Chapter 17: The Death of Cletus

Darkness and desolation....that were all Sigrid had been feeling after he handed himself over to Archmage Cletus. His vision and perception had long been numbed from the continuous suction of mana through his entire body. His body had been broken again and again. The pain that came along with it had long since crossed his endurance limit. Sigrid was now totally delusional about pain. He couldn't differentiate between the different intensities of pain anymore.

Sigrid didn't know how long he had been staying here. He felt like he had been submerged in a suffocatingly dense black liquid which blocked all of his six senses. And the only escape from here was death. So he waited. He waited for the moment when he drew his last breath.

Suddenly Sigrid noticed a shining golden white light came piercing through the dense black liquid. He was astonished. The white light gently touched him and then surrounded him. Sigrid felt a kind of comfortable warmth and security as soon as the white light made a contact with him, like he had gone back to his early childhood lying in his mother's embrace, sleeping without any care. Tears flooded his lifeless eyes. He instinctively wanted to grip this white light tightly and never let go. Sigrid didn't dare to believe that he could feel such warmth and security in this lifetime again. So he thought of a possibility, ' Has it ended finally? Am I dead? Is this heaven? '

Soon the white light completely engulfed the endless black liquid around Sigrid and it's intensity began to increase at a frightening speed until it forced him to close his eyes. When Sigrid opened his eyes again he was extremely surprised to see the events, unfolding in front of him. First of all, he could see everything clearly again. The black liquid of dense dark mana had completely disappeared. Second, his body had been completely healed. Third, the almighty Archmage Cletus had been pressed against the floor. His face was extremely pale. Cletus was shaking violently and screaming about some useless nonsense. Forth and most importantly he witnessed an Angel in flesh. And then under the shocked gaze of Sigrid, the angel transformed into a demon. No...more specifically speaking the demonic traits that had been lying dormant under the more prominent angelic traits, became more active and the angelic traits became dormant. The demon with a white wing held two huge scythes in each hand and approached Cletus like God of death.

*******

Ray held Aeron and Dearil in each hand. He could feel their uncontainable enthusiasm through their hard body as the repetitive cold and immature voice of two child echoed in his mind.

Aeron, ' Master, let's go kill this scum!!'

Dearil, ' let's kill! '

Ray, "...."

Ray felt a little strange, hearing two children's cold but tender voices, uttering these vulger words. Well he quickly discarded such useless thoughts for now and concentrated his mind on the task. But Ray had forgotten that he was fighting a fight in a world where magic existed and here anything could happen. Ray was conducting his first fight according to the basic knowledge of Earth where science ruled and logic explained everything. There if you have power, skill, knowledge and enough strength, you could fulfill your goals most of the time.

Ray could feel that he was way more powerful than Cletus. He had skill, he had power. So it was like a easy win. What could possibly go wrong? You know when you see a small ant, accidentally running around your clothes, would you think of the upcoming danger before squashing it?.....No.. right? It was exactly like that. But sometimes even the smallest ants would give you the painful biting before death if not careful. And that also happened here.

Ray flew so fast that when Cletus blinked instinctively to avoid the sweat drops descending from his forehead, Ray was already in front of Cletus. Archmage Cletus felt his blood had frozen. The huge pressure of a demon realm fighter that he felt from a distance was now even more nerve-wracking. On the top of that all these years Ray had cultivated with purely dark mana particles. Under such pressure Cletus couldn't move a bit. He watched on in horror as Ray placed the long curved blades of Aeron and Dearil on the top of each other around Cletus's neck. Now just one pull of the two dangerously sharpened scythes from Ray and Cletus's head would be separated from his neck. But then a unexpected thing happened.

With the last bit of his strength Cletus moved his right thumb and rubbed it's tip against the ring on his index finger. The ring was actually a spacial storage ring. Cletus clumsily searched through the spatial ring in the hope to find some magical explosive powder. The measly amount of explosive power could never hurt a demon realm fighter like Ray. But Cletus hoped it might at least act as an distraction. Cletus was fortunate when he felt some magical explosives inside the ring but he was utterly unfortunate when, because of nervousness he accidentally brought out a fist sized black crystal from it instead. Cletus wanted to curse. He attempted to try again but Ray's sharp sense already caught on his little movements. Ray immediately became alert. After all in his early childhood, he came in contact with misfortunes because of a strange artifact not because of the dominance under greater power.

Ray slightly raised Aeron so that it's snath at the lower part made lesser angle against the horizontal line. Then Aeron's sharp conical end speedily touched the index finger of Cletus's right hand. After a second blood oozed out along a straight line at the root of the index finger, then the finger fell to the red crystal ground from the distinct line. Only then the Archmage Cletus screamed out in intense pain. Although all these events took many sentences to describe, but it all happened within a very few seconds.

Sigrid saw in disbelief that Cletus, the mighty Archmage Cletus whom their whole continent feared, by just one click of whose, futures of thousands of innocents could be decided in an instant, because of whom he and his family experienced hell for almost two long years, was now in such a pitiful state in just a few seconds under this little boy. Sigrid clenched his feeble hands but the fists were not tight at all. He became so weak in this one month that there was hardly enough strength left in his body. 'Strength'...he muttered this words under his weak breath continuously. 'I want to become as strong as him, so strong that no one can ever think of harming my family.'

Cletus was screaming continuously because of pain. Ray's eyes were extremely cold. He said scronfully, " You have tortured so many people, destroyed so many's bright futures but now you are only screaming because of this much pain!" His childish tone echoed in the whole chamber.

Ray didn't waste anymore time. The more time he left him alive, the more he remembered about some disturbing people from his past life. And the memory wasn't at all pleasant. Ray watched as Cletus started to beg him for his life. Tears and snots became mixed with his long beard....making him more disgusting. Killing was Ray's profession in his last life after all, so he didn't hesitate to smoothly lead the two blades of his weapons to the opposite direction of each other in a beautiful arc. The two blades which were already around Cletus's neck, swiftly and neatly separated his head from his body, followed by a shrill scream which ceased in less than a second.

Cletus's head rolled a few times before coming to a stop. Because of his high cultivation the head was still functioning. The eyes on the head had become rounded in immense shock. Cletus looked at his own headless body, kneeling on the crystal floor. Above his body the seemingly angelic boy was flying while looking condescendingly at him. From the blades of two huge sycthes his own blood was dripping slowly. These two blades were even absorbing his blood essence and glowing with a black shine. His facial expression became twisted. Never in his wildest dreams Cletus had expected that one day his blood would be used as a cultivation resource for two mere weapons. Cletus finally became to realize he was dying but he couldn't accept it.

" Impossible! Impossible...so many years....." He eyed Ray and Sigrid with infinite resentment and suddenly became crazy. Cletus screamed out with the last bit of his strength and spoke maliciously," You are killing me to save him(Sigrid) right? But do you think you can always save him? Now that I have used him once, everyone knows how to use him for increasing cultivation.....ha ha ha... Prince Sigrid's constitution is asking to be cultivated.....ha ha ha....how many times are you gonna save him? Are you always gonna stay here? ...ha ha ha ha....."

A lone head without body was laughing eerily. This scene could easily frighten anyone to death. And the sentences it spoke was filled with resentment. On the top of that the dim light coming from the red crystals and the lake surrounding it giving the whole chamber a creepy outlook.

After a while the crazy laughter stopped. At this moment the Archmage Cletus finally died. But his previous malicious words were still ringing inside Sigrid's head. Although Cletus's words were cruel but they were all true. Sigrid knew that once he was freed, both enemies and friends, without any difference would try to covet his unique constitution which attracted mana particles. In the previous two years he had seen enough of human nature. Humans could do anything because of greed. Although his father was strong, he couldn't possibly protect him from the whole world. And he himself didn't want to burden them anymore than he already had. Sigrid wanted to grow strong but the minimum time required for it.....would anyone provide him? He looked at the seemingly immature childish figure in front him that slowly descended on the red crystal ground. He wanted to follow this powerful figure and grow strong so that no one would dare to think to use him again, even if it was at the cost of becoming his lifelong slave. 'But will the boy agree? If not then it is better to end this troublesome life.....' Sigrid thought in determination.

Ray slowly approached Sigrid. As he reached only one step away from Sigrid he stopped. He spoke very politely," Second prince Sigrid of Wynn Empire?"

Sigrid was stunned. He didn't expect this powerful being to spoke so politely to him, a mortal who was only at the very beginning of cultivation.

Seeing Sigrid staying motionless, Ray asked again," Second prince Sigrid of Wynn Empire?"

Sigrid woke up from his stupor and somehow answered him," ye..yes.."

Although Ray already could guess Sigrid's identity, he only asked him to start up the conversation.

After Ray showed Sigrid one of his signature business smile which he practiced quite a lot for not becoming stiff in front of customers before coming here in planet Luna. Ray then retracted his wings and said,"Let me introduce myself. I am Zero, a interdimensional mercenary. By the order of goddess of Agana I am here to save you. Please, give me your hand so that I can fully heal you.....your family is waiting for you at home."

Sigrid almost teared up when he heard Ray. The goddess hadn't abandoned him. She was always watching. The feeling of hopelessness that gradually froze his heart, started to melt. He hurriedly extended his hand towards Ray and soon a similar warm cozy feeling surrounded his whole body. The was same feeling which had pulled him out from grave darkness and it was more intense this time.

At this moment what Ray didn't notice was that the fist sized black crystal started to slowly disintegrate as it absorbed the little bit of pure white mana particles that had gone disarray from Ray's hand while healing Sigrid. After Ray completely healed Sigrid, the crystal had fully disintegrated into black mist and mixed with the atmosphere.

As Ray was about to create a dimensional passage to return to the palace, he suddenly perceived that something about the atmosphere was completely off. But he just couldn't put his finger on it. His mind was very unease. Ray's instinct told him that something very wrong had already happened. He didn't linger on it much. First of all he had to take prince Sigrid in a safe place and complete this mission. He would investigate about it later.

So, before Sigrid's dumbfounded face Ray opened a dimensional passage and lead him straight through it. When Sigrid opened his eyes after passing through the dark passage he was already in his own room's balcony in the palace, before his family.

There was a moment of pin drop silence in the room for a while before queen Zina almost ran to Sigrid and embraced him tightly. Sigrid could feel that his mother was trembling slightly while his shoulder was soaked in her teardrops. He actually didn't notice that from his own eyes tears were falling like waterfalls. Sigrid also hugged her softly and cried silently. Emily too didn't think of anything and hugged her brother and mother from one side and sobbed. King Arthur and Laszlo were too stunned to do anything for a while. After all it hadn't been even a half an hour since Ray had taken his departure. But the return of their treasure broke their stupor soon. The two of them also joined in the hugging squad. Intermittently Laszlo spoke in anger, " You stupid prick, who gave you the permission to take such dangerous decision?! Have your elder brother and father died?!" Although the affection hidden in those words was clearly visible. Sigrid's father spoke in distress, " Yes! how could you?! You have even learned to hide secrets from your family huh?!"

While watching the reunion, Ray thought of his own family. ' Will my family reunion be like this? Will my mother embrace me like this? Are they still waiting for me?...'

Ray was daydreaming when a voice rang in his head, making him extremely alert, because this voice was not the goddess of Astra's. It was an unknown woman's voice. And the voice was ethereal. Ray listened to the voice attentively.

Ten minutes later...

The Vernize family finally finished their reunion. Only then they suddenly remembered that they were actually ignoring their savior. But when King turned around to look at Ray, he was surprised to see his Sombre expression. King Arthur thought Ray was displeased. So he hurriedly wanted to soothe him but before he could speak Ray spoke, " King Arthur, please forgive me....but due to my negligence during my fight against the Archmage, the dark ream had been opened. But don't worry. I will close it as soon as possible. l will take my departure now.."

King Arthur was stunned as he stuttered, " Da..dark realm!!"

Ray again expanded his long wings and was about to take off from the balcony when Sigrid's desperate voice stopped him, "Please stop..please...please take me with you....I..I..am willing to be your slave....but please take me...if I stay here, my family will eventually die...please...I will be useful...please...."

The other three of the Vernize family looked at him in shock. Ray looked at Sigrid's desperate but determined eyes and finally said, " Fine"