"Huh..." While enshrouded in darkness, there was no way to know if he was alive or death. His body was static and the voice he was used to hearing was nowhere to be found. It felt like billions of years passed within the darkness when a sudden explosion occurred in the never-ending darkness before two gigantic silhouettes emerged from nothing, one chilling cold and the other blazing hot.
In the real world, Lisa removed his artificial arm and put him to rest on what looked like the room of an old dormitory were the beds and everything else in the room looked really old. Two kids wearing the same white uniform came in with a water bucket and some cloth. If Rick was awake, he would see that both kids had somewhat reptile pupils and green scales on their neck and arms.
Lisa received the water and cloth from the boys and turned to wash Rick's face. His injuries were pretty heavy and his body was as pale as a sheet of paper, even his energy reserves were at minimum. After washing his face, she stopped to stare at the door where somebody was knocking on.
"Miss Lisa, may I enter?" From the blunt voice, she knew it was Cassius and she asked him to enter. By the time he saw the way Lisa acted familiar to Rick, he could not help but ask the question that was bugging him the past few days.
"You know him, right? His real self..."
Lisa sat on the bedside and scratched her neck. From the red eyes and pale expression she must be having little sleep when taking care of Rick. Showing a pale smile, she replied weakly: "We've been friends even before awakening his powers. He may not look the part, but he was one of the best swordsmen I saw in my life. In terms of pure skill, only the commandant could give him a complete defeat and only because of the experience he has."
"If you say so, then you two must have been pretty close."
Sensing the hidden intent in his words, she corrected him. "Don't get me wrong, I was only friendly with him because he was similar to my little brother at first, he should be at school by now. As for the last time I saw him was in the hospital when he lost his arm in an accident...."
"Hey! Dinner is ready, the two of you should come eat first." From outside the room, they heard an old voice calling for them. Leaving Rick resting, they got to the dining table with a dozen other kids. Alone in the room, the heat and the cold felt in the darkness grew immensely to the point that his own clothes started showing signs of burning on the right and freezing on the left. He didn't know what was happening in the real world, but it seems this dream was so powerful that its power started expanding to reality.
Suddenly everything retracted to his body and both his eyes opened. Everything was normal, yet he could feel as if he could summon a hammer greater than heavens with a motion of his hand. He sat on the bed while hiding the horror he felt in his heart. If he felt pressured by Sky before, then now he was not even close to a kid. The gigantic silhouettes were bigger than the whole galaxy, maybe only beings like that could be called real gods.
"Hey Old man, what I just saw was your memories right?"
[Right, though it's our memories not mine. What you just saw you just saw the birth of two ancient enemies of my people. However, you should stop wasting time when the host is between us.]
"Host?" His eyes wavered through the room before stopping at a source of massive purple light. Others could not see, but this light had a similar shape to a human. And just like he thought, that mass of light revealed itself.
"Ha-ha, so you could really notice my presence even in this form." A middle-aged female with extremely smooth skin for her age. Both her eyes were a bit bigger than normal and there was a bit of fur on her hand and the part exposed her neck. The fact she didn't have human years, but the ears of a dog above her head gave away this woman must not be human.
"Welcome to Aatryon, young one. The one in front of you is Lilat, the mother of this place and protector of all demons like me and all other here."
Startled by her words, Rick quickly replied as his eyes widen in shock. "Demon!? Wait, you must have made a mistake, I'm not any demon."
Lilat tried to hold her laugher back when she saw his expression, but she had to explain. "Demon my child, is what we call those like me. Among the humans and beasts, there are a few that were born bearing features of both humans and beasts. Can you see the two siblings over there?"
Followed with his eyes to where Lilat was staring, he saw a pair of brother and sister sleeping under the sheets. However, if you look at the lower side, both of them had the bottom of a snake.
"They're two innocent kids who are the product of frostbite serpents and a human. Demons are hybrids if put in a simple way. You too are a hybrid I see, but in a different way. I noticed it when seeing you running away from the death hazard, with your speed you could have easily escaped yet you chose to bring those two even if you had to pay a heavy price. This is something I rarely see in any human or beast. It was those two children sleeping on the bed that saved you at that time and brought you to me."
Extending her hand over, Rick tried to dodge yet his body would not respond. Pressing her hand against his forehead, all the lightning threads were gone and a single spark was left. Lilat nodded with her head when seeing it.
"So this is how the first Like I thought, it was you that made the Death Hazard lightning burst forth with all that power."
"Death Hazard?" He heard Lilat spoke these two words before and there was only confusion in his head before he realized she was referring to that scary black light.
"Yes, an elemental spirit born in nature. If you leave the superior elemental spirits only the three beast gods have that one is the strongest. A few years ago, strange people came to this side in cooperation with beasts to set a research facility over here. It seems they found a natural spirit of lightning and wanted to find a way to extract its power, they have been tested on numerous people, be it elemental masters, beasts or ordinary humans, all of them lost their minds or died without exception."
'An elemental source of lightning!' The moment he heard it, he really wanted to go back only to slap himself. He knew it was useless to try anything, that light was more powerful than he could hope to touch. It wasn't called Death Hazard if it wasn't scary.