Chapter 42 The Last of Me (6) Rowan paused for a while and looked at the faces that watched him in rapt attention, "An unspeakable evil came to you like a thief at night. It is called an Abomination. Some of you may have heard whispers of this horror. But every one of you saw its fangs and bear its wounds. I cannot begin to imagine your loss and the pain you have felt. So with my bloodline as a descendant of the gods, this is what I promise you." Rowan raised the Axe up in the air and let his Vitality flood the weapon, it began to let out a deep vibration that shook the bones of everyone gathered here, their bodies seemed to be filling with energy as the light from the Axe made their eyes glow like stars "I will destroy the monsters that brought you pain, every last one of them. We shall bathe in their screams and I shall bring their skulls to you, and we shall drink wine from them, and from it bones we shall build an epitaph. For our fallen!" "FOR OUR FALLEN!!!!" The roar that answered Rowan was primal and raw. He had managed to turn the helplessness and the fear of these people into rage. He turned his faceless face to the butler," Make sure my people lack no comfort. My home is theirs. Give them every comfort we can afford, including from my personal stocks. I do not require those anymore" Rowan turned and left, his steps were heavy, and his people bowed to him, as he walked by. Maeve followed behind him. His mind dwelled inside his Record, as he could not wait to settle down and dig into his paths to power. With the number of souls he just harvested, he could take the next step forward. He could feel the ticking of the clock and the weight of expectations. ************************************** The Third prince sat by the bed of a dying woman, while he stroked her white hair, her wrinkled skin conveyed old age, and she let out deep coughs that rattled out of her bony chest accompanied by painful spasms. When she spat out phlegm with blood specks, the Third prince gently cleaned her mouth and spoke soft words to her to ease her suffering, for it was clear she was in her final moments. When the spate of coughing ended, she looked at the Third prince with confusion in her eyes, she opened her mouth to speak, and her voice, even though it was shadowed by age, was still clear. "I know that I have asked you the same question, a thousand times before, and I implore you for your compassion, at the least let me die knowing the reason for my torment!" The Third prince looked at her with a warm smile, his chubby countenance made him appear harmless, and his smile reminded one of the goodness inherent in the heart of men. Yet, that smile… That smile had given her nightmares since the time of her birth. He had been there from the moment she was born, she heard from her people that he started with her parents, he slowly skinned them alive and let them live in agony for months before he killed them. She had suckled from her weeping mother's skinless breasts for the first three months of her life. His powers kept them aware and sane, he left soon after with a warning to the village head, for her to be taken care of. Every year after that he returned, and he caused malfeasance, sometimes the pranks were harmless, like shaving her bald or flooding her home with urine, but other times they were diabolical. When she was thirteen, she had woken up with the decapitated heads of half the women in the village, stacked as her bed, their hair as her blanket and their tongues as her pillow. She had screamed for hours until she lost her voice and nearly went insane. She was thirteen that year, but her nightmare never lessened, it got worse… Not only that, but she had married, eight times in her lifetime, and after she got pregnant, he would kill the child and husband and make her live with their corpse for days on end… Decades after decades of torture, of course she had tried killing herself, but she would wake with everybody in her village slaughtered, and then she would be sent to another village… After trying to kill herself three more times… She stopped, for she knew he would not let her die, and it would only result in the death of countless people. Here she lay dying and, like a vulture, he sat beside her, watching her last breaths escape from her lungs, and savoring her despair and confusion. "You are ninety-five years old today. Yet, do you know how old I am?" She looked at him perplexed, and the Third prince sighed. He was about to speak, when the shadows behind him swirled and a hooded figure came through it. "The General has been restless, every third ping on my Hearthstone is from him, we need to throw him a bone, else we risk losing his support." The voice of the hooded figure was low with a hint of annoyance… The Third prince's gaze never left the face of the dying woman, "Then let him play." He said, "Give him the keys to the test tubes and let him fiddle with them until he is satisfied." "No way. I won't let that brute enter my Nexus." The Third prince proceeded to rub his brows in irritation, "Then let him send a couple of men inside, there is already a stationed garrison inside the Nexus that he thinks is hidden. It's cute how he thinks he is so smart. He can be petty, so don't give him an excuse to use them." "Only with our supervision, and he won't be given direct access, only the shielding of his men equipment is allowed." The hooded figure paused, "And how did he gain access to the Nexus and was able to conceal those soldiers within? Did you help him?" Raising his hands in noticeable concession, the Third prince said, "Give the man some slack after all, he can figure his way to his rear end given enough time. I got frustrated at his attempts at subterfuge… I just had to give him something" The hooded figure muttered a series of expletives under his breath, before he brought out a Rune Stone which the series of events happening in Calcutta was displayed. "There has been a series of developments that I find particularly interesting. Your brat… His growth has been spectacular, and this unknown bloodline more so." "Is that so? Now that is something I would want to see." The elderly woman began a new round of coughing, and the Third prince absently patted her head like a dog. They both began to watch everything that had transpired in the manor, when Rowan killed the Demon, they apparently thought it was normal, but then, he left the corpse behind, the Third Prince scratched his head, "Wasn't the singularity supposed to influence him to eat the flesh of the Demon?" "That function was, er… suppressed." The hooded figure said, "The Holy Mother demands it." "Now, that's a little surprising. Seeing as without the flesh of Demons and Abomination, he would not be able to grow. Do you no longer require that data?" The Third prince spat in annoyance. "Before you get aggravated, I hope that you understand without her intervention we have nothing substantial, and besides he is a failed subject, his lifespan should be lesser than a decade, and the only use for him is to test the viability of the plan. We do have better candidates." "Like you, I suppose." "Well… I won't say that exactly, I prefer a hands-off approach to matters like this. Er… I just want to gather data for my projects… Nothing more." The Third Prince sniffed and turned away, continuing to watch the events taking place. He was silent until the moment Rowan manifested his shell, strangely they could not detect the presence of the creature that put together the shell for Rowan only it's sudden creation and Rowan's activation of Soul Seizer was also missing, the recording seemed to skip ahead, without none of them being the wiser.