I Am Tired Of Being A Hero-Chapter 62: Luxor

He was sleeping, Ravi drove gently and parked under a tree. He looked over at the Captain who was sleeping peacefully. His face when he was sleeping was much softer, youthful. Those golden curls looked well-behaved as they rested on his forehead.

His fingers twitched. He wanted to touch it. Was it as soft as it looked?

He removed the seatbelt and moved a bit closer to Arlen. Those lashes were long and slightly curled at the end.

He reached out to touch them and they shivered, fluttering light.

Ravi knew what he was doing was crazy and if Arlen was to wake up at this moment he would be done for but it was his prefrontal cortex that was damaged or at least affected, his impulse control was severely lacking.

There was still some sound from Arlen, the faint sound of steady breathing that followed the rise and fall of his chest.

He reached out to touch his chest.

Thump! Thump!

The beats of life were loud and powerful, carrying the slight warmth of the living.

He liked listening to it, he felt that he could listen to it again and again. Just in case, his mind ever falls again, in case it doubts that this was all an illusion concocted by his grief-addled mind. He would remember this moment, this sound, this warmth.

It was not an illusion.

Ravi reached out a hand and gently moved aside a lock of hair that had fallen in front of his forehead. His brows wrinkled causing Ravi’s breath to pause.

Please don’t open your eyes. I don’t know how to explain this at all.

The wrinkled brows relaxed and Ravi relaxed in turn.

Right about now, the wise thing would be to return to his seat and stop hovering but Ravi did not do the wise thing at all.

Taking the chance, he fiddled a little with the blonde strands. They were soft just like he had imagined but there was something else, some kind of cream or gel.

It turns out that his hair did not fall naturally in such perfect curls. Does he wake up an hour early to do his hair?

He could imagine it, the Captain in front of the mirror, a large container of gel in his left hand, and a curling iron in his right hand.

He sat rooted in his place for a second and soft laughter couldn’t help but escape his lips.

"I don’t remember the last time I heard you laugh." A voice as cold as ice sounded in his mind.

And Ravi then felt it.

An incredibly powerful aura.

It was mysterious, deep, and revealed a powerless feeling that caused one to sink into oblivion, and it seemed as if one’s life and death weren’t in one’s control any longer.

Ravi was so familiar with this aura. The aura of the Netherworld.

Alya.

It has been a very, very long time since Ravi has seen her.

Luxor was the last place they met.

***

Ravi coughed up a mouthful of blood. The ice from the ground seeped into his bones, and his head spun from how dried up his core was, his right hand grasping a broken silver sword stained with black dried blood.

The field was an endless land of snow with sharp ice shards swirling in the wind and cooling into a dangerous maelstrom. It was cold. Ravi could feel it. An intense, chilly force of death hovering around him, soon his body would shrivel up and his soul would dissipate. Would the Netherworld even accept his soul or would Alya reject it at the first river? Ravi felt so weak that he could not think properly.

Blood dripped from the right side of his temple, from the corner of his lips, from the side of his cheeks, from one of his lungs, and from his left leg staining the white expanse red. It hurts! It hurt so much. But From the corner of his eyes, he could see the familiar uniform of the Sentinel Supervisor, Hunter. If he stretched his hand, he could reach the person who had carefully taken care of him for more than 500 years. Who had joined this mission just for him? Ravi tried to get up but he could not muster any strength, he felt so helpless. This was all his fault. This was all his fault.

That knowledge was like a giant hand, pushing down on him, slowly breaking him to pieces, crushing him into dust.

"I was wrong." he said slowly, clenching his fists. "Alya, I was wrong." He said more quietly, tears pooling in his eyes but he did not shed them. He did not deserve to shed tears. If she could come and save them, he would give anything, he would do anything.

Suddenly a snort sounded and a figure appeared in front of Ravi. She was beautiful, with black flowing hair like a river of the brightest blood and white eyes without any pupils. The woman had a stern countenance but her eyes glinted with slight worry and anger.

She stood there as if she was the only person in the world, staring coldly at Ravi. She had warned him, but he refused to listen.

Ravi spat out another mouthful of blood, "Hunter, Govad, Keyne, Leto. Please save them, save my friends, the other Sentinels." He forced out the words before his world went black.

"Fool." The woman whispered before she sighed. This would be her final gift for this foolish Sentinel.

Gray threads began to spread from her, moving at an incredible speed as they began to wrap Ravi up. Ravi’s body was lifted into the air and threads started to bore into him, transforming into magical symbols that flickered on his skin. Life energy poured into him, healing his core and mending his flesh.

A minute later, Ravi opened his eyes. The ice lands suddenly had a tree and a young woman was standing on it. For a second, he could see her; The Alya was a mischievous grim reaper, the woman he once loved, but he blinked and the image of Alya vanished turning into the cold Black Impermanence that presided over souls.

The woman looked at him with an ice-cold expression, devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

"Everyone is dead. I have sent their souls to the Netherworld. Those I could recover. The scythe of the Demon Lord Samik can destroy souls. From what I can calculate, 130 Sentinel Souls were lost. Hunter, Govad, and Anis were not in the souls I recovered so they should be lost." Her eyes flashed, "This is a disaster for the Netherworld realm but for the Sentinels, this should be a thing of pleasure. Ravi has defeated Demon Lord Samik, the number one wanted on your list, and saved the realm of Luxor. You are now the number one ranking Sentinel. A hero above all heroes. Tell me, how does that feel?" freeweɓnovel.cøm

Ravi could hear the cheering of the billions of citizens of Luxor as he stood in the valley of corpses. Their faces, and mutilated bodies were scattered over the snow valley. Hunter, Govad, Leto, Anis, Kelus. Hunter was going to be promoted after this mission, Govad’s daughter was having a child and he had been talking about it all year, and...Ravi gasped...Leto and Kelus were to get married. Everything had already been planned. Ravi had...Ravi had written the speech. Their faces stared back at him, accusing him, telling him. This is all his fault.

It’s all his fault. It was all his fault

His heart was filled with grief and pain that surged through his body and turned his eyes red.

His trembling hand held his chest as if to claw it open, he gasped for breath, moving away from the corpse. The strong asphyxiation made his head spin. The cheers of the people seemed to turn into poison, it crawled up his spine, chilling cold, it wrapped around his legs, making it hard for him to stand.

He had saved them and for what, for what? What did he gain? What did he gain? He lost everyone? He had no one now. He was alone in this world.

Ravi took a deep breath as if he was struggling to get out from a sea of fire, the violent pulsing of his heart brought a sharp pain in his heart. The pain was like a tide, each wave fiercer than the other.

His hand holding the sword seemed to get heavier with each passing second. The sword was called River and it had been gifted to him when he killed his first villain. Normal abilities could not work on many of the top demons of the Universe but there was nothing River could not kill, nothing it could destroy.

There was a saying across the Realm, whenever the River rises up, Demons fall.

The sword blade was silver and was as thin as a cicada’s wings. It looked very simple yet it emitted a vast and mighty aura of righteousness, as if it was capable of accommodating the entire Universe.

"I would give my heart to the heavens and earth, I would give my life to eradicate evil and develop a flourishing age of peace for all realms." That was the oath he made when he received this sword but now the sword that had accompanied him for 500 years became too heavy and hot in his hands.

He was so tired. He had already given everything. He had nothing now.

So tired!

Bang! The sword in his hand fell down with a loud bang.