Chapter 40 Conversation

The light runes disappeared from the air turning cave dark again, the pressure vanished and the noise of battle dissipated. Liam stood up, he had been sitting on the ground for the entirety of the fight.

'He could force me down on my knees from the mere bloodlust, he has great potential. It is disappointing that it has to be like that.'

He and Robert were the only ones left, all the other soldiers ran away or were dead.

'What happened to him to become such a monster? Words didn't get through to him, he looked like he was possessed.', Robert didn't know what to think of the situation. He dragged Lucas out of the pool of blood to heal his wounds with whatever energy he had left. It wasn't much, but enough to close most superficial wounds. The dried and crippled hands had to be fixed at a later time, not that Robert had any idea how to fix them.

'That was definitely Dark magic, and his use of magic is something I have never seen before. Did Venion teach him these things? Since when did he use dark magic, from who did he even learn it? Venion? That bastard!'

For Robert, Dark magic was blasphemy. After all, he grew up with the teachings of the Order of Light. Still, he saw Lucas as more than a simple companion or rival, he didn't believe he was evil. Even if the Order of Light stated that all dark magic users are inherently evil. He started to question everything he had learned, if his father has such a good relationship with Venion, does that mean he knew about it and did nothing, or even worse, supported it? He never looked at his surroundings with a critical eye, so he never noticed anything strange. As far as he knew, Lucas was a stable boy who was brought in because he could use magic.

This changed after he saw Lucas in his hometown, crying about his former life. Now again, he couldn't recognize the body Lucas was hugging some time ago, but it had to be someone important. 'It seems there are still a lot of things I don't know.'

Liam himself was also unsure of how things were going to go now. Although Liam wasn't a mage, he could recognize colors and link them with their respective element. He was sure of it, but he didn't immediately criticize him, 'He could've been simply forced to learn it from Venion, there's no other way. I don't want to think that the baron would go so far.'

The two men looked at each other with a strange look in their eyes. "Let's keep what happened to ourselves, alright?", Robert nodded before posing his own inquiries. "What do you know about Lucas?"

Liam was surprised by the sudden question, there were a lot more pressing matters at hand. But since he wanted to rest anyway, he sat down with his legs crossed. Letting out a sigh, he asked:

"What do you want to know?"

"Tell me everything."

"I don't know everything, I can only tell you what I know."

"A few months ago, I was going around with Venion and my platoon checking every village for possible dark magic users. There were rumors around the estate that there was someone that was using dark magic in the outskirt villages. We went to look for any possible sign with Venion, but we couldn't find much. Only the goddess will know if those rumors were true or not."

Liam didn't even notice he addressed the mage with his name instead of his title or a respectful alternative. Venion had been demoted even further.

"Our search in the villages was quite possibly the worst possible approach, but it was what Venion wanted and we couldn't say much against him. In order to look if there were any signs of dark magic, he called every villager on the street, looked at them, and let them go. That was it, I don't know if he used some kind of magic spell that made him see dark magic, but I think he didn't do anything."

"Do you have so little trust in Mas-...Venion?"

"Pfff, of course, he never cared about the people living in those villages. In his eyes, they were probably just a bunch of cattle."

Robert felt a little uncomfortable, he did think for a long time that commoners were worthless, yet his rival was one, and he was a lot stronger than himself. His viewpoint had changed not too long ago, but he still didn't know what to think of them.

"Those villagers have to work to the bone to pay their taxes and some barely got any food to live on. When the Scarlet Moon appeared we had to struggle to survive, it's purely due to Venion's presence we got out without any big losses. I don't think any village could have survived against those monsters, they're doomed to be eaten when such a thing happens."

Liam was emotional after losing most if not all of his brethren, so he was venting it through his conversation with Robert, making him speak a lot more brazen than normal.

"Venion had to know this, yet we still visited the closest village that we were planning to visit. I had the soldiers search the village, but I never expected to find anything. A dirty child covered in ash, soot, dirt, and a few scratches was brought in front of me."

"I guess that was Lucas? So how did he survive?"

"The man who brought him told me he found him in a disheveled state under some rubble of a building, so he was somewhat hidden from the massacre. As I said, I thought we would've just killed him swiftly out of mercy, but Venion stopped us."

"Because he saw that Lucas had the potential for magic, right? That's why we're following the lessons together? Because he has a rare core?"

"I don't know much about magic or those cores you're talking about, but he certainly didn't bring him for that."

"What do you mean? Why else would he do that?"

Liam pointed one of his fingers at Robert, "For you." Robert had a confused look on his face before he connected the dots. He was told that he would become a powerful mage from when he was young.

When his, now master, teacher came he said that he would awaken after some time Robert knew it was only a matter of time before he naturally awakened. It was only after drinking some potion and strange movements from Venion that he woke up awakened. Pressed with his own confusion and fear of what happened, he inquired further.

"How was Lucas involved in my awakening?"

"So you figured out that your awakening was a bit special? I don't know how, but Venion experimented on Lucas for more than a month, close to two months. Lucas told me that it felt like swimming in ice-cold water while placing your hands in lava. The way he described his experiences made me distrust Venion, I started to have doubts that I still haven't cleared out to this day."

Liam went over which kind of experiences Lucas went through, from the training to the potions to the experiments, to the ridiculous tasks he was given, and more.

"So the only reason I'm here is because of him, otherwise I would still be a snot-nosed brat who doesn't know any better? Ha, ha...FUCK!", Robert seemed very upset, Liam on the other hand started to lay down. The ground wasn't the best to sleep on, but he was too tired to even sit.