Rabuka and Volken were just in shock from seeing Maellan charge Pavone with so much electricity that he bursted. His flesh and blood splattered upon the gentlemanly Daemon's face.
And Maellan did not wear any expression of remorse.
Instead, he only wiped the bits of guts that went on his face, on the part where Cholie's face were. He only asked:
"Are you alright, honey?"
Cholie smiled. "Yes. I feel a lot better now."
She licked the blood on her lips, and sunk inside Maellan's flesh again.
The two Daemons could only stand there frozen as Maellan turned his gaze upon them.
But soon they would realize that he was the least of their problems....
After killing so many Daemons, Cermin had gained back his Sacrificial Light skill. However, it's useless at this moment since he can't heal himself, only others.
Still, he forced himself to move with as much strength as he could muster. With a shout, he grabbed the needle on his neck.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
And pulled it out on his own!
This shout had snapped them out of their shock, and the adrenaline finally kicked in for them to know that if they stayed longer, they'd be dead meat.
Rabuka and Volken started running, while Cermin chased after them. Volken whistled for Griffons to be their escape vehicle.
The poison had still weakened Cermin, and without any healing, he could not summon his skills or really kill them. If not for that, he could have sliced them in half too.
But he still managed to slash a deep wound on their backs, before he collapsed on the ground at his knees.
"Ack!" The two yelled, but kept running until they could mount the back of the Griffon.
As they left, Cermin huffed for breath. The outburst was enough to knock any normal human down, maybe even a minor god. But the poison adds to that…..
Unlike Ronin, he did not have a self-healing skill. So the nerves that were frayed were not even given a chance to regenerate, and he continued to be affected by the pain.
It felt like he was burning from the inside, and his heart was nothing but a magma chamber. Empty and yet violent.
He had crawled in the dirt, his only thought being that he had to see Ronin.
If he was still alive, he needed to sacrifice his Flame quickly. If he wasn't, then...
He could die with him.
It was only that thought that allowed him to keep crawling for 3 hours.
He was only 200 meters away from the school. However, he was moving so slow like a snail, or more accurately, a once wild lion that lost its feet.
But he continued to drag himself with only the willpower to see his friend again.
When he arrived though...
He saw the Greater Lightning Daemon, the one who called himself a doctor, piercing Ronin's chest with his spear and charging him with electricity.
"Leave….. my friend….. alone..." He tried to raise his sword.
But he could already barely drag himself by an inch, and so the sword just stayed floating beside him with a dim light.
Maellan turned to him with a glare.
"You just killed all my friends too….. All my fellow Daemons. My kin." Maellan said. "Why should I listen to you and not kill you on the spot?"
Kai watched what was happening with furrowed brows, but did not say anything. Like it was just some statue by the side.
Cermin crawled all the way to reach for Maellan's foot, but could not reach it.
The grass around him was filled with blood, and he too was bathing in it. Maellan's once neat and pristine figure was just as dirty as he was.
They were two people that in their childhood, no one would ever believe to have killed a man.
And yet they just did. Sometimes it was the good ones that were the most brutal.
"Tsk. You need not to worry. Ronin is my brother, I am simply healing him." Maellan said. "He'll be awake in a few minutes."
"He's not your brother... Cough!" Cermin coughed out blood from talking too much when he was already at this state, but kept going.
" He may be possessed by the Lord of Darkness….. But he is not your friend.... Your family….. Or brother...."
Maellan just scoffed. "What is he to you then?"
"Huh…..?" Cermin looked up.
"That is what he is to me. But you separate him from the Lord of Darkness, who had been a part of him that you love with everyday."
"If that part of him was your enemy, while the rest is friend, family, brother... Then doesn't that cancel each other?"
Cermin does not know what he was saying, but as he looked at Ronin...
That black mark on his chest continued to spread, the lines of the lightning flowers growing thicker. It had always been growing day by day.
He just chose to ignore it, because he did not want to face the fact that his friend was also the great evil of this world.
But what Maellan said was like a wake up call, especially seeing Ronin being revived by dark powers. Each day, Ronin will just keep on sinking deeper into the darkness.
If he wants to save him, he really need to do better and move fast.
If only he wasn't inexperienced, or cowardly, or...
No time for regrets!
As Ronin started to stir awake, he crawled by his side. Then, he laid there in a curled up position, clutching his own heart.
But he still went to put his hand over Ronin's chest that was currently being filled with Black Electricity, and pressed his palm to deliver Sacrificial Light.
"I will do anything for Ronin... No matter what happens." He said softly, as he started to fall unconscious.
Just as he did, Ronin opened his eyes.
He had faintly heard those words, and his completely black iris shook for a while. His hand involuntarily reached for the golden one resting on his chest.
Then, he gritted his teeth and took that hand off him.
He turned to Maellan. "What happened here?"
"It's all my fault, Ronin." Maellan went to kneel beside him. "You're right, I should have gotten rid of the tumors growing in our society."
"And now it has injured the Body of Darkness to the point of dissolution." Maellan said. "But I will rebuild it again. I will heal our revolution once more."
But Ronin was not asking about that. He motioned to the almost-dead Cermin beside him.
"I meant this. What happened to him?"
Maellan frowned and came to realize that Pavone was right about one thing after all.
He really does value this golden apple too much.
Their relationship goes beyond enemies and friends. It goes beyond possibly the understanding of human relationships, perhaps.
For they have always existed to be stuck in this complex connection that means everything at once. Love, hatred, camaraderie, opposition…..
Truth and lies. All at once.
"I'll heal him too. But you must know that he had just wiped out everyone, Ronin. We have no army left because of his arrival."
Ronin shook his head. "No. It was us who made a mistake for not utilizing him properly. He's nothing but a flower."
"And we happened to hold on to his thorns."
He turned to stand up and look down at the sleeping Cermin, almost like a corpse.
"In the end, he was still the same pure being."
Ronin cracked all his bones, feeling quite replenished. He was aware that it was because of both Black Electricity and Sacrificial Light.
He can feel both light and darkness flowing through his veins. The lightness being something that he does not want and despised, but was forced upon him by Cermin.
"You can't heal him. You would taint that purity if you did." Ronin raised his whip, and using the black blood flowing through his heart…..
He drew the familiar runes of Aurion, not Seelie.
Then he tied it around Cermin's neck. Not to wrap around like a garotte, but to hang lightly like a noose or a necklace.
Soon, the light of the sun appeared. Maellan covered his eyes and felt like he was being burned, so he had to move away.
He wanted to see the very Core of this sun the most.
Whether to steal that Core, to protect that Core from everyone else, or to consume it....
He wanted to see its barest and purest form. What exactly was Cermin?
Kai went over to watch Ronin heal the person he hated the most and swore revenge to. It gave him even more reflections that could only be seen like ripples in the water.
"He promised to give you everything." Kai said. "And you promise to take his everything. You're lucky. Most of the time, the one being revenged upon only fight back."
"This prey offers himself to you entirely."
Ronin shook his head.
"That's exactly what makes him my misfortune."
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