Akila awoke with the smell of smoke filling her nostrils, the dreary scene of the forest made her forget her concussion. She hurriedly got to her feet albeit regretting it almost immediately as she soon fell to one knee. Clearly the drawbacks from too much runic discharge had yet to die down.
Looking around her, she spotted the other members of the order also slowly regaining their bearings.
"Where is Asake?" She asked after doing a head count and noticing the missing 'head'
"Urgh!, Last I saw he was doing the legacy thing against Dregbane, but everything afterwards is a bit hazy" Rengen said while scratching his head
"Is that Arthur?" Ember said after sighting a burnt corpse on the ground, following which they all rushed to where the charred body now laid
"It is!" Akila sobbed dripping to the floor with tears streaming down her eyes
"He is still alive, for now" Sinbad reassured "let's pray that what ever did this isn't above my medical knowledge
Unknow to them, Arthur was about to meet the very person who did it to him. The Thunder Emperor - one of the strongest Ancient Runic god's known in history. So it went without saying that being a little burnt was nothing compared to what he was about to face.
✨✨✨
Arthur didn't know where he was; the space around him looked black, but not dark. The ground, the sky- if at all was what he saw when he looked up, was pitch black.
For a moment he thought he had died and this was his personal hell. But he soon gave up on the thought when he saw a figure walking towards him.
The figure was a man; probably in his mind forties, he had a strong muscular build as well as bear sized shoulders to match, silver fox hair which reached the small of his back alongside a white beard. He gave off an ominous aura causing Arthur to stay on guard.
"Fear not child of the dragon, I am not here to hurt you" the man said
Arthur stood mouth agape. The man's voice was the same as the one which came to his dreams as well as the one who told him to flee.
"It's you isn't it?" He asked "who are you and what do you want with me?"
"I am one of the Ancient Runic god's- as you humans know I and my brethren as, the thunder Emperor to be exact" he replied.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!, Don't kid yourself sir. The Thunder Emperor must have lived for close to a millennia ago, you can't possibly be him" Arthur said
"Actually, it was Nine hundred and eighty years ago, but who's counting" he joked
"It can't be, the Ancient Runic gods were beings of unimaginable power, whereas I feel nothing powerful coming off of you" Arthur said
"You really think so....hmmm....check again" the nab said spreading his hands apart
As he squinted his eyes to observe the man's runic flow, Arthur suddenly pulled back; what he saw gave him a fright.
The man's runic energy had taken the form of a giant, wielding dual kitanas and a dragon symbol embedded on its chest.
"What are you?!" Arthur shrieked in fear
" I already told you child- I am your ancestor" the Emperor said with a smile
"How can this be?" He asked
"Well" the Emperor cleared his throat before starting his tale
"It all started about five hundred years ago when I and the rest of the runic gods were made aware of a certain prophecy whucv foretold the emergence of the Dark one-"
"Who is the Dark one?" Arthur asked
" He is a god like us, but unlike us, he is corrupted by the ways of man; he seeks to vanquish the entirety of the human race; replacing it with his demons"
The Emperor went on
"About a hundred years of fighting went by, then the Dark one succumbed to a deep sleep; to be awoken when the sins of man draw him from his eternal slumber. He is the father of magic, and all who sacrifice everything for the promise of power are dealt a wicked hand by him".
"So, how come we are not affected by the curse ?, The elders have never said anything about this" he inquired
"Being a ring, yours' as well as the powers of the Order are gotten from us, that is the price we had to pay in order to retain our existence in this world" he explained
" I don't understand, you speak as though you had no choice in the matter, aren't you a god?, Surely you can do something a trivial as simply existing?" He said
"There are things even gods cannot accomplish, it was either we shared our power with mortal or risk fading away due to runic depletion"
" But didn't you all still disappear?, There haven't been any sightings of you for a very long time, so isn't it the same as dying?" He asked
"No, as we came to learn; when we share our powers with mortals, we are able to live inside their souls and sometimes even materialise through the strength of their will, as I did with you" the Emperor said
"So you all take over humans, is that it?" Arthur asked slowly vackunga way front he Emperor
" No! - far from it. Each ring that ever lived has something we call a legend behind him, and every ring strives to become just as strong as his legend so as to follow up with his legacy- so it's a win - win situation; we grant powers to mortals in exchange for housing our essence. Even then a god cannot take over a mortal because our energy is limitless which would cause any human to explode if we ever tried to take control, now tell why would we kill ourselves when we could just as easily take refuge within you all" the Emperor said
Taking what he said into account Arthur reasoned that it was indeed a fair trade, and moreso he had never heard of anything exploding due to too much energy, so he was inclined to believe his words
"Ok, so are we the heroes of the prophecy or something"
"Alas, no- the heroes of the prophecy are the sages - champions from the rune, ki, chakra and nexus energies" he stated
Arthur gave it a thought before asking
" Then, am I a sage?"
"Yes you are, the sage of truth to be exact" the Emperor confirmed
"Why was I choose?"
"'You' weren't choosen, rather your entire clan was; because the Pendragon clan is the earliest of its kind, which is why only one from your clan can be the leader of the order as well as a sage"
"So does that mean that my father is also a sage?" He asked frantically, too excited to control himself
"I'm afraid not, each energy has only two sagea, ours is from the Pendragon and ....the. er?... I'm afraid I can't remember the other" he stopped, holding his chin he pondered on the identity of the other sage clan
"It should come to me sooner or later" he surmised "well, where was I.."
"-about the criteria for becoming a sage" Arthur provided
"Oh yes, although a sage is gotten from these two clans, another condition was put in place to ensure that a safe was only born when he was needed, and that was for a member of either clan to come into contact with demonic energy" the Emperor said
'Demonic energy?, Like from a demon tier hexi?" He inquired
"Precisely, it sounds crazy, but if a sage was to appear in every generation, then they too may become corrupted by power"
" So when I slashed Dregbane, I came in contact with demonic energy?" He asked
"Yes my child" the Emperor answered
" WOW!, I can't wait to tell my father" he beamed a smile
The Emperor remained silent with his head bowed. He just couldn't bring himself to tell him.
" You can let me out now. Then we'll finish this talk later" he said with a smile
"Well ..."
"What's wrong?"
"It's just ....."
"Spit it out already"
"I'm trying to tell...."
"I don't have time, I can't wait to see the look on my-"
"- your father is dead Arthur" the Emperor stated
"- father's face when I...wait, what did you just say?" Arthur questioned
"I'm so sorry Arthur, your father is dead" he said
Silence was his only reply, the look on Arthur's face breaking with every passing second, until he finally snapped .
" I thought you took over me...I thought you saved him.....how could you.....no....No;....it can't be, I won't accept it" Arthur cried, the pangs in his chest hitting him one after the other as he sobbed his eyes out
"I did all I could but-" the Emperor temreid getting close, but Arthur backed away
"No, stay away from me, you call your self a god yet you couldn't even save one life" the tears rolled down his cheeks
"It wasn't my fault, your-"
"-then whose fault was it, -mine?" Arthur asked
"It isn't, it's just....I wasn't there in time" he said
"So it's your fault" Arthur said
"Argh!, Arthur don't loose sight of your mission, the world needs you
"Well they can all burn for all I care, isn't that what happened to him?, He was an honest and loving man;yet he still died a gruesome death, so what good is the rest of the world? - No!, take me back" he said admist tears
" No Arthur, your mission is too great to falter on emotion" the Emperor begged
"So you view what I'm feeling right now; this ache in my heart as 'just emotion' - an insignificant trait of mortal dwelling, - is hould look at the bigger picture, but what good is the bigger picture if the smaller ones have gapping holes in them. I want no part of it, Emperor or whatever you call yourself, take me back -Now!"
His eyes glowed a faint green mystifying his aura
"Just list ..."
"- NOW!" He shouted
In response, the dark space began collapsing and seconds later he awoke to a strange place
💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍
His eyes opened to a brown ceiling woven with interlocking lines. Closing them once more to retrieve what little memory he had of the events leading to his loss of consciousness. He opened them up again, lifting his hands glad to feel no pain as was the same with other parts of his body.
He held the gown which he now wore. It was a loose black robe with a round neck line, meant to be an evening dress. His mind although in shambles sought for the comfort of familiarity in his surroundings to ease the panic he felt at being unarmed and unguarded.
Sitting atop the bed, he began observing the room - a wooden drawer placed to the side of the bed, a long rectangular beam at the centre of the room, floor boards and the moon lit sky which he could see from the adjacent window were the only things he could perceive from the lanterns dim light.
"Where am I?" He thought
Regaining his bearings, he got to his feet and proceeded towards the door
About opening the door, coincidentally it was turned and pushed open from the outside startling him. He was a bit stunned wondering who it was, but he quickly recognised the face behind the door having a sigh of relief...Akila
She beamed at him with a bright smile, doing a good job at hiding the dark circles around her eyes and her rosy pink cheeks dripping with tears. While Arthur stood staring into her eyes, she covertly touched her prosef - summoning the Order to her
"He's alive? - How is this possible?" Zelius spoke once the dark sigil disappeared revealing their presence. Immediately recieving dark stares from the rest of the Order
"Well miracles are always welcomed, aren't they?" Kintaro joked lightly in an attempt to alleviate the glooming effects of Zelius's words
Not understanding the elephant in the room, Inake went on to say
"This is beyond mere miracle - I mean it would take at least four sages to fight him to a stand still, but he alone still survived?".
"How are you feeling Arthur" Ember said moving towards him arms stretched in an embrace trying to dissuade their interrogation
For the second time in less than an hour, he backed away. Tears filling his eyes and then the shout escaped his lips
"How could you?!... You let him die!"
He couldn't help it anymore, dropping to his knees, he let it all out; all he laid bare
"Compose yourself child, we Rings are not one to show weakness" Agamemnon said with a stern face
"How dare you say that, where were you?, Where were you when he had a hand to his throat?....eh ..where?, Where were you all?!" He screamed "yet you stand there telling me to keep my calm, to act unfazed, to forget his death. Well if acting like this is not Ring-like, then maybe I don't want to be a ring again" he yelled
"Don't talk rubbish boy, you say you've lost?. Don't kid yourself child; you don't know the meaning of the word. Loss is when your wife's body is diced into bits and chunks and sent to your daughter, loss is when your daughter hangs herself over the pain of her mother's death, loss is when you feel dead inside but you know that you can't really die- that is loss. So yes, what you are experiencing may be painful, but then again that's what being a Ring is all about, and I'm damm sure your father didn't raise someone who gives up at the very first sign of trouble" Agamemnon barked back, moving closer and closer towards Arthur, almost moving himself to tears.
Then realising himself, he turned to the door before heading out
Arthur looked extremely sad, the only difference from the previous time was that now it wasn't just because of his his father
"I never knew Agamemnon has lost so much" he said in a low register
"He puts on a brave face for all of us so we don't console him, but he is truly broken" Elrin said
" I'm sorry to all of you for acting the way I did, I'm in no place to blame all of you when even I myself couldn't save him" he said, this time holding the tears back
"Yes, about that, can you tell us how you actually managed to beat him?" Sinbad asked leaning on the guys entrance cleaning his nails
" I don't really remember...I charged at him the first time, but that didn't work. I tried another attempt but the something took over me" he explained
"And you don't remember this thing that possessed you?" Sinbad inquired
"Uh...I...err... How could I forget, it wasn't a thing rather a person. It was,...I think he called himself the ... Thunder Emperor, yes that's it, he said he was the Thunder Emperor"
Sinbad dropped his hand and slowly crained his neck to face Arthur. His mouth agape alongside the rest of the Order
"You said what?" He said more to himself than to Arthur
"Yes, he says he is a Runic god. At first I didn't know whether to believe him but then I saw his runic discharge which led me to think otherwise" Arthur said
"How can this be?, What are they doing here now?" Ember pondered still recovering from the shock
"Maybe this is a sign, a sign that they are going to help us fight" Zelius concluded
"That still doesn't explain how he managed to beat Dregbane, - although a Runic god is powerful, but with his limited power due to runic depletion, he shouldn't be able to take on Dregbane. Arthur, is there something else he said that can explain how he managed to drive Dregbane back?" Sinbad asked
"Yeah, I remembered him saying something about me, he said....he said, yes I remember now, he said I am the Sage Of Truth, whatever that means"
Arthur stared confused as he watched the faces of the Order grow with shock towards the end of his answer
Finally Inake broke the ice
"What an unexpected turn of events" he said "But before we go into all this, we have to first pay our final respects to Asake"
They all nodded in agreement; following which they all exited the hut awaiting the next day which was to be the Passing ceremony.
"Aunty?" Arthur called after Akila "please can you stay with me?" He begged
"Of course Arthur" she replied drawing back from the door
She took his hands and led him to the bed then she sat by his side as he rested his head on her lap.
"How long was I out?" He asked, his voice barely audible
"For two days, Agamemnon said we had to wait for you to wake up before moving with the Passing ceremony" she replied, consciously omitting who's passing it was so as to not invoke another stream of tears.
"Aunty?" He called once more
" Yes Arthur" she answered
"What do I do?, How do I get this pain out of my chest?, It is killing me inside"
Hearing his words, she almost broke down into tears, but then she steadied herself so as to not make him feel worse.
"You don't, you have to live with it, draw strength from it, you face it head on and force it into submission,...you live with it till it becomes a part of you, you don't forget about it...ever"
"And how do I do that?" He asked
"By living through each day with a smile on your face" she told him with a oat on his head
"Like Agamemnon?"
"Yes, like Agamemnon"
He locked his arms around her waist and cuddled Into her stomach. The tears threatening to spill over
"Thank you aunty"
"Any time Arthur"
💍💍💍
Somehow he managed to close his eyes long enough for it to be considered sleep, but he didn't feel the refreshing aura that such a concept brought. Visions of his father brutalised by Dregbane tormented him, his mind drawing a bunch of scenarios which may have led to the pitiful state he had found him and each one of them wasn't pretty. The tears boiled his cheeks causing their reddish hue to increase before the cold of the night finally claimed him on its cool and still calm
His mind was in ruins, his will tarnished, but he held on by his wits end praying for his lucid dream to begin and right on cue he felt the familiar pull of his consciousness and in a few blinks, he was back in the mind space.
Everything was just as he has remembered it; the darkness, the void, the emptiness he felt as he stared at the Emperor with a glare which would send shivers down anyone's spine
The Emperor being no exception seeing as he struggled with his words
"Ar...Arthur, I'm sorry for you loss.....if there is anything I can-"
"-can I forfeit this power" he cut the Emperor shut
"What power?, Wait you mean your Sage power?" To which he recieved a nod in reply
"Why would you want to-" he again tried saying but once again he was rudely interrupted
"-is there a way?!" He shouted
"Arthur I can understand your pain, heck I can even feel it. The tears in your psyche run deep but with time, they will heal. This instead, your power. It is the only thing that can someday save the world"
"The only thing this world deserves is to burn for its crimes. Aunty Akila as well as the other Rings have made me realise how trivial the rest of the world considers us, I have often heard of the heinous acts they commited in the past, but I had never really committed them to memory, but after hearing what they did to Agamemnon I remember now and quite frankly I couldn't care less if the rest of the world were to drop dead cause to me they are already dead. So I ask again, is there any way to forfeit my power?" If he had conjured the morrow from earlier, he would have been surprised to see his eyes painted with a faint green glow. The same glow which flooded the Emperor's body, forcing him to answer the sage of truth
"There is, but-"
"-do it"t
"But-"
"-Do it!!"
The Emperor froze, not knowing what else he could say. Although it was true when he said that he felt Arthur's pain, but even he had no way of overcoming it. Arthur's grief ate at his heart incessantly plunging pangs that he had never felt before. He had always seen human nature as, but a trivial existence corrupted by the lack of logic in their dealings. They did things which were irrational; giving birth even when they could not afford to take care of the offspring, marrying someone even though it meant giving up wealth or riches and more recently, giving up a power which people would kill for all because of a single death.
All his life he had always judged them as either foolish or deranged, constantly pointing out the flaws and their inability to look at the bigger picture.
But as he stared into Arthur's eyes , coupled with the pain in his chest. He finally understood the burden of humanity.
Sadly his realisation was all for naught as Arthur showed no sign of being swayed by his words.
"I am truly sorry for your loss. I pray Asake finds peace amongst our ancestors" his face looked grim but his voice held the sincerity and empathy it once lacked. It no longer oozed of pity, rather a new found realisation which hit Arthur causing him to almost falter in his attempts at putting up a brave front
"Goodbye Arthur Pendragon, and may the Rings of old lead you in whatever path you choose"
And with a puff of smoke he was gone, leaving Arthur in the void which was his mind; sad, scared and alone.
💍💍💍
Shortly after the Emperor left, his mind slipped back into the realm of dreams, discarding all hope of thought.
Memories of his father plagued him but Akila's words drew him back from despair. He chanted it, subconsciously pushing back against the demons who dared push the times he spent with his father at his face.
Slowly but surely his mantra prevailed
'No matter the trails we always push forward"