Destroyed

“Unnie!”

Rei’s scream tore through the air, hoping that it would do something, but all it did was stun Jimin.

The slab was already in the air.

Voidborn wouldn’t make it in time.

Then—

In that split second, Voidborn twisted his body in the direction opposite the bugbear and leapt. His body flashed through the air, surging towards the mobile drink stall to Jimin’s side, kicking it with all his might.

A thunderous, catastrophic crash exploded across the street.

The slab smashed into the obstruction with a deafening boom. The wood broke into pieces, splinters and shattered glass bottles exploding outwards in every direction. Dark crimson beetroot juice sprayed across the pavement like blood as the cart disintegrated under the devastating force.

But that was not all.

As the concrete slab fractured into pieces, a stray, jagged chunk of debris broke off and hurtled towards the civilian man that Jimin had been trying to save.

There was no time to scream.

The debris struck him right in the torso with a sickening wet crunch. His body folded inwards instantly, the fat around him barely doing anything to cushion the impact. His ribs shattered like dry twigs under the immense force, blood and viscera exploding outwards in a grotesque spray, innards bursting from the ruined cavity of his chest and abdomen. What remained of the body crumpled like a discarded rag, his limbs twitching once before going still.

He was dead.

Jimin cursed at the sight, but there was no time to mourn.

Enraged that its attempt to kill Jimin failed, the bugbear tightened its grip on its club and bent forward, charging towards Jimin.

“Get out of the way!” Derrick shouted, scattering five metallic cubes with a copper sheen across the ground.

Voidborn lunged forward and grabbed Jimin’s hand by the wrist, yanking her aside.

“Stay away,” Voidborn ordered, pointing her towards the alleyway where all the civilians hid.

As the metal cubes landed flat on the ground, tiny mechanical legs snapped out from their edges, lifting them slightly. A small cylinder of about two inches tall rose from each cube, a barrel sliding out with a sharp click. The cubes scuttled towards the charging bugbear, which was swinging its club wildly with every thunderous snap.

Missiles screamed through the sky.

They struck all four limbs and the chest at once.

Miniature mushroom clouds burst on impact. Thunderclap shockwaves spread from the impact points, carrying a searing heat of white that made Voidborn squint. Dust and powder from destroyed rubble all around flooded the air, forming a mist of grey that obscured sight.

The stomping stopped.

The swinging ceased.

“Was that enough?” Derrick frowned, his flying orbs still firing beams into the haze.

“I don’t care,” Rei replied. “Assume that it’s never enough.”

She closed her eyes and focused, the orbs above her head merging into one. A golden-orange light swelled above her, igniting into flames as she compressed the energy.

Voidborn stood to the side, sword still drawn, observing silently.

“It’s not dead,” he stated.

Through the fading curtain of dust-snow, the bugbear could be seen kneeling, propping itself up with its spiked club. It was only stunned. Not defeated.

“No matter. This will burn it to death.”

Rei waved her hand and her floating tome flipped opened, pages turning rapidly on their own before stopping. A reddish glow seeped from the book, and the golden orange light above her had expanded rapidly, filling the space above her like a miniature sun.

“Incinerate.”

She pointed at the silhouette in the dust cloud. The enormous flaming orb collapsed into a white bead of light and shot forward, carving a straight white line through the dust.

Impact.

The dust warped inwards.

Then—

Blinding light.

Silence.

The bugbear was set ablaze.

Noise all around was consumed as golden-white flames erupted, expanding rapidly and filling the space with nothing but overwhelming heat. The bugbear roared and fell to the ground in agony, thrashing wildly as it tried to extinguish the flames. But it was useless.

The suspended dust acted as fuel, igniting the proximities into a sea of flames. Golden-white fire clung to its body like liquid starlight. The creature’s thick hide that could withstand sword slashes and energy beams began to melt under the insufferable heat. Its skin turned dark as it bubbled and blistered, melting and peeling away like wet sheets. Its prided tough skin was slowly liquefying, revealing the raw, red muscle beneath before that too began to blacken and char.

The flames were strangely beautiful in their devastation.

They danced across the bugbear’s massive frame, consuming the meat with greed like how fireflies flock to light, turning the entire street into a temporary inferno. The monster’s thrashing gradually weakened, its powerful limbs twitching as the fire consumed it from the outside in.

The roaring slowly dropped into deep, guttural groans of despair. Then even those faded.

By the time the last of the floating dust burned away, the golden-white flames had died down into quiet embers, consuming whatever left that remained. The once fearsome creature now lay as a heap of charred, blackened bones, the skeleton curled on its side, smoke wisping from its remains. The air smelled of scorched flesh and sulfur.

Silence fell over the alleyway.

Rei stood motionless, her floating tome still open. The open page she had used tore free and floated upwards, disintegrating into ash. Derrick’s mechanical orbs and cubes returned to him, weapons retracting with soft clicks.

Jimin stared at the burning corpse with wide eyes, an uneasy orange swirling within her.

Even the civilians who had hidden in the alleyway and the rats which had come out to witness the commotion remained deathly quiet, watching the pyre with a mixture of horror and awe.

Voidborn sheathed his sword.

The violent reds and yellows that had once flooded the creature were gone.

“It’s dead.”

His voice broke the silence.

Cheers erupted from the townsfolk.

Then screams.

Not the sharp scream of fear.

It was the broken wail of a wife realising the man she had loved would never stand again.

It was the anguish weeping of a child whose father no longer had a head.

It was the despair of a merchant staring at the ruins of the only livelihood he had.

Jimin stood in the middle of it all.

She turned towards the fat man. Or what remained of him.

The alleyway that had been frozen in awe dissolved back into chaos. People rushed out. The town centre looked nothing like what it had been an hour ago. Someone slipped on blood and collapsed to his knees, shaking a lifeless slump of meat, calling a name over and over like it was a time reversal spellchant. A woman stumbled out carrying an arm that contained powdered bones. Wives turned into widows. Children became fatherless.

Houses were demolished beyond repair. Roadside stores had been reduced to firewood. The once smooth and flat roads were now populated with countless massive imprints of foot stomps and club strike craters. One by one, the rats scattered back into the alleyways, vanishing into the dark.

Jimin did not move.

Around her, grief swelled like a rising tide.

Crying.

Screaming.

Praying.

Shouting.

Denial.

And then—

It softened.

The screams became sobs. Sobs became quiet crying. Tears dried into marks of pale streaks. People who had been shaking moments ago now sat on the ground, staring blankly ahead as if too tired to continue breaking.

A woman wiped her tears and whispered, confused, “I… I don’t know why… but I feel… calmer…”

Voidborn narrowed his eyes. The murky black grief that clung to the mourning slowly faded, dissolving like sludge washed away by rain.

His eyes shifted to Jimin.

She was still staring at the dead man, unmoving. Her eyes were now distant. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Chest hitching in suffocation.

But her expression was not grief.

She was smiling.

Voidborn did not understand, but he said nothing.

“So… what now?”

Derrick looked at Rei, who was equally as dumbfounded.

The group stared at the sedan, now impaled by the lamp post the bugbear had smashed away earlier.

“Didn’t you say it could withstand attacks up to Rebirth 3s?”

Rei looked at Jimin and gave a sheepish smile. “Well… that’s only if the sedan is up and running. If it’s turned off, there’s no energy flowing through the barrier systems, so it would just be a durable chunk of metal.”

“Sure, it is bulletproof, but that?” Rei continued, pointing at the lamp post. “At the speed the bugbear hit it, that thing was basically a flying spear.”

“That’s such an overlooked flaw,” Jimin’s muttered, narrowing her eyes.

“If I were the one who designed it, I wouldn’t have missed it.” Rei puffed out her chest proudly. “I’d connect a lower-consumption standby module so the barrier remains active even while idle. Sure, the defensive output would be wea—”

“Can it be fixed?” Voidborn interrupted.

“No,” Derrick looked at it and frowned. “Well, yes, but not here. The lamp post pierced through MS. ADAM. The engine is wrecked. Plus, we are on the outskirts. Even if we request replacement parts immediately, the lead time alone would take weeks.”

“Should we stay the night?” Jimin asked.

“No,” Derrick said. “We are already behind schedule. Without the sedan, we have no idea how delayed the trip to Kandar will become.”

“The town’s hotel is busted too, anyway,” Rei said, pointing to the building across the street which had a piece of concrete slab wedged between the second and third floor.

“Then?” Jimin placed her hands on her hips. “We can’t move, we can’t stay. Are we walking to Kandar?”

“Give me some time to think—”

“Hey.”

A woman’s voice sounded from behind them.

All four of them turned around. It was the wife of the fat man Jimin had tried to save. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, though she no longer cried.

“It’s not much… but we have a cart that we use to transport goods to and from our store daily.” She pointed to an empty cart to the side nearby. “It won’t be of much use to us… to me now.”

Her gaze lowered.

“You can have it. I can’t give you our—my horse though. I still need it.”

“Are you sure? We can always find ano—”

“Consider it repayment,” she interrupted softly. “You at least tried to save him.”

Derrick walked to the cart.

“It’s very sturdy,” he remarked, inspecting it. “Reinforced in the right locations. This could work.”

“Where do we get a horse?” Jimin asked.

“Here.”

Derrick closed his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows, muttering something under his breath.

“Torque ratio equalised… rotational equilibrium stabilised… output pathway synchronised…”

His eyes shot open.

Clattering and tinkering sounds echoed from within the ground. Metal rose upward. A mechanical horse emerged. Well, or something that looked like one.

Voidborn observed the materialisation before him.

Instead of hooves, four copper wheels supported its weight. The horse was exposed, its “innards” out for all to see. Connected gears of all sizes filled its insides, and a glowing stone sat right in the centre of the horse's torso. With a heavy clank, a metal plate slid downwards, covering the mechanical beauty inside. A steering wheel sprouted from the back of the horse’s head, and footstools that probably functioned as gas and brake pedals extended on each of the horse’s sides.

“It’s not the best, but it’ll do. Don’t expect comfort though. The cart doesn’t have any suspension systems.”

The four transferred all their belongings from the wrecked sedan to the cart and climbed aboard.

“Please keep watch over our sedan. We have sent a message to the Mechanist Union for its retrieval. They will arrive tomorrow.”

The woman nodded.

“Thank you,” Derrick said, climbing from the cart onto the mechanical horse.

The woman gave a small bow.

He pushed a button and held on to the steering wheel, pressing down on the right pedal with his foot. The construct lurched forward.

As the cart rolled out of the town, the woman walked back to her dead husband.

Voidborn looked at the sight before him.

The dead had been lined neatly along the town centre beneath black cloths. Beside them rested the charred skeletal remains of the bugbear that had caused their deaths. The town’s policemen had already set up barriers around the perimeter, cordoning off all areas which had been damaged, working hard at crowd control.

Jimin stared silently at the ruined streets.

It was going to be a long night.

The town had calmed down.

Policemen stood sentry around at each of the cordoned corners, weapons in hand. Most had already returned home. The woman was still huddled beside her dead husband. She slowly flipped open the cloth, looking at the innards that hung out from his torso. She stared at his lifeless eyes for a long time.

Then she covered him once more and stood, walking over to the charred skeleton.

Her eyes were filled with and overwhelming amount of rage.

Sadness.

Emptiness.

Emotions so tangled together that even she probably no longer understood them. She hoped that they would mix into a drink. A cocktail that would perhaps calm her heart.

She kicked the skull and turned, leaving for home.

A gust of wind swept through the street.

The skull, which had been kicked, crumbled into dust, perhaps an effect of the overwhelming heat of the incineration spell.

Something glinted from within.

It was a stone.

One by one, the rats emerged from the alleyways. It was night, and it was time for them to lurk.

A single rat stopped before the glinting stone, tilting its head curiously.