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Chapter 37 The Darkest Dawn
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Good luck...
Siva thought of the words that he had last heard. Those were the words that echoed in his ears before he began to be blinded by the brightness of the teleport light.
"Good luck?" He whispered, gritting his teeth, his breathing becoming heavier.
At the mere thought of his brother sleeping on that capsule, and with his 'soul' pretty much being threatened to be destroyed in this world, Siva began to darken his thoughts as the rage he felt on the words "good luck" started to overflow in his heart. The seconds became slower, like the drops of water outside, or the leaves falling on a tree on the garden down below the grounds all had been rendered slow. He raised his head to the man in front of him, glaring as much as he could to inflict the most damage in those dwindling seconds before he disappeared into the light.
My brother's life is just for luck?
He thought bitterly.
For almost a span of unimaginable seconds, the small vertical lights that should have engulfed his body suddenly become a little bit slower in its progression. The wizard in front of him didn't notice this but the only woman with authority in the room felt that there was something wrong.
She felt her nape hair stood up, goose flesh crawling on her skin from head to toe. Something in the eyes of The Destroyer made her alarmed. It was something that felt akin to a real forest monster. It was a feeling he had read in so many articles about him earlier on.
"What did I ever do to you people! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH...!!"
But even with that, she knew it didn't help The Destroyer one bit to escape the fate they enforced upon him... or in this case, the fate that Hagrid enforced to this player. And yet...
Why is he crying? This is just a game.
Donna couldn't find an answer to that question. What she felt with those confusing emotions were neither fear nor any for m of threat, but it was definitely alarming. Like a lion cub, cursing upon the hunter who killed his mother for prey.
With tears that started to form in his eyes, Siva kept on glaring at the magician's slowly disappearing image, vanishing as an after sight and leaving him screaming in rage. Siva cried in anger, the tears of hatred flooding both sides of his cheeks. With his open mouth and the audio disappearing along with his body like a broken glass, the sight of him screaming in anger and trying his best to free himself from the binding chains, made the male elders give out a mocking smile.
When the silence of the room came to them, Hagrid looked at his elders with a grin.
"I can see stardom already."
"That is not too far away. We can use him to our advantage." Cedric said and glanced Donna who remained looking at the afterglow of the dark skinned demon. "It's certainly not the first time you've seen someone scream like that on us, right?"
Donna glared back at him with a stare so sharp, it could almost cut Cedric's neck.
From beside her, hidden to Cedric's angle, her hand almost pulled her sword up to its scabbard and had it slice the magician's head off there and then. It wasn't so different as to her, this was just a game. She had set up her visual effects to [Pixel] mode so there are no blood and gore when she cuts monsters and other players.
But she just glared at him. Instead, she returned her gaze back to where the spot with a man just now was, and turned her back at Cedric without saying a word.
"What?" Cedric found it odd and looked at Hagrid. "What's her problem?"
Hagrid followed her back until she exited the door then came back to the spot where Siva is and looked at Cedric.
"Well," he shrugged wit a wide smile. "women."
Cedric, for a very few occasional events, smiled at the man's selfish humor. Sometimes, being a man who only has brawn with minimal brains are able to say a few things that makes a bright man smile.
**********
[Preserver Protocol (Layer 1): ACTIVATED]
[Preserver Protocol (Layer 2): ACTIVATED]
[Preserver Protocol (Layer 3): ACTIVATED]
Meanwhile... from out of a dark, lightless room, with four illusionary walls made of pitch dark material, in over countless years he had been waiting in that very same spot where his jailer left him, where time is bound and a single blink lasts a lifetime, and only three luminous lines that hovered in the darkness in front of him becoming his only entertainment in those countless days...
...came the first change.
[Preserver Protocol (Layer 1): DEACTIVATING]
[Preserver Protocol (Layer 2): ACTIVATED]
[Preserver Protocol (Layer 3): ACTIVATED]
And in that dark room, his face was reflected in the darkness due to the prompt. Not once had he ever looked away on those three lines, not once had he ever thought of missing the chance to savor the time of his freedom.
He wore a smile so full of gladness, he uttered the line he's been long saving since the day he was first put in there.
"At last..... Rex Kingsley."
Then he stood to where he sat, from a chair made of darkness, reaching his hand to touch that line.
"...you will pay."
As he uttered the words wit a low husky voice, the first line at the top kept on blinking. Slowly, he reached his fingers, excited of the event that will occur. A few inches away, he kept on. He did not stop, he did not waver. It wasn't fast but it wasn't slow. It was just constantly approaching, savouring the chance to exact his vengeance to that feeble world.
Then... his hand finally touched the words. Like glass struck by a cannon ball, the letters shattered into fine fragments, blown by an invisible wind. And the man laughed that dreaded laugh...
...along with the appearance of a boy beyond the shattered letters not too far away.
**********
Augustus, in his white masked face, sat in the middle of a long royal table, staring at the subjects he knew would be vital parts in the foundation of his grandest plan. Behind were three black masked men, with two bulky fellows and a scrawny weakling in black ties. The man directly behind him looked nervous, his trembling knees can't be hidden by his loosened slacks.
In the long table laden by extravagant food and dishes, with wines and brandy, and sake, and all forms of drinks all beside tables of happy chatting men and women.
They all wore masks to hide their identities, only their lips and hands bore skins of their, if not royal, luxurious prides. And there are some of them who snatched a glance at The Boss from time to time, and the nervous man behind the host took no heed to some irritating glances over his way.
He asked the bulky man on his left, "Why are we even here?"
There was no answer.
As much as Faust wanted to get out of this place, he was promised that there would be something of importance to his own research in this gathering. He didn't know who they are nor what they are to his own ambition but he trusted AG because he was the only one who knew the importance of his own research's goal.
No. In fact, Faust, in his beguiled mindset, trusted AG because he had no choice. He may have forgotten, set aside, or temporarily ignored his own ambitions because of his sense of morality, but he had never once forgotten the feeling and the determination to achieve his goal.
For the purpose of it alone, he accepted the deal.
[If you promise me your cooperation, I will promise you everything you want.]
To someone who had always been second at everything, to finally have the chance to be spoiled and be ruler of his own decisions and actions without compromises, if all it takes is to share his dream to the darkest and most disgusting man he knew, then so be it.
Life is too short to waste going around small minor bumps.
And as he Faust nervously waits the cue for the beginning of the main event, Augustus in his white tuxedo stomped the end of his cane and the room was filled with the silencing echoes of the iron hitting oak wood floor.
"Friends..." He began softly, "it is time."
The chattering stopped. Smiles grew into grins. AS the cold air in the room was replaced by something unfamiliar yet exciting, Faust's heart almost jumped out of his chest as he held his breath to what happened next.
With the lights in the room slowly shutting off, it took him a full 40 seconds to finally realize what had just began. From the dim light into pitch darkness, came the breath-taking lines-like water current, coming from every inch of the room, forming a sphere of blue planet in the middle of the table, floating above.
Gasps were shared amongst those who couldn't hold their amazement, what came next to them was a holographic rendering of a planet much like Earth.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Augustus, whose face lighted up by the glow of the revolving sphere as he slowly walked towards the other end of the table, spoke calmly. "This is the era of technology, the era where we are now able to strive for the dream that all men, and some women, crave... for we are all TRAPPED... trapped in this world of gruesome jealousy, of bloody envies, and wrathful existence of the thing called power..."
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Giggles escaped a group of young-looking women in a corner and Faust looked at them as if he had seen a group of teens on Rex's age. In his chest, he felt half truth layered in the man's voice. Augustus had this magic in him that every word he said sounded so sincere and true even though they were open lies.
In fact, he had long learned that lesson. That to trust this man means to forsake your life.
Still, because of a deal he had struck with him, a deal so rare yet so meaningful to him that he would actually risk his life to find the person who will offer him that deal, Faust had learned how to swallow his pride and his anger and instead just look forward towards the dream he almost long forgotten.
"..friends, this time, we will begin the change ourselves. The world we have long spoken about, of everything we know completely different, we will begin the innovation that this current society is not disabling us to do..."
Faust's eyes was snatched once again by the giggles.
He thought then as such. Who are these people? But his words couldn't escape his mouth as he had noticed the emblem at which the girl in the center of that group carried in her finger.
"That's...!!"
As much as he wanted to voice out his thoughts, he curiosity kicked in first as he looked around and focused his gazes on all the important people gathered there in that room.
Presidents, leaders, prince and princesses, sultans, celebrities--people of varying importance, but of only one demeaning factor binding them as a group: influence. They were all here, gathered in this table, possibly aware of one's presences, ignoring all sorts of religious, cultural, and historical differences, and only gathered with a single purpose of listening to that man.
Faust focused his gaze to Augustus who then had already reached the other end of the room.
When he realized just then, he was already on where Augustus once sat, and the two men behind him had invisible urged him to go there and take the cup of whine that was served to his right.
"My friends, I want you all to meet the man that will fulfill your wishes, the man that will grant you the only thing that all your known gods had denied you."
Faust was utterly speechless.
Wine glass filled with red liquid was raised in his honor, eyes of prominent people looked at him with greed and ambition. He didn't know that AG had set him up like this but deep inside him, something so long forgotten had resurfaced once again. What was the reason why he had changed his ways?
What was the reason why he put up with the fake identity he'd been wearing?
"Eliza." He whispered and remembered the brutal end she met with the person she chose as her man.
Why did I even let it happen?
Faust took the wine glass in his right hand and slowly raised it. The shaking, the trembling, the nervousness, it all faded away. What was left there was an object... something he had long cast aside and now wanted to go back.
Why did I even let it happen?
He asked himself that question once again as he initiated the toast he so long wanted to do since a long, long time ago. He remembered the dream he once shared with her, the dream he also shared with the only friend he knew. The two had supported him, shared his struggle, his passion, and his goal... but they had different views of it and they used their gained knowledge to lead a life so much different than the one he envisioned.
But for her sake, just to be able to not part from her, he divided his thoughts and set aside his pride, his ambition, his goal, his dreams, and became the 'friend' that they needed, the person that had become their pillar of support.
Through the years, he had endured and learned to live this life.
Help people in need, use his 'skills and knowledge' for the greater good --all for the sake of not parting afar from her. But now she's gone. There was nothing holding in his sense of morality.
Faust also knows the science that the two of them mastered. He was the third genius, the second place next to the world's brightest man and woman. But in order not to become their competitors, he swallowed his pride and humbled down, now nothing's binding him anymore....
She's already dead.
Faust grinned wide to the point that it made Augustus happy. So much, in fact, that he spoke the words, the highlight of this gathering,, with more gusto and vigor.
"To immortality!" He said.
And to immortality they all drunk.
With them drinking in the toast of their unified ambitions, the world illuminated blue in the center of the long table, floating about in the sea of darkness and turning on its day, were satellites and minor objects, and moons numbering to 22. As it continued to turn, came a great spot in that planet.
It was then that Faust understood.
"Immortality," he spoke without remorse. He didn't care anymore. Augustus, this man, is the key and so Faust smiled at him as he spoke, "Begins in Terroa."
**********
The teleport circle and its [Light] surrounded Siva's body, his skin was sucked on the sensation of momentary loss of air and the vacuum of gravitational shift outbalancing him. Like the feeling of his long lost broken sword, it made him feel like he was weightless, enough to make him forget that he was actually forced to kneel down by the ethereal chains.
During those small moments, an image of his brother with the same mark in his body came into his mind, and a promise almost long lost since the day of the accident resurfaced in his consciousness.
And so despair clouded Siva's mind. He realized just now what that dream-like figure was talking about.
-It was the reason why he was defeated
-It was the reason why he was still kneeling down.
"I'm so weak..."
He whispered to himself as the tears and snot tasted bitter and sour on his face over his trembling shoulders. He collapsed on the floor, letting the semi-transparent chains take the shape of his pulled-down-body.
Tied on every limb and dragged down to kneeling until his face almost touched the ground, his weakness and his fate, together with his mourning of the events that had happened in his life, it all finally hit the bottom of where he could endure, and Rex in the mask of the character named "Siva" began to cry in his agony. Sobs echoed and the anger he felt and the despair that's creeping over his mind materialized as a scream. The rage he was feeling inside was freed as he cried out loud, with only him to hear it in this dark room of his thoughts, somewhere in a corner of his mind.
Remembering the sight of his parents in their car, it drills a sense of fear into his heart. It was the kind of fear that he worries would be the outcome... what if he was too late to save his brother in that city where rules are bent, Alexandria.
This is not a game. Rex thought again. Siva's scarred face was gone and he lay there like a slave, chained to the ground, kneeling face first until he didn't care anymore as a change occur to him --or to be precise, a long awaited change finally began in that room.
Sensing the fear like a warm bath after a stormy trip, the shadow in the darkness of the room began to take steps closer. It was staring down at Siva, at that weak and fragile image that which took the side where the light shines ever brightly.
The person's eyes were neither frightening nor alarming, nor it has the same feeling that you want to get away. That person's eyes in the darkness was like a flare, a spark of light in the deep darkness' void. It watched him cry, sobs, and scream in agony, until the man that was on the same height and body as him became a kid, aching for something that could become his support.
Such lonely, weak, and fragile existence...
The whispered words could only be heard by him for there was an unbreakable wall that separates their worlds in a form of a hair's line space like a waterfall. On the other side, the kid continued to shed tears, hugging himself, feeling defeated, feeling weak. What resolve he had before now taken away from him for the mere thought of escaping this curse puts more reason for it to lock you down.
"I have to save Baron." the kid tried to convince himself. But no matter how much he told himself the words over and over, he just continued to burrow his face on his knees and hugged them, comforting no one but himself alone.
And then, the figure in the shadows couldn't hold his excitement any longer, he went as close to the barrier as possible, enduring the agonizing, stinging electricity as he reached down an open hand to the boy, and spoke.
"You can't save anyone if you don't have the resolve to kill, Rex."
**********
"Kill...?"
As if hearing unfamiliar words, the weak boy raised his head slightly but didn't see anything from which the voice came.
That's right... kill... kill them all... all that stands in our way.
But there it is again. Someone was definitely talking to him. Still, Rex only continued to look at the empty space in front of his feet, ignoring the fact that he was talking to a ghost.
"All of... them?" He answered as if in a daze.
The reply made the entity on the other side smile. His words were finally getting through after all these isolated times.
Yes. The entity replied, barely hiding the joy in his voice. Kill them. It's easy. All you have to do is take my hand.
The image of the boy --the him that was suffering inside each time he was in agony of how to be free of this fate, of this disaster that befall his family, of this tragic story that he never knew had started ever since he returned from that trip from abroad-- began to raise his head.
Rex looked around him and wondered who owned that voice. It was a voice that sounded soft and tender, caring and soothing, so placating and so comfortingly familiar, he just can't help but to trust it.
"Take your hand?" He asked innocently.
That's right. Answered the voice and Rex leaned forward to see more of what lays in the further of the darkness beyond his light. Take my hand. Just like all those times that we have been victorious... just like all those times in the past eons, before you left and locked me in this place.
"Did I... do that to you?"
As if realizing that he had done something awful, the boy's face showed a pained expression.
Don't worry. I will forgive you if you free me from this prison that you created yourself.
"Why did I do that?"
A silence engulfed the two. In those few moments that there was a lull, the coldness of the room began to make the boy shiver. Then, the same voice layered with sweetness and familiar love answered him.
That's not important. What matters is that I have to be free. Now.
With the tone painted with faint hastiness, the aggressive approach was not minded as the boy's face showed stolid attention. Though it was unusual for a boy to show a pained expression, his next set of words showed the weapon that the voice had.
"Will it... save Baron?"
I will save Baron. And as if getting the reply that he had long awaited, a white smile emerged from the pitch darkness just a few meters ahead.
You can trust me.
"Then..." the boy began to stand, slowly, surely, "then please..." He stuttered and seeing this made the smile on the entity's face bore inexplicable excitement.
Come now, take my hand.
From the wall of a thin layer of light that separated the darkness and the boy's place, the hand that reached down to the little boy motioned for him to come closer. The boy slowly walked towards him to reached up and...
And with the smile on the entity's face getting even more wider, his gentle hand suddenly grabbed the boy's with such roughness that the boy had to scream as he felt the pain. But the truth can't be hidden. The being of darkness had no intent of letting that hand go.
"Rex Kingsley...
...your sin cannot be forgiven...
...for you have sinned to yourself when you created me."
**********
"What's happening?!"
The ship was shaking, it was trembling mid-air.
"Bridge! What's going on?!" Reaching to the communicator attached to the wall with one hand and holding himself steady to the railings with the other, Thorn cursed in his tongue as the face of his pilot appeared in the window.
[Nothing's on the radar sir! This is not an enemy attack!]
"Then why the hell is my ship shaking?!"
[We don't know!]
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....!"
From the back, Thorn looked back and saw Henna, reaching down to her head, and was embraced by Scion. She was trembling, as if seeing something only she could see, eyes focused on one direction, so frightened that the nurses in the area all had no choice but to run to her aid.
"Log me out! LOG ME OUT OF HERE!!!"
FlowerLord took her by the shoulders, looking at her eye to eye as she tried to calm her down.
"Snap out of it! This is just a game!"
"He's coming! He's coming! He's coming! He's comiiiing! Kyaaaaa.... get me out of here!"
"Who's coming!" Yelled Scion. For some reason, she felt the hand that gripped hers tightened to the point that it hurt. And then, from behind them.
"Oh My GOD!" Someone gasped in horror.
"Agatha!" Volt rushed to reach for her and caught her before she collapsed on the trembling floor.
"M-Matt..." Then from beside him, to where he came, Volt saw the purple witch crying in despair and fear of what she was seeing. In front of her was her holo-panel displaying their player-window. And so when they all one by one checked what was going on, they all held their breaths to what they saw.
[Captain!!!]
Thorn couldn't comprehend the horror of the situation. He looked at the panel and saw the chaos in the bridge.
[The window! The window!]
"The win..." Thorn looked at the hall window and noticed the white clouds in the night sky. "There's nothing..." and just then remembered that they were riding 'till morning. "By the gods..!!"
And like a thundering echo, another nightmare happened. The violent wind was broken down by a thundering sound. No It was a noise. Like the one you hear in the cinemas, like the one you hear when you looted for the first time, like the one you hear when you sky dived, like the one you hear when you were happy the most.
It was repeating, on going, as if it never needed air to breathe.
"This sound..." Volt raised his head. "It's coming from everywhere."
"The air is laughing." Samara said, half surprised.
But then, from another part of their group, came yet another scream.
"He's coming! He's coming!"
With no care whether he loses all image, or if he stumbles to his face on the trembling floor, Thorn rushed over Henna and came to face her, and asked with utter seriousness, and anger in his face.
"WHO IS COMING?"
"It's him! It's him, Thorn!"
"Who are you talking about?"
"The Destroyer!"