Lynn was running around with her brother, Basil, frolicking with the little white lambs of their farm. Their parents were goats and sheep farmers living in Nahla village as. Their father was laying on a tree shade looking at his flock and his children with a contended smile on his face. Suddenly a wind blew over and strangely the locked gate to the enclosure swung open. The foraging goats almost immediately got rowdy and ran out of the yard. Cursing the farmer picked his cane and ran after the goats leaving the rest of the flock unattended.
The children had just managed to catch a lamb and were laughing went they felt a shadow looming over them. Staring at them was a strange man in a dark hooded cloak. They turned to face the stranger who had appeared and when their eyes met his they instantly went vacant. The man released a maniacal grin, everything proceeding smoothly for him.
A little while later the farmer returned with the goats to the enclosure and closed the gate, he found it puzzling how the goats acted strangely today. However he noticed the absence of his children's laughter and screams.
"Basil! Lynn! Where are you?" He shouted aloud, worry begun etching on his face.
******
Lynn groggily opened he eyes, what greeted her sight was a crowd of black cloaked people. She was tied to an alter alongside her brother and another girl, they were splayed out with their legs and arms outstretched. Her brain finally understood the situation she was in and tried to let out a scream but her mouth was gagged.
Were these the heretical cultist, she had heard about. Stories say that they eaten children flesh, drink their blood and offer their souls to a dark god. Tears started streaming out her eyes and she started whimpering. The other children had already woken up and were sobbing to.
The cultists started chanting strange incomprehensible lines as they moved round the alter. The chants gradually increased in volume and tempo then abruptly stopped. Three hooded cultists moved forwards with wavy blood red knives on their hands. They took their respective positions beside the children. The cult priest wearing a red robe embroidered with gold accessories started to chant a prayer. As the prayer reached a crescendo the ritualist raised their knives high above the chests of the children, horror griped the children as they writhed and struggled in their bindings letting out muffled screams.
Boom! With a loud explosion violent winds blew over the cultists, a dust cloud enveloping everyone and interrupting the ritual.
"It's an attack!"
"Is it an inquisitor?" the cultist shouted in alarm, they became vigilant readily mobilizing their mana.
The priest released a gust of wind clearing the dust that was obstructing their vision. What came in view was a black boy about ten years old wearing a strange black robe. The boy was patting nonexistent dust of his clothes. Even though the boy looked young the priest didn't let down his guard.
"Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?"
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"How dare you interrupt the great cause?" The cultists started shouting profanities at Carl.
Carl calmly looked at the cultist, this was his first meeting with the civilization of this world and he was seeing young children about to be killed. Just when he was about to introduce himself the cultists begun launching various spells towards Carl.
Moving swiftly Carl dodged the spells and cast several mana bullets overhead. When the cultist saw the mana bullets they scoffed, mana bullet was a weak spell that would only cause pain to the enemy. However in the next second on of the cultists lost her head. They had not eyes hadn't even registered the attack when the mana bullets started raining on them.
The priest started laughing, his eyes were completely bloodshot. His retinue consisting of more than fifty people had just died like that in the hands of this strange kid.
"Unforgivable unforgivable unforgivable" the priest shouted with a maniac craze on his face.
The priest had survived by setting up a barrier of highly compressed air that managed to deflect the attack. However it seemed killing his people has made him lose his mind.
The priest knelt down and started muttering some strange prayer. Carl observed gray lights escape the dead cultists and disappear into the unknown. Soon the leader's aura changed from purple to a turbulent grey that raged all over the place. He looked at Carl with a ferocious glint as he chants a spell. The turbulent gray lights launched itself to Carl as the priest laughed, "Foolish mortal your judgment has come."
His manic laughter echoed through the whole encampment but it gradually turned into confusion. Several seconds had passed yet why was the boy still fine.
"impossible… how... how are you still alive? That was a death spell."
"Why? Why? Why aren't you dying?"
"Illusion, this must be an illusion, it must be fake." The priest cried out.
"Real." Carl said.
"What?"
"I am real."
Bang, with a mana bullet the priests head exploded. Just as Carl was about to turn his attention to the tied children he noticed a miniature gray version of the priest come out of his body and move rapidly towards him. He immediately shot a mana bullet at the beings head however the creature moved even with a hole in its head. When it got closed it immediately shot into Carl's brows.
The priest came to Carl's spectral plane where the soul resides, after he lost his body he had planned to take the strange boy's body and devour his soul. He felt something off, he had travelled quite some distance and had yet to meet the boy's soul. However just as he was starting to doubt life his ethereal soul's eyes widened. He saw an incomparably and unimaginably vast being in front of him. A boundless wall was before him extending further than his eyes can see, and he instinctively knew that it was just a small part of the great being.
"Is… this… a god?"
I saw just a glimpse in the darkness,Reminding me of my frailty, the utter starkness,Faced with powers so vast, so divine,I'm but a whisper, lost in the grand design.
******
Carl stood there for a couple of seconds, he still felt fine after that weird attack. Morphing his sleeve into a blade, Carl cut the bindings that tied the children freeing them. Climbing down from the alter Lynn immediately wretched when she saw the corpses of the cultists on the ground.
'In hindsight I should've cleared the corpses before freeing these kids.' Carl thought.
To distract the children from the macabre sight, he created several miniature version of the sky creatures using mana and made them float around the children.
"Don't you worry everything is gonna be okay" Carl said reassuringly.
"Did you kill them?" the boy fearfully asked.
Carl nodded affirming the boys thought. Bowing to Carl the boy expressed his gratitude, "Thank you, for saving us from the cultists."The girls also followed suit and bowed thanking Carl.
"Am Basil and this is my sister Lynn." Basil said gesturing towards the younger girl.
"And my name is Alice." The other girl introduced herself.
"You can call me Carl." Carl said with a beaming smile, trying to be appear friendly to the children.
"Now let me take you home."