SHAMAN PROTOCOL-Chapter 117: Enjoy him, Doom.

Meanwhile...

Black liquid splattered on the red surface they were standing on, creating scriptures each time, forming what looked like a sentence. Yet, that little detail was nothing compared to the fierce battle between Mikel and all these black figures being born out of his own anima.

"Die! Die! Die!" Everest screamed as he flung his arms forward from below, each time another shadowy figure rising and charging at Mikel. "Dieee!!!"

SPLASH!

His breath hitched as the thick black fluid splashed onto him.

Everest stood motionless, his eyes wide as he gazed at the monster standing meters from him. Despite all the monsters he had created with every breath, Mikel was still standing.

Slowly, the last standing shadowy figure, which Mikel held in his grip, disappeared after its head was squashed with one hand.

"How..." Everest’s mind buzzed for a second, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

Every single shadow he summoned had once been a person offered to him in this ritual. They may have acted on his command, but their skills and strength should have at least matched Mikel’s. Yet, it felt more like a one-sided battle — a massacre.

Crack... crack...

Everest turned his head at the cracking sound, only to see the broken Sabel trying to get up. However, with every bone in her body twisted and broken, all she could do was tremble with every attempt. Worse, she was not regenerating, despite her body being fake.

His pupils constricted as he set his eyes back on Mikel. As Mikel flung his arms, making the black fluid splash on the red surface, Everest realized one thing.

His own ritual circle was gone.

"No," he blurted out under his breath, taking a step back as his entire body shuddered.

At the same time, Mikel started marching toward him.

"No, no, no—" Everest’s steps back hastened in panic, turning on his heel to flee for his life. "This is not — this is not how it’s supposed to happen!"

But no matter how fast Everest ran, the void they were in felt endless. If anything, he felt like he wasn’t even going anywhere.

"This is — this isn’t supposed to happen!" he repeated in between his panting, still running despite the darkness that seemed to swallow him whole. "This isn’t... this shouldn’t —"

He ran and ran, each step growing faster than the last. His mind, however, ran even faster than his feet as he tried to make sense of what was going on.

He had seen the future, and from what he had seen, this shouldn’t happen.

The future he had seen was Everest fulfilling his objective: creating a homunculus that could terrorize the entire school, killing every single young shaman this year. He had also foreseen the headmaster dying, and this entire school disappearing without a trace.

But what was this? 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

What was going on?

How come his vision was different from what was happening in reality? This never happened before. Everything he had seen had always happened, and never once was it wrong or even slightly off. That was how accurate Everest’s visions were.

Amid his thoughts, Everest skidded to a stop as he suddenly felt something ominous ahead in the darkness. Just as he stopped, the pitch-black void ahead of him suddenly parted.

In a snap, the slit widened, revealing a blinding red eye.

"!!!" Everest’s breath stopped as his mind went blank, staring at the huge eye in the middle of this void, looking directly at him.

His mouth quivered as fear began to take shape in his heart. Taking a step back, he turned around to flee from the huge red eye. But he barely made a turn when a large hand suddenly grabbed him by the neck.

"Ack—" Everest let out a yelp, clutching the black arm that was slowly lifting him.

He clenched his teeth, peeking at the person holding him by the neck. There, standing before him, was the same student he had fought. But now, he could see the black molten liquid crawling from Mikel’s shoulders to his jaw.

The red color of his eye shone just as brightly as the huge one behind him.

Mikel licked his upper lip and smiled with his lower lip, amusement plastered all over his face.

"I guess another time with Gallos will be delayed," he said. "Thanks to you, I won’t be needing to find something to feed these damn things."

Everest’s pupils constricted, watching as Mikel chuckled diabolically.

A demon.

A sin.

A curse.

That was what he felt with every passing breath while staring at Mikel. A demon... the cruelest kind.

Then, Mikel’s smirk faded ever so slowly while his eyelids drooped. "Seen enough... now, begone."

As soon as those words left his mouth, he squeezed Everest’s neck as hard as he could. The molten black liquid covering his hands sizzled against Everest’s skin.

"Ahh!!" Everest yelled as his feet flung to and fro. "AHHH!!!"

Aside from the heat, as if lava itself was searing his skin, the tightness in Mikel’s grip made him feel every part of his neck squeeze and crack. Everest kicked more aggressively as his screams stopped coming out of his throat.

He cocked his head back, his breathing suspended altogether as the red eye hovered above him, staring at him without blinking. Slowly, his mouth parted, unable to look away from the eye shining above him like the sun.

Blood started dripping from the corners of his eyes, barely hanging on to life. Another second later, the scriptures in his eyes slowly faded. Like thin mist, they began ascending from his eyes until all the darkness that had consumed him left his soul — leaving no one but Everest, the one who had loved this academy and everyone in it.

"I..." A short smile appeared on his face as relief crept across his expression in his last breath. "... did it."

SNAP!

As Mikel clenched his hand, what was left was nothing but a small fragment of Everest’s spine. The latter’s body landed on the red surface with a light thud, followed by his severed head.

"Did... what?" Mikel whispered as he opened his molten hand, watching a powderized substance fall from his palm.

Mikel watched it fall until his gaze landed on the body before him. His eyes sharpened, witnessing the red surface slowly split open before a large tongue lashed out, circling around Everest’s headless body as it began to devour it.

"Huh," he breathed out, letting it be before he looked up at the red eye above him.

"Enjoy him, Doom."