by Ryan Johnson
“In the end, it was proven Lusìvar had won, and we all lost hope. But despite the odds that stacked against us, Sora was the only person to not have given up hope; she still clings to that small, fragile hope. She still believes you would come back to us, and she strongly resisted against Lusìvar’s chains that tried to keep her down. She kept clinging to the love she has for you, because that love she has is beyond the usual love between a sister and brother.
“We all needed you to come back. She needed you, but you never came. If you been here all this time for an entire year, why didn’t you return when we all needed you?” asked Monico.
Valverno turned away. “I guess he hasn’t told you: Lusìvar stole all my power, and I was in a coma for a full year. According to a Pangaean here, I’ve been underwater for seven months and sleeping in this tent for five months. For a whole year, I was incarcerated in a deep coma.
“Then all of a sudden, I woke up. And for a few months I’ve been living in this village, trying to see how I try to unleash my divine power. And just a short time ago, I was close to it, on the brim of unleashing it. But now after hearing you of what is happening in the Mortal Realm… I can’t. I can’t be the demigod Sora and Marina needed me to be.” Valverno rushed out the tent tossing out his kimono on the ground before exiting the tent.
He suddenly halted and looked at his wright: the neckless Marina wore. “The more I look at this, the more I begin to realize what a fool I am into thinking that I am a demigod, but no. I am no demigod; I am only a human dragon hybrid born of a Devil King and an Angel Spirit. I was in the wrong to be a demigod!” Valverno shook his head and snapped the neckless off his wrist. He tossed it on the robe as the diamonds fell from its braided chain.
“And this goes as well,” said Valverno, stretching out his right wing, “so I know how I what it will feels like when I walk exactly as a human…without the wings!” He widened out the claws of his fingers on his hands. He stretched his right hand over and behind his head, and his left hand around his back. His claws sank into the corner that had his right wing attached to his right shoulder.
He growled in great agony and the others behind him couldn’t see what he was doing, due with Valverno’s wing covering his back from the Pangaeans.
And suddenly, the wing snapped off Valverno’s body. They either gasped or screamed as Valverno tore his last wing from his shoulder and saw blood spewed quickly from the gap the wing was attached to the hybrid’s shoulder.
“Never again will I be called a human dragon hybrid, but a human hybrid, and I will no longer be named Valverno,” grunted the hybrid. He dashed out the tent and didn’t look back to the others who witnessed his bleeding experience.
Alfhild tried to stop him but was halted by Ganymede. “Let him be, Alfhild. From Monico’s perspective, Valverno did abandon the people he was chosen to rule and only to toss them aside to fight the Shadow King, only to be casted aside himself.”
“But we have to help him from going even more downhill,” argued Freyya.
“We Pangaeans did all we could for him, and I have done all I could for him,” stated Ganymede. “It is now up to him how he must pursue his future: give up and let evil rule or BELIEVE he is the demigod and save everyone he loves. It is up to him now. There is nothing more we mortals can do for the demigod.”
“And you people?” said Monico. “Just who are you, and what is that hybrid doing here?”
“I’ll tell you, human,” said Ganymede. “I’ll tell you everything about this human dragon hybrid, and what’s his been doing here since he awakened months ago.”
A CALLING FROM GODS
The hybrid dash away south from the settlement and pass the farms the bunny demihumans were gathering plantlike vegetables, but he didn’t care. He ran as fast as he could away from all prowling eyes that he felt gazed on him with the greatest shame like a little kid running away from home. He now felt lost more than ever.
The blood he was losing at a rapid paste quickly melted into the ground and quickly turned into dried blood. Drip by drip, drop by drop, the hybrid didn’t care if he died from a loss of blood. He didn’t want to believe it so, but Monico was telling the truth. If the he were to go back and tried to ask or even beg for mercy, the mortals would reject him. And he was no longer going by the name Valverno, as he felt the divine power flipping away from his heart’s grasp.
The hybrid followed the river away from the settlement and he trailed many miles on feet, with the open wound gap on his back-shoulder bleeding endlessly. Despite blood dripping from the open wound, the hybrid ran at a slow sprint away from the settlement and distant from the place and himself.
He ran for hours away from the settlement as he followed the river flowing to the south. He ran without drawing to a full halt, and he still lost a lot of blood. The hybrid didn’t stop to try to conceal the wound, as he was the one who tore off his last wing. He had now lost every motivation to unleash his divine power. At first, he wanted to but was quickly interrupted by Monico who looked possessed.
And after hearing about his reputation among the people once loyal to the demigod, the hybrid decided to drop the persona of being anyone and just be a no-one. Who was he to be a demigod the mortals needed? He fought against his sister if he wanted to kill her without remorse. He turned against his own White Knights and left every mortal behind to face the Shadow King alone, but only to be shot through the heart.
But, after to come back alive, which he thought was to have a second chance to rediscover himself and correct the evil choices he made against his followers and go back to face Lusìvar.
The hybrid was full of doubt and confusion he didn’t have the proper knowledge of what he was: a Demon Prince, a demigod, or just a random hybrid. So many ideas fluttered in his head he had no idea which idea to pick like walking trying to get into the center of a maze.
He was on the verge of discovering the knowledge, the true ultimatum of his divine power and how to finally use it. That was until a certain obstacle suddenly struck the settlement and told the hybrid of what was happening in the outside world. And that obstacle just struck in the hybrid’s moment of truth and destroyed of wanting to become the demigod Valverno needed to be.
During his running, he came to a lake some dozens of miles away from the settlement. He didn’t realize how dark it was from the time he spent running, which meant he was running for hours without end.
He felt fainted from the long travel his legs carried him, and the blood dripping rapidly from the open gap caused his body to feel light as a feather. His eyes blurred if a fog rose from the ground and covered he vision. The hybrid dropped to his legs and looked at his reflection in the water. He saw his hybrid face, his red hair, his ears, his horns, and a facial expression of death.
“Who am I? What am I? Just why am I still doing alive?” he asked himself repeatedly. But he could find an answer to his repeated questions. “If this has been a test, then I don’t see why it would be relevant for me to pass it.”
Valverno!
The hybrid shook his head suddenly and stood up. He thought he heard a whisper behind his ear. He turned left and right behind him and saw no one, but a soft wind blowing across his head. “That must have been my imagination,” he whispered to himself.
Valverno!
The hybrid heard the voice again and it was louder than the wind howling against his head.
Valverno. Valverno! Demigod Valverno!
The ghostly voice echoed all around the hybrid, and he didn’t know where it was coming from. A bodiless voice called out his demigod name, and the name of which the hybrid wasn’t going to answer to, but either to the name of the Demon Prince Vaeludar. He heard the name “Valverno” being whispered many times the hybrid shivered out of fright.
He thought maybe it was the ghost of Uragiru or of Belverda or both coming to haunt him in his isolation. He always heard gho
sts of the dead always haunting the Mortal Realm, which case Spirits of the Dead that never felt the Mortal Realm after death and remained intact to the Realm of which they died in, and he always thought those were legends and scary tales to make children behave. Now, he was starting to feel the reality of ghosts haunting and making fun of him; he thought of they laughed at him for leaving behind allies and becoming evil himself.
Then a small spot on the lake’s waving edge glowed. A big flare from beneath the water’s surface waved with the lake’s waving waters.
The hybrid took several steps back as he saw the light emerge from the water and above the lake’s surface.
“Don’t be freighted by the form of the divine, for I am everywhere and nowhere at the same time,” said the light. It spoke a in soft, distorted voice with an echoing screech.
The hybrid gazed at the floating light glittering like the sun and floating in the air like fog. “Who are you?” asked the hybrid, with his legs shaking to barely to stand on his dragon feet.
“I am the way you saw the way I am,” answered the glowing light.
The hybrid blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t ever remember seeing you before.”
“Throughout the evolution of the Mortal Realm and the time it has elapsed, I have been called many things, many titles, taken many forms, and have partake in many events of the Mortal Realm. In your common language, I am own as… the Crystal Dragon! And it is here, at this same lake in the Second Generation of Living Life, I came to you and asked you to be the Demigod of the Mortal Realm.”
The hybrid was stunned!
The Leader of the Three Gods, the Balancer of the Gods, the Ruler of the Gods, the god that is thought to take the form of a Dragon, and supposedly the hybrid’s divine father had glowed in the hybrid’s view. And the one Supreme God that created everything in the Mortal Realm glowed in front of the hybrid.
“I-if you you’re the Crys-stal Dragon, why don’t you take the form of a Drag-gon?” the hybrid asked, slurring in his question.
“Gods don’t take any forms, unless a mortal imagines us a specific form. Just as how you summoned Origenes from our realm and you imagined him to a giant humanlike being. You, and you alone, had the power to summon up a god and banish all unnecessary black magic from the edges of the Mortal Realm and sent the black magic off to the Pool of Shadows, the Pool created by your father, the Leader of the Demons and the Devil King. And you didn’t use the power of the Pool of Shadows to summon Origenes, but your own divine power to summon him.”
The hybrid shook his head in disbelief. He did actually summon up a god from the Realm of the Gods. But to hear the Pool of Shadows was created from the Devil King thought to have been casted down long ago by the Angels led by their leader: Celestreá la Mùne.
“But what would you want with me? A wingless, powerless, soulless hybrid?”
“I have heard the cries and agony of many mortals crying out for help. Many falling into despair and lost their hope for their freedoms and their futures,” said the god.
The cloudlike light beamed a big dot to reveal images of humanity chained in large cages with monsters roaring endlessly at their victims. Banshees, Basilisks, Black Dogs, Chimeras, Cyclopes, Harpies, Manticores, and Minotaurs all stood beside many large cages forged of bones and skulls roaring and banging against cages that contained humans. The imaged showed of a few Hobgoblins now thought to be extinct.
And many other creatures were also being tormented by the evil creatures. The Centaurs, Dragons, Fairies, Griffins, Merpeople, Pegasi, Sea Serpents, and Unicorns were all in torment. The Centaurs, Pegasi, and Unicorns were being pushed and shoved from one direction to the next by Minotaurs and clawed down by Manticores and Chimeras. Dragons and Griffins were wrapped with heavy chains that weighed them to the ground; they were poked by the Giants and Cyclopes. The Fairies, Merpeople, and Sea Serpents were all locked in larger cages but in beaming, electric cages edging over raging water of the western seas that sparked beneath red-blood lightning from a black-yellow sky filled with crimson louds. The Hobgoblins were laughing around and screaking in a tormenting way in humans’ ears, and the sounds of those creatures were making the humans go deaf.
The terrains the light showed was a vast wasteland of ash and soot. Steamy, poisonous fumes rose from the ground. A dark Shadow stretched out for hundreds of miles. The sky was dark and plagued the value of the sunlight. Crimson louds thundering with red lightening soared through the sky endlessly. Cries of agony were among the antagonized caged and chained people, but one spark of light lit like the spark of a small candle upon a high bone-made throne atop a tall hill.
Lusìvar laughed loudly and touted about his claim over the Mortal Realm on his bone-made throne. Next to him, the light strongly flickered through one person: Sora!
The White Knight of Charity, with every mortal’s Light all but faded; Sora’s Light still flickered through Lusìvar’s demeaned territory. She was chained next to the Shadow King’s throne, but she fought to stand on her two legs while Lusìvar tried to bare down on her heavy chains and metal boulders.
“As you see, this is the world the Devil King tried to create,” said Lusìvar. “And humiliating to you, you are his half-sister, born to an Angel and a mortal. And your half-brother, who was the one who berated you and casted you aside, was born from an Angel and a Demon. He had high hopes of Vaeludar, but if it wasn’t for that Angel Warrior, your and his mother, then Vaeludar and his father would have been ruling side-by-side, and you wouldn’t have been born by the same father and mother.
“But everything was ruined when Celestreá la Mùne came after the destruction of my homeland and turned him back into a little infant and incarnated him in a mortal body and gave herself of body of her own. And when the land of Pangaea was born thousands of years after my land was destroyed, the Spirit of the Devil King came to me and asked me to be the next Demon Prince, the proper replacement for you brother, White Knight of Charity. And now that I am, all will summit to my might.”
“You never will be my brother, as Valverno is mine,” shouted Sora. “Demon Prince Vaeludar has been reborn as Demigod Valverno, Shadow King. Even if he did strike me down and casted me aside, I still hope he will come again. Despite everything he did to me and turning his back to everyone else, I will and always will love my brother, endlessly and beyond the edges of death!
“Have a closer look again,” laughed Lusìvar. His left arm reach behind his throne and he stood up. In his left hand was a dragon wing. It was black and badly ripped. “The wing of your brother is in my possession. I did, indeed, killed him and took his title and all his demonic power, thus making me Demon Prince Lusìvar. Your brother, as you thought he would have been, is dead! He is long gone, and no living mortal can come back from the dead.
“I don’t need you to summit to me or to have you as my pet. Many of your brother’s loyalists, who still are on the loose, see you as their new leader. And they know the law of ascension made-up by ancient humans: blood relations are more powerful than adoptions like he was to that man, Geraldus.
“As long as I have you tied to a long lease like a dog, then they will be forced to heel. Otherwise, they will be leaderless. Flavius has already lost his White Knight power, and Teutates still fights against me, such a mortal with incurable strength is testing my forces. It’s only a matter of time before all of the Mortal Realm comes to my feet. And it’s all thanks to Demon Prince Vaeludar when he showed me what POWER truly is and how strong I could be, if I had the power of Shadows at my side. Now, I rule as Demon Prince Lusìvar, and the Demon Prince Vaeludar is dead! And I have the support of the seven Titans to kill any resistance any mortal tries to hinder me.”
Then the image broke out to reveal the seven Titans standing behind Lusìvar’s throne: Kraken, Cerberus, Wendigo, Thunderbird, Blemmyae, Hydra, and Ushioni. All the seven Titans stood massively from beh
ind the throne, to show the entire population of humanity and creatures of who held the power of the strong while the weak would crumble in fear of the terrifying seven Titans.
Then the images finished within the floating light, and the hybrid felt the greatest guilt his heart was burden with. He left others behind to be chained and cage in the worst nightmare, but his half-sister still remained unafraid of what happened to her; her Light and love still shined in Lusìvar domain of Shadow and darkness.
“Among the darkness,” continued the voice, “the power of Light and love shine through one single mortal while all other mortals’ Light has diminished. The White Knight of Charity’s still draws Light, but it’s a Light barely dimming against the new Demon Prince’s Shadow. And so, to brighten that dimming Light, I will send… you.”
Valverno blinked in response. He gave a nervous breath when the god’s voice mentioned of sending the hybrid to help his sister’s Light glow brighter. “Who am I to go against seven giant Titans, yet alone lead the people I left behind for my evil, vile, selfish, demonic reasons?” asked the hybrid. “Yet along, how can I help the Light of my sister’s heart?”
“You were the first mortal to be asked to be the Demigod of the Mortal Realm, and you, without hesitation, said yes.”
“But I was the Demon Prince as well, the son of a Devil King who is thought to be the most evil supreme being of all time. And now they think I am an evil person just like my father, and Monico said it so. Not to mention, I lost my sense of duty when Marina died in my arms, and you weren’t there to keep her alive, along with my three kids! You… you asked the wrong mortal to be the Demigod of the Mortal Realm! How can I, a disfigured hybrid, be a hero to those people if I couldn’t prevent my family from dying?”
“WHO GAVE YOU THE POWER OF THE GODS!? WHO GAVE YOU THE POWER OF LIFE? WHO GAVE YOU THE POWER TO SMITE THOSE TO DARE HARM THE CREATIONS OF WHICH I HAVE CREATED!? IF IT WASN’T ME, THEN WHO!?”
