{Warning! This Chapter has explicit violence, which some readers may be allergic to, so please be warned.}
The whole world started to move again as the flow resumed its natural course. She was abruptly snapped out of her thoughts. But before she could take any meaningful action, she was abruptly thrown out with a mighty push, Tyler had pushed her away as the Jeep was just about to crash onto the two of them, her eyes met with his for one last time, in that fraction of a moment, she only saw him smile, smile for the fact that he had been able to push her out of the way from the crash just in time.
Without even the slightest bit of regard for his own life, all he had was relief written all over his face. And then....
"VRROOOOM–SKREEECH–KRAAASHHHH!!"
The Jeep loudly crashed into the wall on the side of the road, Tyler’s body turning into a completely unrecognizable mass of flesh, many of his body parts were torn to shreds, and his internal organs were spread through the ground. Like the popping of a balloon, his blood burst out everywhere within an area of almost 5-10 meters.
A good amount of it was smeared all over Sophia’s face and clothes. Smoke started coming out of the Jeep’s engine. The man she herself hired for the job hurriedly got out of the Jeep and ran away in a specific direction. People all around were shocked; they were filled with horror at the bloody state of the boy who had been killed just now. Many outright vomited or collapsed into unconsciousness from witnessing such a brutal scene.
Sophia barely managed to sit up straight and looked at the scene again, not because she was hurt, but her mind had stopped working entirely, as she finally realized what she had done, the reality of it hitting her like heaven itself had collapsed on her head.
The one she cared for most in this world, the very one she loved the most, through past, present, and the probable future, she had killed that person with her own hands. Because of her own selfish desire to drag him into the very wretched world she was summoned to without consent. And now she did the same for him, wasn’t she even worse than the very king Leonidas she hated with every fiber of her being? Who had summoned her into that world, practically making her a slave.
At least, she knew the full context of the situation she was in, but he wouldn’t even know that. Her entire body trembled in guilt, in fear, in pain, in regret, and countless more negative emotions that questioned her very existence for the first time, something which even the 100,000 years of constant suffering did not manage to make her do. For her, it felt was the very first time she had truly killed someone. Someone of her very own kind.
Bloody tears fell from her eyes, painting an arc of blood through her beautiful cheeks, not because of any physical pain, but from the psychological pain she was experiencing. Many of the pedestrians noticed her, as she was the one closest to the accident, but she managed to survive. But none of it registered in Sophia’s brain.
She gritted her teeth hard enough to make her gums bleed, muttering in a choked voice, "I’m sorry, my friend, but this is... this is... the only way...."
"The only way I can have you to myself. Even if we were never meant to be, I will redefine that wretched destiny," she declared in a tone of absolute resolution, reaffirming the path she had chosen; there was no place for regret. Only the future will tell if her decision was right or wrong. But she was sure of one thing: even if it meant burning down the entire world, she would get what she wanted, the peace she deserved, even if the cost of it was trillions of lives or a world as a whole. Nothing would stop her.
A man in a police uniform approached her and asked in a demanding tone, "Miss, we need you to come with us and answer a few questions."
Sophia’s face was filled with bloody tears, and the lingering blood of Tyler on her face and clothes made her look extremely unpleasant to look at. Coupled with her red eyes, she looked like a true monster in front of the modern people who had never seen even a trace of brutality that existed in the ancient times of humanity.
The police officer asked again, this time sounding more threatening and louder, "Miss, I will not repeat myself. Please stand up now, and come with us. Otherwise, we will have to use force."
It was apparent what was happening, as she was the one closest to the accident, and her appearance at this moment made her look like a bad guy in the current scenario; all the pedestrians were also looking at her with immense suspicion. The human mind was like that, always trying to find someone to blame for any unforeseen situation. To make sense of it in their minds in any way possible.
Sophia stood up... the pupils within her bloody iris narrowing to slits, the world itself slowed down in the vision of the pedestrians, as all of her killing intent rushed out like an unstoppable tsunami, not only that, never in all of her reincarnations she had managed unlock all of her pre-accumulated strength which she earned from killing more than billions of humans, but for the first time she found herself unlocking every bit of that power.
Reveling in that mighty sensation, she closed her eyes, and this time, the energy she controlled had reached the absolute maximum level of threshold, its color turning completely black from gray. The blood-red killing intent painted the 300-meter radius in a bloody hue, which made it look like a blood dome. And in the center of it was her; all of the civilians were frozen in tripedation, some went unconscious, vomited, or went mad from the sheer primal fear they were experiencing out of nowhere.
The police officer being closest to Sophia had a mental breakdown from the anomaly he was witnessing right in front of his eyes, the completely inhumane predatory eyes. If not for his powerful will, he felt like his head would have exploded by now.
A pillar of pitch-black force shot out towards the sky, emerging from Sophia’s body. The pillar of darkness continued to shoot forward. It pierced through the white clouds floating in the bright blue sky, eventually crossing the entire atmosphere and shooting into space, where it destroyed multiple satellites orbiting the planet.
In the bright daylight. The pillar of blackness was as eye-catching as stains on a pure white surface in the light of the day. Almost half of the Earth could see the gigantic black pillar piercing the heavens, sucking in the light from the surroundings in an unnatural manner. The whole world, including the general population, media channels, governments’ private forces, and superpowers, was seeing the same thing as this event was being broadcast live throughout the world.
America and Russia were the first to send fighter jets to analyze the event even more closely; if necessary, they were instructed to attack it. All the world’s powerful military forces also began exploring the event with all their manpower, utilizing satellites. But it was to no avail. The world as a whole was starting to panic; this did not seem like the work of a weapon or anything. Or any secret experiment. But something truly supernatural was happening throughout the earth, perhaps for the first time in history.