45 The Fallen Foe, the Lost Love II

Nemeus was in deep silence as he heard her words. He looked at her for a long while, his expression a mix of unwillingness and rage. However, in the end, he didn't deny it.

"You know, we call it the Sword Abyss nowadays." Nemeus said in his deep voice, looking away from Lya. It was almost as if his eyes could pierce through space and time and reach that gaping chasm carved in the Broken Forest.

Nemeus remembered very well the expression on Alexei's face as he dealt that strike. The sheer killing intent he exuded, the coldness in his eyes, the blazing rage in his heart. Alexei had poured his all into that sword strike.

It was, without a doubt, the strongest Sword Qi Nemeus had ever seen. Arthur would have certainly been decimated by such a strike with no chance to resist at all. Unfortunately, for Alexei, the strike was a miss.

It was nothing but a few centimeters, a distance so small that would be negligible in almost all situations. Nevertheless, it was what decided life and death in that fight. Alexei missed, and Arthur countered immediately.

"You know, Master never knew for sure, but he always felt it had been you." Nemeus' voice was serious, and most of his animalistic features had been somewhat smoothened. He looked at Lya with a complex gaze.

"Sometimes we do things that even we did not expect." Lya said in a trembling voice. A few shiny tears started streaming down her face as her expression turned sorrowful.

Lya had been impulsive. The moment she felt how much Alexei wanted to kill Arthur she was horrified. She didn't want to see the man she loved fall to such a level, where he would even kill his best friend. She didn't think, she just acted on instinct. Her feelings took control of her. She moved Brightmoon ever so slightly the moment Alexei unleashed that astounding blow.

"Even I was caught by surprise at what I had done." She gave a pitiful smile. "But what surprised me even more was the blow that Arthur dealt."

"To try to erase Alexei's soul like that…" A cold rage and indignity could be seen in her crying eyes as she faced Nemeus. "It seems even I underestimated Arthur's despise for other lives."

"I guess the moment he created you was a flag, but neither I nor Alexei sensed it." She said with her eyes still glued on him, with a self-loathing smile on her face.

"How cruel was it, to shatter the soul of the proud Hellblaze Lion he defeated and combine a fragment of it with a piece of his own soul to make such a monstrosity as you." She shook her head, making her black hair gently wave behind her back. "Arthur made that incredibly strong Godbeast into nothing more than a slave."

"All Sword Spirits are slaves. All Sword Spirits are parts of their masters." Nemeus seemed unaffected by her words. He had no memories of anything before he was created. For him, Arthur Royce was the one that gifted him his existence and meaning, nothing more. How he came to be was not of his concern.

"Don't compare me with your kind. I am me." Lya's blue eyes shone with a fierce light as she looked at Nemeus. It was as if he had offended her.

"And how did that turn out to you?" Nemeus asked with a blank expression. He knew he had no need to say anything more. Lya was taken aback by his retort, but soon enough her face changed.

"I've dealt with it for more than four hundred years, Nemeus." She looked at his eyes with a somewhat crazed look. "For four hundred years I was stuck with nothing but the consequences of my actions."

"For four hundred years I saw his body slowly decay, until only the bones remained." She said in a desperate voice. Her face was distorted in pain and sorrow as she finally took a huge weight out of her chest.

"For four hundred years I stood in the edge of madness, crossing the line and returning innumerable times." She sobbed uncontrollably as she remembered those awful memories.

"For four hundred years I thought about my life. I thought where things had gone wrong." Her voice was trembling as she shuddered. Lya seemed rather pitiful as she spoke to Nemeus. "What mistake had I made? When? How could I have changed it?"

"I could have left anytime. All I had to do was get away from the array formation Alexei had set up." She shook her head with a wry smile, her tears never ending. "But I would never do that. I couldn't run from what I did. I owed Alexei that much."

"He broke many promises in his centuries of life. By the time he died, he was a completely different person than the man I fell in love with centuries ago." Lya didn't expect Nemeus to even have an understanding of what love was, or what kinds of pain and joy it could bring. She was simply venting her feelings, not expecting any reaction from him. "Nevertheless, he managed to accomplish the one he made on his dying breath."

"It took more than four hundred years, but he did return to me." Lya said as her expression eased. She was still crying, but a gentle smile appeared on her face, showing all the appreciation she had for the boy that had run into that lake. Amon would never know how much that moment meant to her.

"Amon Kressler is not Alexei Vine." Nemeus said in a grave tone. It was an obvious thing to say, but it also wasn't. For them, that lived for centuries and had knowledge far beyond the humans of this time, things were not as simple.

"Yes, he is not." Lya shook her head, still smiling."But I think it is better that way."

Nemeus closed his eyes as he heard her words.

"He seems to be a decent person." He let out a long breath and slowly opened his eyes. Almost all of his ferocity was gone. Looking at Lya with red eyes was nothing more than a weary person. "And for him to reach that level in seven months, you did a good job."

"However, we have a grave problem here." Nemeus sent her a piercing glance as his expression turned grave.

"I figured."Lya slightly nodded. Nemeus was more than likely talking about Amon. "What happened to Soul Cultivators?"

She found it strange that the sect Arthur Royce founded would follow the weak path of Elemental Cultivation. It made absolutely no sense, unless something had happened to Soul Cultivation as a whole.

"Virtually extinct, even if some few still remain." Nemeus answered. "Most of them died in the war, but the survivors didn't pass on the method."

"Why?" Lya's face fell and she furrowed her brows.

"Master decided it would be best to follow other paths." Nemeu looked uninstered as he spoke. "Soul Cultivation was an inherently flawed concept in his view. It brought nothing but the worse in people, while also giving them power."

"What utter hypocrisy for him to spew." Lya's face distorted in a mask of despise. "What is the real reason?"

"To hide the Rift and the Starry River." Nemeus looked up as he pondered his words. "He wanted to be sure that there would never be a second Alexei Vine."

"Hahahahaha!" Lya couldn't hold it in anymore. She started laughing. A tragic, sad laugh. "That is so like him! Such arrogance, just like Alexei."

"The Four Sacred Sects agreed with his decision. Master founded the Abyss Sect to become the Fifth and to stand on guard over the spatial array locking the Rift." Nemeus didn't bother with her comments as he continued to explain.

"I bet he was really satisfied with people holding him in such a high regard. He must have really liked being considered a hero." Lya still had a derisive smile on her face as she spoke about Arthur. She might have liked the view of the sect he had built, and she admitted that he was a cultivation genius, but she would never forgive him.

"You are misunderstand something." Nemeus looked at her, and for the first time since they met Lya saw something more than rage or coldness in his eyes.

"For my master, this place was nothing more than his personal Hell." Nemeus had a sad look as he spoke, shaking his head. "A dark Abyss from which he would suffer for his mistakes until the end of his days, while he followed through with the choice he made."

Lya turned silent hearing this. She looked at Nemeus as if trying to see through his soul and look at his intentions.

"The Scavenging?" She asked, with a somewhat hesitant voice.

"Trying to bury the corpses of the ones who fell on battle." Nemeus answered looking straight in Lya's eyes. He was being honest. "More specifically, trying to find his only friend. The only man that truly understood him and that he killed with his own hands."

Lya said nothing as she heard this. She only looked at Nemeus with a complex glance. She couldn't sort out her feelings after hearing that.

"What happened to him?" She asked with a low voice, almost a whisper.

"Master is dead, Lya." Nemeus' expression turned even sadder. He looked somewhat unwilling as he faced Lya.

"Who?" Lya asked, feeling a chill.

Arthur Royce still had many centuries ahead of him when he won the War of Falling Leaves. This meant his death was not natural. Arthur had been killed. However, who would be able to kill Arthur Royce if Alexei Vine was already dead?

For some reason, Lya felt incredibly anxious. Nemeus' scarlet eyes seemed to lit up again as they blazed with immense rage and hate. With nothing but despise in his voice, he uttered a name that made Lya freeze in shock.

"Dale Loray."