Others Summon Dragons, I Summon Legendary Knights

Chapter 527: This Isn’t A Game

"Elder John. Elder Orion. Elder Inara."

Isaac stared in horror at the Elders seated in their grand chairs. A thin vertical gap ran through the middle of each body, so narrow that at first glance they almost appeared whole. Through those openings, however, Isaac could glimpse the blood and ruined flesh within.

Gabriel stood on the other side of the hall with his hands clasped behind his back.

"What do you think?"

Isaac’s knuckles tightened and his jaw clenched. He said nothing.

"You’re angry. Trust me, I understand that. I know what it feels like to want to do something but be unable to." Gabriel regarded him calmly. "You see me as some kind of villain, don’t you, Isaac?"

"We’ll kill you," Isaac said, watching the blond man smile despite what he had just done.

"Leave your Eclipsal State."

Isaac’s body obeyed before his mind could resist. The exoskeleton receded, along with the other features he had inherited from Neila.

"You said we." Gabriel tilted his head. "That means you’re certain you can’t kill me yourself. That, at least, is wisdom. But look at you, the good guy, speaking about taking a life as casually as ordering a meal."

Isaac’s teeth ground together. He wanted desperately to move.

"Life is precious, Isaac—"

"Life is precious? Are you joking?!" Isaac snapped.

Gabriel drew a slow breath.

"Life is precious. I know that even while I take it, but you don’t. You kill because you’re angry, because someone stands in your way, yet you have no true ambition. No purpose great enough to repay what you’ve taken from this world." His expression hardened. "You’re just an angry, weak and stupid kid with power."

Isaac opened his mouth, but Gabriel raised a finger to his lips.

Isaac’s jaw locked shut.

"Your emotions pull you around like a puppeteer controlling a puppet. So tell me, Isaac. What is your ambition?"

His mouth loosened. "You just killed three people who dedicated themselves to this city. You slaughtered them, and you’re asking me about my ambition?" Isaac’s voice trembled with rage. "You’re a madman... but you already know what you are."

Gabriel nodded and gestured towards the dead Elders.

"They happened because of my ambition."

"Then kill me, Cain. Miss this chance and you–"

Gabriel pointed at him. Space divided. A razor-thin separation passed vertically through Isaac’s body, splitting his right side from his left. Blood splattered across the floor as both halves collapsed.

Gabriel walked over to the corpse, looked towards the ceiling and exhaled.

Space tore open beside him.

A man wearing an orange inmate uniform stepped through. He had a long, handsome face, though his beard had grown wild and unkempt.

Sebastian looked around the hall.

"I killed your student," Gabriel said.

"Unlike you," Sebastian replied impatiently.

Gabriel chuckled.

"Bring him back."

Sebastian snapped his fingers. The world corrected itself around Isaac. His divided body vanished, replaced by Isaac as he had been one minute before his death—alive, whole and completely unaware of what had happened.

Gabriel pointed at him again. Space divided Isaac in two. Sebastian barely reacted. He snapped his fingers once more, restoring Isaac to that same point in time.

"Isaac."

Gabriel watched the boy glaring at him.

"I just killed you twice, and you didn’t even know."

Isaac’s expression slowly changed. His eyes moved towards Sebastian, then returned to Gabriel.

"So you know we’re both Cain." Gabriel cocked his head. "I heard you say it."

His lips curled into a smile.

"Kill me, Cain," he repeated, mimicking Isaac’s voice and tone.

"Think whatever you want—!"

Sebastian slapped him.

Isaac’s head snapped sideways. He turned towards Sebastian and immediately received another slap, this one powerful enough to throw him onto the floor.

Sebastian flexed his arms. "Listen, Isaac. There’s no use pretending to be tough."

"Go to hell—!"

Sebastian seized his head. Isaac’s eyes widened as his face rammed into the floor. Again and again. Sebastian refused to stop.

Stone cracked beneath his skull until a shallow crater formed, the floor trembling with every impact.

’With all you have, you are still weak. You were weak then. You are still weak now.’ The mana tree’s words rang through his mind. Not exactly as she had spoken them but exactly as Isaac had understood them.

"Just tell us, Isaac." Gabriel opened another tear in space and pulled a teenage girl through.

Isaac’s vision was swimming, but he recognized her.

Mrs. Athens’ daughter.

"No..."

"Who told you?" Sebastian asked. "How did you find out?"

Isaac stared at the girl. She was trembling so badly that she could barely remain still. "I’m sorry," he whispered.

Gabriel extended a hand towards her. "He has decided. He won’t save you."

"No—" The girl’s eyes widened.

Gabriel tore her apart. Blood and flesh struck the floor where she had been standing.

Isaac stared.

"There." Gabriel watched the tremor in Isaac’s eyes. "That life was taken for a purpose: to protect your secret. Doesn’t it suddenly make sense?"

He gestured towards what remained of the girl.

"Every time you remember her, every time you see her in your dreams, tell yourself that. I did it to keep my secret. I let a girl die. I let a mother grieve because I wanted to keep a secret."

Isaac’s irises trembled.

"Don’t break, boy." Gabriel smiled. "This is just the beginning."

Sebastian’s fist crushed Isaac’s skull. A snap of his fingers brought him back. Sebastian crushed it again.

He restored Isaac once more, seized him and hurled him against the wall, pressing his head into the stone until his skull burst beneath the pressure.

Snap.

Isaac was alive again. Another blow launched him through the stone table and sent him crashing across the other side of the hall. His ears rang while pain flared through his back and spread across a body already begging for relief.

His mouth hung open. He couldn’t scream. Through the pain, he remembered his conversation with Isolde.

She had complained about this. She had told him that exposing herself had been a mistake. Isaac understood what she had meant. He was weak, that was what she meant.

Just as the mana tree had said.

’I am not weak.’ Isaac clenched his teeth. ’I am not.’

Sebastian grabbed Isaac by his right ankle and whipped him into the wall with enough force for the stone to give way. His grip crushed the bones in Isaac’s ankle before he swung him again, shattering his shoulder blades with another devastating blow.

The air itself seemed to resound with every strike Isaac received as Sebastian battered him across the hall, punching him left, right, upward and downward before dragging him back to the same place and beginning again.

His bones splintered into fragments, and eventually his mind lost the ability to process the pain, shutting down his consciousness as a final means of escape.

With a snap of his fingers, Sebastian reverted him to a minute before he had lost consciousness, repairing some of the damage while leaving other bones broken.

"Speak, Isaac. You owe no one this loyalty," Gabriel whispered.

"Where is his mother?" Sebastian asked.

"Dead. But I could find her remains." Gabriel replied casually.

At those words, Isaac tried to raise his arm, but it refused to move. He strained harder, desperately willing his body to respond, yet no amount of determination could make his broken limbs obey him.

A portal suddenly opened and Neila emerged, immediately firing webs towards Gabriel and Sebastian. Gabriel saw the loathing on her face and laughed while Sebastian tore through the incoming strands, but that brief distraction was all Neila needed to seize Isaac and leap through the section of wall that had collapsed.

Space folded around them, carrying them away, but almost immediately they found themselves back inside the council hall with Sebastian towering over them.

His fist drove towards Neila. "Stop." She ordered. It failed.

Isaac recalled her before the blow could connect.

Sebastian laughed. "Boys do become men." He grabbed Isaac by the throat and turned towards Gabriel.

"Bring out your summon," Gabriel ordered.

Isaac fought against the command, but his body betrayed him and summoned Neila against his will. The moment she emerged, Sebastian caught her and wrapped both hands around her face.

For one last moment, Isaac saw his mother’s face.

He looked at Neila and desperately wanted to apologize, to tell her that he hadn’t brought her out willingly, but the words wouldn’t come. She was still struggling against the poison herself, yet even now her concern seemed to be for him.

’Don’t look at me. Look away,’ Neila told him.

Isaac’s eyes trembled.

’Look away, Isaac!’

He didn’t.

He couldn’t, and so he watched as Sebastian crushed her skull.

Pain tore through Isaac as the bond between them was violently severed, something deeper than broken bones seeming to rip apart inside him as his entire body began to convulse.

Sebastian tossed Neila’s corpse aside, dropped Isaac onto the floor and watched him convulse.

"I am sorry for your loss," Gabriel said. "But it had to be done. Stubbornness is a good trait, but when directed at the wrong person, it can be lethal. A world like Paradise cannot survive because, in a truly fair and balanced world, it is difficult to maintain control."

Gabriel squatted before Isaac and studied the tears trailing from his eyes.

"The world cannot be fair. Not now. But I will build a fair one when I am at the top, when there is no one left capable of challenging me. There will be no meaningless death any longer, and you shall live to see that future." Gabriel’s expression remained calm as he watched him. "You will hate me, Isaac, but you will come to understand."

At that moment, an enormous dome of water appeared over Paradise and began to descend. Vast quantities crashed upon the city with enough force to flatten buildings, colliding with the water already rising rapidly from the ground.

The council hall collapsed beneath the tide, its walls giving way as the flood tore through it. Gabriel and Sebastian were swept from their feet and slammed through the ruins, unable to resist the tremendous force carrying them away.

Inside the mana factory, Percival stood beside King with a trident in his hands as decades’ worth of stored mana jades were consumed around them.

"I am sorry, Isaac," Percival whispered.

The trident glowed, and Isaac’s broken body transformed into a killer whale. He was whole in this form, freed from the injuries that had crippled his human body, but instead of immediately swimming to safety, he turned towards Neila’s corpse.

He went for her first. Only after taking Neila with him did Isaac swim away.

***

Gabriel and Sebastian appeared inside the Left Sanctuary with enormous volumes of water following them through, nearly flooding the vast hall.

"The Origins, Gabriel," Cain said from above, seeming to sit upon an invisible throne.

Gabriel shook his head. "They’re all dead. I never thought Percival would create a space locked behind tides that fierce. I won’t be able to pinpoint where they are."

"You know what it cost us to create them?"

"Be grateful we didn’t lose a Head." Gabriel glanced towards Sebastian. "You would’ve expended all your lives."

Sebastian walked out of the water and onto the dais before sitting down, his gaze fixed upon the floor as he brooded in silence.

He was getting worse. Angrier.

Gabriel could tell it was because their Human Head had resurrected.

"At least Paradise has been wiped off the map." Gabriel smiled. "The game has truly begun."

"This isn’t a game." Sebastian scowled.