I was only a few meters away from my destination down the eerie hallway, when the door to the human girl's room opened. What came out was a female robed Asterian. Her face was also riddled with purple veins, like most Asterians I have come across. She was holding in both hands a tray of food that had gone cold. Maybe someone in charge of bringing the girl food? I walked up to the Asterian and greeted.

“Lord Alrion.” The maid bowed.

“Good day.” I said. “How's uh... my slave, doing?”

Now that I think about what Alrod said, the Dark Lord keeping a human alive without a good reason is kinda fishy. Though if it's like this, it totally makes sense, right?

“She barely eats, my lord. This is the food I brought her yesterday.” She looked down on the steel tray she was holding. It featured a bowl of black viscous soup with white meatballs(?) floating on the surface.

No really, even if that's safe for human consumption, I don't think she will eat that.

“We think she didn't like how the soup looked so this time I gave her something that closely resembled a human dish.”

“What kind of dish?” I asked.

“Lion wasp steak, my lord.” She calmly answered.

That's... Well a steak is normal human food but, oh boy...

My saliva didn't want to stay in my mouth any longer and continuously dove down my throat. Let's just hope she doesn't ever find out about where the meat came from.

“Well uh... Thank you, again.” I said, bitter taste still on my buds.

She bowed down and strode past me.

I breathed in, out, and held the cavity of the door that served as a handle. I pulled the door open, with next to none expectations that she's well.

In the middle of the purple-lit black room, there she was, sitting by the foot-end of the enormous dark bed, weeping, trembling, fear in her crestfallen blue eyes and agitation in her gnashing teeth. Her gaze was downcast, fixed on her right hand that held a dangerous object. The steak knife—Its sharp tip was close to touching her left wrist.

Suicide.

My brain didn't have time to think, I rushed forth.

I seized the girl's thin arm and raised it up, away from her other wrist that seemed to be her target. She looked up at me, startled, shaken, her teary blue eyes reflecting the purple ceiling light. They would've been beautiful, if it wasn't for the sadness that seemed to dull them gray.

Without a thought I gripped the knife by its blade. The sharp, serrated edge buried itself on my palms and pure black blood trickled down, along with a sharp pain, but I didn't care. By force, I tore the knife away from the girl's white and cold hand.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?!” I yelled at her face.

“I...” A hoarse mutter blew out her parched pink lips.

“P-please let me go... I want to go home.” She pleaded.

“But you can't go home!” My angry bellow made her shrink back.

“Both of us can't.”

I threw aside the knife that clung to my hand.

She struggled, trying her hardest to yank her arm away from my clutches.

I let go of her wrist, and she withdrew further into the bed, away from me. But I was far from over with her. My hands clamped on her waist, and she stared at me with widened eyes.

“E-eh?!”

I lifted her off the bed by the waist and slung her on my shoulder horizontally. She wasn't that heavy, but it had been a chore. With her in tow, I walked out the room and into the hallway. And no, not a princess carry. More like carrying a log.

“Hey! Le-let me down!” She protested.

For a wooden log she was quite energetic. Her legs wouldn't hold still as I carried her, so I used my free hand to restrain them, else she might kick someone walking the hallway to the face by accident. Her fists pounded against my back in a futile attempt to force me to let her down. It didn't hurt, but it was annoying.

“Let me down I said!” Her high-pitched annoying yell echoed throughout the black hallway, prompting the few robed Asterians passing by to look at us as we passed.

I mean who wouldn't? I was carrying a human girl on my shoulder who screeches every second in a language they don't understand.

They were kind enough to bow down and steer clear of our path, though. That's one good thing about being a Dark Lord.

When we reached the staircase, two uneven figures were climbing up from downstairs. Alrod and Laianne.

Laianne was toting a large black pouch, while Alrod carried a handful of wooden poles packed in a thick roll of cloth, probably the tents.

When they saw me, they couldn't help but halt halfway and flinch. But oh how I was glad to see them.

“Perfect timing. Hey Alrod.” I called.

“What is it, Lord Alrion?” He asked, his face still reeling back.

“What's this? Lord Alrion is attacking a human girl?” Laianne pitched in with a naughty smirk, but I ignored her.

“I changed my mind.” I said. “Prepare a dragon.”

Screw stealth. I think it's already obvious that I can't leave her here anymore, not after the stunt she tried to pull, but I'm so not going to carry this girl for the whole journey. That's not a job for the Dark Lord.

“And while you're at it, get some cuffs and chains as well.” I said. “Just in case...”

“Yes... Right away, then.” Alrod turned his back and began descending the staircase again.

---

“What happened to your hand?” Laianne walking beside me asked as we headed for the gate.

“Long story.” I said, my eyes drifting to the human girl that meekly trailed behind me.

At one point earlier, we formed an agreement that I will let her walk on her own if she behaves and promise not to try running away. That worked out well, but like what you'd expect from someone who had given up on life. Her eyes were low, listless, and her gaze was fixed only forward. She showed minimal movement and her legs were the only part of her that was active. Let's just say that if we happened to be crossing a highway, she'll most certainly die from getting hit by a speeding ambulance, or any vehicle for that matter.

And with her like this, asking things is probably out of the question. Hopefully she'll recover, but if not then there's just nothing I can do about it. I can't babysit her and it'll be barely rewarding if ever, what happened back at Earth is in the bottom of my to-care list right now, when I know that who-Gods are out there, plotting some great war to crush me in a one-versus-all setting.

What did I ever do to them? I guess we'll find out.

Some things right now absolutely make no sense, like why did I stay dead for two-hundred years before someone revived me. Like who's the Deus ex Machina inside, and also why I told Nariad to kill me that time. I can't help but feel like these things mesh with one another, but maybe it's just me and my brain. Hopefully, one or more of these things will be answered by this one adventure.

I got pulled out of my monologue when sharp pain prickled my left, wounded hand with a thousand needles. It was Laianne, her petite palm against mine, the back of her hand emitting purple and white flames.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” She asked back as the unclean cut closed itself.

My hand was as good as new, and the only trace left of the abuse was the blot of half-erased pure black blood on my palm. Since Laianne touched my bloodied hand, some amount of blood was stuck on her palm as well.

Imagine my surprise when she began licking her palm like a cat as we walked, but with a delirious, oddly-enticing expression of pure bliss on her juvenile face. And she was breathing heavily, too. Weirdly stimulating.

“Okay, that's weird Laianne.” I said.

“Hmm?” She tilted her head after she was done cleaning her palm. “What is?”

“That's... That was my blood, right?”

“Oh, you mean that? You're a being of pure Aster. The blood you're calling that comes from you is just a rarified, liquidized form of Aster. And it's of the purest kind given its entirely black color...” She began to add in trivia as if nothing happened.

“Not entirely sure I caught your drift but, why were you um, licking it?” I said, with my face probably scrunched sour.

“You really know next to nothing about your children, eh?” She narrowed her eyes at a moron. “Well, you lost your memory so I won't be going too hard on you.”

“That's a first.” I pitched in.

She ignored my remark and carried on.

“Us Asterians love anything that contain Aster.” She started. “You can say we're addicted to it, because the more Aster we have inside us, the more powerful our spells become. Look.”

She made sure that I was looking at her hand closely. When she snapped her fingers, flame began to coat her hand from the fingers up. But the amazing thing about the flames was that it was closer to being dark-purple than being a mix of white and purple. And they showed more activity than usual, like they were dancing on a higher tempo.

“That's how much power a mere few drops of your ‘blood’ contains.” She smiled, oddly proud. “I would drain you myself, but I don't have fangs.”

“Ho... Amazing.” I gasped. “So the darker it gets, the purer and stronger Aster it is?”

She nodded. “The purest Aster doesn't even take the form of flames. Just a beam of utter darkness. That's the true form.”

“For some reason, that makes me want to be a Dark Lord more.”

Pure darkness?

“You'll get there.” She gave my back a tap of encouragement. “Father said that back when you and him were still side by side during the last war, you had enough power to make an entire city vanish without doing anything more than simply wanting it.”

“Just plain badassery.”

Just thinking of how I used to be a world-destroying God is enough to make me cool-gasm.

“But wait, how far back was that?”

“Hmmmm...” She held her chin and shut her eyes. “About five-hundred years ago? Back when father was still young, or so father says. I have no way to be sure since I wasn't born until a century ago.”

“What? You're a century old?”

Then just how old is Alrod?!

“For an Asterian, I'm still in my youth.” She said. “No one has really died of age yet, considering that we're a much younger race than humans. The first Asterians, your direct children, all died during the war. But if they were still alive they would be at least a thousand years old by now.”

“Oh...”

I forgot, Asterians are demigods that emerged from the union of a human and me. I'm curious about what happened to that woman, but I guess she's not here anymore.

Even with our leisurely pace, we still managed to reach the main hall. Two Asterians were by the both sides of the steel ‘gate’. When they saw us coming, they scampered to hold the larger-than-life steel bars that served as the gate's handles. They pulled both sides open with much force and trouble.

It was a thick, heavy, needlessly large double door, its vertical clearance probably reaching three meters up the ground.

Outside the gate was a creature that surpassed the gate's size by a large margin.

A dragon. Long snout, flaring nose, overlapping plates—scales of black color and lustrous surface. Four-legged, its size no smaller than two container vans stacked on top of each other. No wings, and on its broad back was attached a rectangular wooden platform.

I guess that platform is where the passengers sit. A wooden hand rail secured the edges to avoid people from falling over during travel. At the dragon's side, connected to the wooden platform, was a slanted, wooden ladder leading to it. I guess due to its size, one simply can't hop on without a ladder.

I heard a gasp behind me. It was the girl, her blue eyes widened and mouth agape in amazement. It's a good thing she's not yet an empty shell.

“That's where we'll ride on.” I told the girl with a smile.

She shrunk back, afraid.

I guess, it's not that easy. I heaved a sigh.

Alrod was already on top of the platform with the folded tents, and he was waving his hand.

We walked up to the ladder, and I was the first to climb up. The feeling was somehow similar to trudging the stairs to an airplane ride, except extraordinarily adventure-y.

I was followed by Laianne, then the girl.

The girl leaned over the rail first thing, like a kid that admired the world view from a balcony. The skirt of her black night dress swayed with the cold night wind, along with her frizzy, long blonde hair.

I tried doing the same and stood beside her. From there I saw, a gorgeous panoramic view of the black village and the distant myriad of ashen mountains. Coupled with the breath-taking dark sky of pitch and purple, the view sent shivers down my spine. Completely caption-worthy.

“Amazing isn't it...” I muttered.

The girl didn't say anything, and her blue eyes only glistened with dampness.

The view isn't the best thing I will be getting by riding a dragon, though. It's the crowd of citizens that gathered below us.

Soon, the word that the God of Darkness has left Artrud will spread around the village.

I wonder what you're going to do next, o traitor of Asteria?