Chapter 63: Before The Storm
Inside a huge carriage that might as well have been a small cabin, was a muscular red haired male. The youth wore pants, a simple shirt, and black boots, but the material he wore was made out of a black leather that blended with his oddly gray arms. On his buff shoulder that was stretching his black leather shirt, was a reanimated hand, cut off at the wrist.
Closing his eyes, Zan took in a deep breath, before slowly exhaling and opening them. A flow chart was visualized within his head that followed in the order: Kill spider—>Beat up scaley boy—>Find Elea.
‘Alright…’
After concluding his masterfully designed plan, the youth once again started to explore and deeply ingrain more energy pathways into his head. Putting his eyeballs directly onto his left arm, he looked forward to simply reversing the pathways he remembered from his right arm, saving him the time and stress of slowly and painfully remembering each new twist and turn.
‘What…’
‘No…’
‘Fuck! No way!’
Zan’s eyeballs swiveled around madly at his left arm. If anyone saw the sight of his moist eyeballs practically scratching the dry skin of his arm they would have thought he was insane. The reason why he was acting so weirdly was because when he placed his eyeballs onto his left arm, the one thousand, one hundred and eleven pathways that he painstakingly seared into his brain was not found.
It was not reversed or reflected either, the energy pathway structure of his left arm was completely and totally different to his right arm.
‘Why!? What the fuck!’
It made no sense. The density, musculature and bone structure of his left arm was nearly identical to his right arm. With his human arms, although the pathways were not completely congruent there were the same number of pathways and they went in the same direction with the same twists and turns. But the pathways in his left arm were completely different. The maze of circuitry was completely different. There was no semblance of similarity at all to what he memorized.
Zan internally was fuming, and it took him a few moments of heavy manic breathing in and out, until he was calm. He took a quick glance at his left arm again, and he roughly judged from the amount of twists and turns that there was going to be at least the same number of new pathways that he had to sear into his brain again.
‘Are you fucking serious!?’
‘I’m calm! I’m calm…’
‘...Fuck. Let’s just do it and stop stressing. That actually gets things done.’
THUMP!
The sound of something hitting the roof of his carriage was heard.
‘Now what the hell was that?’
Zan lightly slammed on the floor of the carriage with his fist, and a large boom resounded out. The impact of the force seemed to be carefully calculated enough to signal the horses to stop, albeit they were trembling in their hooves. Zan then opened the carriage door and what met him was a large, flying owl.
The owl was white, and unlike Gayle’s eyes that were orange and black, this owl had pure, black voids of emptiness. It left quite a strong impression on Zan when Gayle first introduced her pet to him. Its eyes were unusually piercing yet at the same time their darkness seemed to swallow light itself. The black holes on its face reminded him of that one dream, with the tower, the stars, and the primordial darkness.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
For in those eyes, the darkness seemed to hold a hint of eternity and the quality of being omnipresent.
‘Maybe I’m just thinking too much…’
The owl looked at him, and in its mind it was surprisingly having a coherent and intelligible thought.
‘This boy is looking at my eyes as if he sees something in them…’
‘That shouldn’t be possible.’
Zan kept looking, and the owl stared back at him. In the next moment the youth snapped out of his gaze and the owl flew towards his shoulder.
The talons on the owl were not normal, and if it was anyone except Zan it wouldn’t have done such a callous thing. Its claws were so sharp that it could easily eviscerate human flesh. Normally if the owl landed on a human’s shoulder the way it did with Zan it would have amputated an arm. Towards Zan however, only a few scratches and sparks were made from the landing,
As it landed on his shoulder, the youth noticed that there was a rolled paper message on one of its legs. The owl’s big black eyes loomed over Zan, staring at the boy as if it was trying to dissect him with its eyes. In the discomfortness of its gaze, the boy quickly unfurled the mini paper scroll so that he could send the creepy thing back to its owner.
The paper message said, “Please don’t interfere. This is me and my party’s problem alone to handle.”
“Huh?”
Zan looked at the paper in confusion, before he felt the presence of a group enter into his range of awareness.
A hint of excitement welled up inside Zan, but he quickly repressed that blazing fire within his chest. Since Gayle asked him not to interfere, then he simply wouldn’t. If it was anyone but the talkative and lively girl though, he would not have respected their wishes. The youth himself was more inclined to act upon whatever desire he wanted to, and disregarded whatever anyone else wanted from him.
Though, that weird sense of intimacy with the girl was a new experience for the boy. Zan felt the feeling go through him, and in his mind he took note of this. Before Gayle, the red haired youth only had Cole as a friend. And before Cole, Zan never had friends but subordinates. They were followers who admired his strength, but never really formed a bond with the boy.
Zan and Gayle however, obviously had a different connection. To some extent, the things that the red haired boy told to the girl were things that no one ever heard before. And little did the girl know, but the sentimentality and closeness she thought was one-sided, was reflected right back at her in a similar way too.
Diverting his attention away from his deeper feelings, was a sudden realization that gave him a surprise. Gayle had sensed them much earlier than he did. To such an extent that she could send him a message not to interfere.
Now that he thought about it, she was also right on time to stop him from possibly taking the life of her whole squad.
‘Interesting…’
The youth had a wide range of detection for any being that was unusually strong. Within a diameter of nine hundred and ninety-nine meters, he could feel their life force like a candle in the darkness. It was an ability that came with the awakening of his eldritch limbs.
The terrifying thing was that he could probably sense the life force of others because his limbs wanted to devour them. If not devour them, then at the very least to plunder their energy from them, which of course was equivalent to killing them.
Despite the bloodlust nose of his eldritch limbs however, Gayle was still able to see them coming much earlier than Zan. It only confirmed to him how capable and powerful the young girl really was.
‘How are you able to sense people?’
‘And I wonder just how far you can sense…’
Just as he was in his thoughts, the group finally entered his detection range and were now making their way to the front of the convoy.
Zan did as he was asked, and headed back inside his carriage. As he opened the door however, the owl used him as a launch pedestal and blasted off of him like a fired bullet from a gun.
BOOM!
Zan visibly recoiled from the owl’s powerful kick and his eyes widened once again in surprise as he turned around to see the furry thing flying at mach speed towards the front of the convoy. A deep gash was left where the owl kicked itself off. The youth looked towards his shoulder and he saw the torn, eviscerated muscle of his eldritch limb already rapidly regenerating. After only two seconds the shoulder looked good as new.
Although the wounds were only three inches long compared to the huge, muscley gray arm, it took an incredible amount of force, strength and sharpness to do such a thing to his eldritch flesh.
“Hah…hahaha…hahahaha!”
Suddenly the youth started laughing, and as time went on his laughter only grew wilder and madder.
‘Interesting!’
The youth was not fazed at the strength of the owl. Instead he laughed at the notion that there were stronger beings out there that he couldn’t even see through until they attacked him. And he laughed even more madly at the thought of challenging those beings.
‘I wonder if that spider will be a challenge…’
‘Probably will…hehe…’
Zan laid down inside his large carriage, and closed his eyes. In the next moment, the bloodlust of his eldritch limbs were activated as eyeballs started to appear all over the gray skin. They too, closed their eyes, but Zan only needed them to be awake so that he could more intricately sense the energies of Gayle’s party, and the unknown group. Although it wasn’t perfect, he could somewhat visualize the blurry figures inside his mind, so that he could watch the show without interfering.
Of course Zan could simply step outside, but the ability to see and hear through walls was something that he wanted to hone, and perfect.
‘Hmph. Better be a good show…’