Enslaved

"S-Sorry?" Zane blurted out.

"Open the book." The figure calmly repeated. "I won't ask a third time."

Moving his hand to the cover of the book, he opened it slowly, turning it to the first page.

The figure immediately held his hand up, which made the book fly towards him.

"Hmm... Empty..." He spoke with his echoing voice.

"Yes, It's an empty diary. I brought it with me so I could use it." Zane replied.

"No need to pretend." The head of the silhouette turned towards Zane who felt his blood boil. "It's a relic. Only you could open it." He spoke in a questioning tone.

"Uhh.. I didn't know that. It's a family heirloom, maybe that's why." His back was full of sweat.

"Haha" The saint chuckled. "Zaros."

"Your grace." Zaros bowed his head.

"Take him to the room we prepared. Get him to work."

"As you say." He bowed and started walking towards the exit with Zane.

Turning his head, Zane took one last look at the saint, who was staring right back at him. Feeling his skin crawl, Zane turned his head back to the front and hurried to the exit.

When they got out from the altar's secret entrance, the priest looked at Zane with disgust.

Ignoring the priest and the cultists on the pew, Zaros walked towards a door to the right of the hall.

After walking deep inside the church for some time, Zane had lost count of how many turns they took.

"We're here." Zaros stopped in front of a wooden door and opened it.

The room was not really special. It had a chair on the middle with a small table in front of it. On one side of the wall, there was a sofa for one person. On the other side, there was a torch mounted on the wall, which was the only source of light in the dark room.

Zaros immediately jumped on the sofa after heading inside. "Go ahead, that one is for you."

Zane stared at him for a moment before heading towards the middle and sitting on the chair.

Adjusting his posture until he felt comfortable, he finally looked on the table in front of him.

The table was empty, except for a small wooden box in the center of it. His eyes widened. He was familiar with the wooden box. It was the same box they saw before, the one containing a relic.

Zane turned his head towards Zaros with a confusing look. "Open it." He spoke, his head laid back on the sofa and his eyes closed.

Zane's hand reached for the box slowly and grabbed it. With a gulp of his saliva, he slowly opened the lid of the box.

'What...'

He became confused seeing the item inside. The item inside resembled a long date, shriveled up and pitch black in color. The shriveled up date had two small antennas on the top.

"What relic is this?" He looked towards Zaros in confusion.

"That.." Zaros contemplated for a moment, "That's not exactly a relic, but we can use it like one. It's an Evolved beast, the "Shade-aegis Slug"." He explained.

"An Evolved beast..." Zane took the information in, but Zaros had no intention of stopping.

"Yes. But don't think of it like any other Evolved beasts. This one is a bit special. It has the <Arcane> which can create a dome of shadow, like yours, which can cover itself."

Zane became curious, "It can only cover itself? So what use is it? And why is it shriveled up?"

Zaros smiled and leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. "That's why we were trying to sacrifice all the cadets from the Nox Academy! Their Night essence can be used to replace the Shadow essence of this slug, and with the essence of the knights and cadets of Nox, we could've 'Overloaded' this beast and used it as a relic! Even if it would only be for one time, we could've created a shadow dome, or a night dome in that case, as huge as our town!" He spoke in one breath.

Zane furrowed his eyebrows at him mentioning the sacrificing of cadets. He opened his mouth to speak but Zaros beat him to it.

"Sadly we couldn't complete the ritual because of you, but luckily, your <Arcane> uses the Shadow essence! You can feed your essence to restore the beast to it's natural form! After that, you can feed it some more to 'overload' it. It'll be even better than if we did the ritual as we'll be able to create a pure shadow barrier!" He was so engrossed on explaining that he was basically sputtering spit at this point.

Zane took a moment to digest all the information. "So you need me to feed my essence to this slug?" He spoke with cold eyes.

"Yes. Otherwise I'd have killed you right then. Haha." Zaros chuckled. "Better get to it then." He leaned back on the sofa.

Sighing, Zane picked up the slug and put it on his hand. Looking at it's shriveled form for a moment, he was getting ready to feed it.

"Oh!" Zaros propped up again. "I forgot! You also asked why it was shriveled up like that right?" He looked at him with sparkling eyes.

"No...?" Zane was sweating, he was already tired from all the explanation.

"You did! Listen up carefully! This beast, the Shade-aegis Slug, it has already gone extinct." He stopped for a moment.

"The one you're holding right now, it's like that because it was preserved by someone from the Era of Gods! After the events of God's Descent!" His tone turned serious.

"Era of Gods!" Zane widened his eyes. "By who?"

Zaros shook his head in disappointment. "We don't know that."

"Then how'd you find it?" Zane questioned.

"Our Saint received visions from our God to find it. It took us a lot of effort to get this slug."

"Well, enough chatting, get started on it then." Zaros leaned back on the sofa again, but this time, he stayed like that.

Zane's gaze lingered on him for a moment, then he started feeding the slug with his essence.

---

Zane fed his essence to the slug for the whole day. His legs had already fallen asleep and his essence also didn't restore itself after repeatedly exhausting it over the day.

Confirming he couldn't feed any more essence today, Zaros took Zane back to the same cell he woke up in.

Leaving Zane inside the cell and releasing him from his cuffs, Zaros smiled. "See you tomorrow kid."

*Bam*

He closed the door and returned.

Zane looked around the room to find it exactly how it was when he left. He looked at Slem on the bed, who was still sleeping peacefully, snoring with a bubble forming from his nose.

'Did he sleep all day!?' He was amused.

He stopped looking at Slem and walked towards the wall, leaning on it with his head.

"Haah..." he sighed and fell into deep thought.

Thinking about how he was basically enslaved by those he swore to take revenge against, he started clenching his teeth.

His forehead started popping with thick nerves and he made a tight fist.

"HAAAAAH!!!!" He screamed and moved his fist towards the wall.

*BAM* He struck the wall with his fist.

*BAM BAM BAM* He struck again and again, until his fist was painted red, with his own blood.

With shaking hands, he leaned against the wall and sat down. He looked up at the ceiling, and tears started rolling down on his pale cheeks.