章節 323: Chapter 312 - Mares

Zeel gritted his teeth, maneuvering his fingers with strange gestures that granted him immediate access to the restricted parts of his storage ring.

A speculum materialized in Zeel's hands. It had been a while since Zeel had the need for a Spec Bomb, but he saw no better alternative to combat his raging internal conflict.

Not waiting another moment, Zeel slammed the speculum against the green vial on the table.

There was the shattering sound of mirrors breaking and with crystallization of air, the vial was consumed by the mirror dimension.

The fractured, crystallized air returned to normal an instant later and Zeel was relaxed while Henry and the others were reeling in shock.

It was a fascinating sight to witness another dimension opening and shutting before their eyes.

"What was that?" Henry asked, intrigued by the crystal-like layer of air he had just witnessed.

"Never show me something like that again," Zeel commanded, a slight feeling of fear lingering inside his mind.

"You know I already have a questionable character… what would happen if you gave me a potion that could separate the 'good Zeel' from the 'bad Zeel'?" Zeel asked Henry, who had only then realized the implications of his concoction.

Henry already dreaded the thought of a normal Zeel, so he could not imagine a Zeel with only a taste for chaos and destruction.

Still, Henry thought that Zeel was blowing the matter a little bit out of proportion.

"That's not what the potion does," Henry stated, his British accent making his statement sound that much more believable.

"After I perfect it, that's what it will be able to do… and trust me, you never want to meet a bad version of me," Zeel said with a certain heaviness in his voice.

Meeting a bad version of Zeel would not be as simple as separating good from bad since Zeel already had a limited notion of what was 'good'.

An Evil Zeel would probably be able to give the devil a run for his throne as the ruler of hell.

"How did you create it?" Zeel asked curiously "Something that could separate the dual nature of a human is complicated alchemy for a time when everything mystical is denied,"

"A man with a broken mind and an identity he cannot live," Henry stated and then added "Anything is possible with such men,"

"Those are my favorite type of people," Zeel said, raising his teacup and taking a sip from the miraculously filled liquids.

Nick gazed at his own teacup and also raised it to take a sip, mimicking Zeel's actions to a T. However, something unexpected happened in Nick's case.

A black mist spiraled around Nick's cup and when the mist cleared, what was left behind was tea as black as night.

Henry and Jenny were admirable when Zeel performed the trick but seeing Nick perform it as well made them think that something was special with the teacups.

Zeel's eyes widened at Nick's teacup, slightly concerned by the liquid inside.

While Nick's talent of transitioning to a God was commendable, it was not on par with the talent Alice and Elizabeth showed during Ascension Stage.

"Can I see that tea?" Zeel asked, wishing he could just take the cup away from Nick but it was never a good idea to take something away from a Pseudo-God.

"S-sure," Nick answered, still not completely sure what he had just done.

Knowledge was constantly bombarding his mind and Nick had no idea what to do with it.

When Zeel received the cup from Nick and he was certain that The Restrictions would not cause him any headaches, Zeel dipped his tongue inside the cup of tea as a test.

"ARGHHH!" Zeel yelled, his tongue blackening at a pace visible to the naked eyes.

Henry, Jenny, and Nick took a couple of steps back instinctively, but Zeel was always a decisive person.

Transparent lightning flickered, a knife was missing from the table and Zeel's blackened tongue was severed and falling to the ground along with Nick's tea.

Zeel grabbed his mouth with both hands, squeezing so tightly that he even slightly dislocated his jaw.

Zeel's nanites concentrated at the stem of his tongue, rebuilding the muscle as quickly as it was severed.

Within moments, Zeel felt his mouth occupied once more by a tongue and sighed in relief.

Looking at the frightened faces of everyone around him, Zeel just nodded at Nick and said "Good stuff… very strong,"

"I didn't mean to…" Nick wanted to explain but Zeel shook his head to indicate that no apologies were required.

"Your energy tasted familiar… weak, but familiar… and things familiar to me are bad," Zeel said, resuming his seating position once more.

With a couple of coughs to get rid of the awkwardness, Henry also returned to his seat along with Nick, and Jenny who once again stood behind Nick with her hands on his shoulders.

"Then I have nothing to offer," Henry restarted the conversation, sighing in defeat for show but he knew that Zeel had already accepted his offer.

After all, Zeel didn't destroy the potion, he simply sent it into the mirror dimension where it could be eventually recovered with some difficulty.

Zeel didn't want direct access to such a dangerous potion so he instead made it difficult for him to retrieve the potion without major trouble.

"You don't need to offer me anything… just give me the crystal that is inside that vault you're hiding," Zeel said, pointing to the most inconspicuous wall in the room.

"For?" Jenny asked since she was aware of the crystal inside Henry's secret vault, and she also knew that it was useless to them aside from an ornament.

"I need it to examine Nick," Zeel stated "Whatever is affecting him is not my specialty,"

"You can cure me?" Nick asked a bit relieved that someone was finally trying to find a solution to his issues.

"I can if I understand how the curse works," Zeel said causing an unconscious snarl to exit Nick's mouth, courtesy Ahmanet who was always watching events unfold through Nick's eyes.

Henry nodded at Jenny and she walked over to the vault and opened it by just tapping the wall and removing the crystal on the platform.

"A bit anticlimactic considering the verification process to enter this place," Nick said as he questioned the sanity of Henry's organization.

Jenny walked over with the crystal in hand and passed it over to Zeel.

"We don't have any use for that crystal so we never bothered to truly hide it," Jenny said.

"I am interested to find out what 'it' is," Henry stated, eyeing Zeel suspiciously.

Zeel didn't care and examined the crystal in his hands.

"If you didn't know what it was… why keep it as if it was valuable?" Zeel asked.

"Call it instincts," Henry replied nonchalantly.

Nick stared at the crystal and looked confused "It feels uncontrollable… like a hint of -"

"Chaos," Zeel said in Nick's stead "Several Dimensional Energies congregate in an area of absolute chaos, and that energy leaks into the mortal plane and solidifies,"

Henry and Jenny were intrigued while Nick had an enlightened face as if he was recalling something instead of learning something new.

"In other words…" Zeel said and paused "The closest thing to what humans call 'magic'."

"What does the crystal do?" Jenny asked.

"This!" Zeel replied, his image blurring as he appeared in front of Nick and slammed the crystal into Nick's chest.

Unexpectedly, the crystal did not shatter or impact Nick at all, the crystal rippled and sunk into his chest.

The crystal entered Nick's chest but what came out from his back was a black mist that shrouded the entire room in darkness.

Within the darkness, everyone witnessed an intricate set of mystical runes rotating on pivots and machinery gear that pulsed with cyber-lines.

The darkness solidified into a mix of Ancient Scribblings, Machine Components, and Futuristic Technology.

The entire thing was too complex for even Zeel to understand instantly.

"What is this?" Jenny asked, her hands sliding forward to touch a floating component.

Zeel grabbed Jenny's hand to stop her but his grip was too strong and created a bruise.

"Don't touch anything…" Zeel said "This is the physical manifestation of Nick's curse…this is what is inside his body as we speak,"

Henry examined the complex curse floating in the air, and then glanced at Zeel's somber face and that was enough to tell Henry that even Zeel was at a loss on what to do.

"Why all the machinery and futuristic appearance?" Henry asked, confused about why an Ancient Egyptian Curse would take such a strange physical form.

"The Crystal converts the curse to look like codes I am most familiar with…Runes, Machines, and Cyber-Lines," Zeel replied, waving his hand in motions as the manifestation of the curse was dissected, disassembled, reassembled, split apart, and re-joined in numerous combinations.

Zeel shook his head, trying to convince himself that he was seeing anything but what he was currently seeing.

"What's wrong?" Henry asked, watching Zeel closely the entire time.

"This is ancient… very old and very strong. It's not Dimensional Energies either… it comes directly from the source… this curse is alive and adapting like a virus…

This feeling… I have felt it somewhere before," Zeel said, the codes flickering across his pupil turning red from overexertion of the nanites.

Zeel was using everything he had to recall the faintest memory of where he felt the familiarity. And then it clicked, when he was three days old, he felt the same energy lingering on his father.

It was after a great battle that his father made into a Homo-Superior Bed-Time story to scare the children into a logical and efficient mindset.

"This is Real Magic… and not just any Real Magic, this kind is more Ancient than Gods… This is the work of Mares," Zeel said, his muscles tense as his hand hovered over Mbeamer.

Nick's body unfroze from time as the physical manifestation of the curse was sling-shot back into his body.

"Mares?" Nick asked, fully aware of what was happening during his suspended period.

Zeel turned to look at Henry, Jenny, and Nick.

"Ever wonder where Nightmares come from?" Zeel asked rhetorically and answered, "Now you know!"