Return of the Fallen Volume 7 Chapter 90
Even though his mind was still in his soul world, Kazuki felt sick to his stomach. He felt suffocated as if someone had punched him in his gut with the force of a falling mountain. He didn’t need air nor to breathe inside his soul world but at this moment it was as if someone had stolen it from him and deprived him of it as he fell to his hands and knees and gasped for breath.
“This can’t be…This isn’t right. My brother, he can’t be gone, he can’t be.”
Tears began to stream down Kazuki’s face uncontrollably. Even as he tried to deny it out loud with his words, his mind refused to let him.
“Why! After everything we’ve been through, how could he vanish here and now!? I knew he was growing weaker and weaker but I never…I didn’t believe it…I didn’t want to believe that he could really disappear. This has to be a dream, no a nightmare. I have to wake up, I have to…”
A deep voice whispered softly from behind.
“You fool.”
Kazuki heard this and his body stopped trembling. He turned to face the hazy figured Zetrazz. Both of his fists balled up like iron mallets.
“What did you just say?”
“Your brother is no longer here, whose fault do you think it is? Whose responsible for his demise, is it not you?”
Kazuki gnashed his teeth before charging forward.
“YOU FUCKING BASTARD! ARE YOU SAYING ITS MY FAULT!”
Kazuki swung his fist at the shadowy haze and he passed right through it before colliding with his soul tree.
*Bam*
His soul tree trembled from the impact and Kazuki felt pain from the very depths of his soul.
One could not see Zetrazz’s face but if you could, right now one would see a devilish smile. Zetrazz could see that Kai was right, the effect of his existence being no more, truly was devastating for Kazuki. Zetrazz decided to push it even more.
“You are grieving so that insult will be allowed one time and one time alone. As for what I have said, where have I spoken incorrectly? Who was it that activated that the Ourodyess technique. It was you. Even though I told you a while ago that this devouring power was a foul one, you chose to ignore me and use it again and again. Even when that voice called out to you from within that void at the bottom of your soul tree, you still used the power. Only when it started to become unstable did you finally decide to stop using that power and then what do you do only a little while later. Things get a tiny bit hard and you activate it again, and you allow a dirty Vazul into this realm. The consequences of your actions led you here. The blame of your brothers fall, it lies squarely upon your weak shoulders.”
Blow after blow, Kazuki received Zetrazz’s words like continual gut punches.
“I…I didn’t know what that thing was. I didn’t know that would happen.”
Zetrazz’s smile widened even deeper in his black haze of shadows as he pushed more.
“You didn’t know or you just didn’t want to know. Rather how could you not see this coming. Do not lie to me, for I have peered into your memories once before. From what I witnessed, every time you activated that power, every time you allowed that voice to persuade you to devour, every single time, you lost all reason. Your mind fell into a haze thicker than my power and your body was controlled. Instead did you not welcome it. It allowed you to grow extremely quickly in strength and at the time the consequences were minuscule. Did you really think that such power in such a short time comes for free. There is always a sacrifice ad this time it was your brother who sacrificed everything to protect you. He was the one who fended off that Vazul bastard for a moment before I came. Without him and without me, your soul would have been devoured and your body no longer yours.”
Kazuki was stunned by this before Zetrazz began to explain everything. He recounted how Kai had used all of his remaining power in his soul to attack the invading Vazul. He left out how Kai asked to speak a few last words though. He also explained how he had saved him and sealed the devouring power.
Kazuki could see something similar to the soul mark that Glacious had when he was wounded. This one though was different. It was shaped like hazy black chains with several inscriptions laid upon them. He glared heavily at the black hole which he learned was not really a black hole but more like a gate to a different realm and inside were beings called Vazul. One of these Vazul had control of this gate-like thing and was the one who whispered into Kazuki’s mind.
The voice that tried to taint his thoughts and drive him to activate the power and devour all things, all of it was to expand the gate and allow one to cross over. Not only that the strength that it gave Kazuki was to ensure that his body wouldn’t break so easily once the Vazul entered it. To find out everything was in preparation to take his body and eat his soul, this began to turn Kazuki’s grief into an undying rage.
“I was…Noting more than a tool. Is that what you’re saying?”
Zetrazz laughed loudly.
*Hahahaha*
“Exactly. You were tricked by such an obvious ploy. Has your mother never warned you about voices coming from gates or rifts. Your lucky I so graciously stepped in and cast that cultist back to that hell realm.”
“Cultist?”
Zetrazz purposefully threw out that word and it had hooked Kazuki.
“Yes, cultist. You know that power is something that comes from the god of glutton Ourodyess right. Well, let’s just say that in the time Ourodyess was at the height of his power, he had quite the following. His influence stretched beyond the stars and many demigods and maybe a few actual gods worshiped him religiously. Well after Ourodyess’s downfall, his followers were all banished to one of the 7 realms of hell. I don’t know too much after that but from what I’ve heard, that hell realm is particularly nasty. Lacking resources and add a harsh environment, the creatures that followed Ourodyess were half-gods from all across the higher realms. Their adaptability is something even I have heard of so it seems a few have survived until this day but in the end, who wishes to stay in such a hell. These religious freaks wish for two things. One, escape from their hellish realm, and two, gather enough power to revive Ourodyess so that they can follow him once more as he devours the universe and returns everything to nothing.”
Kazuki shook as he heard this. He didn’t know about reviving gods or the like but it was true that this Vazul being really had almost taken him completely. If it did, it wasn’t hard to guess what the results could have been. The Vazul would grow stronger and stronger in Kazuki’s body as it continued to devour everything in sight. Kazuki was already nearing the top of the food chain in this world. With that starting base, Kazuki could see the Vazul inhabiting his body becoming unstoppable in a very small amount of time.
After it grew strong enough, how many things could stand up to it before it got a chance to devour everything in this world and all of this would have happened because Kazuki listened to the calling voice and activated this power.
Kazuki shuddered at the thought.
Once more his mind shifted back to his brother.
(Kai, you saved both me and the world yet no one but only two people know about your deed. You could have stayed with me for many more years but you gave it all up, you sacrificed it all. Brother…if only I had been stronger. If only I didn’t activate this stupid power you’d still be here. Now not even your soul exists. Forgive me.)
“Zetrazz.”
“Hmm?”
“Those Vazul, is it possible for me to kill them?”
“What would you do if I say it is?”
The clouds in Kazuki’s soul world began to spiral and collide with one another as memories of his brother played out. They showed his training, him joking with Kazuki and Danny. It showed when he was at his happiest and it showed him when he was sad. Kazuki’s brother meant everything to him and he had lost him once before. Kazuki didn’t think it was possible to feel even worse than when his brother had first died. This wound that he felt, Kazuki didn’t know if it was possible for it to ever heal.
Kazuki’s emotions were swirling around him like a chaotic storm but something within him burned like a thousand blazing suns.
“Even if it’s impossible, even if I can only be killed, I don’t care. I will destroy them, every last one.”
The black haze surrounding Zetrazz pulsed in excitement.
“Good. For you right now it may be impossible but for the you of tomorrow, or much much later, the one who doesn’t stop and grows and grows. I could see many possibilities where the impossible becomes reality. It all just depends on one thing.”
“What?”
“Just how far you’re willing to go.”
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