Chapter 483: "If You Follow My Word, I Promise To Keep It."

"But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always remember us kindly, longing to see us just as we also long to see you, for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith; for now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord.

For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God because of you, as we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face, and may complete what is lacking in your faith?’ -1 Thessalonians 3:6-10

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[2½ Years After Leviathan’s Invasion]

{Roronora City}

SeiõrSnow falls under the bright, full moon lit night. The reflected light off the celestial body bleeds into a cold, cement and brick room.

Jail bars split the area in half. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Chains shackled to the wall connected to wrists, a splint/cast made of two yard sticks and duct tape around a broken lower left leg, and a lead ball anchored to the right ankle.

The prisoner is none other than the beaten, bruised, and broken Esau.

Dried blood on his torn, sweat stained clothes. His long, greasy, unkempt hair is draped over his unshaven face.

Haven’t yet acquired a symbiote Eyelien, his left eye is swollen shut, and the still green human right eye is puffy from tears, paired with tired bags.

Esau(mumbles): *...Edom...

...Edom...

...Edom...*

One the other side of the prison bars, the loud, heavy door leading into and out of the cell room opens slowly with a rusted moan.

Uninterested in his new visitor, physically and mentally defeated Esau keeps his head down.

The clicks of heeled shoes get closer to the metal bars of the sanctuary city prisoner.

Unable to see the figure in the shadows, but their voice exposes who they are.

MaMmon DæMon: "While in search of a Haven from alien terrors, a new family finds shelter in a Hell full of completely different monsters."

Stepping in the available moonlight shining into the holding cell, a DæMon twin willingly reveals herself, but the man on the other side of the iron bars doesn’t acknowledge her presence.

Esau(mumbles): "...Edom...

...Edom..."

Smirking at the injured prisoner who has regrettably accepted his own defeat, and waiting to die, the witch covers her right hand in a fiery orange/red Seiõr.

MaMmon DæMon: "I know your existence has been one that nobody else would desire, ’unfortunate Esau’.

The feeling of existence seemingly meant to only suffer. Unable to claim they are currently living a life worthy of calling a ’happy ending’. Do not feel singled out, because there are others like you."

Esau(mumbles): "...Edom..."

Stopping in front of the iron bars, she looks through the metal barricade at her future ally.

MaMmon DæMon: "The morality of organic computers can be quickly influenced, especially when extreme methods are used to mold a single consciousness."

She reaches up, grabs one of the vertical bars with a heated Seiõr covered grip, and the metal melts like butter in her grasp.

Next, she melts the same bar at shin height, and the single loose piece comes free in her other hand before tossing it on the concrete floor.

*CLING* *CLANG*

There is clinging and clanging from periodically removed bars as she repeats this process while talking.

MaMmon DæMon: "One’s decision to kill, when someone else would rather be killed if forced to make a choice.

To be the ’bad guy’, and accept living in existence means to suffer from the directors of evil.

Justifying immoral actions, selfish searches for temporary happiness, ironically being the director of evil for the next generation."

Using her heated grip to take out more sections of the widower’s cell, the Scandinavian witch keeps spreading her philosophy to a future subordinate.

MaMmon DæMon: "To be a ’hero’ who believes personal experiences of loss, perseverance through tribulations, and a perspective of a most righteous moral compass.

However, heroes inject themselves into the business of strangers they have no right being in. Even if the reported heroics of shining vigilantism does save innocents, it still burns fear into the same life struggling victims."

Creating an opening in the sliding metal bars, the Seiõr around MaMmon’s hand fades, and lifting the bottom of her cloak as to not rip it, she steps through.

Finally snapping out of his funk, Esau uses his exhausted neck muscles to shakily lift his head up.

It takes a moment for his blurry vision to focus on the barely lit jail breaker as she concludes her introductory monologue to him.

MaMmon DæMon: "...And finally, there are those of us who don’t want the responsibility of a depended on hero. Nor do we want to deal with the hassle of hate playing the villain.

Viewing our personal time and physical effort as the most valuable.

However, if the opportunity to help those like myself arises, using my skills, knowledge, and tools that are high above the average layman, I can humbly assist those who are willing to give me a fair trade of time and effort in return."

Now covering her pointer finger in a familiar purple Seiõr, she swipes across the air once, and from a distance, her SlashingSeiõrSpell slices the chains attached to Esau’s arms.

Then swiping once more, the middle of the chain connecting the man’s ankle to an anchoring steel orb separates from itself.

MaMmon DæMon: "Some would call it ’Greed’, others can refer to it as ’Capitalism’.

If one wants to create a Paradise to escape the harsh Hell that is this reality, they must be willing to temporarily forfeit, not their livelihood as slaves, but with their equally precious time, energy, useful skills, and valuable knowledge."

Breaking his silence, the freed man inspects the broken chains hanging around his wrist.

Esau: "This is..."

MaMmon DæMon: "I could tell you were a mutually acknowledged Seer, but I have no idea who trained you.

If I had to guess, it was an elderly woman who was surprisingly agile for her age when you first met her.

However, after a rapid decline in her health, she passed away shortly after you two drifted on this island together."

Attempting to swallow whatever is in his dry mouth, Esau looks at his savior through separations in his gross black and red hair, with a Below Sanpaku stare.

Rummaging through her cloak, MaMmon pulls out a coiled whip, and a leather sheathed Bowie knife. Esau’s only available open eye widens, but the eyebrow above his swollen shut black eye rises.

MaMmon DæMon: "I figured you would want the parting gifts your magical grandma left you."

Esau: "...But those were-"

Reminded of her younger half sister’s currently immature and dictator like leadership over Roronora City, MaMmon has to mask her current anger by cutting off Esau.

MaMmon DæMon: "...’Confiscated’?"

Tossing the recovered weapons back to him, the spiritless male allows the thrown objects to hit and bounce off him, without even attempting to catch them.

MaMmon DæMon: "Unfortunately for the inadequate leader of this city, and the misfortunate civilians under her reign, I am infinitely more competent than all of those fatuous, benighted hoodlums combined.

They probably won’t even know you’re gone until a few days go by, and if she still has two braincells left to realize you’ve been freed by me, that ’Don’ won’t even send a search party to find you."

Even though he is no longer restrained Esau hasn’t moved. His coiled whip and sheathed knife lay on the ground bedside him.

After the original bewilderment of the situation subsides, the heartbroken man remembers his sorrows and slumps his head back down.

With a raised eyebrow, the woman glares down at the pitiful prisoner silently declining her offer.

MaMmon DæMon: "Well...?"

She claps twice.

MaMmon DæMon: "Chop-Chop.

There are only a few months left of preparation before I over throw the three gremlins who run those mountains to the southeast. That will make it easier to confirm whether or not she has been reincarnated."

Despite her encouragement, Esau remains still as stone, like a chiseled statue created from the tragic mindset of it’s sculptor.

A single cricket can be heard from the window, and is scared off by the distant echoes of laughing from a group of drunk Roronora civilians walking the sidewalk beside the barbwire fence of the jailhouse.

Deducing a way to convince this new ’project’ of a soldier, the magical schemer chuckles, and sarcastically plays along with the refusal.

MaMmon DæMon: "Ohhh weeelll, I do have the Seiõr capabilities to give you an opportunity to see your lost wife again..."

Her claim is more than enough to jolt awake Esau’s attention and living inspiration.

MaMmon DæMon: "...But I guess you would rather die here and hope the afterlife is real.

But spoiler... it’s not."

To the DæMon’s satisfaction, a croaked response eventually leaves the hopeless man’s chapped lips.

Esau: "I-I can see Edom again?"

Turning back to face her potential subject, MaMmon smirks at the baited catch.

MaMmon DæMon: "Of course.

You may not have been much paying attention to my opening soliloquy, but I did claim to help those who I know can help me in return.

It won’t be cheap, however.

I will need your complete cooperation for the next couple months."

His appropriate skepticism sets off all the metephorical alarms in the widower’s mind.

Esau: "Doing what, exactly?"

MaMmon DæMon(chuckles): "Does that matter?

Would you not bare the heaviest of burdens for the chance to receive closure, thus finding relief from your emotional paralysis?"

Holding out a hand with gold painted nails, the witch lays out her devil-like offer one last time.

Still unsure, Esau’s green eye looks at the woman’s hand, then at his weapons.

MaMmon DæMon: "This is my final offer, unfortunate Esau. I don’t have the patience to wait for the decisions of others."

Without accepting the help up, Esau takes a deep breath and grabs his retrieved items, before standing up, putting all his body weight on one good leg.

MaMmon DæMon: "Allow me to gift you a token of my appreciation for your willingness to join the cause."

Covering both her hands in the medical lime green healing Seiõr, MaMmon kneels down and presses her palms against the poorly constructed splint holding his lower leg in place.

Familiar with the sight and effects of the most useful SeiõrSpell, Esau can no longer feel the arbitrary stinging from his broken bone.

After she is finished, the healing Seiõr fades and her pointer finger glows with SlashingSeiõr.

In one swipe the duct tape cast is cut, leaving his pants and skin underneath untouched.

Satisfied with her work, MaMmon stands back up while Esau tests putting weight his freshly healed leg.

MaMmon DæMon: "Like I said, the leg is free. If you want that eye healed, I’ll have plenty of work for you in the morning and I’m curious about these symbiotes mutually acknowledged by Seiõr. So you will be defeating one of those aliens and trading one of your eyes so I can study the being."

Esau: "Wha-!"

MaMmon DæMon: "Uhtuht!

If you follow my word, I promise to keep it."

...

{MamMon’s Forest}

[Current Day]

SeiõrSnow continues to fall under the fully visible early evening Moon, and over the trees grown using the same universal energy.

After her confrontation with the gothic 2nd Generation DæMon, MamMon is perched, sitting on one of the branches to a tall tree within her forest. She is looking down at her twin sister behind Esau, hand on his back, and both with their eyes closed in a Mindscape.

MamMon DæMon: "So you managed to get here before me. Luckily, we both had planned for a few unexpected delays, so I knew I could count on you to fill in.

It’s only fair enough though, my dear twin sibling. Since you were the one who promised unfortunate Esau hope for his services."