Chapter 128-Hand to mouth

"My brother is a diamond of the rarest kind," Ssoren breathed out.

There was hesitation in his actions as he made a cut on his chest and forced out the white blood directly from his white heart.

The secret of his white heart that wasn’t known to beasts was that it could not only heal but grant immortality for beasts. However, it must be extracted from his heart by him and his alone or a cure turns to poison.

"Won’t it hurt you to draw blood from your heart?" Kyan asked.

Fate had cursed him to always be closer than ten feet from Ssoren at all times. That forced him to leave his world behind and go wherever the snake went.

The drama constantly following the beats Ssoren followed were the only things keeping him from losing his sanity.

"It won’t."

"I do get that you love your brother and want to protect him. But can..."

"There are no buts," Ssoren didn’t want to hear his negative thoughts. Sseraphis was wounded, that was enough for him to leave everything and come to him.

Part of it was fueled with having been abandoned in some corner of the world by their parents too and understanding Sseraphis and the other part was the version of him that desperately wished he and Sseraphis can be there for each other in ways that the world had failed to be there for them.

He feed Sseraphis his blood. His blood dripped into his mouth and Sseraphis subconsciously swallowed. The magic of the blood activated immediately. The physical and mental pain Sseraphis felt after he severed his ninth head started healing.

His shadows moved. His sevens heads twitched, slithering on the floor. Ssoren reached out to the seventh head, he coated his blood onto the surface of a dagger and used it to cut one of his heads without hesitation.

"Are you crazy!" Kyan rose, heart beat racing.

Insane! That was the only word he could think of for Ssoren. The beast had just cut off his head with a magical dagger coated with a magical blood that healed his shadows as he made the cut.

The moment he severed the head, the healing effect of his blood took effect and the bottom half of his seventh snake body merged with the others as though it never existed.

Ssoren didn’t seem sad or unhappy by his choice. He has never given much concern to his heads, not as much as Sseraphis did. And he understood that his proud brother would never recover if he never regains his ninth head.

"Tearing your heart open to heal him is one thing but to actually cut off one of your heads and sacrifice tour cultivation and strength without a second though.... You are crazy," Kyan assessed.

Sseraphis stirred. The sleeping pills started fading a while back. He had been able to hear everything around him, however, it hadn’t washed off completely so he couldn’t open his eyes.

He struggled to move his body, to speed up the process of his wake up before Ssoren did something that can’t be undone.

Ssoren made a small cut on Sseraphis’ palm. He took both his and Sseraphis’ blood and used it as consent om both ends for the transfer. He transfered the head he severed by forcefully activating Sseraphis’ shadow and using a forbidden technique in the Nox to merge his severed head onto the half body of the one Sseraphis had cut.

The head and the rest of the body struggled to merge. As though the body could tell that wasn’t the original head and vice versa. But Ssoren didn’t take no for an answer, he kept pushing forcefully with the technique.

’No, Ssoren. Listening to the other voice, you can’t just give me your head,’ Sseraphis thought.

The sleeping pill that Jura used was strong. It not only kept him asleep but paralyzed him temporarily. It was meant to keep his pain in check and allow him rest but now it was proving a nuisance as Ssoren couldn’t get up and stop his idiotic brother from making the biggest mistake of his life.

"You can repay me with an endless supply of poisoned milk," Ssoren whispered next to his ear.

As he did, his head and Sseraphis’ ninth lower body accepted the merge and bonded together. A blue light exploded from his shadow and enveloped his entire body.

Sseraphis was hit with wave after wave of a blue repairing light that took away the void in his chest. In the wake of the light, he felt whole once more like he had never bore the consequences of the tranfer.

’No...’ his cold heart bled. Instead of relief, Sseraphis felt sad and unhappy about the sacrifice that Ssoren made for him.

Had he done something in his life to deserve that love and sacrifice then he wouldn’t have minded. However, he couldn’t name one thing he did for Ssoren that would warrant such a sacrifice.

"Aren’t you going to regret it?" Kyan inquired, a tear falling down his eye.

The selfless sacrifice he saw Ssoren make for Sseraphis, how easy Ssoren dragged into fights just to defend Sseraphis were things he could never expect from his family. There were no beasts in his life that would be that selfless with him. He envied Sseraphis for having that.

"What’s there to regret. It’s just a head that I grew two years ago," Ssoren clapped his hands once done. "I can grow another in the future if I wish it. So why should I regret."

"Your brother could have done that too. Why sacrifice your effort and hardwork of years for him."

Ssoren shook his head. It wasn’t as deep as Kyan made it out to be. Because after he was later abandoned by his parents a year after they abandoned Sseraphis, he had lived most of his life on a ’hand to mouth’ way of life.

He didn’t have much and was lucky when he got something to eat, a place to sleep and something to wear. He tried tracking Sseraphis down but his brother was no where to be found so he had to survive on his own.

With no valuables for most of his life, he didn’t understand the value of holding on to things. He lived by a simple law; appreciate the now and what he doesn’t have, can be earned later and if it can’t, so be it. And if it’s useful to someone who’s there for him, he’ll give it regardless of the value and if he can’t, he’ll find a substitute.

He didn’t care much about giving importance and emotional attachment to anything in life. Living without a way forward for a long time, going with the glow proved useful other than having attachments and ending up on the losing end.

"If it were you in Sseraphis’ place, I’d give you my head too," he said, startling Kyan.

"Because our hearts are bound?" Kyan questioned, he believed that was the only reason Ssoren would go out of his way for him.

"No," Sseraphis turned to face him. "You took care of me in that fish tank. You prayer for my health...gave me food...talked endlessly to me... And protected me. I didn’t lack anything when I was with you. So, I wouldn’t hesitate to give you my heart of you needed it to save your life," he explained deeply.

He said it simply like those qualities were enough to trade his life and walked to the table to get a glass of water. He failed to see how touched Kyan got listening to his words.

Kyan was left standing still. He digested Ssoren’s words with a heaviness that he couldn’t explain.

He thought back to the years he spent raising Ssoren back when he thought the snake was a fish. The food he fed him was barely much, small slices here and there, as for praying for him, he only did it when he went to pray for himself. As for talking to him, he just rambled on and on about his daily life during long travels to kill boredom.

None of those qualified him to get the snake’s heart. They were scraps that were left of what he had of himself, not things he’d gone out of his way to do just for him.

"You can’t hand your heads for such small things."

"There are small to you..." Ssoren spoke between sips. "To me who never had that much compassion from my parents. It’s heavenly," he added and set the cup down.

Kyan was stuck. He had no argument against such emotional statement. He couldn’t only swallow and back away.

Just then, Sseraphis woke up. "Are you out of your mind?" He growled the second he could.

"Good morning to you too," Ssoren said and yawned.

"What’s good about the morning? How could you do that?"

"Didn’t you do the same thing for Nytherael and Aeltharion?" Ssoren questioned.

"I am crazy," Sseraphis said as though that was enough explanation.

Ssoren smiled softly. "In that case, I’m crazy too," he added and started walking towards the exit. "I’ll borrow a room to rest. Let’s talk later," he uttered, not wishing to have an argument.

Sseraphis opened his mouth countless times as he watched Ssoren leave but couldn’t find the right words to either argue or say thank you.

’I’ll make it up to you,’ he vowed in his heart.