That day, that fateful day when they entered into the ruins.
He rembers how he had treated Crow, and how his actions eventually led to Crow’s downfall.
Crow, a friend who had tried to help him even after his betrayal.
Which made Rashid really detest the current situation, and detest his foolish past.
He understood that the predicant he finds himself in is his own making to so extent.
The crow he recalls was not so cruel, nor was he so powerful to bring everyone into a dream.
Sothing happened after he left, and that sothing obviously broke the childish dwarf he rembers.
Which finally turned him into a killer of unfathomable strength.
Who was to bla for all of this if not him?
"What happened was tragic... I was young then." Rashid spoke calmly, while a hint of static appeared in his hands, unnoticeable for soone of Crow’s background.
"Don’t be so deaf brother, I am not blaming you... I thank you for your gift. Look how strong I am now." As Crow spoke, his body grew and turned into a giant hulking bull, which was far from the bull transformation that Rashid rembers. "I am so strong, that none of your coin bullets can ever harm anymore." His words were followed by Rashid’s attack, who understood that his small actions might have been noticed by Crow.
But it was already too late, the thick cow skin alone handled the fired coin charged with electricity, while Crow’s monkey-like lanky arms grabbed Rashid. "Weak, so weak." He spoke showing no remorse as he manhandled Rashid’s body and dragged him to the air by his foot.
"You know, back in Pulgasiri, my father once said that a man who only thinks of himself could never be successful." Using his other hand, he broke crumpled Rashid’s other leg, causing him to scream in pain. "In my youth, I always treated his words like trash."
"Hah, there were so many people who beca great by living a selfish life, including my uncles and even certain legendary beings... so isn’t what he said total bullshit?" Crow ignored the screams and went for the other arm crushing it to pieces.
"But with the things I saw, experienced, and suffered from, including you... I ca to understand that what he said holds so truth." Rashid cried and seed to be begging Crow to stop, but Crow didn’t listen to his words at all, nor did he care for the current that ran through his body.
The attack of a re Adept Knight was nothing to him, besides feeling a bit touchy, Crow felt nothing but utter satisfaction.
"If you live for yourself, you will lack justification. You won’t be able to do as you please unless you wish to beco the enemy of this world." He said while breaking the other arm.
"This justification can only be earned if you are fighting for so idea, a group, or your people who share the sa values."
"So I thank you, if not for you, I wouldn’t have learned a thing. I would still be blind like you, selfishly living for myself like you did all those years ago. Haha!" Crow laughed breaking the other arm and throwing the body of Rashid to the corner.
Which made him whimper in pain and nothing else.
"Now I am free from the burden of my dead master, I can act the way I want, live the way I want, kill the way I want. And no one can stop , for I am backed by justification."
"You are wrong, you are evil, you are the villain in my country, so I can treat you however way I want and nothing will happen to him."
A zealot, that’s how Crow appeared in Rashid’s eyes. That was if he could open them, to begin with.
’What have I done.’ He understood that his friend had gone crazy, speaking nonsensical words that made zero sense in his eyes.
A madman who seed to distance himself from his own atrocities in the na of justification. A monster of his own making, Rashid could think of nothing but pain and forgiveness at this point.
"But don’t worry old friend, I am not here to kill you." At those words, Rashid slowly lifted his head and looked at the monster that stood in front of him. "I initially did have plans to kill you, but he stopped ... in his eyes, you seem soone important, soone with connection to greater people that hide from the world, and it seems my Master has a ssage for those people."
Hearing these words, Rashid really didn’t know what Crow was talking about, but then, sothing clicked in his head and he opened his mouth. "Speak Crow... as long as you spread the lives of people in this camp, I will convey the ssage."
"You bastard, don’t say those words after what you did in Phuket, so many dead due to your selfishness, so many of my countryn." Hearing those words, Rashid almost wanted to shout that your original country was Pulgasiri, not Yethel. But he held his words back.
He understood that this Crow was not the old him, he seed different, and he seed to be brainwashed to so extent.
So it’s better not to earn his ire more than he already has. "..."
"... I am getting annoyed the more I look at you. Hah! My master, my Lord has just one warning for you and your ilk... stay away or face the consequences."
"He might not have been aware of it before, but he had obtained so clue of the people behind you, and if they dare to act out again, my master promises that none of them will be spared of what’s to co." Crow’s threats were simple and direct and Rashid noted them down in his head without a chirp even though he didn’t know who Crow was speaking about.
He just played along in order to make sure that Crow doesn’t harm anyone anymore, and as long as that wish of his is fulfilled then he will act as Crow wishes.
"I... I have noted." Rashid said, coughing so blood on the side, but through this whole ordeal, he never did cry even once.
His ntality had strengthened from his experiences, he was not the old him anymore.
"Then good my friend... " Crow spoke, looking around the room one last ti, including the sleeping figures of Amir as well as Farhad, before saying. "Oh I so wish to kill both of them... specifically that ghoul bastard... but Master loves them both, he can’t see them suffer." With those words, Crow swallowed sothing in his mouth and then turned into a small monkey before disappearing from Rashid’s sight.
Leaving Rashid to wonder. "Now what?" He thought. Considering both his arms and legs were broken.
"How to ask for help?"
It was during such contemplations that Prince Amir of Cynark woke up from his deep sleep.
"Sir... you are awake?"
"Rashid?"
******
"This... everything that I saw... dreams?" Amir couldn’t fathom it, the experience seed almost unreal to him. The life, the sensation, the feeling of dream, and the strength of Farhad, all of it felt real to him, which was unlike any dream he had ever experienced.
"Who is to say, this is not a dream... or a limbo?" The death he experienced in the dream broke certain ntal defenses in Amir. The confident he had finally faced a defeat that was unthinkable in his eyes. And when he was just coming to terms with his death in that dream.
Turns out, everything is false. And Farhad was still here, sleeping not too far from him, whose face alone made Amir rember the painful mories he just experienced, making him almost flinch in fear. "No, I am strong, such defeat is nothing." And then his sharp mind started to unravel all the information present in his mind along with what Rashid just explained, who himself seed to be in too much pain.
"Farhad sohow caught on to the gain... he killed to wake up from this."
"But am I really awake?" This was Amir’s first true defeat, and it would take a while before he ca to terms with it.
******
Though I have a habit of using the term, "A certain soone is not like how they used to be." to depict an individual ntal growth, the sa was true for .
"It was simple..." With my ascension as a totem, I found that I can share the burden of using greater hexes by depending on my followers. And considering this body of Crow was my own body, I don’t need to sacrifice fingers anymore.
A fact that I learned after using the sacrifice thod while dealing with Lucius. A simple tug on the chains that connected to my followers inspired to try this thod and it worked.
Now, as long as I have enough believers, I can spare the lives of my precious rats and cast as many hexes as I want.
That was my growth as a person.
"Don’t you think, it was pretty simple Duke?" I looked above in the air, toward the distant cloud where a certain figure floated like a god.
A figure that looked too handso to be considered just a human. His youthful face also holds a kind smile on his face.
But I didn’t dare to drop my guard down, I just looked at this heavenly figure that slowly floated to my eye level and stood up on the ground.
"I finally t you, God of Jesters." The Duke almost laughed at this title. Finding it almost amusing.
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