One could call it a sort of convergence, water particles, would become water vapor, would become water droplets, would become rain, rivers, ocean, seas.

Billy was sitting on a rock cycling the power within his inner-world and using the generated aether to cultivate. He’d just managed to leave the fourth layer or the fourth realm when he felt something.

Something was calling him, but there was always something calling him. What made this time different was that one could say that he was being called from a number that he’d never and would never have intentionally given out.

Thus he kind of had, to answer, if only to know the who, how and why of it.

He left his rock and took to the air, the cocoon wrapping itself around him, piercing him repeatedly, as it enshrouded him. Turning him into the Jormungandr, the world serpent.  

The number of eyes and limbs he had, growing as his inner-world grew. The many,  feathered, limbs flapping and fluttering as they pulled the wind around them. Gathering the sky as a support and then just idly flowing through it.

Traveling along a path of their own making. Swimming through the night as they absorbed starlight and the flesh and blood of whatever creatures dared come too close.

*****

Billy reached his destination, a compound of some sort made up of thick walls, sentry towers and smaller buildings. All of it constructed around a mansion. The whole complex built in an area where the hinterland and the proper wastes met up.

Appearing to be a small city with an excessive amount of cages and barb wire fences. Just looking at it once was enough for Billy to recognize what he was seeing.  

A human mill. One of the many ‘non’-legal slaving operations that would occasionally crop up in the wastes. Though this one was big enough that they decided to put up some fairly permanent stakes at the edge of the hinterland.

Non-legal because while the market would still take them, the slaves were  generally acquired through raids of smaller settlements and kingdoms.

Legal Slaves were those who properly and ‘officially’ sold themselves or were sold by parents or debt collectors.

There were also those who were sold by the state for their crimes, or for their participation in rebellions or lost conflicts.

While the markets accepted the dubious nature of such operations, since there was always a need for labor, they were still counted amongst the same crowd as all the other raiders.

In short they were acceptable targets. Thus Billy dropped down, with no thought for decorum or excess politeness.

The Jormungandr fell and the earth shook, there was an explosion of dirt and dust and brick. The Bodies of more than a few unfortunates were either pressed flat into the soil or smeared across the stones.

The cocoon dispersed turning into an swarm of tadpoles and slitherers that struck out anyone with a weapon in their hands or who looked like they were in charge.

The Klaxons rang as the alarm was set off, there was shouting and screaming and the sounds of people scrambling over each other to get out of the way.

Billy strode through the chaos, all the noise falling on deaf ears because he was busy listening for the sound he’d heard before. Listening for the voice that had been calling him.

A few brave folks tried to fight, firing into the mass of dark gray creatures. Casting spells and using spears to try and fight them back. They managed to kill a few. Unfortunately there’d always be more to replace the ones that fell.

Their efforts ultimately coming to nought as the number of shades grew instead of shrinking.

Swelling till the swarm became a dark gray tidal wave, that swept through the complex, leaving only the people in chains as survivors.

A few high level practitioners were able to catch on that the swarm was just a symptom of their problem, not the source.

The source was the masked, individual that was idly making his or her, way up towards the main road. Heading towards the main mansion.

They leapt towards him calling up powers of earth, wind and fire. Gathering their aether to bring out as much force as they could manage.

A man in stone armor charged forwards only to be swiftly bisected, by something that lay in the man’s shadow.

A woman made of thunder clouds was diced and scattered into vapor and red mist. A summoner who could turn the trees into allied golems call them to his cause and sent them at the unknown assailant.

His expression blanched, as he saw the tree golems screaming, their cores transforming into so much sawdust. Their towering frames falling and scattering like matchsticks.

The summoner tried to flee, but found his steps halted, he looked down and saw that there was something wrapped around his legs, holding him in place.

He was pulled off his feet and dragged into the tide of shadow-like creatures. Screaming as they fell upon him.

*****

Billy made his way through the compound, wondering what exactly he was headed into. Wondering who exactly it was that he was going to end up meeting.

Wondering if they were going to be a threat. Wondering if whatever was waiting, would get in the way of the other duties and responsibilities he held. Such as his work as the current acting sole executive of the Bone Tree Company.

A role that was now easier to play, than the last time he’d held it, made simpler since the Thousand Ghosts had joined on. The arrangement between their two companies seeming to be heading towards a more permanent arrangement.

With the Thousand Ghosts acting as the hands and feet of the company and liasoning with the various groups and guilds that the company did business with while the Bone Tree Company mainly supplied product and made the big picture decisions.

Not that, that meant that the work was any less stressful. Billy’s way of doing things was fairly set in stone,  if his work got easier that meant he’d just do more work.

Thus giving him hands and feet to use, only served to make him into an even more imposing financial monster. One that could use tools and artifice now, instead of merely swallowing everything without spitting out the bones.

With results that would make the normal head of operations anxious were she to know what the boy was getting up to.

*****

Billy reached the mansion and was surprised to find a few second realm practitioners there. He probably should have been expecting them, but Raiders lived such violent, short lives that he’d never run into any past the eleventh layer of the first realm.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

While leaning away from a sword of corrosive light, he wondered if he she take up jogging again, but decided against it, since the flights were more efficient.

A gunman, ran up a wall, firing radioactive rounds that exploded in dazzling min-mushroom clouds, vaporizing whole portions of the floor they were on and the floors below. Killing anyone who was too slow in running, or just plain unlucky.

A witch stood out of the range fire, backed into the corner of the room as she cast numerous curses and debuffs and conjured a swarm of beetle-like demonbeasts to combat the masked individual and the tide of shades that followed him.

Billy sidestepped the gunman’s bullets and slapped the sword out of the swordsman’s hand.

His tail struck out, slashing through the air as a dark gray blur, moving faster than the eye could see, seconds later the walls groaned as they were shorn in two. The three higher realm practitioners falling, their heads rolling away from their bodies.

*****

While his footsteps could not be heard, the stairs still groaned beneath as he climbed the stairs. Making his way to the top floor, to the last room of the mansion, to the place from which the call was coming.

Billy emerged from the stairwell head first, he heard the wind break as something cut through the air. He grunted as he was carried off his feet and smashed into the wall. Sliding to floor and into a crouch.

He didn’t need the eyes in his head, to see the man who stood over him, tall and hoary, dressed richly, and hefting a massive axe that was crawling with sigils.

“You...I don’t know you...Who sent you here? Was it that bastard, Smokey?” said the bearded wild-man who presided as ruler of this slaver-city. Another man of the second realm.

His cultivation of Eleventh tier, the forms layer, of the second realm. A second realm practitioner who was actually quite close to maybe making it to the next realm in a few centuries time.

Billy didn’t both answering he simply rose to his feet, stopping the axe mid-swing as it came his way again. Crumbling the metal in his fingers.

The wild man abandoned his weapon, leaping back to the other end of the room, while Billy simply stood staring at him.

The wild-man roared, the whole mansion shaking beneath his bestial aura. He sent out a wave of concussive force that blew away the entire side of the mansion, flattened the forests beyond and should have sent the invader flying.

The sky and the aether particles that hung in the air made monochrome by his use of aether.

Still Billy stood there merely looking in the man’s way, staring, with his face hidden behind his mask.

“Aren’t you the one who called me here? No wait...that doesn’t make any sense. In which case I don’t need you.”

The Wild-man ignored the injuries that had come from the aetheric backlash he’d brought on himself by acting without any regard of the monochrome. He readied another roar, paying no heed to the blood pouring down his ruined through.

Sensing that it was now or nothing, choosing to risk permanently crippling himself rather than face the death that he sensed was coming.

The roar rose out of him, rising from his diaphragm and traveling to the top of his throat. Then it died, hitting a wall of cool gray metal.

The man gasped, unable to understand then he looked down and saw the broad gray blade that bisected his top and bottom jaw.

A body fell and when Billy’s tail returned to its normal size and form the top of half of the man’s skull fell as well.

Billy walked past the slaver’s leader and headed into the room beyond. First there was a neatly furnished, flowery scented hallway and then there was a door. He opened the door and found a bedroom and in that bedroom was a naked woman in an oversized birdcage.

Emaciated, with a tube in her arm, the tube drawing blood into a great big vat, that lay next to the bird cage.

*****

Tamra Patton often drifted in and out of consciousness. Her regenerative abilities were just barely able to keep her alive, despite all the blood they took.

Though it was those same new abilities that were to blame for her current situation, they were what saved her. Sparing her from death and worse.  

Thus she could never be sure if she was dreaming or awake. With her situation wretched enough that even if she were awake it’d be fairly identical to the nightmares she roamed through when she closed her eyes.

This time, the dream was of solitary figure that stood haloed in blinding light. Wearing a familiar mask one she’d seen twice in her life, though this time it’d seemed to have lost its eyes.

What was that old saying? One time is chance, two is luck, three is fate.

From the way a certain something inside her, seemed to instantaneously latch onto that being, that stood bath silent light and singing shadows, it was almost like all this was meant to be.

A consideration, that she vehemently rejected because it meant that her life was always going to end up this way. A possibility that was dreary to the point of making her feel slightly suicidal.

“You….?” said masked figure.

“...Me” said Tamra, a wry smile pulling at her split, cracked, lips, making them bleed blood that she really couldn’t afford to spill.

The masked figure cocked its head at her, in the same way it did when she was just a frightened youth who’d happened to fall in with the wrong crowd after losing her home to a demonbeast attack that came during a bad winter.

The figure removed its mask revealing the face that seemed to almost be slightly younger than she was. Pretty, delicate like a daydream.  The same face that had appeared before her, two years ago, forcing a potion down her throat, simultaneously saving and ruining her life. Making her blood into a miracle elixir.

“I think kind of hate you, y’know.”  she said. Feeling even more light-headed than usual.

“....That’s fair.” said the figure.

For a few seconds they simply just regarded each other.

“Would you mind it if I took you out of there?”

“Are you going to just leave me, with another bunch of villagers who are strapped for cash.” she asked.

Her tone was accusatory though she knew that his intent hadn’t been an ill one, and she knew it unfair to expect him to somehow know that A) the people he’d sent her to would be both absolutely awful and extremely lucky in catching her, and  B) ‘she’ would continue to be gullible and  unlucky to the point of death.

“....No.” said the figure.

“Then okay then. Yes, please. I would very much like to get the fuck out of this cage.” said Tamra.