here, it makes sense that your superiors would tell you to dispose of someone who had been a bother to you people before."
Dyne: "That"s true."
Dyne walked towards Barry, not charging to kill, but simply walked towards him.
Dyne: "You are one of the few people who actually made my superiors sweat."
There was no excitement in Dyne"s voice about the fact that he was going to kill the ghost who had been his archenemy for such a long time.
Barry: "Well,"
Barry said as he looked at Dyne.
Barry: "I had a feeling I would die on this island."
Dyne stopped a foot away from where Barry was and bent to his knees.
Dyne: "I suppose your instincts were right, mine never are."
Barry: "Yeah, I know how much of a loser you are when it comes to that stuff."
Dyne sighed as he saw Barry smirk over his own comment. Walter kept silently watching that exchange as,
Dyne: "I suppose I must."
He said as he put his hands on his helm and took it off. For the first time ever, Dyne had shown his face to someone outside of the Ghost Nation.
Seeing it, Barry smiled.
Barry: "It isn"t that good of a face that I"d be glad I got to see it before dying."
Dyne: "I doubt any face would be that good, so stop being an a.s.shole."
Barry chuckled and said,
Barry: "Hey; let me be a bit of an a.s.shole on my death, will you?"
Dyne smiled as he heard that. What followed was a moment of silence, comfortable silence. That silence was broken when Dyne took a long sigh.
Dyne: "If we weren"t on opposite sides, I would have opposed to the decision to kill you with all I could. But,"
Barry: "I don"t need you to tell me that. I know you enough to know that already."
Barry had accepted his fate right when he had stepped his foot on the island. His instincts, courtesy of being a psychic, had always been very accurate. So, he knew he was going to die … again, but for the final time this time. He was ready for it. And now, the only thing he needed to really do, he has done. So now, he is ready to accept his death without any struggle.
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12 years ago, on a particular day, a 20-year-old youngster stood in front of the so-called G.o.d.
Ozyllus: "You do understand, don"t you? It will be your sister and everyone else in the Vampire Kingdom if not anyone here, obviously, done by someone else but a slaughter will happen. And I will make sure Kais witnesses it."
Barry: "Why you-"
His hands were shaking with rage as he heard those words.
Ozyllus: "I have my reasons. You don"t need to know them. All you need to do is choose – the about a million people in the Vampire Kingdom along with Valdis, who in one way or another are somewhat involved with the war and guilty for some things at least, or a thousand or so uninvolved innocent humans around you, whose corpses will Kais see today?"
There was no helping it. He could try to warn everyone in Vampire Kingdom but they wouldn"t believe him. They wouldn"t believe "G.o.d" would do something like this.
No matter what he did, the corpses would align. He had to make the choice of whose corpses those would be. And so, he turned back. He started heading towards the place he would turn into a graveyard as he was stopped by a voice.
Ozyllus: "Since I may not get any other chance to say this, I just wanted to tell you. The reason you and Valdis got attacked by the vampires and lost your home as well as your parents, it was because I told them to attack."
Barry"s hands clenched tighter than ever.
Ozyllus: "I found you two to be specially gifted in some aspects and so I made sure I put your talents to good use, so I told them to turn your sister into a vampire since she had a lot of potential to be a very strong one and told them to let you be."
Blood started dripping from the clutches of his hand.
Barry: "Ozyllus, remember this."
He said as the angry screams of a victim rung in his head.
Barry: "I"ll make sure Kais learns those things you are trying to hide from him."
Ozyllus: "Oh?"
Barry: "And when that will happen, you"ll see your dream falling apart in front of your eyes."
Ozyllus" eyebrows twitched as he heard.
Ozyllus: "Well, you won"t be alive to see that day."
The so-called G.o.d muttered under his breath.
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Dyne: "Barry, I want you to know,"
He said as his lance touched Barry"s neck.
Dyne: "That I am happy right now."
He lifted his lance.
Dyne: "And it"s not because an enemy of mine is dying. It"s because you are being freed …"
He lifted his lance enough so the strike would deal a killing blow.
Dyne: "freed from this twisted world our ancestors have given us."
He brought his lance down and beheaded the psychic-ghost lying in front of him. Barry had resigned his fate knowing that he had fulfilled the promise he made to Ozyllus 12 years ago. He knew he could not win against the two of them anyway, so there was no point in further resistance by him. So, he had resigned himself.
In that moment though, Dyne felt as if he had heard him say – "I"m happy too." And unexpectedly, the Spectre fell to his knees in a show of grief that no one could have seen coming.
Dyne: "I hope … you rest in peace."
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