The Primeval Era-Chapter 138: Choices and Advancements I

Damian had a lot of things to think about.

He was thinking about his power and demons and much more, but what he could actually do remained paramount. He truly had to test the limitations of the Doctrines he was designing for his existence. If there were any limitations at all.

But since he was the one designing his Doctrines, since he was the architect of how he amassed power, wouldn’t he be able to decide his own limitations?

The Lands of Stone were cruel and without honor.

The beings walking across them were terrifying, monsters who had been moving and enriching themselves with Mana for countless years. Some had cultivated before his grandparents were born. Some had accumulated power since before the Three Pillars existed. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

In the grand scheme of things, he was still very tiny.

But he needed to make himself big. If ever there was actually that day when he could look at the Murderous Saint and rip his spine out of his body for the single action of betraying and killing his parents, he needed to be ready.

Light work.

But if that future had to come, he had a lot to do.

He was thinking all of this as nighttime fell across the Lands of Stone.

He had actually heard back from Masamuk through the massive Inkanyamba situated outside the tribe. The message carried interesting news. Mount Vorrath was under tight protection and a bit tense because something seemed to be happening with the Noble Beast Lineage currently standing over that Sacred Mountain.

A Noble Holy Beast who had carried an incurable affliction had suddenly become cured.

In the hours after that, her power had progressively been rising at a terrifying pace. Every now and then, the radiance of blue flames would shine from her body without explanation.

Damian listened to that message and understood what Masamuk was really telling him.

Whatever he was doing, every time he uttered Persevere, the effects were carrying across distances to Tiaret.

Masamuk had sent a message to his lover about the situation.

Tiaret told him she would bring him before her father and reveal that part of the reason for her curse being cured related to someone Masamuk had enlisted. She said if she told this to her father in addition to the news about Demons, he would likely be more willing to listen. More willing to put serious action into it.

So things were moving along for now.

But Damian knew they wouldn’t only move for them. The enemies would also be moving.

The Dominion of Crimson Stone would likely be responding to recent events. Their response could be deadly. An Imperator had fallen, but not only that, the demon rising from her corpse had also fallen. This might prompt action not only from the Dominion but from the demons themselves, whatever status quo existed between them.

He felt the need and urgency while thinking about all of this

Even though he had separated his body into two, even though one of them was taking on the form of a terrifying creature right now, he still felt like it was not enough.

Which is why, as the night went on and many began to retreat into their huts to fall asleep, he jumped to the walls and looked out at the distant mountain he had bathed with his blood. The mountain he had raised, now serving as a perch for his massive beast form. Crimson-blue light radiated from its peak, visible even from this distance.

The moment he landed on the walls, white light flickered beside him.

The Holy Daughter appeared, radiant wings folding against her back as she touched down.

He looked her over up and down.

Her eyes were frowning. She had been like this for the past few hours, absent and distracted. She also seemed to stick around him a lot, following wherever he went, staying close even when she didn’t need to.

Had this innocent and pure Holy Daughter managed to fall for his good looks?

He smiled at the thought as he shook his head.

She spoke before he could comment.

"You should be going to train. I want to come along."

Her eyes were serious as she said this.

"I cannot think of anything else right now."

Damian looked behind him at the figure of Uncle Adam standing near the bonfire.

He nodded at the old warrior, and Uncle Adam nodded back.

Damian leaped off the wall and headed toward that distant mountain where his massive beast body had made its home.

Serala followed.

Even though it was nighttime in the Lands of Stone, even though being outside the tribe would have terrified him before, things had changed.

His massive beast form was releasing a glow of crimson-blue light over the entire mountain, radiance painting the stone and soil and sparse vegetation in colors that didn’t belong to the natural world. Not even a single animal or critter came close. The heavy aura he emanated drove away everything that might have threatened ordinary travelers.

He was his own protection now!

He and Serala reached the mountain and looked up at his massive beast form.

The lion lay upon the peak like a king surveying his domain, nine tails curled around its body and mane of blue flames burning low but steady. Those winged pupils, identical to Serala’s own, gazed down at them with awareness.

Damian stretched his human body, working out kinks from hours of standing and talking and managing the chaos of integrating thousands of refugees into a small tribe.

Then he sat down in front of his other body in a meditative position.

Serala did the same, settling nearby and looking toward him.

Before he got started, he looked at her and said what he had been thinking.

"You’ve been absent-minded the past few hours. Are you okay?"

She raised her hands calmly as she looked at them as if she didn’t recognize them.

"I...have just been questioning everything I thought I knew."

Her voice came out quiet against the ambient hum of Mana radiating from his beast form.

"I’ll adapt and get over it soon enough, but for now, I’m still processing it all. What I believed may not be true. What I was taught may not be true. I just..."

She trailed off.

"I don’t know."

...!

When she said this, she moved from her meditative pose.

She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them, curling into herself like one seeking comfort from a world too large. The posture made her seem smaller somehow. Less like the Holy Daughter of Stone and more like a young woman lost in a wilderness she had never expected to navigate.

The glow of blue and gold from his beast form painted her figure in light that shouldn’t exist.

It caught in her hair and made it shimmer. It reflected in her wing-shaped pupils and gave them depths beyond their usual radiance. It traced the contours of her face and highlighted features belonging to something more, beauty refined across generations!

She looked innocent hugging her knees like that.

She looked utterly extraordinary and astonishing.

Damian looked at her and how lost she appeared right now.

He wasn’t emotionally stunted. He understood she was looking for something. Validation, perhaps. Reassurance. Or just someone to tell her that everything would be okay, that the foundations of her existence hadn’t crumbled beneath her feet.

Was he really the person to do that, though?

He sighed.

After slight hesitation, he moved closer to Serala. He shifted across the stone until he came to sit beside her, their shoulders touching through the fabric of their clothing. She almost pulled away at the contact, muscles tensing with the instinct of someone raised to avoid such proximity.

But she didn’t pull away.

They sat there in silence for a moment.

Damian stared up at the dazzling skies, at stars scattered across darkness like scattered Mana points.

"What others teach us when we grow up can be different from the reality of the Lands of Stone."

His voice emerged soft and thoughtful.

"It doesn’t mean they were wrong in what they taught us. It just means that sometimes we have to figure things out ourselves."

He paused.

"Make your own choices. Decide what right and wrong is. Decide what honor is for yourself."

The night air carried his words away into the darkness.

"In the end, there should be nobody to blame in the Lands of Stone for whatever happens apart from yourself. If there is one thing I have learned while living as Dross, it is accountability. Every choice you make, however little, will decide how you live day to day."

He turned to look at her.

"So... just make your own choices."

...!

He was only saying things off the top of his head, observations accumulated across eight years of surviving in territories where the strong devoured the weak without apology.

But the figure of Serala had frozen beside him.

Her wing-shaped pupils were shining brilliantly, light building within them as if his words had ignited something she couldn’t name!