23 We fight !!!

"But how could my touch heal them Damianos?"

"I don't even know how to use the power of the souls !!!" Morpheous spoke with an evasive tone to which Damianos exploded.

"You think all this is just coincidence? Do you think for the past twenty-five years I have been guarding you for nothing? You cannot dare to be meek, not after when you have risen !!!"

"I have risen?", questioned Morpheous.

"Did you forget the prophecy that I told you about? Did you forget what I had taught you in the forest that night? Have you forgotten about it? Like, all of it?" repeated Damianos incredulously.

Eva looked at Damianos alarmingly because she had never seen him getting angry. The Damianos she knew was a perennial calm ocean. Little did they know that in the bosom of the calm and tranquil ocean, lied a storm buried for ages. And today they could see just a glimpse of the storm on his face.

Morpheous wanted to be the saviour that Damianos was looking for, he wanted to be the one to create the uproar against the atrocities that Nobeous was spelling out. He could feel that he was a changed man, he could feel like he was reborn, but he still was in the benign state of realizing his power. He wanted to scream out at the top of his lungs and tell Damianos how he felt about it.

But then he saw the flushed face of Damianos. For the first time, he saw his eyes leaking an isolated tear.

"I don't want to deceive you Damianos. That's all I wanted to convey. I didn't mean otherwise," said Morpheous and moved close to him. He was about to say something more when Eva asked him,

"We all have faith in you. But don't you have faith in yourself brother?"

Given that she had already seen how he had defeated Nubeous once with the flick of his sword, she was confident that her brother could easily take down others. She had attempted earlier to tell him about it but Damianos had blocked her from divulging that piece of memory which Morpheous had lost.

"Becasue didn't you hear about the story from Damianos Eva. God had created those guides and had destroyed them. But the soul ring wasn't destroyed. Nubeous is still in possession of that ring and that makes him invincible. How can a mortal like me fight against a demigod who is invincible?"

A small gust of wind flew by and Morpheous could hear the voices again,

'The guide stays destroyed.'

'It is the guide that he seeks.'

The voice was faint and barely perceptible, but Morpheous could distinctly decipher it. He could feel as if that faint voice was communicating with him. Closing his eyes, he asked,

"Is the destroyed guide here? In Ambracia?" and waited in silence in the hope to get an answer.

'The men are coming to seek the remnant of the guide.'

'There is no time to seek answers now.'

And just like that, like a faint breeze, the voice disappeared.

Morpheous opened his eyes and looked at them both. His eyes gleamed with a new hope. That man who minutes before sounded dejected like a soldier who had accepted his defeat even before going to the war, radiated a sense of hope without a word or sense of exultation.

"I know what Nubeous is after..."

"He is not invincible anymore ..."

He said and looked at Damianos who was confounded with the sudden change in his demeanor, and he could very well guess that the souls were helping him out.

Taking a deep gasp of air Damianos looked up at the sky. The sun was broiling, adding to the discomfort of the men suffering from burn injuries. He prayed to heaven to have mercy on the people of his village, as he knew that evil was approaching soon, the voices had already told Morpheous about it.

Looking at Damianos who seemed lost in his own world of thoughts, Morpheous gave out a faint smile, which possessed eternal reassurance, a promise that he was not going to be the one that backs out.

Seeing him able to tame his fears, Damianos's heart unfurled with pride, with hope. But that happiness didn't last long as they saw Jerome coming running towards them. He was gasping for air and could only speak incoherent sentences.

"Kindom men"

"Crops destroyed"

"Killing people"

"Help him Morpheous !!!" commanded Damianos, to which Morpheous immediately responded and inched close to Jerome. He lifted his palm and he could hear Daminaos instructing him from behind - "With the index and the middle finger, try to read his mind."

"My what?", blurted Jerome, but before he could move back, Morpheous had already placed his fingers on his forehead. At first, he faced some resistance from his thoughts and he flinched.

"Focus !!!", said Damianos with a pitch that was two-tone higher than his usual.

Morpheous closed his eyes tight and channel all his attention to read the mind of his friend and this time, his memories caved in. They started opening in front of Morpheous like an open book. He was amazed at first, for it was his first time reading the mind of a human being. A faint smile had tethered on his face, which soon disappeared as opened the pages of his recent memory.

He opened his eyes but his lips didn't utter a word. His amber sun strained eyes gazed ahead in distance. A faint line of perspiration lined his upper lip and his brows and he spoke,

"The men from the kingdom have arrived and are digging up our croplands. They are in search of the ingot for the soul stone and anyone who is resisting is being silenced."

"Are any of our men..."

"We have lost two of our men already," said Morpheous finished Damianos's sentence.

"What is happening here?" Jerome asked all perplexed, as he couldn't get the fact straight as to how Morpheous could know about something that he had seen.

"Anyways are we going to fight them or surrender? We have no men, no resources Morpheous. What do we do? Should we beg for mercy?"

Angry that he was, that they all were, he was tempted to say something worse, but somehow he tamed his tongue to remain in silence and just uttered those two words,

"WE FIGHT !!!"