Return of the Fallen Volume 10 Chapter 82
After handing over a fragment of her soul, Detra opened her eyes and spoke coldly.
“Now give me my son.”
Zephris smiled with a demonic grin before he held out his hand and something small appeared in his palm.
It was a small, dead rat. Both Detra and Kazuki were confused but the very next moment they both understood as Zephris snapped his fingers and the small orb lit up and broke. The very next instant, Torzz’s soul leaped from the now-broken orb and shot directly into the small rat.
*Ba-bum*
The rat’s eyes shot open and it began looking in every direction. Zephris picked it up by its tail and examined it before tossing the rat to Detra.
“Here, your precious son.”
Detra caught the rat in her hands. She knew before Zephris said anything; she knew what had just occurred and she was devastated and enraged.
“What have you done to my son!?”
“Even though Torzz isn’t fully to blame for what I endured, he still holds responsibility. Because of that, his punishment is this.”
Zephris pointed at the small rat and explained.
“That rat is something I personally created. It is both weak and ugly and that rat is, in fact, your son now. That body has a 10,000-year-long life span. Inside of it, Torzz will no longer be able to use any magic of any kind nor will he be able to communicate with others. I have locked all of his powers and if any of the seals inside are tampered with, his soul will explode and he will no longer exist. Just like before, If anything happens to me, his soul will be destroyed. If he causes anyone any harm, his soul will be destroyed. His existence will be that of a rat. He will live amongst garbage and will feast on only what humans throw away. For the next 10,000 years, he will have to rely on humanity if he wants to survive. That is his punishment. An ugly, weak existence. As long as he hasn’t been killed within these next 10,000 years and he doesn’t come to harm people, his powers will be unsealed and he can return to his natural form.”
Detra sensed the many inscriptions and seals within her son and was dumbstruck. These inscriptions were far too complex and she couldn’t understand a single one. She couldn’t help but instinctively look toward Kazuki and Kazuki took a look himself. Most of them he got right away but there were quite a few he had no inkling of. They were not in his memory, which meant Zephris had come up with them afterward.
(His mind never ceases to strive further and further. These inscriptions are incredible. These seals are not so simple. They drain Gordonian energy as well as the element of fire to power them. This was obviously designed to work on Torzz and Torzz alone. At the same time, if Torzz wasn’t an idiot, he would have noticed a few flaws in this design. If he noticed right away then before he was bound to this body he could have escaped the moment the orb prison was broken. Because his guard was down, his soul was bound to this body, and now he’s stuck.)
Kazuki thought about how he would break the seals.
(Tampering with it is very dangerous, but if it were I, I would use my aura, my ki, or the spinning void within my soul world. Even if I was unable to use any of that, Zephris himself laid out a way one could break free. I don’t know if he did this on purpose or not but one of the main factors holding Torzz back is his weekend body. By enhancing one’s body through special tools like the Karada cauldron, one can get their body to a certain level. After that, by fusing one’s soul, mind, and body, one creates a connection to all three. One can bypass the tampering or rather allow the trap to activate and with all three connected, the destruction of this seal would harm all three. By the looks of this seal, the effects would be spread evenly. So with a strong enough form, he would be able to survive the seal’s activation with severe injuries but he would escape nonetheless.”
“Interesting.”
Zephris gave Kazuki a knowing look that said, please don’t say anything. Kazuki had no reason to point out the flaws so why would he. His lips remained sealed on this subject.
(Zephris is hoping that I don’t interfere any further. He knows Torzz will never be able to figure out the weakness in the seal but Detra isn’t so blind. She may not know what all of the seals and inscriptions mean but she has both time and plenty of resources on hand. If she wanted to, she could enlist experts and work on it herself, but she knows that by doing that, things would only sour further. This is why she’s not pushing things more. She realizes there is plenty of fault and blame to go around and since she isn’t retaliating, she has decided to accept Zephris’s punishment for her son.)
Detra held Torzz silently while looking him in the eyes. Torzz was afraid, but at the same time, he was still defiant. He kept squeaking angrily as if he were cursing Zephris, but of course, none understood him.
Zephris’s smile only widened watching this little show.
“Poor little weak Torzz. Now you will know what it’s like to be at the mercy of beings far more powerful than you. The so-called ants you looked down upon all this while will reign supreme in your world and there will be nothing you can do about it. If only I was there to witness it, how wonderful would that be.”
Detra and Kazuki looked at Zephris, catching his odd wording.
“What do you mean? With your abilities, you could observe Torzz at all times from anywhere in this world.”
Zephris sighed.
*Haa*
“There’s no reason to. Unlike Torzz, I receive no pleasure from watching others suffer. Just knowing he will suffer is enough. Now that he has been dealt with, I no longer have any reason to be in this place, to be in this Realm.”
Detra had heard more than enough and didn’t care. Zephris basically said he was leaving this Realm. For her, that was the best scenario. She suddenly felt tired—very tired. She had lived for billions of years and had never felt such mental exhaustion, and wanted nothing more than to take care of her son.
“Kazuki, I’ll be taking my leave now. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
She then stared coldly at Zephris.
“I hope we never see one another again. The days will be much warmer without you in my life.”
Without another word, Detra, along with her rat son Torzz, vanished as she left for her own tiny world.
Zephris chuckled.
*Heha*
“Is that her way of calling me a cold bastard?”
Kazuki folded his arms over his chest.
“What do you think? Your existence has only brought headaches for her. Not that I’m complaining. To me, you were the one that saved me. Of course, I’ve saved you as well, so there it’s even, but still, you get what I mean. At least I won’t be calling you cold.”
“But you’d still call me a bastard?”
Kazuki laughed at that, and Zephris joined him.
“Those seals are pretty clever, but what will you do if Detra increases Torzz’s constitution and strengthens his body? After that, she just needs to help him connect his mind, soul, and body, and the seals are basically useless at that point.”
“Damn, to think you would already see through my seals. I even tried to come up with a few new ideas, things you haven’t seen in my mind. Those eyes and that comprehension of yours…I’m glad we are not enemies, my dearest Kazuki.”
Kazuki got a creepy chill down his spine from hearing Zephris call him dearest, even if it was sarcastic.
“Changing the subject?”
Zephris shook his head.
“Detra most likely will increase Torzz’s constitution since he is so weak now, but that in itself is bait. If she helps him so he gets a better body it will most likely draw out her motherly instinct. She will then develop in a way where she feels motherly and good and Torzz will rely on her to take care of him, making her feel even more motherly and filled with love. In doing so, in a weird way, she will see this as a second chance at raising her son and it will become like a loop of her taking care of him and him relying on her. She will not even think about trying to advance things further than that because she will come to understand that if she helps fix him, he will simply go back to being a Titan, a cold heartless piece of shit. No, Detra will do her utmost to milk the situation and keep Torzz in that rat form for as long as possible.”
Kazuki’s jaw almost fell open.
“You…you really thought this through.”
“I told you, Kazuki, I’ve been thinking about it for a long long time.”
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