259 Seal of Location

The boy was well aware of the treasure he had just got his hands on. Every time he tried to pay Iblis off, the Devil found a way to get him into further debt. However, what Helial was attached to was a very precious debt, for which he was grateful.

Any kind of wealth, whatever form it takes, can be managed in different ways.

Whether it is gold coins, talent or a chance, there will always be the one who will waste everything, the one who will hide it jealously, the one who will invest it cleverly.

And of all, the luckiest will always be the investor. There are those who invest in others and in themselves; who, prudently, in safety; who, even more reckless, in dreams.

Among them, some accumulate more and more futile riches, others do good, yet others do evil. The wisest, however, are those who raise their riches to make it a springboard, stacking more and more to raise it to heaven.

And these people will be rich forever, because even if the height of the dive changes, their true wealth will always remain the will to dive.

And, at that moment, Helial had a trampoline high enough to dive on a freefall. One more time.

Snowflake looked up to the sky, while his heart was torn to shreds. His chubby cheeks took on a bitter grimace, so rare that it was almost unique. If anyone had looked at him at that moment, he might have fainted in surprise: no one had ever seen Snowflake grieve for anything other than food missing from his plate.

An inexplicable homesickness poisoned the cat, making his fur stand up.

You're only a beast. You're not worthy to bear the name of a Heavenly Star Tiger, Solmon. Today you are banished. And you will be banished until the day you have understood what bearing is necessary to be a worthy King of the Heavenly Star Tigers.

His father's thunderous, solemn voice rumbled overpoweringly into his fluffy ears. Oddly enough, remembering after so long still hurt him. A Crystal Seal materialized between the cat's paws.

It was a White Crystal Seal, a very rare mineral and only prerogative of the nobility between the Celestial Star Tigers. It was one of the most resistant materials in the universe and was monopolized by the feline race.

Even the greatest blacksmiths could not have access to the White Crystal without the permission of the Heavenly Star Tigers. Only weapons as great as Curse of the Demon could perhaps have cut through such a mineral, harder than any type of hardened steel, whose processing and refining process was carefully guarded by the Heavenly Star Tigers and passed down from generation to generation.

Snowflake continued to remember.

Until then, you, to me, are as dead. Your exile will be marked by the inability to use your Bloodline. However, I allow you to maintain your shape, which will be enough to survive on lesser planets. But you will never walk with your head held high like a Heavenly Star Tiger while I am alive.

Maybe it was time to use the Crystal.

He could use it, train with his father and get on par with Helial and Lumia, or even overcome them. And then, this gesture would have ensured that everyone got out of the current battle alive. Yes, maybe it would have been worth giving up a piece of himself to save everyone.

He stared at the Crystal and the crack that held the two halves together.

Snow's bow felt his thoughts choke in his throat, while his brain could not process anything else.

Should he have stepped back and met his father, to ask him to help them defeat the Undead or transport them to another planet?

And, if Helial had been able to kill the Revenant, with all those Immortals around and the Devil who would never have meddled, how could they survive?

And what would have changed if his father intervened? They still had a chance to win, to overwhelm the Undead, and to find some way to escape. There may be wounded and losses, but in the end they would succeed.

While all these thoughts obsessed the cat's mind, what troubled him the most was that, in a world where the strong crushes the weak, he too, who had been strong, had remained behind and was unable to reach the summit on which Helial and Lumia had settled.

The hearts of Snowflake, Lumia and Helial were tuned to frequencies that, however different, had something that brought them incredibly close.

…

Inside Helial's soul

"I suppose, to be fair..." yawned Alexander.

Iblis looked at him frowning.

"If we are to watch this show, we might as well at least have all the cards on the table. All of them. We at least unlock their potentials, don't we?"

Bucephalus shoved into his mouth the last popcorn, which he had stolen from Alexander, while watching the huge white cat. He passed a hand on his chin to caress his tidy beard. "There's a Seal inside his body, right?"

Nodding, the Devil uttered solemn words: "Block this fucking time, filthy lurid hateful bitch."

Not so solemn, actually.

…

In the Colosseum

Snowflake shook his soft furry head and focused on the battle. He looked at Helial, waiting for a devastating attack to be unleashed. Within seconds, the boy's Aura had undergone an incredible change. In addition, Helial had finally stopped being beaten up and unsheathed Curse of the Demon: he was probably on the verge of playing all the cards he had kept hidden until then.

Snowflake was certainly the second best observer of the group, after Frankenstein.

And by the way, if his eyes didn't deceive him... all those present in the arena had stopped and no longer moved. Helial was standing motionless with Curse of the Demon raised above his head.

Suddenly, the black-haired child materialized in front of the cat, that monster that had given him his movement Skill, and on his face there was a diabolical expression.

Snowflake blinked and curled his whiskers, speechless.

To the child's right, stood what looked like a sculpture of a deity come to life, with blond ringlets and bright eyes of two different colours. To his left, a man with an ancient tunic and round glasses to frame a simple and austere face.

Without even having time to think about what was going on, Snowflake saw the Crystal Seal disappear from its paws and reappear in Iblis's hands.

Crack

In a split second, the Seal was shattered at the molecular level, leaving not even dust to testify to its past existence.

If Snowflake could have gotten even more pale, he could have sworn that this would be his first reaction.

The child looked around until he found Vlad's red head and, in a dry tone, said, "That one has blood of the Blood God in his veins, go awaken his latent potential. I'll remove the cat's Seal."

The blond-haired man materialized next to Vlad, who was stuck with his worried gaze turned to Francesca.

Snowflake was definitely upset. He stuttered something incomprehensible, weakly raising a paw to protest.

"Shut up," thundered Iblis, really not in the mood to have a conversation with the huge white cat.

A slight sense of guilt passed through the Devil's body, which was now evoking an endless series of Patterns around Snowflake. He could not understand how Alexander had managed to convince him to intervene in the lives of those little boys and change their destiny. Besides, now Alexander would have thought he had a certain ascendant on Iblis, perhaps he would even think of being his friend.

All this significantly got on the Devil's nerves.

"That faggot continues to be as zealous as ever. He sent you here to the First Phase with a Seal that not even Siche could easily remove."

Two large pulsating veins appeared on the child's forehead, whose annoyance grew more and more as he thought of Snowflake's father.

Only a few moments later, as the Runes around him began to shine like the sun, Snowflake realized.

"Do you know my father?" he said, startled.

"Yes, no fucking pleasure. I am Iblis," the Devil cursed, generating millions of Runes simultaneously around the cat.

The Devil's words were uttered with incredible ease, as incredible as the astonishment and terror that the cat was feeling at the exact same moment.

"Iblis?" Snowflake had finally discovered the Devil's identity. He did not imagine that such a terrifying being was still alive and that, above all, he would present himself in such a... humble way?

"Did they stick food in your ears too?" Iblis sent a jolt of pain to Snowflake, who could only remain silent for a few minutes, fearing that the child would get angry again.

As if a flash had struck him, Snowflake's eyes opened wide and his pupils narrowed to two thin lines. Several times the cat tried to speak, but was stopped by the fear of receiving more pain.

Iblis finished his work, clapping his hands against each other, and announced, "Done." The runes around the cat's body disappeared. The Bloodline in Snowflake's body had been reactivated and now there was not much more to do. If only Alexander had been as quick.

"You already know how to use your Bloodline, so I won't waste any more time with you," the Devil continued, turning towards Alexander.

"Uhm," Snowflake coughed. "Forgive me sir, but that wasn't a Communication Seal, it was a Seal of Location."

Alexander, who was on the other side of the arena, heard a thunderous imprecation coming from Iblis's mouth and smiled satisfied.