Chapter 7: Meeting

The Adventurers Guild of Midgard Kingdom.

While the Midgard Kingdom was best known for its heroes, the adventurers were of comparable caliber. Among them, they had about 200+ Gold rankers, 50+ Platinum rankers, 10 Mithril rankers, 5 Orichalcum rankers, and 3 Palladium Rankers.

The Elite 3, as they came to be called, have been Palladium ranked for a few years, being considered one of the strongest members of the human race. If circumstances were different, they could have been Adamantite ranked.

However, the reason for them to not being promoted to the highest rank was simple. They were nowhere near strong enough.

As of now, there was only one Adamantite ranked adventurer in the entire Kingdom.

None knew what race he belonged to, but it was said that he was active as an adventurer ever since not long after the Guild was established in the first place. It was about 500 years ago.

Judging by his unchanging appearance, many suspected him to have elven blood in his veins, though he did not share their looks. One thing for sure, he was definitely a member of long-lived race.

His face was as usual covered in a helmet, with only his glowing blue eyes being visible.

His name was Taurus, the sole Adamantite-ranked adventurer in the entire Midgard Kingdom. He was also the longest active adventurer in the kingdom’s history.

Guild’s policy regarding promotions were simple, the one who was level above them must approve or they should be strong enough to defeat him.

Taurus participated in countless examinations, each time, it was a one-sided slaughter. Taurus always made sure that his challengers were safe and suffer no-long term physical damage, but the same could not be said for psychological damage.

Each time a challenger would inevitably lose, they would understand just exactly how big the gap in power was between them. Many would give up on being adventurers altogether after suffering humiliation at the hands of Taurus.

Elite 3 have already challenged Taurus a combined 23 times, 19 times on their own, and 4 times together, facing defeat each time. But without a doubt, they got stronger with each fight. It would not be inaccurate to call them most sore losers in the guild.

Today, like many times before, Taurus reserved a room in the guild’s headquarters, to meet his longtime visitor.

The visitor in question was obviously of elven heritage, but oddly enough, his hair was black as night. Elves usually had hair on the lighter side, some even had natural green, blue, and silver hair, but someone with black hair was almost never seen. Heck, even among humanity, completely black hair was exceptionally rare, except for some remote lands.

They had been meeting each other for at least a few hundred years by now, according to guild records, meeting every few decades or so, but none knew why. All they knew was that the elven man’s name was Marcus.

What none knew was the fact that these two were brothers. Half-brothers to be specific, sharing the same father.

Taurus: “Greetings, brother. Have you been well?”

Marcus: “Same as always, Tau, same as always.”

Marcus was born to Elder Ewig more than a thousand years ago. He never met his father, but according to Ewig, aside from his pointy and long elven ears and facial features, he took mostly after his father.

For most of his life, he wanted to meet his father, going on countless journeys trying his best to track him down. He even went as far as learn a very difficult, level 6 spell, Blood Tracker, all in hopes of finding his father.

The spell had no offensive function. Essentially it functioned as a compass that allowed the user to find living relatives. Since Ewig was the oldest elf in the Elven Kingdom, naturally she would not have any living relatives nor did she have any children other than Marcus, so the only relatives he could conceivably track down were those on his father’s side of the family.

According to Ewig, his father’s entire race was rendered extinct at the hands of gods, he was likely the last one of his kind, so finding any relatives was highly unlikely. Even then, Marcus could not give up.

After a few hundreds of years of searching, Marcus finally stumbled upon a man named Taurus, who worked as a mercenary at the time. The spell clearly pointed only towards him. It soon became clear that Taurus and Marcus had the same father.

With the discovery of his half-brother, Marcus was rather satisfied with the results of his endless search. Even if he did not find his father, the spell only pointed towards Taurus (and later his children after Marcus settled down), finding a sibling was more than good enough for him.

Both of them presumed that their father was no longer among the living since the spell could not point in his direction. Though, the spell’s scope was limited only to this reality, whatever that meant.

Ever since then, Taurus and Marcus would kept meeting every now and again to catch up. Since both of them were very long-lived, meeting every few years or decades was not an issue.

Unlike Marcus, who was half-elf, Taurus was a strange case.

Taurus was half-golem. Golems were usually an inorganic race that were not considered alive and usually had very bulky stone-like frames.

In Taurus’s case, he looked almost entirely humanoid, but a little taller than most humans, and rather than stone, he would be best described as metallic looking. His skin was tough and if you were to stab it with a knife, the knife would end up damaged and his skin would not suffer any cuts. Apparently, he was only half organic, everything else was reinforced with metal that was far tougher than Adamantite. In a way, his body was a natural armor, much like that of a turtle.

His hair was pure silver colored and apparently it was also metallic.

The one feature he did share with Marcus were the extra limbs tucked in his back. When unfolded, you could see two grand silver wings sprouting from Taurus’s back, much like Marcus, though Marcus only had a single black wing on his right side.

There were all kinds of races around, but the only race with such peculiar looking, avian wings, was the race of their father. Their father was an angel, and probably the last of the angels after the fall of Anhelium.

Many millennia ago, there existed a race that lived almost exclusively on the floating island of Anhelium. They were considered one of the 3 noble races, along with Gods and Dragons. They were the angels. An extremely long-lived race with fully functional wings on their backs. They were said to be the greatest scholars and researchers in the world.

They lived their lives mostly isolated from every other race, rarely interfering with world affairs, but for some reason, they incurred the wrath of gods, which led to countless conflicts, eventually reaching its climax when the gods and their heroes invaded Anhelium and slaughtered every single angel living there. After the genocide, the race of angels was rendered virtually extinct, with everyone believing that there were no survivors, that is, until Elder Ewig met their father.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The world was ruled by gods, led by Lord Solaris, King of Gods.

After the downfall of Anhelium, gods killed of all the remaining angel-bloods in the world, hunting down any descendants of angels they could find. They were so thorough that nowadays, angels are considered a myth or a bed time story.

With their father likely dead at the hands of gods, Taurus and Marcus were the only remaining angel-bloods, descendants of angels, though neither was a true angel.

In Marcus’s case, he could be described as an elf with some angelic features. Unlike other elves, his hair was pure black, he was taller than most elves, and he had one wing tucked in his back, not to mention his ridiculous magical power.

As for Taurus, he would be best described as angelic creation, made as an experiment, he even had a designation, TN 975, as in, he was an experiment number 975 of TN series.

From what Taurus had understood, he was made in an effort to create a living golem, so that he would grow, even if slowly, rather stay stagnant like a normal golem. It seems like the previous experiments did not yield the desired results, so his creators thought it would be good idea to use angelic genetic material to fuse with the golem parts. The result was a half-angel, half-golem hybrid.

And Marcus’s father, just happened to be one of Taurus’s creators who provided partial genetic material for Taurus’s creation.

Apparently, Taurus had the same eye color as their father did back then, though Elder Ewig described their father having pure crimson eyes. Though, to be fair, he apparently underwent some type of mutation, which permanently altered some of his features.

When they would meet, they would drink all night long, sometimes even longer. They could talk to each other non-stop for hours, sometimes even days. They may have been only half-siblings, but strangely enough, they clicked so well that by now Marcus thought of Taurus as his best friend, and vice versa.

Marcus was relatively light weight when it came to alcohol but he kept drinking nevertheless, when drunk he was far more talkative than his normal self. Taurus was immune to getting drunk due to being a half-golem, but he did enjoy the taste and the buzz that the alcohol provided. Due to being only partially organic, he did not require as much sustenance, being able to recharge on sunlight, and only eating occasionally.

Marcus was clearly drunk, reduced to rambling, with Taurus, the stoic, answering all of Marcus’s words.

Marcus: “And there aren’t any other angel survivors?”

Taurus: “As it is now, the floating island of Anhelium is barren. Since the genocide over 3000 years ago, there has not been a single living angel on its surface.”

Marcus: “What about you?”

Taurus: “I am an artificial hybrid, a creation, I do not count.”

Marcus: “So, absolutely no survivors on Anhelium.”

Taurus: “I was the one who identified and buried their remains. So, yes”

Marcus: “Where were you, during the purge?”

Taurus: “In a stasis pod, I was activated only after the raid was done.”

Marcus: “How do you remember father if you technically never met him before activation?”

Taurus: “Because I am an artificial creation, a lot of my memories were implanted before activation. So were the data from my other creator who is no longer among the living.”

Marcus: “Just to make sure, father’s corpse was not among them, right?”

Taurus: “I found a severed arm that matched his genetic code, but I could not find the rest of him. I was under the impression he was deceased, until I met you. Obviously, he must have survived long enough to meet your mother and sire you. As for his whereabouts afterwards, I have absolutely no clue.”

Marcus: “Could the gods or their followers have hunted him down?”

Taurus: “That is a possibility. I became an adventurer as a cover so that I could search for angel survivors in secret, but alas, aside from the two of us, there are none who carry the blood of angels, as far as I know, that is”

Marcus: “How come you have two wings and I only got one? Hick~”

Taurus: “I am an artificial hybrid, so it is not exactly a surprise. Your case is more surprising”

Marcus: “How so? Hick~” (He is very drunk)

Taurus: “Angel blood is notoriously incompatible with bloods of other species, such as humans and elves, like oil and water”

Marcus: “Incompatible? He did father me though”

Taurus: “It is possible for an angel to sire children with other species, that much is true, but because of the nature of the angel blood, the offspring will be either angel or the other species, not a hybrid. Most of the times, children of an angel and human are just humans with some minor angelic traits, but they lack angelic wings. Genuine angels can be born from a union of angels with other species, but there is only a 1% chance. One thing for sure, it will be either an angel or not an angel, nothing in between, which makes you, a strange case, since you do have a wing, even if it’s not a pair, you do have one. Why that is the case, I really can’t explain. But rather than an angel or an elf, you would be considered a true hybrid”

Marcus: “Great, so I am the weird one between the two of us, huh. Were the artificial hybrids common?”

Taurus: “Residents of Anhelium conducted all kinds of experiments to create hybrids, yes, but I believe I am one of the very few successful half-golem hybrids”

As half-golem, even with a ridiculously long lifespan of an angel, Taurus’s appearance practically did not change, as far as aging was concerned. But due to being partially organic, he did grow bigger, stronger, and tougher the more he leveled up and accumulated experience, unlike a normal golem which would have stayed the exact same size.

Marcus: “So it’s just the two of us, all that is left of Anhelium and its legacy”

Taurus: “As strange as it sounds, I believe our creator…. our father is still alive. Just not in this world, perhaps not even in this time”

Marcus knew about the theory of existence of different worlds, apparently Anhelium conducted experiments to study the possibility of travel parallel realities, whatever that meant. As for time travel, Marcus genuinely doubted it was even possible.

Marcus: “I don’t understand”

Taurus: “There is high likelihood he is a Drifter, lost in space and time.”

Marcus: “Sounds like a Kamui to me”

Kamui did not refer to a specific race, but a term used to describe a being that transcended all the limits of their own reality, a transcended being, at least from what his mother told him. It seems like this was the true goal of the current Gods.

Taurus: “In theory, yes, but there are no records of anyone reaching the level of a Kamui”

Marcus: “Yeah, the more I think of it, the more it sounds like something my mother made up just to tell a good story. Sounds like something she would do”

Taurus: “I see.”

Marcus: “I am glad to talk to you, brother. I did not think you would invite me to meet so soon.”

Taurus: “Originally, I was going to meet you in 5 or 10 years, but circumstances have changed”

Marcus: “How so?”

Taurus: “Because of my unique power, I can sense space-time fluctuations. Recently, something entered this world from another reality. I am not certain who it is, a friend or a foe.”

Marcus: “It could be our father”

Taurus: “There is a slim chance. Yes. I believe you have a handy spell that could be of use to verify….”