BXBX NOVEL Chapter 907: Demon's rage
Chapter 907: Demon's rage
Erik stared at the floor, his mind shutting down. His mother was dead; his father just went to her.
Around him, friends bowed their heads in shared grief. Their presence offered little comfort -no solace could fill the hole now torn in Erik's soul.
<I don't understand...>
A hand squeezed his shoulder.
<I hated him for years. But why? Why can't I hate him now? It would be so simple... > Through the haze of grief, Erik caught sight of June's mournful expression.
His clone shared Erik's sense of loss, having experienced Lucius' love through Erik's memories.
"Master..." June's voice was heavy with sorrow, while his eyes were filled with pain.
Erik glanced up at June, his clone's face crumpling with grief.
June's usually mischievous eyes were dull and filled with tears, his lips pressed together to contain his emotions.
Erik understood his clone was experiencing as much anguish as he was.
The difference was that June had not spoken with Lucius. However, this also saved him from the heartache of witnessing his father in such a dire state.
The sight of June's sorrow, though, increased Erik's own pain; he knew his clone felt Lucius' loss as deeply as him.
He wasn't the only one. All of his clones were in a similar situation.
Lucius' death left an emptiness within them that no words could ever fill.
Erik nodded at June's words, but they were just that, words, and they changed nothing. Lucius was gone, dead, because of what Volkov did to him.
<If only I got it. If only I had killed. I would have had it...>
Erik killed, mutilated, and lied. Yet, he couldn't kill innocent people. He could not kill healers to steal their powers.
He was never able to force himself to take that step or jump that cliff, even though he was still full of wrath and loathed everyone in New Alexandria. Erik never managed to.
<But I should've. I should've been more selfish. I should've been more focused. >
And yet he didn't. His very few morals prevented him from doing so, and his focus shifted to his enemies.
Caiden let out a long sigh across the room. He'd known Lucius for a long time. To see his old friend now gone wasn't easy for him, either.
Amber and Gwen were looking at Erik with sorrow and worry.
The group had already experienced this after Anderson's death, when Nathaniel's father killed many parents and family members of theirs.
For a long moment, all was still. Each soul present accepted the loss's finality.
Then they quietly dispersed, leaving Erik to grieve alone as night fell once more.
...
...
Erik returned to his quarters in a daze. Grief still clutched at his heart, yet underneath smoldered a growing fury.
His father was gone, and he could do nothing to prevent it.
So little time passed since he arrived at Liberty Watch. Erik didn't have time to find a healer, steal a power, or make a potion that could save him. Nothing.
Cruel fate stole away the only family he had left in the world. Anger swelled to fill the void of loss. Only his clones remained now.
June and Noah followed in silence, exchanging anxious glances with one another.
Although Erik had shown rage bursts for years, this primal wrath appeared to be new; it was like a dark beast had been unleashed within him.
The door was slammed shut behind them, and Erik paced around the cramped area like a confined animal.
His eyes flared with unrestrained emotion as he gazed at nothing, his fists gripping at his sides with white-knuckled clenching.
"Master..." June began.
"Don't." Erik's voice was chilling in its flatness. No one talked for some time, but then Noah took a cautious step forward.
"We grieve with you. But anger helps no one; it will only destroy you."
Erik spun to face them, his eyes blazing. "No, Noah. Anger is the only thing I have."
Suddenly, the plants in Erik's room grew wildly. Unbeknownst to him, he was using his powers-not the Solid Frostwind or the Wyvern Flames he often relied on, but the Plant Master brain crystal power.
This was a power he had gained by merging his birth power with another, and now it manifested without his deliberate control, causing the greenery to spread across the room, intertwining and expanding with a life of its own.
Noah and June watched as thick vines emerged from the floorboards and coiled up the walls, dotted with wide leaves of vivid green.
Moss crept over every surface of the room, turning the small space into a maze of plants.
Erik didn't seem to realize what he was doing. He was looking at June and Noah in the eyes, as if nothing but those two existed.
"Master... You are... You are losing control."
But Erik wasn't listening.
"Nothing I do is enough. No power, no skill-in the end, it amounts to nothing. My father is dead, and I could not stop it!"
The two clones exchanged another look, their concern for their creator overshadowing all
else.
Erik was unraveling before their eyes, and when he tore loose, there was no knowing the wrath unchecked fury might inspire.
Erik's voice was a low growl, filled with a cold, unyielding detachment.
"The Blackguards, Volkov... They must pay. I won't rest until I tear their heads off their
bodies. They must die."
Erik's face twisted into a vengeful sneer as he spoke those last words.
His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed to slits, gleaming with an icy hatred.
His lips curled back in a snarl, baring his teeth. Every muscle in his body tensed with barely contained rage, hands curled into tight fists, knuckles whitening.
A cold, mirthless chuckle eluded him then, devoid of warmth or joy, sounding more like a
predator's growl.
June and Noah saw the twisted expression on their creator's face and heard that chilling laugh
so unlike the Erik they knew.
Fear crept into their hearts. This was not like Erik's usual bursts of anger.
This felt deeper and darker- an unquenchable bloodlust that threatened to consume him.
"They must die," Erik said through clenched teeth.
A mad light entered his eyes then, shining with the cold fanaticism of a zealot on a holy
mission.
His hands trembled, fingers twitching as if already around his enemies' throats.
Yet underneath the rage, there remained a thread of sadness.
His father's death had awakened something primal within Erik-a need for vengeance that
now overshadowed all else.
But the loss of his only remaining family also carved a hollow, aching void deep within his soul that no amount of vengeance would ever fill.
That void threatened to swallow Erik whole if left unchecked, drawing him inevitably into its
bleak, hopeless depths.
"Master..." June said, filled with empathy for Erik's suffering even as he feared his creator's
unrestrained wrath.
Behind the rage, June recognized the grief of a son who had just lost his father, and that grief,
if nurtured, might yet call Erik back from the darkness.
But Erik did not seem to hear.
"They will die, Master," he said with a nod. "We have the Chimaeric Demons now... With
them, we should be able to get our revenge against them."
"It will take too much time to make an army," Erik said. The creeping plants had encased the room in a green and deadly embrace.
Noah and June watched as the plants continued to spread and coil around the room.
To see their master's power manifest out of control filled them with dread, but Erik seemed unable to rein it in.
The vines thickened, now as large around as Erik's wrist, twining up the walls and across the
-ceiling.
Large trumpet-shaped flowers burst forth, filling the air with a heady perfume.
It was weird how something that manifested from rage could have such a beautiful effect.
Moss crept across the floor in ever-widening patches of vivid green. Leaves unfurled to reveal vibrant veins of red and yellow.
Erik's anger still simmered within, a hot coal ignored amidst the frigid aftermath of the loss.
June and Noah eyed Erik with even more concern, uncertain how best to proceed. A single misspoken word risked fueling Erik's rage.
Yet silence brought its own dangers. Something had to be done before Erik's power consumed
the room-and himself.
"The clones will need a lot to grow stronger. I need to do this now, and I need to do this fast. Volkov will be the first, and the blackguards the second. I'm not only going to destroy them in Hin, but I'm also going to do so even in Mur. Thaids, dangers-I'll disregard them all. A slaughter is coming for all. I swear, I'll do it. I will steal as many brain crystal powers as I need, give them to the clone, and make an army that will erase the world. I will reshape the
world hierarchy."
Turning abruptly, Erik faced Noah, who had been observing the exchange.
"Call Becker and the others," he said. His voice echoed in the plant-filled room like the growl
of a beast. "There is much to discuss."