Algernon Black

(Chapter 127) The Time to Sever Chains

King Leviathan chuckled to himself as he sat gazing into the fire pit. The first signs of movements Jared and Devane had seen from him for quite a while.

"What's so funny?" Devane challenged.

"Nothing." The king dismissed with a smile, removing his scratched-up glasses from the brim of his nose.

"Is that all we're going to get from you?" Devane pressed, his irritation overflowing into his voice. "Nothing, or are you finally going to start talking?"

Jared tried to tell Devane to calm down, but the completely unbothered king spoke for himself. "What is it you want to know?"

"You already know what," Devane boiled, but the king only stared at the advisor's glare with solemn eyes.

"How is it someone gets the power of the gods?" Jared requested, as calmly as he could though he was burning for answers.

"What makes a man a man and a god a god?" The king asked instead.

Jared sighed, while Devane looked like he was about to murder the most powerful man alive.

"Everything." Jared answered, but seeing the king did not look satisfied added, "Power, knowledge, control."

"And what gets in man's way in search of all that?" The king asked.

"Stop trying to lead us on with questions." Devane bluntly intervened. "We are not children, tell us what you know, or tell us to leave."

"I know many things." The king replied, looking down at his fire. "A lot of which I wish I could forget." The monarch lifted his hands and the flames of the fire started to take the shape of people and landscapes of a vast city, but one Jared nor Devane recognized. And in the midst of it all rose the silhouette of a man rendered by fire.

Jared realized he was depicting the time of vessels. When they weren't just potential or what some say were myth, but when gods walked the world.

"A vessel is a powerful thing," King Levithan narrated as his mind controlled the many shifting colors of flames and the imageries they projected. "Too powerful for this world." He clarified as the vessel formed by flames destroyed everything around him with one slash of his burning blue hands, setting off sparks into the crowd of children that had gathered to listen to the story. "And there rose to be far too many," The monarch narrated as from the ashes dozens of humans arose and grew to be as big as the first vessel, erupting a tornado of fire as they began to battle each other. One launched a burning ember across the pit to topple over the pyramid of firewood.

The king surveyed the flames with a dejected gaze, remembering how devastation reigned his time of childhood. "And their destruction spread across this entire world, leaving no one safe. Before I put a stop to it."

"By putting other forms capable of mass destruction into this world," Devane charged. "You were the one that created those artifacts." The advisor accused, with slanted eyes. "Didn't you?"

King Leviathan's gaze stayed fixed at the flames that had suddenly dwindled to near extinction. "I had to." He regretted.

"Why?" Devane urged. "And why not destroy them now?"

"Because I can't." King Leviathan plainly stated his flames searing up once again with the commands from his thoughts. "When I first started massacring the vessels, I could face off against only one at a time." The fire echoed his words, displaying the first vessel from flame getting the centers of him blown through and collapsing into ashes from the attack of another vessel that ascended down in his place with a crown of blazing white. The depiction of King Levithan then turned to attack the others, eliminating one more instantly. "And I was powerful enough to beat every one of this. Knowing this the remaining vessels, all teamed together to try and stop me." The other ten vessels of flames shifted their attention to the newest man turned god with burning blue flares spraying from their hands. King Levithan backed away as he created four different weapons to either side of him from the ashes, and from the ashes arose eight wielders made of coal to take hold of the artifacts. "When I created those weapons, it was so warriors could fight beside me, so together we could kill the remaining vessels. For that, to work I needed to make weapons that vessels couldn't simply destroy, and so neither could I." King Leviathan explained as the two sides charged one another and the collision spurted whirling embers into the air. When the side of the vessels heaved their magic at the artifact users, the weapons cut through them ensuring an epic battle. The flames fought to overtake one another, neither side prevailing as the victor until the figure flame of King Levithan raised his open palms towards the sky and a double-ended scythe came forward that was promptly captured by the figure of a man who severed through a vessel of flame in one robust swing. With the new weapon in play, the vessels were quickly slaughtered with their red blood of flames sparking out. The scene ended with all nine users kneeling before their king, that now stared gloomily at their memory.