Thalza was feeling conflicted. Ever since she intercepted that human infiltration force, things seemed to spiral out of control. Instead of getting rewarded for her work, she was punished by the High Priest for the second time. And this punishment was a death sentence. If she died again, her Soul would be devoured by the Lower Plane and would not return to a new body, not that any remained.
She had no hope of escape, except by reaching the Sky Realm. Some would say such a thing in the Lower Plane was as difficult as scaling the Heavens, but she knew it was much harder than that. At least the Heavens didn’t fight you every step of the way. At least the world out there had Qi and other resources. In the gray wasteland, there was nothing. Nothing except for that damn Dreadstone.
She still couldn’t believe someone would actually willingly dig for it. She could literally feel her body shrivel up as she touched it. Days surrounded by that material would slow her Cultivation to a crawl, if not stop it completely. Maybe even reverse her progress. She refused to touch it and stayed as far away from the mines as she could. Well, not that far away.
She hated to admit it, but that crazy shapeshifter was actually good for something. If nothing else, he offered safety. No living creature could approach without him knowing, but for some freaking reason, there was never a Soul left when he was done with them.
She knew that because she tried to steal them once or twice before giving up. Recharging a Soul Stone was not easy. Killing a beast, especially one strong enough to survive long enough in the Lower Realm to be worth it, was an arduous task. Not just any weakling was good enough for her to Cultivate with. The Soul Stone was extremely inefficient, wasting much of the Soul, so it was of vital importance that the size of the Soul inside was as big as possible. You couldn’t mix Souls after all. Only one could be inside at a time.
She had never seen Gerald Cultivate, yet the guy advanced a Level with seemingly little effort, even finding time and teaching others while filling them with Qi.
She felt left out, of course. Who wouldn’t like having that vital energy freely given to them? She was offered the same terms as the others did, but she brushed them away without a second thought. She was not digging through the muck just just for a few scraps, and she was especially not working under that infuriating man.
Where was he even getting all that energy anyway? She never saw him recharge from Spirit Stones, though she knew he had many. He wasn’t exactly secretive about it. The Enchanter was showered with Stones and various treasures every day, but the lunatic wasted it all on research and his experiments instead of Cultivating with them. Everyone knew that reaching the Sky Realm was the only way to get out. Attempting to decipher the nature of the rifts from inside the red prison was foolish beyond belief. It was a waste of resources and a waste of time. Yet the stupid humans refused to listen to her wisdom and continued with their hopeless endeavors.
That was, until the man suddenly changed his mind, focusing on an ever-stupider task. Weaponizing the Dreadstone.
Thalza nearly snorted a laugh when she heard that. Sure, the material was toxic to all kinds of life, but it was weak. Even some Mortal metals were stronger than that stone, so the only way to use it was in the form of a powder, creating a zone of anti-magic fog. That was it. Creating a weapon, a sword, was beyond foolish. Yet he wanted a superalloy?
Thalza sighed and shook her head. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any more absurd, the bastard brought back a swine. A wild boar so massive, it overshadowed them all. And of course, it had to be one of the most dangerous creatures he could find.
The Void Lightning Reaper. That’s what the elders called it. A beast of gargantuan size with enough firepower to threaten even those of a higher Realm.
And he just plopped it on the ground, sitting on its belly as he studied scripts and Formations.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Thalza wanted to pull her hair out from the frustration. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t figure out his plan. I mean, come on! The things that he said? All lies, surely. Clearly the others didn’t believe him either, simply going with the flow because it benefited them. But she wasn’t falling for it. She was going to observe for as long as it took and uncover his secrets!
And things seemed to be turning in her favor sooner than she expected. The swine was awakening.
[Hey, ho… Stop moving, you are messing up my stuff!]
The Void Lighting Reaper didn’t care, because, of course, it didn’t. Why would anyone with a brain listen to a human? Thalza patiently waited for the enraged beast to tear the man apart, or at least do some damage. Instead, much to her surprise, the swine shook him off while releasing terrified squeals, and then took off as if death itself was after it.
She watched, speechless, as Gerald’s body expanded and he instantly caught it, and then playfully dragged it back.
Not giving up, the mountain of flesh suddenly began gathering energy, wrapping space around it, twisting and turning it until it formed the shape of a tunnel. Then it lunged forward as far as it could, and the magical construct flashed to life. And then… nothing. Its ultimate ability failed to materialize.
[Haha! Don’t do that, piggy. It was a valiant attempt, but you can’t reach subspace from the Lower Realm, just give up already.]
The Void Lighting Reaper, a creature of immense strength and unpredictable movement ability, squealed sorrowfully and then seemingly surrendered to its fate.
“Oh, come on! You can’t be serious!” Thalza exclaimed. “Why are you giving up already? Fight!”
The swine, for whom the words were meant, looked at her with its small beady eyes. Thalza flinched back, feeling like the creature was looking down on her even defeated as it was. The mere look had so many emotions behind it, she could even feel how the beast considered her inferior for not seeing it was useless.
[What? Did you say something?]
Thalza ground her teeth. Of course, he wasn’t paying attention at all. They were all so far beneath him, he could afford to fall asleep completely unguarded and not be worried about having his throat slit in his sleep.
Not for a matter of not trying either. She did his best to kill him, yet her best wasn’t even enough to pierce his skin. And that presented a large problem to her.
The strong were respected in Drow culture, and the bigger the difference between individuals, the greater the respect. But Gerald was not a Drow. Heck, he wasn’t even a human. He was something else entirely, something powerful and scary. Something that she hated from the first time they met. How could she respect someone she hated and feared? The conflicting emotions were driving her mad. She didn’t know what to think anymore.
And then there was the thing with the Demons…
She still wasn’t sure if what she had seen was real or just a conjured reality by a master of lies. As a mind reader, Gerald could quite easily alter someone’s perception of the world, though, obviously, she didn’t believe he could do that to her without her noticing.
Then again, did he even have to lie to her? That was the biggest problem. He never lied, at least she didn’t think he did. In fact, he was sometimes brutally honest, which hurt even more.
She couldn’t decide if she should trust him or not, and whether to believe the stories about the Demons being the invaders.
The Drow always held themselves in high regard as superior beings with their own agency, but the more Thalza thought about it, the more fake it all felt. Their society was highly militaristic, and they were raised from a young age to obey orders from their superiors, which they did...
She sighed. “Most of the time…”
Demons, as Gerald called them, were supposed to be powerful beings. But if magic really disappeared from the world millennia ago and it was only now slowly coming back, that would mean the Demons would lose their power too.
If they wanted to regain their power, the best way to do that would be for them to rule from the shadows and have all the other major races battle with each other until none were left. To keep each other occupied and ignore the real puppet masters pulling the strings.
Kind of like the endless war between humans and the Drow.
“Damn it.” Thalza buried her face in her palms, cursing. “Damn it, damn it! Daaaaaaamit!” She balled her fists and shouted at the sky, before collapsing on the ground.
“I don’t even know what’s real anymore.”
[It’s all real. All of it.] She heard the devil whisper in her ear. [And when I get out of here, I’ll do something about it. Wanna join me?] He smiled. A smile of a dangerous predator who knew it had caught its prey.
She sniffed and looked at him, into those beautiful, scary eyes that promised nothing but destruction and death. He offered her his hand. She hesitated to take it.
[Out there, in the outer world.] He gestured. [Just think about it, there are so many things we could change. So many people we could influence. With so many Souls to devour.]