Chapter 69 Resonance [8]

At this point, Caim spoke to me.

"Normally, races don't work together to conquer a planet, but weirdly enough, they decided to work together for an ambush."

"And the demons who got this news decided to attack Earth while other races were clashing against Earth's forces on the frontlines?"

"Indeed, master. That was what happened."

Frontlines referred to areas that were on the other side of the Gates. The Gates that opened on Earth had their other opening somewhere in the vast universe at random.

This place was where the races set their bases and fought. This was the 'frontlines'.

Kekekeke-

Keke-

Kekekekekeke-

Sounds of flapping of wings and disgusting laughing signaled their arrival. Hundreds of demons botched the sky.

The demon army had reached near them.

"Roy will take care of the Gate and the demons that come through it. Daniel will circle the planet and kill all the demons that are attacking."

Roy, the magician, and Daniel, aka Mr. Parker, stupidly stared at Yui.

After struggling for a few seconds, Daniel finally pushed some words through his throat.

"Circle the planet? The planet!? Are you nuts!"

'So, killing the demons isn't the problem?'

I wanted to ask him my doubts if he could answer me.

Hundreds of demons were present in their city alone. Going by those estimates, there will be millions of demons all over the planet.

"Haaa. Fine, I'll try."

Looking at the innumerable number of demons in the sky, even I was having trouble breathing. It looked like hundreds of angels of death were descending.

But the three of them paid no attention to the sky. It was almost as if they couldn't see the demon army in the sky.

"Where is that kid? Your first disciple Mia. She can at least protect some cities alone."

Grandmaster Yui's expression twisted for a second before it quickly returned to her usual calm expression.

"She's no longer my disciple."

Feeling something amiss, Daniel decided to drop the topic. Instead, he spoke to someone entirely else.

"Where are you going, kid?"

Caught as he was trying to sneak away, Eth flinched. Hardening his resolve, he spoke in a quivering voice.

"I..I'm leaving."

"And why is that?"

"If I am here s-something bad will happen."

"It isn't like tha-"

"You mean you are some kind of bad luck charm?"

Cutting Eth's parents in between Daniel disappeared and reappeared before Eth and crouched.

"Y..Yes."

Daniel clicked his tongue when he heard Eth's cowardly voice.

'Why did you die for someone like him?'

Daniel wasn't heartless. No, he was comparable to a saint. He was someone who will trade his life to save even one more person.

But he was also a human. For him, his family meant the world to him.

Yet he was powerless when his family needed him the most.

He couldn't protect the one he swore his love for.

'But I'll give him a chance since you trusted him.'

"Listen, kid. You are afraid that something will happen to others because of you? Then become strong. Strong enough to crush everything that threatens anyone close to you."

Eth was someone who put others before himself. Daniel wanted to use his desire to fuel his growth.

Daniel wanted to give him a goal. Maybe then he wouldn't continue to live like an empty husk.

"Look closely, kid. This is what you can become if you truly have the ambition to grow."

Standing up, Daniel loaded his sniper and aimed it at the sky.

Click-

As he pressed the trigger, an energy orb started to form on top of the muzzle.

The concentration of Aether in the air dropped sharply. The aether in the air started converging on top of his sniper.

The orb slowly grew to the size of a basketball and was still growing.

The space around the orb started distorting.

Click-

Daniel released the trigger, and a ray of light shot up.

It instantly covered half of the distance between them and the demons.

The demons, sensing the energy contained in the ray, started dispersing when suddenly the ray split.

Hundreds of new rays formed and blasted the heads of the demons without fail.

Even before Daniel placed his sniper back, the headless demons started to drop like flies.

5 seconds.

It only took 5 seconds to kill all the demons terrorizing their city.

"Is this the power of Irregulars?"

I knew the three of them were strong. But this, this wasn't something one could imagine until one saw it with their own eyes.

"Let's go."

Saying so, the three of them vanished.

I sighed when I saw the three of them leave and sat on the grass alongside the little Eth.

The ensuing silence didn't tell the destruction Earth was going through.

"How could I have been so na?ve?"

The history books that I read in this world only told about the greatness of the Irregulars.

How the Demon Hunter kept running through the earth while killing all the demons in his path.

How the Magi created spears the size of mountains and used them to jam the Gate of Hell.

And how the Grandmaster defeated the Abyss Demon. A title that the humans ignorant of Caim's true nature gave him.

But why did I think they achieved all this easily?

Grandmaster Yui, Magi Roy, and finally the Demon Hunter Daniel. These were the three Irregulars that were going to save Earth today.

I always thought that three people easily repelled the demon invasion.

But now I realized how wrong I was.

In the novel Grandmaster Yui had a habit of talking more the more she was agitated. Just the fact that she, the strongest among the three Irregulars, was nervous and afraid, showed that they weren't confident of their victory.

"Why did I belittle their sacrifices?"

On my side, Caim didn't speak and only stared at the moon that was peeking through the clouds.

Noticing my gaze, he started speaking.

"Earth still hadn't reached the necessary aether concentration. This was why only the clone of the original Caim, the right hand of Demon King Beelzebub, was sent."

He spoke as if he wasn't talking about himself.

"Even then, the invading demon army was large enough to conquer Earth, even if Earth's forces weren't divided. Our victory was guaranteed."

A little farther away, Eth sat in a daze. Lost in his thoughts.

"Or so it should've been. We never could have predicted the tenacity of humans. It was something we never encountered, even among the thousands of planets we conquered."

Caim spoke his honest thoughts about what he felt on that day.

"Humans sacrificed themselves even without thinking twice. I never thought I would see someone doing suicide bombing of their own free will. Let alone thousands at that."

I remembered a sentence I read in Ward's library.

'Humanity's progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every moment is proof of our history's sacrifice, suffering, and struggle.'

He stared at the moon with a nostalgic gaze.

"The strangest were those three. No matter how badly I crushed their bones or inflicted a painful injury on them, they didn't stop. Even when their flesh melted from the Nether flames or their skin was peeled due to extreme coldness, they kept moving."

Chuckling, he recounted his thoughts.

"I asked them why do to go to such lengths. After all, they were strong enough to run away from a planet that was on the verge of destruction. Do you know what they said?"

I shook my head in denial.

"The magician said he liked the food of his landlord's wife. The swordsman said she wanted another disciple. And the shooter said he wanted to make sure he doesn't disappoint his future son-in-law after he gave an awe-inspiring speech."

"What with those weird answers?"

"Aren't they weird? When I said the same thing to them, the look they gave me made me think I was the one who was crazy."

After that, Caim stopped speaking.

As I also kept staring at the moon, I realized that it had new craters every few minutes.

A few hours later, the moon exploded.

There was no sound signifying the explosion, nor could I see what was happening there.

All I knew was that there the Irregulars were fighting against Caim.

The destruction of the moon signified the defeat of Caim.

With their leaders dead, it greatly affected the mobility of the demon army, and the invasion slowed. It brought precious time for the Earth's forces to return and fight back.

But even then, the destruction was unprecedented. Over 50% of Earth's population died in the Third Disaster.

***

From that day, the blackouts grew even longer. Sometimes there would be no memory for an entire year.

Over the years, I saw Eth training single-mindedly.

Even though Daniel never came back, he was able to give him hope.

Eth ignored everything and trained single-mindedly. He trained even if it rained, even when his callouses stung from the cold, and even when his palms bled under the scorching sun.

Many more things changed.

Eth's parents permanently adopted Isabell.

To give humanity hope, a new project was undertaken. Under the project, the mountains created by Roy were restructured and named Bermuda Island.

The world finally came to know of the existence of Irregulars. In many places, riots and protests supporting them emerged.

These protests targeted the pioneers who were nowhere to be seen when the Earth was attacked. These protests gained huge traction.

With awakeners joining these protests, public safety deteriorated.

To quell the rebellions Aegis, the awakener organization came hard down on Illis. Many known villains were captured and new public policies were introduced to pacify the people.

Worried about the constant rebellions, Gwen, Eth's elder sister, asked them to live on Bermuda Island.

She, as an awakener working for Aegis, was able to get land on Bermuda Island for her family.

After settling on Bermuda Island, the family no longer had to worry about the constant rebellions and protests.

Gia announced the rebuilding of Ward, along with a law saying that every major family will have to send their heir to it.

This law, along with several others, helped calm the world.

The debris of the moon finally settled, and three new moons were formed. Caim would oftentimes do stargazing.

From the increasing duration of blackouts and the fact that I was still in this memory world, I concluded that I would get out when Eth's memory catch up to the present.

I also started to train. With nothing else to do, I started training to control Nether and Ether.