"Be free, Darkness!"
The moment when the hammer hit the shadow, all the black shadow threads shattered before revealing a frail old man who fell on his arms.
"This!" The beasts under the earth beast god slowly from the sea and stood there in midair staring at the crimson figure as the sun had just begun to rise behind his back, making the entire scene when he smashed that Humanoid shadow a lot more dramatic.
"I knew it!" The Wolf King howled out loud as he gave a tap on Thor's shoulder with his paw. "There is no way a friend this king choose himself is ordinary. Well done boy!"
Seeing the Wolf King be the first to step forward to congratulate him, the other beasts stared at each other before following right after.
"Brother Wolf King, you guys..." Seeing the wolf king, the Bear King and others all smiling at him without any prejudice behind their gazes made Roderick, who already returned to his normal state feel a bit cautious, even to the point of preparing to escape at anything if the beasts tried to attack him.
"There is no reason to be afraid. I've long guessed since you showed that transformation ability to me back then and when that armored figure invaded the ceremony. Not just me, the other Noble Clans also suspected you for a long time, we just decided to wait and see what type of person are you." For beasts, background, past and race didn't make any difference, only true strength could gain their respect. And what Roderick did by defeating that humanoid shadow was enough for them so see he was more than strong enough.
At this point, the beasts weren't also that much scared as they had enough time to think about what happened and could guess the Beast Gods were still alive and just stuck somewhere out there.
"Sir! Can you give us a moment of your time." It was at this moment that the forces under the Flame God slowly walked towards this side of the sea.
Leading them was the Saint Beast, the huge tree Isaia. His large face inspected Roderick up close, the latter's claws, vertical pupils had all turned back to normal making him look exactly like any other human.
"I'm Isaia, the commander of the 25th Legion of the Sun Empire, and the head of research elemental powers and studies of species. Can we have a moment alone?"
"..." Roderick was silent. Since activating his third ability for the first time he felt something really changed inside him like a faint connection between him and all living beings with blood flowing in their veins. It was also because of it that he could slightly feel the thoughts of that beast in front of him and knew it won't do anything against him.
His eyes then turned to the Wolf King, who was the closest to him and the saints, he was about to say something when those beasts seemed to have understood something and slowly drew back, Isaia also made a gesture to his people who followed behind the Earth God beasts leaving only the two who landed on a small beach close to the main continent.
"Sir, there is something I can't stop thinking about and I must bring myself to ask. In my days I had read many books about humans and the way their bodies work, so I know that those who call themselves Elemental Masters aren't true human because of the serum injected into the bodies of their ancestors which changed them into something else. However, from what I know other than the Primal Children who were directly injected with special serums made from Divergent Beasts, there is no other human with powers outside the four basic elements wind, water, fire and earth."
"Is you a human? One of the primal children like those guys, or maybe something completely different?" Hearing Isaia question him, Roderick was in deep thought. Isaia also went silent, he knew that after what he just saw that he had no right to question the man in front of him, however, the beast inside him still felt afraid that this man would turn against his kin with the power he just showed.
Of course, Isaia noticed the reason he could raise his power so much had something to do with the beasts beside him and the strange connection that emerged between him and the beasts, but it still made him scared that he could unite with the humans.
"Hehe, now this is funny because even I don't know anymore." Roderick replied with a strange look on his face.
"What?" Isaia didn't understand what he meant by these words.
"I mean, it is true that I lived a few years as a human, yet, before then I have lived as many other things. Right now, I'm just a lost child trying to understand what I became. To you, I'm not that different from those who came from the stars, an extraterrestrial creature." When he reaching this point, he raised his hand and slashed at his own chest, splitting it open and revealing the interior of his body.
What Isaia saw wasn't what he expected like blood, organs, muscles and bones, the man before him didn't have bones, muscles or even a heart, his entire body was made of blood and only a single blood red jewel seemed to exist instead of his heart.
In a few moments, his body seemed to be able to repair itself without any problems and soon he was standing there like nothing happened.
"A being from the outside world, Alien!" Isaia seemed to be struck by hundreds of lightning bolts at the same time. He had searched the remains of the human race and discovered many heaven-defying creations, some of them seemed to have been called movies and he a member of the older generation of beasts he saw the humans had a way to record so many things about their history.
He had seen some of the recordings about a world called Pandora and how the human race invaded it in in search of a special type of ore, but the main species living there, a group of tall, blue-skinned people weren't that weak and they had creatures similar to beasts to help them in battles.
He also seemed to remember the many invasions humanity had suffered from these beings that came from space.
While Isaia was stuck in the crazy thoughts in his mind, Roderick seemed to notice the frail figure in his arms start to recover.
"I need to take care of this first, we shall meet later when both Beast Gods return." Leaving those words, Roderick left.