Jacob slowly came back to his senses. The battle was officially over. Now, it was time to rebuild. He slowly stood up from the ground, grabbed Maria’s hand, and walked over to his comrades in the throne room. The palace was in complete disarray from the battle. Rocks were scattered everywhere and there were cracks in just about every piece of stone in sight.

’Joseph and Eden are going to kill me!’

"It’s finally over. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel. I know how awful he was, but he was still my dad."

Zeke walked over to him.

"I agree. I’m not sure if you all are aware, but he saved all of the civilians out there in the kingdom. During the battle against the duplicating man, he gave each and every one of them their own set of armor to help defend the kingdom. Not only that, but he also went on the front lines personally to lead the charge. And to top everything off, he used the remaining bit of his energy to destroy the rest of the duplicates. There was no doubt in my mind that he saved all of the civilians here when he easily could’ve used the energy to fight against you all."

Jacob scratched his head.

"What are you trying to say? That we got it all wrong?"

Lidia walked over to Zeke, still holding her deceased adoptive son in her arms.

"Look at what he did to this young boy and tell me what we did was wrong."

Zeke went quiet for a moment.

"I can’t. He definitely wasn’t perfect, but you all can’t deny he saved hundreds of thousands of lives today with his sacrifice."

Jacob suddenly remembered something that his uncle told him before they started fighting his dad.

"Wait, my uncle said that he told the duplicates to stand down before bringing my dad here. Why did my dad feel the need to sacrifice himself if they weren’t fighting anyone?"

Zeke paled.

"Where’s your uncle?"

"I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since before the fight. Why?"

"Jacob, he never told them to stand down."

Jacob’s heart dropped.

"What? What do you mean he didn’t tell them to stop fighting?"

"I mean that even when we tried retreating into the kingdom, we still had to desperately fight to get to safety. The only reason no one died is because your dad used the last of his energy to remove the rest of them."

"Wait, that can’t be. Then does that mean-"

Suddenly, a large river of water flooded the throne room, swallowing everyone whole. Strangely, the water seemed to be concentrated on all of their heads, trying to drown them slowly. All of them kept swiping at the water with all their might, but it was no use. They were all to exhausted from fighting with the king and the army.

Before Jacob could activate the charm around his neck, the water seemed to tear it off of his body and float it away. Even Zeke’s dark sword was ripped from him helplessly.

Jacob’s uncle slowly revealed himself from behind a small broken wall and grasped the charm in his hand.

"Wow. That, Jacob, was some amazing work! You could not have done a better job setting this all up for me!"

Jacob wanted to scream at his uncle, but he was saving his air as much as possible.

"You really are as foolish as your father was. I can’t believe you trusted someone who tried to poison you before! Ah, but I guess you all were so desperate you didn’t have a choice. Well, now that the crimson pain in the ass is gone, I think it’s time I implement a new, better rule."

Jacob’s lungs were screaming for air. He couldn’t take it anymore. Without even realizing it, his nostrils did a slight inhale. Jacob flinched, ready to start choking on water. However, nothing happened. He slowly inhaled through his nose again. He was able to breathe perfectly fine.

Jacob’s eyes widened when he suddenly remembered something. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

’The Azure Blessing...’

His charm that he had gotten weeks ago finally had found its use. Not only that, but it could potentially save one of his friends from dying. His uncle continued his creepy monologue.

"It’s not that I want to kill any of you. In fact, I actually need all of you alive to rebuild this place, slowly but surely. I just want to make sure you all know your place before I start. Hm... who do I teach a lesson first?"

He slowly summoned a a small stream to surround him. It was pointing at each of them individually. Eventually, it stopped on two particular people.

"Ah, yes. It’s so obvious!"

The stream of water hissed through the air, penetrating the stomach of both Lidia and Zeke. They both groaned in pain but refused to open their mouths to let water enter. Leo proceeded to punch three more holes in each of their bodies, causing them to bleed profusely.

"That should probably be enough."

He got rid of the water surrounding Lida and Zeke’s head. They both collapsed to the floor coughing up a mixture of water and blood. Jacob was still close enough to Maria to slide her his bracelet charm. Before he took it off, he took one final deep breath. The moment he threw the charm over her wrist, life seemed to find its way back into her eyes.

His uncle looked over at them with curiosity.

"I’m surprised neither of you have passed out yet from lack of air. In fact, I was truthfully trying to drown you. Maybe you both aren’t that useless after all."

He still kept the water above their heads.

"...Or not! I think I’d rather watch you both slowly die. Especially you, Jacob. I can’t stand to see anything that looks like your father breathe anymore."

Jacob happened to find himself on the left side of Maria. They were both holding hands. He gently pressed his finger into her palm, hoping she would understand the plan that he just formulated. Maria seemed to poke him back in compliance. It started getting harder for Jacob to breathe. It seemed like his uncle had increased the water pressure around their heads to make the process faster.

Right before he ran out of air, Jacob moved his hand around Maria’s cloth covering her mark and tore it right off. Soon after, he did the same with his mark and shoved it in his uncle’s face. Both of the black skulls on their skin seemed to illuminate in the fading sun, absorbing every bit of light that surrounded the throne room.

Immediately, the room turned into chaos.