Dalmar sighed. “I forget that Holy Lords are kept in the dark. The Supreme is the unspoken ruler of the planet and Isadora is his obedient servant. If the Supreme claimed to be second, no one would claim to be the first! He is a true monster, way outside of our comprehension. Rumors go that he isn’t from this world. As for Isadora, all I know is that she is his servant. The Supreme has his 9 Holy Lords who all occupy their temples. Although I should be able to kill them, I don’t dare to enrage The Supreme. That would be my end. I don’t know much more, I’m not strong enough to know more.”

Aleir just stood there, stiff. He didn’t know what to think of all this. He expected the one to be much stronger than him but the ruler of this planet?! In front of him, he was basically an ant. Aleir felt a mild sense of desperation come to him. He then looked at Dalmar. “Does the Supreme know about me coming back?”

“How should I know? I usually just focus on my own progress. All I know is that The Ninth Holy Lord attack the First and Ninth Holy Lord won. Then Isadora hunted him… you down and killed you. I had no idea you survived.” Dalmar explained.

“There is however, something I don’t understand. For instance, how you managed to hurt Isadora. And also why has The Supreme not already found you? There must be a reason for all of those things.”

Aleir then pondered for a bit, thinking about those things. But he couldn’t figure out why. He thought that Isadora wasn’t as strong and that the combined force of his and One’s life force managed to hurt her. He didn’t know how strong the woman actually was.

“I don’t know… I think that the dark energy helped me?” Aleir then formed a black ball above his palm.

Dalmar was a bit surprised as he didn’t recognize the energy. He had lived for a long time and saw vast amounts of things. There were only few things he didn’t know about.

“It’s weird, I’ve never seen anything like your dark energy before…” Dalmar said slowly.

The dark ball then merged back into Aleir’s body. After that he turned to look at Dalmar, curiously. “Now, tell me who you are.”

Dalmar then slightly smiled. “I’m Dalmar the Red Fang. I’m a wanderer who specializes in red energy.”

“A wanderer? Aren’t you the general of the Fang empire?” Aleir asked, slightly confused.

“Oh that?” Dalmar loudly laughed before continuing. “Yea, that’s a little idea of mine. Red energy grows in slaughter, as a general I can create one. A joined the Fang empire ten years ago and decided that they were quite good candidate for becoming my tool to cause slaughter around the continent.”

Aleir was taken aback, he didn’t expect Dalmar to have such elaborate plan on how to get more powerful. Such long term project required a lot of patience and willpower. Aleir didn’t know whether he would be able to pull off something like that.

Dalmar then laughed again. “Don’t worry. There is no reason for us to be enemies. My title of a general is irrelevant. So, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to devour a large amount of people to strengthen my dark energy.” Aleir replied honestly as he saw no reason to lie at this point. It was very obvious that Dalmar didn’t care about the lives of his soldiers anyway.

Dalmar then pondered a bit. “Maybe I can get you that large amount of life force. What if you kill some of my soldiers? As long as you don’t kill more than 30 000 it should be fine.”

Aleir didn’t expect the general of the Fang empire to offer him his 30 000 on a silver plate. It was ridiculous. However, for Aleir it sounded like a good deal.

“What do you want in return?” Aleir then asked back as he didn’t expect this to be for free.

“If I’m ever in a life and death situation, you will help me. That’s all I ask. Maybe that situation won’t even happen, who knows.” Dalmar then laughed again.

“Deal.”

“Good!”

They then both talked about further details about the plan. Dalmar decided that he would send 30 000 soldiers to the west, Aleir could do anything he wanted to them. Since Dalmar was the general of the whole Fang Empire, he could just make some excuses about what had happened and make it seem as an accident. Aleir also mentioned that the people in this city shouldn’t be touched as he promised them safety. Although he didn’t care about them, promise was a promise. Dalmar was a bit reluctant to agree with it, but eventually he gave in and agreed that the army would continue deeper into the kingdom of Alura, ignoring this little city.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Aleir and Dalmar were then both content with each other and parted ways. Aleir waited for the army to leave and Dalmar announced that the city had been abandoned as a reason to ignore the city and continue the conquest.

While the 30 000 army made their way to the city in the west, Aleir quietly followed them.

The soldiers didn’t know what was to happen. They talked and laughed as they wanted to shorten the long walk, there is no reason for them to not be in a good mood. They were sure that the Fang Empire was invincible in this conflict. They were just expanding their territory, nothing else. They could already see themselves coming home as heroes that brought glory to their motherland. Nothing was more joyous than that.

However, they didn’t know that their lives would shortly come to an end. To Aleir, they were nothing but prey, waiting to be hunted down. Even though they were a huge number of them, against someone like Aleir, they were nothing but weaklings.

“They will enter the forest soon, it’s time.”

Aleir then moved closer to them. He got closer and closer until he was behind the army. Some of the soldiers finally spotted him.

“Hey, someone came here, who is it?”

“Probably a refugee from the city we destroyed, let’s end his misery.”

The soldiers didn’t pay any special attention to him as they didn’t see anything special about him. Just a man in a black robe. They came closer to him, their weapons ready.

“Blame your bad luck for meeting us!” One of the soldiers said, while swinging at Aleir.

However, what the soldier didn’t expect, was that the sword got stuck mid-air a centimeter from the robe.

“What… The hell?”

The soldier tried to move his sword but couldn’t. It felt as if it was stuck in a rock.

“Hey, what are you doing? We have to move. Finish him!” One of the soldiers yelled at his partner as he didn’t yet understand what was going on.

“I… I can’t. The sword is stuck.”

“Huh? What do you me-”

Before the soldier even finished the sentence, black spikes emerged from the ground, piercing through his partner.

The soldier stumbled back, almost falling on the ground. “W..Who are you?!”

Aleir didn’t respond but looked at the soldier. It seemed as if his eyes were piercing right through the soldier.

The soldier was scared to death. He felt a bad premonition. The kind where you die, without being able to retaliate. However, soldier suppressed that bad feeling and did the only thing he could, yelled for help.

“Ambush! Enemy mag-” His sentence was cut short as he was pierced by the black spikes. His eyes lost all their luster and he let out his last breath in this world.

The soldiers heard the call. They were trained for these kinds of situations. One of the things the Fang empire paid attention the most, was the mages and their capabilities. Generally, they weren’t able to rival even dozen of soldiers since their cast times and channeling took too long for fighting higher numbers of opponents. But from time to time, there was a mage, capable of annihilating hundreds of soldiers. The losses to kill such mage were huge since even their own mages couldn’t do much, unless they were at the level of the opposing mage.

Several hundreds of soldiers now saw Aleir. They knew that if a lone mage approaches an army like this, he can’t be weak.

“Mages, provide support! Soldiers, create the formation!” A man, wearing a better looking armor than the rest, called. It was obvious that he must’ve been above the regular soldiers in rank.

In a flash, the soldiers got into the learned formation, with the mages putting several layers of a barrier on them. The formation was strong and almost impregnable by mortals.

Aleir just watched. To him this whole display of power was nothing but joke. However, he was interested in the ways the soldiers use magical energy. Although he was strong, his magical energy was different. He utilized dark energy that consumed all, sometimes it even went out of control. Things like creating shields around other people was impossible. At least for now, while he doesn’t have more control.

The group was almost upon him. They moved slowly but steadily. Aleir already had an idea how to deal with the army. He wanted to test some things out after his increase in power.

“Charge!”

The soldiers charged at Aleir, with the mages supporting them from the distance. When they were only few steps from Aleir, the 2 dead soldiers on the ground suddenly stood up. There was dark energy radiating out of them and it was clearly felt by everyone around it.

However, that wasn’t the end. The dead soldiers changed. The energy covered their whole skin and changed into something similar to armor. After the whole change was done, they looked like two knights covered in black armor, wielding halberds made from energy.

While Aleir watched the transformation, he was smiling. He was more than satisfied with, what he had created. The power of those black knights was incomparable to the black figures from before. They alone were enough to deal even with a large force of soldiers. Of course, the energy consumption had increased and his current energy could create around 5 of them.

“Go”

The black knights heard it and started moving to the group of soldiers.

The soldiers weren’t as confident as before, they could clearly feel the dread from those 2 black knights. One of the soldiers was even sent to get reinforcements. The whole army of 30 000 soldiers started mobilizing.

When the black knights were upon the group, they simply slashed their halberd on the shield. The shield didn’t hold and the halberd went right through it, following through one of the soldier’s body. The soldier didn’t even have time to process what had happened. He died instantly, sliced in half.

The other black knight was killing the soldiers like flies. The barrier the mages casted was useless against this type of strength. This wasn’t a fight but a slaughter.

In a short minute, most of the soldiers were either dead, or fleeing.

However, the amount of soldiers that died was negligible in the 30 000 man army. The army was finally mobilized and ready.

“Mages, drop support, focus all on offense! Soldiers, go forward!” A commanding voice resounded throughout the whole army.

The mages didn’t waste any time and started casting all kinds of spells, completely stopping to use the barrier to protect the soldiers.