EVIL SYSTEM

Tepei was the first to feel it, deep within his body… dread and fear.

"Everybody, run!!" he shouted, raising a stone wall in the path between Ben and them.

"What are you doing, Tepei?" Fan Mo asked, along with some others who looked at him, confused.

"Run right now!!!!" Tepei shouted again as cold sweat ran down his back.

The other guys thought about protesting again when the wall Tepei had raised was shattered in a second, and from it emerged a frenzied Ben.

Tepei made two stone walls crush Ben like a pancake, but Ben emerged from it as if it were nothing.

Tepei armed himself with stone fists and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Ben.

Ben met his stone fists with his own, but without any element in them, just his bare fists.

Though everyone thought Ben's hand would be shattered, the reality was that Tepei's fist and arm were horribly deformed.

"Ahhhhh!!" Judy screamed in terror and fear.

Everyone panicked and realized things were serious; Ben looked like a raging demon.

After destroying Tepei's arm, he didn't stop and threw an uppercut that shattered his jaw.

Ben burst into laughter, and only now did everyone notice that Ben was completely drenched in blood, which led to the question.

Whose blood?

And at the same time, it made them understand the gravity of the problem.

Ben was a killer; they already knew that. But now that they had to face him as their enemy, they realized the fear he could instill in others.

Ben grabbed Tepei by his head, completely defenseless. He looked at the others with a smile, showing them Tepei's head with a grin, and with a small, effortless movement, twisted his head at an odd angle before ripping it off.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!" Judy fell to her knees, her eyes blank with fear and pain at seeing her beloved brother dead and desecrated in such a way.

The other guys were terrified and enraged. Some lunged at Ben, but he dispatched them with the same indifference with which he had killed Tepei.

He tore off arms and legs as a hobby and used them as an intimidation tactic.

In just one minute, he had killed more than ten of them. Many tried to escape, but Ben appeared from their shadows and turned them into mincemeat.

He was a bloodthirsty beast.

While all this was happening, Ben's eyes filled with tears as he saw and felt himself killing those he had come to consider his friends.

The worst fate befell the women and the man who was with Judy.

"Ben, please!!" Shen Huiliang begged through tears. "Please don't do anything to us."

Ben approached her slowly and, with a wolfish smile, replied, "Ben's not here anymore."

He tore the clothes off the three girls and, in a very violent manner, assaulted them.

Their screams and cries of pain broke Ben's soul, which could no longer put up a strong resistance against the parasite inhabiting his body.

Finally, he killed them along with the man, using a traffic sign to impale him through the rear, letting him bleed to death.

For a few brief seconds, Ben regained control of his body, but it was only because the parasite allowed it.

It let him take control so he could feel, in the flesh, the warm blood of the people he cared about.

Drenched in blood, for the first time since acquiring this power… Ben regretted it.

He looked at the sky and let out a terrifying scream that echoed through much of the city.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The pain and suffering in that scream were felt by all who heard it.

In the reflection of his iris, the figure of a man bathed in white energy could be seen hovering over the city.

++++

Dante slowly landed the helicopter on a high hill outside the city.

He helped his grandfather down and threw Ryuji to the ground, who writhed in pain and slowly regained consciousness.

He stood up startled, looking around disoriented and confused.

He clutched the wound in his abdomen.

His gaze swept everywhere until it settled on Dante, standing a few meters away.

"You left them?" he asked in disbelief, touching his wound with gritted teeth. "Did you really do it?!"

"What about Fan Mo? The kids? Shen Huiliang? Where are they all? Did you abandon them too?"

Each of his questions hit Dante harder and harder, who clenched his teeth and tried to remain indifferent.

"Answer, damn it!!" Ryuji shook Dante, but he simply stared at the city in chaos and the smoke rising in the distance.

Until a man bathed in white energy hovered in the air in the middle of the city.

Dante's face contorted as if he were witnessing something horrific, and Ryuji followed his gaze as well.

The sky above Magnolia fractured, a canvas of black clouds torn apart by a blinding white glow. From the heart of the city, the man rose, suspended in the air, his figure enveloped in a cascade of white energy that pulsed like the heartbeat of a furious god. His eyes, devoid of humanity, shone with a radiance that promised annihilation. In his hands, a pure light orb spun, growing, devouring the very air. The ground trembled, the buildings groaned, and the world seemed to hold its breath before the imminent end.

They had escaped the chaos, but they couldn't tear their eyes away from the crumbling city. The wind carried distant screams, the smell of ash and blood, and a heat that burned the skin even from that distance. Their faces, stained with soot and sweat, reflected a mix of horror and defeat.

The mage raised his arms, and the orb exploded in a beam of white energy that spread like a tidal wave. Magnolia's skyscrapers, symbols of Venzia's opulence, dissolved into dust, their steel and glass structures evaporating as if they had never existed. The subway, where Ben had fought, sank into an abyss of white fire. Houses, schools, markets—everything was consumed in an instant. The spell spared no one: civilians, soldiers, mages, even the fanatical red-robed cultists slaughtering in the south were erased in a blink. Magnolia, Venzia's jewel, became a smoking crater, its legacy reduced to a deafening silence.

Dante stood motionless, his hands gripping the edge of his torn jacket. His eyes, usually cold and calculating, trembled as the white glow reflected in them. He had abandoned Ben, convinced his sacrifice would save the others. But this… this wasn't salvation. It was annihilation. Guilt clawed at his chest, reminding him of every moment he had chosen strategy over loyalty. "Ben…" he murmured, his voice broken, barely audible over the roar of the wind. He imagined Ben in the city's heart, fighting the entity possessing him, only to be consumed by this relentless light. Dante had predicted a grim fate for Ben, but not this. Not the end of everything.

Ryuji, on his knees, pounded the ground with his fists, his reopened wound bleeding through his shirt. "Damn it!" he shouted, his voice breaking into sobs. "We left him! We let him die!" Fury and impotence consumed him, his face contorted with physical and emotional pain. He had questioned Dante, fought to stay, but now there was nothing to save. His hands trembled, stained with dirt and blood, as if trying to cling to a world that no longer existed.

Roger, the quietest, covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. He wasn't a warrior like the others, but he had followed Ben, trusting in his strength. Now, that trust was crumbling. "Everyone… my son, my daughter-in-law, the kids, everyone…" he whispered, his voice choked with tears. His hands fell, revealing empty eyes, as if the white glow had burned his spirit too.

The mage floated in the center of the crater, his white energy now a faint halo, as if he had expended all his power in the spell. There was no satisfaction on his face, only an inhuman calm. Debris floated around him, suspended in a field of residual magic. No screams, no laments, no sign of life broke the silence. Magnolia was dead, and with it, all its inhabitants—Ben, Judy, Shen Huiliang, the children of Brithmirth school, even the cultists and soldiers. The mage turned his head, as if sensing something in the distance, and then vanished in a flash, leaving only ashes.

Dante collapsed to the ground, his face buried in his hands. "I got it wrong… everything wrong…" Dante had played his cards, sacrificing Ben for a supposed greater good, but the cost was too much. Ryuji crawled toward him, his anger replaced by crushing sadness. "Why, Dante? Why did we leave him?" There was no answer, only the wind carrying the stench of death. Roger stared at the horizon, his silence more eloquent than any scream.

++++(((

Autor thought

He wasn't lying when he repeatedly clarified that anyone could die, and of course that includes the protagonist.

A a a