In the North, the tyrant Sora's domain.
The griffin tyrant was sitting confidently on his rock, his retainers all lined up before him awaiting a command from him. If one looked at this scene, it was a picture-perfect poster of a king's court.
Contrary to the scene, the tyrant was currently experiencing so inner turmoil.
Currently, there were two beings inside the tyrant, both struggling to assu perfect control over the body. At first, the second being was simply suggesting and whispering, but after a certain point, the being had gotten extrely aggressive in its approach.
It would take over in the night when Sora was sleeping. It was having secret conversations he wasn't aware of. It was giving out orders without his say so. At this point, he was basically a backseat character in his own body and he wasn't going to stand for that.
'Simply hand over control. Things will be better that way.'
'In what way? The West has clearly figured out your trick.'
Both Sora and the parasite were shocked to see that their forces in the South were completely overwheld. A number of the forces in the West had been captured as well and they'd been forced to send one of the strongest combatants out. On all fronts of attack, his skill had been torn apart.
Karon of the East wasn't too pleased with their failure, but Karon was of no concern to the duo as they both believed whole-heartedly that he was not a match for them. Even his father, Krull, would be hard pressed to combat them.
Still, if soone had figured out the secret behind their skill, that ant there was no choice but going in personally now. It wasn't an option the parasite was willing take. It had nearly been a month since it chose this host and it still hadn't managed to take full control of the body. This was unprecedented, but the parasite surmised it had sothing to do with its lack of power at the mont.
It wanted to take over the war ogre's, Karon, body instead but chose not to considering the difficulty it was having with its current host.
'Silence. This is my body. Leave at once!', furiously, Sora ordered, however the parasite was not having it at all.
'A peon like thou dare to make a demand of !? Prostrate thineself!'
'If you wish to fight, I am willing to fight a second ti.'
Sora didn't rember vividly how their first fight went, but the fact that he was still in control of his body suggested that he erged victorious, right?
As the two argued, they noticed an intense presence appear before them. Taking a look around, they both noticed how odd it was that they couldn't feel the wind blowing anymore. Everything was deathly silent and the servants that stood before them were frozen like statues. Even weirder, a child stood before them.
This child, dressed in a simple long-sleeved white shirt, a pair of brown shorts with straps keeping them on. The boy wore a pair of knee-high white socks and shiny black shoes. He looked at the tyrant with eyes so dark they appeared completely void of any light.
"Who are you?", Sora roared, standing up in order to intimidate the child.
"Oh? You don't recognise , [Pride]? Were you seven been fused so long that you lost yourselves?", he asked, looking at the griffin with genuine intrigue.
"[Pride]? My na is Sora, little one. You would do well to rember it!", Sora was on the verge of fleeing, but with his subordinates around, he felt like he couldn't disgrace himself in such a way.
"It's unusual of you to give your host so many liberties. Let's silence it.", with a snap of his finger, Sora was swallowed up by an unknown darkness.
This was the darkness of death. The Tyrant of the North, Sora of Ravaging Winds, had been killed instantly. All that remained were his body and the parasite.
'What are you doing here, bug?', finally, the parasite couldn't hear his host's voice. It was in total control now.
"Even in your current state, you still can't hide your condescending tone, [Pride]?", the boy had a smirk on his face as he folded his arms behind his back.
'You don't seem to be doing so well if you have to be in a human host to co talk to , Themmir.', Pride retorted.
"Oh this? I only need this since gods have been banned from being in this world. Besides, the prepubescent form of a boy is to my liking." He perford a little twirl, showing off his body to the griffin. "In fact, the only reason you escaped here is because of . You should be thanking ."
Pride snorted at his remark, not believing a single word that ca out of his mouth. The boy shrugged and looked south-west over the mountain, before comnting,
"It would seem [Kalkiba] and his faction are choosing to monitor this little spat."
'Surely you didn't co here to bore with your useless observations, did you?'
"No. I ca here to request a favour. Two actually.", with an innocent smile, the child stated. Pride on the other hand knew that innocent smile hid sothing far more sinister.
Under normal circumstances, he would have outright rejected the offer, but at the mont, Pride was weak. He lost a great majority of his personal power and even worse, his counterparts had all been forced to separate. Currently, Pride needed more allies than enemies.
'I shall receive two favours in exchange then.', even if he needed more allies, he couldn't appear weak. No matter how dire his situation, Pride absolutely could not appear weak.
"One, or none.", he rejected the offer. Pride glared at him, but knowing who Themmir was, this was the best offer he could get. If he were at full power, this scenario wouldn't even be happening. Themmir would have been far too scared to even co face-to-face with him.
Pride grunted, signifying his acceptance.
"Excellent!", The boy clapped his hands together. "For my first favour, please answer this question: If there was a man who lost both his mind and heart, but was yet sohow alive, would it be possible for the man to return should he be given a new mind and heart?"
It was an odd question, but Pride perfectly understood where Themmir was going with this.
'No.' he responded flatly. 'It would be a new mind and heart, making it virtually a new man.'
"Why is that?", the boy asked with his finger to his lip.
'Perhaps it is a matter of the soul. The mind and heart are two halves of one soul. The mind governs the logical and more objective point of view, whereas the heart is the emotions and desires. Together, these two form the ego, the sense of self of a person. Without both of them-… This is a question for a goddess that governs over life, not for a god such as myself. I can't proceed."
"But who better understands life than the embodint of its major flaws?"
'Is that your second favour?'
Unamused, Themmir clicked his tongue and shrugged.
"I want to know where the other Chaos Gods are and in what ways they will be reincarnated."
'How am I supposed to know? Unlike them, I was in horizon for close to a century. Those weaklings fled once they failed the war.'
"Oh? That's not what I rember happening. Now that I think about it, you are different from when you fuse. Should I take it that a fusion of multiple minds and hearts create a new soul that is entirely different from the individual parts?"
'Last I heard, the Chaos Mother had already made a vessel for herself. Her reincarnation isn't supposed to happen till a few years later though.', to avoid that entire conversation entirely, Pride decided to give the boy so sort of information.
"Oh? Do you know where this vessel is?"
'I am not certain about this, but I suggest looking into the battle gods of the Mystic Peaks.'
"I see. Your aid has been much greater than I expected. You have my thanks."
'I don't need that. Tell where my counterparts are.'
"Yes, yes. I am honestly stunned that you have grown so weak as to not be able to sense the others. Then again, considering you were up against the entirety of Horizon's army by yourself for quite a few decades, even a [True Primordial God] like yourself is susceptible to being weakened. If this is what happened to you, I wonder if the other sins can even survive."
'Do you know where they are or not.'
"Hmm. [Wrath] was captured by Fafnir. I have no idea the whereabouts of the others."
'I see.', at least, he now knew where one mber of his group was. It was only a matter of ti till he found the others.
"Considering how much of a help you've been. Let give you a piece of advice. Simply submit to the master of the West. A majority of the gods are already keeping a close eye on her."
'Huh? Since when does that matter.'
"Well, that master is Vermillion's spawn."
'!?', words couldn't describe the type of expression that Pride's new face ford at the ntion of Vermillion. Themmir had already turned around, skipping away before he paused, turned his neck around with a sinister smirk and said,
"Oh… I just rembered that before you ca here, one of the sins was defeated by the master of the West. I'm not certain who absorbed who, but judging from the lack of presence from both sides…", he paused to think about it, but shook his head in surrender. "I still don't know. Good luck on finding the others."
The boy dematerialised into the shadows. The flow of ti returned to normal and the mbers present were shocked to see their king standing. None had seen him even move which caused a massive shock.
"Lord Sora…?"
"I don't care what the East wants. Send all available forces to the West, now! We shall crush them and I will have that stupid queen for myself."
______________________
anwhile, in the East, Krull's fortress
A conversation going on between 4 people had just co to an end. Inside of Krull's chamber. Two demonkin had presented themselves as dignitaries of a demon who wished to forge friendly relations with the future ruler of Larm. Essentially, unexpected allies.
"In that case, we shall return once the Ursa Major awakens." Saying this, both of them walked out of the room, leaving the father-son pair alone.
"What do you think, father?"
Karon wasn't sure what had happened, but during the conversation, he felt sothing call to him. Sothing was demanding his urgent attention. More specifically, soone. Unfortunately, he couldn't pinpoint what this was, although for a second, the image of his little sister flashed in his head.
He wanted to ignore it as coincidence, but he could clearly tell that whatever that was, it had affected Krull as well. Light had returned to his eyes and Krull was back to who he was before his encounter with Goliath.
"About what?"
"The demons. It's obvious their leader just wants to use us to take over Larm."
"We are going to use them. After this war, we'll build up our forces better with the entirety of Larm, then attack the demon country. Even they can't stand against Larm."
It was true. Larm, if ever united under a single banner, would be one of the most formidable empires in the world. Resources aside, the sheer populace was more than enough to make others wary of the forest.
"Did you also get the feeling that Kala needed our help?"
The conversation begun with Krull being half-dead, but by the end he was back to his pri. And there was nothing that suggested that the contents of the conversation revived him. It had to be the feeling he had during the conversation.
Krull's face twisted up and his beady eyes burned red hot.
"She must be killed."
"Why?"
"Because another War Kishin cannot be allowed to exist! I won't allow it!"
"War… kishin?" that was sothing Karon hadn't expected to hear.
Karon had heard about them in his short ti training in the Demise Mountains.
From what he knew, War Kishin were an evolution for the War Ogres. Not many could ever attain this evolution, but those that did were revered as gods amongst the War Ogres. They were essentially Ogre Deities, much like humans had their own deities. The last anyone heard of a War Kishin was about 8 years ago, when the War ogres killed themselves off.
He couldn't understand what made Krull make such an expression as he walked away.
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