Chapter 107: Solace I Desire

As the flaming spears converged and detonated around the young boy, Marco felt a surge of energy leave his body. His expression drained of color, turning paler. The forest echoed with the explosion of flames, and a wall of fire surged, enveloping the boy within.

"Dammit," Marco thought grimly. The boy had been a serious nuisance, but he never fancied the idea of harming children. However, the circumstances this time were different.

"What kind of ridiculous circumstances?" he cursed silently at himself. He had felt threatened by the youngster and had attacked without holding back, as had his companions present.

"Well, at least it's over now," he muttered under his breath as he stared at the thick cloud of smoke billowing from his spell.

His heart sank when he sensed a lingering presence within the smoke, and his expression paled further as a familiar, chilling voice of cold indifference rang in his ears.

"Is that all?"

He shuddered.

With a small gust of focused wind, the smoke quickly cleared, revealing a young boy with lightless eyes staring coldly directly at him. The boy appeared untouched and unscathed, not even a speck of dust on his clothes since they first met.

Marco felt only cold dread and pure shock.

How did he survive? Much less, without a single scratch.

"He uses magic at that age?"

Marco soon got his answer, turning to look at the tense expression on Bowen's face.

"What?" Marco was perplexed by Bowen's statement and reaction.

Then he followed Bowen's gaze back toward the boy standing unscathed. Then he saw it.

Surrounding Reo's wrist, there were faint wisps of wind unnaturally coalescing around his fingers.

I-it can't be..." Marco's eyes slowly widened as he glanced at the ground before the boy.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed a black scorch mark only two steps away from the boy, with nothing else around it.

A chilling understanding settled into the hearts of the men present.

"He forced the lances to explode before they could reach him."

Reo had wielded the wind to coalesce and form a wall of pressurized gale, blocking the spears and causing them to detonate. The details were clear, and it didn't take a genius to understand what had really happened and how the boy managed to emerge completely unscathed despite the attack.

Suddenly, the mood among the three men became incredibly solemn.

How old was Reo?

Nine?

Ten?

Eleven?

From a glance, they could all tell the boy was not much older than twelve at most, maybe somewhere around ten to eleven.

In hindsight, it wasn't exactly surprising that Reo could wield magic; perhaps he was just a genius for his age. What was more shocking was the precise control with which he did so. Coupled with his unsettling composure and terrifying abilities displayed earlier, Reo's image solidified in their minds as one thing:

Dangerous.

"I guess it's about time I finished this," Reo thought to himself, then wedged his dislocated left shoulder back in place.

The recent explosion, though not massive, was loud enough. It was only a matter of time before their position attracted the attention of guards, or worse, more reinforcements for the men. It was regrettable, but Reo knew he had to end it all.

"My body has almost completely adapted, and I've grown accustomed to my heightened senses. I guess I can take it up a notch now," Reo thought as he clenched and opened his fist, assessing his strength and contemplating his next actions.

Since the moment he drew his dagger towards Marco's head, Reo had restrained his full capabilities. Not only to efficiently gauge his abilities by placing a small handicap on himself, but also to avoid revealing too much to his opponents—such as his use of magic.

But now that his abilities were partly exposed, Reo felt he had gained enough experience from the men before him.

In other words, they had outlived their usefulness. After the few exchanges they had, he felt more confident than ever that he could get rid of them.

He had surpassed them.

It sounded arrogant and cocky, but the effects of X'xebecc's rune were terrifying. Reo possessed inhuman adaptability and growth. No matter how little experience he gained, it was enough to propel his strength to new heights.

Channeling his mental energy, Reo sent a pulse of his mental waves into the vicinity and vanished from sight. His figure blurred before the gazes of the three men as he gripped his sword from its scabbard. Time seemed to slow down for Reo; his eyes took on a faint pale golden hue hidden in their depths as his mental sphere processed his surroundings in a single gaze.

"You first," his cold voice reverberated.

Reo materialized before Marco and raised his sword towards the pale man's neck. It all happened so fast that Marco barely had time to breathe. Reo's decision to target Marco wasn't impulsive; it was efficient.

Marco was the mage of the group—the only one capable of executing long-range and wide-area attacks. Who knew what other tricks Marco had up his sleeve?

But suddenly, "Huargh!"

Bowen's metal fist materialized next to Reo simultaneously, and Reo inwardly clicked his tongue. Though he had sensed Bowen's approach through scattered brainwaves and anticipated him, it was still annoying. As a result, Reo had to abandon his attack on Marco and evade Bowen's nearly point-blank blow.

Bowen's heavy fist smashed into the ground as Reo leapt over it and into the air to evade. Before Bowen could widen his eyes in shock, a blunt, painful force collided with his face—a drop kick that dislocated his jaw. His head snapped back, and he stumbled, blinded by pain and the taste of dirt filling his mouth.

Using Bowen's face as a platform, Reo propelled himself higher into the air to dodge Borris's broad blade, which followed up on Bowen's attack. The sword whistled through the air as Reo twisted and flipped acrobatically back to the ground.

With a terrifying spring in his steps, he pushed off his toes, and his left fist flashed.

The side of Borris's face caved in, an ugly bruise forming as his head jerked painfully to the side with a crack of bones in his neck. Before Bowen's body could fully hit the ground, Reo swiftly incapacitated Borris in a similar manner.

The two large men stumbled and flew off their feet, crashing against the ground below them.

Reo felt the hair on his skin tingle as he sensed the mana in the atmosphere swell and converge towards a certain direction beside him. He saw a dangerously pale Marco holding up a small, lightless red crystal in one hand and a familiar swelling mass of fire in the other above his head.

"Pfft!" Thick pools of blood coughed out of Marco's mouth, his eyes bloodshot with a trail of red trickling down his nostrils. Despite his condition, his pale expression twisted as the mass of immolating flames continued to swell drastically.

Marco glared through his red-filled eyes at Reo and pushed his body forward, bringing his arms down on him. With the last traces of energy in him, he said in a rough, hoarse voice, his throat clearly scorched by the heat:

"[INFER—!"

"How boring."

Reo outstretched his left arm into the air and clasped his fingers into a fist at the mass of flames. He felt his mental sphere tremble as the mana stored in his mental core drastically drained. Instantly, the mass of flames destabilized, and the mana encompassing the spell went haywire.

"Huh?"

For a fleeting moment, Marco felt his connection to his mana break and his control over his spell slip as the enormous mass of flames imploded in on itself over his head.

A resounding explosion, unlike any seen throughout the entire day, wreaked mindless havoc across the forest. The undulating sea of rolling flames devoured trees and bushes, the intense heat melting the ground beneath.

A deafening shockwave exploded through the air, causing space to tremble in the area. Lingering tremors continued for a few moments before the explosion began to subside.

A sweltering heat surrounded the blast site. Burnt trees and scorched earth stretched as far as the eye could see. A black trail of smoke filled the air with the putrid smell of embers and burnt wood. Amidst the destruction, Reo's lone figure stood at the epicenter.

Withdrawing both his outstretched arms, Reo's figure swayed as he cursed bitterly. A small puddle of blood coughed out of his mouth, yet he resisted the urge to succumb to the ground.

His clothes were singed in patches, and his armor partially melted. Covered in dark soot, his hair was disheveled from the chaotic winds.

Reo hung his head forward, managing his heavy breathing as he gazed at his scalded palms.

They stung.

His whole body ached and hurt, with some parts still sizzling. Apart from his arms, which bore small patches of second and third-degree burns, those seemed to be the extent of his injuries.

"Why did I even do that?" A familiar and cold feeling of lethargy settled deeply into his mind.

The moment Marco finished his spell, Reo felt an instinctive impulse to try something out. It was like a feeling he got when he looked at that smoldering mass of flames—a necessary itch he had to scratch. The truth was, he had always had an inkling of what could happen, but he had never tried it before.

Until now.

Reo had destabilized the spell using his scattered brainwaves on impulse. It was nothing but a sudden, immature decision on his part, and as a result, the spell went haywire, with the mana distorted and ultimately exploding greatly.

Never once had he disrupted a spell with his brainwaves before, so he had no idea how disastrous it could have been. If he hadn't layered his body in thick covers of mental energy and brainwaves, he would have undoubtedly been swept by the explosion and suffered much worse damage.

As a result of his experimental actions, Reo had used a much larger amount of mental energy to disrupt the spell and protect himself, leaving his mental core dangerously low despite its supposed largeness. This deep and cold listlessness plaguing his mind was the mental exhaustion from expending too much mental energy.

Reo surveyed the destruction with hazy eyes. It was bad, but not as terrible as he had expected. The explosion had swallowed up at most a hundred or a hundred and fifty meters. The forest was scorched, but it wouldn't be rendered barren in the future. Ultimately, the damage was significant, but the forest would recover in a few years.

Meanwhile, Reo walked up to a burnt and melted corpse not far from him. The figure was blackened and unrecognizable, burnt to oblivion. Yet Reo knew it was Marco's corpse. Even now, the body's hand remained outstretched over its head, clutching a melted spherical object.

Reo lowered his body and specifically eyed the burnt device.

"Well, at least that's the end of that," he mumbled to himself.

He had originally planned to retrieve the device, but now that it was destroyed, there was no point.

"Now then." Rising up and straightening his back, Reo mumbled once more and turned to face a certain direction. His feet crunched over the burnt forest ground as he arrived at the point of his gaze.

"...you survived."

Reo hazily gazed down at the disfigured figures of Bowen and Borris. Their melted bodies twitched and whimpered in pain.

"...p-please... help us... ughh," their hoarse voices were filled with indescribable anguish. Their burnt faces and melted limbs oozed pus, mixing with the smell of blood and severely burnt flesh, permeating the air around them.

Reo's hazy eyes gained some mild clarity as he slowly began to recover the mana in his mental core. The passive effect of his mental sphere submerged his mind, numbing all of the pain and unnecessary thoughts.

His eyes filled with cold listlessness as he looked down at the two who had tried to kill him moments ago. The two who had attempted to kill the village guards and the same individuals who attempted to take his village away from him.

Nothing reflected on the surface of Reo's eyes as his cracked lips slowly parted.

"Okay..."

A potent tongue of flame conjured in his raised hand. His mental sphere trembled faintly, numbing his mind and filling him with cold apathy. His tired eyes gazed indifferently at their melted figures.

"Burn," he said, and their bodies were consumed by vibrant flames.

Reo watched the flames dance and the tongues lick the air. The crackling of the flames eating away at their skin and bones played an indescribable symphony, alongside their anguish-filled wails and cries. Listening to their muffled voices, Reo raised his head and stared up at the blue sky, partially corroded with black soot, then slowly closed his eyes.

His mental sphere trembled faintly once more.

And Reo felt at peace.

***

End Of Volume One:

A Certain Magical Reincarnation: Parallel Of Two Worlds, One Home

Three years time-skip incoming.