Rise of The Strongest Monarch-Chapter 89: Reality

A shot from one of his guns somehow goes off and pierces through my chest.

"I hope you learned something from these memories. Goodbye for now Liam," Aether says as everything starts to fade away.

I open my eyes to the sight of the statue once again, but now the feeling of rage is flowing through me.

"How did a statue of lady Iris get here?" Airi asks with a confused tone in her voice.

"That is a really good question," Zeno responds while staring closely at it.

Zeno is a traitor who went out of his way to frame Aether... The same bastard is standing in front of me like nothing is up. I don’t know what the hell to do about this since I’m not strong enough to fight him.

Hybrids still give me a problem so fighting back against a light bearer is going to be even worse.

Clench.

I feel my fist tightening as my eyes lock onto Zeno. Aether’s rage is starting to fall onto me a bit now too but I can’t really help it when he was innocent.

"Kill him."

"He’s just another enemy waiting for the right moment."

"Kill him." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"Kill him."

"Kill him."

The voices start to echo around me as I find myself gripping the sword in my right hand once again.

"Liam why are we looking towards Zeno with such murderous intent?" Celeste asks with a bit of confusion.

Reality hits me as I hear celeste speak to me.

He’ll probably be our enemy soon enough but I have some other reasons for why I feel the way I do about him. It all makes complete sense to me now that I’ve seen what I needed to see.

Zeno is the reason Aether is seen as a traitor and I think that he will try to kill me.

"Why would he kill you? There’s no reason for him to do so," Celeste responds with some confusion still in her voice.

I have aether’s sword and even some of his memories. Zeno doesn’t seem like he is dumb when it comes to these things so I’m sure he’ll put it all together soon.

I’d be considered a threat because aether can tell me the truth about what really happened with them all.

Tug. Tug.

I unclench my sword as it disappears once more. I turn my head to see Amelia tugging on my arm for some reason, probably to get my attention.

"What’s up Amelia?" I question quietly.

"Something feels off with the statue being here like this. I can tell it is concerning to Zeno... More than Airi," Amelia answers while keeping her voice low.

"It is just a statue though. I don’t think it can really do anything here," I say while keeping an eye on the two of them.

"Right," Amelia replies softly.

She is quite sharp when it comes to her observations as well, maybe she also thinks that Zeno is a bad person. I have a bit more reasons than her but I guess smart people can realize it too.

I remember Airi was pretty upset when she first saw Zeno, but then it was like a switch was hit. The two of them seem to be doing just fine now... Almost like nothing ever happened between them.

It makes me wonder if she believed Aether when he tried to tell her that he wasn’t the traitor.

I also didn’t get to see what else happened during that memory so I’ll never know if anything else was said, if it was said. Aether is very picky with what he tells me whenever we meet.

Just like how he told me to keep the girl safe without giving any reason to why.

"We can just keep moving. The statue will keep the zierel from passing through here," Airi says with some relief in her voice.

"How?" Amelia asks, a bit of confusion in her voice.

"Lady Iris’s statue has light that’ll react when zierel try to walk towards it," Airi answers without hesitation.

"Great," Amelia says as she continues to walk.

Airi looks at me for a moment before turning back around, almost like she had a look of concern for a second there.

But regardless it was time for us to continue forward since we still need to find our way back up to the surface. The tunnel is still quite long with no end in sight, even with the time we’ve spent walking.

It feels as if we’ve been walking for hours now.

"I’d expect the statue to do something to you since you technically can be seen as a Zierel," Celeste speaks up.

Shouldn’t you be happy that it didn’t do a single thing to me? If I die, so do you. That is how the whole body sharing thing works at least.

"I just mean that it should’ve done something, even if it wasn’t deadly. Or is that why you suddenly felt rage towards Zeno?" Celeste questions.

I thought I said it before? Zeno is a traitor who went after aether and made him out to be the bad guy. How can I trust someone like that?

Plus I already explained why he’ll want to kill me soon enough. I am basically a walking threat who can expose him with enough proper evidence.

It just isn’t something I’m capable of doing.

"You’ll definitely need to get stronger somehow before we can even consider fighting him," Celeste says with a serious tone.

I know. I’m studying something currently so I’ll just need some practice but it might be possible to beat him. Just... I don’t think Airi is going to sit around and let me kill him.

Actually I’ll probably become a target for all light bearers to go after if I do end up killing him.

That’ll also make it impossible for me to help keep Amelia safe if I have to constantly run away from light bearers. They are also the best shot at keeping the zierel away from humanity.

"Or we just find a Zierel capable of killing Zeno," Celeste suggests.

I continue to follow behind the others as I ponder on that thought.

Finding a Zierel capable of killing Zeno could benefit us a great deal but it also could be quite risky. Zierel already think I’m a threat by default so I don’t really know how to approach them.

Plus they are pretty smart.... They’d probably think I’m leading them into some sort of trap.

I scratch my head for a second as I try to focus on keeping up with Airi and Zeno. They both seem to be pretty quiet during this walk, even Amelia is keeping quiet now.

It feels as if something is ahead of us, otherwise why would we be keeping quiet like this?

Everyone suddenly stops as a distant roar echoes off of the walls.

"Another damn Goliath is here. This city really might be a central hub after all," Zeno says quietly.

"Even more of a reason for us to get out of here," Airi replies while keeping her voice low.

"Right now that is kind of impossible. A goliath like this is definitely going to bring more of them to us," Zeno says while leaning against the wall.

"We’ll just have to wait for a little while then," Airi responds with a bit of frustration in her voice.

That’s exactly what we decide to do... We sit around and wait for awhile as it occasionally lets out a roar that echoes off the walls. But nothing feels like it is changing as we sit around waiting.

There’s no other sounds like zierel are coming but it isn’t going away either.

In conclusion, we were currently stuck sitting here for an unknown amount of time... Until it decides to leave or until something gets the goliaths attention.

If we didn’t have to fight that strong hybrid from before then maybe we could handle fighting another goliath; just that took a lot of strength from us all.

Amelia might be the only one with enough power to even put up a fight right now. Even after resting I still don’t think I can handle a full on fight against a goliath.

Plus I have a newer problem to deal with... This hatred I have for Zeno is a real issue that I’m going to have to find a way to suppress while traveling with him.

Ugh.

"Just don’t think about what he did right now. I know it’s not easy to do, but you need to try until we have a way to deal with him," Celeste says with a serious, yet calm tone.

I know. I know.

Fighting him right now is probably the worst possible idea and having this hatred constantly won’t help anything. Airi is still technically innocent to me and I have to protect Amelia as well.

Doing something risky like attacking him would be dumb.

I just don’t know how to move forward right now when we are stuck like this... Especially when he is quite weak after all the fighting.