SHARD: The Prince Who Was Promised

Episode 13: There

Episode 13: There

It is okay when children are scared of the dark but the real horror begins when adults are scared of the light. I can't believe you have returned, you horrible devil, you could not have returned at the worst time, I am so close to stopping this hell you created, well, no matter, I shall stop you now, when you are weak.

I just looked at the grand emperor in total shock, what in hell was he blabbing on about, was he going to kill me now? What was happening? He then looked at my confused face and simply said this to me, "so, you don't remember"?

I wondered what the f**k he meant, I don't even have an idea of what the f**k I was meant to remember. He looked at me, saw how confused I was and simply told me to forget about all he had said, I told him that was fine, but I wanted to know what he had done to me in our earlier fight.

He told me I had to sit and carefully listen to him, he informed me of the fact that everyone who becomes a Melato Master passes through Khatir trials, some people, actually, no, some incredibly special people pass all the tests as was in my case, your scores affect the weapons you get.

There were four ranks for the tests, A, B, C, D, anything below that was certain death, the person simply dies in the forest. I had none of the four scores, I had an S on it, which explains why I got three dragons from thin air.

A rank gets you three weapons based on difficulty of tests, B rank gets you two, C rank gets you one and D rank guarantees you only your life and nothing more. I did not know any of this, why in hell was this geezer telling me about this s**t.

He continued by telling me that each weapon gives its wielder a special type of power and no two powers are the exact same, his own weapons, the Ruins of Kisiwani, which were oddly just rocks that acted like a boomerang, gave him the power to force illusions onto a person and the longer you stay in the illusion, the more it drains away your strength, so, the entire fight was an illusion and what kept the illusion going was my strength.

He then continued by telling me that the illusions only stop when he says so, he told me I was only in the illusion for about two minutes and would you believe it, I was weak and tired.

I asked him what special abilities my weapons gave me and would you believe it, I was completely strong, I was beyond powerful. The chains of hell gave me an ability called Counter, it apparently just meant that whenever I got into a fight, any blow landed on me could go back onto the attacker.

The oceanic blades of victory gave me an ability called reality apparently, it was the power to permanently or temporarily alter reality to whatever I wanted.

Then, we had the last but certainly not the least, the gloves of death and they gave me a rather destructive power, obedience, that was what it was called but it literally is a cheat code, apparently, if someone was in front of me, I could force obedience to me, in order words, I had the power to tell people to do whatever I wanted and they had literally no choice but to obey.

I asked the Emperor how I could activate these powers and his answer to me was a question, he asked me why I wanted power and I told him he was the one to decide, he asked me what I meant and then, I asked him the million cowries' question, why are we fighting this war?

I know that it probably was a weird question but honestly, I needed an answer, it was the only way I would know what I really wanted to do about this war, what did I truly want to achieve, what were my goals, was I to win this war or end it, I need an answer, why do we fight, why do we die, why must we kill, why must we be killed.

The Grand Emperor got up and clapped, he told me that was a good question but he had no answer to it, he had no idea why we were fighting this war too, but if it were left to him, he would say that we fight to survive. I nodded and asked him what it meant to survive and what has to be done to guarantee survival.

His answer to that was to exterminate anything that posed a threat to our survival, I asked if that meant killing all the Milkies and he simply told me that was not the case, it meant killing all the Milkies and every other thing or person that posed a threat to us, in other words, killing only Milkies that wanted us dead.

I gave him my answer the moment he said that, I told him I wanted power in order to exterminate anything and anyone that stands as a threat to us, that seemed to convince him because almost immediately, he told me what I had to do. I just had to charge up my Melato into my weapons and bull them back into me when they could not contain any more.

I did just that and would you believe it, I did feel a lot of changes, first off, my eyes turned black and a pretty scary shape were formed in my eyes, they were formed by a golden alteration, guess I'll be needing shades now cause my eyes were just not it, as soon as I had that thought, the Grand Emperor gave me something he called contact lenses, apparently, they could mask the color of my eyes, I put them on and would you believe it, my eyes were brown again, I simply just thanked him.

I told him what had happened to Khalil and would you believe it, he had an answer, so, apparently, since Melato is sourced from Melanin, if Melato was overused, the source begins to disappear, giving no pigmentation, that explained things but really did me no good.

The Grand Emperor then thanked me for challenging him and before I could ask why, he told me he felt so old, when he was young, he had the passion to win but now, with age and all that comes with it, he has lost the strength and the desire to win but today, today, I showed him that when he dies, he was not leaving behind a weak world.

I thanked him but he continued, he told me I could not be the Grand Emperor now, this was not because I was far too young, no, rather, it was because I was far too weak, inexperienced and certainly not wise enough, but he would make me a member of his own secret group of Six, I was now officially a Member of the Sixth and not just any of the Sixth, the Sixth that directly reported to the Grand Emperor.

He told me that if I impressed him enough, he would make me an Emperor and if I impressed him even more, he would finally make me a Grand Emperor but before that, I had to impress him as a Member of the Sixth.

I thanked him and then, I asked where the exit was because where we were had no doors or windows, we were in a white room of only walls, he told me there was no exit and asked if I wanted to be taken to my new quarters but I told him no, I wanted to go to my old Quarters, I had to pick up something THERE...........................................................