Back on the outside, however, things weren't as calm as one would believe. Following their victory over the Xyrans, the pirates were ecstatic, after all, it was their first win on such a large scale. But the people of Livan were a bit concerned.
To them, the pirates and more importantly progenitors were nothing less than gods and being in presence of gods wasn't something everyone could stomach. Tension among the common people was quite palpable.
Couple that with the fact of their young lord's declining health, it was obvious none of them were feeling all that happy. They didn't need to voice their concerns, though, because the progenitors took it upon themselves to help Ashton out.
They immediately transferred him to their ship, where he was now receiving some much-needed medical attention. What he did was certainly foolish. Going head to head with an A-ranker while being an E-ranker himself was suicidal. But the fool somehow made it through.
"I never thought he would be able to last half as long as he did," Frank mumbled, "Looks like we have been severely underestimating him."
"Either that or he is one lucky son of-" Lycaon replied but decided to not use vulgarities for someone who saved them.
As for Dracula... well, he never expected to see his granddaughters there. But when he did, their reunion could not have possibly gone worse than it did. The moment they saw him, they knew who he was and made sure not to acknowledge his presence.
For someone who says he doesn't care about such frugal things, Dracula was visibly affected. In their quest of saving the world, all of them had to sacrifice one thing or the other, but Dracula was the one who had to sacrifice the most. His wife and his son... basically his entire family. While the rest of them did not have a family to sacrifice in the first place.
Following their 'conversation', if one could even call it that, Dracula had locked himself in his room to meditate.
"It doesn't appear Bats would be joining us anytime soon." Aamon replied, "What about your injuries?"
Frank shrugged his shoulders. He was immortal, as long as he had enough spare parts. He only needed to replace his broken body parts and he was as good as new. In other words, these injuries didn't mean shit to him.
As for Lycaon, he had his arms covered in casts, while healing foam covered much of his body. Aamon, on the other hand, preferred using the healing chamber, the same one Ashton was currently using. It was the latest piece of technology they had on board, thus Aamon's recovery rate was better than theirs.
"Now, it's time for the serious discussion. What do we do with him?"
That was the question they had gathered to brainstorm about. What they had to do with the captive... Beelzebub? Killing him was out of the question. The Xyran would get informed the moment he was killed and then... earth would get destroyed.
Also, keeping him captive on board was too risky. If he got freed, even by accident, he would annihilate all of them. After knowing they managed to defeat him once, Beelzebub would not go easy on them anymore. He would end them the first chance he gets and he wouldn't make it painless for them.
"He might be in slumber now, but when he wakes up, all hell would break loose." Aamon reiterated, "Thankfully, we were able to take his Mournblade away, so he shouldn't be that big of a threat as long as we can somehow restrain him, I guess."
"Even without his weapon, he's too dangerous and we can't even leave him somewhere in space. Let nature do the dirty work for us." Lycaon mumbled.
What followed was a moment of silence. Everything was pointing towards killing Beelzebub and getting it over with. But Frank had other plans.
"How about... we freeze him?"
"You mean cryo-chamber?" Lycaon asked, to which Frank shook his head.
While on the surface, using a cryo-chamber might seem to be a good choice, it wasn't. Especially on Xyran nobles who had high resistance and various immunities to almost any abnormalities. Thus it could be possible that Cryo-chamber wouldn't work on Beelzebub.
"Maybe we could hide him on earth, Antarctica seems to be-"
"No." Aamon interjected, "The idea is good. Brilliant even, but I don't think this choice is something we should decide on just yet. We aren't the ones who should decide on his fate. Apart from that... we should tell him about the Precursors. If Ashton is one of them, that should trigger some of his memories."
***
At the same time, somewhere else on the ship.
Ashton was floating inside a gigantic culture tank, filled with god-knows-what. All Anna knew, was the suspicious liquid had healing properties. She had seen the other alien, the one called Aamon, get healed using the same thing. But unlike him, Ashton seemed to be taking his sweet-ass time to heal.
"If only I could reach there a couple of minutes before, this would not have happened..."
Anna knew even if she did, she wouldn't have been of much use. Still, she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge that with her heart. She was his trump card, the one supposed to protect him. She failed and now he was dangling between life and death.
At the same time, Ashton finished having his conversation with Mournblade, and even though he could not speak at the moment, he could feel everything around him. Thanks to the perception skill.
Ashton thought he'd feel unbearable pain, but surprisingly, he didn't. Maybe his mind wasn't registering any pain at the moment, or maybe the ones helping him were behind it. He slowly opened his eyes but couldn't see very well.
However, he could distinguish a female figure tending to him. Actually, there were more than a dozen people around him, but he recognised only three. Anna was standing right in front of him, her hand was pressed against the glass container he was in. She appeared to be devastated.
He then looked sideways, to see Irina and Verina chatting amongst themselves. Even though Ashton could not see them or listen clearly to what they were on about, through his perception skill, he knew they were feeling anxious, agitated and confused.
He wanted to speak out something, anything to let them know he was fine but failed miserably.
'It would appear I am too weak to speak.'
[Yet I can hear you loud and clear.]
'For once, I'm glad to hear your ugly voice inside my head.' Ashton wanted to smile but his face did not budge, '... guess I messed up big this time.'
[You're not the only one.]
'Where is Astaroth? and what have you done to him?'
Astaroth couldn't help but chuckle. Even though Ashton was weaker than ever before, he was still as goofy as he remembered. But it wasn't the time to goof around. Astaroth had something he had to get off his chest.
[As much as I would like to joke around with you, I have something important to tell you about. The truth about Xyrans and Precursors... also known as Ancient humans and your relationship with them.]