The Three King's Saga: The Hunter's Pride

Betelgeuse (Prologue 1)

After the titan met death, an entity of immense power revived him. The King of Demon Clan, Algol, was the one who revived him. The former savior who was the most hatred from Perseus Guild did tell him that he was revived for a reason; to regain a new prominence and seek revenge to his arch nemesis.

That monster told me that I was the next
version of himself, so I was chosen to reduce the efforts he needed to evolve. For his arch nemesis... Well, he had forgotten almost everything but the fact that the apocryphal guardian was also known as Argus.

Then I asked him,"You said that the village I used to stay in was corrupted for a very long time. Why??"

His answers were two words only; dimensional distortions. He said that all of the villagers, including my mom, were mirages of the destroyed version of themselves from an alternate universe! The time gap between the universe and mine was very lengthy, hence dating the true version of themselves back tens of thousands of years ago.

He told me that these kind of dimensional cases were not unexplainable, but complicated. During the original version walkthrough, everything happened just the same but ended differently from the version of mine. So I thought of this; if it happened like so, then the monster I talked with might be the curse that impact the original version of me, wasn't it??

Undoubtedly, I was very shocked to hear his answers as I just realized that all this time, I was surrounded and influenced by ghosts! It supposed to not make sense at all, yet it was all a clear fact which seemed unclear and impossible to me.

I asked him again and again,"If they were mirages, then how about the village? Does that mean that the village was actually abandoned? But how could everyone there felt very realistic to me? How about everything I did, including what I ate and drank? How could I survived this long without any criticality? And why...??"

Suddenly, a guard appeared and unlocked the cell door, hence letting me and the monster follow the guard along the way. We kept walking until a large, red glowing room was seen at the path end. That moment, I completely forgotten about everything I supposed to ask him.

By the glance of that chaotic room mixed with the monster's past, perhaps it was all made up by the Demon Clan. Maybe one of them captured us there and there was no doubt that anything would likely happened to us.

Things would be worse than I thought...

There, Algol sat on the throne, waiting for our presence. Both of us were forced to bow upon his highness, but the dark knight expressed something to us with his right hand as if he wanted us to stop bowing upon him.

A moment of silence took place, then Algol asked me one question,...

"Why must you be controlled, not controlling?"

I thought for a while, then I answered his question stupidly,"I must say, these were all coincidental, and someone responsible shouldn't mean it." Suddenly, he risen from his throne, walk towards me, and slashed me with his large hand covered in darkness. "Nonsense, foolish!" I remained speechless as he continued to speak...

"So far, you fathomed nothing about this reality. All you did was living as if you were the only one who struggled to survive. You were totally mistaken, totally fooled, totally hopeless. You were born in a fake environment that influenced you about regularity so that you would realize how weak truth was. No matter how strong it grip us, lies would melt themselves into molten iron that covers its torch. You were born to learn, but you despite it. You were born to take your time and think, but you wasted it. You were born to be overpowered, but you never tried to be it..."

"Enough!" I could no longer be patient and stopped his babblings,"The truth is, I want myself to be with myself only. I didn't deny your words, I know its true. I also felt very irritated when I finally realized that I was living with ghosts. But why should I care?! I had nothing to do with others while the others had nothing to do with me as well! Everyone owns their own lives, and so am I. So please, let me be myself and live by myself!" Just when I finished my words, his facial expression transparently revealed how mad he was that time.

So he chocked and lifted me up. His right hand held my neck very tightly that it could had separated my head from my body. Even both of my hands couldn't resist the pain while holding his hand, trying to escape. The monster just kept watching me in vain, then Algol said to me,"That's why you're stupid! Not only you followed the falsity, but you remained static until the truth came for you, even though it was impossible!" After a while, he released me from his hand, and began telling me his truth to brainwash me...

"This reality itself was a lie, though. Let me tell you something, Betelgeuse..."

"The most hazardous root of the universal tree is falsity, a part of negativity. One of its branches is illusion. The world you live in is very huge, and the time you spend in your life should be very long. There are many things to be explored if you change your gate of conceptions, from closed to opened.

Nonetheless, interruptions did existed, something called "dimensional distortions" might change our life. They unravel the fake truth, change our conceptions, and even annihilate our spirit. That is illusion. But there are more details about the dimensional entities themselves, more than what we expected at first. Vectorial personas, genres of eccentricities, symbolic arcana, they're some portions of illusions."

"So, what are you concluding?" He replied to my question,"All universes have these three in common; eccentric, full of lies and confusions, and full of hidden secrets and truth. That was one of the main reason I form this clan, the Demon Serpents of Incandescent Hellfires. This clan was born, to rise the power of demons and pursue the power of gods! Only some will be chosen, but I never thought that a moron like you would be chosen."

"But, how do you know I was chosen?"

"That's amusingly a very good question. Let me show you," he answered my question with just a mirror he created with his dark energy, just to reveal how reddish my eye colour was! "This is strange. From my birth until now, I always looked at mirrors with my eyes being black in colour."

"So now you realized it, idiot? This is a very clear proof of illusion as a subject to falsity! The hoax was very tough that if you realized it earlier, you're indeed worthy for this clan. But unfortunately not!" The King of Demons said so.

"So what's the point of bringing me with this monster here if I have no use for you guys?" I asked. He said,"There was a prophecy made long ago in your true birthplace village. If not because of all the dimensional distortions, you would've died that time, killed by the villagers searching for you. Well, you see, dimensional distortions are very devastating, but you can take advantages from them if you wise enough."

"Why must I be killed? And what did the prophecy said?"

"It mentioned one from the red eyed troop, that was you. Long ago before your birth until now, Demon Clan was known for most of its members having red eye colour. That includes me as well. I know how you felt after going through everything, but seeing you being envious and innocent just after I told you almost everything, I think I should just evolve you and train you to be my second vice assistant, or Putra, the other name for this position."

I smirked, then I said,"You got to be kidding me. You still determined to train me to be your major helper, despite my weaknesses. Why?"