----Chapter 38----
The young Incan boy's hands were bleeding. He held tight to Gobura's cursed swords, but they dragged him across the dirt like hungry animals.
His small arms shook with effort. He dug his heels into the ground, but the swords kept pulling him toward death.
He had always been weak. Always made fun of. Coward, weakling, you'll never be a warrior.
Those cruel words rang in his head, just as they had since he was little.
He remembered the mocking faces, the rocks thrown at him, the times he hid behind trees and cried because he was too scared to fight back.
But then he remembered that day. Rubal had come.
Rubal had stepped in when the other children pushed him down, not with violence, but with kind words.
"It's not right to call someone weak just because of what you see. Real strength isn't about never falling down. It's about never giving up. People who get back up are the strongest of all."
The other Incan children laughed at him.
"You're not even one of us, outsider! You're just as weak as him!"
Rubal smiled, though his eyes flickered with sadness. "Maybe so. But remember, it's not cowardly to feel scared or to hide when you can't fight. What matters is that you never give up."
From that day on, the boy followed Rubal everywhere, calling him Master.
Rubal was patient, teaching him the Etherissian language so that one day he could help connect different worlds.
The boy stumbled through the lessons, his voice breaking on strange words, but he never gave up.
Now, holding these cursed blades, Rubal's words thundered in his heart.
"Real strength is not giving up."
His arms shook. His vision blurred. His hands tore open on the steel. But still, he would not let go. Until his strength ran out. His grip slipped.
The boy fell to the ground, blood streaming from his small hands.
Then another figure burst from the bushes—Tharen. With both hands, he grabbed the swords as they flew through the air. The force nearly knocked him off his feet.
His boots carved deep lines in the dirt, his arms screaming in pain as he held the blades back.
The boy, lying on the ground, looked up with tears in his eyes. "Please, don't let go!"
Tharen threw his head back, gritting his teeth, and shouted through the strain, "Don't worry. You did great. Now it's my turn!"
But the cursed swords pulled harder. His strength alone was not enough. His knees started to bend.
The boy's chest rose and fell heavily. His body screamed at him to stay down. But he forced himself to stand, stumbling forward. With a cry, he threw his arms around Tharen's waist, holding on with everything he had.
"I'll help! I won't let go either!" he shouted in broken Etherissian.
For a fleeting moment, Tharen froze. The boy spoke his language. Memories flashed through him—his own son at the same age as this boy, full of hope and stubborn courage.
But Anon and Gorak had held them captive, his wife, son and his father, forcing Tharen to cooperate and serve as tools for their plans and schemes to revived Daath.
He blinked, caught off guard, but there was no time to dwell on it. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the cursed swords.
"Heh, then let's do it together," he said, focusing on the task at hand.
Side by side, a broken man and a boy once called a coward fought against Gobura's cursed blades.
Before Tharen appeared, memories flickered through his mind. A while back somewhere not far away from the battlefield.
There was a small cavern where he had sat beside Anon when they flee to Astares pursuit back in the Cave of trial.
The silence was too deafening for him making every inch on his bOdy tense and then he heard a melody of a running river nearby, then he felt a bit thirsty.
"Ah Anon can I fetched a water on the river .. Just a little thirsty I think"
Tharen said almost like a whisper.
But Anon didn't flinch nor move were he sat, instead still meditating closed eyes.
Tharen, steps out of the cave thinking that Anon silence means Yes.
Then as he walk following the sound of the streaming river.
His eyes gone wide, glimmering with relief
finally he may able to drink some water to ease his thirst. Then he remembers the last time he drink was before they arrive the Island.
He knelt down and found himself staring at his own reflection, asking,
"What am I doing?" Fear had clenched his chest, terror rooted him to the ground.
But then he realized he could not keep running. If he acted, if he intervened, maybe he could change his fate and protect others from suffering as he had.
And so he left the cave. Now, standing beside the boy, he did exactly that.
Behind Faetalis, the boy and Tharen held Golden Flash and Crimson Blood, preventing the swords from piercing her back. Faetalis and Gobura remained locked in a battle of endurance.
Her Cosmic Axe pressed against his black sword, their strength alone keeping them pinned, neither able to strike. One wrong move from Gobura, and the axe could have cut him down.
Her golden eyes drifted past Gobura. Behind her, she saw the Incan boy, hands blistered, face wet with tears, clinging to the cursed swords.
Beside him, Tharen gritted his teeth, holding the blades with every ounce of his strength. Both trembling, both refusing to let go.
Why? she thought. Why fight for me? You don't even know me.
Tharen strained, shouting, "You can do it!!"
The boy's eyes widened, then he echoed him, voice breaking, "Yes… yes… you… can do… it."
Side by side, they renewed their effort, hands blistered and trembling, refusing to let the cursed swords win.
Pain surged through Faetalis' body. Night was fading, and dawn crept closer. Her horns flickered, dim, on the edge of vanishing.
Gobura smiled, a cruel thin smile. "Looks like your horns finally ran out of time."
He regained strength slowly, one knee pressing against the ground as he used his sword to push Faetalis' axe back.
Faetalis' arms shook. Her grip on the Cosmic Axe faltered. The strength that had carried her through the night finally drained away. Her horns flickered faintly, then vanished.
Gobura's grin widened, teeth flashing. His black blade pressed harder, the weight of his will crushing down on her.
Faetalis' hands went numb. Her chest heaved. For a heartbeat, time itself seemed to stop. It's over. I can't win.
Her golden eyes drifted past Gobura. Behind him, the Incan boy, hands blistered, clung to the cursed swords. Beside him, Tharen, a man she had never met, gritted his teeth, holding the blades with all his strength. Both trembling, refusing to let go.
Her body screamed to give up. But then, a voice soft and familiar echoed from long ago—her uncle's voice.
"Do you know why the Celestial Ogres cherish their horns, Faetalis? Why having one matters?"
She was a child again. Hornless. Cast out. Sobbing. Her tribe had called her weak, a freak.
"It's not a curse to be hornless," her uncle whispered. "It's a blessing. Be thankful. The sun itself will one day answer you."
Her memory shifted. She stood in the snow on her twelfth birthday, breath steaming, shivering in the cold. That was the day her uncle placed a battered axe in her hands.
"Celestial Ogres," he said, smiling, "we are more powerful beneath the sun."
The world snapped back.
And with it, the dawn.
The first light spilled across the battlefield, warming her skin. Her horns blazed back to life—not faint, but brighter than ever, shining like gilded fire.
"URRRGHHHHHHH!"
Her roar split the air. Power surged through her body, radiant and unchained. She pushed, her Cosmic Axe blazing, and Gobura's black blade shrieked in protest.
His eyes widened.
"I… Impossible!"
The sunlight seared his face. His body trembled, his grip faltered. "Damn it. You really are a true monster."
SNAP!
His black sword cracked, shattering, shards scattering into the dirt. Faetalis' axe crashed downward, piercing his chest. Blood exploded from his mouth as the impact pinned him deep into the ground.
The cursed swords faltered midair, their aura dimming, weightless now in Tharen's hands.
Tharen gasped, dropping to his knees, clutching the hilts. "Lighter. They're lighter!" His lips split into a grin. "She did it! We won!"
The Incan boy collapsed, tears streaming down his face, relief and disbelief warring in his small chest.
Tharen laughed breathlessly, falling onto his back, blades resting across him. "I thought my arms were going to rip off, but we did it."
A wet cough broke the silence. Gobura. Blood spilled from his lips as his pale face turned to Faetalis. His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, the last embers of life flickering in his eyes.
"You… win," he whispered. "Be proud, Celestial Ogre. You are a true warrior."
Faetalis froze, axe still heavy in her hands.
Gobura's eyes clouded as he drifted into memories only he could see. The red sands of Revheek, the golden scorpion devouring his peers, his body frozen among corpses, powerless and cowardly.
When the beast left, he staggered home, only to find his village gone. Torn apart. His family slaughtered. He vomited until nothing remained. Then he remembered his father's chest, the treasure within—a wooden box. Inside, a blade humming with black lightning. The moment his hand touched it, pain surged through his veins. Power. Fear. Hunger. His weakness shattered.
He wandered the desert. He hunted monsters. He slaughtered men. But always, always, his mind burned with one thought: the golden scorpion. Revenge.
Until one day, he remembered the hooded man in black. The aura that crushed him to his knees, suffocating, paralyzing, the true face of fear itself.
"...Serve strength, or be devoured by it," echoed in his mind even now.
Gobura blinked, eyes returning to the present. His lips curled into a weak, bloody smile.
"Perhaps… I was always the corpse on the sand," he rasped, his gaze locked on Faetalis' glowing horns. His hand twitched toward Tharen and the blades.
"Selfish, maybe, but keep them. My swords. Don't let them die with me. Give them a master stronger than me."
His fingers fell limp. His body stilled. The desert-born warrior, the last son of the Shiga clan, moved no more. The dawn rose fully, painting the battlefield gold.
---
Faetalis knelt in silence. Slowly, she reached out and closed Gobura's eyes, showing respect for the warrior who fought for what he believed in. Her knees buckled as she tried to stand, horns vanished, body exhausted. But strong hands caught her. Tharen.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"I'm fine. Thank you, brave one," Faetalis replied.
"No problem," he said gently, guiding her to the shade of a nearby tree.
Her gaze fell on the Incan boy, still trembling. "Come here, little one. I owe my life. Thank you for saving me back there."
The boy buried his face in his hands. "I… I'm sorry. It's all because of me."
"It's not your fault. I'm glad you're alright," Faetalis said softly, patting his head.
As Tharen regained his strength, he immediately realized the weight of his actions. What if Anon and Gorak knew he helped their enemy?
Without saying a word, Tharen pulled his hood back to cover his face and turned to run toward the forest.
"Wait!!" Faetalis called after him.
"You're with the Trinity, right
Tharen stopped for a moment, startled and shocked.