Zap—!
Two bolts of silver lightning flew through the air and struck the burdensome chains. Had the natural laws of the world applied to the strange lightning, Zareil should have been zapped to death, yet not a single hair on his body was scorched.
Moreover, the chains that had held the weight of the world had been snapped in half. The upper half still bound him, but no longer did it feel as heavy.
Zareil slowly regained consciousness after being knocked out by the impact. He was coughing wildly without constraint, barely able to see. His vision was blurry, black spots covering most of his vision.
Ow, why did she kick me? Did she really lose her temper?
Contrary to his lukewarm reaction, his body was in dire shape. His wrists were bleeding profusely, and his jaw was cracked and nearly shattered into pieces. His cheeks burned, and all of them came after he occupied the body.
It was just that pain was not as harsh to him as it was to others. He had sustained unimaginable amounts of pain in his life. If not for the high natural healing factor of demons, combined with the excellent medical capabilities of the IBI office, Zareil would have died dozens of times over.
As immense as the joy of thinking about all his traumatic memories was, he had more important things to do. Astrid was walking towards him, and based on her sudden...instability, it wasn't a stretch to think she was about to beat him to a pulp.
Or worse, kill him. And for reasons unknown, she had blasted the chains binding him to pieces, reducing them to nothing but hunks of molten metal. It was strange, but any help was always welcome.
It could have been a show of confidence on Astrid's part, letting him know how utterly useless he was.
Yet Zareil didn't back down; he had vowed to himself that he wouldn't let her or anyone, for that matter, trample on him anymore, and he wasn't one to break his promises.
While his condition was far from ideal, Zareil would still put up a fight as best as he could. As such, he got into stance, arms raised, blood dripping, protecting his face while giving him enough room to punch and counterattack.
"Bring it on, sister, I'm ready. I might be lost on what's happening, but in no way am I going to let history repeat itself."
Astrid didn't respond, only staring at him with a blank face. The previous disgust that had painted her canvas was gone, replaced by...nothing.
She tilted her head, as if confused by his stance.
"Why are you standing like that Zal. It almost seems like you want to fight me." She paused for a second before continuing again.
"I mean, I just showed you that you can't do anything to me. I can kill you before you even take a single step. Hell, in the time we just talked, I could have killed you hundreds of times."
It was true. If Zareil really was in the past, then currently, Astrid would be 19. Which in turn meant that she had awakened two years ago and was around the Assimilation stage.
Assimilation...the third stage on the path of power, the path of a reader.
Most people never reached the third stage, their potential not high enough to encapsulate what the third stage entailed.
"Mind, body, and spirit. The three paths the Book blesses us in. If I remember correctly, you're currently in the third stage of both mind and body, and your spirit has already reached the fourth stage. Meanwhile, my current body isn't even awakened. I'm not even a stage one. I'm weaker than a damn civilian!"
Since you could only awaken at the age of seventeen, Zareil, as a ten-year-old, was a mundane demon. There was nothing special about him except his lineage.
Astrid regarded him without a single sound and then answered his question.
"Yes, Currently I'm a Guardian."
Guardian, the title given to those who were at the third stage. Accordingly, every other stage also had a title by which the readers were referred to.
Readers at the first stage were called Civilains, the second were known Operators, the third Guardians, and so on.
Astrid continued, "Although you were wrong about one thing, my spirit is still at Assimilation, not the fourth stage, Alignment. Still comparing raw firepower, I should be at the very top of Guardians."
The reason for Astrid's high evaluation of herself was simple. Her affinity was one of the strongest elements: lightning. But it wasn't just normal lightning; her affinity was superheated lightning, silver lightning.
Zareil knew firsthand how destructive Silver Lightning could be, as his own affinity was the same. But he still doubted Astrid's claim of being the strongest Guardian. No one could guess what their affinity would be before they actually awakened.
If affinities were just elemental, it would have been easier to guess, but with conceptual affinities added to the picture, it was a whole other equation. Conceptual affinities could range from something as powerful as death to something as vague as...doors.
Thus, it was basically impossible to claim that you're the strongest, even more so at a low-level stage such as Assimilation, where there were millions of people.
"Despite knowing how pathetically weak you are, you wish to fight me, little brother? Even though we can come to an agreement instead. Are you sure you want to waste your time and perhaps your life fighting someone like me?"
I want to refute her, but she makes a good point. Fighting her in my current state is nothing but suicide. But can I really trust her not to do something horrible to me?
The answer was simple: he couldn't. Yet he still leaned more towards accepting her proposal.
Zareil remembered what Astrid had told him just before they had teleported into this...place. She had said, 'Just wait a few minutes, and then I'll leave' And in a way she was true to her word. Both of them had been transported to this place.
While it could be a coincidence, Zareil did not believe is such things. He was a detective, and his job didn't allow him the luxury of making conclusions based on ifs and maybes.
Everything was connected to something else in one way or another, and Astrid was connected to the trial the Book had imposed upon him.
I guess it can't really hurt me.
And so Zareil's decision was made; he was going to at least listen to Astrid's proposal before making a decision.
"Well, go on, I'm all ears, but maybe hurry up, everything hurts because a certain someone decided kicking me in the face was a good life decision."
Seeing her brother making gestures with his hand and complaining about pain, Astrid gave him a small smile. Their current situation reminded her of their childhood; if you removed her half-dead brother, the destroyed space, and, of course, the blood decorating every inch of the room from the equation.
"To put it simply, little brother, we siblings have been chosen as the future successors of Page of Dominion. In other words, we're destined to kill the current Goddess of Dominion, Sloane."