"Why are you still standing frozen?"
"Run, Kaecilius!"
"Only you can help me break the seal! Go! I will erase the traces of your visit!"
Quaggs was worried, sensing Naga's breath drawing ever closer.
A massive tentacle, thick as a mountain, rose from the depths. It tried to push Aron back toward the bronze gates, but it was too late.
Boom!
A colossal figure suddenly descended. The seawater parted as if it offered no resistance at all, easily giving way.
"I wonder, why do I always feel the seal shaking…"
"It turns out someone is trying to escape from prison."
Naga's figure fell into the abyss like a mountain collapsing from the sky.
Aron looked up. Just for an instant, he felt as if someone had struck his skull with a hammer.
There was no debate, a single glance at Naga was enough to drive an ordinary man insane.
Naga was the master of the oceanic expanse, a demonic titan who could swallow human consciousness and shatter reason with a blink.
The time for play had begun.
But Aron…
Aron had a holy soul. Not only did he withstand the gaze, but he even raised his eyes to stare directly at his face.
Unlike Quaggs, whose body resembled an octopus, Naga was not entirely a sea monster. His form was more akin to a land-dwelling creature, something between a dinosaur and Godzilla himself.
He had two legs, two arms, and a tail. But what made him truly terrifying was the head.
At the top of his massive body was an octopus-like head. His neck was interwoven with tentacles that hung down his body like thick hair.
And what made him even more horrifying was a single, enormous eye. A one-eyed titan. A cyclops from the depths.
The eye took up nearly three-quarters of his face, pulsing and gleaming like a sea filled with darkness.
"Quaggs, I didn't expect you, traitor, to truly attempt to escape."
"And on top of that… you're working with… a…"
"Human?"
Naga's eye fell on Aron. The difference in size was so vast that it took Naga several moments to even realize that a man was standing before him.
"Hey, how are you?" Aron politely greeted him.
What else could he do when it got awkward? A new client meeting an old client, the scene couldn't be more absurd.
Aron had originally planned to finish off Quaggs, and then summon the master of this oceanic realm, Naga. But plans never keep up with chaotic changes.
"Hmph."
Naga cast him another glance and immediately looked away with disdain.
"A human?"
"Have you truly fallen so low, Quaggs? Do you believe a human being can break our Lord's seal?"
With his massive foot, he stomped on one of Quaggs' tentacles. The two of them were titans, and Aron before them was nothing more than a tiny shrimp.
"That's your lord!" Quaggs shouted.
"I am no longer his servant!" Quaggs roared.
Chained, drained of all strength, he could only endure. But instead of screaming in pain, he laughed.
"Who told you a human cannot break the seal? Look with your filthy one-eyed gaze! Look at the changes on the inscriptions of those chains!"
"A human can shatter your great lord's seal! Hahaha!"
His laughter was filled with mockery and pride, as if he alone had accomplished it.
"What!?"
Naga finally paid attention and saw that the inscriptions on the chains had indeed changed.
Shock coursed through his entire body. His enormous eye once again fell on Aron.
"A human!"
"Stupid insect! Do you know whose seal you are trying to break?!"
"What you are destroying is a being born at the very beginning of the universe's chaos! Master of the Old Ones! Ruler of hundreds of dimensions! Lord of Chaos! One will of that being can destroy an entire galaxy!"
"Gargantosi!"
Naga roared, reciting his lord's titles.
But Aron only rolled his eyes.
"Yes, yes, you can shout all that here, but your lord doesn't hear it. Who are you actually yelling at?"
As he said that aloud, Aron silently used sound-transmission magic to contact Quaggs.
"Quaggs, I'll help you break the seal. Then we can deal with this monstrosity together."
"But you no longer have exorcism cards," Quaggs replied. There was no hope in his voice.
If Naga had passed word to Gargantosi that Quaggs was trying to escape, everything they had done so far was in vain.
Aron's voice was firm: "It doesn't matter that I don't have cards. I will burn my soul, sacrifice most of my life, dedicate the last of my energy within me! All of it just to help you completely break the seal!"
Quaggs fell silent. He didn't know what chakras were, he didn't know about waves, but he did know how important soul and life were to a human being.
And in that moment, he felt something he had never felt from a human before.
"Kaecilius… I had originally planned to kill you as soon as the seal was broken. But now…"
"Now you have earned my true friendship!"
Aron was silent inside. True friendship? Really. He had planned to kill him, and now he acted like a brother-in-arms. Still, Aron decided to play along to the end.
He pulled out a pen and began drawing the ritual directly onto his palm.
It was an exclusive ritual for breaking seals, not for exorcism. Aron wasn't stupid enough to send Quaggs back to his dimension, he planned to use him against Naga.
"Kaecilius! Go on! I will help you bring him down!"
But just as Aron was halfway through the ritual, Quaggs suddenly shouted and lunged at Naga.
"???"
"Are you insane!? Won't he notice I'm doing something!!"
Aron was stunned.
That shout immediately drew Naga's attention.
He didn't know what Aron was doing, but seeing Quaggs so flustered, he knew it had to be something important.
"I don't care what you're plotting! DIE!"
Naga raised his mountain-sized foot and brought it down on Aron.
At the last moment, Quaggs managed to move one of his tentacles and place it in between.
Aron was speechless.
He thought Quaggs was planning some betrayal.
But now…
This was pure, stupid recklessness!
Stupid, damned Quaggs!
Aron couldn't believe this demonic god had actually decided to sacrifice himself to save him, a human he had planned to use and kill.
But the truth was there, before his eyes.
–––
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