"Waking in the airship, Roderick searched for a medical area and laid the elemental king in one of the beds. There were a few boxes full of pills, injections and stuff. The bed he laid the church's chevalier had a build-in AI system that automatically made the diagnosis of his present state as four thin little arms extended from the bed and started patching his injuries and injecting small nanobots to fix any internal injuries he may have taken at that time.
Before he left, Roderick tied the man's legs and hands and locked the door from the outside before heading to the cockpit. "Let me see... The communications console in over here."
He searched for signals before locking down on a small signal not far away and he sent his voice.
"Sharon, This is Roderick. I'm dropping by to pick you up. We must return to Eden, but leave the ship prepared just in case."
"Copy that."
Sharon had landed the starship not far from the beach, with her on board driving the ship Roderick left the control to her.
He was just about to leave when he heard Sharon's voice,"Captain, are you alright? You seem to have changed since you returned from the death zone."
"I'm fine." He waved with his hands as he left. While leaving, he sighed to himself. "It's more like I'm getting my past back than changing, though."
"Are you sure we are going with that?"(Old Voice)
Hearing the concern in the old voice, Roderick's lips raised in a grin. "I'm fully sure. If we assimilate, with my body's present stare there is no way for us to survive. However, if it is just a gradual assimilation, then maybe I can adapt in time to face that blood monster and leave with my life."
"Well, I'm just a remnant thought and even if we assimilate I don't want to be my old self. The time I lived with you made me want to see a change that in countless millions of years I thought to be impossible."(Old Voice)
"Then it is fine, let's see the elemental king we saved. He should have awakened by now."It had been about an hour since he left the that man resting. When Roderick arrived in the medical area, the chevalier was seated at the corner of the bed, his expression was complex as he reflected on the past events.
There was regret, hatred, and even a tinge of relief in his eyes as he noticed the sound steps coming closer. He saw a blue-haired youth in his early- twenties, he wore an eye-patch that covered his left eye and the church's knight couldn't help but notice one of his arms was missing.
A spark of fire lit in his eyes as he stares forward, Roderick stared back and a second later the former turned away, with several thoughts in his mind. He did just wake up, but it didn't take long for him to understand what must have happened.
With a melancholic gaze, he asked Roderick while already expecting the answer, "Are they all dead?"
"Yes, and you were about to die too when I brought you back."
"I see, you are the blue lightning I heard about... Jupiter. I don't know what they must have told you, and I don't even care."
Roderick nodded as he stepped closer. "I believe all of that was the majority of the church's forces, right? While I'm certain there must be other experts alive elsewhere, we can say your faction is done for. However, what I want to know is what is that thing you and your men awakened in that place. That gemstone, the blood lake and the following events all make me think you must've known more than me."
A blue light shone behind the cloth covering his left eye.
"Alright, it's not like I care about the church so I will tell you a secret. A thousand years ago, this world was at the brink of extrusion brought by the human rare, and maybe by a sort of destiny the world itself caused the evolution of its animals and turned them against us."
When the fiery-eyed chevalier arrived at this point, all he could do was to nod with his head. Roderick had heard and found proof that confirm what he said.
"This entire planet is not as we thought it to be, all this while it had intelligence and while helping the beasts evolve, the planet granted intellect and wisdom to the beasts who reached the same level of a human in a few months. However, this world's consciousness who lacked in understanding didn't think that the new overlords of this world, the elemental beasts would accumulate greed and start to form their own factions and countries. The humans who should have been die turned into slaves and served the beasts for hundreds of eyes until the present days while protecting and helping this world grow."
"Yet, as they enjoyed power and high-standing, the higher-rank beasts started to believe this world's intelligence some would call it Gaia, mother nature, earth and several other names. Some of the beast who liked having all the power were thinking of this "intelligence" was more of a threat than the humans themselves. As for the beast church, we are the descendants of those human slaves. We didn't receive the elemental serum to gain our powers."
Raising his hand, he plucked his two eyes, which left easily as he showed it to Roderick. "Instead of that, those countries transplanted beast parts into humans. Mine is the eyes of a Fiery-eyed Beast, we've also been granted with elemental spirits to increase our power. Of course, there are those from Eden who joined us later, but in our country, Kogh Toruhm, me and all others were nothing but slaves. It is just that those countries remained hidden for centuries."
When saying this, he inserted the eyes back into its socket. "I infiltrated Eden for a few eyes and I must say I enjoyed my life there. But the Beast Countries are bigger than you can ever imagine, even kings are nothing in there. As for that gem, it is the planet's concentrated power. Being targeted by all sides, it chooses to use all its remaining power to condense that gem, we came here hidden to take their power so we could use it to face the countries and beast gods."
Roderick was shocked as he heard all of that. Even he found hard to believe in what he just heard. So there were whole countries full of beasts on the levels of Kings and above.
"I think I understand now. You came here to find a way to fight back, but it was too powerful for any of you. Yet there is one thing I want to know, how big is those countries? And how many there are?"
"There are eight countries I know of. Above the elemental king are the saints, and above it are the gods. Even the country, I came from like most of them has no gods, only saints."
"The Beast Gods you heard in Eden are the real deal, but each has their own countries and rarely interfere with anything. And the countries they came from are called the three Grand Kingdoms. The water god who rules of the underwater kingdom of Tresian."
With this answer, Roderick felt better. So most countries only have saints, and if most of that is only on that level of the beast church's grand elder than it is not that bad, but it also made him view the beast gods in a whole new light as well as it made him realize how insignificant humanity truly was.
But again, if the beast god were so powerful then it made sense they would have a similarly powerful force behind them. Even if the saint, he saw there and all the experts of the church were really nothing in a country ruled by beasts.
However, he still felt as if something wasn't right. There was several inconsistencies in some of the information he was told just now, and it didn't match what Roderick already knew. One of them was the primal children, from what he saw any one them was astonished powerful to the point he thought even the three beast gods would be facing a strong foe. It was clear to him that this man wasn't telling everything.
As for the second thing, it was about Artemis and his identity. From what he heard, his dad brought back two children that day, one which was the child that a priest of the Church entrusted to the two of them, the other was a baby who mysteriously fell from the sky covered in light and saved them from king-level elemental beasts.