ã€ŠTHE DEATHSEEKERã€‹


 Chapter 0: The End

    ~In the darkest nights, the stars are our guidance~

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ spasmed. Blood oozed from his eyes and nose, joining the stream that already flowed from his mouth. Now, no inch of his twenty-eight foot frame remained unbloodied. Still, he remained unbeaten. The spell burned Thunderfield above him, but for all the stars'' fire the skies remained dark. The skies remained theirs.

    ¡°Uuawgh!¡±

    An arrow exploded in his elbow, finally severing what remained of his left arm. The twenty or so remaining elites roared in celebration. They were all that was left. Their lessers had no arms to raise and no voice to cheer.

    Soon, none of them would.

    Thunderfield bellowed above him, its fury echoing across the plains. Mounds of fallen soldiers fell apart as its warcry shook the battlefield. It demanded release and ¡®Dalric¡¯ would not deny. When he relaxed his right hand, the sky screamed.

    As if oblivion expanded down from the heavens, the pitch black clouds produced even darker lightning. The typically vast and uncountable streaks of Lightning Rain were reduced to just ten, but each held the power of thousands. They fell like a ravenous plague, searing the very air in their path.

    Immediately, the would-be heroes realized that only a few of their number could survive their descent. With an idiot''s resolve, a dozen separated themselves and charged toward him. Death would greet them all the same.

    Two managed to pincer him in less than a blink, both wielding maces, both wielding the wind. Miniature tornadoes had already clung to the length of their weapons, but when the tandem swung for his body, they grew to typhoons.

    It wasn''t enough. The maces smacked his stomach and back with enough force to devastate the area. The winds were ruthless, stripping the earth beneath him, already beaten, bloody and riddled with bodies, completely bare. Yet, all ¡®Dalric¡¯ did was groan.

    As he felt the pain course through his body, so too did he feel the metal plate crumble against their palm. He swung his left arm behind him and ejected the blood in his stump. The toxic sludge flew at the final Tempest Rogue. They dodged. Only to be met with the flying corpse of their companion. They dodged again. Their speed was rightfully renowned, few things could touch them. ¡®Dalric¡¯ was one of those few.

    While they dodged, he turned. Eye to eye, there was nothing they could do to stop him from grabbing them and crushing their bones as well.

    ¡°Arugh!¡±

    As the Rogue fell, a third Harpoon of Rot joined the couple already lodged in his chest. ¡®Dalric¡¯ spun and caught the fourth. He instantly infected it, distorting its enchantments but keeping the rot attunement. Without wasting a movement, he looked beyond the onrushing bodies, and launched it at the irritant.

    He didn''t have time to see if it hit true. He reached down, feeling the earth beneath his ethereal chains, and commanded it. The now dried and dead soil split, revealing a bloody chasm beneath. As the group drew nearer, seven colossal arms emerged, each wielding a different, iridescent weapon.

    The more lithe of the ten maneuvered through the array of armaments with relative ease, but that still left four battling the seven arms of Ondr?m. A feat thrice their number would struggle with.

    ~Your blood is a rich wine, we''re parched~

    Another vexing spell. Between the rot, the Nightkin, and keeping Thunderfield active, his offensive capabilities were near nullified. It didn''t truly matter, he was playing a waiting game anyway, but they found it irksome letting the little vermin run around.

    ~The legions of Lyric will not be denied~

    The follow up spell bounced off his skin harmlessly. Unlike the Nightkin, the Orator¡¯s power was too meager to penetrate it.

    Or so he thought.

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ suddenly felt his left shoulder grow weaker. They snarled. Even poisoned as it was, it had its uses. He briefly tried to counteract the spell, but had to stop on account of the four swords attempting to cleave it off. He evaded the first three as they either flew or cloudwalked to his chest, but the fourth was a feint. Their true aim was his neck.

    They found it.

    They also found out both it and his right arm were still in perfect working condition. While their blade caught in his skin, their body sailed into Ondr?m¡¯s maw.

    The remaining three swordsmen didn¡¯t pay the death any mind, renewing their assault before the body had even eclipsed the chasm. While their skills may have been notable individually, they were clearly strangers. Their teamwork was abysmal. The best they could do was keep him from killing one of them without trading his other arm for it. It did nothing to promote them from simple, annoying pests.

    It was another losing battle for them though, as the engagement drew on he¡¯d bite into the offending spell more and more. With time, they¡¯d lose their only leverage. But..

    ~Our children know not of suffering, you will teach them its pain~

    They scowled. He assumed the pointless attempts at his arm were likely a distraction, so he¡¯d been attentive to any signs of another trap, but he didn¡¯t imagine the Orator had enough strength to cast the first three stages of that spell without their incantations.

    Arm be damned, he swiftly caught one of the three and crushed them in their armor.

    He winced as a blazing heat sliced straight through his shoulder, but he managed to grab the offending blade before its wielder could retreat to safety. They didn¡¯t dare contest his grip, but the blade itself did attempt to burn his ¡®unworthy¡¯ hand.

    That rebellion hardly registered as ¡®Dalric¡¯ retrieved the other sword still stuck in his neck. They both looked comically small in his hand, but they still had use. He spared some of his strength and began fusing the two soul weapons together.

    It was a doomed effort, both souls were far too mature and powerful to be combined, but ¡®Dalric¡¯ wasn¡¯t looking for a melee weapon. He wanted a disruption.

    The swordlessman had conjured a new, weaker blade and joined the Nightkin and the other swordsman in a defensive wedge between ¡®Dalric¡¯ and the Orator. Their defiance was admirab¡ªfoolish.

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ frowned. He peered down at the wild fluctuations the swords were causing. He looked back at the party and felt¡­ respect, appreciation¡­ and pity. Their frown deepened.

    He quickly lobbed the coupling. Their stability just as quickly fell apart and they violently exploded above the quartet. The four were completely unharmed by the explosion, but physical damage was not his goal.

    Gloom weighted on his eyelids as the Orator fell to their knees. He¡¯d successfully disrupted the spell¡¯s power and now it unraveled in their throat. A complex, multistep spell like Rite of Suffering didn¡¯t just dissipate on failure, it collapsed. For someone who channeled it through their person, that meant one thing. The thorn would die.

    The three failed bodyguards pointlessly rushed to their side. He knew they didn¡¯t have enough strength to spare. They had near emptied themselves in their atta¡ªthey were going further. A forlorn expression formed on his face as he watched the trio¡¯s sacrifice. They were extinguishing their lives to complete the spell. They had his respect, but¡­ it was too late.

    Lighting Rain struck.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.

    The world went white.

    Huh?

    Dalric had expected an impact so fierce it would have vaporized everything for a kingsfoot. Yet no impact came, just blinding light. Even more alarming¡­

    Wait.. I can feel my bod¡ª

    Silence!

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ looked towards the light¡¯s epicenter, but before he could strategize foreign ahjer latched onto his body. It brough pain. He immediately convulsed, falling to the earth in a twitching mess. He couldn¡¯t control himself. He couldn¡¯t breathe. He couldn¡¯t think. There was no he. All there was, was pain. Pain greater than anything a sane mind could withstand.

    It seemed the Gods considered themselves sane.

    Focus snapped into Dalric¡¯s eyes as he felt their presence dwindle. Raw pain still ripped through him, but the spell was called a rite for a reason. There were tricks to overcome it, tricks of the soul, not the mind or body. He shakily raised his hand, relinquishing his focus on resisting the rot, and called for Laekna.

    She appeared instantly, also feeling the Gods¡¯ disappearance.

    He didn¡¯t let her get a word in, ¡°Rescue! Now!¡±

    Thankfully, she didn¡¯t waste time responding. Instantly, every body she thought she had the slightest chance of restoring levitated and drifted out of his sense¡¯s range. The endlessly pervasive light still blinded him, but he could hear the Orator screaming, unaware that they were being saved.

    They likely fear they¡¯ve failed to kill me at my most vulnerable.

    Dalric left his hand raised as he called for the most costly weapon in his arsenal, Nightless Astra. For a moment, sight returned as the astral weapon¡¯s formation demanded all the light for itself. The moment was short-lived, but it gave Dalric a glimpse at¡­ the impossible.

    They¡¯re absorbing Lightning Rain..

    He couldn¡¯t imagine how they managed such a feat, but it reeked of terrible consequences. Unfortunate, but no matter, he would die here regardless. Having drained himself with his two self-harm loopholes, the rot rapidly went to work. Whether or not they managed to wield the destruction masquerading as lightning, wouldn¡¯t affect the outcome. He would finally rest.

    It must be quite volatile for Fae to forgo rescuing them¡­ or its working perfectly.

    A different Dalric would care about the details, but the current one was just tired. The finish line was near, he didn¡¯t care how or what got him there. He just wanted it to end. So he laid still and let his mind slip. He surrendered.

    The pain and light were blessings in that moment. They offered him no room to see or think, leaving him in a nice, ignorant bliss. A perfect cocoon from reality as he drifted away.

    Of course, it would have been too kind for him to die in that state.

    The light was the first thing to give, returning color to his vision. He could just close his eyes though, the pain was enough to occupy him. But even that respite didn¡¯t last.

    Eventually, the pain stopped. No sooner than it did, the torture resumed.

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ sprung to his feet and immediately noted he was no longer ethereally bound. He grinned, but quickly lost the expression as he realized why.

    The man who made them had found another means to make a nuisance of himself. He was fashioning armor around their last warrior. A warrior ¡®Dalric¡¯ knew he couldn¡¯t outrun. A warrior that stared right at him with a spear exuding destruction. They hissed.

    He raised Nightless Astra and fired a beam of light even more blinding than the previous. To no surprise, the spear destroyed it on arrival, but it did provide information.

    First, the spear was unstable, pieces of it collapsed just from raising it. Second, the armor wasn¡¯t for fighting ¡®Dalric¡¯, it was to protect against the effects of wielding destruction in one¡¯s hands. Third, most importantly, the vermin was poor at wielding destruction in her hands.

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ lunged forward. She stood at the far end of the battlefield, but within two strides he covered more than half the distance. As he completed the third, she rose to meet him.

    ¡°Death finds you now, Dalric!¡±

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ ignored the cries of an insect and engaged. Large as he was, completely avoiding the spear was delusional¡ªit nicked him on his good shoulder¡ªbut trading damage with a giant was an idiom for suicide. They impaled her torso on the first exchange. The nick ballooned into him missing a third of his shoulder as he did so, but that was still a win.

    Another exchange later, he¡¯d lost a sizable chunk of his abdomen for her dominant arm.

    Both heavily hampered now, technique fled fast. It quickly became easier to dodge than to hit true. A disaster for ¡®Dalric¡¯. Even with the spear falling apart, and the wielder following suit, he couldn¡¯t disengage. He¡¯d die if he tried. He¡¯d also die if he didn¡¯t reach a sanctuary soon. Time was short, there was only one choice.

    ¡®Dalric¡¯ swung wildly and recklessly, ignoring defense. Body parts could be mended, but the only path to his survival laid in killing the blight. He wagered he could over power her. She wagered he would try.

    NO!

    They both won.

    Nightless Astra fizzled out as the final soldier fell, her head hitting dirt a few feet from her chest. It rolled to a stop, shedding its ethereal armor, and faced him. Dalric, disoriented, peered back. Even though it sat in a field of gore, it was picturesque. Not a hint of fear or horror had managed to worm itself onto her final expression. She was at peace.

    He understood.

    It was a proud death, a noble passing. The only emotion her face could have ever projected was that of complete contentment. She had fought honorably, for the most just cause there could possibly be, and she won.

    "Ugh." He grunted as he kneeled down. Blood soaked his knees as he brushed nearby bodies aside. Once settled, his gaze returned to her face.

    She was just one in an army of two hundred thousand, but she was the one to deal the final blow. The one to feel Dalric¡¯s last swing. The one to know, with absolute certainty, that the Deathseeker would seek no longer. They were safe.

    Look at me, romanticizing my own death.

    Maybe he was trying to give meaning to the loss of a former friend¡¯s child, maybe he just wanted to reclaim the peace he felt when the pain was too great to think. Maybe the trick was never being sane in the first place.

    ¡­

    His eyes drifted up to the sky. He watched as the pitch black clouds slowly brightened. The sun''s light, previously barred, seeped through.

    They''ll never be safe again.

    That truth soiled any contentment he may have felt in the moment. His death was merely the end of his personal torment. Sure, he was the most potent tool in the Gods¡¯ arsenal, but he was also the blueprint. They''d find another like him eventually. Inevitably.

    His eyes returned to the battlefield. Where there wasn¡¯t abject destruction, there were corpses laid by the thousands. How content could he truly feel when this is what it cost to free him? Two hundred thousand of the greatest ahjerists Aonica knew were now casualties. Healers that could have quelled plagues, engineers that could have built wonders, defenders that could have fought back the ever encroaching Wyld. How much of the fabric of their society had this day shredded? How much could be salvaged? How much was lost forever?

    What soured it even further was the knowledge that in the end, it was a small price to pay. His actions, regardless of whether they were truly his, had killed millions. And it was only getting worse.

    At first he was a mere executioner for the Gods, relieving figures of power and importance of their heads. Then he became a deadly inquisitor, silencing towns and cities that dared to dissent. Now. Now¡­ now he couldn''t be anything less than a harbinger of death. Where he walked, kingdoms buckled and their people bled.

    He winced. In part because of the four spears lodged around his heart, but mostly because the memories assaulted him. It seemed with his life slipping away, the mental barriers he erected were falling.

    So much for bliss.

    Thankfully, the Gods were either incapable or uninterested in tormenting him in his last moments. His body and mind remained clear of their filth.

    "Haaa.." He only had a few breaths left. He could feel it.

    Laekna finally flew back to him, she must have known too. He could feel her sorrow radiate as she approached. For the first time in decades, he smiled. Contentment may have eluded him, but relief didn¡¯t.

    A part of him had worried all of this wouldn''t be enough. That he''d emerge from this battle with only a kill count to show for it. He hadn''t pushed hims¡ªhadn''t been allowed to push himself to his limit in centuries. It was hard to estimate where it laid. There was every possibility he''d grown too strong for a single empire''s army to lay him to rest. He could only thank the Elders that those fears proved immaterial.

    "Light¡­"

    Dalric wanted to chuckle at his unbefitting nickname, but he had neither the time nor energy. Laekna floated in front of him, for what would be the last time, and he had a few things he needed to say.

    "I swear I¡ª"

    "Don''t.¡± He cut her off, ¡°Do¡­ don''t se..k revenge. Don''t p..omise to¡­ to¡­ remember me." He realized he was slurring so he summoned every last drop of energy he had for his parting words, "Leave the Gods to their schemes. You were never meant to be a part of this, never meant to be chained with me. You¡¯ve always been too pure. The path of a monster was not yours. You''re free now. D¡ªdon''t." He started slipping, "Let my¡­ ghost." It was all fading. "Hold you back."

    He didn''t know how much he actually got across, he could only hope she understood. Hope that she¡¯d leave the past in whatever grave he ended up in. If he even got that much.

    He could tell she tried to communicate something back to him, but it was too late. Darkness had arrived and it quickly enveloped him.

    His final thought surprised him. He imagined it would be a horror show of the worst things he''d ever done or a wistful play of life before the Gods. Instead, it was just one scene, one memory. The morning of his first day of weapons training, when he picked up a halberd for the first time.

    I wanted to be the greatest soldier ever¡­

    How foolish.

 Chapter 0.5: The Beginning [OPTIONAL]

    A new sensation filled it, or was it old? It wasn''t sure. There weren''t many things it knew. What was it? Where was it? How did it come to be? It knew none of these things. It did know, now, that it was different from before. Something had changed. Whether that change was foreign or familiar didn''t matter, it felt new.

    Curious what this unfamiliar sensation was, it observed it. At first, the nature of the sensation eluded it. It could pick out the presence of change, but it simply couldn''t identify it. Its lack of knowledge hampered its desire to understand itself.

    Until suddenly, it knew. As if it had always known, the knowledge was just...there.

    It was expanding. Growing. It didn¡¯t know how big it was, but it was certainly getting bigger.

    How?

    It pondered the matter. Though it was a fruitless endeavor. There wasn''t much to think about, it had only just learned what ''size'' was after all. Even though it now understood that its size grew, it knew none of the details. It pondered for a while longer, but try as it might, answers didn''t appear.

    It wasn''t worried. It didn''t know how to be, it just¡­ was. Growing felt nice though, it liked growing. Bigger was better it thought, unaware that such a specific thought should have eluded it.

    So grow it did.

    It grew and grew and grew until¡­ it didn¡¯t. It suddenly stopped, stagnating.

    After spending so long growing, it did not like the abrupt halt. It had just begun the futile venture of trying to figure out why when another change occurred. It shrunk! No, it was still shrinking!

    It did not like shrinking one bit. But like its growing phase, it could do nothing about it. It just¡­ was.

    So time marched on as it slowly lost all the size it had grown.

    Time had long been a confusing prospect to it. It couldn''t quite picture what time was, all it understood was things happened in order. Until now.

    The knowledge of ''time'' made a very welcomed surprise appearance. Just like ''size'' it appeared to have come out of nothing, but unlike ''size'' the knowledge didn''t feel¡­ useful. It felt like an incomplete picture, giving an idea but not quite bestowing understanding. It did tell it one thing though, the shrinking phase was definitely longer.

    That too came to an end, however, violently. It shook and morphed and wiggled and pulsed. It didn''t know when it started understanding ''shape'', but it could clearly tell its own shape was changing erratically. Oddly, it enjoyed the apparent chaos. It felt nice. Soon it understood why.

    When the violent shifting subsided, it thought, for the first time, with words.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    What are these symbols?

    Language. It had learned language. That was just the tip of the iceberg. It couldn''t tell yet, too busy digesting the complexities of linguistics, but it was smarter.

    Ah! So it was called time. Bells, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. Time is broken up into pieces. A day contains twelve bells, but how long is a bell?

    So entrapped by its newfound thinking power, it failed to notice it was growing again.

    Though it did notice, eventually.

    Ah! I grow. This is good.

    It quickly learned that growing and shrinking came in cycles. It grew, then it shrunk. It grew, then it shrunk. Each time it became smarter, more aware, more discerning. Gone was the time its mere composition was a mystery.

    It was an ahjer construct. One that thought. It grew because it was absorbing foreign ahjer into itself, it shrunk because it was compressing and distilling that ahjer. Discovering its function was a happy moment, but it ultimately just opened the door for even greater questions.

    Purpose. Its purpose had been the main topic of thought during most of its recent cycles. It seemed, as far as its own intelligence went, the cycles had diminishing returns. That bothered it. It wanted to know more, it wanted to know why. Why was it here? Why could it think? Why did it exist?

    No matter how much it grew, it always reached the stage where it had questions there seemed to be no answers to. This time however, it didn''t think a few more cycles would shed new light. It had lost count how many cycles had passed since it began questioning its purpose. As they came and went, an inkling that it wasn¡¯t learning anything new but rather re-learning things it had already known crept into its thoughts. Nevertheless, it carried on in its pursuit of internal understanding.

    Many questions and ideas popped in and out of its thoughts. Some branches took weeks to flesh out, others took mere moments. They all reached the same conclusion though, a dead end. It continued anyway, undeterred. Never had something burned so brightly within it. It had to know the answers.

    It was almost obsessed with knowing.

    Eventually its ceaseless pursuit led it down a branch of thought that shook it to its core.

    Am I alone?

    Like a match in a monsoon, the fire within it was not only snuffed out, but completely consumed. The thought shook it so much it didn''t think another for months.

    For years...

    For decades¡­

    For centuries¡­

    ...

    He didn¡¯t think anything. He couldn¡¯t. He refused to acknowledge the possibility he was alone. No. He just wasn¡¯t smart enough. So he¡¯d wait, wait until he was. Wait until the right piece of knowledge popped into his mind. Wait until he knew why he was an ahje¡ª

    Wait¡­

    The dam he placed in his mind to block all thoughts had cracked. Then, moments later, it violently shattered. A barrage of information invaded him: knowledge, ideas, beliefs, understanding. For a moment he couldn¡¯t handle it, almost completely shutting down under the strain. He went into a form of stasis, not too dissimilar to his previous state. Weeks turned into months, turned into years as he digested all the information. When he finally began thinking again, he had a whole new perspective.

    It wasn¡¯t an ahjer construct at all!

    It was¡ª

    No, he was¡ª

    No, I am¡­

    I am¡­

    Dalric

    Dalric opened his eyes. Neither he nor the world was prepared, but once again Dalric the Deathseeker walked the planet.

 Chapter 1: The Forgotten

    ¡°Ah¡­¡±

    Orla closed her book. She could feel the climax edging closer, but she would soon be interrupted. Better to stop now than to have the moment ruined.

    The novel drifted out of her hand and joined the walls of bookshelves that covered her study. A glass of her homebrew whiskey replaced it as she glanced out of the window next to her lounge seat. The moon was full tonight, but the clouds weren¡¯t playing along.

    Her gaze returned to her glass as a small ray of moonlight peaked in through the pane and lightly reflected off its silver edges. She stared for a moment. Not at the reflections, they were barely of note, but at the war her wrinkled hand held.

    Fluorescent spots of purple and white fought for supremacy in the middle, barraging each other in a constant maelstrom. Miniature explosions rang everytime they made contact. Neither could make any ground on the other, but neither paused their assault. On the outskirts, trails of green and red swirled around the resulting whirlpools. They engaged in their own battle. Though theirs was much less dramatic, never resulting in a vortex, their jostling was just as important as the main contest. The glass was a warzone and each battle had their place. Each battle had to be just right.

    Orla downed it in one.

    "Ugh."

    She could only look at the now empty glass disappointingly. The flavor was off. Not terribly so, but she''d left it active too long. The perfectly crafted equilibrium slipped at some point. She knew she''d been reading for awhile, but time, something she used to have such a firm grasp on, seemed to blow past her more and more as of late. Aging was a terrible thing.

    She was so lively only five hundred years ago. Her body still lean and toned, her hair still bright orange, her skin still fair. Now look at her, old, white and withered, waiting restlessly for her time to come. She felt disgusted, but she didn''t let that emotion surface on her face. Her intruders had arrived.

    The door flung open and a gray-haired girl with enough muscle to put her guards to shame burst through, ¡°Momma! Sol used his spells on me again!¡±

    The boy in question, an auburn-haired teen who stood more than half a foot shorter, raced into her study not a moment later, ¡°She started it! She punched me!¡±

    He flashed the dark mark on his tanned skin.

    Already healing.

    While Orla remarked on Sol¡¯s uncanny healing ability, Marina threw her over six and a half foot self into her lap, ¡°He was making fun of me! He called me stupid."

    "No I didn''t! I told her if she kept eating meat for every meal, she''d have a meat brain."

    "You''re just jealous I''m bigger than you!"

    Orla played with Marina''s hair as they continued to go back and forth. Sol seemed to be the main instigator of this particular incident, but Marina wasn''t blameless. She''d been gloating about their size difference for a few years now. Sol was extraordinarily gifted, a genius by every measure, even physically, but his stature just couldn¡¯t compare to Marina¡¯s. She was an outlier among anomalies. Unsurprisingly considering who her parents were.

    In the midst of the two''s flared argument, three maids rushed into the room. Before any of them said a word, the two rascals immediately halted their shouting contest and hid behind her.

    "Our greatest apologies Madam. We were just having a late dinner beca¡ª"

    Orla raised a hand, "It''s fine. I''ll handle them for tonight."

    "But...Madam."

    "Enough, enough. Go get some rest. Let me play with my children."

    "As you wish Madam." They all bowed and quickly left.

    The children ran out and high fived each other, their previous argument already forgotten. They¡¯d likely resume it in no more than three days, but for now they were allies. Allies against her, or more precisely..

    ~Failinis~

    She gathered a bit of ahjer and pulled her soulbound companion from his slumber. Failinis, in his puppy form, stalked menacingly out of thin air. His muscular frame inched into existence bit by bit. Even as just a pup, he was a beast to be reckoned with. Shadows clung to his fur, masking his exact appearance, but his presence oozed magnificence all the same.

    Both of the children still had their gear from their earlier training, so they hastily moved into their battle stances. Failinis¡¯ power now was barely a fraction of his true self, but in this form he roughly matched Marina¡¯s strength while only slightly outmatching Sol¡¯s spellcasting. With his wealth of experience fighting unfair odds, he was the perfect sparring partner for them. Once the two were set and focused, he pounced.

    Outside of forming a barrier to protect her various books and trinkets, Orla only vaguely peered at the ensuing battle. Thoughts about how to get Failinis to make her some wine took precedence. She looked down at her empty glass and reminisced. It¡¯d been decades since he¡¯d made any type of drink for her...

    Hm?

    Just as her mind drifted to times of old, she felt...off. No, that wasn''t right. It was the opposite, she felt on, invigorated, energized even. Sensations that had been lost to her for centuries, returned. Her ancient, decaying bones suddenly felt full of life.

    Is this?

    ¡°Momma...¡±

    Orla refocused on the spar and almost flinched at the sight of a half-grown Failinis looking back at her. The once five-foot pup was now scraping his ears against her five meter ceiling.

    It is!

    "Ha." She couldn''t help but chuckle. This was it, this was the moment she''d been waiting almost a millennium for. The light at the end of the tunnel finally emerged. She half-expected the occasion to elicit some excitement out of her, but reality only provided relief. Subdued relief at that.

    "Finally."

    With Failinis no longer a reasonable opponent, the children scurried around him to stand by Orla''s side. Their slightly worried faces brought another chuckle to her lips. They didn¡¯t know it, but tonight was a big night for them. Tonight marked the moment everything would change.

    She looked out the window, ¡°Such a show deserves some wine.¡± Then back at Failinis, ¡°Don¡¯t ya t''ink?¡±

    <hr>

    The sky dazzled. So many stars pierced through the sweeping darkness of night, one could almost forget it was night at all. They danced brightly amongst the three moons, each radiating one of the prime colors. The stars were free to frolic, but the vibrant moons were fixed perfectly, if unnaturally, in a line. They acted like bards, humming on stage for the birds and fae to make merry.

    So while the stars bewitched, they orchestrated. There was no actual sound, but it was hard to tell while enthralled by the show. The moons¡¯ music paraded around the land as if there was. It was no mundane melody, it was an orchestra that fed the mind¡¯s wildest fantasies, a tune so vivid and potent it could not possibly be immaterial.

    The stars played no small part in the spectacle. They flashed and swirled and sparkled. All manner of colors and hues, in a seemingly infinite array of sizes, made the night sky their home. Any small patch would be entrancing on its own, but as a collective it was so much more than. It was a ballet beyond beautiful. Some stars moved in coordination, others were more free-flowing, but they all moved to the tune of the moons.

    Together they lit up the sky with the most enchanting of performances. Unfortunately, those with the power to see it could rarely appreciate its magnificence. For in all of its marvel, it foretold nothing but the worst of calamities.

    Dalric stared. Thoughtless.

    What could he think?

    His last memory was dying in the fields of Aonica. A true death, a death of soul, not just body. That should have been it for him. He should have disappeared from this world permanently. Yet somehow here he was, gazing upon the remnants of one of the greatest catastrophes in history.

    Is this what the dead witness before the afterlife?

    He hoped. He desperately hoped this was just a bridge between his past life and the next. He had never believed in an afterlife before, but now he begged for it. The alternative was¡­

    His eyes continued to stare upward as the finale arrived. The Dance of the Forgotten was bright to begin with, but its final moments were exceedingly so. The sun was a candle in comparison. Though its nature didn¡¯t allow it to blind a person, it did cause excruciating headaches. Dalric felt his brain weep.

    Pain wasn¡¯t something the dead should feel.

    The Dance soon subsided, returning the sky to darkness and its more natural green hue. The central moon could still be spotted, small and masked though it was. Normalcy had resumed.

    Normalcy. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    The familiarity of the dark sky shocked him more than the cosmic light show that preceded it. It was full-blown proof that he wasn¡¯t dead. He wasn¡¯t passing on. He wasn¡¯t leaving his chains behind. He was still alive, he was still on Fyrsta and he was still Dalric the Deathseeker¡­

    Still.

    He couldn¡¯t believe it, he didn¡¯t want to believe it, but as he continued to stare at the clouds shifting over the moon the reality of his situation continued to stare him in the eye. He tried his best to ignore it. He laid still for who knows how long while his frayed mind sought any plausible explanation. Anything he could latch on to. Anything that would save him from that reality.

    Anything.

    It didn¡¯t. It found nothing other than the cruel truth. He had played all his cards, tried every trick, exploited every loophole, and it was all for naught. There was no escape. Even death could not free him.

    A deeply defeated sigh escaped.

    How foolish.

    It would seem he was truly doomed to forever live as the Gods¡¯ dog. He chastized himself for allowing a brief glint of hope to peer into him, he should have known better. The Gods were petty, weak, and nothing like the temples preached, but their contracts were absolute. More absolute than he could have ever known. He lightly shook his head, ignoring the dirt that pushed against the back of it.

    How many more will I ki¡ªhm? The levels haven¡¯t dropped.

    Dalric had only witnessed the Dance of the Forgotten once before and while the much younger him would¡¯ve been forgiven for being too captivated to note his surroundings, he was just as attentive then as he is now. While the semi-illusionary show raged on far into the sky, the very real ahjer on the ground followed closely behind.

    The lifeblood of reality overflowed, saturating everything. The dirt, the grass, the very air brimmed with ahjer. Anywhere and everywhere under the three moons, the concentration of ambient ahjer increased more than tenfold. In some places the levels were so high, you could physically see it. A supposed impossibility. Any trained ahjerist could sense it, but even Dalric, a master twenty times over, couldn¡¯t see ambient ahjer. Yet the Dance could cause such anomalies.

    But, like the Dance, the odd explosion of ahjer only lasted a few moments. It should have dissipated right as the sky returned to its normal state, but it hadn¡¯t. As Dalric stretched out his senses, he just felt more of the same, an unnaturally thick concentration of ahjer. Another question to add to the growing list.

    It should be the most immediately concerning question, as anything linked with the Dance needed to be given priority, but in stretching out his senses Dalric had discovered something of even greater personal concern.

    I¡¯m¡­ human?

    Engrossed in his thoughts, he failed to notice the very, very different body that housed them.

    He stood. He knew he laid in a graveyard, he sensed the makings of one, but actually seeing the chipped, cracked, and withered tombstones scattered amongst overgrown vegetation told a more detailed story.

    There weren¡¯t many of them, but each was quite large and intricate, featuring what he assumed were once extravagant designs and patterns. Some parts even emitted ahjer. Their overall quality painted a picture of importance, at least at the time of their passing. It had clearly been decades, if not centuries, since anyone came to pay their respects and the jungle firmly claimed them in that time.

    He faintly wondered why he couldn''t spot any other signs of civilization, but those thoughts quickly passed. The scenery was of secondary importance right now. He was human.

    So small¡­

    He couldn''t remember the last time he stood so close to the ground. The body¡­ his body couldn''t be more than nine feet tall, bordering on a third of what he used to stand at. His arms were short and thin, to say nothing of his legs. They felt like skin and bones compared to what he was used to. His shoulders weren''t broad enough, his back wasn''t thick enough. Nothing about this b¡ªhis body felt like him. It felt...wrong.

    The domineering presence, gone. The monstrous muscles, gone. The impenetrable skin, gone. Dalric the Immortal Giant, gone.

    Though the ¡®immortal¡¯ piece was truer than ever, he supposed.

    Is this even more punishment? Is this how they toy with me for thinking I could escape them?

    His migraine had subsided, but it threatened to reemerge. So too did the despair that had frozen him still.

    He gripped his forehead and squeezed.

    not

    Some time passed as he repeated his mantra. Once he¡¯d resettled himself, he released his grip and sighed. As much as he disliked the body he currently occupied, he refused to let that be what got him. He lived through too much torment for that. From a different perspective, this was a boon.

    Though Dalric had lived as a giant for a few thousand years and strongly preferred his larger frame, said frame came with its own set of problems. Humans weren¡¯t the worst race they could have made him. He wasn¡¯t a dwarf.

    He could make do. He would make do, he most certainly wouldn¡¯t wallow in despair over it. Those days were long behind him.

    Not that it matters¡­

    His thoughts drifted to Laekna, he desperately wished she could escape this wretched life but¡­ No. He wouldn¡¯t give up on trying. They¡¯d think of something. He may be stuck, but she didn¡¯t have to be. He reached out his hand and called for her.

    ...

    There was no response.

    Hm?

    Fear crept into his heart for a moment when he failed to even locate her, but it faded moments after as he could clearly feel their bond was still intact. He just couldn''t connect to her.

    He briefly tried to call the others, though he wasn¡¯t sure he was prepared for that reunion. He had sent them on wild goose chases as he marched to his own demise. A small, but loud, part of him was thankful when none of them responded.

    He tried calling for Laekna again, putting a bit more umph into it.

    Same result.

    This time though, he noticed another problem. He was weak, pitifully weak, and not even because he was human. His ahjer levels were beyond pathetic. Humans may have lacked any kind of respectable physical strength, but if there was one thing they didn''t lack, it was a body perfectly suited for ahjer. Something was wrong.

    Dalric looked inward, fully analyzing his body. Beyond the woeful amount of ahjer in it, there weren¡¯t any problems. In fact, it looked surprisingly good. More than good, the purity of the ahjer within him was a notch or two higher than before. That was a massive boon. In almost every case purity mattered far, far more than quantity, but currently Dalric had the quantity of a newborn child. It was¡ª

    Wait...you fool. Of course I do, I¡¯ve just been reborn.

    That answered that question, he assumed, but he now found himself in an odd situation. His body was clearly that of a full-grown adult, so would his ahjer increase like an adult¡¯s or like a child¡¯s? He hoped it was the former. That would make him all but useless to the Gods for the next two centuries at minimum.

    That would be a blessing¡­ but then I''d also be too weak to break whatever is blocking the bond¡­ Hmm.

    Pondering the pros and cons would get him nowhere, it was out of his control. He¡¯d receive the answer in a few days regardless of how he felt. In the meantime, he had to figure out what was going on and where he even was. Aonica was known for its unnaturally flat land. Wherever he was, it had hills. The graveyard he stood in clearly sat on top of one.

    So they''ve moved me somewhere far from Aonica, why? What are they trying to accomplish?

    His mind moved back to the Dance. He¡¯d only witnessed it once before, the day the world discovered Undir. Or more precisely, the day the races of Undir attempted to colonize the surface.

    He played little to no role in that particular world event, the battlefield was both too far and too deadly for him at the time. He heard the stories though. More dragons and Titans died in that war than he¡¯d seen in his entire life. If not for the fact there was only one opening between the surface and Undir, the conclusion of those stories could have been very different.

    Now, having witnessed it again, he knew he couldn¡¯t avoid what was to come. He literally opened his eyes to it, how could he not be involved? What he needed to know was what exactly that involvement entailed and what part did the Gods play in all of it.

    He briefly wondered if his resurrection was the cause, but he almost immediately threw that idea out. ¡®Dalric the Deathseeker¡¯ could be called a ¡®big deal¡¯, but not so much so that his existence would trigger the Dance on its own. He looked towards his dainty arm. Especially not now.

    He could only imagine the God''s were up to something big and his rebirth was a key piece in it. That wasn¡¯t a pleasant image.

    Odd that they''ve not spoken to me.

    Their ghastly presence still covered him, he could never mistake it, but it felt¡­ dormant. Like a light blanket rather than a titanoboas grip. He didn''t know what to make of that.

    There had been a number of times where they left him to his devices, decades at a time even, but he had always felt their yoke. Why had it loosened? He could assume his death had lessened it in some way, but that was simply a blind guess. For all he knew, it only felt looser because he was human.

    He added the question to the list, but it wasn¡¯t his immediate priority.

    What to do now¡­

    His deduction that the Dance, his rebirth, and the Gods were all linked seemed sound. It also seemed like a difficult thing to unravel. He had no clue where to even begin to attempt.

    He considered doing nothing, at least until he was forced to do something, but he didn¡¯t like that path. He¡¯d never been one to surrender initiative. None of the Gods were communicating with him. Which left him in the dark, but also meant he was unsupervised. They were in the dark as well.

    This was a golden, glistening opportunity. If there was even the slightest opening to ruin their plans, he had to grasp it with both hands and feet. Especially considering whatever they had in mind was at a scale large enough to summon The Dance.

    But. That took him back to his first question, what to do now? He needed information, but he had no way of getting it. He had neither contacts nor companions. Even if he assumed that given time the latter would change, what would he do in the interim? Skulk around the wilds hoping for clues? That would get him nowhere. His only route to actual information ran through some form of civilization, but without a liaison, that path was barred.

    Or...

    Or maybe not.

    He gazed at his hands.

    With this level of strength, the average city is a greater risk to me than I would be to them. They should be safe. And¡­ I have a new form now. Maybe I could...

    He felt hesitant. It had been centuries since he last visited a city with intentions other than destruction and even if the source of those intentions were thankfully mute, he¡¯d known their cruelty for too long. How long will silence last? Is that silence also a form of cruelty, the quiet before the storm?

    Was all this just another pipe dream?

    He continued to analyze his newfound body. There was still strength here, undoubtedly. His ahjer purity was just too high to pretend otherwise, but even with his purity he was so heavily diminished he could not truly call himself a threat to any properly defended city. Of the thousands that were sent to kill him in Aonica, a single Tempest Guard would slay him as he was now.

    Would a settlement close to a jungle this dense be properly defended though? Would they have the strength to fend him off?

    This is likely the frontier.

    ¡­

    Maybe skulking around the wilds is for the best right now. At least until I know where I am.

    With a deep breath, he made his decision. Civilized society would have to wait a bit before meeting Dalric the Human Deathseeker. For now, the jungle would make his acquaintance.

    He turned toward his first visitor.

    Visitors, actually.

 Chapter 2: The King of the Sky

    Three ghostly figures drifted out of Dalric''s line of sight.

    Huh?

    Just as they appeared, they disappeared. Before he could commit their visage to memory, they had already dissipated. Dalric squinted. Then he turned towards the graves.

    No¡­ I can''t remember because they''re Remnants.

    He took a few steps towards the nearest tombstone and examined it for a name. Alas, it had deteriorated too much.

    This may still be a clue. Must have been quite powerful to spawn Remnants.

    ¡­

    Or maybe it was just the Dance''s doing.

    He walked through the graveyard just to be sure. His new eyes weren¡¯t as sharp as his old, so nighttime threatened to make the effort foolhardy, but as trees and vines had made the graves their home, bright neon yellow flowers joined in. They didn¡¯t make the job easy, but their brightness allowed him a semblance of thoroughness.

    After a twice over, however, he found no names or identifiers. He did a third, holding one of the flowers in hand while straining his sense, but the result was the same. Coincidence or purposeful? It wasn''t strange for time to erode such things, but Dalric had an odd feeling.

    That could also just be his inexperience with his human physiology.

    Hmm.

    He noted the occurrence but shelved it for now. He could return later, during the day, but currently the graveyard didn''t hold any secrets he could unearth.

    For now¡­

    He eyed the vegetation encircling him. His previous curiosity at the small graveyard in a sea of greenery returned. At first, he wondered why there were no other signs of civilization, but after getting a better understanding of the denseness of the jungle it laid in, he wondered why it was here at all. There couldn¡¯t possibly be any major cities or even decent towns in the vicinity. Why build tombs here? What was the significance of this location?

    He wasn''t sure the answer to those questions would be of use to him, but he didn''t have any better leads. This was the area he was reborn in, there was a good chance there was some importance to that. He just had to do some scouting.

    He laid his left palm on his bare chest, drawing his ahjer to¡ª

    Hm...with this much ambient ahjer, I might as well use it.

    He left his palm on his chest but released his ahjer. The ahjer around him gathered as he chanted an incantation.

    ~The king of the sea wields the mightiest of weapons~

    Ahjer flowed into his right hand, slowly morphing into a long cylinder. As more coalesced, the ahjer condensed. Sharpness and color emerged and a sapphire spear took shape in his palm.

    ~The king of the earth wields the mightiest of shields~

    More ahjer flowed towards him, this time converging around his left hand. At first it formed a misshapen rectangle, no more than one foot wide and two feet long, but as the ahjer continued to cluster it expanded until it crossed both sides of his shoulders and brushed upon his feet. Soon after, a thick, earthy shield graced his left arm.

    Dalric frowned, but continued.

    ~But the king of the sky is the mightiest of all~

    A thin layer of light shimmered in the night as ahjer coated his naked body. It grew thicker and dimmer as it pulled more and more ahjer into it. Beginning right above his heart, the ahjer morphed into a tough metallic plate. First, it covered his chest and shoulders, but it quickly spread further down. In a matter of blinks, the plating cut off his torso from the elements. His arms and legs soon shared that protection, with his extremities not too far behind. Eventually, slick gauntlets covered his hands while thick boots shaped around his feet.

    He cracked his neck, now donning a pure white suit of armor. It was sleeker than a typical set, lacking much of the bulk and jaggedness associated with them. Save for the joints, it appeared like one flowing sheet of metal, more akin to skin-tight silk than impenetrable cloudsteel.

    The spell¡¯s design also intelligently accounted for Dalric¡¯s nudity and created a form-fitting gambeson-like layer underneath the plating. With the armor fully materialized, there was only one thing left.

    Out of his back, two large, seven-foot wings sprouted. They first appeared skeletal, thin and unmajestic. The ambient ahjer didn¡¯t flow quick enough for them to sprout fully formed. Dalric could¡¯ve used a portion of his own to supplement, but this was a test. A test that wasn¡¯t going well.

    Eventually, after a bit of waiting, muscles covered the bone, followed by skin, followed by perfect white feathers. The ambient ahjer dispersed as his wings fluttered in their full form. The spell was complete.

    Dalric''s frown didn''t budge. He couldn¡¯t recall the last time he used an incantation, partially because they were redundant but mostly because they were slow. And by the Elders were they slow.

    He could have completed the entire process in a few blinks if he did it manually. Sadly, he¡¯d have to get used to it. His paltry ahjer levels would have been enough for this spell, but if he wanted access to a greater portion of his arsenal he¡¯d need more. The ambient ahjer was that more, he¡¯d just have to completely relearn how to cast spells to account for it.

    And then throw it away when they rise again.

    It wasn¡¯t all bad though, his voice was smooth. Quite smooth. After a bit of speaking and humming, he could openly admit he preferred it to his old voice. It was still deep and full of bass, but less unending abyss and more large canyon. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    Sunshine, look for the sunshine.

    He could almost hear Laekna drilling those words into his ear again. Always trying to get him to look for some positives. Now that he may just have something to be hopeful about, she¡¯s not around.

    He quickly tried calling for her again, but the result was the same. Alas. As long as the bond was intact, he knew she was alright. That was good enough. When he was stronger, he¡¯d crack whatever was clouding their connection. For now, he''d do what he could.

    Before setting off, he cast a quick illusion. Flying around in a bright white suit of armor would be less than wise. In less than a blink, the armor exchanged its pristine white for a muted green. Some variety of dark grey would be preferable for nighttime camouflage, but on the odd chance someone spotted him, it was better to not appear so menacing.

    The Undir¡¯s denizens were no longer a threat, at least no more of a threat than anyone else in Frysta, but a valinoid creature with dark wings would always be unnerving.

    He briefly considered using a more complete concealment spell, but decided against it. With his current measly ahjer levels, the cost would be too high to be reasonable. He had no idea how long he¡¯d have to keep it up. Green, feathered wings still looked odd, but they¡¯d have to do.

    He also dispelled the now green spear and shield. Their color wasn¡¯t an issue, the shield was mostly green already, they were just bulky and unnecessary.

    With his appearance sorted, he stretched out the wings and lifted himself off the ground. He rose steadily, acclimating himself to the weight difference.

    Hm.

    As he expected, flying was far more comfortable as a human. What he did find odd was the fact that there was no change to the performance. Even though he was less than a third of his old height and likely less than a fifth on the mass side, speed and maneuverability were the same. He just felt much less of a strain. That shouldn¡¯t be the case, but Dalric would happily take it. The strain was what made flying massively inconvenient in his old body.

    Hm. Old body¡­

    He hastily shook the encroaching thoughts from his mind. Instead, he thought about the Gods, or rather their absence. He faintly found it strange that they would go through the effort to make him human just to miss what would have been the prime opportunity to indulge themselves in his misery. They would have been disappointed of course, but it was strange all the same.

    A new thought came to mind.

    Maybe this part wasn''t in the plans...

    He smirked. The thought was nice, but he kept himself level headed. Ultimately, he knew near nothing. All that he did know was that he was free from their direct influence, for now. He''d make sure to capitalize on that.

    He rose above the trees and gazed around. Blackness greeted him, a reminder of his weaker vision. He moved to rectify that failing.

    Though the effect would seem simple, bestowing the ability to see clearly through darkness required a very complex spell. Altering the body always did. Giant¡¯s natural quasi-darkvision combined with his own unique birth meant Dalric had rarely ever used the spell, night was more often his ally. That lack of practice meant he... made a mistake. Instead of increasing his eyes¡¯ sensitivity to light, he decreased it.

    Dalric blinked.

    He''d blinded himself.

    FANtastic.

    The spell only lasted a bell. He wouldn¡¯t be permanently sightless, but it would make the scouting process a great bit more troublesome. He lightly shook his head, lost for words at how he made such an error. A lack of practice wasn¡¯t a good enough excuse.

    Are human eyes compositionally different?

    He was fairly sure they functioned the same, but there was a lot of room for him to be wrong. He was no expert on the subject.

    He contemplated re-doing the spell, but without knowing exactly why he failed it could just make things worse. He was sure he completed it perfectly so something else must have been at play and this wasn''t the most opportune time to try and figure that out.

    Not a single part of him had any interest in landing, analyzing his eye in detail, reviewing the components of the spell and re-configuring it to work the way he intended. That was a potentially lengthy and certainly involved process for an ailment that wasn¡¯t true blindness.

    Even without physical sight, he could still ¡®see¡¯. He just had to rely on his ahjer sense. It was much better in certain ways; it was omnidirectional and couldn¡¯t be blocked by most things. While a simple tree could bar one¡¯s vision, objects had to be reinforced with ahjer to block the sense.

    On the other end, however, it lacked the detail, distance, and resolution that eyesight offered. Especially now, since he wasn¡¯t at all used to his new body and the minute ways it reacted to ahjer. Either way, suffice it would.

    Without a more deliberate means of picking a direction, he followed an old superstition of his and turned completely around. It didn¡¯t really matter which way he headed, he¡¯d loop around and come back to the graveyard at sunrise anyway.

    His wings flapped as he carefully hovered above the trees, scanning for.. whatever happened to be below him. An Enlightened beast would be the best find, they¡¯d at minimum know where he was and what the major landmarks were.

    Though, a tiny part of him wondered if he could be in some deep heartland of the Wyld. That would explain both the ahjer thickness and the jungle denseness. He threw out the thought after lowering himself to examine some trees, however. They were nowhere close to old enough.

    Fortunately, almost immediately after he rose above the foliage again, he encountered an ahjer-wielding beast. Unfortunately, it was neither Enlightened nor interested in helping Dalric. It was on the hunt.

    He awkwardly dodged as an eight foot bird blitzed by. He noted it was both silent and exceptionally quick for its size. It boasted an impressive amount of agility too, spinning around before swooping for him again.

    Dalric stretched his fist out and let his ahjer flow into his knuckles. Moments before the bird collided with him, it burst out into a massive hand. He successfully snagged it, but before he could do anything else its feathers flared with its own ahjer and his conjured fist melted against them.

    Huh.

    Once free, the bird immediately flicked both of its nine foot wings towards Dalric. The very same feathers that had melted the fist now flew towards his face. He didn¡¯t have the maneuverability to dodge, so he clapped instead. Ahjer trickled through the palm of both of his gauntlets so as they impacted one another they released a forceful wave of wind. It wasn¡¯t enough to completely halt the feathers, but by the time they reached him he easily shifted out of the way.

    While he did so, he noticed the bird made a prompt and soundless exit. Dalric could follow, but he doubted it would lead him anywhere he wanted to go. It was likely still on the hunt, just aware enough to realize he wasn¡¯t worth the trouble.

    Though that raised a concern. A beast like that was almost always an apex predator. While all animals, all living creatures, could use ahjer at some basic level, very few could use spells. Fewer still could use spells as powerful as he''d just experienced. The ones that learned how, always rose to the top of the totem. And yet¡­ for that bird to be so quick to retreat meant it was far from an apex.

    What could that mean? An Enlightened alone can''t rein in a whole jungle¡­ multiple?

    He put the large avian out of his mind and continued heading in the direction he picked earlier. He didn''t know what he''d encounter next, but he had a feeling he''d find a willing talker soon enough.

    <hr>

    In a place far out of reach, something stirred.

    He''s returned!

    Ahjer exploded in every direction all at once.

 Chapter 3: The Enlightened

    The longer Dalric flew, the more certain he felt he¡¯d stumble upon an Enlightened beast. Almost assuredly more than one.

    He had to fend off the attacks of four more would-be apexes. All four could cast lethal spells and all four ran away at the first sign of resistance. It had just become a running theme, a troubling one, when he encountered his sixth beast of the night. A seemingly long-limbed, almost spider-like, orangutan-esque creature.

    They didn¡¯t run.

    His wings fluttered as they guided him away from another barrage of projectiles. The beast had a notably high degree of skill. Even though a great distance separated the two of them, great enough that Dalric had only caught glimpses of the spider-orangutan, they weaved both their own and the ambient ahjer into jagged stone javelins and rained them on him.

    The most recent barrage had lethal intent, but that was a fresh adjustment. Originally, they were lures, sent to bait him toward one of the several traps he had sensed around the canopy. Those traps mostly came in the form of poisoned threads, but he had also noted a number of petrified trees that they had tried to usher him towards. He couldn¡¯t quite tell what they were for, but he didn¡¯t need to, to know to stay away from them. The entire area was clearly the spider-orangutan¡¯s domain.

    These were positive signs.

    Dalric could have met the aggression with his own, but if he wanted to converse with what he thought might be an Enlightened beast, he needed them alive and grudgeless. Avoiding damage was rather simple for him anyway, it was actually locating his future informant that was proving difficult.

    While he strained himself to try and find them, he sensed another cluster of ahjer pooling above him. A blink before it materialized the stone javelins, he prepped his wings and drifted to his left. When the javelins arrived, they could only fall on the trees below.

    He turned toward a new direction. Each time the beast cast their spell, they sent out their ahjer from their hiding place. Or places. Between the last two casts they had moved over fifty feet. Whether they had caught on to what they were revealing about themself or they were simply practicing good caution, they managed to keep Dalric at a distance.

    Not for long though. After a few more evasions, he finally found them.

    Ah¡­

    He caught it on the move. Despite the web of threads spanning across the dozens of trees, it seemed more orangutan than spider. It was also just another beast. Another highly powerful beast, but a beast all the same.

    Its aggression did not come from being a higher tiered creature, but rather the fact that it was a parent. It was protecting its young. It had a set of triplets attached to its back. Though, it seemed only two would survive the night. The last had a more than notable bite mark across its entire body.

    The beast touched one of its stone trees and the family of four disappeared from Dalric¡¯s senses. The ability piqued his interest somewhat, but it was disappointment that took center stage. Another dead end.

    More concerning than that though, another sign something was very off about the jungle he¡¯d been reborn in. He left behind a small gift before flying away to continue his reconnaissance.

    Aside from the unusual and powerful fauna, unique and extraordinary flora kept popping up one after another as well. His quiet belief that the Dance had somehow finagled with the ambient ahjer levels quickly broke apart the further he traveled. He continually spotted plants that required sustained and dense concentrations of ahjer to grow. Some were known to take years to bloom. That could only mean the current state of ambient ahjer wasn¡¯t new or abnormal. This area had experienced it for years, possibly decades.

    What does this mean?

    His second theory would have been that he was simply reborn in a high-density area, maybe something about the graveyard, or those buried within, caused that area to have an explosive amount of ahjer, but he had put some distance between him and the small hill he awoke on. Not a great distance, maybe half a league, just enough to disprove the theory.

    Where did that leave him, on a different world?

    He laughed off the possibility. Though it wasn¡¯t none per se, the only being capable of such a thing insisted on ¡®not interfering with the natural processes of an ecology¡¯. Which in reality just meant they were lazy and incapable of accepting responsibility.

    Rude.

    Dalric ignored that.

    He couldn¡¯t ignore the abnormalities he observed though. They broke his basic understanding of the world. He lowered himself to the ground, removed his gauntlet, and gently picked up a moonfire plant. If he hadn¡¯t sensed dozens of them, he wouldn¡¯t believe the one in his hand was real. Even as he rubbed his fingers across it, feeling the petals radiating heat, he could barely believe it. Moonfire plants sold for hundreds of great pieces precisely because they were rarer than rare. Only occasionally spotted around volcanoes, not along a warm jungle floor.

    What could possibly explain thi¡ª

    His head jerked up, mostly out of habit as he still couldn¡¯t see. Something had jogged into the range of his ahjer sense. No, somethings. There were three of them: they all walked on four legs, had tails, and sported some sort of metal attached to their ankles. They didn''t seem like herbivores, but their ahjer felt far thinner and more impure than the predators he''d ''greeted''.

    What are you?

    Whatever they were, this was the first active group he¡¯d come across and they headed straight for him. He grabbed his gauntlet and made himself scarce, flying up into the canopy and blending into its shadows.

    Let¡¯s see what you do.

    The radius of his unfocused ahjer sense stretched to fifteen fathoms, give or take. Ninety feet wasn''t an incredible length, but the sheer amount of plant life in the region meant without an equally pervasive sight or sense, the somethings wouldn¡¯t have seen him. Dalric wagered they had neither.

    He was right.

    They hadn¡¯t seen him, they passed both him and the clusters of moonfire without giving them a second look.

    Dalric had hoped they''d stop for the moonfire. Enlightened or not, animals tended to know when a plant contained large amounts of ahjer they could use. Even if the somethings were carnivores, which Dalric felt was almost certain, ahjer enriched plants could still be consumed for moderate benefits.

    They could have more pressing matters.

    Dalric was torn on whether he should tail them. They were the only mobile creatures he''d spotted that weren''t actively hunting. Each of their steps was powerful though, like they moved with purpose. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Once they crossed the area right underneath him, he had a much clearer picture of what they were. They were feline, for one. Their general body shape and movements reminded him of jaguars. Though they were quite large for jaguars. The one leading the group stood at almost five feet tall. Thinking back to everything he¡¯d seen during his short flight, it was probably the least strange prospect. Animals grew in strange ways when exposed to high concentrations of ahjer for long durations.

    Hmm. There''s no blood on their paws¡­ are they distance fighters or have they not been attacked?

    Both were possible, but nothing about them spoke to them being skilled at long range combat. The metal bands around their ankles might be a tell, but those could be anything. They had only the faintest whiff of ahjer to them. Dalric leaned towards the latter explanation.

    If he was correct, that was a hint. A hint that they were part of a larger group. A group the denizens of the jungle knew to avoid. The three in front of him were certainly weaker than anything that had attacked him so far. The orangutan-spider especially, but even the overgrown blazewurm he encountered could handle at least two of the three. If he was on the menu, but not them, there must be a reason. That was something worth exploring.

    It could lead nowhere, but he''d accept that risk. His other option seemed to be wading through a nonstop wave of nocturnal predators hoping one ends up being Enlightened.

    Stealth wasn¡¯t on the mind when his wings were designed, so he had to cast a slight muffling spell and keep his distance. He still roused a few of the critters, the spell was simple and geared towards cost-efficiency rather than efficacy, but thankfully they never ran in the direction of the something-jaguars. The noise they made didn¡¯t seem to reach them either. Though the jungle wasn¡¯t exactly quiet, perceptive ears would clearly hear the small animals frantically fleeing for their lives. Whatever the something-jaguars were doing, they remained oblivious.

    Or they don¡¯t care.

    Dalric followed them for a while, somewhere close to a full league, and as he suspected he remained completely untouched. Nothing even came close to their path.

    That said, when he briefly spread his ahjer sense up to a hundred eighty feet, he did notice some sort of other creature stalk them for a few moments before vanishing. Unfortunately, at that range his current sense didn¡¯t have the resolution to really make out much through the noise. What it was remained a mystery to him.

    On the foliage side, the encounters continued consistently. There wasn''t a stretch of land that didn''t boast some form of rare plant life, and yet the something-jaguars didn''t care for any of them in the slightest. They stopped for water once, but otherwise they jogged at the same pace the entire time.

    It wasn¡¯t until a third of the way through the journey, when they met an intersection, that Dalric realized the path they walked on lacked the level vegetation the rest of the jungle maintained. He had chastised himself for the oversight, but in truth his ahjer sense just wasn¡¯t that refined yet.

    Once he noticed, he felt confident in his decision to follow them. While well-trodden paths weren¡¯t necessarily a sign of anything other than consistent traffic, these specific paths reeked of organization. If one of their number wasn¡¯t Enlightened then there was a powerful beast master or tamer. That would work just as well, maybe even better.

    He''d find out soon. It was only a bit further before the something-jaguars finally slowed down. They reached... a checkpoint.

    A checkpoint?

    Two other something-jaguars stood in the middle of what he assumed was a barricade while a third one laid on an elevated stone platform. The two on the ground stood towards the edge of his senses¡¯ range, but he could tell that beyond the checkpoint the path sloped up. As he inched closer he got a sense it wasn''t just a raised path, but the makings of a hill.

    Whatever...interaction occurred at the checkpoint, it was quick. The three Dalric tailed swiftly bypassed the barricade and resumed their pace up the hill. He shifted away from the path to see if he could follow, but he immediately ran into a wall. Thick tree logs, stacked horizontally, stretched higher than the canopy. Even worse, from what he could sense, the hill beyond the wall laid completely barren. Simply flying over wasn''t an option. He drifted further from the path, just in case, but the only other opening in the wall had another checkpoint. His shadow ended here.

    That was fine though. He''d clearly reached the destination he was looking for, he just needed to find an alternate route. And he would, later. For now, he needed to process.

    So while the three jogged out of his sense''s range, Dalric settled down to review what he learned.

    They have checkpoints.

    That piece refused to unlodge itself from the center of his mind. For good reason, beasts didn''t have checkpoints. Even with a tamer or an Enlightened leading them, that level of understanding and organization would be beyond them. It was one thing to lay around in strategic positions and watch for threats, it was another to have what amounted to a border guard with watch towers. That, that was something only the Wyld would have.

    Could this be?

    He analyzed, re-analyzed, and overanalyzed every bit of his surroundings. The soil, the flowers, the weeds, the trees, even the rocks were scrutinized. It couldn''t be. The Wyld were ancient beasts, each well over ten thousand years old, and their lands matched. This jungle on the other hand was new. The trees weren''t even a thousand years old.

    Hmm. I could be approaching this incorrectly. This could be a new settlement in land the Wyld want to claim.

    He went back to the strange thickness of the ahjer.

    That would certainly be a reason to want this land. But..

    That train of thought led him back to the beginning. Where was he? Details didn''t add up. There was a graveyard, a clear sign of civilization. He couldn''t tell which specific race was responsible, but it didn''t matter. Every kingdom, clan, tribe, city-state, band of mercenaries, or anything in-between would fight desperately to claim land like this. Yet somehow the jungle is untouched? The graveyard was left to rot and the Wyld came in uncontested? That didn¡¯t sound believable.

    He threw away his assumptions and reapproached with only pure facts.

    First, he was human.

    ¡­

    It would seem he was not as over that detail as he''d like to believe, but he ignored that and focused on pertinent facts.

    First, the jungle is overflowing with ahjer and has been for decades, at minimum. At some point, it was visited by some form of civilization. Said civilization did not see it fit to settle. Hmmm. It could be that there is no overlap between those two points¡­ But even if the graves were built prior, surely they''d still be aware of this area? Why would it lay forgotten? Hmm¡­ anyway.

    The jungle has been overflowing with ahjer for decades. Wild and plant life has become extremely¡­ unique in that time. Of the wild life, there is a group of jaguar-like animals with a strong reputation, advanced organizational skills, a form of communication¡­ and also stonecutting.

    That last one just occurred to him. Not because he realized himself, but rather because a¡­

    Rhino? That¡¯s definitely a rhino.

    Two rhinos, in fact. Their forms were so distinct he could not mistake them for anything else, but their size bordered on miniature. They were smaller than the something-jaguars, in both height and musculature.

    The more I learn, the less I understand.

    He turned his attention to them as they approached the third checkpoint he ran into during his scans. Both of them had a wide cart filled with large chunks of stone attached to their back.

    For a moment, he wondered why this transaction would occur in the middle of the night, but then the question of ''how would they even communicate'' immediately displaced it. He had to know, it may be a clue.

    While the barricade and the approaching rhinos were both within his ahjer sense, they were not within earshot. If not for his blindness, he would have tried to rectify that with a spell. A part of him wanted to risk it, there was little lost in losing his hearing temporarily, but he decided against it. Lacking both sight and sound seemed like begging for disaster. So instead of gambling his senses, he cast a more powerful¡ªand costly¡ªconcealment spell and just moved closer.

    It was, in a way, a doomed effort. Carefully slaloming through trees was certainly a much slower process than a hurried straight line jog. Which meant the rhinos were always going to arrive at the barricade a bit before Dalric could get close enough. He tried to speed up, but he knew at best he''d miss the beginning of whatever their communication entailed. At worst, if they were as quick as the trio he first followed, he''d miss it entirely. He continued on either way.

    In the end though, he never needed to move.

    "Halt. Code?"

    "169. Master says quick. Disturbance."

    "Yeah, yeah. Come this way."

    Dalric froze.

    Hu¡ªbu¡­wait. What?!

 Chapter 4: The Mad

    Even after the rhinos were led away from the checkpoint, Dalric hadn''t moved. His mind lagged. His brain just couldn''t process what just happened. It felt like reality and illusion were intertwining. Was he going insane? He started to seriously consider if he was on another world.

    As foolish as that sounded, he couldn''t make sense of¡­ anything he''d seen. A certain amount of it was manageable and within the realm of ''not knowing what you don''t know''. He could chalk it down as ''expanding his horizons'' and be on his way.

    This? He just witnessed two unenlightened, regular, mundane animals speak the All-tongue. That wasn''t possible.

    Dalric didn''t even know if he could speak the All-tongue at the moment. It wasn''t just some simple arrangement of sounds, some pattern of ''ouhs'' and ''ahhs''. It was communication through ahjer. It was meaning manifested. It was what the Elders spoke.

    It was true, through means no one fully understood yet, that Enlightened beasts could speak it, but that was one of the reasons they were given the title Enlightened. The beasts that had just trotted away were just that, beasts. However organized they were, their ahjer didn¡¯t lie¡­ right?

    Should I not have moved so soon after my reincarnation? Has being reborn turned me mad?

    His sanity was under serious scrutiny. The facts in front of him could not be.

    Maybe I''ve not been reborn at all. Maybe I haven''t even died. Is this the madness of near death? I''ve deluded myself into thinking I''ve reincarnated. Come to think of it, even for the Gods, is that truly possible? The contract never mentioned it.

    A giant can¡¯t wake up a human. None of this made sense from the start. Maybe I¡¯m trapped in some reality of the Gods¡¯ forging? Maybe I¡ªNo. Impossible. The Dance.

    Impossible¡­ What is impossible? What¡¯s possible? What¡¯s anything? Have I just finally broken?

    He only managed to wrestle himself away from questioning his mental state when the rhinos came back, sans the chunks of stone.

    "Tonight is last until complete."

    "We know. Run along."

    Wait¡­ those rhinos are summons.

    He failed to notice that the first time, not for lack of ability.

    Well¡­

    Not entirely because of his lack of ability. They were very well made. All living summons required a high level of skill, but there were still tiers to the quality of summoning. Dalric himself, though he had the knowhow, had only ever managed the base level. At that level, summons didn''t have fully functioning organs. The two rhinos on the other hand were of such a high quality that they were almost indistinguishable from any other denizen of the jungle. If he hadn¡¯t specifically scrutinized them to re-confirm they weren¡¯t Enlightened, he¡¯d have never noticed.

    That revelation made their ability to speak the All-tongue more palatable. If the summoner could speak it themselves it was possible to impart that ability and considering the quality of their summons it wouldn''t be outlandish if they did.

    The others however¡­Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    It just didn''t make sense. They weren¡¯t summons, they weren¡¯t Enlightened, they were simple animals. Maybe more than just simple due to their strength and apparent intelligence, but certainly far and away from anything capable of speaking the All-tongue. It didn¡¯t make sense.

    Dalric tried to calm himself, but his mind betrayed him. It fought him every step of the way. He could feel it fraying again. Never had centering himself proved so difficult, fears of madness and delusion sought to overwhelm him while despair crept up from within. His body shook at the internal strife.

    ¡®Look for the sunshine.¡¯

    Laekna¡¯s words reverberated in his head. It took a few breaths, but they helped calm the storm. He didn¡¯t know anything. He didn¡¯t know anything. This was not the time for him to lose himself in hypotheticals. Whether he was hallucinating in some Frysta-like forgery or he¡¯d truly been reborn didn¡¯t matter. For the moment, he was free of the Gods¡¯ supervision. He had to act.

    He turned towards their walls and flapped his wings. He needed answers, and the questions he had wouldn¡¯t find a response with simple scouting. There was only so much he could learn out here. Plus, sleuthing never suited him anyway.

    "Enemy!"

    It was time he took a more direct approach.

    Dalric soared over the wall as loud roars rang beneath him. Chunks of heated metal set the trees he rose above ablaze. The metallic rings around their paws, while not weapons themselves, turned out to be part of a long range spell. Or possibly they were simply a source of ammunition.

    He didn''t think on it much, he had neither the time nor the mental space to. Their home had come into view.

    ¡°This...¡±

    He wasn¡¯t sure of the details, still sightless, but his sense was telling him more nonsense he couldn¡¯t believe. Before him stood a wall, a thick, elevated, brick-laid wall. But that¡¯s not what shook him, it was what the wall hid behind it.

    Houses.

    Not just mud huts or misshapen shacks, proper stone-built houses. They were only one storey high, but they were wide and had appropriately sectioned off rooms. They had bathrooms! Toilets! Not quite plumbing, at least as far as he could tell, but having bathrooms alone was astonishing. If this is what they had bordering the wall, what laid deeper within?

    ¡°This is a village!?¡±

    The proportions made it obvious it was designed for those of short¡ª

    One of the metal chunks finally hit him.

    ¡ªer stature. A race as small as humans could just about live there, but the doors were clearly for creatures who didn¡¯t have thumbs. That crossed out any valinbarns. More¡ª

    Another.

    ¡ªthan just direct valin descendants, though. It crossed out all valinoids. How many races on Frystal used swinging doors, but didn¡¯t have hands? Dalric couldn¡¯t think of a single one.

    This village... could it truly be the beasts'' home? What am I witnessing?

    Uninterested in the astonishment washing over Dalric, a thin beam of light shot towards his head. Unarmored as it was, he deftly dodged.

    With his daze broken, he turned his attention to the crowd below him.

    "Up up!"

    "What is that?"

    "I don''t know Madam."

    "Send!"

    "More shoot need!"

    "Gather the garrison!"

    "Too up.

    "How far is¡­"

    The words passed through Dalric without ceasing, his mind had once again been conquered by bafflement. So many voices, all of them speaking the tongue. Few were actually fluent. He heard many broken phrases, more broken phrases than actual sentences for that matter, but fluency was merely a matter of time. The greatest barrier came in communicating your first thought.

    He dodged the light beam again, this time noting more of its characteristics.

    Similar to Golden Ray, but¡­ cooler? In any case, it''s another heat-based spell. That seems to be their specialty. A clue, perhaps.

    "It''s futile. Bring the destroyer!"

    The what?

    He refocused on the voices below. One of the speakers clearly held some sort of leadership position. And they seemed to have a fairly good handle of the tongue.

    I suppose I could start w¡ª

    Dalric dove. A new assailant had stepped in range of his ahjer sense. They were Enlightened. His answers had arrived.

 Chapter 4.5: The Nyx

    "Mom! Dad! What happened?!"

    Raphaela dashed towards the procession of soldiers coming through the gate. They¡¯d been gone for so long and she¡¯d been worried sick. It was deep into the night now and they left for the Gathering at midday. Last time they went, they were back before sunset.

    Her father was usually at the front, leading the soldiers, but she couldn¡¯t spot him so she ran towards her mother¡¯s guards instead. None of the outer line of soldiers dared bar her way, not that they had the strength to. She easily wedged herself between them as she frantically called for her mother.

    "Mom! Where''s dad?!"

    Her mother didn¡¯t respond. She laid unconscious on a thin hammock held aloft by four of her guards. All four of them were injured, but nothing compared to her. While they all sported spinsilk bandages and excess healing ointments, only her mother still bled through them. Her father was still nowhere to be seen.

    "What in Aegeus¡¯ name happened!" She bellowed.

    "Be silent child. Now is not the time."

    Her aunt, Selene, trudged through the gate not long after her mother was carried through. She was also injured, but not enough to incapacitate her.

    Raphaela couldn''t possibly be silent. Never in her life had she wanted to scream more.

    "What happened to you all? What''s going on?"

    "Quiet. Come, I''ll explain once we''re inside."

    She didn¡¯t want to be quiet, she wanted answers. How could she stay silent and obedient when she could see her mother bleeding through her hammock. Where was her father? No. They needed to stop being quiet and answer her. She¡¯d force them to if she had to. And she planned on doing just that, until she caught a glimpse of what laid beyond the gate.

    Corpses. Many, many corpses. More than she¡¯d ever seen.

    She froze, ¡°What..ha¡­ hap¡ª¡±

    Selene averted her eyes, ¡°Enough child, come with me.¡±

    This time Raphaela listened.

    They both walked in silence until they reached the archon¡¯s castle. Even though it was meant to serve as her father¡¯s home, he never used it as such. Instead, it was reserved for important meetings, festivals, and ceremonies. Raphaela was born in it and would one day complete her coming of age in it. Today however, they would be conducting a funeral. A massive one¡­ and Raphaela had yet to see her father.

    Once inside the castle, the guards handed her mother off to more experienced medics. Her aunt assured her that she¡¯d be okay, but the sullen look in her aunt''s eyes gave her no confidence. She didn¡¯t dare ask where her father was. The answer may break her.

    Still in silence, she and her aunt made their way to the Hall of Heroes. Though it was called a hall it was actually just a large room within the castle. The largest room in fact. Within it, statues of every previous archon stood at attention, spiritually guarding it against their enemies. Paintings of each of their triumphs, be they in combat, art, or technology, adorned the walls. Holy scriptures, written in gold and outlining the core edicts of their colony, laid in cases next to them. Its name may have only mentioned the great leaders of the past, but the contents of the room were far richer than that.

    Also within this sacred chamber was an exceptionally detailed map stretched across a large table. This was the venue, under the guidance of those that walked before them, that any and all important discussion about the colony occurred in.

    ¡°Sit. We¡¯ll wait here for your uncles.¡±

    Only uncles? What about aun¡ªNo. Don¡¯t think about it. At least they lived. At least¡­ at least¡­ but dad...

    Raphaela shook her head. She wouldn¡¯t think about that until she saw him. Alive or¡­

    ¡­

    An hour passed before her uncles appeared. Only two of them walked through the door and they were both injured, heavily. Her uncle Cleon was missing a leg.

    Without saying a word, she ran to embrace him.

    He failed to withstand the weight of her hug, collapsing into a cuddle, "So strong! Already wrestling me to the ground huh?"

    Desperately, she so desperately wanted to joke back, but she just didn''t have the heart for it.

    He carefully rubbed her back, ¡°It¡¯s okay, it¡¯s okay.¡±

    She didn¡¯t know when she started crying, but by the time she unlatched herself from him, his shoulder was drenched. Seeing his soft smile, his attempts at reassuring her, only made the tears flow more. She didn¡¯t understand what was happening, everything was perfect just this morning. Why was the whole world upside down? Her advanced stealth training just started last month and her parents had been taking her out hunting every week. Their next hunt was supposed to be tomorrow. Now they were...they were¡­If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Before the streams of tears turned into hysterical waterfalls, her mother lumbered into the room.

    ¡°Mom!¡±

    She wanted to run to her mother immediately, but she stopped herself. Her mother didn¡¯t look good at all. The bleeding had subsided, but her face looked almost withered. Her whole body seemed shriveled and wilted. They weren¡¯t the typical signs of battle.

    ¡°Come my daughter.¡±

    Raphaela listened and walked towards her, slowly. As soon as she got close enough, they tapped foreheads.

    ¡°It¡¯ll be alright.¡±

    ¡°...Wha..what happened?¡± Raphaela was almost too afraid to ask anymore.

    Her mother heaved a heavy sigh, ¡°That is what we¡¯re here to determine.¡±

    ¡°We know what happened! We¡¯ve been betrayed! If not for Aegeus¡¯ blessing we¡¯d have all died there. They¡¯d have massacred us all!¡±

    Betrayed? The Gathering?

    Her mother slowly made her way to a seat as her other uncle continued yelling. She sat on the central one. The most prominent one. The one reserved for the leader of their colony... in taking that specific seat she had accidentally confirmed the thought Raphaela had been desperately avoiding. Her mother was now archon. Which meant her father wasn¡¯t. That meant..he was¡­

    ¡°Dead! They won¡¯t stop until they''ve killed us off and assimilated the rest. We must evacuate immediately. We must!¡±

    Cleon took a seat to her mother¡¯s right, ¡°Ewan. Stop. Have you no shame? You speak of running away in the presence of our ancestors?¡±

    ¡°This is no time for shame. They killed more than half of our combatants! If they sieged us now, what could we do?¡±

    ¡°First.¡± Her mother cut in, ¡°Let¡¯s ascertain the facts. What actually happened?¡±

    Everyone looked towards her aunt, the best spymaster and scout in their colony and probably in all the colonies.

    ¡°Ewan is correct, we were betrayed. After the Gathering of the Archons, we were all to begin our marches home as we do every year. Two of the archons didn¡¯t. They circled back with their armies and ambushed us in a pincer attack.¡±

    ¡°How did they manage to sneak around our scouts?¡±

    ¡°They didn¡¯t, they killed them. Swiftly and silently... It is my failing, I had grown complacent and gave that role to our most inexperienced. I¡­ I have been doing so for the last few years. It was meant to give the youth a taste of their future responsibilities. The thought that anyone would dare attack us never crossed my mind.¡± She bowed her head low, "I am deeply ashamed. I can not possibly apologize enough."

    Cleon attempted to comfort her, ¡°It is not your fault. No one could have expected such an ambush. The Gathering is a sacred event.¡±

    ¡°Sacred no longer. Aegeus may have saved us once, but now we must make the wise decision.¡±

    "To flee in shame Ewan? To forgo and forget all that we are? That is the wise decision?"

    Ewan recoiled a little at Cleon''s line of questioning, "Our..our foremost duty is to faithfully follow the path Aegeus provided us. Does the scripture not read ''be proud of who you are, but be humble in your dealings for the prelude to catastrophe is often pride.''? Does it not? Is it anything, but pride, that keeps us here fated to be consumed by the others? Would the humb¡ª"

    ¡°Enough, Ewan. The last, very last option is evacuation. We will not abandon these grounds.¡± Her mother stared him down. Even gaunt, her stare turned him meek. ¡°It is true the scripture says that pride preludes catastrophe, but it also says that ''To bill your ideals to pay for your life is to die in soul and walk as mere flesh.'' You believe that is the path Aegeus wishes for us, or is that the path you wish for us?"

    Ewan stammered, "No! I..its¡ªwe¡­" He seemed to deflate, "I apologize, but I still believe It should be considered."

    "If all other routes lead to failure, it will be. Now." She turned to Selene, "I only fought Fedon and his band of buffoons. He is no orchestrator. Who was the other?¡±

    ¡°Alexander.¡±

    Raphaela watched in awe as the air around her mother twisted and contorted. It appeared like reality bended to her rage.

    ¡°That disgusting rat. I should have known. No wonder he arrived so late. He was preparing."

    Raphaela''s vision of her mother continued to distort.

    "They have feared our power since his grandfather''s time. Years they¡¯ve been seeking a greater position and now they¡¯ve made their move. They will pay for this.¡±

    Cleon chimed in, ¡°Until you¡¯re healed, we¡¯re likely bottom of the pile now. Even below them.¡±

    Ewan mumbled, "Only likely?¡±

    How can they speak so calmly??

    ¡°Yes, only likely. Our strength had never been direct combat.¡±

    Ewan regained his posture, ¡°True, it has always laid in subterfuge, in ambush. Like the very same one we suffered from. They used our own tactics against us and it worked! We barely survived.¡±

    ¡°Speaking of which.¡± Her mother, no longer subverting Raphaela''s sight, redirected the conversation, ¡°Do we know what that was?¡±

    ¡°Aegeus¡¯ blessing no doubt.¡±

    ¡°Ewan, please. I¡¯m asking for specifics.¡±

    No one said a thing.

    ¡°So my ahjer soars from nothing, my guards suddenly gain strength at the brink of exhaustion and we have no understanding why or how? Cleon?¡±

    ¡°I already checked the hidden scriptures and there was no mention of it.¡±

    ¡°Serene?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of or seen anything like it. When things are more..settled. I''ll reach out to our spies in the other settlements.¡±

    ¡°Something to look into for the future then. Now we must discuss what t¡ª¡±

    One of Selene¡¯s top scouts burst through the door, his legs shaking.

    Ewan yelped, ¡°They¡¯re here!¡±

    ¡°Calm yourself! What news do you bring?¡±

    The scout was truly exhausted, ¡°An..an¡­ angel. An angel appe...appeared. It attacked the..the¡­¡±

    An angel?

    ¡°Take a moment. We¡¯re not understanding you.¡±

    The scout did just that, taking a moment to stabilize himself before delivering the news, ¡°An angel appeared in front of the Menos. They attacked it, but the angel can control the sky. They may all be dead.¡±

    Her mother looked around the table, but she only met confused expressions

    ¡°What?¡±

 Chapter 5: The Eighth

    Dalric smacked into the earth in front of the Enlightened. He had questions, many of them. Unfortunately, the rest of the village didn¡¯t take kindly to him crashing next to their front gate.

    And he was finally within range.

    "Charge!"

    Ten of them were on him in a flash, fiery hot claws sought to rend his flesh or tear into his armor. Dalric instantly built up ahjer in both of his hands before snapping his fingers.

    The sound the snaps produced was venomous, its waves concussive. No sooner had the vibrations left his finger than the ten were sent flailing backwards. Alas, the spell was weak and short ranged. Fifteen more took their place. He repeated it again, but its weakness showed, a number of the second batch were more resistant. Fighting through the wave, their claws managed to reach him.

    "Protect the Eighth!"

    They glanced off his armor mostly, but some caught his wings. They were merely ahjer constructs so he didn¡¯t feel much pain from the attack, but if they were damaged enough he¡¯d have to repeat the entire spell to reform them.

    That wouldn¡¯t do.

    The wings fluttered, reducing in size. Displaced ahjer burst outward as an oppressive gale. The massive gust of wind shot out in all directions, knocking the few clinging onto him away and pushing back the third wave already preparing their own attacks. Most of the something-jaguars rolled helplessly down the hill, but the enlightened one didn¡¯t. They continued to shoot the Golden Ray knockoff he dodged earlier. Dalric just continued to dodge them.

    "Regroup!"

    "Casualties?"

    "None dead, many sleepy."

    Dalric drowned out the voices coming from behind him.

    Now¡­

    He held his soul for a moment, gently caressing it. It felt familiar. He swiftly reached within. First, he summoned meaning and intent, then he carefully molded them to match what he wished to convey, and finally he grasped them and confirmed they were solid and fixed. To mild surprise, every step was instantaneous and effortless. All that was left was extraction, the highest hurdle.

    With a firm grasp on the thoughts-given-shape, he pulled. To little fanfare, they came. There wasn''t a hint of resistance, at any stage, the process was as easy as he remembered it.

    While not certain, he had an inkling that would be the case. It seemed his soul was truly unchanged even while his body had shifted. That begged even more questions, but he let that be for now.

    The mountain of answers he sought grew too steadily. He had to focus on the most pertinent points.

    ¡°Hel¡ª¡±

    He tried to talk to the Enlightened, but in his brief moment of laxity one of the something-jaguars that hadn¡¯t slipped down the hill, and acted concussed instead, snuck up behind him and got a clean hit on the back of his head. This one didn''t just have heated claws, it had fire burning within its paw. Even so, the damage it caused was minimal, mostly limited to singeing some of Dalrics hair. It did, however, put him off enough for the Enlightened to land one of their light beams right on his forehead. That did do some damage.

    He shrugged it off though. The skin right above his left eye was certainly split and bleeding, but not reacting yielded a greater chance of getting them to understand they were no match. And that he wasn''t trying to kill them.

    "Listen. I¡ª"

    A misshapen tube of metal smashed into his chest, sending him spiraling down the hill. He noticed it a blink before impact, his focus too taken by the all-tongue.

    A fair mistake the first time, a pathetic one the second.

    His spiral only lasted a single revolution however. He halted his descent almost immediately. A few tried to take the opportunity to put a mark on him, but they wouldn''t. Now, he was annoyed.

    "Charge!"

    As Dalric''s feet touched ground again, lightning zipped around his armor. When their paws came into contact, their bodies went limp. After four fell motionless at his feet, they stopped approaching. Lesson finally learned.

    He hadn''t killed them, but they''d be paralyzed for a few days. Even more if they failed to contain the little streaks wreaking havoc on their nervous systems.

    "It can¡ª"

    He shut out their voices as he rose ten feet off the ground and broadcasted his own, "Enough."

    His tone was firm, but he tried to keep his anger in check. It should be crystal clear that he was several steps beyond them.

    ¡°All I seek is to speak.¡±

    It should also be clear that he wasn¡¯t aggressive, he just needed some answers.

    Maybe now they''ll listen.

    They didn''t.

    He raised his left arm and hastily formed a misshapen wooden shield around it. Another one of those metal tubes gave it a warm welcome, piercing through. It didn''t reach far enough to harm him, but it did manage to push him back a bit, even though he''d prepped his wings for impact.

    This was starting to truly irritate Dalric.

    ¡°You refuse to speak?¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    A second tube found his shield, shattering it. He still couldn''t see what mechanism was firing at him, likely ''The Destroyer'', but that time he could hear it. It sounded vaguely like a cannon.

    It also sounded like they were reloading.

    Dalric growled, "Fine."

    He extended an arm upwards and projected his ahjer into the sky. Clouds congregated and thunder roared in response. When he let his hand fall, lightning rained.

    Tens of streaks of lightning fell dramatically from the heavens. They moved much slower than actual lighting, but that only made their descent more menacing. Unlike natural lightning, the type Dalric summoned was thick, each bolt wider than he, and their destructive potential was similarly expanded. A single one could kill twenty. As a conglomeration, the village would be destroyed.  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    All around him, heads tilted up and movement halted. Even the distant cannoneers had stilled. No one stirred as they gazed at the skies above. If any of them were too weak to feel the destructive power falling on top of their home, the beaming lights effortlessly cutting through the night sky would speak of the danger it was in. Danger they had no hope of defending against.

    Dalric paused and turned his full attention back down. He couldn''t read expressions or emotions, but knew full well what they were experiencing. They felt death¡¯s arrival.

    Before it did arrive, he caught himself.

    What am I doing? Not even under the Gods¡¯ hex and I¡¯m still letting death lead me.

    His mind immediately raced for a means to save the beast¡¯s and their home. They may not have been Enlightened, but they were sapient¡­ somehow. He shouldn¡¯t have been so callous with their lives. His emotional state shouldn¡¯t fall on their heads.

    The purple lightning crossed into his sense¡¯s range as his brain still scrambled for a solution. None came. At least none that were actionable in the seconds he had before impact. Unfortunately, he couldn¡¯t h¨Churt¡­ himself¡­

    I don¡¯t feel resistance.

    His eyes went wide. Before the slow falling lightning could decimate most of the hill, he hastily reached his right hand up and called it towards himself. He took a deep breath and strengthened his body. The streaks of lightning began converging in his palm.

    The pressure was immediate. Even with his body strengthened his muscles screamed in protest, his blood felt like it boiled within his body, and his armor bent and cracked. He had to lower himself to the ground to endure it. A decision that proved even wiser moments later when his wings gave out.

    He held firm though.

    He tried to keep a part of his mind tracking his surroundings, but he quickly gave that up. If he let his control slip for even a moment, the entire strength of the spell would explode outward from his palm. That would save the village, and most of the hill, but everything around him would be destroyed. Including himself.

    Though. True death was evidently beyond him. Or maybe it wasn¡¯t, he didn¡¯t really understand anything at the moment.

    A temporary death would be beyond him for now at least. After a few shaky moments, the rain of lightning finally ceased. Without the ahjer powering it, the mini vortex of destruction it left in his palm dissipated soon after. His folly had charred his right arm black, but he was content. He avoided catastrophe.

    Death was his closest kin, always in parallel, so he knew he¡¯d kill again. That did not mean the death had to be wanton. He''d been given new hands, he could wait for something meaningful before he had to stain them.

    A deep, long breath passed through him, tinged with more exhaustion than he expected. Whether it''s source was his physical exertion, mental fatigue, or emotional instability, only the Elders knew.

    Why can I hurt myself now?

    Another question he didn¡¯t have time for right now.

    He turned towards the Enlightened. He still couldn¡¯t see, but he believed it better to look at someone when you spoke to them.

    ¡°Are you done now?¡±

    They didn¡¯t reply. He, if Dalric had his anatomy correct. He gave him a few moments to steady himself. The rest of the something-jaguars were frozen in place as well after all. When those moments continued to tick on, however, he got worried.

    Dalric was certain the one in front of him was Enlightened so he must have known the All-tongue. If a mere border guard could speak it, there was no way he couldn''t.

    The strangeness of his circumstance actually led him to considering a world where that was the case, but thankfully reality had yet to warp that much.

    It just took him a while to compose himself.

    The Enlightened¡¯s voice was youthful, full of uncertainty, ¡°What¡­" There was a long pause, "Who are you? How do you know the tongue?¡±

    Dalric, internally, sighed in relief. The apparent youthfulness was still odd, but he¡¯d been experiencing much weirder

    Now how do I go about this¡­

    ¡°I am a man with questions¡ª¡±

    Dalric strode forward as his ahjer poured out of him and formed a five fathom dome around the two of them. It frightened the enlightened at first, likely fearing another deadly spell, but it seemed he was knowledgeable enough to know what the dome was. A ¡®voice¡¯ barrier. Nothing they said could be heard outside of it, nothing anyone said outside could be heard within.

    ¡°¡ªbut out of respect I''ll answer yours first. My name is Dalric and I am a traveller. I learned the tongue from an elder of mine.¡±

    He suddenly perked up, ¡°Which elder?¡±

    ¡°You presume to know my elders?¡±

    Hm?

    There was an unnaturally long pause as Dalric noticed him fidget in place, "Does their name begin with ''A''"?

    What?

    It was common knowledge, common to those who could speak the tongue, that the Enlightened either didn''t know how they learned or fiercely guarded the secret. Many of the most popular theories posited it was some system set in place by the Elders. Was he about to get concrete evidence?

    Wait. ''A''. That''s not just any a. That''s the Hellgurian alphabet¡­hm. Okay, let¡¯s play.

    "It does actually. Yo¡ª¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    Dalric noted the eagerness but kept a firm grip on the conversation, ¡°You think we have the same teacher?"

    ¡°No one taught me! I always knew."

    Ah¡­ right. That''s more in line, but.. this feels like a facade. His behavior is much too childlike to run a village like this.

    The Enlightened pushed, "What¡¯s their name?"

    "They wouldn''t like me sharing that."

    That dampened his energy a bit, "Why not?"

    Dalric thought through his words carefully, but settled on simplicity, "It''s not my name to share. They value privacy. But on that." He pointed behind him, "Were you the one that taught your.. fellows?"

    "Why would I do that?" He could almost feel the snort. "Someone else handles that."

    Someone else¡­ By the Elders they really were taught..

    "You sure you can''t tell me who your elder is?"

    "Is it important?"

    "...maybe. Just tell me."

    A number of competing thoughts raced through Dalric''s mind. Chief of them, someone in the village could teach beasts the All-tongue. How? It would be easier to teach a stone speech.

    Who could accomplish that? Was it another.. something-jaguar? A valinbarn? Something else entirely?

    It couldn¡¯t possibly be an actual Elder, Dalric was sure of that. If he later learns that the creators of all things came back to sit around in a jungle and teach overgrown cats he¡¯d willingly and completely submit to madness.

    "Before I can trust you with my elder¡¯s name, why don¡¯t you tell me yours? I¡¯ve given you mine after all."

    He fidgeted some more, but eventually responded, ¡°Eighth.¡±

    ¡°...As in the ¡®Eighth¡¯ day?¡±

    ¡°What other Eighth is there?¡±

    Okay¡­ maybe it''s not a facade. That name confirms they''re not part of the Wyld at least. Is that a good thing?

    ¡°Alright Eighth, I might be able to tell you more about my elder, but you¡¯re going to have to tell more about your village first.¡±

    Eighth instantly grew fearful, ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°If I wanted to harm you all, you¡¯ve seen I¡¯m capable. I¡¯m just curious about a few things.¡±

    He started fidgeting again, but he quickly stilled himself as his gaze drifted to Dalric¡¯s left. The downside of the barrier was that while it blocked out the tongue, it also hampered his ahjer sense. His unfocused sense couldn¡¯t ¡®see¡¯ anything outside of it. When he focused, however..

    They can write¡­ and that looks like Hellgurian again.

    Painstakingly skipping past the fact they had a grasp over a written human language, Dalric focused on reading the sign held up behind him.

    Ar-chon spot-ted do best de-lay it. It?

    Besides him being referred to as an ¡®it¡¯, the message was clear. The actual leader approached. While that should have been a good thing, the stand-in he¡¯d been speaking to seemed easy to maneuver. It was just a matter of time with him. Now, clear answers would likely take longer to reach.

    Both an annoyed sigh and a tired yawn fought to be released. Both were swallowed.

    Dalric just hoped this mystery leader at least caught a glimpse of Lightning Rain. Even though it was the weakest version he¡¯d ever cast, it clearly left a strong impression. He had no interest in having to repeat the song and dance with something else.

    ¡°My father will be here soon. He knows everything!¡±

 Chapter 6: The Nightmare

    On top of a barren mound, peaking above fields of luminescent leaves, two shadows stirred. One twitched in barely restrained anger, while the other merely shook their head.

    Alexander, the Seventh did neither. He frowned.

    Everything had been perfect. Perfectly planned, perfectly prepared, perfectly executed. And yet..

    And yet.

    ¡°What now?¡±

    He turned towards the incompetent fool he unfortunately called ¡®partner¡¯, ¡°We march home. The blow has been dealt, fatal or not.¡±

    The gorilla-sized lemur clearly didn¡¯t like that response, ¡°What!? They still have four Blessed! We can¡¯t absorb them like this!¡±

    Six.

    Alexander, the Seventh didn¡¯t care for Fedon¡¯s theatrics nor his stupidity, ¡°If you want to follow them, go ahead.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not the plan!¡±

    Alexander, the Seventh stared at him for a moment, but made the wise decision to simply walk away. One of his own could placate him.

    "Hey! Th¡ª"

    Oops.

    Fedon slumped to the ground. Unconscious. The brainless pile of muscle was even less vigilant that he assumed. He looked around for one of Fedon¡¯s handlers, but there were neither Blesseds nor Touched in view. Irritation invaded him.

    He knew their Touched numbers had been heavily diminished¡ªthe Nyx, even ambushed, were formidable¡ªbut all of their Blessed had survived. What nonsense were they up to?

    Alexander, the Seventh sneered and turned away. Whatever they were up to, he didn¡¯t care. Their ¡®partnership¡¯ had run its course.

    His wife stepped beside him, "Could we call this a failure?"

    "Would you?"

    "Fedon spoke true, we can not absorb them like this. But. A few of the others can. If they hear of their weakness, they would not hesitate. Your.. impatience with him will not aid in sealing his lips."

    Alexander, The Seventh snorted, "A willing fool deserves no patience."

    They descended the mound and rejoined the tree-laden jungle. Their retinue laid a mere handful of strides within.

    "In respect to our original objective, we have failed. However, we''ve lost little and the door of opportunity still sways open. Even wider than before. New problems arise, but we need just find their solutions."

    It was Sofia''s turn to snort, "You mean you''ll task me to find them?"

    "Who else my love?" He rubbed his cheek against hers.

    "My my. Little Seventh getting so bold."

    "I remember when he¡ª"

    "Yes, yes. We were all once cubs." He cut the two crones off before their monologues could begin in earnest.

    Nuisances.

    "We march!"

    And so they began the long march home. While they did so, they spoke of the future. What would need to be done, what could be done, what shouldn''t be done. What they didn''t speak about, was what had happened.

    No one spoke of the air choking them with ahjer, or of the wells within them bursting into geysers, but he knew they all thought of it. How could they not? It snatched a perfect victory right out of their paws.

    He, like all the others, heard the Nyx thanking Aegeus as they retreated. They were left to ponder. Could that have truly been his intervention? None dared believe so, so none dared speak on it.

    They marched while discussing the future.

    They marched while hoping for the future.

    They marched, until they witnessed Aegeus'' wrath descend upon their home.

    Suddenly, marches turned to sprints.

    <hr>

    Father? Parent-child Enlightends? Rare, but it seems that¡¯s common at the moment.

    ¡°Fine. We¡¯ll wait.¡±

    The dome around the two fell apart.

    I suppose I should prepare.

    ~The earth listens for I command it~ This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    Ambient ahjer amassed in the soil below Dalric, shooting a large column of dirt into the air. The column violently shrunk as Dalric compacted the dirt to make it sturdier and more cohesive. With the aid of some of his own ahjer, he whittled down the column until it was in the shape of a regal chair.

    ~Where I walk, life follows~

    Upon the earthen throne, ahjer gathered and grew a soft, foam-like layer of dead moss. It covered the backrest, seat, and arms, leaving Dalric no room for discomfort. A luxury, and a statement. He briefly paused and debated whether to take it further, but recalling the something-jaguars stubborn insistence on fighting him made his decision for him. This wasn¡¯t enough, he had to be grander than grand.

    He took a seat, his back facing the village.

    ~It is not the throne that gives me power over this land, it is my power over this land that gives me the throne~

    A mouthful of an incantation, but the spell was extensively intricate. Casting the baby version of Lightning Rain and then absorbing it had sapped him of two-thirds of his strength, wasting any more of his ahjer on complex spells would just be unwise. Even if it did irk his pride somewhat.

    Dalric stretched out his senses while the spell did its work. He observed the nervous, slow, and hesitant movements. His once eager assailants now moved as if an errant paw would bring demise to their people. It brought a bittersweet expression to his face. The halfway between a smile and a grimace. The Enlightened, to his credit, seemed more excited than anything. He stared at the spell with childish awe.

    Eighth, huh? And the leader is his father. Seventh? Surely not¡­ I wonder if the rank and file have names. What could be more impersonal than numeric counting?

    As Dalric let his mind wander towards trivial topics, the spell continued to churn. Again, the performance of incantations disappointed him, but with less than a fifth of his ahjer left he just had to make do. Seventh, may yet be an actually dangerous adversary and appearances meant little in the face of true strength.

    Dalric hoped he wasn¡¯t and that his preparations would be enough, but one never knew. He certainly didn¡¯t know. What did he know?

    The sigh escaped this time.

    I¡¯m exhausted.

    His body sunk deeper into the moss. He vaguely wondered if he had the energy levels of a newborn as well. It had been somewhere between a bell and two bells since he was reborn. Possibly, three. Whatever the case, he should not be so physically drained. Yet, he was and the way the moss welcomed him further sapped his energy. His body was ready for sleep and sleep was ready for it. So as the spell finally finished, they met. Dalric didn¡¯t have an ounce of resistance in him as dreamland ushered him in.

    ¡­

    ..

    .

    ¡°Ay! I ain¡¯t ever see nun ya ¡®round here before. You hunters?¡±

    I took another puff of purple ork dust as I peered at the three armored guards that approached our section of the tavern. Of course, because I was a giant they looked straight at me for answers. Elders knew I had nothing to say to them though.

    ¡°Yes sir, we are. Here to collect a bounty on some rogue knights.¡± Silva handled it, as he usually did.

    ¡°Rogue knights?¡± The one in the middle turned towards the whispers on his left, ¡°Ah Brinston and dem boys. Well. Stay outta trouble. I don¡¯t wanna hear nothin¡¯ about nothin¡¯ with y¡¯all. Understand me?¡±

    His gaze lingered on me in particular, but I just shrugged.

    Silva responded again, ¡°Yes sir, we¡¯ll do our best.¡±

    ¡°Better do.¡±

    The trio swiftly turned around and left the tavern. With them gone, the atmosphere livened up again.

    I stuck my hand out towards Ryne, ¡°That¡¯ll be one hundred great pieces please.¡±

    He grumbled, but inevitably forked over the coin. We¡¯d wagered on how many guards would come up to us on our first day and Ryne foolishly lowballed it just because I¡¯m not the only giant around. Alexandria may have been one of the most diverse cities on the continent, but that didn¡¯t mean people would turn a blind eye to an almost thirty foot mammoth walking around. I¡¯m not complaining about his poor choices though, free coin for me.

    ¡°Told you not to take that bet, I¡¯ve known Dalric personally for almost two centuries now and he still freaks me out.¡±

    Sensible words, Ryne complained anyway, ¡°There are soo many giants here though!¡±

    I scoffed, ¡°Seven is hardly ¡®soo many¡¯.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s more than I¡¯ve seen in my whole life up ¡®til now.¡±

    ¡°First of all, you¡¯re young. Second, that¡¯s a good thing. I¡¯m an outlier as far as giants go. We rarely mix well with others. If you see more than ten of us at once, you should probably run.¡±

    ¡°Ugh.¡±

    The rest of the night went as it often did. We talked, got some food and drinks around, and swapped stories of the adventures we¡¯d gone on since our last meet up. This sort of get-together used to be a frequent thing, but current circumstances just didn¡¯t allow it. Too much risk. That just meant I had to treasure them more when they did come around.

    Silva¡¯s voice boomed through the building as we got back to the rented manor, ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear any complaints in the morning, we¡¯re leaving bright and early!¡±

    The rest of us replied in unison, ¡°Aye, aye captain!¡±

    ¡°Shut up and go to sleep.¡±

    We shared a laugh and went into our separate rooms. None of us naturally needed to sleep anymore, but we spent the night drinking what most people would consider liquid plague. Even with a healer in our ranks, we¡¯d need a few bells to recover fully.

    I carefully rolled into bed. Even though the manor specifically catered to multiple races, the beds still weren¡¯t quite made for someone of my size. They creaked loudly as they strained to support my weight. My legs dangled off, but conveniently right at the knee. All things considered, for a bed that no doubt never had a customer my height or weight, it held up nicely. I could comfortably drift off into sleep.

    So this is what you¡¯ve run off to do.

    My eyes bulged, ¡°How?!¡±

    Come now Dalric, you thought some dust would be enough to escape your contract?

    I froze. Out of panic, out of fear, out of disbelief. I could only stare wide-eyed at the ceiling. I should have been safe, I should have been clear! They shouldn¡¯t have been able to find me!

    They¡¯re nonbelievers aren¡¯t they Dalric? You know we can¡¯t have that.

    .

    ..

    ...

    Later, resting uncomfortably in his throne, Dalric felt a nudge. His eyes snapped open in alertness. The faces of four different Enlightened beasts greeted them.

    His nightmare immediately faded to the background. Vigilance and focus took center stage.

    I fell asleep. How did I let myself fall asleep? What kind of idiocy is that?!

    While the vast majority of his mind aggressively berated himself for the colossal, monumental blunder he just made, a tiny part of him smirked.

    They were tigers.

 Chapter 7: The Menos

    Dalric sat speechless. The fact that there were four more Enlighteneds amongst the tigers contributed to that, but it was mostly the fact he foolishly let himself fall asleep. Right in front of their village and on a makeshift throne, he slept. He could blame his body for the blunder, it had felt entirely spent, but his mind should have been sharper than that. Much sharp¡ª

    Dalric blinked. His first one since awaking.

    This is...

    His throne was no longer makeshift.

    It was golden. Thicker, wider, and taller than before, it held enough space for two more Dalrics to sit by his side. It was large to the point of excess, Dalric himself surely looked small in his seat. For the entire frame to be gold as well, even if they didn''t understand the symbolism of it, the gaudiness was beyond blatant.

    It didn''t end there either.

    Nine columns circled the golden throne. Each taller than the previous, they formed a sort of impractical staircase. Statues in Dalric¡¯s likeness adorned all, but one. On the tallest column, the highest seat, a golden sun radiated.

    Dalric didn¡¯t just sit on a lavish throne, he sat upon a replica of what once was the greatest seat of power in the world.

    There was arrogance, arrogance, and then there was this.

    Before he spoke a word, he stood. His ahjer burst from within him and broke down every last remnant of his conjured Golden Sun. The action spooked the tigers, likely making the coming discussion more difficult, but it was a necessity all the same. The sun may have set on their empire, but there were still plenty of goldbloods running around. They would certainly see this as a slight if they heard of it and in his current state one of them could very easily turn him into one of those golden statues.

    As it was his own creation, it only took a handful of blinks for the throne to disappear. He used that brief window of time to take in all the visual information he¡¯d been lacking.

    Tigers. Blue tigers. He¡¯d seen tigers in a host of different pigments before, but never dark blue. Their stripes weren¡¯t white either, but an inky black instead. Color aside, they were much larger than any he¡¯d known too. The one that nudged him, the only male of the four new arrivals, looked him in his eye as he did so. Dalric towered over him when he stood, but his seated height was almost six feet tall. The females were a bit shorter, but combined with their lengths of over double that figure they were all still massive by feline standards.

    Obviously, all of them ranked in the top four for strongest beings he¡¯d encountered so far. The male stood out even among his.. peers though. Dalric assumed that would be the ¡®father¡¯ he¡¯d be speaking to.

    Once the gilded throne was gone and they were merely five beings standing at the edge of a grassy hill, he spoke to them, ¡°Hello, my name is Dalric. I hear one of you lead this village?¡±

    He didn¡¯t get the reaction he expected.

    ¡°Eighth spoke true!¡±

    ¡°The angel speaks the tongue!¡±

    Angel? The wings?

    His nightmare briefly drifted out of the corner of his mind that he¡¯d shoved it in, but he hastily dragged it back.

    As he did so, one of the females, the one that hadn¡¯t reacted to him speaking the All-tongue, responded in the male¡¯s stead, ¡°Dalric, a peculiar name. What are you, ¡®Dalric¡¯?¡±

    The All-tongue was spoken through ahjer, not vocal cords, so what one¡¯s voice sounded like was malleable. Not easily, one¡¯s words were expressions from their soul, but with effort there was room for adjustments in how one conveyed themself.

    The voice of the female that spoke felt much more mature than Eighth¡¯s. There was a mystique to it, a bit of insidiousness as well. They seemed to see themselves as something of a schemer.

    Dalric wasn¡¯t fond of those types, ¡°I believed I asked my question first. I also introduced myself before doing so.¡±

    She stepped forward, ¡°I am Arch Sofia Menos. I speak for the Archon. Now, what are you?¡±

    Huh. Not only a proper name, a surname as well. On top of that, they have a titled hierarchy¡­ and it¡¯s all in Hellgurian.

    ¡°Alright, Arch Menos. Though I once had wings, I am no angel. I am human.¡±

    That garnered another strong reaction.

    ¡°A human that speaks the tongue?!¡±

    ¡°Aegeus¡¯ descendant has arrived!¡±

    The male spoke for the first time, ¡°Be silent or leave.¡± His voice had much more steel than all the others. It commanded respect, sounding both aged and stern. The voice you¡¯d expect of a leader.

    ¡°Our promised ruler appears and you ask for silence?¡±

    ¡°You would betray Aegeus to keep your position, Seventh?¡±

    Promised ruler?

    Dalric didn¡¯t think their conversation was something he was meant to hear, but he¡¯d gained some valuable information from it. For one, Eighth¡¯s father¡¯s name was truly Seventh. More importantly, there was a leadership position even above the ¡®Archon¡¯. A position once held by an ¡®Aegeus¡¯.

    Was that the ¡®A¡¯ he was looking for?

    As Dalric noted that Aegeus was a Hellgurian name, a barrier formed around Seventh and the two tigers he¡¯d been speaking to. He clearly wanted to continue their conversation in private and the tongue was not a ¡¯language¡¯ to be whispered.

    Sofia was not included in their exclusive talk.

    ¡°Why have you come Dalric? You claimed to be a traveler?¡±

    ¡°I did not seek you out.¡± Whatever was going on here, he had no interest in talks of ¡®promised rulers¡¯. He simply wanted information. He communicated as much, ¡°I stumbled upon your village and came to ask questions.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    ¡°You attacked us.¡±

    ¡°I was attacked first. I allowed multiple assaults on my person while I stated my intent.¡± He raised his still charred arm, ¡°And I sustained far greater damage than any else.¡±

    The fact that said damage was self-inflicted and a result of him almost destroying their home did not need to be noted.

    There was a brief lull as she mulled over his words. The barrier fell in that time. Almost immediately as it did, the two other female tigers turned away. Dalric didn¡¯t know the first thing about reading any of a tiger¡¯s physical expressions, but he could still tell there was some tension between the three. The moment the two took their steps a new barrier formed around Seventh and Sofia.

    A secretive one.

    Dalric didn¡¯t mind though. It gave him some time to look around. The first thing he did was follow the duo''s path behind him. It led to the village¡¯s gate. He sensed it was open and he wanted to see what was beyond it with his eyes.

    Oh? Which came first?

    At the top of the ten foot gate, there was a sign that read ¡®Menos¡¯. Whether that was the name of the village and Sofia was named after it or her¡­ family lineage were the Menos and they owned the village, he¡¯d have to ascertain. The former would be, while still far from normal, not completely outlandish. The latter¡­

    At some point he¡¯d have to stop being shocked.

    Past the stone sign, which he noted was dark blue, as were the bricks in the wall, his eyes fell on the houses at the edge. They were a lot cruder than his sense had detected. They lacked the fine craftsmanship of even ancient civilizations; their stone blocks were poorly cut and even more poorly placed. That didn¡¯t make them any less impressive as the product of tigers though. Add the fact that their roads were paved, they had light fixtures, a well, and the center of the village had a castle and Dalric could do little more than shake his head.

    Aegeus¡­ a beastmaster? I don¡¯t believe there are any that can tame an Enlightened. And I know there aren¡¯t any that can teach a beast the tongue. Did they develop their society after he passed? But they said ¡®ruler¡¯. Why would he promise a bunch of plain beasts a ¡®ruler¡¯? He wouldn¡¯t. So then?

    The second barrier dropped as he pondered. He didn¡¯t wait for them to speak.

    He turned to Seventh, ¡°So when will the Archon introduce themself?¡±

    To his credit, he responded confidently, ¡°I am Alexander, the Seventh. Archon of the Menos.¡±

    Ahh, I see. ¡®The¡¯ Seventh. That¡¯s a long line¡­ were they all Enlightened?

    Alexander continued, ¡°What are your questions, Dalric?¡±

    Dalric had quite a few, but there was one that had become paramount, ¡°Who is Aegeus to you?¡±

    ¡°Who is he to you?¡±

    ¡°Aegeus is ¡®who is he to you¡¯ to you?¡±

    Alexander growled at that. Dalric just stared. He refused to relinquish control of the conversation. The pace was his to set.

    Their staring match didn¡¯t last long before Sofia spoke up, ¡°Aegeus is a dear figure to us. We do not take, or share, our relationship with him lightly.¡±

    Speaking as if he¡¯s alive. Misdirection?

    ¡°That so? ¡®Dear figure¡¯ is quite vague. His descendant is meant to rule you.¡±

    ¡°You are not his descendant.¡±

    Dalric nodded, ¡°I am not.¡± Then he paused

    He¡¯d awoken at a graveyard in the middle of the jungle, no nearby civilization. Or as he¡¯d come to find out, only Enlightened civilization. The tombs were human-sized and their occupants were powerful enough to spawn Remnants. Aegeus could be buried there.

    That potential brought a question to Dalric¡¯s mind that he was astounded hadn¡¯t appeared before.

    This new body¡­ does it have parents?

    ¡°Good.¡±

    Dalric barely noted Alexander¡¯s response to his statement. He suddenly wasn¡¯t sure if it was true or not. Backtracking, he could see that the moment he¡¯d identified his ahjer quantity as a result of being a fresh reborn, his mind had completely discounted the idea of sires. He¡¯d been so caught up in the emotions and larger implications of his reincarnation that he didn¡¯t consider the basics.

    In his defence, it was completely possible that his body didn¡¯t have parents. Humans were one of the only three valin descendants that were a product of careful creation rather than incessant lust. The ability to create souls was lost, but there were several lesser spells that allowed one to mimic human forms.

    If the Gods could reincarnate his soul, creating a human body to house it was a meager task in comparison.

    Another realization dawned on him.

    Can I hurt myself because this is not the body defined in the contract?

    Before he could delve deeper down that line of thought, Alexander spoke again, ¡°What do you glare for?¡±

    Dalric quickly relaxed his face, ¡°What do I glare for?¡± Then came up with a plan, ¡°The way you said ¡®good¡¯ leads me to believe you would have been hostile if I said I was.¡±

    ¡°You are not who was promised.¡±

    ¡°Is that something you know, or what you would like to believe to keep your seat?¡±

    Dalric still didn¡¯t care for the prophesied position, especially now that it was possible it was actually meant for him. His true goal was to put pressure on Alexander. There was clearly some truth to the notion that he didn¡¯t want to relinquish his position and if Dalric posed himself as a credible threat to it, he¡¯d be incentivized to get rid of him. Lacking the strength to overpower him, he¡¯d have no recourse. Aside from the one Dalric would then provide him.

    There was a quiet aggression to the Archon¡¯s voice now, ¡°You said so yourself.¡±

    ¡°A test. Here¡¯s another, how many among you can speak the tongue?¡±

    The aggression was stoked with a bit more anger, ¡°What are you testing?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re worthiness.¡±

    There was a small flame now, ¡°I refuse to participate!¡±

    Small streaks of lightning started forming across Dalric¡¯s body, ¡°Refuse? Who said you were allowed to?¡±

    A burning fire, ¡°I did!¡±

    He stepped forward as they rapidly grew and began bouncing around, ¡°And who gave you that power?¡±

    Alexander¡¯s fire flickered, ¡°I.. I don¡¯t need another¡¯s power to speak for myself.¡±

    Dalric took another step, ¡°You do not speak for yourself, you speak against me. So tell me, who gave you that power?¡±

    The lightning was a party trick, it held no offensive capability. Few who sensed it would think that, though. To all but the most discerning, they¡¯d seem no less destructive than the purple streaks of Lightning Rain. By the silence he heard, neither Alexander nor Sofia saw through it.

    Perfect.

    Preparations complete, he reached a hand out and sent his ahjer into the earth below their paws. To both of their credit, they realized the spell was being cast and both attempted to flee. Dalric was just faster. In a blink, the Archon found three of his legs deep in the dirt.

    Sofia escaped, but that was part of the plan. Once she¡¯d step further than a fathom away, Dalric cast a second spell.

    ~No siege can conquer my walls~

    He supplemented the spell with his own ahjer so before Sofia could cast any spells of her own, a ten foot by ten foot wall of marble separated them. It swiftly turned into two walls, then four, then a completely covered cube. As it covered the ground beneath his feet, it further locked Alexander in place.

    It was the tiger¡¯s turn to glare at him. At least Dalric interpreted the facial expression for a glare.

    ¡°There are two ways this goes, Seventh.¡± He bent down, ¡°Either you pass my test.¡± He paused and flashed an ominous smile, ¡°Or I go see if Eighth is worthy.¡±

    The glare vanished right in front of his eyes.

    So too did the fire, ¡°What¡­ happens if I pass?¡±

    Dalric smiled, genuinely this time.

 Chapter 8: The Wyld

    Sofia had given it a few attempts. He heard several heavy impacts on his walls, but she quickly gave up. Whether it was the strength of the wall or she realized that even if she broke it she didn¡¯t have the strength to rescue Alexander, only she knew. Either way, it had been silent since.

    Dalric nodded, ¡°So the two that left, Irida and Ilektra, are burdened with teaching your people the tongue?¡±

    ¡°Yes, though it is not a burden. It is a highly respected position.¡±

    It better be.

    Dalric had only barely come to terms with it being possible.

    ¡°Why them?¡±

    ¡°The Third created the tradition of giving the oldest Blessed that had not held the role of Archon the position. The two are twins.¡±

    There¡¯s that term again. ¡®Blessed¡¯. I¡¯m almost certain now that it means Enlightened, but then what does ¡®Touched¡¯ mean?

    ¡°A Touched can not hold the role?¡±

    ¡°That¡­ would be insulting to our Blessed.¡±

    ¡°Even if the Touched held the most seniority?¡±

    ¡°I have never known a Touched to live long and not become Blessed. But¡­¡± Alexander seemed to carefully choose his words, ¡°While we are thankful for the favor that our Touced were shown, they were not bestowed enough finesse with their souls to be able to properly instruct others.¡±

    ¡­ What does that even mean? There¡¯s a middle point between unenlightened and Enlightened?

    There was little known about the process of becoming Enlightened to be fair. No one had ever witnessed a creature make the transition. Many had investigated it and it was generally believed that animals became enlightened through the same means that inanimate objects manifested souls, ahjer purity, but both were unproven theories. With neither observation nor experimentation, they were largely built on the fact that there was a direct correlation between ahjer purity and a non-sapient¡¯s intelligence.

    Cyan¡¯s scholars used to theorize that sapience itself was a mere byproduct of high ahjer purity.

    The fact he remembered that surprised him. He had disregarded the theory almost as soon as he heard it, there were simply too many holes in its supposition. Now, with everything he was learning about the Menos, he wondered if the old fools were actually on to something.

    ¡°How many of you are Touched?¡±

    ¡°Fifteen.¡±

    ¡°How many are Blessed?

    ¡°Six.¡±

    Elders¡­ there¡¯s still another one.

    He could see why the predators had left the trio he¡¯d first come across alone. Six Enlighteneds in one group was simply outrageous. Even though most seemed to be on the weaker side, if they all got to Alexander¡¯s strength, they¡¯d be collectively stronger than Dalric was now. Unlikely that anything in the jungle could contend with that. He didn¡¯t know what to make of the fifteen half-steps they added on top as well. How long was ¡®long¡¯?

    ¡°On average, how long do your Touched live before becoming Blessed?¡±

    ¡°If born Touched, Aegeus tends to bless them within ten years. Otherwise, I would guess the average is forty years.¡±

    Dalric fought his face arduously. He told himself he had to stop being shocked by everything, but the world had to play its part as well and stop sending him such shocking information. Ten years? Forty would be ludicrously quick in the first place. If animals only had to live forty years to become an Enlightened, Enlighteneds would be everywhere. Ten though? Ten?

    Even if he managed to put that aside, the other bit of information he learned was just as staggering. Their use of the terms ¡®Blessed¡¯ and ¡®Touched¡¯ had been vaguely intriguing, but every Enlightened communicated their own status in a different way so he didn¡¯t prioritize finding out why. He should have.

    He had never heard of the half-step stage before just now so when Alexander spoke of ¡®favor¡¯ and ¡®being bestowed¡¯, he had no frame of reference. Now, he understood. They believed Aegeus gave them their status. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    An Enlightened should know¡ªwould know¡ªthat no being gave it to them. Certainly no human.

    Yet¡­ Aegeus was Hellgurian. They spoke in Hellgurian. They wrote in Hellgurian. His influence here was clear. They even patiently waited for one of his descendants to pop up and reclaim control.

    That just¡­

    He refused to say ¡®can¡¯t be¡¯, he¡¯d said it too often for the words to mean anything anymore. Instead, he asked a previous question, ¡°Who is Aegeus to you?¡±

    ¡°That¡ªI¡­ He is our God.¡±

    Dalric¡¯s face won that fight.

    I¡­ see.

    A couple pieces clicked into place. Several others drifted further apart.

    The basics for becoming a God were actually rather simple. ¡®All¡¯ one had to do was implant a piece of themself into the soul of at least one other being and then have that being willingly provide them with their ahjer. Soul splicing was tremendously difficult of course and the amount of power siphoned had to be enormous to be worth it, but the steps were fairly straightforward. While the only Gods currently were the ones that held Dalric¡¯s chain, that wasn¡¯t always the case. Before he had ended them, there were a dozen or so Gods walking around Frysta.

    They put me here to end another.

    That was one question answered.

    The odds this body is Aegeus'' child are non-existent. Godhood can be passed on and there¡¯s not even the slightest chance the Gods would allow that possibility.

    That was two. That was also where clarity ended and confusion resumed.

    Why make me human? Why rob me of my strength?

    Even ignoring whatever boost he acquired from Godhood, Aegeus would have to be quite powerful to even be capable of splintering his soul in the first place. The old Dalric would be able to contend with him, but the current one was weak, embarrassingly so.

    Even if he had ample ahjer, much of his strength came innately from his body. That very same body limited his mastery of ahjer, something he could potentially rectify as a human, but that would take decades to centuries. For now, much of his technique and skill required his former frame. Without it, he was nothing like the titan he used to be and completely unfit for such a bout. Furthermore¡­

    The Dance?

    A single God was not a world event. Unless Aegeus had somehow flipped a fourth of the planet into worshipping him instead and decided he wanted to destroy the rest, it didn¡¯t make sense. Even in that case, why would Dalric open his eyes to it? Why would he be so important?

    Why was I resurrected?

    Again, the more he learned the less he understood.

    He put the Gods and the Dance to the side for the moment and focused on Aegeus. He would likely have to find a method to safely re-enter civilization¡­ valinbarn civilization before he got clearer answers about the first two, but the latter could be delved into right now.

    First, ¡°Do you pray?¡±

    ¡°I¡­ understand the meaning, but I¡¯m confused what you¡¯re asking me?¡±

    That crossed out Aegeus just being a different name for one of the Gods. Prayer was the means by which they siphoned ahjer. There were a few potential other means, but figuring out which one Aegeus deployed could be done later.

    ¡°No matter. You mentioned those who are born Touched.¡± Dalric braced himself for the response, ¡°Are there those born Blessed?¡±

    ¡°The Archon¡¯s line has always been Blessed!¡±

    Alright then.

    He successfully managed to take that in stride. The tigers were simply the most unique group of animals on the planet.

    Wait¡­

    A few pieces moved closer together.

    The Wyld¡­

    The term specifically referred to the eight or so Enlighteneds that lead them, but they were a faction of many Enlightened beasts. So many that they could field them in brigades. It was assumed, by pure virtue of the age of the leaders, that their vast, ahjer-rich land simply held a plethora of aged fauna.

    Maybe they were just born Enlightened. Maybe they only took forty years. Maybe just ten.

    ¡­

    Maybe Aegeus had found a way to mimic that. Maybe he was attempting to recreate the strongest faction on Frysta and position himself as their God.

    The third line was a dark thought.

    Maybe he was already the Wyld¡¯s God.

    It vanished immediately, however. If the Wyld had a God, and he walked Frysta in the flesh, they¡¯d have conquered the planet millenia ago. Plus, he wouldn¡¯t have a human name.

    Dalric slowed himself down. All of that was merely an assumption born from shaky conjuncture. He didn¡¯t have anything close to the full picture. If he was on the right path though¡­

    ¡°You called your village a ¡®colony¡¯, why?¡±

    ¡°That is what we were told they were.¡±

    They were?

    ¡°Okay. How many colonies are there?¡±

    ¡°To my present knowledge, there are sixteen left.¡±

    Sixteen. Sixteen Archons. Twice as many as the Wyld. Coincidence?

    ¡°Do you work together?¡±

    There was some hesitancy, ¡°We¡­ do.¡±

    Oh? He said ¡®left¡¯ before. Infighting?

    That was information to store for later. He thought about attempting to dig into it, but it was another non-pertinent path. He wanted to know how closely they mirrored the Wyld.

    ¡°You do? Good. What is the goal you¡¯re all working toward?¡±

    ¡°Our goal is to follow Aegeus¡¯ teachings. To learn, grow stronger, and expand. To¡­ make preparations for his descendant''s ascension.¡±

    Well then.

 Chapter 9: The Light

    The rest of the interrogation was rather tame as far reality¨Cwarping news went, but Dalric felt unsure how to proceed.

    Gods were parasites. He had felt that way a millenia ago and he especially felt that way now. Based on what he learned from Alexander, none of the other colonies were that much stronger than them. If Dalric wanted, he could wipe out their threat before it truly emerged. Should he though? What would that accomplish for him?

    His immediate goal was to find out what the Gods were planning and ruin it as best he could. If his assumptions about Aegeus were true, killing this new Wyld would only help them. On the other hand, not killing them could lead to the formation of a truly unstoppable force. Eventually.

    That was the catch. Eventually. They were eight generations in. According to their calendar, six centuries have passed since their founding. If this was the strength they¡¯d built in that time, then they were a long way away from being a proper threat. An even longer way from being worthy of the Dance. While immensely impressive, it didn¡¯t feel like what Aegeus was accomplishing here was the key. Maybe a piece, but there was something bigger somewhere.

    Though the fact that all sixteen colonies, previously twenty-four, were founded six hundred years ago and the Gods hadn¡¯t sought out Aegeus at any point boggled his mind a bit. They could scan the entire planet for other Gods. How they missed him didn¡¯t make sense, but there was nothing to be done about that. He certainly didn¡¯t want to get the opportunity to ask.

    ¡°Who are you, Dalric?¡±

    He smirked, ¡°No longer believe I¡¯m the human you¡¯ve been waiting for?¡±

    ¡°I do not know what to believe. You¡¯re human, you hold great power, you speak the tongue, and you even know our ancestral language. You are everything that was promised to us. Yet, it does not feel right.¡±

    What a vague set of characteristics. Speaking the All-tongue is the only true differentiator. Why would knowing Hellgurian be unique?

    ¡°Hellgurian is not a hidden language.¡±

    ¡°It is not. Yet, humans know only its derivative. You know it''s true form.¡±

    That was another to add to the list of statements Dalric couldn¡¯t make sense of. Derivative of Hellgurian? There wasn¡¯t a single region that spoke it outside of Hellguria.

    ¡°Well, your God left you very loose specifications. I am not his descendant.¡±

    Why Aegeus would focus on a future child rather than himself, Dalric also couldn¡¯t understand and likely never would. The only benefit of doing so was that if a child or even a babe was bestowed Godhood it could exponentially boost their early growth.

    Even if your offspring was an incredible talent, saving a millennium was not worth killing yourself to pass them your Godhood. They¡¯d have to be a genius beyond all previous geniuses for that to even begin to make sense to Dalric.

    ¡°... Why test me? Why trap me in this prison? What do you seek?¡±

    ¡°Conversation.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s it? You did all this for ¡®conversation¡¯?!¡±

    ¡°Very enlightening conversation.¡± Dalric stood from his seated position, ¡°You spoke of other humans. Where are they and what is their strength compared to yours?¡±

    ¡°Why should I answer a fraud?¡±

    ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I just kill you?¡±

    ¡°...¡± Fire returned to Alexander''s voice. It seems it was truly baked into his soul, ¡°The jungle is surrounded by humans. They are often weak individually, but always powerful as collectives.¡±

    ¡°Have you met a human stronger than you?¡±

    He seemed to grumble at the question, ¡°Yes, there is one by the river.¡±

    River?

    The trio Dalric had originally tailed had stopped by a river. It was fairly close to here. Considering what should be the second highest targets on the Gods¡¯ kill list were right in front of Dalric and he did not hear as much as a whisper from them, he felt a little less hesitant at the prospect of human civilization.

    ¡°Do they stay alone or in a settlement?¡±

    ¡°It is a settlement. There are many humans there.¡±

    ¡°How many are combatants?¡±

    ¡°I do not know. Too many to count. They are well defended if that is the answer you¡¯re seeking.¡±

    Dalric liked the sound of that. He spread his arms out and broke his marble walls down. To no surprise, the other five Enlightened were waiting for him.

    Oh?

    The sixth Enlightened had made his appearance. To much surprise, he was more powerful than Alexander. At least as far as his ahjer went. Dalric turned toward him and they sized each other up.

    He was roughly the same size as Alexander. His shade of blue was a bit brighter and his black stripes were darker. There were scars across the length of his body, but interestingly none around his head. His eyes held both the steel and the wisdom of a survivor.

    Even though the tiger couldn¡¯t possibly appreciate the act, Dalric gave him a giant¡¯s salute, ¡°I¡¯ll take a guess and say they call you Sixth?¡±

    He returned Dalric¡¯s gesture, flexing the muscles of his front right leg and beating his chest twice, ¡°Hmph.¡± His voice matched his sons, but his fire was more like lava; blazing hot, but slow and more solid. It reminded Dalric of a living golem he once encountered. ¡°I shall meet your guess and say you are not of Aegeus¡¯ blood?¡±

    ¡°A far more discerning eye than your son. Why aren¡¯t you Archon?¡±

    Seventh, now free, growled.

    Sixth seemed amused, ¡°I was not ambitious enough. It is the youth that grasp the future.¡±

    Dalric shook his head at the words the aged tiger clearly didn¡¯t agree with. What he hoped to achieve by airing his grievances out like that, Dalric didn¡¯t know and had no interest in finding out, ¡°Alas.¡±

    ¡°Alas, indeed. What do you seek of us, Dalric the Traveller?¡±

    ¡°Directions.¡± He gestured toward Seventh, ¡°He spoke of a settlement of humans nearby, where is it?¡±

    <hr>

    Dalric stared at the massive body of flowing water in front of him. He had thought the river Seventh was referring to was the one he¡¯d seen before. He was very wrong. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

    The sheer volume of water in front of him seemed like an ocean. If it wasn¡¯t for the constant rush it¡¯d be impossible to even tell it was a river. Dalric had re-casted the spell to form his wings again so hovered a fair way off the ground and he still could only barely spot the other bank. He had refrained from any sight alteration spells so it was hard to see, but it looked more than five leagues away.

    Have the tigers been across this?

    He wanted to believe boats were a step beyond beings with paws, but toilets should be too and they figured that out. During his flight over, the mechanics of how Aegeues had accomplished recreating the Wyld dominated his thoughts. It was tantamount to creating a new race of people. In fact, it wasn''t tantamount, it just was.

    He looked downstream, usually when rivers got this wide a sea was nearby. Trees, hills, and blackness were all he could spot. If the river did lead to a sea, it did so outside Dalric¡¯s sightline.

    Did he rediscover how to create souls or is sapience truly just linked to ahjer purity?

    He turned the other way, much of the same greeted him. He strained his eyes, trying to spot any faint glints of light, but there was nothing to see. Unless the settlement hid its presence in some way, it was also a distance away. Frontier towns didn¡¯t normally have the resources for such a defensive measure, but with sixteen of those colonies around it was possible. There was also the possibility it wasn¡¯t a frontier town in the first place.

    Seventh believed the land was always this rich in ahjer. Did he just get lucky?

    He started heading upstream.

    Though he had the wings of a bird, they were artificial ahjer constructs. They lacked any of the efficiency or efficacy an actual bird¡¯s wings had. Their top speed was abysmal and sustaining that speed burned through copious amounts of ahjer. Alas, his only other option would be to run along the ground and while that used to be quicker he wasn¡¯t sure that was still the case. Plus, he was weary of his current body¡¯s endurance, both mentally and physically. He still chastized himself for falling asleep earlier.

    He spent the rest of the flight silently practicing incantations. The spells were nothing flashy or really visible at all, but they were extensive in their intricacy. They ranged from healing his right arm to creating a fingernail-sized fold in space, each incredibly complex, some more so than others. He failed to execute roughly half of them, healing his arm included. The process overall was a rousing success, though. He got a firmer grasp on how to effectively utilize incantations and the wanton use of the ahjer around him seemed to keep beasts away. Best of all, he sufficiently distracted himself until he spotted the town¡¯s lights.

    It was still the middle of the night, though steady inching toward early morning. He didn¡¯t recall what heights were expected for humans, but he knew nine feet was on the larger side. It wouldn¡¯t be wise to suddenly appear out of the darkness.

    He landed on the branch of a particularly large tree and took a seat. His wings immediately folded around his shoulders and cocooned him.

    ~The winds sing for me~

    His ahjer burst out in all directions before gathering a gail around him. The winds formed a perfect spherical barrier.

    ~My darkness, my shadows~

    Deep black covered the sphere, hiding it from the sight of any who would spy on his position.

    His barrier and cover weren¡¯t perfect. A particularly perceptive and powerful predator could and would break through both, but he only planned to nap for a few hours before heading toward the town. He¡¯d grown a bit tired again and since he wanted to wait for daylight anyway, he figured he might as well kill two birds.

    He settled into his wings and let sleep take him.

    ¡­

    ..

    .

    They are heretics! Remove them!

    I refused to move. I knew it futile, they¡¯d all die in mere moments, but I refused to allow it be through my own willing obedience.

    With the terms of the contract broken, Suruhlla didn¡¯t waste any time taking over my body. He already knew I wouldn¡¯t comply. I never would.

    With Suruhlla in control, I was at least saved from experiencing the massacre that was to come. His usurpation left me deaf, blind, without a sense of touch, without a sense of smell, without a sense of taste, and most importantly without ahjer sense. In this little void I was relegated to, I sensed nothing. Here, it was peaceful.

    I¡¯d have to emerge to the aftermath eventually, broken terms only allowed them to rectify what I had refused. Even if they decided to take their time, there was a limit to how long any of the council Gods could control my body. For now though, I existed ignorant of all.

    Blissfully ignorant.

    At the appointed time, my senses snapped back into place. Laying before me was exactly what I expected, a levelled city. Home of maybe ninety thousand, now rendered to ash and pebbles. Suruhlla made it a point to leave me right at the center of the destruction, as they all did. As ¡®good¡¯ as they claimed to be to the ignorant, they had a sick taste for torment.

    Laekna, now aware I was back to my senses, did her best to block the sight. It wouldn¡¯t really help, the faces of horror I spotted were already seared into my mind. The charred skin, the melted flesh, all gruesome but none more so than expressions of agony and despair. I appreciated her attempt, but it would do nothing to hide what had occurred. Plus, the fact she was here, in front of me, instead of flying around trying to heal anyone she could meant Suruhlla had been thorough. Not a soul here was left anything less than completely eradicated.

    My nails dug into my palm.

    For what? Because they wished to live free from the council¡¯s control? Because they realized they do nothing but rob and kill? That they are repulsive, abhorrent parasites existing only to drain those unfortunate enough to worship them?

    The Stellar Council, in their infinite gluttony, refused to allow any live peacefully away from their rule. These people died for realizing that. Their bodies torn, home destroyed, and history erased. Some of their blood still stained my arms.

    Laekna tapped my hand. When I didn¡¯t respond, she forced her way into my grip. Only then did I realize that the blood wasn¡¯t just dripping off of me, it was boiling. I looked up to the sky and sighed at the pitch black thunder clouds that gathered above me.

    I was losing control.

    ¡°I¡¯m¡­ sorry.¡± I didn¡¯t know who I was apologizing to, Laekna or the people of Narik, but it was all I could do.

    ¡°It¡¯s okay Light.¡±

    ¡°... Fae?¡±

    Her voice was off. It sounded like Laekna, but it also didn¡¯t. Something was different, foreign.

    ¡°Everything will be okay Light. Just be you and everything¡¯ll work out.¡±

    ¡°Just be me? Everything work out? What are you talki¡ª¡±

    The world shook, ferociously. The earth warped and the sky distorted. My senses went haywire along with them. I could smell that the sky was no longer blue, but now yellow. I could taste the ground contorting to send me flying through that yellow sky. I could hear the heat of six suns burning my skin.

    ¡°What is this?!¡± I yelled.

    Laekna was calm as can be, ¡°Just be yourself, Light.¡±

    The suns immediately engulfed me.

    .

    ..

    ¡­

    Dalric jerked awake. His eyes quickly darted left and right while he scanned his body at the same time. It only took a few blinks to get a gauge of the situation. He was completely fine. Just another nightmare.

    He slowed his breathing to try and calm his heart rate. It had been awhile since he experienced night terrors, but he¡¯d gladly accept them if they came in exchange for his lack of supervision.

    The last one was very strange though.

    What was that? That was definitely the city of Narik. That¡¯s not how it happened though¡­

    Narik was an independent city-state. They had discovered the truth behind ascension and rightfully cast away all allegiance to the Gods. A wise choice¡­ if they had the strength to back it up. That was early into Dalric¡¯s time as a contracted slave, though. They couldn¡¯t have known the full ramifications of their actions.

    But, while the basic framework of the dream aligned with his memory many details did not.

    Dalric met Laekna decades if not centuries after, Suruhlla he had little authority then, he had yet to fully connect with Thunderfield, and the people of Narik weren¡¯t human. They weren¡¯t even valinoid. They had neither arms nor legs.

    Dreams often told fantastical tales, so inaccuracy should be expected in that regard, but the experience felt like no dream Dalric¡¯s ever had.

    ¡°Everything will be okay Light. Just be you and everything¡¯ll work out.¡±

    Why would she say that? Why did her voice sound so different? Why did..

    Dalric squinted.

    For the first time in his two and a half thousand years of life, he saw two suns in the sky.

 Chapter 10: The Angel

    Dalric¡¯s layered spells dissipated and his wings unfurled as he continued to squint up at the pair of suns. If he had first awoken during the day and not at the moon¡¯s peak, the sight would have surely stunned him. Now, he just remarked at how the new sun had a different color to it. Instead of the orangey-red of the sun he knew, it was a yellow-ish white. He just began to turn away from the sky and down to the town when he remembered a detail from his nightmare.

    The suns were yellow-ish white¡­ coincidence?

    He had no clue what to do with that. Dreams were dreams. Even the sun he knew was a bit off. Human eyes were different after all. Apparently.

    He put the dual suns to the side and focused on his reachable goals. The branch he rested on jutted out far above the canopy. It gave him a good vantage point to analyze the first bit of valinbarn civilization he¡¯d come across. With a better view of it, he realized it was more of an encampment than a settlement.

    The fortifications were largely wooden, the walls were entirely so. Despite that, they stood tall and thick. Several lookout towers stretched beyond the wall, each housing a number of sentries. The military presence was clear, the crowds he could glimpse lacked any of the disorder a civilian settlement held. There weren¡¯t many buildings he could spot either and the few that he could were all massive and unadorned, resembling barracks rather than homes.

    There were also one or two pieces he couldn¡¯t easily identify from such a distance, like the two wooden circles that dipped into the river close to the dock.

    Best-case scenario a guild or the like had set it up as a forward base and they planned to claim this part of the forest for resources. That would make their main opposition the environment and wildlife, not other humans. Anything else and he¡¯d probably be seen as a threat, if not a direct enemy.

    Again, the question of ¡®where am I¡¯ arose. Not so much on a planetary level, even with what burned above him, but very much so on a continental level. Seventh had claimed the colonies called the jungle ¡®Synoikos¡¯. He had never heard of it.

    Dalric had circumnavigated the world. There were always more secrets to uncover of course, especially below ground, but he was sure he hadn¡¯t just missed a jungle of this size bursting with ahjer. In hindsight it was foolish, but he had expected a small settlement of secluded humans. How else was he supposed to explain the complete lack of knowledge and awareness of the area?

    I should have asked what the humans called it.

    He shook his head and stepped off the tree. His wings caught his descent.

    Now that it was day time, he got a good look at the jungle as well. He knew it was overgrown, overripe with vegetation, but seeing its true breadth was a different beast. Trees of varying types coated the area, many wider than his wingspan and more than a couple taller than a hundred fathoms. Some of the trees even featured strange colors or materials, like the tree made of what appeared to be ash.

    Where there weren¡¯t trees there were shrubs, bushes, and flowers of even more varying types. Green, while still probably the dominant color, served as a mere backdrop to the array of multi-colored plant life that grew here.

    He¡¯d noted the light blue moonfire before, but that was only one of several rare plants he noticed. Each had their own splash of color to add to the environment; the deep purple of grave thorns, the pure white of spinroot, the neon yellow of lightleaves, the dull orange of sun lilies. There was even a cluster of iridescent lucyberry bushes encircling an ominous looking pond.

    That was the most surprising of all. Unlike the others, which were rare because of the conditions required for their growth, lucyberries were rare because they were outlawed en masse. They were the key ingredient in a devastatingly addictive yet indistinguishable drug, more akin to a poison. They hooked their user on the first hit and if that was all they¡¯d merely be another hallucinogen to add to the list, but they always killed them before the tenth. That level of lethality in a drug that appeared indistinct from many tamer ones made it the top choice for assassinations.

    Sovereigns quickly identified their threat and every city-state, kingdom, and empire ordered all bushes to be burned. The fact Dalric spotted some here meant he was truly far away from any civilization he knew.

    His current best guess was that he flew above a small island deep in the ocean, but he didn¡¯t have much faith in it. The massive river to his left steered him away from that conclusion. A tiny island wouldn¡¯t house such a thing.

    Looking at the river, he hovered down to its edge. Now under the light of the sun, he remarked at how clear the water was considering it ran through a dense, muddy jungle. He would not have expected any level of transparency. Yet here it was, appearing exceedingly appetizing and he¡¯d yet to have anything to drink.

    That would have to continue, though. He could sense a great deal of ahjer within it and ahjer-tinged water wasn¡¯t always safe for consumption. The camp was close and with no clue how his body would react, it could be a boon to him, it could be a toxin, it was a die that had no need to be cast.

    He did hover over to a spot to catch his reflection, however. The river obviously wasn¡¯t still, but certain sections of the stream were uniform enough for him to make out his face.

    He couldn¡¯t recall what passed for attractive to humans, but he¡¯d definitely go down as handsome to giants. If he was thrice his height of course. He¡¯d noticed his olive skin before, but with it came an exceptionally chiseled jaw, defined cheeks, big lips, dark grey hair, and bright purple eyes. The eyes were a feature of Thunderfield, so those he had expected.

    He could nitpick the nose and ears being disproportionately large, but he was too busy celebrating the small victory to notice them. His old face wasn¡¯t the opposite of appealing, but that¡¯s the highest compliment he¡¯d give his old self. He wasn¡¯t too busy basking in his small blessing to notice the enormous alligator burst out of the water though.

    Its massive jaws, longer than the length of his body, shut just as he slipped away. They both made eye contact as the gator fell back into the safety of the river. He could spot a spark of intelligence within them. A reason to stay his hand, mostly.

    ~Deep sea or shallow pond, I reign~

    The gator was rapid in water, but it wasn¡¯t rapid enough to escape. Its entire multiple ton, multiple fathom frame halted instantly within a large blob of water. Dalric already knew he¡¯d gotten a good grasp on combining his ahjer with incantations to quicken the process, but it was always useful to get practical experience. The result was satisfactory.

    He slowly lifted the sphere blob as the gator furiously shifted around. It moved enough to slightly distort the sphere, but all that accomplished was a few barrels of displaced water. Once the sphere, with the gator trapped inside, was relatively eye level, he spoke.

    ¡°Can you speak the tongue?¡±

    The gator simply continued to thrash its body. As unenlightened beasts should. Dalric nodded to himself and threw the blob back into the river. There was some normalcy to the world after all. Stolen novel; please report.

    While the many-toothed predator promptly made its exit, Dalric decided to land and walk the rest of the way to his destination. He figured flying directly to the entrance may put the guards on edge. It could even instigate a conflict all on its own. If he was going to try and look as non-threatening as possible, he might as well go the distance.

    He also dispelled the illusion that made his armor appear green. Now was the time to be seen in pristine white. No color was less menacing and more universally seen as friendly.

    Landing so far away, the walk that awaited him was somewhat lengthy. He intended that though. Hovering high in the sky gave him a great overview of the jungle, but being on the ground gave him a better perspective.

    He walked through the foliage and catalogued everything he saw. Notably, there were a lot fewer animals than would otherwise be expected. He was no longer close to the Menos so the only culprit could be the camp. That was a point in favor of their prowess. The predators he¡¯d come across had all been decently powerful, if they could not only secure their walls, but also the stretch of land in their vicinity then they had to be well-equipped.

    I wonder who they are.

    They flew no flags and he hadn¡¯t spotted any notable color patterns so any guess was a good guess. They didn¡¯t even have to be from a human realm, they could be hired mercenaries. Whatever they were, he¡¯d find out soon.

    A brisk walk later, a patrolling squad caught him. Or more accurately, he caught them.

    ¡°Ahh! What hell come?!¡±

    Ah. This is the derivative he spoke of¡­ Hm. So we¡¯re close to Hellguria then? Off the coast somewhere where the language diverged?

    ¡°Stop! Who? What here?¡±

    ¡­ Is that supposed to mean ¡®what am I doing here?¡¯

    Dalric felt he was listening to a child first learning to speak. He replied in the clearest Hellgurian he could manage, ¡°My name¡¯s Dalric, I¡¯m a traveller looking for shelter.¡±

    There were four men in the patrol squad. Three wielded spears, and the last held a mace. Their ahjer levels were rather decent, fairly high even for mere patrol duty at a forward base. That explained how they kept their area clear. Especially combined with their gear.

    The armor was garbage. They all wore rather poor leather coverings. The make of the armor wasn¡¯t the issue, quite the opposite, it was the lack of enchantments. Without enchantments, the ¡®armor¡¯ protected as effectively as paper. Even though the leather looked high quality on its own, it would be sliced through effortlessly.

    However, while their armor and melee weapons were lacking, their ranged weapons were not. Long, rounded slabs of enchanted metal hung across all of their backs. They matched a notoriously destructive piece of weaponry he¡¯d encountered while hunting devilists. Dalric remembered them vividly as hunting devils was one of the very, very few times he could be happy with the Gods¡¯ orders.

    The one with the mace had spoken first and they were also the one that replied, ¡°Talk of priest¡­ angel you?¡±

    Angel? Again?

    Dalric was confused. He understood the first half of the man¡¯s statement to mean he spoke like a priest. He didn¡¯t know why that would be, but it seemed they held some awareness of true Hellgurian. There were questions there, but what really befuddled him was the second mention of angels.

    The angels were a race of white-skinned birds that fell in love with valins and copied their form. They did so by mimicking human form, but those two things were largely the same. The fact they kept their wings and white appearance through the transformation meant that currently Dalric did have a passing resemblance, ignoring the color of his skin and lack of unwieldy hair, but that didn¡¯t make their mention any less bizarre.

    The four men in front of him seemed to hold some sort of reverence for them, but angels went extinct millennia ago. They had risen against the enemies of the Gods and paid the ultimate price. That was the story, at least. Dalric¡¯s intimate knowledge of said Gods meant he knew it was a lie, but the validity of the story didn¡¯t change the fact they had all died out one way or another.

    ¡°I¡¯m¡ª¡±

    Pagans! Heretics! Heathens!

    A heavy, aggressive presence invaded Dalric¡¯s consciousness. Dismay ripped through him immediately after.

    Kill them all.

    It was different than before though, he couldn¡¯t tell who spoke but it sounded less like a demand and more like a request.

    Kill them all. NOW!

    The weight of the presence felt crushing. It was akin to the burden a mountain could levy if placed on his head. For as powerful as it was however, Dalric could only remark at how flaccid he thought it was. The Gods never screamed before. They never had to. If he didn¡¯t comply, the contract would make him. He could neither fight nor resist.

    Now though, it was a contest.

    He fell to his knees, his ahjer spiraling out of control as he fought to control his own body. Blood dripped from each of his facial orifices.

    ¡°Ahhhh!¡±

    That wasn¡¯t Dalric screaming. He didn¡¯t have the strength or focus to spare for such. It was one of the four on patrol. They had been confused when he fell to his knees, stunned when his ahjer burst forth, but it was when the river of blood poured from Dalric¡¯s eyes and ears that terror struck them.

    The one mace wielder was the first to bolt. Weary of what was to come, he began backing away the moment Dalric fell to his knees. The other three¡¯s survival instincts weren¡¯t as strong.

    They paid for it with their lives.

    Lightning burst forth from his body, vaporizing two of them instantly and severely injuring the third. They didn¡¯t even get a moment to process what occurred. They had backed up a few feet when his ahjer spiralled out of control, but the extra distance meant nothing. Laying on the floor unconscious and largely broken, the only surviving member of the trio would soon follow them into death.

    Dalric couldn¡¯t afford to be too concerned about the ongoings around him. He¡¯d mourn their deaths later, for now he struggled to prevent the entire camp from meeting the same fates. That at least one got away comforted him a little, but he feared that feeling wouldn¡¯t last long. He was losing.

    It started with his extremities, his hands and feet rebelled against his control. He fought to remain sovereign, but the Gods continued to slowly claim more and more of him. Soon both of his legs up to his knees were theirs to command. His arms were following closely behind.

    Purple lightning continued to arc off his body. It cut through the surrounding trees, felling them while simultaneously setting them ablaze. Where it hit the ground, only burnt dirt and ashes remained.

    Time passed as Dalric fought his losing battle and destroyed his surroundings. In theory, if he could keep it up for the full duration of a bell then the allotted time the Gods¡¯ could attempt to control him would elapse. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t think he would last that long.

    He did notice something else, though. His body was exhausted. It truly did not feature any kind of endurance and the constant stream of lightning was taking its toll. He had to figure out a way to leverage that, and quickly. They took command of his arms and legs.

    Interestingly, the moment they did so they focused their energy on sprinting towards the last remaining patrolman rather than fighting Dalric¡¯s control. It was a notably awkward sprint, without any influence over his torso the movements were very off. That slowed them down, but Dalric still outpaced the mace wielder by a great margin. He was rapidly catching up.

    For his part, the man raced frantically. He made use of each blink Dalric saved him by fleeing with every ounce of his being. It didn¡¯t help much. Once Dalric began breathing down his neck, his only option was to yell and beg desperately for help. They were getting closer to the wooden wall, but help wouldn¡¯t arrive in time.

    Dalric¡¯s right hand first reached his shoulder, less than a fraction of a second later his left hand gripped the top of his head. Before the man could get a word of begging in, the back of his skull met the middle of his back. His body immediately went limp, hanging lifelessly in Dalric¡¯s hands. Dalric, still in control of parts of himself, could intimately feel the cracking of his spine. He could gaze into his shocked, frightened, and desperate eyes and see that no life remained. He could hear the silence of a once lively human cruelly and savagely put to an end.

    Dalric ignored it all, for through his sacrifice he¡¯d given Dalric an opportunity. Throughout the sprint he¡¯d been gathering every bit of ahjer he had left. Even a little bit that he didn¡¯t have. The Gods were too busy chasing their prey to impede him and now he was ready.

    He thrust his head back and flung his mouth open. Out from his throat and through his mouth, a massive bolt of purple lightning rose into the sky. It held devastating power. If there happened to be anything in its path it was surely obliterated.

    Dalric wouldn¡¯t know. He¡¯d succeeded. His body collapsed to the ground.

 Chapter 11: The Slave Masters

    Focus snapped into my eyes. Oppressively bright, yellowish-white lights greeted them first, threatening to sear them off my face. I hastily shut them as a sigh echoed off the plain stone walls.

    ¡°The contract is molded into your soul, impossible to remove without killing you.¡±

    I turned to my right and took a peek. Stortmili floated toward me. I thought I had not held any hope, but somehow her failure to remove the contract still stung. My eyes returned to the light, embracing the pain.

    I would not beg her again, but I could not keep the plea from my voice, ¡°You truly can not kill me?¡±

    ¡°Dalric¡­¡± For the mother of giants, her voice held such softness, ¡°No matter the circumstance, no valin could ever murder their own children.¡±

    ¡°Like this, am I even still a giant? Am I even still Dalric? I am not even a slave, I am merely a vessel to act out the council¡¯s whims.¡±

    ¡°You will always be Light.¡±

    He turned toward her, ¡°Your children will never serve a God. It¡¯s only a matter of time before¡­¡± He didn¡¯t dare finish the sentence.

    She giggled, ¡°The giants are tougher than that, you included. You most of all.¡±

    I furrowed my eyebrows. She¡¯d never giggled before. That was strange. I healed my burnt retinas and truly peered at her.

    She looked different. Completely different.

    ¡°Who are you?¡±

    She smiled. It was a sweet, soft expression.

    It was the last thing I saw.

    .

    ..

    ¡­

    Dalric stirred awake. His eyes erratically darted to the sides.

    What was that?

    He quickly noticed that while he had bizarre dreams, he¡¯d also been taken prisoner. Each of his limbs had an enchanted chain clasped around it. They left his neck, but that was likely because the gambeson covered almost all of it. There were signs that they tried to remove the gambeson, the rest of the armour too, but they were unsuccessful. His wings were gone, likely defusing under the stress of whatever they did, but that was the extent of the damage.

    Dalric wasn¡¯t sure whether to take that as a sign they didn¡¯t have any powerful ahjerists or they were just confident in the chains.

    He took greater stock of his surroundings. The cell he sat in was empty. No furniture featured so he laid sprawled on the barren floor. Beyond the bars that surrounded him, nothing else decorated the room either. The bars were enchanted, of course, as was the door that led into the spacious room, but that was it.

    As far as he could sense, they didn¡¯t even have a familiar or viewing apparatus to watch over him. It was just him, enchanted metal, and the compacted earth that surrounded both.

    After quickly assessing his situation and confirming its stability, Dalric¡¯s thoughts went back past the dream he just had and to what occurred prior.

    The Gods returned.

    He knew they would. He still felt their presence, still felt the contract. The only thing he had was respite. Their return was an inevitability, he had simply hoped he¡¯d have more time¡­ and maybe he did.

    They weren¡¯t watching him. Their presence had faded back to that of a light blanket.

    Dalric didn¡¯t understand. Why? He thought back to the specifics of what had occurred. When the Gods came, they were weak. They fought for control rather than simply commanding it. That had never happened before. On second thought, he realized it could be that it was the contract that had weakened. He could hurt himself now with no interference. At the bare minimum, that was a clear sign the contract had changed from what it was before.

    What did that mean?

    I need to figure out what¡¯s changed.

    He thought he had a golden opportunity before, but now it was darklight. Not only was he unsupervised, his chains were loose? He needed to know how loose. How free was he?

    He tried to take a pause once he used the word ¡®free¡¯ in his mind. That was getting ahead of himself. He¡¯d only ¡®won¡¯ last time because his current body was pitiful. It may take more time than before, but the Gods were still strong enough to take control of him. He merely used a loophole. It was a repeatable loophole, though. It was something.

    Even if his power and endurance grew, the fact he had time to strategize and act before he lost his body would make all the difference. Especially, with no limits on casting spells on himself.

    He attempted to fight the hope bubbling up within him again, but it was pointless. After all the despair and the touch of madness he felt, he could not help but cling to this moment of victory. By whatever means, he won. It wasn¡¯t a dream or an illusion, it was real. It was concrete. It was¡­

    The dream?

    Just as Dalric remembered the most recent in his line of strange dreams, he heard a number of clinks and clanks coming from the door. When they stopped, and it opened, a dark face popped in.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    ¡°Ah!¡±

    The face quickly retreated, forgetting to re-lock the door. It ultimately wouldn¡¯t mean much as moments later two tanned, robed men walked in.

    The first was likely tall by human standards, he bent down to pass through the doorway. There was some burlyness to him too. Proportionally wide at the chest, with a thick neck, and arms that pressed tightly against the thin cloth of his sleeves, he matched the part of a brute. Mostly. His well groomed beard and long silky hair threw the impression for somewhat of a loop, but he definitely had the face of a brute otherwise, stern and scarred. The demeanor as well, he stood arms crossed with a sword on each hip.

    He had a lighter complexion to him. A fact Dalric noted as the man who walked in behind him, as well as the first face he saw, were both of darker skin. He was now in information gathering mode so he grasped any details he could.

    Are you a foreigner or something else?

    The second man was far more average; in height, appearance, and presence. His ahjer however, was actually superior. He had a short buzz cut and no facial hair or markings to speak of, but he did wear the same blood red robe that the other wore. It helped hardened his rather soft appearance.

    He was the first to speak, ¡°You non-sleep.¡±

    Again¡­ I¡¯ll need to learn this new language.

    Thankfully, he was fluent in Hellgurian, but Dalric knew he wouldn¡¯t get anywhere fast if he had to keep guesstimating what people meant. In this case, he figured the man said ¡®You¡¯re awake.¡¯

    ¡°I am indeed. Clasped in chains was not the most pleasant way to wake up I must admit.¡±

    They both raised an eyebrow and the average one feigned a chuckle, ¡°You talk refined.¡±

    As long as you understand me.

    ¡°You go forgave us, Dalric. Had prepare big nicer room, but try unclothe you armor uncomfortable and wings vanish magic. Big concern you impersonate angel.¡±

    You must forgive us. We had prepared a better room, but¡­ you seemed uncomfortable in your armor and when we tried to remove it your wings disappeared. We were very concerned that you were impersonating an angel.

    That¡¯s what he got.

    How¡­ long range listening or was there a fifth member I didn¡¯t see?

    Dalric decided to move past how they heard him introduce himself. It didn¡¯t matter at the moment. What did matter was the third mention of angels. It simply could not be a coincidence or a misuse of the term, these people knew angels. Or at least believed that they did.

    Are they not extinct? Is this island where they¡¯ve come to hide?

    Before he could delve into that, he wanted to clear up the confusion, ¡°Well, that would be a simple misunderstanding. I never claimed to be anything other than a human, I merely learned to form wings to aid in my travels.¡±

    They were obviously lying about their initial efforts. His wings weren¡¯t as durable as the armor itself, but it¡¯d take a serious beating before dispelling. A little jostling would do nothing to them.

    ¡°Learn form wings.¡± They glanced at each other, ¡°Where learn?¡±

    Dalric smirked, ¡°From a valinn.¡±

    The average one looked up to the brute, but he only shook his head in response.

    ¡°What valinn?¡±

    Huh?

    ¡°You don¡¯t know what a valinn is?¡±

    ¡°Do not.¡±

    Dalric blinked.

    Impossible... you can¡¯t seriously be that disconnected from the world?

    ¡°By chance, what would you call a being with two arms, two legs, and one head?¡±

    The brute spoke this time, ¡°Matter not, we be ask questions.¡±

    Do they just not know?

    The smaller one walked closer, almost brushing up against the enchanted bars, ¡°Where you origin, Dalric?¡±

    Do I want to keep up this charade? Deciphering their words isn¡¯t overly difficult, but if they¡¯re unwilling to answer my questions, there¡¯s no value. I doubt any response I give could lead me peacefully out of these chains. I desperately need information though¡­ let¡¯s see where this leads first.

    ¡°Aonica, though I imagine you don¡¯t know where that is.¡±

    He translated the follow up question as, ¡°You¡¯ve travelled across the seas then. How did you end up here?¡°

    ¡°Is it not the goal of a traveller to see the world?¡±

    ¡°The Akai Ken Jungle is a dangerous place for outsiders.¡±

    Akai Ken! Something. Never heard of that, but it sounds¡­ Surunese. They¡¯re an island people, I believe.

    ¡°In truth, I¡¯m more alarmed by my treatment right now, than I was outside.¡± Dalric dangled the chains around his wrists.

    He smiled, ¡°We did find you next to four of our men¡¯s corpses. Care to explain that?¡±

    Odd reaction. Hmm. Now how do I do this¡­

    ¡°I must apologize for your loss, but I¡¯m not sure what happened. One moment I¡¯m flying up the river, the next I¡¯m in a pool of my own blood and sweat.¡±

    The brute¡¯s eyes turned visibly colder.

    ¡°We could hear their screams from behind the wall.¡±

    So they didn¡¯t see anything. Or are they keeping their cards close?

    ¡°That is lamentable, I imagine anything that could get the better of me would likely be too much for the average¡­ soldier? I don¡¯t know what either of you are.¡±

    That put smiles on both of their faces, ¡°That will remain hidden.¡±

    Not soldiers then. If these are the leaders, surely this isn¡¯t a mercantile group¡­ though who says these are the leaders?

    ¡°You say you were flying up the river, were you looking for us?¡±

    ¡°You specifically? No. I was looking for civilization and I spotted your camp and headed this way.¡±

    ¡°Yet no one saw you.¡±

    Ahh. Hmm¡­

    Dalric raised his hand to his forehead. The enchantments within the chains were attempting to interfere with his ahjer, but they were far from capable. He placed his index finger on his forehead and projected some of his ahjer.

    Both of the men flinched, the brute swiftly laid his hand on his scabbard. For Dalric, nothing changed, but for everyone else he¡¯d appear completely invisible. The spell was the simplest in the stealth sphere, it didn¡¯t affect any of the other senses. The big one was ahjer sense, but he could be easily heard too.

    ¡°As you said, it¡¯s a dangerous place out there.¡± He released the spell, becoming visible again, ¡°I took certain precautions.¡±

    ¡°You have my interest, Dalric.¡±

    ¡°Now if only I could have your hospitality.¡±

    He smirked, ¡°Maybe in the future. We still don¡¯t trust you.¡± They both moved towards the door, ¡°But. I¡¯ll have someone bring you a fresh meal.¡±

    ¡°That would be nice.¡±

    They chuckled as they left. The door slammed shut and Dalric once again heard the clicks and the clacks.

    That was informative. A little.

    He was definitely wrong about the translating. The longer that conversation went, the more of a headache it was. He¡¯d really need to bridge that gap at some point soon.

    Heffortlessly broke out of the chains and cracked his neck. His entire body still felt sore, but it shouldn¡¯t affect him too much. The bars that made up his cage were much stronger than the chains that held him, but empowering his arms a little made them as malleable as thin gold. Their enchantments tried siphoning the ahjer out of his hands, but they didn¡¯t have enough suction. He pulled them apart with ease.

    Only the door remained, but before he opened it he wanted to know what exactly awaited him. He expanded his ahjer sense to its current maximum range. That range equated to a perfect sphere with a fifty fathom radius. He couldn¡¯t actually ¡®see¡¯ everything within that range, at his current level even the most lightly enchanted door would block his ahjer sense. Plus, past his base range things got progressively blurrier, the fringes were only ¡®visible¡¯ by the most liberal of definitions. None of that mattered though, he saw what he needed to see.

    It was worse than anything he had expected.

    Rage oozed out from him. His ahjer flared. Lighting zapped around his fingers. First, it was bright and slightly blue in color, but it quickly changed. In the next moment, it crackled across both of his arms in a dark shade of purple. It still wasn¡¯t complete, it continued spreading across Dalric¡¯s whole body. By the time it was done, there was no ¡®light¡¯ in the lighting. It was pure black.

    He raised his hand to the door and the entire wall exploded. Some parts flew off in chunks, but most of it was immediately destroyed.

    When he stepped into the hallway, the brute stood ready. His swords already drawn.

    Dalric looked at him with disgust, ¡°Slave traders is it?¡±