Backfire

Once the former king of the Blood was dead, Seth sent a wave of destruction to clean up all the bodies littering the ground before storing the dead and mutilated body of the former king in his storage space.

Hollie watched him with curiosity and asked: “What are you going to do with it?”

“Following the customs of the Blood Kingdom. Let’s go.” Replied Seth, not explaining further.

Seth looked at the two girls tied to the pillar, and once he confirmed that they were still out of it, he walked outside to his group. While he dealt with the king, a few more curious locals had gathered.

Everyone watched Seth and Hollie walking out with curiosity. Seth ignored their looks and used his creation energy to raise a six-foot pillar in front of the palace.

The locals understood what was happening instantly, but the people who followed Seth from the Oath capital were even more confused by what he was doing.

Seth smiled as he looked at the gathered people and teleported the former king’s body out of his storage space, tying him to the pillar.

“Is that the king?”

“So we really got a new one.”

“I wonder how long the new king would last.”

Hushed talks were happening between the locals, their whispers reaching the ears of the families coming from Oath, allowing them to finally understand what was happening as well.

Fixing their eyes on the mangled body of the fat man tied to the pillar, not one of the locals had pity in their eyes, only excitement, and delight.

Seth had Hollie propagate his voice to everyone in the city, not only the people there, and started addressing them.

“Citizens of the Blood Kingdom. This is your new king speaking.”

“I know you all are already used to this, so I’ll make it brief. As tradition dictates, the former king’s body is tied to a pillar in front of the palace, awaiting your punishment.”

“Besides that, things will have to change around here. A new set of laws will be communicated soon by my people. I won’t sugarcoat my words. If you decide to ignore the new laws, you will be killed.”

Seth wanted to start telling the people about his plans, but he figured they also heard that from former kings and decided against it. He didn’t even tell them his name, origin, or anything else, to keep the spies of other kingdoms guessing for a while longer.

“That would be all for now. Go on with your day.”

Having finished his speech, he had Hollie stop his voice broadcast and turned toward the people who followed him from the capital.

“Things are still quite precarious right now, so I would advise against stepping too far away from this building behind me, which will serve as our temporary home until things fall in place.”

“Pearl, I need you to work to create rooms for everyone to live in as soon as possible. It doesn’t matter if they are ugly or wood-made since we’ll only stay in this house for a while.”

After Pearl nodded, her family escorted everyone inside. Seth looked at his students as they passed by and said: “There are some girls there whose situation… well, you’ll see. Caitlin, please heal them, and clean them up before dressing them.”

“We’ll see how they react after waking up. Leora, I trust you to know what to do.” Seth put Leora in charge of this task since she had also gone through something similar.

Once everyone left to enter the palace, Seth looked at the hesitant locals before turning towards Hollie: “Go and bring everyone else here from the ship. If my parents refuse, just bring the whole ship here.”

Hollie nodded and flew away under the surprised eyes of all the people who had never seen an air ascended. Seth also teleported away, and they finally worked up the courage to approach the former king’s body.

It was a cruel tradition in which the people of the blood kingdom would throw rocks, sticks, or whatever they could get their hands on at the former king’s body to vent away their sorrows for the time he was alive.

Seth arrived at the top of the palace and looked at the city extending all around him.

‘I need you to create a set of laws. Use the former timeline as a reference and modify them for an easier adaptation by the people of the Blood Kingdom.’

<Does host have a preference for the time period?>

‘As far in the future as you can. We can’t change their way of life, but many things still have to change. Now show me a kingdom map and mark all the murderers, slavers, rapists, spies, and other dregs of society.’

Seth was a bit overwhelmed when he noticed the over 100 000 flashing red dots on the map. The entire city had a population of around 200 000 thousand, which meant at least half of them had to be eradicated.

‘Well, at least this means fewer mouths to feed.’ Seth consoled himself.

Since Seth had no way of allowing others to use the system to help with the cleanup, he knew that if he wanted to save as much time as possible, he had to use his divinity. Also, due to the importance of other kingdoms not finding news of what he was doing south, he had to clean up all the spies as soon as possible.

‘How long would cleaning up the capital take if I release my divinity?’

<With your breakthrough to the third shell, it shouldn’t take more than two seconds, which would prevent other divine beings from sensing this world’s position.>

‘Damage ratio?’

<With such a large amount of destruction energy mobilized over such a wide area, at least 50%>

‘Fine. Assist me with releasing the destruction energy. Imprint all the criminal faces and positions in my memory. Create a map and mark their location.’

<That would further provide damage to host’s soul. Additionally, it is advised that host refrains from using the destruction divinity to clean up the city.>

‘I know, but I don’t have your link to the records to easily identify them all. Also, this is the best I can do. Spies are already on their way to inform the other kingdoms about the takeover, and people might come snooping around if I let them leave. I’ll deal with the damage once the city is cleansed.’

<Understood.>

Seth felt his head about to explode after his command, and information poured into his mind about every criminal location and looks. Once it was done, he didn’t even get the time to catch his breath as he immediately activated his divinity to act on that information.

An ominous aura exploded outwards, covering the entire city and making every unfortunate soul that happened to look towards the rooftop Seth was standing on pass out instantly.

The aura only existed for two seconds, but everyone inside the city felt it. They felt a hand touching their very soul, threatening to destroy it instantly.

Maya and Hollie were holding it better than the rest, Maya only turning towards the king’s building from the ship with a frown on her face, but the other ascended, even the ones that followed Seth here from the Oath kingdom, fell to their knees panting for breath.

Seth sealed his divinity after two seconds and passed out with blood flowing out of his mouth, ears, and eyes. The damage was much more expansive than even the system estimated. There was even a loud cracking sound coming from his body with the release of his divinity.

While all of Seth’s students were reeling from the impact of Seth’s divinity, both Henrietta and Alexa looked at each other, their sources trembling in awe. They knew that, whatever had just happened, was tied to Seth and his destruction energy.

Sitting up a lot quicker than the rest, they rushed outside to see what Seth had done.

What they found left them reeling again, this time from fear and worry. Seth’s body was lying in front of the mansion, spasming continuously with blood flowing out of every orifice of his body.

Alexa was the first to snap out of it as she rushed inside and grabbed Caitlin without an explanation, dragging her outside. Once they reached out, Henrietta was holding Seth’s body, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of his ears with tears running down her cheeks.

Caitlin also received a bout of panic and rushed to kneel next to Seth, spreading her life energy all over his body.

Caitlin couldn’t even describe what she was seeing, and the more she saw, the more terrified she was.

“How is he?” asked Alexa once she noticed that even Caitlin had frozen.

Caitlin looked up, her eyes red as she mumbled: “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t. Speak properly.” Yelled Alexa, her face failing to mask the anger and fear she felt inside.

Caitlin was also spooked by her yell and said: “His body is not normal. I can’t heal him.”

“Then can you at least figure out what happened to him?” asked Alexa next.

“One of his sources, probably destruction, is releasing active energy inside his body and destroying him from the inside. Somehow, his body regenerates, but the destruction is expanding quicker than the regeneration rate.”

“Was it that hard?” said Alexa as she pushed Henrietta and Caitlin away from Seth. She then closed her eyes and felt Seth’s body carefully.

It took a moment, but she managed to feel his destruction source and the leaking energy wreaking havoc in his body.

“If this doesn’t work, teacher, I’m sorry.” Muttered Alexa, and destruction energy exploded out of her body, targeting Seth’s energy inside his body. Since she was not as skilled as Seth, she had trouble avoiding further damage to his body, but she knew that if Seth’s source was left like this, he would die.

Once the two destruction energies connected, Alexa winced in pain but didn’t stop her assault. Since Seth was barely at the third shell, the two energies just started canceling each other.

It took over twenty minutes of constant effort until Alexa managed to surround Seth’s leaking source in her destruction energy, stopping any leakage from affecting the rest of his body and allowing his perfect body control regeneration to heal him.

By this time, everyone had formed a circle around Seth, and there was a giant ship floating above the palace, but no one interfered with Alexa.

When she first arrived, Maya wanted to rush forward on instinct, but Hollie stopped her before making things worse. Seth’s parents, even Hilda, were waiting on the sidelines with eyes full of worry.

Once Alexa opened her eyes again, Maya wanted to rush forward and ask how it was, but Alexa didn’t give her a chance as she turned to Pearl: “Pearl, I need your help.”

Pearl was forming a perimeter around Seth with her family and immediately came next to Alexa: “How can I help?”

“His destruction source is cracked and needs to be healed before it breaks apart completely. Since creation and destruction are natural opposites, I need you to keep his energy in check while I channel energy from the atmosphere to patch the leakage.”

Pearl nodded with a solemn look, understanding the gravity of the situation. Alexa then looked towards Maya and Hollie and said: “Teachers, he’ll be fine, but we should move away from here. Since I can’t be apart from him, please help us move inside.”

Hollie nodded and surrounded herself, Maya, Alexa, Pearl, and Seth in air energy before flying everyone onto the ship’s deck, where Alexa and Pearl started the healing process.

It took them two whole days of constantly using their energies until Seth’s source finally stopped leaking destruction energy. Heaving a sigh of relief simultaneously, Alexa and Pearl removed their hands from Seth’s chest with a small smile at the corner of their lips.

“How is he?” asked Maya immediately, having not left their side for a moment during the last two days.

Alexa nodded and said: “He’s fine. His destruction source is still damaged, but it’s no longer creating problems for the rest of the body, and he should be able to heal it on his own after waking up.”

Maya also heaved a sigh of relief and looked towards Seth with a trace of anger in her eyes: “I can’t wait to hear his excuse for doing something so stupid once he wakes up.”