Tales of Revenants

Chapter 88 – Soul Taker

A subtle melancholy welcomed the sunny dawn that arrived. The empress invited them to have breakfast so they can rejuvenate their lost energy, yet no one uttered even a single word and just ate their fill with grief.

On the other hand, Thalfeur didn't even come to the dining room and the empress told them right after Luciella collapsed yesterday night, he asked if there is some armory or alike around the mansion.

Empress Marielye's maidens then ushered Thalfeur to a special chamber meant for sword forgery. The room below the basement has a furnace that's used by a famous smith during the Dark Wars to cast weapons for the maids.

Since yesterday, he never left the chamber and secluded himself from everyone, not even the maidens can enter the room. The empress guesses a striking realization must have hit his head so hard when they encountered Demon Lord Balakiel.

Whatever that's been ailing Thalfeur's overall being, it's a thing he would never ever forget again.

The reverberating hammer being struck onto the anvil, the whumping echo pulsates within the ground is the only thing they hear the moment he locked the door as if he owns the place. He must have remembered that he needed to create a weapon for a couple of reasons.

Time passes by and after they waited for hours, one of the maidens knocked into the guest room where Laken and her comrades are resting.

She forced open the door sweating and chasing her breathing. Despite being rude to them, she still parted her message, "Your dragonkin friend said you may enter the underground chamber."

"Is he okay? I will come to him right away." Tetra couldn't wait anymore since she's awfully worried.

Before she could get out of the room, the maid halted her advance and told her, "I'm sorry. Only Laken's party is allowed."

"Don't worry Tetra, we'll tell you everything after. It seems he's just a little depressed." Laken spoke in consideration to her.

They all were ushered by the maiden and Tetra was left behind the room. The silence is the only thing she could hear alone. She sprawled on one of the beds while she's holding her chest out.

The metal bonding of alloys beats and reverberates within her Arcanum Core, the basis of her creation. Tetra carefully caresses her upper sternum while she's thinking deeply about what she's feeling right at that moment.

"Heart beating around fifty-percent more than normal, so what is this..." Tetra gently brushes her index finger to her cheek, she got a tad of water droplets coming out of her left eye.

Without even knowing the reason why she's crying, she asked herself, "Is this... melancholy or love?" The feelings were so mixed up within her than she can't fathom her personality.

The reason she's seeking still clouds her mind. She continued to sulk on the comfy bed without thinking about anyone or anything, just her own selfish ego that she tried to understand.

Laken's party was allowed by Thalfeur to access the forgery chamber. Upon entering, they already saw him striking the anvil with a worn-out hammer. Torches around the four corners as well as the furnace are what lights up the very room.

"Thalfeur... who's Artarel?" Laken didn't even try to hide what's been bugging his mind and directly asked him the big question. He always does his thing straight to the point.

"Forget about him, just continue what you have been doing if you don't want to answer his question." Alisa's trying to be considerate.

"She's right, you shouldn't force yourself," Eirisse agreed.

"Should I say something too?" Xenon kind of killed the mood so Laken had to give him another head-chop.

On the other hand, Thalfeur actually snorted after he left the hammer beside the chisel above the table.

"I'd answer that question if Eirisse, Luciella, or Alisa asked me, but anyway, I invited you to this chamber because I remembered my Metamorphosis." They all suddenly got serious.

They were all curious especially Luciella about the Metamorphosis of the Soulless Revenant. From what Eirisse told Luciella for as long as she remembers, it seems he's a ruthless person who only wished to steal the souls of his victims.

But when Thalfeur showed them, he pulled a light orb that kind of look like a willow-o-wisp; a type of fireball that's sometimes mistaken for a wandering spirit. It surely resembles a soul for them so they asked what's it for.

"Illuminance level pretty high, it's enough to blind a human eye if the value of light it produces adds up for about two times." Xenon remarked while thoroughly scanning the thing on Thalfeur's hand.

"I remembered now... this is one amongst thousands of soul I got when I relentlessly used my Metamorphosis decades ago after I became a Revenant." Thalfeur's sorrow is apparent. His expression spells out the things he experienced from the past.

His comrades are trying to figure out what does his Metamorphosis could do. Before they get confused, Thalfeur extracted a couple of souls from his mouth and the souls suddenly formed a set of items.

What they behold is the tools of a forger certainly made out of spirits. From the anvil, chisel, and the hand hammer just popped out of nowhere. Alisa's sure of herself that each of the souls is true and was extracted from a person.

He then placed the soul he exposed and placed above the anvil. He breathes pure fire that only dragons could produce before he hammered down the soul for three to five blows.

From the thing he just did, he produced a sword that's made out of iron, the soul he used as the material became its foundation.

After producing a sword, all of the tools he used gradually vanished. Upon Laken seeing him wobbly while holding the weapon he created, he got his back before he'd almost keel over.

"Argh... this is my Metamorphosis, I can steal the souls of my victims so I can use their soul as material for the sword I wished to make... but at what cost? Remember Alisa what you told us? The Curse of Deprivation... is simply this." Thalfeur got back on his feet.

"Deprivation... it couldn't be?!" Alisa's disturbed upon realizing the true nature of his curse.

"Whenever I try to make swords using the souls I have stolen, a part of my memory gets stolen too. I mean my memory doesn't disappear, it stays on my head but is blocked for some reason. So upon seeing her again... I remembered it all." Thalfeur held the sword.

He held it tighter and tighter until it shattered completely within his grasps.

"Are you sure you don't want Tetra to hear your side?" Luciella implies.

"I hate to admit it but I don't like to give her reason to feel sadness. Even now, she must be crying alone again. She doesn't even know the meaning of pain or love... all she does is accept it all... while me? I denied it all." Thalfeur's voiced was pure and true.

The sentiment he bears is merely to prevent Tetra from the further emotional scar she could potentially get. Xenon learned the true meaning of life so he understands it as a mechanoid. It's just if she couldn't fathom what's throbbing in her chest, then she'll never learn it.

Meanwhile, Laken understood the sword he creates with his Metamorphosis is also a failure just like the swords he creates from a physical iron forging.

It's obvious to the shattered swords and metallic materials near the furnace he's working since yesterday night. Laken would never deny the sword, armors, and weapons Thalfeur casts are really strong and surely can rival any forger's creation in the Skyhaven Kingdom.

But for him, it's not enough. There is a missing element that Thalfeur wanted upon creating a weapon. If he can't find the element he needed, he'll definitely destroy what he produced and continue to cast another weapon.

"Artarel... I remembered everything now, I promised to give her my all." Thalfeur began to tell them a tale that he once has forgotten. Decades, century, eons since the day he became a Revenant. He still remembered the fated time like a fleeting dream driven by hatred and love.

On the far place where sunshine couldn't even light up the hallways, Demon Lord Balakiel is in one of the neighboring city of the Emperor's Domain that he obliterated along with his four Dark Entities.

Regrettably, one of his Dark Entities was killed by a maiden given by the chance he's strangled, even if Luciella spared the assassin's life, so only three remains. Though Balakiel knows they won't just blindly face an opponent that can end the world.

The sun's afterglow is what greeted Eris upon waking up in an open prison. Her hands and legs are restrained using dark-imbued chains much harder and heavier than obsidian.

"Laken... where are you..." Eris tried to call out for him. Before she went unconscious, she heard sharp footsteps from someone wearing heels.

It's none other than the dragonkin lady that became a Dark Entity for the Demon Lord. She strokes Eris's hair and told, "You... and I... shall become one again... for the end of everything."

After Artarel told that, Eris held the chains closer to her, praying that Laken and the rest save her from the hands of darkness.