Senior Monk Nijal Za'Darmondiel.

Kariril Territory, Shujen Kingdoms.

4:53 AM.

***

"We will remain hidden in the shadows. Always close by. Worry not, human. We will not let you die."

I heard a hardly perceptible laugh follow Ryda and I into the comforting veil of darkness. Then turned to watch the human sneer into the gloom before he took off at a meandering pace.

Despite being human, Rua Nun showed no signs of being inhibited by the darkness. Indeed, he seemed aloof and unaware throughout the several hours of indiscriminate walking. His head constantly turned to gaze upon the infinite complex arrangements of trees and brushes as the grayscale skies gave way to the melded colors of the coming dawn. Even as he passed between the bustling county capital and the larger Wethinnoc Hold, even though he was noticed by both, he paid little mind to anything other than the natural world. Even as they approached him with spears held high, he outright ignored them.

Or so it seemed.

"My name is Rua Nun. I am simply passing through." He said before they could speak.

I shook my head and laughed. Knowing the barbaric humans in these parts to be less than agreeable, I could almost mouth along with their reply. "You're trespassing." One of the more brutish creatures sneered, showcasing several missing teeth. But the human monk's response made me almost giddy.

"If you attack me, I will show no mercy."

With such potent words, there was only one way the situation could go. The closest barbarian reeled his weapon back. A great axe that did not even begin to swing forward before Rua snapped into motion, swinging his sentient weapon down across the barbarian's knee.

The slender rod passed through the knee as if it was not even there, spraying a mess of blood and bone onto the fresh snow while the howling of a pained human shattered the crisp air, eliciting a scream of rage from the sleeping cities in the distance. Forever undeterred, Rua whipped his arm up and across his jaw, smashing the barbarian's head into a red mist.

Another hulking creature came forward with a low sweep of his hammer and seamlessly, Rua jumped, flipping his body over the passing hammer while his momentum spun a powerful spin kick to the barbarian's throat, grounding him in a prime position for his face to be caved in with an axe kick; and then came the roaring waves.

Stoically, Rua stood between two raiding parties of nearly two dozen men with his weapon held out before him as he bowed in reverence, releasing a surge of snow-white Ki to shroud his body like Faerie Flames, then he disappeared into the fray, emerging between three barbarians to end them in a magnificent spin of kicks and devastating blows whilst deftly dodging, parrying, and tanking blows.

Even Ryda was impressed, as were all the other priestesses who witnessed them below. For humans, Rua Nun, Peter Boyd, and even the cat were some of the sharpest weapons on the rack I had witnessed in the three centuries since I became a senior monk. They were able to bring our strongest slaves to their knees on their first day and could compete with some of our senior monks on equal terms, even in darkness.

They were the finest humans we'd ever laid eyes on. That was an indisputable fact, no matter how many of us refused to admit it.

'I cannot help but be envious of Etan.' I signed to my sister after the long battle that saw Rua scarred, bloodied, and bruised, yet grinning childishly. 'It is his damned life's purpose. Yet he cannot even be proud about it.'

A grunt signaled her agreement with my sentiment. The pride of a pious follower of the Queen Demon Spider would allow for nothing more. At least to a male. However, her pride did allow her to voice her observations and opinions.

Or rather, her pride demanded it.

'You said the weapon was immovable, and that it spoke to you. That it claimed you were not worthy.'

'Yes.' I signed, but then looked closer at the item in question, and almost spoke as she did.

'Made by the hands of drow, it appears.' She commented. 'By the Destroyer.'

There were no signals from my hands to affirm or refute her claim. I believed the same, after all, and there was no chance of her giving a fungal rat's ass about my opinion anyway, so I gazed upon the field of bodies in silence. Then watched on in morbid pride as Rua finished off the survivors with a single, devastating blow, leaving not a single one alive.

Even Ryda was impressed, but our interest soon turned to disbelief once Rua finished off the last man.

It was not from his equipment. We ensured nothing other than his weapon had a magical signature. Nor was it his magic. He was recorded to have only a single affinity that could charge objects with various types of energy. Yet he mumbled to his shadow and watched an identical clone rise from the darkness, leading a small army of night-black gray dwarves, zombies, and skeletons to search the corpses at his command.

Even their broken weapons and bloodied pelt coats were pulled into the darkness, leaving a field of blood and mangled bodies scattered in the snow. And then, Rua approached us.

While we were still hidden in the shadows, Rua approached us. Smiling. "May I use my bell?"

I looked to Ryda, who mirrored my slack jaw and widened eyes if only for a moment before she shrouded it behind a regal nod. Seeing it, I reached into my storage to toss him his bag- also made with the same flair as his weapon.

"Do I even need to keep this?" I asked once he tossed the bag back, but I did not hear his answer- if any was even given- for in his hand was a bar of glowing roots supporting a relatively large bell of mithral with concentric rings and dials glowing a familiar shade of green.

With his free hand, he fuddled with the dials running around on the face of the bell, then reared the instrument back to give it a great swing forward.

A dull, deafening, horridly screeching ring pierced the air like the concentrated wail of a siren that knocked against my very soul. Suddenly, I was frozen in place, gasping for breath, skin crawling from head to toe while my eyes fought and kicked and screamed in protest to leave my skull. To turn away and shield my ears from that horrific toll.

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As quickly as it came, however, it disappeared, and in its wake was not the cold, biting snow but cold, absent darkness. A field of night, blacker than black could ever be, poured from those mangled corpses, birthing abyssal hands to latch onto flesh and steel alike, and with a silent heave, they pulled as one. They stomped their flesh down into the Abyss while the Abyss pushed their spirits and souls into minds and bodies of darkness, allowing them to return to the land of the living.

"How!?" Ryda pried herself from the shadows at once, rushing up to the nightly barbarians with me close behind her.

So many shades of black and gray appeared from the folds of their clothes, skin, and hair as I approached, blending with the blue-green glow of Amun's Arcana coming from scars, eyes, adornments in clothes, and some cases their hair. Even their weapons were made of the shadowy stuff, and they seemed so… alive. So much like they were just moments before their deaths. They were still barbarians who scowled at us with all the hate one could muster. But they did not act. They would not act. Not unless their master, Rua Nun, willed it so.

"How!?!" High Priestess Rida repeated, but the young monk just dropped the bell at his feet to let the hand of darkness reach from his shadow and take it away from this reality. Then he met our gaze, prompting, it seemed, the barbarians of shadow to clasp their fists before them as if they were monks.

"That is the Nox's sorcery!" She hissed with venom. "How?"

"I work for Amun." Came Rua's flat reply. "Me, Peter, and Veil of Shadows are Commanders of his Legio Noctis."

"Ah." I blurted, suddenly coming to understand why he laughed at my earlier claim. "So," I continued; if only to save face, "he made all of your equipment then? Including him?" I pointed at the weapon.

"He did." Rua nodded, turning on his heels. "Hinjaku was the one to find me, though."

"Then he must be an Artificer. And a guildmaster at that. One without a divine tree." High Priestess Ryda quietly mused. But of course, this human was full of surprises.

"Oh, but he does have a divine tree." Rua calmly said, turning his gaze skyward. And of course, we could not help but trace his gaze up and out to the pale rock taking up a good portion of the sky. The same pale rock that suddenly appeared several months ago, just after the great tree of darkness spread chaos through the lands.

"Did he… create that too?" I muttered, but my question was only met with a question.

"If I may," the human said. "You treat Amun with reverence, despite having just met him. Why? What is he to you?"

"Bool," I smirked.

And so too did Rida, as she said. "Elg-Horr." But again, this human never ceased to amaze us.

"Inexplicable indeed." He nodded. "And, you are not wrong. But only partially correct.

"What?" he laughed at our incredulous stares a moment later. "Are you surprised one as versed as Amun would pass on his knowledge to his subordinates? I may not be able to speak your tongue. Yet." He made sure to add. "But I can assure you, I understand your languages well."

A dangerous glare flared in Rida's eyes. "What is your guess then, human? What do you think he is to us?"

I took a step back in worry, for I have witnessed this prelude many times. But the human, Rua Nun, showed no fear. "To him." He gestured to me. "An eccentric half-drow who everyone seems to obsess over. To you, Telin's Champion."

I turned to the priestess, whose eyes were as narrow in disbelief as my own. But she did not act. Even as Rua ran his mouth further and flashed a pale, silvery-blue light through his eyes. "To me, he is my friend. He is my Guildmaster. Most importantly, he is my God."

That revelation ceased any further conversations for the day. Rua continued his walk and we followed, my mind running a million meters a minute while Ryda glared holes through my skull.

The path had become clear to us at once, for there was no other outcome once it became known.

Since the days of the Rending, only the elven deities cared to act against the Queen Demon Spider, and their war was a subtle one. A war that saw little blood be poured despite all the backstabbing to ensue. The Queen Demon Spider had been uncontested since, for neither the high elves nor the wild elves were fond of traversing the world of dark; with no deity willing to take drow into their portfolio, her rule was indisputable.

Through her webs, Drow society grew into a cultural amalgamation of wild spiders and those divine forces she commanded. It made a chaotic and unruly mess. A matriarchal and militant regime of zealots and pragmatists. Selective breeding saw drow females become larger, faster, and stronger than us. Yet we were still made to toil the slaves and fight without end while the females tortured us for pleasure and used us as breeding stock. It was a place of sadists, where males were regularly stepped on, spat at, beaten, tortured, raped, killed, and sacrificed for amusement. A place where males were relegated to becoming rogues on the fringes of society, rangers who decided to call the hostile tunnels their home, or fighters who submitted to their overlords. It was a place where only the best males of the Eight Eyes of Zimysta could become artificers, bards, monks, witches, or wizards. A place where their Legs were relegated to becoming warlocks or barbarians.

There was only one way a drow male could be born lucky. That was to be born a Sorcerer- and there has not been one to live past their first birthday in eons. The spider queen did not want males to even worship her. No priests. No clerics. No paladin. And so, if there was another drow deity- a male drow deity- her pantheon was at risk of crumbling into the recesses of the Darkworld, thus she would have to tame him. However, that would involve introducing him to our culture.

It was a culture we had to endure if we wished to live, set within a demonic pit in the Darkworld where horrendous creatures lie in wait at every corner. Far away from any Gods that would keep the Queen Demon Spider from ruling with an adamantine fist. All denizens of the world down under knew who truly ruled the Darkworld, though.

All drow knew of the Clan of Death, Darkness, and Void that was old as time itself, and now, a Child of the Nox was divine. Now, that divine Child of the Nox was Drow. A divine Drow Nox, to be introduced to Lilith’s culture.

That would surely pave a dangerous web for us to tread in the near future.

<<“Temper your mind, lest your thoughts be led astray. Else you may find yourself not returning from this trip, or worse, Nijal.”>>

Although she could not peer into my mind, I took the warning in strides, purging all such thoughts from my mind for the time being, leaving room only for my duties as Rua's proctor. An easy task, for Rua needed no overwatch in battle. He quickly tempered his ki from the environment, and he hardly needed instruction on how to use the sudden increase in ki to utilize the more adept monastic skills.

Days, tendays, a month, and beyond, we walked with Rua, watching him decimate any creature that wished him harm. Never growing bored, but witnessing fewer surprises as time crept on. Until, eventually, he happened upon a non-hostile village in the middle of nowhere. A prime target for drow and barbarians alike. But Rua waltzed through the streets as he did everywhere else.

We thought him to wander, as he so often did, only to see him enter a large room filled with the sick and, without asking, started tending to the patients. He healed many of them using the same strange method he used to heal my hand. But, for the ones who could not be healed, for those who pleaded for ‘mercy,’ he smashed their hearts beneath the immense weight of his sentient weapon with little words to spare for the dying.

After witnessing such an impressive act, the humans asked for the same of their own volition. They pleaded to be shown 'mercy.' Even as whatever poor excuse for guards was called on by the witches. Even as they threatened to arrest him, he healed. Even as they approached, he showed another dying man mercy, prompting the guards to charge.

Rather than fighting, though, Rua ran. He Skipped with the Wind to the hills and turned to us with a wide grin once they stopped giving chase.

"That's an intriguing sense of mercy." I managed to laugh once we caught up to the strange monk. "I have never seen humans so eager to die. Is that something your God approves of?"

"I gave them a painless death, freeing them from this life of suffering," Rua said softly as his gaze lifted to that pale rock. "Freedom. That is one of Amun's core tenets. Freedom. Woe be unto those who take it without remorse, for I alone am merciful. He and many in his Legions, are not."

All amusement drained from my face, both from his words and the discomforting glare from Rida.

A glare aimed at the center of the young human monk's back.