“The kingdom of Visereal had been ravaged by a civil war when I had been in that cave,”

I explained, everyone slowly chewing as I continued my story. “The entire nation had been divided, everyone grasping at straws for power. The royal family was slaughtered in their own homes, assassinated by everyone that despised the previous king. There was little left when I looked around the capital. The poor begged on the streets, and rich ladies traded rubies and diamonds for sacks of potatoes. Murders happen daily, and theft was a common occurrence. Even though what I arrived at was the capital, what I saw was not a city but what remained of one.”

“You didn’t talk much about Nobunaga, and there’s still that woman in your story, you haven’t told us anything about her so far,” Eve noted.

“Those two… deserve a special story of their own,” I replied.

I stopped there, thinking for a moment.

“We should stop here,” Celeste recommended, and everyone nodded. This was a good point to stop the story as well. “Magnus, let’s go.”

The two of us were on guard duty tonight. We had been very careful with watching for pursuers. Word before we left had been that the church of Gwynveria had personally sent their highest ranking paladins in order to transport me to Gwynveria. If they caught us out, then I didn’t think that we would be able to take them on.

Me and Celeste made our way through the bushes. She knelt down on the floor, whispering incantations as a red magic circle drew itself on the ground. We continued walking around, doing the same in several locations. We set up around twenty or so circles in the vicinity in the hopes that if something larger than a human set them off, we could be able to make a run for it.

“Want to take a break?” I asked Celeste.

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” she didn’t seem stressed out at all, even after all the spells she had casted. We took a break under a tree, I sheathed my sword as I sat down.

We sat down awkwardly, and I raised my head up to the stars while leaning on a tree. I could hear insects crawling about underneath, not bothering us. A gentle gleam of moonlight dimly decorated the area around us.

“Can I ask you a question?” Celeste suddenly asked. “About your childhood?”

“Hm? Sure.”

“When you killed Malcolm… when you killed everyone in that cave. When you tortured Malcolm at the very end. What do you feel about it now? Not when you first did it, not when you thought about morality and reasoning, when you look at it as a whole. Would you do it again? Would you do it if your current consciousness went back in time to that twelve year old body?”

It was an interesting question. I had changed a lot over the years, both mentally and physically, but if there was something that hadn’t changed then it was my philosophy on the way that the world worked.

“I would have killed him. If I could go back, then nothing would change. I would have slaughtered everyone in that cave. I would have tortured him at the very end. I would have done it worse, because now I know that makes people like him the most terrified. The only thing I would have done differently… was trying to save that nameless girl,” I gave her the cold, brutal and honest truth.

She didn’t seem to be bothered by that answer.

“Why?” she asked again.

“Because in all my life I have never regretted killing people like him. I’m not saying that everyone that I have killed deserves it, but there are people like him that I know the world is just better off without. When I saw Malcolm in that cave, there were many things that went through my head. Including Emery as I killed her,” my voice seemed to soften as I spoke. “Did I do it out of my own free will? Yes. I was a fool. I was afraid that if they captured her, that she would be made a plaything. My small incomprehensible self didn’t even try to think of hiding, trying anything else. I simply chose the first thing that crossed my mind. Spare her the pain, don’t let her suffer.” I paused for a bit. My breathing became heavier. “What if… Malcolm and his group never existed. What if we were left alone, never to be bothered by him or anyone else like him? What if we never had to worry about people coming to hurt us? I decided a long time ago that as long as I kill them… then I prevent the same thing from happening again. Never again, will a child have to suffer like that. And if I can prevent someone else from going through the same thing again… then I’ll do it. Every time”

It was a long answer. I often thought about it myself, and it wasn’t hard for me to voice all of this at once.

“I see…” I looked down at her. She was looking straight ahead. "Have you talked to Leon yet?”

“Not really, why?” I asked her.

“He’s always like that, slouching and stoic. In fact, if he didn’t like to drink and loosen up like I always tell him to do, then he would end up like you,” she pouted at him as if they were a married couple. “No offense.”

“None taken,” I smirked.

“I’d like to ask you something… something personal. Something that’s haunted me and Leon for a very long time. I want to ask you about it, because I think you’ll get me closer to the answer I’m looking for.”

“Are you sure you can trust me?” I asked the same thing as I did for Rachel.

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“May I ask why? Even though you know what kind of person I am?”

“It’s precisely because I know what kind of person you are,” she smiled, the wind lifting up her hair. Her blue hazel eyes, the graceful and elegant aura around her seemed to dim just a little. “When you talk about what you do and why you do it, it’s never about yourself. You never think of doing things for yourself. Every choice you make, every action you perform has always been about doing it for someone else. When you chose to kill your sister, you must have wanted to kill yourself afterwards. Yet you weren’t even given a chance to think about it. When you killed that nameless girl in that cave, you didn’t do it because she was a hassle or because she would slow you down. You wanted to save her, but she asked you to spare her the pain, because she didn’t believe it.”

She turned to me, smiling. It was kind, not condescending and in some ways a bit playful. “The only thing I’ve learned about you is that you make decisions not for your own benefit, but for the happiness of others. Even if it’s not always the right choice. Even when it’s not the choice you want to make.”

I stared at her. I truly felt flattered by what she said. Unlike Leon, Celeste always seemed so much more open. With her she didn’t seem to be so firm and sturdy, leaving little gaps and kinks in her armor. It made it easier to communicate and understand, at least for me.

“Anyways…” the expression on her face seemed to dim just a bit. It looked lonely, dark and uneasy. “I suppose Leon’s never told you where we are from either?”

“Actually, he told me that he was from the Western Kingdom,” I recalled as we were returning from the vampire job.

“And you thought he was telling the truth?”

“He had no reason to lie.”

“Well… like you, Leon never likes to talk about his past. The only person that knows among this group is me and Rachel. Eve is someone that is not close to us, so we probably won’t tell her.”

A short pause ensued where she seemed to be thinking about something.

“Me and Leon have been travelling together for years. We both came from the same place, and left under the same circumstances. And the two of us have been stuck together ever since. We’ve been looking for someone for over ten years, and when we saw you fight the griffin we thought for a moment that we had found who we were looking for.”

She paused, almost as if giving me an opportunity to ask questions.

“How old are you again?” I asked the first thing that came to my head.

She rolled her eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that it’s rude to ask about a girl’s age?” She puffed up her cheeks. “I’m twenty-four right now.”

“You’re older than me,” I wasn’t really surprised, our age wasn’t that far apart.

“Wait, how old are you?” She, on the other hand, was clearly shocked.

“Twenty-two, I think,” I never really bothered to keep up with my age. I was pretty sure that was right though.

“Never would have thought, you seem so much older than you actually look,” she put her hands under her chin. “But is that all you really wanted to ask?”

“You said that you thought you had found who you were looking for… what did you mean by that?”

Now the uneasiness had returned to her face once again. It went on and off like a lantern, like it was something that she was trying to avoid, but couldn’t help but bring up.

“You see, me and Leon are looking for a person. Someone dangerous, someone that has been in hiding for an entire decade. We have been looking for him, awaiting his next awakening,” the voice that came from her no longer sounded like the Celeste I know. It was filled with a fury and spite that I had never thought she had the capacity for. “When he wakes… we will kill him. No matter the cost.”

I was taken back a little.

“He’s someone that’s been around for a very, very long time. An ancient monster that tormented us before it completely vanished, leaving nothing but small crumbs, leading us everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I’ve killed monsters before, but much less people. And never before have I ever thought of killing someone simply for the sake of killing them, and now I wanted to ask. In the end, is revenge really worth it in the end?”

That was a more difficult question to answer.

“No,” I answered. “Not at all.”

“Isn’t that hypocritical of you?” she seemed irritated.

“Yes,” she wasn’t wrong. “I said I would do it again. I would do it every time, I’ll tell you that. But do you think I wanted this? Do you think that I wanted a life where I was a judge, jury and executioner?”

She remained silent.

“I didn’t ask for any of this. I was forced into it, and at the end of the day the thing that I want most is a normal life. To have somewhere to call home, to return home and be able to fall into a bed without anything to worry about. Revenge is sweet when you first taste it. Once you get close and it escapes, just barely out of reach, you’ll be willing to push harder the next time. And when it happens again, you’ll give up more and more. And finally, you’ll end up like me.”

It probably wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Whenever I hear that question, I know what people want to hear. They wanted reassurance that whatever they were doing was right. Celeste seemed to have a dark secret, and a capacity for hate that I myself would never have anticipated.

“You love Leon, don’t you?” I asked her. It was time I asked.

“Yes, I do,” she didn’t even try to deny it.

“Why don’t the two of you settle down somewhere, and let the world deal with its own problems?”

She folded her legs, her glittering eyes moving up towards the sky now. “We made a promise. We said that until the day until that beast is dead, that we will not stop looking for him. No matter how long, in this lifetime or the next. Even if one of us drops dead, we won’t stop.”

I was impressed by their tenacity. It took a certain determination to make a promise like that, even more difficult to stick with it to the end. However, at the same time, I didn’t want her to end up like me.

“So you two are a thing,” I repeated.

“Yes, you could say that,” and in that moment the aura around her stopped dimming, instead returning to the usual grace and happiness that surrounded her. A smile returned to her face like the good memories had suddenly replaced the bad ones.

“If you tell Leon any of this I'll hit you!” she puffed her cheeks, raising her staff.

I had a good laugh as she returned to normal. However, at the back of my mind I was suddenly reminded that even the happiest looking individuals carried an equal capacity for anger and hate.

“Want to go back now?” I asked her, dusting the dirt off my pants as I stood up.

“Yes, let’s,” I gave out my hand, helping her up.

We began tracing our steps back to the camp. We had laid traps in a circle around where we slept, and so far nothing seemed out of place, as always. The walk back was laced with less moonlight as clouds shrouded the moons up above. Celeste skipped along the way, acting even more playful than usual. She turned around and stuck out her tongue, tripping over a rock. Before she even had a chance to fall down, I was already behind her, my hands pressed against her shoulders.

“Careful,” I pushed her up.

“That was… very fast,” she observed. “Faster than before.”

“I think you’re imagining things,” I assured her. “It’s pretty late.”

“Maybe,” she got up on her own, raising her arms to stretch. “I am getting sleepy.”

The rest of the way back resulted with no other occurrences. Everyone had fallen asleep by the time we got back, at least that was what I thought. Celeste slowly made her way into the tent with Rachel and Eve as I waited outside, as usual. I never liked being confined to a tent. Not that I was claustrophobic or anything, just never felt safe staying in such a small area. I climbed up a tree, enjoying the scenery. Hills stretched over the horizon Ever since that night with Rachel, whenever I was alone, I felt like there was something trying to reach out to me from the inside. Soft and seductive whispers grazed my ears, and I knew that the Abyss was trying to reach out to me.

“So that one’s taken.”

“You knew that from the start.”

“Not really, they could just be friends travelling together.”

“Yeah right, just a man and a woman on the road for several years, travelling together with not a single thought of the other on their journeys.”

“Why not?”

I grumbled, laying on my hands and prepared to sleep.

“What happened that night? We still need to sort that out.”

“The thing is, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“In all my years, the Abyss never spoke to me. Never before has something like that happened before.”

“Then what do you know about the Abyss? It seems to me you know nothing apart from its appearance.”

A silence. I didn’t like that even now Asura was hiding something from me.

“It’s a failed miscreant, an experiment gone wrong. I suspect it was created by the very first demon in an attempt to mimic the creations of god.”

“You mean…”

“Yes, the first demon tried to imitate the creation of life.”

“Necromancy?” that would explain why Celeste and Leon might have recognized it.

“No, a magic even more powerful than the revival of the dead. It is similar, but not exactly the same. There are reasons why the existence of the Abyss is privy to very few. It is not a power to be freely utilized like fire or water. Even though I was only able to utilize a fraction of its power.”

“And even with a fraction of its power, you were able to become a demon lord.”

“Correct.”

“How did he end up with the Abyss?”

“I don’t know.”

Again, up until this point Asura had only admitted not knowing something once. Unless it was something related to current events, he almost always had some sort of remark or answer.This was the second time. He had been alive for thousands of years, walking through his empty palace recalling books by pure memory. The fact that he himself understood so little about the Abyss made me wonder just how he expected me to utilize it. I said that I had been tired of running away from fate. Yet my actions don't reflect that. Why was I trying to avoid the Abyss? Why was I still trying to run away from the darkest corners of my memories? Bad memories approached whenever I thought that I felt the Abyss before. I had felt it before, I just didn’t realize it.

“Do you remember what happened that night?” I asked.

“Which night?”

“The night where we lost connection, until recently.”

“Ahh.”

He said it as if he didn’t want to talk about it.

“What’s going on?” I grew irritated.

“Nothing.”

I knew that he was hiding something from me, as always.

“I know that the Abyss controlled me that night. I know that there’s something you’re not telling me, and I’m tired of it.”

Silence.

“You wanted me to become the last demon lord, you wanted me to become the Abysswalker that you once were. And now I’m telling you that I will be who you need me to be. But if you won’t even help me understand the thing inside of me, then how can I believe anything you say after this point?”

Asura said nothing. Not a single word. He was always like this whenever I asked him something that he wanted to avoid talking about. But I’ve already had enough.

The rest of the night I was able to rest without further argument.

* * *

As the morning came, we packed what little things we had and continued on the road. Rachel led the way, and I kept close to her as we began going uphill. The air had gotten slightly warmer in contrast to the colder mornings that we had before. Already, I could already feel the difference in the weather as we began to head towards the center of Elysium. From where I’ve been, the weather could be erratic. Although it didn’t make much sense to me how a desert could be right next to a rainforest, the only explanation that I could come up with was magic. Perhaps the same magic that causes distortions in the wildlife also changes the environment as well.

We travelled for most of the day and feeling especially adventurous we decided to rest only after we reached the top of the hill, just so we could scout out the area ahead before we decided what we would do next.

As we climbed up the hill, we saw something sticking out, something man-made. A small village rested over the hills next to a large stream.

“You been here?” I asked Rachel.

“No, I’ve never taken this route before,” she replied. “We have to cross the river… but something feels off to me.”

We heeded her words carefully, and the five of us slowly walked downhill.

“You guys sense anything?” Leon asked.

We shook our heads. Things were far too quiet. And when the forest is quiet then something is very off, and we realized that all too well.

As we descended downwards, a hazy mist had seeped out of nowhere, shrouding the entire forest in a light cloud. Yet, we couldn’t sense any danger whatsoever, and none of us drew our weapons.

As we got close to the village I saw that the houses were mainly made of smooth wood, sturdy and it didn’t seem to be temporary shelter. Not a single sound was heard apart from us as we walked down the road through the village. Even as we got to the river, it seemed to have gotten quieter.

“Let’s split up, it doesn’t seem like there’s any danger here,” Eve suggested.

“I’ll check out this side with Celeste,” Leon pointed towards the left side of the stream.

“I’m going to go back from where we came from,” Eve turned towards me and Rachel. “You two should check out the right side then.”

“You sure about this?” I was uncomfortable with splitting up.

“Scared?” Eve smirked.

Me and Rachel began walking towards one of the houses. I followed her, watching every corner and raising all of my senses. For some strange reason, I didn’t feel attuned to the environment. I shook it off as a fluke.

Rachel stopped at one of the houses, opening the door as it slowly swung open. No creaks, meaning that the hinges weren’t that old yet. Inside, the lamps were lit. Food had been on the table as if there had been people here very recently. I raised my hand over one of the dishes, and I could feel the warmth as my hand hovered about it.

“There were people here,” I concluded, looking at Rachel. “Very recently.”

Rachel nodded, looking around further.

“I don’t feel good about this,” I whispered. I felt very comfortable in this town, for some reason. Even though everything was off, there was no reason that I shouldn’t be cautious, but for some reason the environment felt completely familiar. We looked further in the house, I stayed outside of the rooms as Rachel looked deeper inside. The beds were done, as if someone had deliberately cleaned up the interior. There were a few barrels in one of the rooms, and I could see that there was fresh fruit inside them.

“See anything?” I asked.

“Nothing, but it’s just like you said. It’s like people were here and suddenly just disappeared.”

The two of us walked outside of the house, looking around more. The fog seemed to have become thicker.

“We need to go back,” Rachel sounded worried.

The two of us ran back to where we came from. It didn’t take long until we reached the center of town, where everything had gotten much foggier. We remained within sight of each other, and as we reached where we had started we began calling out for everyone else.

“Leon! Celeste!” the two of us shouted into the fog, only for our voices to become lost in the thick and blurry cloud. We continued walking around for a little bit, calling out for Eve as well. As we walked around the fog seemed to swirl around us, leaving enough space for us to see each other. Suddenly I felt it, like a pair of eyes was following me.

Faster than lightning I turned around and made a beeline for where I had felt it, only to see a small orange shadow disappear from behind one of the houses. It had the shape of a small wolf.

“Magnus?” Rachel called out to me as she chased after me.

“There’s someone here…” I said out aloud.

“I felt someone watching us, but only for a split second…”

“Do you sense Leon, Celeste or Eve anywhere?” I looked around cautiously.

“No… not at all.”

I didn’t either. They had all mysteriously disappeared. The answer to this situation was simple. From the moment that we had laid eyes on this village the wool had been pulled over our eyes. If only I had been more aware. The mana running through the village was very faint and thin. I had felt magic like this before. In fact, I was so attuned to it that I didn’t even recognize it as magic when I walked into this village.

Now that I understood the situation we were in…

“Rachel,” I called out to her.

“Yeah?” she turned to me.

“Come over here,” I motioned in front of me.

She did as I said. “Why, what do you need?”

“Hold my hands and close your eyes.”

She raised an eyebrow, but continued to listen to me. I held her hands, and as she closed her eyes, I focused. Unlike most people, I didn’t have to use incantations or chants in order to cast a spell. It was a special attribute of demon magic and very specific abilities. With me I didn’t have the disadvantage of having to stand still, leaving me very flexible to use a sword. However, for most people, having to cast a spell meant absolute focus. And that meant any interruptions or distractions could potentially cause a spell to fail.

Pure bloodlust filtered through my veins. It was a trick that I used many times in the past, but it often had side-effects that I wanted to avoid. Fear is a powerful tool that can be used to manipulate to coerce people into doing things. A wave of pure terror spread across the air as I focused all of my anger into a single second. It spread outwards like a circle, and then the illusion fell apart. The mist immediately lifted, as if gravity had suddenly flipped and the clouds had dropped to the sky. Suddenly we weren’t alone anymore.

We found ourselves standing exactly at the center of the village, right before reaching the river. Celeste, Leon and Eve were asleep on the ground, snoring away. Even though the illusion had broken, the casters still refused to show themselves.

“I know you’re hiding there, I know your magic,” I announced, walking towards the source of the magic. Rachel reached to draw her bow, but I signaled her not to. “I know you’re hiding here. You can’t hide from us forever, I’ve broken the illusion. And now that we’ve seen past the mist, it won’t work on us a second time.”

“Well played,” I heard clapping behind me as me and Rachel turned around. A woman appeared from the smoky air, appearing like a ghost. She wore a fox mask, hiding her face behind it as suddenly dozens more people came from the deep mist.

They all wore masks, like they had something to hide. The woman that called out to us took off her mask, revealing her face. Two white haired fox ears popped out from behind her head before five long and furry white haired tails ascended from behind her. It had been a long time since I had interacted with a beastman, people who were born under the blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective, of an ancestral animal.

I bowed my head.

“Kitsune of the forest, forgive our intrusion,” I requested formally. “I hope you don’t mind us passing through this village.”

Rachel was still by my side, and she bowed as I did.

“It has been a while since humans have ventured across here… but much longer since a man who has the mark of a fox has appeared before me,” she bowed as well. “I apologize for the precautions we took, we were unsure of whether simple travellers or enemies had entered our small village.”

The kitsune’s tail seemed to expand as she walked closer, her beautiful pale face seemed to be illuminated by the sun above us. The illusion may have faded, but her beauty did not. For a beastmen specifically known to be able to cast illusions, I wasn’t afraid of what she would do to my mind. For in my head old memories of a certain person had begun to flood through my head. A young woman by a window, outside a window as if looking for something among the skies. She saw me, and for a single moment as our eyes met, I could see a smile before I was pulled out of my memories, and returned once more to reality.

“We were hoping that once you were ensnared by my illusions, that we could lure you out of the village and you could go on your way,” her tail seemed to grow larger and paler as she got closer. “Your three friends are well asleep, but you two couldn’t be ensnared by my illusions. One is an elf… and another is…” she turned towards me. “Something else entirely.”

I didn’t react to her comment.

“What is this place?” Rachel asked.

“It’s a village that’s been around for two hundred years. A village of beastmen that have no other home, and up until very recently we have had no contact with the outside world. I hope you can understand that is why we’re so cautious around you.”

“I see…” Rachel answered.

“You don’t have any questions?” the kitsune turned to me.

I shook my head without meeting her in the eyes.

“Well then, my name is Kurumi. I will take you to your friends, they’re safely asleep inside one of our houses. Please, follow me.”

She turned around, guiding us through the small houses. Now that the illusion had lifted there seemed to be even more housing, and they seemed to have gotten a bit larger. Beastmen stood by the side, watching us as we slowly followed behind Kurumi.

Deep inside of me, I could feel something waking up again just like that night with Rachel. Something trying to break free, like outside of a prison. It was only then that I realized that I was having difficulty talking to Asura. I shook my head, going on my way, hoping that nothing was amiss.