Frey thought he could no longer be surprised, but he seemed to have been wrong.
"Uh, he did not destroy it completly, he just seriously damaged its part in the Conceptual Layer" Lum corrected. "But it was enough to sow chaos and desolation in thousands of stories, and even for a few decades in the Primary World"
Somehow, Frey was reassured that the destroyer had not 'really' destroyed the concept of Good. But he wondered...
"What exactly happened in my world?"
Lum hesitated for a moment, as if searching for words, then replied:
"I don't know much about what was going on in the Primary world but I believe it was something called the 'World Wars'"
Frey began to sweat even more than before:
"World Wars? Like those of the twentieth century? The ones who set the world on fire?" he asked with a trembling voice.
The bloodiest conflict in the history of the world, was this guy the one who caused it? This time, even Frey was terrified. Lum didn't try to deny:
"I think it is, yes. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you for choosing to run" she said. "Now that we found Damien, we can just go find Mike and use Imagination to send you back to the Ark. All beings eventually return from the Ark to their own worlds, including those from the Primary World, so you'll just have to wait to be sent back while I deal with the bad guy. Simple, right?"
She said that, but her voice clearly lacked conviction.
"Return to the Ark? Do you think we're just going to abandon you and run away, leaving you behind to sort everything out? No way, I'll help you until the end and I'm sure Mike thinks the same"
Frey was truly terrified, but he hadn't come all this way to give up now.
"Mike? You sure about that ?" Lum asked. "I remind you that from the start, he had nothing to do with it"
Frey looked away, unsure of what to say. Lum didn't want him and Mike to leave, but she had no choice, she couldn't continue to put them in danger:
"Frey, we've literally known each other for three days" the fairy said. "If you're worried about Chloe, just practice using Imagination to heal her. Humans from the Prime World have the most potential when it comes to using Imagination, sooner or later you will get there. Just go back with Mike. Let me handle this. Alone"
That's it, she said it, now she was going to be alone.... again...
Alone.
These three days had been happy, but it was the end of the trip.
Frey asked the question one last time:
"Lum, do you really want to be alone?
Easy question, Lum just had to say yes. So simple.
Tears began to flow down her face:
"No, I don't want you to leave me! I don't want Mike to leave me! I don't want you to leave me! I...I don't want to be alone again"
She began to cry profusely.
A few moments later, she said:
"Sorry, I, I'm sorry, I really am the worst friend. Could you... forgive me and listen to some of my story? I think after all this time I need to talk to someone about it"
"Tell me everything, it'll be okay" Frey said.
Lum began to tell him what she had kept to herself for so long:
"Before… I also had my own story, my own world, with friends and a family, just like Paulia, Jase and Damien. We fairies all lived in peace among ourselves. My sisters with whom we raced, my parents who tucked me in, my… my friends with whom I played tag. We were all happy. Really happy. We didn't need much, we didn't ask for much, and that was enough for us. But one day, Inferno came and everything changed"
Inferno? Was he linked to Lum's past? Frey was beginning to see the real reason why Lum was so afraid of him.
"And what happened?" Frey asked. "Lum, you don't need to say more if you don't feel like doing it"
"It's fine, it has to come out anyway" Lum replied.
She took a deep breath.
"What happens next is not very difficult to guess" she said. "Inferno destroyed everything. Humans, elves, and of course fairies have not beenspared. My loved ones, my home, everyone I loved from the bottom of my heart, just one day and everything disappeared"
Lum tried to stop her tears from falling even more, without success.
"I...honestly, I didn't really wanted to live after that. But ironically, I discovered then that I was one of the few creatures that can survive in the Platonic Sea. So I just traveled, going from story to story and from story to story. Besides, I lied when I said that I was getting into my story when you were no longer there to create the environment"
"How so?" Frey asked.
"Yes, I'm just get sent back to a random part of the Platonic Sea, since my story has been wiped off the map for a long time now"
Frey remained silent for a moment, while the poor fairy dried her tears, but a question suddenly came to his mind:
"Sorry if I'm being invasive, but why didn't you just move to another world?" he asked. "You were sad because you were alone, so it would have been easier to just settle into a story and meet new people, right? That was your initial idea when you met us with Mike, why not anymore?"
Lum avoided his gaze.
"Sorry, I can't tell you right now" Lum replied, glancing at the resistance fighters. "Not when there are so many people around"
Frey was a little disappointed, but he knew that Lum had already made a gigantic effort to tell him all this, so he didn't push it any further.
"Okay, in that case would you like to get back to the main topic?" Frey asked. "Tell me how we're going to teleport to Citura"
"Oh yes, that's true" Lum. "Hehe, you will probably make fun of me but with all these emotions, I had totally forgotten how urgent the situation was"
Frey smiled slightly:
"So, drama ultimately serves a purpose"
They laughed one more time and then Lum explained to Frey how they were going to do it: she knew roughly how to transport people directly from point A to point B, but was not capable of transporting more than one person with it, and would be exhausted afterwards due to energy consumption.
So Frey, who could draw much more energy from the Imagination, would have to support him so that they could take all the resistance fighters with them without Lum passing out due to the loss of energy.
After explaining all the details to Frey, Lum returned with him to see the resistance fighters.
"Oh, you're finally back, Jase said, relieved.
"What took you so long?" Paulia asked. "The basement is about to collapse, we don't have time to sit around"
"Haha, sorry, it took longer than expected" Lum apologized.
"Really? Still, you didn't seem to really think about it the whole time" Damien said.
He was really too insightful.
"We had some problems with what to do but everything is fine now, so don't worry" Frey said, trying to sound as credible as possible. "Anyway, let's hurry. as Paulia said, the basement is going to collapse soon so we have to act quickly to make up for lost time"
Damien didn't answer, probably left speechless because of Frey's shamelessness.
After that, they all got closer to each other and Lum started using Imagination. None of them could see what was happening, Frey included, but he could sense that Lum was doing something. Even though he had absolutely no understanding of how it worked, he did his best to amplify it using Imagination, like an amateur designer whopass ont the contours of a professional's drawing.
Meanwhile, small stones began to fall from the ceiling and they all felt slight tremors around them, which gradually intensified.
"Hurry up, we're going to get buried any second!" Damien shouted.
"Stop shouting, you're going to make me fail at this rate!" Lum replied, nevertheless deciding to speed up.
A rock fell just inches from where Jase was, one that was large enough to shatter his skull if it had hit him.
"Oh, that sucks!" exclaimed the latter.
"Hurry up, Lum!" Paulia shouted.
Just as they were about to be buried, there was a flash and they all found themselves in a high place. They looked down to realize that they were on Citura's head.
"Did you seriously drop us on Citura's head?" Damien asked the two concerned. "Not to criticize you but I am 93% sure that it is blasphemy to stand on the head of a god"
At that precise moment, Citura suddenly made a rough movement, and they all found themselves propelled into the void. Fortunately, they were stopped mid-fall by an invisible force:
"I see you have decided to come here, said Citura. "That being said, Your assistance might be necessary"
Damien was going to ask why, but he got his answer soon enough: everywhere around them, the buildings were either burned to the ground, blown to smithereens, or both at the same time, while people were screaming and running in every direction to try. to escape from the island, while a child called his mother crying.
And that's when they saw him, the destroyer, Inferno. After listening to what Lum had told him, Frey expected to encounter some sort of satanic abomination, but he looked relatively human in his size, build, and studded leather jacket, which could make him pass for an angry metal rock fan.
But that was only if you forgot that he was riding a flaming horse and holding in his hand a serrated blade strewn with nails that was almost his size. But worst of all was his head: the right half of his face was missing skin, leaving his teeth, gums and facial muscles exposed, with his right eye emitting blue flames that eerily lit the scene.
"What's up bitches, ready to die?" Inferno asked.