Being ripped apart, and in turn devouring them, such was the way of combat Arthur Graves chose.
When his limbs came flying off, he used the blood from those he'd killed to replace it, patching himself together with amateurish craftsmanship, over and over again.
"KILL ME! PLEASE, KILL ME, PLEASE!"
His words came out as sobs, as his mind and soul were both directly assaulted. He collapsed to the ground, clutching his head and digging his fingers into his skull, whimpering and moaning grotesquely.
"Wahhh… please, end my life already, please… I'm so tired. I'm so, so tired of this, please…"
He made his demands clear. Yet, whenever he was impaled, he would force himself out of the impaling object, and patch himself back together with blood, before killing whoever managed to hurt him with a barrage of swings which cleaved their bodies into bloody pieces of gore.
"Arthur," Tyler said quietly.
The intense pain stifled his breath, making loud snorts of disgusting sickness, as Arthur looked up, seeing everyone once more.
"A-aggh, hg, gu-guys…?"
Tyler, David, Emily and Sally, all of them stood before him, before he was grabbed by dragons and lifted up, being dismembered as if he had gone against the cartel.
His loud sobs of weeping and pain, the whimpers of agony and desperation, such were frequent and permeated the sounds of the battlefield. Grunts could be heard, faint cries of pain from other dragons as well.
But among them, the loudest crier was Arthur Graves.
"G-g-g-guys, ai, I, I didn't, sorry, I, I was, wasn't, guh."
"Just stop talking already. We've seen enough. Goodbye."
So, with a cold shoulder, they all turned around and walked away. Arthur wiped his tears, rushing forward with his cutlass, screaming for them to not abandon him.
However, he was quickly halted when his head was jammed through by a dragon's claw. From the back, all the way to the front, making its way out of his very face, the giant talon appeared.
"Mmmmlglghhhh…"
His tongue stuck out slightly. The talon was taken out, and the wound was patched up. Arthur wailed in agony once more, before continuing his worthless assault on the dragon responsible, hacking them to bits and slaughtering them, draining the entire thing's blood.
All of it was worthless. For the pointless existence, and the deep despair that was Arthur Graves, it was all worthless.
What others saw, when others could talk of dreams for the future, of goals that they wanted achieved, of hope and purpose, Arthur couldn't see it in the slightest.
He couldn't see what others saw in life. Nor could they see what he saw in himself.
…
Alice prepared the Riftessaract. It was a purple, unassuming cube, one which might be shown in a low level geometry class.
Eugene held it in his hand, and looked at Damien, and spoke.
"If you're aiming to get the Traitor out of the way, you'll need to bring him here."
"What? Why?"
Eugene laughed a small bit, before saying, "unless you want me to snipe him with a cube, it's best if he's over here so I can aim it right. I don't want to hit anyone who doesn't need to be hit with it."
"But can't you just fly over?"
"If the other dragons see me arrive upon the battlefield, they'll get startled and might go after my family. I won't risk that."
Damien nodded his head, taking a deep breath before looking over at Arthur from afar.
'I have to bring him here. Well, it shouldn't be too hard, should it? After all, he hates me. I just need to get him over here.'
'What if it's a trap? Well, as long as Arthur is sent away, then… no.'
The notion that as long as Arthur was gone, he would accept that he would be trapped, and likely killed by Arthur, was something that unsettled Damien.
He loved his life, held it dearly and clutched it with all his strength. He would not so easily accept death.
After all, he still had to save Jack.
Yet, he decided to trust.
Damien flew out, heading towards Arthur. Arthur Graves was stabbing a dragon to death with a reverse grip on his cutlass. Typically, reverse grips on swords are really stupid. It was the same here, but he did it anyways.
"Ungh, kill, kill, kill me! I just, ofu! Aguh, huff, ah… please, make it stop; I'm sorrysorry, really, so sorry!"
By now, the dragons knew to avoid close quarters combat with Arthur, taking their distance. No matter how many times they ripped him apart, he'd just be patched together.
"Motherfucker," said a Sword Dragon. "He just keeps regenerating. No, he'd run out of stamina if it was truly a dragon's regeneration. He's using his ability, you can see the recovered flesh shine red for a moment before it turns back to normal."
Then, to which, another Sword Dragon responded.
"What do we do?"
"As if I know. What a bastard, he's like a walking corpse that just doesn't die."
"Ah, whatever. It'll be quite the claim when we get to say we killed a living corpse."
Arthur spotted him, his eyes entirely widened, his pupils small. Arthur leapt through the air, bringing down the cutlass and slicing the head of the dragon in half down the middle.
Blood gushed out, coating him, which he absorbed and turned around, before having his legs and limbs all cut off by the other dragon. They were replaced and his cutlass being grabbed by tentacles, bringing it over and slicing apart the other dragon.
Arthur wept, falling to his hands and knees, before he heard a familiar voice.
"Arthur! I'm still alive!"
Arthur turned his head, his brain being so corrupted that he mistook Damien's voice for Sally's. He saw Damien, who had a small, frightened smile on his face.
"Guh…"
"C'mon! You wanna kill me, right!? Eat me, and you'll get even stronger! Let's keep going!"
Damien looked at Arthur's face, hoping for an expression of rage, or perhaps greedy joyfulness. However, such a thing was not what he saw.
Instead, he saw a look of hopelessness, of tears and pain, etched onto the face of the corpse.
"A-aahg, guh, m-muh, mo-mom, ow…"
Arthur's head sank, breathing intermittently, starting and stopping, going fast and then slow, slow, slower until a halt, before rushing back with intense breaths.
'What…? Why's he not, huh?'
Arthur slammed his head against the roof railing, breaking the metal off and flinging his tears at the ground.
"K-kaul, kyeal, kill, m-n, me… it, hurts, it hurts, it hurts… help, me…"
He clawed at the ground, staring at Damien with pleading eyes. He wiped his eyes, looking at Damien with red eyes and eyelids from his sobs.
The effects of the Mind Dragon had been in action for quite some time. His brain continued to rot inside of his skull, degrading and degrading until it withered to ash.
"It hurts, the pain, won't, it won't stop. I want to die, I want to die… TO DIE! IT'S ALL WORTHLESS, IT'S ALL WORTHLESS, WORTHLESS, WORTHLESS!"
His head crashed against the floor this time, as he let go of his cutlass and clutched his head.
"I w-waiant, wan - ted, to, live… b-but, but I can, can't. No-none of thith, it doesn't, mean, doesn't, doesn't, mean…?"
After his evolution, the barrier had disappeared, and both of the main Mind and Soul dragons placed their effects onto Arthur, ignoring everyone else on the battlefield.
"I, I want, ted, I want to, k-kill, kill..."
Arthur leaned back, no longer having his head pressed into the floor.
"Worthless, stupid, stupid stupid stupid Arthur!"
Rubbing his forehead along the ground, his fingers clawed at the ground.
"Aigh, aight didn't, d-deserved, to lived. Sally, Sally, why'd I die…?"
In between his wails of pain, he chortled a stifled laughter. It was more like a sharp gasp for air, but it was laughter nevertheless.
"Agh…"
He stopped laughing, his face turning into a sorrowed expression once more. "It hurts…"
"My brain, is, is broken. I, am, useless. Too weak. Subhuman. Not fit, not to live. I am… the worst."
Damien looked at him with both concern and being weirded out. "Arthur," he said. "Come, come with me. Come follow me, and you will be able to die."
Arthur's eyebrows raised, and he wiped his teary eyes, standing up and smiling. Damien flew away, no longer relying on any hatred Arthur might have.
Arthur followed him and reached the tower with everyone else. To which, Damien told him to stay put, and Arthur did so, standing in place, his neck facing down but his head straight up, as he clutched his cutlass tightly.
Then, the Riftessaract was brought out by Eugene, and the King family stepped back, including Damien.
"I, die…?"
Damien nodded his head.
…
Seeing this unfold, Raiden flew through the air.
'That's the Riftessaract! Ace of the King family, if what I've heard is true, then it's the best thing possible for a warrior!'
Raiden crashed next to Arthur, right as the Riftessaract landed next to Arthur after having been thrown near him. A large, purple, translucent cube expanded to fit both people inside.
Arthur turned towards Raiden, who smiled and held the Dragonslayer tightly.
…
"It's over."
…
A flash of bright light. Such light did not come from any mystical force or entity. Rather, it was the sun.
"Huh?"
In the middle of a forest, the sun beamed down on Arthur and Raiden both.
"Sick! If it's like this, then I can fight a whole lot of things!" Yelled Raiden, who laughed. Arthur looked around his mind being "fixed" nearly instantly, to which he wiped his tears and grimaced, squinting his eyes as the sun really was bright.
"What kind of…?"
Within that forest, the leaves were bright purple, and the tree bark was pink.
"What happened?"
Such was his question.
…
Coincidentally, it was also Damien's question. Eugene turned towards him, smiling lightly.
"The Cube's power—or, I guess it would be better to call it the Riftessaract—its power is the ability to send any object or person inside of it back to the world where dragons came from."
Across the universe, Arthur Graves and Raiden Zeus, had both been sent to another world.