CHAPTER 54: A THRONE BEFITTING OF THE KING

Ames slowly opened his eyes, his consciousness started returning. Everything looked blurry and dark, then slowly his vision started clearing.

His back was against a hard and uneven surface. All he saw was black and thick fog above. But slowly he realized the fog was moving backwards as if flowing in a certain direction.

But the pain from his back and occasional pointy things cutting at his back and shoulders made him realize that he was being dragged along the floor.

As he recovered his senses, his vision cleared and his eyes scanned around, he saw that the ground was filled with bones and skeleton heads. Wherever the eyes went, there were only bones.

From the gaps between bones, glowing crimson flowers had risen up from the ground and were the only source of light in that darkness.

Ames realized they were the ’crimson blood tulips’, grown only in places where light doesn’t reach and the ground is soaked with blood.

He tried moving his body but then intense pain assaulted him. He had broken a few ribs and his left hand and both the legs were fractured.

Blood had soaked his body. He was bleeding all over even soaking one of his eyes, taking half his vision away. A red trail was forming over the bone floor in the path he was dragged along.

"Don’t move! You’ll die faster that way." A meek voice came from his back.

He moved his eyes for a look and somehow saw an inverted figure from his point of view. The man who was dragging him was huge in size, about almost seven and a half foot. His upper body was bare and hairy, and was bulky with defined muscles. He had long grey hair, half of which was painted crimson from dried blood, falling upto his shoulders.

He had a furry beast skin wrapped around his lower region and was walking barefoot.

Ames saw his glowing crimson eyes and long pointy canines when he turned his head to speak to him, and also his long beard, making it possible for Ames to guess how long, maybe years he has been down here.

Such a towering and humongous body and such a meek voice, Ames found it quite funny.

"Who are you?" Ames asked.

"Me? I-I am K-Kiba!" He said shyly. His personality quite meek and childlike.

"How old are you Kiba?"

"I’m just twelve years old!"

Ames was surprised at first, as such a huge body and that face didn’t look of twelve at all, he was at least thirty, but he then guessed that he still thinks himself to be of the age when he may have fell here.

"Cough! Cough!" His internal injuries were taking a toll on him, even talking was feeling like a hassle as his chest pained.

"How long have you been here?"

"I-I don’t remember! Big brother knows!"

"There is one more!?" Ames was quite surprised knowing there was another one here.

"How old is your big brother then?"

"H-he is...I think t-twenty seven?...Yes! He’s twenty seven!" he said excitedly upon remembering it correctly.

"He’s here too?"

"Yes! I’m taking you to my big brother!"

"Don’t talk! Y-You’ll die faster that way too!" Kiba warned Ames and kept on dragging him.

Ames tried to make him talk as much as he could with all kind of questions, but Kiba kept his mouth shut. He just kept moving. Finally, after a long struggle, Ames gave up.

Being dragged for what felt like an eternity, Kiba finally stopped at a slight elevated slope. He held Ames and carefully turned him over, making him lie flat on his belly.

Finally, Ames could see everything straight. He lifted his head up towards the front and the first thing he saw made him speechless.

In front of him, at the top of the slope forming a mound of skeleton heads, was a throne made up completely of skeleton heads of humans and beasts.

The edges of the back rest were filled with crimson blood lilies coming out of the eye sockets and mouths, showing how much blood, the throne was covered in.

"I’ve brought a new one big brother!" Kiba said excitedly while looking at the empty throne.

Ames was confused; there was no one sitting there so who was he talking to. He wanted to ask him but immediately he closed his mouth as the answer walked to the throne himself.

The air suddenly got heavy and tense, an unknown pressure rose in the surrounding, bloodlust manifested in the form of crimson fog around the whole mound.

The meek and shy Kiba who walked with his back bend and hands loose, straightened up. His entire demeanor completely transformed. With heavy and slow steps, he walked towards the throne and sat on it with both the hands rested on the arm rest and his left leg rested above a larger skeleton head as the footrest.

Ames was shocked to his core. Slowly he digested the fact that these two brothers were not two separate individuals but one person, who had two personalities inside him.

But what shocked him the most was that, with his personality even his aura, voice and strength changes too.

"He doesn’t smell tasty!" the meek voice transformed into a hoarse and deep voice, inducing a primal fear in an individual.

"W-what are you?" Ames asked, shocked as well as curious.

"I am the king here! The one and the only!" he said with pride.

"He’s delusional too!" Ames thought.

"Where are your subjects then?"

"I’m sitting on them!"

Ames was speechless with how easily he answered as if it was normal.

"Why have brought me here?"

"You’re the first one to come here in months! And also, my first fresh meal in months!" he said excitedly with a wide grin.

A chill went down Ames’s spine. This was a madman, a cannibal beast who won’t blink twice before eating him whole.

"But...why do you not smell tasty even though you’re alive! I feel eating you will give me nothing!" he tilted his head in confusion. "Still, food is food!" he started getting up when Ames’s loud shout stopped him.

"WAIT!!" hearing his words, Ames felt there was an opportunity to get out of this situation alive. He was not that intelligent and if manipulated wisely, he can save himself.

"My circles are broken, I don’t have mana in my heart. That’ probably why I don’t smell tasty to you! How about you eat me after I have mana, you’ll be able to enjoy a tasty meal." Ames blurted the words out as fast as he could.

He went into thought! Contemplating on Ames’s proposal. Every second felt like years to Ames, sweat trickled down his forehead as he waited with his breath held.

"Great idea! Let’s do that!" he said with an excited smile on his face.