__________
Zardin took a look into the screen that rose over the z-com right after he had pressed the button.
“Fernox … detonated.” he read from the screen, his lips hosting a brutal smile.
Ion went totally blank for a second. And then cold fury came surging through him. Fury like he had never known before.
Walking forward, Zardin stomped one foot over Ion’s motionless body, bent down and whispered, “We win, then.”
Straightening up, he hurled a kick at Ion which sent his limp body rolling over.
Twirling the crystal within his fingers, Zardin strode upto the tablet in the middle of the dark room. He bent forward and pressed a spot on the tablet. The large tablet glowed for a second, and then, with a flash of light, it shrunk into a miniature model of its former self.
Zardin picked up the shrunken tablet with his free hand and slowly came back to stand before Ion.
“I think, your master Mantra may have told you that this particular tablet is something special.” He waved the shrunken tablet before Ion’s eyes. “Well, he should have. But I’m sure he never told you why. For this is a tablet which he has secretly kept hidden here for eight millennia now: And he was completely right in do so. Because you see,” He gestured to the tablet. “I’m now holding not just any ordinary tablet … I’m holding the tablet known as Valicros, the most powerful mystical tablet ever to exist. And with its help now, the spell with which we release the demon army is going to be a thousand fold as powerful … and the army would be a thousand times as terrible as they would have been. And all of this, our order owes to the three of you.”
21
Ion heard the words, but it took a series of stiff, unmoving seconds before he actually registered them … and before his brain, in its frozen state, processed them.
And when he did, a wave of horror froze his insides. He thought their situation could not, in the meekest chance, be worse. But he had been proved wrong. Valicros … The most powerful tablet … This can’t be happening.
“Desiring to hide the tablet from us, Mantra had spent eight millennia weaving this particular lie.” Zardin had his head turned towards the tablet at the centre of the dark hall as he spoke. “The lie that Valicros had been destroyed, when the truth was that he had actually been keeping it safe and hidden. He had known that the tablet was a potentially dangerous one if it were to come to fall to our hands. He wanted to make sure it was kept well off our reach. And so, to protect the tablet, he decided to alter the known version of history: he had spread the word among the mystic circle that Valicros had been lost, in the hopes of warding off attempts by us, the Xeni, to try and reach it. And all his efforts in protecting the tablet have now gone in vain.”
Zardin’s laughter echoed within the walls again while he stood over Ion, continuing to twirl the crystal idly within the fingers of his left hand. He slid the shrunken tablet, Valicros, into his robe pocket.
“We now have the crystal. And the most powerful tablet ever. With the two of them together, we will unleash the army of Mezmeron to the very height of its power in this realm.”
He paused, watching Ion closely for a few seconds.
“It is not possible for us to release the entire demon army right now: we would need to perform the spell with the tablet at a certain specific time of the day that aligns with the nature of our spell. We will perform the complete spell, to release the demon forces, in a few hours at the Xeni’s lair. But since the three of you seem just so overly eager for this, I guess with my mystical powers, I can use the crystal to open a meek crevice in the demons’ dimension, unlocking a very small portion of our dark forces … right here. For you. To let you have some fun.”
Striding to the front of where Ion lay, held the crystal up before his blank sockets. His face absorbing a new focus. He held one hand right atop the crystal and slowly rotated it in slow circles. A whole few minutes passed as such, with him continuing this bizarre ritual.
Finally, after what looked to Ion like a small eternity, he stopped rotating his hand and lowered it. The serious look on his face was gone, replaced by that same cold smile.
Ion watched in horror, wondered if he had actually done it.
As if in answer, the crystal that Zardin held before his hand seemed to vibrate. The next second, a fierce red glow came over it, while it continued to steadily vibrate.
This went on for a few seconds, and Ion thought they were the most terrible few seconds of his life.
Then, the red glow slowly vanished, and the small prick like object sank back to a motionless stillness.
“Now,” Zardin lowered the crystal and turning to Ion. “I think I’ve managed to release a very small something to give you company here. The rest of the army, no doubt, will be unleashed only when we perform the spell properly later on today. But for now, enjoy our gift to you.”
With a final shriek of laughter, Zardin pocketed the crystal with the shrunken tablet, turned and headed out the double doorway. As he swept out, his cloak flapping behind him, the large double doored entrance slowly caved in and sealed itself behind him. Leaving Ion and his two unconscious friends in this dark place.
But as Ion lay there on the floor, his breath heaving, something happened that almost made his heart stop…
His eyes widened as he sensed it…
A new presence. Here, in the dark hall. With them.
They weren’t alone.
There was someone, or something else in the darkness here with them.
22
Lagovan, Cluster 57
Atop one of the towering structures that forming the city of Tastade, a man in a brown gown stood at the balcony. Wargo had known of cruelty and senselessness in this world, and had bore witness to some of the most horrific incidents that had claimed the peace of the spectrum. But none, none at all, had been anything like what they were facing now.
It was sheer madness. And no one in existence would have ever dreamt of imagining such a thing.
From the balcony of the four hundred and thirty seventh floor, he could see the rest of the colossal structures that made the city. Large glass tunnels twined over the sky and in between the structures, meant for vehicle travel. But the stream of vehicles flowing down the tunnels had thinned. Across the distance, he could see most of the lights of the tower opposite to his switched off.
An atmosphere of fierce gloom had settled over the entire planet, and the entire spectrum. It had reached him, through a newsflash, that countless republics and states were at the brink of unravelling: the hysteria and mayhem that some of the planets were facing, caused by panic and confusion, were starting to thwart the establishments themselves. Madness and anarchy had come close to a brimming point in the world.
This planet had experienced a complete dreadlock. Widespread panic had loosened out as the bombs took off one by one. People were seen flocking to religious and spiritual sites. As panic and confusion spiralled, crimes broke out in an unhindered wave, and law and order blurred. Almost dissolving the entire state into hysteria.
A large fraction of citizens fled the planet to other planets which they calculated, were not likely to be on the hitlist than this one: this planet was developed and therefore, more likely to attract a terrorist attack. There was a fraction of the people who had fled to the outer spectrum, deeming that it was the safest of all. Assuming that planets in the outer spectrum were completely unlikely to be one of the ten marked ones.
But they had been wrong.
The news of the fourth planet that had just blown scoured the world of the faintest trace of hope. Because this new development raised the catastrophe scale to a whole new level. Firstly, this was a planet in the outer spectrum. Nobody had thought that the mystics would blow off the less populated planets falling in the outer spectrum, and waste their bombs. Secondly, and more alarmingly, this bomb had been blown early … It had been blown before the hour had been completed. And this b
rought a fresh new eruption of panic and chaos. For the people now understood that nothing was certain anymore: if the mystics had lied about one thing, they could have lied about more: they could have lied about ten bombs, when in reality, there were a hundred…
Feeling strangely nauseatic, Wargo trotted over and sunk to a chair placed in the middle of the large balcony. He had lived life as a level headed, extremely rational man. Everything he did had a sound, intelligent reasoning based behind it. But now, he let his guard down and did something he never dreamt he would. For the first time in his life, Wargo clasped his hands before him and prayed.
For he knew that there was nothing left at all. But this.
He prayed for hope.
He prayed for light.
He prayed for the world … and for mankind.
To be continued …
In THE RISING SUN – Episode 6
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