“Amun?”
“Yes?” Turning, I saw the party's social moth peering her bulbous eyes down the stairs.
“Um. Good morning.” She meekly sidled in with a bow of her head. Then turned toward the wall with a curious look.
“Good morning, Scarlett.” I squinted at her. Particularly at her pale, blanched skin. “Are you alright?”
“Hmm?” She turned back to me with raised brows and bulging eyes. “Oh, yes! The forest is whispering for you!”
“Huh!?!” I recoiled.
“Yes!” She stepped closer. “This has never happened before! It’s so exciting! Come!” With a strength that belied her size, Scarlett pulled me upstairs and outside to shoo away anyone who came close before she leaned in to whisper. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not the headmaster. And I’m not allowed to ask questions”
“At all?” I squinted. 'The fuck?'
“Now or never!” She shook her head with a beaming smile. “And your secrets are safe with me. Now, over there!” She flung her arm, sending a thick line of silk due south. “Twenty-seven kilometers! It will find you.”
“Are you charmed or something?” I leaned in close to study her with scrutinizing eyes. “How can you hear the forest? You’re unevolved.”
“Dunno.” She shrugged. “But I can tell you it’s natural.”
“Uh-huh.” I rolled my eyes. “What’s it saying?”
“Summon the dark one!” She wooed as if she were telling a ghost story.
“Ugh.” With a sigh, I looked around for Doyle and, thankfully, he was nowhere to be found. “I guess this is an excellent trust-building exercise?” I smirked at her. “I’ll be back.”
Under the influence of an Artificial Well, a single leap pulled me up into the sky and sent me rocketing into the distance. Just a few seconds later, I came to a gentle landing in a clearing some 27-odd kilometers away and looked around to see nothing but flora. Sighing to myself, I pulled out a blunt and took the first step in an ambiguous direction, only for a point of light to shimmer behind me. I spun at once. And subsequently froze.
What faced me was a creature that left me both awed and nervous.
It had a strong body coated in pure white fur. Its hooves were cloven, shrouded in a plume of illustrious white hair that matched the length extending from its goat-like chin. Its eyes were like that of a goat’s as well- horizontal slits like embrasures carved into an autumnal wall of oranges, reds, and golds. A thick mane of white hair coated its neck and shoulders like a divine scarf, and so too was there a plume at the end of a leonine tail. But the most remarkable feature of all- and the most notable- was the large horn spiraling from its head.
A unicorn.
A Divine Beast by classification. A Celestial by nature.
After several moments of silent study, a probing feeling started to pang against my mind. Preceding an overbearing echo that rang in my skull. ‘The humans who occupy the lake. You are their leader?’
‘I am.’ I replied in my head without any noticeable sign from the outside, yet he still seemed to understand me.
‘It has been ages since I have sensed one of your kind, Nox.’ The unicorn said as it circled me slowly. ‘The forest both yearns for and detests you, for death begets life anew. But your darkness corrupts. Nox, undeniably. And yet, never have my eyes fallen on a being such as yourself. A Nox Devil who has, swirling in harmony within him, the Wicked Shadow of Death and the Divine Brilliance of Life. Tell me, night elf, what are you called?”
I stayed still, kept my eyes mostly forward as he circled me- studied me carefully. 'I am Amun. And I’m only half a... night elf.'
After positioning himself just before me, he shook his horn in disagreement; causing it to wave precariously close to my brow while his voice rattled my brain into pudding. 'A Child of Lilith all the same. All the same, a child of the Fae. Like a torrent, the Faewoods runs through you, I can see. And so too does the Plane of Darkness. The Underworld. The Eternal Empty.'
'And what are the Faewoods?' I asked with genuine curiosity; though I half knew the answer.
'We have no intentions to civilize anything.' I shook my head. 'We only aim to seek shelter in the cave behind the waterfall two out of ten days per week. You have my word that my peers will refrain from attacking or threatening the denizens of the forest without a just cause. And should one of them impose on the residents of the forest, I will personally intervene.'
'The forest and lake have long since been imposed on. You fish. You hunt. You fell trees and pluck forage as your heart desires.'
'Quantities aside, how is that any different than what naturally goes on in the forest?' I quickly countered. 'Predators hunt prey. Other animals consume detritus and vegetation. They all alter their environment to make their dens and nests. What we’ve done is no different. We’ve felled a few trees to construct our cove and won’t be taking much of anything else. Only food, as all animals need to eat, yes?'
'There is logic to your words, on the surface.' The unicorn admitted. 'Beneath them lies misunderstanding. The denizens of the forest have no concern with those you call your ‘peers.’ They are concerned about the Dark One. Nox. You, the carrier of wicked death. As the guardian of this forest, I cannot allow you to remain.'
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
"Then that poses a problem.” I sighed, removing all traces of friendliness from my face and voice. “Cause I’m not leaving.”
'Then I will remove you myself!'
In a flash of white, the unicorn raised back on its hind legs to nearly smack me in the chin with its hooves before I could jump back and withdraw some mana. Neighing loudly, the unicorn responded by slamming down to send jagged cracks arcing out in every direction. As they spread, the ground crumbled and broke apart to reveal a mass of vines whipping forth to grasp onto me while the unicorn lowered its horn to charge.
With my avenues of escape closed off and my unwillingness to void everything, I could only stand in place to flood as much Shadow Mana as possible into my body before the horn dipped into my ethereal sternum. Despite my efforts, a blinding flash of light bloomed in front of me just before a searing pain ripped through my chest. Before I knew it, the ground turned beneath my legs and I was falling. Or rather, being pushed.
Spitting blood, I thrust my arms out before me. Sending a wave of purple mana past the unicorn and into the ground behind it. Its stomps grew louder and eventually, the unicorn began to heave and trudge in the dirt.
‘You affect the environment to negate my magical resistance.’ It huffed at the mounds behind its hooves. 'Clever.'
'Don't talk while you fight, you'll bite your tongue.' Spitting again, I reached out a gravity-infused palm and gripped the horn. Then gripped it with my death-filled free hand and pulled.
With gravity acting on my side, the horn spiraled out of my chest like an auger set in reverse with minimal effort. But the pain was immense. Choking blood, I released the domain I spread behind him in favor of spawning an Artificial Well. And with a blood-filled scream, I hurled the beast over my shoulder. In a blur of white and tan, the unicorn rocketed into the distance. Leaving in its wake a cloud of tree dust and leaves standing high above the canopy.
Wasting no time, I released one of the ethereal hearts formed in my Spiritual Body from all the life I've leached. Like a bomb, it burst into a dense cloud of necrotic mana that swelled around my chest to reform bone and restitch flesh in the most painful way imaginable. But before I was fully healed, another flash of light came from my right. Jumping back, I wheeled around in time to see the last of its scars heal just before the light shifted, then intensified into a blue fluid that shrouded its body like a second skin.
Squinting, I threw out a bolt of lightning and, sure enough, the arc of electricity bounced off to slam into a nearby tree with a resounding crash. Thus with my suspicions confirmed, I summoned the Reaper to my hands. But not before the unicorn vanished in a flash of white.
Before I could even turn, a pair of wrecking balls slammed into my shoulder blades. Lifted from the ground, I somersaulted forward and almost reflexively spawned an Artificial Well. Gripping the Reaper overhead, I then front-flipped just as the unicorn returned its hind legs to the ground and sent a sliver of Death through my hands. The mechanism hidden within the Reaper responded with a sharp click. A moment later, a second snap pierced the air as the joint slammed into place, adding just a bit more force behind the blade as it descended.
The blade came to a sudden halt as it sank deep into taut unicorn ass, causing the beast to thrash and howl as it tried to free itself from my wicked blade. I recovered in time to see another flash of light spread through the forest just before another pair of hooves swung toward my face. Like limbo, I leaned back low enough to hover inches above the ground. Right below the freshly healed belly of the beast as his hind legs came down to stomp me flat. But the weave was on my side. Through the ambient mana alone I calculated where his hooves would land and nestled myself between them instead of rolling out of dodge. And with palms fueled with temporal mana, I reached out to either leg just before he could summon more of those annoying vines.
With the slightest touch of my finger, life began surging into me at a rate I never thought possible. But not Usurped Life. The vitality I stole came in the form of Split Time. But not before the unicorn began thrashing, charging forward out of my grip. Refusing to let him get away, I mixed Gravitational Mana into my hands and the unicorn responded with an immediate dip. The greenery, the trees, and most importantly, his legs dragged across the dirt on their way back to my hands. Causing his screams and howls to rise to an ear-piercing crescendo. He thrashed harder on contact, eventually causing me to lose my grip again and flick a Gravity Bullet at him in protest. Still, he scrambled harder. He kicked and thrashed and howled as he bucked himself to his knees, where he managed to land a kick square to my jaw.
Releasing my focus on my spells, I Bamfed a few meters away and cursed under my breath while I healed. It’s what I got for experimenting with my opponents, I supposed. Something I would’ve never done in my past life. Telin’s words may have influenced my personality for the worse. I wasn’t as unfuckwithable as I thought I’d be. At least not yet.
After tossing both my weapon and my amiability aside, I assumed an open palm stance and charged. The unicorn responded accordingly, lowering his head in preparation to impale me for the second time. Just before we made contact, I arrested my momentum with a powerful stomp and pulled myself back with an Artificial Well. With the unicorn’s horn now inches before my chest, I molded a bit of Void Mana into the shape of a scalpel around my finger and flicked it through the base.
With wide eyes, we both watched the horn cartwheel in the air between us. I reached out for it. He dug his hooves into the ground. Then, I accelerated the horn towards its origin point with an indiscriminate gravitational pull.
Like a bullet from a high-powered rifle, the horn bored through the unicorn's skull to force bone, blood, and brain matter through the path of least resistance. As the sonic cracks rippled up my arm to amplify the sound, viscera plumed from the unicorn's eyes, nostrils, and ears like a fleshy volcano before the entire head and much of the neck spread to the four winds. Only to be caught by the unignorable pull of my Artificial Well.
All that remained was the bloodied and once-graceful body of the unicorn slumped on the ground like a sack of meat and a ball of gore orbiting around me. That and a ruined forest.
“Nice!” I growled in satisfaction. I felt no remorse or loss for the dead unicorn before me. It was his choice to fight me. On the contrary, I only felt a burning excitement that I hadn’t experienced since I first began to use magic. At long last, I could test the theory I’d thought about the most since being born in this world. But first, I made a quick Artificial Well to pool what wound up being around 50 liters of blood into sealed bottles. And then came the butchering process.
With the help of my Doppelganger, I managed to store the meat, a few bones, the organs, hide, and of course, the horn in my Shade Pocket in just under half an hour. If everything I learned was true, the paltry pile of bones before me was all I needed to raise the unicorn as a Shadow Undead. The condition of a corpse was only something to consider when I wasn’t the one to slay it. But the creatures I killed myself- especially with my magic- would always belong to me.
With that in mind, I pulled mana through my Void Core. First through the shadow layer, then through death before I withdrew it from the sides of the organ to guide it towards my throat to be concentrated into a dense mass while I focused. I imagined its soul ascending from the Under to plunge through the window that was its shadow. The shadow, not the flesh. That’s what it would use to assume a material form on the Mortal Plane once more.
In reality, it wasn’t necessary. But this was a one-time deal. So I took a moment to reaffirm the result before I layered the mana into my voice and muttered. "Report."