CHAPTER 34

The old one had taken quite a lot of time to traverse the distance to Orthrus’ house, as he had set off just before noon, and the sun was already a long way past its summit as the old one finally arrived.

As he finally arrived at the glade, he was once again mesmerized by the odd calmness that seemed to permeate the air. He had never understood why Orthrus had decided to settle here, as the old sun elf could have settled anywhere, he could have settled in a human kingdom and made thousand from simply selling his minions, or even selling the occasional body part that he threw out, he could have settled closer to the wastelands and used the monsters from there to continue his experiments, and yet he had chosen to settle here. He had chosen a small-town close to the deadlands with almost no special creatures in the area, no important or strategic resources, and a small population which wasn’t especially in favour of dark mages.

He had been worried for Orthrus, as he knew his tendency to isolate himself from the world around him, and he was worried that the local community would oppose him. However, his worries were put to rest by a tree.

He had been quite surprised by this, as he normally only conversed with the great world tree which made up most of the forest, but the tree behind Orthrus house wasn’t part of the great world tree, as it had its own consciousness.

He had tried to call out to the world tree, only to receive a more irritated and slower answer. The old tree had introduced itself as Farnum, and it had been quite irritated from the dark elf that showed up out of nowhere and tried to command him.

 With a sincere apology and a promise not to order the tree around anymore, the tree had forgiven the old one, as he was both a chosen of Eleanor and he seemed to be a very sincere. While the tree would normally doubt any sincerity shown, he trusted the old one, as a chosen of Eleanor was not allowed to lie to the flora that surrounded him, and the tree could feel the emotions of regret radiate through the connection the mage had set up.

While the tree’s fury had been extinguished, the old one’s curiosity had not. However, before he could ask a question to quench his thirst for knowledge, the old tree spoke out with a calm voice.

“If… you… have… ques…tions,…. ask… Orthrus.”

The words echoed through the old one’s mind, before the connection was cut. The tree seemed to go into a comatose like state, as he did not respond to any of the old one’s attempts at communicating, even when he used force, the tree did not respond.

All his attempts had failed, as to this day, the tree had not said another word to the old one. Remaining the silent guarding that watched over the glade, and the house that was built right in front of it.

His gaze had not been broken during his short journey through memory lane, as his gaze was still fixated on the large and stunted ironwood tree. Its trunk was once large mass of incredibly dense wood that spanned several dozens of metres in diameter, until its branches seemed to erupt in an uncontrolled growth at a height of just under hundred metres, as the tree changed from a solid and dense structure, to a twisted entanglement of hundreds upon hundreds of branches, causing it to block out any sunlight that happened to fall on it, and causing it to gain a stunted look, as it was clear that its growth had been altered by something.

The old one continued staring at the tree for several seconds, until he finally snapped out of his memory induced daze. He quickly diverted his gaze to the woods surrounding him, and as he quickly made his way towards Orthrus’ front door, he was surprised to find that a note was plastered on the door.

The note was right next to the sign with ‘Do not disturb’ on it, and with a rough handwriting, it said: ‘Dear unexpected visitor,

Can’t you read the sign? If you can read it and chose to ignore it, you will only look like an idiot, as we won’t we answering the door. It doesn’t matter how many times you knock, how many times you scream for us to answer the door, or how many death threats you issue, we won’t answer. So, do yourself a favour, and screw off.

Greetings,

Gob’

The old one chuckled at the goblin’s antics, as he only knew one being named Gob with such a passive-aggressive attitude. Despite the goblin’s attempts at covering it up, it was clear to the old one that they were either out, or they were performing a dangerous experiment.

The old one figured that with the absence of a large amount of dark mana, they would not be carrying out a large experiment. He couldn’t be sure, but he quickly tested the other option, as he called upon the plant life surrounding him, and found out that the two were still close.

The old one received the memories of the surrounding plant life, as visions of Orthrus, Gob, and a young boy standing in the glade displayed themselves in front of his eyes, he saw the boy leave the glade, and after the young boy had left, he saw Orthrus summon a large spider like creature, mount it, and scurry off with Gob following him close behind on foot.

Their tracks practically glowed as the visions of the tree highlighted their exacts movements, allowing the old one to track them with great precision. He calmly walked along the tracks the two had left behind, and as he came closer and closer to the two, he moved with great care, as he did not want to carelessly notify them of his presence, as that would only ruin the surprise.

The old one thanked his [Stealth] skill once again, as it greatly aided him in remaining unnoticed with the help of the surrounding plant life. The combination of the skill, the grass that cushioned his steps, the trees that notified of anything in his way, and the flowers that warned him of the fauna that roamed the glade and its surrounding forest, allowed him to sneak up to the tree that Gob and Orthrus were seated on.

Orthrus was seated a few dozen metres up in the trees, looking over the surrounding forest, and the small body that seemed to be his disciple. He and Gob looked on in absolute silence, as they seemed to be following the young boy’s every move, allowing the old one to scale the tree for several dozens of metres, until he met a barrier.

A literal one at that, as Orthrus had set up an aura around him that would notify him of anyone’s presence with a radius of 6 metres, increasing the difficulty of surprising him even more.

The old one did not shy away from a challenge however, so instead of trying to sneak up to surprise him, the old one would use a different tactic. Instead of using care and stealth, he would use force.

He gathered the mana in his core, and let it flow throughout his body. The mana flowed through his body, and changed it, his usual dark grey hair gained a dark brown tint, his skin thickened and it became even darker as he received a bark like tint to his complexion, his canines grew as they resembled that of an animal more than a dark elf, but the thing that stood out most were his eyes, as they seemed to glow with a light green, and radiate power.

With power coursing through his body, he kicked off.

The tree pedestal under him caved in under the massive pressure he exerted, causing the tree to swing and create a spider web like pattern on the side of the tree.

He reached Gob and Orthrus within a few seconds, only to quickly pass them as he had no way to slow down. He knew that Orthrus had noticed him, as he heard a surprised and slightly panicked voice from under him as he continued through the woodwork.

“AH!”

It resounded through the forest and the old one’s ears. He treasured this sound, as it had been a long time since he had been able to surprise the permanently wary Orthrus. He revelled in satisfaction, as the sound reverberated through his mind, and a laugh escaped his mouth.

With a smiling face, he encountered the first branch. He broke through it with the sheer force of his velocity, but he was slowed down and he veered off course due to the impact. His smile waned as he was brought back to reality from his glee induced daze, and as he looked up, it waned even more.

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A large branch was right in front of him, and with only a dozen centimetres between him and the branch, he didn’t have enough time to react. He smashed face first into a second branch, before he could turn his body, and have his legs absorb the impact from smashing into the next branch, causing him to lose his momentum and stop in mid-air.

With his momentum lost, the old one was suspended in the air for a moment, before gravity took hold of him, and dragged him down to the earth.

The old one accelerated several minutes under the force of gravity, before he dug his sharpened nails into the tree, and as he slid down several metres, he ended up only a few metres above an agitated looking Orthrus.

The old one only had time to smirk, before he was scolded with a solemn yet irritated voice by his old friend.

“Marius, what the hell are you doing? No, let me guess. This is one of your little pranks, isn’t it?”

Marius saw his old friend’s irritated face and he could only smile in glee as it had been quite some time since he had seen that irritated face.

With his old friend only displaying a smile of glee, Orthrus could only put his palm to his face, as he did not have the time nor the energy to deal with this oddball, yet he still needed to turn around to hide the smirk that was slowly forming on his face. He remembered the fun times they had, he remembered how Marius had made him flinch from his little pranks, and how he had returned the favour on the old dark elf.

Despite his glee, he still retained his solemn and agitated tone, as he knew Marius wouldn’t back off if he showed even a shred of delight at his performance.

“I don’t have time for this. My disciple is hunting for his first experiments, and I don’t want him dead by the end of the end of the afternoon. So, if you could please not distract me, that would be great.”

Not very satisfied with Orthrus’ uptight reaction, Marius tried to get some other kind of reaction from him by talking about his disciple.

“Really? Is you disciple hunting his own prey now? Then where is he now?” Marius said with a questioning and slightly clamorous tone.

Orthrus looked up from his attempts to hide his smile, and looked around. He had lost sight of Daelyn because of Marius’ behaviour. He scanned the surrounding as he tried to find the small boy, but he couldn’t find him.

The last time he had seen Daelyn was on his way towards the ant queen. Marius had popped only moments before Daelyn had encountered it, and because of the loud noise that old dog had made, he hadn’t been able to hear anything but the sounds of wood being crushed, and hardened keratin scraping against bark.

He quickly directed his gaze towards the ant queen’s base, only to find that it was mostly abandoned. The base seemed almost empty, as only the occasional soldier ant came out from their hiding place to make sure that the surroundings were safe.

As Orthrus was about to summon one of his creatures to find Daelyn, he heard a scream.

The scream resounded throughout the surroundings, and as it reached the two elves, they flinched. It was a high-pitched scream full of panic, helplessness, and pain.

They felt the scream reverberate through their bodies, they felt the pain that the recipient was experiencing, and despite their battle-hardened senses and will, they still flinched, as they recognised who the recipient was.

It was a small child, a child that might not even be past the age of seven judging by the volume, and as Orthrus realized its origin, he paled.

Despair filled his mind, and as it reached its climax, he sped off. He imbued his muscles with dark mana, runes flared up on his body, and he accelerated at an exponential rate. He felt his body strain under the pressure exerted from his own mana, yet refused to give in, as he knew that he could not waste even a single second if he wanted to enlarge Daelyn’s chances of survival.

He arrived within the minute at the origin scream, and found a large ant huddled over a bloody Daelyn. He saw how the queen and twelve of her subordinate ants were chewing on Daelyn, and he saw that the rest of the colony was only just behind.

He quickly summoned two large horned lions with manes made form snakes, and he directed them towards the incoming ant swarm. They easily halted the ant swarm, as the ants were crushed beneath their feet, pulverized by their powerful strikes, and crushed by the powerful jaws of both the lions and the snakes.

He turned towards Daelyn, and as he was about to summon another creature to strike out against the ants, the ground beneath them rumbled and parted.

Dozens upon dozens of brittle coal like roots carved a way through the dirt, and assaulted the surrounding ants.

While they were quite weak, they were numerous. They overwhelmed the ants with sheer force of numbers, and wherever one fell, at least two would take its place. It was a surreal seen, as the roots seemed like an endless tide of black maws, devouring anything they encountered.

The roots where enough to supress the dozen ants surrounding the queen, but they weren’t able to match up with the queen, as the roots didn’t have enough strength to push the large pincers away from Daelyn.

The only thing that ensured Daelyn’s safety was the large bag with ant corpses in it, and the fact that his head was flat against the ground.

In an attempt to create more distance between him and the queen, he turned his head on the side, having the left side of his head face upward and the right side buried in the ground.

The queen reacted lighting fast, as overpowered the roots with her pincers for a second, before she grabbed on Daelyn’s left ear with the tip of her pincers, and pulled.

Daelyn elicited a shriek of pain, as his ear along with some of the surrounding skin was ripped off with force, leaving a bloody mess behind.

The queen and Daelyn were separated for but a moment, but both Orthrus and the roots capitalized on this small-time window, as the coal like roots converged on Daelyn and created a protective dome around his head, while Orthrus summoned another one of his abominations.

It loomed over the queen as it stood on two legs, it grabbed the ant queen’s hind legs with its large pincers, and snapped them shut.

The ant queen shrieked in pain as her hind legs were cut off, and as she tried to scurry away, the same happened to her four remaining legs. First, the two legs on the right were cut off, and then the two on the left, leaving her almost completely immobile. She could only try and escape by crawling under the support of her pincers, but her escape was halted, as the large monstrosity picked her up once again, suspended her two metres in the air.

She could only shriek in pain as she missed multiple limbs, and was doomed to witness the slaughter of her people. They were stomped, crushed, consumed, and squeezed to death by the various enemies they faced, causing a chorus of panic, gore, and anguish.

In this cacophony of anguish one sound stood out, as it wasn’t very loud or painful for that matter, instead it was soft and sorrowful. Muffled sobbing could be heard through the sounds of slaughter, as a small boy was hurdled up in a foetal position, and crying.

Around him stood three figures, they stood there uninhibited by the slaughter going on around them. They had worried expression on their faces, as they tried to tend to the numerous wounds on the boy’s body, only to find that their efforts only seemed to prolong the boys suffering, as they had no effective way of healing the wounds.

The bleeding had already stopped, as the small boy had seemed to regain some semblance of self-awareness, and directed the blood through the usual veins, only to find that a part of them weren’t there anymore, as sizeable chunks of flesh had been ripped from his body. His legs, arms, and torso were all missing sizeable chunks of flesh, as the only thing that had remained largely intact seemed to be his head, as the twelve guards had mostly focused on his other limbs.

In desperation, Orthrus shouted to Marius with a loud and desperate tone.

“Marius, can’t you do something?! Can’t you make those black roots you conjured up heal him or something?!”

Marius sighed, before he replied with a meek and destitute tone.

“If I could I would have already done something. You should know where those black roots come from, and you know that I can’t influence that tree.”

Orthrus turned his gaze towards the large tree that loomed over the glade, he walked five steps, before he got on his knees, and pleaded.

“I know if you can hear me Farnum. I don’t know if you have any care for the small boy that is bleeding out, but your behaviour suggests the opposite, so I beg of you, please save Daelyn. I don’t know how much you know of him, or….”

Before Orthrus could finish his sentence, the ground under Daelyn parted, and revealed a large amount of the same black roots. They converged on Daelyn, and in a matter of moments, he was completely encircled by the roots, they pulled him under. The black roots followed Daelyn, as they all retreated underground, covering their tracks with dirt. They left the glade in its former pristine condition, and the three figures in shock as they had erased their presence from the battlefield.

Orthrus hoped that his prayers had been heard, and as he turned back towards the battlefield, he found that the slaughter had ended. The ants had been annihilated with only the queen remaining in the abominations claws.

Orthrus sighed, as he had no idea how he was going to explain to Lyvia what happened, let alone assure her of Daelyn’s safety. While he walked towards his home with Gob and Marius by his side, Daelyn had already passed it, and entered the trunk of the large tree.

Farnum had expended a large amount of mana to save the small boy, and he felt the darkness spread from his roots due to the intense mana use, yet he didn’t waver, as he regarded this boy as his last means for survival. He didn’t even know if the small child could succeed, but Farnum knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold out for more than a decade after saving the young boy, and he hadn’t even started healing the small thing.

He knew that it would take a lot from him to heal Daelyn, he would most likely wither in a couple of years now instead of the decades that were originally left, yet he didn’t falter. Farnum knew that there was a slight chance that Daelyn could prolong his lifespan far beyond those decades, he had felt Daelyn’s power over the years. He had never encountered such a power, yet he knew of the capabilities of both blood and dark mana, so he could only hope that there was a possibility for Daelyn to use his powers, and blow new life into his old self.

Farnum fanatically began the healing process, as and as he worked on healing the severed tendons and missing pieces of flesh, he felt the blood flow through the boy’s veins, urging him to continue his healing with even more devotion.

While Farnum continued his frantic efforts to sustain the boy’s life, Daelyn entered the soul space once again, only to find that it was different this time, as instead of his crystallized heart, he stood in the centre of a barren plain, with a large and flourishing forest surrounding it.