There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 277 - 270. The Arms Master

Chapter 277: Chapter 270. The Arms Master

While Zein managed to avoid attention before, he couldn’t afford to do that now when he walked in the middle of the current Saintess and the future Saintess. Not to mention, one of the Templars was guiding them.

But Zein probably would never have known that the main reason for people’s surprise and wondering gaze would be the white rabbit snuggling in his arms, the one Elena called Cloudy. Unbeknownst to Zein, the rabbit was the dweller of the Sky Garden; the space in which the altar for the Goddess and the fragment of Setnath was in.

And the rabbit would never get cozy with anyone other than the Chosen Ones.

While being oblivious to this, they climbed up the tree using the elevator and arrived at the main hall of the peak sanctuary. From there, they used the stairs to reach the Sky Garden near the highest point of the tree. The Templar stopped before the entrance of the garden; that was as far as he could go. But the Saintess and Elena came with Zein.

How there could be a garden on a tree, Zein had no idea. But it was inside a building that almost looked like a greenhouse with the plants all over the room and crawling through the wall all the way to the roof. The rabbit’s ears twitched once they stepped into the garden and it jumped off Zein’s chest, running into a pair of twin cats.

Zein realized that it wasn’t just a garden for plants. There were also animals; mostly the small ones, but there were also birds, and Zein was sure there was a falcon watching them from the pedestal near the roof.

The garden itself seemed to have three different layers. The outer one was where the plants seemed to make a fence, with shrubs and flower beds where the animals liked to gather. The second layer was a spread of fresh green grass and flowers that made one feel like traveling barefoot and having a picnic under the sunlight coming through the crystal roof.

And finally, at the end of the garden was a tree; a small one, and inside the crook of the tree, was the shimmering fragment of Setnath.

Beneath the tree was something that looked like an exquisitely carved table; the altar. And standing near the altar was the Medium with glowing eyes--the Goddess. The Saintess and her successor bowed toward the Goddess, before taking a step back.

"This is as far as Elena could go," the Saintess said, holding into the young girl’s hand, who waved at Zein with a wide, cheery smile. Zein watched the two turn back to walk toward the gathering of the small animals and birds, before he himself took a step forward.

The moment his feet touched the grassy field, Zein could feel some kind of invisible barrier as his body passed through; a little strain of a force field. Perhaps that was what made the young girl couldn’t go over. But he walked easily through the small meadow and into the territory of the tree bearing the fragment.

As he walked closer, he could feel the resonating pulse, the sensation he always had every time he was close to a fragment.

[He’s awake] this time, the Goddess did not waste time. [I don’t know for how long, however]

She pointed to the table--the altar--and told Zein to sit in front of it.

"I’m not touching it directly?"

The Goddess looked stunned for a few seconds. [You had been touching the fragment of a Celestial Being directly?]

"How else would I do it?" Zein shrugged. Each time he ended up in front of a fragment or a shard of fragment, it was just him and said fragment. And those fragments did nothing, just stood still, waiting for him. So what could he do?

She tilted her head and glanced up in contemplation, before nodding. [Huh, I guess you have no other way]

"How should I do it anyway?" Zein asked while crouching down and sitting down on the ground, in front of the altar.

[You need a medium so it doesn’t tap on your energy as fuel for the communication]

Zein raised his brow. "Ah..." so that was why he always felt so tired after touching a fragment. Each time he had those visions, he always ended up needing a lot of rest; especially after bringing the shard away from the core.

This time, there was a medium who controlled the energy consumption through the mana around them, who was...literally the Medium. She put one of her hands on the tree and the other one on Zein’s shoulder.

[Are you ready?]

"I have a question," Zein raised his fingers and looked at the glowing eyes. The Saintess raised his brow and nodded, so Zein asked with a stern voice. "This won’t end up with him taking over my body, right?"

The Saintess blinked, before replying with a smile. [No, that’s not how it works. This is just his sentience left in this particular fragment, and he barely has the energy to maintain his consciousness after all these hundreds of years]

Zein stared at the glowing eyes for a while, trying to discern the sincerity behind it, before turning his head to the altar again. "Alright,"

[Now, are you ready?]

"Yes--"

In the instance of Zein voicing his consent, he blacked out. The sensation was no different from when he touched the fragment directly. This time, however, instead of inside someone--or something--else’s consciousness, Zein felt his own body, and could look at his surroundings freely.

He found himself on top of a high-rise building, under a bright blue sky. It was a building in the middle of an urban space, but he could still see tall mountains and thick forests around the city. At the edge of the rooftop, there was a man sitting on the ledge, propping his arms on the rooftop floor and looking at the landscape while yawning.

Zein thought the Goddess only said it as a metaphor, but the man actually seemed like he just woke up. He yawned and scratched his hair, and didn’t seem to notice the newcomer. But Zein did not bother to call the man, just lowering himself and sitting on the ledge too.

He looked at the man, who coincidentally had black hair and blue eyes just like him. They seemed to have more or less the same height, although the man was bulkier. Aside from the same eyes, however, their face was entirely different. The man had a more stoic visage and sharper impression.

"Are you Setnath?" Zein asked just to make sure.

"No," the man said, which prompted Zein to raise his brow in surprise. "You’ve met him before, have you? He doesn’t look like me," the man continued while Zein recalled the man with long hair in his first vision.

With a frown, he asked again. "Then, who are you?"

"I’m the human before I became him,"

Zein looked at the side profile and spoke a name. "Lucre,"

The man, Lucre, the human before he received Godhood and became Setnath, finally turned his head and looked at Zein with a subtle smile on his lips.

"Nice to finally meet you in this shape," he said, before shifting his gaze back to the urban landscape.

This shape...Zein wondered if he purposefully put his consciousness in the memory of his human self because it contained his utmost desire. He followed the gaze toward the scenery too, which looked like any normal city. The building style was different from that in the Eastern Federation, but the cityscape itself was more or less similar.

"What is this place?" Zein asked curiously. He looked around to try and find a trace of miasma or something, wondering which zone this place was in.

But the answer was rather unexpected. "This? This is my world."

Zein paused and turned to look at Lucre. "Your world?"

"It’s Earth, basically," the man added with a subtle smile.

"From before the apocalypse?"

"No, from a different dimension,"

Zein parted his lips, but could only blink at the man, who had a cheeky smirk on his face. "And this is actually ’after’ the apocalypse," Lucre added, which prompted Zein to widen his eyes.

Lucre glanced at the guide’s reaction and chuckled. "No, not the kind of apocalypse your world experienced," he said. "Most people in my world didn’t consider it an apocalypse though, and a lot even call it a blessing."

"...what happened?" Zein narrowed his eyes; the more he heard the explanation, the more he got confused.

How could people consider an apocalypse a blessing?

"Hmm...how do I say this?" Lucre tapped his fingers on the ledge. "There were some bored Celestial Beings who wanted to have a tournament,"

"A tournament?" Zein blinked, not at all expecting that.

"Yeah, a tournament, like a championship," the man curled his lips. "But they are so bored that they think doing it themselves is too lame, so they want someone to do it for them; mortals," he glanced at Zein, who finally started to get what happened in a world far, far away. "Each of the Gods picked a planet and chose a champion with whatever method they wanted."

"And you were the champion?"

Lucre did not give an answer but a mysterious smile. "Well, it doesn’t matter," he shrugged, looking at the city again with a nostalgic gaze. "My world changed, a lot of people perished, a lot of people received power, and a lot of people succumbed to that power."

Zein raised his brow and tilted his head. "Sounds familiar..."

"Right?" Lucre laughed at the way history repeated even in a different world through different events. At the end of that laugh, he smiled bitterly and let out a sigh. "Haa...I was twenty-three. I thought I could finally gain my freedom, but..."

"But you became the Gods’ plaything?"

The man smirked at the blatant mockery in Zein’s voice.

"And then you became them yourself," the guide continued.

"Ironic, isn’t it?" Lucre sneered and looked up to the blue sky he could only enjoy in this illusionary world that was no more than a distant memory. "Ironic and boring."

Zein observed the man, who looked and felt like a human. He had no idea what kind of shit Lucre had gone through as he became the puppet of the Celestial Being, or how he ended up becoming one of them instead. Whatever the reason, Zein could see regret written all over the man’s face.

"So that’s why you want to become a human again?"

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