CHAPTER 843: THE BOY AND LEVIATHAN

Adam’s eyes lost focus on the yellowed pages of the grimoire as he slumped on the sofa like a stringless puppet. For a moment, a reluctant silence suffocated the room. But his mind was the opposite; a blaring mess of contradicting thoughts he didn’t want to acknowledge, especially not that Gaston had been right all along in his perverse obsession with that game of cards.

No, he wouldn’t acknowledge it. At least not the role the lying devil had tried to force upon him.

The fool? Dream on. He had endured solitude, grief, and pain that would have left the bravest man begging on his knees. He had danced along the fine tether of death, negotiating and battling with forgotten or ancient monsters. What he owned—his body, his mastery—he had built with his tears, sweat, and blood.

Not through the whispers of a world core.

Luna? Their relationship was different. She could have woven grand plans in which she controlled his strings to restore Earth. For years, he had believed she did, that he was just the tool to Prometheus’ return. He had hated her for the trials, for that... But now he knew he had been mistaken.

A symbiotic relationship, one in which the world and its inhabitants strived hand in hand. That was what Prometheus had wanted. That was what Luna did, even if not always in the manner he would have preferred.

No, the traumas, the pain—he regretted none of them.

They had shaped him into what he was. He had been rewarded for overcoming them. But most importantly, Misha was by his side now—something Luna didn’t need to do, but did nonetheless. Because he helped her, and she returned the favor even though she had recovered Prometheus’ soul from him.

But the magic world? It could shove that fool role up the deepest cavern in its topography for all he cared. He wouldn’t accept it. No matter what, he would do whatever he wanted.

With a forced exhale, his eyes regained focus on Leoric’s ancient letters, and his hands eased as he read the next passage.

"I won’t dwell too long on these centuries of chaos, but we fought the demonic invasion, freeing humans, werebeasts, elves, and dwarves alike from cruel slavery. More joined us—rulers of kingdoms annihilated by demons, men and women moving toward the same purpose. Together, we formed the nucleus of the exorcists. Justice of House Caelmorne, the High Priestess of House Mortis, Strength of House Tharavos, the Moon of House Myrrowind, the Tower of House Dreadmarche, and the Hierophant of House Reverie.

Years later, a seventh house joined us: the Death of House Virelion. It had salvaged its best mages from demonic flames; half-burned magi who increased our impact across the realm. Cohabitation was complex. We each had a flaw that made us hard to deal with. But we managed through our shared conviction.

However, the world passage opened by the demons seemed to vomit more of their unholy kind. With each passing day, villages and towns were taken, and good people enslaved. I continued to free them until one day everything changed in one of these villages.

The rotten scent of blood filled the place. I first thought the demons had killed everyone in their irrational anger. I couldn’t be further from the truth. Heaps of corpses slithered against ruined houses like hills dripping blood. But no humans. They were watching through limbs acting like stiff curtains from their windows, all their eyes locked onto a figure.

He was coated in a liquid layer of half-dried burgundy, something we thought to be a short demon that, in a fit of rage, annihilated his companions. We were wrong. Through their windows, the villagers pleaded with us not to hurt him. Strange, but I could feel gratitude in their quivering voices.

Beneath the grim, I found a boy who could barely be called a young man. His tattered clothes came not from battle, but from his situation, and around his neck, I saw the broken chain of the slave collars the demons loved to use. I will never forget his golden eyes or how he smiled at our raised blades and staves. Fearless, powerful. My eyes darted to the edge of the village, where two hulking sky-blue spheres locked onto me. He wasn’t alone.

This was the first time we met Leviathan, the colossal beast of magic, the indomitable mother of the sea, and ironically, humanity’s greatest friend in its time of need. And the boy. The boy who would turn the tides of this endless war. A boy I watched grow, celebrated his marriage into House Virelion like a proud uncle. A boy who awed and made me jealous in equal measure. A boy, I called my friend, the leader the exorcists needed more than I. A boy who became like the tyrants I spent years murdering, so no man will fall for false promises.

A slave boy, the fool, the man who won the ultimate battle: Haldris Virelion. A man I can’t write about without WANTING TO BLOW HALF THIS FORSAKEN COLLEGE AND HIS SORRY FACE WITH IT."

Adam’s eyes widened at the capitalised letters. That outburst was... unexpected. So was Leoric’s story. It contextualised too many misconceptions he had, lightened too many dark spots in Brineheart history. Rather, Brineheart hadn’t even been founded back then. Leoric’s isolated island was the sunken Kumari Kandam, hidden beneath the Skull Cove, where pirates danced until the sun rose, still protected by the kraken, son of Leviathan, and inhabited by Marina, the Tide Caller, to his dissatisfaction.

Diane, Louis, Salem, Marcelus, and Isolde—his teachers were probably not just instructors, but warriors who had lived through Leoric’s story, most likely the half-burned magi of House Virelion.

But he still hadn’t learned why the exorcists ended in the cultivation realm, how they defeated the demonic legions, petrified Nyxara, and sealed Aamon’s cleaver in the belly of an ancient mine. More importantly, what did the fool do? Why did Leviathan support him when he was still a boy?

No matter what, he was gripped by the story. That was what he had always liked, what he had vowed when he was a naive ghost: to uncover the world’s true history.

And hopefully, the answers to all his questions would lie on the next pages.