Chapter 328

Roar of a King (IX)

Cain sat still on top of a boulder, his legs hanging over the edge while his hands held tightly onto a pear-shaped, silver-laden fruit that felt both soft and hard to his fingers. It was difficult to describe it, truly. It didn’t appear edible, for starters. It looked like one of those fruit-shaped diamonds that the vain billionaires buy to sate some ego-driven desire of their souls.

Furthermore, it was barely plum-sized and was entirely transparent, snowing nothing of what Cain expected to see in a fruit--namely the soft tissue and juices and seeds. Its exterior was its interior, intruded.

The strangest of all were its soft-and-hard playwits. Upon a soft touch, it was hard like stone, yet if Cain tried to squeeze it between his fingers, it was... impossible. In fact, it seemed the fruit’s hardness was proportional to how hard he squeezed. At one point, he even went all-out, emboldening his fingers with Mana and still... nothing.

He contemplated just swallowing the thing but held back. There was a voice in his soul that was telling him it wasn’t time. Furthermore, he felt it. Though others definitely couldn’t--not just ordinary Conquerors, but he suspected most existences across dimensions alive at the moment--he could. It reminded him of something specific... the penultimate ring during the first trial he took in the Silver City.

That singular flash that the Divine helped him achieve... the fruit reminded him of that. The touch was the same--it preceded primal. Somehow, some way, in some fashion, it was unlike everything else. Cain found it beyond difficult to put into words which was why he never discussed it with others.

He’d told Senna and Emma about the cyclic life he had to endure, the innumerable years spent in serene infinity. However, he never told them of that singular flash he experienced... because he couldn’t explain it. The closest comparison he had was just as equally mind-boggling: he suspected it felt akin to what peeking behind the Big Bang would feel. Except... it didn’t make sense, at least not to a human mind.

Everything the human mind knew became after the fact. The same thing applied to the rings--everything prior to that final one, he could fathom. Put into words, however extravagant those words may have been, however outside ordinary human perception they were. The last one, however, couldn’t be described even within that context.

He got the same feeling from the fruit. Just looking at it, it seemed like just an expensive-looking sculpture. However, just a slightly closer look showed something beyond description: the fruit... rejected Mana. Mana itself could not penetrated through its outmost exterior. Rather, it went even further than that. The fruit rejected the world. It seemed to exist in the perpetual state of dimensional tear, wherewithin it was neither here nor there. It rested somewhere yet nowhere. On top of his palm, yet not.

It further confirmed to him that even if Danny was just trying to sell the fruit really hard... a good chunk of what he told him was probably true. The tiny piece of fruit he was holding was likely older than the universe itself as they knew it. It didn’t just reject Mana and the world but all laws and energies that made up that world. It rejected gravity, for starters, as it would just ‘stay hanging’ whenever Cain left it. It wouldn’t move or roll or bend or abide by any logic.

Most notably, and most mind-bendingly, it defied... time. It was another aspect that was difficult, if not outright impossible for Cain to put into words. He had keen perception of time--not as a thing, not as a concept, but something both tangible and abstract that existed within that duality. And he could sense that it existed irrespective of time--in fact, if the entire concept of it, as well as the matter itself, was to somehow simply disappear tomorrow, this little crystal-looking thing would just continue to hover about in place for all eternity.

He sighed and tucked it into a pocket. Naturally, it could not be placed into his inventory--rather, he didn’t even try from fear of it obliterating the woefully more unstable sub-dimension. Looking up at the dark sky, he wanted to roll into a blanket and hide for a while. He could feel it, the crushing pressure slowly falling. Like homework that’s ‘whole summer away’ biting ever so closer with each passing day.

At some point in the relatively near future, he’d likely become a quasar--a pillar that will alight the world and invite many-an-eye onto himself.

According to Danny, the little gnome would return home and start preparing. What that meant, Cain couldn’t say. All he knew was that eating the fruit will be a monumental occurrence and that he should do it on Earth. By then, the gnome would have put in place some mechanisms that would disallow everyone else from figuring out where it came from.

The whole thing reeked unilaterally yet Cain could only pull out a bitter laugh and yap in solace. He wanted to wrap his fingers around one of his past vices but knew it was pointless. It was his choice to step in and, as such, he’d resigned himself to a future where he’d have an equally matching stage for his fronting arrogance.

Though he immediately wanted to actually return to Earth, it wasn’t because he wanted to eat the fruit but spend as much time with the group as possible before he ate it. It would change everything, he knew, and though he will claw desperately until his fingernails are bleeding to drag them with him, he wouldn’t do so if it meant their deaths.

However, he elected to stay until he was ready for the third Awakening. He couldn’t know what changes the fruit would cause within him and, as such, wanted to be as prepared for its consumption as possible, namely in strengthening his body as much as his class allowed him.

“You’ve been sulking around ever since we left the garden,” Quinn said as he broke the silence and sat down next to him, handing him a bottle at the same time.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“You’re always the one treating us,” she replied with a faint smile. “This is one of my local delicacies.”

“You’ve been holding out on me, eh?”

“Didn’t think you were worthy.”

“Hoh? What changed your mind?”

“... that you’ve become a friend of mine,” she replied honestly.

“Wasn’t that hard,” Cain said, uncapping the bottle. “You’re pretty friendable. Wait, is that a word?”

“If you have to question it, it probably isn’t,” she said. “But you’re quite wrong. Becoming friends, especially in this world, is beyond difficult. Distrust is ripe and rampant and everyone would rather see others headless than befriend them. Then there’s the matter of you being a man and me being a woman.”

“...” Cain took a sip and then another. It went down easily. Soft, cool, almost with the consistency of milk.

“What’s it like?”

“I’m gonna need more of this.”

“It’s the last one I have,” she chuckled. “It’s been a while... since I last went home.”

“I don’t care that you’re a woman, Quinn.”

“I know.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong--you’ve got nice tits, and I’d be a liar if I said I haven’t, y’know, stolen a look or a hundred, but, well, I really like tits, man. What can I say?”

“... your wife’s a lucky woman.”

“I’m the lucky one,” he said. “You’ll see it when you meet her. People look at me and go ‘damn, he’s cool, I really wanna see how strong he is, and I wanna see him fight and shit’.”

“And humble, clearly.”

“I’m like a big, erect, cock-shaped missile,” Cain continued. “Everyone likes admiring it but from a distance, with its tip pointing away. She... she’s like an umbrella. Like a massive, world-covering, air-conditioned umbrella. While I shine so brightly that I draw people in from everywhere,” he glanced at her. “She’s the fire that keeps ‘em warm when they come.”

“... from the sound of it,” Quinn said. “You’re just too big, Cain. Even to me. I look at you, and I nary see a man. More a figure, to be honest.”

“...”

“I can only imagine what it’s like for the barely once-Awakened, watching you. Even those who love you and hold your hand kindly likely see you more a God than a man, whether they say it or not. Your broken jokes and fuck-all attitude works desperately to sell your humanity to the world... but they can only go so far.”

“Maybe,” Cain cracked a faint smile. “But I know of at least three that don’t. And that’s enough.”

“She humanizes you to them. See, this bearded fuck isn’t a god--his farts smell like shit!”

“If that’s all it took to humanize a god, there’d be no gods,” the two laughed for a moment. “It’s gonna become more and more difficult to sell my image of the joking, middle-aged-dad with a potential drinking problem from here on out. If I can’t even get someone like you to hold me an equal, what chance do I have with them?”

“... you can accept that you’ll never be an equal.”

“That’s depressing,” he said. “And really, really, really fucking close to megalomania. Do you think when I look at you I see a Knight or a friend?”

“... a friend,” she said, stealing the bottle from him. “I think, at least.”

“And you’d be right,” Cain nodded. “There are two men in me, Quinn--there’s the one that you see during a battle, that image that you have in your head. And then... there’s, well, me. I don’t care how you see that crazed lad swinging his arms violently about. I only wish you saw me as a friend, ‘s all.”

“... well, friend,” she said. “What now?”

“Now? I gotta go and Awaken. So, friend, please, do show me the way.”