Gods' Impact Online

"I did… kind of. But father was more curious than me," Zach chuckled.

"What did he say?"

"Father took me to the Realm of Ancient, where everything was destroyed by the ancient civilization that lived there. It was later habituated again by a different civilization, but that\'s the talk of some other day.

I don\'t know if you know, but the father could travel between the realms, so he would take me to different realms and worlds every month. There he would…"

Zach stopped when he looked at the expression on Asmodeus\'s face. She seemed jealous and a little angry after hearing Zach\'s story.

"Don\'t look at me like that. Father wasn\'t taking me places to travel with me or to go on an adventure," Zach sighed.

"Then why?"

"He was training me. He wanted me to get adapted to any survivable situation. That\'s the only reason I never freaked out when I realized the Gods\' Impact was made by the gods to punish humankind.

I had been in even worse situations, so props to my father for all the harsh training he gave me in my childhood. I thought he never loved me, and all he cared about was raising a warrior worthy enough to be called his son," Zach smiled distantly.

"I will be honest and say I hated him for many reasons, but it\'s all thanks to him that I am alive. And not long ago, I was in a memory slumber and saw a sealed memory of mine… of the day of his last battle before he vanished.

Many things happened in that memory but what surprised me the most is that he knew about Gods\' impact ten years before it happened. I am sure that\'s the reason he trained me so hard. He gave me a mission, a quest, and I have to complete it… no matter what happens," he uttered solemnly.

"So anyway." He continued, "I was in the Realm of Ancient, and it had a strange climate where the land would be covered with water at night and with lava during the day. So everyone lived in mountains and tree houses.

During one of my training sessions, a part of the mountain collapsed, and I fell with it. Father wasn\'t around, and I was training with a giant who obviously couldn\'t save me. Even I wouldn\'t jump after someone to save them if I didn\'t have the ability to fly. Jumping after me would have been suicide.

It was nighttime, and the land was covered with water, which is much better than dying in lava. As I was falling… I closed my eyes and prepared myself to die. And then I hit the water so hard that I felt like my body was ripped apart.

I was drowning, and the water was cold, but I felt warm because I was covered in my blood. I slowly lost consciousness as my vision faded away, but I still tried to swim up, hoping father would come and save me.

So I flapped my hands and legs, and I kept flapping them. I slowly started to move up and managed to get my head out of the water, but I was still flapping my hands to stay up. Soon I noticed that I could swim even outside the water.

As I flapped my hands and legs, I flew up, but I was too weak to continue and fell down again. However, my father arrived on time and saved me.

We stayed in that realm until I healed completely and resumed my training. And during my training, I remembered how I could feel the air and climb on it when I was trying to get out of the water.

And that\'s how… I gained the ability to fly without wings. Father didn\'t know I had acquired this ability, and he wouldn\'t believe me even when I told him until I showed it to him. I was six years old at that time, by the way.

"Was father always harsh to you?"

"I wouldn\'t say always. I was just too scared of him so whatever he said or did, felt like an order to me. I must learn to control my demonic powers and find a way to save him."

"I will help you too."

"..."

"Once we are done with our current mission," she added.

"Do you perhaps plan to come to the Gods\' Impact with me?"

"Umm… how long do you plan to stay here? Would you leave after killing the demon Lord?"

"I don\'t plan to stay long, but I am hoping to learn to demonize and de-demonize at will. If I can meet my mother, that would be worth the journey."

"Wait, so you can turn into a demon, but you can\'t turn back into a human? You said something about that earlier too."

"If that was the only problem, I wouldn\'t have minded it, honestly. The issue is that I go insane when I turn into a demon. I want to find a way to stay sane, at least," Zach responded.

"What if you… don\'t turn into a full demon?" Asmodeus suggested.

"That\'s… an interesting idea. But again, how do I do that?" Zach wondered.

"We can think about that later."

After flying for a few more minutes, Zach heard the sound of a water stream.

"Look around. There should be a river or a waterfall nearby. I will cover the left side, you look at the right."

After searching for a few minutes, Asmodeus caught a glimpse of the river in the distance.

Zach landed near the river and let out a weary sigh.

"..." Asmodeus clenched her fists and gritted her teeth in frustration.

\'All I am doing is causing him more trouble. He fought against two general lords and won, while I was nothing but a burden to him. Even now, he has been carrying me around. Maybe it was a bad idea to team up with him.\'