Deji found himself back at his church, he was on the pulpit with a microphone in hand and a huge crowd sitting in front of him. Then he noticed something odd in the congregation.
There was a giant woman sitting in the center of the congregation, she was too eye catching because she wore golden armor that covered half of her body leaving the rest exposed or covered with very skimpy clothing, showing off large muscles and a well proportioned and curvy body.
The moment he noticed her, she got up from her sitting position and started walking towards him.
He instinctively took a step back because of how imposing she was, she was probably at least four meters tall and even had to bend her head down when approaching him.
As he backed away from her the world around him began to break apart, revealing a vast endless abyss full of darkness and just when he felt he had nowhere to run to she reached out and grabbed him with both hands, lifted him up to her face and bit his head off.
Again, Aghora woke up on the ship his heart was beating furiously but he could not recall what he just experienced and instead he felt like something was missing. He felt a slight burning sensation on the back of his right hand and when he tried to look at the burn he realized that he was chained and the end of the chain was the same short scythe but this time the masked man holding the chain and scythe was sitting opposite him with the scythe in hand while both of them sat the floor, apparantly still in the cabin.
The masked man looked like he was asleep so Aghora tried to move but the chains heated up slightly and the masked man used his free hand to make a gesture telling Aghora not to try anything.
Then Maaec, the princess and her guards approached the two sitting on the floor. Maaec had his hands and feet shackled but looked calm.
The princess spoke as if barking orders and the guard called Luli translated, "The goddess says you are special and that is why you still draw breath, you only have one more chance. Your brother says you are the type to only believe in the things you see, so I forgave your last transgression but there is something you need to see."
After Luli finished talking the princess reached into the air and a blue light appeared in the air over her palm, then two scrolls appeared out of thing air and landed on her palms.
She handed each of the scrolls to two of her guards and they opened the scrolls showing a zoanese write up. She pointed at a symbol one of the scrolls, it was a red imprint of two horizontal rectangles she started speaking and pointed at Maaec who raised his shackled hands and revealed the same symbol in the scroll on the back of his right hand.
"Here, this mark is a representation of our agreement on your kin the mark is still ordinary because he has not made any transgressions but this is your mark, yesterday immediately after agreeing you attacked Hana which violates on of the terms to act of your own will without my consent. Your mark now has these strange symbols as a sign that the goddess has already taken a portion of your soul as part of retribution. Perhaps you are still sane because the goddess values you but if you do something like that again, I am not sure what the consequences will be."
After She spoke she took the scrolls back and they disappeared back into nothing, with the same blue light while the masked man- while Hana withdrew the chains from Aghora, last time because he was cut mid attack the chains didn't really bind him too tightly so when it was removed he didn't notice anything but now he saw very clearly that the chain snaked away from his body as if it were alive, he made a mental note to stay weary of that weapon.
The moment he was free he took a look at his hand and indeed he saw the image of three horizontal rectangles with strange symbols over one of the rectangles he felt like the symbols looked familiar but he could not clearly recall where he had seen them.
While he was inspecting the mark everyone else in the room was tense, they were fed up with this wildcard.
The princess gave an order and a guard brought shackles to Aghora and tried to place them on his hands.
Everyone watched to see whether another violent outburts would happen but Aghora simply let the guard shackle him.
'Has he finally accepted his position?' was the thought everyone in the room shared.
Arashiberak was relieved, she was genuinely interested in Aghora since he had thoroughly impressed her with his combat ability.
Maaec too, didn't want to deal with any more stress. While Aghora was passed out he had woken up and was forced into the slavery contract he too wanted to disregard it but he saw that the surviving members of Rohkars crew who tried resisting the princesses order actually died instantly, he was even shocked that Aghora was still alive.
More importantly, they were still on the northern sea and even if they were no longer free men this princess didn't seem to be too bad.
Aghora let himself be shackled on his hand and feet, and shortly after everyone went to the table at the center of the cabin, Aghora just followed since there was no use doing anything otherwise.
The princess had actually been speaking but no one had bothered to translate everything she said to Maaec and Aghora but becuase they had a little experience with Zoanese they were able to get the general idea of the conversation.
This was something like a war council, the people in this ship were against the people who attacked their original ship and if they had to follow the orders of the princess they would be going on a search for something. Though most importantly they were going to be on land in a few hours.
After being briefly kept in the cabin for the briefing everyone was eventually driven out.
By now the sun had just started to come down and everyone was on the deck of the ship