Chapter 544: 544

"What are we? What is the true purpose of our existence? God, why won't you speak to me?"

A boy stood in the middle of a snowy field, his bare feet touching the freezing ground . His head lifted, staring at the starry sky with his jet black eyes filled with nothing, not even emotions . He only wore a single piece of ragged cloth, if it can be called so . He was dirty and visibly malnourished, his arms thin like a skeleton and fingers filled with scars, especially his knuckles, which were bloodied due to fighting over thrown food with the other homeless kids .

No, this boy wasn't homeless but he'd rather spend the night outside than in his home, a hellish place inhabited by a foolish drunkard . The boy, named Zodiak by his mother, was, at first, a believer and hoped that God will watch over him and his mother . Sadly, life was never fair and fate has chosen him to be the victim of a miserable, almost pitiful life . His father abused him and his mother and it didn't take long for the latter to die by his hands, her body was frail and she was sick yet the cruel man would do anything to get what he wants .

Zodiak tried to retaliate but, what can a boy do against an adult? Nothing . Every time he revolted, he'd get beaten black and blue then thrown to the snowy road to pass the night in the chilling coldness .

Not a day passes without seeing cruelty that no child has to ever witness . Young girls abducted in broad daylight then sold to the greedy nobles, who only want to satisfy their greedy fetishes .

A year ago, Zodiak had a group of friends but, without exception, all of them were captured and killed . Three girls forcefully dragged to a noble's house East of the city while the two innocent boys were slashed to death by the slave trader, in fact, Zodiak escaped only through a fluke .

With a shivering body and reddened feet, the boy dragged his body while covering his bald head . He was thirteen years old this year but never once did he eat what people call normal food, it's always a small piece of dried black bread or rotten cheese found on the trash bin behind some back-alley restaurant .

Seeing the minority(which claim they're nobles) lavishly enjoy their life while all the rest struggle to get past today, the boy grew a bloody grudge against the higher-echelon . His hatred grew every time he got beaten up by a bodyguard due to a random reason or get mocked by a noble kid younger than him .

His mother, his only pillar of support, died a long time ago and ever since then, things only got much, much worse . Today, on this wintery day where the usually luminous city was eerily quiet, Zodiak went back home a small hut that could barely be called a shelter .

It stunk of alcohol and there was a severe lack of furniture, furthermore, the door leading inside was riddled with holes, letting the chilly wind pass through and turn this place into a freezer . The boy's face had a gaunt of expressionless as he stared back at a tall figure a couple of meters away from him . The man facing Zodiak was bald, ugly and had a black eye(apparently, recent) .

The father swayed left and right, clearly in a drunken state, he slowly walked up to the short figure at the entrance of house then, without any warning, delivered a vicious punch for no goddamned reason .

The boy didn't resist as he was pushed to the back then fell on the ground, blood leaking out of his lips . He was only thirteen years old and very unhealthy so getting struck like that caused him agonizing pain yet he didn't even let out a squeak .

The punch was but the beginning as the man stood before Zodiak and kicked his stomach . The child curled his body and protected his head, not bothering to dodge or do anything else . A cold streak flashed across the hidden boy's eyes, unseen by the unreasonably violent parent .

After venting his accumulated anger, the man gasped for breath and finally stopped beating Zodiak . He reached for a nearby cup, wanting to drink more alcohol but found it empty, infuriating him again . He glared back at the boy, who was dragging his injured body to a small hole which seemed to lead to a minuscule room .

"Hey! Ungrateful filth! Go get me alcohol!"

He spoke with a loud and domineering voice, his tone indicating that it was an order with no room for objection . Zodiak ignored the shouting man and slipped through the hole, soon disappearing from his father's view?

Nevertheless, the man continued blabbering for while then left the hut himself after spitting at Zodiak's room .

Inside that small hole which was filled with ripped papers and unrecognizable broken objects, the boy leaned against the rough wall and stared to the front with a blank expression . After a while, he grabbed one of the paper and started clumsily reading

"Happiness: a state of well-being and contentment: Joy . Regret: To be very sorry for"

He continued going over various words defining emotions . He tried, very hard, to experience such things but it didn't work out, not even once . He was unable to feel emotions, good or bad . He cared only about his survival and socialized just for the sake of it to seem normal, like anybody else .

The winds whistled outside and the room became dark to the point that the boy could not see anything anymore . The candle burning in the other room seemed to have been extinguished, robbing the last bit of illumination .

"No family, no life, no future curse everything . Where is this hope they desperately cling onto? My sight is filled with darkness darkness that consumes everything . "

Sometimes, he would have nightmares, too vivid and totally bone-chilling . He'd see a world filled with black fire, the sky, and the ground were consumed by the domination gloom, leaving nothing untouched . Even his body was consumed, merging him with that scary yet comfortable world . However, that was not everything, he would also another world, different and fascinating but it was blurry and only lasted for a brief moment, leaving the young Zodiak confused and sweat-soaked the next morning .

**********

"In the end, who created Dark Magic?"

The Joker, who was sitting next to the Nameless Knight, asked his brother while staring at the ever-expanding crack in the space-time Continuum .

"Who do you think it was?" Leiu smiled and glanced at his curious brother . The matter was much more complex than it seems because to know the truth, one must know what happened in the first cycle .

"Come on, you know I've joined a bit late you're the only one who managed to keep the memories of all the cycles . "

"If we trace it back to the beginning, we'll see that Arthur passed Dark Magic to the young Zodiak but that very same Arthur got it from Zodiak's body . It's like the chicken and the egg . To understand properly, do you know why Zodiak was called a Mythical being and not a human?"

"Because he reached a self-created Realm? I think he diverged from the orthodox route and was able to construct a whole new type of strengthening, solely relying on Dark Magic . "

"No, you're wrong . It's true that he had many believers but none could inherit his powers, moreover, he wasn't called 'The Mythical' for such a feat . He wasn't regarded as human because he really wasn't so . "

Hearing this, the Joker frowned and retorted:

"But he's definitely human he didn't mutate or anything . "

"Yes, he did not but he was incapable of feeling emotions . It wasn't due to the tragedies he went through but something he was born with . Maybe it was a defect of that ridiculous reincarnation, which is, essentially, something that shouldn't have happened . He is something that should not have existed, so, despite being human, feeling emotions were beyond him . "

"How is that possible? I thought Dark Magic relies on emotions, mainly anger . "

"It certainly does but that's in Arthur's case, as for Zodiak, I really don't know how he did it . In any case, he was what many call a Psychopath, incapable of empathy and remorse . "

"Alright, so what does this have to do with Dark Magic?" The Joker got even more curious as he listened to the calm Leiu .

"Unlike its successors, the first cycle was a bit different . The reason Dark Magic is feared is because it made Zodiak sacrifice a whole world just create it . It wasn't intentional but when it had burst, it consumed everything and finally came into existence . That is how it came to be, by his hands . "

"What about Arthur? What did he do in the first Cycle?"

Hearing this, Leiu chuckled and answered with a question that had no relation with the previous topic:

"Tell me, Wolfram, have you found out who Arthur's parents were?"

In response, The Joker shrugged his shoulders and maintained his silence .