Accepting this quest, there are fewer probabilities on how to find the portal back to Zonax. Portals are made with only one purpose, either as an entrance to Earth or entrance to Zonax. If only we can use the portal I exited last time, then we wouldn't have to take such measures for finding places with no assurance whether it is the right place or not.
Thus, we have no choice, I dragged Traiser to the ships' dock. The journal becomes quite useful again, as it has maps to my advantage. Before leaving Zonax, I had to ask old diablaes about the places where there are possible portals.
Unfortunately, they have no idea as well, however, they advised that places with lingering myths might help me point the portal's direction.
Zonax portal is everywhere, however not scattered everywhere. Rather, portals appear in the less expected focal points, but one thing for sure, they always pick the point where the darkest zui resides.
"Where are we headed to?" Traiser asks, after a long time of silence.
"Palawan," I answered, looking at the island with a red circle on my map.
These past few days where I can't do much about finding the pure soul, I allot my time in finding famous old myths of different places and encircled the islands. To my relief, the journal has few places recorded, so I gathered other places and as well wrote them.
Our first stop is Palawan.
We were able to get a ticket for the 4 AM ship. Few minutes and we will be boarding.
"Traiser!" We quickly turn around to see the owner of that voice. My blood boils when I recognized her. That girl from few meters away, running towards us.
"You! You're a witch! Stop poisoning his mind!" she shouts, pointing at me, as she got near.
I raised my eyebrow. Suppressing my anger. I haven't forgotten what she has done to me.
"Leave, before I do something you'll regret."
"Hah! Try me!"
"Columbane, you should go back" Traiser butts in, holding my arm as if stopping me from doing something.
"No! Traiser, you should stay away from her. She's a monster!" Columbane tries to pull Traiser's arm but he refuses.
"Back off." I speak up, my patience running out.
"What are you going to do, huh?" she pushes my shoulder and something snapped inside me.
I removed Traiser's hand from me and grabs Columbane's arm, twisting it behind her then kicking her legs which made her kneel on the ground.
"AAAHHH! LET GO OF ME, WITCH!" she cries in pain. I trapped her neck around my right arm, taking her breath away until a hand from behind stopped me.
"Enough, please" Traiser begs, his voice cracking.
I immediately let go of Columbane. She falls to the ground, trying to catch her breath. I stared at her emotionless. Traiser kneels down, checking her and asking about her condition. The lass says she's fine then pursues him to get away from me.
I heard what she even whispered. "Did you even heard she's an atheist? She's probably the wicked witch in the famous folklore. Come on, let's run."
Questions and confuse statements spark in my mind. How does that girl know Traiser and I are leaving? Inexact time we would enter the ship? Does she even know what happened to Traiser's parents?
Traiser turns his head in my direction. "Do we need to tell her?" Columbane's eyes begin to dart me with murder intentions. "Tell me what?"
I glare at Traiser as if responding 'no', absolutely not with that hypocrite girl. I close our distance, almost one step away from the fallen greedy cat. "I guess this will do. You're consuming our time, little hypocrite." I said as I pull the potion in my bag, and whisked a memory potion towards her. She fell asleep afterward.
Traiser carried her, placing her comfortably on the chair around the corner. Irritated, I rolled my eyes.
Other passengers are boarding, and so I walk in their direction. Traiser then followed me silently.
We settled down inside the ship. I decided to stay at the ships' deck. There are only a few people within an open area, I love this spot as the temperature drops here.
The sun hasn't risen up, and it's still dark. Traiser sat down few inches away from me.
I closed my eyes, feeling the cold wind on my skin. For the first minutes, no one talked between us.
"Are you asleep?" he asks, breaking the silence between us. I open my eyes and turn my head at him as if asking what he needs.
"I—You said you will explain everything to me" he breathes deeply, not meeting my eyes.
"Then ask me questions. I'll answer them all." I stared at him. I still don't know how to explain the whole thing to him. His brain won't carry the weight upon hearing the whole story.
"My parents. Why—Why me? Why did they have to kill them?" he fires questions at once, his voice is shaking.
"Your parents cared and protected you at their last breath. They won't let the engkantos have you. I've heard that your parents found out that someone is monitoring you. Your whole life. I suppose that's why they know someone is coming to get you." he looks at me, eyes glistening due to protruding tears.
"As what I've said, Bakulaws are servants of deities, and also, they followed the order of Engkanto. Those creatures, the engkantos, are strong and loyal to the deities. I told you before, deities are not as good as what you think. They are the main reason why there's an ongoing feud between the supreme beings; the deities and demons. Driven by their greed for power, they hunt down the pure souls of humans. By the way, that's millennia ago. In this century, you're the only one with pure soul." I explained, breathing deeply.
"Today's century, folklores and legends created a stigma about the horned races. Some say we, demons are evil horned creatures, with sinful desires, while some say, they inhabiting the hell or underworld. The stereotype of humans to think deities banished us. But no, demons are not wicked."
I still find it absurd how they were able to turn the tables against us, demons. And made us seem evil.
"And you?" he softly asked.
"I, Limdi Panah, was tasked to bring you in our world. It's my sole purpose to serve the King."
"You'll offer me to your Lord? I—You said, you'll keep me alive!" he panics, voice rising a bit.
"Have you forgotten what I said earlier? I told you, no! In Zonax, you can live peacefully. Deities can't touch you. No one's gonna hurt you there." I lied, my chest felt heavy.
"Ah-h, right. I t-trust you." he breathes deeply. As if a thousand pin pierced through me, my heart suddenly aches. I just ignore it.
"Why were you chosen to do this task?" his eyes show pure curiosity.
"Every demon has their own purpose. Like some collects energy from humans as a source of the power of our ruler. Some are servants. While my clan has always been the hunter of pure souls. Every single one of them failed and died miserably. I grew up alone. My mom died giving birth to me, and just like other demons from our clan, my father, died searching for pure souls." I smiled bitterly.
My family is known to be Family of One because a single demon will be left until that single produced an offspring. Even though we have a cruel fate, we never fail to serve our ruler.
"At a young age, I was trained for this task. I wasn't allowed to make friends or meet other demons, because I needed to focus on training myself."
Once demons were born, we are already tied down to our fate of serving for the King. We live and die for him
"Accepting this task, I never had any idea if I'll die or succeed."
He, then, cups my hands to hold them. Keeping it warm between his. I stared at our hands for a while then I meet his eyes. He looks at me with warmth in his eyes.
"I'm here now. You found me," he whispers softly, placing his forehead on mine. I smiled genuinely.
With the sunrise behind us, we stayed like that for a moment.
****
The sun's rays woke me up from my sleep. Traiser is leaning his head on my shoulder.
"I trust you"
Traiser's words played on my memory. I feel bad for lying to him. He trusted me although he knew that I am different from him, although demons were viewed as evil. But that's the case. I am a demon, my ruler owns my life. I should always put my task first, before anything else. I should be willing to sacrifice everything.
I have no choice. This is my fate.
If only there was no feud, to begin with. I remember the story of the feud very well.
The feud started with the twin children of both deity and a demon.
One day, the continent stopped its shaking, a land somehow ended up connected to the birthland of deities and demons. An island, to be exact, meet their continent after the earth rumbled.
All of the deities and demons were confused, so much. Without prior common sense, they just thought of another food source come again.
Deities' and demons' lifestyle was peaceful. As both minded their own business, pacing at their own work, and hunting on their own grounds.
Both explored the island.
They then found humans. Strange, they kind of look alike. Similar feet and arms, although they do have differences.
A decent young woman noticed their visitors. She smiled and came to talk. But, only strange faces were the answers. The woman guessed their expressions as confusion.
Since then, humans taught demons and deities academics, work, philosophy, and astronomy. Humans said a god had visited them before they built a civilization. They believed that their ancestors were taught by god.
Upon hearing this belief, the two made their thoughts on being a god to worship.
A byproduct of demon and deity, a twin was born. The female one was a demon and so, the male one was a deity; both lived on the island.
The female one had strong affection towards humans, demons, and deities. Later on, she had wonderful crimson wings that grew in her back. That was a sign of a ruler in the demons' race.
Demons had had their own ruler hierarchy.
Due to an envious drive, her twin brother obsessively follows her routines. Thinking to grow some wings too. Thus, no wings came.
He wanted to pluck his sister's wings and put them in his back. But, his parents found out about his plan, forcing him to leave the island.
He never followed their orders.
Consequently, he found a hidden scroll beneath the last bookshelf in the library. It's the forbidden scroll. The deity was the first to know about humans' souls.
He informed every deity and some demons about humans' souls. From the start, they did not believe him so he's the first to initiate the ritual. He forced a female human. Tied her tight. Shut her mouth and eyes. The other deities circled the ritual, watching him do so.
He rapidly stabbed the woman's chest. Piercing deep down to her ribcage. Ripping out the excess skin and bones, a hindrance on the way of getting the soul, and at last, he found a small round glowing soul. He did not hesitate to devour the soul.
Immediately, his body reacted glowed too much as it hurts the eyes of those who gaze directly. Nothing much changed in his figure, although his height did.
Witnessing a gruesome ritual, the deities did not doubt him anymore. They followed. Massacre of humans' souls was everywhere.
The deities learned nothing! They were still plain stupid creatures who were greed for power.
The whole island had cried and screams echoing. His sister also saw his action as a child. She froze. Could not bear to move an inch. As she just watches her brother killed a child, a child!
Even their parents did nothing.
She soared above. Gazing the massacre, on the ground, all humans lied with a pool of blood and whacked open chest.
She couldn't do anything!
Then, she remembered something.
Something which can help the situation.
She took a knife and held it before her. A loud shriek of her voice banged everyone's ears. "I won't let this happen again. As I take an oath to end these bloody killings, remember brother, we do not end here. I shall bring you down!"
She thrust her knife to her wrist. Bloods dropped to the ground. Afterward, another drip of blood heavily went down. She thrust again, but directly to her heart.
Eventually, demons left Earth.
********************************************
Arriving in Palawan, we found an inn to stay in and rest for a while. Besides, I want to make sure that Traiser is in great condition. I can't risk his health.
"Are you hungry?" I asked, placing my bag in one corner of the inn. He nodded as a response.
"Let's go out and eat first, then we'll buy some clothes for you," I remembered that he doesn't have anything with him because I practically dragged him out of his house.
We walked around the area, a good thing, there are lots of food stalls. As I am not really fond of human foods, I only ate some meat while Traiser bought anything he saw, basically spending out my money. I don't mind though.
Afterward, we went inside a small store, selling shirts and clothes.
"These couple shirts would look good on the both of you." the store owner commented, pointing at the displayed printed white shirts that read 'His' and 'Hers'.
A smile tugged at the corner of Traiser's mouth. He pressed his lips, trying to hide his smile, but I already saw that.
In a moment, my ears, perhaps my horns heated up, however, my horns are invisible and took the form of rounded ears as humans have.
"We'll buy that." Before I even say anything, Traiser already followed the store owner to pay for the shirts.
"Why did you bought it?" I ask once we were outside.
"It looks stupid," I added, pretending to dislike the shirts. Even though I don't know what's stupid about those and the value of simple shirts.
"Then I'll just give the other pair to someone." He walks away towards the group of girls. I rushed towards him. That's my money spent, nevertheless, he'll just practically give that to a stranger.
"I never said that I won't wear it" I grabbed his arms as I faced him, annoyed but he smiled, as he won over me. I would want to say to his face that my money is spent on that.
But, the thought diverted when he pulled me. "Look! Let's buy those" A small store with quirky items. He picked an item, which he said was a 'keychain'. It was a little devil.
"Try these bracelets. They are lucky. As long as you wear them, you won't be separated" the old woman said, handing us the black-beaded bracelets. What a stupid item. I almost rolled my eyes. Do humans really think that their fate would be tied just because of a single bracelet? Yet, Traiser bought them. He wears the bracelet and puts the other one on my wrist. I didn't complain and just let him be.
We went back to our inn, and I let him cleaned himself first. The bathroom was inside the room.
I jump off to the couch, laying myself and finally feeling relaxed.
"AHHHH!" I rushed inside the bedroom when I heard a scream. The deities might have followed us! I push the door open, only to see Traiser hitting something on the wall, maybe killing an insect. I stopped and stare at his shirtless back. He hasn't noticed my presence.
Something caught my eye. He has scars on his back. Then he turned around, shocked to see me.
"Wh—what are you doing here?" he staggers in surprise.
I didn't answer his question, instead, I walked towards him.
"Han-Limdi. What are you doing?"
"You're annoying. Turn around" I told him and he complies.
"The birthmark" I muttered, staring at the marks on his bareback.
"Oh. Uh-I got those since I was born. My mom actually thought they look like constellations." he explained.
"And you got a moon here" I dab my finger at his lower back. Touching it, feels a sudden surge of angst inside of me.
"What? What moon? I never knew that"
"It's almost not visible. But I have keen eyesight."
I smiled when I realized something.
"A mark from birth,
Tells thy worth.
Scars and constellation
The moon in complexion," I recited the clue from the scroll. He seems to keep his mouth shut. Rather, some memories came to him.
"I'll wait outside" I realized probably those words make him remember his parents. I left him alone in the room.
When Traiser went out, he's already wearing the other pair of the couple's shirt. He looks good.
I clean my whole body, even my horns, and then wear the other shirt. In a moment, I had to stare at my reflection in the mirror. Demons and humans have a lot of similarities, except for horns, skin, eyes, and internal organs. Then, my eyes widened as I see my invisibility potions empty.
"The shirt fits you perfectly" Traiser commented when he saw me. "Now that I've seen your horns this close. You have gorgeous horns, and suit you the best." He added.
I smile as my heart can't take sweet compliments. "How about when you see my third eye?" I tease.
To my surprise, he smiles back. He stares at me with a glint of life in his eyes. "I can't wait to see."
I throw a bag he bought to him. He catches it while still smiling at me. Forward, he gently wraps a cloth to my horns as I instructed him to do.
And now, we are headed to Matinloc Shrine.