In those brief moments, Uriel remembered Liora’s warning .. when the Saint of Dawn had told her to stay away from Frey.
But Uriel had never intended to abide by that warning. She had already chosen the one she wanted to walk beside, settling a decision she had wavered on her whole life.
Pulling back slowly, she lowered her head, hiding her flushed face, while Frey stared at her, surprise still plain on his.
"Uriel..."
"Sorry, but this is all I can offer you in my state," Uriel blurted.
"I might not be able to stop you like I did today next time .. but at the very least, I’ll be there. Maybe my presence will help you hold on to yourself, even a little. I still lack the strength to make a real impact on the battlefield... but I’ll work many times harder to narrow the gap, even a little. So..."
"Please let me stay with you ..to the very end."
Hearing her out, Frey realized Uriel had made her choice ..intent on staying by his side, to be his saint.
He could only wonder whether it was the right choice for her to make...
Before he could say anything, a third figure dropped onto the hill, cloaked in a light of pure gold.
Approaching, Snow looked at them for a beat, sensing the odd air between them.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, uneasy. Frey and Uriel both shook their heads.
"Good. We’re safe here ..Sir Alon and Maekar didn’t chase for long ..but we could be attacked at any moment," Snow said.
"Unlikely," Frey replied. "That isn’t Aegon’s way."
The prince never moved at random ..that was what made him dangerous.
After one last look at Uriel, Frey shelved their conversation and turned his attention to Snow. Given where he stood, he didn’t have much more to say to her anyway.
Snow still wore the War King aspect he’d adopted most of the time, to acclimate himself to his new Path of Light.
Forced to withdraw and flee before the situation escalated, the three of them now found themselves alone again.
None of them had expected to face this the moment they finally returned.
And between the prince and Frey, the latter’s allies were few.
"I never imagined the prince would trick us like that," Snow said, unable to let it go. "Phoenix mentioned the prince returned several days ago ..that means the one we met on the Sacred Island was just a copy."
It was the only explanation ..but even that didn’t make sense.
"My senses can track even those at SSS-tier... and I never once suspected the man before me was only a copy," Frey said, remembering the moment he took Aegon’s head.
"At the time, I truly believed he was the real one."
But he wasn’t.
The more Frey thought about it, the worse the pounding in his skull became.
"The only way to pull that off is one of two things: either a world-breaking ability that defies logic... or he’s far stronger than I am."
And in either case...
those conditions shouldn’t apply to Aegon.
He was clever and devious, full of surprises..but he had never been a strong warrior. Most of his strength came from outside means.
With that in mind, a frightening realization began to take hold in Frey—and Snow reached the same suspicion.
"Frey... could it be...?"
Frey nodded.
"I don’t know what conspiracy we’ve stumbled into.. but that thing is filthy, not human... and perhaps not Aegon at all."
This suspicion had dogged Frey for a while .. especially since Aegon had managed to reach Frey’s true name. At first he’d thought some entity stood behind him.
But after what had just happened, that possibility seemed smaller .. and another grew in its place:
This was not the human prince at all. It was something else entirely.
Faces darkening by degrees, Snow and Frey began to grasp the weight of what that implied.
"If that’s true... then most of humanity is currently following an external entity that has nothing to do with them."
If so ..toward what end?
"Who the hell is Aegon Valerion?"
The answer was close. The more Frey learned about the prince, the more he understood the foul, bottomless abyss the man reflected.
It felt as if the fateful war they’d fought so far had become a play ..
a black play that toyed with the fate of millions, its strings all pulled from the shadows without anyone’s knowledge.
Frey found himself stuck at the center of that theater ..and the amount he could still change was shrinking by the day.
Even after spending all his Achievement Points on the future-vision ability, he saw only defeat and death ahead.
To change that ill fate, he had to move at once.
"Let’s go," Frey said, voice low.
"To where?" Snow asked.
"To our comrades..."
Gathering together, Frey chose to teleport to the main front where the war against the Ultras raged.
The Empire would now split .. though "split" was barely the word.
Most would stand with Aegon, while a few might fight beside Frey.
Surrounded by enemies once more, Frey decided to do only what he had intended from the very beginning:
Fight.
Hurl himself into the battlefield, follow the Blood Path, and seize as much power as possible to face whatever stood before him from this moment on.
The level was rising .. and deadlier clashes waited ahead.
...
...
...
Far from where Frey stood .. on the other side of the world ..
amid the forests of the Eastern Nightmare Lands, a certain figure stumbled from tree to tree, clutching at trunks as he pushed on.
He looked exhausted and wounded... yet his expression was the same as ever.
Pausing a moment, he glanced down at his battered body and let out a muffled laugh.
"They really got me this time..."
Zibar, Rank Ten .. had left the field in a crushing defeat after a grueling solo battle against the Shadow Sect’s fighters.
In the end, only one copy survived .. carrying 50% of his power.
True, the copy that fought had not been the main body and possessed only 80% of the original’s strength.
But that didn’t change the fact that one of the Top Ten Demons had lost the battle.
"How pathetic," Zibar said with that same dry chuckle .. then froze as another voice sounded nearby.
"Yes... you are pathetic, Zibar."
A voice sweet ..and filthy as always.
From the shadows, another demon emerged.