by Ryan Johnson
“Why aren’t you getting it?” asked Marina. “It’s right there.”
“That’s what worries me. Two serpent Dragons guarded the first, the Leviathan the second, and no doubt Lusìvar is guarding this last one. I’m not taking any chances charging in and having him come from above and scarring me.” Valverno placed a hand on his scar, which he got from the Piper while trying to make a killing-blow to Belverda trying to kill Sora. “I made that mistake of charging in, and I won’t make the same mistake again. I need to play it safe for this one.”
“Like how you did when you went charging to this tree and leaving us behind?” asked Monico.
“I know there was no danger lurking about. I know you were safe.”
“But there is the Siren who’s got your kids,” said Monico. Such careless actions can get anyone killed. You’re going to be a lousy father to those kids.”
“Why, thank you, Monico. I’ll teach those kids the many meanings of life. Flying over the island. Go digging for gold treasure. Go fishing for evil Dragons. Teaching them to fly in the sky. I’ll teach those kids to be wild and adventurous like their father.”
Monico and Flavius shook their heads. “Do you really want him as your husband?” they asked.
Marina nodded. “And I’ll teach them how to swim. Fish for the right fish so they don’t have to resort to cannibalism. Carry and hold their fingers with my own. Teach them how to perfect swimmers to outtake the fastest swimming predators.” Marina placed her hand on her belly, which was momently joined by Valverno’s hand.
“The future we both will share once the Shadow King Lusìvar is buried ten thousand feet in the bottomless sea,” said Valverno.
“And how I will be teaching them how to fight and kill in the wild,” said Sora. “Teach them how to eat wildly. And how to exhale air loudly. It’s going to be like old times, Valverno; when we were young, we went wild growing up. Now, next time for the next generation to do the same thing you and I did.”
Sora, Valverno, and Marina showed Monico and Flavius a strange agreement of how to raise three kids to be wild.
“What kind of darkness is lingering within this family?” asked Monico.
“You mortals are just meek, soft, entertaining and weak,” shouted a dark voice. A dark figure suddenly landed in front of the artifact with a long red sword in hand. “And here the truth will get out.”
Suddenly, Valverno pulled Marina behind him and drew out the Crystal Sword, and Sora jumped next to Marina. “So you are here. I have suspected as much, Shadow King.” Valverno held the Crystal Sword in one hand and held Marina in the other behind him.
“Valverno, is that who I think it is?” asked Marina.
“Yes, that is him. It’s Lusìvar standing in front of us.”
Lusìvar held his crimson sword in one hand and his dark grey skinned body was as dark as a twilight dark. The title of the Shadow King did live up to Lusìvar’s reputation. Lusìvar dug his dark sword’s pointy end to the ground and placed both his hands on the sword’s black hilt. “And I have grown tired of waiting while floating high in the air.”
“Keep your eyes on him, everyone,” warned Valverno. “He’s very much stronger than he looks. I barely managed to get away from him. And the worse part, he is standing between us and that artifact.”
Sora pulled out her kukri knives. Monico rushed to pull a long spear that a foot long, thin, curved blade. And Flavius pulled out a sword and a shield Marina pulled out a bow and two arrows, which were given a magical enhancement by a single touch of Valverno’s blue blade.
“I knew you people were ready to fight, especially you, ‘demigod’,” Lusìvar snorted. The Shadow King raised a hand and held out a crystal orb in his hand’s palm. “I believe you would know this item.”
Valverno kept his eyes on the Titan who was his main target, not the crystal orb in the Titan’s hand. And he dare not talk to the person who had foreseen Shimabellia’s destruction.
“As those who do know already,” Lusìvar continued, “this crystal orb is used to transport news anywhere and in multiple locations. These little things can make copies of themselves while floating in the air. The summoner can talk through these things, and the voice is heard through copies of the original orb. Quite fascinating and more useful than that traitorous Uragiru.
“With this thing, news can spread out across the land in a matter of seconds. And whatever is said, the people will listen. They will hear with their ears and see with their eyes as they gaze into the orb, showing and telling them what they see and hear.”
“And just what are you planning on doing with that?” asked Marina.
“Just as Uragiru used to spread the word of declaring war on Geraldus, used you to bring this ‘demigod’ to his doorstep, and how this demigod used it to foil Uragiru’s plans of striking me in the back.” Then Lusìvar threw the crystal orb into the sky and it glowed white.
Moments later, many glowing spheres ripped from the first and flew out toward the entrance Valverno and his group came through. The first orb remained glowing while floating above the ground.
“There, your people you solemnly protect will see and hear of what goes on here,” said Lusìvar. “This is something they would want to see, hybrid. And you can show the people who you really are.”
“Who I really am?” scoffed Valverno. “I know who I am: Demigod Valverno! What more can I be, other than being half divine? And I have these four people behind me. I am going to lead them against you and pave way for a bright future without you lingering in the Mortal Realm.”
“So, you are planning on using these people and betray them? Just like how you did when you made yourself a leader of the Titans of the First Generation, ‘Demigod’? Or should I say, the Demon Prince who destroyed the Titans?”
Valverno’s eyebrows flashed and gasped of air; the Shadow King called the demigod a different title and one never expected to be called: the Demon Prince.
“What kind of lie is that?” shouted Sora. “My brother isn’t a Demon, Devil, or a Fallen Angel; he is the son of Celestreá la Mùne and the Crystal Dragon God. He is the Demigod to vanquish you.”
“It is the truth, White Knight,” said Lusìvar. “He is indeed the Demon Prince and the one who brought darkness into the hearts of the Titans. It was he, the ‘demigod’ you follow that brought down the grace of the Titans.
“But he was never born in the Realm of the Gods, but in the Mortal Realm. There was a Demon that did survive and used his own power to make himself a physical body: the Devil King. He fought against the leader of the Angels, Celestreá la Mùne, and both came down from the Realm of the Gods. They both fought and somehow both ended up falling in love and having a child: the Demon Prince… Vaeludar.”
“No! That can’t be! It is impossible! I was never born in the born in the First Generation.”
“Then allow me to give aid to your memory, Fallen Demigod, by first showing everyone around you and seeing you your true form,” shouted Lusìvar. Lusìvar raised a hand and a yellow glow electrified in his fingers. “Let every creature, person, and mortal who calls you their ruler see for what you truly are. Let them see what you’re hiding beneath that fake body of yours, ‘Hero Chosen by the Three Gods.’ Let the past memories emerge from your damaged mind.” Then Lusìvar flung his electrifying power toward the water flowing beneath the ledge Valverno and the others were standing on.
Smoke rose from the Pool of Light suddenly and a mighty force of a powerful wind gushed at Valverno and his companions. At first, Valverno exhaled a powerful gush of a windy, fiery breath to diverge Lusìvar’s exploding attack. However, there was an overwhelming power that was pushing against Valverno’s strongest breath.
Valverno felt his feet being dragged into the ground as he tried to push against the overwhelming power Lusìvar casted into the Pool of Light. This caused a chain reaction from a black magi
cal source impacting upon a strange source like a sickness coming into contract with human skin.
“Elder Brother!” shouted Sora’s voice.
“Valverno!” shouted Marina’s voice.
Valverno heard the voices of his female companions, but they were being swept through the gushing shockwave. And after a long moment, the claws of Valverno’s dragon feet lost their grip and the demigod felt his wings making him fly backwards. Valverno’s strength couldn’t resist against Lusìvar’s exploding power, and Valverno was sent back flying toward the tree’s only gap.
Valverno crashed on land and a great distance from the tree. His feet dragged into the dirt as he drifted backwards and tried to see what was ahead of him, but smoke obscured his view.
During his flight backwards, he lost his grip of the Crystal Sword, with a feeling it was taken from him when he was sent out flying from the tree.
And suddenly, flames exploded from the tree’s top and much of the tree’s burning wood fell like a rain of fire. All collapsed around the large tree, and smoke rose from the tree’s exploded top like rising from a volcano.
What was beautiful and blossoming with life was soot, fire, and ash rising like a Phoenix burning its ashes but not rising from the ashes. Fumes of cloudy smoke rose around him, and every breath he was he inhaled wasn’t a poisonous fume but energy filled of life.
Valverno inhaled what he could and he felt he was becoming stronger, and his injured left arm feeling no pain or aches. A field of smoke had surrounded Valverno, and he wasn’t being weakened in the area Lusìvar supposedly caused. If Lusìvar wanted a field of smoke rising to surround the demigod, the Shadow King would have thought of something different.
“Sora? Marina? Flavius? Or Monico?” he called out.
There was at silence. Only smoke rose with dead silence.
Valverno hoped the explosion didn’t kill his companions. “Flavius! Monico! Marina! Sora!” Valverno shouted again, louder than his first shout.
“Brother, I’m still here as are the rest,” said Sora, her voice echoing through the rising smoke. “Looks like you were separated from us. But we’re coming to you.”
From Valverno’s blurring view of the smoke, he saw four silhouettes coming to him. He knew they had to be Marina, Sora, Monico, and Flavius. It seemed the blast knocked them all out of the tree, but they got separated.
Sora was close enough for Valverno to see the full extent of her body.
“Elder Brother, glad to see you… still… alive…” Sora’s face lit up a great horror. “By the Three Gods!”
Marina appeared from behind and smiled, but the smile faded to a horrified gaze reflecting from her mouth and eyes.
Monico and Flavius also shown excitement in their eyes but were killed as they laid their eyes upon Valverno.
“What? What is it?” asked Valverno. “Am I wounded somewhere or am I bleeding and I don’t know it?”
“By the complete monstrosity everywhere of any monsters, magic, Dragons, islands of the entire world, what are you!?” gasped Sora, horrifyingly.
Suddenly, the smoke was whipped away by a snapping sound. “There you are, hybrid,” said Lusìvar, appearing from a different angle from Valverno’s group. The Shadow King flung the Crystal Sword from his hand and landed in front of Valverno seeing his reflection on the blue blade. “Show yourself to the people who made you the ruler. Show them who you really are. Show them your true form, ‘Hero Chosen by the Gods’!”
Valverno was horrified at what he saw of himself when staring at the blue blade. He still stood on his feet. His wings, legs, and arms remained the same, but his human torso was entirely different and his hair was long after he had bathed in the Pool of Shadows. His human face was still humanlike, but everything else, even his skin, was different. All of his human skin was changed to dragon scales that glittered with red, purple, yellow, and blue spurring. All his human features were gone and replaced to make him look like an entire full bodied dragon walking on two feet; he was more of a two-legged dragon than a human dragon hybrid.
“What is this?” demanded Valverno. “This has to be an illusion.”
“This is no illusion hybrid,” Lusìvar argued. “This is the absolute truth as to who you really are. You should your true form when you bathed in the Pool of Shadows. But it’ll take more than words to show you otherwise.”
The orb Lusìvar flung into the air soared from the sky and swung through Valverno’s head like a ghost walking through a wall.
Valverno didn’t feel anything when the glowing orb plunged through his head, only seeing it was a big insect he didn’t want to bite him. He wasn’t fast enough to react to see it coming down to his view and attack it in sight.
The orb flew back to the sky and grew larger and wider in length. A black mist emerged from the white brightness, and images of strange animals and monsters appeared. Spiders with six legs and a scorpion tail, a skeletal lizard with six legs, a snake with eight legs and two heads, a cobra with many snake heads, a jaguar’s head upon a thin body walking two three tails and eight legs.
Many strange looking beasts had many remarkable features that had many heads attached to a single body walking with four or more legs.
“Behold, the Titans of old and the one who brought them into near-extinction,” said Lusìvar, pointing at one shadowy figure with two legs and two wings and skin that was red like a skinned animal. “The one being… you!”
Then the head of the shadowy figure showed his real face; the face of Valverno’s current form and facial expressions Lusìvar casted upon the demigod. “Titans, I am known as the Demon Prince Vaeludar, son of the Devil King, the one who took shape of a winged-lizard, and Celestreá la Mùne, leader of the Celestial Angels who casted the Fallen Angels from the Realm of the Gods.
“I have come to say there is no equality between you mortals and the gods who reside above. It is true that the gods created such species in the Mortal Realm, but they created us only for us to die in the mists of the lands and our bodies turned to dust. Why should the gods such perfect, immortal lives while we mortals are doomed to die? Why should they be immortals, and we should die?”
“Because that is the way it is meant to be,” said a spiderlike Titan.
“But I’d say different. I found out there is nothing after death. There is no place to mortals to go after they die. That is because they die, with no ghost to sprout out of a dead body. I was told of this: there is a way for everyone to have a happier live in the Mortal Realm, a way you can become gods.”
“Is that even possible?” asked another Titan. The voice came from the figure of the Leviathan. The Titan King stood in front of many of the Titans. And alongside him is a small humanlike boy with white hair, small ears, and eyes that stirred of emerald green.
“Yes. I am what I was told of what is true. I am a Demon Prince, who would be ruling over the Fallen Angels or otherwise known either as Demons or Devils, Leviathan. You and your son, Lusìvar, can become gods yourself. All you have to do is to dive into this lake of water and came back out. The Pool of Shadows! It was created by Origenes, and it is his will for all the Titans to become gods yourselves.”
“Well, if it is his will, then he speaks for the other gods,” said the Leviathan. The Leviathan walked forward first toward the Demon Prince, who turned away to reveal a lake of black boiling water. Then the Leviathan walked toward and sank himself into the black water. Moments later, the Titan King pushed back out and his face looked menacing.
“Well, how does it feel?” asked the Demon Prince.
“I feel… like a god! Oh, yes. Why should the gods live with immortality while we mortals are doomed to die? I say down with the gods; they have been in power for too long. Long live the Titans! Long with the New Gods!”
“Then in the name of the Three Gods, bathe yourselves, Titans,” shouted the Demon Prince. “And let yours
elves become gods and end the rule of the Three Gods.”
Then, one-by-one, all the Titans, but the one small human-looking Titan child, bathed in the Pool of Shadows and all came out with dementing faces. They had the looks of power-hungry monsters looking for their next victim to kill. The Titans morphed to dementing monsters consumed by their greed for power, and the Pool of Shadows was the enhancement to obtain a power gods could only process.
“Now bring yourselves to the highest levels and use this to rebel against the gods and their Realm,” said the Demon Prince. “Go forward and bring an end to their reign. This is an order, not from me; it is the order of Origenes. Whatever I say is the will of the gods and let their will be done!”
Then the fog showed not the Titans fighting against any Dragons or humanlike figures, but illusions of false images shown to be gods. The Demon Prince was the one who casted up images to make it like it was the Titans were fighting against the gods. And the Demon Prince then spread lies through several Titans, and many the Titans from fighting the false images imagined to be gods to fighting and killing themselves.
The memory faded to black and showed the Demon Prince flying over a layer of open sea. His hands were raised and lightening stroke a thundering storm of clouds. The ocean beneath rose into a large tidal wave rising high and following after the Demon Prince heading for a small piece of land: land filled with the infighting Titans.
Then, the large wave casted up high drifted above the land to the sky and swirled over the shores. A lightning bolt stroke at the heart of the small land and sparkled an electrifying cage of yellow and purple colors, trapping the Titans still fighting within the cage. The cage plunged into the ground, and the dirt the Titans fought upon collapsed beneath it. Soon was consumed by the rising tides and sinking it beneath the ocean’s waves.
