In the capital city of the Slavia kingdom. At an undisclosed place. There is tension in the air as the available members in the building seem down. Everyone is tense as their leader, Zeke, has locked himself in the room where his younger sister laid.
“Do you think the boss is alright?” asks one of the members.
“I doubt it. Judging from that scream we heard, something bad must have happened to Elena.” Answers the other one.
“You are probably right. He’s been locked in her room for 3 hours now. Even Maeve and the doctor who was taking care of her left the room.” He says as he looks at the person who is guarding the door outside. It’s none other than Maeve.
The door of the room finally swings open as a gloomy Zeke holding a small figure in his hands covered with a white sheet walks out. The air around him is gloomy and the dark circles under his eyes show his pain. Everyone gasps in shock as they dread the worst possible outcome.
One of the two guards who were guarding the door in the beginning walks up to Zeke, gesturing with his arms to carry the body.
*Click*
But is met by Maeve’s revolver pointing directly to the side of his head. Beads of sweat roll down the man’s face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asks Zeke with a tone that has never been heard before from him.
His voice is hoarse, but nothing compares to his eyes. They radiate a bloodthirsty beast.
“S-sorry boss but I thought you might need help with the body.”
The man’s eyes then trail off from Zeke’s to the body and notices a hand hanging out from the white sheet. The hand is pale and covered with terrifying dark veins. Confirming that, he takes a few steps back apologising again.
Zeke then looks at one of his trusted members and speaks.
“Bury her under her ‘favourite tree’ and lay a ‘red’ flower. She liked them.”
The member’s eyebrows shoot up high in realisation of the hidden message. He nods and takes the body away from Zeke before signalling to other trusted members to follow him.
“The communication crystal has been prepared, boss.” Says one of the members to Zeke.
“Ah, right. I need to give my report, huh. Fine. Lead the way.”
Zeke and Maeve walk towards the room where the communication crystal is located. It would take them approximately thirty minutes to reach it since it was at the basement protected by dozens of protective barriers and traps.
While on their way, Maeve’s communication crystal vibrates, giving off a brilliant light of mana.
“A call?” she says.
“From whom?” asks Zeke.
“It’s from Naomi. Should I answer it?”
“No. We have important things to do now.”
Maeve nods and ignores it. The vibration ends and the blue light of mana dissipates. It then vibrates again and illuminates the same light again. The vibration this time is a little stronger and even the light’s glow. This ends up causing Zeke’s forehead to pop a vein.
He snatches the communication crystal ball from Maeve’s hand and answers it.
“What is it Naomi?”
“You finally answered. What took you so long?”
“Get to the point.”
“Hmm, what going on with y-“
“Get to the point Naomi!”
“Sigh, fine. The kid came back.”
“The one who killed Raizer? Where is he now?”
“Don’t know. That’s not the reason I called you though. It seems our assessment of the kid’s strength was wrong.”
“I’m listening.”
“He managed to kill the King Cobra without getting as much as a scratch. He also defeated the High-orc and the rest of the Law Enforcement soldiers.”
Zeke stops, stunned by the news. His eyes are wide open as if his eyes would fall off their sockets.
“Of course, I know you won’t believe me so-“
The communication crystal flashes twice in a row. Zeke touches the surface of the communication crystal ball and a video starts playing. Zeke’s eyes open wide before he smashes the crystal ball into the floor, shattering it into hundreds of shards.
***
In the basement.
After passing through a lot of barriers and traps, Zeke and Maeve manage to enter the communication room. There, at the centre, a giant communication crystal is fixed. Connected to it are other smaller but big communication crystals, about 5 of them.
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The big communication crystal is the only one glowing while the others are completely dark. A figure appears from the communication crystal. A man wearing a mask with golden glowing eyes starts to speak.
“What did you manage to find on your trip?” asks X.
“The warehouse was destroyed, and the slaves seem to have disappeared. After extensive research, I managed to deduce that the Freedom Fighters weren’t involved.”
“I see. So, who was the one who destroyed the warehouse then?”
Zeke hesitates for a moment. He opens his mouth slowly and speaks.
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”
X seems surprised by Zeke’s answer. This is the first time Zeke has ever given such an answer. In the past, he would always have something, even a hypothesis which were usually spot on.
“What about your contact you have there? I believe her name was… Naomi?”
There is a subtle micro-reaction on Zeke’s expression.
“The only information she gave me was about a person with white hair and blue eyes who visited the city and left after a day before I got there.”
“Hmm, white hair and blue eyes huh. Moving on, did you managed to erase our tracks?”
“Yes. I ‘cleaned up’ everything. Nothing will lead back to us or our allies.”
“You’ve done well on this mission even though it was on short notice. I appreciate the work you do, Zeke.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“I heard about your sister’s unfortunate death.”
Zeke remains quiet and composed as he stares directly at the communication crystal.
“My condolences. You can take the month off and grief the loss of your sister.”
“It’s fine, I don’t need it.”
“It wasn’t a request.” X says before the communication crystal turns off.
Quietness befalls the room. It is broken by Maeve.
“It seems you were right. He did plant spies within our members just like you said.”
“Yeah. He’s worry of me. In that conversation, he was basically trying to tell me that he knows everything about me and that I can’t hide anything from him. Mentioning Naomi and my sister was a way to show that.”
“And you managed to successfully fool him due to your brilliant acting skills.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call them brilliant but whatever.” Says Zeke as his cheeks turn bright red.
“Anyhow, was Elena escorted well?”
“Yes. I had five of our trusted members safeguard her. She’ll reach the safehouse within three days.”
“Good. Prepare proof of the five who have escorted her, proving that they were on a mission outside the country.”
“Understood.”
“We’ll know all the spies in this base within the end of the day.”
“The hidden message?”
“Yes. I basically told him to dig a fake hole and burn the body by ‘favourite tree’ and observe the hostile targets by ‘red’ who will be busy snooping around the fake grave. We were fortunate to have found a girl who had perished from the same disease that my sister had. However, these small fries don’t count.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you find it weird how so many spies have infiltrated our group? I believe someone who is higher ranked is a spy.”
Maeve’s eyes open wide.
“I can probably guess who it is by cross referencing everyone and find the spy.” Says Zeke.
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“Killing the spies would tip ‘him’ off. It’s better if we wait for the opportune moment.”
“Is it why you didn’t tell him about that kid?”
Shivers run through Zeke’s back.
“Monster. That kid is a monster. I didn’t tell X because I don’t want us to cross paths with him again. He has the strength to destroy everything we’ve built. And those eyes. It’s as if he is a god looking down on mere ants.” Zeke recalls the video he had watched.
A faint smile then blooms from Zeke.
“Then again, that monster is the one responsible for saving my sister.”
***
At night, 5 kilometres away from the capital gate of the Slavia kingdom. A man covered by a robe, with a cane on his hand walks up to a tree. The shadow of the tree moves as an individual appears.
“So, where will we pick ‘em up Doc?”
The man who just spoke wears a white mask that covers the top part of his face. The right half of the mask has a dark spiral pattern that converges to the eye slit. This man is also wearing a robe.
“It seems they lost my test subjects.” A husky almost dried up voice responds. The man called Doc has his face hidden by the robe but from his voice, he sounded like he was in his fifties or more.
“WHAT!” An exaggerated yelp. “What happened to them?” The man in the mask asks.
“Their warehouse was destroyed and my test subjects were freed. Apparently, it was done by the Freedom Fighters who came there to free the slaves. This is a great loss for me.”
“Freedom Fighters huh.” The masked man’s cheery voice disappeared, replaced by an intimidation one. “Should I go and destroy them?”
His eyes glowed from the eye slits of the mask radiating his killing intent.
“Enough! You’ll scare my ‘children’.” says Doc as his shadow wiggles as if alive.
“Sorry, hehehe. Sometimes I can’t control my self Doc. But you know Doc, I believe we can find substitutes for your lost test subjects, isn’t it?”
“You are correct. All of them are replaceable except one.”
“One?” The masked man asks curiously.
“The Devourer Slime.”
The masked man tilts his head, showing he didn’t understand.
“More than ten thousand years ago. Before men learned magic or used their martial arts to conquer. Before the descent of the ‘Great Evil’ and the war it brought. There was the era of Monsters. Monsters roamed the world, devouring all that came their way.
“All humans could do was cower and run. In the monster world, the ancient beasts reigned supreme. All other monsters cowered before them due to their potent bloodline. However, there was this one monster from a lowly race of monsters. It came out of nowhere, devouring anything and everything in its wake. Gaining the abilities of whatever it ate and growing stronger to the point it could rival even the ancient beasts.
“That’s what’s called a Devourer Slime. This monster even fought the Chaos Dragon, Kamish, one of the four ancient dragons and probably the strongest of all of them. It tried to devour him but Kamish was too strong for it and managed to vanquish it. There has only been one of its kind in the world. Until now, that is.”
“Wow, such a powerful slime actually existed. But Doc, if it’s as powerful as you say it is, wouldn’t it just be a problem to have it?”
“Not at all. The slime is still at its infancy and can’t do much at the moment. What I wanted from it was its ability to devour even energy itself and combine them into one.”
The masked man finally understands what the doctor means.
“It’s for the ‘Core Project’ right?”
“Yes. But it no matters. It seems I am not meant to have it. ‘He’ will do for now.”
After saying that, two creatures with stitches all over their bodies appear from Doc’s shadow. They aren’t visible because of the shadow casted by the tree. Both the Doc and the masked man sit on them as they start running like four-legged beasts.
***
In a dark room.
A man is grunting in pain as dark veins bulge from his muscular body. There are multiple pipes piercing his skin. These pipes are suctioning energy from his body and delivering it to a core at the side of the room. The spherical core has an earie purple energy mixed with other hints of red and blue colours.
The man opens his mouth and utters a few words.
“W-wait for me Merlin. I shall bring ruin to everything you want to protect.”
***
It’s daybreak and I’m now flying. I’m on my way to my next destination.
You know kid. You should visit the capital city one of these days.
“Not interested.”
Come on. You know I was once a king of this country.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve told me a million times. You were once a crazy king blah, blah, blah.”
I WASN’T A CRAZY KING! I was an amazing king. People would cower after hearing the name of the Mad King.
“Mad, crazy. One of the same thing.”
Ray starts to yell inside my head telling me about his great adventures which I don’t really care about. So, I tied him up and shut his mouth. How annoying.
The end of volume 3. I’ll keep you guys updated on volume 4. Finishing this volume took a lot out of me and I apologize for the inconsistency of my chapter releases.