262 Ou (1/2)

Right before his eyes, there Evlin was, standing tall over a pile of destruction, a deceased giant demon, a crowd of people engulfed in fear, and a man bleeding and twitching in pain being dropped on the ground like a bag of trash.

”Evlin!!?? Evlin, what did you do!! WHAT DID YOU DO??” Auren shouted.

The woman just tilted her head revealing her multi-colored eyes and began to raise her arm towards him, ”You loud... You annoying...”

Auren sensed something trembling beneath his feet and  immediately leaped away from the spot, right before a massive spike made of hardened sand appeared where he was.

Auren's breathing began to accelerate, his friend just tried to kill him, ”EVLIN!!?? ARE YOU CRAZY?? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!??”

The mage continued to stare at him, this time with a frowned face, ”So loud... So annoying...”

The ground began to shake again and Auren quickly started to run as every part of the ground he stepped on suddenly would turn into a massive spike of sand attempting to stab him.

”Evlin!! Please!! Its me, Auren!!”

”Not Evlin... ” she commented, ”And you loud...”

”Not Evlin...??”

Auren began to think. Something wasn't adding up. One second he was being close to death after taking a hit from the giant demon, next thing he knows, he's close to death from being attacked by his old leader.

Something happened while he was passed out.

He tried to run towards Evlin and once he was close enough, he pounced on top of her like a panther and locked the woman to the ground.

”Evlin!! Evlin, please, look at me! It's me! Your friend! Auren!!”

”Friend...?” she repeated, still not showing any emotion.

”Yes! Friend! We used to travel together! Fight together! Save people together! Do you not recognize me??”

Evlin closed her eyes for a moment and began to search into her memories. Images appeared inside her mind, times of her and Auren trading ideas about the differences between their methods of healing, about the time he stood up for her to stay on the team when Gustav tried to push her away, about her tried attempt to play wingman for him and Ria, and about her turning him into a monster to enter the demon kingdom.

The memories continued to play one after another and suddenly, her hostility towards Auren began to shrink.

”Friend!” she stated again, this time more cheerfully.

”Yes! Friend!! I'm your friend!!” Auren added, glad to see that he was finally reaching for her, ”Do you remember me now?”

”You friend...” she said once again.

”Yes, I'm your friend!”

”Friend... Which means...” she said before finally standing up and raising Auren by simply grabbing onto his shirt, ”You... Not a threat... You... Weak...”

She watched him rolling on the ground and proceeded to gaze at all of those present and analyzing them one by one until reaching a conclusion, ”Everyone here weak... Everyone here, not a threat...”

The mage closed her eyes for a second and began to focus on another image, the image of a man with white hair and orange eyes that caused a lot of turmoil inside her heart.

”Him, caused pain... Him, threat...” she whispered.

Evlin pulled her whip into different directions and split it into two pieces, followed by tying the pieces on her shoes and, releasing as much power as she could, began to perform her plan to finally find out where Knucker's real body was located by using her geo-radar over the entire globe.

”Gotta find the threat... Gotta eliminate the threat...” she whispered again.

Auren stood up and gazed at the chaos going on. He looked at the emperor closer to death than ever and hurried to his side to revert his wounds. Since the injuries were from not too long ago, he was able to save his life successfully, but he still had lost a lot of blood and would take some time to recover.

”Are you okay??” Auren asked while holding his head and removing his mask, revealing the emperor's pained face.

”Y- You saved me... Thank you!! Thank you so much!!!” he replied while bawling his eyes out, but Auren couldn't tell if these were tears of pain, fear, regret, relief, or everything combined.

Evlin's sudden emotional outburst had throw everything into a mess and Auren needed to find a way to fix this, to help her.

He stared at her and began to slowly walk towards her direction while thinking about what exactly was he supposed to do.

Once he was inches away from her, standing completely stiff worried that she might break him in half like a stick if he made her angry, he took a deep breath and began his attempt.

”Evlin... Evlin, can you hear me?” he asked.

Evlin, who up until now was staring at the ground to focus on her mission, lifted up her face and revealed that her eyes and nose were bleeding.

”What do you want...? Busy... Go away...” she replied.

Her appearance made Auren lose his composure for a moment, ”Evlin, I'm going to ask one more time... What are you doing??”

”Gotta find threat... Gotta find Knucker... Gotta eliminate threat...” she answered.

Auren began to search inside his memories and realized what she was doing, ”Evlin, look at yourself! You have to stop this or you will get yourself killed!!”

The woman looked at him one more time, still not showing any emotion with her multi-colored eyes wide open, ”I can do this... I have to do this.... I stronger than everyone...”

”Do what? Destroy your own body!!? Terrorize civilians? Kill innocents? This isn't you!! What's going on with you, Evlin!??”