Chương 263: Change, is it worth it?
Zero shook himself awake from his momentary surprise and stormed towards Zeraph, peeved at him. He was the cause of the barrier's downfall and the one who had his parent's Krustallos. The thought of having something that didn't belong to Zeraph made him angry, mostly because it brought an unwanted memory he had forgotten.
It was like seeing his mother's Soul all over again, especially in the hand of someone who shouldn't have it in the first place. The Eternal Soul gave off the same familiar feeling he had of his birth mother. The mere feelings gave him flashbacks of what had happened at the hospital and with his brother.
"Zero?" Agnis replied, making her way towards his back as she sat. "Are you okay?" She asked with concern. Something was bothering Zero's mind, and she knew that what just transpired in front of them was the reason why.
Zero didn't answer; he went straight toward Zeraph without stopping. His emotions were simmering to the point where it was spilling over, his body was tense, and he glared towards Zeraph as if he was going to burn him alive right there and then.
Even Zeraph could feel the strong emotions rolling out of Zero's body. His hand unconsciously reached over towards his sword, resting his arm on it. He flicked his hair back and stared straight at Zero without flinching. Zeraph wasn't the type to be scared or intimidated by Zero's deadly glare but challenged it instead.
"Zeraph," Zero replied coldly, his body giving off a slight blood lust aimed towards Zeraph. His tail swished, annoyed as it thumped against the ground. Even his claws dug into the soil, causing a deep indent. He wasn't just scraping against it but completely rooting out the flowers and plants under his claws without thinking. "Why do you have my mother's soul?"
"Mother's soul?" Zeraph asked, confused. He tilted his head, looked at the Krustallos, and back at him. The thought didn't register in his mind, and he was confused at what Zero had just said. "It's just a powerful gem I found underneath the castle."
Zero scoffed at Seraph's answer, then he growled. "That is the Eternal Soul. The stone made from my dragon parent's Soul."
Then it hit Zeraph as the answer finally dawned on him. His gaze softened as he looked at the stone. He flipped it a couple more times, letting it slip in between his fingers. "That's why I saw those dragons a while ago." He thoughtfully examined the stone as he raised it up into the air, letting the sunlight hit the stone as it sparkled. "You know that never happened until now."
Zero wasn't sure if Zeraph was lying, hiding something from him, playing dumb, or didn't know what it was. His mind was in turmoil; he wanted to snatch the stone out of Seraph's hand and keep it safe. But the dragon instinct in him was screaming to take the stone now and destroy Zeraph for stealing something so precious.
There was an inner battle in Zero's mind that he had to check constantly. His human half was trying to quell the anger in the dragon's mind. It wasn't easy, especially because of the flicker of emotions that seemed ready to burst any minute. Words like thief, murder, and even egg breaker kept flashing in his mind; he had to zone out the raging thoughts until he could finally control his emotions.
The strain on his mind was complex. Instead, it gave him a slight headache. Luckily, his human mind dominated most of his thoughts, pushing back the dragon side.
"You still haven't answered my question." Zero was getting impatient at Zeraph, the dragon's emotions were still leaking out of his tone of voice. "Why do you have my parent's Krustallos?"
"Do you want to know?" Zeraph's lips turned upwards, enjoying every moment of Zero's annoyance.
"Yes!" Zero's voice went up an octave, bringing attention to everyone else. Quite a few people were staring at them, wondering what they were talking about.
Zeraph walked over towards Zero, jumped onto his side, and scaled up towards Zero's head. He made himself comfortable as he sat on Zero's head as if it was his rightful spot.
This annoyed Zero. He shook his head to throw Zeraph off, but Zeraph smacked him once to stop him. Then, alarmed at Zeraph's rude action, he was ready to do a splendid head throw, but Zeraph spoke, stopping him.
"We should find a place to talk," said Zeraph. He casually crossed his leg, not even phased by Zero's wild head movement. "We don't want everyone listening in."
"Fine," Zero replied, wondering again if he should throw Zeraph off. He decided not to and thought about getting him later on. "You need to tell me everything."
"Don't worry; I will." Zeraph patted Zero's head. "Let's go to the rear, away from prying eyes."
Zero glanced around him and noticed that quite several people were watching them. He didn't realize that he, Zeraph, and Agnis had become the center of attention, making him uncomfortable. Having so many eyes set on him made his feet shuffle forward quickly, as he wanted to get out as quickly as possible. But, unfortunately, he forgot that the army surrounded him in the heat of the moment.
"Let's go." Zero turned around, walking past the soldiers that opened up a path for them to walk through. General Liam rode over on a horse towards Zero. He stopped and glanced up at Zero.
"Zero!" General Liam called out to him as he steadied his horse. "Can you explain what just happened?"
Zero eyes furrowed, unable to figure out how to explain everything. He needed to understand more variables, especially Belial, the fallen angel, and the Eternal Stone. He knew he would give half-baked answers to General Liam because he didn't want to tell everything. Sometimes certain secrets were best kept to oneself, especially in Zero's case.
"Well, for starters, Belial is a fallen angel," Zero replied, knowing full well that General Liam would ask such a question. Instead, he told him first before he could ask.
"I suspected as much, but why did he come to you?"
"He wanted to leave me a message saying that the Demon Prince will be waking up in 4 years and 156 days."
"4 years and 156 days?!" General Liam shouted, shocked at how soon the Demon Prince will awaken. His voice went up an octave that slightly cracked. "So soon?!"
"Yes."
General Liam fidgeted, his face darkened, and his hand tightened around the reins as he thought deeply about what Zero had just said. "This is grave news. For the Demon Prince to be awakened is considered a major event. We must quickly retrieve the Holy artifact and return to the Queen."
"Just out of curiosity, who exactly is the Demon Prince?" Zero asked. He had just heard about the Demon Prince today. There were snippets of the Demon Prince in Lilith's memories and other OMs, but that was it. He knew that the Demon Prince had put a curse on his people, killed off the older generation, and was now attempting to harvest all of his brethren's souls once again.
"You don't know?" General Liam was taken aback by Zero's words. He expected that he would know about the Demon Prince because Belial talked about it to Zero.
"I don't know much. Honestly, information about the Demon Prince is so rare that it's difficult to find." Unfortunately, this was the truth; there wasn't anything about the Demon Prince in the Draconis Library or the Legend about how he disappeared.
General Liam nodded, understanding why Zero didn't know much about the Demon Prince. "The six great Heroes of the Fire Continent are so widely known because of their contribution in sending the Demon Prince back to oblivion."
"Wait, six of them pushed the Demon Prince back?" Zero was surprised that the six of them had such power to send back the Demon Prince. The last that he remembered was that Lilith had changed into a demon. "I thought Lilith was dead by then."
"Only Drake was the last Hero who stood up against the Demon Prince in the final battle. In his last moments, he sealed the Demon Prince with the cost of his life."
"What happened to the other heroes?"
General Liam became saddened by the memory of the Legend. He sighed and began telling the story. "As we all recently discovered, Lilith had turned into a demon a while back and was slain. Samuel, Lilith's husband, vanished. No trace of his whereabouts is known; even the Queen does not know where her father had gone. Some say that he went to search for a way to bring his wife back, others stated that he died at the hand of one of the Demon Prince's Generals. While Cello, the troll, died when he slew the last known black hydra that rampaged in the war against the Demon Prince."
Zero listened intently, the story of the heroism of these heroes so far didn't come out as happy as he had thought they would be. There was quite a bit of a dark side to the story that he had just now heard about.
"Connor, the dwarf, was assassinated in his sleep on the last day of the war against the Demon Prince. Finally, Lulu, the poor Soul." General Liam shook his head, making Zero feel like something terrible had happened to Lulu. "She has been spirited away, stolen by the Demon Prince to spawn his wretched kind." He shivered.
Zero started with gaping jaws; he felt like the happy ending of heroes he usually heard about was all just a lie. He thought at least the majority of them lived happily ever after, but instead, he was rewarded with doom and gloom. Hearing about Lulu's horrible fate made him cringe; he felt it might've been best not to know about the bad endings of the heroes.
"But," General Liam leaned over, "these are more on the line of rumors. The winner of the war replaced the majority of what I had told you and glorified them by the victors. Only our Queen knows the history of the Heroes of the past, and what I have told you is that she has not refuted it once."
Zero darkened at the thought of what he had just learned. "What exactly was the Demon Prince even trying to accomplish?"
"That is a question we don't completely know, but rumors state he wants to destroy the whole of Noriene for his own selfish reason."
"I see?"
Selfish reason. That was what all humans, living creatures with intellectual minds, and even demons were known for. So the question came down to what the Demon Prince was planning on and why the Drezo Regalias. Did Belial say that their souls could be used to make powerful weapons? He wasn't sure, but he knew he needed to get to the bottom of this, or it would bother him.
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