Chapter 399: The Breakout [Part 2]
The boy was very young; if Northern summed up his age, he shouldn't be more than ten years old. His black hair was almost falling below his eyes and looked wet.
There was a wicked, unchildish look in his eyes; they were burning with a vicious light.
Northern knew without a doubt that something was not adding up. Either he had been tricked or he had fallen into a trap.
But something continued to bother him...
'The guy looks awfully familiar.'
He couldn't make out where he had seen the boy exactly, but he knew he had met him somewhere.
He was not about to waste his whole time figuring out where, though.
The boy was now standing on the other side of the prism, looking at the captive in it with a smile on his small lips.
He then raised his head to Northern, who still had a terrified expression on his face.
The boy placed both hands behind his back and walked around the prism to meet Northern, saying as he came:
"You know, all of you really made it easy for me to get to this point." He chuckled delightfully; for once, his grim face carried a hint of life before becoming grim again.
"At first, I was worried if I could really pull something of this magnitude..." He looked up and let out an exasperated sigh. "But I did it in the end. And it's all thanks to your help. What's that weird name again, Northern, is it? Northern, right."
Northern grimaced. He hesitated for a bit, then said:
"Who are you? Isn't it unfair how I don't know you at all, and you even know my beautiful name?"
The boy shrugged. "The fact that you don't know me proves your own carelessness alone. Perhaps I overestimated you to begin with."
Northern glared at the boy, silent for a couple of seconds, then he growled:
"How about you stop speaking in parables and tell me who the hell you are?"
The boy shrank back, hugging himself, his lips downturned. "Scary, scary, so scary."
He stood upright the next second and laughed before transitioning into a more serious demeanor.
"What a shameful one you are, shouting at a ten-year-old like that."
The boy glanced back at the figure in the prism.
"But I must thank you for bringing my soul back to me. When I was making my plan, I never thought there would be any chance that I would regain a portion of my soul. Since it disconnected a while ago, I hadn't felt it until the moment you entered this rift."
Northern's eyes widened as the boy's words began to process in his brain.
Then he began to remember the words Koll had said to him during their clash.
'He did mention something about being chained...'
Northern spent a few more seconds thinking, remembering Koll's exact explanation at that time.
The kingdom that Night Terror ruled wished for a greater quiddity of power. The people were used as sacrifices; blood was shed, and that created a loophole for the castle lord Koll to break two parts of his shackles.
'If Koll the castle lord was one part... then does that mean...' Northern's mouth fell open as the dots connected in his head.
The kid in front of him grinned and raised his chin a little bit.
"Isn't it too early for you to be surprised? I mean, I still have plenty of surprises for you. Don't open your mouth yet."
"That can't be," Northern refuted and stuttered. "You can't be Koll... You are small and your speech... you, you can speak human language."
The boy tore away the ragged clothes he was wearing, leaving short pants and commoner boots.
Then he grinned viciously, clenching his fist as he addressed Northern.
"I had to learn, didn't I? Once effort was put in, learning your language proved to be no difficult task in the end. What I thought would have been difficult was avoiding you. But all of
a sudden, you disappeared. And decided to return at the time when I needed you."
Northern stared at the boy, his eyes blazing blue.
"What did you do?"
The kid shrugged with his head, almost as if he wasn't taking their conversation seriously. "What did I do? What did I do again?" He touched his jaw and looked up, pretending to be in deep thought.
Then suddenly shot his eyes at Northern, flashing the same evil grin again.
"I manipulated the rift..."
Northern raised a brow. "What? What is that? How does that even make any sense?"
"Believe it or don't believe it. It is what I did. Your friends are probably on the other side of this rift fighting against the horrors of it. Every drop of blood, every hatred, every desire to kill, even the honor some derive from it... is driving toward a single purpose."
"Let me guess... freeing your master."
The boy smiled sincerely. "You do have an amazing memory. I like that. Along with myself, the Father of Chaos, the greatest Tyrant that once lived shall return to reality."
Northern ground his teeth silently before he began to talk.
"Just like before, Father of Chaos, this and that. I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you motivated by nonsense that you will stop at nothing to accomplish it?"
'I hope he doesn't discover my lie...'
Truthfully, the first time Northern and Koll crossed paths, it had not been a lie. He truly didn't understand how Koll was addressing his masters.
But now, however, a lot of things had changed. Northern now knew what a Tyrant was and what an Origin was.
He might not know the scope of what those entities meant, but at least he had an idea of it. As the boy heard his almost growling voice, his face slowly became serious.
"I'll grace you with the privilege of an explanation." He paused; a few seconds passed by, and he continued.
"I serve the Father of Chaos, the one and only Tyrant to ever become an Origin. Usually, it is impossible for Tyrants to become an Origin, but Kryos was different. He was the definition of a courageous man. Swallowing his son to become an Origin, he was praised as a savior, but the other Origins only saw a defect.
"They were jealous of the power Kryos now wielded, and they sought to kill him. But killing an Origin was impossible, not to say one that had swallowed an offspring of a Tyrant and an
Origin."
Northern frowned, his face pale as he connected the dots.
If he was right on the dot, the Father of Chaos, Kryos, is the Chaos Prince's father.
The Chaos Prince was an offspring of an Origin and a Tyrant.
And the Chaos Prince was killed by his father? To be exact, swallowed?
'At what point? Just how confusing could this get?'