One Last System

The dragon hunter\'s words lingered in my ears. And even without turning my head around, I could tell that I wasn\'t the only one paying the utmost attention to them.

\'Maybe I should\'ve conducted this… interview in a place somewhat more private,\' I thought, realizing my mistake a bit too late.

But how could I know that what this man would speak about would directly relate to the things that I already had some clues that touched upon the greatest secrets related to this world?

\'One of those who returned,\' I thought, gritting my teeth when the cogs in my mind twitched and started to run smoothly.

This name simply clicked with who I really was, assuming that my idea behind this world being just a post-apocalyptic version of the extremely far future of the world I always belonged to.

\'Destined to break the god\'s will…\' I repeated the second part of the man\'s words, trying to ride the moment of enlightenment to figure out the meaning behind them.

Yet, no matter how much I strained my mind, no possible explanation came to my mind.

Who was that God the man spoke about? Some sort of deity that he worshipped? Or maybe a sneaky link to a persona of extreme importance within those who set this entire reincarnation scheme in motion?

\'No, that wouldn\'t make any sense,\' I thought, gritting my teeth. \'Why would someone responsible for my reincarnation bring me back with the intention of me messing up with their plans?\'

I couldn\'t figure out anything from those words on the spot. So, rather than wasting time and prolonging the silence, I simply opted to put it off for later to think about.

Then, came the last part.

\'Bring this world to an end.\'

Normally, this sort of apocalyptic prophecy would send a shiver down my spine… if not for how we were already survivors of an entire world coming to an end and its shards collapsing upon our world, turning it into a brutal and chaotic mess.

"Haaa…" I released a long, tired breath, exhausted by all the thinking I ended up doing in a mere few seconds that passed since the man finally opened up his mouth and revealed some new clues to the secrets of this world.

I shook my head before turning it over my shoulder so that I could take a quick look at the crowd that gathered behind me.

\'At least he seems to be fine by now,\' I thought upon noticing Levi\'s quickly improved state.

"Do any of you have anything else to ask of this guy?" I asked, quickly coming to terms with what I would have to do soon.

I waited for a few moments, eager to have one of those otherwordly cultivators come up with some sort of question. And yet, with each passing second, the only thing that happened was the scale of my annoyance that continued to grow.

\'Are they mute or something?\' I whined in my mind seeing how no cultivator stepped up to ask.

"I have one," Mia spoke out before taking a step forward.

I took a look at her face… and ended up slightly confused.

First, I didn\'t really want her to approach the man. Even if I managed to defeat him with relative ease and even after all the strength that Mia obtained after breaking through… She was still far too weak to be a match for him.

If I failed to keep that dragon hunter restrained even for a split second, her approaching would put my beloved in real danger!

Yet, this wasn\'t even the thing that confused me the most. Because when I looked at Mia\'s face… I couldn\'t actually tell what she was thinking.

Initially, I assumed that she read into my intentions and stepped up to fill the void of silence that followed my question.

And yet, the tense look behind her eyes, the slight wrinkle that appeared across the entire width of her forehead…

Those were the signs that she actually had a question… And it was a question Mia was pretty emotional about.

\'It\'s about the two of them, isn\'t it?\' I thought, recalling the event from the recent past that I never really thought about all that much.

The encounter with the two surviving sect disciples that we saved from the hands of some brutal hooligans… only to have them kidnapped by the very same dragon hunters who were unfortunate enough to attack my dwelling today.

"A few days ago, your group found two young people, a man, and a woman, both wearing the same robes that the two of us do," Mia stated while pointing her hand at me, confirming my guess.

I turned my eyes away from the girl\'s tense face and moved them towards the man who I was pinning to the ground with my leg.

Yet, contrary to what I expected, his face didn\'t change at all. He didn\'t become tense like someone whose crimes were suddenly brought to light. His eyes didn\'t twitch either like they would in someone who suddenly managed to figure out what the other party was talking about.

No, all that I could see in that damned dragon hunter\'s face, was the constant struggle to recover from the torment of oxygen deprivation that I put him through.

"What did you do to them?" Mia asked, locking her eyes on the man\'s slightly reddened face.

"W-we… discarded them," the man replied once I lifted my leg just enough to allow his lungs to raise and suck in some air inside. "T-they were too weak to even walk, so one of my men gave them mercy."

There was absolutely no emotion in the man\'s voice beyond what you would expect from someone in his state. And the exact wording he used…

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

It didn\'t take a genius to figure out the rest.

"Arty…" Mia muttered in a voice I never heard her use before. She then inhaled a lungful of air herself before raising her eyes and giving me a lovely smile. "May I?"

Her face was all in smiles. And that smile of hers had to be the widest one I ever saw on her face.

And yet, there was no warmth behind it at all.

"Go on," I replied with a heavy sigh.

Only for the girl to raise her right leg… before heavily stomping down on the dragon\'s hunter head, smashing his brains underneath her heel.