Chapters

Before

Prologue

• Newcomer

• Fallen Country

2. Attack

3. Search

4. Mystery

5. New foe

6. Fearsome five

7. King’s action

8. Cloak is revealed

9. I will Handle Them

10. Battle of Falling Sky

11. Revelation

Prologue

She was chasing me. The Dragon Marked One, girl named

Shadelin was trying to stop my escape and capture me. My name is

Sabgyn; I am the Tiger Marked One. Well it sounded way cooler when I

first heard it, but after a while it got old. I don’t know what went wrong,

and why my could be girlfriend is trying to turn me into barbecue. I

knew something was wrong the minute she started getting angry and

throwing fire ball projectiles at me.

I have to keep running. Everything was fine several days ago, all

eight members of Marked Ones gathered to discuss our plan of action of

overthrowing tyrannical regime of Demon Morphus and his brothers. It

was a gradual plan that consisted of striking his subordinates, the

Overlords, at unexpected times in order to weaken Morphus’s control

over the kingdoms. But then, something began to change in my friends,

their life force, I could sense it, was becoming cloudier and darker, as if
some sort of poison has been eating them from the inside. I can sense

slight changes within people I know well enough. Telling things based

on people’s emotions is a straightforward thing for me. Yet, I am not

sure what could have caused this type of poisonous change.

That’s it! Poison! No wonder the Snake-boy kept insisting that we

should try his cooking, I politely refused because I happened to want to

throw up. It had nothing to do with the food, I just happened to be

feeling motion sickness from traveling by carriage. No wonder indeed. I

suspected a member of our team was a traitor, but until now I didn’t

know for sure. That damn snake. He poisoned all of them, and now I am

the only one who remains out of the group, everyone else is now under

Morphus’ control. There is no doubt about it. It was somewhat obvious

due to the fact that they literally proclaimed their loyalty to Morphus as

soon as the change took hold. When I realized their eyes were

completely red I realized something was definitely wrong, and my fears

were confirmed when my allies tried to restrain me.

 Luckily, I was able to run away. Now the swiftest Marked One I

know is chasing me. I leaped over trees, most of the city, now I finally

reached the border, if only I could now slip through… But, my hope was

gone when I saw a pretty girl drop down out of sky right on top of the

other side of the waterfall.

It was Shadelin; dragon has caught up with me. She had a smirk on

her face that might have been adorable if it wasn’t so terrifying. I hoped

I would be able to outrun her, but I was wrong. Shadelin looked down in

my direction and said: “Why run, I can always catch you, Tiger-boy.”

I thought to myself, why does she always have to flirt with her

prey, does she have some sort of interest in playing with her food?

She paused, winked with her left eye and loudly yawned: “You

can’t escape, so why not do yourself a favor and join us?”

I stood my ground and shouted: “And be enslaved to Morphus?

Have you forgotten what he did to people, our families, friends, loved

ones?”
 Shadelin’s eyes briefly turned to their original golden color, before

turning back to red. She laughed in a manner that made my bones chill. I

was hoping that remembering something about her past could make her

snap out of it. Morphus was truly responsible for so many deaths, be it

direct or indirect way. She said: “You’re hopeless, now I have no choice

but to kill you.”

I replied: “I would like to see you try.” Yep, now I knew I was

doomed.

We both drew out our weapons. She flew down from the waterfall

and landed on the ground near me, using the momentum of fall to her

advantage as she clashed her sword against my staff. Staff absorbed the

impact, but I could not, it caused me to fall and tumble. I quickly stood

up. Shadelin wasn’t waiting, she immediately attacked, and I avoided

being staked only by luck. I jumped away. She said: “Let’s have some

fun, shall we?”

I murmured ‘Oh no’.

 She unleashed her spiritual form and was now using its power to

augment her. A golden glow emanated from her body, covering her body

within itself. The glow was gradually getting brighter. She demonstrated

her power by swiftly landing a side kick on my body before I could

react.

I tasted blood; I think she broke my rib. The pain however was

endurable for the moment because she was trying to decapitate me. I fell

back and tried to avoid her sword. My best efforts resulted in me getting

scratches on my clothes. And I just paid for them!

Shadelin’s spiritual form enveloped her like an armor of sorts, and

strangely she didn’t seem to get exhausted using it, every time I used

mine it drains me dry of my life force, but she looks like only getting

more energy out of her form. Her attacks suddenly became stronger; one

of her punches sent me flying away about ten meters, no less.

She jumped and tried to land a fatal blow on my heart. I had no

choice but to use my own spiritual form. Luckily I was quick enough

and Shadelin’s attack was negated. By own form was colored reddish
brown and it was far smaller than the one she was using. But I sensed

my form barely withstood the impact from her attack. The power of my

spiritual form pales in comparison to hers.

Suddenly Shadelin started to manipulate fire; she manifested

fireballs in her hands and started to throw them at me. I tried to avoid

her offense, but I still got burned badly. Well not so badly, but it stung.

Now she was doing a strange movement; it reminded me of octopus

moving its legs. Then, a horrific realization hit me; this is the same

movement Shadelin used to summon a lightning and it is pointed right at

me. If she hits me, I am as good as toast. How can I survive this?

In a split second, I comprehended an important fact; as tiger I am

element of balance, able to use the half potential of any element as long

as I also use its opposite counterpart. But to do so I have to know the

opposite power. It could have been much easier if it was matter of fire

and water, but lightning? It’s pure energy!

Wait, energy, and it opposite is negation! Negation being opposite

of lightning, was dispersing electrical energy instead of collecting and

shooting it. Luckily my thoughts came to me as fast as lighting (no pun

intended), because Shadelin shot a lighting at me. With no time to lose I

blocked the lighting with my right hand; in order to negate power, it has

to be absorbed, and contact is necessary.

My theory was right, I absorbed the power, but it hurt my hand so

much it was numb, almost like Shadelin’s technique was full of her

anger, burning coals of her temper, desperate to turn me into ash. Then,

involuntarily, my left hand shot a weaker lightning toward the ground, I

jumped in order to avoid shock but the dragon girl got zapped. She fell

down.

Another part of my power, if I use power, I have to, no I must use

its opposite, even if I don’t want to. This kinda gave me precaution

about using power of water, for at any moment I could use power of fire.

I ended up setting several buildings on fire because of that. And it

happened mostly because my head turned to flaming torch.

Shadelin quickly came to her senses: “That hurt, you will pay

pussycat.”
 Her spiritual form began to change it became a 12 meter tall avatar

of her spirit; a dragon. It was glorious, long serpent-like body, wings

similar to bats, muscular legs, and many fangs, but I found it extremely

scary because it had a blank stare and it was completely black and red.

Her original form was golden yellow. Apparently, poison not only

affected person’s mind but also her spirit. This worried me.

I assumed my own form of a beast. A gigantic tiger. But its size

was almost half the size of dragon. I was worried. Both of us gave our

avatars weapons, sword and staff. I floated inside head of my avatar,

usage of this power was draining me, I was already feeling weaker.

After a few seconds, the dragon swung at me. I made the tiger jump, and

slash the dragon with staff, she blocked it. I kept trying to land a blow

against her avatar, but it was just too fast for me to catch off guard.

When I finally saw my opportunity and swung my staff at dragon’s

head, she stopped me by holding tiger’s paw, and then she proceeded to

restrain the other paw with her other claw. My tiger’s claws were

trapped, I couldn’t budge. I hoped dragon would just use this

opportunity to push me away, but instead she made her avatar get tighter

grip on my avatar’s paws and was pulling them in opposite directions.

She was basically ripping my manifestation in half. Because the spirit of

manifestation is created from soul of user, it hurt like hell. My body was

in complete agony. As my torn in half form of tiger was fading from

sight, I fell down to the ground. My body felt so heavy, but if I don’t

stand up I will be killed. I made an agonizingly successful attempt to

stand up and raised my staff. Dragon was upon me in an instant. My

staff got knocked away.

She chose to attack me by herself without usage of her dragon

manifestation. Because my body was overflowing with pain I couldn’t

react fast enough. She grabbed me by the throat and flew us to the top of

the waterfall. At top, I somehow managed to release myself from her

grip and landed on ground. She attacked me with her sword, I tried to

move but I wasn’t fast enough; she chopped off my left hand, it fell

down the waterfall. It hurt so much, only adrenaline and the thought of

not dying kept me conscious. Then, she slashed at my legs, I fell to my

knees. She was playing with me. I was so weakened that I couldn’t do

anything when she inflicted scar upon scar upon my body, she destroyed

my left eye, and my body was completely bruised. It was a cat playing

with its prey. And ironically, I was not the cat. Letting a sigh, Shadelin

inflicted the final wound; she pierced my heart with her sword. She

whispered: Good-Bye, Tiger-boy

She took out her sword out of my body and pushed me into the

waterfall. Last thing I heard was: How ironic, this place was a

battlefield, how fitting that you shall rest here,

I went deeper and deeper into the water. My body was dying, but I

can’t die, not like this, not now. I can’t accept it. Please body, respond,

please! I begged and pleaded, but my body went deeper into the water.

Please if there is anyone who can help me, help me live!

I was sure none would respond. But to my surprise I heard a distant

voice. It wasn’t quite like a sound, it was a feeling, from somewhere, not

this plain of existence, as I slipped further and further into the darkness,
the voice turned out to be multiple voices, seemingly human of origin,

but lacking corporeal form

One voice said:” To live you desire?” My spirit nodded. The voice

replied: “Your body is beyond fixing, I am afraid you will die by

yourself.”

I asked if there are no more options left. Voice replied: “Unless,

we make a deal. We will heal your body, but you will give us your body

as a host.”

I asked:” Are you going to kill my soul?”

“No, we are just going to inhabit your shell as our own until we

finish our unfinished business”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then you go away into afterlife”, the voice paused and asserted:

“Do you accept the offer?”

I had no choice; in order to live I would have to become vessel for

spirits. “I do”
 “Very well, come my brethren, come …” Dozens of spirits

gathered toward the spirit with whom I spoke, hundreds, now thousands,

all of them aiming at my body. They encircled me, and then entered me

through my eyes and mouth. I didn’t feel a thing, only a feeling of being

violated in so many levels. I was no longer alone in this body. I felt

presence of thousand others, could see them inside myself. My body

somehow began to change, the wounds were going away, and painfully

my left arm grew back to its original form. I saw the surface through my

eye, no, my eyes, my left eye’s sight suddenly returned! But I felt

detached from my body, I felt its movements but it wasn’t me doing

them. My body was being controlled by a ghost. My body, or should I

say, I climbed out of river that the waterfall led to. The body was in

perfect condition.

Well, at least I am alive, sort of. Those damned souls, every single

one of them. I can hear their voices, even though I am no longer

drowning. Somehow I am looking at world from outside view, like my

body wasn’t being entirely controlled by myself. I mean, I could still

feel the muscles in my body tensing when the body stretched, but the

actions were coordinated but not planned. It suddenly occurred to me

that my body started moving forward, which led me to notice that the

ground was lower than before. Then I realized how idiotic my idea

sounded, so examined myself, I was astounded- my legs were longer! I

freaked out in the inside, but for some reason my body was still. I came

close to a pond and saw my reflection upon it, and I almost thought it

was an enemy, for this face did not belong to me. Well, after a mauling

from dragon, and miraculous healing I didn’t expect to look one hundred

percent myself, but this, this was too much for me to take in at once! My

hair, usually dark brown and hard, was darker and looked spiky, my face

was hollower, not like losing weight but similar effect nevertheless. But

most striking were the eyes, my eyes are always brown, no matter the

occasion; it frequently made me jealous of disguise magic user who

could change their eye color for any occasion. But now, my eyes were

blood red, and I am not talking about whites, but the pupil and the iris. It

looked like the eyes of man who came from torture. Maybe, hell.
 “Close enough” I heard a voice respond to my thoughts. It was a

strong voice, I looked around myself but I couldn’t detect anyone, where

the noise is coming from? Is he an enemy, then how far from me?

“Closer than you think” the voice was clearer. I felt a tug on me,

but it wasn’t tugging my body, it was the same feeling when I unleash

my spiritual form, but the reverse, instead of pulling out spirit from

inside, my spirit is pulled inside. While my body dropped limp to the

ground, I felt myself falling into the deepest part of my soul. I landed

with a smack, who knew my soul looked like a barbershop filled with

tables and chairs? Personally I would have preferred a rainy desert. In

that instant my surroundings changed into what I desired. I wondered if

this was heaven. “Nope” I turned around, now instead of a disembodied

voice there stood a man whose reflection I saw on pool. He had an angry

expression, but somehow he looked extremely calm. “Greetings

Sabgyn”. I was shocked. How the hell did he know my name? Well,

maybe better question would be why he is talking to me, not attacking

me? Lately there are a lot of people who would like to see me dead. And
that’s a fact, just ask the dragon-girl, or better yet, don’t ask her. So, who

is this man?

“I can hear your thoughts you know, I would recommend not to

wonder away.” Well that was embarrassing, he says he heard me

thinking, is there no such thing as privacy here, wherever here is?

“If you want to I can stop hearing you thoughts and we can have a

conversation, well if you don’t mind starting to talk.” Okay, here it goes.

“Who, what, where, how?” Well, I could have said it better, I guess. The

man responded “No need to be alarmed, I am not here to kill you, in fact

I can’t kill you, on the account that I inhabit the same body as you are.”

What, is he serious! “Yes, I am quite serious, in fact I am the

representative of thousands of souls that now inhabit you.

I finally found my courage to say “Thousands of them? Wait

you’re a soul?”

“Yes”
 “So, are you guys dead or something” I was afraid I made the

question sound extremely rude, but to my surprise the man smiled. Well,

at least that proves he used to be a human.

“In physical sense, yes, we are quite dead. But we were stuck on

earth because we have not fulfilled our sworn duty. We have to complete

our task to go to our final destination. Until this day we had no way of

fulfilling our task, for we lacked a body. We tried to inhabit wonderers,

but they were either spiritually deaf, resistant or refused the deal. Some

of them even were too weak to house us. In fact I am surprised your

body is capable of holding all of us, you must be someone special”

“I am Tiger Marked One” I replied. It used to fill me with pride

when I said it, because I considered tiger a gallant and valiant beast. But

lately, I am repeatedly shown how inferior tiger’s powers are in

comparison to other animals. My fiasco battle with dragon is one more

proof for it. It’s almost like the other animals could wield the true power,

pure utilization of elements, while I only can use only half of true power,

with humiliating drawbacks. When every other animal spiritual form

used elements it seemed to empower them, but in my case it does the

opposite, it drains me. I didn’t have to wait for man’s answer.

“That explains quite a lot, like the reason your body didn’t

explode” I started freaking out, my eyes wide open with terror, and was

that what happened with their previous hosts?

“Do not worry, if your body was too weak it would have given up

the second we entered your body. Now the symbiosis is complete.”

“Symbiosis?” I asked. I knew what the word means of course, but

didn’t quite get how it applied to this.

“Yes, you get to live; we get to fulfill our duties. Basically you get

life, we get body. Oh, by the way, like your new arm?”

“Yes, thank you. You said there are more of you”

“Souls? Yes, tens of thousands of them. They were worried we

would overwhelm you with our multiple presences, so they chose me as

their representative while they observe.”

 “Do you guys have names, or should I address you as spirits?” I

know, not the best question to ask, but I wanted to know.

“We used to be humans, so naturally we had names. I used to be

called Nayas.”

“Nayas. Well, at least now I can address you properly. So, can you

tell me more, why did you choose to help me and how you guys ended

up being spirits?” My curiosity got better of me, again.

Nayas seemed surprised, his expression showed his startled look

for a few seconds. Apparently no one had asked him this in a long time.

“Well, I guess as my vessel, it would be prudent of me to tell about

myself to you.” He paused, looked at me straight in the eye, and said “It

was many years ago, approximately fifty years or so. We still had our

bodies, we were alive. Back then, we led our last stand against the

Demonic Trio – Morphus, Mracus, and Lariel. We fought well; we had

to defend our people against enslavement. The three demons have

conquered many kingdoms, now they were trying to add our land to their

collection. We fought against all of the dark warriors; we thought we

won, until the leaders joined the fight. They singlehandedly beat all of

us, all of us, regardless of number of people fought; they seemed to

never get tired. They brutally massacred us. The last thing I heard before

my soul separated from my body was that maniacal laughter of the

demons, all I heard was it, as I faded the laughter made me hear the cries

of pain of countless people, if I wasn’t dying I would have lost my mind.

After that, my body was dead, but my spirit lived on. So did the rest of

the defenders. We saw reapers, angels who collect souls, but we were

told that we can’t transcend to afterlife before we fulfilled our destined

purpose. I had no idea what that purpose is and I still don’t know, but I

only knew that I have not fulfilled it. For that, all thousands of us were

condemned to this place, unable to move without a body, unable to be

heard or seen, only able to communicate through dreams or ones close to

death.” Nayas turned away. “We chose to help you because it was a

perfect opportunity for us to gain a body. After all if you had a choice

you wouldn’t have given us your physical form.” He was correct; there

is no way I would have let any spirit inhabit me if I could survive on my

own. “Yet, now we inhabit this form, and you can’t purge us.” That was
alarming. “I also am here to discuss with you the terms of our

cooperation”

Cooperation? That’s what he calls it? No big deal, it’s just

thousands of souls controlling me, everyday stuff. Who am I kidding;

none told me this was even possible. People always said “Sabgyn, if you

encounter spirits, scram!” That’s about sums up their advices. Now I am

doing the complete opposite of the advice, I am making deal with spirits,

well I already made the deal, but discussing the terms is just as freaky.

To clarify, this is my body, my physical existence is what we’re talking

about, I mean I am grateful for not being sent to Heaven, or Hell for that

matter, but now I have to live with them, yikes! This is way worse than

the time I cooked a cobra in a pot and took a bite of it. Well, it did taste

slightly like chicken, slimy, long, ropelike chicken with no feathers.

When I realized my mistake, I found myself throwing up pieces of the

tail. Naturally, I freaked out.

“What terms do you declare?” I just needed the info, so it’s best to hear

out the man, the spirit, or apparition, or whatever he is.

“Glad you asked. Well, first of all, all of us will have turns using this

body as our own. And apparently as an additional side effect, when

specific soul takes charge your external appearance of body will change

accordingly, taking on the form of the soul’s original body.” He paused,

put his hand under his chin as if in thought. “But, if there were fewer

spirits or a different vessel this result wouldn’t have been possible. You

see, we- souls act as an energy source for metamorphosis, while your

body is malleable to change because it has tiger spiritual form. Oh, don’t

be frightened you can still guide the body, but you will not have total

control.”

“Am I supposed to agree to this?” I was shuddering, at least what I

thought was my essence did

“Well, fortunately, you already have.” The Nayas, or whatever that thing

is continued. “ The moment you said yes, the deal was made, and it will

not be unmade until we fulfill our duty-Stopping Morphus, Mracus, and

Lariel.”

“The Demon Brothers?”

“Yes”

“The lords that have totalitarian control over everyone, and are rumored

to be descendants of the Satan himself?”

“It’s no rumor, it’s a fact. And they are no simple descendants; they’re

devil’s offspring, his children”

I felt like I would have peed my pants, if I was controlling a body

anyway

“The devil! The one who unleashed, no, created all calamity, he has

children?!?!”

Nayas had no reaction. “Why do you seem so surprised? It’s obvious.”

After seeing my dumbfounded expression, he explained. “You already

knew of the Demon Brothers, I have read through your life in your soul

recording. You tried to organize rebellion against them by gathering

group of warriors possessing strong spiritual forms in order to challenge

their rule. You probably assumed that the trio is group of warlocks,

didn’t you?”
I nodded.

“Well, warlocks are so much easier to take care of, just pour them with

silver powdered water and they will burn down. Unfortunately, those

three are true to their name. You know, every demon is made by Satan,

but the brothers are different. Way different from other demons. I

suppose you know Satan’s history?”

I shook my head, how am I supposed to know about someone who

torments people in their nightmares and practically does not exist in

material world, but instead exists in mental plain to torment everyone

with his voice.

“He is a fallen angel. Archangel to be exact”

“Say what? Aren’t angels supposed to you know, help people? Not

destroy them! How in the world the biggest baddy in the world is one of

pure celestial beings!? In fact he can’t be an angel; this gotta be some

sick joke!”
Nayas stood still, but his eyes slitted in a very scary serious expression,

which told me to shut up and listen, which I did, and I admit I hated

doing so

“Unfortunately, that’s the truth. Devil is not his real name by the way.

His true name is Lucifer. The Light Bringer. What an ironic name,

because he now despises light and his sole ambition is to plunge the

world into darkness.”

I didn’t say a word, the information was too important to miss.

“Lucifer used to be the best angel. He excelled at everything and he used

to be the Great Creator’s favorite being. But then, Creator made

mankind. People peacefully developed. Creator paid a lot of attention to

them, for they were in a sense his children. As the elder son jealous of

the attention given to the younger, Lucifer grew in hatred.” Nayas took a

deep breath and continued” He attempted to annihilate the mankind. And

he almost succeeded; he killed all but two-Adam and Eve. Fortunately,

Lucifer’s elder brother Michael happened to be watching over the

creations. When he saw the atrocity his younger brother was

committing, he flew down to stop him. Lucifer didn’t want to stop; he

lashed at his elder brother, which resulted in an epic fight for the fate of

last humans. While both opponents were archangels, and both were

almost evenly matched in terms of power, Michael managed to win

because Lucifer lost control due to his own anger overwhelming him.

Michael then proceeded to seal him away, into the pit underworld, which

would become known as Hell.”

I was awed. Then said “So why we don’t just find this Michael dude and

ask him to take care of those three, I mean he beat the Devil, surely three

demons are a piece of cake for him!”

Nayas stood with his eyes lowered. Does this guy ever stop looking sad,

it’s making me mad!

“If he still existed, he could easily have stopped those three fiends. But

as you may have deduced by half a century of tyranny at the hands of

demons, Michael is no longer part of this world.”

“What happened to him?”

“None knows, Sages say that he feared he could become corrupt like his

younger brother, and one day his life force vanished. None has heard or

seen him since”

Nayas continued “Like all angels, Lucifer has wings, but his wings

changed after he was banished. They now are more reptile-like, with no

feathers. And unfortunately, I suspect that his children inherited wings

as well, although they rarely use them”

“What’s so important about wings anyway? I mean, big deal, they can

fly.”

“It would have been fine if it was just that. You see, wings are partially

source of angel’s power, while angel possesses immeasurable power

without them, wings allow for perfected control and manipulation.

They’re in a sense key to great power.”

I asked “So those three, are they archangels too?”

“What? No! Their old man was one, but they are half-bloods. They

probably possess power equivalent to seraphs.”

“Sera what?”

“Seraphim. It is the second highest rank of angels based on power.

Archangels are their superiors.”

“Thanks goodness.”

Nayas looked annoyed” Don’t overjoy, although their combined strength

is inferior compared to an archangel, there are no more archangels

present on earth. All of them are gone. I have no idea how or where. So,

the demons technically are the strongest ones in existence”

“Wait, you mentioned the Great Creator, the God. Can’t God stop

them?”

“God never interferes in affairs of his creations. He creates and observes,

he never tries to change the world.”

“So, God is only an observer.”

“Yes”

“Then what chance we have of beating them?”

“There is always hope, hope that keeps us going. We can feel that we

will succeed. I am sure you feel it as well.”

“I do feel it, in my heart.” It was true, that was the reason for me

gathering my allies in the first place, to have the chance for victory, no

matter how slim

“Nayas, if you wish to stop demon brothers, I am your ally.”

“Thank you.”

“What we should do?”

“Now this issue has been settled, we can finally take action. Have you

heard of town named Jambol ? And have you baked bread before?”

Before 12/6/13

In the town of Jambol , once a greatest city among allied nations,

showing off its prosperity, unique beauty among others. The town was

unusually peaceful place where the violence was low and love
prospered. For a long time the city didn’t see any intrusions and it didn’t

have any enemies.

Little did they know that the city’s greatest nightmare would emerge

from within the city. Fully trusting the city’s impenetrable walls, people

insured themselves of their safety from elements and spirits of nature.

From their ignorance of corruption among themselves, they didn’t saw

that their leader was being corrupted by the power he has obtained. His

life was golden one, so to speak, without any challenges, everything

going on his whim. After years of governing his hunger for power didn’t

stop, yet he had obtained everything he ever wanted but he desired more.

He was lost in his deepest thoughts when he saw the vision that

promised to give him the ultimate power over element of fire. His search

for materialistic objects halted replaced by a spiritual search for his

supposed destiny. He searched every inch of his kingdom, yet he found

nothing.

One day when he slumbered into land of his deepest thoughts and

desires, he felt a pull on himself by a chain of steel. When he looked

upon his capturer he saw only himself wrapped by flames. His double

spoke in a hissing voice: “This is what thy desire, my lord. Yet every

power has its own price.” The greed blinded king replied:” Whatever the

price is-take it, once I obtain this powers I will open new horizons for

myself. The figure nodded, and suddenly the flames that coated it started

to move toward the man. He felt the sensation of something within him

being ripped apart, replaced by pure ignition of his own aura. His

usually gold colored soul started to grow darker and darker until it was

identical to color of dry blood. When the man woke from his dreams, his

newly found ability manifested. His happiness found no end. He showed

his flame manipulation to nearly everyone in his city. But little did he

know that the price of this power was his soul. The people around this

man started to notice his behavior becoming more unusual and

unpredictable. He started experiencing drunken madness and outbursts

over a simple conversation. With each passing day he grew worse. He

fell on his bed and stopped breathing. His people filled with sorrow that

their leader was dead visited him for the last time. But when the visitors

entered his chamber- they saw a miracle-their leader was alive. With joy
filling their hearts they danced among themselves. They failed to see

that their once a leader’s eyes changed from their green to a flaming

turquoise. When he stood, his room started shaking. When his visitors

saw this, they immediately started to embrace him. Yet he felt neither

their love nor joy for him.

He pushed his visitors aside and proceeded toward the center of his

kingdom. There he found that the peace wasn’t maintained due to two

groups of people bickering with each other. He tried to stop both groups,

but they thought of him favoring the other over them. When a rather

idiotic youngling threw a stone at him, the fate of the city was

determined. The leader body became completely surrounded by flame

and he mercilessly beat the youngling until his dying breath. Horrified

by his actions, both groups tried to stop him, only to be consumed by the

flames of his hatred.

Ever since that day the king established a rule by his own whim, those

on his way were quickly eliminated. Those who were brave enough to

face him perished in battle. With every dark action he did,

He became even more corrupt in his judgment. He saw his once friends

as foes and proceeded to eliminate them.

He wielded tremendous power on his side, combined with an army of

selected assassins. Within a decade he singlehandedly transformed the

peaceful city of Jambol into nightmare city Ashu.

He ruled with iron grip on everything, yet his human greed proved to be

stronger than the evil that he carried in his heart. He became very

wealthy by placing taxes on everyone in his land, and started to conquer

its neighboring lands, transforming Ashu from a mere city into a large

country. His greed made his people suffer, while he had a meal every

single day, a person who lived in Ashu could barely afford a piece of

bread. He had 5 wives and had a habit off getting rid of them once they

no longer were of any use to him. This man’s name became associated

with the dark flame he carried, Oltyr Ot-Kill Flame, Helfire, and Ishmar-

Destroyer. His name was Aldan, the man whose name became

synonymous with Chaos.

Chapter 1-The Newcomer 12/6/13

The land deprived of its soul, how foul, only to scowl

Walked the stranger thru the gate, “Don’t be late” said the guard

His cart was filled with endless supply of wheat and flour, baker he was,

needed at important hour

“I came to be of assistance to this town, open my shop and bake with my

sweet flour” said the stranger

Beckoned the guard to follow him, showed him to his place, near the

council building of Ashu, to settle there

Observed the baker all around, saw the poverty, the homeless, like

hungry hounds,

A tear came to his eye, when he saw a man die when he was passing by

Starvation, while king strived, everything seemed to bloody to stay alive

and to describe
Baker’s job was to feed the town, hired by Minister Yen, but he knew it

was only to get the town to pay

After all, no town no gain.

He unpacked his belongings, quickly filled up every shelf raft, started to

work half a day after he came to town

His customers were those who couldn’t afford and nobles alike, yet he

took cash only from nobles, and gave poor free bread

When questioned for his actions by Officer Jan of the army, he would

quickly deny, saying that quality of poor’s bread wasn’t high

He moved in his bakery, as his own domain, so swift and graceful, every

lady wanted to dance

When the elderly man asked his name, he said “I know my name”

Within weeks of his work, he was flattered, to receive a meeting with

king at bakery, for political matters

Praised for softness and taste of his bread, he was the host while all

governors came

With all the discussion between themselves, never they did realize

someone was watching all of their actions and words

Talk of execution of leader of rebels tonight, having a pyre, with his

head on a pike

After the meeting, the king was gone, gave ten gold coins to baker, a tip

for his bread

Coins were gone within an hour baker got them, gave them to his

customers as a gift from the baker

Little the king knew that his actions were watched, as injustice rises, just

man arrives

Preventing the beheading was his goal, his determination as hot as coal

In the bakery, was a sound as if someone took a huge breath and roared

quietly, and then he emerged from the shadows

A man dressed in black, completely blending in with the night, katana

by his side

It was about time to go, for he is not the person who goes with the flow.

It was time to get to and fro

Fallen County 12/30/12

We people of the city of Jambol, now frightful Ashu

Desired only peace thru all the ages, you can confirm it from history at

any pages

All our enemies were done, gone, left us alone

Unexpected threat, Fire king of dread

Nightmare became our life, losing many lives for what? King’s ceaseless

desires!

Why to pain us so, we are your people after all

You overthrew our queen, under whom you served, who gave power to

you

How have you betray us for sake of your desire

We saw the people starving, dying regardless old or young

Resisting you we started, formed a Rebel group, loyal to queen and

people

We tried to overthrow, your so called highness, yet we failed, we tried

again

We simply lack the power, to resist you at this hour, all the fine people

you destroyed, you robbed us of all hope

Yet we continue fighting, hoping that with age, fire would cease to exist

It might stop us now, incinerate all around us

We tried to find allies from countries beyond Ashu, but were too late for

king destroyed them too

Our leaders’ only hope, to find the right moment to strike, we will be

waiting to get rid of your kingly head!

Oh king can’t you see, you’re tormenting us, you are no friend of your

people

So why can’t you set us free, if we were birds we want to fly away, none

wants to stay and die, while you eat your pie!

We’re people of Jambol, never giving up on hope to rebuild the lost

glory of our city!

So if we get the chance, we wouldn’t show you pity!

Chapter 2-The Attack 12/6/13

Started the meeting in palace, as smoothly as king had hoped

Surrounded by his warriors, ruthless fighters with intention to kill,

making more blood spill

Black Knight and Silver Noian, both utterly loyal and dependent on his

whim, both with powers granted by him

Aldan’s decision to kill leader rebel, demoralize others, with his head on

a pike

Preventing future problems, to rule as he would like

“Oppose me, loose everything including your head” was the words he

used and abused

Moved all members of council to the place where more souls were let

away, the place of beheading

King’s favorite place to go, thinks to himself “the more times I come

here, the less I see opposition”

Looking over ten meters away stood the unfortunate victim in chains,

bruise marks all over the place

He took the beating so much, he could barely stand, all to protect his

family and land.

Noble cause it would be for human eyes, but the king lost his human

side a long while back

And it doesn’t look like he will regain it, forever to kill

Victim stood helpless, watching with stone dead eyes, while the royalist

recited the crimes the man was accused of.

It took three men to force the victim on execution table, head in the hole,

to cut it off

The executioner raised his ax, prepared to slice the veins that hold

together the body and brains

Making his last word goodbye, victim has closed his eyes, prepared to

die

Suddenly, a flash of silver sweeps through, cutting the ax from its wood,

just when it was lowered.

The deadly metal fell on the ground, in front of the prisoner, who saw

his own reflection on it and screamed

The king’s servants went, to the place where daggers came from, only to

find their own demise from the same weapons

The dark silhouette emerged behind the council, if it wasn’t for Black

Knight’s keen eye, king would be dead on ground, from a strike of

katana

Loyalty to his king unmatched by any other, Black Knight fought the

intruder, forcing him back couple of steps

Clashes of swords followed by quick steps were only things heard; dust

started covering everything from people’s sight

Then there was a sound of sword piercing flesh, dust cleared off

revealing Black Knight and his fallen foe

Full of anger, the knight tore the mask away, only to reveal it was a

dummy made of hay

The council of king soon realized, prisoner was gone, just like the

intruder, leaving Black Knight to fight himself in the dark,

What a fool!
Dishonor branded in his name, knight swore revenge to intruder, whom

he will roast on a stake

Meanwhile, the stranger and prisoner were running on top of buildings

No words exchanged, victim on stranger’s back stayed, until they

reached the highest of towers

Then did the stranger untie the knots and chains that held the man down,

but instead of attacking him head on

The man was awed, “What sort of man are you? To withstand the Black

Knight and attack the king? What is thy purpose in this forsaken land?”

The stranger stood silent, and then replied “I am stranger of Midnight, I

came here to help”

Disbelief settled in man’s eyes, the stranger was standing like he knew

everything what was, is, and will be

His clothes were dark, with spiked edges and small golden stripes, the

mask concealed his face was dark with golden angles, making the spots

where his eyes should have been complete darkness

The prisoner bowed to the Stranger, and said “Thank you, kind man,

saving my life from this vultures. I am Jon of Jambol. I am loyal only to

the rightful ruler of this land. I …”

“Save your breath, I am here for the same cause. “ With his words the

stranger pointed toward the people below them. “Your friends are there,

crying of your demise, I think you should stop their suffering.”

Mystified Jan was surprised to see that Stranger’s words were true

indeed, his comrades were losing hope, and he could stop it fast

“Thank you, Stranger” said Jan second time, bowing with respect, and

left toward the comrades

When Jan looked back, there was none on top of the building, he felt

only a breeze thru the air, and words “Help your queen”.

Jan and his comrades rejoiced for their leader was alive, yet Jan was

preoccupied with wonder who or what was his rescuer, and why did he

help?
When Jan returned to his queen, Ellis, the rightful ruler of land, he

bowed to her

Queen beckoned to him, “It is wondrous that your are alive, sir Jan of

Jambol, Your escape would encourage people not to give up our cause,

all thanks to you”

Sir Jan kept his head low; sensing the disturbance his queen asked him

what happened and how he got free

Slowly and calmly, sir Jan spoke “A man strong enough to hold down

the Black Knight and fool him, brave enough to alone attack the king,

fast enough to escape with me on his shoulder, wise enough not to reveal

his identity. He called himself Midnight Stranger.”

The queen remained silent, but her face betrayed her innermost thoughts

“What are your thoughts about this my queen?” asked Sir Jon, aware of

how this news would affect her

“I think we have an ally” was the only words she said before she called

the council of Jambol, leaders of opposition

The council was filled with awe of the tale of Midnight Stranger, some

were jolly- with realization that a strong person has joined their side, yet

some where suspicious- he was an unknown ally, could he be trusted.

Finally the queen spoke “What should we do about this?” by a majority

vote council decided to contact the Stranger

A voice within the crowd, said “He also is too swift to follow”, it was

none other than Sir Jon himself

“So what” asked Sebastian, the elderly member of council

“Even if we find, which is doubtful, I don’t think we can follow him, his

speed is so great he was gone out of sight when an eye blinked”

“All right then, if we can’t contact him, we will act independently of

him, but if you encounter him don’t harm him.” Said the Queen Ellis,

confirming the meeting as done.

Chapter 3-Search 12/25/13

The fright that robbed all thoughts of sleep, hurling chaos in disturbed

mind
Feeling he almost forgot, with the time slowing beyond its borders

A threat nevertheless the stranger was a threat, a threat that he soon will

have eliminated

But what is the use of a corpse of the stranger, dead and lifeless cold

He could be so much more as an ally, thus eliminating the threat and

gaining power at the same time

He need to only make the stranger swear the oath of loyalty upon the

flame stone, and stranger would be his to play with

Surprisingly, the stranger was strong enough to handle and deceive the

Black Knight, an unmatched force on the battlefield, second most

powerful one in Ashu.

Indeed, a man with his skills could become a very strong ally

The king was more amazed with the power the intruder wielded, rather

than the incompetency of Black Knight

He kept convincing himself that he was the only one with the power

over elements, supreme overlord, unchallenged by any mortal

Yet, it was obvious he was shaking from fear, the assassination attempt

was one step too close

He needed to find the stranger, a tough job considering it could be

anyone, so he ordered all suspicious people to be collected in a place,

stacked like sheep, until found guilty one among them

A possible ally or not, the stranger was a threat …

Inside the castle, leaning upon his sword stood the dark knight, the last

one of old order, fallen in the eyes of others, yet loyal to his sole master

Uttering the oaths he said when he joined the king, when he was

defeated, when his loyalty shifted, but not many knew that he bore his

own secrets

Joining the king was not only appealing for his survival, but also it

would mean that he could attain the portion of dark power for which he

long desired
The feeling of given power had changed him since then, making him the

pawn to the king, corrupting his mind, heart, and soul, by his own choice

In those days he felt invincible, besting every person, every challenger,

beaten by none in combat, he indeed was a born warlord

Unknown to all, but king alone, his life starting point was a dark past,

full of pain, which in turn led him to his path

He once loved, had a family, had a desirable life at farmland, until the

wars started

He didn’t live in Ashu back then, so unlike the peaceful latter the city of

Son was frequently at war with its larger neighboring lands, Akbar and

Daw

Initially, reluctant to join the fight, the man tried to protect the people he

loved, but his efforts proved futile

During the mass raid on his city, in order to demoralize city’s protectors,

all women and children were cut down, streaming rivers of blood down

the land, giving the land its new name, Bloody Red Sorrow
The memories of his loved ones cut away from him haunt him until this

day, even with darkness filling for all his feelings, the sights still torment

him in his nightmares, begging him to see them

He was a slave after that day, a slave willing to kill, it wasn’t until the

king of Ashu found him, and realized his potential, for the vengeful

heart at his side as an ally- a perfect opportunity for overlord

Since his conversion into Black Knight, he hunted down every single

person who sacked his homeland, he found quite a few, but after a while

the seed of evil planted to him by his king erased every memory of his

humanity, leaving only an evil shell loyal to king alone

Yet he still failed to find solitude

Now, beaten by a trick, humiliated in front of his master, he desired to

hunt down the stranger, and return with his head on a pike

No matter how much the city was searched, no person exactly matched

the description of the criminal, leading to hundreds, if not thousands of

arrests and releases in a week

The only place untouched by guards was the bakery, the man was simply

too obese to be the criminal, and disturbing him meant disturbing the

recovery of starving city

The baker continued on cooking for people, not paying for bread made

poor strive, old thanked him, referring him as their savior, the young saw

him as a member of their family

He captured people’s hearts thru their stomachs

After his day at work was done, he came to wash the dishes, but then he

saw that a person was calling him for a piece of pie

It was a lady of twenty, so beautiful the man felt his heart melt, her lips

red like roses in the spring, her nose cute as child’s smile, her skin

neither pale or dark, her eyes, ah those eyes seemed to be staring at his

bare soul

She seemed to be from a poor family, judging from her clothing

When the baker gave her a pie, she thanked him and invited him to talk

to her at the table

Unable to refuse to such a beauty, the baker tried not to faint while he

went to join her at the table

“Who are you fair sir?” Asked the lady, in a voice that reminded him of

blue jay’s song

“I am a baker of this land, now” Answered he, shyness coming to his

voice, kinda wishing to stop the giggling noise

“I meant your name” Baker could tell, the girl was the type that pushes

for answers, not one of the silly dancers

He thought of many name, but blurted out “ Saaai”

“So Sai, huh, so nice to meet you”

“Hum, you too”

“Look I know you’re a baker sent by the king, so be honest, what you

think so far?” Girl was impatient to know, her words as swift as wind

blow
“Um, yeah, so, so far so good?” He didn’t know what to say, so why not

go on with the play?

Blank expression settled on her pretty face, now not smiling, her hand

rose, as if to slap him, but she put it down at the last moment. “Good,

what you see in this good? Death surrounds us every day, king’s greed

kills us until his insatiable belly fills, and by that time we are goners.

How can you say anything is good?”

Baker was dumbfounded, not only she was pushy; she was also strong

and brave, type of lady for every man to crave

He thought to himself, if she is such a difference maker, she must be one

of resistance, with her charm and voice, any rebelling organization has a

choice. “At least we can peacefully talk.”

“True” He could sense she was almost about to cry, it felt like someone

was about to die.

Only loss could make such a majestic lady weep ponds on the ground, so

the baker thought why not it be the next question to toss”

“You lost someone dear to you haven’t you?” Baker asked carefully,

fully knowing her answer would be told truly

“My parents, who tried to resist, and my grandfather who lay dying in

my arms” Tears fell on her dress, so baker decided not to press

“I am sorry”

“No, I am sorry. You had nothing to do with this, I think I am blaming

innocents just because they work for the king” With these words she

stood and proceeded to leave, only for baker to offer her handkerchief.

“Thank you” said she, and left, leaving only a piece of pie on a dish

What she didn’t see was the shift in the baker’s eyes, which usually were

of solid brown, so suddenly it occurred that none but him noticed. Oak

color replaced by bloody red, and spoke he in a voice too strong for a

man of his size

“Sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain, promise you that.”

Chapter 4-Mystery 2/10/14

Trying to avoid the light, darkness was his ally

So smooth and swift was he that only sound was wind

Even if king’s people do see him, it would be too late for them

He knew that his first chance to stop the king had failed, so he took his

chances and freed the prisoner

Would be useful in future

The king would be more cautious now, and doubtless he set up a trap in

his current location, making it purposeless to follow him

The stranger thought, if he can’t cut the vile thing from its root, then he

would start from its flowers

He saw the town, every location, only things that caught his eye was tax

collectors
Greedy pigs just came, dragged an old man who could not pay out of his

house, his wife in hysterical, begging for soldiers to stop

Soldiers tied the struggling man and tied him to a pole by his hands, then

a swift slash

Rendered soldier unconscious, others unaware of attacker until he was

done

Not dead, but disabled still, their bodies fell down on a whim

An old man saw only a silhouette of his rescuer, mysteriously vanishing

from his sight

By the morning, five squads of soldiers were ambushed and attacked,

but none saw him until he delivered the blow

When the messenger came to the king, Aldan bellowed with rage, “How

could one man inflict so much damage in one night?”

“ It was the same man who attacked me, of that I am sure!”

Silver Noyan, his king’s second in command suggested to use the

stranger’s protectiveness of villagers against him

To capture people and torture them, until stranger gives himself up

Only problem was, would it work? Far easier it would have been if the

identity of the stranger was revealed!

“You gave me no choice stranger, your caring would be cradle to your

grave!”

When he ordered the Black Knight to take prisoners he felt the jubilating

sense of pride, no longer a resistance will bother him, for they would be

crushed after he is done with the Stranger

Black Knight rode on his fair steed, knowing that the time for revenge

would come soon

He took fifteen prisoners in total with him, 5 elderly and ten young; he

would make Stranger helplessly watch people feel pain

Unless he gives himself up, which is unlikely, but it would make the

Stranger look vile in the eyes of common man, for he was given a choice

to save innocent, but refused

So in any case it would be to king’s benefit

On the other side of the kingdom, Stranger sat perched on top of the

house, his eyes no longer red but shining yellow,

Already heard he had of the king’s latest act, but unbeknownst to king,

Stranger already knew his solution to this dilemma

It would surprise everyone, he thought, and walked across the roofs, his

feet leaving marks like that of metal hooves,

Little the king knew that he wasn’t facing a single enemy, but amalgam

of many, ready to strike him

“We” the Stranger thought, “Will set this right”

None saw or heard his words, but even if they did, his companion was

nonexist,
For his secret, was his triumph key against the fire king!

Chapter 5-New Foe 7/25/14

In the evening of the next day, the citizens stood in terror, their loved

ones were about to be killed before their eyes

The gloom and silence spread to every corner of the place, hope was

fading as fast as tears were lost on the hot dry ground

The man who saved their leader must come to his doom in order to

prevent the inevitable

But who would be nincompoop enough to give himself up on silver

platter to king’s table

Why didn’t he kill the king when he was able?

Able? King’s invincibility was profound, for his element of fire

protected him from harm

Occasionally serving as an extra arm

Stranger stood no chance against the king, so the hope was lost before it

was found

The executioner readied his ax to deliver the fatal blow on the first man,

when Silver Noyan loudly announced “This is the Price for your

cowardice, now see and watch their heads hacked off one at a time, and

citizens! Know he had the chance to prevent this from

Happeniiiiiiiiiii……”

He stopped short when he realized that what he thought was a shadow

was the stranger himself

He appeared out of nowhere, now he stood in front of Noyan, who from

shock fell backwards when the Stranger said “ BOOO!”

Such daring and audacity the people have never seen, humiliating the

Noyan and Black Knight!

How incredible, but more incredible was the fact he was there to fight

against the king

But to their horror the Stranger bent on his knee, hands up, waiting to be

cuffed, “I Surrender! “

The king couldn’t believe his eyes, the plan actually worked!

But the Stranger stood tall and said “If you let them go, just like you

promised”

King signaled his men to let the prisoners go, and signaled other three to

cuff the Stranger

Strangely the Stranger stopped resisting; he walked calmly with them to

his cage in a prison

When he was passing by he caught the eye a woman from the bakery,

her flower-like head was shaking and her eyes were watering with tears

She was one of the prisoners, he was sure, she was standing holding on

to her brother who got the worse ordeal of being beaten half to death

She still held the silk handkerchief in her delicate hands while she stood

helpless knowing that her village’s hope for resistance was awaiting his

doom
So entered the Stranger the prison’s dark room

Black Knight awaited this moment and came near the bars of the room

“Tomorrow your life ends, Stranger, and know what, King asked me to

execute you” He hissed at the Stranger imitating the sound of the sword

piercing flesh

But Stranger’s expression was blank, his eyes completely dark

Yet when he spoke it was sound far scarier than a bark

“You misunderstand your own roots and stems, how do you expect to

beat me?”

The Black Knight stood speechless, it was the first time he heard the

Stranger’s voice

It was of a strong man with strong spirit, but also of a mysterious nature

“Not know my roots? I know everything I need!”

“Yet you know nothing” was the Stranger’s cold reply. “You’re just a

wolf following stars, seeking the guidance from the moon that chose to

abandon it.”

Black Knight’s eyes opened wide and he tried to lash at Stranger but his

hand started shaking so hard, his weapon dropped to the ground.

Stranger continued “Stray wolf seeking guidance can only find moon on

a mount when it is at its fullest. You will receive answers there.”

That was the last words Black Knight heard from the Stranger

The next day, when the Black Knight came to execute the stranger

He was horrified to discover that the bars of the cage were bent open

It couldn’t have been stranger’s doing, cage was too strong, so Black

Knight assumed he had an assistant

He found the guard unconscious on the ground, when asked who did this

Guard said, it was a big man with green eyes, he was seven feet tall and

he did all of this, he pointed to the destroyed portion of the prison

It was collapsing!

“How?” demanded the Black Knight, the only answer he received was “

He punched it.”

Black Knight thought, it couldn’t have been Stranger who was barely six

feet tall, he has a strong ally, my new Foe!!!

Chapter 6- Fearsome Five 8/7/2014

King’s fury saw no end, how did captured man escape? Left him looking

like an overgrown ape, unable to keep his promise to slaughter

Now forced to check behind himself, paranoid frenzy taking over his

better instincts,

No, I must not be frightened, besides, If he were here I would certainly

have fun of annihilating him.

Yet, king’s actions betrayed him, he called upon Morphus’ help in

defeating the stranger

In a way his actions were justified, even elite guard didn’t know how to

handle this intruder

Yet, Morphus was not to be trusted, even though they have the same

creator, a father in a sense, Morphus never treated him as a surrogate

brother, and the King was not about to bow to his equal, no! He would

make Morphus bow to him, begging for mercy!

For now, Morphus’ assistance is necessity, his request for assistance was

accepted,

Morphus promised to send his loyal minions, five to be exact, of

strongest warriors

Their titles however made them seem rather ludicrous to king, but he

would have to tolerate them

He heard rumors of the five, believable and unbelievable in some ways

They were Snake, Dragon, Pig, Bull, and Rooster

Dragon was Chaos, Bull was Destruction, Rooster was Abnormality, Pig

was Gluttony, and Snake was Death

Their leader, Dragon, most powerful of them, was most dangerous to

deal with for her power exceeded anything imaginable, surprisingly

there were almost no limit to her power

Bull, a man with a knack for demolition, passionate about discord

created through destruction, a purest form of strength possible, needed to

be handled with caution

Rooster could go against well-established laws of physics themselves,

even earth’s gravity is no match for her influence.

Least powerful, yet not weakest in strength, was Pig, extremely large

man, rumored to be capable of making himself become a giant at will

And the most sinister member of group, the Snake, never know when his

fangs will strike your throat, you wouldn’t know he is near you until it’s

too late

They were former Marked Ones, a group that tried to unite against the

three Demonic Brothers, group of which Morphus was part of.

Although the king was entitled as the ruler of his domain, in comparison

to Divine Overlords

He was a vassal

A slave, just a slave, the thought infuriated him even further, And now

asking that beast for help? How low my pride can get?

The Five started their search, lurking through the streets in order to find

a clue, rather than flu from sick inhabitants of the particular ruin of what

used to be a domed building

Pig didn’t care about anything in the matter, for his indulging appetite

was known to control him, almost a trick on a whim

He carried around a sword and a piece of beef jerky on his other hand,

Morphus couldn’t erase the traits that defined them, but he could

manipulate the darkness inside them to overwhelm them, bend them to

his will, and eventually enslave them

Each one of the five went for a separate part of the king’s domain, but

still no sign of rebels

The prospect of not finding the intruder angered Dragon so much that

she threw several lightning from her fingers at houses causing them to

be burned down, the inhabitants ran, each grabbing their belongings and

some women were running with their children in their arms

In her fury, the Dragon started to attack the people; she clenched a man

by the throat and glared in his eyes with her piercing sight.

A truly scary sight, seeing the Dragon manifest its eyes while still

remaining in human form, it was rumored to be capable of paralyzing a

person, sending them into trance-like state that left them a blank slate of

their former selves

So, even if one would survive the Dragon’s eyes, one would be more a

ghost than a man

This poor man’s fate would have been the same if not for the timely

interference of the mighty stranger

Dragon was forcefully pushed aside before she could use her eyes upon

a citizen, leaving the poor man run for his life

Man’s rescuer was seven feet tall and had extremely bright green eyes

He was dressed in a completely white costume with the exception of his

forehead of his mask, which had a star mark centered on it

He spoke in a gruff, almost metallic voice: How low you have fallen,

Shadelin.

The Dragon was surprised to hear her true name spoken by a stranger,

for only her master and partners knew her identity, She hissed” How the

hell did you discover my identity?”

Stranger stood firmly and said: Simple, you told me.

Shadelin’s eyes opened wide for a moment, then in a sudden burst of

realization, she tensed, fists clenched and shivering uncontrollably: You!

I killed you! You Drowned! How can you still walk on earth?

Stranger simply said: You look nice.

Shadelin uncontrollably blushed at his comment, and she shouted at him:

What? I come here to destroy you and you check me out? How dare

you!
She swung her fingers in an ark creating a stream of lightning which she

fired at her opponent.

Lightning can’t miss, she thought, it’s too fast to avoid

But just moments before ray of lightning touched the Stranger, his eyes

changed from green to pure white

Dragon didn’t notice this, and she landed the attack perfectly on the

Stranger

He fell like a heap of heavy wood

Dragon was elated to realize that she was the one who beat the Stranger

She smiled, and said: Guess you can be dead after all, Tiger Boy.

She came near the body and kicked its face. But before she could land

the kick, a hand blocked it

Impossible, she thought, lightning should have fried him!

It was no other than Stranger casually blocking her attempt to attack

him; he just stood and gave off a maniacal laugh: Whaaaahaahahhahaha!

What? Dragon couldn’t understand anything, yet she said: New tricks?

“New People”, Replied the Stranger, still laughing

Then, before the Dragon could react he jumped on the roof of the nearest

building

He half sang: I gonna miss you my sweet beauty!

This further infuriated the Dragon, she shouted at him: Get back, you

coward! Afraid I can truly kill you? Sabgyn, come back!

Stranger slightly turned and said: Who is Sabgyn, I am Zargon.

And he quickly left, leaving an angry Dragon more confused about the

Stranger than she was before

“It was Sabgyn, I could feel his aura, its undeniable, but” She thought

“somehow it wasn’t him at all.”

She now knew she had a report to give to the king, as much as it

disgusted her
Somewhere, Zargon’s body shrank and became slightly more circular,

until he returned to the form of Sai, the baker, who obliviously rose from

his slumber, totally unsuspecting that his body was electrocuted only

moments before.

His brown eyes reflected his obvious obliviousness, which made him an

unlikely person to be suspected

He didn’t realize though, that he mere moments before his body fought

with the woman who was his first love.

Chapter 7. King’s action 11/24/2014

King was positively infuriated

The man who almost killed him was not captured, and he managed to

make lord Morphus’s greatest weapon look like an amateur

Who in the world would have such audacity, to challenge me, the

overlord, absolute force within this place?

According to the report delivered by the Dragon, it’s none other than the

Tiger

King shuddered, before his demise at hands of Dragon, Tiger was not

the most powerful, or strongest, but he was the most unyielding of them.

The fact that he was able to resist the mind capturing potion that was

delivered by Morphus further proved his stubbornness.

Yet, Sabgyn the Tiger, had none of the characteristics displayed by the

Stranger who tried to assault him, no, Tiger knew not how to wield a

katana, in fact he was so clumsy with weapons, that he rarely used them

at all,

The Stranger, king noted, was a master swordsman, and his ally, the

large man seven feet tall…

The Tiger must have found allies among the rebels

Yes, that’s it! A band of rebels, showing up one by one in order not to

draw suspicion on their group, but still be capable of having influence

Apparently leaving the job to underlings was my undoing, then, if I have

to get this right, I have to find the Stranger myself

With this he focused on himself the elemental power of fire, the highest

level of which allowed the person to literally melt their being and

reconstruct it in any form they desire

So one moment there was an old king, then the next there stood a tall

young man with smile upon his face, nothing was peculiar except for the

fact that his eyes glowed bright red

“ So, It’s play time!” said the king, and jumped into the street and started

to follow the trail of base of rebels loyal to Queen. After all, Butcher the

queen bee in order to get to honey!”

The king tried his best not to draw suspicion upon himself, which was

almost impossible because he chose to take on the form of the handsome

man
So, in order to conceal himself in the shadows, king used the hood of his

clothing to almost completely cover his face, so only his eyes could be

seen, glowing…

It was surprisingly hard to navigate the city on foot, for king was used to

being escorted by carriage, which made trips much quicker. The familiar

streets felt so foreign, like realizing that life is maize, and you are the

mouse.

King chose to follow the people, which ended up with him entering the

recently opened bakery in which the Marked Ones happened to

occupy…

The Dragon was positively furious, the man whom she thought she

disposed of is still alive, and he shown himself to have improved, a lot

Before the Tiger could barely withstand her power, let alone survive it

Now, it seemed like he could take her lightning unfazed, and still smile

back
He must be a walking corpse, she thought, one without soul-reanimated

by sorcerer

Yet, it couldn’t be, for living corpses have one distinguishable feature-

completely black eyes, with x mark on each one of them

Tiger had no mark on his eyes; in fact his eyes were pure white!

And what’s with his reply-New People?

Does he have some sort of an army that he is using one soldier at a time?

The Dragon had no idea how close she was to the truth

She became determined to kill him, fill her bloodlust to the brim

After all that man of brave, truly belongs to a grave!

Shadelin sat in deep thought among the other members of her group

The search was fruitless; it was almost like they went in a loop

Only she saw him, now every member of former Marked Ones shivered

in the inside
They were confident that she, the mightiest one among them, had

annihilated the Tiger

Yet, according to Dragon’s Intel, Tiger still lives

Although Tiger was not the most distinguished one among them, he still

posed a considerable threat

Before they all thought of Tiger as the weak link of the team, before

Morphus took control of them

Tiger had only standard abilities possessed by spiritual form users, and

his special abilities were so weak that they were almost always

completely ignored

Every other spiritual form user had some type of power to back them up

Dragon has the strongest spiritual form power, complete mastery over

fire and lightning, and was rumored to be capable of utilizing any

existing element
The Rooster has the astonishing ability to defy laws established by

order, as she frequently demonstrated by making people float in the air,

and it was suspected that it was not her only ability

The Bull, well he obviously had the most physical strength, could

control element of earth

Even the Pig had power to change his size at will, sometimes displaying

the ability to separate himself into pieces by removing his head from his

shoulders in order to get water out of his ears

So, Tiger was basically outclassed by the stronger Marked Ones

In fact, everyone considered him the weakest

Tiger could not maintain total control over any element, and only unique

ability he displayed was splitting his body and soul into identical people-

embodiments of his good and evil

But now, Tiger is back, and if he survived the fight against Dragon, then

he posed considerable threat, and he has to be eliminated

All of them sat and ate inside bakery, where the generous and slightly

foolish baker had made each one of them delicious pies

Five Marked Ones were so absorbed in their thoughts that they did not

notice the baker looking at them intently

In Baker’s mind, Sai the baker was still controlling the body, but the

body’s true owner was observing the Marked Ones, Sabgyn Finnerman

did not forget his near death experience at the hands of Shadelin, she has

to be watched.

“Do not worry” said Nayas to Sabgyn “They can’t see inside your soul,

in fact, they can’t see you at all!”

“Well, that’s a relief” said Sabgyn sarcastically

“What are we going to do?”

“Nayas, to be honest I don’t know. The poison had completely

transformed them. I don’t know any way of curing them.”

“But one of us does”

“What!” Sabgyn felt angry “You couldn’t have mentioned this before?

Call upon this soul; I need him to cure my friends!”

“Master Sabgyn, I merely said he knows how to cure them, not that he

can cure them.”

Sabgyn calmed down “Then, how can they be cured”

“According to Ezerek the Elder, there only cure is angelic power”

Sabgyn asked” Do we have any angelic souls in here?”

“No, angels don’t have souls”

“So what are we supposed to do? I mean we could tie them up, but it

will not hold them for long!”

Nayas calmly answered “Jambol’s people need to win against their ruler.

We can take care of your friends after that. Thousands of innocent lives

are at stake here.”

“You’re right. So what can we do to help?”

“We will contact the rebels and cause an uprising, our job is to make

sure it’s successful, and king no longer has control over them.”

“Agreed”

The conversation was occurring in mental plain of the baker, so none

heard a word of it

Baker himself had no idea countless conscious identities occupied his

body, for baker’s soul was completely ignorant of everything, so

completely absorbed into his profession he was that he truly had no idea

that he, the true person who he used to be, was no longer alive, but

occupying a malleable vessel that took on his exact appearance. Perhaps

if vessel’s form did not change the baker would have realized the truth,

yet it would have been surprising

None of the Marked Ones, none of the people sitting in the bakery saw a

hooded man enter. Only Baker tensed, the souls inside him felt a

malevolent presence.
When the hooded man was walking by, the Dragon happened to be

walking in opposite direction, which caused both of them to hit each

other, they basically body slammed each other

The Dragon and hooded man fell down in opposite directions. In less

than few seconds, the angry Dragon stood and attacked the hooded man

She took him by the neck and threw him five meters away

The hooded man crashed against the wall. He stood up, his red eyes in

an agonized, yet maddened expression

“Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in! Tiger-boy!” The Dragon

cried out

Dragon took a chair and threw it towards the hooded man

Just before the chair touched him, it turned to ash

The hooded man was surrounded by flames; they served as armor for

him
Shadelin thought, No, this can’t be Sabgyn, he can’t control element of

fire, not like this!

Shadelin used her powers to conjure flames around herself as well; she

took special care to make sure her flames manifested shapes of dragon’s

head and claws

Shadelin’s flame control was obviously superior, yet the hooded man

still charged at her

When two flames clashed, the weaker one got absorbed by the stronger

one, allowing the Dragon to strike the man.

The man was moderately injured; he was immune to burning effect of

flames, but flames of such power resulted in him receiving bruises all

over his body

At the first chance he got, he ran out of bakery

The king felt humiliated.

Beaten by Morphus’ vassal and worse yet, by a girl!

She clearly was far more powerful than him, thought of which made

king shudder

Then, he got the paranoid idea that Morphus was powerful enough to

challenge and topple him, and if his servant had this much power, the

power possessed by the master would be too much for king to handle

The King needed power, fast

Then, the memory of the angelic scroll came to him

During the raid of churches, his servant had discovered a scroll

containing the secret of gaining ultimate power

The king had memorized the spell, and all of the ingredients came to his

mind

King thought himself smart, for he knew that Morphus was a demon, so

the being he will turn into will surely be capable of killing him!

King smiled, regretting only of not thinking of the plan before…

Chapter 8- Cloak is Revealed 2/24/2015

Dragon was dumbfounded. She was surprised by the fact that a person

who challenged her had abilities similar to her own and not only that; he

could also use it at the same level as her! She shuddered. How many

allies has that Tiger found, and where the heck did he find them?

Not many emotions affected Dragon’s judgment; she prided herself for

being non-conflicting with her own mind. Yet, she couldn’t deny, the

feeling she felt in her heart was fear. Fear that her enemy has gained

power stronger than her own and will come back to face her. She took a

deep breath. Well, if he comes to me, then it saves me the trouble of

finding him!

Ironically, the man she wanted to tear into pieces was only a meter away

from her. He still was Sai, but Sabgyn had partial control. He was taking

advantage of moment of giving receipt for his customer in order to get

close to the Dragon. Although he knew it was hopeless, he felt that he

needed to talk to her. He needed to know that the Shadelin he knew and
loved was still there. So, when he was giving receipt to the Dragon, he

blurted out: Do you want to talk?

He was sure it was the worst thing he could have done; now he got

sweaty from imagining himself being pummeled to death by her, again.

Surprisingly, the Dragon smiled and said: Sure

The baker and the Dragon went to an empty place, a table with two

chairs on opposite sides. It was far away from noisy crowd inside the

bakery, and the other Marked ones were too busy bickering among

themselves in order to see that their leader is being more sensitive than

normal.

Both of them sat on chairs. The baker proceeded with introduction: My

name is Sai. I am the current owner of this bakery. What is your name?

The Dragon replied: My name is off no importance to you

Sai asked: Why not?

Dragon replied: Name gives power, and I will not hand over mine just to

make people happy!

Sai nervously asked: Wow, so you place so much importance to it.

“Yes”

Sai continued: Then, tell me please, if it’s not too secret, why are you

guys here? Everyone in the town calls you Marked Ones? What’s that?

Dragon smiled: It’s just the name of our group. We are here to

exterminate the nuisance to the rule of our beloved master Morphus.

Sai was listening intently, prompting Dragon to notice that he was so

much more different than anyone she has met, for he actually took her

words seriously. This made her slightly blush. She continued:

“You may have heard this by now. The ruler of this place, lord

Morphus’s servant, was attacked by an unknown enemy. According to

them he was extremely skilled at art of assassination. In my opinion, the

only reason that fat king survived is due to dumb luck.” She laughed

lightly. “This man managed to trick them and make fool of them. Due to

this, my master has sent us in order to catch the criminal. Yet, I did not

expect the criminal to be so familiar.”

She looked deep into Sai’s eyes, as if trying to find the answer to the

riddle inside of them. Little did she know that if she looked a little

harder she would have seen the truth inside the man’s soul.

“I fought him once, you know, before I killed him. I thought I was

completely done with him. I thought I was powerful enough to erase him

from the face of existence!” She hit the table with her fist. “Yet, I knew I

didn’t want to hurt him” Her eyes were full of tears. “I knew I didn’t

want to, but I couldn’t stop myself from hurting him even more! I kept

going until he was no more than a corpse. Then, I buried him in

waterfall. “

In Sai’s body, Sabgyn was feeling sick. “This is me she is talking

about.”

Sai’s body struggled not to shudder, for the partial control that Sabgyn

established allowed him to slightly affect Sai’s reactions

Sai continued: “Was he your friend or foe?”

“Both” She answered. Her eyes gained the murderous edge which made

Sai uneasy, causing him to try to hide underneath the table, only to

realize his obesity prevented the feat from being accomplished.

Luckily for him, Dragon saw that Sai was uncomfortable with

expression of her inner anger, so she quickly changed her expression,

and added a smile to sway her listener. Unfortunately, the grimace

replaced by a smile made Sabgyn completely scared for his life. Does

her smile mean that she knows who she is talking to? If so, why is she

telling me all this? Please don’t drown me again!

“I met him less than a year ago.” She said. ”At first, I found him

infuriating and idiotic, but after he saved my life, I started feeling

strangely towards him. I actually wanted to spend more time with him! It

was like a complete hypnosis, and I loved it.” Dragon’s expression

turned into a frown.” Then I realized that I was becoming too dependent

on him, so I trained myself in order to become much stronger than him,

so that I would never have to ask a man for help!”

“Why isn’t it ok to depend on your comrade?” Sai couldn’t help blurting

out, and Sabgyn thought, I will regret asking this.

“Because it shows how weak I am in comparison to him. I only want

power for the sole reason of beating him, and I did! But somehow, he

managed to come back!” Dragon began breathing heavily, which made

breaths from her mouth to gain enough heat to catch several pieces of

paper on fire. She quickly put them out.

Sai said “Thank you, I can’t have this place catching on fire, very bad

for business, you know?”

She quickly said sorry, but still with a homicidal expression, leaving Sai

doubtful that her words were sincere

“How strong is he, I mean your enemy?” Sabgyn truly hoped that she

wouldn’t connect all the pieces together like she always does. Yet, he

wanted to know what kind of impression he made to her, his slight

amorous intent annoying most of the spirits keeping his body together.

Nayas even whispered “Is there a way that could make it more obvious
that we are the ones she wants to barbecue?” Sabgyn responded with a

silent giggle.

Luckily, Shadelin did not suspect any ulterior motives involved and

answered.

“He is former member of Marked Ones. We thought he was the weakest

in skill and power, and we saw no use of him if he refused to join us.”

She paused. “Yet, amazingly he proved me wrong once again.” Her eyes

temporarily sparkled gold, until they switched to blood red. “But now,

he survived the one technique that should have killed him! And I can

sense, he is now much stronger.” She squinted in Sai’s direction. “But

the next time I will face him, I will not hold back, I will destroy him!”

“Are Dragons and Tigers always supposed to fight?” Sai blurted out.

“Yes. The victors always were and always will be Dragons.” Look of

pride crossed her face, and she looked self-satisfied. “If the Tiger-boy

tries to defy the fate, he will meet his end.” She clenched her fist in a

gesture of wanting to crush something, or more accurately someone.

And that someone was wondering if he would pee himself in this

conversation keeps going.

Nayas jokingly said to Sabgyn, “Good news she likes you, bad news-

she likes to kill you.” To which Sabgyn replied “Our “relationship” is

complicated”

“You know” she said “Dragons are far superior to Tigers”

“Why is that?” Sabgyn asked, now personally insulted.

“WE, ALWAYS, BEAT THEM!” Dragon’s reply was as terse as her

expression.

Seeing Sai’s uneasy expression, Dragon purposely changed the topic

“I don’t know what the damn cub is trying to accomplish, but he already

lost. He is the weakest of us all!” Dragon was trying her best to show her

superiority over her enemy.

“The Weakest?” Sai asked

“Yes, out of all the blessed with spiritual form, his only ability is

balance. It’s as ridiculous as how fitting to call him human scales.”

Dragon smiled. “I mean each of us has access to certain element, and

some sort of special ability. Yet, he can’t master a single element

completely without using its counterpart as well, hah!”

Nayas quickly whispered in Sabgyn’s sub consciousness. “Sounds like

she knows you well.”

Sabgyn’s only reply was “She Does”

“And why the hells are you whispering, we are inside my mind, she

can’t hear us either way.” Angrily Sabgyn tried to make sense of his

companion’s behavior.

“Well technically, we are inside your cerebellum in location of where

souls merge, but never mind that. I was just playing around, wanted to

add some drama to the moment.”Nayas’s reply only caused even more

outbursts from his host.

“Add some drama! Have you lost it? What is there to have fun about

while talking to a woman who can kill us just by making eye contact! ”

“Oh yes, I almost forgot to tell you, do not make extensive eye contact

with her. Dragons have extremely well developed eyes. If she looks hard

enough she will be able to see us”

“What!?! How?” was Sabgyn’s astonishing reply, which added in to the

sense of his own mediocrity in handling the situation.

“How do you think dragons can torture people by locking their gaze on

them? They project their own energy upon another beings soul, with

their eyes serving as window to the soul. When dragon gets hold of soul,

it proceeds to tear it into pieces before finally consuming it, piece by

piece…”

“So, my fate would be even worse because I have ten thousand times

more souls in my shell than normal, and I would make a delicious soul

candy!”

“Pretty much.” Was Nayas’s solemn reply

Little did occur to Shadelin that her companion was having an entire

conversation in mere seconds, and she didn’t even bother to use her

piercing eye soul searching on him because she assumed he was nervous

to talk to her.

Yet, that was the reason she agreed to talk to him in the first place. She

felt that if a man had enough bravado to at least try to talk to a dragon,

then he would deserve a pleasant conversation. After all, people now

feared her, which she didn’t admit, but felt that something had to be

done. In fact the baker seemed to be a pleasant man, slightly nosy, but

nowadays everyone is.

The conversation continued when Sai asked dragon of what abilities

Marked Ones possess. She calmly answered him.

“Every spiritual form represents one noble creature in the world;

therefore our powers are not the same. Each one of us can control at

least one element after training with our sensei. Aside from elemental

control each one of us has ability unique only to ourselves. The rooster

can defy laws of reality, and bull has strength of hundred men. Also,
snake can blend in with his surrounding and produce poison, pig can

disassemble and reassemble his body at will.

“What about you?” Sai asked

“Me?”

“Well, you told me you are the dragon, what is your power?” Sai was

sure she would not answer him. But to his surprise she told him.

“Unlike other Marked ones with only one or two powers, I have several.

I can fly, see the soul of a person, and breathe fire. But I most pride

myself in my ability to copy almost any ability that I have witnessed.

That damn cat does not stand a chance.” She seemed to be really giving

too much information, unlike her normal self, presumably the effect of

the poison.

“Speaking of whom, what is his power or powers?”

Dragon’s expression betrayed her sudden urge to slice and dice the

surrounding tables inside bakery. Yet she answered with calmness

befitting a captain.
“His sole unique ability is to separate his ying and yang, half himself in

a sense. Each half represented his good and evil respectively.” She

wondered for a moment if she even knew her former teamate's true

potential, but she quickly dismissed the thought from her pride that

completely clouded her judgement.

Sai put his head to a resting position on his palms, and yawned and said

"Sounds like he has no chance of beating you, you are so strong!"

He meant it half sarcastically, after all him being there after facing off with her twice

is a definite proof of flawness of the idea.

"OFF COURSE NOT!!!!!" Dragon found herself screaming on top of

her lungs while standing upright in a commanding position. Then, she

realized her action, slightly blushed, and sat down. She looked slightly

sulky. For all her leadership qualities, her emotionality at certain times

gave people reason to believe that she is somewhat a human after all.

She looked Sai in the eyes, and slowly said:

"To tell the truth, Tiger has survived me twice." She paused. "Both of

the times I was confident I erased his existence, but like a flu he keeps

coming back!" She slapped the table, and this time did nothing to hide

her action.

"He sounds like a challenging enemy." Sai was truly unwilling to use

negative comments against the Tiger, partially because Sabgyn was

partially responsible for picking the right words to speak and he thought

while it would be useful to speak badly about himself in order to make

Dragon drop her guard, it would be not worth it. Besides, he had no idea

what was so bad about him, aside from his food habits...., which should

never be spoken about.

"He is, I have to give him credit for that" Dragon blushed. "The most

annoying thing is that Tiger seems to have grown stronger, much

stronger than the time I have left him for dead." She paused." The

techniques that I used against him that paralyzed and injured him before

have no effect on him now. I am almost scared to imagine what he could

be hiding up his sleeve."

A coupon for free tea. That's what he literally was holding up his sleeve.

The moment she stopped talking, he asked to be pardoned for he had to

leave, Dragon seemed dissapointed, but relieved at the same time. He

quickly handed her coupons as a farewell present.

She seemed dissapointed at first, as though it was comforting to tell

someone who didn't know her, her values and beliefs. Little did she

know that her talking partner was fully aware of her identity, but chose

not to reveal himself? She felt partially relieved by the fact that she

could express her true feelings, without embarrassing herself in front of

her subordinates.

Sai, after having conversation with a lady who almost killed him twice,

of which of course he was not entirely aware of, kept himself busy with

his duties inside the bakery until every customer left.

After the darkness enveloped the night, the baker turned towards the

entrance, checked for any soul spying on him, and when he finally was

convinced that none was watching him, he went towards the secret room

that was hidden right on the wall, but it was cleverly disguised as part of
a painting. The baker pushed the door, and then he entered the secret

room. How lucky he was to find a secret room inside the restaurant, after

clumsily falling headfirst on it at his date of arrival to the bakery! It

seems like his two left feet were good for something after all!

Inside the room, the baker’s eyes changed from brown to blood red. His

lips spread in a wide grin. He exclaimed: How Fortuitous!

He proceeded to change his clothing. His baker outfit slid off him easily,

as now the new body was far thinner than baker’s body.

His target was confirmed, now to make sure he is there in time!

On the other side of town, the Marked ones, or what was left of them

followed loyally behind their leader, who to their surprise seemed to be

slightly happier than usual, almost like she met a lover

Due to her destructive personality, however the four thought otherwise

They searched the entire city, yet they could not find Sabgyn, if he still

was alive, which they slightly doubted

Little did they realize that while they were searching on ground,

someone was watching them from top of the buildings. Only a shadowy

silhouette of a man, with, upon closer inspection, glowing red eyes.

None noticed him move, the stranger made a checkup of everything

around himself, he felt something was not right when he saw several

people showing each other medallions and then enter a building. He

happened to have a medallion himself, which he acquired while rescuing

Jan, so he took the liberty of searching his belongings to find something

useful. He pulled his hood over his head and used his cloak to hide his

entire body so that only his mouth was visible. He approached the

building. Two guards clashed their weapons, forbidding him from

entering. He promptly showed them his medallion, which made the

guards drop their weapons and let him inside. The building looked much

bigger on the inside than the outside, partially because a tunnel has been

dug under the buildings in order to create large amount of space.

Although the ground was dirt, there were statue decorations in several

places, and hallways were constructed in order to make it resemble a

discussion building. Red eyed man followed the group in front of him.

When they took seat, he followed the suit. The chairs were placed

around a single chair with diamond decorations. Red Eyed man assumed

it was a throne for the queen. His deduction was verified after few

minutes when Queen Ellis herself walked into the audience. He tried not

to attract attention. When everyone was settled, the ex-monarch began

her speech on how by working together the citizens will be able to take

back the county. The strategy consisted of blocking the trade

passageways and roads, so to prevent soldier reinforcements. The dark

soldiers will not be able to get into the city when the king will be

overthrown. After hearing her announcement people cheered as though

their hopes were reinforced. Then the queen calmed the crowd down.

Probably because a man was begging to be heard. In voice full of sorrow

he cried out that his sister was missing, that he looked all over the city

for her, but found no trace. He feared that she was imprisoned. This

meant an execution. Tears streaming from his eyes he begged every

citizen to look for her. The cloaked stranger after hearing that, got out of

his seat and approached the sorrowful man. He briefly made an eye
contact with him by slightly leaning, so that his crimson right eye could

be seen just for a second. The man cried out: “YOU!”. The stranger’s

only reply was: I am.

The young man could not believe his eyes, this is actually the red

eyed warrior who fought against the Three Devils. Rumor has it that he

had crimson glowing eyes that inspired terror in enemies, but gave hope

to the ones he was protecting. But how can this be? This warrior has

died ages ago!

In fact, the only piece of the legend of the Crimson Knight that

remained was the fact that he had glowing red eyes. Young man was

sure that none else had such eyes, so he had little doubt about the

identity of the man he was facing.

The stranger then turned towards the direction of the Queen. He

bowed on his right knee, and made a gesture of respect towards the

Queen. “Queen Ellis. I request your audience. There is an important

matter to discuss.” He quickly made an eye contact with her, allowing

her to catch a glimpse of his glowing right eye. She instantly understood.

“Proceed”

He politely said. ”Thank You”. He stood up. “As you’re already

known, this city has been occupied by the fat king for too long. We must

cause an urgent uprising against him.”

The queen has already planned to make a rebellion against the

king. Yet, every time she tried, right before it began; the leaders would

be captured and executed, discouraging rebellion. Jan’s survival was the

sole exception. Even if she did succeed in organizing a rebellion,

thousands of lives are at stake, and if the rebellion should fail, then

everything would be lost. The king was extremely powerful and

combined with the fact that several of the Marked Ones were in the city,

they stood no chance of winning.

Chapter 9- I will handle them 1/4/2016

“Even if we do successfully rebel against the king, we have no way

of countering the Marked Ones” The ones that queen thought of as most

dangerous of all were the Marked Ones. They were Morphus’s direct
servants, thus very powerful. In fact, she has received reports of one of

the Marked Ones burning down the city of Agash to the brink. If this is

the power in the hands of one, what kind of unimaginable power lies in

the hands of five?

Queen Ellis tried finding allies who were powerful in the past, but

due to the war, many wizards perished, strong warriors met their end.

Before he died, she hoped to recruit the Tiger Marked One to help her

fight against the king, but alas he was killed by the Dragon Marked One.

The fact is, he was the only Marked One who was completely against

Morphus and had a true righteous heart. It’s regretful that such a

potential ally was erased from existence.

Unknown to her, the same ally she wanted to recruit was already

helping her. The man she recognized in front of herself is none other

than the Crimson Knight. She recognized him right away after a brief

glimpse at him. This is the same man that was recognized by her father

as the guardian of Jambol. She thought he died. If he was alive, why

didn’t he show himself until today? But he is too young to be the

Crimson Knight. The real one would be in his seventees by now. This

can’t possibly be the same man! Then, perhaps he is his descendant?

The stranger deliberately let the queen see his eye in order to have

her recognize his identity. Although she may be confused to who exactly

he is, she will be willing to listen to his statement, so it’s not entirely

bad.

“Leave the Marked Ones to me. Make sure to cause an uprising

that can eliminate the king’s soldiers. If the king tries to interfere, I shall

stop him”

The queen and her followers were completely shocked. Him

handling the Marked ones and the king? This man is full of himself!

What kind of a mad bastard would even suggest such a preposterous

plan? This is beyond reasonable!

The queen quickly regained her composure. “That is impossible.

For an ordinary man to be able to be a threat to the king. ” She calmly

faced the stranger. “The king is no ordinary human. You are not strong

enough to stop him!”

 “I already attacked him once. He is not that strong.” The stranger

bluntly said.

It took few second for his words to have impact.

“You…. You were the one who attacked him?” one of the leaders

hesitantly spoke up. Everyone else began seeing the man in a new light.

Such audacious declaration. If he truly is the man who attacked the king

and managed to survive, then they must make him their ally at any cost.

The feeling of shock couldn’t be concealed. Every person suddenly

started paying attention to what the stranger was going to say next.

“That was me alright” the stranger calmly replied. “Queen Ellis V,

I would like to help this city to get rid of the phony king and his forces.”

He waited for them to fully digest what he just said, and then proceeded.

“While the king and the Marked Ones are indeed powerful, their army of

dark warriors consists of average people. If you rally your troops and

make a decisive strike at this time when the king least expects it, then

the city can be restored to its former glory.”

 Queen Ellis was quite shocked. She expected the man who tried to

assassinate the king to be exceptionally brave, but even she was

dumbfounded by the fact that such an important person managed to

sneak into their coven and proposed the overthrow of the current king.

“But the Marked Ones…”

“I will handle them. But I can only delay them. I will give you

enough time to get rid of his army. Without his army, he will have no

power over the masses. He will be forced to either fight a futile battle or

flee the city. Either way, we will get the city back!”

Hesitant people suddenly had joyous smiles on their faces. The

minute they heard his words, they all cried out loud in a voice full of

pride. Some of them lifted up their banners in rhythm with call of

bravery. The words of the queen could only sooth their trembling hearts,

but the words spoken by this man actually revived their hopes. It is

indeed true that the words of a warrior can inspire countless; the people

now saw a true possibility of victory.

 The queen nervously asked him “When should the attack upon

king’s forces commence?”

“Immediately” The stranger’s serious expression eliminated any

possibility of this being a jest. Everyone locked their gazes upon the

stranger who like a force of nature was calling them to arms. “Gather

every soldier; you should ambush them by wearing disguises. Take as

many bows and arrows as possible. Hit them hard while they have their

guard down. They are probably expecting a small group, but they will

not be able to handle the entire army! ” He paused. He looked around the

room and stood upright with pride. “Without their leader their army will

be disorganized, so the overthrow will be effective. I will make sure that

the king and the Marked Ones are away from you to ensure that none

interferes.” The stranger made a slight bow with his head before finally

focusing his gaze upon the queen. “The order is yours to give”

The queen was dumbfounded, but she regained her composure to

reply. “Everyone, my loyal people, please follow the orders just as told

by this man. I know we can trust him.” Her face flashed a hint of smile.
She definitely suspected something but she could only confirm it after

the army was dispatched. Yet, in her heart she was sure the stranger was

an ally to her and her people.

The people started organizing into troops, and the leaders took the

mantle as the chiefs of those groups. The warriors took up their

weapons. The people with weaker bodies took bows and arrows, making

sure to take many arrows per person. There were many arrows that were

never used due to the fact that every previous rebellion failed. Time and

again they were suppressed by the king, but if they manage to separate

the head of the monster from its body, then they will stand a chance to

truly defeat it. The soldiers quickly mobilized and proceeded to follow

the stranger’s instructions. No time could be wasted. They concealed

their weapons under tattered rags as to resemble their common

appearance. They will pretend to be just harmless citizens, and wait for

their people to regroup. When they have the numbers advantage they

will commence the attack. They noticed that the stranger picked the

Sunday morning as the time of the attack. This would give them a
legitimate reason to be near the center of the city, for it is the day of

prayers. Also, the most of the guards will be there, but they will have

their guard down for there never was a rebellion during prayer time.

They only stood on guard for intimidation purposes as instructed by their

king. They will not know what is coming. Now is their best chance to

attack. All of the queen’s subjects organized themselves and proceeded

forward.

Queen was amazed, just in a short moment the stranger managed to

make people believe in him, despite never before meeting him. She

suspected that his identity was that of a Crimson Knight, but him being

alive at this age was inconceivable, for he seemed full of vitality and

youth, instead of an old man past his prime. She even got the impression

that the man before her was close to her age. The queen was in her early

twenties, her father was the previous monarch, but he was killed by the

Aldan who then assumed the throne, she became the formal queen of the

rebelling forces ever since. She heard many stories from her father about

the Crimson Knight, who rose from slavery to become one of the
greatest warriors of his time. The rumor has it that his eyes used to be

ordinary until he used all of his strength in fighting the monsters. The

pressure he endured while fighting forces beyond his own control

resulted in blood becoming prominent within his eyeballs, turning once

red eyes into their crimson state. Many believed the Crimson Knight to

be all powerful, but queen knew better than that. The only real ability

Crimson Knight possessed was the ability to stand up to any challenge

he faced, without ever backing down, other than this he was an average

human being. Yet he accomplished so many deeds in his life that it was

unimaginable for anyone to think of him as anything ordinary. Rumor

has it that he fought a dragon, from who he took a tongue from which he

forged his unique sword. This part was no rumor, for queen had the

sword in her possession, but no matter who held it, it never activated.

She had every knight in her service try to utilize the Dragon Tongue

Sword, but it never worked, and she knew the reason why. Her father

kept the sword in memory of Crimson Knight, the man he admired and

respected. He told Ellis that only the true master of the sword can unlock

its true form. While the Crimson Knight was alive, the sword had the
ability to change from small dagger-like tongue form, to a flaming

longsword. Queen only knew of this due to the records left by the people

who witnessed the sword being used.

Queen thought to check whether this man is who she thinks he is.

There was only one way to confirm it. “Stranger, please follow me” She

beckoned in a confident voice. Stranger immediately followed her lead.

They went to a secluded room with one metal chest. The queen took a

key from her necklace and inserted into the keyhole on the chest. She

took out a small object resembling a dagger. She held it in front of him.

“Please take hold of it.”

The stranger, without a moment of hesitation took hold of the

object. The moment it touched his hand it transformed. It turned into a

majestic longsword with flames encircling the blade. The strange thing

about the sword was that the flames were spinning around the sword,

and the sword seemed like it was breathing for its blade turned from

gray to volcanic red.

 “It really is you, Crimson Knight” Queen was delighted and

saddened. If he was alive, why did he wait until now to return? And how

did he manage to keep his youth for so long? There were many things

she wanted to ask him. But he answered right away.

“I am not the person you think I am” The stranger calmly replied.

Truth is he really is the person who she suspects him to be, but he could

not just tell her that he was just a soul of a deceased warrior temporarily

occupying the body of the spiritual form user. It will be much simpler to

hide his identity. “I am the descendant of the original Crimson Knight,

and I shall fulfill my duty to the kingdom”

“His descendant?” Queen was shocked. She never imagined that

Crimson Knight had an heir, and his descendant has the same eyes that

his ancestor developed during his life. Talk about unusual heredity! But

the sword just confirmed it. The man definitely someone related to

Crimson Knight.

“Thank You for the sword, now I shall go” The stranger made the

sword go back to its smaller state and put it on his belt. It definitely will
be useful in confronting the Dragon. Dragons can only be harmed by

force greater than theirs or by magic of another dragon. The Dragon

tongue was made of the organ of the dragon responsible for the most

essential ability of dragons, breathing fire. By channeling his willpower

through the blade he will be able to stimulate the sword in order to have

a way of countering the Dragon. Previously he relied on his skills in

order to avoid her attacks, while the original owner of his body, Sabgyn

used his ability to neutralize her attacks by redirecting them. Of course

with the assistance of so many souls, tiger’s ability was enhanced. His

capacity to take damage rose as well. While nowhere near the level of

the other Marked Ones in terms of raw power, he was able to

compensate for it with the skills he gained from the souls occupying his

body. Because of so many souls occupying his body, the amount of

skills were countless. Furthermore, in closer introspection of the souls,

Sabgyn discovered that not all of the souls were of people who perished

during the war long time ago. But due to the large amount of souls

concentrated souls, the souls of people unable to move on to the afterlife

were attracted to this location resulting in the souls being clustered from
all over the place. Souls were like magnets, attracted to each other. Some

of the souls belonged to people who died less than a year ago, while

others were of those bound to earth for more than several centuries. The

moment they realized their chance to finish their unfinished business,

they immediately proposed a deal to a dying spiritual form user. They

were lucky that he accepted. Initially they were worried that the

presence of so many souls would overwhelm him, causing him to

explode, but through sheer willpower the body of his has adapted well to

the presence of so many souls. His body was like putty, able to assume

the form of the one in control of the body, partially attributed to his

enhanced splitting ability. When he only had a single soul, the splitting

ability allowed him to make two separate bodies for his two halves, his

ying-yang. But with so many souls, the splitting ability allowed him to

have a soul in charge, making the body to create a perfect replica of the

physical representation of the soul.

Sabgyn momentarily assumed the control of his body. He made

sure to climb on top of the roofs, run a distance, before stopping where
he heard the voices of the other Marked ones. He put his palms together

as if in prayer. His intention was to use his splitting ability to evenly

distribute the souls between the two bodies that will be materialized.

Both bodies will have half of the souls occupying him. One will contain

his ying, the other his yang. He truly hoped this plan would be

successful. When he did this technique by himself, it used to tax his

body, resulting in him vomiting and feeling weak afterwards. Hopefully,

this time that wouldn’t be a problem. He borrowed energy from the souls

in order to aid him in his fission process. Indeed, it was much less

painful than before, his body quickly split into two identical halves.

Each half retained the ability to switch the control of the body with the

souls that were occupying it. The clothes that he was wearing were also

replicated, but the Dragon Tongue Sword stayed in singular form,

hanging from the belt of Yang Tiger. Ying Tiger looked down and saw

the Marked Ones, he said “I will Handle them, go after the king.” The

Yang Tiger nodded and replied” Gotcha.” He immediately ran to the

direction where he sensed the aura of the king. People who use fire

based magic are quite easy to track by smell and aura, for fire users have
hotter auras than most and they emitted a charcoal-like smell. Now left

with the Marked Ones, the Ying Tiger smiled. “Now then, let’s have

some Fun!”

The Marked ones weren’t mistaken. The stranger with red eyes

was right in front of them. They tried to follow him, but he caught on to

this so he just appeared right in front of them. To him at this moment the

Marked ones were just an annoyance. He had to find the missing girl.

Her life was at stake. Hopefully his doppelganger finds her before

anything bad happens.

The leader of Marked ones, Dragon, however was missing. She

was searching the other side of town for Sabgyn, which they thought she

would be unsuccessful at. This only left Snake, Pig, Bull, and Rooster.

The Bull charged at the stranger, aiming to squash him like a bug

with his power. Bull’s main power is his extreme physical strength,

being rumored to be stronger than hundred man combined. He lifted

trees and crushed mountains for exercising. Bull was sure that one punch

would liquefy his enemy. To Bull’s surprise, the stranger dodged the
punch, easily evading the destructive power, making his attack‘s

momentum go with the flow of Bull’s movement to make Bull unable to

stop himself from getting his hand stuck in wall behind the stranger.

Bull’s hand got stuck, and now he could no longer attack the stranger.

“Long, you idiot!” cried out Rooster, summoning her power in a bright

aura around herself, a spectacular sight to see: a gigantic energy bird

flapping its wings to fly up high in order to deliver her attack. Rooster

pointed with her hand downward, she forced the air that she moved to

have gravitational pressure in the direction of her choosing, aiming to

crush the stranger under the unimaginable weight of the earth itself.

Strangely, before her attack could land on stranger, he rolled to the right

in order to completely avoid the attack. It seemed like the stranger was

familiar with her ability, Rooster guessed, then she thought that she must

be extremely careful. Before she finished her thought, the stranger made

a monstrous leap towards her. She became so terrified that she could not

counter attack. The Stranger knew from Sabgyn’s memories, that

Rooster has a very shy personality that gets overwhelmed by emotions,

which he planned to use against her. The poison may have made Rooster
his enemy, but the inner personality of hers couldn’t be erased so easily.

Whenever he got near her personal space, Rooster used to blush

uncontrollably and becoming embarrassed easily whenever she

misinterpreted his words for flirtation. It was hilarious back then, but

now the stranger could only hope that particular part of her personality

was still present. If it is, then he has a way of handling her without

hurting her.

In the blink of an eye, the stranger’s face was very close to

Rooster’s. Her eyes wide open in shock as he quickly kissed her in the

lips. That literally was the last thing she expected the stranger to do, she

expected him to kill her, but instead he used an underhanded method.

Rooster could no longer contain her emotions, she stared into the

stranger’s focused eyes for a couple of seconds, before the implication

of his action hit her. He stole her first kiss. What is this supposed to

mean? She dropped to her knees, no longer able stay standing, her heart

trembling. What just happened? Apparently, her teammates were just as

shocked. Pig was so surprised that his expression turned sour, his mouth
flung open. Bull was completely outraged, the stranger did something so

shameless in front of him, it’s not fair, and why does he get to kiss her?

Bull was secretly jealous. The weirdest part was that Snake also reacted.

He pointed towards stranger with his left hand trembling and in shocked

voice: “What do you think you are doing?”

The stranger knew perfectly well which ones of the Marked Ones

were under the control of the poison and which one was not. While he

tried his best to avoid hurting his friends who were under control of the

poison, he had absolutely no intention of sparing the backstabbing

Snake. He will not go easy on him. But before that he will have to

restrain everyone else, and then he can focus on handling Snake by

himself. Rooster was already overwhelmed, and she could no longer

pose any threat to him. Clear and focused mind is necessary for her to

use her powers, and if she gets overwhelmed by uncontrollable

emotions, then she will be rendered harmless. That was the reason for

the kiss, nothing personal. When she comes back to her senses after he

gets rid of the poison in her system, he should probably apologize to her.
 One down three to go. The pig did not waste time; he immediately

launched his enlarged fist as a cannonball. Pig had the ability to freely

manipulate his body size and body structure. He could also split himself

into pieces, making each piece float near him and launch them like

projectiles. Due to this he was immune to attacks that pierce and cut, so

guns and swords were absolutely useless against him. His detached fist

flew at stranger who in the last moment took a cloak from his pocket and

managed to catch the fist within it, and then tied the cloak in a manner

similar to a sack, and then pinned it down with a dagger. Luckily I came

prepared, thought the stranger; otherwise this battle would have ended

badly. The pig instantly grew himself a new arm. Yep, he can also do

that. Unless he gets damaged by brute force or a magical attack, he could

replace any limb that he himself purposely detached. In a way this made

him have high capabilities comparable to the user of Horse spiritual

form. Of course, the horse could heal any damage from any source, and

also heal others. At least, that is the rumor stranger heard from the

people who encountered the Horse. He himself had yet to meet the

Horse. He was thankful though, if he met the Horse before then he or

she would also have been corrupted by the poison that now courses

through his friend’s veins.

Pig now knew that launching projectiles would be ineffective, so

he chose to attack with his body in one piece. He made his bone

structure harder and sturdier while making his muscle mass highly

concentrated and launched a barrage of attacks upon the stranger. Other

Marked Ones only watched, if they got between him and the stranger

when he is attacking, no matter who it is, there will be a chance that one

of them will get injured. That is how strong the Pig’s offensive

capability was. By making himself faster than his stocky appearance

might suggest he would start a barrage of kicks and punches that were

too quick to perceive or counter.

The stranger knew perfectly well that he would do this, Pig was

too lazy to learn any new skills so used the same move every time. He

took out a handful of smoke powder and threw it into the air, creating a

split second opening before the Pig’s attack reaches him, and also

obscuring Pig’s view of him. As Pig kept punching, he felt that his fist
were connecting with something hard, the stranger must have very

strong body. But no matter, after Pig is done with him, the stranger will

no longer have the luxury of using his body. As the dust cleared, and Pig

could now see what he was punching. To his horror he realized that he

was punching a wall continuously while the stranger was nowhere in

sight. Then a chilly sensation went up his spine, the stranger probably is

behind him right at this moment. Pig quickly turned and launched a

quick strike, fully intending to catch the stranger in his own trap. But he

his fist did not connect with anything. Pig saw Snake have horrified

expression on his face: “Behind You!” But it was too late. The stranger

had two large gourds in both of his hands. He splashed the content of the

gourd on his right hand on Pig. Pig cringed, he expected it to be a

painful sensation, but he just felt wet. Stranger just poured water on him.

Pig looked smugly at the Stranger:” If that is the best you could come up

with, then you have already sealed your fate!” He fearlessly launched a

punch, aiming at stranger’s head. The second before the fist would reach

him, the stranger poured the content of the second gourd on the Pig. The

Pig never finished his punch; he body suddenly was stiff, he could feel
it, but could not move it, as though he was encased in a very hard shell

that solidified instantaneously when it touched his body. He looked at

his body, able to only move his head, he saw that a white substance was

covering his entire body, and it looked somewhat like rock, it sure was

hard as rock. He was completely stuck.

The stranger breathed a sigh of relief; he was worried that the

substance would not be strong enough. Luckily there were leftovers of

cement powder after reconstructing the wall in the bakery destroyed by

the Dragon. The substance is very good, dries unimaginably fast, and is

strong enough to hold a building once it solidified. The only problem

was applying it, for if the water was added to the powder it would cause

a substance to solidify within couple of seconds, making it impossible to

apply to a wall. But for this situation it has worked at fairly well.

Now the only one who could fight was Snake. There no longer was

a disadvantage of numbers. Bull could not get his hand out of the wall,

when he tried to pull it out; he ended up pulling down the wall down on

himself, resulting in him being crushed underneath it. That will not kill
him, it wouldn’t even leave a mark, but it will hold him down long

enough. The Rooster was now completely passed out. Apparently the

shock was too much for her mind to handle. Pig now was a statue with

an angry head.

When the stranger looked in Snake’s direction, there was nobody

there. He could make himself completely invisible to human eyes at will,

and then strike them when they least expected it. Yet the Snake did not

know that the stranger was prepared for this situation as well.

Unlike the ordinary person who mostly relied on his sight, stranger

chose to trust is hearing. Small footsteps, slowly creeping from the left

side of him, most likely trying to strike him. Snake probably is looking

for an opening in his defense, stranger thought, “well, let him get

confident”. Stranger purposely turned his back upon the invisible

Snake’s location. The timing must be perfect, when Snake attacks, he

leaves an opening, allowing enemy’s attack to affect him, but the attack

has to occur before Snake strikes or its instant death.

 The Stranger heard a crunch on the ground, he knew that at that

moment Snake lunged himself upon him. Stranger immediately

responded with raising his left leg in a back kick, the sole of the foot was

covered in thick metal, making the impact of the kick much harder. The

kick landed squarely on Snake’s face, which made him lose his

invisibility and fall down hard on his back, clutching his face in pain.

Now the traitor was helpless and right before him, what a perfect

opportunity!

The Stranger moved quickly and grabbed the Snake by the collars

and proceeded to bash him repeatedly on walls. The Snake did not have

time to recover from his fall and was taken by surprise. He could not

counter attack and ended up face planting walls while being flung by the

Stranger. The Snake felt rather miserable, he was suffering beating from

the man he considered weakest. An utter humiliation.

Then, the Stranger lifted the Snake up against the wall while

holding on to his jacket. He whispered: “You get what is coming for

you!” The Snake resisted and slipped out of his jacket. Then he
delivered a kick to Stranger’s stomach, the Stranger grumbled, he was

pushed back, but he did not fall. He would absolutely not let Snake get

away like this. So, Stranger started attacking Snake again. It was fist

against fist, kick against kick, colliding and cancelling each other out. It

was a tie. The Snake was too nimble and flexible, so the ordinary attacks

would be easily avoided by him. Then, Stranger thought, I will use

something you are not expecting me to!

The Stranger allowed himself to get close to Snake, but he did not

attack, instead he deliberately left himself full of openings. The Snake,

exasperated by the fight, did not see the trickery and proceeded to punch

the Stranger. The Stranger smiled and jumped. He made a backflip while

extending his legs forward, making them collide with Snake’s head

when the Snake was attacking him. It worked rather effectively.

The Snake was clutching his face. Stranger quickly approached

him to deliver the last attack. This was it. The moment of salvation. The

Snake will pay with his life for the betrayal! Then, the most unexpected

thing happened. Snake’s face, which he was clutching hard, broke off
into pieces and fell on the ground. At that moment Snake’s appearance

completely changed, and Stranger dumbfoundedly stared at the person

before him.

This was not the face of someone he knew, the face that fell of was

recognizable, but apparently it was some sort of disguise that made

Snake look like someone else. What surprised Stranger the most

however was that Snake’s hair was longer, face smoother, and there

were bandages tied around Snake’s chest. Not to mention the fact that

Snake is a girl! The Stranger was very surprised, he did not expect the

person he despised the most to be a girl. How did Snake hide her true

gender from all of the Marked Ones for so long? And why? Maybe it’s

safer not to ask, considering we are talking about a Snake after all.

When the Stranger moved closer towards the Snake, she looked at

him in the eyes; she saw the reflection of herself in them. She screamed

in a very high pitch, covering herself with her arms. She also squatted

down in order cover herself with her legs as well. Yep, she is a girl all

right. “Don’t look at me!” But unfortunately for her, Snake’s actions
made it too hard not to look at. This was completely out of character for

Snake. She hissed at him, but Stranger pouted his face, he was unable to

hold back his laughter; Snake looks hilarious when she is embarrassed.

But it’s not the time to be amused, Stranger thought, this is getting

nowhere, the best course of action right now is to get some answers. He

dropped the goofy smile off his face and stared back at the Snake, who

became frightened upon seeing the implication of his expression; he had

every intention of killing her. She was terrified, in an embarrassing

position, unarmed, and her true gender revealed; could this day get any

worse for her. Apparently it could.

The stranger took out a long knife from his pouch and pointed it

towards Snake’s throat. He whispered:” You will answer my questions

or I will gut you”. She nodded. His first question was:” Why did you

betray us?” The Snake smirked and said: “I never betrayed anyone; I

was loyal to Lord Morphus from the beginning, before I even joined

your mangy band!” The Stranger now understood perfectly, the Snake

was loyal to Morphus from the beginning, he had a spy in his den for so
long and he only noticed it when it was too late. The Snake suddenly

grinned at the Stranger:” Just as I thought, you really are him!” She

began to laugh. “Who would have thought you would survive the

Dragon herself, which is impressive”. Then her grin suddenly

disappeared. ”But you will never win against my Lord Morphus. If you

think you can oppose him then you are mistaken. You are powerless

compared to him and he wields more power than all of the Marked Ones

combined!” Snake’s sour expression showed itself very vividly, she

hatefully looked at the Stranger’s face. It was not the same face she

remembered, but she could tell it was Sabgyn. He had to be, he knew

things only Sabgyn could know of. She chose to provoke him. “You,

who can’t even best the Dragon, want to defeat my master? Fat

Chance!” The Stranger’s expression remained firm. “It doesn’t matter, I

will still oppose him!” He raised the knife and thrust it in her direction.

The knife never connected. Apparently, Bull was somehow able to get

his hands out of the wall, and then he launched another punch in

Stranger’s direction. Stranger was so absorbed in Snake’s interrogation

that he was almost caught off guard. He dropped the knife before it
connected with the Snake, and narrowly dodged Bull’s punch. That was

little too close; one centimeter closer and Stranger would have received

fatal damage. At that moment, Snake turned invisible again and slashed

at Stranger’s face with her sharp nails. The nails left a bleeding scratch

mark on Stranger’s left eyelid, which he closed second before she

scratched him, if he did not do that the damage would have been worse.

The Stranger jumped back. His right eye open looking at his two

enemies. It’s two on one, he lost his advantage point. He opened his left

eye, luckily it was still functional despite the damaged eyelid, but the

blood seeped into his left eye, forcing him to close it while looking at his

opponents with only his right eye. This was not good. At this rate,

Stranger thought, I will lose. The only good course of action is to retreat

and remerge with his other half. Hopefully the other guy had better luck

finding and stopping the king. Ying and Yang are connected, so I can

track his location fairly quickly. Hopefully I bought them enough time.

The Snake, still invisible shouted out:” Get him!” Apparently she

did not want Bull to see her true form. Because the Stranger interrogated
her several meters away from her group, they did not discover her true

gender, so she wanted to keep up the charade. The bull obediently

lunged towards the Stranger.

The stranger casually threw something shaped like a ball upon the

ground. “Later!” Huge cloud of dust obscured him from their gaze. He

suddenly vanished from their sight. When the dust dispersed, a net

appeared from the sky and landed right on top of Bull and Snake. This

was a special net that Stranger himself manufactured. It was an ordinary

net covered in extremely sticky glue. When it landed on them, it

immediately stuck to their clothes. They could not get out. Luckily

creating a sticky compound out of bakery ingredients wasn’t so hard.

The hard part was stuffing it into a small container for compactness.

Then it was just a matter of shattering the container in order to release a

sticky net. Now the two of them will not be interfering for a while.

When the Snake and Bull looked at the direction the Stranger was at, he

was already gone. “Crap!” Snake thought,” Why did it have to be him

out of all people to find out who I really am?” She was flustered, she
tried to act fearless in front of the Stranger, but the truth is she was so

frightened and embarrassed that she was trembling. She completely

underestimated him, her cheeks blushed; he completely defeated her.

What a man! She couldn’t help but feel a certain degree of attraction to

him. She liked men who were strong, strong enough to resist her. Then

she realized what she was thinking and she embarrassedly shook her

head side to side:” What the heck am I thinking? He is my enemy!” She

was panting for breath, the emotion was too overwhelming. Her

expression cringed and she shouted out: ”Damn you Sabgyn!!!!”

Chapter 10- Battle of Falling Sky 7/10/2016

Meanwhile, the Yang Tiger went on a search based on his strong

olfactory senses. There was no mistaking it; it was smell of ash wrapped

around a faint scent of human. This must be the smell of Aldan himself!

This is rather nice, considering the fact that Aldan’s signature magic

gave him away. Yang Tiger leapt from one building to the next while

following the scent. Occasionally, he would glance down to see that the

rebellion was going smoothly. The armed people disguised as priests

have tricked the guards into letting their guards down, allowing them to

easily subdue them. The guards did not have enough time to call up

arms. The few that managed to fight back were assaulted with arrows

from all sides. This seemed like a one sided battle from Yang Tiger’s

perspective. Ironically, the battle wouldn’t have been so successful if the

guards were on guard. After all, they were handpicked by Aldan himself,

so without a doubt they were strong. That was partially the reason that

Tiger recommended them to take as many arrows as they can, so that the

rebels would not be forced into close combat. In an impoverished city,

most rebels were not the best at hand to hand combat, so using long

ranged weapons gave them a vast advantage. Of course, Yang Tiger

knew that the casualties were inevitable, but he knew that victory was

possible. The battle between soldiers and rebels continued on. Yang

Tiger could only hope that the advantage created by the tactic would be

sufficient in obtaining victory. Now is not the time to worry about the

small battles, I have to eliminate the head of the serpent! He kept

jumping to higher grounds in order to focus his nose upon the particular

scent; it struck his nose with such intensity that he immediately was able
to tell that that it was coming from the battle tower on the southern end

of the city. The battle tower was a defense structure that was fifty meters

high. It towered over land like a giant. It was used with magically

amplified cannons and ballista. The most frightening thing was the

ballista, some crazy wizard long time ago wanted to make the

contraption even more deadly so he created a ballista that would launch

anything that was put on top of it into the sky where it would fly for

hundreds of miles before hitting the ground. Worst of all, the user of the

ballista could mentally command the shooting location of the projectile,

making it even more formidable for long distance shooting. In a sense it

made the country borders extremely secure due to it eliminating the

enemies even before they come close to the tower. If Aldan is there, it

means he already knows about the rebellion and wants to eliminate the

people using the ballista! Yang Tiger did not expect this, but this was a

huge possibility and it would completely ruin his plans. Aldan seems to

be far more competent than he thought. No wonder he is one of the

Divine Overlords, a group of powerhouses loyal to Morphus.

 Amidst the fighting occurring underneath the buildings that Yang

Tiger was running on top of, he hurried southward toward the tower.

The fighting between rebels and soldiers continued on, causing mass

destruction and chaos. It resulted in several buildings being caught on

fire, wooden structures collapsed. One of the wooden structures fell right

before Yang Tiger path, he angrily brandished his weapon- a tiny dagger

that became a flaming long sword in an instant. He cut the wood that

was in his path, while also avoiding the falling debris which he parried

with his sword. Although the sword was made of flames it interacted

with objects with sharp solidity, cutting things before catching them on

fire. He was truly thankful that he happened upon this treasure, it will

even out the odds.

When he finally reached the tower, Yang Tiger checked the door,

strangely it seemed like the lock was melted off. When he tried to open

the door it was too hot to the touch, so he promptly sliced the door open

with Dragon Tongue Sword. It cut the door as if it was made of butter.

The corridor inside the tower had no lights on, so Yang Tiger used his
sense of smell to guide him. The smell of flame magic was too intense; it

was coming from everywhere so tracking Aldan was pointless. But there

was another smell; gentler and more flower like, there was no mistaking

it it’s the smell of the girl who visited the bakery earlier, and then it must

mean that it was her- the person whose brother announced was possibly

abducted. In this situation it must mean that Aldan had something to do

with it. The smell led downwards, Yang Tiger quickly followed the

stairs downwards. He had no time to lose. The tower had unusually deep

underground structure, but along the way there were torches lighting up

the path. Finally, Yang Tiger reached the door. As expected it was

locked. And furthermore it was made of steel. It is not as easy to take

care of as the door on the outside which is made of wood. Yang Tiger

took the Dragon Tongue Sword in his right hand and then proceeded to

concentrate his intent in his left hand. Intent concentration allows a

person to use the energy in their body as a means of power- a raw

concentrated power which could only have few applications. He took the

power concentrated in his left hand, then with a slow motion placed the

thumb on the hilt of the sword before grasping the sword with both
hands. He could only hope this idea was not flawed. He speculated that

Dragon Tongue Sword function by draining the willpower of its user, so

by pouring in the essence of willpower he hoped it would make the

sword stronger. The moment he accomplished it the sword stopped

being a flaming weapon and started looking like a regular long sword

with red lines on its blade. It couldn’t be the sword took so much energy

and it refused to become stronger and instead grew weaker? Enraged

Yang Tiger thrust the sword on the steel door, to his surprise instead of

deflecting the sword, the steel door was easily pierced by it. The sword

went in even deeper. Then Yang Tiger realized that the steel door was

melting under the sword. Not quite what Yang Tiger had planned, but

this works as well. He originally planned to have the sword release an

explosion which would break open the door, but melting the door open

would also work. He guided the sword to melt the hinges of the door,

allowing him to take the door off. Then Yang Tiger entered. This room

was unusually bright due to many torches and candles being placed

inside of it. In the middle of the room was an enormous praying statue

and underneath it was her. The girl he was searching for. When he
realized this he rushed towards her. She was lying unconscious on the

floor. The clothing on her left arm was shredded and her left hand was

bleeding. She had a very long slash mark on her left arm; without a

doubt someone cut her arm with a knife and left her here to bleed.

He had to hurry and stop the bleeding. He tore a piece of his cloak

and bandaged her arm up as best as he could. The blood soaked into the

fabric, but it seems like the bleeding has stopped. He placed his hand on

her neck to check for her pulse. It was very weak and faint, but she was

still alive. He lifted her up and placed her in his arms, he would have to

get her out the tower quickly. Just as he was about to leave, a voice

called out: “Leaving so soon?”

Yang Tiger was horrified to discover that there was someone on

the other side of the room. It was almost like he emerged out of the wall,

only his head was visible, but seconds later his entire body appeared out

of the wall, wall was melting from being near him. The flame magic was

intense in the atmosphere and it was coming from the direction of this

man. But the person who wields the flame magic should be Aldan, not
him. He seems too young and his facial features were not of the vile king

he saw before. So there was another flame user besides Aldan and

Dragon!

The Handsome man walked towards the Yang Tiger in a graceful

lord like walking posture. He stopped when he was three meters away

from Yang Tiger. He had a golden goblet in his right hand; it was filled

with dark liquid. “Poison?” Tiger thought, but it would be too obvious,

then what is it?

The man looked at Yang Tiger in the eyes and smiled: “I presume

you are the person my men were trying to catch, and I am sure you are

the person who tried and failed to assassinate me!” The way he said it

sounded almost like gloating. But assassinate him, what is going on, the

only one Yang Tiger tried to assassinate was Aldan, unless…. Yang

Tiger’s eyes opened wide with disbelief. The man standing before him

was none other than the King Aldan himself, but with different

appearance. Seeing the shock that filled Yang Tiger’s expression, Aldan
showed a grim mixed with a scowl:” It is just as you suspect, I am

Aldan, King of Ashu, and soon to be the man who rules over all!”

Yang Tiger managed to calm his heart, he was caught off guard by

the king’s new appearance, but he has to stay in control of the situation.

He has to buy some time, with him having to protect the girl, he would

not be able to fight the king head on, and so first he has to ensure her

safety. He has to make the king talk as long as possible in order to catch

him off guard. His expression changed from shock to calmness:” Why

did you abduct her?” the atmosphere turned chilly all of a sudden, not

because of the temperature but due to the sheer rage that king felt

coming from Yang Tiger’s direction.

The King smiled and answered:” For a great cause why wouldn’t I

sacrifice a rodent? ” his expression remained the same.” In the end I got

exactly what I wanted.”

Yang Tiger’s eyes were intently focused on the body of the king

trying to read his body language. Strangely the king was not trying to

attack yet. The king beckoned with his left hand and a flame appeared in
it:” I know who you are, Sabgyn Finnerman, it’s no use trying to deny

it” when the Yang Tiger did not reply, he kept going.” Cat got your

tongue, you know it wasn’t so easy to know at first, but your encounter

with the Dragon has made it completely obvious.” He paused. “ Though

I am surprised that you managed to beat her, even I couldn’t …” his

expression suddenly appeared enraged.” No! Now I definitely can! I am

finally able…. Ha ha ha ha …” his maniacal laughter sent shivers down

Yang Tiger’s spine.

Realizing that he lost his composure for a moment, king quickly

straightened himself out. He confidently paced around the small space in

small steps, enjoying every minute of delaying his enemy. He might as

well have a little chat with him before proceeding. Even if Finnerman

tries to attack him he is at a great disadvantage. Having to protect

someone makes you full of openings. Yang Tiger could only stand,

waiting for King to make his move.

“You know, I have heard a lot about you. You’re a brave man. ”

He paused. “Albeit pathetically weak, I heard the rumors that out of your
entire flock you’re the black sheep.” He continued on with a nonchalant

tone befitting of a gentleman. “Unlike the others you have neither

elemental specialty nor a useful power, instead you’re always relaying

on your wit and luck.” His eyes flashed a hint of crimson. “But the most

surprising part is that you’re the only one who managed to slip through

Morphus’s claws, and for that you deserve praise.” He made a bowing

motion while keeping the goblet at a level that it wouldn’t spill the

content inside. “Which is why I would like you to join me!” The Yang

Tiger was completely surprised by the statement. This was not what he

expected him to say, not at all.

“Why?” Only words he could come up with.

“Because we have the same enemy, Morphus” King’s expression

remained calm and diplomatic. He would try to persuade Finnerman as

best as he can. If he can find a way to win his loyalty then the

possibilities are limitless.

“You are his henchman, his lackey, he is your master. Why would

you turn against him?” With every word King’s calm expression turned
darker. Honestly until recently King thought of himself as nothing less

than Morphus’s equal, but the encounter with Morphus’s servant,

Dragon has proven that in terms of power Morphus was his superior.

“That may have been true before, but I will change that!” King was

rather angry with Finnerman’s remark, but had to admit Finnerman had

a point. It would be illogical for King to try to trick him under these

circumstances, but it could also be a trap. Either way Yang Tiger chose

to keep the conversation going in order to have the King let his guard

down.

“Why did you kidnap the girl?” Yang Tiger said in a gruff voice

“She had what I wanted- Maiden’s blood” a flicker of smile

flashed on King’s face, without a doubt he was enjoying this. “A

component for a certain elixir that can even the tides”

“A certain elixir?” Yang Tiger was completely concerned now; if

this was one of the great elixirs then it could bring chaos. Each elixir had

a different purpose and effect, but without a doubt each was dangerous

in its own right.

 “Oh, finally interested?” King chuckled. He finally had Finnerman

in his hands. “It’s a bonded elixir made by inscription powered by a

spell. In order to work it needs three components: Wing of a flying

animal, energy of an elemental, and Maiden’s blood. ” He pointed

towards the goblet in his hand. “Are you willing to guess the effect of

the elixir?”

When Yang Tiger remained silent, King continued. “It is an elixir

that allows one to transcend humanity to become an angel.” Yang

Tiger’s eyes opened wide. The situation is far worse than he expected.

“For me to become an angel would mean that I would have the

capacity to smite Morphus out of existence, after all he is a demon!”

King’s face had a spark of scary joy in it. “I can take his throne and if

you join me you can rule by my side!”

“You’re a madman” was Yang Tiger’s only reply

“No, just a realist. I am only regretting not making this elixir

sooner.” Secretly King completely forgot the existence of the elixir,

while he had the city under his thumb there was no need for it. But now
the circumstances have changed. If his hearing was not deceiving him

there is an intense battle going on, and in order to turn the tides, elixir is

necessary. “My offer still stands”

“I will never join you”

“So be it!” King was rather disappointed. His plan to have a close

ally failed. Apparently enticing Finnerman with power was out of

question. He was rather perplexed, King offered Finnerman power, an

opportunity of a lifetime, but was refused. Why would he do that?

King took the goblet. “Then witness and observe the birth of an

Angel!” He proceeded to drink the content of the goblet. He drank fast,

Yang Tiger couldn’t stop him. King gulped it all down.

King felt heat in his body. Spreading through his chest, it traveled

through it towards his back. There it solidified and manifested. With

pain, two white wings emerged from King’s back. They tore holes

through his clothing. His face showed a pained but satisfied expression

entire time. The wings didn’t stop there, they started out small but soon

grew bigger until each one was around the size of King’s body. The
wings were magnificent, a mark of a true angel. King flapped the wings

as if to test their credibility and when he realized they were real he

laughed out loud.

Yang Tiger was now facing a true angel. The situation could not be

worse.

“You had your chance.” King jumped high. His wings allowed him

to float in the air. “Well then, this place shall be your resting place” He

sped up his flight towards the ceiling until he smashed through it. He did

it effortlessly, after all his new angelic body was far stronger than layers

of earth and stone. With him smashing the ceiling, the underground

room started collapsing.

Yang Tiger was in a deathtrap. So many things were falling down.

The girl was still unconscious, so he had to carry her. He was running as

fast as he could, if only he could reach the door…

Then a gigantic boulder obscured his path. Apparently it would not

be so easy to escape. In order to avoid another boulder, Yang Tiger

climbed the boulder in front of him. He would have to cut his way out.
He brandished the Dragon Tongue Sword and using his willpower he

made it shoot a beam of explosive fire towards the ceiling. Too bad he

could not use it like this too often, the sword apparently consumes so

much willpower that the user has to replenish himself before using it

again. The beam did its job; the falling ruble was landing away from

Yang Tiger and the girl. After lots of patches of earth and boulders fell

around Yang Tiger there was a path open towards the ceiling towards

the surface. He just would need to climb the rubble. Yang Tiger made a

sigh of relief, the King almost buried him alive. He would have to use

his hands to climb, so he tied the girl to his back. He kept the Dragon

Tongue Sword in its shrunk form on his belt. He proceeded to climb his

way out. The rubble was slippery and he began losing his balance. Then

he made a desperate grab and found himself hanging on to a root. It was

a strong root, able to handle the combined weight of two people. He

used the root as a rope and climbed forward. Once his arm reached the

surface, Yang Tiger proceeded to lift himself up. He climbed out with

the girl still tied to his back. He walked few paces and then put the girl

down on the ground. Yang Tiger over exhausted his body so he needed
to catch his breath. After a few minutes the girl opened her eyes. She

couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t in the same room where a man forcibly

took her blood, but she was outside. Apparently someone rescued her,

but who? When she saw his face she had her answer. “Sai the Baker?”

Yang Tiger realized too late that his face due to his exhaustion reverted

back to default form that he assumed for disguise. She recognized him.

“You’re the one who saved me? But that would mean…” She looked in

his eyes, she was rather weak from blood loss but the realization still

surprised her. “You are him.” Yang Tiger nodded. She relaxed a little. “I

know why you kept it a secret. Now I understand why I felt you were

different than King’s other servants. Thank you for everything. ”

“It’s too early for you to thank me, I need to get you to safety first”

Yang Tiger lifted her up. She was rather surprisingly light. The battle

was still raging on, but the rebels were winning. King’s loyalists were

scattered around and their numbers were decreasing. Now there were

only few armored men fighting against the rebels. Yang Tiger quickly

located the rebel leaders. The brother of the girl was among them. He
came towards them. “I found her” He put the girl down. The rebel

leaders were shocked. To think that in the middle of the war this man

found the kidnapped girl, he was full of surprises. The girl’s brother was

overjoyed; tears of happiness overflowed his eyes as he hugged her. He

thanked Yang Tiger. Then Jan saw the Yang Tiger and walked towards

him. He looked him in the eyes. “I am grateful you saved her but what

about the Marked Ones and the King?” He was rather frightened of

facing either, and the consolation that the Stranger would handle both

was erased when Stranger showed up with Sara.

“You don’t need to worry about Marked Ones; I handled them. As

for the King; we have a problem”

“A problem?”

“Indeed” As soon as Yang Tiger said that, fireballs started raining

from the sky. Each one was size of a person. They destroyed anything

they touched. Without a doubt, this was the doing of Aldan with his

powers enhanced by his angelic transformation. Before, producing a

single giant fireball was about what Aldan’s limit was, but now he could
freely produce so much of it. Angelic power truly is terrifying. The

fireballs, when touched their target would explode, spewing flames

everywhere. Many people ended up burned, some died from explosions.

People started to panic. They tried to avoid the fireballs by running, but

they kept coming. “Everyone scatter!”

After a few minutes of intense rain of fire, a figure with white

wings descended from the sky. He had a handsome face, but the fire

encircling him made it seem that he is an angel of destruction. “Citizens

of Ashu, I am Aldan, the rightful King of this land. Bow down to me and

you shall be forgiven and spared. Oppose me and you have sealed your

fate. It is your choice” His menacing glare was seen by hundreds of

people. They were terrified, after all they were up against a celestial

being, an angel, how can they say no?

Then suddenly a blast of fire hit the back of the King. And to

everyone’s surprise it was fire made by the Dragon herself. But she was

supposed to be King’s ally, then why is she attacking him? Yang Tiger

was rather perplexed.

 Shadelin’s clothes looked like they were set on fire and then put

out because it had ash marks and black burn spot on them. She roared

and unleashed her full spiritual form. A long 12 meter long golden

yellow dragon appeared out of thin air. The form encircled Shadelin’s

body and she used the hands and jaws of the dragon form to attack the

King. Yang Tiger was surprised that Shadelin’s battle avatar has

returned to its original form. That can only mean one thing; the poison’s

hold on her mind has been broken. Yang Tiger smiled, finally something

is going right way. But how did it happen? Then it hit him. Angelic

power can cure the poison, and then it means that Shadelin was hit by

one of the fireballs made by now an angel King. The fireball would not

cause any damage to a Dragon during normal circumstances, but fire

made by angelic foe has proven to have interesting capabilities. It has

completely negated the poison. Hopefully she can handle the King. If

she is strong enough, then Yang Tiger would not have to interfere.

Unfortunately, when the avatar of the dragon collided with the

King, he outstretched his wings in a defensive posture. Wings were a

shield for him. Dragon tried slashing at him with its jaws, but King

simply stopped the jaws by catching and throwing them away from

himself. When dragon would breathe fire it had absolutely no effect on

King. He merely smiled, flew into the air, and proceeded to kick the

Dragon. Dragon’s avatar was dispersed, and Shadelin was sent

plummeting towards the building. She crashed into the wall of the

building. Blood was gushing out of her mouth. She looked at the winged

man and realized that she was completely outmatched. But she has to

fight him. She just realized that she was brainwashed, and she didn’t

have time to accept everything she has done. In fact, not all of the

memories of the time being controlled by Morphus remained in her

mind, but she knew she hurt many people, including him… She has to

start mending things by getting rid of the man terrorizing the Ashu. She

grunted, the impact from King’s kick was too painful, even with her

extremely tough body it felt like several ribs were fractured. She jumped

of the wall, and she barely landed on her feet. She couldn’t help but fall

on her knees.
 “Looks like our sides have been reversed” King said with a

satisfied smirk. Finally he can get revenge on Dragon. Out all the

Marked Ones she is the only one who poses threat to him, so he will

have to eliminate her. King was rather happy because Finnerman was

rather easy to deal with. Now all that’s left is her.

“Give up, it’s purposeless to resist. After all you power that you

rely on so much is of little use against me!” Aldan was fully confident

now that he had the situation under his complete control. Now all that

remains is to cut off last few loose straws. “You know, I once thought of

you as someone worthy of fighting, but…” He approached her. He bent

down and picked her up by the neck with his left hand.” The fact that

you are so weak proves that you are not worthy of even serving me! ”

He manifested a ball of flame in his right hand. He carefully

manipulated it around his arm in order to shape it into a spear-like glove

around his arm. He would use it to pierce Dragon’s heart. Dragon

clenched helplessly on King’s fingers, desperately trying to break free

from his iron grip, but she was helpless. As she looked in King’s eyes,
she saw the determination to kill; his power far surpassed hers, she was

going to die. “Now then, good bye!” King moved his right arm to pierce

Dragon’s chest.

He never finished his move. At the last moment, a looped rope

landed on King’s neck. When he tried to kill the Dragon he was pulled

backwards by a strong force, causing him to fly back and crash into the

side of the building. Dragon landed on her knees; unsure of what just

happened. The impact was very strong; resulting in the blocks falling on

the King’s body. Unfortunately, the way he is now that will not even

leave a scratch.

“Sup” Dragon was surprised to see a man in front of her. His face

was obscured by a mask, but only his right eye was open. He had a

bleeding line on his left eyelid. He had a bag strapped on him. He put it

down, and looked Dragon in the eye.” I hope I am not too late” Dragon’s

eyes widened in shock. Then she realized it was the same man who

introduced himself as “Zargon”, he looked exactly the same as before.

She suspected it was Sabgyn using a disguise. She couldn’t be more far
from the truth. “I had him!” She cried out, not wanting to show any sign

of weakness. “It looked more like he had you” The man was very blunt

causing Dragon to feel rather humiliated.

The man just looked at the building that the King had crashed into;

he knew full well that just throwing him there wouldn’t kill him. At

most it will hold him down for a minute or two. None of the Marked

Ones are strong enough to take on an angel. Ying Tiger at first tried to

find his other half. He ran up the buildings in the direction he sensed his

other half was in. But then on the ground covering around the battle

tower, a figure emerged. It was an unbelievable sight, an angel breaking

out of the soil into the sky. He might have considered a good sign if not

for the fact that angel started throwing fireballs out of the sky after he

flew up high enough. While the rebels were successful in handling the

soldiers, this guy may be too much for them to handle. Angels are one of

the world’s deadliest creatures. He would have to be careful or he would

lose his life in an instant. Ying Tiger needed to find an opportunity to

deliver an attack. When King grabbed the Dragon the opportunity

presented itself. Of course, to his dismay, Ying Tiger found that

throwing an angel at a building would mostly damage the building not

the angel. That’s how tough they really are. Ying Tiger no longer knew

how to handle him, after all if he is this strong none of Ying Tiger’s

tricks will work. Luckily now the Dragon seems to have snapped out of

the mind control. “Neither of us can take him down alone, let’s work

together!” He held out his right hand to her in a gesture of alliance. She

made a sigh.” Fine, it’s not like we have much of a choice” she took his

hand in hers and he used the leverage to help her stand up. “True

enough” said Ying Tiger. Now both of them were facing in the direction

of their opponent.

The King was furious. Someone had the audacity to wrangle him

like a livestock. Of course thanks to his new physique he himself was

barely damaged. It was more like a psychological damage from the

realization that someone dared to do this to him. Heavy rubble fell on

him when he crashed into the building. He found himself buried alive

under it. “It will take more than that to kill me!” roared the King as he
used his powerful muscles to throw the rubble off himself. His face was

no longer completely handsome for it had bleeding forehead. Apparently

the crashing into a wall still did a number on him. The King extended his

wings to both sides preparing to launch at his enemies. With one swoop

he will end them. He flew up and then quickly launched himself in

direction of Dragon and Ying Tiger.

Ying Tiger quickly saw through the feint. The King wanted them

to see his extended wings, distracting them long enough for him to

pounce on them like an eagle. Smart move, but too bad for the King

because Ying Tiger saw right through it. Before the King could reach

them, Ying Tiger pushed Dragon out of the way, while he jumped up

and threw a dust bomb. The King was aiming to strangle both of them,

so he extended both his hands outward. But Ying Tiger’s action caused

him to not only lose both his targets but also lose his composure.

As he regained his footing, the King floated around searching for

his enemies. All he saw was the Dragon, but the man? Where did that

man with a scar go? As he floated around, he did not realize that Ying
Tiger somehow managed to hide behind the King and was shifting his

position accordingly in order to make sure the King did not see him.

Dragon saw all this. Her cheeks were slightly flustered. She thought “Is

he playing around? At a time like this! What in the world is he thinking?

That dummy!” Why would Sabgyn regard such an opponent with such a

juvenile tactic? Did he lose his mind? Then when the King’s eyes were

focused on Dragon, Ying Tiger made his move. He jumped on King’s

back and managed to grab on to one of his wings. The King instantly

lost control of his flight as he realized that the man was on his back. He

tried to wriggle him free of himself. “Unhand me you filthy human!”

But this caused the man to clutch his wings even harder. Sharp pain shot

through King’s body. Apparently the only known weakness that angels

possess is the wings. Dragon saw the whole bizarre scene in front of her,

which caused her jaw drop. Sabgyn was trying to ride the angel like a

horse. Is there no end to him taking such serious situations in such a

weird way?
 The King tried to manifest hands of fire in order to swat the Ying

Tiger, but every time he tried to do so, Ying Tiger would pull on his

wings causing the King to be unable to execute his movement.

Desperately, the King flew up into the sky with Ying Tiger still attached

to his back. Aldan the King of Ashu wanted to drop Ying Tiger off

himself from a great height. This would do a double service for him

because it would free his wings and kill his enemy. Aldan flew up

towards the clouds. From this height, he thought, a fall is a guaranteed

death!

He spun around the air, reaching the high level in the sky, reaching

far above the clouds. King finally managed to shake Ying Tiger off

himself. King looked down and to his satisfaction saw that Ying Tiger

was falling through the clouds. Now this way he will certainly die! King

smiled gallantly, after all he won.

His excitement was cut short when a shiny blade flew out of the

clouds towards him. The King was not prepared for this, so he couldn’t

avoid it in time. The blade struck him through his right wing and
remained attached to it. There was a rope attached to the blade. Aldan

felt a sensation of sharp pain go through his right wing; the blade was

cutting into the flesh and it was shaped in a way that it would pierce

through flesh and remained attached. In fury, Aldan tried to remove the

blade out of his wing, but when he touched the rope he felt someone

tugging on the rope. When he looked down, he saw to his horror that

Ying Tiger was hanging down by the rope; clutching it with all his

might. Stronger he pulled the more tension was put on the wing. Aldan

could barely keep himself afloat.

Aldan was rather depressed; Ying Tiger managed to harpoon him

with a blade and prevent himself from falling, and he ended up striking

one of his wings not less! Aldan manifested fireballs in his arm and

manipulated them to a blade shape. He would have to strike the Ying

Tiger directly or strike the rope so that his opponent would definitely

have no way of striking him back. “Die!” he swung the sword of flames

towards Ying Tiger.

 At that moment Aldan was struck behind him in the air. A majestic

aura could be felt. The impact sent Aldan stumbling through the air. Just

who could have the audacity to strike him from behind? When he turned

around he saw a gigantic golden beast behind him. A Dragon! He

completely forgot that the Dragon had flight capacity. He completely

underestimated her! In the air she manifested the form of her beast and

was using its sheer size in order to strike him.

While the dragon form did have a lot of pure strength it was no

match for the power of an angel. Aldan retaliated against the next strikes

made by the Dragon by blocking them with his arms. Then he proceeded

to punch the manifested aura of Dragon. With such tremendous boost to

his strength he was able to punch the dragon aura in the chest area.

While the body of dragon was formidable it stood no chance against the

power of the angel punch. The dragon aura began to shatter. Like glass

braking from a strong impact, it fell apart, with the Dragon within the

aura starting to bleed from her mouth. She was passing out. Her aura’s
was directly connected to her so by breaking her aura the King managed

to greatly injure her.

She could no longer float in the air. Steadily she was falling down.

The King looked down at her, and with a maniacal laugh said “Do you

think I will let you go that easily?” with Ying Tiger still hanging on to

his wing, Aldan proceeded to fly towards the falling Dragon. He flew

with great speed and delivered a very fast punch to her body. The impact

of his punch sent Dragon flying down towards the ground faster. She

ended up crashing down on the ground. The impact broke several bones

in her body. Where her body landed a crater formed.

In his moment of triumph, Aldan completely forgot about Ying

Tiger attached by rope to his wing. Aldan flew down to Dragon’s

location. Then he felt the pull on his wing and realized that Ying Tiger

did not fall off while he was fighting the Dragon and was still attached

to him. “You persistent fool! Aldan put both of his hands together in

order to create a massive fire incantation. To his surprise when he put

both hands together it resulted in creation of electricity around his hands

which shot towards Ying Tiger.

Ying Tiger barely managed to avoid it by jumping off the rope and

landed on top of one of the buildings. Now that Aldan came down from

such a high place it would be the best idea to come down on stable

ground.

Aldan looked at his hands with undeniable fascination.

“Magnificent, the power of an angel is magnificent” he laughed out

maniacally. Finally the true power was in his hands, literally. He

manipulated the lighting in his hands. He managed to change the form of

lightning to make it shaped like bow and arrow. He used it to shoot

towards Ying Tiger. Ying Tiger barely managed to jump off the building

before the lighting arrows hit the roof causing it to explode.

“Humph, I suppose you are not going to be an easy target, but what

about her?” He pointed the lighting bow towards the unconscious

Dragon. He will have to use her as bait. He shot a lightning arrow at her.

Before it could hit her Ying Tiger appeared in front of her. The arrow
landed on Ying Tiger. Ying Tiger tried to block the arrow with his arms

and redirecting the lighting ability of the arrow, but he failed to

completely negate it. The lightning power within the arrow was far

stronger than lightning that Shadelin used, causing Ying Tiger feel pain

through his entire body. The electricity was hitting his body without

stopping causing him to feel the pain through his muscles and nerves,

causing him to be unable to stand up any longer.

The King smiled. Now he had beaten both of them. “I have both of

you at my mercy” he manipulated the lightning into a sword. “Any last

words before I behead both of you?”

“Yes” Ying Tiger replied.

“Shut up!” Yang Tiger delivered a mighty blow with Dragon

Tongue Sword from behind towards Aldan’s left wing. The might of the

volcanic heat emitting from the sword easily cut part of Aldan’s left

wing.

“Aaaaah” King screamed and wailed. The wings were very

sensitive and having one of them cut made it very intolerable. He

managed to regain his composure when he saw Yang Tiger.

“Finnerman! You’re alive!” he clenched his teeth and growled. Seems

like his plan to bury Finnerman alive has failed. Now he ended up

injuring him on his wings, his only weakness!

“Dead or alive, in the end it is the same thing” Yang Tiger was

now facing Aldan. Both of them had their swords ready for a fight. One

had a sword of lighting, the other of fire.

Previously Yang Tiger watched the fight occur between Ying

Tiger, Dragon, and King in order to find King’s weakness. The moment

Ying Tiger touched King’s wings it seemed like King lost his balance

and control. After seeing that Yang Tiger resolved to attack the King

directly with Dragon Tongue Sword in its hottest capacity. The only

problem was sneaking behind the King in order to deliver the strike to

his wings. Luckily Ying Tiger protecting Shadelin from Aldan made it

easy to sneak behind the King while he was distracted.

With strong sensation of pain going through her body, Shadelin

opened her eyes. She didn’t expect to see this. The man she assumed to
be Sabgyn was on his knees, with electricity shocking his body. She

could see sparks of electricity affecting him and causing him pain. She

tried to stand up, but her left foot cracked under the weight of her body.

She was shocked; none ever damaged her this badly. She hopped on her

right leg towards Ying Tiger and put a palm on his head. She used her

control over electricity to absorb the electricity out of his body. After

that Ying Tiger was no longer paralyzed. “Thank You”

She smiled at him, “I should be the one thanking you” she winked

“Sabgyn Finnerman”

“Was it really that obvious?” Ying Tiger pulled down his mask to

reveal his face; a large bloody scratch ran through his left eye but

otherwise he looked completely the same.

“Not really, but I don’t know anyone else who can be this crazy, or

this sweet” She truly was glad that he was still alive. After all she has

done to him. “Look, I am so sorry for what I did to you, I know it’s hard

to believe but I was under someone’s mind control, I know you

wouldn’t…”
 “I believe you” he said. This surprised her. She expected him to be

angry at her. “Truth be told, I already know what happened to you and

who did it”

“Who!? “ Now Shadelin was alert, did someone betray them?

“It was Snake’s doing. Snake is Morphus’s subordinate” when

Shadelin heard this her eyes grew wide open, she realized she was

fooled and manipulated and the person who did that was so close to her!

“She used some sort of poison on all of you placing you under

Morphus’s direct control”

“Then how am I no longer under his control?” She was rather

curious.

“I suspect that it has something to do with the angel right over

there” Ying Tiger pointed towards Aldan and Yang Tiger. “I believe one

of his spells struck you and it had a side effect of removing the mind

control.” He smiled.
 Shadelin looked at Yang Tiger and Aldan facing off, both with

swords. She was curious about the identity of that man. She asked Ying

Tiger” Who is that man? Is he an ally? Another spiritual form user?”

Ying Tiger slyly smiled.

“He is another me” That was the simplest way of putting it.

She looked at Ying Tiger’s face and the face of that man, she

gasped. Aside from the wound on the eye, they looked identical.

“You split yourself?” She didn’t expect him to be using this trick;

she knew full well that he was not powerful enough to completely

master it. “I thought you could not be split for more than for a few

minutes!”

“That no longer is an issue” Ying Tiger looked towards the battle.

Aside from Aldan who was facing against Yang Tiger there didn’t seem

to be anyone who could hinder them. Silver Noyan was already

defeated. As for Black Knight, wait, where did he go?

 “Look Out!” Shadelin pushed Ying Tiger out of the way. The

second afterwards a huge sword landed in place where he just was in. He

barely escaped being beheaded! “Thanks”

“You will not escape me again!” There he was, the Black Knight

himself. He looked huge in his armor. He lifted his sword which was

about three times as long as his arm. It seemed to be as light as feather

when he used it. He proceeded to pounce in Ying Tiger’s direction.

Ying Tiger jumped away in Shadelin’s direction right on time. She

was injured, so she could not move well yet. Otherwise Black Knight

would have been easily outmatched. So, Ying Tiger thought, he could

not rely on Dragon’s power, he would have to take things in his own

control. He quickly grabbed the sword that was on Shadelin’s belt, and

before she could even react he parried the Black Knight’s sword strike.

It was not easy, the weight of the sword and the strength of the wielder

was overwhelming. He barely managed to cancel the attack. Ying Tiger

jumped to the right. He would have to use some trickery. When the

Black Knight tried to cut him in half horizontally Ying Tiger jumped up
and proceeded to slash on Black Knight’s right arm. Black Knight

grunted in pain. The cut was not shallow, Ying Tiger intended to

immobilize his arm not severe it. To his surprise, Black Knight simply

switched his grip on his weapon and proceeded to attack again. By

moving out of his way and walking backwards in the opposite direction

of his opponent Ying Tiger managed to avoid every single one of Black

Knight’s lethal moves. “You left me for a buffoon!” Black Knight

angrily shouted. This man managed to trick him twice, both times

damaging his pride.

“You were a buffoon long before I met you!” Ying Tiger

countered. Black Knight was persistent. Then in the next second, Black

Knight threw a mighty kick at Ying Tiger’s body which landed

perfectly, sending Ying Tiger flying backwards. Triumphant Black

Knight jumped at him with his sword intending to strike Ying Tiger

across his neck. Ying Tiger smiled. With this move Black Knight has

left himself full of opening. Black Knight thought that victory was in his

pocket, but he could not be more wrong. When he raised his arms to lift
his sword high in an executioner style, he left his body open. Ying Tiger

used that moment to deliver a very fast slash diagonally across Black

Knight’s chest. He avoided the heart because Ying Tiger wanted Black

Knight to live and atone for his deeds, not die so easily. The slash

stopped Black Knight’s movement and he fell on the ground, panting

from pain and his body being unable to handle it. He gave on last look

full of hatred to Ying Tiger before passing out on a pool of his own

blood.

Ying Tiger stood up, with the sword in his hand resting its blade on

his shoulder. “Whew, that was a close call”

Shadelin was amazed. Just in a few months Sabgyn managed to

master the art of sword to such a degree! To think that he was so weak

with it before!

“Thanks for the sword” Ying Tiger returned the sword to Shadelin.

“How can you do these things? You could never do this before”

Sabgyn never ceases to surprise her. He always had a way of being

unusual. Just when a person thinks he knows Sabgyn, he would reveal a

side of himself that he never shown before. He certainly was full of

surprises. That was one of the things she liked about him. She blushed.

She couldn’t deny it.

“It doesn’t matter right now. We have bigger problems” He

pointed in Yang Tiger’s direction, which was relentlessly fighting

against Aldan. Aldan was obviously enjoying the fight because he was

winning. Yang Tiger could only stand on defensive while Aldan took his

time to test out his new powers. “I don’t know how much longer my

doppelganger can handle fighting him, if the fighting goes on Yang

Tiger will be defeated, and then this entire city would be bathed in

inferno!” Due to using Dragon Tongue Sword Yang Tiger was able to

fight on about even ground with Aldan. But minute by minute Aldan

kept discovering new applications of his angelic power. First gigantic

fireballs, then weapons made of lightning, now shooting jets of water!

Could he get any deadlier?

Apparently he could. When Aldan extended his whole wing it

started shooting feathers in Yang Tiger’s direction. When those feathers

struck any solid object they ended up embedding themselves like razor

sharp knives. Yang Tiger was terrified. So many powers in one body,

how do you get like that?

Yang Tiger struck the earth underneath him with Dragon Tongue

Sword which turned the ground into lava that shot upward like a shield

in front of him. The sharp feathers embedded themselves on a lava wall.

Yang Tiger was surprised. Apparently the lava produced by the sword’s

power can be manipulated to his advantage. He proceeded to turn the

entire fighting ground into lava forcing Aldan to float, which was not

easy to accomplish considering he was missing a sizable chunk of one of

his wings and had a wound on the other one. Now this might even the

fighting field. Yang Tiger coughed blood; apparently using the Dragon

Tongue Sword took a toll on him for utilizing it to such a degree. If he

doesn’t deal with Aldan soon, Yang Tiger would collapse from

exhaustion.

Seeing the how Yang Tiger was coughing through his mouth, Ying

Tiger seemed very concerned. “Originally I thought we would be able to

defeat Aldan in order to free the country, but that no longer seems

possible” He looked at Shadelin. She is too injured to fight, not to

mention defeat Aldan. Yang Tiger may be able to hold Aldan for some

time, but he does not possess enough power to kill Aldan. But Ashu has

to be freed from his control or all of the labors for overthrowing the

regime would have been for nothing!

“What are you going to do? The other you is barely standing!”

Shadelin cried out to Ying Tiger. She could no longer use her full power.

She knew she couldn’t expect Ying Tiger to have all the solutions, not

with his level of power, but she was desperate.

After a moment of hard thought, Ying Tiger arrived at a

conclusion. “None is currently strong enough to defeat Aldan, but” he

paused, a sense of understanding flashed through his eyes. “We don’t

need to defeat him; we just need to get him out of Ashu!”

“Get him out of Ashu? What do you mean? How are you going to

do that? Even if you manage to get him away, can’t he just break into

the city? ” She was rather confused with Ying Tiger’s trail of thought.
How exactly is he planning to get the city rid of a powerful being like

that?

“That is not a problem” Ying Tiger pointed at the tower. “There is

a powerful barrier spell located on the battle tower, it is easy to

recognize because of the pentagram symbol on it” Due to the memories

of the souls within his body, Ying Tiger knew practically everything

about the city of Ashu.” The barrier spell will not let anything other than

human beings into the city and it is strong enough to hold even against

an angel, just put a drop of blood to activate it”

“But he is inside the city, even if I were to activate the spell it

would only protect the outside, it will do nothing to beings that are

already inside!” the idea was interesting, but with a rather huge flaw.

“Which is why I will get him out of the city first” Ying Tiger

somberly replied.

The magnitude of his words hit her instantly.

 “Are you insane? I can barely survive against him, and you expect

yourself to have enough power to get him out of the city?”

“I will have to improvise on that” Ying Tiger looked towards Yang

Tiger and said “My counterpart needs me, go find the barrier spell, but

wait before I get him out of the city before activating it!”

“Alright” Shadelin managed to stand on one foot. She controlled

the air around her in order to allow herself to fly. With a damaged leg

running would be impossible, flying there is the only option. She quickly

flew towards the tower or what was left of it.

Meanwhile, Yang Tiger had his hands full fighting against Aldan.

No matter what attack he would launch against Aldan it seemed like

Aldan only kept getting stronger. That was partially true because Aldan

kept finding new ways of using his angelic power. The better he got at

their usage the more effective he became. Previously he could not use

his powers to their true potential due to his inexperience with them, but

now he was having the time of his life. Just a second ago he released his

power as pure energy instead of converting it into flame. Pure energy is

much more dangerous than converted energy because it has the capacity

to overwhelm the body and cause it to explode. Unlike converted energy

which caused surface damage only, the pure energy caused damage in

all levels. Aldan proceeded to unleash the energy through his right palm.

A ray of light emerged out of his palm coating it in brilliant luster. Then

it shot towards Yang Tiger. Yang Tiger barely managed to use Dragon

Tongue Sword to manipulate the lava beneath him to act as a barrier.

The light pierced the lava barrier. The barrier began to crumble and turn

to dust. Then the light struck the earth behind the barrier.

Yang Tiger sighed in relief. If he had not escaped from behind the

barrier in time he would have been obliterated along with it. He ran

towards in the opposite direction of the King, intending the dust

resulting from the destroyed lava as a cover. He hid behind a small

mound of earth. King is getting stronger by the second, now it was rather

hopeless to think about beating him. It will not take Aldan long to find

him as soon as dust clears out. Then it will be the end.

 “Rough day, brother?” Apparently he was not the only one sitting

behind the mound. Yang Tiger was appalled to see Ying Tiger next to

him. He was so occupied in his thoughts about Aldan that he didn’t

notice him!

Ying Tiger extended his fist towards Yang Tiger waiting for a fist

bump. Yang Tiger understood, it must mean there are too many things to

say so the fastest way of sharing information is to merge their bodies.

Yang Tiger extended his fist and touched Ying Tiger’s knuckle. They

instantly remerged into a single being. Now Sabgyn knew everything he

needed to do.

Getting Aldan out of the city? Sounds easier than done. Luckily

Ying Tiger already thought of a solution. But it had very low chance of

success. It could potentially kill him. But in this situation there was not

much of a choice. What must be done must be done.

He knew roughly where the contraption was located but navigating

through the fallen walls was difficult. He found the contraption near the

open area within the walls of the tower. In this area there was a huge
opening towards the sky designed in order to allow the contraption to be

used most effectively. Sabgyn looked at the contraption. It looked

unused. A seal was underneath his feet. It had a diameter of ten meters.

The contraption can be activated when something is standing on top of

the seal and someone gives a mental command for it to work while

placing a hand on the contraption. From the top view it looked like a

giant bow with the seal being placed where the middle rope is supposed

to be. There was a wall behind Sabgyn. When the contraption was used

the user needed to place his arm on it.

Now it was a matter of luring Aldan to his location. Sabgyn

thought that Aldan would come from one of the three open sides. To his

disbelief, none seemed to come from anywhere. Just when he thought

that Aldan had completely lost track of him, King emerged flying

through the opening in the ceiling. “This is bad” thought Sabgyn,

staggering back from surprise. Aldan had found a way into the tower

through the roof while Sabgyn was expecting him to follow him. He

truly has underestimated Aldan too much.

 Aldan didn’t give Sabgyn chance to run. He swooped down on him

like an eagle pounces on a mouse. With his fingers extended like blades

he proceeded to punch Sabgyn through his abdomen, pinning him to the

wall. Aldan’s fingers easily pierced Sabgyn’s flesh. Sabgyn cried out in

pain. The sensation of his abdominal muscles being torn by Aldan was

overwhelming. Everything started turning dark in his eyes. Blood was

dripping from his mouth. Aldan’s palm was too strong. Sabgyn could

feel that his heart beat began to slow down, his breathing became more

forced and heavy. He struggled to maintain his consciousness. He

realized that at this rate he will succumb to death.

Shadelin found the symbol for barrier spell. She was overjoyed.

Finally a way to make city free from the monster. Her happiness did not

last long as when she looked down she saw the moment of Sabgyn being

pierced by Aldan’s hand. Sabgyn’s body seemed to have gone limp.

“No, this can’t be happening, not to him!” Shadelin was horrified by the

sight, causing her to have tears in her eyes. The realization that Sabgyn

was killed right before her eyes struck her like lightning. Previously she
was happy that she did not kill him when she fatally wounded him

during her battle with him on the waterfall. Now his death was insured.

She could clearly see that blood was spewing from his mouth and the

area in his abdomen pierced by Aldan’s hand has turned crimson red

from blood. There is no way he can be saved now, all was lost. Aldan

has won.

“He is done. You are next!” Aldan exclaimed. He looked up

towards Shadelin with a sharp smile on his face. One down, another one

to go. An angelic power- the best power he ever possessed. Circulating

through his veins, the potion has rapidly changed his body, and the more

used he got to his new physique the more powerful he became. “I will

annihilate every single one of you, Marked Ones, then I will conquer all

of the territories of the other Divine Overlords, and even the Big Man

himself will stand no chance against me!” Aldan’s right hand was

embedded in Sabgyn’s abdomen pinning Sabgyn’s limp body to the

wall. Both of them were standing within a large space that was separated

from the other spaces within rooms by a pattern on the floor. Aldan did
not notice this. “Now then, I can’t keep guests waiting can I?” Aldan

made a little chuckle. He looked in Shadelin’s eyes and he saw terror in

them. This made him feel as though he already won the battle. “In the

end all your group managed to do is start a small rebellion, after you

changed sides however you have wasted the hopes of all your people.”

“How pathetic!” Aldan was now free to gloat for his victory was

assured. Nothing feels better than breaking his opponents will. “Without

your leader right here you guys are worthless, ah I forgot he never was

the real leader, was he?”

“After all the group of Marked Ones was founded by you Shadelin.

So tell me how does it feel to have your most precious subordinate’s life

taken away by my hands? Oh Great Dragon girl?” His taunts have made

Shadelin’s eyes moist with tears. ”You Fiend!” Shadelin cried out with a

voice unable to hide her crying.

Aldan was enjoying this, breaking someone so strong meant

asserting his superiority. “In the end you lost because neither you nor
your Tiger has the capacity or power to stop me, you lost this battle and

you have lost the war.”

“I couldn’t agree” an arm grabbed Aldan’s right hand. “LESS!” It

was Sabgyn’s arm. Through all the blood he was choking on he

managed to force a smile while looking at Aldan’s face. With his right

hand he made sure to hold on to Aldan’s arm while he was still piercing

Sabgyn’s body. For a moment there Sabgyn passed out from pain, but he

willed himself into consciousness with sheer willpower. He has to take

care of Aldan even if it costs him his life.

Sabgyn looked in Shadelin’s direction with a sad smile on his face.

When she saw his eyes she understood. He was telling her to do as he

instructed, his life did not matter, and even if it kills him he will not give

up. “No, please don’t” Shadelin began to say, but her please landed on

deaf ears.

“Take care of them, Captain” Sabgyn said to Shadelin. Then he

looked at Aldan’s surprised face. Aldan did not expect him to be still

alive. Sabgyn knew he could only maintain his consciousness for few
minutes but that was more than enough. “You have caused enough

trouble in Jambol, Aldan, now it’s time for you to Go!” With his left

hand he smeared blood from his body on the wall behind him. Instantly

the area lit up with bright light. The floor Aldan was standing on lit up

as well. “What is going on?” Aldan exclaimed, his body could no longer

move as though pinned to his current location. “OFF WE GO!” Sabgyn

proclaimed. Both Sabgyn and Aldan were launched into the sky at

unimaginable speed. Both retained the same pose they were in before

they were launched. It happened so fast that Aldan had no time to react.

Within few seconds both flew into the sky and in direction away from

the city, and after few more seconds both were far beyond the borders of

the city, in the air. Both had no control over the flight. It was too fast for

Aldan’s angelic wings to handle. Sabgyn smiled. He knew using the

enchanted ballista was a good idea. Instead of launching arrows it

launched objects into the sky at unimaginable speed. About hundred

times faster than flight of the bird. It also fired objects into extremely far

distance, so even if Aldan does recover he will not be able to get back
into the city because he would be beyond the city’s borders and Shadelin

would have erected the barrier by that time.

Air was pressuring both of them from everywhere like invisible

walls. When Aldan tried to escape he was met with strong backlash.

Getting out of flight through the air will not be easy. Then he looked

down at his enemy.” At least I will have the pleasure of destroying you!”

Instead of trying his previous approach of landing fatal blows, Aldan

proceeded to pour his Heavenly energy through his right hand into

Sabgyn’s body. Previously Heavenly energy caused the objects in

Aldan’s vicinity to explode from overloading, so Aldan hoped it would

have the same effect on Sabgyn. Sabgyn screamed from pain. So much

heavenly energy was entering his body, he could not do anything but

writhe in agony. His veins started glowing throughout his body, he felt

like any second he will be reduced to ash. “I guess this is the end” souls

within Sabgyn’s body communicated the message to him. Sabgyn’s

expression relaxed a little, moment later his expression became tense.

He grabbed Aldan’s hand tighter intending to not let go until the very
end. “No! This definitely is not the end!” He commanded the souls

within his body to absorb as much Heavenly Energy as they could.

Suddenly, his body did not seem to be like exploding.

As if he sensed the change, Aldan proceeded to pour even more of

his Heavenly Energy into Sabgyn. No matter how much power it takes

he will make sure he explodes. Sabgyn’s body was being overloaded;

even with souls absorbing the Heavenly Energy it was not enough.

Suddenly, the spiritual form of the Tiger within him reacted strangely

towards the Heavenly energy. It was consuming it. But how? The animal

spiritual form was the mark of the individual; each one possessed a

unique spiritual form within their bodies since birth. For Sabgyn it was

Tiger spiritual form, almost completely useless spiritual form that was

responsible for his duality related powers and ability to split him. Now

out of all times the Tiger spiritual form was showing itself. It was

consuming the Heavenly Energy. As if by the side effect of that,

Sabgyn’s body began to glow. Then an explosion of golden light

occurred. An Apparition shaped in a form of a gigantic Tiger appeared

for a few seconds, and then it disappeared. When Aldan looked in front

of him, Sabgyn was gone. Aldan thought “That Golden light, it was your

body being vaporized. Even the spiritual form within his body left from

his flesh” He smiled, now there is no trace of Tiger left in the world.

Unknown to him, there were four mortals traveling through the air

away from him. Each had an identical face, with only one having a scar

on his left eye. They were sleeping. They flew in four different

directions. Their tale would later unfold.

Chapter 11- Revelation 8/21/2016

After the great uprising ended, the lives of the citizens of Ashu,

now renamed back to Jambol have prospered greatly. Without the King

to restrain them and take away their lives, they steadily began to rebuild

what was broken. The former queen resumed her position as the

monarch of Jambol. The only evidences of the battle were the destroyed

buildings. Amazingly, part of the city was left unscathed, making people

visiting the city wonder whether there was a weather anomaly. Just like

the King, the group of Marked Ones has also left the city. But unlike the
King, they walked out of the city after publically apologizing for their

actions. Strangely it seemed like they were no longer a group of angry

people led by a monster, but a group of kind people who desired to bring

peace. Of course the people were skeptical, but considering how strong

each member of Marked Ones was they decided that it would be in the

best interest of the city to let them leave in peace. Not all of the Marked

Ones were present; the young man named Snake was not present. The

leader of the Marked Ones, Dragon looked like she cried a lot before

speaking to the Queen for her face looked very red and her eyes were

moist. The other Marked Ones looked embarrassed and humiliated; not

only did their minds were out of their control but God knows how many

crimes did they commit while they were under Morphus’s influence.

After Sabgyn successfully managed to get the King out of the city,

Dragon activated the seal that placed an enormous barrier around the

city. Afterwards she picked up the piece of the wing that was lying on

the ground after it was severed from King’s back by Sabgyn. She

thought about how Sabgyn mentioned the usage of angelic power was
responsible for dispelling the mind control upon her. When she came

upon her group, she found them in very embarrassing positions. One

passed out, the other was turned into a statue from his neck down, while

another one was stuck inside a net. A very bizarre picture she thought.

Snake- the betrayer was missing. Dragon could not sense her presence;

Snake was just too good at hiding his energy as well as himself. She

thought she could deal with Snake once she caught up with him. There

will be no mercy for the traitor!

Dragon used the feathers from the part of the wing that she picked

up. She put a single feather on top of each person’s head and then she

inserted little bit of her energy into each one. Gradually, her friends

started to come back to their senses.

“Where am I, What am I…” Bull was surprised to see Dragon

crying while standing next to them. “Captain! Are you alright? Are you

hurt?”

Dragon simply mentioned that she was alright. Earlier she saw a

huge manifestation of Tiger emerge in the sky before dissipating. There

was no mistake, it was spiritual form being freed from the body, and

Tiger spiritual form has left Sabgyn. It means that….

Sabgyn is dead.

Just the thought made Shadelin’s eyes water with tears. She could

not believe it, he was gone, now truly gone, and nothing she could do to

bring him back. She lifted her head up and screamed like she never did

before. Her comrades only saw how a strong creature as Dragon would

show her broken heart. The one person she grew to care about was now

gone. Although on the surface she was annoyed by him, he was

irreplaceable to her.

When the other two came back to their senses they were greeted

with a sad yet relieving sight; their leader showing true sorrow for a

fallen comrade- a leader who can feel the loss of her allies is someone

they would definitely want to follow. It proved once and for all that their

harsh and brutal leader was a human being after all.

The city itself celebrated their new found freedom. Parties were

thrown to commemorate this historical day. Queen even made a decree

declaring the day of the victory to be a national holiday named after the

city’s savior- Crimson Knight Day. Yes, due to Sabgyn introducing

himself as Crimson Knight’s descendant and the fact that he did not tell

them his name made it the only choice for the name of the day. The

other savior whom the young girl clutching a handkerchief to her chest

identified as Sai the Baker also got his name permanently written in

city’s records. For starters, the shop that he owned was remodeled and

renamed as Brave Baker’s Treat. Also, during Crimson Knight Day it

has become a tradition to have a load of bread in person’s hands before

saying a thank you and eating it.

Everyone who witnessed the fight between the King and his

opponent thought that there were two people fighting the King. They

never suspected that both were a single person. While the King was

attacking they had no choice but to retreat, but not those two. Crimson

Knight Jr and Sai the Baker confronted the King and managed to get him

out of the city. Just two ordinary men confronted the man they have

hated for years. They faced an adversary so much stronger than

themselves but still managed to free them; they are nothing less than

national heroes for Jambol!

As for what happened to the King, however, they never found out

the truth.

After being thrown into the air, being unable to stop himself from

flying through the air, Aldan waited until his flight would be halted. He

was stopped from his flight when he unceremoniously landed in a desert.

The sun was shining upon the black sand making it seem like all light is

being absorbed. Aldan lay on the ground of sand, breathing heavily. He

would have to take Ashu back, but before that he needs to know where

he is right now; he was thrown hundreds of miles away from his city.

His wings hurt; his entire body was feeling the pain. But he knew that in

few days he would be able to heal himself completely. He took a breath

of air; enjoying the taste of aridity in his mouth. He then proceeded to

stand up. He looked at the wide desert before him. Such a long way….

“It seems you were thrown very far away” a voice said from

behind Aldan.
 Aldan was surprised that there was someone else besides him in

the dessert and that he failed to notice him. This man was unusually

good at being undetectable. “Who are you?” Aldan was curious to know

the identity of the man standing before him. No matter who it is, Aldan

can take him down.

“You know who I am, Aldan” the tone of the voice changed from

friendly to ice cold tone. “Think for a second and you shall receive your

answer” The man came close to Aldan looked him in the eyes, and to

Aldan’s surprise that man’s face changed instantly to look like Aldan’s

own face. Aldan’s eyes opened wide with terror. “Morphus!”

“Correct” Morphus’s face changed back from Aldan’s face, now it

turned into a face of the handsome young man with a cold smile on his

face.

“I am an angel now, you demon! I can easily smite you” Aldan

extended his injured wings outwards making himself look larger than he

is. He thought that because in natural order demons always lose to

angels.
 “Good for you, yet you seem to be under a wrong impression.”

Morphus’s face remained extremely calm, as though he had everything

under his control.” Many people assume that I am a demon, you know

the rumors have become so widespread that none knows the entire truth”

Aldan was looking for an opening but Morphus was circling him in an

almost playful way. “Except me, of course” Morphus’s expression

changed into a mad grin with his eyes gaining an evil expression.

Something burst out of Morphus’s back. It was a large black wing

extending from his right side. It looked like a crow’s wing but about

hundred times larger. The wing extended around Morphus’s body

covering his right hand, then extending like an unsheathed blade;

pointing towards Aldan. Aldan’s now realized that he chose the worst

possible opponent. “The truth is I am an angel“

“Impossible, you are son of Lucifer, you are a demon!” Aldan

shouted out.

“It is always surprising how many different stories create in order

to explain somethings they can’t understand, even if they are completely

away from the truth” Morphus loved such conversations to push his

target into despair. “But now and then, by luck they manage to find the

truth”

“So what if you are an angel, I can still take you down!” Aldan

charged towards Morphus, intending to land a blow on him.

Morphus simply used his wing as a blade. He used it to pierce

Aldan’s chest. Aldan did not know what happened before he hit the

ground. The moment the wing touched him Aldan’s body became

paralyzed. Now he was on the ground on his chest, struggling to look up

at Morphus.

Morphus approached Aldan. “After obtaining a power you desired

so much by dealing with a devil you were able to become a formidable

force”

“Although you refused to acknowledge yourself as my

subordinate, I was patient with you, yet this action of yours is most

surprising”
 Morphus his foot on one of Aldan’s injured wings, causing Aldan

to clench his teeth in pain. “A potion to turn a human into a pseudo

angel, very impressive”

“But imperfect. The spell will only allow a human being to

transform into a lower ranking angel and the power of the potion is

imperfect”

“How? I put all of the ingredients and bonded them correctly”

Aldan said while struggling to lift his head up

“Indeed you have, yet I can sense that the key component- pure

and untainted blood you obtained was of low quality.”

“No matter whom it is the human blood will always be of lower

quality in comparison to creatures such as unicorns and dragons, but I

see why you had to settle on human blood.” There was a great lack of

creatures due to the wars causing them to flee into far lands.

Furthermore they were extremely hard to find.

 “It doesn’t matter! I will still…” Aldan’s voice was interrupted by

Morphus clutching his throat.

“Now then, before I kill you, you will tell me everything you

know.”

Aldan stared at in horror as the Morphus’s face came close to his.

He could see Morphus’s eyes turning completely white. He felt as

though he was being sucked into a void. His final thought before the

void of whiteness of Morphus’s eye absorbed him was “So this is how it

ends”.