I still couldn’t believe myself after what I’ve just heard from Escher. Did he really just said that Mei was his daughter? But…But how can this be? How the heck does she never know about this. Does Escher always know about her all these time? With all of the confusion running inside my head, I went on and asked him directly.

“How come she doesn’t know anything about you?”

Escher laughed and answered,

“That’s quite simple. I’ve used a memory wiping spell. It really took a long time to be doing such a powerful spell. But yes. That I did.”

“But why?”

“You don’t need to know more. It’s not that important. Not anymore at least…”

His last sentence sounded a bit different. It was as if there was a slight sadness that was dwelling within him. I couldn’t really tell what exactly happened, but I get the feeling that it was something that he had to do.

“Is that how you get The Runix Cube pieces? Through Mei?”

“I didn’t do much, I just asked her to give it to me. Besides, she kept the two pieces inside her own dimensional bag. She did it out of her own volition. It was only because she was obeying her own father…You do know that it is impolite to not obey your parents.”

“I can see that. There’s no way I’m going to fight back my own parents just because there is something that I don’t like. I mean they took care of me ever since I was still a baby. But this seems to be different. You left her!”

“I did not left her!”

“Lies! You wipe her memory and you locked her inside that locker. Why do you even consider to lock her in there? Are you trying to kill her through suffocation?”

“Enough!”

Escher caused a surge of energy flown as he puts his staff to the floor as strong as he could. Even the eye on his staff started to open wide out of shock.

“You don’t know what it feels like to be weighted with thousands of sins that you could never take back. We are done here! Throw them out of the tower at once!”

Escher’s men grab hold onto my arm and dragged me out of the tower. Rika, Blax and Kirin were also dragged out. At the same time as well, the remaining Stardust members that was already caught by Escher was brought to the tower’s cell.

“Except you.”

Escher gave an exception to his daughter, Mei.

“You will be receiving a VIP seat to watch the unveiling of The Chaos Beast, The Ravenous Hydra.”

“...why are you doing this…?” Mei was in tears as she asked him.

“I did this for you own good. For everyone’s good. For all of my students. What do you think I’m trying to do?”

“You’re releasing a monster that could potentially destroy an entire city!”

“That’s enough out of you! I am your father and you should obey me!”

Escher walked toward the pedestal where the Runix Cube was placed. He slowly combined the three pieces of The Runix Cube. Which of course, one of them was found by his men while the other two was from our own hard work. As The Runix Cube was completed, it began to glow in a chaotic matter. The rest was history as I couldn’t tell what was happening since I’m already out of the room by that time.

The four of us found ourselves thrown out of the Inverted Tower which was next to a rather large pond. That’s weird, I never noticed this pond before.

“Was there always a pond over here?” I asked everyone.

“This is what happens when you don’t walk outside often. It has always been like that, White.” Rika seems to be mocking me when she said that.

“Well…in any case...That was one heck of a reveal.” Kirin scratches his head as he tries to understand the situation.

At the same time as well, Blax was pondering as he continued to keep staring at the Inverted Tower.

“To think that the number one student of Soul Power High School was actually the daughter of the school’s principal. It sounded like it was a favor made by how much power the principal has toward the entire school. But in fact, it was out of her own hard work. But even so…she was still the product of a person we now know as The Champion of Chaos.”

Kirin then praised him, “Never knew you would be this philosophical, Blax.”

“I can be as smart as Rulend sometimes. I don’t have to always be the idiot, Kirin.”

“Yeah, I can see that. But what now?”

Blax slowly shrugged.

Rika turned up and said, “It may not be the right time to call this but I really should be going now…I need to see my cousins…”

“Just go, Rika. We’ll handle this. Go and take care of your team.” I allowed her to leave.

She nodded and swiftly made her way to wherever her team was.

“You know, White. You could really just ask her to find some help, provided that she can relay the message very fast with her lightning speed movement.”

Blax provided me some insights that I ended up ignoring.

“No. That’s unnecessary…We don’t need more people to be involved in this. You know that is the right thing, Blax.”

We hung our head as we look upon the rough soil that we have always been stepping on since the day we were able to crawl. Feeling confused and lost but most importantly hopeless. But with such despair, a stronger force appears from within.

“We don’t really have a solid plan right now. But I’m sure that we will make it out of here. You guys will help me, right?” I tried to be optimistic in times like these.

I look upon my two friends as they slowly regain their composure. Both of them nodded and patted my shoulder. Blax then told us,

“You know, this feels really weird.”

“What do you mean, Blax?”

“I don’t know, I feel…something shaking is it just me or…”

“I think it’s not just you, Blax.”

Kirin pointed out something crucial. What Blax meant by shaking was the earth itself. The earth was shaking. It was an earthquake. And there it was, as Kirin pointed his index finger toward the pond. We could see the pond started to show some movement. In a few seconds, a sharp structure started to plop out of the water. The structure slowly ascend from under the pond to which reveals a scaly living being, rising up into the surface. As the water begins to fall down from the top of the being, it’s teeth was visible. It’s eyes were glowing in purple. The scales was in light green.

“The Ravenous Hydra…” I said its name.

And there it was, The Chaos Beast has been summoned. It roared as it started to flay around its body. This thing looked like a snake. Only that it had a scaly skin like something from a fairy tale…It’s like a dragon. A legless and wingless dragon. Standing tall just below the top floor of Escher’s tower.

“So that’s The Chaos Beast that you guys were talking about. Interesting. But you know…” Kirin snapped a picture with his normal camera. “This thing…just need to be cut down and we’re done.”

Kirin captured another picture but this time with his magic camera. To which he tore it off in half. The Hydra was then split apart as purple blood started spewing out like a fountain.

“What a disappointment. Don’t you think so, White? Uh…White? Something wrong?”

I shake my head in disbelief and said, “I can’t believe you haven’t caught on what kind of monster was that…”

“What do you mean?”

Kirin’s question was answered as we heard another roar. Only this time, it was louder than before. It was as if there were more than one…

“What the…it grew back its head?! And now there’s two of them?!”

“It’s a Hydra, Kirin. What was on your mind?” I was disappointed at Kirin.

“Don’t worry. I can handle this!”

And so, Kirin makes another mistake…creating what would be something harmless into a fierce force to be reckoned with…

TO BE CONTINUED