Andrew failed to suppress his anger as the rage held within spilt over, where a deep, seething madness consumed his mind. A memory resurfaced when he remembered a name he thought he could forget.

  He also has a son. Neptune Smith.

  Those haunting images swelled up from the memory hole as he recalled them in a moment of blind rage.

  “It was your father’s fault!”

  He swore never to take another’s life to uphold his sworn brother’s creed, but when faced with his mortal enemy, even his strong moral compass couldn’t control the emotions bottled within. Like the uncontrollable lightning from the skies, his usually calm state shattered and violence surged out from the pits of despair, he frighteningly teleported in a flash to reappear above the one who carried the Devil’s Strain, withdrawing his rods to end the nightmare from fourteen years prior forever.

  As Neptune watched his mentor raise his hands to prevent the Temporean from moving forward, the Ascended suddenly vanished–

  –To reappear directly above him.

  The sapphire eyes belonging to the Temporean appeared blinded with anger and hatred in point-blank rage, as though they wanted to enact revenge against him for some bizarre reason. At that moment, he saw his reflection in those glistening rage-filled sapphire eyes.

  Neptune’s eyes remained open as always, never enlarging or closing at the proximity of his life taken in a few moments from him. He felt a sense of calmness, ready to accept the fate of death that comes to all men. He knew the time had come when he would join the proud warriors in the halls of Valhalla.

  I can’t die here. Nobody will remember me. I haven’t accomplished anything yet.

  But, to accept a fate like his younger brother's would humiliate him. Time seemed to pause for an eternity as the Temporean, armed with a bolt of lightning, slowly descended from the heavens, like the mythical God of Lightning, ready to rip his soul from his body and cast the powers of divinity on his feeble mortal coil. He gazed stoically at the mythical Zeus, where he could faintly hear his screams of anguish through the raging lighting. Somehow, with death approaching, he felt calm–as though he knew someone would bail him.

  Surely someone would.

  Ah, so this is how death feels like.

  Shifting his eyes to the side, he saw the intel team call his name in vain, the voice inaudible, with everything surrounding him moving at half the speed. On the front, his mentor, bellowed in fear at him, his voice silenced by Zeus’s deafening lightning as it drew closer.

  “Goodbye, everyone…”

  As the lightning crashed upon him, he wondered why death felt so painless, as though the novels he read on end seemed like an over-exaggeration of illustrious wordplay. The sweet release from his mundane existence felt boring. Emptiness. Meaningless. He thought death would come to all man, but this final moment where he finally left this realm felt strangely cold and empty. He felt miserable at discovering the revelation that life has no meaning.

  Neptune slowly opened his eyes, hoping to arrive in heaven. Instead–

  “Captain Graves…?”

  Captain Troy Graves, mustering the final strength from his body, had used his body as a shield to protect his recruit from doom.

  “T-Troy! Troy!!”

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  He watched as his mentor shuddered in his feet, gasping uncontrollably, dashing toward his ally, who fell backwards in slow motion, landing onto his body. Troy’s back was pierced by the searing lightning protruding from his damaged, feeble body. The heat from the spear had made the blood spurting out of his body evaporate within milliseconds.

  Neptune struggled to accept his OC, who he thought hated him with his dying breath, had intercepted the blow intended for him. The man known as Captain Troy Graves finally acknowledged his duty as a proud officer of the UAFAF, fulfilling his duties by jumping forward to protect his recruit from harm.

  However, he did not even feel thankful for his commander’s sacrifice, especially not after unravelling the truth about Captain Graves’s cowardice from classified reports. With a detached, businesslike expression, he wanted Captain Graves's semi-closed eyes to witness the face of the recruit who would never thank him for his heroic deed.

  Do you think I’ll forgive you?

  Neptune, whose face remained buried under the weight of his OC’s body, feigned a look of shock that masked his darkest thoughts.

  “I’m legitimately surprised…”

  Andrew stood there, storing the rod at the back of his belt. He knew nobody would survive his augmented lightning; the fact his understudy took the death blow surprised him.

  “I am very proud of you.”

  He watched Troy freefall from the devastating blow meant for his enemy.

  “...Time’s up for me too.”

  His leader’s gaze, from somewhere only he knew, meant that he had overstepped his boundaries. All it takes is one hiccup to compromise the entire mission–like the excessive use of his Artifact without recharging.

  “...Why did you do that?”

  His former ally's voice seemed on the verge of breaking, unable to process the dreadful scene before him. He watched Ivan hold onto Troy’s lifeless hands as he stared holes into the vortex that started to spin into existence behind him. Before leaving, his attention turned to the devil, with unflinching indignation, who narrowly missed death by an inch.

  “Neptune Smith, that’s your name, right?”

  “H-how do you–”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know who you are. The next time we meet…”

  He swiftly turned around and made a giant leap to where the greyish-red vortex hung like a beautiful art portrait suspended in the air.

  “...I’ll kill you.”

  The voice faded into the distance when the vortex disappeared into thin air. The whispers of a threat far deadlier than the Drazen Empire’s proclamation of war proceeded to haunt Neptune’s subconscious.

  *

  Nobody knew how long had passed. The only thing the living knew was the smell of corpses had reached a fever high.

  “Get a grip!”

  “...Ah!”

  Neptune fell backwards from his mentor’s shove, noticing his hand buried deep within something with a squishy texture. Before he came to his senses, it was too late. His hands, which refused to participate in taking another’s life, had unknowingly touched the final gooey remnants of a former soldier.

  “Young Smith, you ok?”

  Before Andrew retreated into the portal, he had a few parting words to share with his mentee. Those words might have hit hard as his mentee seemed lost in a daze.

  “...Yeah, I think so.”

  “Forget it. You don’t seem fine.”

  Ivan gazed upon Troy in his arms, who executed a medal run to protect his mentee from the lightning strike. Due to the severity of the lightning’s scorching burn, Troy suffered a mortal wound that would end his life if no medical attention came immediately.

  “Young Smith, intel team,” Ivan called out hastily to his team, who immediately closed the distance and surrounded him, awaiting their next orders. “Team, we’re going to look for the Medical Corps. We need to act fast before Captain Graves succumbs to his wounds.”

  “““Yes, sir!”””

  Turning to face his mentee, who still seemed visually stunned by his former ally’s words, Ivan gave one last order before standing up.

  “Young Smith, continue applying pressure and ensure Captain Graves remains awake until help arrives.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Upon sensing their vessel was alone, a dreadful voice whispered into his neural network, quelling his discombobulated mental state, and reinvigorating it into a second life. As the opportunity of being alone with the weakened, vulnerable state of the man he hated materialised, a devilish grin bordering on the brinks of sadism filled his face.