Life in Mikraz flows once again, people are running around, guards patrol the city in usual mode, everything looks normal, as if the events of the previous day did not happen at all, as if it was just a bad dream.
But it wasn't.
There are dead, there is mourning, but nonetheless the city came alive once again. Vendors are selling their products, artisans resumed their craft, adventurers started accepting quests once again, no smiling or laughing yet, but the city is alive, slowly recovering.
Unbelievable.
A waiter in late teens slowly walks to my table, with his legs visibly trembling and eyes looking straight on the floor, as if horrified to look at something, or someone. He tries to tenderly place the tray on the table, but his trembling hands betrayed him at the very last moment, and the tray audibly clangs against the wooden table, in the process nearly spilling it's content all over me.
His sharp exhale made his whole figure soften too much, nearly falling apart to the ground, as if a puppet which lost it's string.
"Greatest apologies!" he nearly screams from the bottom of his lungs, making a full ninety degree bow.
He continues the stream of excuses and several moments later starts slowly moving away with his head still bowed, until his eyes meet mine. And the moment they do he yelps loudly leaping away and hitting the stone wall of the building with his back. He mumbles another apology and nearly runs away, leaving the tray still on the floor near the wall.
Since the moment the waiter approached, till this very moment, my left hand did not leave the pommel of the short dagger on my hip, tightly gripping it.
Unbelievable.
I have not slept at all. Every single second was spend on patrolling the alleys, because that is where the corrupted usually gather. Emergence is not a small skirmish, it is a drawn out battle that has no end. The moment you think that it is finished, is the moment they attack and you die.
After not finding any corrupted within the first hour, I was already prepared for the worst, the next waves. During the emergence, Liches and corrupted are always waiting on standby around the target city, waiting for the escapees, which after getting caught, killed and 'turned', are sent back into the city to reign chaos once again.
Nothing.
Not a single new corrupted.
And much worse, after asking guards several times, they repeated stated that no one has seen a Lich. Not single one.
What the actual hell?!
Yes, the number of corrupted was not big, less than dozen thousands, but this does not change the fact that the 'Emergence' happened. It feels as if I am still half asleep or under some kind of mind spell, and any moment the illusion will drop, and everything will turn into the usual nightmare.
I expect each person to either turn inside out, transforming into creature of darkness, or leap at me with yellow and red veins appearing throughout their bodies, commanding half a city of followers after them.
I am still awaiting for all of the people in the city to simultaneously turn their faces in my direction and start laughing, that they got me, that they tricked me as if a young greenhorn.
I do not have a Seer with me, which could have easily solved all the problems and doubts I have. Because of that I took a great risk, and searched for the Sear that I saw at the entrance of the city. But as I expected, fate would never give me such a gift. The guards told me that he was one of the first ones to be killed, by a sudden spell, which appeared out of nowhere.
[You blame fate for competency of our enemies?]
Competency huh?
Anyway I am stuck. How do I verify that everything I see right now is not an illusion?
My eyes involuntary return to my right hand, and by my command each one of the fingers moves slightly. They should be real. The feeling of warm blood flowing through the veins, that strange feeling when you can 'feel' your own flesh, and the roughness of texture on the wooden table that my fingertips are touching, tells me enough.
"I am telling you he is some kind of NPC related to the main quest!" says loudly a boy with black hair in one of languages of the summoned that I don't understand. The summoned have quite few of them actually.
The boy is barely over twelve, with strange glasses, which are made out of high quality quartz and some kind of black glossy material.
"Calm down Kevin." replies a guy in his early twenties.
"Paul he must have some kind of epic back story with revenge and stuff! Did you see how easily he killed all of the corrupted and that huge dragon?!"
"I said calm down." growls the guy who's name I believe to be Paul.
I know few words from the language Richard spoke, but not enough to even understand the topic of the talk, and by the tone of boy, I assume he is excited about something, while the older one tries to calm him down.
Right now three of the 'local' summoned are sitting with me, a tall guy with short black hair, who is more likely their leader, the healer 'Pam', which restored my right hand, and the child with black hair.
Huh?
Looking closer, not just the hair, but also the facial features of the younger and older one look similar. Parent and child? No, the age difference is too small. Brothers more likely.
They continue speaking between themselves about something, while I scan the inn for any signs of corrupted.
There must be few at least few corrupted left, hiding somewhere in plain sight.
Even if they try to look human, they are not. Though they are very skilled actors, which is one of the main reasons it is so hard to root out the Emergence before it happens, they can not fully replicate all the tiny pieces of human behavior.
[Which we could never replicate well as well. We can barely fit into human society.]
[Calling us human is even a big stretch.]
[Useless sack of blood, flesh and regrets.]
Few moments later Lekana, the dog-eared twins, and four other heroes enter the inn. Looking around Lekana's eyes stop on me, and a huge smiles breaks on her face. With a happy hop she leaps to me, behaving the same way she had few days ago. Nothing seems to have changed in her, but you can never be sure, corrupted usually hide as the ones you least expect.
"And here is our ‘Blood Angel’!" Lekana exclaims with a smile, after which she sits down on chair left to me.
Most of the people in the city are whispering between themselves other name.
Soon the other summoned come closer, and connecting several tables with the one I am sitting behind, make one long table with everyone sitting together around it. Several moments later in an awkward silence everyone's eyes turn to me.
The one who breaks the silence is the tall guy with black hair.
"First of all I would like to thank you for helping us yesterday. I do not know what would have happened if you didn't come. Truly thank you." he finishes slightly bowing.
Everyone else of his group repeats the same action.
"I would like to re-introduce ourselves again. My name is Paul." gesturing to the young boy he continues "This is Kevin, my brother."
"Hello!" the child says loudly, nearly screaming.
My eyes dart once again to the tiny staff in his hands and the long sword on the hip of his older brother.
"I am Pamela, but everyone calls me Pam." says the girl in white as nearly every healer I have seen before.
Does wearing white clothes somehow improves the healing abilities?
"Kurt." smiles the widely build guy with dirty blond hair and a small stubble on his face.
His thick armor, shield and mace should be very heavy and hard to move in, but the guy moves so effortlessly and fluidly, as if he is in skin tight leather armor.
"Valentine, a pleasure to make you acquaintance." continues the person near him with green eyes, and long dark brown hair gathered into a bun.
Finding no weapon anywhere near him, could mean that it is either hidden, or he is close quarter fighter. But because of his slim build, and the baggy clothes my bet falls to some kind of wizard or mage.
"Victoria." says with coquettish smile the woman with long black velvet hair, and lighting blue eyes.
Two short daggers on her hip, smooth and precise movements, thin long limbs and sharp eyes tell me that she more likely favors speed and precise attacks.
"Timur, son of Darman." states shortly a man with short black hair, who could easily be mistaken for a boy, because of his height. But the mustache on his face and calm expression tells otherwise.
A bow, but no arrows. Mana archer?
[People politely introduce themselves, and the only thing you can think of is what is their way of fighting, and what could their weakness be.]
[Truly a man of the people, who sees the best in everyone.]
"Hello! I am Lekana, these guys are Tagaro and Nagoro." suddenly chirped in Lekana pointing at the duo to her left "And this is Alan." she finished with a smile leaning on me.
It was impossible to stop my brows from raising up, and I was not the only one who let his emotion slip. Each person showed their own emotion, reacting to the situation in one way or another.
This is getting out of hand.
The awkward silence was broken several seconds later by someone, who looked as if he was least bothered by the current atmosphere.
"The number of possessed was extremely abnormal though." says Valentine "Their constant flow left me no opportunity to prepare a massive spell."
"Yeah, we have never encountered so many possessed in one place. As Oracle said, things are starting to move..." continued Paul.
Encountered? This is not their first time?
Many?
A dozen thousand corrupted is many? That is less than a tenth of an average sized city.
Cities with population of more than several million citizens have disappeared into abyss of rage and destruction over night several times just in the last decade.
"Alan?" breaks my thought process a female voice.
Looking in the direction where the voice came from I find the raven haired woman looking at me with a seductive smile.
"Lekana told us that you are traveling to the Endless Empire. We are actually going there too. Would you be interested in joining us? We all would be very happy if you would."
"Of course! We would love to!" says Lekana few short seconds later, not giving me time to think.
The woman, Victoria, if I remember correctly, smiles at Lekana with a bit stretched smile, but Lekana is already talking with someone else with a happy smile, discussing food once again.
While the group is talking, my keen hearing picks up the talk in the corners of inn. They all are talking about events of previous day, and specifically two words are repeated the most.
Blood Demon
It is kind of ironic that even here, where neither brotherhood, nor church of Zeron exits, the same title was given to me. Although there are few rare exception where people use 'Blood Angel', but their number is tremendously smaller, and Lekana is one of rare exceptions.
[Who knows, maybe she says the other version when you are not around.]
Angel, demon, spirit. Same shit, different container.
Yesterday, throughout the whole day the stares did not leave me. The terrified stares of horror, as if they have seen a monster walking through the streets. I know those stares well, I have seen them for too long to mix with something else. But I did care about them back them, because the time was ticking and I still had not corrupted, much less shepherd.
In the end, I found none.
So much is wrong that I don't even know where to begin with.
How were the corrupted able to cast fire element spells? Are they really 'corrupted'? They should be. They behaved and acted... nearly the same way.
[No they didn't. They were nothing like anything we have seen before.]
[And don't even try to downplay the fact that shepherd we killed after coming out of wyvern talked.]
[IT FUCKING TALKED!]
[Talking fire corrupted. City surviving emergence. And to top it all the whole city is talking about corrupted as if they are some harmless wild dogs.]
The word 'corrupted' is never said aloud.
A single mention of even a possibility of someone turning would be enough for the region leaders to abandon the city altogether. That single mention is enough to summon the whole Blood Brotherhood and Blood Legion together. Ever single creature in several hundred kilometer radius would be scanned by sears, questions by elite torturers, and much, much more.
But no, people speak about 'possessed' out-loud in public.
Shit.
The fuck do you want Zeron?
It took some time to piece everything together, and a sleepless night of walking around the city to end up with the only being who would benefit from me surviving. I was never a devout follower, never over religious, and quite often I questioned his existence altogether. But HE exists, therefore so must the true CREATOR and other 'gods'.
What 'god' would allow it's followers to disappear from the face of earth?
In some fucked up way I ended up being the most devout follower.
Blood. Violence. Destruction.
Survival...
But what is the goal?
Is the meeting with summoned just a single milestone to get me healed, or there is a bigger picture?
Does Zeron even want the same thing as I do?
I try to remember all the chants Kilan, my closest blood brother, said. Those chants and religious gibberish was usually ignored by me, but now suddenly, I need to dig it out from the depths of my memory.
'...purging the darkness...'
'...bringing the blood to blood...'
'...father and death of all...'
I scowl at all the useless bullshit that comes up. All the priests singing about how ‘Almighty’, ‘Endless’ and ‘All-seeing’ he is, how noble and merciful he is.
If you truly are so mighty as you claim, why am I the only one left of your followers?
Or do you trully think that I alone will be enough?
...
The moons visible on the nearly black sky somehow look bigger than usual, with more defined textures upon their surface. But I am not sitting on the rear porch of the inn because I am enjoying the view.
Looking at my right hand and try to remember the exact feeling when it was restored by the summoned healer. Everything happened in an instant. I lay bleeding, a piece of useless meat, and the next moment I feel energy overflowing, as it had not in years, burning inside of me, as if a volcano about to burst open.
Trying to remember the feeling I find out that the feeling was not localized. It wasn't only the damaged areas that was regenerating, but rather as if the whole body was being healed from the inside.
Am I doing it wrong with focusing on damaged areas and trying to conserve the nutritions I have?
After looking at my left hand and fingers for several long seconds I take out the short dagger and press it against the index finger of my left hand. I have been wanting to try and experiment on the healing with fingers on my hands for quite some time, but you can't test out things on the only real tool you have left.
No. It is better to test it out with the least important finger.
I move the blade to the top most tendon of the pinky finger, and cut sharply. The finger starts to bleed rapidly, but I focus on the area and direct the nutritions there, and slowly the bleeding stops. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter the missing part starts growing back. It takes ten minutes, and finally the finger returns to it's original state, albeit missing the fingernail.
Ten minutes of single minded focus for just a tiny piece of finger....
No one will give me ten minutes.
The blade moves to pinky again, and cuts the newly regenerated flesh. I send my mana flowing around the body, temperature of my body and blood pressure sharply rises as whistling fills my ears. I direct the energy to the missing pinky, and the missing part starts regrowing slightly faster than before, and when it finally returns to previous state I estimate the time taken to be nearly half of what it was before.
Twice the speed, but I wasted at least several dozen times more nutritions and mana just to make the body reach the appropriate state. Is it really worth it? No, the feeling is close, but not exactly the same when I was healed. There was more burning, but somewhere else, somewhere deeper.
Muscles? No.
Blood? Close but not exactly.
Bones? Yes, but not just them, there was something... more.
I cut the piece of pinky once again. And repeat the experiment, but this time sending more mana into area around the bones themselves. Mana and blood start pumping once again with more strength than before, and as soon as the whistling in my ears is nearly unbearable. AS if gazer under huge pressure, I explode sending all energy into the pinky.
My vision becomes tunneled, but I observe as the missing part of the flesh grows much faster than before.
I am on right track.
The dagger cuts the piece again, and I repeat the experiment, but this time sending mana much deeper into bones.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Faster.
Faster!
FASTER!!
As I am about reach something I hear footsteps from behind coming closer. I stop instantly and the wide-view vision returns back to me. Looking down I find a small pile of bloody pieces of flesh and by instinct shove them under the wooden veranda.
A second later I see black ears peak out from the side alley, quickly followed by curious eyes. The several seconds long stare is broken by a quite voice.
"Hello."
"Hello." I reply back.
"I was searching for you." she continues looking down on the ground.
Searching huh. Demi-humans have exceptional hearing and sense of smell, she could have easily found me by smell alone.
"No one knew where you were, so I had to walk through the whole inn."
"Is there something you need?"
"No... um... I actually wanted to talk with you..."
Her eyes try to look into mine, but nearly instantly look away.
"Um... during the... fight, you screamed something in foreign language... and it looked like you were... in pain... and searching for something, or someone..."
"What is 'D-Fivte-faive'?"
"Nothing." I state shortly.
"But you were-"
"Nothing." I repeat making direct eye contact, to convey that she should stop.
Looking down on the ground she falls silent. But the silence in broken just few seconds later when she continues.
"I am sorry. I just wanted you to know, that you don't have to hold it all inside of yourself. I am here to listen to you and-"
"Co-travelers." I cut her sharply.
She looks at me with stunned look.
"We are co-travelers. We formed a temporary travel group."
Lekana looks at me confused, but I do not give her chance to continue.
"Next time you want to add more people to the group you will discuss it with all members of the group. Some of them could be against it, and it is not up to you to make the decision yourself without consulting with others."
Lekana's mouth opens and closes without making any sound, until it audibly closes with a click.
"I am sorry." she whispers quietly.
"Good. Is there anything else?"
She stands for few long second trying to say something, but doesn't. I look into her deep blue eyes not blinking showing firmly my position. The long stare is broke, when she looks away with pained face.
Lekana turns around and slowly walks away, not turning around even once with her head held down, and tails dragging after her.
[Well executed. We can be proud of ourselves.]
Shut it.
Do not dare to forget why we are here. Do not dare to forget what we are.
Purge those dreams and illusions. It will never happen. However many times we try it will always end the same way.
You want to dig another grave?
It does not matter what we want.
It does not matter what these people want.
It does not matter what the fucking gods want.
There is only one future that awaits us, and HE will use everything he has, every single life available to him, every single weakness we have, every opportunity that exists.
We need to be prepared.
I move blade to my left hand and cut off the pinky finger at the very root, and blood starts rapidly flowing out of the wound, coloring the whole hand blood red. By my command blood in my veins starts boiling, circulating, gathering mana throughout the body, and sending it to the finger.
"Weak will not succeed."
Once restored, I cut the finger again.
"Slow will not reach."
I cut again.
"Soft will not survive"
Again.
"We all will die."
Again.
...
Tomorrow morning the caravan will depart, going straight north, through the desert to the shores of the north ocean. I spoke with caravan leader again, and he was much more humble this time, overly polite, as if afraid to irk me in whatever way.
And that change may be connected to the Emergence, or the fact that I ripped apart few assassins today early in the morning. Sneaky bastards attacked between the deep night and early morning hours when everyone is usually deep asleep. The believed that it would be an easy kill.
They were wrong.
The whole inn came alive once screams started. Huge amount of half asleep adventurers came alive and running through the building rushed into my room, breaking through the wooden door in process, coming to help to the unfortunate resident. But they were not prepared for what awaited them in my room, body parts of half a dozen assassins all around my room. The whole floor was pained blood red, with guts and innards handing on the bed frame, window and walls.
After a short talk with inn owner and the city guards, that arrived quite late, I was given a new room, with promise to find those that sent the assassins.
Yeah, right. Guard doing their job, a nice fairy tale. Whats next? The kings become noble and fair? Truth and righteousness becomes the core belief of society?
Ha. Right.
It just happen that they were quite late, it just happen that the assassins knew that I would not have a weapon with me at all. If I would have taken the sword yesterday, everything would have finished faster, or would not happen at all, but no, I just had to tell the blacksmith to do a quality job, and sharpen it well. And to top it all, I even gave the last weapon I had on myself, a small dagger, to sharpen it too.
Politics, spies, assassins and shit. I could go through the information broker, and squeeze the information out of him, even get a name and address, but I didn't, at least yet.
Anyway, after the short talk with caravan leader I went straight to the blacksmith, and as it looks, he has already heard about the events of previous nights, because during the whole interaction he was sweating extensively, and constantly saying sorry that he is so slow.
Do I hold this idiot responsible? Was it him? Maybe one of his apprentices, who are currently hiding in the backroom, shared that piece of information with the wrong crowd.
So many ifs.
[Killing a person only because of suspicion, just like those nobles you detest. You truly learn from the best.]
Trying to end the discussion as fast as I can, I quickly attach the new sword in scabbard to my belt. After checking that the dagger was actually sharpened, I put it into the tiny scabbard on the opposite side. As I am about to exit, I remember the last several times I had something punctured through my chest, and decide to buy a decent set of chain-mail armor and sturdy shoes.
Exiting the blacksmith I go directly to the closest food stall and buy wide range of dishes, cooked in the most different way possible, and out of the wide range of ingredients. Not waiting even a second I start swallowing the food, not even tasting it.
I overdid it a bit with yesterday tests, and burned nearly all my fat reserves. Because of that my breakfast was quite big, though it disappeared nearly instantly, when I started sending the nutrition throughout the body. So here I am, few hours later, going through food stalls, eating as if starved for months.
The results of test are decent though. With the each iteration I was able to push the limit to two minutes for a whole finger. Next are the tests with efficiency. There is no logical reason to send every single part of the body into overdrive to heal a single finger, or at least I hope so. I felt that there is something in blood or maybe bones, which increases the healing speed, but I am not sure what it is.
There is an option to ask the summoned healer how does her healing work, but I am pretty sure that I will get the same answer as always, 'you ask the god for the miracle and it comes', or 'you just wish for the part to heal', or 'you direct your external mana from the gates into the area around the wound and it simply heals'.
My obsession with body structure and how everything works in body was usually frowned upon, as I had to go through a more... hands-on approach. The knowledge I have, came only from my personal experiments...
For quite some time I had stirred away from the idea of simply 'opening' a dead body up, and looking how exactly everything works, and simply studied through the battles and the way my body behaved. But you can only go so far.
The moment I stepped over those 'limitation', a whole new world opened up.
Maybe because of that I am so proficient in internal mana manipulation, healing and controlling my body.
I still remember the astonished look Richard game me when I told him that there are no book about 'anatomy', which he explained is a term for body structure.
Who needs to know how body works if anyone, with enough social or economic status to even care, can simply go to church or healer, and get himself instantly healed.
Who cares about 'anatomy' if you can simply cast a healing spell?
Only a failure like me.
What would I give for a single book like Richard described, and if he did not lie, his world has whole libraries of them.
Finishing another circle around the city to verify that there were no corrupted, I am left in a stump.
This makes absolutely no sense.
Emergence happened, and ended. It as if they all run away, but such things do not happen. They fight to the very last one, trying to maximize the damage.
I continue walking until I see an open area, where I hear words of encouragement and cheers coming from. Coming closer to the origin, I find people around an arena with diameter of about thirty meters. In the center of it two heroes are sparing with each other, Paul if I remember correctly, and the one with huge shield, Kurt.
People continue cheering as the summoned fight, few close to me even start discussing the battle, how fast the fighters are and how fierce the exchange is.
Is this a joke?
Their speed is barely acceptable, and the technique is utterly appalling. No footwork, every move is rigid and predictable, no intent to maim or kill whatsoever, as if watching a scripted dance.
Richard wasn't like that at all. Yes he was lazy and kind of strange, but when you get him going, he could go far and beyond what constitutes average. Though I still had issues with him using the 'Rapier'. He described it as a deadly weapon, but to me it was more of a oversized needle than a decent sword.
Are my standards too high?
No, it simply can not be so. There are catastrophic beings in this world, for which term 'demigods' would not even be appropriate, and comparison to them would be utterly incorrect. But an average Blood Legion officer would give better results than the summoned before me.
No, there is no Blood Legion anymore, they are now called Sun Legion, and I should not forget that.
Looking at the pathetic fight once again I think over what can I do.
[Nothing. No one asked for your help. No one needs it.]
They will all either succeed or die, as has everyone before them in this world.
As I am about to leave a woman in white dress appears before me.
"Hello Mr. Alan, how are you today?." she chirps happily.
It takes several seconds to process the question and I finally squeeze "Okay.".
This is new, I heard the question addressed to other people few times, and it was even once directed at me, but at that time it was more of an official greeting. But this, this somehow felt as if she genuinely was concerned and interested.
Looking at the spar in the center of arena she smiles.
"The boys were stretching out, and before we knew it, people gathered around." chuckling she continues "And now because of their pride they are trying not to look bad in the face of the crowd."
"Hey! I hear you!" screams Paul.
"Sir Alan would you like to join us?" unexpectedly joins in Kurt with a wide smile.
"I know that it is impolite to ask this of you when you are still healing, but I would be very grateful if you could give few pointers to these idiots." says Pamela with the same cheerful smile.
My first thought is to politely refuse, but instantly stop when I remember that this girl healed my hand, and I am in her dept.
[And here is the queue, someone asked for help. So, what are you going to do?]
If I break my life into scenes, there is only constant movement, destruction and blood. And whenever I made an attempt to change, to create rather than destroy, only one thing followed, death.
Will this time be different?
Will I be able to even change anything?
Maybe this is what Zeron wanted originally. Does he want me to train the new summoned?
What then?
Enough overthinking.
We all will die, disappear from this world forever.
I owe the summoned a dept.
And maybe, maybe they will not end up like me or... Luna.
"Okay." I state calmly.
"So which one of us would you like to spar first?" says Paul teasingly.
"Both" I reply dryly. They need to survive, and for that they need to learn.
They both chuckle.
"I am sorry Sir Alan, we know you are strong, but both at the same time?"
"Come seriously, with intent to kill and maim, or it will only bring you more pain."
Their eyes turn to more serious, and playfulness fully disappears, but arrogance did not.
So the hard way huh.
"Do not regret that Sir."
They both stand into position as I walk to the opposite side of arena. After several long seconds of standstill Paul explodes into action appearing before me with a brandished sword few seconds later, directed straight at my shoulder.
Slow and indecisive.
The next instant, a single kick into his abdomen, sends his body flying back, straight into the shield of his comrade, toppling down both of them to the ground.
Petrified Pamela looks at the duo on the ground in shock. It takes several seconds for her to grasp what happened, after which she runs to both of them and casts a healing spell. Few seconds later Paul stands up groaning and looks at me with astonishment eyes.
"Slow and predictable. Again."
He stands into position again and mana around him flares up to which people around audibly gasp. The next instant he disappears, only for his image to ripple into existence few meters in front of me.
Idiot.
This time I react not holding back my strength. My foot impacts his chest and I feel as his rips crack, after which my leg buries his body into the ground creating a crater several meters in diameter.
Few seconds of silence are interrupted by a scream from healer in white clothes, and she instantly rushes to the guy in under my foot, after which I step back.
"Learn from mistakes or you will die."
As healers hand light up and chest of Paul caves back out as he coughs several large globs of blood. Pamella looks at me with scared eyes, and tries to say something, but before she can, I hear splitting of air and move my head to the right. I feel something sharp traveling just few centimeters away from neck and vital artery. My left hand instantly shoots and grabs the hand of the new foe. I slam the person who I caught into the ground a meter away from Paul and Pam, creating another small crater.
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The attacker wriggles in pain and tries to breath, through the long black hair which fell on her face do not make it easier.
"You wasted a whole minute doubting, and when you finally do attack, it is when everything is already over."
"Pathetic." I state dryly "Heal them."
Several seconds later they start breathing normally while groaning in pain, glaring at me in hatred.
"If you have enough energy to glare than you healed enough. Stand up and attack, together, as a team."
Burning with dark emotions they start attacking with their huge auras flaring around them. Earth under them explodes into debris as they lunge at me, only for attack to be evaded and redirected, after which they are thrown around and slammed into ground.
Paul as if blinded by those dark emotions, focuses only on attacking me, and trying to make his sword reach.
Idiot. He needs to learn the hard way.
I slam the side of my sword into his thigh, only for the loud crunch of the thickest bone in body to be overshadowed by his scream, which resounds throughout the arena. I kick his body hard, sending him to the healer.
"Heal him."
Kurt appears before me with his shield shining up brightly with mana. My sword impacts his shield, and sends him several dozen meters away across the arena. In the corner of my peripheral vision I see next attack and my hand moves automatically to catch Victoria's dagger, which was directed at my crotch, and send it back the next instant. The raven haired attacker tries to avoid the incoming dagger, but she is just a fraction of a second too slow as the dagger burrows itself deep into her foot and she screams in pain.
Kurt stands up and attacks me again with his mace and shield, but every time my sword impacts his shield he closes his eyes tightly, as if afraid, trying to protect his eyes from the sparks that fly around during the impact.
"Open you eyes!" I scream as my sword continues to slam into his shield moving his body several centimeters away each time.
"Stare death in the eyes! Do not dare to look away! If you die, die standing!"
His bloodshot eyes fix on my sword, and trail it's whole trajectory, from the start to the moment it hits his shield. My sword continues to fall on helpless Kurt, and during the next strike, when my sword impacted his shield he tries to redirect the force into other direction, but focuses on the sword too much to see my left fist coming. The hook hits him hard and he is sent down, spitting blood and several broken teeth on the ground.
"Good. At least one of you is not a complete idiot."
"Stand up. Redirect my attack, but do not lose focus on me, not even for a second."
Kurt groans, but stands up and spits another glob of blood. I repeat my attack and this time he does not lose his focus as much. But that still does not save him from being sent to ground and spitting even more blood several more times.
"Acceptable. Terrible foundation, but you are a fast learner. Go heal."
Before I can say more Paul appears before me with sword coming at my face, only for his strike to be redirected and hit the ground. He does not lose his fire and quickly attacks again, flaring with mana aura even more, still glaring at me in pure hatred.
Not good. This way he will not learn.
As he lunges at me with his sword in the same pattern, I slam my sword in exactly the same place as last time. Paul falls down screaming as sound of broken femur bone resounds across the arena once again.
"I will repeat this again, and again, and again, until you learn. There are some who require pain to learn from their mistakes, and it looks like you are one of them."
Kicking him again I send his body to the healer once again, only for him to lie there, groan in pain and wait his turn, as Kurt is currently being healed. The anger from Pamela's face disappears, and is replaced with solemn guilty acceptance, as if finally understanding what I am doing. She turns back to Kurt and continues her task with determination.
Victoria slowly walks to me, with a mix of fury and fear, slowly circling around and not attacking.
"Do not let fear bind you. Pain in required. Fear is required. Know pain, know fear. Do not let it consume you. Control it."
She screams and attack me with fury of rapid strikes, which I easily evade, and counter with solid strike right into her face. She yelps and falls on ground. She look up at me with same eyes filled hatred as I have seen countless times. Blood starts dripping out of her mouth and broken nose, as she tries to stand up with her legs wobbling under her.
"I must say some fancy words about the spirit, soul and mana, about how you should synchronize with it, but that is useless bullshit people with innate talent use to justify their skills and abilities. You are not one of them, and you will have to accept it."
"There is only one other way for likes of you. Know you body. Know every bone and muscle. Feel them, know what they can do and what they can't. You are the master. Flesh is the slave, do not let it dictate your limits. You command, it obeys."
One by one I beat some common sense into them, something that should have been done a long time ago, but wasn't. In order for them to survive they need not just huge amount of mana, but knowledge how to control and direct their power. With each iteration they become faster, stronger, craftier, trying to find my weaknesses and determine their strengths, but with each iteration I push them harder and harder.
Only when you push people into corner they start growing.
I continue the training regime I have done hundred of times again and again with new Blood Brothers. Their young faces flash through my mind, as I try to remember their names, code names, as real one's were either lost or long forgotten.
All of them died, their names taken by new recruits again, and again, and again. I could have done so much more, taught much better, maybe then they would have survived.
Or maybe the opposite.
Because I trained them, they became better, sturdier, those that are able to follow me deeper into the abyss. And the only thing awaiting us all there was darkness and corruption of this world.
They didn't need to need see it. They could have stayed weak and died earlier, but then maybe their lives would be brighter, easier. Or they could have returned to Blood Legion, becoming normal soldiers, and living easier lives.
[Oh, are you trying to ask for their forgiveness? Or do you believe that helping the summoned you will change anything for them?]
[After we were betrayed, our brothers gathered around you. They believed that you would lead them, but it was already too late. The enemy got to the blood sanctuary first, and hunted down every single one of us using the blood compasses.]
[Do you want to hear something like "There is nothing you could have done"?]
[You won't.]
[We are alive only because we are 'damaged product', and our blood compass could not be used by 'mana sears', and the last real 'blood sear' died bleeding and crying in our hands.]
[Nothing can return our brothers. They either disappeared, or in the eternal abyss, gates to which are closed to us.]
Why did you let me live Zeron?
...
I fucked up.
The moment I was asked to train, something in me flipped and I started training the summoned as I had the new blood brothers.
Most of the were mule headed, either those who zealously believed in Zeron, and wanted to serve him or Blood Legionnaire who wanted to prove something, the remaining small number of others were a random bunch, just as I was one day. And one of my main tasks was to either beat them into submission, or show that the world is huge, and their skills are worth nothing.
And I did just what I usually should be done with new initiates, but the problem is that people saw it. That small number of onlookers was enough to make things significantly worse. If before it was general fear and cautious, now it changed to full blown terror, the same one which appeared on faces of people from other side of the planet, when they learned what I am. But this time there is no Blood Brotherhood history to blame.
Only me, only my actions.
I continue to walk, trying to conserve as much energy as I can, but this is hard as the blazing sun has boiled the very air itself, and every breath feels as if I am breathing in fire itself and breathing out cold air. The red sand under my feet is not helping at all, as it simply caves in on each step I make, which causes more energy loss, and more heat produced.
The whole thing somehow reminds me of Dead Desert, but a darker, somehow more sinister version of it. I am not sure if that makes sense, but that is exactly what I feel right now. It is as if the desert itself has a will, and if it is actively trying to kill you.
Anyway, I am not the only one in this state, and at least there is no one near me, whose mere presence would increase already burning temperature around me. Looking to left I find a huge caravan of people walking in line, creating a small dust cloud after them, looking several times more exhausted and emancipated than I do.
I am currently somewhere in the middle of the long procession, but several dozen meters to the right of it, acting as a side guard. This position is usually given to decently sized party, but the caravan leader believed that I alone can replace them. There is also another reason that I am here and alone. No one simply wanted to walk together with or even alongside the 'Blood Demon'.
People glance at me quite often, but instantly turn away, continuing to whisper between themselves. My 'group' is much further ahead, walking together, but again, there is no one else than myself to blame for that.
I pushed them away.
In the distance I see the silhouettes of the summoned walking together, in the head of caravan, talking between themselves, looking unaffected by the by blazing sun and unbearable heat coming from ground. More likely result of some cooling spell around them. But they do not look happy or energetic either.
Some may say that I overdid it a bit with training, totally crushing them, showing how weak and soft they are. But if they want to survive in this world they need to learn, and learn fast.
And they need to survive.
[Do not pity them.]
Even if they are summoned with enormous strength, and given whatever a mortal soul could desires, it does not justify taking them away from their world and lives. Even less, when you take into account that according to the Library of Damned the last 'unbound' summoned walked this planet several millenniums ago, this turn quite sour.
Ancients payed dearly for summoning more than hundred heroes at the same time, without a way to control them. The result was quite predictable. Books did not say exactly what happened, but it is easy to guess that there are things in this world, that they did not like and tried to change.
But no one likes to change, especially because of 'preferences' of outsiders, which you invited yourself.
You invite people for 'tea', and they start telling you how things in your living room should be placed.
Not nice, right?
Anyway, as it currently looks like, out the whole bunch, only Kurt was not crushed, and learned a lot. Even now he walks and experiments with his shield and mace, trying different stances, simulating battles in his head, trying to be faster, stronger, and with each move he improves, even if it is by a tiny bit.
Good.
But life never really gives you a chance to take a breath, and the appearance of a huge purple sand snake, which jumped out of sand and swallowed a random person whole, proved that true once again.
"Dragon!!" scream people in unison.
Looking at the creature again, I sigh deeply as I have many times before. I simply fail to understand how can people mix up these creatures at all.
Wyvern is a mix of skinny oversized lizard and cave bat with two legs and two wings.
Drake is a big, fat and slow lizard with four legs.
Wyrm is a huge snake with spikes all around it's body.
Dragon is a fucking four legged mountain of pure hatred, violence and destruction, with two wings. A single swing of it's enormous wings is enough to create tornadoes. The damn thing also spits endless amount of fire, as if an erupting volcano.
ALL of them should be erased from the face of earth, but differentiating them is not that hard, just check if there are wings and count the number of legs, nothing more.
The summoned instantly retaliate, sending powerful spells, ripping big chunks of flesh out of the wyrm, which only enrages the oversized gut worm. It spits a big greenish glob at the summoned, which they barely evade. Upon hitting the ground the green glob starts sizzling and melting the ground, as purplish smoke comes out of it.
In place of running away, everyone freezes and looks at the glob. It takes several seconds for everyone to realize what the smoke around the sizzling glob is.
"Poison! Run away!"
That should have been apparent just from how it looks.
Taking out the sword I start walking to the oversized worm. The purple Wyrm is too focused on the brightly shining auras of summoned to see my movement. I easily slip behind it, and leaping plunge the sword straight through its skull.
Unexpectedly the sword does not fully go through the thick skull of the purple noodle. The damn thin starts thrashing around, trying to throw me off it's back, it becomes so desperate that it spits poison glob into the air, and dives straight through it, covering itself and me in thick layer of nasty purple liquid. All it's thrashing make things only worse, as the sword continues to dig deeper and deeper, until I hear a loud crack and my sword digs much deeper, with it blade fully disappearing on the flesh of the wyrm. Nearly instantly it's body stops moving, falling down on the ground lifelessly, as if a huge tree cut down.
I stand up and start removing the nasty liquid from myself and my equipment. The liquid is much thicker and is harder to clean that I expected, but not by much. Looking up I find the summoned looking at me in mix of fear and disbelief, still breathing heavily, as if they have been running for several days non-stop. It takes several more seconds for them to understand that the enemy is dead.
People start scrambling around, screaming for help, as many guards and travelers have fallen down on the sand, and are twitching heavily. As if coming alive, Pamela leaps to me, shoving a small vial with liquid in my face and screams.
"Drink this! The poison should not have gone too deep."
I look into her eyes and state shorty.
"I am immune to poison.”
She looks at me in confusion and uncertainty, as her lips move, but do not produce any sound.
People continue running around trying to help each other, they scream for healer and Pam after looking at me one more time, runs to the injured and poisoned to help.
I look around in apathetic indifference. One single wyrm caused this. Something similar to this happens every time a creature a bit bigger than a cockroach pops up.
Is this the best we can do?
Are people destined to live like this for all eternity?
...
Night generally was very quietly, people were tending to the injured, trying to heal as many as they can. There weren’t as many injured as I originally thought, only two dozen, and thankfully for them, the healer had a huge mana reserve, as all the summoned usually have. In order to heal all the critically injured she had to buy few mana potions from a merchant traveling together with the caravan, for a sum which I believe to be several times higher than market price.
The ironic thing is that she spent her own money for that, which will not be reimbursed by the caravan leader, as by contract he is not required to spend any additional money in case the guards get injured.
But that is not all.
It also seems like the potion merchant is a close friend of caravan leader, and it is not hard to guess that he receives a percentage of all transaction done during the travel.
Oh you got injured? That is sad, but fret not, here is an exclusive potion merchant, which sells exclusive potions, for exclusive price. Oh you are not OK with price, that is very sad. But it is even sadder that there are no other potion merchants for hundred of kilometers around. What are we going to do?
Business, nothing more.
Same thing everywhere.
While people were resting, I was busy with a bit different task. The small heap of blood fingers lying near my legs is a proof of it. Throughout the tests and experiments I found out several things.
First of all, I do not need to send the whole body into the burning state, as I usually do during fights. The solution is to simply increase the blood pressure in arteries, while maintaining the one is veins stable. There is also breathing rhythm thing, but it is not as important.
Second, there is a much bigger increase in healing speed if blood travels through specific area of body beforehand. Inner cores of bones. I still do not understand what do the bones contain inside or how exactly do they increase the regeneration speed, but that does not matter right now.
Third the internal mana should not be directed on increasing the blood pressure and temperature of body, but rather direct it to ‘feed’ flesh from my liver to blood. I am not sure what exactly that does, but it simply works.
So many questions, and no answers whatsoever. In order to truly improve I will need answers, and if no one can provide then I will have to the same thing I have always done, learn myself.
A single book, just a single damn book, that is all I ask.
Should I ask the summoned about 'anatomy'?
No, they are just kids. There is no way they could know how body works.
Anyway, I can heal a single finger within dozen seconds, if I focus on it, and if I don't, it takes a bit less than a minute.
Hooray I can heal fingers.
Kingdoms were never built within days.
[But kingdoms had time. We don’t]
Hearing very soft footsteps I shove the sand over the small hill of fingers, hiding them as much as I can. A person walks out from the side of rock, that I am hiding behind, and stops still. I slowly turn my head and look at the new arrival's sky blue eyes, but she does not meet mine. Her ears are pressed against her skull while her long black tails hangs low lifelessly.
"The caravan will resume the travel within an hour." she states with barely audible voice
"I will be ready. Thanks."
She opens her mouth to say something, but instantly closes it with a click. She stands there for several long seconds, as if waiting something, but then suddenly turns around and starts walking away.
[We could-]
Enough.
As soon as I stop hearing her footsteps, I resume the experiments, but this time I cut two fingers on my left hand, and count the time it takes to fully heal them. To my astonishment, the healing time does not increase twice as I expected, but only by about thirty percent. I repeat the test several more times, to ensure that the result is valid, and was not simply product of ‘chance’.
Wait. What chance? There can be no chance in healing...
Chance? Huh? What can actually create a 'chance' in healing?
When did the speed of healing usually drop?
As if hit by inspiration, I cut a single toe on my right foot and single finger on my left hand, and test out the time it takes to heal to wounds on the opposite sides of the body. As if possessed, I start altering between number of toes and fingers, trying to see the limit, the bottleneck.
I get so into it that I nearly forget about the caravan. Standing up I quickly shove more sand over a much bigger heap, and I start walking in the direction of caravan, while the healing the toes and fingers in unfocused state.
Quite quickly I stand at the same position, as I did during the travel and start thinking about the results, and how to either circumvent them, or understand what exactly the limits or cause is.
This is not enough.
Maybe for someone healing a finger withing dozen seconds would be some kind of an achievement, but not for me. Everyone else has something else to balance their strength, external mana, spells, comrades. I have none of that, and there is only one path for me.
Those that want me dead, and which I want dead myself, are not humans, it is even hard to call them mortals. They are gods on this planet, titans of destruction and carnage with this world bending according to what they desire with but a thought.
And I am but a bug, nothing more.
Bugs survive, but they do not win.
...
"Paul... what... is that?" whispers barely audibly Pamella
"I-I don't know..."
Standing on big cliff all our gazes are fixed on what we see beyond, at least a dozen kilometers away in distance. A huge sand storm is circling around a huge black levitating pyramid turned upside down, which should be at least half a kilometer in height. It is hard to tell how big it actually is because of the strong storm of black and red sand, which looks so thick, that it resembles liquid.
The pyramid is so close to ground that one would believe that it is touching the ground, but if you look closer, you will find out that it is not. But that is not all, there are at least a dozen smaller pyramids slowly circling around the central one, as if they are attached to string.
"That is Zanta-bhu, land of dead." states angrily the fat bellied leader of caravan.
"Esteemed adventurers, I do not know how we ended up here, but I would strongly advice you not to look at the structure for too long. That black sand and floating stones have always been there, and no one know for how long exactly."
The moment he finished the last sentence he starts quickly walking towards group of guards and guide, shouting commands, berating and insulting the guides in every possible way. The guards look visibly scared not just because of the furious leader, who promised death and more for bringing the caravan here. Eyes of the many guards are fixed in horror on the black structure in distance.
Few short moments later caravan leader starts command people to gather, that we are not staying for night here, and are leaving immediately.
While I see all of this happening in background with by peripheral vision, my eyes themselves are fixed on what floats far away. I have seen the structure before a long time ago, and believed to never see it again.
So this is what you wanted from me Zeron.
I fully agree.
Empire?
Saint Protus Ghalor?
People?
They don't matter.
This.
I thank you Zeron from the bottom of my soul for this opportunity.
My legs quickly carry be to potion merchant, and the moment he sees me he stops as if terrified. I ask for every single mana potion he has, but the voice comes harsh and commanding, and he shovels quickly around his staff and brings out only ten flasks. He starts begging for mercy, claiming that the mana potions are rare, that they are hard to make and find. Not waiting even a second I throw several gold coins at the merchant, worth several times more than even he would ask for the potions in total.
It takes less than five minutes to gather all my staff and buy everything I would need, including some food and another sword, for dual wielding. I had to make several moves with each sword that I looked at, as the balance was hard to find, when one of weapons is much heavier than the other one.
Walking back I return to the cliff and check everything for one last time. Even if I had years ahead of me, I could never prepare decently for what is awaiting me. Even worse I have to do it all alone, but nothing will change even if I spend several more months planning.
Suddenly Lekana appears before me and clutches my shirt, with her big blue eyes looking at me in confusion.
"What are you doing?"
Looking at her and the people around, I find few of them looking at me strangely while preparing their things for departure, but most of people are simply gazing at the thing dozen kilometers away, which somehow brings bone chilling fear even from such distance.
Looking back at Lekana I decide to make it as short as possible, there is no need to uselessly stretch it.
"This is where we part. Live a long and happy life. May your gods be with you."
Lekana stands stunned, as if a statue, but I do not wait and already start walking to the edge of the cliff. Taking out mana potion I gulp it down and start very specific circulating mana technique. After which I increase blood pressure to a bit higher rate, and fix it there. I start breathing deeper to gather as much fresh air as I can.
From my peripheral vision I see the caravan leader sweating and running to me.
"Sir, I just heard that you are leaving. Sir you must not. That is Zanta-bhu, no one should go there. People-"
Not waiting for him, I gulp down second mana potion, and continue the circulation.
"SIR ALAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? YOU JUST DRANK TWO MANA POTION IN ONE GO!! YOU WILL DIE BECAUSE OF OVERDOSE!" he screams.
As if by a call, summoned appear and try to understand, start listening to the screaming of caravan leader. Their eyes start jumping between me and the still screaming caravan leader.
The young summoned, Kevin if I remember correctly, starts jumping up and down chanting something in the language of summoned.
"ITS A QUEST! ITS A QUEST! ITS A QUEST!"
The older brother, Paul, shouts at his younger brother to shut up, and quickly walks to me.
"Sir Alan, what are you doing? Is something wrong? Can we help you with something? If yes please tell us, we owe you our lives."
Thinking for several seconds, hundreds of things come to my mind, different variations and versions of nearly exactly the same thing, but in the end I can not find a reason not to be frank.
This will more likely be last time I see them.
"You are not the only summoned."
All the summoned instantly become silent and look at me in horror, as if their deepest secret has been found out.
"How-" Paul starts, but I interrupt him before he can say anything more.
"There are many, many more like you. They are stronger and faster, and not all of them are friendly."
They need to know.
"Those that wish to use you as pawns have summoned you to this world, and their goals may not be the same as yours."
"Get stronger. Start asking questions. And believe no one."
I gulp the third potion as continues circulating the chaotic overflowing mana inside of me.
"Sir Paul, Please stop sir Alan!! He has mana poisoned himself with potion, and can not think straight. He should not go to Zanta-bhu, you don't understand what awaits you-"
I look deep into the eyes of the caravan leader as he freezes in fear. I did not notice, but I already started talking.
"People turn inside out. Skeletons crawl out of bodies and attack every single living being they can find. People go insane within minutes, whispering in language of demons. Dead turn into Liches. Every mage and Enforcers turns 'possessed' and creatures of made of bones and darkness itself drag away those that are left alive."
Looking straight into the eyes of fat caravan leader I see absolute terror, he starts trembling, and makes several steps back.
His lips quiver and barely audible "How" escapes.
"You have seen them, right? Seen the true face of darkness"
"Do not follow me, you will all die." I state shortly
Turning to the summoned I say the only thing left.
"Vei Lai."
Glancing one last time at Lekana I start running in the direction of epicenter of the structure. With every step I make I feel as the very air starts becoming thicker, while the body feels heavier and heavier, as if someone is stacking more and more stones on my shoulders.
The sand storm continues to blow with it's speed only increasing the closer I get, and the moment the grain of sand hit my face they clutch to it as if tiny hooks.
It takes a bit less than an hour, but I finally get to the epicenter of it all, and find a huge pyramidic deepening with a structure made of black stone in the center of the deepening, directly under the tip of floating upside down pyramid. Walking down the slope to the black structure I look up at the pyramid. It feels as if the whole monstrosity will fall down any moment, but it won't, at least not now. I take out another potion and drink it in one go.
Except for the sound of the ravaging storm wind, the whole area is submerged in absolute silence.
Walking closer to the structure I find wide staircase leading down into the darkness. Taking out both swords, I grip their pommels tighter and start walking down the staircase. With each step the whole area becomes darker and darker, until comes a point when darkness consumes everything and the world submerges into absolute silence. I continue my descend and after several more minutes I start hearing a quite whisper somewhere behind me.
I stop and drink another mana potion, increasing the speed of mana circulation into my head, but keeping the heartbeat as stable as only possible. Breathing deeper in the stale and heavy air, the whisper starts slowly disappearing, as if they have not been there from the very beginning.
My jaws creek against each other and I scowl, as I came very close to the critical point.
Right after the voices come the hallucinations.
There is no one with me to wake me up. I could have been the end.
I resume my descend deeper and deeper into the darkness, and even though there is absolutely no light anymore, I still am able to see the stairs and wall. After another dozen minutes of walking I see the stairs end and an absolute endless darkness begin. As soon as I step off from the last step I find myself in a room so enormous that even it's approximate size could not even be estimated.
Even though there is not a single speck of light in here, there is sound. Sound of uncountable number of objects grinding against each other, as if ants deep inside of the colony.
Soon my eyes adjust to the darkness and I find myself standing on a small cliff, and making several steps forward I look down into deep and nearly endless pit. Few moment later my eyes adjust even more, and I find the whole floor of enormous pit moving, as if waves of ocean, but looking closer I find the texture of waves different, more granular, as if made out of solid objects rather than liquid.
The sea of objects could be by some mistaken for sea of bugs, which are crawling over each other as if in a pit of snakes, but I know that they are neither snakes nor bugs.
As if by a queue, all the tiny creatures turn in my direction.
Millions upon millions of skeletons, all of them rattling their bones in absolute hatred at the intruder. Different sizes and forms, from what could be described as normal, two meters tall human skeleton, to ones several times that size, with three pairs of arms and horns. But the rattling and movement suddenly stops, and the room returns into absolute silence for several long seconds.
One by one lights start shining deep in the pit, mostly green and blue with few rare red ones. The whole floor starts shining, lighting up the whole endless pit, as if lit on fire. Soon all the rattling changes is replaced with high pitched screeching.
Liches.
Not the feral ones, not, a different kind, the ancient ones, the true liches.
They all start screeching even louder as thick black fluid drips out of their eyes sockets, jaws, and ribs. The next instant all the screeching stops and millions of liches jump into action, moving nothing live the feral ones, no, these ones move as if puppets, not limited by the structure of their bodies, their limbs move in all direction. Millions of liches start crawling up the wall in one single direction, mine.
They all serve one being.
I gulp down all five flasks left in one go, and send the chaotic mana circulation to the levels I have never before. I should have controlled my body, controlled the blood pressure and mana circulation, but all of it is lost and forgotten as deep inhuman roar escapes me and explodes throughout the pit.
Last time I was in place like this, I lost more than half of my brothers, and received that accursed scar.
All the colors become inversed as I leap at the enemies.
Now it is my turn.
Lucy, I am home.