Back in the broken city of Amalgamation, Mane was entertaining the people with his unreal power. Many of the workers were working no more. For all were intrigued by the Supreme's amazing ability and unbelievable control over the elements. For once Mane received his assignment, the power of Elemental Telekinesis was put on full display. Like a seasoned weaver Mane moved his arms around and intricately dictated the paths of every earth granule in his presence. And they obliged his call. Every single person, from young to old and old to even older, marveled at what they saw and were amazed by the power of the young Supreme.
Mane floated freely in the air. With his mastery of wind, he didn't have to put much effort into achieving weightlessness. As he breezed past, every single grain of sand and piece of broken earth – every single slab – he dislodged in his battle with Shiva was uprooted and put back into place. Mane could feel his energy through the stones and the winds. He could sense the primitive forces of Chaos and the powerful Edict only he could command. Before, when he stood atop the tower and watched the affairs below like the god he was, he wondered why the Elementals weren't using their full power to heal the land. A few hundred good Earth Elementals was all they needed, and the earth would be molded back into shape. But they opted to take out every stone that had been misplaced one after the other – a much slower method – and then fix the mess. But then the young Supreme felt the energy lodged into the earth, he realized why they couldn't just go ahead and heal the land. His energy was of a much higher grade than theirs – for it was of the Void – so they couldn't undo what he had done.
Mane moved swiftly. Every path he took was mended with nothing but a thought. Buildings that had been forced into the earth were uprooted by his telekinetic control over the elements. Every damaged and broken building was held above the head of the Supreme with an invisible hand, and all who saw it wondered what his limit was.
"This is taxing," Mane took a short breath as he pulled out yet another building and lifted it over his head.
"What else did you expect?" Hildegarde was flying right next to the Supreme, and though she hid it quite well every few seconds her amazement at her Tested's impressive strength escaped her eyes.
"Elemental Telekinesis is a powerful tool," the little fairy added.
Elemental Telekinesis was not an easy power to control, and though he looked okay now, his power was taking much from him. The only thing that had sustained him this long and helped push past the confines of Elemental Telekinesis's cool down was Devour. The gift from the Selfish Titan King kept revolving like a thirsty piranha and refused to allow the Supreme run dry. Every time Mane came into contact with his energy, Devour refined it and returned it to him as fuel. So Mane wasn't actually relying on his own reserves of Edict, he was relying on Amalgamation's.
"But that doesn't interest me as much as that," Hildegarde added whilst pointing to the small corner of Mane's minimized Status Window. For the Window had Mane's Progress Bar fully displayed and though Mane had completed the Mane objective of his stay in this world, the bar was stuck at 90%.
"In all my years as a Guide to the Tested, never once have I witnessed such a thing. Never has a Tested completed his or her main objective and remained on their testing grounds. Or does it have something to do with the difficulty level?" Hildegarde wondered, ending her monologue with a question.
"Who knows?" Mane shrugged helplessly and said.
"We would find out why mine differs from the others later I guess," the young Supreme added, mending another crack while he was at it. It seemed he had no clue why he still remained here when he had completed the main mission. Yet the dim light that flashed across his pupils after he gave his reply suggested that there was something the young Supreme was holding on to; something that could explain this strange phenomenon.
"He really is the boy who killed a god."
"That's the Savior of Amalgamation right there."
"Only Amalgamation? He saved the entire world!"
"What an honor it is to watch the God Killer at work"
Although Mane was working to put the city he destroyed back into shape, his ears were very much functional. And with his heightened senses, even a whisper failed to escape his sticky paws. The young Supreme many have given himself too much to do by controlling several large fragments of earth at once, but he could still pay his surrounding a little bit of his attention. And that was exactly what he did.
Once he heard their words a small frown made its way to his face. He had destroyed the entire world, yet the people hailed him as its savior. He was expecting to be ostracized, yet what he received was adoration and worship. There was something wrong. He was not the boy who saved the world; he was not the boy who put it back together; and he was definitely not the boy who killed a god.
He was the boy who wrecked the world and sought to put what he destroyed back together!
He was the godwho killed a fellow god who sought his head and his power!
He was no savior; he was Chaos itself!
"Lam, why do the people worship me?" Mane locked on to Lam and asked for answers. There was no way all this was normal. Not only did the people know that Mane had fought a god – information that they were not meant to know – they thought he was some sort of defender. Clearly someone had manipulated their emotions.
Lam who was down below sighed when he heard Mane's voice ringing in his ears. This was one of the reasons why Lam didn't want Mane down here. Eventually his friend was going to find out that his image was far from what it was actually supposed to be. But Lam had hoped that he wouldn't have been the one to give the explanation.
"Lam," Mane insisted and the Prince of Elementals confessed.
"Grandpa Pier thought it wise to hold onto some of the details of the battle," Lam answered simply, yet it was enough for Mane to understand exactly what happened.
"How much do they know?" Mane pressed. He was not asking this question concerning his privacy. He worried for one thing and one thing only.
"They know about Pazuzu as well. Letting them know that there was a threat only you could curb was instrumental to the plan."
Politics!
That was all it was. Ancestor Specter was now in full control of Amalgamation. He and the other Ancestors hadn't had the greatest of starts. For hardly an hour after their rise to power their city was destroyed. They needed to manipulate the motions of the people into believing that it was a blessing that the city was destroyed; that the few who died had died as witnesses to a time more amazing than anything they could ever hope to see. What better way was there to do this than to lift up a new hero. And what better way to elevate the status of a hero than to announce the birth of a new threat only that hero could curtail?!
"Whose idea was it?" Mane asked. He was not comfortable with lying, but he was no naïve child. There were some things that had to be done for the sake of the bigger picture. But the answer stunned Mane. For the one who had birthed this plan was the last person Mane had expected to do such a thing.
"Mine"