Chapter 24: THE LOVE OF PRESENT AND PREVIOUS LIVES
THE LOVE OF PRESENT AND PREVIOUS LIVES
"Ivan or whoever you call yourself now, you have fulfilled your mission, and here is your reward", Mother Asereth told me as she gave me the fourth part of the Solomon move constellation.
"What does it do?" I asked her when she zapped herself out of the place.
"Shadow. It's the Shadow move", she said to me from afar.
"What does the shadow move do?" I asked her.
"Shadow is the unique magic of the Dark Angel of Revelations. We managed to utilize that magic in our templar constellations to improve our movements. You will find it useful for you", Mother Asereth explained to me as she suddenly dropped into the ground and turned into shadow that quickly dashed away.
"Goodbye, Ivan or Dark Angel", Mother Asereth said to me as she left.
"Goodbye, mother. See you in Tarah city", I replied to her as I studied the fourth part of Solomon's move, the Shadow move.
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"Oriese where have you been? It is dangerous in the city after demons appeared randomly to attack people", Lord Orol said to me when I returned to the mansion.
"So, you have heard about the demons attacking the church?" I asked Orol.
"We must leave for Tarah city immediately. It will be safer over there. We have established our trading house there and we bought a new mansion there", Orol told me.
"Father, you leave for Tarah city first. There are things that I need to do here", I told Orol.
"What is there to do here? There is no longer any business to be done except our airships ferrying people away", Orol asked me.
"Our airships only ferries those who can afford the expensive tickets, but what about the poor people in the city? There are many of them", I said to Orol.
"This is war, there is nothing that we can do to help them", Orol protested.
"I will be organizing an exodus for the people of Starri city, those who cannot leave by airships. They will walk to Tarah city, but we'll help them with supplies", I told Orol.
"Helping all the refugees from Starri city to reach Tarah City, that will cost billions of Aurs. You will also need to provide for them in the meantime while they are there", Orol said to me.
"Don't worry, I already have the donor to provide with all the supplies", I said to Orol.
"Are you sure you are not coming with me?" Orol asked me.
"Don't worry, the war hasn't reached Starri city yet. The demons would not come after the refugees who leave the city. By the time the demons manage to enter the city, we would be long gone", I told Orol.
"Master, Let the young master do this. He seems committed to helping the people of Starri city, I don't see anything wrong with that", Saye pleaded for me to my father.
"Yes, we will be going to Tarah city as a new family, and it wouldn't do us any disfavor if we have the reputation as the saviors of Starri city. After all, many people are already angry with us for profiting from this war, so doing charity may help us with our reputation and ease our transition to the new city", Hagar told the master.
"Alright Oriese, once you organized the exodus plan, come to Tarah city immediately", Orol said to me.
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"Why do you care about the refugees anyway?" Ratatouille asked me.
"We've taken all the treasures from the Church, it is only good karma that we return them to the people, at least a part of them", I replied to him.
"The Dark Angel believes in Karma now?", he asked me.
"The Dark Angel is the god of mercy", Meera told the greedy rat, correcting him.
Some of the Temple of Solomon people didn't go to Tarah city in our airships. They remained in the city, organizing the exodus of the people to Tarah city.
The Kaleon family took credit for the exodus though and provided part of the cost for the migration. The rest of the expenses for the exercise came from the coffers of the Church which I took from them before they brought the money back to Elis.
"We hope to bring as many people as we can to the safety of the capital", I said to them.
With the exodus of the city planned, there was nothing for me to do in Staari city.
"Where are we going now?" Cassandra asked me.
"We should go back to Istiopolis City", I replied to her.
Istiopolis City is the capital of Nyx kingdom, my kingdom.
Before I journeyed to the various parts of the continent on my adventures, I established a kingdom on the far edges of the Ten-Kingdoms, the continent that we were on.
I was the king of Nyx although I seldom came back here or ruled the kingdom. My Queen, Mistral ruled the kingdom on my behalf.
Mistral and I had a complicated history. She suffered a curse and was killed by my own hands. However, her soul did not dissipate, and she followed me on my adventures. Eventually, I found a way to revive Mistral, by transplanting her soul into a magic puppet.
Mistral became my Queen, and she ruled my kingdom in my absence as the Immortal Queen of Nyx.
I crushed a magic artifact when a triangle portal appeared before me, and we went inside. We were transported back to the Nyx kingdom through a magic portal, created with the crushing of the artifact.
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"Orion, you came back. Is the Solomon Temple's mission complete?" Rinna asked me.
"Yes, the prisoners are rescued, and they are building a new temple in Tarah city now", I replied to the Goddess of the Serpent Temple, nicknamed, Medusa.
Rinna and I had an even more complicated relationship than Mistral. Before I was born into this world, I lived in another magical world called Ouamua.
Upon my rebirth, I regained the memories of my previous life.
Rinna was one of my wives in my previous life that survived to this day even after my rebirth. Although she was thousands of years old, Rinna was eternally youthful.
I met her again in this life and our relationship became complicated ever since.
Although Rinna wasn't my wife, the feelings of my previous life for her remained strong and embedded in me. In time, those feelings became more than those of my previous life but became my feelings for her too.
"Did you look for me for something specific? You seem to be in a hurry," Rinna asked me since I rushed to meet her hastily even before I saw my queen.
"Well, actually I just came to see you", I told her, and she smiled at me with understanding.
There was a psychic connection between Rinna and me because in our previous lives, we were both Prophets and Prophetess of a strange inter-galactic religion called Valhalla. Being the Prophets of that religion also gave us the ability to sense and feel each other's emotions.
The purpose of my return to Nyx wasn't to look for Rinna but somehow, she was in my mind the moment that I returned here, subconsciously. I rushed to see her almost immediately and she appreciated it.
"Actually, I need to see Spellmaster", I told Rinna.
"Okay, I'll go with you to find him", she replied to me.
So, together we went to see Vukodlak, our Spellmaster who was also my kingdom's Minister of Magic.
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"Master Orion, you have quite an interesting constellation here. Did you develop it yourself?", Spellmaster asked me as he checked my constellation magic.
"It is a little complicated, I combined the constellation of three powerful skills, The Sword of Nyx, Flaming Starfire and the Piercing Rays. I've even augmented the magic with suitable ingredients and artifacts with my bone magic, but the magic is not more effective than the original skills", I complained to him.
Bone magic was one of the five branches of magic, Soul, Heart. Blood, Bone, and Mind.
My templar magic belongs to the Heart branch of magic which condenses magic into the templar's heart as the source of their magic. I used to have Soul magic but that was taken over by the Dark Angel when he commanded my soul realm for his resurrection.
I've learned another branch of magic in my travels to the Island of Byorgvin, Bone magic. Bone magic absorbs the magic of bones and artifacts and incorporates them into the genetics of my own bones.
Some skills were evolved naturally by the absorption of bones, such as my flight ability and invisibility. However, I learned from the monkey god, Hanuman, bone magic's greatest use, which was to enhance my Templar skills using magic arrayes and suitable ingredients.
I augmented the magic of my new constellation skill that combined the elements from the three skills with the Shard of Light, Night Stone, Rock of Agony, and Lamp of Blaze with the magic of my bones.
These ingredients could empower their corresponding skill but combining them together, they did not enhance the skill by much.
"It's not easy to create a powerful skill otherwise every templar will be so overpowered", he told me.