Life Of A Nobody - as a Villain

20 minutes ago,

"Guess we'll find out, won't we?" As soon as Rio finished his words and gave his shadow the order to annihilate the guardian Simir clan, Baani felt the tremors on the ground and sensed the peril of his men.

"Remember, I gave you a way out." He said in anger before lifting the wall and disappearing from his place.

"Still saying you have no idea?" Valtor said, staring at Rio, before opening his shadow domain once more.

Without the blockage, the whole army of Etum city rushed towards them like mad zombies. Pushing each other, running over their fallen comrades, with only one thought in mind.

"Whatever your plan is, I hope it works. Or you should know I'm not saving your ass." Valtor said, raising his hand as shadows behind the 'zombies' at forefront twisted their forms, turning into long swords and finally impaling their own makers.

The scene looked nothing sort of scary but none of the puppets batted an eye and just jumped over their buddies and kept charging.

Rio waved his hand as a buzzing sound born in air, and soon a dozen of puppets fell down with their heads severed.

"Here, for you." Rio said as two bloody arms shaped in the forms of daggers floated in front of Valtor.

Valtor looked at the 'arms' and noticed thin black threads chipping away at the ages slowly to sharpen it's skin and form a grip for him to hold from.

Valtor turned his head to stare at the magic swords in Rio's hands and then at the bloody arms in front of him, and felt the urge to curse this guy. Atleast ask if he wanted a real sword, maybe he'd say yes. But…

Seeing more and more of puppets coming close, Valtor just grabbed his newly made daggers and started fighting.

If the previous fight where it was 2 vs 200 , then now it was 2 vs almost a thousand. Though odds increased the difficulty, 'aliens' being a puppet without wisdom erased their instincts. Like clearly now they lost all their feelings and fears, but they also lost the survivor's voice asking them to dodge or prioritize safety.

Rio formed several circles of hellfire all around them, making puppets lose their health by half the time they arrived to face them. And they just had to kill them easily or just wait until the inextinguishable flame did its magic.

Though the fight looked easy from sidelines, it was a real mess for both the students.

Like Valtor, who was draining his mana at speeds that would put even normal A rank awakeners into coma after a few minutes, yet he was fighting side by side with Rio. Trying his best to keep up with the kill count. This was his pride, the pride of someone who could compete with the hero for all his life.

On the other hand, Rio was burning his health controlling hellfire at two different places across such distances and serious battles, that put a strain on his mind so high where it felt like it'll burst apart. He could feel his own body getting burned from the inside out, yet his damned ego refused to let him make a scream.

One kept using all his mana reserves, drinking, absorbing, refilling and then draining it again for several times. While other kept churning out blessings upon blessings to heal his body and keep his sanity.

In this regard they were both kind of similar, they hated failing, losing and especially, being left behind.

There even came a time when there bodies were pressed tightly from all sides, where it became even harder to move their hands freely or get a full breath in, even burying their voices that tried to chant a spell or ask for some help, but that's what a true battle is, never a moment's peace.

Rio's eyes looked up only to see the sky getting covered by mindless mob, flailing their arms and mouth over his body, trying to eat him whole. No pattern for their attack, no skill, no spell, nothing, just pure hatred and hunger driving those monsters that wanted nothing else but his death.

It was all so familiar, so damned similar.

Images flashed in front of his eyes reminding him of his time in the draided dungeon. And the familiar voice he grew to hate spoke slowly in his ears yet again.

"Told you, you'll never escape the hunt. You'll never be free. You're still trapped, just as you were before. Give up, and just let me win."

This voice filled with scorn, mocking his efforts to survive, belonged to no one else but him. It was something that accompanied him, no, haunted him, in that dungeon, and after so much time, it was here again.

"Did you think if you leave the dungeon you can live freely, find happiness and enjoy life… humph, morblesh**."

'Aargghh shut uupppp'

Rio cursed loudly and in his anger, released a blast of darkness that exploded nearly a hundred puppets in the air, splattering their organs from the sky like it was raining blood and hailing meat.

His ears started ringing, or they just probably lost any sensation, but he couldn't hear a thing except the buzzing sound of wind and feel the thumping on ground made by fallen pieces.

Slowly standing up with the support of ground, Rio panted heavily for a few seconds and drank a top quality recovery potion to regain his mana which was at an all time low now.

Only about 2% left.

'This damned spell.' Rio cursed as he shook his head to shirk the splitting headache, and ignore the memories & the hallucinatic voice.

Valtor slowly stood up from his ground, his clothes turned into tatters, showing his exposed skin covered in scratches and scars, blood trickling down like tap water.

"Next time, fucking warn." Valtor cursed as he glared at Rio, before turning around and taking out a fist full of core crystals and shoving them down his throat.

"That's not how…" Rio was saying how it's not the right way to absorb them, when suddenly he was attacked yet again. This time by the four representatives and Baani. As for Baani's guard, he was nowhere to be seen.

"Why won't you die?" Baani cursed as he watched how even after this long a battle, Rio could still fight seamlessly with all of them, while Valtor held back the mob, which had finally thinned out and were feeling 'scared' to enter the blast zone. A place where the ground still had spider cracks oozing the spell's darkness.

The representatives were complimenting each other's skills and had a fighting style which showed their team work perfectly. But it was no problem to handle them. Their strength was either limited by the dungeon rules, or they were just this weak before, but whatever the reason their strength was just around A rank awakeners, Baani however was giving pressure of peak limit rank.

After hearing the voice which could distract him so easily, this time Rio didn't hide anything and used all his skills to end this damn battle. He could already sense how his shadow was crushing the damn spirits with total advantage.

As he had guessed before, this dungeon was truly made to highlight Leon, who could use flames of sun to wipe these enemies out.

After all, his hell flames weren't real, just a cheap mimic spell taught by Hela. But Apollo wasn't that cheap. He would give Leon access to everything topnotch whenever he was against an enemy he couldn't handle.

And seeing fate, she'd help big time.

The fight against the four representatives didn't last long, just under five minutes all four of them were on the ground, bodies filled with poison that ate their insides to ashes.

As for Baani, who wanted to sneak attack in middle, Rio responded with the eyes of hatred, before slicing his sword straight to his neck, which the fucker managed to dodge at end time.

Argghhhhh

A nasty scream echoed in the air as Baani stepped back several steps and covered his face with both his hands. Green blood was dripping through the gaps in his fingers, spreading a foul smell in the area.

"Did you say I'd regret it?" Rio said, stepping forward to end this leader's life instantly and then help his shadow share the burden.

"Wait _ wait, I gave you a way out, we have no enmity right. _ You already killed my clan, I'll die in the war 3 days later anyways, so just let me live some more. _ I'll give you all the treasures of my city. It's buried somewhere else, you won't get anything if you kill me."

"I don't need tree junk and smelly potions." Rio said, waving his hand to kill the puppets who came near him.

"Then _ then what do you want, your friends, I know where they are, I'll take you to them. Just leave me alone.." Baani tried his best to come up with things to beg with, yet nothing seemed to work.

His begging seemed to do nothing… up until the moment when while his words distracted Rio and a sword passed straight through his chest, and a smile came to Baani's face.

"Told you, you'd regret it." Baani's words came to Rio's ears, when he turned his head and found Valtor was the one who stabbed him.

(Hahaha what an idiot.) The voice appeared again in his mind, laughing at this sudden turn of events.

"Whhyy… .." That's all Rio managed to say before his tired body finally fell down with a thud. His heart stopped beating and turned silent, yet his head kept echoing the laughter of the voice.

His shadow-less body till now finally showed a dark shadow near his feet, telling the survivors that everything was finally over.

… .

The scene Now.

Baani slowly stood up and stepped forward, his face covered by a new thin veil, which was trying in vain to hide the gruesome scar the 'cursed one' gave him, before finally being put down by the Mother's new puppet.

His steps were slow as he looked around only to see death and destruction everywhere. Just in that 20-25 minutes of their fight, he had lost nearly half of his clansman. So much bloodshed all so mother's wishes can be fulfilled. Her plan can work.

"But it's worth it." Baani said, looking at Rio fallen at his feet, with Valtor standing over his 'friends' corpse with an emotionless face filled with wiggling green veins.

"The prophecy is finally over. There's no need for any more bloodshed. The war _ the war can finally be stopped." Baani muttered slowly with a rare sign of real emotion in his eyes.

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**** explanation - Morblesh is a vampiric language word on Arcadia, which means 'A mind clouded by mortal ignorance' .

It's something the Dracula often uses to insult other vamps and humans. Simply implying that their puny brains can't comprehend the great reality, and learn the height of things he knows and speaks about.

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A/N - Daggers really were made to kill humans, not monsters. - maybe Rio's last thought before sleep.