PANDORA. Hope Dies Last: ToG

Jokes and Names

Chapter 20

Flashback

POV Jahad, the Immortal King of the Tower

He was a king...a god...so what was this...

Countless years ago, he and his great warriors had conquered this tower and placed its rule under their thumbs. With the contract with the administrators made, they were the new gods of this infinite domain...and even among the great 13, or now 11, he was the greatest of them all.

It was him, Jahad, that gathered them from outside the tower. It was him that lead them up this vast world, floor after floor. It was him, it was always him, that lead and ruled...it was always him that claimed victory over it all.

Yet, what was this...

... ...

He had never forgiven himself for the sins he had committed on that fated day. The day he had done the unforgivable. A crime so unspeakable that its memory was embedded in his very heart. Not a day went by when he could forget the deeds.

The metallic smell of blood constantly reminded him of his sins. The dried blood of his own companions on his own hands. Blood between them because of a mere disagreement...was fate so unkind to him?

Sickened by his own deeds, he had removed all evidence and memory of such a thing happening. Monuments were broken, entire floors were burnt down, countless millions slayed...yet their memory never faded.

Viole might have been lost to the passage of time but his lover...no, the one he had loved...refused to die, refused to leave.

Arlene Grace was as stubborn as ever.

With her passage, others took up her mantle and yelled her name as loud as they could. A religion forming...a religion dedicated purely to dismantle his rule and share the hidden 'truth' of that day...of what he had done.

Did he fear them? FUG, as they called themselves...with very few that remain even knowing what it stood for. 'For Unforgettable Grace'...an ironic name as it was he himself who could not ever forget her.

No. He didn't fear FUG. He didn't fear their influence or their goal. Their weak Slayers and their weapons nor their trickery. What he feared was Arlene's prophecy. What he feared was fate.

And perhaps fate had arrived

... ...

Fear was a concept that had been gone so long, it felt foreign to him. He would have imagined he had forgotten the concept of 'fear' should it not have returned to him at this very moment.

His immortal guard...slaughtered. His connections to shinsu...severed. He was no longer King, God...he was not even the adventurous child that had lead his 'friends' into the tower, into the unknown.

Now...he was less.

Staring up into the eyes of the man the tower would come to learn as 'Phantaminum'...he knew fear.

... ...

Centuries had passed since the invasion of Phantaminum into his Palace where the 'irregular' had spared his life. It was centuries since he, Jahad, had given up searching the answer as to why he had done so.

"You have ruined the 'story' I had so carefully crafted" Phanataminum had said to him on that fateful night...and yet moments later, it was as if he was talking to a different man.