SOLARVERSE: MASKED

Chapter 8 - See You Later

"Michael, have you found the books the old man has been asking us to find yet?"

"Nope, no luck at all, how about you?"

"None for me either... To be fair, this library is pretty big though..."

"Huh, hey, Lucian, you've read this book before, have you?"

"Hm? No... I'm not interested in that satanic stuff, Michael."

"...It's not satanic, it's information about that stuff."

"Same thing, right?"

"...Ah well either way,"

"I found something interesting, it says here that for most rituals to take full effect, the conjurer usually takes his own life... How creepy is that?"

"Since apparently the killings of others' lives only suffice just barely for a ritual."

"And all of the recorded instances here seem to be for some odd demon called 'Beelzebub' or something."

"Huh, really? That is... Odd, isn't that the sin of gluttony or something? Wait, why do you even have a book on that in the first place?"

"Found it in the deeper parts here in the library, I remembered reading this back then, I was crazy for the research on this type of stuff when I was investigating murders related to these types of rituals back then, you still remember that whole ordeal, right?"

"Someone needs to put you on a leash... At this rate, you'll be the second coming of 'that man' with all the knowledge you've stacked up."

"I can say the same, ocean-eye. You're eyes' whole gimmick is that you can process information and even reality way better than others can."

"...Always got something to counterattack, huh, Michael?"

"Of course, Lucian... Always had ya on the edge of your seat."

"Come on, now even that was an undeniable lie. I've beaten you plenty of times."

"Power goes a long way, doesn't it, Zeph?"

"...Not the full way, though."

...

Zeph flew faster than he ever could, blindly passing by mountains, lands, and hills, even breaking through parts of them without care, his adrenaline kicked in as his spine felt shivers all the way as he hurriedly glided over to Brimstone Village, his worries culminating into this one moment, he was ghastly afraid for everyone behind his composed exterior, as he gritted his teeth, he cursed himself for being so stupid as to believe the lies of a murderer, and for all he knew, that could be his last and biggest mistake.

He released a drop of sweat which ran down to his neck as he began to see Brimstone Village in the distance, but the sight was far worse than he could have ever thought, it was engulfed in a flaming orange, smoke sizzling through the air above, as the velocity of Zeph's flight heavily increased, the sweat from his forehead flying away into the night, shimmering Zeph hastily landed down before his beloved village the moment he got close enough.