Chapter 128: Marcus Finds Out

Marcus entered the chamber. He slowly walked towards the cell where he threw the Preparation Stage expert. He passed by a few of the sea creatures in the process.

The nagas, kappas, and siyokoy all looked at him. Some had anger in their eyes, a few had looks of fear. They still didn't know what this vermilion-haired teen would do to them.

Marcus glanced at every single cell. He just looked at them and didn't say anything.

A few seconds later, he arrived in front of the human's cell. When he looked at the person inside, he was surprised. His eyes widened as he stared at the figure.

This was not human. The figure in front of him somewhat looked like the one they fought in the hot spring on the Kellar Republic.

It had dark brown slimy skin with a wide mouth that's full of sharp teeth. It had a backward ben satyr's legs that also had 5-inch claws on the toe area.

With his hand raised, he fired a 'Chaos Lightning Javelin' and followed it up with a few more. 

Marcus furrowed his brows as he saw the monster in front of him not transforming back into its human form 

He fired a few more and said. "I have some questions for you, if you don't talk, I'll make your life a living hell."

The creature didn't answer, it just kept banging the bars of the bars.

"You are not going to escape no matter how hard you try," Marcus calmly spoke. "So you better follow my words instead of wasting both of our time."

The creature growled, it stared at Marcus before slowly transforming into a human.

"Good," Marcus nodded. He had other things to do and didn't want to use up a lot of his time dealing with this.

The human sat on the floor, glaring at Marcus.

"Did the Strongwald have anything to do with what happened?" Marcus asked. 

The human didn't answer. He stayed silent as his eyes focused on Marcus.

"I'm going to repeat my question one more time." Marcus readied a spell in his hand. "Did the Strongwald have anything to do with these creatures coming to the city?"

Seeing the human still had no plans on answering his question, he threw a lightning javelin and used a chaos spell, 'Emotion Manipulation'.

The human slightly flew back. He was already injured to begin with, and almost had no power left after transforming.

Marcus sighed "Your loyalty impresses me, I am not going to lie about that. But even the most strong-willed men talk" 

Marcus went ahead and threw a barrage of spells and threw a healing potion from time to time.

"So, were the Strongwald's part of this?" Marcus asked once again.

The human, who now had a few charred spots on his body, nodded.

Marcus smiled. "What was their motive?" 

"I don't know." The person spoke.

"Don't you work for the Strongwald's?" Marcus furrowed his brows.

"Initially, no. I was sent here by Octopi to work for the Strongwald's." The human replied.

"Octopi?" Marcus tilted his head.

The Preparation Stage expert then began telling Marcus everything. About Octopi and the cooperation with the Strongwald's. Though the last part wasn't that clear, he still knew quite a bit of it.

Marcus closed his eyes as he listened. "So that's how it is. There were a lot of things going on in the past two months for them."

He now understood. His past two months were peaceful, he expected the Srongwald's to be scheming something as they have been so quiet. He just didn't expect them to be scheming like this, working with a big organization that's been taking over countries and planets for the past few years.

Marcus began walking away.

"Don't I deserve a reward?" The human asked as crawled near the bars.

Marcus didn't answer, he just continued to make his way out of the chamber.

----

A day after the incident.

Marcus and the others were inside the house in Estra having breakfast. 

"They are actually going to execute those creatures in front of everyone." Eva sighed.

"Are we going to do something about it?" Erika asked as she turned to Marcus who was beside her.

Marcus shook his head. "There is no need for us to do so. We could do something else"

Marcus remembered something his classmate said, something about charity.

He told his plan to the group and they all thought it was a great idea. 

Emily smiled and said. "We would also gain the trust of the people if ever something happens in the future."

Marcus nodded. He then stood up and said. "I'll be checking on our guest."

"We should really try and wake her up. The Xalia family is already looking for her." Nexus said before Marcus disappeared. 

----

Marcus went into the Stone of Destruction. He walked into the bedroom where Zoey was in and sat on a chair beside the bed and proceeded to cultivate.

An hour or so later, Zoey opened her eyes. She touched the side of her head and tried to blink a few times to clear her blurry vision.

She groaned as she felt a slight pain inside her body near the center of her chest.

Marcus took a deep breath and turned his head, opening his eyes in the process. He stopped cultivating and stood up.

Zoey heard him and sat up as she looked at Marcus who was wearing his black long sleeve outfit.

"Where am I?" Zoey rubbed her head with one of her hands.

"Technically, Estra." Marcus answered as walked to the side of the bed.

"I just had the weirdest dream. I met a woman who wore red and told me to do trials." Zoey shared. She couldn't keep her vivid dream to herself, everything she felt was way too real.

"At the end of it all, I was given an egg." Zoey sighed as she finished her story.

Marcus listened. He had the chance to hear about Lazula making him smile.

"What you experienced, was not a dream. It was all real." Marcus calmly spoke.

Zoey paused her breathing. She then remembered Erika rushing to her and soon she was sent to a place, a house of some kind. She walked around and fell into a pool.

She looked down and saw an egg in her arms. It wasn't large, her one arm was enough to wrap around the egg.

"How could this be?" Zoey uttered.

Marcus chuckled as he sat at the bedside. "You did great out there."

Zoey turned her head towards the vermilion-haired teen.

"You should be able to use her magic now." Marcus knew that Lazula shared her knowledge of blood magic with Zoey. 

Zoey nodded, remembering what the woman in red told her. 

She then looked at the egg and said. "She told me to place this near her blood."

"Let's go together." Marcus walked to the door, Zoey quickly stood up and followed him.

The two made their way to the room where the dragon pool was located.

"Can you explain everything to me? Because I'm racking my brains and I can't understand why." Zoey asked. She had a lot of questions bottled up inside her.

"I can probably answer some of them." Marcus sighed. "Go shoot."

"Where are we?" She was wondering about this for a long time.

"A place I created, next question," Marcus spoke as they both walked towards the blood pool.

Zoey didn't understand his answer, but before she could speak, Marcus held up his hand.

"Next question, you'll understand more about this place soon." Marcus didn't turn his head, his steps continued.

"Okay," Zoey thought of the next question. "What is with the pool, and everything?"

She didn't know where to start asking. 

"Lazula was the woman you met. She was a dragon, a powerful one at that." Marcus and Zoey arrived at the door.

Marcus pointed to the writing above the door. "Those characters spell out 'Lazula'. She has the power to control blood."

Zoey gulped. "A dragon? Dragons are real?"

After everything she has experienced, she didn't think Marcus was lying.

"The one you are holding right now is Lazula, why do you think she wanted you to place the egg near the pool of dragon's blood?" Marcus chuckled.

Zoey slowly nodded. She started to feel dizzy from all the grand information that Marcus just shared.

"You don't have to worry." Marcus carefully took the egg off Zoey's arms. "You'll understand more of this sooner or later."

Marcus then placed the egg on the pool where it hovered above it. 

The red pool glowed more brightly than before.

"There, now we just have to wait."  Marcus turned around and started walking towards the door.

"When is it going to hatch?" Zoey asked.

"It depends, I guess. Ten years, a hundred years, or even thousands of years. But if we're unlucky, a million."

Zoey's eyes widened, she quickly followed Marcus out.

'What is this?' Zoey could still feel her head pounding from all the things she heard Marcus say.

"Let's go out." Marcus stopped walking and grabbed Zoey's hand.