Thracian was afraid. He had lived most of his life devoid of fear, leading armies in the conquest of the whole continent, only to end up an old made terrified by death. His last moment, and what came after, were nebulous at best, however he remembered seeking eternal life.

Was his current state the result of that search, he couldn’t say, but it had taken him thousands of years of devouring spirits to regain his self. Even then, it hadn’t been perfect, the cost of the hunt greatly offset the gains and it was only after reaching a major population center that he finally found enough prey to sustain himself.

Truthfully, he was more afraid of going back to those time when he lacked self-awareness than to disappear and that’s why he had tested and offered his service to Azrael. The child was strong, strong enough to support him, and determined enough not to care about the means.

The brat on the other hand, although emotional, wasn’t so easy. Furthermore, he had already taken a dislike to him due to the way he absorbed other spirits. They’d butt head sooner or later, and he’d have to make sure the kid would be on his side at that time.

The ancient king stopped this train of thought, he had found his prey, it was stronger than any he’d fought before and that was far from the only problem. He hated the idea, but he’d need some help with this one.

Ignis looked into the feedbag, this half was only slightly rotten but the one thrown into the blight had partly liquified; it was proof of his theory of something living into the earth, something that spread through contact. Thankfully, it wasn’t very that deadly, or the situation would be much worse.

“Azrael, come here.”

“What is it, master?” Asked the child while rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t slept well; he was sore from being horseback and the sight of this place had caused bad memories to resurface.

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“Look at this.” He said, showing the content of the feedbag, then the other half on the ground. “What do you think?”

There were two obvious options, either the cursed was limited to a zone around the caster, or there was something in the ground and the mage had killed it when he heated the ground yesterday. He pointed at the nearest part of the blight, and proposed. “Should we destroy all life in this area, and try again?”

The mage nodded contentedly; this was the way to go to test his theory. “That’s right. Now, I want you to decide which spell is the best to use.”

‘Which spell?’ Thought the child. Direct destruction probably wouldn’t work as whatever was in the earth could come back crawling later. It’d have to affect the surface, and what’s beneath and prevent whatever to come back… “Do you want me to cut this swath of land with the curse of death and decay?” Asked the child incredulously.

“That wasn’t what I had in mind, but that’d work just as well… even better. It’d even prove the death attribute had nothing to do with it. Well thought.” Ignis idea had been to vitrify are large swath of the land with intense heat, but he liked the kid idea better because it wasn’t as destructive.

“Isn’t that like the worst spell of all the death attribute repertoire? It completely destroys the land.”

“Only a part of it, and it takes time. My idea was to burn everything down to a few meters deep. I assure, your method is better. People tend to think death is worst element because it’s sneaky or whatever, but in matter of destructivity it doesn’t hold a candle to the main four.”

Azrael looked at his master dubiously, it didn’t fit into what he’d been taught.

“Don’t look at me like that. Half of the former wind and fire king territories are glassed land. The water king created a giant lake of acidic water to protect his frontiers and the earth king cut a giant chasm. People blame the death king for the wights actions, but they only came back to their former ways.”

“Then why does everyone blame him? Blame us?”

“Because he attempted to become immortal and gave almost it to a bunch of crazies bent on ruling the world instead, duh! Maybe because the dead from this ancient war still haunt this world to this day, or maybe they think the cure is worse than the disease. Fear breeds fear and makes people stupid, and at the time, they were very, very afraid… they still are.”

The child nodded, then frowned. “Aren’t you calling everyone stupid?”

“What? Aren’t they?” After all, he had a bagful of stupid who couldn’t read a contract to save their life to prove his point.