"Have you ever wondered as to the true scale of the world?" Prometheus asked Mia.
He was standing atop the statue of liberty. He was leaning against the torch. One of the only monuments that had survived the tirade of the man who went by Wrath.
Prometheus looked down at the city of New York in front of him.
It was peaceful.
It wouldn't remain that way for long.
Mia, who was positioned at the very top of the statue's torch, looked down at him.
"Scale? What more is there to understand beside the world is big?" She responded, as she turned to look off into the distance. Her hair was splayed out messily. One legged leaning over the edge, her dress riding high.
A very promiscuous image for a girl who was dressed like a nun.
Prometheus shook his head. His eyes continued to look over the city of New York. He took notice of every detail. Every small thing.
The hundreds of thousands of small specks that were people, moving along with their regular lives.
They must have already seen the news. Of the hundreds of other places that were currently being attacked.
They must be scared, but not as much as they should be. They believe that they're one step removed from all the chaos, and all of the destruction.
They were naive, and foolish.
"I'm not just talking about a physical scale. Of course, the world is big, but that scale can be quantified. No, what I mean by 'scale' is how much of the workings of the world, and of the universe, are we not privy too?"
Mia sighed. Prometheus had gone on this tirade for one time too many.
"Mia, don't be like that?" Prometheus said in a whiny voice, as he began to climb higher and approach where she was laying.
"I wonder if you'll be able to keep your head out the clouds long enough to actually complete out goal."
Prometheus arrived at the top and took a seat next to where Mia was laying.
"My head aren't in the clouds. They're right where they need to be."
After a few moments of silence, Prometheus looked up.
"I mean think about. This world is grand. There are places we have yet to ever see. Things we know very little about. The inner workings of even some of the simplest things have more complexities behind them than we can ever know. So, I sometimes wonder, how much to we really matter? What's our role? Are we just cogs, or are we so small we can't fill that role? What goes on behind the scenes that we could never imagine?"
By the time he had finished speaking, Prometheus was nearly shaking from excitement. From both the prospects of his own questions, and the anticipation he had for what was going to happen next.
Suddenly, the sun was blocked out. Mia was staring down at him. Her eyes were filled with deep emotions and affection.
She placed a hand on his face, brushing aside a bit of hair.
"Tell me, what does it matter? Promo, you're going to be the king of this world anyways. It will all become yours. When you become king, nothing else will matter."
And for a brief moment, Prometheus's eyes softened. His expression softened just as much. His eyes were filled with gratitude and something else.
"Your right. Still.... I sometimes wonder." His voice began to sound far-away. His eyes glazed over, as if he was lost in some sort of eternal dream.
"When this is all done Promo, I promise I'll help you find the answer to your questions. And even if we never find the answer, I'll always be there to help you wonder."
Prometheus's eyes snapped back into reality.
He nodded. Slowly, he stood up and turned his gaze towards the city below.
The peaceful city.
The city filled with the naive.
And the foolish.
And those who have yet to witness the truth.
Mia stared at him for a few moments.
"Is it time already?" She asked.
Prometheus nodded.
Raising both hands wide, he allowed himself a smile.
The wind blew against his coat, causing it to billow.
Unlike the raging windstorm he had just been in, this one was calmer. It was a summer breeze.
The feeling sent shivers down his spine.
It brought him back to a time where he would spend his days in fields of tall grass.
Side by side with Mia. Not a single care in the world.
At that time, he had posed the question.
"What do you think it means to be at the very top of the world?"
Mia had responded, "Wouldn't that just mean to be the very best. To be the ruler, and take the number one spot?"
At that very moment, a calm breeze that sent shivers down his spine blew through.
Prometheus responded. "Then that's what I'll do. I'll become a king. I'll reach the very top of the ladder and become a ruler."
In the present, Prometheus repeated the same words in his head.
Down below, the bustling city was full of sinners.
Sinners who would become his subjects.
A massive light flashed in front of them, casting a large shadow over the too.
Silently, a massive mushroom cloud rose into the sky, blotting at the sun.
And just as silently, a massacre ensued.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Bright lights.
Blue and red.
They cut up the sky, shattering through the clouds.
The ground itself shook with the force of every swing.
In the distance, hills were bisected from just the aftermath of the deadly slashes.
Despite this strength and speed, the slashes never hit their target.
Kaguya sidestepped another one of Perseus slashes.
He dodged another, and then another.
Perseus was relentless however and continued to slash.
Kaguya was unfazed by the power behind his strikes, as he dodged all of them with unnatural clam and ease.
Perseus blades, both things made out of some sort of metal that was obsidian black, they were nearly identical.
One possessed the sign of a sun, and the other possessed a crescent moon.
The one with the sun carried a red aura. The air around where it sliced would burn with the heat of a thousand flames.
The ground below was charred.
The blade with the emblem of the moon on the other hand made use of some sort of lightning imbued strikes.
They crackled and popped, and their range was unreal.
And Perseus dual wielded these weapons with more than just excellency.
Slashing up, down, left, right.
At times launching out double slashes and low sweeps, high arcing slashing.
Changing temp from fast to slow, slow to intermediate, to slow to fast.
Blue and red splooshes of color sliced the darkness that had been brough upon by the rain.
His swordsmanship was not only excellent, but destructive.
Just from the force of the slashes alone, the ground below them was being severely damaged.
Should even just one land, it would have done significant damage.
However not a single one had landed. Kaguya was an expert and moving his body, using shields to deflect slashes, and using his bow to counter at the right moments.
Despite Perseus' undoubtedly fast and flashy fighting style, he could not land a single blow on the 'world ender.'
Dodging another red slash, Kaguya flipped into the air, before raining down arrows on his opponent.
With just a single slash from the moon blade, a massive wave of lighting vaporized the arrows coming down at him.
Before Kaguya had even landed, her had already activated another magic sequence.
The ground below his open split open, revealing a massive fissure.
From the darkness of the massive hole in the ground, a million lights flickered on.
A million arrows made out of different elements were notched, ready to be fired.
Perseus began to fall, looking downwards at the sea of lights below him. His face was stuck in momentary awe.
Amazement.
Respect.
But not a single ounce of fear.
In the next moment, an uncountable number of arrows were fired.
Slashing his dual blades ferociously, Perseus blocked and deflected as many arrows as he possibly could.
He was slashing so fast that it looked like a ball of red flame and blue lighting was floating down towards the sea of lights.
When the arrows finally stopped firing, there was a brief moment of silence.
And then the silence was shattered by the sound of the ground rumbling.
Just under Kaguya's feet, a massive beam of light shot upwards.
Moving back, Kaguya was being chased by a beam of lighting that had shot up from the ground and was now piercings the heavens.
In his backpedaling, he sensed something, and jumped to the side just to avoid the beam of flame that erupted from the ground not even a second later.
Dodging and jumping, Kaguya weaved through the two deadly beams of red and blue like and extreme game of hole in the wall.
The two beams suddenly lashed out in different directions before joining together, and the ground was completely bisected, shattering into pieces as it was launched into the sky.
Down below, Perseus was laughing hysterically as he dashed forward, continuing to slash wildly.
"There it is! A taste of what you can really do! Don't hold back, let's see how strong your world enders truly are!"
Kaguya had his suspicions; however they had been confirmed by Perseus words.
Perseus was here to distract him. He had taken this task because he thought it would be interesting to fight against a world ender.
Now the real question was what he was distracting Kaguya from?
Jumping from debris to debris, Kaguya began to fire more arrows and Perseus, who was not far behind.
Jumping high into the air, Kaguya began to search around.
Looking for anything, any telltale signs of something in the works-
"Eyes right here!"
Perseus was on him within seconds.
A point black slash form both blades at once, Kaguya had no choice but to block with his bow.
Taking a majority of the blow, he was sent crashing into the ground in an explosion of blue.
Sliding backwards, Kaguya only had a moment to get his bearings before a downwards slash f red nearly cleaved him in half vertically.
Another slashed of blue lighting nearly cleaved him in half horizontally.
Just barely avoiding those slashes, Kaguya used the opening to get in close.
Throwing close range punches and kicks, Kaguya stayed at a range that made it nearly impossible for Perseus to use his swords effectively.
Still, his opponent was no pushover.
Purposely eating a knee to the chin, Perseus used the moment to flip his blade diagonally to try to cut Kaguya's leg clean off.
However, Kaguya was prepared, and turned his momentum into a backflip, before kicking off of the sword and launching himself high into the air.
Loading up his mana, he knocked an extremely powerful arrow. It glowed a bright red.
"Helios's chariot." He said to himself.
Firing the arrow of flame, the air around it literally warped due to the heat. The massive flame that took the shape of a horse drawn chariot was coming down and Perseus with insane speed.
From his point of view, it looked as it the sun was falling down.
In the middle of a storm.
However, he did not waver.
Sticking his flame blade into the ground, he used only the moon blade to block the full brunt of the attack.
The edges of his hair began to burn, and his fingers were turning black. He was being pushed backward; however he did not fall.
After a few more seconds, the attack had been completely absorbed.
The aftershock caused Perseus to do a 180.
However, he didn't stop there.
He allowed his moment to carry him into a full 360 turn. His blade at his side, he slashed it quickly.
Using all of the absorbed energy from Kaguya's attack, Perseus launched a seamless counter.
Kaguya's eyes widened in shock.
"SKY SPLITTING BLADE!"
As he slashed, the ground below him shattered completely from the force.
A massive wave of lighting traveled upwards into the sky before hitting Kaguya point blank.
Blood flood from the wound that covered the length of his torso.
The lighting crackled and boomed, and the very clouds themselves had been split by the force of the blow, leaving a massive gaping hole for the sun to peak through.
And that was when Kaguya noticed it.
What Perseus had been distracting him from.
During their battle, Perseus's army had vanished.
Into thin air.
And then, with horror dawning over his features, Kaguya made the realization. Because they were non-magicians, he couldn't sense them slipping by.
because of the rain, he couldn't hear them.
And because of the low visibility, and Perseus' distractions, he never saw them.
He had never seen them.
And now, they had somehow made their way into Theta magic academy.