Lewd King's Bucket List

Now, you're missing tons of context and the minute details of my relationships at the time. So, once again, the Greatly Terrible Ixion shall provide an abridged recap.

Cecelia — secret things happened in the dark. Close, but not quite lovers. Neither of us knows what that meant.

Coraline — friend.

Despair — guardian figure, but I saw a crack in his facade.

Hope — respected battle companion. A little distant compared to before.

Marcus — apple-stealing fucker.

Tristan — brother of the apple stealer. Guilty by association.

Drath Artoris — epitome of honor and my role model.

Ah! How splendidly terse I was! I didn't know I had it in me.

Use your own imagination to fill in the gaps of how I got to that point, but just know I had definitely unlocked my emotional side by then.

Or at least, it was blooming.

Well now, I guess it's about time I begin the recounting of that awful day.

There's really only one place I can begin… in the heat of battle!

"Coraline!"

I rushed forward toward the unconscious girl, then picked her up and cradled her in my arms as a horde of Scourge surrounded me.

An unexpected Seed had spawned in the middle of our reserve camp, spewing out a cluster at a scale we'd never seen before—one that had formed behind where our front line was fighting, while many who'd grown complacent with the string of victories were unmasked or unarmored entirely.

See? Sourdough Gimple's training was not useless.

Asshole though he was. If everyone had followed his advice, maybe it would have gone a little differently.

Or maybe it wouldn't have made a difference whether we were prepared or not.

Coraline was one of these unprepared soldiers. In her case, she was missing her helmet. Not only that, debris from when the Seed exploded had knocked her out, slicing deep into her right eye.

It was in this situation, with the Scourge surrounding me and one of my only true friends vulnerable, that I cursed for the first time in my life.

"Shit!"

Fighting the Scourge was easy for me.

All I had to do was get a little close and then slice through their souls using a Soul Blade, but now I had to worry about Coraline.

No…

Now I had a choice to make.

The Scourge were crawling all over our camp, slaughtering my forces one by one. If I were to abandon Coraline, who knows how many I would have been able to save? But she would die.

My choice was made long before I made it.

I told you; I realized what I was fighting to protect—what I wanted to protect.

I stood my ground and defended Coraline with all my might.

"Despair!"

I had no idea who was around, but I called out in a fit of desperation. I even used one of my Traits to project my voice.

"Despair! I need you! Come to me!"

He heard me; I was sure of it.

I turned my focus to the vile beasts dripping black ooze and unleashed mayhem upon them.

For how long? Even I don't know.

I didn't know then, and I definitely don't remember now.

All I recall is that by the time Despair had reached me, Coraline and I were the only two alive in the reserve camp.

"Despair! Take her! Take her and run!"

"As you wish, Ixion."

Despair bowed, took Coraline by the wrist, and disappeared into the Memory Realm.

Letting him take her was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.

Back to the fight…

I was left alone, but wasn't alone for long. Soon, the backs of the soldiers on the frontier appeared on the horizon, a terrifying horde of the Scourge bounding after them.

It seemed once news of the sudden Seed in our camp broke, the line collapsed, as they didn't know how to retreat. It was an oversight on Cecelia's and my part. We had trained and regimented our warriors to be a force that never retreated, for retreat meant Kaldora's fall. But that led to them not knowing how to do so properly.

So they, too, were surrounded and culled one by one until only the elites of the elite were left alive.

We were no longer an army—

Just a ragtag group trying to survive, joined in separate clusters. Some of these groups wanted only to get out of there.

Others, like my group of Marcus, Tristan, and myself, were racing to our third camp—the camp where civilians were lounging around and soldiers on break had abandoned their armor.

As we ran, I screamed louder than I ever had before, hoping the general watching over this encampment heard my plea:

"Lorkel! Prepare a line of defense! Evacuate!"

They were still several kilometers out, but it was clear my words were useless.

When he spotted the encampment, he saw the Scourge deep inside—a mass of civilians rushing out the back gates while a single man faced the endless horde.

I had no idea how long he'd been fighting alone, but our group quickly joined him. I aided civilians when I could, but I doubt my efforts changed much on that front.

Things finally started to change when a few more allies appeared. Then even Hope made it.

But in time?

Perhaps we could have been later, but we had been late enough already. Most of whom we were meant to defend were dead.

What protectors were we when we lost all we had to protect?

That's something I still wonder to this day…

In a twist of irony, left with nothing to defend, we drove back the Scourge. It was hard. By the battle's end, there were less than a hundred of us. But of those who lived, we all ascended to a higher rank.

That's when I became Boundless.

But what about Despair and Coraline?

Well, it turns out he took the order I gave while under an irrational spell far too literally.

I had meant for him to take her to the Memory Realm, then come back—but he never did.

No…

Instead, he had something much more sinister planned.