[???]
(???)
"How is the Lord?" Plutarch sits on a fine leather chair, sharpening a knife.
"Worse than we expected…" Angelica crosses her arms. The two are in the room is completely dark, without much as a candle to let light into the room. Thus, she can only guess that the scraping sounds are the sharpening of a knife. "He has already rejected the implanted memories. Maybe we should have listened to him when he said it wouldn't work," Angelica continues.
"Hmph. Who is worse off? It was you who designed the fake memories that we implanted in him. I'm guessing that your…ah…prefences? I guess you can call them that… I'm assuming that your prefences leaked into the final product? You must have put a lot of work into making them," Upon these words, Angelica quietly clears her throat. She knows that Plutarch, being the Demon that he is, probably heard it. He chuckles a little bit. "I doubt he has fully rejected them. His psyche cannot function without a set of memories matching each and every day of his life."
"How do you know this?"
"I have looked into his soul. Back in his old world, he may not experience the withdraw of losing memories as harshly as he has experienced now, but now that his soul has been bound to the arcana via mine, his psyche has solidified into an arcane consciousness. That means that his conscious and unconscious thoughts and blended together. He cannot function as long as he does not have memories fitting to every single moment of his existence," A shuffling noise seems to follow Plutarch shrugging his shoulders.
"So then…?"
"He will never truly discard those memories. He might doubt them, but will never outright reject and forget them. Until that is, his true memories are returned to him.
"How is the lord?" Plutarch sits on a fine leather chair, sharpening a knife.
"Worse than we expected…" Angelica crosses her arms. The two are in the room is completely dark, without much as a candle to let light into the room. Thus, she can only guess that the scraping sounds are the sharpening of a knife. "He has already rejected the implanted memories. Maybe we should have listened to him when he said it wouldn't work," Angelica continues.
"Hmph. Who is worse off? It was you who designed the fake memories that we implanted in him. I'm guessing that your…ah…prefences? I guess you can call them that… I'm assuming that your prefences leaked into the final product? You must have put a lot of work into making them," Upon these words, Angelica quietly clears her throat. She knows that Plutarch, being the Demon that he is, probably heard it. He chuckles a little bit. "I doubt he has fully rejected them. His psyche cannot function without a set of memories matching each and every day of his life."
"How do you know this?"
"I have looked into his soul. Back in his old world, he may not experience the withdraw of losing memories as harshly as he has experienced now, but now that his soul has been bound to the arcana via mine, his psyche has solidified into an arcane consciousness. That means that his conscious and unconscious thoughts and blended together. He cannot function as long as he does not have memories fitting to every single moment of his existence," A shuffling noise seems to follow Plutarch shrugging his shoulders.
"So then…?"
"He will never truly discard those memories. He might doubt them, but will never outright reject and forget them. Until that is, his true memories are returned to him,"
"So the plan isn't in jeopardy because of my decision?"
"I doubt any plan would ever be in jeopardy because of your decisions,"
"Am I that bad at thinking up ideas?
"No… Well, I shall refrain from telling you the full detail since the Lord has told me not to, but he isn't as oblivious in romance as you think he is. He has not failed to notice your advances into his heart or inner circle," He seems to have stopped to scratch his chin. "Well, I guess you were always in his inner circle," He mutters.
"That still doesn't tell me anything but further my embarrassment," Angelica angrily interjects, her face starting to burn up. Plutarch simply laughs.
"Right right, lets turn on the bloody lights," Plutarch coughs up amid his laughter. After taking a minute to calm himself down, he claps his hands. All around the pitch-black room, floating lights apparate. Their brilliant white shine floods the room, burning Angelica's eyes. Sitting in front of her is a tall man, with a brilliantly kept three-piece suit and a head of tar-like hair. Similar to Daniel, his eyes are abyssal black, beckoning all who stare into the to fall down the same path that he did. He is fiddling around with a knife in his left hand and holding a piece of steel in the other.
"I don't understand why you are laughing," Angelica bits her lip, annoyed.
"I swore it to secrecy. I will not be sharing my Lord's inner thoughts. But do know this: He is waiting for your move. You cannot wait for him to advance, as he has much more things to worry about. He needs you to make the first move. I think you understand?"
"Yeah…" Angelica sighs. "Man, we got extremely off topic. What did you call me here for?"
"Ah, yes. This wasn't just a meeting for a casual chat, was it? Before the operation started, my Lord gave me an order. Within that order, there was a section that changed around the guards for Type 1 sites. If you are heading towards one, there is an extremely likely chance that its guardian has changed. So I was wondering if you guys are headed towards a Type 1 site,"
"Ah… That's why Walter was in Grahm. I was wondering why he was on the other side of the country. We shouldn't be heading towards a Type 1?"
"Where are you guys headed?"
"Castle of Black Death,"
"Ah- That's not good…"
"Wait, what do you mean by not good!"
"The Fortress got promoted to Type 1 about six months ago. And the worse part is, it was originally supposed to be protected by Alucard, but it's been changed. I'm not sure what importance it has to my lord, but he put Argus in charge of it," A silence spreads throughout the room. Angelica stares into the black abyss that is Plutarch's eyes, hoping, wishing, that what he just said was a joke.
"No, that's wasn't a jest. Argus, Father of Monsters, the Thousand Eyed one, Black Beast of Oblivion, and whatever titles that he has been known by, is guarding the Fortress of Black Death. I highly suggest you prepare something to convince whoever's idea it is to go there,"
"It was the lord's idea,"
"Then prepare to die…"
[Fortress of Black Death, ???, Dalycon Union of Duchies]
(???, Black Sea Moon (VII), 644 ASY)
What does Argus look like? Why is he so dangerous? Such questions are folly. If you are contemplating fighting that abomination, then you have already died. That is what Argus has been told as the reason why nobody other than his master and Plutarch ever visits him. He shakes his head. Even after shrinking his body down from a kilometer to around ninety-ish meters, he still can't move around too much. To his left is the sprawling walls of 'Fortress of Black Death' that he is protecting. He stands up to the full height that his current form allows. If you were able to observe his full body, you would see a massive being ninety or so meters in length, and forty or so meters tall. Its shape is similar to an earth drakon, with four thick legs supporting a large body, a short neck holding a large head, and a long yet thick tail. Of course, it is wingless. What is different from an earth drakon, other than the size of his body, is the number of spikes that his body has. A sheet of massive spike covers nearly every corner of his body, with the largest on his neck, back, and shoulder. What is even more strange is the tar-black color of his skin and the number of eyes. Oh, the eys. Every free space that isn't covered by spikes has a massive, glowing, crimson eye the size of a small car. If you count them all, there are around two thousand of them covering every corner of the beast. He is immensely powerful, to the point that they could not use him in battle for fear of destroying the very land they were trying to conquer. He didn't mind, it gave him more time to spend with his master. He could still remember the fateful day that they met...
A very small Argus, no bigger than a small dog, looks up with his two main eyes at the people who have cornered him. One is a Fallen Angel and the other...a human? A Demonic Human? He is instinctively drawn towards the two of them. Even though he was six years old, he has never tasted the food that his species, The Mother of all Beasts, craved the most. Thoughts deemed evil by the gods are the food that feeds them. Unfortunately, the people of this area are bent on killing him, which to the gods is an extremely holy task. Thus, he has not gotten the food he needed to grow. Oddly enough, these two people aren't looking at him with disgust and anger, but rather awe and...confusion?
"Hey Plutarch?" The human speaks to the Fallen Angel.
"Yes, master?" Plutarch responds.
"What is that?" 'Master' responds.
"I believe it is a 'Mother of all Beasts,'"
"A bit small to be known as such a fierce name, isn't it. Don't tell me it can kill me immediatly," 'Master' says while going to pick up Argus. Argus knows that he should run, but he half doesn't want to and half can't, and so he lets himself be picked up by the human. He holds him in his arms, probably ignoring the pain that his spikes are causing him. At this moment, he has felt something that he has never felt before. Love. Care. A sense of true worth. He knew from this moment that he serve this man. Granted, and he did not know this at the time, he had already started to feed off the massive unholy energy coming off of the human, and the human had so much that a growing Mother of all Beasts feeding on it didn't even matter to him.
"No, but I still don't think you should pick him up…" Plutarch warns as 'Master' rubs the top of Argus' head.
"How powerful is it?" the Human asks.
"Wait, master, please put her down first!" Plutarch seeming gets worried when Argus lifts his head to look at the Human.
"Him," the human calmly states.
"What?"
"It's a male. I don't know why, but it wants me care for it,"
"Are you out of your mind, master!" Plutarch yells, moving to blast Argus out of the human's hands. But as he does…
"Plutarch, stop," A stern yet quiet order freezes Plutarch in place. "Look into his soul. Tell me what you find,"
"Ah-Ah yes, I will do so," Plutarch puts his palm onto Argus' back, wincing at the slight pain of the spikes. "Ah, I see…"
"What do you see?"
"This is indeed a male, and, even though it is the same race as some of the most ancient and powerful beings in this world, it is in an infant state where it can become attached to people that raise it. How do you know this, master?"
"I see that you've seen through my first excuse… I cannot tell you why I have this information but do know that there are other beings out there, ones that could challenge the gods but choose not to. Now, come. Let us take this little beast back home, we can do with a 'Mother of all Beasts' or rather |Father of all Beasts|"
Argus got his name later. He was raised by the human who he found out later was called |Xacont of Cordata| and was Plutarch's master. Perhaps it is because of the fact that Xacont's wish of killing the gods is the most unholy of them all, but Argus grew in four years what other 'Mother of all Beasts' grew in thousands of years, surpassing even the legendary |Dark Beast of the Black Forest| in size and power. He has become so powerful that the world itself has granted his soul the title |Father of all Beasts|. He knows that his life is owed to Xacont, his master. He knows that he has not repaid his life debt to him. Thus, he has decided. So long as |Argus, Father of all Beasts| is alive, the being known as |Xacont of Cordata| will not die. He will ensure that whether it is facing down the gods themselves or swimming to the bottom of the Death's Valley to retrieve his soul, but so long as he lives, Xacont will not die.