Chapter 1060: Chapter 1062: How Is He Wrong
The dog’s name being Lord was so ridiculous Damon couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
Ashcroft looked utterly humiliated as the children rubbed his fur and tugged on his tiny ears.
"You filthy little—" Ashcroft growled before one child stuffed the bone into his mouth.
Damon burst into louder laughter at the sight of the great Demon Lord of Domination being reduced to an angry chihuahua surrounded by children.
They eventually entered the building together and the more Damon saw the more memories flooded into his mind.
This was their home.
Sander was known as Sander the Unlucky.
He had been born cursed with terrible fortune, bringing disaster everywhere he went.
He originally came from a small village within Brightwater territory, though calling it a territory was generous since the region had been divided among constantly warring factions.
His mother had safely given birth to him.
Then moments later she tripped, cracked her skull against a stone, and died.
That had only been the beginning.
Whenever Sander approached farmland the crops withered.
Animals died if he touched them.
Accidents followed him constantly.
One wealthy noble had once taken interest in him out of amusement. Three days later the noble lost everything and became bankrupt.
Eventually the villagers decided Sander himself was cursed.
So they tried to burn him alive.
It was there he met Bel.
Together they escaped.
Two unwanted children searching desperately for acceptance.
Eventually they traveled to Lysithara after waiting for the mana anomaly known as the Severing Winds to weaken enough for safe passage.
This city was supposed to accept everyone.
The laws protected them.
But laws alone could not erase hatred.
Even here they were still treated as monsters. The cursed boy who spread misfortune and the witch no one trusted.
No landlord wanted them nearby.
No district welcomed them.
So they lived here in this decaying building abandoned by the rest of the city.
The places with the brightest lights often possessed the deepest shadows.
Lysithara was no different.
The city pursued knowledge obsessively, and obsession inevitably created monsters. Certain scholars and researchers had crossed ethical boundaries in their thirst for advancement.
The children inside this building were victims of such ambitions.
Bel and Sander had rescued them from illegal magical experiments conducted by an influential researcher obsessed with becoming a Sage.
The man was respected.
Powerful.
Untouchable.
And because of that he got away with everything.
Now these children were dying slowly from the experiments forced upon them.
Bel and Sander already knew their fate.
One by one the children would eventually die.
And when they did, Bel and Sander would bury them just like they buried the others before them.
There was nothing they could do.
They were weak.
Poor.
Unwanted.
All they had was each other.
And Lord.
Damon stared silently at Lilith in the dim candlelit room.
Every other building in Lysithara possessed magical heating systems and crystal lights.
Except this one.
This place remained cold and dark.
"So that’s how it is..." Damon whispered.
Lilith lowered her head painfully while the children laughed faintly in another room, unaware of the fate awaiting them.
"How can we make a difference here when the odds are stacked this high against us?" she asked softly. "The outsiders are already being summoned and we’re at the very bottom of society. We’re not just poor... we’re unwanted."
Ashcroft jumped onto a broken table, his tail swaying slowly behind him.
"The Unknown God doesn’t really expect us to change the past does he?" he muttered. "There has to be another goal here. Is it the destruction of the crystal tower? No... no that can’t be it..."
Even Ashcroft sounded uncertain now.
And that deeply unsettled Damon.
He looked toward the children and felt an unbearable heaviness settle in his chest.
"These children are going to die," Damon whispered bitterly. "Covered in blood and excrement one by one... and we don’t even have the means to help them."
Lilith clenched her fists tightly.
"What if the goal isn’t to change everything?" she asked quietly. "What if the goal is simply to prove that even little people can still make a difference?"
Ashcroft barked once in his dog form before shaking his head.
"I doubt Unknown cares about something like that. He’s doing this to prove that he is right."
"He could kill us all whenever he wants," Ashcroft continued in a grim whisper. "But this... this is far crueler. He wants to prove that despair is inevitable."
Damon took a deep breath looking at Ashcroft.
"I agree with you on that."
Lilith narrowed her eyes while pulling her hair away from her ears. She felt uncomfortable that she couldn’t take a bath here. There was no clean bath, everything was filthy, broken, and disgusting.
"Some are born into misery," she said softly.
Ashcroft slowly nodded.
"Indeed. He’s making an argument for himself. This is why I hate that damn God. I can’t disagree with him logically, only emotionally. From what I’ve seen in my life I’ve long since lost faith in humanity."
Damon waking in a starving body cursed with ill fortune.
Lilith being feared as a witch.
Ashcroft reduced to a pathetic dog.
The citizens’ cruelty, the knights hesitating, the class divide that shouldn’t even exist in Lysithara, the tower looming over everything like a silent omen spelling the end.
And then there was the helplessness.
All they could do was wait and face the destruction of the city when the outsiders eventually had a falling out with the rulers of Lysithara.
This may have been the first time in a very long while Damon truly felt weak. Not strategically weak or temporarily outmatched.
Actually powerless.
Knowing he could do absolutely nothing about any of this.
Right now it felt like the Unknown God wanted them to see something.
Suffering is inevitable.
Inequality is universal.
Existence itself is cruel.
Hope prolongs suffering.
Endings are mercy.
Damon bit his lips while looking toward the children as one of them suddenly began convulsing in their sleep, their frail little body twitching violently beneath the blanket.
"He’s wrong."
Ashcroft slowly raised his head.
"If he’s wrong... HOW is he wrong?"
The room became silent.
They didn’t deserve this suffering. No one deserved to live like this.
If life itself was only struggle... then was it truly worth it?
