The birth of a Villain Part 2

In that instant, a gigantic black shadow flew over the clouds with a loud whoosh. Those who were somewhere high could see the entire town being obliterated by the fiery breath of a dragon.

No one could have done anything about it. They did not have the means or power to defeat such a creature. Arkham and the old man could do nothing more than watch the chaos unfold.

For several days, Arkham practiced many ways of defending himself that he learned from the books that his old master provided. Spells such as one to make magical shields to protect himself, energy attacks (but these ones had the disadvantage that once they drain magical power pretty fast, then you become an easy target. Unable to defend yourself or keep attacking)

Then, one day, a mysterious knight appeared at their door. A knight with curly dark brown short hair, obsidian-like armor and a white horse. He was tall, his eyes pierced through their skulls and his posture was impeccable.

"You've certainly made a name for yourself in this town with your feats. That's why I want you to help me defeat the dragon that's been terrorizing us." - Said with an equally polite and authoritarian tone.

The three of them agreed on a plan. The knight would get into the dragon's cave, the one under the mountain. With the help of Arkham and his master they infunded the knight's sword with magical power. Otherwise, the sword wouldn't even scratch the dragon's scales. The knight would get inside the cave and stab it in the neck while it slept.

But the knight, thinking that he knew best, didn't follow exactly the steps and ended up stabbing the dragon in his stomach.

The plan worked, sort of. The dragon roared in pain, a groan that was heard even several towns away. The knight even made Arkham and his master bring the dragon's "dead" body to show off at the town. Both used a levitating spell to show the monster to all of them while the knight happily took all the credit.

Once that show was over, the old man called Arkham to tell him something away from the knight and his new fans.

"This creature is not dead, Arkham. Listen, dragons won't die from a wound like this, they just enter in hibernation until they can regenerate fully. Once it is awake, it will destroy what's left from this town. We must seal him to prevent this, boy. Even cover the whole entrance of the cave just to be sure." - Said the alchemist with a worried expression.

As normally happens, the knight became a hero, a legend and even a saint over time. His story would be remembered as the fight between good and evil. But, that is a story for another day...

"We did all the hard work, but he takes the credit." - Said Arkham with a frown on his face.

" Why does that matter? The people of the town were saved and we helped to save them. That should be enough."

That didn't quite convince Arkham, but he decided to stay silent to keep the peace. He thought that his master could be too much of an idealist sometimes.

"Why do they call you "Alchemist"? You are more of an herbalist or a sage than an Alchemist." - Sais Arkham, curious.

"I was one, once. But that didn't get me anywhere. I wanted to transmute plomb to gold, I just wanted wealths back then ha ha. Over time, though, I realized that what I really wanted was to help. Not to have a woman or children. My name will be forgotten. i just wish to help others as much as I can" - Said the sage with a faint, nostalgic smile.

Arkham's dream, his destiny, finally caught up with him.

An enemy's army arrived and with it, a powerful wizard. Their conquer method was to inflict terror so no one even tries to fight back.

What happened afterwards was horrific. All men in the age of fighting were killed. A cut in the throat with a long knife. Some soldiers even raped woman infront of their husbands, not even pregnant women were safe. Male children were thrown from a cliff.

Then, they got to Arkham too. An old wizard, with far more knowledge than him, defeated him easily. His old master had both his arms and legs tied to two different horses and they ran off. Slowly but surely, his bones cracked and his muscles stretched unnaturally until... his body gave up and he was dismembered. His screams full of pain still hunt Arkham after that day. All he could do was watch and scream, unable to stop anything. No matter how horrible it was, he saw the whole thing. He wanted to remember. To use it as a reminder of why he had to become stronger. To avoid events like this to ever happen again.

Arkham was taken into a special cell with runes that blocked his magic. All of that so he could watch everything. He saw the worst horrors possible made by human kind and his faith in humanity broke into a million pieces.

"The old man did not deserve this! I. WAS. WEAK" - Said Arkham to himself, just before passing out from exhaustion.

In his dreams, a dark, dense, liquid shadow appeared. It was chaos itself. It proposed something to young Arkham:

"I can free you, kid. At the right time, I will show you a spell that will help you escape from here."

"What do you win from this?" - Asked Arkham, unable to understand what were the intentions behind this otherwise "selfless" act from the entity.

"You are a piece of a big puzzle that I have planned to free myself. But, this plan needs centuries to become a reality. I am waiting for another era where magic and wizards are just a thing from the past. An era that remains still, far away. You don't have any other choice now, do you? Or would you rather die like your master?"

The soldiers made a big fire to throw the bodies of the folks of the town that were useless to them. Through laughter, the soldiers started throwing the folks, alive, to burn there. The screaming began. The laughter and the screams merged into a shapeless party of sounds. Right then, Arkham heard the voice in his mind and did the spell just as it said.

The door from the cell opened wide and Arkham got out. He went straight to the cave and broke the seal that trapped the dragon. The beast got out, still hurt and enraged, went straight to the soldiers and burned everything to the ground. Not even plants remained on the ground.

Arkham created a shield around himself. It was an irregular circle-shaped shield. Yellow in the center and a reddish orange at the edges. Some threads of his hair started floating as well. He could feel more powerful as the energy from the entity slowly passed through a rift in reality—one that the entity had formed.

Suddenly, a soldier barely alive hit his shield from outside. Half his face half burned, his flesh almost black and part of his skull fully visible. His bloody hand barely hit Arkham's shield.

"Help me... please" - Pleaded the dying soldier from outside. His body was being burned alive by the second outside.

Arkham just watched in silence. With a superiority stare, looking at him as if it was just a disgusting bug that he accidentally crushed with his shoe. Then he looked away as the soldier died miserably.

Everybody else died that night but Arkham. The entity needed a body to inhabit, not any body worked for it. He opened just a little rift in reality, he needed a portal to fully pass through. For both things, it needed a loyal assistant from the human realm.

After the destruction, the dragon went back to the mountains to heal itself. It thought that everybody was dead, that it was safe. But Arkham followed it quietly. A dragon that destroys everything where it goes wasn't exactly discrete for the entity's plan. So, when the dragon slept, Arkham sealed it again but did not kill it. "It might be useful later," he thought to himself. That is when he got out into the world to discover its dark secrets.

He practiced all kinds of dark magic, magic from indigenous tribes from all around the world. He wrote it all in his spell book, obsessively getting ready to take revenge against the wizard that took everything from him.

The entity needed him, his body, to achieve his dark purposes. That is why his body stopped aging after a few years. Instead, he became stronger, and wiser.

After years of searching, he eventually found the wizard that ruined his life. But, time got to the wizard before he did. He found him at his death bed, old, dirty sheets and full of holes. The bed was full of his own piss and feces. He was blind and could barely hear.

Instead of hatred, Arkham felt disgust and disappointment. He wanted to show him how much better he got in a magical fight, but it wasn't worth it now. There was no glory in killing someone that couldn't even see him. The worst punishment for that old man was... to leave him to die like that.

As time passed, rumors said that the king of that town went mad and burned the whole town, killing friends and foes equally. The horrible story terrified other armies so much that they never came even close to that town again.

Over time, the town grew little by little again. History books told that the king made a wise decision to save the town but with harsh consequences.

Just Arkham knew the truth and learned that only brute strength and power are the answer to stop all evil. From that day on, he went looking for absolute power. He never allowed himself to forget the horrifying screams of his master. Those screams were what made him move on towards his objective. There was no place for weakness in this world.

As the seasons changed, Arkham also learned to enjoy... life. Good food, parties and women. He built himself a mansion close to where everything began for him, close to the entity's rift, waiting for the moment to continue his plan.

Other wizards ran away, while others praised him a little too much to earn favors from him. So much that he believed them. He believed that he was the most powerful wizard of the whole world. That arrogance... would eventually lead to his fall.

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