My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 1280 - 1281: Something To Hope For

Damon held Abellona’s hand and looked at her belly. This was a first for him. He wondered if she felt heavy. She looked big, but he had never had to deal with a pregnant woman before, so it was an entirely new experience for him.

When Ranar was born, he had only put his blood and Wendy’s into a capsule before sleeping for two whole years. When he woke up, she was just there, looking lovable. Damon had loved her from the moment he saw her.

His sunshine.

Now, the world was bleak.

Abellona leaned her head against him while Ric swooped around not far from them. The monsters Damon had dominated had formed a perimeter around them, keeping watch over their surroundings.

In the distance, a terrible whale-like creature floated between the large, broken landmasses.

It didn’t come close because it was too terrified of their auras. However, Damon had other plans. A large mass of shadows surrounded it and pulled it toward him as the behemoth struggled desperately to escape.

When it was close enough, Damon raised his hand.

[Mind Dominate.]

It trembled for a moment before finally giving in to him. Damon grabbed Abellona and Ric, and the three of them climbed onto its back.

Abellona glanced at him for a moment before looking down at her large belly. She took a deep breath before deciding to ask a question that had been on her mind.

"How did you end up being the Demon of Domination? I seem to remember Ashcroft trying to kill us before. How are you suddenly allies?"

Damon was quiet for a short moment before closing his eyes and recalling how Ashcroft had tried to kill them in the past.

"Yeah, I sort of devoured the Demon Lord of Domination and took his power for myself. Well, it turns out he was a cockroach, and he got stuck in my head because he couldn’t take over my body. So that’s half of it."

"Is that how you became a demon?" she asked softly.

"No, I became a demon for other reasons. It’s this thing called a Seed of Depravity, and growing it turns you into a demon. I’m still slightly human, but there’s very little left before I become a true demon."

Abellona noticed his expression and decided not to ask any more questions about it, but she was still very curious about one more thing.

"Is our baby going to be born as a demon?"

Damon paused for a moment before whispering, "I don’t know. Most demons give birth to demons, but Ranar was different. There’s also the issue of my Divine Spark, so I don’t know what my children will be."

She bit her lip and then nodded as the whale-like creature soared in one general direction.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Towards the Anarchy Mountains, or their equivalent in this world. So maybe I should call them the Order Mountains."

Abellona understood what he was saying, but this world wasn’t a perfect inverse of their own.

"Is our world gone for good now? What do you think our chances are of rebuilding our civilization on this broken world? Do you think we have a chance if we defeat the Outsiders?"

She asked the questions so quickly that Damon didn’t even get a chance to respond before another followed.

"Are you really that hopeful about the future? What are our chances? I don’t think we have any."

Damon was frustrated, but this was the truth.

Abellona wasn’t giving up, though.

"If we succeed, it will be a pyrrhic victory. Our home is gone, and all we can do is rebuild it. I’ve spent my whole life around wars, and I’ve seen places scorched by the flames of war get rebuilt. It might take years, but they still do it. Towns and villages are restored, and even in places where the people never return, the world still heals. Trees grow, flowers bloom, and life thrives."

Then she looked at the world of Lazarak, with all its darkness and gloom.

"We’ll have to get rid of those spatial rifts and repair any damage caused by the war. We’ll have to create an artificial sun. I’m sure our mages and light magic experts will be happy to try, and so will the runemasters."

She pointed up and declared, "We’ll make a moon over there and adjust it based on the time of day, the region, and the months. We’ll gather the large continents and fuse them together."

She pointed in another direction.

"Over there, we’ll build an academy for medicine and healing..."

Abellona looked at the despair surrounding them and saw hope. Hope for the future.

"What... are you saying?" Damon gasped, feeling an ache in his heart as he spoke.

She glanced at him with a gentle smile on her face, a flicker of light in her ruby-red eyes.

"I’m talking about tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, Abellona? We don’t have a tomorrow. We only have today, and when that ends, the sun will set with us," Damon whispered calmly.

"Then it will rise again. It always does."

She touched her belly and glanced at Damon, then at Ric, who had long since fallen asleep beside them.

"As long as there is hope, I will never give up. And even if there is none, I will create it. I will destroy despair because I am Abellona of Destruction."

She walked towards Damon, her expression growing solemn.

"I can’t give up yet, not when I have so much more to fight for. My family is gone, Damon. My father is dead, my empire is gone, and all I have left are my subjects, a few of whom are still alive. More than that, I have a child relying on me. I don’t want my child to see a bleak world of ugliness. I want them to see the beauty of being born. I want them to think, ’I’m glad I was born and lucky to have lived this life.’"

Her hand rested gently against her belly as she spoke, and her eyes softened.

"I want to hope in spite of despair because hope is the one thing that cannot be destroyed."

She smiled, then placed her hand on his chest.

"You hope too."

"No, I cope. All I can do, all I’ve done, is try to cope with it all. I’m afraid to hope because I know my hopes will shatter into despair," he whispered before biting his lip.

"Then why are you going to the Anarchy Mountains? Isn’t it because you hope for something? You can feel it from here, can’t you? Something you want. Something you want to change."

Her words truly touched him, and Damon nodded.

"There’s supposed to be a Pillar at the center of the mountains. If we find it, we can end this war."

"Then let’s find it."

.....

They flew for the better part of several hours, slowly making their way among the wreckage. The number of corpses grew increasingly frequent, but the strength and scale of the destruction left behind grew even more.

Most of the time, they encountered the corpses of people from their world. Sometimes, they came across the corpses of Outsiders and, on other occasions, the remains of lesser gods.

Each battle was different. Sometimes the Outsiders worked together, while other times, they fought against each other.

Damon saw a bright light in the distance, exploding outward as it fought against a man with lizard scales several miles away. The light suddenly turned into a beam and dealt the killing blow.

Around it, the broken remains of lesser gods filled the area, and then the light began to dim.

Damon didn’t wait for an invitation. He knew who had magic like that and rushed towards it. He grabbed a woman who was unconscious, with wounds all over her body. Her armor was completely mangled, and she floated weightlessly in the cold void.

He grabbed her and pushed her blood-soaked hair away from her face.

There were still vital signs. She was alive. As soon as he realized that, her golden eyes flashed open, and she jabbed her sword towards him, freeing herself from his grasp. Damon blocked the attack, preventing his head from being removed.

When her eyes locked onto him and she realized who he was, she suddenly closed them and let herself pass out.

Damon grabbed her and returned to the giant whale.

Taking out some potions, he poured them over her body while Ric watched from the side.

Her body began to heal, but she still didn’t move. Her face was calm and serene, save for the grime and blood covering it.

Abellona stopped next to her and used a towel to clean her face and neck.

"Evangeline Brightwater," she whispered.

"No surprise she would survive," she added.

"Yes," Damon whispered.

Then she glanced at him. "See? You have every reason to hope. You may have lost some people, but many more still need you."