บท 272: Chapter 261 - Memories That Fade

Not giving anyone a chance to react, Lara had already popped open the coffin using a lever. The moment the coffin was opened, Zeel's face paled as he fell to his knees in pain.

Zeel, as a God, could feel the death energy radiated outwards from the opened coffin.

Humans would just feel a chill, but the death energy directly impacted Zeel's own divinity since he was not a normal human.

Mathias looked surprised at Zeel's weakened state, Richard was both ecstatic and frightened since Lara opened the tomb.

However, Lara was not interested in either of their reactions, seeing Zeel again after she was forced to her knees made her realize that all she truly wanted was either affirmation or revenge.

It was until now that the true feeling of humiliation dawned on her, but it was not the tipping point as yet.

Even if she currently wanted to kill him, the humiliation she endured was not overly invasive.

Even if she was forced to her knees, it was by the man she lost her virginity to, the man she wanted to build a life with.

Still, that did not make it okay. What Lara needed to know was very simple…

She wanted to know if being forced to her knees and humiliated was like a husband and wife's night of drunkenness, or if it was like constant domestic abuse.

She wanted to know if it was a one-time thing, or did Zeel truly have that little regard for her mental wellbeing.

Before Mathias could step forward, Lara was already pointing the barrel of her gun at the back of Zeel's head.

She knew that Zeel would normally react and disable her in an instant, but she also grasped his weakness during their time together.

"I noticed you got weaker since we came to the island. You never sweat before when we trained, but you sweated more often the closer we got to the center of the island…

You pant when we have sex, but you never had to catch your breath while fucking me from behind… Remember what I said after we first slept together?" Lara asked.

Zeel smiled wearily and replied, "A woman knows…"

Lara nodded "A woman knows her man… like I know you were getting weaker and weaker for some reason. I wasn't sure but I gambled and opened the coffin… As it turns out, I was right,"

"Congratulations," Zeel said smiling weakly.

He had underestimated the observational power of a woman in love. Suddenly, Zeel had a dreadful thought, Lara's love was much weaker than Alice's and Elizabeth's.

If that was the case, how much did Alice and Elizabeth truly understand about him? How much of his memories and intentions did they truly comprehend?

However, all of these were questions for after he survived.

'Use my remaining energy and send the ping!' Zeel commanded inside his head.

Within four picoseconds, The Red Queen had access to the information network outside the island, and after reading Zeel's thoughts, she knew exactly what to do.

Mathias walked over laughing happily while patting Lara on the back.

"Hahaha... good job young lady. With this, we can all go home," He bragged.

Richard walked next to Lara and inspected the tomb in the distance.

Mathias also walked next to the tomb, not willing to intervene in a lover's quarrel, though his hands remained ready to shoot if Lara wasn't up to the task.

"Did you ever feel anything for me?" Lara asked staring at Zeel with pain in her eyes.

"DID YOU!! HUH?" She shouted.

Zeel did not reply, he was buying time for the death energy lingering in the air to dissipate fully.

Slowly, he could feel his physical prowess returning to an adequate state.

However, Lara grew more irritated the longer he took to answer.

*Bang*

With a fierce gun-whip, Lara smashed the gun into Zeel's head. She had turned from an angry woman into a humiliated, angry, and bloodthirsty woman.

Unfortunately, it was the draconic energy siphoned from Zeel that made her aggressive side peak.

It was as if Zeel was going to be his own downfall.

Feeling his skin break from the gun butt, Zeel thought it was best to not wait until his body prowess returned.

By then Lara would be irrational enough to kill him without a second chance.

Maybe the resilience of his skin could block one bullet, and his skull density another, but three bullets impacting the same location would prove compromising even for him.

It would not kill him, but it would make him a retard for a couple of months.

After all, before a God, he was a Homo-Superior, and to kill a Homo-Superior, all you needed was to damage their brain entirely in an instant.

If you could partially damage a Homo-Superiors brain, then you had a much higher chance of killing them than severing all their limbs.

"Did you love me?" Lara asked, her voice louder and more irritated.

Even Richard and Mathias were scared to interrupt her. It was as if an aura of authority was radiating outwards from Lara.

Zeel suddenly stared at Mathias and said "Your children Hailey and Khalif… 564 Woami Road, New Jersey… you have seven minutes,"

Mathias trembled but still reached into the coffin and carefully extracted a finger from the dead body inside. He carefully wrapped the finger in a bag and inserted it into his pocket.

Lara and Richard both eyed each other since they would gang up on Mathias after dealing with Zeel.

After meticulously finishing his business, Mathias stared at Zeel and asked "What's the price?"

Earlier when The Red Queen accessed outside networks, she used the time to get the information of Mathias' family.

The Red Queen only had time to get the information, but Zeel made it seem as if he had ordered a hit on Mathias' family.

After getting the reaction he wanted, Zeel simply pointed at Richard and said "Kill!"

*Bang*

Mathias did not even hesitate to put a bullet in the back of Richard's head, before darting out of the room.

Zeel could not kill Richard himself because Richard was technically trying to stop Mathias from doing something that may disrupt the natural order of the world.

Even if his divinity was suppressed, Zeel was still bounded by the restrictions.

Killing the hero (Richard) would create a major backlash.

However, Zeel did not plan for what happened next.

*Bang*

Lara didn't even notice the instant she pulled the trigger three times, unloading three bullets at the same location in Zeel's head.

It was an instinctual reaction after seeing her father shot before her eyes.

All Zeel felt was his mind go blank, The Red Queen quickly materialized the Centaur Sculpture from Zeel's storage dimension and positioned it next to his body.

However, if one looked carefully, there was a small rune carved into the centaur sculpture.

Lara stood frozen for a while, then darted to the body of her father.

After confirming his death, Lara mechanically walked back to Zeel's body and caressed his bleeding head. She kissed Zeel behind the head with tears streaking down her face.

Never would she have thought that she actually had the capability to pull the trigger. After all, she only wanted Zeel to say that she meant something to him.

Killing him was never her intention, even if it seemed like it.

Lara's slitted eyes returned to normal as she rose to her feet.

Just before departing she picked up the Centaur sculpture that laid next to Zeel's body. She recalled that he got it from Croft Industries.

At the very least she had something to remember him by.

Never would Lara have thought that the very thing she picked up to remember Zeel by, would be the things that took away her memory.

Unknown to Lara, the moment she picked up the sculpture, the rune at the bottom flashed awake.

As Lara walked away from the bodies of Zeel and her father, with every step she took, a memory about Zeel would vanish from her mind.

By the time she was outside the ancient temple, Lara had no more memory of Zeel, only an overwhelming need to stop Mathias – the man who murdered her father.

With that motivation, Lara ran forward, hoping to catch up with Mathias and avenge her father, while also avoiding a crisis.

After all, she didn't know what was within the coffin, but it was no doubt too dangerous to see the light of day.