Celestial Bloodline

Kyle closed his eyes after not receiving any response from the man. He had anticipated this, but after a long pause, a familiar voice finally reached his ears, and for the first time, he sensed the voice waver slightly.

"No, there is none."

Azazeal's eyes crinkled a bit as he thought about the words that slipped from his lips. Right, there's no one waiting for him. It's been like that for as long as he can remember.

Kyle opened his eyes and let out a sigh. It wasn't that he hadn't thought about this possibility, but now, what should he say because he wasn't good at comforting.

'I shouldn't have asked that question...'

But apparently, the man opposite him wasn't done at all.

"Do you want to hear an old tale?"

Kyle blinked and pushed himself up into a sitting position with a groan. The wind on top of the mountain wasn't brisk due to the pressure, but his hair was a mess as it had started to grow longer once again.

He gazed at Aze, who looked unfazed even though they were both sitting under the same pressure.

"An old tale? It's rare for you to share something out of nowhere... but I suppose I have to sit here for a whole day, so it's better than being bored in silence."

Azazeal counted on his fingers and calculated that there were three different paths Kyle could take when he would descend the mountain... each path leading to the worst possible outcome. The most unfavorable of them all was the one he desired for the human to choose, as it was finally time for him to capture the celestial spirit. He lowered his fingers and shifted his position to directly face Kyle instead of gazing into the air.

"Kyle, have you ever heard the word Celestial?"

Kyle stilled in his spot as he stared into the man's purple eyes. His mind screeched to a halt, and the next words that slipped out from his mouth were immediate.

"No, I haven't... never."

He caught a glimpse of his own expression in Aze's eyes, which stayed unchanged, and regained his composure. Only to realize in the next second that he had made a mistake!

As a pseudo-divine rank individual, he should be knowledgeable about the Celestial rank!

'Fuck! It's because of my bloodline! I got nervous for a second! I hope he doesn't question me further...'

Azazeal noticed with amusement how Kyle's body stiffened for a second, but the human's expression remained unchanged as he lied through his teeth.

"I see."

His lips twitched slightly, almost threatening to curl upward when he observed Kyle secretly sighing with relief after hearing his words.

Kyle brushed his thoughts away and changed the topic immediately. He should not get so nervous just by hearing the word Celestial because his bloodline knows how to stay hidden if it is threatened.

"So, you were going to tell me an old tale? Or did you change your mind?"

Azazeal stared at Kyle for a while. Then he opened his mouth, and his voice resonated with a deep, melancholic tone, as if he were recalling a forgotten past, lost to the passage of time.

It was just an ordinary story that had a somewhat nice ending, but the more Kyle heard, the more he moved backward a little away from Aze. His expression showed he was shocked to the core because the whole darn story revolved around the word Celestial!

He stared at Aze with a complex expression. Just a while ago, if someone asked Kyle for his opinion about the man, only one word would have slipped out of his mouth. Mysterious.

At first, he thought Aze might be one of the shadow generals who had appeared in this land to uncover a hidden treasure or maybe to conquer or completely destroy it.

But he quickly dismissed those thoughts because there was no visible dark flower on the man's body, and Kyle couldn't detect any unpleasant scent emanating from him. Not to mention, Aze had never harmed anyone. The man simply followed Kyle around for some unknown reason.

Kyle winced when his usually strong skin grazed over simply because of a small rock beneath him. Immediately, his gaze fell upon the drop of blood trailing toward the ground, followed by the few faint blue particles that emerge out from his skin to heal his broken skin—the same particles that had been holed up inside his mind space since he arrived on this land.

A shiver ran down his spine because in that very moment he noticed Aze's eyes fixed on the faint blue particles.His bloodline had never revealed itself in front of others before, so why now!?

Kyle's eyes quivered slightly as a sudden realization dawned on him.

"Is it because you have something similar in your body...?"

Azazeal's lips curved into a faint smirk as he stared into Kyle's eyes.

"No, it is because I concealed my presence the moment I started the tale. Right now, we occupy the same physical space but exist in different dimensions."

Kyle tightened his fists and, despite the pressure on his body, he swiftly scrambled to run in the opposite direction without glancing back. Something was definitely wrong because he saw it... he saw how Aze's eyes turned completely obsidian with nothing but darkness within them as the man stared at him. The moment Kyle stared into those eyes, a single thought emerged in his head. He would die if he stayed in this place any longer.

His bloodline was completely calm probably because it can't sense the man's presence right now, but his instincts told him to run away as far as possible. Kyle started to descend the mountain.

Aze was far stronger than his expectations... The man could easily slip into another dimension while right in front of his eyes all this time. And let's not forget the tale Aze shared with him. If the one who survived in that story turns out to be the man himself...

Then Aze was definitely not a shadow general. No, the man could be even more dangerous than the shadow generals. After all, the only person who survived in the end of the story lost everything, his whole race, yet chose to forgive the world that stripped him of all he held dear.

'Damn it! Damn it! Just someone please give me a beating... why the heck do I have to go and poke my nose in every crappy situation. But I am a hundred percent sure that bastard only told me the first half of the story.'

'No way I'm going to believe there's someone so saintly in this universe who could forgive those who killed their loved ones right before their eyes!'

Kyle wasn't sure if Aze was truly the last survivor in the story or if the man just shared his own past in the form of a tale to convey that he is a good person... and Kyle had no desire to find out either.

But as he stepped on a narrow space to descend the mountain quickly, the ground beneath him collapsed with a soft noise. Instantly, a startled expression crossed his face before his body fell downward into the narrow opening due to gravitational pull.