Harlan let Da wander with a guide while he went to do something else.
He didn’t want Da to go back without any understanding of Fomoria, since he would be offering the charter to them and Harlan wanted Da to be able to express how great his city was and how happy the people were.
He stood there in the vault, just admiring it.
Harlan hesitated to figure out how to melt it down and make something more useful to him.
Perhaps a new set of shifting armor? If he combined what he knew about blood gems and spatial pockets, he might be able to create something truly monstrous. Or maybe he would pick up the sword again, but it felt like a waste since his sigil clearly wanted him to fight hand to hand, or rather, with claws and horns.
As he was caught up in his thoughts, he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat.
“Oh. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“That thing will bring you nothing but trouble as it is. The Goliaths will come for it, and not just those in Lith, the Cast will come for it, even Carmilla is likely to seize it from you.”
“So I should give it to you.”
Xol had his fingertips pressed together, he knew exactly what he was doing and what Harlan was going to say.
“Well, so long as you are offering.”
The pair laughed.
“Do you have a reason for wanting the sword?”
“Yes, I-”
“Alright then.”
“Good. I’ll make a public display of my owning it to keep others from coming after you. And when the time comes, there will be a weapon that is truly meant for you, not some stolen thing made of stolen things.”
“My flesh isn’t even my own, my mind and soul are all that I have left of myself. Such a blade seems fitting.”
“You could’ve been a writer, or a preacher.”
“I don’t see myself sitting at a desk or a pulpit.”
“A pen moves mountains just as easily as a pick in my experience.”
“But a good spell does better than both.”
Xol touched the blade and teleported away; he wasn’t going to sit and trade words, even if he was having fun.
Harlan and Da spent three days training with one another.
Da wished to show off the martial arts which his people developed using their so-called ki.
They stood in a clearing and got close, putting the backs of their wrists to one another circled, matching their breathing.
In an instant both of them jumped back an arms length and started to spar.
Harlan remained on the defensive, blocking or dodging Da’s ranged punches.
As he dashed left and right, trees were blasted apart.
Yet when Harlan stopped and stood in one spot, he refused to move.
His hands dimmed with a faint darkness and with minimal movements, him keeping his hand straight and rotating it, the force which was launched at him was deflected, like sloped armor against arrows.
Da became tired after 10 minutes.
“I never expected to improve so quickly, that I would keep you pinned down.”
Harlan skipped over and punched Da in the stomach so quickly he couldn’t react.
He held him in his hands and patted him on the back.
“Don’t become conceited, you are very far from my level.”
When the air was back in his lungs, he asked a simple question.
“Why didn’t you keep dodging then?”
“There is a Cynthia flower there on the ground, I didn’t want you to destroy it.”
Da had been with Harlan for half a week, and felt like he knew absolutely nothing about the man.
Flesh pits underground, an entire city reduced to a smoldering crater, the tidal wave that marked the start of his conquering of this stripe, hundreds of thousands left dead in his wake.
Yet he had seen him walk through the city, making cantrips to entertain children, stopping to heal the stray cats, and having polite conversation with a wyvern.
But there was one thing that he was certain of after seeing him next to the wyvern, Harlan was the bigger monster of the two.
Harlan didn’t want to take Da home and start on finding the imposter until he knew what would be the fallout of him killing Thrash.
Lith hadn’t fallen into chaos on account of Harlan telling Bartholomew and him telling members of a new path group.
They pulled together their members and seized Boulder before news of Thrash’s death reached anyone.
Not a single one of them were on the level of the high guard or the former king, but they found the records of prisons and broke out one of the people who hadn’t been killed yet and was strong enough to hold the throne.
Harlan had been called to see the new king.
“King Romulus, it is a pleasure to be invited here.”
He was smaller than Thrash at only 20 feet tall.
His hair was curly, short and black, his skin olive colored.
His features were fairer than most Goliath, though Harlan wouldn’t say he was handsome by human standards still.
He wore a large coat, red, with white fur from a species of giant tigers as trim.
He had black dress pants and a white shirt, parts of a three piece suit.
“I hope you have brought the crown and the pelt.”
“I have.”
A golem carried the crown of Lith, a simple and irregular thing which was enchanted to stay on one’s head even in combat; two others came through with the drake pelt that Thrash wore.
“Very good. And the Blade of Kings?”
“That I do not have. Surely you heard that it is now in the possession of the Dread Lich?”
“Who is allied to you, is he not?”
“He took the blade from me to prevent it from making me a target, and I cannot ask for it back.
But… I can give you magic, and a new blade, and a set of powerful armor.”
“That blade had been passed down since Lith was established nearly 600 years ago; it has killed four Hands, 17 Fingers, and many others.”
“In my birth country of Ragne, the symbol of the king is a tree made of blades, representing the cities that came together to form Ragne. Perhaps a blade made from the swords of others from a time where your people killed one another en masse isn’t the symbol you want.”
Harlan and King Romulus stared down one another before Bartholomew cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, but if Xol has the blade, then there is simply no getting it back, and Harlan does make a good point, we do not need such a symbol any longer. He is offering magic and-”
“Bartholomew, you have known King Fomoria for the longest of any of us here, and I believe that is clouding your mind. You, King Fomoria, how exactly did you kill Thrash? Of what has been told to me, you were barely able to take on one of the Fingers, let alone a Goliath at 22 feet tall.”
“I gave him magic, but intentionally sabotaged it, and his body slowly died, decomposing before my eyes.”
“Yet you would offer me magic as well?”
“Don’t you have that jester around here still? He is what it looks like when someone isn’t supposed to be killed by it.”
“Yes, he is still alive. Bartholomew, if you trust King Fomoria, get his magic.”
“Of course. Harlan, how long would this take?”
“30 minutes, give or take. The room that I set up for Thrash is still there on the top of a mountain, I should be able to carve your flesh without the need for that blade.”
“Will this be painful?”
“Somewhat, as I do require you to stay awake while I operate.”
“Then, if it assuages the fear of my king, I have no issues.”
“Go then, Bartholomew, King Fomoria, go, then return to me.”
“Before I go, take this.”
Harlan gave his charter to Romulus.
Harlan left through a void gate, and then brought him back after an hour.
Bartholomew was sore, but otherwise healthy; Harlan gave him a book of spells.
Romulus would wait and see what happened.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
They were at the northern tip, Harlan teleported hundreds of miles at a time, and the stripe itself was separated from the nearest landmass by 100 miles of water.
In all, it took a month and a half for Da to travel 3000 miles, across three stripes, just to reach Harlan.
For Harlan to bring him home, it took three minutes.
“Do you recognize any of this?”
“SO-SOUTH, GO SOUTH.”
The man clung to Harlan like a baby monkey on its mother in the treetops.
In his mind, humans were not meant to fly.
The Sectlands were not a single nation, and Da explained that calling them one was an insult.
From hundreds of feet high, Harlan looked at the honeycomb walls that made up the various temples, cities, and farms which stretched past the horizon and seemed to cover nearly every inch of the stripe.
The way Da explained it was that soldiers were raised in temples, then moved to the towns and cities to act as guards, and the farms were considered neutral territory and sold food to whoever was buying.
There were other places, Harlan noticed what seemed to be one entire location which from the sight and smell, heavy perfumes and red lights, was a brothel city.
They moved on.
The Sect of the Crane were specialized in their long range attacks and they were mostly kept on the walls.
Their attacks, which Da had used against Harlan, had a rather impressive range, but as Harlan saw, there was also blowback.
“Where should I land?”
“TH-THERE.”
“Use your hand, point. Listen, I have you, I won’t drop you, trust me.”
He shakily pointed towards the training area, which consisted of many round sandpits.
When training that large attack, it would suck up the grains to power itself.
Harlan touched down and Da nearly buried his head in the sand; he disliked not having dirt under his feet.
But, it was the training area, and naturally he was surrounded by people, people who had seen the man who led a horde of monsters to them, broke down their wall, and then burned down the building where they put the weaker members, those who couldn’t defend themselves.
“WAIT, WAIT, THIS MAN DIDN’T ATTACK US.”
“Brother Da? I thought you were dead.”
Nobody had stopped their little glowing hands, but Harlan didn’t worry.
“I went for revenge. But I did not find the man who attacked us.”
“How many horned blue men exist in the north?”
“I found a city of them.”
Harlan gently moved Da behind him.
“My name is Harlan Fomoria, King of Fomoria, Champion of Darkness. Do you have a leader? Someone I can speak to who knows about what happened?”
“YOU WILL SPEAK WHEN SPOKEN TO, KNOW YOUR-”
Harlan skipped forward and towered over the man.
“Do not intend to tell me my place.”
After 15 minutes, there was a pile of men at Harlan’s feet.
Finally the giant double doors of the temple opened and a woman with a feathered dress and a hood with a strip hanging between her eyes came out.
She wore her deep black hair in a tight bun, something that wouldn’t come undone in a fight.
Her figure was thin, betraying what she was capable of.
The bodies of these people were not as refined by mana flow as the soldiers of Ragne, since they primarily fought and trained using internal mana that was far more efficient, thus burning less mana and less external mana then needed to be pulled in to refine their bodies.
But, it was this internal magic based combat that let them strike far above their weight class, so to speak.
Da got on his hands and knees, and Harlan stepped over the groaning men towards her.
When she was at the bottom of the stairs, she stopped, and Harlan, 10 feet from her, also stopped, and he bowed.
“Apologies for the mess. But I did not throw the first punch.”
“Why have you returned, blue devil?”
“Because someone attacked this place and used my name to do so. I want to understand why, and I want them dead.”
“I am Emilee, Crane Wife.”
She slipped out of her fine silk robe and took a combat stance.
“Your lies will not stay my hand.”
He matched her stance like he had with Da, but didn’t feel the need to use his sigil.
Harlan moved over just a few feet.
“Do try to control yourself, there are men on the ground over there.”
She slashed the air and a wave, thin as a hair, cut through him.
Emilee was confused, he should’ve been split from shoulder to hip.
But as with the attack from the soldiers from Tochter, he could heal from a thin enough attack in an instant.
“I do not want to hurt you.”
“You have beaten my men. It would be dishonorable to-”
Harlan moved by using friction reducing magic and air magic, momentum magic let him instantly move left and right without his stomach going up to his throat.
Xol called this an advanced movement.
He had to cast these spells with both hands to keep moving, momentum shifting perfectly was hard, any failure, an imperfect spell, meant he would feel that shift in his body, and possibly end up off balance, leading to a cascade of imperfect spells.
She jumped high into the air and punched down with all of her might, creating a crater and a massive cloud of dust.
Harlan knew better than to attack her.
If someone went into the air without a plan to control themselves, it was suicide, and he didn’t believe she was so stupid.
He instead opened a gate when she jumped even higher, hiding it in the cloud of dust.
Harlan had also been taught how to move his gates somewhat after they were already cast.
The Crane Wife suddenly found herself hundreds of feet in the air.
One could fly with telekinesis, but not with how this sect knew it.
Emilee had a greater mastery of her aura, but could only make platforms to jump from or walk back down to the ground with force stairs.
“I’ve killed hundreds of thousands, but I have never intentionally killed someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Right now you and your men attacked me because you think I attacked you, grief… it changes how you act.”
“Do not presume to understand our grief.”
“The Cast poisoned my people, killing children and the elderly.”
She could hear the pain in his voice.
“And what did you do to them?”
“I have the skull of the man who did it sitting on a shelf.”
“Bring me down, and we may speak.”
Harlan opened another gate and she dropped through.
To heal the men, Harlan opened a void gate, he was outside of normal gate range.
He stuck his head in, and then Rekur’s head popped through.
The men tried to stand, but Emilee stood by, believing she understood Harlan’s character.
Her white breath healed the men in an instant.
The Crane Wife picked up her robe and Harlan followed behind her.
“Da, come.”
“I could never enter the Sanctum of the Crane without-”
“You may follow us, Brother Da.”
“Yes, Mother Crane.”
Harlan wasn’t exactly comfortable, the table was too low, they made him sit on his knees on a pillow, but at least they had rice and a nice soup along with a green tea.
“I noticed you use brother and mother, are you related?”
“No, each child is taken from their mother at birth so they may be raised by the sects.”
The look Harlan gave sent chills down her spine.
“And may these women decide to keep their children? What of the fathers?”
“Choices become murky when one must choose between two family, it would weaken the whole.”
“I will not stand for this.”
“How we conduct ourselves is not-”
Harlan was just sipping his tea, but she couldn’t help but fill the eyes of a predator on her.
“Not what? You seem nervous.”
“No, it is nothing.”
“Who leads your sect? I need to speak with the one in charge to ensure your policies match my own.”
“The Grandmaster of the Crane does not speak with outsiders. But, if you create your own sect, bring in students, and then place well in the next tournament, you could be given formal status as a grandmaster, then you may meet with him.”
“And when is the next tournament?”
“We just had one, so two years from now.”
“Too long. Where does he live?”
Emilee scoffed.
“One does not simply meet with any of the grandmasters. If you gave me a month, I could bring a message to him, but-”
“Right now your policy of stealing infants from their families violates my charter. I will give him the charter, then the other sect leaders. They will have six months before I return, and if they have made progress, they get another six months.”
“And if not?”
“Da, show her telekinesis.”
He did as commanded.
“Surely you can feel the difference in what Da was compared to what he is now. It would be a great boon to be allied with me.”
“You did not answer the question.”
“To prevent you from gaining power from what I gave Da, I would need to kill him. You are so far from my kingdom that it will take years before I have conquered the lands between us. Then I will be back, and I will give this offer again by the blade.”
The two of them thought about fighting Harlan, but Da already knew it would take an instant before Harlan tore his spine from him, and he had never even seen the horrors which were told to him, that he could become.
Emilee felt more confident, but seeing a man who could be sliced in two and suffer no damage to his body or clothes gave her pause.
“I will bring you to the grandmaster.”
“Good, within the week I hope?”
“Three days?”
“Thank you.”
Harlan cut his hand off, peeling away tendons and pulling his black blood into the air.
Both of them jumped back in fear.
In just a few minutes, Harlan had formed a blood gem, used his bones to make a case, and tied his tendons into string for an amulet.
“Call me on this when the time comes, and I will return.”
He reattached the hand, replacing what was removed, and cleaned up the blood.
They looked on in shock as Harlan left through a void gate.
----------------------------------------
Balor looked over the information.
“This is worrying, but I don’t see what I can do for you.”
“Use your underground contacts, look for any assassins who meet this description.”
“I am but a simple-”
“So long as you work on this, we will continue to turn a blind eye to your other work.
Does Harlan know?”
“On a surface level, he understands that I am better than what came before, but he cannot know what all my business entails. Running women, drugs, weapons, I cannot destroy these markets, I can only steer them better than they were.”
“It is your more private life and moral flexibility that will be required for this, Harlan is too known, he could make too many different traps for him.”
Balor flipped through the pages, skimming the text of the reports.
“What does House Harbinger know? Allies or enemies on this?”
“I personally watched Nil drive a blade through this man’s heart and burn his body.
For a family of assassins and spies, they have a code.”
“I will see what I can do, but this doesn’t sound like anyone in my circles, he might be working for a rival syndicate.”
“The resources of the Unseen are yours to use as you please.”
“From what I am seeing here, he intended for this to come back here, didn’t he?”
“Certainly. Setting up this series of events, Grenth finding scraps of burned papers, telling Cynthia, her helping Harlan to bring in a spy, it would be childsplay. He wants me to know he is back.”
“Do you think he has more targets than you?”
“I will move guards around anyone close to me, and nobody but the royal guard will now watch out for your family. I’ll keep Relly at my side to make sure she can catch him.”
“I’d like to bring in my own people on this and in the palace.”
“I’ll have Dahlia speak with you about giving them passes and making a cover to explain their presence.
But make sure they are respectable enough to not scare anyone.”
“I will bring them in as personal servants from House Fomoria, nobody should question it.”
“Good.”