SYSTEM ASCENSION

"Why are you searching for the mother you killed with your own hands?"

The room stilled.

No one had expected Zeal to utter those words, but Elias’s reaction was what caught them off guard the most.

Elias stared at Zeal for a long time.

He never denied it, nor did he make an outburst. No atom of shock crossed his expression. His face stayed empty, the way it always was when he was processing something that should’ve hurt or should’ve been mind blowing.

Then, he frowned. He just... frowned, then he said it.

"She belong to me. I want her body back."

The air left the room.

Rowen’s hand stalled mid-air. Even the wind outside Cody stopped moving.

Zeal didn’t react. He just turned his head, slowly, toward his twin.

"See?" He spoke like he’d just won a bet no one else knew they were playing.

Rowen actually stepped back. His eyes darted to Elias, to Zeal, then to the door like he was calculating if he could run and how far, before Elias’s madness drown him.

He dragged a hand down his face.

"You can have him."

Zeal grinned. He leaned over.

"What?"

"What?!" Rowen barked. "He wants his mother’s corpse, Zeal! He’s talking about her like she’s a misplaced dagger! What am I supposed to do with that?! He’s a freaking menace."

"He’s not wrong," Zeal said, still watching Elias, voice level. "Not to him. He doesn’t know death. Doesn’t know right or wrong. He was taken, so he knows taken. To Elias, loss isn’t grief. It’s theft. And stolen things can be retrieved. Death literally means nothing to him, if he didn’t experience it himself. I suspect wanting her body isn’t even his feelings. Just body instinct, like a duty."

Elias, completely unfazed by Rowen’s panic, tilted his head at Zeal. "will I find her there?" he asked. "Where they locked me?"

"Of course, your highness." Zeal beamed. "You should go help Keen in the kitchen."

Elias raised a brow, clearly irritated by the sudden proposal.

"Kitchen?"

"Yes. Kitchen!"

He tore his gaze from Zeal to Rowen before standing up and limping away.

Zeal didn’t look at him. He kept his gaze on Rowen, and when he spoke, the gentleness was gone.

"On their way to Salvador, there were attacked. Elias has a very aloof personality, likely from birth and chose to escape, not because he was scared, but because he find it as a bother. His mother on the other hand chose to stay and save her people. I guess he didn’t take after her at all. For a mother to leave her son behind to run off. It didn’t sit well with her. ’What if they caught him’ must have been her thoughts, so she held him during the fight,"

Zeal glanced in the kitchen’s direction.

"They got captured after the fight and he lost it. His outburst killed numerous people, including his mother. He got captured later because he lost consciousness. In the end, it was a deliberate mistake he ruled out as another occurrence."

"So he was sane when he did it?"

"Hundred percent."

Rowen’s eye darkened.

"I can’t leave him with you."

Zeal threw his head back and laughed.

"Are you worried about me? That’s cute."

"Zeal!"

Zeal leaned forward.

"We both know, that in this empire, there is no human worthy enough to take me down in a fight."

Rowen quiet down. Of course he knew.

Zeal was the brother he never knew he had, until few years ago. He vividly remembered it, like it was yesterday. He had gone into a portal, to subjugate the Null and close it, however, he was met with the most shocking scene of his eyes.

A person sat on a pile of corpses, covered in blood, eyes as cold as the depth of the sea. He, for the first time since he became a raider, felt a shiver up his spine. When the person had turned.

"Hah? You must be Rowen. My dear big brother."

A genuine smile with a mirror face.

Rowen waved off the thought.

"I still can’t leave you with him."

Zeal groaned slightly. "I’ll take Ned with us."

Rowen frowned.

"Ned is a teacher, not a raider."

"Same thing."

"It’s not the same!"

Rowen sighed. He stepped back and sat down.

"What will you do to him?"

"Like I said, train him. Physically and mentally. I’ll teach him between right and wrong. He treated his mother and friend like a mere inconvenience. I should make him regret it."

"Any human should subconsciously know what right and wrong is!"

Zeal smirked.

"His information said mortal, with a question mark."

"His information?" Rowen frowned.

"Forget it. I’m taking him, except you want him as your sixteenth child?"

"I’m not adopting another child."

"You said that when he adopted Rasy, as number fourteen." Zeal mocked.

"I couldn’t ignore Tiana!" Rowen snapped. "She was pitiful!"

"Sure. Sure." Zeal stood up and stroll towards the kitchen.

"What if..."

He paused.

"What if what?"

"What if we forget everything that happened. Keep him here...send him away or..."

"That’s a bit cruel for someone with fifteen children," Zeal muttered. He turned around to face his brother.

Rowen cleared his throat and averted his eyes.

"First, he may act like a child, but he’s not a child. He’s the kind of maniac you can’t mess with. He has zero logic and absolutely nothing to lose,"

"But..."

"Second, if we kill him like you’re indirectly proposing, the black empire would find out."

"What? How?"

"I found it odd that the black empire was not interested in the rising technology that Salvador has to offer. Turns out that they were quite satisfied with what they had," he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the sealing stone. "This thing works as a transmitter."

"What?" Rowen stood up and walk to him.

"They can keep in touch with themselves with this. Seeing that they didn’t barge in for the past ten years only mean that they can’t use it to track precise location. Nevertheless, they know that he’s alive out there. Now look at this,"

He tuck the stone back in his pocket.

"For a child as important as Elias, and only three empires in Aoi continent, what makes you think they haven’t invaded Salvador in search of him."

Rowen face paled.

"And if he suddenly dies, what made you think we’ll go scort free? At best, they could just declare a war and end everything."

"He’s the reason we’re in this mess yes, but he’s also the reason we’re still standing as an empire."

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