"Get in formation!" the head warden spoke urgently. The squad leaders geared in full, stood aligned in front Ezra's cell, which was exuding vast fumes of red. "We attack the moment something comes out that door!" said the head warden, with a forehead full of sweat.
Arcadia was built with only the best items, so the head warden never doubted its ability to hold it ground…until now.
The demonic aura being exuded was the most he'd ever felt, it had him concentrate just to stay standing, while the squad leaders had to imbue themselves with mana.
The chain holding the top of the ceiling was flailing like any random rope, with the cell itself shaking.
While hoping for the best, things seem to get worse.
Arcadia wasn't built to sustain grandmasters. It was of every doubt that such a place even existed.
But they're Arcadia's guardians, fleeing was not an option. They would stake it all on the slim chance of killing the enemy the moment he came out.
For now, they simply watched the situation.
Meanwhile…
"Damn this!"
Ezra was in a battle of his own.
The space in his mind was split because a demonic entity was encroaching it.
His body's demonization had been automated, it was progressing without conscious assistance, and fast.
But to stop it, he had to concentrate to take control and forcefully stop it while tackling the entity meddling in his subconsciousness.
With each percent the demonization progressed, the encroaching entity grew stronger.
Worse, the encroaching corruption actively tackled Ezra's efforts.
It was still undeveloped compared to Ezra's part, but it didn't have to do much.
It simply kept Ezra occupied by disturbing him just enough to distort his effort to focus, while maintaining enough speed to avoid being crushed.
In this manner, Ezra was forced to deal with the parasite in mind and body, stretching him thin, leaving unable to do either.
Then, something changed.
The corruption grew, gaining wings to launch forward attacks, and this time, hurt more.
From then on Ezra lost inch after inch of his subconsciousness to the corruption.
Ezra pushed the corruption back multiple times, almost erasing it on a few occasions, but the continuous demonization had it regenerate faster and faster.
Soon enough, Ezra's right eye turned completely dark, and black tears dripped down his cheeks.
A turning point was reached.
The corruption matched Ezra, facing him head on, and with the demonization in progress, it only gained more power even while being beaten up.
The corruption polluted Ezra's mind, enhancing the dark side of his subconscious with each inch gained.
The quiet thoughts of revenge and hatred were now pushed to the forefront of his brain.
While he concentrated on 'stopping the demonization' the influx of those thoughts halted progress, haunting him with flashbacks of his time as Kevin reed, of all the sacrifices made and the things endured, all fuelling one thought.
'All humans should die!'
"Ah!" with a short shout, Ezra fell to the ground, limp as a dead fish.
With nothing stopping it, the demonization process ended successfully.
The fumes being spewed were absorbed, his veins glowed, before settling down.
Yet, the boy did not get up.
For the battle had yet to end.
At this point, his subconsciousness only had dark thoughts swirling around it.
'We must pay them back for what they did to us!'
'We cannot rest until we have our revenge!'
'We sacrificed too much to not pay them back!'
'They must pay!'
These were the mainstream thoughts, the corruption had completely taken over.
With the subconscious corrupted, the rest followed, and soon enough, Ezra began accepting the train of thought.
'Humans don't deserve to live'
'They must all be purged to save the world'
The resistance drew less and less as a narrative was created by the corruption to trick the brain into installing a new perception of reality, one that would sooth its needs.
With the hard battle having ended, things progressed smoothly, the corruption worked hard.
With Ezra already containing considerable darkness from past betrayals and grudges, it simply mixed those thoughts with demonic values and soon enough, they began to overlap, forming new thoughts.
Killing his enemies became eradicating humanity, making his enemies suffer became saving the world from the hands of humans.
His limp body became not so limp. His eyes shut open, both now pitch black and then his lips began to move.
From his mouth, his thoughts echoed out.
"Humanity must be extinguished to save the world"
A mistake was made.
Ezra reincarnated, holding memories of otherworld monsters and dungeons-he knew what would burn the world cause he'd seen it.
So that statement was a lie, an existential one.
From the depth of his soul came a rippling that woke the real Ezra, who should've been devoured.
His entire ego came together as a small sparkling light held in his form amongst the darkness in his subconscious.
The corruption promptly struck.
This time, Ezra did not fight nor avoid.
Darkness covered the manifested ego, looking to corrupt Ezra's essence and stake its chance to become the sole host.
But things took a turn.
The light to be absorbed, began absorbing the corruption.
For a bit the corruption was shaken, but relaxed soon after.
Regardless of how it was done, Ezra's thoughts would be influenced.
Rather, this method would have the ego corrupted even faster, so it watched all its essence get absorbed, and subsequently, itself.
The corruption's goal was that, to corrupt, not to stake sole claim of the mind, regardless of the method.
So it had no problem with the current procession.
By the time the corruption was completely absorbed, the manifested ego had lost its outline, being only a lump of darkness with no features.
Thoughts of both human extinction and personal revenge floated around just like before, nothing had changed.
But the thoughts were now processed with flashbacks only of his new life.
His birth, his mother, his first word, first book, first thought, his first wobble, his first walk, his first run, his absorbing of mana, meeting Fredrick, meeting Cabrera, training till exhaustion day after day after day, meeting his vassals, heading to the academy, meeting Valentine, fighting beasts, running away, getting captured and now, being imprisoned.
All that brought out conclusions he'd failed to acknowledge since day one.
'Things are not so bad'
'I have great people around me'
'I'm not suffering anymore'
The betrayal didn't fade, but rather advanced to the forefront of his mind.
'I was scorned, sneered at, betrayed and then killed' he acknowledged.
But that didn't shake him, for he could now see the light at the end of the tunnel.
'But I was compensated with a second chance!'
A wave of black fumes was heavily expunged.
All along, he'd been missing the point.
The only reason he sought revenge, planned for it and trained for it-was because he could!
How many could say the same? None. As far as he knew.
Not only was he given a second chance, but blessed with many more perks!
How many were born a prince? How many had loving mothers? How many had living fathers? How many had the wealth and power he did? How many were able to navigate life so easily and naturally, leaving the bad and taking only the good right from the start.
Yet, what was he doing? Planning revenge.
Planning revenge on enemies, no, people with no recollection of him. Who couldn't be concerned less to know of him?
Why was he trying so hard to go back to the life he hated? Did he not see that he was now in a better, far, far better place.
Little by little, the manifested ego gained features, becoming an outline of Ezra once again.
They took his life from him? So what? Was he not granted another?
They betrayed him? Get in line, you're not the first.
They, they, they…
His mechanism for excuses became dysfunctional trying to explain his obsession, because beyond betraying him and killing him, there was nothing left to fall back on.
That was it, that was everything.
Betrayal and death, that was it.
Then, against all odds, he gets a second chance, coincidence or not-the universe compensated him.
So, he dug deeper into himself and questioned again.
'Why?'
He murmured that repeatedly in silence, until the answer manifested itself.
'I'm not angry because they killed me. I'm angry because I think they took my purpose from me'
The realization hit louder than a lightning bolt, and a large part of the corruption within his ego dissolved.
He could now explain his obsession.
It was never about the physical pain. It was about taking back his purpose from those who had taken from him.
It was about gaining his path, for he believed that only by killing them would he have the right to look for his purpose elsewhere-because he identified himself as a knight!
A knight who'd sworn his loyalty!
Unfortunately, he'd fail to realize that he was no longer that person.
He thought he'd convinced himself, but no, the dredges of his past buried deep within his subconsciousness, inbuilt as part of his identity, were still pulling him down.
He was no longer anyone's knight.
He was a prince that came back in time, making literally anything he set for himself easily achievable.
If becoming Emperor was his final goal, he would've achieved it by now. But no, it had to be him planning 'his glorious revenge'
And that wasn't going too well.
After talking about how much he loved his mother, look where that led her, it was the same with his vassals.
Worse, he didn't know his mother's location, gave someone else to find out, and wasn't bothered.
It became clear.
'I've been chasing the wrong things'
"Revenge is not the answer"
The moment this was uttered, Ezra glowed white.
From the depth of utter darkness, Ezra's ego was being forged anew.
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