A Tale of One Deviant (Book 2) (Technically Hiatus, but kind of not)

Chapter 198: The Red Heads

My hand slowly came off the sword, shocked, but not fast to show it. Having felt the power of his presence, so much stronger, so much more peaceful, so much more...everything than today. Not with a smile on his face, because he seemed bored to be blessing even more ore that day, for who knew what reason, but definitely in better spirits and not drained within an inch of his life.

     It just...for some reason...it took a lot out of me to stare at him for even those few seconds. A man I'd only known to hurt me for my insolence, that I'd been the Deviant of until only a few months ago, but otherwise never really interacted with me. A man that looked different from how I pictured him, though I'd seen that adult form of his before. But where...

     And why, I swallowed, unable to breathe, throat choked up as I reached towards it. Does this hurt so much?

     All I could do was grab it and squeeze. Having become a race not Demonic so that my Dwarven cohorts had nothing to suspect for the time that I was there, I really did need to breathe at that time. But for some reason, I couldn't, falling to my knees, strangling myself. Trying to see past all of the tears pushing out of me, all of the sobs stuck deep down below.

     I was shaking uncontrollably, emoting for some strange reason. Just seeing his face was enough to make me...

     Arion.

     But that didn't feel right. That name didn't feel right, and the feeling around it didn't either. Wasn't I supposed to hate him? For hurting me so much, just for insulting him a few times. Even if we were technically on the same side, and I probably should've known more about him than I did.

     The God of Demons, the former God of Light.

     Yes...I remember.

     When Paivla did indeed tell me...that.

     "Hold up!" I raised my hand and ducked my head. "You're going way too fast! You say Arion, the God of Demons, ruled with you?!"

     I predicted that Takuya would tsukkomi this in my mind if he was here, Aren't you supposed to be more worried about the "billion years ago" part?!

     "Well yes, he wasn't always the God of Demons."

     But...while that part lined up, I definitely didn't understand the "billions of years ago" thing. Every time I'd run into some sort of history involving Tiyana, it was only within the past five thousand years or so. Records I'd found around Tasega, no matter where I went, no matter how much history I dug up, only went back to six or seven thousand years ago. The stove in my kitchen was from a "10,937 NE," whenever that was, and whatever era that came from. If such a big dungeon, such a long-forgotten heaven was able to have such modern technology and belong to a goddess that all of the others hated enough to kill...then it must've been from a very long time ago.

     But billions?

     That, I would have to find evidence to corroborate. Either I had to go deeper into the earth for what had probably long decomposed by then, or find someone willing to cough up the answers for me that knew things. Kiki had tight lips and wouldn't entertain the conversation with me at all, and I knew Aloire and Afriel were only so old. The Fae Queen definitely couldn't have been in her billions, though her children were only in the thousands not married or with children yet and slow to grow. So she must've been in her dozens of thousands, probably, like the ancient Dragons tucked high up on the continent and refusing to come out no matter what.

     But billions?

     Teria.

     I had to ask Teria. She knew. She wouldn't tell me, but at least I wanted to confirm that much.