Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 52: Alex Hellwig. Part 1

Long rows of dark-grey walls extended into the depths of the night. The walls were 30m tall, with little to no windows to enter them. Unlike the cheap constructs in the Slums or the equistive materials of the Residential areas, the warehouse district emphasized practicality over look.

Industrial grade concrete and metals were used in it's construction. Breaking through from the outside was nigh impossible for a single person to achieve. Using his hands to probe the walls, Lucius estimated, even if he used [Decay] to bore through the walls, he would have to sacrifice almost 60% of his soul power.

Such an action was rash and dangerous, especially when he did not know what was on the other side of the wall. After the 'incident' in the warehouse district, were many people were killed brutally, the various families and corporations increased the defences and manpower in their warehouses to protect their goods.

Although they had learnt that the assailant(s) had not taken any goods, one can never be too careful.

Swiftly entering the warehouse district, Lucius immediately felt an ominous feeling. The lights that were supposed to lined up every 50m were all turned off, save for some scattered sporadically. He also found the entire area too quiet for his liking.

'Something is wrong.' Lucius concluded.

He once again checked the tracks, to ensure that Alex had entered this area. Though his tracks had suddenly disappeared upon entering.

'It almost feels like he's leading me somewhere.' Lucius felt a chill in his heart.

The entire string of events, from when he learned about Alex being in the commercial district, to him finding Alex's tracks strangely felt too convenient to Lucius. It as similar to a chase orchestrated by a third party, who had knowledge about the entire course of events.

Lucius did not move immediately and carefully hid his tracks. He then found a dark corner to think about the course of events which led him to here.

'Thinking about it, something was indeed wrong when I lost the crystal. Although they had me drugged and knocked out, there was still the connection between Ka'lor'ah's soul and mine. If they had forcibly snatched the crystal from me, the pain from having our soul link cut would have immediately woken me up. Alas, this did not happen.'

'This either means that, those men had enough knowledge on the topic of souls and had a deep understanding of its nature and profundities. They were able to sever the link without warning me and Ka'lor'ah.' Lucius' black eyes shone.

'Or Ka'lor'ah cut the connection herself and bore the pain that came along with it.'

'This course of action seems more probable. With her understanding of the 'Rules' and of myself, she could carefully manipulate the events along the way to lead me all the way, to this place and at this time.'

His eyes that that contained black of the darkest kind, had reddish tints invading it. His [Killing Intent] which had been hidden all along was slowly being released in its entirety. Lucius body was unmoving but winds had started stirring around him.

A dark reddish-black haze was being released into the air from his body. Wind blades had started forming in the air around him. The ground beneath his feet which stood paved and unmarked, were now filled with deep creases and cuts extending from a couple of centimeters to almost a meter in depth. The air around him started to spontaneously heat up due to the enormous amounts of friction generated by the wind. Yet the position where Lucius was standing was freezing cold. So cold that icicles had started forming in the ground

Eerily though, no sound was produced. Not of the wind, nor of the ground.

At the center of it stood Lucius. His face, still maintain its expressionless status. His eyes however were entirely different. The calm and cold, black eyes were now completely tainted with red.

Unlike earlier when he was in his hunger state, his eyes were dyed red and were filled with madness. No trace of sanity was found, with only the desire to consume being present. Now however, his eyes were filled with calmness and rage.

Lucius was currently, extremely angry.

The wind blades being formed and the damage to the ground were caused simply by releasing his [Killing Intent] in its entirety. His extreme anger directed towards Ka'lor'ah, caused him to forget about controlling and regulating his [Killing Intent] allowing it to be shown for the first time in this world since his rebirth.

The column of wind blades extended upwards all the way to the clouds in the sky. The clouds present overhead were immediately torn apart, causing the moonlight to fall in this location. Alas, as soon as the moonlight came in contact with the reddish-back haze surrounding Lucius' body, they immediately darkened.

Light which was supposed to brightened the surroundings, instead spread darkness! A kind of darkness which chilled the hearts of people looking at it. If one looked from the distance, at the position Lucius was standing, they would not be able to see his body.

A dark apparition like figure was seen with red eyes shining, staring into the depths of one's soul.

The entire phenomena described above lasted for less than half a second, before disappearing. The entire scene seemed to have never happened.

The deep scratches, the burnt soil and the frozen rocks however, proved otherwise.

Lucius had his eyes closed and was taking deep breaths to calm down. The red in his eyes had mostly receded.

'That was very dangerous.' Lucius thought to himself.

'My soul cannot yet handle the full brunt of my [Killing Intent]. It's easy for it to shatter and dissipate. My very existence could be erased.' Lucius thought to himself in nonchalance. It seemed as if he was talking about the annihilation of another person.

Slowly opening his eyes, Lucius stared ahead into the darkness. He looked in the direction of the warehouses.

"Ka'lor'ah. You better have a good explanation of your actions. Lest you want me to crush your 'Existence Crystal.' ", he gently spoke these words out loud and started moving.

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"He knows!", a certain female voice exclaimed hurriedly.

"Who knows?", a young but deep voice questioned her.

The young man, who spoke of the question, had fiery red hair and red eyes. He wore the standard military uniform, distributed to the soldiers of the Army. Seeing the badge on his left shoulder, one would understand that he as of 'Private' rank.

He was tall and had a well proportioned body, without any bulky muscles. His face was handsome and his eyes carried a trace of defiance and rough-ish charm.

He carried a long, straight object wrapped in cloth on his back, with one of his hands holding on this object.

This man, who was walking in the darkness of the night, was Alex Hellwig. The future 'Great Commander.'

"What do you mean, 'who'? Of course I mean Lucius!" the voice replied in great exasperation. Her panic was evident. One curious fact that spectators would notice, is that there was no other person in the vicinity of this young man. The voice seemed to come from one of his pockets.

Hearing her answer, a sharp glint shone in his eyes. Alex's mouth curved to form a slight grin.

"Oh, Lucius huh. The man I've heard so much about." He then tightened his grip over the hand holding the long, straight object.

"I'm looking forward to fight him. "a desire to battle was emanating from his entire body as his red eyes shone with battle intent

Ka'lor'ah upon hearing his statement, paused in absolute shock for a few seconds. For the first time in her life, she was actually speechless.

"Say is there something wrong?" Alex asked her.

The sound of deep breaths came from his pocket. Ka'lor'ah being in the form of a crystal did not actually need to breathe, nor was she able to. It was just a psychological response, which she had automatically given.

"Come on me. You need to calm yourself." she repeated these words to herself in a low voice. After a few minutes, a earth-shattering roar was heard.

"ARE YOU CRAZY??!! YOU WANT TO FIGHT HIM?!!" she bellowed.

Hearing her furious tone, Alex's fearless demeanor immediately collapsed. One has to remember, although Ka'lorah was in her soul form, she was one a Stage 7 being. An absolute pinnacle existence! Her voice carried a sort of 'power' in and of itself.

"Calm down! Do you want to blow our cover?", Alex hurriedly tried to placate her.

Recovering her calm, Ka'lor'ah spoke out, "You absolutely cannot fight him. Your only goal is to lead him to this place and place me in a certain place. After that, you have to immediately run!"

"But why? Am I not already Half a Step into Stage 1. Didn't you already say, I might be the strongest human, currently." Alex grumbled. He did not understand why Ka'lor'ah was being so pessismistic.

Originally, Alex was a genius, one of a kind. Due to his extraordinary performance, he was promoted to the rank of Private and drafted into the army, before he had even officially graduated. His absence from the Academy, this past month had to do with this. A bright future awaited him, upon his graduation.

Little did he know, how much his life would change upon coming back to this City.

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At a 'certain' warehouse.

When he was looking for a certain gift to present to his parents upon his successful advancement and return, his eyes were involuntarily drawn to a certain dark-gold crystal. Upon asking the bald-manager of the warehouse of its origins, he learnt that it was a new item that was recovered just yesterday.

Normally Alex would not have bothered to take another look at the crystal, yet some inexplicable feeling surged in his mind. Something urged him to take possession of that crystal no matter the cost.

Disregarding his confusion, Alex purchased that crystal. What happened next was a mind-blowing experience to say the least.

"Alex Hellwig. Would you like to save humanity?" he heard a certain voice speaking directly in his mind. Shocked, Alex had dropped the crystal and had hurried back in fear. No matter his mental resilience, having a foreign voice suddenly assault his mind was simply too frightening.

Slowly, the voice explained him about itself and about the danger faced by humanity. Alex slowly understood it and asked a question in response.

"Why me?"

The voice gently laughed and answered, "Because you are special. Plus you are not the only one. There is another."

"Who?"

"Lucius."

Alex tilted his head in question. Although he hated to be in the company of others, he was fairly acquainted with most well known people. Yet, the name spoken by this mysterious lady was one that he had never heard.

The voice chuckled and explained, "He's also a student like you in the academy. Like you he was someone chosen by me to help humanity. Before I met you, I was separated from him due to a dangerous event."

"Did he survive? Wouldn't it be a loss if he died? Why didn't you just foresee the future and warn him of the danger, like you did in the case of humanity?" Alex was doubting her statement.

Ka'lor'ah tried to roll her eyes hearing his naive question. Alas she had no eyes. 'Die? Him? You should be worrying about the people who attacked him and the ones behind them!' she had the urge to tell this, but chose to remain silent.

"Look the only future I can see is that of Humanity in its entirety. Even then, I can't see a lot. All I know is that something major will happen this February. The only way you can make some changes is if you become stronger."

Alex was a little confused as he asked her, "Stronger? Am I not already quite strong? I can control the heavy armored mechs with ease." he was a bit proud when he spoke that.

Heavy armored mechs were big, bulky and slow. They were very hard to control, even for professional mech user. It had nothing to do with ability, but was heavily dependent upon a user's body strength and control.

"Glad you asked. But the strength I am talking about is entirely different." saying so she infused some information into Alex's mind.

Receiving the information in his head. Alex's jaw dropped to the floor.

This marked the beginning of his soul cultivation, 4 years prior to when he started in his previous life.

-------To be continued!!------