It was time. The desert forest’s main entrances were blocked off by dozens of Gold rank elven guards, and the city was extraordinarily silent as many wished to avoid the gaze of this imperial official. The Mature wizards in their towers took precautions to watch the surroundings, ensuring that nothing ridiculous happened as well.
Fragheim would receive a serious punishment if anything happened here, as it meant this nation drew some ire from the empire, and someone had to appease them for that loss.
Meanwhile, Icy and the group knew better than to tail the approaching carriage or try to peer within. Instead, sticking to their comfortable house towards the side of Fragheim and away from the white-painted manor in which this official would stay in. Quite amazingly, even though no one knew their name, he still received such extraordinary treatment. His carriage didn’t even have a noble crest!
But given that it was crafted from ivory which gleamed like a white pearl, with light green jade for decoration alongside a form of gold that released a small display of rainbows when in direct sunlight, any civilian or weaker warrior considered such a sight fit for a noble.
To those stronger though, it was clearly a cheap trick, although the carriage’s material value alone probably matched one of those towers used by the Mature wizards of the city.
This official was either rich to a disgusting point or held actual importance in the world.
On his first few days in Fragheim, the official seemed to just send out some warriors into the forest to search for something. Most of them carried magical tools which looked like compasses. With a description from Icy, it was easy for Mala to inform him of the tool’s usages, that being a thing which located weakened space.
In other words, it was an advanced portal locator.
As the dragon pillars did not exist in a sub-space with constant connection to their world, the best way to find its entrance was simply scanning a large area of space and moving to the weakest points for testing. While not a perfect method as random spots of ‘weak’ space existed, it narrowed the search from a whole forest to just a few hundred places within that forest.
However, the main use of these locators is, in fact, tracking teleportation spells. As the act of forcibly tearing open space and jumping through ‘something’ else left the dimension weakened, it took no genius to figure out how to trace such acts.
* * *
One week had passed since the ivory and jade carriage travelled down the city’s main streets and remained outside the manor. And not once had that official left the place, leaving many to wonder what he looked like. Was this some pig-like elf who gluttonously took everything he could?
Or perhaps someone with an ounce of decor and beauty? When it came to ambassadors, things seemed to sway far too much to either side quite often.
But he finally did leave the building one day, and on that day… He wandered the city’s market with his entourage and spoke to people whilst shopping.
Was this an ambassador?
He walked through the streets in a turquoise robe that flowed down to his feet, even rubbing against the dirty cobblestone flooring, yet remaining immaculate. The robe itself was far from tight, but several pins meant that the loose fabric with several folds remained in place, and combined with a simpler navy blue cap that covered his bald head, it was inevitable that many found him charming to look at.
But it was the attitude which won people over. How he haggled a bit over price, but only so much that it seemed fair, never forcing a price, talking about what he’d seen through the various kingdoms in a positive light to praise things outside the empire’s hold.
Many now began to realise just what his plan was. And more importantly, why the previous city considered him a ‘pig’.
“He’s going to make those lot bleed a ton while he’s here. That confidence is mind-boggling though, but it worked out for him in the end.”
“I’m half sure he has some sort of charming effect active all the time, but it’s hard to say. Did your eyes see anything?” Mala spoke without any strong emotions towards the official, but when she posed a question to Icy, she found him distressed and silent. The others looked over too, and Raccelline’s face also tightened when seeing her friend so worried.
As she so often knew nothing about situations, Raccelline tried her best to avoid making comments in fear they’d be wrong. But seeing Icy’s reaction, she knew the pounding of her heart while looking at that ‘official’ just might be right. “There was something… strange about him. Right?”
She sought approval, face staring at the ground but eyes lifted to see his reaction.
“Crystal heart of blood and souls, horns of magic and bone. Eyes that deceive the world… And wicked soul from beyond our existence. It’s all there.” Of the group, everyone felt the strong unease he gave off with every word, but only Mala shook from them. Because those words were a reminder of what happened not too long ago.
No one spoke, and so, it left Icy to finish his own statement.
“That ‘official’ is a demon. Why is a demon on the third world? How is he here?” He was at an utter loss at what to do. The fact he even saw through this demon’s camouflage came down to the Elder eyes having a ridiculous ability to see past most things, even those above his level.
“That can’t be possible. We… Your kind, sealed them all after the invasion. All of them… His flesh and ears, what do they look like?” Mala didn’t bother explaining what the two of them already knew, instead immediately jumping to a possible conclusion.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Olive green flesh, and connected lobe ears. Those aren’t the features of a demon… God damn it.” He chose not to swear with Raccelline there, immediately connecting the dots like Mala.
“An explanation would be nice if you two figured that out. Also, one for why a demon shouldn’t be here. Maybe what exactly they are too.” Jaren listed a few obvious things the two needed to answer straight away, and as logic ensued, they started from the beginning.
…
The eight worlds are named, unsurprisingly, by the eight planets teeming with life that formed a single ring about their star in a standard elliptical orbit. This whole orbit with a suitable distance from the star which supported them, and uniform rotational speeds across planets allowed all eight worlds to have seasons at equal rates and also maintain standardised clock times. After all, slowing or speeding up an orbit is easy for Great sages.
So, of these eight worlds, it is well known that humans and elves began their dominance on the third. However, of the two races, it was the former who truly flourished across all eight worlds, with the elves building sizable populations on some others.
Meanwhile, the Eternals only actually thrived in the third world. Turned out that no one wanted a warmongering race on their planet after the last massive war they started.
Each world was somewhat similar, but also extremely different as cultures and customs developed in various directions.
But then there was the eighth world. One which was highly contentious due to the core of the planet being revealed to house a massive quantity of primordial steel and cornem metal. All Warrior ranks are based around metals, and the final names were no mistake.
Cornem metal formed in the core of a planet as it died. The world’s energy and lifeforce is drained in the final moments of its existence and compressed to the point of forming an incomprehensible material.
Every fifty kilograms of cornem ore represents a planet that died.
And then there was, primordial steel, the most esoteric of the materials. One which simply pops into existence at special times, formed only through the energies of the initial universe, which somehow seep through time itself to the modern day. No one understood how that worked.
Anyway, back to the eighth world.
Just over a thousand years ago, rather recently on an interplanetary scale, it became known that the masses of high-level metals destabilised space to a frightening degree. As such, Great sages entered the fray as they sealed the cracks in space before a whole planet quite literally collapsed or vanished through one.
But no one expected that another realm nearby noticed these cracks, and in that massive realm were the beings they now called ‘demons’. It was purely derogatory, of course, as the natives called themselves blood warriors and soul casters, their versions of warriors and wizards, respectively. But what gave them the moniker of ‘demons’ was a racial talent which was practically unfounded amongst the eight worlds.
The demons could devour the blood and souls of innocent beings, who had never evolved, to empower themselves with little side effects. What could possibly happen when such a race happened upon a world with billions of such beings?
It remained titled ‘the eight worlds’, but in reality, they had fallen to seven for many years now.
Fortunately, the seal placed upon that world could not be broken by the demons’ gods, making it their best defence. In time, many focused efforts on abusing the demons, literally and for actual purpose. A method to abuse the consumed blood and souls was ideal, and that led to the creation of two spells for Sages to use, as well as a skill for Cornem ranks.
But it was still too soon! If demons could pass through the barrier, then the worlds might be doomed in a matter of decades, after all, almost a trillion of them swarmed the eighth world in a matter of years.
A trillion, an unfathomable number.
But for the demon that stood before Icy, who revealed uncharacteristic olive green skin unlike the black, browns, and reds of the demons. He was able to make a simple conclusion with Mala, and said, “That is not a demon. It is a monster born between a demon and elf… But I cannot understand how such a monster was created.”
Mala agreed with the choice of words. She, too, believed that such interspecies breeding was impossible, only in some rare cases did it work out.
“What are we going to do then? You say they’re Mithril rank as well… There’s no way we can win with all the Gold ranks they have as well.” Icy clearly saw the power of that demon-elf hybrid and couldn’t think of any way that they won at the moment, one might imagine that he could just let this demon get away, but that obviously wasn’t an option since he came here to loot the dragon pillar.
“Wait, how is he accessing the pillar? You said Draconic is needed to open the portal,” Korridan posed a question out of curiosity, a sincere one as it interested him. Indeed, the rest, except for Mala, overlooked this matter, but she took a roundabout explanation for this.
Icy replied, “I can’t be sure yet, but it might be that demons have a way to easily open new portals. Dragons actually suspect that they’re researching a way to create ultra-long range stable portals, as a way to teleport directly from their world to the other seven and circumvent the seal entirely.”
It wasn’t like no one ever considered demons teleporting beyond the seal from their world. However, some testing showed that wherever these demons came from, it was almost impossible to teleport between the two normally.
Only the great dimensional instability of the eighth world allowed for it.
“He might also just have a way to use Draconic… Or has a dragon with him?” Mala pointed out her two theories as well. Icy did not deny the possibility of either, but he doubted it was the latter with good reason.
“I’ll go in alone and deal with him in the pillar… This is a responsibility of my race, even if I’m a child, I have to do this.”
“Since when were you the heroic sort? Rushing in to get yourself killed over stupid shit like this!” Jaren couldn’t help but criticise the dragon’s actions, it was hardly the sort to put on an act and get itself killed for someone else’s sake.
However, Icy didn’t intend to get himself killed, there was a very good chance he made it out perfectly fine, but this was still an incomparably dangerous thing to do. He explained the plan and features of the dragon pillars to everyone, introducing some facts which normally don’t matter as dragons are free to grant entry to some close friends and followers to also gain rewards from the pillar, so these extra features couldn’t possibly even activate from their movements…
But when he finished, stating that he had great chances of surviving with non-fatal injuries, there was something he didn’t expect.
Jaren immediately cut him off at the end, “Stop being a dumb kid, of course we’re going with you.” He hadn’t even communicated it with the others, but they just nodded or spoke in agreement.
Sneak behind the demon and enter the dragon pillar alongside him. This plan pinned itself on that one factor, both parties having their final confrontation within the subspace which held the pillar. So, for now, they made their preparations and watched. Tirelessly tracking and silently monitoring as many of the demon’s forces as possible.
Not even Manus could imagine the dangers of allowing this demon to get what he wanted. Whatever that may be.