“Isn’t that a nice candlelight dinner?” I was still eating the apple slowly while our beloved heroes fought waves and waves of undead that just kept coming.

“There are no candles … and you are sitting on the feet of a dead dragon so I would call this anything but romantic.” She told me while snipping her fingers and blasting a weak air bullet towards Ellie who had her hands full with other undead.

“You don’t know what men want …” Hannah had never been romantically interested in anyone and she always kept her distance from men, so she shouldn’t know what romantic was and what wasn’t.

“But you do?” She eyed me from head to toe as if I said something surprising.

“Absolutely! I can get every man.” I told her while twirling a bit of hair around my index finger.

“And what is it that ever man wants?” Hannah asked again, probing me further.

“In the end, they all want to live.” I pointed towards Schwarz who fought like a madman, tearing through hordes of undead, his eyes darting towards us more often than not.

“Huh? But you never fulfil their wishes, do you?” No … not really. In the end, all of my partners would die.

“I always try to … anyways, don’t you think they had their fun already?” These four certainly fought well so far, so much so that I began to doubt any amount of these dumb undead could bring them to their knees, especially because Irminsul had yet to lift a finger. I knew from Lucy that she wasn’t keen on murdering living beings … but none of them were, so there had to be other reasons she held back.

Suddenly – while I was biting into the last piece of my apple – a bright light shot into the sky, illuminating the area around them for several kilometres and burning the skin of these poor undead to crisp.

“Whoah, that’s some serious magic right there!” I exclaimed happily and stood up from my dragon’s paw only to walk through the burning undead towards the hill. Instantly, the dragons jumped up high and roared loudly, attempting to get away from that light slowly eating away their flesh and wings. “No you don’t.” Just for fun, I ordered them to fly straight towards the group which they promptly obliged to. Their massive wings flapped a few times and then, they were already at their target, roaring loudly as a massive tree suddenly sprouted out from the ground and blocked their way right in front of them.

The dragons crashed into it head first, bending the tree backwards dangerously, but not enough for it to break. After all, it was created by a goddess, so the three dragons had no chance from the very beginning. As soon as they wanted to push themselves off it, branches drew them back in, securing their bodies in a thorny embrace.

“Give up Lucinda.” Suddenly, Sofie had teleported herself and Schwarz behind me which made me turn around slowly with my hand at my hip.

“Uhm … why?” I asked kind of dumbly.

“Your army is dead, your dragons captured. I know you want to lose this battle, otherwise you wouldn’t have sent us to find Irminsul. Lucinda … we can turn everything back to the way it was. You just have to surrender.” She was basically begging me to stop fighting them at this point, but that wasn’t a path I could take.

“Oh. It does look as if there is some misunderstanding here. I can’t afford to lose. The situation has changed.” That honestly baffled her a little bit but certainly less than Schwarz who was reaching out for my sword, a very strange expression on his face, coupled with desire clearly showing in his eyes, at least until I kicked him away rather disgusted.

“Why … I don’t understand.” She muttered while healing Schwarz’s broken bones effortlessly.

“Because you are a piece in a game stacked against you. The goddess you invited onto this world isn’t showing all her cards to you either, is she? You are just a nobody in the grand scheme, a piece to be used. That’s why you don’t understand what is going on.” Hearing the distinct sound of a spear flying through the sound, I twisted my body to the side and evaded the spear by hairs breadth, but failed to do the same with the magical shield being thrown at me. It hit me in the stomach brutally and made me fold up a little, but luckily there was no magic involved in that throw. Just pure strength, amplified by the system itself.

Schwarz immediately used that opportunity to jump towards me, aiming directly towards my right arm  and hugged it tightly. “Fucking addict.” I growled angrily and tried to shake him off, only to be hit by a spear of light in my shoulder. It bled horribly as if it was created to target me specifically and as I grabbed it to get rid of it, barbs grew out of the magical spear.

“Just give up Lucinda. It’s not going to get better from here on out. Everyone except Hannah already left you, and even she is nowhere to be found right now.” Louis told me, strolling towards us with his hand in front of his body.

“She is literally behind you.” I giggled a little as I pushed the spear through my body and let my sword transform back into a snake which directly assaulted Schwarz. Louis opened his eyes wide as his back was poked with one of two swords Hannah held in her hands. So far, she had been deadly silent while floating above our heads, so much so that the others missed her completely.

“Don’t move or you’ll regret it.” Hannah told him, and then just waited while nobody else moved. All except one.

“Lucinda …” Irminsul said as she walked towards us, the ground around her blooming with colourful flowers. “… we need to –“ She was so short of uttering out everything she shouldn’t. She wasn’t allowed to talk about Lucy, otherwise Aska would know everything.

“No we don’t.” I told her, finally shoved Schwarz off me while the snake coiled around his neck and eyed the unarmed Ellie. A bit wary about her, I stepped out of their encirclement and strolled towards Irminsul.

‘You need to get closer.’ Frowning a little, I stopped right in front of the goddess, exactly as Schwarz fell to the ground when the snake strangled him.

“I need you to get rid of Aska if he isn’t telling me the truth.” I told her truthfully, reached out for her shoulders and leaned over to her. With my forehead on hers, I closed my eyes and let go of my own body.

Lucy wrestled herself free of the chains she put on herself, pushed trough until she reached the surface and took control of my body, this time without my resistance.

“Your eyes …” Irminsul muttered quietly while Lucy went for a hug and closed her eyes which must have given her away otherwise. Honestly, it was weird to feel everything, to see just like usual but still not being in charge. I was just a passenger while Irminsul patted her daughters’s back and Lucy was driven to tears, at least until I had enough of it and wrestled control away from her again.

Pushing myself off Irminsul again, I stared into her green eyes, hoping she would understand what I needed from her.

“You are my friend Irminsul … and I need you more than ever before.” I told her while wiping the tears away from my eyes.

“I …” She looked over my right shoulder towards the heroes I selected, but especially towards Lucy. “I surrender.”

“What?” Ellie shouted out in utter disbelief. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you again!” She shouted out and dashed towards her spear, completely disregarding that her boyfriend still had a weapon pointed at his back.

“Sofie, use it! It’s now or never!” Ellie shouted while Hannah knocked Louis unconscious in a matter of seconds.

“I …” Sofie balled her hands into fists and looked towards Irminsul who apparently just smiled back.

“It’s cute that you encourage her …” I muttered towards the goddess while a bright green light formed in Sofie’s hands. “But I don’t see a reason for this.” I snipped my fingers and attempted to erase the system in the surroundings, but it acted up horrendously as soon as I tried that. “How the heck …”

One glance over to the goddess revealed it was her doing, but that was to be expected.

Suddenly, hundreds and hundreds of magical, green spears, swords and daggers appeared all around us, being either pointed at me or Hannah.

“Okay …” I mumbled, honestly quite shocked by the development. I never expected Sofie to put her everything in an offensive spell directed at me.

‘That might dissolve this body into nothing.’ Lucy mumbled in my head, probably sensing stuff I couldn’t.

‘No shit Sherlock.’ I could defend myself against this, but not without hurting everyone around me which was not what I wanted to do at all. A bit annoyed by the development, I let the snake around Schwarz’s neck let go of him and jump towards Sofie. Sadly, a barrier appeared right in its path while the magical weapons all around us started screeching loudly.

Our mission was to capture everyone alive, and therefore we didn’t have that many options to choose from. But luckily, there was still amongst them I always wanted to try out.

An option so consequential that it would change the world forever and shake it to its core. It was an easy step for me, but a huge sacrifice for humankind, not that I really cared about that.

‘Level up. Leve- Cong-‘ For the last time in my life, that would boom through my head. Just like the tick it was, I located the system on my soul, grabbed it with an invisible limb and ripped it off me without hesitation. Instantly, the connection was severed between me and my system, resulting in an uncomfortable silence in my head for once. Finally, all the voices in my head shut up, leaving me with a strange calmness I hadn’t felt for a long while.

For me it was a small change … but for the world it was a completely different matter. For once, nobody could hear my voice anymore, because … well, the system was gone. And with it, the abilities humans shouldn’t posses, with it the support it provided to magic users, the free skills it gave out … everything.

The spears were halfway towards me as the basis the magic was constructed on just disappeared, turning the spell unstable right away. It collapsed into itself unspectacularly as it just vanished into thin air, its mana used for the spell dissipating into the surroundings.

The first one to notice properly what happened was probably Sofie as she felt it firsthand how the usually supportive system was just … gone.

“World of darkness!” And the next one to realise was Schwarz. He was still storming towards me as he realised that he was slower and weaker than usual and his magic just wouldn’t activate.

“The world hailed the beginning of my coma as a crucial change … heck, they even changed their calendar after that date … but I really have to wonder how the complete absence of the system will impact the world. Will we see a civil war? Probably not .. I already prepared for that eventually after all. But still, we will surely see a distrust in religion … and a weakening of humanity. Everyone is as weak as you are right now … so give up. It’s over.” There was no way they could win this. Hannah alone could beat them into a pulp at this point as her magic alone wasn’t affected by my action.

“Schwarz … Ellie … Sofie, you just lost all your strengths and the so called gifts the gods gave you. It’s over. For real.”

“Give me my sword back!” Schwarz screamed hysterically and ran towards me, only to hug my arm once more as I refused to hit him. A bit disgusted though, I pushed against his face and tried to get rid of him entirely.

“Let me go …” I growled and smacked his head, but he continued to cling onto me frantically.

“Please! I need it!” He begged loudly. He really begged. Annoyed, I reached out to my sword flying towards me and put it onto his neck from behind.

“I really want to stab you right now … but you have a family at home, so I’m not going to yet.” I told him quietly.

“Please … I can’t live without it! It’s mine …” his eyes were tearing up while the disgust within me rose to unimaginable degrees. I just couldn’t understand how he would value his family less than a sword … and so I let go of it, grabbed his neck from behind and tore him off me brutally.

“Hannah, put them in chains. If anyone resists, you are free to do whatever …” I told her, looked at Irminsul one last time before strolling towards the dragons which were completely done for. At least they did their job … but now I had to watch that the others did their jobs as well, even though they had yet to understand properly what theirs was.