He and It Chapter 148: The Serpent of Pharisee (14)

Chapter 148: The Serpent of Pharisee (14)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

Xie Ning watched Echidna’s struggle with the other three demons from inside the lair, protected by the brass door.

Earlier, he was furious, and had fantasized about using a hobby knife to stab all of those evil creatures to death, leaving nothing behind, but he had to say, compared to Echidna’s punishment, the craftsman’s knife was too civilized and gentle.

They fought in a terrifying manner. Those alien limbs twisting and turning, how the snake demon savagely tore off half of Chimera’s face, then broke Hydra’s heads and broken Sphinx’s wings – between the bones and flesh flying horizontally, the sea of blood that gushed in waves, prodigiously spread all over the ground. 

Xie Ning stared blankly, his ears filled with the dying wails of the demons. He heard Echidna roaring obscure words as he ruthlessly expelled his kindred, his snake’s tail bouncing in the pools of fishy blood. The plasma was thrown around like rain, and made the half-decayed palace even more ghastly and horrifying.

Echidna watched the three fools escape before he turned back to his lair. In his field of vision, Dorus sat frozen on the ground, his eyes red and his cheeks white.

He hastily shook the blood from his body, and his scales clattered, as he left a crimson spray on the ground.

After that, the snake demon swept to Xie Ning’s side. He coiled into a ball shape, as he hugged the human in the center and anxiously checked if the other party was injured.

“Dorus, please don’t blame me,” Echidna said in a muffled voice, as he hugged him tightly. “It’s hard to say if it was my stupidity that led to the situation you’re in today. They begged me using the courtesy of guesthood, asking me to entertain them with feasts and drinks, so I chose the bronze oxen and prepared the wine myself, but I didn’t realize that they snuck here and humiliated you.” 

Xie Ning lowered his head, looked at the sketchbook in his arms, and then looked up at him again.

People were really strange. Just now he was thinking that even if he was surrounded and bullied by a few demons, what was there to cry about? He wasn’t a child anymore.

However now, when he was surrounded by Echidna, nestled against his chest, and listening to his low words of heartache…Xie Ning was stunned by how tyrannically he was angry. In addition, he could also smell the bitter and fishy odor of demonic blood, which permeated the area around Echidna. He shivered, both hot and cold, but he wasn’t really scared.

Xie Ning grasped his sketchbook and tears suddenly flowed down his face.

“Pissed me off…” He clenched his teeth, inhaled a long breath, and exhaled it out shakily. “I’m really angry with myself, very angry.” 

Echidna was at a loss for words. He wanted to wipe the tears away from the teenager’s face. He reached out his fingers, then saw that the tips were stained scarlet, and that his nails were sticky with bits of blood and flesh. He curled his fingers instead, and gently wiped the corners of Xie Ning’s eyes with his knuckles in an awkward manner.

“It’s my fault,” the snake demon hissed and his voice choked. “Don’t cry, Dorus. Today is the day that the people of Cilicia sacrifice to Apollo, and it is customary for them to hold a great athletic event and perform songs and dances. In the past, I watched those people in secret, but now that you are here, I have found the Mirror given to me by Nyx, the Goddess of Night, so that you too may see all the hilarity taking place in the land. This is supposed to be a happy day! Don’t cry, you’re making my heart ache.” 

As a result of his words, Xie Ning howled even more fiercely.

For a long time, the pain of homesickness, the loneliness from being alone in a foreign land, the anger at being bullied by the demons, as well as Echidna’s generous treatment…all those emotions mixed together at that moment. Hearing the other party’s heartbreaking words, Xie Ning huffed repeatedly, which made it difficult for him to breathe through his nose, “You…Why are you crying too?” 

In Echidna’s heart, his human was fully qualified to be a guest of Olympus, but now he was living with him, nestled in the darkness of a monster’s lair. So, every bit of suffering Dorus endured was doubly painful to him.

He didn’t answer, so one person and one snake cuddled together, like two miserable souls with the same disease of unluckiness; together they had a long bout of suffocating crying. Echidna’s hands were still ferociously stained with blood, and Xie Ning was like a small hooded shell, firmly affixed in the snake demon’s arms while his tears flowed onto the other’s chest.

After a long time of venting his emotions, Xie Ning’s eyes were swollen. With a thick nasal voice he asked, “Why were they looking for you?” 

Echidna rested his chin against the top of his hair, his lips next to his dark hair, and answered in a low voice, “They’re worried.” 

“Worried about what?” 

“Mankind is dependent on the Gods. After the great flood, the oracle told Deucalion and Pyrrha to pick up stones from the earth and throw them behind them, and those stones that fell to the ground became newborn human beings, and that therefore is the reason why mankind has worshipped the gods for many generations,” [ efn_note] Deucalion was the son of Prometheus – the god who both created humans and gave them fire – and was warned by his father of the flood. He and his wife floated for seven days in a chest then landed on a mountain top. They consulted the oracle of Themis and repopulated the place by throwing rocks over their shoulders. [/efn_note] Echidna said. “When the demons heard the rumors about me and you, they were very worried. They were afraid that I would stop fighting Olympus for your sake, so they came to find out what was going on, and tried to advise me.” 

Xie Ning, puzzled, said, “But…I don’t think I’m a member of the Gods.” 

He was speaking from the bottom of his heart. As a modern man, he was educated in the theory of evolution. The evolution of all things; human beings going upright apes to their current appearance; how much time it took…and all were supported by a huge amount of academic research, archaeological and historical data. What had that to do with the gods of this era? 

However, his honesty fell on Echidna’s ears, and became a different thing.

The snake demon’s emotions and excitement were extreme, and he became greatly confused.

He hurriedly hid Xie Ning in his arms and urged, “Dorus, you must not speak such treacherous words again! I am not under the control of the new Gods, but you are still a human being, with your soul firmly in the hands of the Gods. It is turned into silk thread, and woven into cloth on the loom of the goddesses of fate. If the gods hear your declaration, they’ll do everything they can to deal with you!” ¹

Don’t say it…If you don’t say it, it won’t happen. Xie Ning shrugged his shoulders and agreed.

When he saw that he had regained a little bit of spirit, Echidna smiled happily. He put Xie Ning down for a while and went to cleanse his body, then with clean hands, held out the mirror given to him by the Goddess of the Night.

Xie Ning looked at it. The mirror was as big as a dining room table, decorated with fine gold, blackened copper, rubies and obsidian. The frame was inlaid with six rings of gold, each of which was carved with a magnificent city-state. The cities were filled with women, men, children, the elderly, and livestock; they teemed with people, and the world was in full bloom. Undulating waves of golden wheat surrounded the tall walls of the cities; farmers waved branches to drive away stealing birds; the shepherds with oak crooks yelled to their flocks, while the hounds jumped around at their feet; the vineyards were crowded with visitors, and the vines were covered with clusters of crystal-clear, full-bodied fruits. Here, some city-states were overflowing with merriment, as men and women surrounded the harpists and poets, as they sand and lightly danced; some city-states were dying, the old man in his twilight embraced his sons and daughters who had died in battle, while the black veil on his head was as silent and desolate as the night. ²

It was really extraordinary craftsmanship!

Xie Ning watched in awe, and what amazed him the most was not the hair-raising carving skills, but the carved figures and animals. When you stared at them, they were motionless in dead gold and silver, but when you turned your eyes away, they immediately moved and talked to each other in your peripheral view. As if the mirror were causing strange hallucinations.

“Come on,” Echidna said as he took his hand and led Xie Ning to sit on the throne with him. “Let’s not think about unimportant things, let’s look at something happy!” 

He grabbed a gold coin and threw it at the mirror, which, like a lake, then swallowed the gold coin with a series of ripples.

A strange thing then happened. The mirror gradually produced a moving image. It showed a great meeting, a whole city of people crowded in the marketplace, while at the head stood the king and queen of Cilicia, along with their children, the dog-eat-dog princes that Xie Ning knew so well.

…What was this? A coin-operated TV for the mythical age? 

“Look!” Echidna embraced him cheerfully. “The rally has just begun.” 

He then called to the stone serpents to bring silver platters filled with sumptuous food. Xie Ning was not accustomed to wine, so there were buckets of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice stirred with honey, as well as tiganites ³ , sizzling meat covered in butter, venison, figs, and so on.

Good, Xie Ning thought, now it’s kind of like eating popcorn and watching a movie again.

“The Cilicians are good at running, archery, discus-throwing, chariot racing and jousting,” Echidna explained to him, having taken the Achilles tendon and bone marrow of a bronze ox to chew on as looked into the mirror. “And after the winners and losers have been decided, they are allowed to choose the singers and the dancers that come out and perform to their heart’s content…Well, it’s all very lively.” 

Xie Ning gazed at the pageant in the mirror. His thoughts weren’t on it, he was only thinking of Echidna’s words, and how he had spent his long and lonely life with that mirror.

Echidna wasn’t exactly a demon, nor was he exactly a god. He hated the Gods of Olympus and the humans under their rule, but a trace of his primitive divine nature kept him from living in isolation and absolutely detesting the mortal world like a true demon.

Was he also like that on his many dark nights? Alone in front of the mirror, secretly watching the clamor of the world? 

“In the past, did you also watch the mirror like this?” Xie Ning asked.

Echidna listened to his question and pondered for a moment.

“In the past,” He smiled slightly, as if he had heard the implication in Xie Ning’s words. “Yes, I used to watch it the same way. Through the mirror, I could know many things on the earth. It was the mercy that Nyx gave me, so among all the gods, She alone has my respect. It even exceeded that I have for Gaia, the Mother of the Earth.” 

He threw away the marrow of the bronze ox, his favorite food that no longer held his interest.

“Before you, I had no one to speak to, Dorus. The Giants are foolish and ignorant. They are the legacy of Gaia, and the Mother of the Earth did not have mercy on them and give them wisdom in addition to strength of body, so their character is impulsive and irritable, while their minds are the size of grape seeds and are filled with hatred of the Gods. They are bent on instigating me to avenge the Titans. I have nothing to say to the Giants. I have nothing to say to the humans, who are timid and weak, and fear me more than they fear death. I look upon them with growing cynicism, for the gods are so cleverly disguised that they can walk the earth freely and still be worshipped by all. I have nothing to say to the humans.” 

After a pause, Echidna continued, “As for the primitive, ancient gods, they either rose from the bosom of Chaos, or sunk into the darkness of the Underworld to serve. Even the ancient mother of the earth, Gaia, slept for a long time, and has lost interest in awakening. I have nothing to say to the ancient gods, either. As for the demons…You have seen what demons are like. I have even less to say to them.” 

In the mirror, the jousting tournament had begun, while the oiled bodybuilders entered in turn, as they waved vigorously and saluted the spectators on all sides.

“Many times I just sit in the dark, not saying a word, not speaking a word,” Echidna said slowly. “There was a time…There was a time when I would have looked forward to the festival of Cilicia. They had to offer me rich sacrifices, according to the command of the Gods, and the priests they chose would light a sacrificial fire and open their mouths to say their prayers to me, and at that time I would be very happy, because those were the only human beings and the only time of year when they would talk to me, even if they had a great deal of fear and unwillingness in their hearts.” 

Xie Ning was silent, not interrupting his musings.

“Of course, then I grew tired and bored of that, and turned to hating my own inferiority. That is not the way of Echidna. I should have a heart of stone, not forgo my dignity over such things, for after all, it is all I have left.” 

The winner was chosen and, while ribbons and flowers flew, the audience applauded with abandon.

“But then you came, and the first time you saw me, you boasted of my beauty,” The snake demon’s tone soared. “I thought it was an illusion, a trick by the new Gods to trap me, but you were real. You looked upon me with admiration, traced my form and soul with a paintbrush, and treated me with offerings to the Gods. I could not have asked for more.” 

His tone was happy, his voice raspy, “I can recognize lies without divine power. There have been many, many…too many smooth talkers in the past. All who suffered a vicious fate, and ended up in my dungeon. In order to survive, they all unanimously glorified my majesty and greatness, played lyres ⁴ in front of me, composed epic poems…They thought I was blind! They believed that I did not see the flattery in their eyes and the fear behind it. But you, Dorus, you were different. Your eyes held a pure heart of gold, so heavy that I could not believe it was real. From that moment on, I swore in my heart, even if I couldn’t…” 

Xie Ning hurriedly gripped the sketchbook in his hand. He could sense that Echidna was about to say something that he couldn’t accept, but at the same time couldn’t refuse.

Before the other party could finish, he said loudly, “It’s okay!” 

Echidna was about to say, “Even if I can’t accept your love and be your companion, I will fulfill all your wishes for you. Do not misunderstand. It’s not because I don’t love you, it’s only because your body is too weak and your soul is too fragile to bear it” — but that was interrupted by Xie Ning in a panic.

“…It’s okay,” Xie Ning added hastily. “Aren’t we okay as we are now? A…Uh, a stable relationship, shouldn’t change so easily, don’t you think?” 

Echidna was surprised. How did he know what I was going to say next? he wondered. Actually, it’s proof that Dorus and I share the same feelings, and yet, how many complaints from that understanding should he be carrying in his heart when he speaks like that?

“You…You are right,” the snake demon sighed sadly. “A solid relationship should not be changed so easily. I think…I should follow your wishes…As long as you do not feel aggrieved.” 

“No offense. No offense.” Xie Ning breathed a sigh of relief. If Echidna had really confessed to him, he wouldn’t have been capable of ending things. “This is good.” 

The different brain circuits of one person and one snake, somehow, communicated a mutually agreeable result as if by magic. Xie Ning and Echidna, who were unaware of the differences, sat in front of the mirror and started to watch the match.

After the jousting, it was time for races and the discus throw. As princes, King Kostas’s sons also had to compete in the races to promote their fame. Xie Ning’s mood was already heavy, and looking at those princes, who were so disgusting to him, made his face look even more bitter.

Echidna, who had been keeping a close eye on him, naturally sensed that something was wrong with him.

“What’s wrong, Dorus?” he immediately asked. “Your face carries gloom. Who made you unhappy?” 

Xie Ning couldn’t say it outright, that the princes in the mirror were the ones responsible for breaking his head in the first place, because if he did, Echidna would surely have a fit and kill them.

“Well….Nothing. I just don’t like them.” Xie Ning made up an excuse. “I can tell they’re not good people from the way they look.” 

Echidna laughed out loud. “You are extremely accurate! If their father wasn’t Kostas, they would have been killed by people coming to seek revenge, and their bones thrown into the sea to their grandfather!” 

After laughing, he decided to amuse his human and ease the sadness of the previous mood. So Echidna grabbed a handful of gold coins and placed them in Xie Ning’s hands.

“Dorus, look.” Echidna demonstrated first. He threw a gold coin at the mirror, the small piece of gold actually went through the mirror unhindered, then smashed directly into the back of the black-haired prince – who was running fast at that time – and caused him to stumble, then fall head first on the ground, cracking his forehead open.

The audience, as well as the royal family’s seats, were in an uproar.

“Ha!” Xie Ning glanced at the mirror in surprise. He hadn’t realized that it had this function!

He quickly pinched a gold coin and aimed it at the other prince who was about to throw a discus. He remembered the grudge of that day, and thought of those men’s smug faces. New grievances and old hatreds surged in his heart. Xie Ning threw it forcefully and the gold coin flew out with a “whoosh.” It hit the prince’s arm, and made the other person’s arm numb, so that the discus fell out of his hand and smashed directly on top of his foot.

“Full marks!” Xie Ning raised his hands in the air and cheered loudly.