Chapter 1: No Escape
"Is this it?" The voice of a man tore through the silence that smothered the planet, edged with disdain. "y'know , from the way 'He' hyped up this galaxy, its Renegades, its oh-so-grand Sentinels, I figured you'd be tougher."
A young man with dark, flowing hair and icy blue eyes hovered above the gruesome slaughter below him, gripping a young Renegade by his left ankle. The Renegade was stuck dangling upside down, his crimson hair streaked with his own blood, his face battered, and his chest torn open. Below them sprawled a wasteland of death and horror. Bodies were piled together like broken dolls, organs were strewn across the ground, and pools of blood bathed the landscape. The air reeked of copper and rot, almost dense enough to choke on.
The floating man, Ronin, was a Reincarnator. He had come to this planet with a single mission: To kill every living thing on it. He had succeeded, and admirably so.
Reincarnators were the chosen, souls blessed by the Primordial with extraordinary, fathomless powers. After their death on a planet called Earth, their souls were handpicked by the Primordial and brought to another universe, following a brief audience with the entity. He granted them special abilities, or "golden fingers," as Ronin liked to call them.
They were told by their fellow Reincarnators, that the people of this universe were evil blasphemers who had strayed from the path of salvation. No matter how kind and caring they seemed, they couldn't be trusted. After all, a being beyond their comprehension had declared it so. Why would he lie? His words were undoubtedly the truth.
Ronin's new worldview was further solidified by the Renegades. The most decrepit sinners who hunted righteous Reincarnators like him. In this new life, he'd gained everything he ever craved, everything he had ever desired. He now had power beyond his wildest dreams that allowed him to seize anything he wanted. He had an endless supply of women from different species to toy with before purging them, due to their sadly evil nature. Most of all, he was extremely crucial to the cause of his fellow righteous Reincarnators. His past life as a bullied nobody who was beaten to death, paled in comparison. Wiping out evil felt natural when asked.
Ronin scoffed.
"Guess it was all noise. Either that or this planet is just the bottom of the barrel." He said with a snicker, jostling the last Renegade on this planet. Droplets of blood from his wounds fell, splattering the ruin below.
He sighed
"Tsk, how underwhelming. It seems like I'm done here." He moved to hurl the Renegade aside with a flick of his wrist, only for a hand to seize his own before he could, ironclad and unyielding.
Ronin's eyes widened.
"What!?"
The Renegade's right boot crashed into his jaw with bone breaking force, shattering it. Ronin's teeth sprayed through the air as his scream tore out, mangled and wet.
"Ahhh! Myh jahww! Yohu brokhe my jahww!" He flailed, plummeting, his voice a slur as his tongue flopped uselessly.
The earth trembled with a deafening explosion as they crashed down, rubble blasting outward in all directions. Ronin slammed face first into jagged stone, agony ripping through his body. The Renegade had twisted mid-fall, using him to absorb the impact.
He coughed as he clawed at the debris, spitting blood.
"Damn it! What the hell was that?!"
He struggled to push himself up — then froze.
He realised the Renegade's right hand was still clamped around his, unyielding as a vice.
"Finally," the Renegade said with a rasp, his voice low and chilling. "I caught you."
He rose up from the debris, his bloodied figure seeming more menacing than it had been before. His crimson hair hung in clumps, framing his emerald eyes that burned with fierce and unrelenting hatred. Suddenly, his chest wound throbbed as the torn flesh began knitting itself back together. Slow at first, then faster, until the skin sealed shut as if the wound had never been there.
Ronin stared in disbelief as all of the Renegade's injuries disappeared one by one. The blood left behind being the only sign that he had even been injured in the first place.
"How... How arhe you sthill alihve?!" He had tormented the Renegade the longest out of anyone on the planet. He'd driven his fist through the Renegade's chest, broken all his limbs, shattered his skull against stone. The Renegade had been a corpse hanging by a thread.
A faint smirk tugged at the Renegade's lips. "Not your concern."
All his wounds were completely gone now. He took a slow step forward, his boots grinding against gravel. "You're fast, extremely fast. But.... I've been wondering. is super speed really your Prime ability?"
"It certainly seems that way at first. The moment you move being the same moment you arrive at your destination, with zero time passing. It's an extremely broken ability. If you were smart enough, you could most likely wipe out most of the Renegades in this Star system within days."
The Renegade smiled darkly.
"At least you would be able to, if that was actually your Prime ability."
Ronin flinched.
"Something I noticed over time, as you butchered my colleagues, is that during that instant when you're moving, you can tear through almost anything like paper. Yet when you're not, you're barely capable of denting our base."
"Took me awhile, but I finally figured it out. It's because your ability generates a field around you whenever you move. An extremely powerful field that lets you move as if you were disconnected from the flow of time, making everything that isn't, easier to break apart. Including a Renegade Commander.
"At least, that's my guess from watching you fight."
"The truth is that, You're not actually that fast. you rely entirely on the ability being activated. Which means that If you don't activate it in time, anyone can kill you with a fast enough attack."
"Physically, you're strong, but not by much. You're about as strong as an average blue Mornan. Compared to the Commander that was stationed here... you're nothing worth mentioning."
The Renegade smiled bitterly.
"The only reason you're still alive is because we made a mistake, due to ignorance. We overestimated you"
Rage twisted in Ronin's gut as he stared at the Renegade in disbelief. He'd never feared an enemy in this new life since his speed made him untouchable. If the opponent was too much for him, all he had to do was run away. But now, for the first time since his reincarnation… he felt vulnerable.
"How deare yohu!" Ronin shouted, enraged.
The Renegade's smile faded as he took another step closer, now standing right above Ronin.
"Naturally everything I've said so far isn't that bad of a weakness. It certainly hasn't given you any difficulty, thanks to the initial fear people have from seeing you move."
"But what happens when someone manages to hold on to you, while the ability is deactivated."
The Renegade's grip tightened ever so slightly.
"Wouldn't that mean that, I'd be in your field as well, when you turned it on? And that I'd be moving just as fast as you."
Panic flared in Ronin's eyes, as he realised how much danger he was in. His instincts took over as he moved.
His field activated, making it seem like everything outside of it was paused. Inside this field a single leap could take him miles away. In a blink, he vanished, becoming a blur of motion, reappearing miles away, deep within a jungle of glowing vines.
Countless corpses littered the ground around him. They were remnants of his earlier rampage across the planet. Naturally, no time had passed outside his field. In this state, distance meant nothing.
But something was wrong.
The weight was still there.
His stomach twisted as he turned... and there he was.
The Renegade stood unscathed, still gripping him, shielded by his field.
The Renegade looked around in amazement at their current state. His gaze eventually landed on the corpses of the innocent, men, woman and children who lived on this planet, causing his expression to become blank again.
He turned to Ronin and smiled darkly. His theory had been correct.
Ronin's eyes widened in panic.
"No…"
"Now then, let's get on with this."
A fist slammed into Ronin's gut, folding him in half. His breath left him in a strangled "Gahh!" before he flickered away.
Mountains rose around him, jagged and cold. The Renegade was still there, still clutching his arm, still relentless.
"Leth Gho!!"
Ronin thrashed, trying his best to break free of the Renegades hold. A knee crashed into his ribs a second later, snapping them like dry twigs.
He blurred again, appearing in a desert this time, but nothing changed. The next punch crushed his cheek, his bones splintering under the impact.
He ran again and again. Wild, desperate, frenzied.
Ocean cliffs, ruined streets, a storm-lashed plateau. But no matter how far he jumped, how fast he fled, the Renegade clung to him like a shadow.
And with every movement came pain.
A kick shattered his shin. A fist broke his nose. Blood sprayed all over, painting the air as he stumbled through each frantic jump. "Stopp it!" he slurred, his voice shallow.
The Renegade didn't stop for even a second, as his eyes burned with fury. His fist fell like a hammer, relentless and methodical.
Ronin's body crumbled. His jaw hung loose, shattered beyond repair. His chest caved inward, ribs ground to powder. He wasn't thinking anymore. He had no strategy, and no plan. Only his blind, animal instinct kept pushing him to run and survive.
With every desperate leap, the Renegade was still there, holding on. Beating, breaking, and tearing him apart, piece by piece.
"Pleahse…" He flickered again, again getting weaker and slower each time, until he finally stopped, His legs buckled, dumping him into the dirt.
He looked around, realising that he was back on familiar ground.
The last place he had struck, and the beginning of his downfall. Corpses sprawled before him, the same heaps he had made.
Nho… nho…"
His body was wrecked, swollen, split, and barely holding together. His ability couldn't save anymore.
The Renegade knelt beside him, his breath steady, his emerald eyes cold and unblinking. Blood still streaked his face, but he didn't seem to care.
His hand wrapped around Ronin's throat, lifting him up with ease, like a broken toy. Ronin's head lolled, his blue eyes dimming, as he pleaded through the haze.
The Renegade studied him, his expression unreadable. "I guess even Primordials make mistakes. He should've picked someone smarter."
Ronin continued begging for his life.
"Wait, pleahse. We're both Humhans right?you're just like mhe. Please forghive me for what I did to Yhou. Whe don't have to be enemies"
The renegade's expression remained blank as his fist drew back.
Ronin couldn't comprehend it. He was the chosen one. Blessed. Invincible.
How had this happened?
How could he lose to evil like this?
Surely, he'd survive… right?
Surely, there'd be some divine intervention... right?
Ronin twitched desperately, his last feeble jerks before the blow fell.
Bone cracked as Ronin's skull caved in, his brain matter bursting out in a spray.
His body finally went limp.
In an instant, Ronin's life had ended for the second time.
The Renegade let the corpse drop.
Ronin's body hit the ground with a dull thud, settling among the very corpses he had created.
The Renegade stood still for a few moments, shaking blood off his knuckles, his gaze sweeping over the carnage.
The Renegade finally gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Damn it!"
He cast one last glance at Ronin's lifeless form, then spat on it.
His boots crunched over rubble and organs as he strode off to alert his higher-ups about his current situation.