The Villain's Story - Chapter 781 - 781: The you you despise.
Titan, the guild at the top of the all the guilds, rose to power quickly, much too quickly. A guild with no history, no background, no support, no solid foundation and precisely no land rose to power in a moment.
Such a feat was surprising, especially so when it surpassed the guilds that had risen during the time of the invasion of the Abyss and before, like Behemoth and Phoenix.
Especially Behemoth, which stood at the top for so, so long. It was dethroned in mere years, in a time when it wasn’t even suffering from internal conflict.
Titan came in like an unexpected storm on a clear day… It devoured the entire system of guilds and broke through the barriers all at once.
In a year after being formed, it surpassed the giants of the industry like Behemoth, Twilight, and Phoenix.
What did the others do during this meteoric rise? Nothing, because they could not do anything. Titan was too fast, too efficient, and too strong.
The very man that stood at the top of this fearsome guild took down all the Guild Masters of the top ten guilds together. There was no flaw in his strength, no flaw in his judgment. Everything he did was so that the others would find it hard to trap the guild in legal battles and disputes over land… It was flawless.
All of it.
But most of all, Daniel Parker, the guild master who remained for more than a few generations, was a being no one could understand.
He was unknown, for the most part. He, much like his guild, came in like a meteor, unstoppable. He took down all the guild masters together in a formal challenge and secured Titan at the very top.
And it remained there, for decades. Behemoth and Twilight combined couldn’t put a scratch on Titan as long as its guild master was still alive and healthy.
And he always was, he remained a flawless record all the time.
In terms of all other aspects, Behemoth and Titan were closely matched. The number of awakened, the strength of their strongest pillars, the amount of dungeons they monitored, and fame.
They were almost always compared as to being equal, with Behemoth being slightly behind… But it wasn’t the case at all.
As long as Daniel Parker was involved, Titan remained on the highest pedestal, with no other coming close.
How was he this powerful? No one knew. Many speculated that he was even in contact with the demons, the elves, the dwarves, maybe even if he had procured a special bloodline that aided him.
No one knew, but his son. Only Maxwell knew the secret to his Father’s strength, something that even the man himself was unaware of.
—
[There is a room back in Titan.]
The voice called out to him once more, as Maxwell put his bike in his spatial storage, silently waiting for the arrival of something.
[A special room.]
He knew exactly where it was all going, and it bugged him in ways he could not explain. A way he struggled to portray even on his face.
Emotionless, he stood as he took out his weapons. An assortment of artifacts he procured, all designed for him and him only. Originally for a task he knew was still far ahead in the future.
A bow of gold, a golden string, golden gauntlets, a pair of golden daggers, and a golden gun that hung at his waist… and many more, all made of gold.
None besides the bow and gun were useful. The craftsman had tried his best to make weapons out of gold, but unfortunately, the soft metal was useless.
Even trying all he could, he struggled to make them viable… But Maxwell was fine with it.
For a moment, he stood still, and put all the weapons besides his gun back into his spatial inventory. He had let the moment take him, taking out things that he didn’t need to.
He sat down on the black sand, aware of what was coming.
[A special, special room.]
Why wouldn’t he? It was a poem his mother sung to him every night when he was still a kid.
[A special, mystical room.]
A poem he loved, and despised.
[Where everyone is happy.]
It didn’t rhyme at all, His mother wasn’t the best in that department, perhaps she was once, but she had a soothing voice, one that lulled him to sleep always. It didn’t even deserve to be called a poem.
But he insisted it was, because she thought it was.
[Where ye will go.]
Every word caused his face to contort, Every second a struggle as he waited for it all to end… and begin.
[Where a smile will always be on your face.]
Perhaps there was a time when that hideous poem actually had a rhythm, had a good meaning, unlike the distorted version he heard every night. Where a woman that slowly lost herself to a horror beyond human comprehension.
Where everything that defined was slowly turned into something else, taken in a form benefitting the machine that was sat on the throne of the strongest guild.
[Where you will always be… happy.]
‘Fuck… Even the same pauses.’
[Where… where… you will be merry.]
He always struggled to remember this part of the poem, He always fell asleep at this point, in his mother’s cold embrace.
[Where you will be shining and golden.]
‘Ah.’
Ah. That was it… the final piece of the god awful poem. The final piece he tried to forget. The beginning of the end, the continuation of someone’s misery.
The final piece of that poem, the only truth it really held, bearing the opposite meaning to everything else.
[… Wasn’t it terrifying?]
The voice called out once more, as the sands beneath shifted, as a tremor went through his body as he slowly stood up.
They coalesced in front of him, taking a form he didn’t expect.
“… Well, this is a surprise. I thought I would be fighting my shadow.”
[I am.]
