Whoosh—!
With a sound slicing through the air, a sharp spear grazed right past Cairens’s face. A few strands of his fluttering hair fell helplessly to the ground.
“…….”
“Huk, heok…….”
Still gripping the spear in his hand, Seianes barely managed to catch his breath. If he had put just a little more force into it, he would have nearly stabbed Cairens’s face with the spear.
Cairens had to stay alive. At least, as long as Seianes followed his father, absolutely. But the moment he touched his reverse scale, he became so enraged that it didn’t seem to matter.
He truly almost killed him.
“Haaah…….”
After taking some time to steady his breathing, he slowly withdrew his spear. As reason began to function properly, he finally felt like he was regaining his senses.
In a tired voice, he said to Cairens.
“Don’t provoke my temper again. Let’s withdraw for today.”
Both Abrisius and Cairens—why was everyone being such a headache today of all days?
Right now, he didn’t want to deal with anyone.
“Ha…….”
Watching him walk away, Cairens looked at his own hair lying on the ground.
He only realized after it happened—both that Seianes had drawn his spear and that the spear had grazed his face.
A movement he couldn’t even dodge. If Seianes had angled the spear just a little more to the right, he would have died on the spot without even being able to resist.
Cairens couldn’t even dare to keep up with Seianes’s movements.
In that brief moment, Cairens truly felt the gap in power between himself and Seianes.
He had lost his homeland and lived like a wanderer, experiencing all sorts of hardships, and had some pride in his strength. But as if mocking that, Seianes had moved before he could even react.
“Really, ridiculous.”
He wanted revenge against the gods, and someday he would make them feel what humans had suffered by returning that pain to them. But his current ability was at a level where he couldn’t even avoid a spear Seianes had casually swung.
He couldn’t hold his head up like this.
He had been praised as someone destined to be a hero, and he himself had believed without doubt that he would become a hero for humanity. However, the wall of reality was too harsh. A sense of disparity from the great difference in power and regret over his own arrogance washed over him.
But that didn’t mean he would give up.
Even if he was ashamed right now, he needed to break through that gap instead of avoiding and turning away from it.
“I need more power. To take revenge on them.”
The power to take revenge on them. Renewing that desperate need, Cairens stared at his hair that had fallen so futilely.
* * *
“Seianes, Seianes…….”
After calling out for a long time searching for him, who had left long ago, Abrisius got up from where he sat. His fallen leg hurt, but it was nothing. In fact, it wasn’t even sprained badly enough that someone needed to grab him.
But he felt like there was a gaping hole in his chest.
Feeling as if his heart had been emptied out, Abrisius repeated Seianes’s name like someone who had lost his mind.
From his devastated eyes, tears continued to flow ceaselessly.
“You said you’d love me no matter what. That whatever I did, whatever choice I made, you’d always be by my side.”
And yet he ultimately left like this—he felt so heartless. Looking down, he saw his foot that had turned slightly red from being twisted. His legs trembled from the shock, but he couldn’t just stay still like this or sit down again.
‘Where, where to?’
There was nowhere to go.
Since the only place for Abrisius was by Seianes’s side, and that was his everything, no other choice existed for him.
But staying in this abandoned greenhouse garden was harder for him, so he set out aimlessly.
Unlike that time in childhood when he ran away worried that Seianes might get hurt, this time he wandered here and there, shocked by the wound he himself had received.
His heart, still unable to recover from the shock, beat rapidly. From within it, a dark red power flowed out. Amina’s alluring voice passed by Abrisius’s ear like an illusion.
[This is a contract. I’ll give you desire as a gift. So that you can fulfill the desire you want most.]
The power Amina gifted him, the power to grant his most desired wish.
The energy that had once turned Abrisius into a deer long ago began to surge and flow into the earth once more. And again, without even knowing it himself, he wished for what he desired most.
‘I want to love Seianes. I need power.’
He wanted to go against everything that stood between them and love only him.
To fulfill Abrisius’s wish, the power dwelling within him stirred. A terribly damp energy seeped into the ground.
A power so quiet that even the god who ruled the earth wouldn’t notice touched beneath Abrisius’s feet.
“…….”
Lost in thought, Abrisius noticed nothing. But the Power of Desire caught hold of his aimlessly wandering steps. That power, which defied future, past, and present, moved his steps toward a place where he could achieve what he wanted.
Still not noticing this fact, Abrisius was deep in thought.
Seianes, who first gave him love. Even though he had left him behind, even knowing that harm would come to him someday, accepting all those risks, he had willingly said he would love Abrisius.
And enough to resent him for leaving. But rather, enough to turn that deep resentment onto himself.
Seianes loved Abrisius.
But that was different in nature from the love Abrisius held.
Unlike Abrisius, who felt a damp and deep emotion called love—wanting to touch him, wanting to possess him—Seianes’s love was a father’s pure heart toward his child.
The absolute parental love unconditionally given to a child from birth.
The love Seianes gave was nothing more than a parent’s heart toward their child. But that wasn’t what Abrisius wanted.
The love he wanted wasn’t a parent’s embrace and forgiveness.
As lovers, or perhaps even more than that—a sweet, sticky, and stimulating love where they faced each other. The soft and moist sensation he felt the moment they kissed came to him like a shiver and drove Abrisius mad.
He knew this love could neither be forgiven nor acknowledged by Seianes. If he could stop, he would have. But during the moments of loving Seianes, while being loved by him, he had been soaked in happiness as if dreaming.
Even knowing it was wrong, he couldn’t give up.
“Without you, I can’t live.”
The moment Abrisius, who had been muttering blankly into the air, finally came to his senses.
“…Where is this?”
Earth contaminated by the deep Underground Energy entered his sight. The land that had once been Ircadeon’s domain and was still within his sphere of influence sparkled brilliantly under the moonlight as if welcoming Abrisius.
The dark red power that had led Abrisius slowly fell down underground.
That land imbued with Ircadeon’s power. Very deep. The powerful desire flowed down to the abyss where even Zeyaom’s roots didn’t reach. Quietly and damply. Like a defeated king hiding in the deep underground.
And the moment the red Power of Desire shone and spread through the underground kingdom.
The people of the underworld who had been quietly holding their breath raised their heads. Finally, the alarm announcing the opening of the underground gate rang in their ears.
