As Orb stares down at me, I hear the king's chains rush towards us but in that moment, Orb creates a ridiculous amount of ice creating a wall of ice to form in the room.
Looking down at me, Orb asks, “Cyrus why are you lying down on the floor, you’re sister is right there?”
With the tears overflowing, I say, “Because my sister hates me. I thought all this time she loved being together with me as much as I loved being with her, but it was all a lie, the entire time she was miserable.
And it is because I am so pathetic that I had to use her for everything, that I relied on her to always do all the hard things for me like a parasite. My weakness caused her so much sadness that she wanted to stay far away from me.
I tried to change but even with all the time and strength I was blessed with I couldn’t, and even when I was freed I just ended up relying on you instead. Everything about me is disgusting.”
Staring at Orb, I see him making a pondering face then moments later he says, “Yeah that’s basically it, and to be honest, I sort of think you’re an annoying person.
Even with all you’re strength you always act like your useless, and you’re head is empty most of the time, so I always panic when you’re alone especially since you’re beauty attracts people. You also suck at communicating with others, so I was sure you and Suzuka were going to have a battle to the death.
You get depressed so easily, and I swear you will just listen to whatever anyone tells you, and the fact that you struggle to do basic maths is rather annoying, and why when I give you questions with no numbers do you act like you’re staring at some alien creature and let’s be honest imaginary number aren’t that hard to grasp.
You’re a dragon, a beauty and even have the strength of a legacy, so you would think that you’d be much more impressive, but you really do suck at times.”
“I am s-s-s-sor-.”
“But that’s fine.”
“But aren’t I pathetic?”
“Yeah, but you’re also strong. You made sure to help people back at Basileia all the time even when exposed to dangerous toxins, it is due to that I was able to save my best friend's life.
And if you didn’t help me back at Seirei, I would undoubtedly have been killed and Suzuka too. You also helped Suzuka find Percy in Skydust, it is thanks to you that we were able to escape with all the kids. Every single one of those actions took strength.”
With my eyes opening wide I stare at Orb as he says, “Cyrus you’re a rather weak and pathetic person, but the dragon who couldn’t even decide whether he wanted to live or not is not the same dragon before me today and that’s because you have changed.
The person you are right now may be someone your sister can’t be with, but just like how you overcame yourself and choose to sacrifice your life to help Willow escape, I am sure you will overcome this challenge as well because moving forward despite having no confidence in yourself is what makes you amazing Cyrus.”
Φ Hearing my ice wall break, I stand up and see Ahmed on the other side.
“Finished yet brother?”
“Of course, I am, you have my full attention.” As he walks towards me, I say, “Ahmed, please let Raqiue go.”
“Orb I thought I had explained this to you already, you know I won’t do such a thing if her soul reaches the threshold of a demon she will die.”
Taking a deep breath, I shout, “PEOPLE ARE AMAZING!!!!” Which stops him dead in his tracks. “To live is to confront this world, each and every day and that breaks people down, it hurts them, and it may even lead to a horrendous death. But by moving through that darkness, we can all find true happiness, we may falter, our souls may turn black, but I believe that you can all surpass that and one day die with our souls pointing towards the heavens.”
“Those are rather bloated words for a child of fifteen, you have not lived a long enough life to tell me honestly whether that is true or not so why should I believe such hollow words.”
“They're not hollow because I have faith, faith in a man who lived such a life from beginning to end. So, I will believe in those words, in his life, for as long as I live. Ahmed please remove your chains from Raqiue and allow her to experience such a life.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“As a king, it is my job to protect my citizens above all else, I will always choose the most optimal path in giving my citizens all they need in this life and in the next. So, I won’t let my own selfish feelings on whether they could overcome their own corrupted souls or not decide their fates. I won’t remove the chains Orb.”
Activating my legacy on my arm, I say, “Then I guess I have no choice.”
“Me too then.”
While Ahmed assumes an offensive stance, I turn my ice wall into snow and scatter it all throughout the floor.
As I assume an offensive stance, Ahmed says, “You look rather beaten up with all of that blood on you’re clothes, you sure you don’t want to quit.”
“I don’t want to hear that from a man who looks like he needs to sleep for the next 6 months.”
“Brother, I really wished we could have talked more.”
“Don’t worry we will have plenty of time to talk after I beat some sense into you!”
From his right arm chains with spiked ends fly towards me, but I slightly move my body out of the way to dodge, then I turn the snow around him into ice spikes, but he dodges every single one of them while approaching me.
When he reaches me, I freeze the ground beneath him causing him to become stuck in place, but he throws a punch with his right arm again, so I move my head slightly left but then sensing something is off, I immediately move my head far-right dodging his punch. As he was about to punch me with his right arm, he sent his chains towards the left so if I dodged there my face would have been skewered.
The moment my face is out of the way of danger, I kick him with my left leg in the right side of his body freezing the area on impact, then spinning my body I hit him with my right heel against his chin.
But before my feet hit the ground, he breaks his left foot out of the ground and manages to spin and hit me in my face with his foot, though I convert the ice into snow on his foot to soften the blow.
Then as he sends his chains towards me, I turn some of the snow on the floor into an ice wall but he completely breaks through it, so I convert some of the snow around him into ice spikes and then run towards him.
When I reach him, he tries to kick me, but in perfect sync with his body, I dodge and elbow him in the stomach. Regaining himself, he punches me with his left fist and as the blow hits I feel the rotational energy flow through my body, so I kick him directly in his stomach sending the rotation back.
Immediately after that I enter into hand-to-hand combat against him and pummel him. He uses his chains to try and strike me, but I am perfectly in sync with his body so I amable to slightly dodge away each time.
Even though I am beating him down he counter and blocks every second or so attack, but I can see his stamina weaning. Hitting him on his heart causes him to slide back a bit, then as I lunge forward to strike him again, I see chains appear from hit right foot; his legacy is acting on it.
Creating a shield of ice in front of me I barely block his attack, as I get sent back. Seeing his chains coming towards me I run to meet then and as I do I dodge and rotate my body, which just like the old man did to my snow, makes Ahmed's chains spin around my body following me.
When I reach Ahmed, I transfer all the rotational energy into my leg which causes the chain to spin directly around my left leg, then with all the force I can muster I slam my leg into Ahmed saying, “Spiral storm!” Sending him all the way to the back of the room.
Picking himself up he says, “You really named you’re attack?”
“I will lose track of them otherwise.”
Pari Says, “Ahmed, please stop your body is too tired for this.”
“Don’t worry, I am at no disadvantage here I was just testing if I could beat him in hand-to-hand combat, but it seems I am too weak right now. So now I will fight seriously.”
From his right arm a ridiculous amount of chains appear, “Because, unlike Orb, my legacy isn’t drained in the slightest.”
All of the chains head towards me, causing me to dodge away as fast as I can. The chains are attack me from countless different directions; dodging is getting harder and harder. But still, I know how to handle this.
Dodging, I spin around building up rotational energy which causes the chains to move around me as well, but I soon realize all the chains spinning around me has completely trapped me in a storm of them with the only way to escape being a hole over me.
When I build up enough rotational energy, I use that and snowboost to jump up towards the hole. But when I am about to leave the hole, I see a black sphere fall down it.
Wait, isn’t that one of the explosives!? I create a small ice wall in front of myself as the explosion goes off in front of me.
Landing back on the ground, I use my legacies claw to rip through the chains in my way to make it out, I create ice at the moment of impact against the chains to break my way out.
The moment I free myself from that prison I run to the side of the room to see if I can move around all the chains, but as chains follow me from behind, I see chains wrapped around the large rectangular shields of the soldiers from around the room, and form up to blockade my path.
Seeing this I run to the wall and use ice to walk against it, but then I hear the sound of his chains throwing the spherical explosives towards me on the wall. So, I speed up as much as I can as the explosion goes off behind me, but due to the explosion I miss a step, and not wasting this opportunity Ahmed forms his chains into a hand and swats me off the wall.
When I land on the floor, I realize that all the soldiers in the room have been removed, and have been placed in a pile in the room Ahmed was formerly in. He did all of that while fighting me!?
“Now Orb didn’t you name that devasting attack, so how bought this, Ghajalad Abualhal!!!”
All his chains form into a giant sphinx and charge towards me. As I try to move, I feel pain and my knees buckle, shit has my body reached its limit. As the sphinx is about to crash into me, I suddenly see it cut in two as flames appear.
Then in front of me, I see Atalanta who says, “Missed me Orb.”