Dalric’s layered spells dissipated and his wings unfurled as he continued to squint up at the pair of suns. If he had first awoken during the day and not at the moon’s peak, the sight would have surely stunned him. Now, he just remarked at how the new sun had a different color to it. Instead of the orangey-red of the sun he knew, it was a yellow-ish white. He just began to turn away from the sky and down to the town when he remembered a detail from his nightmare.

The suns were yellow-ish white… coincidence?

He had no clue what to do with that. Dreams were dreams. Even the sun he knew was a bit off. Human eyes were different after all. Apparently.

He put the dual suns to the side and focused on his reachable goals. The branch he rested on jutted out far above the canopy. It gave him a good vantage point to analyze the first bit of valinbarn civilization he’d come across. With a better view of it, he realized it was more of an encampment than a settlement.

The fortifications were largely wooden, the walls were entirely so. Despite that, they stood tall and thick. Several lookout towers stretched beyond the wall, each housing a number of sentries. The military presence was clear, the crowds he could glimpse lacked any of the disorder a civilian settlement held. There weren’t many buildings he could spot either and the few that he could were all massive and unadorned, resembling barracks rather than homes.

There were also one or two pieces he couldn’t easily identify from such a distance, like the two wooden circles that dipped into the river close to the dock.

Best-case scenario a guild or the like had set it up as a forward base and they planned to claim this part of the forest for resources. That would make their main opposition the environment and wildlife, not other humans. Anything else and he’d probably be seen as a threat, if not a direct enemy.

Again, the question of ‘where am I’ arose. Not so much on a planetary level, even with what burned above him, but very much so on a continental level. Seventh had claimed the colonies called the jungle ‘Synoikos’. He had never heard of it.

Dalric had circumnavigated the world. There were always more secrets to uncover of course, especially below ground, but he was sure he hadn’t just missed a jungle of this size bursting with ahjer. In hindsight it was foolish, but he had expected a small settlement of secluded humans. How else was he supposed to explain the complete lack of knowledge and awareness of the area?

I should have asked what the humans called it.

He shook his head and stepped off the tree. His wings caught his descent.

Now that it was day time, he got a good look at the jungle as well. He knew it was overgrown, overripe with vegetation, but seeing its true breadth was a different beast. Trees of varying types coated the area, many wider than his wingspan and more than a couple taller than a hundred fathoms. Some of the trees even featured strange colors or materials, like the tree made of what appeared to be ash.

Where there weren’t trees there were shrubs, bushes, and flowers of even more varying types. Green, while still probably the dominant color, served as a mere backdrop to the array of multi-colored plant life that grew here.

He’d noted the light blue moonfire before, but that was only one of several rare plants he noticed. Each had their own splash of color to add to the environment; the deep purple of grave thorns, the pure white of spinroot, the neon yellow of lightleaves, the dull orange of sun lilies. There was even a cluster of iridescent lucyberry bushes encircling an ominous looking pond.

That was the most surprising of all. Unlike the others, which were rare because of the conditions required for their growth, lucyberries were rare because they were outlawed en masse. They were the key ingredient in a devastatingly addictive yet indistinguishable drug, more akin to a poison. They hooked their user on the first hit and if that was all they’d merely be another hallucinogen to add to the list, but they always killed them before the tenth. That level of lethality in a drug that appeared indistinct from many tamer ones made it the top choice for assassinations.

Sovereigns quickly identified their threat and every city-state, kingdom, and empire ordered all bushes to be burned. The fact Dalric spotted some here meant he was truly far away from any civilization he knew.

His current best guess was that he flew above a small island deep in the ocean, but he didn’t have much faith in it. The massive river to his left steered him away from that conclusion. A tiny island wouldn’t house such a thing.

Looking at the river, he hovered down to its edge. Now under the light of the sun, he remarked at how clear the water was considering it ran through a dense, muddy jungle. He would not have expected any level of transparency. Yet here it was, appearing exceedingly appetizing and he’d yet to have anything to drink.

That would have to continue, though. He could sense a great deal of ahjer within it and ahjer-tinged water wasn’t always safe for consumption. The camp was close and with no clue how his body would react, it could be a boon to him, it could be a toxin, it was a die that had no need to be cast.

He did hover over to a spot to catch his reflection, however. The river obviously wasn’t still, but certain sections of the stream were uniform enough for him to make out his face.

He couldn’t recall what passed for attractive to humans, but he’d definitely go down as handsome to giants. If he was thrice his height of course. He’d noticed his olive skin before, but with it came an exceptionally chiseled jaw, defined cheeks, big lips, dark grey hair, and bright purple eyes. The eyes were a feature of Thunderfield, so those he had expected.

He could nitpick the nose and ears being disproportionately large, but he was too busy celebrating the small victory to notice them. His old face wasn’t the opposite of appealing, but that’s the highest compliment he’d give his old self. He wasn’t too busy basking in his small blessing to notice the enormous alligator burst out of the water though.

Its massive jaws, longer than the length of his body, shut just as he slipped away. They both made eye contact as the gator fell back into the safety of the river. He could spot a spark of intelligence within them. A reason to stay his hand, mostly.

~Deep sea or shallow pond, I reign~

The gator was rapid in water, but it wasn’t rapid enough to escape. Its entire multiple ton, multiple fathom frame halted instantly within a large blob of water. Dalric already knew he’d gotten a good grasp on combining his ahjer with incantations to quicken the process, but it was always useful to get practical experience. The result was satisfactory.

He slowly lifted the sphere blob as the gator furiously shifted around. It moved enough to slightly distort the sphere, but all that accomplished was a few barrels of displaced water. Once the sphere, with the gator trapped inside, was relatively eye level, he spoke.

“Can you speak the tongue?”

The gator simply continued to thrash its body. As unenlightened beasts should. Dalric nodded to himself and threw the blob back into the river. There was some normalcy to the world after all.

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While the many-toothed predator promptly made its exit, Dalric decided to land and walk the rest of the way to his destination. He figured flying directly to the entrance may put the guards on edge. It could even instigate a conflict all on its own. If he was going to try and look as non-threatening as possible, he might as well go the distance.

He also dispelled the illusion that made his armor appear green. Now was the time to be seen in pristine white. No color was less menacing and more universally seen as friendly.

Landing so far away, the walk that awaited him was somewhat lengthy. He intended that though. Hovering high in the sky gave him a great overview of the jungle, but being on the ground gave him a better perspective.

He walked through the foliage and catalogued everything he saw. Notably, there were a lot fewer animals than would otherwise be expected. He was no longer close to the Menos so the only culprit could be the camp. That was a point in favor of their prowess. The predators he’d come across had all been decently powerful, if they could not only secure their walls, but also the stretch of land in their vicinity then they had to be well-equipped.

I wonder who they are.

They flew no flags and he hadn’t spotted any notable color patterns so any guess was a good guess. They didn’t even have to be from a human realm, they could be hired mercenaries. Whatever they were, he’d find out soon.

A brisk walk later, a patrolling squad caught him. Or more accurately, he caught them.

“Ahh! What hell come?!”

Ah. This is the derivative he spoke of… Hm. So we’re close to Hellguria then? Off the coast somewhere where the language diverged?

“Stop! Who? What here?”

… Is that supposed to mean ‘what am I doing here?’

Dalric felt he was listening to a child first learning to speak. He replied in the clearest Hellgurian he could manage, “My name’s Dalric, I’m a traveller looking for shelter.”

There were four men in the patrol squad. Three wielded spears, and the last held a mace. Their ahjer levels were rather decent, fairly high even for mere patrol duty at a forward base. That explained how they kept their area clear. Especially combined with their gear.

The armor was garbage. They all wore rather poor leather coverings. The make of the armor wasn’t the issue, quite the opposite, it was the lack of enchantments. Without enchantments, the ‘armor’ protected as effectively as paper. Even though the leather looked high quality on its own, it would be sliced through effortlessly.

However, while their armor and melee weapons were lacking, their ranged weapons were not. Long, rounded slabs of enchanted metal hung across all of their backs. They matched a notoriously destructive piece of weaponry he’d encountered while hunting devilists. Dalric remembered them vividly as hunting devils was one of the very, very few times he could be happy with the Gods’ orders.

The one with the mace had spoken first and they were also the one that replied, “Talk of priest… angel you?”

Angel? Again?

Dalric was confused. He understood the first half of the man’s statement to mean he spoke like a priest. He didn’t know why that would be, but it seemed they held some awareness of true Hellgurian. There were questions there, but what really befuddled him was the second mention of angels.

The angels were a race of white-skinned birds that fell in love with valins and copied their form. They did so by mimicking human form, but those two things were largely the same. The fact they kept their wings and white appearance through the transformation meant that currently Dalric did have a passing resemblance, ignoring the color of his skin and lack of unwieldy hair, but that didn’t make their mention any less bizarre.

The four men in front of him seemed to hold some sort of reverence for them, but angels went extinct millennia ago. They had risen against the enemies of the Gods and paid the ultimate price. That was the story, at least. Dalric’s intimate knowledge of said Gods meant he knew it was a lie, but the validity of the story didn’t change the fact they had all died out one way or another.

“I’m—”

Pagans! Heretics! Heathens!

A heavy, aggressive presence invaded Dalric’s consciousness. Dismay ripped through him immediately after.

Kill them all.

It was different than before though, he couldn’t tell who spoke but it sounded less like a demand and more like a request.

Kill them all. NOW!

The weight of the presence felt crushing. It was akin to the burden a mountain could levy if placed on his head. For as powerful as it was however, Dalric could only remark at how flaccid he thought it was. The Gods never screamed before. They never had to. If he didn’t comply, the contract would make him. He could neither fight nor resist.

Now though, it was a contest.

He fell to his knees, his ahjer spiraling out of control as he fought to control his own body. Blood dripped from each of his facial orifices.

“Ahhhh!”

That wasn’t Dalric screaming. He didn’t have the strength or focus to spare for such. It was one of the four on patrol. They had been confused when he fell to his knees, stunned when his ahjer burst forth, but it was when the river of blood poured from Dalric’s eyes and ears that terror struck them.

The one mace wielder was the first to bolt. Weary of what was to come, he began backing away the moment Dalric fell to his knees. The other three’s survival instincts weren’t as strong.

They paid for it with their lives.

Lightning burst forth from his body, vaporizing two of them instantly and severely injuring the third. They didn’t even get a moment to process what occurred. They had backed up a few feet when his ahjer spiralled out of control, but the extra distance meant nothing. Laying on the floor unconscious and largely broken, the only surviving member of the trio would soon follow them into death.

Dalric couldn’t afford to be too concerned about the ongoings around him. He’d mourn their deaths later, for now he struggled to prevent the entire camp from meeting the same fates. That at least one got away comforted him a little, but he feared that feeling wouldn’t last long. He was losing.

It started with his extremities, his hands and feet rebelled against his control. He fought to remain sovereign, but the Gods continued to slowly claim more and more of him. Soon both of his legs up to his knees were theirs to command. His arms were following closely behind.

Purple lightning continued to arc off his body. It cut through the surrounding trees, felling them while simultaneously setting them ablaze. Where it hit the ground, only burnt dirt and ashes remained.

Time passed as Dalric fought his losing battle and destroyed his surroundings. In theory, if he could keep it up for the full duration of a bell then the allotted time the Gods’ could attempt to control him would elapse. Unfortunately, he didn’t think he would last that long.

He did notice something else, though. His body was exhausted. It truly did not feature any kind of endurance and the constant stream of lightning was taking its toll. He had to figure out a way to leverage that, and quickly. They took command of his arms and legs.

Interestingly, the moment they did so they focused their energy on sprinting towards the last remaining patrolman rather than fighting Dalric’s control. It was a notably awkward sprint, without any influence over his torso the movements were very off. That slowed them down, but Dalric still outpaced the mace wielder by a great margin. He was rapidly catching up.

For his part, the man raced frantically. He made use of each blink Dalric saved him by fleeing with every ounce of his being. It didn’t help much. Once Dalric began breathing down his neck, his only option was to yell and beg desperately for help. They were getting closer to the wooden wall, but help wouldn’t arrive in time.

Dalric’s right hand first reached his shoulder, less than a fraction of a second later his left hand gripped the top of his head. Before the man could get a word of begging in, the back of his skull met the middle of his back. His body immediately went limp, hanging lifelessly in Dalric’s hands. Dalric, still in control of parts of himself, could intimately feel the cracking of his spine. He could gaze into his shocked, frightened, and desperate eyes and see that no life remained. He could hear the silence of a once lively human cruelly and savagely put to an end.

Dalric ignored it all, for through his sacrifice he’d given Dalric an opportunity. Throughout the sprint he’d been gathering every bit of ahjer he had left. Even a little bit that he didn’t have. The Gods were too busy chasing their prey to impede him and now he was ready.

He thrust his head back and flung his mouth open. Out from his throat and through his mouth, a massive bolt of purple lightning rose into the sky. It held devastating power. If there happened to be anything in its path it was surely obliterated.

Dalric wouldn’t know. He’d succeeded. His body collapsed to the ground.