His ultimate purpose was to learn what happened to his wife's remains and that bastard Shou. He wanted to avoid his old life as much as possible besides that. He avoided his old contacts, and it was relatively easier since the population of Galenar had almost doubled since he left. Life in Galenar was nothing like he remembered. Instead of united people whose focus was venturing beyond, learning the unknown, there was a profit-focused, selfish community. Most of the orphans weren't raised by the castle and were thrown to the streets as beggars, resulting in them being recruited into 'Children of Tuank.'
Balendon couldn't experience much back then, but he was still educated by the castle. History and political affairs were only some of the things he was well-versed in. There was corruption, and due to corruption, there were infestations. The biggest infestation at the moment was this organization. He would have to get on their good side while remaining unnoticed if he were to get things he wanted done. He started doing business with them, small stuff from smuggling to spying, and soon grew more interested in them as he realized that the organization was also interested in him.
He started getting suspicious until one day he received an invitation from the branch leader to meet him. No matter how unprofessional he thought it was, his curiosity led him to accept the invitation of this boss, who managed to unite all beggars and orphans to create a rather shady network for both their survival and well-being. Balendon could not deny his curiosity: "How could Galenar, a prosperous frontier, create such a character and fall into such a state?" Apparently, he could get the best answer from this 'boss.'
As he was escorted by two children around the ages of 8 and 10, he felt a thorn in his heart as if he was getting close to something he was seeking, yet he feared something bad was going to happen. As they entered the sewers, moving toward the headquarters of this community, the number of destitute people increased. People were living in this shithole with a terrible stench and filth, bearing sickness and agony that was getting worse day by day.
Balendon felt pity for them while contemplating how to save them. He could hire them to do more jobs for him, maybe? Or he could set up an expedition to build them a village not far from Galenar? Of course, these plans were not only out of pity, as they were also a consideration to use them for his own schemes. They would certainly live off better under him.
As they arrived at the once-dungeons of the castle, through a tunnel connecting it to the sewers, Balendon felt two daggers stabbing his knees, right where he stabbed Shou back then. Enraged, as he was reminded of Shou, he could not believe he was sitting in front of him, blinded in one eye, keeping his walking stick next to his 'throne,' looking at Balendon with a hatred and envy that emanated disgust into the air.
"It's been so long," Shou said with a hysterical laugh caused by his excitement for revenge he might take today. His speech was distorted due to his injury to his jaw. Why wouldn't he laugh? He had the numbers and his enemy crippled! Oh! How joyous he was feeling!
On the other hand, Balendon realized he could not strip himself of his fragile emotional state, even after perfecting his body. He started crying, maybe out of rage, out of hatred, or could it even be sorrow? There was no antagonist or protagonist speech between the two. Shou simply took his walking stick and walked toward Balendon. He was limping in a hurry, together with five of his men. There were a lot of men and women armed with tools and sticks who seemed more than spectators.
Balendon looked at the kids who stabbed him. They were struck with terror as a result of their actions. "How could this bastard taint these pure kids into something they regret? Despicable!" Balendon thought, yet he continued crying. Shou, on the other hand, got close to Balendon, with a big wide grin, and stabbed him in the torso as Balendon was crying while facing the ground.
Shou misunderstood Balendon's cries and was happy to see him crying, desperate and devastated. Balendon's tears turned into blood. Shou was finally bursting in laughter and said, "FUCK YOU! HOW DARE YOU SHOW UP IN HERE AFTER MAKING MY LIFE THIS MISERABLE!"
Balendon stopped crying abruptly, as if something snapped in his brain. "This guy is blaming me?" He stood up despite the two daggers and one sword stuck in his body. Since he blocked his pain receptors, he did not feel any pain that would make him unable to move. He didn't need his blood to circulate to stay alive, as he arranged all his organs and cells to absorb world force to provide necessary supplements. For him to use a limb, all it needed was to stay together.
He started removing the foreign objects in his body one by one, while others froze in shock, trying to process what was happening. Balendon moved erratically, like an undead at first. His body had been healed fully as he removed the last object.
A curtain fell onto his eyes again. At that point, he did not care. He had returned to the time he opened the door of where he was watching his beloved, under attack. Compared to the original scenery, he was seeing it with a blood-red tint. The pain in his neck started intensifying. Enraged due to the pain, with one swing of his claw-like hand, he split the guy that was standing at the left side of Shou into two rough chunks of meat.
Until that moment, in the known history, nobody had ever witnessed a person slaughtered in such an undignified way. As the guy was split into two from his right shoulder to left stomach, Balendon shook his hand to get rid of the guy's intestines and pieces of his liver. While one man screamed in terror, another vomited. They had not seen such savagery, nor could they imagine it.
They were simply collateral who unluckily happened to be Shou's men. In a blink of an eye, the other two who prepared to defend themselves suffered similar undignified but quick deaths as one was split into two vertically, while the other's brain was scattered all around the place.
After a brief pause, staring into Shou's soul, Balendon proceeded with the slaughter of everyone in the room who bore hostility toward him, except for the two kids. A few managed to run away, while others thought it futile and fought to their doom.
The gloomy, stone room had only a small ray of light coming from a round opening at its ceiling. Now that light reflected shades of red and small amounts of purple from the scattered organs and blood of the people Balendon had slain. The kids were the last to run away, screaming after witnessing every second of the massacre.
Shou, frozen in terror, couldn't move. Balendon, overcome with his rage, thought of a new hobby for the next few days as he walked toward Shou. With his touch, he changed Shou's body into a healthier form with faster regenerative abilities.
Surprised and confused with his eye healed, his leg returned to normal, and his jaw fixed, Shou looked at Balendon, then lit ablaze. He was burning in agony yet healing at the same time. Every corner of his body, inside and out, was on fire. Balendon was supplying his body with enough world force that it would continue regenerating.
One would think killing their nemesis once would satisfy someone, but for a man like Balendon, who had endured so much, it was far more satisfying to kill them several times if possible. For the next few days, Balendon burned Shou, stabbed him in every part of his body, drowned him, made him sick and infected, and disfigured him with immense pain.
He enhanced Shou's sensitivity to pain and tore him limb by limb. Shou's begging for death eventually stopped, as his mind could not endure further torment, but Balendon continued torturing the lifeless husk. By the time Balendon was partially satisfied with his revenge, the echoing screams of Shou had driven everyone in the sewers to flee.
For the final act, Balendon cut off Shou's hands and legs once again and threw them among the rotting limbs he had regenerated and severed repeatedly. He then blinded and deafened Shou but kept him alive, reverting his body back to a non-regenerating, barely breathing, yet non-aging form.
Before leaving the sewers, Balendon looted all of Shou's ill-gained assets, adding several hundred gold coins to his fortune. Carrying Shou back into the city, he found one of the beggars, who attempted to run away at the sight of Balendon. With the promise of 1,000 gold in exchange for taking care of Shou and keeping him alive, Balendon convinced the beggar to help.
Balendon promised another 1,000 gold in five years when he returned. He also left 100 gold for each of the kids who had stabbed him in the legs, as an apology, and departed Galenar for the southern continents.
His hatred toward Shou was too immense for him to feel satisfied in one go. Before leaving, Balendon learned where Lennya's remains were. She had been cremated and placed in the castle's tombs, as she was an orphan raised by Galenar. Using the last remnants of Shou's organization, Balendon retrieved her urn and built a proper tomb for her.
Knowing he would eventually return and unsure how many aeons he would live, he made the tomb out of marble. On the tombstone, he inscribed:
"Lennya, a loved wife of the most miserable man in the world."
After a moment of hesitation, he scratched out the final words to leave:
"Lennya, a loved wife."
With preparations complete, Balendon readied himself to travel to Castellum, where he intended to buy passage to the southern continents. He needed a break from the north.
Balendon joined a caravan heading to Castellum. The journey was smooth and lasted a month before he finally arrived. As they approached Castellum, Balendon was greeted by the sight of the Twin Castles- majestic structures towering toward the sky.
The Imperial Castle stood with its intimidating fortifications, towers, and unyielding walls. On the other side, the Dukedom Castle boasted golden domes, magical pathways, and breathtaking lookout points. Compared to these marvels, Galenar appeared to Balendon as a simple block of concrete, built solely for war.
The grandeur of the twin castles filled Balendon with even more anticipation for his journey south. What had started as an impulsive decision to escape the northern continent now felt like an essential step toward finding peace.