Once in our lives, there comes a time when we have to transform, our mindsets need to be changed. One can change for the better or for the worse depending on what triggered this change. Whether it was grief or was it happiness. It can make you a warrior who battles for the good or a villain set to destroy it all. But what happens when grief is accompanied by the worst pain one would have ever felt?
That's when a monster rises. One even the gods are afraid to confront. An unstoppable force with only one goal in their mind... eradication. Complete annihilation of everything. This.... pain severs one from the reality of the world and the man thinks about nothing but revenge to quell his anger down, to calm the raging nerves.
'I know how you feel right now...'
The smile Shiva had before was long gone. Now only sadness occupied his face. But not for what happened to Nicole, but what was going to happen to the universe. He knew this was going to happen and he knew what was going to happen in the future.
But even Shiva was praying to the prime creator to do something to evade the situation... however, it didn't seem like his prayers were heard. Another monster had arisen, one that would consume the universe as a whole...
Zeus and Loki thought they were so intelligent. They thought killing Nicole would smash Arnold's willpower to bits... but what happened next could be only described as the biggest backfire in the history of the universe. Their plan was a success. They broke Arnold alright, but they broke him in a way they shouldn't have.
They killed someone closest to Arnold. His sister, the only one he had after their parents passed away. The one who kept him sane in those hard times when dungeons started appearing in the world. The only one who didn't make him seem worthless. The one... they should have never even thought about touching. The goal of the event was to elevate a new god. Instead, a devil rose from the soul of a human.
"It's the beginning of the end..." Shiva as he got up and left along with Nandi, but not before turning around to have one last gaze to Arnold, for he would never be the same again.
***
Arnold's gun slipped from his weakened grip when he saw Nicole falling on the ground... lifeless, just like his eyes had turned. There was a barrier stopping anyone else from entering the Arena. The barrier was only supposed to come down when the competition was over. It was a barrier even neither Zeus nor Loki could destroy, but Arnold shattered it into billion bits just like that and he had no recollection of it.
All he could see was Nicole lying on the ground as blood gushed out of the gaping wound in her chest. Johnny saw him coming but before Arnold could get to him, a portal opened behind him and he jumped right in. He was gone. He had betrayed them and now the fcking coward was gone.
"STOP THAT MORTAL!!!" Heimdall roared at the top of his lungs while pointing at arnold, "He had broken the sanctity of the arena. Kill him this instant!"
It was their plan all along. To make Arnold do something rash and then even the Immortal one wouldn't be able to stop them from executing Arnold. The Olympians, The Asgardians, everyone sent their soldiers to subdue the Arnold, but none of them was even able to get past Talos and Tiamut.
Talos knew there was no turning back for what these fools had done today. He had seen Arnold like this once before, when Nina was attacked. However, they were lucky that back then, she managed to survive. However, this time... Talos knew for sure that Nicole was dead.
Arnold kept walking towards Nicole, while Talos and Tiamut held the soldiers off. Everyone who was in the arena stepped out of Arnold's way out of fear of what he might do. Arnold finally got a good look at his sister's mutilated body.
Her eyes were still open... she still had the smug smile on her face. The same smile Arnold had seen multiple times before. The smile she always had when she knew she was going to make it through.
Arnold wordlessly kept looking at her. He was raging inside... it felt like something within himself had exploded. The area between his brows was consumed by fire... his head was burning from the rage as it had never before.
The next moment he lost all his strength and fell on his knees next to Nicole. He wrapped his arm around her and lifted her up. Hugging her just like he had so many times before. He looked her in the eyes, almost expecting her to start blinking and say it was all a prank... but nothing happened.
She was gone, for real. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry... but he couldn't. Something had snapped inside him. His soul had been shattered into millions of pieces. He wasn't crying but his eyes were swollen red. Whether it was because of the tears he was holding back, or due to the rage he was feeling, no one could have known.
His brow kept throbbing as if there was something inside his head that was desperately trying to come out. Soon a black blotch had formed there, in between his brows and looked like a vertical third eye. The same one as... Shiva had.
"Heal her..." Arnold took out the wish from his inventory and wanted to use it to bring Nicole back to life.
[Arnold... you can't heal the dead...]
"Resurrect her."
[...]
"I said, RESURRECT HER!"
[The wish can not be used to resurrect the fallen...]
It was at that moment it hit Arnold first time, Nicole was gone. He didn't want to accept it but it was the truth. He started hyperventilating. The pain in the middle of his brow was enough to drive any sane man to death. But Arnold wasn't sane anymore. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to torture and annihilate everyone who was behind this scheme. It didn't matter whether it was a god or not they all had to die.
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Destroyer's third eye has been successfully manifested.
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System sama was stunned when the text appeared in front of Arnold. There was no way a mortal could have manifested the third eye. The process was so painful, even Shiva could barely tolerate it, that too when he was in his prime. Anyone who tried to activate the third eye would die from the pain in the process of its emergence and yet Arnold managed to activate it without as much as letting out a cry?
System sama hastily checked Arnold's status plate... but it was empty. There was nothing but a few words written on it.
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Name: Arnold Ling
Role: The One Above All
Primal power manifested so far: 2.56%
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