Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

My sword sliced through the air, letting out a wave of compressed wind that cut through the bodies of three more half-demons. I was fighting for about an hour now, and my body was starting to scream in protest. My arms were stiff, I could barely feel my legs and my lungs were burning as I heavily breathed a mixture of air and the remaining smoke of the military camp. The half-demons just kept coming and coming, like a never stopping wave. There were moments where I thought we were in the World War Z movie and fighting zombies instead of in a fantasy world, but at long last the wave was diminishing.

I didn't pay attention if there were any survivors among the camp personnel, and honestly I couldn't be bothered at the moment. There were so many bodies on the floor that I had to start balancing on them as there wasn't space to actually touch the ground. If the dictionary had pictures to showcase words, the scene in front of me would be next to the word "carnage".

I surveyed my surroundings, trying my hardest to ignore my heart beating wildly on my chest. Apparently I ignored too much, as the next thing I knew a hand had grabbed my leg and pulled me to the ground, or actually, the bodies of half-demons. There was one alive, and he was hiding among the dead in an ambush, and I had fallen into his trap.

I was exhausted, my muscles weren't responding to me. All I could do was watch as it left its hiding hole and went to tear my neck with his elongated fingers, but before it reached me, it was suddenly shoved backwards and a hole appeared on his torso, and then another and another.

Oh great, he's here. Was all that passed through my mind as I watched the half-demon get shot over and over, turning more like a Swiss cheese than a person. The person behind it was, of course, Vinicius and his skills that allows him to create anything he imagines, and apparently he has created a machine gun.

"Leo!" He called me with his condescending tone. "What are you doing sleeping in a time like this? Is the only person in the entire class that can't use magic and has to rely on a magical sword that pathetic?"

I started to get up, my muscles screamed at me to stop and rest, but I couldn't let him just mock me whenever he felt like it. It was already enough that he called me a counterfeit mage whenever I had sword training in the outdoor area of the place we were staying.

"Shut up, Vinicius. I'm certain that I killed more half-demons in the last five minutes than you did in the last hour" I half-screamed half-gasped for air as I looked at him, slashing my sword in a diagonal cut to my right, making a flaming arc that shot outwards and hit another half-demon that was fighting against one of my classmates who were in a precarious situation.

Vinicius just laughed at my face and then started speaking. "If you think that match flame you called a fire attack is actual magic, let me show you how wrong you are" He then looked for the largest concentration of half-demons and started chanting. "From the chaos of matter and energy's eternal dance I call forth the fusion of heat, air and destruction"

A magical circle appeared behind him and another in front of him. Magical energy shot out of him, circling the bigger circle behind him and then condensing in the one on his hand. I couldn't actually feel his magicules as I didn't have the [Magicule Detection] skill, but I could see how the very air around his hand was starting to distort with the energy he was putting in it. I watched it, unable to do anything else as I was running on sheer willpower at the moment, to avoid collapsing altogether.

"Molecules ignited, oxygen consumed. Expand and combust, a fiery doom" He kept chanting. "Let entropy rise, a sphere of anger and wrath" I must admit, I was a little jealous. I couldn't actually cast anything, as I hadn't the skills to do so. [Magicule Manipulation] and [Magicule Detection] were the two skills any mage needs to do what Vinicius was doing now, casting a spell on the fly. Other skills, like what I did with [Elemental Slice] and my other skills were different as they drew your magicules without you needing to actually power them, but it gives you way more freedom than any spell could.

I looked at where Vinicius and my heart dropped.

"What are you doing?! Jéssica, Bruno and Rodolfo are there!" I shouted at him, but he just smiled and kept chanting. He was crazy, he was actually aiming an explosive spell where our classmates were fighting.

I tried to run, to hit him, but my legs weren't responding to me. I was literally at my limit. I needed to do something, or else he was going to kill them. I tried to shout in their direction for them to run, but they couldn't hear my voice from that far. Looking at Vinicius, he was almost finishing the spell, but what could I do? I was too far from Vinicius to mess with the spell and I couldn't use my skills on him else I risked to hurt him too much.

I looked at the trio of my classmates, fighting a large group of half-demons and an idea struck me. I concentrated on my [Elemental Slice] skill, trying to find a specific element, and I did.

My arms groaned in protest as I raised my sword in a horizontal line and swiped with all the strength I could muster, at the same time I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"VINICIUS IS CASTING AN EXPLOSIVE SPELL. RUN" My voice resonated with my sword and was amplified with the sound element. My slash carried my voice over the battlefield, reaching my target in less than a second.

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I was relieved when they looked over towards us and saw the half formed fireball on Vinicius hand. Then, they started to run outside of his aim. I heard Vinicius tsk, and it made me look at him in anger.

"Way to ruin the fun, arcane failure" He said to me as he finished casting the spell and a fiery sphere with about five meters in diameters formed in front of his hand, and in the next moment it was shot towards the place Jéssica, Bruno and Rodolfo were. It exploded with such violence that I felt the pressure waves from where I was, about 30 meters away from the target. I watched in relief as the three of them escaped the explosion with minor damages.

"I'll take my leave now. I'm sure Rafael has something fun for me" He said and started to walk away. I wanted to run behind him and scold him for what he's done, but I couldn't, my legs refused to move.

I looked around one more time, and after confirming the fact that there weren't any more half-demons near me, I allowed my legs to give up and I fell backwards into the pile of bodies that was the battlefield. There were at least two bodies stacked on top of each other wherever you stepped, there were just too many.

I pulled my [Friendlist] skill and opened Alex's chat.

[Hey. You okay?] I sent.

[Yeah… There were too many] She answered after a few seconds.

[Don't tell me. I'm exhausted. I literally cannot move anymore]

[Me too. I wanted to just fall face first on my bed and sleep until the next year]

[Yeah. Me too]

[I just met with Jes. She told me Vinicius almost killed her?] She sent it to me after a few minutes. I usually leave the channel open so we can talk freely. Whenever I send a message to someone, they can only respond back if I keep the channel open. It's a little annoying, to be honest.

[Yeah. He casted a massive fireball and threw it in their direction. I tried to stop him, but I just didn't have the energy to do it]

[She told me you warned them, and that she is thankful for that as she doesn't know what would have happened with it weren't for you]

[I just did what I had to do. I couldn't let him just do whatever]

[I'll help the survivors now. Gotta go, meet at the same place for dinner?]

[Okay, until dinner, then] I finally answered and closed the chat. I looked over my added friends, my classmates who were brought into this place with me, and the ones I added after I figured out how to do so. I also figured out my message skill had a max range.

When the rest of the class was sent to another continent to train with a mage there for a few days, I found out I couldn't message them as they were out of range, meaning that the range of my skill was probably a few thousand kilometers. And knowing that, I was confused as to why some people that were in the capital and that I shouldn't be able to contact were available for me to send a message.

To test it, I sent a message to the owner of a restaurant I liked to eat on the weekends.

[Hello?] I sent

[Leonardo, Hi! What can I do for you? Do you need a reservation?] Was the response after a few seconds. Huh, so I could message them? But why? How?

[No, I was just testing my skill. Sorry to bother you] I said and then closed the message.

Could it be that the distance had increased? I didn't know, and wouldn't know for a while.

I tried to get up, but my arms were still protesting against moving. My closed hand around my sword wasn't helping either. I stored the sword back in my inventory, as I wouldn't be needing it anymore and moved to get up, but I stopped in the middle.

The people I could message a few seconds ago were out of range once more. I didn't move, and I was sure they didn't either, so that means the range of my skill changed. Was it the sword?

I pulled it from my inventory, and sure enough, I saw the out of range message change to the option I used to open the chat. I dropped the sword on the ground, and the moment I let go of it, it went back to out of range. Touching my finger on it didn't change anything, but when I held it, it changed back. Somehow the sword was increasing the distance I could message people.

I looked at one entry in particular. I didn't know if it was going to work, he was probably already dead, but I wanted to know if, by any chance or miracle, he was alive.

[M̶̟͗à̷͎r̵͈͝c̴̼̀o̶̖̚s̸͎͐ ̷̹̔L̸̢͗e̴̠̎a̶̩͂n̷̼̐d̷̺̽r̶̛͍o̶̥͒ ̶̾͜N̵͖̕á̷̻h̶̦̔a̷͔͑ľ̶͇a̸̩̿ ̸̕͜[̶̘͂ ̴̧̐Ḿ̶̡ā̴̭r̵̬̉c̸̰̾o̵̝͋s̷͖̚ ̸͍̌]̵͖͌ ̷̲̈-̶̜͛ ̵̞̆M̶̟͗ë̸̛́s̷̩̀s̴͍̑a̸̾͠g̶͚̈e̷̞̅ ]

My heart skipped a beat. The text was still basically corrupted, but I could see that there weren't any more errors, and that I could message him, pretty much confirming he was still alive somehow, but where could he be? Why was he the only one full of errors?

It didn't matter. As I opened the chat, my breath quickened with anxiety. I didn't know what to say. Where are you? How are you? I didn't even know he would get the message and know it was from me.

Eventually I settled for a simple message to send.

[Marcos?]

[Are you there?]

I sent the two messages and almost held my breath as I waited for a response that I didn't even know would come back or not.

.

..

…

No response came back, and eventually I felt the link break apart like it couldn't find the person I was trying to talk to and the chat closed without my input. I immediately looked for it again to try to open it up, but I couldn't find it anymore, the only thing in the list was another glitched entry.

[?̷͓͗?̸̤́?̶͉̆?̴͕͛?̷̘̓?̵̰́?̸͔͗?̶͆͗?̴̡̐?̴̯͘?̶̡͝?̷͔͌ ?̸̘́?̷͖͌?̶̛͇ Ń̸̛a̸͉͘h̶̻̀ḁ̷̀ĺ̶̥a̷̩̿ - [Ư̸͙n̴͔̽k̷̦͝n̴͓̓ŏ̷̠ẘ̵͖ǹ̸͚] - Ù̶͈n̷̆͝ā̶̗v̷͈͘ä̶̞́l̷̽͛a̷̹̕b̴̮͗l̷̠̓é̷̯]

I didn't know what to make of it, but apparently my hopes were in vain, and Marcos is really gone. I was probably reaching him in the realm of the dead, and my skill wasn't made to reach there and was glitching. That was probably it.

I sighed. They said hope is the last thing to die, and it did. I was holding on to the hope my friend was alive, but I had to face reality. He was dead, and probably on his way to reincarnation by now. He wouldn't remember me, or anything. I wish I could have said any kind of a goodbye, though…

With that, I closed my eyes and went to sleep on the piles of bodies below me. It was a gruesome image, but I wasn't able to get out of here to go to my actual bed.