Once Again Returning 'Back Home'

Click~, wong~.

And as soon as Kinski spoke his words of all going according to Ciemnosc's plan, the latter took out what appeared to be a small device which rolled over from his left arm to the palm of his left hand, where it stopped and 'opened up' to reveal a 2 adult heads-large projection from an array. This image was from his own commanding vehicle, but Ciemnosc could change it to any other if he just wanted to.

The images shown on the projector were pretty obvious to understand but not so much detailed. Kinski and Katherine could however know that the armored car it showed almost fully in the entire projection’s point of view was Ciemnosc’s as it had 3 cannons installed on top of it with the first one barely being seen and the other 2 being right in front of the ‘camera angle’.

“...Move long, retreat!!” - “Retreat!” Suddenly, there was only 1 voice commanding the entire 40,000, 1,150 armored cars, but all of these people with a whole lot of power in those ‘machines’ listened right away. At first, Situ Shi’s voice rang for just a second, followed by some directly under him in this mission who relayed his one, single command.

That was all it needed for the whole lot of 40,000 elite sect disciples, cultivators at the Spirit Gathering realm, to stop rushing forward, drift a little for a few seconds before suddenly turning their frontal wheel and slowly turning around altogether. It was a magical sight, as more than a thousand armored cars suddenly turned around, not in the same direction, but at the same time, and yet they still managed to orderly resume their armored cars’ speedy retreat.

It was even better than what an ordered retreat could be, and the way they simply turned around and left was even more baffling. There weren’t enough casualties to call this operation, so far, in the thousands from the side of the disorderly retreating enemy.

As such, even though Ciemnosc’s armored car had already left the scene, the ‘camera angle’ continued moving even forward, which left Kinski utterly baffled at the capabilities of this kind of effect and advantage. Really, nothing would be better than this when spying on an enemy. No wonder Ciemnosc suddenly showed up in the place where he and Katherine come to relax every now and then!

After a few minutes, while the sound of motors behind them had been long gone, only a few began to realize it after those minutes went by that there seemed to be no more sounds from those diabolical machines going after them.

“There’s…there are none! They are gone!!” - “We- we are saved?!” - “Thank boss, he must’ve done something!” - “It might just be a fake retreat, don’t let yourselves fall for it, continue running, let’s keep on running- ah!” Slowly, many more and more began realizing this until all 20,000 or so remaining cult believers stopped and gathered around each other to speak about this change.

From one of the many around, there were still some panicky ones, especially for those who still wish to run and keep on running until they could get rid of their robes and defect the entire cult just to live on as a simple and normal cultivator abusing their power in some mortal’s settlement and have fun there until their deaths, which would be a few generations of those mortals at best.

But then, from one particular believer who was shouting very loudly and wanted to include everyone in his deserting of the cult, another particular believer came up to that person and harshly grabbed their collar. It was all visible for Ciemnosc and the other 2. As Kinski’s face changed a little, revealing both surprise and relief, naturally showing some gladness as he seemed to recognize the person coming to stop the panicky, shouting believer.

“Shut up! There’s no more to run for. Now we go back, slowly. And so what if it’s a fake retreat? We can’t even outrun them! They were just playing with us, now you will come back as well with us, do you understand?!” That believer shouted to the panicky one, but the latter still had a stubborn and a ‘nope, I want to live!’ expression all over his body.

“No, can’t do! I’m running the FUCK away from this place. You’re all dumb pieces of shite for thinking you could ever go against those things! Piss off from me, you orangutan!” The panicky believer shouted, and by now, everyone else was also looking at them shouting about.

“Ugh,” without much patience nor need to be patient, the believer lowered the left hand that was holding the panicky believer’s collar. But just as the latter was becoming relaxed and was ready to move his legs to rush away and save himself from this cult, the believer used his right hand now had a glove and was oozing with Power Energy to grip and tighten at his own neck.

“Iieeeuughaaeeh…” The panicky believer now knew he was going to die if he didn’t flee any faster! As such, his legs struggled so hard to move while he ignored his throat that was being squashed by the believer’s gloved hand, yet with his mouth making strange, high pitched sounds. After seconds and seconds of struggle with everyone else looking around with mortified expressions, the panicky believers finally became free to run on the ground towards the distance!

Plop.

Before…helplessly falling on the ground without any life in its headless corpse just a few meters away from where the believer was left standing with a totally gruesome but ‘content’ death face of a head which didn’t even have solid eyes in its eye sockets anymore, and whose tongue had long been bitten to smithereens by its own owner.

“...” - “...” Looking at the projection, Kinski and Katherine had differing reactions as Kinski was just looking at the foolish, panicked believer who thought he could defect right before his very own eyes. Katherine looked on with some discomfort, clearly still not at ease with these kinds of images but already getting used to it after she lived through so much with her elder brother.

On the other hand, Ciemnosc looked at the scene for a bit more, and only when a couple of tens of thousands of believers were making their way back with what seemed to be Kinski’s people’s leadership did he close down the projection and once again faced the elder brother and younger sister duo.

“Guess that makes it the end of our first reunion here?” As soon as they watched from below him to up, a sensation that Ciemnosc was somewhat new to and started liking feeling it, Ciemnosc commented without any sarcasm.

Kinski lowered his head before pressing his lips together and looking around, mostly behind Ciemnosc. On the other hand, Katherine was pouty. Nodding at them, the boss in this situation turned around, and with a few words of his, he took out his Steel Array Snakes in an area that encompassed the entire area where the 3 corpses’ remnants were moving towards one another and trying to amend each other simply as if by instinct.

“Now let me give you guys a small gift in return, I can’t do much, but with what I saw just now randomly, I think I can do some things better.” Taking out his Inscription Pen gifted to him by elder Apegos and began drawing lines and completely irregular, uniform shapes here and there.

While watching from behind, Kinski and Katherine were directly self-absorbed that they almost didn’t notice Ciemnosc throwing a few pills towards them, Katherine caught them all a few moments before they could fall on the ground and get dirtied. Though that could be dealt with just a bit of Power Energy and that’ll be it.

“Take them for your elder brother, he is the one who can fight and fight, after all.” Ciemnosc twisted his neck to look backwards for a second before returning his head to the front. An even more pouty Katherine began feeding her elder brother like they were candies without suspecting these pills, while a startled Kinski kept eating them praying they were not ‘bad’ ones.

“Keep gulping them down, Elder Brother, these are really good ones. I don’t think I’ve ever smelled or seen some as good as these eh~~.” Katherine the Cute said, hence Kinski ate them all down and gulped them down before they could even melt in his mouth. As a result, his body quickly gained strength and became half-filled with Power Energy after some minutes of meditation - also without caring about meditating right in front of an ‘enemy’.

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“!” After just a little while, Kinski opened his eyes, revealing the amazement within them, leaving Katherine feeling proud after having fed him another person’s pills as if they were hers. Then, both Ks began to spend time…watching Ciemnosc inscribe array after array. They unknowingly became big, diehard fans of him the moment they realized they had watched for more than half an hour without noticing before.

At the same time, once they became sobered up enough to know they had been staring for that long, seemingly wanting to embarrass them, Ciemnosc called out indifferently while still inscribing arrays left and right. “These torsos here, and all of its limbs, I could destroy their ‘surveillance’ arrays separately by ruining them before they connect. Then once they connect, I can just ‘press a button’, and they would all fall apart.”

“But that would be no fun, and I don’t want to spend that much time in something that isn’t mine, so I’ll just do it all in one go after they are all formed back together.” Ciemnosc then nodded a few times, seriously, making Kinski who was more or less understanding the contents of his words feel insulted by not even understanding such completely.

“Wouldn’t that alarm the upper echelons of the cult once it is discovered what happened to them? There are also tools that are linked to these corpses’ utility. The moment they become useless and are destroyed, they’ll know that too. So if you destroy the arrays but the things are still alive…” Kinski said, trying to warn Ciemnosc of possibly being directly chased out by Obsidiafying realm monsters as soon as those arrays were gone…

“Either way would have alarmed them. Arrays aren’t like some horny adults acting like teenagers cheating on each other as if to see who is more of a whore than the other but still trying to call themselves saints, ahem. Just say that you lost them to me,” Ciemnosc said and then spoke those last few words with some underlying meaning.

But before Kinski could get to that, Ciemnosc turned his head back once again, “Just like how a bunch of Spirit Gathering realm cultivators at the late stages ganging up on me couldn’t defeat me.”

“...” With that, Ciemnosc turned his head back to the front yet again, while Kinski’s face became poker-faced, Katherine pouted guiltily on the other hand. Kinski then lowered his eyes once more, and before long, both of them lifted their heads and eyes once more to see Ciemnosc’s work.

It wasn’t just standing in one place to inscribe every part of the array. While the strange tool that could compress and expand at Ciemnosc’s Spirit Sense was seemingly only for the sake of helping up those corpses’ to become one again and 3 in total. It didn’t seem, at all, that this strange tool was made for the same purpose that any other Craftspeople would have such a tool like this one.

Which would be simply for the sake of keeping themselves from inscribing an array erroneously by any possible small margin, up to even rotating said arrays so that they wouldn’t lose their orientation and start over again and again. Kinski himself knew of such, but he had too much to deal with and could barely even keep his studies in array formation, though he knew at least that much.

At times, Ciemnosc would step forward, his head seeming stuck in place, while his back was slightly arched backwards, and gazed up, his right-hand inscribing slowly but smoothly flowing here and there about; not stopping for anything.

When it was time for his left hand to do the work next, his left hand was much more wild, rapid, and even ‘savage’ in a certain way. Every stroke of his left hand holding the Inscription Pen was seemingly for the things that were the most detailed and used for making the most of ‘keys’ for a ‘door’ that is ‘universal’ all over and within any array with security measures.

However, to Kinski’s ever more increasing shock, to the level of a harsh culture shock as an ‘innocent’ ignorant person, it wasn’t like his right hand was incapable of doing such. Just that, since there is no such thing as being in an emergency or against the clock, Ciemnosc took his very own steps instead of following the ‘steps to build an array’; he was following himself…

When his left hand held that Inscription Pen, his right hand, to the most incredible of scenes, almost heart-stopped the shit out of his chest. Ciemnosc’s right hand, which was now pen-less and could only remain stagnant, suddenly began flowing all the same as if he had an Inscription Pen still, but also with the obvious motions of inscribing an array without one.

From the tip of his fingers, the same kind of blue Power Energy coming from the tip of the Inscription Pen from before were all attached to his right hand’s fingertips. Seemingly, Ciemnosc must’ve done something to have made those…impossible to understand somehow connected to the yolks of his fingertips…

Without understanding but knowing what was transpiring now, Kinski looked on, his shock easing up little by little. While Katherine was only marveled by the flashy and bright lights going off and on here and there. Some lines slowly lost their brightness. Some others directly losing their shine with every stroke of Ciemnosc’s arms all around - …like he was an angel and was simply flying over the whole world with his knowledge of it all.

Suddenly, it all fell too right to have chosen to follow and become subservient to this young- no, little kid that was even younger than Katherine herself.

“How could you know of Katherine’s…uniqueness?” Seemingly having found out that Ciemnosc was like a god in array formations, Kinski opened his mouth while Katherine was sitting right before him in between his legs and knees but with only her mid-back against his pelvis and the like. And without feeling any annoyed, Ciemnosc softly responded.

“...I don’t know the answer to that myself. I only know that since I started cultivating, there are some things that I just suddenly recognize. Only, there are no names in my head, just the… ‘I know’ from here or there. It’s the same with her, she’s just a little kid, but I don’t think she is just human.”

“I have been with anthropomorphic women before and even saw a few elves being at their wit's end. Their bodies had been played with in ways that are just incongruous even. She reminds me of the anthropomorphic ones though, but she is also human, for sure. I can only say that whatever she is ‘hiding’, it is a huge thing, and I wish I had knowledge about it to not just ‘know it’.”

“Oh…” Kinski exclaimed softly, as well, losing his complete eyesight as he looked at the ground while the lights shone on the almost dark sky of the evening - the ground was becoming less and less bright. On the other hand, seated between his legs, Katherine was still cutely pouty, the demonic beautiful young girl, as she seemed pensive but still looked at Ciemnosc’s work about to finish.

“...Okay, it’s done.” After a few more minutes, evening having already arrived, Ciemnosc was just finishing tracing his right-handed Inscription Pen on the left shoulder of the 1st corpse, who in return seemed to be commanded to stand by while Ciemnosc tuned him up but still looked with its head down at Ciemnosc. And from time to time, Ciemnosc even talked to the corpses as if they were living bros who were getting tattooed by their artistic buddies. Not free though.

“Really? You don’t need more time?” Kinski came over, now fully recovered, which in itself was already shocking but… he was really tired by now of getting shocked one time after the other; in silence. Kathrine was sleeping in his arms with her head against his heart, and as they both faced Ciemnosc, Kinski noticed that Ciemnosc wasn’t even taxed a single bit after so long. Only his already slightly pale skin, being slightly pale indeed, aaah~.

“Nah, for these things, I’ve become a bit good about it,” Ciemnosc said, and seriously as he really, really thought that there are so many things he has to work out to do better. But Kinski, who witnessed most of the work that Ciemnosc did, was completely left speechless and gave Ciemnosc the Monster a glare that was pretty much annoyed.

“Oh right, gimme your rock, it is also a hidden danger for you,” Ciemnosc said while extending his right hand and exposing his palm up his Inscription Pen now in his left hand. Without saying anything in response, a fellow ‘straight to the point’ Kinski took his rock to infuse his Power Energy into the 3 corpses before handing it with his right hand over to Ciemnosc.

As soon as the rock fell on Ciemnosc’s right palm, his left hand went over to it. While this time, Kinski could feel a kind of Spirit Sense being shot from Ciemnosc universally enhanced and directly and only focused towards the rock on his right palm!

The Spirit Sense was full of a property that Kinski didn’t know of, which was already unheard of for any Spirit Sense to have an ‘effect’ of sorts, while also only knowing from Ciemnosc that he was a swordsman and had an indescribably powerful Spirit Sense.

However, Kinski imagined nothing from the likes of what he sensed just now! As he could only ‘feel’ the trajectory of that Spirit Sense being semi-used to form a tunnel-like shape, it fell directly on the rock to boost up the corpses. After being attached to that rock for so long, and with his trace of Spirit Sense being found in there as soon as Ciemnosc’s Spirit Sense fell on it, Kinski could so easily sense the moment that trace of his Spirit Sense was overly destroyed!

He wasn’t harmed, though, contrary to what the enforcer elders had been warning him of. And then, he could feel enormous changes within the small rock, which became even smaller after being ‘raped’ by Ciemnosc’s overbearing and quirky Spirit Sense which…Kinski even figured out that he was able to sense, even after being focused so hard into that tunnel-like shape, because Ciemnosc wanted him to know it…

Nevertheless, the changes to the rock from its functional side were just as enormous as its mere image changing without any clear explanation. At once, Kinski felt that the now smaller rock was hot and that it was waiting for just the perfect host to adhere itself to and slowly become one together as item and owner… It was…so strange!

“There, I matched your Spirit Sense and Power Energy so that this rock becomes addicted to you when you, once again, and this time without tricks - infuse your trace of Spirit Sense into it.” Ciemnosc’s words and voice woke Kinski up, who looked at the former as if he couldn’t believe it. His mouth opened at once but became stagnant. It opened up a bit more and breathed in deeply, before…

…

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Let It Rain's Note: Cliffhangah...not really, but eh.