Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 162: Chapter 162: Ancestor [2]

Chapter 162 – Ancestor [2]

Making sure no one would step inside the training ground, Cassius finally allowed himself to focus on his next set of actions.

The training ground was the same as the last time, created by both his father and mother, with monsters sealed inside for training purposes.

This time, though, Cassius had no business with them. Ignoring them entirely, he summoned the Ancestral Call Ticket from his space ring.

It was all black with red stripes that swirled and formed the symbol of the Desdemona: the Snake-Eating Sigil.

At that instant, subtly, Ananke channelled her own GeumGeum through Cassius and enveloped the entire training ground, creating an invisible, undetectable barrier made of thin threads.

If Cassius noticed her action, he gave no indication of it. He drew a deep breath, and using his blood control, splashed his own blood across the smooth surface of the Ticket.

His heart thundered and Cassius gasped sharply.

The Ticket glowed a deep crimson light in his hand, followed by a sharp, sudden halt in everything around him, as though time itself had stopped.

It was not as though.

Time had stopped.

At least for everyone else. Cassius looked around in a dazed state, body tilting slightly forward in surprise, his heart racing.

The Ticket in his hand burned into crimson fire, wafted by a wind that had no business existing in a paused world.

And at that instant, something echoed deep inside his mind. A sound. The sound of heavy chains rattling sinisterly, as though being pulled and dragged by force.

Cassius blinked, and yelped in genuine horror at the sight before him. He stepped back involuntarily. Not once. Several times, as though every instinct in him wanted distance from the human — if she could even be called that — standing in front of him.

And yet the woman undeniably had a human form. At least, what Cassius could make of it.

’What in the world is this?’ He exclaimed, utterly flabbergasted.

In front of him was a woman chained by bright golden chains. The chains were not physical — Cassius could tell from how illusory they appeared — yet the pressure radiating from them was tightening his chest like a fist, thinning the air in his lungs.

He had to actively channel his essence just to bear the weight of it.

And those same chains went in and out of the white-haired, red-eyed woman kneeling on the ground before him — not even sparing her right eye, from which chains erupted and wrapped around the rest of her body.

Before the woman even spoke, Cassius already knew who she was. Her memories — most of them blurred, destroyed or completely sealed — were beginning to slip into his consciousness slowly but steadily.

”Amate Desdemona.” He whispered without meaning to, looking at his 333rd ancestor.

”That’s ancestor to you, little shit.” Amate replied immediately with a bloody grin, her red eyes less like eyes and more like fire shaped into eyes. ”Now look at you. This is faster than we predicted, isn’t it? You must have been working hard, haven’t you, dear Last.”

Her words snapped Cassius back to himself instantly. and he noticed the time slipping.

In fact, a literal black clock hung above them, its needle ticking with each second.

A timer. And Cassius had only three minutes.

His eyes went immediately wide.

”Fuck! Only three minutes? That’s far too short!” He complained, his voice restless.

Amate laughed, the chains cackling louder with every rumble of her throat. It sounded less like a human’s laughter and more like the roar of dragons.

Something inside Cassius shivered at the sound of it. A burning sensation that began to spread through his insides. He realised immediately that his First Skill, Bloodflame, was reacting to the presence of Amate Desdemona.

His First Skill was getting stronger.

”Three minutes is the limit she can spare for us before they realise I am gone!” Amate said. ”Three minutes, little shit! And you are wasting them complaining! Ask, Last Born! Ask and I shall answer!”

Cassius’s mouth moved before his mind had fully steadied itself.

”What should I do?” He nearly shouted, his voice carrying something close to desperation. ”What should I do to complete the Loop? And why? What is happening that all of you would do this? Why am I here in this world? I know you know I am not from here, you must! So tell me! And why do the gods want to kill us? What did we even do?”

Amate grinned with visible satisfaction at the torrent of questions, clearly pleased that he had been thinking seriously about this.

But time was running faster now.

Only a minute and a few seconds remained.

In urgent haste, Amate Desdemona answered, choosing her words carefully to avoid triggering the awareness of whatever held those chains on her.

”Your Aspect, Last Born! Your Aspect is the key to completing the Loop! You are the last piece of the puzzle, and the last piece must contain all pieces for everything to be whole! All pieces into one! Did you hear me? We had no choice but to do this to survive and save ourselves!”

”Survive against—!”

”Shut your mouth, little shit! Do not interrupt me!” Amate roared, her eyes blazing hotter and hotter. ”Only you can do this, for only you hold a piece of her within you after Kali the Third! She failed! But you must not fail us! If you do, everything we went through to prepare for your arrival will have been for nothing! For nothing, Last Born!”

Forty-five seconds remained.

Cassius dropped to one knee at that point, his own eyes burning like Amate’s, Bloodflame roaring inside him as though thousands of dragons were erupting at once.

The pain was atrocious, but he bit down and focused on her words. This chance might never come again.

He could not waste it.

”The gods want us dead but cannot act against any of us before we reach the Fifth Rank, the Ascended Rank!” She continued, her eyes weeping molten fire. ”That is one of the rules of the Game! You heard me, Last Born? They cannot attack us directly, but we will not hide either. We are the Desdemona, and we need our Book back! It belongs to us! And you will take it back from them no matter what!”

’Book...?’ Cassius’s mind blurred.

Fifteen seconds remained.

Realising there was no time for anything more, Amate did one final thing.

”Take it!”

”Huh?” Cassius looked at her, confused.

”Take my left eye, little shit. Gouge it out and do it fast!”

”What? No no no! I can’t—!”

”FUCKING DO IT, LITTLE SHIT!” She roared with fury and impatience, having no time for hesitation.

[Cassius! Do it!] Ananke urged.

That was all he needed. With a body heavier than anything he had ever moved, Cassius lunged toward his ancestor.

The moment he came within an inch of her, every piece of clothing on his body burned away into ash.

He himself began to burn. But with his First Adaptation to Fire, Cassius ignored the pain, and with dread and regret flooding him equally, his right hand snapped out and seized the left eye of Amate.

Five seconds remained.

He locked eyes with her one last time, and the 333rd ancestor grinned with a madness in it that sent a shiver straight through his spine.

”You are not allowed to fail, little shit.”

Cassius gritted his teeth and tore out the left eye of Amate Desdemona. Blood sprayed across him and spattered the ground.

Amate made no sound. Her face remained placid and cold, her grin never fading, as though her mind simply refused to register the pain.

Time was up.

The chains rattled again, this time so loud and so powerful that every opening in Cassius’s body began bleeding furiously.

Amate started to disappear, dragged back to wherever she had come from.

Only then did Cassius remember he had forgotten to ask why their bodies were never found after death.

And yet at that realisation, another question slithered through his mind.

’Were they even dead?’

He had no time to think further. With one last glance and one final word, Amate Desdemona vanished completely from the training ground.

”Last chance.”

The stream of Amate’s experiences flowing into his mind cut off abruptly, and time inside the training ground resumed.

Cassius collapsed to his knees, head hanging low, unable to properly process what had just happened.

Everything had moved so fast his mind was still catching up.

His eyes fell listlessly on the bloody, burning left eye in his hand. The moment he looked at it, the eye twitched and shifted its burning pupil to look back at him.

His heart stopped.

The eye disappeared from his hand and forced itself into his own left eye.

Cassius’s eyes snapped wide open. His head snapped backward so hard his neck cracked, and a roar of horrendous pain tore itself from his throat.

He fell, writhing on the ground like something caught in sinking mud, feeling as though his mind itself was being scorched by a merciless fire.

And so, he was in no state to register the rapid succession of notifications chiming inside his head.

DING!

[You have obtained the Left Eye of Amate Desdemona, the Worldburner!]

[The Evolution Conditions for your First Skill, Bloodflame, have been overwritten by the Eye.]

[Bloodflame is evolving!]

DING!

[You have obtained some of the experiences of Amate Desdemona, the Worldburner.]

[Experience absorbed: Slaughter of the Dragons of Fire.]

[Luck is favouring you.]

[Your absorbed experience and the evolution of Bloodflame have achieved a magnificent harmony.]

DING!

[Congratulations, Cassius Desdemona, you have obtained an Ultimate Skill: Rage of Dragons.]

—End of Chapter 162—