City

Within the Southern big shot's territory, once again.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Come in," after a few days since the last report, the recently sent out teams to investigate the rare occurrences were finally back. And Pastor Erquiles had been waiting for them and their subsequent report. As he ordered them, allowed them - in; the door to his study. Coming in was the messenger from before, 2 other team leaders, and 2 very important people within the Cult.

One of the important 2 people of the Cult was a slightly chubby man that looked nothing of the sort of indulgent, reckless, lofty, or greedy but capable instead. The other one was a damn beauty of yellow, long hair with braids and big celeste eyes, but that…seemed a little…cutely dumb. They both wore brown robes with clean cut-off sleeves in square shape and a very long semi pointy hood attached to their robes as well.

“Pastor! Reporting to you!” Half-kneeling on the floor as soon as everyone was present, the door was closed by one of the other 2 team leaders and the Pastor placed his papers down. Everyone then followed and allowed him to continue on with etiquette as the messenger began his reporting of the situation.

“When we went back there, Pastor Erquiles, we even followed the same trail back to where that large amount of energy in a 3,000 km radius attracted like a typhoon just a few weeks ago. We never imagined that we would've found another trail. Only, this one wasn’t from energy, our tracker would’ve picked it up otherwise. But it was merely on the ground, Pastor.”

“On the ground?” Pastor Erquiles frowned the moment he heard up to this part, naturally getting ideas on what sort of ‘trails’ and clues from the ground anyone could get, and so did the other 4 in the room.

“Yes, Pastor Erquiles. There were visible traces of small cracks on the desertic, powerful, and solid ground that not even the sand could fill up for weeks. None of them weren’t that wide and, in fact, each of them really had the exact same length and depth,. Only the way that it was broken would differ a little.”

“The point of suspicion is that they all led to the same place we were going, Pastor, the small forest up ahead that leads to the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect territory.” The messenger took this time to breathe in, but also to recompose himself as he went on. “We believe it was one of two options, at most.”

“It is either another person who also identified the previous strange event and went over to check it, found the person, and kidnapped them, or didn’t find such a person in the first place and then left. But the second option, Pastor, is more viable since what we found for our main objective is also connected to this.”

“If it was the same person then, that can only mean that the person who absorbed so much energy managed has the support of a very strong Creature, perhaps even an Obsidiafying Realm Creature centralizing in physical power.”

“!” Pastor Erquiles sat up right away from such a report. To have such a Creature as a pet or mount would, of course, be beyond crazy and mighty over the entire Region! As he sat up, the messenger cleverly let the Pastor ponder without interruptions, and so did the other 2 important people.

“How can that be if it’s already impossible to find Conflagrate Realm Creatures anymore? It’s only a few of us who have reached that Realm who have appeared in this Region. It’s been more than a thousand years since the last Obsidiafying Realm Creature appeared!” The Pastor asked with quite some rage, but not out of bounds, as he gained composure the very next few seconds.

“Pastor, that is the only answer to this. It is even more so…since the place that we were up to visit back then was…completely burned out.” The messenger said, having chosen this very moment to speak of it.

“What?! Impo!- That’s impossible! Nobody could even enter that damn place for tens of years, how can someone suddenly barge in and even destroy it?!” Pastor Erquiles’ agitation made fear show in the other 2 important people of the Cult in the room, let alone those of the messengers.

“Pastor, it wasn’t destroyed it…it was fully burnt down to even the grass and outside of the previous wide range of blockade from before…it all became ashes. And, and what’s worse of it,” the messenger gulped big time before continuing, “It was…seemingly not done by any energy nor Art, it was done by pure flames, fire…just naturally created.”

Scree- futhud!

“!!!” It was now time for the Pastor to not only grow shocked as hell, for real this time but also for him to show some fear in those eyes. ‘This kind of person, this kind of man, this… How could there be someone like that? It’s impossible for any of the old ones to come out. Who is it?! It better not be any of those 3 foolish organizations!’.

…thud.

“Sigh…” Sitting back down in his chair, Pastor Erquiles took some time to relax as he ventilated his face with his right hand and rested his left hand on his desk. His tone was raspy and somewhat heavy, “You two leave. You, stay for a few more words.”

Not saying anything without being allowed to, the other 2 messengers respectfully and fearfully, left the Pastor’s study and elegantly closed the door on their way out. Meanwhile, the remaining messenger felt honored as he was then accompanied by the other 2 now standing at his sides each and behind himself.

“You’ve got guts to speak of those things without fearing what I may do to you.” Commented Pastor Erquiles, which made the messenger gulp big time one more time. The former then looked at the other 2 very elegantly robed higher ups and asked somewhat lazily, “What do you think of him?”

“Pastor Erquiles, your humble servant Preacher Noles would like to say that this man has been the Cult’s most distinguished member in the younger generation. You shouldn’t keep trying to sharpen him and promote him already.” The slightly chubby male spoke first. Pastor Erquiles nodded at him before looking at the cutely dumb blonde with braids.

“What about you? Doney?” Doney smiled cutely at her Pastor’s question before curtly saying with the utmost respect, “This Shaman believes he is ready to become a Clergy. Please do teach him the ways to become one. Allow us to baptize him as our next Clergy, Pastor Erquiles.”

“...Mmf, very well. You, Doney, go ahead and get the blood ready. I’ll bring this new Clergy to hunt a few towns of the Preferential Light Justice Sect territory to form a ‘few’ corpses.” Just as the Pastor was about to stand up and the messenger was insanely exhilarated, Preacher Noles interrupted with mild concern in his eyebrows.

“My Pastor, please allow this humble servant Preacher to do so for you, at these times, more than anything. Where peace is slowly being washed away and no more otherworldly cultivator is around, I’m sure that even those old ones would come out and hunt any of us down should we be alone. We mustn’t let such a thing happen!”

“...” Pastor Erquiles looked at the slightly chubby man who had been serving the Cult in such a position for about a whole thousand years-period. This far, he has become the Cult’s face and honorable mention in each of the Believers’ mouths. Pastor Erquiles stood up nonetheless and moved towards Preacher Noles before placing his right hand on the latter’s left shoulder.

“Noles, you’ve been a great Preacher all this long. Soon, I might leave the vacancy here to try and find the way to the 8th Realm myself. I’d be glad for you to take my position then.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Noles was feeling very honored now, but unlike the messenger that was soon to become a Clergy, he spoke with conviction yet humbleness. “Pastor, wouldn’t that be unfair to Shaman Lady Doney?”

“Oh no, Senior Brother is really the one who should be put there, aiyo.” The cutely dumb beauty said, fidgety with her feet as she couldn’t believe she was adamantly praised in front of the Pastor. The Pastor himself then smirked a bit and said in a slightly good mood, “See? Even Doney thinks you are the one, don’t disappoint. You can go now.”

“Yes, Pastor.” - “Yes, Pastor Erquiles.” Both the Preacher and Shaman said, bowing respectfully and making their way out. The messenger acted as well as he spoke to the Pastor before following Preacher Noles. “Many thanks, Pastor, this is my life coming to fruit. The Cult is always so present and powerful in the entire Region, I thank you with my life!!”

After having knocked his head against the floor. His voice could then be heard in the hallway outside the Pastor’s study. “Preacher Noles, I’m most honored to follow you to begin my ritual. Becoming a Clergy has been my wildest honor. Please be patient with this foolish one…”

***

The moment that Ciemnosc woke up, the first thing he did was to get rid of the entire bed in the little girl’s bedroom. Later on, he made a very big tomb, and 2 smaller, more ordinarily sized tombs for the children’s bones in the basement, the mother and the daughter.

The mother, unfortunately, didn’t have any bones left. She had in fact nothing left anywhere in the house except for the house’s kitchen that was full of her ‘still there’ dried up blood on the windows and ‘painting’ a large part of the kitchen’s floor. Even if she was a cultivator, she would’ve had to be one very special one as the little girl also seemed to be for her blood to remain for this long.

As for how ‘long’ it exactly is, Ciemnosc himself is unaware of it. He wasn’t an expert at archaeology in any part of his childhood. And he was also…not willing to study them too much with his ‘awareness’.

Later, after he took a mere afternoon to make those tombs for each of them. Ciemnosc noticed that the house had not only gone back to its decrepit look before and that it was ‘normal looking’ in terms of lighting and the rotten wood all around. Its painting had also ‘returned’ but became much more obsolete at the same time, as it was all a silvery-beige color for the interior walls and brown-black for the doors and the stairs.

All made of wood though, with only the basement having its only entrance made of a very hard kind of metal. One that only Ciemnosc by using half his full strength was finally able to bend and open up only to be unhealthy and assaulted by the odor of death. In any case, the basement below the house was about 5 times larger than the house above.

The house itself only had 2 floors, from which the second ‘appeared’ only after Ciemnosc woke up. The second floor only had a few cubic meters of hallway space without counting the 2 rooms taking more than half the space of the 2nd floor.

The little girl’s room was very wide and spacious. While the mother’s had an extra bed which was very well-kept despite the passing years. While the ‘older’ one which must’ve been the mother’s was instead even worse than the little girl’s.

On the other hand. The basement had compartments whose separation from one another was a mere thin wall that was thinner than even a poorly manufactured bookshelf; there were unclean, raw hides on each compartment with a little skeleton on top of them. Their position varied depending on each compartment. There wasn’t a single one that was similar to another.

In any case, once the burying was over, Ciemnosc spent the next few days hunting for animals so that he could extract the beautiful, specific colors from certain herbs, plants, and even some insects. As some of them were venomous and the tiny little bit of healing that Ciemnosc had wasn’t enough to get rid of such poison or venom.

Every day, he went out into the jungle forest, making a brand new way after bringing dozens of animals and flora back into the orphanage’s space, thereon making some paint and using the animals’ hide as a brush; he painted the whole house with its renewed colors. Silvery-white, yellow, bright red, black-brown, green… Every single bit of the orphanage became beautiful once again in the course of just a few days.

Once everything was over, in the middle of a slightly cold night, Ciemnosc burn it all down with several points around the orphanage blockade of tall vines and within its space; he stayed a few minutes to stare at the fire go up, desiring it a good time burning everything down as he would be gone. And that was when he gave his farewell to the orphanage, believing to have succeeded in this challenge at last.

. . .

Many days later. After a long and uneventful ‘road’ amidst the jungle forest, which he easily crossed days after leaving the orphanage behind but entered yet another huge forest soon after.

Ciemnosc had experienced quite a bit of the world. He had seen many, many more animals, insects, flora, and even other types of those from the weird race. Being the first other race other than the Human Race, Ciemnosc became very proficient with them, getting rid of the peepers who didn’t leave him alone even when peeing or changing clothes and scaring away some others.

But most importantly of all…he got to witness, for the first time, the sea!

Even though Ciemnosc calculated, with his recently acquired experience, that the sea was, at the very least and for sure, hundreds of kilometers away, he could see an incredibly huge chunk of the sea already even while he was in the middle of the second huge forest. And he was even more amazed each time that he looked back. Following the trail of water that flowed southwards.

Because whenever he did, he would be amazed by the dizziness he would get on seeing such a huge scenery of blue sparse across his eyes. It even made him believe that he had been walking on a tiny stretch of land that was barely able to avoid being part of the sea with how damn wide its blue spread, making it seem as if the entire sea was already right in front of himself.

He got used to it later on though. No longer becoming dizzy, but still being extremely inspired by the beautiful sight, out of this world. His thoughts were even simpler. At once, he believed: ‘I will go there in the future…’. Not really limiting his thoughts to just once, a few times or just to watch and see the water…be water; so to speak.

Rustle! Swash! Step, st-swish swish!

In any case. As Ciemnosc walked for some more couple of weeks. He was just smelling the scent of more land, a land that he had already stepped on before entering the second forest, but that was also much more…’special’.

Unlike the desert of his village and unlike the jungle forest from before, this forest was much more powerful with several different Spiritual Ligament Realm animals and even insects trying to kill him every 100 steps or so he made across the forest. And they only began increasing in number as he got closer to his destination.

Right now, as Ciemnosc used his hands as blades and his feet as the most solid and heaviest of supporters to walk around, just as he made the 3,371st chop of today, he was suddenly met with light shining through the last few trees’ leaves and straight onto his face. At once, his awareness allowed him to know that there were only a few more trees left; and as for his eyesight…

‘W-woow…’ His eyes allowed him to see the extremely long plains, which in the farthest visible terrain Ciemnosc could see, the highest buildings of a city were visible at last. He didn’t really know how far away he was from such a tall city. But he knew that he was, at the very least, close to his goals.

‘Aah, dear Mommy.’ Ciemnosc got himself out of the few strong vegetation and stood under the last shade of trees from the forest that he was going to be stepping on at last. As he was contemplating, the sensation of being bloated engulfed him again, the potent Power Energy coursing through his whole body becoming restless and hurrying him the fuck up as if he was being nagged on by a mother-in-law.

With the little pain subsiding slowly over time, Ciemnosc started walking forwards to the plains of a lush mix of soft, dull-light green and strong green all around. Even from afar, he could see the grass being as tall as 3 of himself to just half his pinky in height. And as he covered his face with his right hand from the sun, he could smell and breathe in the bountiful amount of serene energy all around this little rock of a little planet.

‘Oh~, how can I gain knowledge of the next Realms? How many will there be? I wonder… Oh, which Realm is beauty beauty-... I…I didn’t even ask for her name! Ah!!’ Only now that Ciemnosc was so at peace and feeling accomplished with the first city he had seen in his life being on sight, he remembered just this, and not only as he also realized that he didn’t tell her his name…

‘Sister has warned me many times to be polite and not reveal my lusty self, but… And Mother told me to be really nice to my wives, but… Aghaah! How can I fail so obviously?! I even practiced with Sister, and she herself blushed. I’m such a dummy.’ Ciemnosc pouted. He smelled his own philtrum as his eyes went heavy. He wanted to do nothing and laze around until he got his spirits back up.

Step…

But…even if he was still a child, a Little Brother and someone that is gone’s child… he still had to make it.

…