* Nightwish – End Of All Hope *

***

“”YOUNG PRINCE!!””

As if replying to there call of hope, Draven raised one of his great swords up high above his head.

The ominous red of the swords and the crimson runes on the armour resonated with his dense killing intent, pulsing ever so strong.

With each pulse, those that were trapped in his aura, got weaker and weaker.

The draconic race along with others that had physical bodies, started to shrink and get thinner in a speed visible to the naked eye, as they started to get older and older.

The ghosts on the other hand, or other races without a physical body, would just get peeled off, layer by layer, till their very core is exposed and sucked in to the swords.

After a couple of seconds and some deadly pulses, the enemies were either resembling an empty juice box as their bodies were sucked dry of their vitality, or nothing at all as they’ve ceased to exist.

Draven didn’t wait to receive the thanks of the grateful soldiers, nor their cheers, but rather resumed his race against time once again.

Exiting the castle, he glanced at what once resembled a wide futuristic city. Now however, it was covered in its own ruins and filled with dead bodies and different colours of puddles of blood.

The two blood moons were like the watchful eyes of someone who was either enraged watching the events unfold, or one that’s already given up and pierced their own eyes to prevent the view of spilled blood from corrupting their soul.

Nonetheless, Draven felt even stronger under their bloody glow, especially with the sky reflecting their colour.

What he’d previously thought to be stars, were in fact spaceships fighting high up in the atmosphere.

Not stopping for a second, he kept running while ignoring the death all around him.

If anything, this city should be called death city, or the grim reaper’s paradise.

Killing whatever nonhuman creatures stood in his way, he climbed up, or rather ran up, whatever was left of the few skyscrapers that were still standing.

Looking down upon the rivers of blood, he blinked twice as he allowed an azure ring to materials around his dark purple ireses. (AN: see chapter 22 for details about the ring.)

In contrast to the ring he’d formed previously, now the ring was shining brighter, giving his eyes an overall icy glow.

Using his newly acquired power, he could see almost everything around him, not just that, but also memorize it.

In his now 360 field of vision, mana appeared in azure colours, as he took note of the different mana flows in the city.

‘There!’ he thought before rushing to the place with the strongest mana flow.

Reaching the place not too long after, he saw the human dark armoured soldiers fighting off against the invaders.

Although most of the humans had swords, spears, shields, and the likes. Many also had energy guns.

‘Maybe the answer is helping them here? But, I’m looking for something akin to a nuclear explosion! Where would I find that?’ his brain was spinning on top speed, and so did his eyes as they kept scanning and taking note of everything around him.

All of a sudden, the crimson skies lost their colour as they filled the planet in pure darkness.

Looking above, Draven as well as everyone else who was still alive, saw what resembled the upper half of a humanoid dragon.

Covering its huge muscles were a set of white sturdy scales that looked like pearls rather than scales. Two pairs of white wings suprred out of its back, obstructing any sort of light from touching the cursed city.

Even though the monster glowed silvery white, it didn’t illuminate the blacked out city.

For the onlookers, it seemed as if the dragon was missing its lower body, but with Draven’s enhanced sight, he could see that it had a shadowy jinn’s tail of some sort, and that it was connected down to a place thay he’d deemed unworthy of checking.

“Well, at least I know where I’m heading next,” he whispered to no one in particular.

The dragon’s massive jaw opened revealing a white fire ball, that akin to a small sun. The heat it emitted was enough to cause cracks in the atmosphere.

Although the monster was quiet, Draven saw its clinched fists and the despair in its eyes. It was quite scary for everyone else, but for him… he felt a wave of familiarity hit him when he looked at it.

Closing his eyes and bracing himself for the impact, Draven felt enraged, he didn’t know how it happened or why, but he was flaring with rage.

All of a sudden, a familiar glitch made the world lose its colours as nothing remained but it’s cotton-white scorching fury.

It was as if a white star had hit the planet.

Draven didn’t even hear the sound of the resulting explosion or even feel its heat, rather, everything around him just ceased to exist as he was struck with a white dazzling void before opening his eyes again to find himself in the familiar purple crystalline garden.

“Ah…” he was tired of doing this over and over again, but he knew he had to keep going.

Something was calling out for him to keep moving forward.

“Well sh*t, here we go again.”

However, even though he thought about starting his race again, he didn’t actually do it.

“If I can’t die here, I might as well figure out the f*ck is going on *sigh*”

“Ok so to recap, first I wake up in this alien planet. Humans call me ‘Young Prince’ for some reason. Ummm, I do have powers that aren’t mine, I even have the knowledge about how to use them…”

*sigh* Looking at the two blood moons, he sighed again. “What am I missing?”

“What happened before I woke up here?

“Last clear memory I have takes place after the soccer game where Maya and Maria were unconscious in a puddle of their own blood.

“But I’m pretty sure I’ve saved them somehow, I can feel it.

“After that, all that’s in my mind is just some broken pieces of a big puzzle.

“I remember fighting a strong monster with some weird powers that I now possess. But at the same time it wasn’t me actually doing the fighting. It’s almost as if I was watching my body move on its own. Have I been controlled by someone?

“If anything, it felt like back when I escaped from Lady Luck.” he mused as his eyes darted towards the crystal trees.

“Yes!! I remember now!” he said enthusiastically as he lightly smashed his fist into his open palm.

“It’s so similar to the feeling I got when I had that weird voice in my head, when I produced that heavy crimson armour!

“Hm, It all makes sense now! I don’t know what my powers are, but what I do know is that whenever that… ‘phase’ happens, I use powers that aren’t mine, but then after it passes, I regain the toned down version of it.

“That’s why I can now make the black shadow armour, but not the draconic crimson one. Also, as of when I woke up, I found myself able to produce this gooey substance.” He said as he extended his right hand.

Unlike before, the colour of the gooey substance that surged from his hand was silver only, with a hint of prismatic grey, rather than the black and silver.

“As a matter of fact, I almost know for sure that this metallic goo is basically a bunch of nanobots, as in millions and millions of them.

“I also have the basic understanding of how I can build almost anything that I can imagine, as long as I know how the parts go together and its function, etc.” He said as he built a simple black dagger.

“Although I doubt I can use them in a fight at the moment as I have no experience. Even building a simple gun would be an exhausting task that would require so much energy. The nanobots are so volatile and require a lot of energy and focus to make sure they’re stable, let alone control them.

“Hmm, that at least does answer some questions, although it opens the doors to many others. But it’s not the time to dwell over that.

“If I consider this to be a trial of sorts, or even another one if these phases, does that mean I’ll have to finish this to be able to get the enhancement for my armour and swords?

“And that weird azure vision thingy that I developed, it enables me to detect, memorise, and almost visually dissect anything that’s made of energy, in my field of vision, which is now anywhere around me when activated.

“If not made of energy, I can project my own into it, and the effect would be even better.

“Also, I can see through walls! Kinda glad I can’t see the actual flesh though, that would distract me quite a bit in school, especially when the girls are getting ready for PT…”

*SLAP!!*

“What am I thinking? Back to the task at hand… *sigh*

“What’s the objective in here? What am I supposed to do? Fighting that half dragon is a big no-no.

“It’s way too damn OP, one attack is all it takes to destroy a planet! Like who the f*ck made this trial so hard? How am I supposed to-”

Noticing the white glitch distorting his vision again, just a second before everything went black, Draven realised he’s out of time.

“Well, RI-”