Chapter 19 – Life 5 – The Audience
Digging my way out proved difficult. I had to keep my mouth and eyes closed, and my ears and nose were greatly irritated. Still, using Titanium to create gaps in the sand, I was able to avoid being buried to death. Thankfully, this wasn’t Qi-infused sand, the death of the snake took all of its resistance to metal out of it. I was the second to emerge, with my teacher being the first and the bald man taking a bit longer. The Magma-Maker we had to find and rescue, which wasn’t terribly hard once we found the spot of sand that was rapidly fusing together into glass and stone. Magma might be more powerful than metal in combat but wasn’t as versatile in strange situations like this.
We had now confirmed we had all survived, other than the maddened Sand-Molder, and that the great sandstorm had stopped. I was extremely glad we didn’t have to deal with another snake, which would have inevitably been even *bigger*. We were standing atop the biggest sand dune I had ever seen, bigger than I thought possible. The snake must have been making it constantly, for months on end… but why? What made the snake want to condense so much sand into a single place?
The Magma-Maker spat out a mouthful of sand. “Well, after this I’ll be happy to never see another grain of sand again.” We all gave a brief chuckle. My teacher looked at me. “Disciple, I believe you were the one who killed the snake?” I hesitated, then nodded. “How did you manage such a thing? I saw you throw your shield away… did you perhaps find a weak point somewhere?” I considered my words carefully, not wanting to admit that my knowledge came to me in nightmares. “It was sort of on a hunch… you sensed what was happening inside the coils of the snake, right?” My teacher said, “Yes, though I didn’t understand it. It felt like the snake was far larger than it looked...” I nodded, “Well, I think it was somehow absorbing sand into its body, and when I threw my shield into the center of the storm, that process was interrupted.”
“What made you think to do that? Without a shield, you would have been completely unprotected.” “Simply put, teacher, we weren’t going to survive much longer with or without our shields. I took a risk to end the fight early, and it paid off.” She frowned. “Yes… that snake was strangely powerful, even for an Elite. An Elite among Elites… I’ve only heard of one other creature like this." I was surprised. “What creature would that be, teacher?” She looked grim. “The source of our Empire’s greatest enemy. Now that you have proven yourself, you will likely be reassigned to fight them.”
As we made the trip back to the Old City, I tried to get my teacher (or any of the others) to explain what this enemy was. All I could get from them was that they were to the north, in a land that was very cold, and that the vast majority of the members of the Elite Strike Force were actually expected to stay there and guard the border. When trying to get any information about the enemy themselves, the other three members of the team had little to say. When we approached the outpost where the Magma-Maker lived, in lieu of a goodbye he told me, “When you get to the border, don’t be a hero, kid. I’m glad you saved us back there, don’t get me wrong, but that kind of risky maneuver won’t work on the S- on what you’ll be facing.”
When we arrived back at the Strike Force’s headquarters, we were met by not only the blind scout, but also a man in strange robes who looked about my age, or perhaps a bit older. Unexpectedly, my entire group bowed, and I quickly did the same. Was this man somehow the leader of our group? I was proven righter than expected: my teacher said, “We greet the 3rd Emperor, Long May He Rule”, followed by the bald man and then the Magma-Maker. I thankfully got over my shock fast enough to say the same words at the appropriate time.
After a few seconds, the 3rd Emperor declared, in a voice that seemed much older than he appeared, “Rise, my subjects. We have much to discuss. I notice you are one member short from when you departed…” I gulped but returned to standing along with the others. My teacher hesitated, then began to speak once the 3rd Emperor gave a gesture of ‘go on’. “My Lord, we encountered an unusually strong group of monsters, and only defeated them with great difficulty. Our fifth member unexpectedly went mad, and broke formation against my orders, yelling nonsense all the while. Despite this, we believe the threat has been neutralized.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The 3rd Emperor’s gaze turned hard. “Mad, you say? Mad? I do not enjoy learning that members of my Elite Strike Force are prone to madness.” He turned to the bald man. “You recruited him, did you not?” The bald man was shaking. “Y-yes My Lord.” The 3rd Emperor nodded. “Well, then, an appropriate punishment will have to be delivered…”
“If I may…”, I said, surprising even myself. Everyone in the room turned to look at me, even the blind man. The 3rd Emperor in particular was looking at me like an insect that had walked over his food. Why had I spoken up? Because the bald man had recruited me, too? Was I worried about getting punished myself? Well, the chances of that had just gotten a lot higher now, hadn’t they? I spoke quickly. “I-I-I don’t believe the madness was truly a flaw of the Sand-Molder’s, but a power of the monster we faced. The Sand Python was condensing a, well, core of sand within, er, its body, and it is my belief that this core somehow, well, affects those who wield the element of Sand themselves. …My Lord.”
The other three members of my team were looking at me in horror. The 3rd Emperor squinted at me. No one said anything for quite some time, one could probably hear a pin drop. Eventually the 3rd Emperor raised up his hand and said, “All of you, leave us. All of you… except you”, pointing at me. My other teammates gave me a pitying look, but quickly left the room. After a few beats, the 3rd Emperor declared, “That means you too, Head Scout.” The blind man looked startled, but didn’t question the man, almost running out of the room in response. I was now alone in a room with the most powerful man in the Empire.
“I do not take insolence lightly, young man.”, said the man who did not appear to be much older than me. “You have spoken out of turn.” I swallowed. “I have executed those in higher positions than yours for less.” Why did I speak out? I should have just let the bald man be punished, now I was going to be- “But you seem to have important information to share with me. Information, not about mortal concerns, but about something far more important. The nature of this world, and the Apocalypse we find ourselves in.”
…what? I almost questioned what he was talking about but figured that that would *definitely* get me executed. I instead waited for him to continue. “There was a time”, the 3rd Emperor said, “when there were no Elites. Human or Monster. Just those with a connection to one of the moons, fighting those with the same. But some of the monsters grew stronger. They combined their elements. My father, the 2nd Emperor, did not care about this. He grew fat and happy while all across the land, the monsters grew more and more powerful. Then, there was my brother. He knew the true danger of these Elites, so he gathered resources out from under my father and organized an Elite Force of our own. The force you are now part of…”
The 3rd Emperor began to pace. “And he was not just its founder, he was its best weapon! For he had combined his abilities with Earth with… the ability granted by the Forbidden Moon. The Life Moon, the IMPERIAL Moon! The Green Moon. He gained the ability to call on the very *bones* of his enemies, and make them into… things, constructions, creatures… soldiers. But at the height of his power, we learned of a monster with the very same ability, to the north. Skeletons of other monsters, rising from the earth to attack our men once more. And so, my brother, the fated inheritor of the Empire, went to match it. And he won.”
I gulped, almost seeing where this was going, but not wanting to believe it. “But during his victory, his men say, he saw something. Something in that battle changed him forever. He began to speak of his power as an end, rather than a means TO an end. An Empire of nothing but skeletons… this is what he began to desire. He turned on his men, his own Elite Force, infusing their bones into a singular construct of terrible power. We only know this story from those who fled to survival. Naturally, I didn’t believe them. I didn’t WANT to believe them. But when my brother’s constructs began to threaten the land, I was forced to admit the truth. Yes, as the rumors say, I slew my father. He was weak, he hadn’t even combined an element of his own. But my brother… yet lives, in a land of ice, slowly forming it into a land of bone.”
I was shaking, knowing that this knowledge was extremely dangerous. The man turned his piercing gaze back on me and confirmed it: “I have ensured any word of the true nature of these happenings has been silenced. There is no way anyone should be aware that the so-called Skeleton Emperor was once a human, was once my mad brother. And now you speak of a madness quite similar in nature to his… and claim to know its cause. So, tell me, Disciple of Titanium… what is it, exactly, that you know?”