"What is happening, Nu?" I heard Ba's voice from behind me, when I turned around his grey eyes resembling our father's met with mine, full of confusion.
"I'm not too sure myself."
"Then why are the elders arguing with each other back there?" Ba said.
"Our Tserei is trying to convince others not to hunt down Iris."
"Why would they do that? She is strange, an outsider and an elf but she was allowed to stay." The confusion in Ba's eyes understandably grew at this violation of hospitality but I myself wasn't sure of what to think of it. I wasn't even sure of what will I do now. I was asked to wake up the terror birds grazing on the eastern side of our camp by Bauha but at the same time doing so would go against Ruu's orders.
Technically, Kasheng as my Bauha should have higher authority over me than the Tserei of the tribe but this was one of these situations which existed in the terrifying grey area in which I was neither rewarded or punished for choosing wrong. Yet I felt somewhat relaxed... it was maybe too strong of a word but I found a strange feeling brewing in me as I tried to find what was the right thing to do without the possibility of angering the spirits.
Ba must have suspected where I was going and for what purpose as he stayed silent while remaining close to my side. As the light of the great pyre faded in the darkness and I began to struggle to see where I was placing my feet, I casted mana light and tried to maintain it at a quarter of strength.
*Clack*
I heard Clack nervously snapping his beak from the darkness before other terror birds joined in. The ground began to shake as I saw great dark shadows appearing against the night sky and began to scatter in all directions.
"Redtip?" Ba's mount ran between us, almost trampling us as it was running from something.
"Whoa, Clack, calm dow-." I ran toward a silhouette which resembled Clack but instead of stopping the bird, I felt the ground beneath my feet being swept away before falling back down.
"Are you hurt?" Ba quickly ran over toward me as I gritted my teeth trying to cry from hitting the ground.
I now know why I was taught calm familiar first... aw, it hurts.
"What were they running from?"
"I can't really see anything." He replied to me after squinting his eyes trying to look past the darkness.
"Keep your eyes sharp," I said as I stood up and lifted my arm as far and high behind me as I could before putting as much mana into my mana light to illuminate a large chunk of the area around us. "Iris?" I saw the tall elf's back at the edge of my light before she disappeared again as the mana light returned to normal. The pale elf must have gone one way and then taken a sharp turn in the opposite direction. She was like a cunning animal fleeing from a hunter.
"Where are you going? There are soul stealers out there!" Ba shouted in naivety and received what I expected, the gentle sound of the soft gust of wind.
"Why are you shouting?" A hollow voice asked from behind us causing both of us to jump away.
"Ehhhh..."
"We..."
A brilliant light appeared above the Spiritwalker, temporarily blinding me. When my eyes could see through the white void I saw the Spiritwalker had walked passed us and was following Iris at a respectable distance.
"What is your dexterity, good sir?" I heard the elf speak in a strange way as if the Spiritwalker was her better.
"Mmm, you must be quite a young Lost to be able to speak to me but I have never encountered one of your kind.Well Lost, my dexterity is high enough to catch you... unless you have something more to surprise me. Anything you have to say except foul curses or pleas as your final words?"
"I wish I could entertain you for a little while but I am afraid you had already looked at my cards." The elf replied with a perfectly monotonous voice which veiled what was going through her mind.
"I will be the judge of that," The softly glowing hunter focused on the exhausted girl on the elf's arm, glaring daggers at him. "Where are you taking the human? To make her into what you had become?" His words caused the tall elf to turn her head toward him with a look of bewilderment before shifting her gaze to something beyond the Spiritwalker and even further than Ba or I.
Looking around me I saw the dark silhouettes of riders attracted to the bright white light following the Spiritwalker.
"How about we dual, human," Iris's tone dropped as she stopped and turned toward us. On her face, long and sharp shadows shrouded much of her face leaving only the sinister amethyst orbs to glare at the three of us, causing both of me and Ba to step away. "Surely you are not scared of fighting a singular undead?"
"I'm not but I don't see why should I accept your offer?"
"Aren't you not hunting me down to maintain a balance? I'm certain that killing me won't out way the amount of death I will cause if I kill every single human in the camp behind you." The edge of the strange black spear glinted in the magical light as Iris put Siri down and stepped forward.
"It's good for my conscious that you showed me your true colours but to do that first, you have to get passed me."
"I don't need to," The frown on Iris's disappeared for a moment as her gem-like eyes scanned the area in front of her. "Have you not seen a certain golem surrounded by children when you arrived?"
I felt a terrified shriek rupture from my body but nothing outside of the soft whisper of the wind sounded across the pasture as my emotions squeezed my throat.
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"Iris don't do that! I beg of you!" Before I knew it, I found myself running toward the woman with the taste of blood in my mouth as I was stopped by the Spiritwalker who yanked my collar backwards.
"I will accept, only if you take an oath before duelling me to not use that golem of yours."
"That is fine by me." The elf's smile instantly disappeared as she began to prepare to take the oath. Behind her the strange girl stared at the swiftly unfolding scene in front of her with confusion, her brain to slow or rigid to keep up.
Without hesitation or visible pain, Iris used her spear to cut her palm. She loudly began to recite the out just as the others had arrived. They quickly unsheathed their weapons but seeing how the Spiritwalker stood still in front of the pale-skinned elf no one of my tribe dared to interrupt her.
"...If the duel is interrupted the burden of this oath shall be lifted off my shoulders and the wrath of the divines shall smite the wrongdoer." Her voice quickly drifted away into the night being swiftly replaced by the confused whispers of the newly arrived warriors.
"Any last words?" The Spiritwalker asked once more after Iris had recited the words of the oath.
"Already said them." She replied before she disappeared into a blurry outline as the Spiritwalker jumped sideways.
With one move the cloak covering the Lost-Hunter body dropped unceremoniously onto the ground, revealing a simple brown shirt with equally mundane pants.
"Huh?" What the hell is happening?
The only standing out on the Spiritwalker's body was a small black satchel hanging on his belt. Without even touching his belt the satchel made a sound of metal hitting another metal. A grey-blue polished ball hovered above his open palm before it accelerated toward the elf. Iris dropped to the ground in a cat-like motion causing the strange weapon to go over her head with tremendous speed before lunging at the defenceless human. I closed my eyes as the elf swiped her evil-looking weapon toward Spiritwalker's shoulder, hearing something spray onto the grass I fearfully opened my eyes.
That's it, that must be it... wait why do I hear the roar of a river?
The empty air in front of the Spiritwalker was replaced by a wall of running water which clashed against the dark blade. Iris looked as if she was about to attack again not letting her opponent recover, telegraphing her intentions clearly before her eyes widened in shock and she hurriedly jumped to the side. Where the elf had stood the perfectly smooth ball had hit digging a small trench before lazily returning to the Spiritwalker side.
Punching the air the masked man made the sphere fly in the same direction. Fly low to the ground the magical weapon accelerated upward forcing the tall Lost to dodge again. Before her feet could hit the ground the Spiritwalker silently conjured a water blade in a shape of a crescent moon.
The mundane-looking pants the elf was remained steadfast as if the spell had hit a wall and instead of loosing a leg, a large cut appeared behind the cut fabric before they mended themselves.
Wait, if Iris has enchanted armour and the Spiritwalker only has his magic and the crystal ball this will turn into a battle of attrition if he is unable to deal enough damage fast enough.
A sudden lull in battle happened as both of them observed each other carefully, I could see the Spiritwalker's face to see if he was casting but the pale elf was whispering through their pause. In the mids of hushed voices made by the human around a quiet sobbing reached my ears.
A fiery hiss shattered the silence as a whisp of fire in a shape of a bug started to arbit the elf. In response, three magical circles appeared in front of the Lost-Hunter's arm from which more water blades flew forward.
In a show of the unnatural power, all Lost possess, Iris managed to hit two of the missiles out of the air and the third one only grazed her snow-white cheek. A sudden cracking noise erupted from under the grass layer followed by Iris falling over and the crystal ball flying out of the grass.
It must have been lurking in the grass and the elf had stepped too close to it for her to dodge.
A sound similar to metal hitting another metal although much sharper sounded accompanied by a shower of sparks as the black spear blocked the blueish sphere from reaching her head. The Spiritwalker conjured a large magical circle but he couldn't finish the spell as for one more time the air shook causing the Spiritwalker and everyone behind him to fall over before red hot missiles with long tails trailing behind erupted from the grass-catching it on fire. Iris's weapon burst into flames as she charged the human of the spirits. A lighting quick exchange of blows followed as the Spiritwalker ripped a blue sword from thin air. My eyes started to hurt as they tried to follow the blur of movement. Stepping out of the way of the two, I noticed the air suddenly dip in temperature regardless of the firestorm raging close by.
"S-Siri, Are you hurt?" I tried to talk to the girl curled up into a small ball.
Between quiet sobs, Siri whispered under her nose in a language completely alien to me. My skin crawled as my vision blurred and a need to flee grew in my body. Somehow fighting through it I managed to touch Siri's rock-hard shoulder.
"Why did she take an oath, human." The small girl eerily rose to her feet, her body moved artificially like a beautiful puppet played by an invisible child with a dark sense of fun. Her lips barely moved but her voice echoed loudly in my mind. I felt my body slump onto its knees as I pressed my hands against my ears trying to stop the torturous pain.
"Siri- please.It hurts, it hurts!"
"She spared your lives. You are nothing but experience points yet she didn't want to kill you." A completely emotionless voice echoed inside me again relieving me of the feeling of having my skull flayed from the inside, leaving me alone with the growing heart-stopping dread exuded from the emotionless girl. "The souls inhabiting you all are barely large enough to think for themselves."
"I don't u-understand." Why is she behaving like a Lost?
"She doesn't like humans, yet she smiles a smile which doesn't shine and speaks with an annoying tone I hate but I wanted... needed to know why. I regret not listening to her and leaving you to die." Her face was illuminated briefly by an orange light of Iris's spell. "Because of this orderless world, I'm going to lose everything. I'm going to lose her... Why did she take that stupid oath?" Siri's stone mask melted as her lips began to tremble her face twisting into an ugly depressed frown quickly hidden behind her hands as she began to repeat her last question over and over again.
Unable to stand up as something held my body down I felt tears appear in my eyes as something in me began to cry for the teary girl.
A loud noise of explosion rocked the plains as a fireball illuminated the nearby landscape. From the fire, a blood-covered elf rushed the Spiritwalker. With effortless parry, he leveraged her tight grip on her weapon leaving her defenseless. The conjured sword exited Iris's back along with a fantail spray of crimson causing her to gasp loudly before the sphere flew from my right and hit the pale Lost in the leg. A loud cracking noise thundered through the pasture as Iris slumped onto her back. As her body fell into the grass, her ungraceful fall was quickly drowned by the triumphant cheers from the people gathered to watch the fight.
"Pathetic, I expected more from such talkative Lost. You are like an untrained animal caught in a net. Flailing your weapon like it was a whip." The person behind the full white mask spoke loudly. He circled the elf, like a predator circles its prey before he yanked the sword from her chest and reached his hand behind his back. "Last words?" He said as he pulled out a knife-sized tooth and knelled on top of the elf. "...Failed who?" His voice mimicked being intrigued before he plunged the tooth into the powerful foe's heart.
Before the water shaman could finish his words I felt my body being flung as an ear-piecing shriek blurred my vision. The still air suddenly picked up and began to rush in the direction of the scream.
"On the spirits. Siri, what happened to you?"
Hovering above the ground I saw Siri consumed by black flames. In an instant, her left side was consumed into nothing but bones. With a surprising speed, the monster swooped behind the flat-footed Spitritwalker. Reaching around, she dug her claws into his sacred bone mask and left smiling scars on its smooth surface before causing a burst of deep blue light to erupt from the growing crack on his forehead.
The horrific terror threw the two cracked halves of the Spitritwalker mask into the grass like common trash before his body shrank and shrivelled into a grotesque husk which screamed long after his body should have died.
More snow-white flesh was consumed by the black flame from what remained from the joyful's girl frame as the monster wearying her skin lifted her hands into the air. Bloody screams erupted from all who stood rooted in place, shocked at what just happened as from their own shadows, claws began to tear into their legs, dragging them into the tall grass.
"Siri, if that is you stop it! If this is what Iris had done to you we can heal you just like you did Ba!"I heard myself scream before I could shut myself up. I'm dead, I'm dead!
A golden jewel glared at me with fury while the lifeless jewel with a hint of blue stare felt painful to endure with my health points and mana plunging toward zero like a swooping hawk.
A strange sound similar to a system chime caused the monster to stare upwards at the clouded night sky. A vortex violently appeared in the clouds above the living terror before the earth shook as a beam of golden light caused the monster to disappear.
[Oath Breaker Vanquished.] I read the text which appeared in front of me written in hope bringing golden light.
"In the honour of the spirits and the great Wyrm how can I repay you this-"
"ክዐ ጮዐዪቹ ዪቹነፕ, ክዐ ጋዪቹልጮ ዐክረሃ ልነⶴ!" A bone-chilling voice sounded from the crater created by the Wyrm's intervention.
How!? That is impossible, breaking an oath should have meant instant death to her. How is she still walking!?
A nothing less than a skeleton with the right side of her face still remaining shuffled toward me. Feeling incredibly sick I was unable to move with something hot running down my pants. The monster extended her clawed hand and pressed it against my chest slowly increasing the pressure until a drop of my blood appeared.
"!" I felt all my energy leave my body hoping Ba had managed to escape this monster.
"Mmm?" What remained from Siri shifted its animalistic fury at something between our legs.
A terror bird like-being with pitch-black fur and purple flames instead of eyes nestled inside its exposed skull hissed at the monster before swinging its claws at the white bone closest to it.
Not even a scratch was left on the leg of the god-like Lost but something that strange creature which stood between me and it did caused the skeleton to back away. The gems replaced the two star-like eyes of the poor girl and somehow managed to express panic as the monster ran toward the elf's motionless body. Giving the terror bird a last glance the monster spoke once more, her voice sounding like a decree of a divine before she grabbed Iris's corpse and disappeared in a flash, leaving death and eerie silence behind.
{New attributes detected}
[Spirit Bond]
{A Spirit of Death had bonded to you. Be nice to it as a Great Being had taken an interest in it.}