The God of Jesters
Chapter 126 - 2: Epilogue

Chapter 126: 2: Epilogue

"Sir, what should we do now?" The body of Remira had grown like a mountain now laid bare for the knights to see.

It’s been a few hours and the sun had started to rise on the horizon when they woke up.

A night of destruction and death came to an end with their loss. And yes, it was a loss for they had failed to achieve everything they had tried for. And Remira’s giant body was proof of that even further.

For their heart has told them to protect it. But now it lay there, like a limbless piece of flesh that didn’t even move anymore. Which was far from the scene they remembered before losing consciousness.

"But I wonder, why are we alive?" Haseem asked, looking toward where the Blue Lotus Mages might have fallen. A place that had remained empty when they had woken up. Mages who should have killed them, but they had chosen to disappear.

"We can’t know for certain, but for now, we have to evacuate and... find a way to bring this beast with us." Who this beast was, Vance didn’t know.

He wished for an answer or he would get there. But that was for later. Currently, they have to leave this place, as it won’t take long for the court mages to come here with their army.

Wortham principality might be a small state of the Cynark Kingdom, but no one would look down on it one bit. Due to the constant wars with the Republic of Yethel, the experienced force that Wortham had developed made up for 20% of the overall military power of Cynark. Which was a lot considering there were a total of 33 states in the kingdom.

And when they come here, with their overzealous nature and arrogance, they would obviously search for scapegoats. Which Vance doesn’t intend to be. Removing their traces and leaving this city with their loss was the best course of action.

Though, as he was thinking these words, a hand burst out of the beast, a hand much smaller in size than the hands that surrounded it.

A hand that appeared human and not as transparent as the beast before. A hand followed by a bald human that burst out of it, as she said. "He...p!" before losing consciousness.

"That voice... it was Remira," Haseem said, while Vance on the side was a bit surprised at first before his eyes turned serious. "She is a hero, she was chosen by the First Knight. Take her out gently. We have to leave."

******

On the training ground of the barracks, which remained empty, the training area suddenly burst with light, lighting up to expose the giant magic circle hidden underneath. Followed by successive appearances of a couple of "beings". Some of which appeared human and some more alien than the latter.

At the front was a man with an octopus head. Taking in a deep breath that caused his tentacles to wriggle, he spoke. "What a deep curse. And remnants of something else."

It was then a man came from his back while taking a servile attitude and asking. "General, is there danger?"

"The curse here is light, but its intensity will increase as we walk deeper into the city." This man was General Jaratim, an adept-level transmutation mage focusing on biological transformation. But he also had the identity of a curse expert in the military.

A curse wielder of Arch level. Hence the reason he was deployed first.

"As you say, General."

Jaratim nodded on the side before looking toward the city, his tentacles moving and feeling the air around, collecting traces of the curse in the air. "So they succeeded in reviving a Daemon." Jaratim didn’t know which one was brought back. But he knew that things wouldn’t be simple anymore.

Thirty-four years ago, when he was still new in the military, he was dispatched for something similar. It was to survey the place where a being much stronger than a Daemon woke up, overturning an entire island nation in one night.

Of course, being on foreign soil, he had to act with caution there and look for clues about what had happened in that place.

It was that moment he had learned of the path above Legendary, that Daemons had walked on.

Being they have abandoned their morality and achieved a form of pseudo-immortality, attaining powers that can only be heard in fairy tales of the past.

Though for some reason, these powerful Daemons had disappeared thousands of years ago, with the last one to be named among them being Lakyus. A false name, but a name that the Daemon of Nightmares was well known for throughout the world.

As for the Daemon that woke up in that island nation?

He didn’t know who that was. All he knows, it was a monster that had sent the whole island into a bloody frenzy, where the common people turned on each other, biting and killing their own family in madness.

The loss of life was in the thousands. Thirty-four thousand to be specific.

It was also the nation from where Ikuras Yethel hailed from, before turning into a librarian in the Republic of Sarilla, which is now called Yethel.

******

The news of the disaster spread through the world and the embarrassment that it threw to the Cynark kingdom was immense. There were riots in some places, while others asked for justice.

But most of all, people waited for the fate of the tens of thousands of people who never woke up from their sleep, unlike the rest of the city. Whilst they waited to learn of the culprit, the people responsible for this disaster.

As for the city of Dururm. The Martial Law continued with the military roaming the streets and providing provisions to the remaining people that have woken up. These very military shot countless civilians who had tried to escape the city out of fear of what happened.

Reports of which never reached the outside world, but they had started to cause a small resistance to build up in the city. But none of that mattered for the iron fist of the military was too strong for the common people to have any impact.

They just carried on with their life, while the Military dealt with the aftermath.

"The mages got too arrogant this time, it’s their folly that the city turned to this." A young man said while reading the report, while in front of him sat the only remaining leader of the Mage Institute.

The Master of Contracts Tower, Annaturam. However, unlike the jolly visage from before, her eyes were tired and dark from all the scrutiny she had faced till now.

Which eventually dragged her to the Prince’s palace, surrounded by countless palace mages and Knights who didn’t disguise their disappointment and bloodlust from her.

But all of it was dwarfed in front of the Prince, who appeared as nonthreatening as a child. But no one should be fooled by his youthful vitality.

Relationship-wise, this man was the granduncle of the current King of Cynark. And a legendary figure.

A Legendary Knight of the Blood Crow bloodline.

"I am ready to accept all the blame for the disaster, but I still beseech you to not close the institute."

"No, I don’t think I would listen to you this time. I gave freedom to the mages, a place to prosper and this is how they treat my people. So much carnage just caused by utter incompetence on your part."

"If you had properly looked into your people if your teachers had vetted the background of the students that came to them, none of this would have happened."

"But that was the choice of the previous generation, I am a junior to that man and didn’t have much say in it.’ Anna spoke her mind. Yes, she felt guilty for what happened, but if she kept on taking the blame. Then the institute will cease to exist.

"The sins of the forefathers are always on the children. You must have heard of how a certain youth suffered such fate for this very same reason." The prince smiled. A smile that made Anna sigh in defeat.

Earlier, she had tried to harm Farhad when she came back but was soon taken down by General Jaratim who came in time and had been made aware of the little episode of betrayal of multiple tower masters by none other than Faust.

Though humiliating, it had given her enough time to be sure that it truly was Farhad. Or so she chose to act like she believed him. But in her heart, she had remained suspicious of the young man, the only proper survivor from ground zero, where the god’s presence was strongest.

As for why he was able to prove his identity?

The flames that covered his body were proof enough.

A flame that can’t be stolen and can only be transferred. A fact well-known among the higher circles of mages.

"I don’t intend to hide from the responsibility. I never intended to. Just like Prince has said. I am ready to accept punishment for their mistake and the fact that the terrorists only got stronger due to our oversight and arrogance."

"But that is the burden of us Tower Masters, not the institute. It was a place for good."

The small exchange went on for a long time. But in the end, the Prince didn’t relent to her request.

The oversight of mages was too much this time. And their arrogance as well as inaction has caused a lot of harm.

It was already good enough for the Prince to not expose the details of betrayal and the deaths that soon followed to the world, otherwise, things might have turned for the worse for a lot of Mages in this Principality.

No, the whole country.