Kais: "You mean your sister sent you on this mission?"

That would mean his sister is connected to all of this.

Barry: "No, not my sister. I am talking about the previous ruler of the vampires."

So when he was sent on this mission, his sister was not the ruler of the vampires. That's something I need to remember.

Kais: "I see. I get that you couldn't have told me all of that, but why hide the fact that you are not my brother?"

Barry: "If you knew that, seeing how you were just a child, you may have started to see me in a different light. I couldn't risk it."

Kais: "And why couldn't you risk it? What was the problem?"

Barry: "Well, let's just say that the shock you felt that day 12 years ago would have been different."

Kais: "What!?"

Barry: "Don't tell me you haven't realized yet. That day is the reason why you are able to stand here like you are now."

That's absurd.

Dragon: "Does that mean …"

Barry: "It does. It means that I did all that to create the 'you' that you are today."

That's just absurd. That is the worst reason I have ever heard for killing hundreds or thousands of people.

Kais: "To create the 'me' that I am today, you killed all those people?"

My eyes turn bloodshot and I again start losing my mind. But this time, I am not losing my control over my emotions. I am losing my sanity.

Barry: "Yeah."

With an agitated tone and murderous intent that I can't stop myself from feeling, I say,

Kais: "You killed thousands to …"

But before I could finish,

Barry: "… to save millions."

What!?

He does it for me.

Barry: "That will be the result of what you have become today."

I don't understand.

Barry: "You will end up saving millions, maybe even billions of people."

I just don't understand.

Barry: "And this is only because I killed hundreds or thousands that day."

Just what does that even mean?

Barry: "In the end, I won't be a sinner for nothing."

Just how am I supposed to save that many people? Just what am I supposed to save them from?

Dragon: "Okay, hold up. From what you have said until now, it seems the previous ruler of vampires was also connected to all of this, right? Why did he send you to act as Kais' brother?"

Barry: "Someone told them to send me."

Dragon: "What!?"

Sona: "Now who would tell the ruler himself to do that?"

Barry: "Well, it was someone you all probably have heard about."

Kais: "Just say the name."

Barry sighs and then opens his mouth,

Barry: "Ozyllus."

Sona: "!?"

Dragon: "!?"

Ro: "!?"

Kais: "!?"

Barry: "He's been manipulating your whole life from the start. So obviously, this was his doing as well."

Dragon: "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Silence falls upon us as none of us seems to be able to say anything. This silence continues.

I stare down at the ground in the irritation I feel towards the so-called G.o.d.

The dragon grits his teeth in anger.

Sona looks at me with expressions I can't read.

Barry looks at me with a mix of pity and anger on his face.

And Ro looks at the whole scene through a calm and calculating gaze.

Kais: "You said there was more than one reason. What were the other reasons?"

All the gazes s.h.i.+ft to him.

Barry: "One reason was that my sister, Valdis, wanted me to get away from the Vampires."

Dragon: "Huh!?"

Barry: "In fact from what I have heard, Ozyllus only brought forth the proposal to send someone to act as your brother. It was Valdis who said that I should be the one to go."

Kais: "Why?"

Barry: "To protect me."

Sona: "From whom?"

Barry: "From the vampires."

Sona: "And why would you have needed protection from them?"

Barry: "Because we weren't originally a.s.sociated with them."

It surprised all of us to know that and yet again, we are left speechless.

Barry: "My sister was turned into a vampire but I was not. I was kept as a potential food for the vampires. So, my sister used that opportunity to tell them about my potential as a psychic and make them agree to send me on that mission."

I just can't think of anything to say right now. These are things I never expected to hear, much less from Barry.

Barry: "And if you want to know, there was another reason for sending me."

He continued without anyone urging him this time.

Barry: "It was because I could gain something that I and my sister never had."

And what was that? Just as I was about to ask, the answer came to me.

Barry: "It was parents."

All of sudden, his words that day 12 years ago came back to my mind.

Barry: "My sister tried to give me the chance to live with a family and see what parents are like. Unfortunately, as soon as they found out about my abilities and yours, they left us."

Barry said to me that day that I didn't lose anything when our parents left us. He wasn't just trying to make me feel bad. Those words were not careful manipulation like I thought they were. They were the helpless cries of a child who was searching for love but never found it.

Barry: "Well, I guess all your questions thus far were things I could answer after all. If you have any more questions, then I probably won't be able to answer."

I could not say anything. I could not do anything. All I could do was remove my knife from his throat.

Kais: "So, in the end,"

The words come out of my mouth without me even trying to say them.

Kais: "You were also his victim."

Barry: "I a.s.sume you are talking about Ozyllus. Yes, he is the one who destroyed my real home, who forced my sister to turn into a vampire and told me to kill thousands of people in front of you or he would have killed the whole Vampire Kingdom, which included my sister."

That's was how it was. At the end of the day, he was also a victim.

The knife in my hand dropped even as I tried to keep it still.

Ro: "So, you are telling me that Ozyllus is the one orchestrating all of this?"

Dragon: "Yeah, he has been manipulating people ever since a thousand years ago."

Ro: "You are kidding me, right?"

He asks in shock but the dragon replies in a calm yet raging voice,

Dragon: "I am not. For a continuous thousand years, that man, or his ghost at least, has kept trying to make things go his way by manipulating everyone."

There's no denying it anymore. I regained my memories. Barry answered all of my questions, and I know that he didn't lie even once. The dragon said so too and it all makes sense when you think about it. Ozyllus – is the man responsible for everything.

Sona: "Hey, don't tell me that …"

I glance at Sona and see a horrified expression on her face. Seeing that, the dragon sighs and closes his eyes. He then opens them as he looks at Sona with a sense of powerlessness.

Dragon: "Twelve years ago, Ozyllus told me to go to a village to bring a girl, who was a spirit-user, to him. However, I never met her. Before I got the chance to, Ozyllus told me that she has already left for there. I didn't completely get it and wanted to stay away from the b.a.s.t.a.r.d as much as I could so I didn't ask for the details. I just left. Looking back at it now, that was a mistake."

I realize why he is telling us all of this. That girl must have been Sona.

Sona: "So, he is the one who killed all of the villagers. And he made it look like you did it."

Dragon: "Yeah, probably."

Sona falls on her knees as she hears that. The vines let go of Ro as the spirit's master had lost all will to keep holding him.

We were either enemies or allies a few minutes ago. But now, none of us can look at the others that way, because all of us at the end of the day are victims, just victims.

Why did Barry lose his home and everything else he lost? It was because of Ozyllus.

Why did the dragon tried to deceive us and play us? It was because of Ozyllus.

Why did Ro have to die and fight this war? It was because of Ethan Kales, who I am pretty sure at this point is also a victim of Ozyllus.

Why did Sona go through what she did? It was also because of Ozyllus.

Why did I go through all I did? It was once again because of Ozyllus.

We are victims, victims of that man, no, victims of that monster who calls himself a G.o.d. We are just his victims, which is why,

Kais: "There's just no other way."

So I'll have to take that only way that is present.

Kais: "I'll have to destroy him – utterly destroy him."

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