Chapter 317 - New Standards: New Goals

"So, where are we going?" Enira said.

The two were walking through the edges of the Romswell domain; empty fields with some occasional orange and lemon trees. Some workers were working in the distance. 

Helio remained quiet. 

The two hadn't taken flight yet.

Helio hadn't been here in a long, long while and he got freedom after a long time… he wanted to at least feel his feet on the grass, the sunlight- the blue sky. And let the wind press against his skin. 

Enira walked just beside Helio- her hands behind her back, clutched together. "Oh, and we're not going to see the dead at least? I believe their graves are-"

"You have grandmother's core, correct? So, it's possible for you to turn back time or perhaps-"

"Actually-" She paused. "She couldn't turn back time. Rather- she abandoned her world and came to this one, a parallel world. Of course, she did travel into the past, but changing something in this world didn't really do anything in hers."

"So even if we go kill them before they caused all this- my family in this world-" Helio looked up at the sky. 

The pale clouds. 

The stale wind. 

Grey. 

"Will still be dead, yes."

Another exhale. "Then let's destroy them in both of the worlds."

A gust of wind blew past them; Enira had to clutch the bottom of her dress tight.

"For someone who doesn't want to mourn the dead, you sure are trying hard to make things right. Are you sure, you're supposed to be evil?" Enira changed the subject. 

"Why would I be evil?" He started floating. He'd had enough. 

Enira also started floating. "I mean, I was always under the impression that you were evil and wanted to take over his body-" With the new cores over the last two weeks, her powers had vastly expanded. 

"We are one and the same and it is our body. Perhaps he doesn't understand that the only reason we were separate in the past, we would have died otherwise. Now, however… ourselves have started to merge; the seal is undone. Assuming he is willing to accept me- we can coexist."

Enira grimaced slightly. "I guess I was under the wrong impression then…" 

The two gradually sped up and shockwaves spread across the sky. 

"I was desperate to get out…" He confessed. "So, I might have come across-" He paused and didn't finish. "And I hope he never accepts me. I want this freedom all to myself," he mumbled. Besides he had to deal with the third one too. 

He just sped up even more.

***

It took them three hours.

Three hours to reach earth's southernmost continent- Antarctica. 

"You still haven't answered me." 

The two went down. 

Cold.

Blue.

And beautiful. 

"She'll be back eventually. And she'll be a lot more powerful this time. We have to prepare for her." Helio walked on ahead. 

Sunlight peaked through. There wasn't much wind, or a blizzard for that matter. 

And yet- the temperature was well below the freezing point of water. 

And neither had brought warm clothes. 

"Wait, then you're here for the cores? You mean you're going to-"

Helio grinned. "You're fairly smart, aren't you? Sometimes that makes me wonder, just how damn much you know."

Enira was from the future and she came back roughly eighty years ago. She knew a lot of things, but she never bothered to talk about them.

"How much do you know…." She repeated the question. 

"Well… now that my memories are coming back. I keep remembering about a certain incident, in a certain forest, some years ago… and I also happen to remember a voice… perhaps-" Helio paused, giving Enira a stare and a grin. 

Enira was too busy wrapping her arms around herself. 

It wasn't cold no, it was freezing. Actually, freezing didn't do this place justice. It was more than just freezing. "And you think it's me?"

Helio's grin widened. "I don't believe I've said that." He didn't stop. This cold was nothing- it was nothing compared to his ambition. 

Enira grimaced slightly. "We're here for the cores. So, let's just go get them."

Helio wanted to remember his past too. Or rather, he was just curious; nothing more, nothing less. After all, the past was in the past. 

So, in the end, he didn't quite care all that much. He had many goals in life unlike his previous self, and spending all his precious mental resources worrying about the past wasn't on his priority list. 

He didn't dream to be an explorer. He wanted more freedom than that. He wanted to go see the world- but by his own rules, not rules forged by others. But before all that, he first wanted to go destroy those monsters. 

The monsters that killed his father, his uncle, his grandmother, his cousins…. The monsters that killed his family. 

He was going to destroy them and be free. 

***

Slash!

Helio had brought his grandfather's sword and he was experimenting with just how hot he could make it. 

He didn't bother bringing his gloves. They were only going to get in his way now.

Screech!

He first started off by fighting large lizard-type mutors with just the yellow plasma. Small red cores. 

Then he fought large snow bears with the blue type. The bears were large and their claws were turning even the barriers to shreds—small purple cores. 

The blue plasma was hot and it was burning his fingers; definitely tolerable. 

And finally- now, he was fighting a dragon. 

A full-fledged glorified flying lizard; awfully azure in color and definitely furious. 

"Not really fun seeing your kind get killed…" Enira mumbled from the sidelines, blocking the dragon's ice breath. 

Helio didn't reply, instead, he turned up the heat and made his sword shined white- the hottest kind of plasma he could produce. 

He could also produce a lot of radiation now and he could control it just fine- not letting it leak. 

The plasma instantly started vaporizing his fingers but he didn't stop. Rather, he jumped straight for the dragon and cleaved its neck in two. 

Fast. 

SHRIEK!!!

The dragon's blood spilled everywhere as it fell on the ground; just the head was bigger than a typical hovercraft. 

Though the plasma was far too hot, it went so fast, the wound didn't have time to cauterize. 

Helio carved a hole in the fallen dragon's corpse and pulled out its purple core: a football size. He threw it to Enira. "Let's move on to the next one."

The sword turned to normal but his hands were burned to a crisp. Yet, he didn't even flinch let alone write in pain.

They gradually started healing. 

Enira started chomping on the core. "By the way, you sure you can live in this constant radioactive field? I mean you are fairly resistant but-"

But the radiation level of this place was far greater than any other place on earth- and even most of space for that matter. 

The excess radiation helped him maintain his stamina but it was like a double-edged sword. 

"Yeah, constantly getting bombarded runs the risk of my body mutating. Run a few layers of barriers just in case." Helio was pretty resistant, so it shouldn't have been a thing. But he wasn't going to take in any risk. 

Actually, she already had about three thin barriers on him already. 

And she made another three just in case.