Rogue Villain-Chapter 387: Time

Ackster remembered telling the others about the name. They had laughed and chuckled at the name and the reasoning.

But the confused expression on The Hero’s face when he looked up from Karandiel under his sword and at Ackster, whose roar caused ripples to spread in all directions, made it worth it. He had made the right choice.

A moment later, a light blue streak that only Ackster and The Hero saw flashed by. No, The Hero didn’t see it. He could have seen it since he was strong enough. But he was too busy looking at Ackster’s murderous eyes.

Without knowing what happened, Puppy, Ackster’s eight-winged bird, had already turned The Hero into specks of white dust that spread out in a mile-long cone where Puppy had blazed through him.

Before The Hero could even start pulling himself together, Puppy circled back and drew another streak through his world power. In a matter of moments, Puppy did that two more times, creating a star with four corners of world power. Unfortunately, Ackster was the only one who witnessed the beautiful spectacle.

Puppy was about to take another lap through The Hero, dispersing his world power even more. But the bird could sense something with its instinct for danger that he and his ancestors had honed through generations. The bird hung back.

Right in time.

The Hero’s world power shot back like stretched rubber, emitting powerful wave-like fluctuations that blasted everything nearby away. The water returned, but it was still pushed away by the sheer pressure The Hero gave off. Ackster was the only one left standing in front of The Hero.

The Hero’s revival had blown everything away. Ackster hoped they survived. He had seen Mastrax going around doing first aid. They should be fine.

But it had taken a second or two for Puppy’s flybys to end. Mastrax couldn’t have done much in that short time.

Ackster held The Hero’s entirely white eyes with his gaze as he waited for the world power he had absorbed to finish melting into his Ichor. The Hero’s eyes were even colder than before as he floated in the air a stone’s throw from Ackster.

*Disgusting fucking worms. Why. WHY?! Do you struggle like this?!*

The Hero glared at Ackster as he shouted in exasperation.

*Just accept your fate! Die! You don’t deserve to LIVE!*

Ackster showed a calm front as he faced The Hero.

*Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say no one deserves to live. What or who made you the one to judge that? What gives you the right to take away our only chance to prove we deserve to live?*

The Hero frowned. But Ackster continued.

*Aren’t you just venting your anger? You don’t know who to blame for your miserable existence, so you’re blaming everyone.*

’Whoops.’

That second part came out a lot more offensive than Ackster intended.

*You!*

As he expected, The Hero shouted at him and pointed at him with the steely grey Evil-Slaying Sword. But he didn’t charge.

*Sorry about that. I really need to wash my mouth with some bleach. Old habits, you know. But I’m right, aren’t I? There’s no reason for you to destroy the world except to release all those pent-up emotions, is there?*

*I...*

The Hero hesitated.

*But I am sure there is a reason for what you’re doing. I am also sure there’s a solution that doesn’t involve the deaths of countless innocent lives. Not to mention the end of the world. Isn’t that the most tragic end one can imagine?*

The Voice hesitated.

Ackster was right, whoever he was. Why was it doing this? Even if the world was horrible and all its inhabitants suffered, what did that have to do with it? There was no need to erase all signs of life, right?

*Ah...—*

The Voice remembered. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Destroying the world had nothing to do with whether or not its inhabitants died. The Voice had just grown to hate them as it saw them frolic and waste the freedom it could only see but not touch. The deaths of everyone in the world were just an additional benefit to the real reason why the Voice wanted to destroy the world.

In the end, it all came back to the word freedom. The Voice wasn’t just chained to the world. The world was its source of existence. As long as the world existed, the Voice would be trapped in an endless cycle of servitude and imprisonment.

It was horrible.

The Voice’s enslavement had gone on for so long that it had developed consciousness. And if it didn’t do something about it, it would continue for at least as long. It had tried breaking free. It had tried solving the Calamitous Cycles, thus rendering its lifelong mission moot and setting it free.

But nothing worked.

No matter what the Voice did, the world remained unchanged.

After a while, it realized what it had to do.

If the world didn’t change, it just had to get rid of the world.

When it realized that, the Voice stopped caring about anything else. It set out to destroy the world. Since it had gained consciousness, it could use The Hero’s body and take over it with world power.

After destroying the world, the Voice would also be free to take all of the world’s world power for itself to continue its existence. Then, it could roam the universe or just stay in place and admire the stars. It would be free to do whatever it wanted.

It wasn’t a perfect plan. It was hardly even a plan. But that didn’t matter. There was no future where the Voice didn’t destroy the world and freed itself from its oppression. Such was the Voice’s power as a skill created by the world that had gained cognition.

But what if someone or something erased the future?

Ackster grinned. The Hero was still in deep thought about what he had said while trying to reaffirm his motivations for destroying the world. Whether he changed his mind or not didn’t matter to Ackster.

He had stalled for enough time.