Rubra remembered the faces of her parents as two centuries didn't pass.
As if it was yesterday, she was left alone in the cave by them, that left saying, with some forced smiles on their faces:''Don't worry, someone strong came, but he probably will do just as Uncle Cain.
You will meet him later and enjoy grilled meat with him. ''
Those memories impressed in her soul. Those were the last images she remembered of her loved ones.
Then that happened: around a century inside her training in the search for revenge, the daily exercise filled her mind, and the curse of oblivion hit her.
She started forgetting the faces of her parents. That night she didn't eat and stayed awake the whole night crying.
A month after that, she restarted training. She felt so stupid and unworthy to be loved.
Her blunder was exchanging the means for the goal.
She didn't even want any revenge. All she wanted was to have her parents back!
The sad truth was following the advice of her adoptive uncle, training from morning to night, her brain felt like pieces of information like her parents' faces became useless to her survival.
Her training slowed down, and her general mood worsened.
She abandoned every hope to see their faces, not to talk about their bodies again before her death.
That was why, when it first happened, when she first felt their presence and saw their expressions in her mind, she was so remissive to her destiny that she unconsciously ignored what was happening.
When that happened the second time, though, reality hit her like a truck!
*They are still alive somehow! *
Then she perceived it: her parents' souls were surrounded by the one of Cain.
For this reason, he wasn't discovered up to now by Rubra. For the same reason, we can't see any gold bars from outside the bank vault.
At that moment, she felt incommensurable rage and happiness at the same time.
Her brain couldn't take the load, and her legs lost every last bit of strength.
The right hand was forming another fire arrow to pierce to death Cain, her smile strained, and ticks started appearing on her face, seeing him not as the person that, for whatever reason, stayed with her for so much time.
At this moment, her usual sweet smile turned predatory, and she saw the immovable Red Dragon in front of her just as a roadblock.
The roadblock that didn't allow her to have a normal happy childhood.
The roadblock that now didn't allow her to hug her parents back.
She felt rage for that, but, at the same time, she was happy because she just needed to destroy that obstacle, and she would have a double reward: her parents and her revenge.
Eric immediately saw her face. It showed that right now, her mind was deranged.
''Rubra, what happened? Are you alright? ''
He could start to imagine what topic could cause that big of a reaction in Rubra, but at the moment, his main aim was stopping her from doing anything she would regret in the future.
''I-i can feel them, I feel their presence?!''
Even her own voice sounded like all of this felt unreal.
Remembering what Nemesis told him, he immediately understood that was the reason why.
For this reason, he had to bring Rubra to his side and don't make her destroy Cain's core.
In Ouroboros' human society, monster cores were nothing more than proof of subjugation, objects for collection, or rarely a means to gain some abilities of the killed monster.
It was slowly becoming clear to Eric and Cain. Hearing Rubra's words, the monster's cores were probably the crystalized form of the monster's soul.
After all, leveling up and gaining experience meant absorbing the various experiences of the dead monsters. In other words, consuming the pieces of information contained in their souls in order to improve.
Low-level monsters and humans didn't possess it, so no research about this topic ever saw the light of day.
At this point, Eric started understanding the hidden link between mana(life force), monster cores(souls), and Cain's power.
In a way, his birth ability could control these two incredible powers to a rate incredible for normal humans.
Even though Eric could somewhat dominate and control the souls of nature elements and somehow gained Phoenix abilities still thought Cain's power was more of a cheat if used with the right mindset.
If he focused on the right target, he could slowly absorb more and more cores becoming stronger in a predictable and linear fashion.
Eric, on the other hand, for reasons he had yet to uncover, gained incredible abilities just by staying some time next to Rubra.
It was a less predictable and stable method, but his growth wasn't linear: it was exponential.
At that moment, just for a second, Eric felt pity for Cain, someone that, regardless of his reason, searched for power without any moral restraint, someone that, differently from him, had to dirty his soul to grow stronger.
Finally, Eric decided on the following words.
He tried to make her think about it:''Eh, how is that possible that you didn't perceive them up to now? ''
Rubra already had that thought, but now she focused her energy on thinking about it for some time.
''He was hiding them. I can sense them now because he is paralyzed! ''
Eric thought she was right but deviated from the argument he wanted her to reach. He sighed mentally and was honestly too tired to proceed the roundabout way with a soon-to-be dead man and the woman he decided to protect for the rest of his life.
In a way, he wanted to protect her from jealousy for Nemesis and keep their meeting secret. On the other hand, the main pro was his saved energy.
*I literally died again at this moment! I have every right to want to be a bit of a slacker about the logical explanation I'll give her in the future. *
For this reason, he concluded in an abrupt way, his face stoic.
''You're right, but for now, don't touch his core. There is a reason for that. Trust me! ''
Rubra felt strange: for a moment the emotions swirling in her body accelerated. Then she watched Eric dead in the eyes for a couple seconds.
Watching his serious face and unwavering eyes, she understood there was a valid reason that he couldn't genuinely tell her now.
She didn't need any more words from him.
In the same way, their reciprocal trust was so high a nod was all he needed for him to understand her thoughts.
''You can proceed now.''
'Fwish!' almost instantly after the end of his sentence, the fire arrow waiting in the air from the start of their conversation darted toward Cain's heart.
No resistance, no unforeseen saving at the last moment.
*He was quite unlucky to be the hero of some novel. *
Eric had the same cynical reaction as usual but felt close to that dragon.
He was almost used to this kind of tragic ending since he lived it twice on his skin.
Then something happened: maybe the poison was starting to lose effect on him, the pain from his pierced heart made him regain control of his facial muscles, or a miracle happened.
''I'm sorry, Mother. ''
Be it as it may, these were the last words of Cain.
Individual blessed at birth.
This blessing turned out to be his curse.
Brought to ruin by his mother's sickness.
Betrayed by his race and his family.
He abandoned any emotion to save Eve.
Evil, good, villain, or tragic hero.
The answer uncertain.
Suddenly a roar made the world tremble.
Eric, Rubra, and the dying Cain felt like the world was coming to an end...
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A.N. :
I hope I managed to make you feel emotions for Cain too.
I didn't want the first-ever antagonist to be someone with a cliché, young master-like personality.
In a way, I think the emotional, moral struggle in the spectator should be similar to that caused by Thanos.
Someone born normal, which suffered, and uses evil as a means to obtain something that can be seen as good by the reader.
I guess it's also similar to the characters of Lelouch or Light Yagami.
Anyway, that's it for the main plot of the first volume.
Next will follow some side stories before the start of the next main arc.
I hope you enjoyed the story as much as me up to now!