First Demonic Dragon

Chapter 1047: The Nature of a Thing

Asherah had never set foot in the Tathamet home and had not been offered anything before.

The familiarity she had grown used to had all dried up.

Now, as everyone stared at her, she had begun to feel slightly ostracized.

Perhaps it was just all in her head. Or maybe everyone was just that upset with her.

Asmodeus was the first to break the uncomfortable silence in an effort to gain answers. “I believe some questions are in order now, aren’t they?”

“That’s right, son.” Igrat huffed.

“Don’t need an echo, mom.”

“Boo.”

Asherah ran her thumb over her knuckles as she fumbled looking for something to say.

She didn’t know where to begin.

“I… well…”

Certain things she believed that she would never have to talk about. he thought Yesh would be around to have these hard conversations and spare her the burden.

But he wasn’t. And now she was left here scrambling to figure out what to say.

“Those things have never attacked anyone before, and they were only going for Abaddon. Why?” Nyx was perhaps among the least patient. She was so worried that Asherah’s hesitation in answering had only irritated her.

Asherah finally decided to stop hesitating. “I suppose… we should be asking that of those who went into the nightmare realm with him.”

Everyone turned to Ayaana and Zahara, who each sat on the sofa with a son at their side.

They noticed the girls’ eyes dart to each other, and the family had begun to think something had happened after all.

“Abaddon.. got hurt trying to protect us.” Zahara admitted.

Satan scoffed. “Chivalrous idiot.”

Kanami grabbed her uncle by the horn and chucked him over her shoulder without blinking. “You were saying?”

Ayaana and Zahara spent the next couple of minutes explaining what happened after they had already found the twin blasphemies.

It was just like Abaddon to throw his body in front of an attack to protect his wives. That part didn’t surprise them, though it did make them worry about him.

Satan came back from being thrown with a sandwich and a beer. “But what does that have to do with those things attacking Abaddon? They smell Big Ugly on him or something?”

Asherah was rubbing her hands so much that she was in jeopardy of taking the skin off. “I suppose that’s… part of it.”

Ayaana’s eyes narrowed. “Then what else are we missing? Why are you being so cagey about this?”

Asherah felt her stomach churn as she lowered her gaze.

She took a deep breath and swallowed her nerves. If only so that she could act more confident than she actually felt.

“…Do you know the single greatest force in Totality?”

An unexpected line of questioning that no one here seemed to know the answer to. Except for Eris.

“Curiosity.” Ayaana answered.

Asherah nodded. “It fills the minds of anything and everything, from the smallest babe to the oldest man. Yesh and the other aeons aren’t much different in that regard from what I’ve been told.”

She leaned back into her seat and stared up at the ceiling. Time seemed to slow down for her as she watched the fan spin round and round tirelessly.

“I’m not sure of the full specifics of their birth, but…I know that they are the most curious when they’re young. They seek to understand themselves and the aspects of life that the Egoless give life to by existing.

In Yesh’s first days, after his battle against Azathoth, he was weary and scarred, but teeming with questions.

’What makes a thing evil?’

Are they driven to violence by the largest forces of the grand design, or are they acting on circumstance and obstinacy?

And most of all, does a thing’s decision to be evil mean that malevolence is ingrained even in one’s cells? Is there ever a hope that something good can come from something bad?”

Ayaana’s eyes narrowed as she listened. Inside of them, Lailah’s brain was working overtime to understand why Asherah had gone about answering questions in such a roundabout way.

It didn’t take her long to reach a conclusion.

“That’s why he’s so… himself. Yesh didn’t make Abaddon out of nothing. He made him out of Azathoth..!”

Electricity ran through the room as everyone wrestled with what they had just heard.

Asherah nodded grimly, not even attempting to deny it.

“He wanted to know if he could turn the tiniest piece of his greatest enemy into his friend. If it could be capable of kindness and warmth.

So, he took some discarded flesh, purified it the best he could, and gave it a tremendous amount of his own magics before sealing it inside an egg.

Years later, when Abaddon started to lose his mind and they had their confrontation, Yesh was heartbroken but unwilling to move on. His experiment had gone better than he expected and he had grown attached.

The creation of Tathamet sparked a whole slew of ideas for Yesh. It’s what inspired him to make the angels, and eventually humanity.”

Zahara clutched her skirt so hard that her knuckles turned white.

“If… all of that is true, then why haven’t the Ophanim attacked him before? Why now?”

“I think being exposed to Azathoth’s energy has had a lingering effect on his cells. Since he didn’t quite resemble himself, they didn’t recognize him.” Asherah sighed. “They called him a fragment of The Cold One, so they think he might’ve been possessed.”

“HAS HE!?”

“N-No..” Asherah shook her head. “Azathoth wouldn’t possess anyone. It’s goal is to do as little as it possibly can, not more. Being imprisoned is probably the best thing that has ever happened to it.”

That seemed to calm everyone down just a bit, but they were understandably still rattled.

Inside of Ayaana, Erica was in tatters.

Earlier, when she woke Abaddon, she put no thought into his accidentally creating matter in his sleep.

She thought it was something random. A funny little quirk that had come with his age.

Now that she knew the severity of the situation, she felt so guilty. She wanted to rush to his side and apologize profusely.

Satan didn’t get to finish his sandwich before Mateo took it from him. The vampire sometimes ate out of stress.

“All of that is perfectly shocking and all, but shouldn’t you have been able to stop those walking art projects?”

That was the question everyone desperately wanted to know the answer to.

Why didn’t those things listen to you?

And even with such honesty having been expressed so far, Asherah was skittish about revealing more.

She felt… shame.

Her voice became as quiet as a whisper. She had a hard time meeting everyone’s gaze.

“I guess the answer to that would be… because Abaddon wasn’t Yesh’s only experiment back then.”