Ellie found herself in the middle of the city.

She looked around and saw that the whole place was absolutely destroyed. The streets were completely empty with not a single person in sight.

The buildings had fallen on each other like a pack of dominos and debris was spread all over the ground. The sky was drenched in red and a tornado of darkness could be seen on the horizon.

She was completely alone and shaking her whole body trying to make sense of the situation. The last thing she remembered was being stuck on a building that was catching fire and being surrounded by some kind of silver blur while her aunt was pa.s.sing out on the floor.

That was when she realized something.

"Aunt Evie!!!"

She remembered that her aunt had been completely trashed by a little girl with ponytails and weird eyes and was probably gravely injured right now. She started to panic and began to run around the city screaming trying to find out what happened with her.

"Aunt Evie!!! Aunt Evie, where are you!!!??"

She kept running and screaming until her body couldn't stand any longer and decided to take a small break to catch her breath.

She then decided to take another look at the city.

"What happened here??"

She couldn't understand how the situation became like that. The city was completely fine when she entered the restaurant, but now it seemed like a meteor had crashed into the town.

"Who...?"

She then heard a voice coming from behind her. She turned around and saw a weird figure covered in a dark red cloak. The face was covered with a hoodie but something about this figure sounded familiar.

Ellie tried to speak to it.

"W- Who are you...??"

"..."

The figure came closer and stared at Ellie for a few seconds then moved its hands to remove the hoodie and show its face.

"Are you lost, little girl...?"

"Aaahhh!!"

Ellie was in shock. The person in the dark cloak was her aunt Evlin.

"Aunt Evie!!! I was so worried!!!"

"Aunt Evie...?"

Ellie hugged her aunt with all her strength, almost making both of them trip and fall on the floor.

"What happened to you? Why are you wearing a blanket? Why is the city like this?? Why- Agh!!!"

"..."

Ellie wanted to keep asking questions but she saw something that terrified her and almost made her faint. She had seen her aunt almost every day so she knew exactly what she looked like, but something was really wrong with the way she looked right now.

"Why... Is one of your eyes glowing...???"

"..."

Evlin then moved Ellie away from her and took another look at the girl. Ellie realized that Evlin's usual green eyes looked very strange right now. One was glowing with a very unnatural tone of green, very different from her aunt's usual color, while the other was brown for some reason.

"Ahh... That's right... You're stick-girl's niece... Sorry, my bad... Been a while since I last saw a living human..."

"W- What...? What are you saying, Aunt Evie??"

"Sorry kid, there is no "Evie" anymore... Right now, I'm a whole new being."

"What??"

Her aunt started to frown her face, looking really annoyed.

"Ah... This is such a pain... Humans are such a pain to deal with... Every time... All of them..."

"Aunt Evie, why are you talking like this?? What's going on? What happened to the city??"

"Oh, that? I was redecorating... Did you like it?"

"Wha... What? You did this??"

"Yeap! Look!"

Evlin then showed both her arms and some kind of energy started to surround them.

Ellie observed as small grains of sand started to gather around her aunt's hands and begun to join together to make some kind of object. Before she noticed, the sand had finished gathering and Evlin was now carrying a pair of swords on each hand made of stone.

"Alchemy!"

The cloaked woman then said this word out loud and the stone swords began to change their composition. Evlin's swords were now made of red diamonds.

"Aunt... What are you..."

"Just watch kid!"

The energy surrounding Evlin's arm started to swirl around her swords as if they were being ignited. Ellie tried to look at the energy and realized that it had three different colors. Silver, green, and dark red.

Both swords looked like they were on fire charged with that energy and she proceeded to swing them on the street. A ma.s.sive wave of power was then unleashed, slicing the ground in half.

The wave continued to move until it reached a building and created a huge explosion on contact.

Evlin rested one sword on her shoulder and looked at Ellie.

"Pretty cool right?"

"..."

Ellie fell on her knees as she saw her aunt completely destroying the city and realizing that she was in fact the one who caused all this.

She looked at her aunt one more time and noticed that her eyes were constantly changing color from silver, to green, to red. The same colors as the wave of energy she just released and the fire surrounding her swords.

"Who... Are you?"

Evlin grinned and answered her question.

"I'm Myriad... Myriad, the living weapon! There is nothing in this world that my hands cannot destroy. Nice to meet you!"

"What did you do to my aunt?? What did you do to aunt Evlin??"

"Evlin? She and I played a small game... A little gamble to see who could come out on top. And sadly for her, she ended up losing... So now I'm enjoying my prize!"

"Your prize?"

"Yeap! I got the one thing no one ever managed to obtain no matter how much they tried..."

Myriad started to spin around and unleashed several more slashes of her sword over the whole city, and any building that was still standing began to fall as well.

She finally stopped spinning and released a wide grin towards Ellie while flas.h.i.+ng her terrifying eyes.

"I got her power for myself!!!"

As she said that, Ellie started to notice several creatures rising from the ground. Beasts that resembled different animals and humans merged together as if they were put inside of a blender.

"Aaaahhh!!!"

Ellie began to scream in terror and started to run away, trying to escape from this reality.

"Boys! Time for lunch!"

Myriad gave her command and all the creatures started to chase after Ellie.

Part 2

"Nooooooo!!!!!"

Ellie woke up from her nightmare and found herself on a hospital bed wearing a patient uniform inside of some kind of clinic room. The window view showed a clear blue sky, revealing that it was morning already.

"Arf... Arf... Arf..."

She was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily after seeing the image of her own aunt ordering a ma.s.sive pile of creatures to come after and devour her.

She began to shake while hugging herself uncontrollably.

"What was that!? What was that!? What was that!? What was that!? What was that!?"

"Are you ok?"

"Huh!??"

She looked around and saw that someone was by her side in the hospital. Some strange woman with long black hair and covered in silver armor.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Where am I??"

"Calm down, calm down... You're safe..."

"Safe??? I'm not safe!!! I just saw my aunt trying to kill me!!"

"... What...? Little girl, what did you say?"

"My aunt!! She was carrying some weird swords and commanding a bunch of monsters to chase me!! The city was destroyed, the sky was weird, she was dressed in red, and her eyes were s.h.i.+ning, and, and..."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down, take it easy... Start from the beginning..."

Ellie took a deep breath and began to tell her dream. The silver lady listened to the whole thing in silence as if trying to figure it out if it was really just a nightmare or maybe something more.

Once the girl was done, the lady offered a gla.s.s of water to her.

"Are you sure you saw Evlin's face?"

"Yes... But that wasn't her... She said her name was Myriad... She said she had gotten my aunt's power..."

The lady made a heavy expression and twitched for a second.

"Did... Did she said how?"

"Wha...?"

"Did she said how she managed to get your aunt's power?"

"She... She said she had beaten her in a game..."

"Anything else...?"

"No, sorry..."

"It's ok... You should rest now... Your mother will be here soon..."

"Ah! What about my aunt!!?? Where is she??"

"..."

"Please!!!"

Part 3

The lady covered in silver armor took Ellie to her aunt's room.

Some of the nurses and doctors gave a few suspicious glances once they saw a weird female knight walking down the hallways but none tried to approach her.

Ellie was a little worried about seeing her aunt's face again. The image of that woman called Myriad smiling at her with nightmare-inducing eyes was not leaving her head. She worried if she would ever be able to look at her aunt again.

"You ok...?"

"... I don't know..."

"... Maybe we should wait for your mother..."

"No... No, I want to see her... I need to see her!"

They entered the room and saw Evlin sleeping in a bed covered in bandages and attached to machines that were keeping her alive.

"Aunt Evie!!"

She was severely injured and barely breathing. She looked to be in so much pain that Ellie began to feel guilty over the idea that she was ever scared of her.

The girl started to cry and came closer to hold her hand in an attempt to see if she would open her eyes.

"Aunt Evie... I'm so sorry... Please don't die..."

The silver lady also approached and started to question Ellie.

"Young lady... Could you tell me exactly what happened to the two of you?"

Ellie tried her best to muster the strength to release words again and began to explain the events of yesterday.

"This weird girl with one eye glowing green and carrying a bunch of red bombs came to us and invited us to eat with her..."

"..."

"I didn't want to go, but aunt Evie didn't want to leave her alone for some reason... She kept trying to convince the girl to go home, to go away, but the girl just kept ignoring her..."

"..."

"Then she started talking about how my aunt stole her toys or something and how now she was going to be her new toy..."

"..."

The armored lady began to show an angered expression while Ellie started to shake remembering the events of last night. She was so scared the whole time, desperately hoping that the night would just end and that the girl would just go away, but she never did.

"She also said that she had one week to get her powers back and kill her or she would... She would... She would kill her family..."

"..."

"After that... The fire started... And then..."

"And then you had your dream... It's ok... No need to say anything else..."

"what... What's going to happen...? What is that girl going to do with us??"

"She is not going to do anything to you... I won't let her."

"You... You promise...?"

"Yes... I gave my word years ago that I would be the one to take this demon down... And I never go back on my word!"

"Demon... That girl was a demon...?"

"Half of her is... The other half is just a really rotten human..."

"I don't understand what you're saying!!"

"Your aunt never told you about us?"

"..."

Ellie then took another look at the silver lady. She started to recall her aunt's stories about a group of friends who would travelled the world with a crossbow girl to collect silver metal, fight demons, and face off against a G.o.ddess.

Among this group, there was a lady that would fight with silver armor and move so fast on the battlefield that she would look like a blur and completely demolish her opponents before they could even react.

If these stories were in fact real, and judging from last night's dinners, they apparently were, then the lady from the story and the lady in front of her were one and the same.

"Ah!!! It's you!!! You're... You're..."

"My name is Lilith... I was one of the party members of your aunt's old group. I came here to hunt down and kill the demon that escaped from my world."