In a short amount of life, he had faced so many betrayals and even worse, betrayal by his own family and the girl he loved, Victoria. She knew how he was feeling, a puppet, a boogeyman created by the Skyhall. If he was what they claimed, he wouldn’t have saved her, Raylene, Christopher and revived a dying sect to live. Regardless of his intentions, he saved more people than a typical guardian.
The thought of Skyhall and the Guardians pushing him on the path to become the Dark Lord and dictating his life pissed off her. He always acted calm even when the odds were against him which happened rarely due to his caution and plans.
She wasn’t sure how he had been reacting. Her mind was boggled on her way to his room. Since she sent all the students including the alchemists out on training, no one saw her entering the house of alchemists.
Her heart was pounding faster and faster as she got closer to his room.
”Sigh” standing in front of his door, she took a deep breath. She rotated the wedding ring on her finger nervously. The room was ominously silent. The thought of him leaving her flashed across her mind, almost making her eyes water. She didn’t know why she thought that but the thought did come across her mind.
Her hands shivered, moving towards the doorknob. When she finally opened the door, she was thoroughly shocked. She just stood in the doorway dumbstruck.
Michael was doing push-ups rather than being sad or gloomy. The other surprising thing was he had the Lucifer armor on an armor stand. His naked upper body had smudges of black paint which indicated he had been painting the armor and modifying it.
”Hey gorgeous” She saw him jump back on his feet. He walked to her with a wide grin on his face, wrapped his hand around her waist, pulled her closer, and locked her lips with his. For a man who should have been gloomy, he was way too cheery.
”Hey human. What’s going on?”
”I’ve been busy modifying my armor and training” he flexed his muscles.
Under normal circumstances, she would have gawked at his chiseled body with awe. He went back to the armor and attached the hidden blades to the sleeves.
”Michael” she was confused. She expected anything but this. He was so cheery than usual.
”I was thinking that I should remove the cape. Hmm”
Gaya saw him rubbing his beard doubtfully.
”Are you gone mad?”
His behavior creeped her out. Yesterday, he was so gloomy and silent. She was afraid that too much anger and sadness muddled his brain.
”I was,” Michael smiled, brushing the dust off of his armor.
”What do you mean I was? Stop looking at that fucking armor and talk to me” she stomped the floor,
Michael turned his gaze at her. A gentle smile appeared on his face. With a worried look on her face, Gaya walked to him. Her eyes expressed the concern in her heart better than her words and face.
He cupped her face, gently kissing her forehead
”I was mad to try to run away from my destiny Gaya. I always thought Lucifer is the mask and Ghost is real. But no, yesterday, I realized it was the other way around” Michael let her face go to put his hand around her neck. He walked towards the windows with Gaya,
”Every time I put on the armor, I say to myself, this has to be done to make my life easier. The desire to control the world from shadows was just a fantasy of mine” he paused for a second as the doom suddenly grew darker,
”Now I realized it wasn’t a fantasy, it was my destiny. Even after learning everything about the order, the prophecy, what the guardians did, I tried to run away from my destiny, I wanted to change it. But dread it, run from it. Destiny arrives all the same”
Gaya sensed an otherworldly aura from him. Even the breathing became harder as she felt like being choked by the aura.
”You’re acting weird Michael. You’re not the Dark Lord they claimed you to be. You’re better than that, I know you. If anyone is evil, it’s the Skyhall and Guardians”
”I am the Dark Lord nonetheless. Why try to avoid who I really am? If they had left me alone when I was born, I might have lived and died as an ordinary person. But they showed me the path to become something more, a god, a god who could reshape this world to his own liking”
The fear shrouded Gaya’s mind as the light in the room continued to flicker. Soon, the room fell pitch black.
Manipulating the darkness was not a skill or spell he bought from the system. Rather, he felt as natural as breathing. His strength had gone through the roofs and he sensed that he would be more powerful if he merged with the third piece of the soul. Just making peace with himself unlocked an ancient power in him.
When the lights returned to the room, Gaya was staring at him with a pale face.
”Don’t worry snakey, this is what the future me wants” Michael smiled looking at the distant horizon,
When he saw her face, confusion was written all over her face.
”Think about it, Gaya, Qin Jiu went to the future and saw the Dark Lord. And who is the Dark Lord? Me. You heard Elidyr, I beat her to half death but didn’t kill her, that doesn’t sound like me unless I let her live”
”You’re saying you came from the future”
”It makes sense, doesn’t it? How we met, the portraits of me in the dark forest, how I met Nightmare, don’t you feel like everything is connected?”
”I don’t care where you came from or from when you came, I’ll be at your side as long as I’m alive. What if your family gave you away? I’m all the family you need” Gaya embraced him in a tight hug. She squeezed him, having no intention to let him go.
Knock!
Knock!
Gaya jolted away from him when someone knocked on the door.
”It’s me, can I come in?” Elidyr’s voice came from the other side of the door,
”Come in,” said Michael as Eldiry opened the door to come in.
”Am I interrupting something?” seeing the half naked Michael and the tense body of Gaya, Elidyr thought they were exploring the area of love together.
”Nope. Did you find everything you need?”
Elidyr walked towards the armor of Lucifer hanging on the armor stand. He just looked at it from top to bottom before turning his gaze back at Michael,
”I had to go through some annoying conversations but I managed to get everything. Now we just need a vessel and someone who could weaken the vessel with your soul piece in it”
With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a tablet size mirror from the system storage. He threw it at Elidyr,
”There is your vessel”
Elidry looked at the mirror to see a mountain troll in it but this mountain troll was nothing like the one he scared using his energy a day ago. The mountain troll in the mirror was on fire and had a pillar with scorching hot lava oozing down.
”A fire giant” Elidyr had seen only a few in his lifetime. They were extremely rare and almost extinct from the world thanks to the Skyhall.
They were one of the races Skyhall deemed as helping the Dark lord. Thus, they almost wiped them out from the face of this world.
”A fire giant you say. That thing crawled through a ruin far north from here, relatively closer to where we went to collect Blackfoot mushrooms”
Gaya took the mirror from Elidyr’s hand and saw the fire giant sleeping. The snoring giant was a couple of times bigger and meaner than the mountain troll Gilrine loved.
”We will let the fire and ice battle it out. In two days, I want my soul to be whole again”
The ritual to extract the third piece of soul out had to be performed on a full moon day. Fortunately, the next full moon was in two days. The fire giant’s appearance was not a coincidence but a result of Victoria’s visit to the dungeon. She killed everything that guarded the dungeon except the fire giant. When the primordial flames left the dungeon, they woke up the slumbering giant. The giant was now tracking the primordial flames.
Michael was oblivious to the intention of the fire giant. His first priority was to make his soul whole. He had a feeling that once his soul became whole again, his powers would grow exponentially.
”What’s the plan?” asked Gaya,
”I will lure the fire giant to the ritual site, you make sure no one plays hero”
Michael then explained the full extent of his plan to Elidyr and Gaya. After hearing the plan, Elidyr was quite surprised. The plan was simple but elegant and fail proof. Slowly Elidyr realized why a legend of a person such as Qin Jiu shuddered to even utter his name.
He had devastating power and a brain to outsmart his opponents. This was a deadly combination. Moreover, his soul seemed to be in peace unlike when he first met him.
”What’s the plan after you absorb the third piece?” asked Gaya,
”Farming badass points” Michael thought in his mind but only revealed a smile to Gaya.