4- Awakening
(1)(2)
(3)
Weapons were considered as the most ancient war tools
all the way since humans’ greed started to accelerate all the way to its
pinnacle. With that in mind, it was without doubt, obvious that weapon became
part of a warrior’s life. Descendants of the three clans began infusing part of
their souls into a certain weapon which resembled their abilities the most. And
the weapon will follow them even if they died and their original souls left the
body, all the way until the lost souls found a new host.
***
“Well, don’t forget your scythe next time, Shadow.” Slitzh
smirked while handing over the aforementioned weapon to me. I was a little
surprised.
“You broke into my house?” It didn’t matter if he
actually broke in or not, as he literally saved me from a monster. He shrugged
his shoulders, and turned around to stare at a huge picture of a gargoyle
hanging on the bedroom’s wall. Seriously, who could sleep with a picture of
that right in front of one’s bed?
“Nah, not really, our fight kinda dragged all the way
to the Wyvern neighbourhood, and he hammered your house a little, really just a
little. I saw this and I simply took it.” He seemed a little guilty, but I
didn’t blame him though. That house was useless to me anyway.
“No family?”
“My mom passed away after the souls in her collapsed,
dad went to somewhere which I’m not sure of, and my sis got kidnapped by some
thugs I guess…” I held my right hip using my right hand, leaving my left hand
free to move, acting lazily as usual. I was used to being asked these kinds of
questions, but the crack on my heart did worsen after every similar question is
asked.
“Oh, one thing Shadow, this is your bedroom, the
grandest and most luxurious room you’ll ever come across in this castle. Be
proud of it.” He seemed rather gleeful while stating that, and I couldn’t read
his mind. But I was dumbfounded; well the room wasn’t the filthiest or clumpiest
to spend the night in, but with a nightmare-inducing picture in front, a dim
yet unbalanced chandelier hanging from above, a small fireplace to the right of
the blood-coloured queen bed, and a wooden rectangular table to the left,
slightly lit with the help of a small candle, it certainly was the scariest
place to live in. But whatever, it’s not like my destroyed house was any less scary.
“So, do you wanna explore the Wyvern Castle? It’s real
easy to get lost you know.” Belle walked into the bedroom ever-so-silently. She
placed her hands behind her back and looked up at me with a smile, seemingly
able to charm a live killer whale. Being a feet taller than her, I placed my
left palm on her head and pressed it down slightly.
“Shorty.” I
smiled, and she punched me at the abdomen, it hurt a lot.
“Grrr...”
***
The Wyvern Castle’s exterior was probably made by the
most insanely useless designers to ever exist, but its interior was the
pinnacle of pure artistic brilliance. Outside the bedroom, which was a long
futuristic hallway flooded with automatic doors, moving floors, random switches
and buttons which did nothing other than summon a self-destructing
gargoyle-shaped robot, switches and buttons which really did nothing, and scintillating
neon lights, as if they were to explode any moment. Totally contrast to the
rather eerie old-fashioned setting of my bedroom.
“Why didn’t Slitzh force me into this clan in the
first place?” I asked with full of curiosity. I knew well enough that Slitzh
would’ve knew about Ryzen’s soul choosing my body, but for ten years he didn’t
make a move until recently. Children up to the age of seven were unable to be
chosen as a host for the reincarnated souls, which meant that some innocent
seven-year-olds would lose control of their sanity once their reached the age
and died in the most gruesome manner, such pity.
“Well did you remember how Slitzh fought with that
guy?” Belle casually walked to a closed metallic door and I followed her, not
knowing what to answer. She pressed her tiny little thumb onto the fingerprint
scanner, which the security system failed to detect. Almost immediately, the
alarm system went off, and my eardrums nearly burst. Soon it stopped and the
door opened, and when I observed the scanner, it seemed to be sliced into half,
with the other half lying on the steel ground.
“Sorry, but the Wyvern Castle’s technology is a little
bit… outdated I guess, haha.” She sheathed her sword, and my mouth nearly
dropped. The first thing I noticed about the room was its silence, which was
rather unusual as literally everywhere in the castle was filled with random noises
coming out of nowhere. There were people in black robes lying down on glowing
beds, probably sleeping I guess. But with purple lights scattered everywhere, the
nightmarish feel of the room and the occasional blood splattered on the black
tiled floor, it certainly looked more like a torture room than a huge dormitory
or a surgery room. Then, I remembered something.
“What is this?”
“It’s the awakening process. It’s basically combining
all the souls in one’s body into a single unit, thus enabling the body to
harness only the best of each soul.” She whispered while I tried to form its
image in my mind, somehow I felt that my mind could not comprehend with the
myriad of happenings which occurred those three days; the destruction of a
city, getting chased by some leader of a stupid clan, and the fact that there
was more to the reincarnation process than I formerly thought.
“We won’t be awakening our true powers yet though,
because we need to prepare, and it’s gonna take a while.” She turned around,
walked and stood beside me whose burden was lifted a little, at least I knew
that I could still try and stop the war without any more bloodshed. I was a
little too ambitious. Belle poked my right cheek.
“And if you’re thinking of stopping the war without
bloodshed, well forget it. Sky and Zariot, along with their original souls, are
the most zealous people on earth, and they wouldn’t want to give up on their
dreams just like that.”
Oh, and Zariot Crimsonheart was the leader of the
Falcon Clan, just in case I forgot to mention.
***
“What are you, picking on people weaker than you?
Don’t you know shame?” I remembered that incident as clear as day; Slitzh
suddenly emerged out of nowhere and landed on the road below. After recovering
from the fall, he brushed off the dust on his black singlet. His words brought
the rampaging Sky to a halt, and I let out a breath of relief. Sky turned
around almost instantly, revealing his scruffy looks to the blood-manipulating
old man.
“Heh, if you don’t force them, no one will, chum.” He tightened
his grip on the giant golden hammer, which head was already larger than the
holder himself. He grinned, showing off his surprisingly polished teeth.
“Their souls aren’t ready yet?”
“It’ll take a while, sorry to disappoint you. But at
least you can face me right?” Apparently the scars on both of his forearms were
his “weapons”, and they grew longer, to the point that it stretched from his
shoulders to his palms. His eyes glowed crimson red, and gargoyle wings
sprouted from his back.
“I’ve never done this in a while, feels good to be
strong again.” Multiple sharp bloody protrusions emerged from the elongated scars,
all of them curved in a way that they were pointing upwards. Sky remained very
calm.
“To achieve this power, all of the souls, original or
not, needed to be in sync with one another, and both of my souls agreed to continue
this war. Now, let’s end this, Sky.”
Suddenly I felt a strong grip on both of my shoulders.
I wasn’t sure, but Slitzh probably told the gargoyles to drag me and Belle back
to the castle. I initially struggled, wanting to see the fight between two of
the strongest men. But I soon understood the danger of the fight when a huge
gargoyle made of blood was summoned to the scene to shield the city from what I
think were huge, flying rocks, thousands of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment