Page 4128

Sermung kept wondering if perhaps the whispers he'd kept hearing had been wrong. That the Godslayer was, in truth, someone else. He supposed he would never know for sure until he finally found the man.

Or rather, if he ever did. There was no guarantee of it happening, of course. One of them could die first. Or both of them. And then Sermung wouldn't even be able to recover his remains, much less discover what he'd been doing all these years.

If the moniker was true, though, then it was at least a hint. Waging war directly on the Primordials. And perhaps beyond them, even. Looking to dismantle the mechanisms that sustained them and kept creating new ones.

But knowing Osgar, that might've just been a secondary objective. Or an accident, even. Prior to leaving, the man had seemed so tired of this world. Of all the loss and haunting memories, no doubt.

It hadn't made much sense to Sermung at the time, but now? Now, he understood. Only too well. Perhaps Osgar had found a way to start anew, out there in higher realms. Perhaps he was living it up, having a grand old time.

That would also be just like him.

And the terrible truth of it, the thing he'd been struggling not to dwell on too much, was that he'd been considering doing the same for years now. Decades. Perhaps a full century, even. It was hard to judge when the idea had first taken root in his mind.

But he couldn't just leave like that, of course. That's not what Osgar did. Osgar left a successor behind. A clear pick. In a world that wasn't locked in such a long-running stalemate.

It wouldn't be the same. There were too many problems to take care of.

But there always were. There always would be. Perhaps they would simply never go down in number again. Especially if he kept neglecting this middle realm. Wasn't that only making the issue worse?

Agh. No, no, no. There were larger concerns. You knew that. Stop raking yourself over the coals.

What larger concerns?

Hmm?

Oh.

The child. Hector. You picked up on that, eh?

Yeah, I did. What larger concerns?

Sermung paused. Hesitated. All that processes, for once, converged and fell quiet as he deliberated over whether or not he should answer that question. Over the incredibly tempting prospect of it. Over the knowledge that he almost certainly shouldn't.

Next page on the 18th

Thanks for reading, everybody.

Page 4127 -- CCCXXVII.

It just felt so annoying, though, because it didn't even feel like Sermung was guarding himself. Maybe that was the whole trick of it. A deceptively relaxed defense. Perhaps that part of his aura normally helped to put people at ease, letting them feel like this man had no secrets--like he was already an old friend, ready to share everything with them.

Yeah. That was it. That was what was bothering him, Hector realized. The effortlessness of this incredible aura. It kept adapting. Remolding itself. Where before it was overwhelming, now it was so laidback and disarming.

And Hector was determined not to be taken in by it.

Even if it meant having to do something very stupid, right now.


Chapter Three Hundred Twenty-Seven: 'The Titan's animosity...'
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How had things ended up like this? He truly was desperate for any distraction at all, wasn't he? The slightest whiff of nostalgia was enough to send him reeling into the past, reliving countless memories in some self-indulgent obsession.

Pathetic. Pathetic and miserable.

And now he'd dragged this innocent young one into his indolent angst, too. Agh. He hadn't felt like such a fool in quite a long time.

But perhaps this, too, was the illusive hand of fate at work. Hector here certainly didn't seem to believe in such things, but in a strange way, that was only making Sermung even more convinced that it might genuinely be true. And even more than that, it was a much needed reminder that destiny was not always and in all regards tragic.

It was so easy to become overly concerned with the fall, wasn't it? The descent into madness, destruction, and death. Of course.

But for there to come a fall, there must first come a rise, no?

And such things could be quite beautiful, indeed. Sermung had seen those, too, over the centuries. As had Tenebrach, naturally.

A thing to be admired, surely. A future to look forward to. Even if it, too, must one day fade.

Such was what these children represented. These "playthings of the gods." He'd been one himself, once upon a time.

A silly notion in retrospect. Nearly to the point of complete absurdity. He couldn't help wondering what Osgar would think of him now. He couldn't help wondering how Osgar might have changed, too.

The Godslayer.

That moniker was certainly suggestive enough of some transformation undertaken, some new height reached, and yet... somehow, it also felt entirely fitting for Osgar. Like it had always belonged to him.