Later that same day.

Orion's group, and Eric's army, followed by Nylon, all returned to Turric after cleaning the battleground.

By cleaning, it was more a need to confirm that the cores inside the beasts were definitely broken, and if not, make it so. With a few hundred people, it only took two hours.

Another problem was the broken doors. The beasts destroyed it before anyone could open them.

The soldiers would return later to fix them, while a platoon stayed to guard the entrance to prevent the beasts from crossing the border.

After giving orders to his troops, Eric led everyone to his house.

"Make yourself comfortable."

Caroline forced everyone to sit on their second couch, but there was not enough space for the four of them, so Orion and Nylon chose to stand behind it.

Eric and Caroline sat on the one right in front of them, and the discussion finally began.

"I will go straight to the point. Orion Feales, why are you here? How come you came straight to our aid?"

The man in question placed his hands on the backrest of the couch.

"To make it simple, I help a few people fleeing from the invasion who were attacked by beasts that most likely managed to get past you. When they told me that corrupted beasts were invading, what choice did I had but to help?"

"If the beasts were to successfully invade, all of my plans and hard work until now would just fly out the window. That alone, I can't tolerate."

"We were planning to stop at Logran first, and then go to Turric to have a few words with you, just so you get the idea that it wasn't planned for us either."

Eric nodded.

"This invasion came out way earlier than it was supposed to. It was also the most dangerous so far."

"I understand you coming to help the invasion, though I did not picture you as being an fighter for us humans. I was sure you hated us, and most especially us Apostles."

Amelia smiled, while Orion displayed a dark expression. She knew his answer like the back of her hand, so she stole the moment, to avoid him messing up the conversation.

"He does hate us humans, but he also understands that not of them are to be blamed for his circumstances. For the Apostles, the situation has changed."

Orion stared at her with surprise, but returned to normal when his mind seemed to have understood why she spoke before him.

"The situation? Can you develop? Is there something we don't know?"

Slightly suspicious, Caroline asked.

"More than you'd think. First of all, we've allied ourselves with Kamala and Eric, so you understand where I'm coming at."

Eric closed his eyes.

'So that Florian... he really managed to get this man on our side... or is it the opposite? I think it's the opposite. They joined this man's fight.'

With his memories back, he remembered the small details, and remembered that he was at first friend with Florian. Fighting the Azur Dragon, Monolavir, made them acknowledge each other.

But he had forgotten about that, which is the reason why he never thought of going to see him previously.

Now, he felt weird because of his interaction with him when they formed their alliance in the Apostles' temple.

"At first, Orion and I left to fight off Elliot's pawns, the Apostles. The reason why was to avoid being swarmed by powerful humans, while Orion dealt with him."

Returning to the conversation, Eric opened his eyes and listened.

This whole conversation was a cold shower for Nylon, who alternated his gaze between Orion and Amelia.

'I'm sure dad doesn't know either."

"But something changed along the way. To be exact, it was when Orion and Kamala fought Ivan."

Both listeners opened their eyes wide and exclaimed in shock.

"What?!"

Amelia explained what happened briefly to them during Kamala's retaliation on Kaios.

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...

"..."

Both stayed silent. It was too hard to believe her words, but if this was true, then the whole meaning of being an Apostle changed.

"Killing all of his citizens with a single order. What a sick bastard."

Eric couldn't believe it. Him, who valued every people in the city, felt sick. True, he did not respect them for just being people, but because of their roles.

Civilians bring money, which is used to make the army greater. In exchanged for this, he vowed to protect the continent by making a mighty army. The Apostle before him was also the same, though, he wasn't a good father.

"And Kamala in all of that? How did she ended up?"

There was worry in his eyes, which Amelia changed with her next words.

"She managed to rally the surviving citizens of Kaios under her wing, and even gained in charisma after the fight. Though, she's been swarmed with paperwork since then. We occasionally meet up with her when we can."

"Wha- How? Hocride isn't next door, you know? It's a month and a half from here on foot."

Orion interjected at this point.

"Once this conversation is done, I'll show you."

Eric regained his composure with a cough, and continued to listen to Amelia.

"You're story isn't done, I believe? There is still Florian. You wouldn't have brought him up if he had no reason to be included."

With a nod, Amelia went on the next topic.

"Albriar's war."

"!"

To anyone not used to his expressions, the only thing on his face would be shock, but to Caroline, he was angry. Very much so.

'Who! Who attacked Florian?! How is he doing?'

There was a few things that Eric couldn't forgive. Attacking his city, getting in his way of defending the continent, trying to lay a hand on his wife, and others hurting his friends.

"We were unknown to the whole happening while we were in Hocride, but during that time, he was dealing with two Apostles murdering the lamias male in Lahro."

Once again, Amelia explained that Orion managed to arrive at the moment Florian killed one of them.

Going over the situation with the lamias, she went straight to them learning of an army going toward Albriar while Florian was away.

The rest was the fight against Julian.

...

"And that's how it ended. After that, we went east to deal with a few personal matters, and then we moved south until Orion came across those people in need."

Eric nodded, satisfied to hear that Florian was unarmed, and still as strong as ever.

At that point, Orion sat on the backseat, and patted Amelia.

"Thank you for the summary, you did great."

She laughed lightly and smiled at him.

"You always do it, so I thought that this time you could take a break."

Making Karteira jealous on the side, and making it obvious to everyone that they had that 'special' relationship, he stopped not long after.

"Alright, I'll take over from here. Now that you have a summary of our recent fights, isn't there something you can gather from it? The 'change' Amelia brought earlier."

Orion tried to lead Eric and Caroline on the right path.

"Well, first of all, I know it happened a few times in the past two thousand years, but this is the first time that in a single year, four out of thirteen Apostles died."

"..."

He changed his view on the matter in an instant.

"To be exact, it's even worse, four of us are deserters in disguise. We've joined together to be on your side, so we already noticed something wrong with the other Apostles."

"Why four of us refused to drink that mixture of beast cores? I always had my worries, that's why I always brought very little cores with me. Laylah should have known I had more cores than that."

"We're killing more than a thousand beasts during the invasion. Sure, we destroy cores in the battle, but not that much. The only core I take with me are the ones from the beasts appearing inside the continent."

Eric frowned.

"You haven't given much details about that second form that Ivan and this moron Julian took. Can I believe it had something to do with the mixture?"

"Eric?"

To be fair, Eric wasn't necessarily the most intelligent. Behind Florian, he was the muscles. Caroline knew it very well, so she felt weird when he seemed to have found out something.

"I always had my doubts. The more they drunk that stuff, the more they changed the next year. They were wilder in their actions, as if they returned to simple beasts. The first answer was always a fight with them."

"I'm not the smartest, but even I understand strategy and how to order my men. Without that, this city would have disappeared from the map a long time ago."

"Now, we have three Apostles that died because they made the wrong choices. I do believe no one in their right mind would simply throw everything away for something as stupid as wanting to take another Apostle's territory, or attack out of spite because their plan to hurt a powerless faction was thwarted."

Caroline began to understand.

"Is there something else pushing the current Apostle to commit atrocities?"

He turned to look at her, and answered.

"If you placed a civilians in my spot, so you think his first though would be to invade another Apostle's territory?"

With just a thought, the answer was clear.

"Of course not. Unless they already are missing a few brain cells, that shouldn't happen."

Satisfied, Eric looked at Orion.

"Julian and Leonis were fairly new to our ranks. Two years for Leonis, and three for Julian. Kiel was in our ranks for five years."

"There is no reason to their sudden need to punish the lamias."

Caroline and Eric both winced in disgust when they recalled how horrible the lamias were treated by them in the past.

"Tell me Orion, am I right to think that the mixture had something to do in the Apostles' change of behaviour?"

Orion nodded.

"For someone who said that he doesn't possess the smarts to think, you sure got on the right path."

"Thank you for the compliment."

Eric smiled, glad to hear he did not make a fool of himself.

"Alright, the whole thing might be a little complicated, but think of the mixture as if it was a parasite."

With his explanation, Eric and Caroline understood the underlying danger of drinking the mixture made of dark cores.

"We've discovered that in all Apostles, the ones that succeeded their parents, there is a small seed of corruption inside them. That mixture, once drunk, make this seed grow more and more, until it takes over the hosts way of thinking."

"At one point, it is so encroached that it kills the host, and transform it into an hybrid of human and corrupted. That is also the same for animals, creating corrupted beasts with time."

"What happened to Ivan and Julian was something worse. Once they died, the corruption took over instantly, forcing them to become husks able to use their ability, but more efficiently."

Orion stood up, and walked on the side of the couch.

"Do you understand now?"

He crossed his arms and looked at his companions.

"Corruption... the thing that we were fighting so far was inside our ranks... no inside us the whole time? This is so stupid now that I think about it."

"Drinking a mixture of beasts cores, cores that were created by corrupting said animal. What was the point?"

He knew, in his heart, that the answer was way simpler.

"Power, and control."

The answer came out easier than expected.