[Book 2] That time I got reincarnated as a slime,no, a DRAGON?

CH-41

3rd Person POV

At the end, the woman turned around. She seemed to be around thirty years of age. The dark surrounding completely changed into a hellish landscape. Thousands of corpses lay on the ground. Their Armor scorched and bodies burnt.

"Ne...? Can you kill me?" The woman said in a pleading tone as she turned to look at Chloe and Chronoa. Chloe was already shocked and couldn't move. Chronoa seeing this, decided to take defensive measures in case they were attacked.

"As you wish." A voice resounded. This surprised both Chloe and Chronoa as the man with a familiar voice walked through them as if they were not there. He raised his gun and shot, yet the gun malfunctioned and missed. Seeing this, Rimuru sighed and took his sword and pieces through her heart.

"You really are blessed by the Gods." The man said and turned around. Seeing his face, both were surprised to see Rimuru.

"Rimuru?" Chloe asked, but he didn't reply.

"He seems to be a part of the memories."

Slowly, the body decayed, yet the sword in her hand continued to stay unchanging. Countless people approach it, but lose their mind as soon as they get close.

The sword soon shines bright as thousands of hands come out of the shadow of the two. Chloe, unable to turn around, was struck frozen with fear as she could feel the resentment and anger of billions directed straight at her.

The woman's soul form a translucent figure behind the sword and stared straight at Chloe.

"A soul so bright. You will never understand what it means to lose someone close to you."

This causes something inside Chloe to change.

"You will never understand how it feels to be left alone."

"NO!! NO! I KNOW HOW IT FEELS! SEEING YOUR LOVED ONES DIE IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES.... Watching helplessly as I travel back in time, only to experience it over and over again.*sob* What happened to you was certainly sad, but it isn't the worse. There are many people with worse fates than this."

"What do you know? You have the chance to change it." The woman said as she came closer."

"You can try again."

*Step*

"You can have hope."

*Step*

"You can one day succeed." The woman said with her face inches away from Chloe.

"A light this bright had no qualifications to even hold me. But you are strong. I will make good use of your body. I am sure I'll find someone who can kill me once and for all."

It was only then did Chloe realise that Chronoa was nowhere to be seen. Hundreds of hands caught her body and dragged her down into her shadow. All the while, the woman had a large smile on her face as she continued to look straight at Chloe, or her hand, to be specific.

As Chloe was trying to break free, a bright light shone from the ring she was wearing on her ring finger. The light soon faded and everything returned back to how it was, except for the fact that Rimuru was also there now.

"You sure are courting death." Rimuru said.

Chloe was surprised and relieved to hear the dependable voice behind her.

"Hoh? You couldn't kill me then, can you do it now?" The woman asked in a mocking tone.

"*Sigh* will you really not help her? Isn't she just like you?"

"Have you lost your mind? How is she the same as me? She had someone to put her hope on. Someone to trust.... Someone to rely on. I didn't." With sad tears on her face, she looked at Rimuru with hope.

Rimuru swung his sword, cutting off all the hand like tentacles that were clinging to Chloe. The hands provided no resistance, as if this was exactly what they wanted. Rimuru then quickly seperated Chloe's consciousness from the world. With Chloe no longer here, Rimuru made his way towards the woman.

"I really hoped you would help her." Rimuru said as he raised his sword.

"She isn't like me. It would be unfair for a cheerful girl like her to fall into this cruel world. Protect her innocence."

"That's a given, after all, she is my wife." Hearing this, the woman smiled as the sword struck down, cutting off her head and sending her to eternal peace.

The world slowly began to crack and disintegrate as it's owner and creator was no longer alive.

Rimuru completely destroyed this world and made his way out.

Outside...

As Chloe regained consciousness, the sword was giving off an ominous aura. But the aura began to diminish as cracks appeared on the sword, and soon, the sword shattered. Chloe, unable to understand what had happened, looked straight at Ciel and Aaron. Aaron just shrugged as he himself had no clue what had happened, meanwhile Ciel was looking smugly at her hand which now bore a ring. Before she could ask Ciel, Rimuru, who was just standing lifelessly moved, as his soul returned to his body.

"R-Rimuru? What was that?" Chloe asked. To this, Rimuru just smiled weakly.

"I wanted to see if she would accept. Seems like she didn't. It seems like she didn't want to serve someone as positive as you."

To this, Chloe couldn't say anything. She had already heard from Ciel. Though futuristic technology and space travel sounds tempting, but it was made possible at the continuous sacrifice of billions.

To her, better technology meant better life for the people. But this technology has only widened the gap between the poor and the rich, but has also dropped the value of human life. With trillions to quadrillions of intelligent creatures across the universe, no one cares if one or two million were to die off. That was the cruel reality.

"Aaron, we will be leaving now." Rimuru said.

"You sure you don't want to stay here for some time?" Aaron asked, but he already knew Rimuru's reply, so he started walking out the door.

"No. Even you know that."

".... Fine. I won't stop you. Follow me. You can just create a wormhole in the laboratory. Nobody would suspect anything." Aaron said as he left the room.

Rimuru and Ciel followed him and Chloe followed behind Rimuru. They slowly made their way out of the treasury, beyond the large gate and went to one of the rooms. The room was small with a glass surrounding the three walls except the one which had the door. Even the floor and ceiling was glass. In reality, the room was a large sphere to conduct experiments in. The glass cage was only a viewing point.

"It was nice meeting you again. Take care." Rimuru said as he hugged Aaron.

"Same. Lady Chloe, lady Ciel. Take care." Aaron said once Rimuru let him go. To this, both of them nodded and jumped out of glass cage and onto the bottom of the sphere, where Rimuru opened a portal back to his world. Rimuru turned around once and waved back at him before entering the portal. Ciel turned around and bowed and Chloe imitated her before crossing the portal. Once all the three had crossed the portal, a silence feel upon the empty room. The portal disappeared, yet Aaron continued to stare at the place where the portal once was.

"He left, huh?" A woman's voice resounded in the empty room.

"Are you sure? Shouldn't I have asked him to stop. If we are seriously going to fight that world, we will definitely suffer casualties."

"So what? He is already dead. The Azatoth we knew is dead. We should let him live his second life in peace. I doubt he has much of his initial strength left."

"Even so. Just his knowledge is valuable enough. And, to tell you the truth, even though I couldn't feel any of his mechanical radiation, he definitely was strong. Not only his aura, but,... You know.... How do I say this?.... It's just my intuition, but I doubt he has gotten any weaker."

"Is that so? That's fine as well. It doesn't matter. I am just glad that brother and sister-in-law are safe. I have no idea how sister-in-law revived since she didn't have a soul barrier surgery, but I am glad she is alive. I hope they live happily in peace. I really do."

---------------------------

I hope you guys liked it.