Secret behind the paintings [Part-1]

After taking a break for a while, Stefan continued to decipher the paintings.

Eight, it could be seen that the man cut the body of the snake into pieces with his sword.

The ninth painting showed the man eating the snake meat.

Ten, the man lay on the ground covering his stomach making a painful expression on his face.

Stefan was shocked to discover that in the eleventh painting, the snake had a fishtail at its end instead of a snake tail.

In the earlier paintings, only half of the snake's body was visible as it was very big, so Stefan did not think in the direction of the hybrid at all.

He knew about hybrids, he had read some fantasy novels when bored and was amazed at the fact that a hybrid is a mixture of two different species.

Eleven, the snake's body was still at the same place, but the man had disappeared and there was a snake coiled on the ground in his place.

Stefan tried to analyse the painting over and over again, but still could not understand where the man went and why there was an extra snake coiled at his place.

Even Heli couldn't guess where was the problem, after some time it said in a dry voice, 'Host, how about you flip the painting and see if there is any clue given there.'

According to Heli's suggestion, Stefan flipped the painting and really saw something written, but he couldn't understand the words.

'Host, wait a minute, let me try scanning and translating them.'

A blue line appeared in front of Stefan, and the words behind the painting were being scanned over.

'Host, I got it!!!. It says that after eating a part of the snake meat, the man got the memories of the snake.'

''But how is it possible to gain someone's memory just by eating a piece of meat?'', Stefan muttered in confusion.

Seeing Stefan's doubts, Heli explained to him, 'Host, the memory inheritance was successful because the man already had the snake's crystal with him. By a series of coincidences, the meat he ate contained the power of the crystal, which forcibly melted the crystal in his body.'

''So, that's how it is...'', Stefan understood the reason now.

  Then he continued to arrange the paintings.

Gradually, he discovered that the remaining five paintings do not match the eleventh one in any way.

''Maybe the story ends here, and a new one begins from here'', Stefan touched a painting and got up to arrange the previous paintings according to the order he discovered. While arranging them, his finger got cut from the sharpened edge of the painting and instantly blood beads formed on his fingers.

Just as he was about to heal it, the bead fell down and just happened to fall down into one of the paintings. He did not notice it though. 

He hung the paintings and noticed something. He rubbed his eyes to see if his eyes were not mistaken. 

The paintings that were put in had their borders shining in a golden light. A blue light flashed in front of his eyes, and he discovered that he was standing in front of a man.

Stefan realized that this was the same man whom he had seen in the paintings. He tried to speak to the man, but it seems like the man couldn't see him at all.

Gradually he stopped wasting his efforts in frustration.

Next, he didn't know how much time had passed, but the man started going through all the process depicted in the paintings.

When it came to inheritance of the snake's memory, Stefan witnessed with his own eyes, how much pain the man has to go through in order to complete the transformation.

After the transformation was completed, Stefan heard a voice, ''Finally you are here, my child''.

Stefan was shocked with the sudden voice and tried to communicate with it.

''Do you know me?'', Stefan asked, giving communication a one last try.

''Of Course'', the voice said.

Unexpectedly, he could really communicate!

Stefan almost burst into tears at that moment, god knows how much the silence and darkness around him kept him on the verge of collapse.

''Then...who are you?'', Stefan asked.

After some time the voice replied, ''For the time being, it is not possible for me to answer this question. But, I can tell you that we are biological relatives.''

Taking a brief pause, the voice continued," Although, I don't know if you believe it or not, I still want to know your current situation."

Stefan, although not wanting to believe in the voice, had a strong impulse to inform about his situation to the voice.

At this moment, he couldn't even contact Heli to ask for his suggestion.

But after pondering for a while, he decided to follow this impulse and told about his experience from the start.

Just after hearing about his this life, the voice asked an unrelated question, ''Are you sure this is your first life?''

Stefan became vigilant at this question, he did not want to tell anyone about his first life. Especially when he was missing a part of his memories from his previous life.

Realizing that Stefan did not plan to answer this question at all, the voice consciously stopped for some time, and then Stefan heard a rumbling sound.

He followed the sound and saw a stone slab appearing three meters in front of him. The structure of the stone slab was very odd as it only had a small bowl like container.

This time the voice guided Stefan, ''Child, in case you are not willing to believe the connection between us. I shall show you the proof.''

Just after the voice said it, there were five droplets of blood that appeared out of thin air and fell into the small bowl. As the blood fell in, the bowl changed from an inconspicuous one to a conspicuous one.

The bowl changed to a light blue colour with conspicuous golden patterns around it.

Stefan's eyes widened as the bowl changed colours. Just after that, he felt a strong suction towards the bowl and his hand appeared above the bowl. He watched as blood beads appeared from his earlier wound and fell into the bowl.

..............