Part 39: The Truth Has Eyes
The team settled around the now-dormant spear, listening intently to Black.
"So, if I understand you correctly, you can understand that spear, but you can't understand my gauntlets?" Jog-Jog asked, radiating curiosity.
Black simply nodded, confirming the bizarre fact.
"What about mine?" Lena asked, showing off her electrified arcanatech whip, the wire coils crackling faintly.
"Still can't hear a thing," Black replied, his demeanor suggesting he was being interviewed for a deeply frustrating, minimum-wage job.
"So, what is it saying now?" Kai asked, his gaze fixed on the spear, which was now without any glow.
"It's not saying anything," Black responded. "It's just peaceful, like it's asleep."
Maya broke the silence, her focus purely on the physics and craftsmanship. "It doesn't look any different to me. The forge work is dull and without a nice arrangement; it feels like the tip was fixed so many times, making it rough, smooth, and sharp." She tapped the spearhead. "Still, I think they were deliberately made that way. It seems like a rough patchwork by some lazy crafter—on the contrary, it's the perfectly imperfect weapon."
She paused, her eyes gleaming behind her glasses. "Its ability to manifest flames with the measure of its user's power is a subtle yet deadly attribute. In the hands of a weakling or an ordinary person, it's nothing but a sharp spear. In the hands of someone like Black, Solon, or Dr. Orion, it's a world-breaking catastrophe."
A silence of genuine awe followed her analysis.
"Wait, you got all that from just looking at the spear up close?" Kai finally broke the silence, dumbfounded.
The injured woman, Hind, stirred and called out, signaling she was awake. The team instantly noticed her. Before anyone else could move, Jex walked up to her in a frenzy, his usual bored calm shattered.
He lifted her abruptly, holding her suspended in the air. His gentle composure was gone, replaced by a desperate, terrifying intensity. His eyes glowed, shimmering with the light of cosmos stars.
"Are you here to kill me too?" he yelled. "Are you one of them? Where's Adam? Did he send you?! Answer me!"
Everyone watched in terrifying silence, knowing that any interference would result in their immediate incineration. Jex's chaotic power was overwhelming.
"I don't know," Hind cried, still in pain and now dangling in the air.
Jex slowly lowered her, his cosmic eyes returning to their normal, blue hue. The anger receded, leaving only a subtle sense of sadness. "How do you know rage?" he asked, his voice now gentle. He saw the truth in her tears.
Maya and Lena guided her to a chair, and Markas, surprisingly, rushed forward with a glass of water.
"My name is Hind," she began.
"I know! I knew you!" Kai shouted, instantly interrupting her, his fear replaced by familiarity. "You're the bar owner! I deliver your seafood on Saturdays, and you always gave me a bowl of pepper soup!"
The group reacted with stunned silence, then bizarre confusion.
Jog-Jog: "Wait, the world-class assassin who cut us to pieces was after a soup-serving barmaid?"
Lena: "Kai, you deliver seafood? I thought you were saving the world."
Markas, Black,Maya, Arike,Orion: A quiet chuckle.
Kai: "I was saving the world by feeding them seafood"! he felt embarrassed.
Jex eyes flicker of interest as he listens.
"Yes, Kai," Hind said, affirming the familiarity, a small, pained smile touching her lips. "I'm surprised you're a Scavenger now."
"Hehehe, I'm something like that," Kai replied, scratching his head. He couldn't exactly tell his former soup dealer he was an ancient twin and an apocalyptic prophecy.
Hind then recounted her story, the team listening in silence. She told them about her lineage legend and the truth about it, She spoke of the Ekunolfs incident when her rage was involuntarily released as a child, and how her mother, Rashidat, had made her promise to hide her power, which she understands had kept Primus from finding her for decades.
"I've been safe until some few months back when someone strange-looking blind boy walked in the Rusty Mug and showed me the medallion," she continued. "I tried holding it back, but the fear was too much. Unintentionally, I controlled the dormant rage of everyone in the Mug, and in an instant, he wiped them all out."
She shuddered. "I couldn't fight back. I'd always seen that medallion on Kai, the scar was visible to me. I always knew he was the guardian." She turned to look at Kai.
In response, Kai's face revealed Solon. "Hi," the Prince of the Old Hell responded, his voice calm and cold.
Hind's mouth was left ajar. She shook, pointing a trembling finger at the twin-faced Kai. "That's the blind boy!"
"Erm, yeah, we've met him," Jog-Jog quickly interjected, trying to make her feel better. "He did beat us up, too."
Jex, surprising the group again with his singular focus, asked, "So why do you have Adam's powers, and why are his dogs after you?"
Hind took a shaky breath. "I fled for my life. The Chronos Syndicate evangelists would soon come asking questions about the massacre in the Mug, but that wasn't my concern. It was those two."
She was referring to Zeldor and Talia. "Few days after the Ekunolfs incident, my mother and I were in the Mug, and those two came in and asked for information. My mother knew what they were. She offered them a drink to stall, took me into the cellar, and drowned me in our biggest drum, filled with wine."
She looked away, remembering the terror. "She told me to never come out, whatever the reason, because they could smell rage, even if I was dying. She rushed back out to entertain her guests. She was successful, but some drunk guys wanted to play some games, delaying their departure. I lost my breath, drowning in wine. Then, a big BANG, CRACK, and the wine flowed everywhere. I was saved."
"After the mug massacre, I knew they would come for me again, and this time my mother wasn't going to protect me. I had to disappear. I kept moving, always on the road, but they were always getting too close. Tonight, they finally caught up to me. I tried fighting back, but I couldn't beat them, so I fled and bumped into..." She faced Black. "...him."
"So, no one is going to talk about the fact that we're all confused?" Lena finally asked, throwing her hands up.
Dr. Orion started to speak, but Jog-Jog interrupted him, speedxplaining the summary, a testament to his surprisingly sharp comprehension.
"So! The bar woman is an ancient, wicked person! She's changed! She's her mother, and her mother is she! She killed the baby and Mama Ekunolf!, Drowned in wine, awesome by the way, survived until Solon's massacre, turned fugitive, moves around, got caught, and met Black, healed, and safe!" He paused, breathing heavily. "I've got a question, though: Who the hell is Primus, and why does the Bored Dude keep asking about Adam?"
Dr. Orion looked at the assembled group, his expression grave. "Primus is Adam. It's the same person."
"And I'll tell you about ADAM," Jex concluded, his cosmic gaze settling on the frightened group.