Chapter 124: Chapter 124

KAIST:

“No, Cruz!”

I slumped against the wall. Just like what I felt when I was ten years old, my body was once again wracked with a tremendous amount of pain.

‘Kaist, snap away from this,’ an angry voice interjected.

‘I… I can’t,’ I said back to the brown wolf who looked like he wanted to pounce on me.

‘You can do it! Take control. Own the magic in your bones!’

‘I… I have no magic.’

‘You have it in you! The blood of a Shadow wolf runs inside you. You have the magic, and only you can stop his death!’

I looked miserably at Cruz’s rapidly disappearing form. Now only half of his body remained intact.

“What do I do? Tell me, what the hell must I do,” I shouted at the top of my lungs against the brown wolf.

‘Take my hand, Kaist! Call my name and take my hand,’ he roared at me.

‘I… I don’t even know you.’

‘You know me. You have always known me. Remember who I am!’

Despite the searing pain in my skull, I thought hard. Who was this wolf? What was his name?

Based on the memory Cruz had just showed me, I had known my wolves when I was ten. Maybe I knew them even before that since I did not seem surprised to see him and Cruz in the Animal Spirit World.

‘Say it! Say my name! Embrace who you are, Kaist! Don’t run away from us anymore. You don’t have to run away from who you really are!’

Just then, another vivid memory started to play inside my head.

The brown wolf was right! I knew his name!

I have known his name the very day I was attacked by someone in my sleep… It was the same day I cried at the Animal Spirit World…

At that time, I almost died had I not fallen asleep inside the closet instead of my own bed when I played.

I saw everything... I saw masked men go into my room in the middle of the night and pierce the pillow that I positioned to fool my nanny with a long sword.

At that time, fear crept into my heart that I screamed. Then, I saw the men’s twisted faces as they walk slowly to where I was.

There were five of them, and there was only one of me. I was sure I would die…

Just then, a great brown wolf started appearing in my head.

‘Call my name, Kaist! I will deal with these bastards.’

‘Ignis,’ I called. ‘Help me Ignis!’

As my younger self channeled him, he used the power nestled in us to kill the spies that had come to silence me. He wrecked havoc by setting their bodies aflame.

So, this brown wolf – he had saved me back then, and he was more than willing to save me now.

Remembering my wolf’s name, the wolf who first came to my rescue, the wolf whom I pushed away, but who came back for me in a heartbeat, I shouted his name once more.

‘Ignis!’

Just as sudden as I uttered his name, a burning fire consumed me, and I saw Cruz’s figure being engulfed by a burning flame of yellow fire.

I rolled around in pain. Did I not say it right? Did I miss his name?

‘No, Kaist, but there’s one more thing you need to do. Accept the power of your stone!’

‘How… How the hell do I do that,’ I said as I started to crack under the pressure of the pain against the dark passageway.

Just then, something sparkled inside the dark alley I was in. It was the golden oval stone in the heart of Ignis’ forehead.

‘Do you see it now, Kaist… You are me, and I am you,’ Ignis began to remark.

I knew what he wanted. I knew how to accept that power. He wanted us to be one.

I reached into Ignis’ thick, brown fur, and for the first time after that incident when I was ten years old, I channeled him to take over our shared body.

I heard my bones crack as they twist and elongate into his form. My skin prickled as it stretched into this wolf that felt like old and new to our physical body. My sinews contorted into a brown wolf just as it did many years ago…

‘Excellent choice, Kaist,’ Ignis growled in excitement after our transformation. ‘Now, you and Cruz could take your rest while I try to find those bastards who dared to snatch our family away!’

Just like magic, the pain in my body stopped. I walked slowly to Cruz’s form as the embers that once consumed him away were now rapidly rebuilding his body back to what it once were.

I did it, right? Cruz had been saved!

Taking over our physical body, Ignis started to pick up the scent that we remembered so well of Livia and her wolf, and like lightning, he followed them in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, because of the length of time I spent fighting off Ignis and rolling on the floor in absolute darkness, the scent has fainted away. It could only mean that they are well outside the kingdom.

‘Darn it,’ I shouted in our heads.

Ignis was as pissed as I was, but it was no use. Ignis’ nose told us that they are miles and miles away, and their presence was growing fainter and fainter by the minute.

However, there was still one important thing we were able to gather just now as I let Ignis take over…

There was a putrid smell in the air of someone that I knew so well. It lingered with the smell of Livia, the smell of The Blasted Ones, and the smell of the woman who introduced herself as my mother.

How can I forget this smell for even a second? It was always there – a constant, irksome presence in my life and the life of my father…

Quickly, Ignis chose to follow the smell of the rat who may or may have started it all; the one who was also in the center of all the secrets, and the one whose smell mingled strongly with Livia and our mother’s abduction – Count Claude Jeteris.