Chapter 52

After Garin was dubbed 'the Great,' the Rhoynar's campaign intensified, their army seemed to gain a constant stream of motivation. With each clash between Garin and the Valyrians, the latter increased their assaults... until, at one point, the Valyrians' patience ran out.

It was at the walls of Volantis, after suffering a defeat at the hands of Garin, that the Valyrians retreated behind the Black Walls. Soon, a letter pleading for help was dispatched from Volantis to the metropolis.

Before long, from where Garin's army was positioned, I could see the sky filling with dragon-riders. There were so many that the previously clear sky turned into a dark mass.

The battle, if it could even be called that, ended very quickly as a slaughter. After the battle, nothing was left but ashes at the site.

"What happened to Garin?"

Then I was transported again and saw him whom they called 'the Great,' lying in a cage. He was naked with signs of torture on his body.

"Damn Valyrians... cough-cough... I... will show you..." muttered the hunched prince, trying to preserve his warmth.

He seemed about to do something when suddenly the cage glowed red, and I heard a scream filled with pain. A Valyrian approached in response to the scream:

"Still trying to use magic?" said the violet-eyed man with a voice full of disdain. "Don't you understand that your barbaric, inferior magic cannot penetrate this barrier?"

Faced with such a provocative question, Garin just glared hatefully at his captor. But the Valyrian, seeing such a look and enraged, shouted:

"How dare you look at me like that?!"

BAM

"UGH!" The Valyrian clearly understood that someone higher up wanted Garin alive, and hence did not kill him. However, the blows dealt to Garin were very severe, as after each strike, bloody marks appeared on his body.

"You are even disgusting to fuck!" said the somewhat calmed overseer, after which he unzipped his trousers and decided to relieve himself on Garin.

Under such humiliations, Garin's days passed until he was brought to the metropolis of the republic.

"What happened next?"

At that moment, the scene changed again, and I observed Garin being brought into a new cell, which looked more like an experimental laboratory.

"This is where what ultimately changed Garin began..." said Mother Rhoyne with sadness in her voice.

"My name is Aenor Belaerys," said a Valyrian man entering the laboratory, an older man with a lean physique. "And I will be whom you'll see for a considerable amount of time."

Aenor finished speaking quite dramatically, as I immediately felt the magical atmosphere in the room shift.

"He's going to experiment on him, isn't he?"

My assumption was quite accurate; Aenor liked to talk to himself and to Garin. From these conversations, it emerged that Aenor was from a distinguished family in the Republic. The reason Garin's life was spared was that Aenor wanted to learn more about Rhoynar magic.

Since Garin fell into Aenor's hands, a considerable amount of time had passed. Belaerys learned a great deal about Garin's magic in the first few months, and afterward, he tested his ideas on Garin's body. According to Aenor, the reason for choosing Garin was his interest in how a human body, which had felt the touch of a divine entity, would react to Valyrian magic.

But I could not see the final stage of Aenor's experiments as the scene changed again. And I was back where it all started... Chroyane, the city where Garin had assembled his army.

Soon I found what once had been Garin. Little remained of the former beauty, his skin cracked... gray skin... a tortured body that had been subjected to countless torments.

"They changed him... Disfigured him... Not just physically, but also magically..." I heard Mother Rhoyne's sorrowful voice.

I didn't need to ask what happened, as they showed me what occurred.

"Well, what do you say, Garin?" whispered a Valyrian who likely had been his tormentor in his ear. "Want to present yourself to your people in your new splendor?"

Garin's pupils dilated and his breathing quickened, apparently out of fear.

"N-no..." whispered the fallen prince in his native language. "A-anything but t-that..."

"What are you mumbling, you wretch?" scoffed the silver-haired man.

The city was conquered quite swiftly, and for every hundred Rhoynar killed, two hundred were enslaved. The Valyrians justified this act by claiming that the mines always needed extra hands.

"Look, Garin, enjoy your homeland," said Garin's tormentor as he suspended him in a cage over the river, providing a perfect view of what had transpired.

Garin was filled with self-reproach. He hated himself. But he hated even more those who had done this to him and his people...

I truly saw how the remnant of what was once a handsome prince wept. By midnight, his voice was lost from such lamentation.

"Well then... what am I to do with you?" asked the would-be Mengele from Valyria, observing his nearly lifeless experiment.

Then, Aenor, looking at the river, smirked and said:

"So be it... I am merciful, after all."

BAM

The cage with Garin fell into the river...

"This is..."

"Yes, these are my domains..."

Shortly after, something from the depths of the Rhoyne burst forth with jet propulsion; the river water began flooding the city. The once great city quickly sank to the bottom.

The Valyrians, witnessing this atrocity, began to cast spells, but suddenly the water that had erupted from the river began to emit incredibly toxic vapors.

"Retreat!" shouted Aenor, having realized something crucial.

After the river raged, I decided to ask the one who possesses more complete information about what had happened.

"What exactly happened to Garin?"

Instantly, the scene before me changed, and there I was, deep within the river. In another moment, I saw a broken body sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss.

"Rhoyne..." I heard, almost as a whisper...

"Answer me, Mother Rhoyne..."

"Is that Garin?"

"Yes, you're hearing Garin's voice."

"But how?"

"I am showing you my memories..."

Garin, falling deeper into the abyss, presented a distressing image filled with despair. His lips did not move as he fell, but his eyes betrayed all the sorrow and hatred he felt at that moment.

"Help me... One last time... For the sake of my people. For those who were unjustly killed... For everything I've done for you..."

At that moment, I literally saw how the broken body of the man began to fill with strength... the power of the one who brought me here...

"What does this mean?" I decided to ask Rhoyne.

"Garin was my champion... I could not ignore his cry for help. Especially after sensing a loss of connection between us for so long."

"But was it worth it?"

I asked, seeing the destruction that Garin caused with Rhoyne's help. If he was one of the greatest water mages, then with Rhoyne's help he became the strongest of all. According to the texts, the power bestowed by a divine entity is extraordinarily great.

And what I saw only confirmed this, as Garin used the river to kill dragons and their masters by the scores. And it would have continued if something horrifying hadn't happened.

"What the Valyrians did to him... Changed not only his appearance but his inside as well. It seems my power reacted with what the silver-haired had infused into him. In the end, the Garin I knew vanished forever, replaced by him..."

The water Garin attacked with not only killed his enemies but also mutated those it touched with its vapor or by other means. Those affected lost their rationality and became one of those stone people.

"What did the Valyrians do to him?"

"They infused him with a force from beyond our world. A force that drives one to destruction and domination over the abyss."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that the Valyrians somehow stumbled upon fragments of power from the Other, the Great Other. In their pride, they decided to experiment with it... And here is the result."

As Rhoyne spoke, I watched Garin destroy the Valyrians one after another until... Aenor, who had fled at the beginning, returned with an instrument. An instrument that emitted an unexpectedly immense magical power, I could feel it even in the memories.

Running his fingers over strange inscriptions, Aenor said:

"I'm glad I did this... Your place is here and nowhere else. Because this is my command."

At that moment, a strange barrier appeared that did not allow Garin and his forces beyond the city's limits.

"You will not be able to hold me here forever..." Garin said in Rhoynar.

"And I don't need to... Just need to figure out how to neutralize you, or make you serve the Great Republic," the Valyrian replied with a smirk.

Garin, trying to breach the barrier, felt his body unable to pass beyond the city's limits. With further attempts, his body began to disintegrate at an unimaginable speed.

"This is not the end..."

"Of course, it's not the end, Garin... It's only the beginning," Aenor said, moving further and further away from Chroyane.

"AAAAAH!"

BAM

I watched as Garin tried again and again to break through the semi-transparent barrier created by Aenor. All in vain, and Garin came to realize it more and more clearly.

"Damn! DAMN! DAMN!" Garin yelled, continuing to strike the barrier.

"Why didn't you help him?"

"I couldn't... My words seemed not to reach him... That contact created in the water was a singular occurrence... Whatever changed and twisted Garin doesn't allow me to help him. It doesn't let me speak to him..."

Afterward, I observed Garin descend into madness, and his original goal of saving his people transformed... His current aim...

"To turn everyone into stone people?"

"Yes, he believes that by doing so, he can save them all."

At that moment, Rhoyne's memories ended, and I was in a white space with nothing but myself, my thoughts, and Rhoyne's voice.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Destroy Garin."

"Do you think I can accomplish what Aenor couldn't? He who was a foremost representative of a magical civilization?"

I was truly shocked by what Rhoyne had suggested. After all, as long as Garin was contained within the barrier, his army and his people only grew in number...

"Wait! What happens to the stone people when they surpass a century of existence? Do they die?"

"You're right... Stone people become slaves to Garin and exist as long as the Shrouded Lord himself. Their existence is sustained by the soul force of people and the magic emanating from Garin."

"And how do you think I should defeat such a monster?"

I wasn't a reckless fool... My victories over those goats were merely because the followers of the Black Goat were not as capable mages or monsters as Garin. I had the help of an entire civilization to deal with a demon, and that's not even worth discussing...

"I can only ask you to do this... For I can offer you nothing more... I am no longer one of the most powerful deities of this world..."

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Chapter 72 has already been published