Shadow In Your Mind [ARC 5 to latest]

Chapter 193 - His pleasure to break this strong 'toy'

XG 193 - His pleasure to break this strong 'toy'

"After a long search, we discovered where he came from, and how he got the devil's blessing. The sacrificial ritual was a sacred and old tradition, which in my era had started to stop doing so. The villagers had buried him at a separate cemetery, but the soil around the burial gradually became dry and it keep spreading. It gave them an ominous feeling and they move away from the village. It took him more than half a decade to finally crawl out of his burial and slaughter the people he encountered. News of men being slaughtered, females being raped, and children missing... it caused great unrest among the people. It became so great a deal that the people from the capital were asked to deal with the matter. We were foolish, thinking it was just a group of bandits, and our arrogance is paid with our lives."

"How did the church members fight against Zene?"

"At that time, the people from the church were the real deal compared to the current time, their devotion to God was strong and pure. Many of them were granted the power of purification from God. It was a difficult time for Zene and his followers, but they were still able to kill most of the devout followers of God, burning down many churches and taking many lives. Even the King was afraid of Zene and dared not to fight him after seeing even the pope was defeated."

One of the princes got attracted by Zene's immortality and wanted to learn how he achieved that. That desire nearly ruined the empire from a group of people backstabbing their allies for their own gain.

"I was inexperienced as a knight, and it was my inexperience that Zene used me as a hostage to force my father, who happened to be the head knight assigned to protect the pope. Before my horrified father, Zene corrupted my soul, forcefully gave me a devil seed and turned me into one of his underlings. With everyone witnessing my change, I could no longer return to the church and was deemed as an outcast, which amused Zene."

Chin Chun was not interested in how Axel was forced to work under Zene, even if it did explain the weird Alpha gene structure in him. "How did Zene get sealed in Antarctica?"

"A travelling monk with his apprentice from the far East offered to help. That great monk is powerful, and with the help of the other popes and bishops from many continents, we manage to seal him far away, in the coldest place that no one knows. It is the monk that shared with us about the existence of that place."

"And how did you survive until now? You should no longer be 'immortal' once Zene got sealed."

"Zene may be sealed, but that does not mean the others are sealed. One of his closest confidants had the ability to freeze time. I only know of it after I woke up in a coffin, only to discover I have slept for more than five centuries. A travelling ship accidentally landed on the sealed area and woke up Zene with their life force sucked away. And that's when Zene started to gather strength to break the seal by having his followers lure people over to that place."

Secretly, Axel had tried to make contact with the new churches, only to discover they were not blessed by God's light. There were a few of them that were blessed, but they were not strong enough to help him take down Zene, especially with an increasing number of people working for Zene, each with a dangerous ability standing between them.

"How many people are working under Zene?" Chin Chun questioned.

"To be honest? I don't know. They are wise to keep their guard up against me, and I only know there are a lot of people working for Zene. They were hiding all over the world, doing whatever Zene told them to do, and being his informer. Their latest task was to spread the gene and kill the named people on the list."

"How many people are on the list?"

"Around five hundred or more, all around the world. Now, there are only a quarter of the names left. They are the people who inherited Zene's flesh and have the talent to have a strong ability to shake his authority."

"Other than you, is there anyone willing to work with us to bring down Zene?"

Axel hesitated. "The little monk that's always beside the fortune teller. His temple was destroyed and all the people there were murdered by Zene's orders. As far as I know, he hated Zene."

"So you don't know anything useful at all."

Perhaps sensing the murderous aura from Chin Chun, Axel willingly added, "I could help you look for his whereabouts. I can sense him from the energy he has given to me. But I can only sense him as long as I still have his life force in me."

"How long will that be?"

"Once a year, Zene will summon us to him with one of his follower's teleportation ability and hold a ritual for everyone to receive his 'blessing'." Axel's words were thick with mockery and undisguised disgust.

"If he's trapped underneath the ice, he will need people to supply energy to him. Is he absorbing energy from hearts?" Chen Yibo asked.

Axel's face darkens. "Yes. Jasmine, a necromancer, gathered hearts for him. The injection of Zene's gene forced their hearts to be vessels of life force, absorbing every spark of life from their body until they become energy-craving monsters. As long as the heart remains undamaged, it will continue to seek more energy by eating others' energy."

"Can he stay?" Chen Yibo asked Chin Chun after they left the room where Axel was imprisoned.

There was no need to prolong the interrogation when their prisoner was very cooperative, and sincere in working with them.

"Why turn away a willing helper?"

Their base really needs more fighters now that the enemies had their eyes on them. Not only that, Chin Chun is really interested in the extra helpers Axel had gathered in Europe.

While Axel firmly believed that Zene keeping him alive was for the purpose of torturing him for his sick sense of pleasure and mocking the church's uselessness, Chin Chun believed otherwise.

Zene may be a grudgeful and vain person, but he would never raise a threat beside him. Especially for a few hundred years. His action of sending his minions to kill those people on the list was exactly because of that.

If Axel was really in the dark about why he was left alive, he must have some uses that only Zene knows. Not only that, Zene had seemingly avoided using Axel to do his dirty jobs which were unlike how a person would treat their 'toy', especially one that still outright showed his hostility to him.

According to Zene's personality, it would be his pleasure to break this strong 'toy'. Grabbing innocent people to be fed and killing potential threats to Zene were common acts, but Axel need not do them. Taking on Shaman Ji might be one of Axel's most 'heavy' tasks he had ever received, and that was also because they do not have a suitable person, or worth risking.

Light fighting light was the safest.

Perhaps they would know more from keeping Axel with them. Zene's reaction to Axel joining them would provide them with clues.