Chapter 110:

  **Earlier**

  We were trapped in the Warriors’ Keep. Black bars had shot out from the ceiling, walls, and grounds of the exits that would lead us back up to the colosseum.

  Darkness surrounded us, as well as the smell of iron from the mages who were massacred. Only four of Daz’s mages remained, along with myself, Belle, Ryo, Snow, Rex, and Nyx, who floated, holding both Jo and Nash—still unconscious—in his tiny stubs for arms.

  We had just witnessed Pride get trapped in a multicast of seals by some of the Valley’s highest-tier mages.

  “That was fuckin’ awesome!” Rex said, awestruck at what they did.

  “This is no time to gawk; we need to get out of here.” I replied. “Snow, do you think you could get past those bars?”

  “I can break them,” he said as he protruded steam onto his arms and fists, creating gauntlets. He rushed to one of the exits, and when he appeared in front of the plethora of black bars, he struck down onto it, and it made a loud noise.

  But it was still intact.

  He clicked his tongue at his failure, and Rex couldn’t help but snicker. “Weakling. Let me try,” he said as he loaded his long barrels and held them across each other, chanting,

  “Trajectory Magic: Howitzer Cannon Blast!”

  His guns charged a powerful green beam that radiated light and shot a blast bigger than the barrels. It roared over to another exit with black bars, and the blast sounded upon impact.

  We felt the heavy blow shake the place, but alas…

  “Damn it! My attack didn’t work either!” he complained.

  “Not as strong as you think, are ya, you fuckin dimwitted fruit bat,” Snow replied.

  “How about you fuck off, you blind, dry heaving goldfish!” Rex countered.

  “Will you two shut the fuck up? I swear your insults to each other just get worse and worse by the fuckin’ day. We have more important things at hand here!” I shouted.

  It was at this time that I had made my way over to one of the exits myself and threw a punch at the black bars. When I did, there was only a loud clang from my strike, with the black bars still in place…

  “What? Even my strike? That’s surprising…” I said under my breath.

  “Guess not all things can be solved by a simple punch, can it, Dweeb?” Rex jabbed.

  I threw a vulgar finger in the dark, knowing Rex could see it with his specialized eyes. And then I heard another voice from the other side. A familiar voice.

  “That’s because this is magic,” he said from behind the black bars.

  I thought.

  “If you could please stand back a bit, Greed,” he said to me, and I did.

  Within the dark, he had unwrapped his bandages and formed a one-handed hand sign while chanting,

  “Shadowsteel Magic: Mana Diffusion.” He grabbed one of the black bars. “Wicked Ruin!”

  When he twisted his wrist, the black bars shattered completely in thousands of pieces, allowing access at last.

  “Perfect timing, Zeno,” I said.

  Ryo had flicked a flame from his finger to light where we were. The group stayed close as Zeno entered.

  “And what the hell happened to you?” Snow asked.

  Zeno scratched the back of his head nervously, closing his eyes before responding, “They transferred me to another room in this colosseum for questioning, but when all this started happening, Alphonzo and Henza left me with their other mages.” He became casual again and then continued, “Then, next thing I knew, everything went dark, and I used the opportunity to escape. Now I’m here.”

  When the other four mages saw him, they reacted, but I held a hand out to them and asked, “Tell me, Zeno. And be real with me,” I shifted my eyes back to his and held a stern look on my face. Ryo, Snow, and Rex did the same. “Are you responsible or a part of this in any way?”

  He was silent for a moment, but then looked me dead in the eyes and said, “No.”

  We exchanged glares for only a few seconds more before I broke my gaze and said with eyes closed, “Good enough for me.”

  Between the five of us: Ryo, Snow, Rex, Zeno, and myself, we always trusted each other’s word. We ask, we see, we believe. Asking the right questions, looking into their eyes for any sign of a lie, and then we trust completely. This was an unspoken rule between us that I didn’t expect anyone else here to understand—excluding Belle as she looked at me with a pleased smile from behind.

  “If I was, I wouldn’t have just broken you free from here.”

  “These black bars look awfully like your magic though,” I said.

  “True. But if you look closely, they share different properties. My magic is Shadowsteel—not Tantra-steel.”

  I raised a brow and asked, “Then how were you able to break them and I wasn’t?”

  “Are you finally admitting you use Tantra and not Copper magic?” Zeno effortlessly countered.

  I clicked my tongue as Ryo smiled nervously, Belle furrowed her brows and looked away, Snow frowned, and Rex…

  “Yo…” he said to me and my attention shifted to him. When I beheld him he had shadows over his eyes and carried himself differently like some ominous being.

  “What is it, Rex—”

  “You goddamn liar.” He almost shouted and I stopped talking. “All this time… I had thought you were the master of Copper magic! And now I’m just barely finding out that you use Tantra all this time!? It’s no wonder you were able to survive Lances attacks, win that battle with Ulrich easily, and even back then when you broke out of that hourglass with the others and my QUEEN! NO WONDER SHE’S SO FOND OF YOU! BECAUSE YOU USE A RARE POWER THAT NOT EVERY MAGE CAN POSSESS!!” he got louder and louder…

  “Sorry for not being outright with it… to be frank, I just barely found out this was what my power was.”

  “EXCUSES!!” He shouted again.

  “I don’t mean to interject, Rex—Greed. But we can save this for another time, no?” Ryo interrupted politely.

  “I deserve a fucking explanation when this is all over!” Rex crossed his arms and huffed away.

  I sighed and focused back on Zeno. “To any case, answer my question. How were you able to do that just now?”

  “Ah, that’s easy. You see, it’s called ‘Mana Diffusion’. The opposite of Mana Fusion. So, while Mana Fusions help one gain more dominant and precise control over their abilities, Mana Diffusion releases that control. Simply put, doing this temporarily suppresses magic, allowing one to access another type of power. A power that Greed uses quite naturally—Tantra. I learned this from my Captain.” When he said this, the time Tubolt used the Arc Slayer to fight Syemore made a lot more sense to me. “Only Tantra can effectively counter or even wipe away other forms of Tantra. Like these black bars that trapped you all. They were all Tantra-infused. And though I can use it, I had to train intensely in order to even use a sliver of the power, and can only use it when I Diffuse my mana for a short amount of time. As you can see…” he looked at the bandages all over his body, “It takes a toll on my body. I can’t use it to the extent that Greed can.” He looked at me and smiled with his eyes closed, “Honestly, had you chosen to try that punch a bit harder, you could have broken it yourself, Greed. After all, what Tantra is—is the absence and rejection of magic. You truly did not need me to break it for you.”

  When Zeno said this, it didn’t quite make sense, but it was the closest explanation of what my power was, based on all I had learned about it from recent days.

  Though even if it was a better explanation, I still did not fully understand it all. Like how mine can be seen and takes on a form…

  “Only thing I don’t get is…” Zeno went on. “Tantra is normally invisible, but yours, Greed, we can see. And it takes on a black coating. Why is that?”

  I looked at Zeno blankly and said, “I have no idea…”

  He studied me after that response.

  It was then; we all heard a loud boom from above in the colosseum. So much so that we felt the debris from the ceiling flutter down.

  “What was that?” Snow asked.

  When we looked back at the single projection screen that was still on in the place, what we saw was Pride and his servants, finally free from the multicast seal that had been placed on him.

  “How?” Belle asked as we fell silent at what we’d just seen.

  Ryo spoke, “Let’s continue this conversation later. We must go now!”

  When they all made it past the exit, Nyx, Jo, Nash, and I were the last to go through with Belle in front of me.

  “Mister Greed!” Nyx said.

  When I looked back, I saw Nash barely waking up and Jo making moaning sounds. I smirked and said, “Perfect timing. Nyx, can you juice them with your mana for now?”

  “You want me to drain myself dry for them!?”

  “Did I fuckin stutter?”

  “YOU BLACK WOLVES ARE ALL SO HEARTLESS!”

  I didn’t say a word, expecting Nyx to go through with my request.

  “Fine” was all he said.

  When we finally walked through the halls, Belle held her hand out to me, and all I saw was her light as she said so softly, “Whatever is going on, we will face it together. I am with you till the end, okay, my Greed?”

  I smiled softly and replied, “And I am with you, Belle.” Knowing that what lied ahead was a harsh and traumatizing past forcing us to remember.

  ***

  **Present**

  I stood in front of Daz. Belle, Jo, and Nash behind him. And behind them were Ryo, Snow, Rex, and Zeno.

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  When I appeared before Pride, I felt a surge rush through me. It was a vortex of anger and justification, for the man before me was the one who killed me and Belle long ago. And on top of that… he was the closest to the one who calls himself … our father.

  “You look different, yet the same, since the last I saw you…” Pride said, “You got lucky, that demon Demi’s human form looked strikingly like you already. You might as well be the same person.”

  I glowered at him, saying nothing.

  “No response? Is my presence that infuriating to you?” he mocked.

  Behind him, the large shadow figure I had pummeled and he had swatted away, leaped from the smoky crater it once laid in, and landed just behind Pride to his left.

  Both Belle’s and my eyes roared with intensity when we saw it. It definitely was the same creature that killed us both that day. There had been none other like it.

  “I have nothing to say to a dead man. Do you remember the last thing I said to you that day?” I carefully chose my words. No one here, except Daz, knew of our past. And I intended to keep it that way.

  “So, I’m the ‘dead man’ in this scenario?” he continued to mock.

  I said nothing. Knowing full well what I had meant.

  “What? ‘Go fuck yourself?’” He chuckled, basking in his mockery.

  “No,” I finally replied. “After that.”

  I knew he was thinking about the words I had said,

  “Is that so?” he said, recalling the memory.

  My gaze was so intense it flashed, and he twitched from the sight of it.

  the Presence of the Kinghe thought. And I heard every word.

  “Though I can’t see your face, I can tell you’re surprised about something. I hope to see that idiotic look on your face after I rip away that veil you hide behind.” I said, taunting him now.

  He chuckled maniacally, putting a hand to the side of his face to calm himself. “I can tell you’ve gotten stronger since then, but oh, foolish little brother… it is still so far from the power I possess.”—he removed his hand from his veiled face—“Unfortunately, you will have to save that malice for another time. There is somewhere I must be… I only came to deliver a message on behalf of , and I also wanted to see how you turned out.” He looked up to the sky and pondered for a moment, “You know… I change my mind. I don’t think I’ll leave peacefully after all…”

  When he said this, Polaris appeared before him, kneeling. His back faced Pride as he flicked his hand, and the Zion Orb he had summoned vanished into the ethers. “You have been a good servant. Now, as promised, I will bless you with yet another power so that you may fulfill your final mission as the Keeper’s Judgement.”

  “It is my honor as a follower of the Shepherd of the Apostles,” Polaris said humbly.

  Pride then threw his hands in an intricate hand sign, and the cross on his veil glowed. At the same time, the dangling silver crosses hanging on the ends of his wide-brimmed hat fluttered in the air, becoming upside down as they did—contrary to his apparent title and symbol.

  “Very good. Now with the power vested in me. I bestow upon you your blessing. May you become one with the ethers the Keeper breathes… and pass judgement to those who oppose him.” the world itself seemed to shift then at the sound of his ‘incantation’.

  “Sin Magic: Unification: Judgment of the Cross!”

  He released his hands and placed them on Polaris’ back and a malevolent aura sprouted out from them. Daz’s eyes widened, and then he shouted, “Tubolt, Laylee!”

  Their eyes flickered from where they were in the colosseum to Daz’s call. When he knew they had heard him, he said to Belle, “Captain Belle, please bestow the others with your power so they may as well.”

  She nodded and threw her hands in a hand sign. This type of spell would need ten seconds to cast at a wide range like this, and Pride’s spell only needed five…

  “The rest of us will distract him for you until then!”

  Daz threw his hands in a hand sign, and without even chanting, he summoned five Arc Slayers in the air. Two had flown off to opposite sides of the colosseum.

  From where Tubolt was, he threw his hands in a hand sign and chanted,

  “Carbon Magic: Mana Fusion: Dark Arcane Knight”

  Carbon shards began floating all around him, coating him heavily in grand, spiked armor. His black knight helm was the last to form onto him, covering his face as his eyes glowed red from within the darkness of the eye slits.

  He leaped from where he was, shattering the bleachers and meeting one of the Arc Slayers in the air and grabbing its hilt.

  From the back of the colosseum, Laylee ran on the parapet walls that separated the nearest row from the arena. Her eyes caught Code’s, and she winked and blew him a kiss. He twitched his eyebrow when he witnessed that.

  She got into position and threw her hand sign.

  “Age Magic: Mana Fusion: Goddess of War!”

  When she said this, her body seemed to grow. Her breasts grew larger, and her body became more toned—slender and muscular. Her facial features became more mature, and her green eyes flashed as if she had experienced many battles in a short few seconds. She had looked to be around the age of twenty before she chanted her spell, and now she looked to be in her mid-forties. And time had been kind to her.

  When she fully became this new form, she also leaped in the air and caught the other Arc Slayer that flew in that direction.

  And now, both she and Tubolt were on a clear course directly down onto Pride and Polaris.

  As they both responded to the call, Daz grabbed two of the Arc Slayers he summoned, leaving only one left…

  “Since you are here, young Captain of the Black Wolves,” he said to me, “Will you take the last one.” Not a question. A command woven into a request.

  I nodded, and just as quickly, the Arc Slayer flew and crashed into my hand as I caught it effortlessly.

  We sped. Daz and I flanking Pride from below, and Tubolt and Laylee flanking from above.

  When he saw us just feet away, he released one hand from Polaris’ back and slashed the air with the side of his open palm, and from it, a powerful aura stopped us all in place, seconds before arrival. His two other servants appeared within that time to block Laylee and Tubolt’s attacks.

  I stepped with a heavy boot, cracking the ground, and burst through his aura. Surprised, Pride shifted his head ever so slightly to me, allowing Daz to overpower the aura that had stopped him.

  He broke through and we continued our advance. Inches away from him now, we both swung, and Pride had no choice but to block both strikes, releasing his other hand from Polaris back.

  He caught my strike effortlessly with his bare hand, and the same with one of Daz’s swings. But he had another flying directly toward his center.

  “So close… but you are still too late,” Pride said, almost like a whisper among the chaos in our ears.

  Right then, Polaris aura burst upward all around us, stopping Daz’s last strike.

  Daz and I watched in horror as Polaris became discombobulated, Transforming grotesquely into something menacing.

  Flopping to the ground and striding his legs onto his now oversized upper body, he was going nowhere as he struggled. His groans were those of agony as his body continued to bubble into large, abnormal mutations. Like his skin had become a balloon and his skeleton was left to struggle from the inside.

  It got to the point where the bubbles of his skin had begun to burst, splattering blood every which way. His skeleton pushed through frantically to the point where we saw his mouth through the layer of skin that had ballooned out from him. And he seemed to mouth something amidst the pain…

  After it flared, all the bubbling shot back into him, wrapping him in his own skin, and resembling, now, a fleshed cocoon with legs.

  His blood squirted out from different angles as he said lastly like a declaration to his devotion, “Oh, Keeper… Please refine me!”

  When he said this, his aura burst again, blowing away Daz, Laylee, Tubolt, and myself away from Pride.

  Polaris morphed again and grew arm after monstrous arm from his cocooned state. They were massive as they forced their way out through him. And then from the top of his head, a colossal head emerged, like that of a dragon mutation as it roared and bellowed disturbingly.

  Its scream was abnormal—low yet piercing our eardrums at the same time. Like sound being pulled into itself, only to become a black hole that invaded our ears.

  As it continued to become whole, Pride opened a portal, and his two servants—the red knight and the large shadow figure—began walking through it.

  “Come back here, coward!” I yelled as I bolted over to him, swinging the Arc Slayer.

  And before he walked through the portal, he caught my swing once more and said, “We will meet again when the time is right, and when we do,” he said, mocking my phrasing. “I’ll make sure there is nothing for you to revive. I will erase you from the face of existence until this world and every other world will know not the name of Greed… That he was never living to begin with!”

  My eyes blazed in his presence and I replied, “Good. And when that happens, I will drag you down with me, ripping you to shreds as you do, and the worlds will forget us both.”

  He chuckled through that black veil of his as he gripped the blade of the Arc Slayer and shattered it completely with his bare hand, pushing me away with his other hand simultaneously.

  “Foolish little brother…” was all he said as he stepped through the portal, closing instantaneously. And just like that, he was gone.

  Above me now, the mutant beast he had turned Polaris into had become so large that he looked like a massive dragon with wings like etches of fear and darkness if it had a bastard child. It had four gigantic humanoid hands. The claws on each were a quarter the size of the arena; it had an abdomen that floated downward from it, and the size of it was as large as this entire colosseum. It roared once more, and the whole Valley staggered from its eerie cry.

  Belle was ready to cast her spell as Daz shouted back to her, “Is it ready, Captain Belle?”

  “Aye,” she said, chanting afterward,

  “Holy Magic: Divine Blessing Multicast!”

  When she cast her spell, gold, glowing lights emanated around every single person in the colosseum—the citizens as well.

  It was then that Daz finally said, “Well done. Now…”

  He was standing before the enormous beast and threw his two Arc Slayers down to the ground next to him, placing his hands in an intricate hand sign, chanting,

  “Nullification Magic: Mana Fusion: Arms of Hecatoncheires!”

  It was then; a multitude of Arc Slayers had been summoned into the hands of each and every person. Every Guild. Every knight and mage alike. As hundreds upon hundreds of Arc Slayers had found their way in the hands of every single person in the colosseum.

  “Valley!” Daz spoke. His voice was the embodiment of power and justice. Every ear listened as he spoke, “Before you lies a threat to the Kingdom, your home. In your hands is the key to stopping this abomination. Each and every one of you has the power to add to this massive blow. No power is denied when we all stand together as one to banish evil. So, please… lend me all your strength!!”

  When he said this, the colosseum erupted in valiant roars and cheers. The beasts in the bleachers had all halted as if being forbidden to move. Even the Black Wolves had an Arc Slayer each to their name.

  In my hands, the Arc Slayer that Pride had shattered began to reform.

  I looked over at Daz, and he found my gaze and nodded.

  When I looked around, the whole place glowed black and gold. This was the power of the Arcane King, backed by the Princess of the Valley.

  “Now, go!!!” he yelled. And as if in unison, each and every person swung in the direction of the massive floating beast in the sky above the colosseum.

  Black slashes emitted from each blade in one direction as the sky became decorated in flashes of black from everyone’s strike.

  One after the other, the slashes rained upward and onto the enormous beast that was once Polaris. Explosions rippled endlessly onto it as it took each blow; it was like black fireworks in the sky that could be seen across the entire Valley Kingdom.

  Drone birds still occupied the skies as they recorded the situation at hand; projecting to each and every person from here, to the Forest Kingdom, to the Desert. All eyes were on this moment to witness their Arcane King.

  Rain after rain of black slashes struck, and it looked as if it were causing the beast agony in the sky. And then, from where Daz stood, he picked up the two Arc Slayers he had stuck into the ground and began shrouding himself in a black shadow that looked familiar to my black coating.

  It etched every part of him until it stopped just under his jaw. The part where it stopped was jagged and formed white teeth—just like my form when I had allowed it to engulf me.

  I was stunned at his form, but now was not the time to wonder about it.

  When he had completed his transformation, the Arc Slayers to his sides had morphed into something more intense. The blades became intricate and were more massive than they already were.

  Though his eyes were a hazy gray, the way he looked at the monster was so extreme that it gave his monochrome eyes a different weight.

  “Begone, spawn of sin. You are not welcome here in the Valley.”

  His movements groaned as he readied his Arc Slayers. The ground cracked from the mere slight movements he was making. And then with a powerful voice, the voice of the Valley Kingdom itself, he chanted,

  “Nullifying Magic: Mana Diffusion: Wicked Blade Orchestra!”

  He swung both blades consecutively in a drawn-out way. The black blade slashes were so huge that they distorted the air. From where Daz had released them, the entire arena shattered at his wake. I had completely lost my footing from it all.

  As the final black slashes coursed the air onto the massive exploding beast, all color had left just as they arrived. And the monster, with a life short lived, saw it all in that moment before its impending doom.

  A blast erupted so intensely that it ruptured the sky. Its pulse was so strong that all the people of the Valley felt it as it gently pushed against their skin from wherever they were. The fireworks of explosions became one with it as it danced upward, coursing through the beast. It lighted the sky through the ominous dark gray and orange clouds, with the blast itself becoming like a beacon from the Valley’s depths.

  I was awestruck. And I could tell, from the people here, to the people watching from all over through the drone birds, that I was not alone in my astonishment.

  I began to believe that, had he been the one who defeated Syemore instead, there would be fewer casualties than when I had fought him.

  “It’s over,” he said under his breath.

  The smoke from the gigantic blast above still occupied the sky. And from below, the beasts in the bleachers with the crowd had begun to fade up and away into the smoke along with it. The crowd and all the Guilds started cheering at his awesomeness shortly after.

  Before more eyes were laid upon him, he dispersed that mysterious coating from his body, and all that we witnessed was the plain man with brunette hair, a khaki trench coat, and the meek face everyone knew like a comforting campfire.

  Looks of relief had struck each one of them, and the Valley was once again at peace.

  That’s when the smoke wiped away, and the massive beast that had taken Daz’s Wicked Blade Orchestra head-on, still occupied the skies.

  Its remaining presence had caught everyone off guard. The damage that had been dealt onto it had been reforming this whole time as it became as it once was before the blast. Pristine. Untouched. Like Daz’s attack and his spells had never happened.

  The look of disbelief, horror, and trauma had struck the citizens as sections of the colosseum began getting slaughtered one after another from the rain of its sharp wings that it had unleashed upon them.

  “The Arcane King… failed to slay the beast…” a random citizen said as he was struck by an unknown blow, blowing them all to bits.