Chapter 225: Released
The moment Zarek finished his talk with Priya, his smile vanished. A dense darkness seemed to swirl around him, lines of ash and smokiness coming from his eyes and the corners of his mouth.
Furious.
It was the only word he could use to describe what he was feeling right now.
There were certain things that there was no coming back from. He knew the core of the love of his life better than maybe he knew even himself.
But just because he knew that he could force Priya to hit rock bottom and then bounce back didn’t mean that it was the perfect solution.
Would Priya be fine now? Probably. But it would purely be in a relative sense.
Surely, she would become far more powerful now than before, and much faster at that. She understood her mind and Godsfall progression better than Zarek ever could, and with it, she would improve by leaps and bounds.
Her Growth Potentials were beyond Zarek’s own, so it was only natural that she would be quite the powerhouse by the time he returned.
But that naivete that was once a bright light in her was gone forever. There was no getting it back. She had been forced to grow up far faster than Zarek wanted for her, and that was something that Suki had forever taken from them.
How could Zarek not be absolutely furious?
He knew too little about what happened at the end of Priya’s last life. He had been too preoccupied, fielding one layer of danger after another.
Thinking back, it was almost certainly all orchestrated, every minor detail down to its deepest roots.
Of course, the main core of the plan was to find a method to use Priya to allow the powerhouses of the Angels their memories of timelines they hadn’t experienced. This way, the Angels would accelerate through their progress, becoming even more of a threat to the government than ever before.
In fact, as things were standing now, the government stood no chance.
It was the perfect plan, and the irony of it all was that Suki probably didn’t care very much if Priya truly lost her mind or not. Her use had already been shown, and the Angels would skyrocket beyond any level they had ever reached very soon.
When Zarek returned, they would be outnumbered, drained of resources, and probably suffering a fate of an entire country hunting them down.
But this wasn’t what Zarek was thinking about at all. The only thing he cared about was smashing their heads to a pulp.
Zarek’s foot raised up and suddenly stomped down.
BANG!
Thalion’s head was crushed to pieces. It happened so abruptly that the Imperial Wind Lineage, so-called Eighth Demon, didn’t even have a chance to react.
The only thing he had wanted in the end was to preserve his life, but he didn’t even have the right to do that right now.
Zarek walked out of the cave he had spent the last week in, plumes of heat rising up around him, and yet not the slightest hint of fire sparking.
**
Two days passed swiftly.
It was on the second day, as Zarek rushed toward the direction of the arrow, that his steps came to a pause, his eyes looking up to the skies.
’They’ve been released.’
Zarek felt the shift.
He thought that it would have happened while he was in training, but it seemed that the real trial was beginning now.
There would be no more rushing through the forest unfettered. There would be danger around every corner now.
But something told Zarek that this beginning period was a lot more deadly than before. He had killed a substantial number of people already, and each one of them was a real genius of this Hero Trial.
One of them was also the so-called Eighth Demon.
What Zarek didn’t know was that two of the Demons had died—ironically, both by the hands of people of Earth.
’I’m still a long way away...’
Zarek checked the map again. On his way, he had noticed that the arrow was slowly filling up with a hue of energy as he approached the location, and it was barely 10% filled now.
He had been going pretty fast these last two days, but he had only covered a tenth of the distance. Even without any Turned, it would have taken him almost another three weeks to make it. But now, with the added danger, making it within two months would already be quite good.
Zarek didn’t regret stopping to shore up his abilities. Given the distance, he wouldn’t even have been able to get there even with an extra week. Not to mention the fact he would be far slower.
It seemed that this wouldn’t be all that easy.
There was another variable as well, and that was the fact that Zarek had on his person something Thalion had most definitely been targeted for.
They had known that Thalion would target that Treasure Hub before and had very obviously set up a trap there. But they hadn’t had anyone as powerful as Thalion—meaning, it was just a test.
They were likely waiting for a much better opportunity to strike.
The question was... why not strike while he was in seclusion? That seemed like the best opportunity.
The answer was probably that no one wanted to be the fall guy. If they spent this grace period chasing Thalion, then they wouldn’t have a chance to absorb their own advantages.
Even if they dealt with Thalion, what good was it if they spent the rest of the time being hunted for the advantage while not having the strength to protect themselves?
All of that meant one thing.
Now that the Turned had been released and the chances to hide away in a little nook and grow your strength were gone...
This was where the real hunt would begin.
Zarek had hardly had the thought when a bird swooped down at him from above, radiating dense Godsfall.
He hardly spared it a glance. Spinning the Imperial Wind Lance in his hand, it was suddenly coated in a spiraling layer of ash.
BANG!
Lurker’s Godsfall shot the lance out as though fired from a cannon, the elasticity bringing it to the brink behind Zarek before he unleashed it with a single hurl.
Chi.
The chest of the beast was ripped through in an instant, the edges of the gaping wound looking like pieces of paper burning away.
’You’ll be the first.’
A howl came from Zarek’s shadow.
He’d finally have somewhere to vent all this fury.