The house where Damien lived with his parents was called the Golden Dragon Pristine Manor.
It was quite a grand name for a mere residential building in a newly established County, but those who knew Arnard and Vivia understood why they named it as such.
Arnard's draconian form was that of a golden dragon, while Vivia was a female siren that was obsessed with white.
The way she dressed year-round reflected it and showcased that white was her favorite color. Basically, their house was named after them.
The Golden Dragon Pristine Manor was positioned at the northern edge of Baldwin County, and there was a mountain behind it.
The mountain was considerably more unique than other magical mountains as it looked like a spear protruding from the ground and thrusting into the sky from afar.
It also had a name.
Silver Star. That's what it was called by the locals.
This name wasn't given to it mindlessly.
It was named as such because it would shine dazzlingly under the sun and the moon whenever sunlight and moonlight struck it.
"Do you have any idea where he could be?" Badulf asked.
"I know." Vivia took flight and shot toward a certain direction like a streak of lightning across the sky. "Follow me."
Arnard Leglaz Orlando Baldwin and Badulf followed her.
"Silver Star?"
The two brothers quickly realized where they were headed. A sharp glint flashed in Arnard's eyes as he realized why Vivia believed that Damien was there. It was the only place where he could be today.
"You sure he is there?" Badulf raised his eyebrows at her as he questioned her.
"Today is Sisi's death anniversary." Vivia glanced at him. "Where else would he be if not beside her?"
It took a while, but Damien eventually accepted that Sisi had died. They were childhood sweethearts. Even though the crimson mage had taken Sisi for her meal, eaten her whole in one gulp, plastered her skin on her old, saggy, and haggard body to fool Damien for months, and when she died, even Sisi's skin turned to dust, and nothing of Sisi's body was left to be buried, Damien still made a gravestone for her in the place where she wanted to live with him after growing up.
That place was a rose garden, which was at Silver Star's base. A rose garden couldn't possibly exist next to a freezing mountain unless magic was involved. The freezing chills failed to squeeze the life out of it because of Silver Star.
To be more specific, the rose garden's existence was supported by the magic seeping out of the magical mountain draped in snow.
The rose garden was a private property of Damien's family and guarded by mages and knights.
When they were young, they would come out here to play quite often.
Most of their precious memories were built there.
Damien, who had four years of his memories wiped out by the rebels and had trouble coping with his reality, found peace in her presence.
Sisi, officially known as Cecilia, too, found relief from the painful and haunting memory of her father killing her mother before getting killed by a wandering knight whenever she was with him.
Uncondionatally and unconditionally, two young souls who were broken down by the cruel reality healed each other's souls in the rose garden.
After becoming close to each other, they revealed their dreams.
Sisi's dream was to build a house in the center of the rose garden and live there with him. To make her dream come true, she aimed to become a successful merchant and raise enough capital to purchase this land from her guardian, Vivia.
Meanwhile, Damien's dream was to capture all the rebels and put an end to turbulent times.
Actually, even before the memory wipeout, he wanted to bring peace to the world so that no child would have to grow up worrying about whether his father would return from war or not.
The rose garden was also the place where they kissed for the first time and exchanged the vow to marry each other after growing up.
Because of various reasons, Damien made her gravestone in the center of the rose garden.
Every year, on her death anniversary, Damien would go to the rose garden and sit opposite her gravestone and speak about his experiences throughout the year as if he was talking to her.
He would spend an entire day there and would return home to train only after sunrise.
And... today was her death anniversary.
They had returned home a while after visiting Sisi's gravestone with Damien. But they left him behind so that he could have some time with her alone. Who would have thought that the evil forces of the world would take advantage of this fact?
"Besides, I have used my divine powers to confirm it. He is next to her tombstone. I am sure of it." Vivia added confidentially.
"Is that the kid who the Crimson mages plotted against to get close to Damien?" Badulf asked as his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"Yeah," Arnard replied to his brother.
Badulf was Cecilia's godfather in name only. Vivia and Arnard were her guardians. However, they failed to actually help her even once before she got plotted against and died at the hands of the Crimson mages.
"Damn. She was too young to go through all that."
Badulf became her godfather to help her become a citizen of the County without going through troublesome legal procedures.
What her family went through was too tragic and had left a deep impression on his mind.
According to the records, Cecilia's father, Joseph, went mad and killed his wife before he attacked his only daughter with ill intentions.
His eyes were red, and the only thing he wanted to do was commit primal sins as he pressed her down.
A wandering knight that happened to be passing by their small home heard Cecilia's cry for help and burst into the house, kicking him off of her before he could do anything evil to her.
Joseph was like a man who had given in to his instinct when the wandering knight came across him.
Joseph roared like a beast and pounced on him.
Sling*
Seeing that he was exhibiting all signs of a chaotic being, the wandering knight mercilessly unsheathed his sword and cut him down in one stroke.
Joseph was killed in the name of justice by the wandering knight before he could harm his daughter.
Surprisingly, when his body was inspected, they did not find any sign of him being kissed by Chaos. Only a tiny seed was recovered. It was black and smelled foul. It dissolved into a small puddle of blood when it came into contact with a drop of water. Except for that, nothing special was discovered it.
The case was dismissed shortly after. There wasn't much manpower, to begin with, and cases were piling up. They couldn't afford to sit and wait to crack this case when all evidence pointed to something simple.
(One day, Joseph, who was known for having a gentle temperament, snapped for no reason and killed his wife. He tried to harm his daughter but was executed on the spot by a wandering knight who believed he had fallen to the temptation of Chaos. Cecilia, who was too young to take care of herself and had no relative that expressed any intention to look after her, was allowed to become a citizen of Baldwin County by Badulf, where the good friends of her parents started taking care of her. The end!)
The case was closed as such.
"It told me that it was behind that incident, too."
During the fight, Chaos revealed many secrets to her in order to push Vivia deeper into the abyss of despair and anger her so much that her judgment would be clouded, which in turn would make it easier for it to deal with her,
That's how she knew that it had plotted against her friend and her friend's husband and was responsible for their death and that it led them by the nose and pushed her son and her friend's daughter closer to each other.
After Badulf heard her, a thought popped into his mind.
'That mysterious seed that was discovered from Joseph's body might be Chaos's new tool to corrupt people.'
"It was behind everything Damien had to go through so far," Vivia revealed everything she had heard from Chaos to the two brothers as they flew toward Silver Star.
Arnard felt angry, finding out that his son's life was carefully constructed by none other than Chaos. He gnashed his teeth, cursing, "That bastard! I want to fucking kill him."
But he knew he wasn't powerful enough to defeat it.
Chaos's home was the nether. It was one of the small worlds in the Far West Major Realm.
No one knew where its entrance was, but there had been several records of people entering it.
The environment there was too harsh, and it was totally under Chaos's control.
Even a Realm Lord like Arnard would only be committing suicide if he went there to fight it.
"Do that later. Chaos has already pushed him deep into despair. Its next move would be to act as his savior and confuse him into accepting its gift."
Badulf was too familiar with Chaos.
When he was in the army, there were countless cases of desperate soldiers falling to Chaos's temptations and going berserk.
He had to personally kill a few of his friends because traumatized by the cruelty of war, they accepted its kiss in confusion and lost their sanity.
"We need to put our heads together to stop it from corrupting Damien. If he is angered so much that the nine draconian seals sealing his innate strength shatter or Chaos corrupt him, I hope you won't stop me from doing what is needed to be done." Badulf said in a cold voice before he bit his tongue mercilessly. The blood that was drawn as a result was used to power him up, and he flew at a far faster speed faster than before and left them eating his dust.
"He doesn't really mean it, does he?" Vivia said as she looked at Arnard.
"He is serious." Arnard's face was cold like an iceberg as he said, "He will kill Damien if he is left with no choice."
Damien was born with the strength to kill Gods, literally, but this power was like poison to him and was breaking down his body when he was born.
If his body had shattered, that power would have wiped out the entire Baldwin County, where he was born, in an instant.
Even Realm Lords like Badulf and Arnard would not have survived the outburst of Damien's innate power.
To save him and stop his body from shattering, they implanted the nine draconian seals into his body.
It was their family heirloom, a special-grade runic item.
Its effect was quite simple. It broke Damien's innate god-slaying power into nine parts and sealed them inside of themselves.
However, when he was inspected after the kidnapping to see if there was something wrong with him, it was discovered that cracks had appeared on the nine draconian seals.
It was then discovered that the godly powers, although sealed, had somehow established a special connection with him.
They would react violently when he was emotionally unstable.
"Badulf is afraid that Damien wouldn't be able to handle what Chaos is going to throw at him. You know what he is like." Arnard said.
Damien was like a nuke. Vivia knew that if he emotionally destabilized too much, only death awaited him and the people around him.
Arnard continued, "If the nine draconian seal shatters, the nine pieces of his godly powers would rush out and destroy his surroundings, including the entire county, killing hundreds of thousands of people. I bet he doesn't want that and would like it if Badulf uses the reality-severing sword to kill him. And even if that doesn't happen, but Chaos succeeds in corrupting him, it would gain a formidable weapon, and that will pit us against our son and him against his nephew. Both are worst case scenarios. He knows he needs to stop that for the greater good, and he is willing to sacrifice himself to do it."
"Why are you speaking like you are fine with it?"
Vivia's devastated expression and pained voice were like sharp swords stabbing into his heart, but his expression didn't ease up.
"I am not, and you know it." Arnard's face remained hardened, and his will didn't waver. "But we don't have any other choice here."
His voice, however, did crack, and tears sneaked up to his reddened eyes.
The thought of losing a son was painful enough. But he wouldn't be losing a son but also a brother if even one of the worst-case scenarios became real.
Vivia was silent after hearing what he said.
The reality-severing sword was Badulf's class weapon and had the power to cut into reality and erase what was real. To remove a part of reality, it uses its wielder life in exchange.
He could remove a living and breathing person and erase everything about them from reality by cutting them using the reality-severing sword.
Everything about them would be erased once they were cut down by this sword.
But the amount of his life he gives up corresponds to the strength of his enemy.
If he kills Damien using his class weapon, he, too, will die.
The tears didn't fall and remained glued to Arnard's eyes.
Now wasn't the time to cry!
....
Author here:-
Adding a lot more stuff to clear some misunderstandings and fill some plotholes.
