"What did they do to you?!"
Only such confused words left Sylvester's mouth as he looked at the man before him. Someone he considered his brother, someone he considered one of the most loyal allies. Just a mere look at the man clearly showed how greatly in pain he must be, how much anguish the eyes hid.
"Fight me!"
Sylvester didn't react to the mad shouts from the man. "Felix, what happened to you? Who did this to you?"
"HAAA!" Felix, however, began striking the crystal substance holding his feet. It was hard to undo, but the crystals started chipping away in small chunks. The entire time Felix roared like a madman and furiously stabbed his blade.
Sylvester breathed heavily, unable to watch his brother in all but blood, acting so violently. What was the reason? What happened to him? Why wasn't he answering him? All those questions raced through his mind in a frenzy.
"Felix—tell me the problem, and we'll find a solution. Why are you serving a dead Pope so fervently? You don't need to do this!" Sylvester slowly tried to get closer to him.
"Haaaa!" Felix continued to stab the crystal. "Everything… lost! Only you… can… kill me!"
Sylvester paused in place. Although Felix spoke those words with a low grunt, he understood them. "Kill you? You know I would never do that."
Bam!
Bam!
Felix finally freed himself and leaped toward Sylvester, his mouth roaring like a wild lion, his enraged red eyes filled with watery substance. "Only you… I'm allowed to die against!"
Clash!—Sylvester created another claw and blocked Felix's sword while continuing to speak. "Be specific, Felix. What are you talking about? Did Niel order you to kill me? Then stop following that order. I've killed Niel already!"
Felix shook his head and continued to strike, changing his stance and finally using some magic. But Sylvester had sparred with Felix so much in the past that he knew almost every move that would come from Felix. Furthermore, his own mastery over combat was in no way lacking.
With ease, Sylvester dispelled Felix's evoked magic and made another attempt to restrain him. "You're just twenty-five, Felix. Your whole future lies ahead of you. Anything they did to you, I can undo it!"
Woosh!
Felix tried to deliver a downward slash at Sylvester's head. "All is lost... fight!"
Yet, Sylvester didn't attack, only defended. "Open your damn mind! Think of Isabella—that girl is still waiting for you! Hoping for your return!"
At the mention of Isabella's name, Felix paused, giving Sylvester an opportunity to continue speaking and closing the gap between them.
Sylvester tightly grasped Felix's chainmail and shook him with a firm grip, locking eyes with him. He felt deeply pained to see Felix so physically damaged, but he had to fix his mind first. "Everything lost can be earned again! You're the last Sandwall. You need to keep your bloodline alive—I built a new megacity for you to rule—take it and be its lord! Be a father! Be a husband—It's a blessing not everyone can have, and that's why you must!"
"Sylvester…" Felix weakly murmured, offering no resistance. His voice remained hoarse as if his throat had suffered damage. "The reeducation… was as much of body as mind… I can't have a family anymore… I can't disobey the Church anymore."
Letting his massive longsword fall to the ground, Felix raised his hands to move his chainmail armor from his chin and lower it to show his neck. A tight, almost choking, metallic tube was surgically infused into his throat, going around his entire neck.
"I'm not a free man… This is the punishment they gave… I'm an eternal holy slave."
Sylvester's hands snapped away from Felix. His eyes fixated on the slave collar. This was different from the ones he had seen. This was too… cruel. A slight hint of guilt rose in Sylvester's heart since the incident at Sandwall was due to his arrogant foresight, not foreseeing the Shadow of Masan's plot. Perhaps Count Sandwall deserved to die, but the eldest son didn't, nor did Felix deserve what happened to him.
On its own, Sylvester's one hand rubbed his eyes while his head hung low. How much did Felix suffer? For how long? It was a lot more than what he received at the hands of the Desert Barbarians. And worst of all, the pain inflicted on Felix came from those with the supposed moral higher ground, the supposed good guys—the Church.
"After a year of reeducation, I was sent here to fight against the heathens." Felix continued to speak with his struggling, strained voice. "I fought for years until the new Pope came. My new orders came—Kill Sylvester Maximilian when found, and I was not to die at the hands of anyone else or take my own life—only you can end this… pain…"
'He has lost the will to live.' Sylvester sensed the emptiness, and it felt haunting. He couldn't raise his face because the weight of shame was heavy. Where he had hoped for perfection, he had failed already.
"You're not dying, not today nor in the next four centuries!" Sylvester declared, without an ounce of doubt, "You die when I tell you to die—and you shall die after reviving your entire bloodline, after giving me a dozen nephews or nieces."
Felix didn't react to Sylvester's attempts to calm the situation. "You cannot decide that, Sylvester. Some things, once broken, can't be fixed… sometimes it's better to let go than waste time trying to put the pieces back together."
Bam!
Sylvester suddenly lunged forward and threw Felix onto the muddy ground, rain still pouring over them. He punched his face, not caring whether it hurt or not; his intention was to make it count. "Yes, I can decide! Your face, I can heal! Your castration, I can reverse—Because I'm the Pope!"
"No, you're not." Felix retorted, throwing a punch of his own into Sylvester's face.
Now, both of them were at the peak rank of their Knightly talents, which was considered inconceivable by the world. Even soft claps from their palms were akin to a village destroying godly punishment. So when the punches landed on Sylvester, he, too, got thrown face down on the muddy ground, dirtying his long blonde hair.
This time Felix got on top and threw another punch. "If you were, your command would have compelled me to stop—yet my orders stand, to kill Sylvester Maximilian! And every moment I waste not fighting yo-you… this collar tightens."
Pa!
Sylvester slapped Felix this time and threw him aside, though Felix didn't take it kindly, and they both brawled on the dirty field like wild bears. None of them used magic or weapons, just plain old punches, slaps, and some hair-pulling, which unfortunately worked in favor of Felix since he had none.
"Not everything can always go your way, Sylvester! You can't predict everything! You can't fix everything! You can't heal everyone! You're not God—you're just another man with a big dream!" Felix gruntled while continuously brawling. "Now that I've met you. Either this collar would kill me or you!—There is no stopping unless you can reach the Holy Land and take the crown in the blink of an eye!"
Sylvester responded to Felix with determination, countering his attacks. At least that meant they were engaging in combat, and the collar wasn't tightening further. "I won't let you die… just let me examine the collar."
Felix continued to struggle. "You can't break it open!"
"What makes you so sure?" Sylvester asked back while pushing Felix down onto a knee-deep puddle, further soaking the man in the mud like he was already.
"Argh!" Felix pushed back. "Because it's abnormal. Reinforced with ancient artifacts of the Church—Unless you can go back in time and learn the Elder language, you can't open it! I've already told you, there's no possible way I can survive this situation! Niel knew what he was doing when giving me the command—death is my destiny."
"..."
Sylvester abruptly stopped moving, and his face turned blank. He simply stared at Felix's pained, scarred face.
Felix also sensed the change and stopped. But the moment he noticed Sylvester's visage, he remembered many instances when he had seen that exact same expression in his lifetime. And it always meant one thing. "No… you didn't…"
Sylvester, covered in watery mud from head to toe, stepped back from Felix and sat down. He scratched his hair awkwardly. "I… I found the hidden temple in the Divine Desert, met the ghost of the first Pope, and learned Elder Language."
"..."
Felix shook his head rapidly and got up slowly. He looked exactly the same as Sylvester, like a swamp monster covered in mud. But instead of sitting, Felix went aside to pick up his sword and slowly walked away. "Sylvester… It was nice seeing you. I accept my death."
"..."
Sylvester, speechless, almost chuckled and allowed his body to fall back into the mud. Of course, he wasn't trivializing Felix's pain and knew very well he hadn't even scratched the surface of what had truly transpired. But he hoped to cheer the man up a little. "Haha… you're an embarrassment of a man… Why didn't you tell me that from the start?"
"You don't just expect someone to have met the first Pope's ghost and learned the ancient language—it's beyond wildest imagination. I… I still feel like you're lying to me…" Felix said, not really leaving but instead stopping beside a tree and sitting down by it, seeking support for his back. He was, after all, in a lot of pain.
Sylvester rushed over. "You should've faced me the night you saved me from that cliff. I could've removed this slave collar then."
"What… cliff?" Felix retorted, his voice slowly diminishing to a hardly audible noise.
Sylvester's brows creased. "The cliff at the edge of the Divider Swamp. A Supreme Wizard-ranked Demon resides there, I nearly died fighting it, but you saved me."
"N-No, I didn't… I never went near that cliff."
"What?!" Sylvester was baffled. "Then who saved me?"
Thank you for reading. Gifts and GT votes are highly appreciated.
