Chiron gave his ashy beard a stroke or two, sucked his teeth in irritation, then sighed, almost like he gave in to defeat. “Really,” he coughed, “I didn’t know what to do with you. Should I kill you and harvest your strength through Eblis? Should I wait for you to get stronger? Should I have told you lies about this world to make you hate it, so you’d willingly join me to summon the demon? So many choices. I was a fool to procrastinate so much, now I have a nuisance of a bug to deal with. Who knew,” he coughed again, getting to be unusually talkative to prattle for this long, “that you would find out so quickly,” then jumped off the tree stump, “even then. I assumed you would need more time to make a decision like this. Maybe you didn’t like me from the beginning? Perhaps that, is why your decision was so hasty, so easy to make. I’ve told you before, Emily, to think things through before deploying irreversible action. It was,” he charged a spell through his hand, “unwise.” A bright white light flashed between us, making me blink. Not a second after, Chiron vanished.

This is it, I thought, this, is it! The mere thought of an actual battle with my uncle scared me, yet, I was inexplicably excited. Think, think. I need the staff, what is my plan? At that moment, an incredible mass of shadow energy swamped me from behind, but thankfully, Living Armour saved me. Of course, just as the fight with Winter, I had to strategize on my feet. I teleported out, behind a nearby boulder, downed a red pill and blue pill to buff me up, then used metamorphosis. I then made the two ice clones, ordering one to pommel Chiron with any projectile magic it wanted to use, “Don’t worry about allies getting in your way, we’ll manage, just shoot to kill,” I advised, then turned to the next one, “You’re the melee combatant, focus on fighting up close. If you do get a chance, grab the staff and teleport out of here.” There wasn’t much more to say. They both dispersed. Apollyon was next, he appeared right in front of me, like Audax would appear out of nowhere. I was about to usher commands, then I realised I had no idea what his fighting style was, I pointed at him, “Do whatever you do best.”

I could already hear the sounds of battle going on behind me. How do I get into that? I thought, exploring the reaches of my mind for an answer. Spheres of arcane, lava, and shadow were thrown. Winter stars and fire breaths showered the old man, but he dodged, unnaturally deftly. Of course, the wind! Despite his old bones and rusted joints, he was like a squirrel being chased by a human. The ice clone I asked to use close combat could hardly keep up, in fact, she seemed even slower than normal. Clumsier too, every now and then she’d lose her balance and trip up a little. Looking closer to the onslaught, Chiron used his wind to greatly interfere with the clone’s movement and enhance his own, making his escape from the blows she deployed an effortless move.

For a while, the ranged clone stopped casting, but in turn, Apollyon began assisting. He used shadow bind, but his was somewhat made up of tendril-like shadow energy that sprouted forth from the ground, wrapping around Chiron’s ankles. It trapped him, his levitate-like dodges stopped for a moment, just in time for a right fist to bludgeon his jaw. Needless to say, he flew back a few metres, flipping his way into a rough patch of grass. He was dazed, but began getting up. Even while slumped to one knee, he didn’t let his guard down when the melee clone teleported behind him, swinging a chop right to his temple. Unfettered by her advances, he teleported behind her, a spell already prepped in his hand. I wasn’t sure how strong it is, but for a spell that required such little preparation, I was certain it wouldn’t penetrate all three of her defences. As Chiron was about to let the spell out, something hit him and caused an explosion of fire. It was so fast, so blurry I couldn’t see what it was, but I knew it came from the ranged ice clone.

Did she, just create a spell? Did I, just create a spell? My mind was boggled at the creativity, or the fact that the clones seemed to have as much potential as the original caster. Because we’re all connected, I learned what it was after a while. A spear, a spell meant to be blindingly fast that I had my mind on creating but never got around to it, my clone just did it for me! The idea was, when thrown, there would be a blast of arcane energy from the hand that throws the spear, propelling the spear with a ridiculous speed. She took theory and made it reality right under my nose.

However, even at that ungodly speed, it missed him. He teleported away, and this quickly became a battle of mental attrition. His usage rate of teleporting was almost, unfair. Every time he did it, we all lost sight of him, but he familiarised himself with the ranged clone’s location, Apollyon’s, and mine. To throw this off, and ensure he remained ignorant, we had to mimic his strategy. At this stage, having a clone solely for close combat was pointless. We all switched over to employing the teleport-spear tactic. Using the connected vision of all three of us, we would try to extrapolate where he would teleport to based off of the landscape, and where we think would give him a good vantage point, but he steered clear of obvious places like that, turning this fight from reading what would be good for the enemy, to learning the enemy’s habits instead.

From time to time, when my clones believed they could read him better, they would fire at him spears of draconic magic or shadow magic and throw him off, but still failed to actually hit him. Apollyon’s shadow bind gave them just a lengthy enough window to throw these spells at him, but his shadow bind was meant to stop physical movement, and would not prevent him from casting teleportation.

He tried attacking when he could and we gave him a taste of his own medicine. The elusiveness of this battle was of stupendous proportions and we stood at an impasse. We couldn’t hit each other with spells, we couldn’t get close to each other. I could feel the orb shaking with anticipation, a sharp hatred pointed to Chiron. It would be a great idea in theory, to release Eblis himself and shake up the battle to make Chiron slip up, however, Chiron could easily turn Eblis against me using the staff. But, I wondered, all I need is a couple seconds.

Nearly an hour of running in circles, I decided to make the move and release Eblis in the middle of the forest. No hesitation endowed in his movements, Eblis fired off shadow energy like crazy, wrecking the place. I teleported far upwards and summoned Audax to scout. Eblis had the old mage hot in his heels, true fear warped his mind and made him completely forget he had the answer right in his hand; Eliora’s staff. Trees died in seconds of just being exposed to Eblis’ toxic energy. He was a demon through and through. Chiron had no time to think, no time to counter attack, he was much too busy teleporting about, but he would not teleport off the island itself. He wanted to win this fight even with Eblis on his tail.

After about a minute of dozens of teleportation, I understood somewhat, my next move. It would be risky though. I placed a portal in a spot he often frequented when teleporting in this area and in just time, he fell right into it and was warped into the skies in front of us. I jumped off Audax and grabbed onto the staff, using both legs to kick him away from me and snatched it away from him, teleporting to Eblis immediately. It was dangerous, yes, but it certainly assured me he wouldn’t try to follow. I just had to command the demon to not harm me.

Chiron was falling out the skies but teleported to safety within the dead trees, hiding. I used arcane bind to wrap chained around the hand that held the staff, so he wouldn’t try to grab it back like I did. This was it, mission accomplished, but there was no way I could just let Chiron escape, and there was no way he would let his greed make him give up now. I knew he was still around somewhere. We stood there for a few motionless minutes, Eblis as still as a rock.

He was waiting, watching us closely. I yawned, my eyelids squinting a little, and heard a grunting behind me. There he was, falling for that deceptive yawn. I guess he was waiting for any little movement that might make me let my guard down. Eblis literally had him in the hand.

“If Eblis feels the magic from preparing teleportation, he will crush you.”

“Alright, alright! I,” he snarled, “I yield.”

I sat on a nearby log, giving an exhale of relief. This fight was mentally exhausting. “Chiron, ‘why?’ is the question at hand here.” I looked up at him, “So it’s question and answer time. Why did you summon Eblis?”

He kept silent, his eyes glaring at me. Eblis gave him a little shake. “Glory, fame, honour. What else?”

This, truly took me by surprise. In no way did this man ever act like those things were of even the slightest importance. “I am a god to those people. I’m the hero who saved them from the demon.”

“You ended most of the lives, so the ones that you didn’t kill would call you a hero?”

“Yes,” he said with a straight face.

“What of my father? Where is he?”

“What do you think? He’s dead of course. Too rebellious.”

My lid was ready to flip open from the boiling anger, but I held myself together.

“What about my mother? Even now, my memories are hazy but they led me to believe she was chased by Winter and killed. Do you know what really happened?”

“I guess,” he coughed, “now’s as good a time as any. After Clara discovered I was the Summoner, I banished her and her half breed child to a simulated world. It was fake, but it seemed real. Winter found a trail of strange draconic magic, you, and ended up finding a way to enter that simulated world. He sent his officers to investigate the source. They confronted Clara about it and she panicked. That was when I summoned you here.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense. All those years I spent with my mother, why didn’t she tell me who you were?”

“She couldn’t. I altered her memories, as I have altered yours.”

This man, was the most despicable piece of garbage I’d ever met. “Why did you keep us alive then? What was in it for you?”

“I kept you alive because you were a good subject for experimentation. I figured I could somehow harness your magical abilities. As for your mother, I only kept her alive to raise you. I couldn’t be bothered with raising a brat, or even finding someone to do it. But after she outlived her usefulness, well, I killed her.”

My heart raced, like my very blood took the ire right to my brain, but I kept it inside.

“If you can reshape people’s memories, then why didn’t you do that? Why did you go through the trouble of killing so many people, so many dragons, when you could’ve just altered their memories so they worship you?”

“That’s fake glory.”

“So instead you created a problem behind everyone’s back and fix it in front of them? Is that glory?”

“Yes. They revere me on their own, using their own wills.”

“How much of a hypocrite are you?”

“Enough to achieve what I wanted in life. What of you? What have you achieved? Do you even know what you want?”

I stood up and dusted off my backside, “Your life.”

Eblis squeezed him, crushing and grinding the bones in his hand. There were no redeemable points to Chiron, and I rued the fact he even shared my family name.

I sat there, a little disoriented. Hero. God. Saviour. Hope. What the hell does any of it mean anyway? Chiron was dead. Eblis was under control. But I simply couldn’t feel victorious. The stench of death was disgustingly strong. How could I call this a victory when most of Venreval laid dead? How could I call this a victory when I was so blind that I couldn’t even fathom the concept of Chiron Crescent being the man who betrayed Venreval, the Summoner. How could this be a victory when both my parents were killed by the very same person? How am I this helpless?

What a sickening feeling burning the back of my mind. I rested the orb and staff down, pulled my knees up and curled into myself. I still lost.

I was so enamoured with my own self-loathing that I didn’t notice the shadow magic gathering around me. My living armour’s reaction made me realise that Eblis was about to try something, so I grabbed the staff and forced him to stand down. “What do I do with you…” I muttered to myself. I feared the day would come when another Summoner sought to bring Eblis into this world for any reason, so I merged the two artefacts together. Eblis’ orb was now suspended in the middle of the staff’s circle and it was then, Eliora chose to appear.

“Seal him, in the orb, then seal me, in the staff.” Before I could reply, she vanished. I did as she said and sealed them. It was a rather easy thing to do, and now, this artefact of life and death was under my care. Was I the right person to wield it? Should it even be wielded, by anyone?

“You fool.” I heard Eblis inside my head, or did it come from the orb? I wasn’t sure. “You forget, I have something of yours.”

What’s he­–

I spat out blood suddenly, my body began to become enfeebled and cold. Dizziness shrouded my head and darkness infiltrated my vision. Ah, he has, my heart. Sorry, Mandy.

As fast as the dark encroached, the bright skies unfolded before my eyes.

There she was, that woman. “I’ve seen you, a few times in my dreams–in visions,” I walked forth and she smiled, “you must be important.”

“I’ve also seen you, many times. You’ve never given me an answer.”

“To what?” I looked around the skies, able to see the stars a little closer.

“To my question, of course.”

“Who are you? And what question?”

“Me? I’m Zanthia Aethereus. Emily Crescent, would you like to join my world?”