Chapter 102: Chapter 102

At first, Gilyan was confused. Why would His Darkness lie to him to this extent? Why would he say such words when that wasn’t the case?

He couldn’t fathom why he would go to such lengths to secure his trust, if it was that. He remembered how he had met his master and rescuer not too long ago. It was in the summer two years back.

Gilyan vividly remembered the stench of rotting bodies that was mixed with the smell of blood, urine, feces, and molten trash on that day. He had been caged for a month with the dead, the sick, and the decrepit for far too long then that it didn’t even matter anymore that he was there...

He already felt dead just like them, so there was no point in minding where he was and where he will be headed. Everything has always been the same since his mother died when he reached his twelfth birthday.

Of course that wasn’t always true. He was happy when he and his mother were working for Duke Humphrey’s estate in Gaulane, his hometown. They had been treated like proper slaves there. If he hadn’t been unfortunate enough to discover that he was cursed, he and his mother wouldn’t have decided to leave back then.

He was also fortunate enough to have a taste of real freedom when they reached the port of Jazamel. Because of the help they received from the young Lady Khailista and the prince she served, he was able to live with his mom in peace for that short period of time.

Jazamel was a good place to live for people like him – people with curses. In Gascone, he had gained nothing from his capabilities but shame and rage from those around him. He was bullied by children not just because he was a cursed one, but also because he was a slave and his mother was born without the power of hearing and speech. To top it all, he didn’t know who his father was, although he had an idea who that foul bastard might have been...

By the time he reached fifteen, he had become what he wasted to be - a capable and strong person. If it weren’t for the shackles made of guiding stones that held his hands and feet at the market place during that day’s slave auction, he would have been able to do many things...

He would definitely start by killing the bastard master who whipped him nonstop since he had captured him on the port of Jazamel. They had held him captive shortly after his mother had died. Now, under the scorching heat of the slave auction, that same thrash was brandishing his weapons again.

“Move it, scoundrels,” Master Orvil screamed as he raised his whip against their backs, hands, feet, or wherever one was unfortunate enough to be flogged by his weapon. “The slave auction will start soon! We haven’t gotten all day!”

True enough, it was auction time once again. The master had made them line up into two groups: men and women. The girls and women huddled their almost naked bodies in fright, crying and wailing. Perhaps they have the most severe futures between the two groups of slaves today. Most of them would be treated as nothing more than things for pleasure and would probably die from early childbirth or from the weirdly obscene things their masters would require them to do in bed.

For boys and men like Gilyan, the obvious outcome would be becoming workers in the field. He had been like that for several years already. These same masters who had kidnapped him at the shores of Jazamel were cunning enough to sell him and recapture him again, keeping their pockets stuffed with gold as they repeat this vicious cycle.

On that day, Gilyan felt like giving up. After trying to run away eighteen times and failing each, damn time, he was finally ready to accept this lower than dirt existence he has come to have. The only thing he wished at that moment was death...

“Death... Are you sure? How can you say such words in front of the person who had rescued you before?”

Gilyan heard a voice speak in front of him. He didn’t realize that the auction had already begun and standing in front of him was a man in a mask.

He recognized the mask... Three years prior, he and his mother left Gaulane because of his curse, and the young lady of the duchy he served and the prince back then, the one rumoured to be cursed as well had helped him.

Now, this same man with the same mask was standing over him, but he looked all grown up now. He looked stronger and more powerful. Gilyan shuddered at how desolate he looked compared to this grand prince.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you have something else to live for,” the prince said to him.

Gilyan dropped his head even lower from his gaze. He was always told time and again that gazing at the eyes of people who wanted to buy him or who were above him in social class was a sure recipe for disaster. He had challenged that belief hundreds of times in the past, but now it had become a meaningless act for him, just like his life which had finally lost its meaning.

“How about vengeance,” the man said quietly at him. “If I give you a chance to get revenge, would you take my hand, Gilyan?”

He quickly looked up in surprise. How in the world did this man do it? He was speaking to him alright – he knew his name, but more importantly, he never moved his lips, yet he can hear his words perfectly inside his head.

“Answer me, Gilyan... If I give you a chance to avenge these people, your mother, and yourself, would you take it? Would you take the chance to crush the ones before you?”

‘I will,’ Gilyan said quietly to himself at first.

“I can’t hear you, Gilyan. Speak louder!”

‘I will,’ he said internally again, this time, it was more forceful than before.

“More,” the man’s voice said inside of him. “Speak louder! Speak out!”

‘I will, great lord, I will!’ his mind screamed. “Give it to me, my lord! I will do it,” he hissed, his final thought resonating loud and clear in his present reality.

“You, damn slave,” Master Orville said, raising his whip at his head again. “How dare you defy my orders? How many times did I tell you not speak in front of our guests unless they tell you so! Slaves like you have no right to say what they want!”

The vile weapon descended into Gilyan’s body, giving him another mark on the shoulder. Blood began to spurt from the newly-opened wound, but he didn’t feel anything from it. Instead, what he felt was the loosening of the shackles in both his hands and feet and a sinister voice screaming inside of his mind.

“As you wish,” the voice said diabolically.

Gilyan can’t believe it! He was finally free! The restraints that once bound his powers were finally removed after two, bloody, long years!

Seeing that Master Orville was about to raise his blasted whip again, Gilyan quickly set everything into motion.

The ground began to shake violently, and up ahead the sky turned dark and violet.

“W-What’s happening,” the buyers and common people passing by began to whisper as they sensed the sudden change in the atmosphere.

Gilyan sniggered at Master Orville. That pig - Orville’s hand froze in mid air. He looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

Gilyan started to laugh as he instructed Orville’s raised arm to contort themselves further and further backwards until the bones began to creak and snap.

“Aaargh,” the pig horribly yelped in pain.

Everybody continued to watch as the rest of Orville’s body contorted backwards as if he was attempting to recreate the shape of a giant human ring using his robust and stubby appendages.

“Nooo! Stop it! Aaargh! S-Stop,” he yelled.

The auctioned slaves’ eyes were filled with surprise, but pretty soon they started to get excited as the master who had tortured them nonstop began to move his body painfully. It looked as if he was being forced to do it!

“You -! Aargh, kill him,” Orville shouted to his men, his eyes drilling a hole into Gilyan’s soul.

This time though, Gilyan had gone wild. He was no longer afraid.

As if getting shaken back into reality, Orville’s mercenaries started to attack Gilyan, but it was useless. No one could stop him.

Gilyan weaved a white flame in the palm of his hands. He started to link himself to the bodies of those who charged against him. Just like what he did to that pig Orville, he instructed them to contort their bodies in menacing ways until their bones were snapped and their muscles were twisted in knots.

It was a horrifying sight. As soon as the people around them started to realize what was happening, they started to run everywhere.

When the rampage began, Gilyan controlled one of the guards, and mentally instructed him to free the slaves away from their shackles.

Some of the slaves ran away, but most of them took a weapon and began bashing the bodies of the mercenaries and masters who had abused them for years.

Gilyan didn’t blame them. He knew the feeling of rotting inside while still alive and wanting to be dead that had filled him up this past few years. It was more than enough to drive one crazy.

When the bloodbath and the madness had all finished, not a single soul from their original oppressors was left alive, and all the slaves they have displayed and kept in cages had flee or died killing their former devilish owners.

In the midst of it, Gilyan’s small body stood like a dead, lifeless tree stump.

“Gilyan,” the voice he had heard before spoke again, but this time, it was really coming from the man behind the mask – the mask he knew as that of the cursed prince who helped him and his mother escape years before.

“Gilyan,” he spoke again, “you are free now. You’ve got your wish. Would you like to get further revenge – this time to all the others who had harmed you and your mother?”

Gilyan looked up at the face that was obscuring his direct view of the sun. For the first time in many years, his heart was filled with mirth.

“Master, take me. I will get my vengeance if it pleases you...”

“Very well. Let’s get our vengeance against this stink called humanity.”

That was how he had become part of the master’s most trusted people... And yet why did he deceive him to this extent? Why did he say he had rescued him and his mother when it wasn’t him at all?

His heart felt conflicted. Lady Khailista was gentle at him from his youth. She used to play with him when he was young and even trained him a bit in sword fighting before they escaped. Although he and his mother were of low birth, the Humphreys never treated them as slaves but as equals. How then can he bring this young lady to her own deathbed?

“Thank you for doing this, Gilyan,” the lady in his back began to speak, “I would never forget your kindness.”

The voice he heard reminded him of his mother. She never spoke, but he had always imagined that if she had a voice, it would sound so much like Lady Khailista’s voice right now...

For the first time in many years, a tear began to fall from Gilyan’s eyes, and his heart felt like it was stuck with a very sharp knife as he was trudge this crossroad.