Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 407: Chapter 407: Death’s Hat

Chapter 407 – Death’s Hat

The Hoods stayed there in silence, no longer saying anything. Morenna had said all she wanted to say. And Dantes had warned his daughter to the best of his abilities.

Both of them had opened themselves, taking the risk to be seen as vulnerable and sinful by their own daughter, and showed to Esmeray just how bad what she was doing could get.

And that was all they could do.

They would never force her to do what she didn’t want to. And they would not forbid her to be with Dorian or anything like that.

Esmeray was old enough to bear the consequences of her own actions. All the two of them hoped, and hoped really dearly, was that she would be strong enough to bear it, if ever these consequences came to her.

And they would come.

"Can I go back now?" Esmeray asked, wanting a time alone to reflect about the discussion she just had with her parents, "I don’t think I need to be here anymore."

"Why not? Don’t you want to see how the Church will be rebuilt?" Morenna asked with a smile.

"Rebuilt?" Esmeray echoed, focused once more on the Church. And that was when she began to notice that the flies that had devoured the flames were still there, buzzing around the crumbled walls of the Church strangely.

She didn’t even have the time to ask her mother what was going on before her eyes widened, witnessing as the crimson flies masterfully positioned themselves in a very orderly manner, as if they all had one single mind.

In a matter of seconds, the Church was back. Only, this time it was made of crimson flies, and not of stone.

But that repulsive sight did not last long.

The flies melted down, forming crimson substance that mingled together seamlessly, and solidified between each other, forming crimson walls that looked like it was made of blood and death.

The Church of Death was rebuilt in a matter of seconds, and its presence had become grander, and more intimidating.

On the ground, the crowd screamed in awe. Many of them fell on the ground, kneeling before the newly rebuilt Church, praying to the Lord of Death.

They prayed to their god, and they thanked him for the Warning he had given them, and for his outstanding power.

That day would be forever remembered in the minds of everyone that witnessed the whole event.

It was the day the Lord of Death allowed his Church to burn, transforming it into what the citizens would forever call the Crimson Church. It was the day Vorn, Lord of the Gate of Death, allowed his devoted servants, worshipping him inside his very own home, to burn and die...all to send a message.

They had died for a reason, most whispered amidst their tears.

Some among the crowd even claimed that those who had died inside the Church during the Holy Crimson Fire, as they had already begun calling it, must surely be closer to the Lord of Death now, sitting beneath his throne in eternal peace.

A tragedy became a sacrifice. A massacre became a holy event. And the dead, who had never chosen to die, became martyrs who had supposedly chosen nothing less.

How easy it was for humans to find meaning in everything, especially in things too horrible to accept for what they truly were.

Even a senseless act of slaughter only needed enough grief before someone called it holy.

Morenna and the Hoods heard those whispers from where they stood, and began to wonder whether this was something they truly believed, or just a coping mechanism in order to deal with their loss.

They could not tell.

And amidst all this situation, the Queen looked at the event with completely different eyes.

To her, this was not the Lord of Death trying to warn his believers — that was a very foolish way to see it — or even some unknown organizations trying to attack the core of their Kingdom like how Dantes believed...No.

To her, she knew exactly that this destruction was made by her own grandson, Cassius.

He had killed hundreds of beings, and caused hundreds more of beings to be in internal agony for the death of their loved ones.

He had burned down the very Church her mother believed. The very church that made the Hood who they were.

He had destroyed a Symbol, or at least tried to destroy it, and he did it without thinking of the consequences, or maybe without caring about them.

And Cassius Desdemona had done all of that, only to create chaos. That action was more than enough for Morenna to glimpse another side of her grandson.

A side she never could have imagined he could hold. After all, it required a considerable amount of indifference, or cruelty, or maybe self defense, to create a city-scale chaos...just to kill a prisoner inside the prison.

’Hel was right, after all.’ Morenna thought, smiling thinly, ’Cassius is a lot like Seraphim. They are both greedy. They can be both tremendously cruel. But there is one fundamental difference between them...’

Her eyes glided.

’...Seraphim is ready to fight her own blood for power. She wanted power so much, and when she didn’t have it, she was ready to kill her brother because she thought herself entitled to it.’ Morenna thought, ’What about Cassius, my angel? Why does he want the power? Why was he ready to kill a Prisoner so intensely? What kind of goal was driving him so hard, so mindless, that he was ready to be the reason of so many deaths and suffering?’

The last question was the most important thing to know.

What was Cassius chasing?

And to Morenna Hood, as long as what he was chasing for didn’t make him a danger to his two families, then it didn’t matter about the others that were caught in it.

Today he had burned the Church of Death, but the Church of Death was not Hood. She simply hoped that the next time, it would not be against the Hood.

She hoped, and she prayed. She prayed despite not being religious or faithful of any gods. But she prayed. Because she didn’t want to think of a future where Cassius’s actions might be turned against her own blood.

At that time, Morenna Hood wouldn’t know what to do. But one thing was certain:

If a day came and that she had to choose between her children and grandchildren...

The answer was obvious, even if it was profoundly painful to admit.

’So don’t do this to me, Cassius.’ she thought at last.

"Let’s go." Dantes said, breaking her train of thoughts, "the God Beast is angry, and it’s taking its anger on Helene. The woman will go through terrible pain for quite a while."

"Would not Vorn help her?" Morenna asked, "she is quite innocent."

Dantes’s eyes glowed a bright red hue. He cocked his head upward, seeing the dark sight rippling with black lightning, the very {Seat} of Herald inside of him trembling, and he smiled tensely,

"He won’t help her. In fact, He won’t help anyone for a while." The Herald of Death said, "the Lord of Death is angry, and the Kingdom of Death is shaking under his anger."

He began to disappear, "We better be on our best behavior for the next few days."

Then he was no more, returning to Royal Palace. Morenna turned her head towards her daughter, and chuckled dryly:

"Well, you heard your father." she stretched her hand towards her, grasping Esmeray’s hand, "Now let us go towards the Prison, and see what the Widow had decided. She went away in haste because the Prison was burned down."

"The prison was also burned?" Esmeray exclaimed, "what in the world is going on? Do we have a new faction that especially love to burn and explode things?"

"I guess yes." The Queen laughed, "just like some goddamned Terrorists."

"I wonder who these fuckers are."

Morenna smiled strangely, "I wonder too."

The mother and daughter disappeared, going back to the Prison.

...

At the same time, inside the Gate of Death, the Lord of Death was looking at a woman hovering in front of him.

It was the same woman that Sarah has manipulated the memories of.

At that point, the soul of Sister of Death was saying the same words Sarah told her, over and over again.

"The Fallen, huh." Vorn said, chuckling coldly. He looked at the memory of the soul, and saw the visage of a Dragonic man with yellow eyes. "I see." He muttered, leaning comfortably on his throne.

"The explosion was caused by a Tier Four Bomb. The same that has been used on Hel in the Heist." He said, analyzing, "which means that the one who blasted my Church, is the same masked man who attacked Hel and stole the artifacts. But in the memory, I saw a dragonic man from the Dragons Hunter Organization."

He smiled coldly beneath his hood, chuckling, the sound like bones snapping,

"Either this new sect and the Dragons Hunters have an alliance or something along the lines. Or they hate each other, and the new sect is trying to frame them. After all, memory manipulation is rare power, but not impossible."

There were two possibilities, but it didn’t really matter to Vorn. The only thing he was thinking of was that now mortals believed they could attack him without consequences.

That only meant that he had been silent enough for them to not fear Death.

No more.

Without any more wasted words, he clicked his fingers. The woman disappeared, and a large black hat appeared in front of Vorn now.

He had thought many times how to choose the Hood that must die, and he realized that he simply couldn’t choose. He loved all of them, no matter how ungrateful they might be.

But someone needed to die, and he had found a way to achieve that.

He lifted his hand, palm facing up. Death divinity churned atop it, swirling like a small black storm, before many tokens were formed out of it. Black Tokens. Each holding the names of: Hel Hood, Raven Hood, Esmeray Hood, Seraphim Hood, Morenna Hood, Dantes Hood.

Then he put all these tokens into the death hat, before shaking it. After that, Vorn stretched his hand, his hand sinking into the hat, and chose one token randomly, without using his power or anything.

The Chosen Token would be the one that would die.

So he looked at the name on the Token, his eyes fixed on it for a couple of seconds before sighing wearily.

"The World has chosen."

A Hood, was about to die.

—End of Chapter 407—