Algernon Black

(Chapter 127) The Time to Sever Chains

"Why not gather them and keep them with you now?" Devane asked, after a moment of silence.

"I left them to be used as tools of peace." King Leviathan stated but holding silent about his other reason. "Ensuring so by putting one measure in place." The monarch added as he brought to life the nine ancient artifacts of known once again in the fire's flames.

"The powers of those weapons can't be fully unlocked unless the wielder has rejected it." The king revealed, turning his hand as the weapons began to spin. "Because no man that has access to that much power should ever want to use it." He finished, closing his fists as the weapons fell back to ash.

"But I've seen them used before," Jared said thinking back to his days in Attwood when the trinity of artifact users displayed their powers to motivate the students. They would even hint that if one of them became strong enough they could inherit the weapon. He still remembered how excited everyone became, and how hard they worked after the speech, all vying for the position as one of the artifact users that had already been fulfilled. "And the people using them didn't seem like the types to reject power."

"Anyone can access some of the powers of the artifacts." King Levitation stated. "Less than 10 percent of what is fully capable of them, but it tricks most into believing that is all the power the weapon possess. And when it falls into the hands of the right user it's not access to more power that makes the new wielder stronger but the wielder himself is just more talented with it. But for those weapons to be used with their full power, they need to be seen as the burdens they are, because for such power to rest in the hands of the right man, means they should never want it." The king sighed, staring into his burned-out fire. "If only those weapons were still in the wrong hands now." He remarked, with tired heavy eyes. "They would be far less dangerous."

Devane's eyebrows knitted tightly together as he thought about the one Loy carried with him. The prince used to complain about how heavy it was and now swung it around as light as a feather. Devane had thought he had just finally grown used to it, but something changed remarkably and abruptly in Loy's fighting. He was suddenly unbeatable and moved faster than he ever had before and could use its ability whenever he wanted. At what point had Loy matured far enough to reject power? Devane wondered.

"But riding the world of vessels, you left to hide out here all this time?" Jared asked, his mind processing too many things at once.

"Is it hiding?" King Levithan returned. "I liked to imagine I was doing some good."

"What minimal amount of good works you do here is nothing compared to what you could truly accomplish," Devane scathed, fed up with the lackadaisical attitude of the monarch. "If your powers are to be believed."

Jared distressed over Devane's aggression once again, but the king only looked at him with a profound far-off smirk, like he was seeing far into the advisor.

"Please don't mind my friend, he's just..." Jared trailed off without a good excuse for his rudeness.

"You are an advisor. It is your duty to speak the truth as you see it to kings." King Leviathan said. "But I have not taken a throne in almost a thousand years, and my ability to listen has lessened with age."

"As has your morals," Devane ridiculed, outraged that such a powerful man laid dormant. "You stay hidden away to escape responsibility, while the world suffers endless evils that you could put a stop to." Devane glared down his nose at the monarch who looked back at him with open eyes.

"You fault me more for choosing to live my life in peace, not knowing all I do to ensure that peace, as fragile as it is." King Levithan said looking to the newborn night sky. "For a thousand years I stayed as the invisible hand guiding the world along, hoping for it to progress, for humanity to end the pain it inflicts on itself by refusing to learn. And for a thousand years, I've watched father train son to murder his enemies before the child has any enemy to know. I've seen humanity commit enough atrocities that I've questioned if we are really humans, or if we are the demons. You've seen some horrible things in your 40 short years of life. More than enough to question your duty and faith in humanity, and I have a thousand years of those memories, but what truly haunts you comes with the knowledge you can only have when you have been in this world for as long as I. The most devastating thing to come to understand is not carnage or evil or massacre, but seeing it repeated again and again, and knowing that you will never be able to put an end to it, no matter how low you sink, how retched you become, there will always be something worse. An evil you'll never be able to end no matter how low you make yourself to match it, because the gods created us in their demented image and it's their image we haven't been able to escape."