Leon’s dark hair whipped around his face and he felt like he was caught in the middle of a storm.
“Ugh…” He winced as he felt the mana contained within the curse mark bite his skin. In the next moment, he undid his transformation, allowing his true form to appear.
By now, he had already unraveled half of the spell, but the second half was more deeply woven, as if it had already been merged with Nasir’s soul.
‘If I can’t use my own power to do this, then I will borrow power from elsewhere!’ Leon decided and split his attention slowly. He did not divert too much focus, or else the spell would have blown up in his face, but he diverted enough so that he could focus on one of his other Titles.
The Title, <God’s Disciple>, allowed Leon to act on behalf of Michael. It also gave him a small control over Michael’s Divinity, which was what granted him his immunity to Holy energy. This control over Divinity was what Leon wanted to utilize now.
Slowly and gradually, Leon took control of the high level energy that existed around him. He had practiced this before when he had been training before being alerted to Nasir’s attack on his summons, so he had a basic grasp of how to manipulate a small amount of Divinity.
Taking control of this minute amount of Divinity’ Leon guided it along the paths of his mana, and imbued his will into it. This was very difficult, and could not be done without consent of the God whose Divinity you intended to utilize, but Leon had long since gained approval from Michael, and did not need to go through any long processes.
The moment the Divinity imbued with Leon’s will came into contact with the essence of the curse mark, it immediately broke down, the fabric that held it together coming undone.
“Argh!” Nasir felt one final spike of pain, before a wave of relief flooded in to his body. His muscles went slack, and for the first time in a long time, he felt at peace.
“Ahhhh, that was exhausting.” Leon stumbled back and fell into a seat. He held his forehead that was adorned by the bone crown and those gems, and let out a sigh of relief. He turned to look over at Nasir who had slumped over in his chair, covered in sweat. The man was just barely hanging on to consciousness. It was a miracle that he had not yet lost consciousness.
“How do you feel?” Leon stood up and walked over to him, helping him to sit up properly.
“I feel… like I died and came back…” Nasir panted for breath wildly. His eyes were still red from the stress of it all. “But I also feel… free.” A shine came into his eyes as he spoke.
For the first time in the past decade, he actually did feel free. That irritating connection that Ashtar had tied onto him had finally been severed, and he could no longer feel any of the man’s commands bearing down on him.
“I’m glad you feel better now. But we have a lot to discuss.” Leon patted Nasir’s shoulder. “But first, we should see the people outside.” He walked over to the door of the room and opened it to see Nedra and the three Demon boys standing outside the door. Elena and Rodius were not present there. They had decided to stay back and wait for Leon to show up, so Nedra led the boys to the room after getting confirmation that everything was alright.
“Come in.” Leon waved them all in, and Lance was the first to enter. He walked over to Nasir and stared down at him quietly. Nasir silently stared back at Lance before dropping his head.
“I am sorry, but it needed to be done. I could not let the Demons attack without warning anyone.” Nasir said not as an apology, but as a statement to justify his actions.
“What if you had died?” Lance asked with that same blank look on his face. “Who would I ask for advice? Who will protect me if you died?” His fingers balled up into fists which he clenched hard.
“…” Nasir had no response to that.
Seeing how awkward the atmosphere was getting, Leon looked around and saw the others already staring at him. He motioned for them to leave, and when everyone was out, he closed the door behind him.
“Let’s give them some time alone. Barak, Balak, the two of you can go and do your own thing. I have a discussion to get back to with Elena and her father.” Leon told the others and turned to walk away. He soon returned to the meeting room with Nedra a step behind him.
“Sorry for the delay. It was quite important.” Leon smiled apologetically at the father and daughter.
“It is fine. Nedra told us what it was about.” Rodius nodded and stood up just as Leon sat down. Leon tilted his head, as he could not lift his eyebrow in question when in his true form.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“Leon, I want to take this opportunity to genuinely apologize and ask for your forgiveness for the way I threatened you life during Divinity’s Bout. I hope you can forgive me for that.” As Rodius spoke, he went down on one knee and bowed his head as a sign of his sincerity.
“…I told you already. It is in the past, and I have moved on from it. We should both move on from it.” Leon sighed and shook his head.
“Even if you have put it behind you, it is still necessary for me to show that I am sorry for that incident.” Rodius nodded and took his seat again.
“Very well, then. If you say so.” Leon shrugged helplessly. “I am sure that you came all the way here for some other reasons. I am willing to hear them out.” Leon grinned and sat forward.