He was getting closer. It drew him, a magnetic pull that tugged on his mind, always giving him a direction. Without any map, without any help or asking locals for directions, Iarvahr went straight for the great wall of Bashen, straight to the cave that ran into the hillside underneath. He was close, maybe a day’s worth of ride - he felt it, he knew it, and so did the corpses he left in his wake. To each of them, he apologized, explained why he did what he did, why they had to suffer beneath the metallic claws of his projectors.

Time alone gave him enough room to think. He realized how foolish he was, how weakly he acted before, running away from his problems, running away from what he had caused. He knew that the civilization of Bashen at their peak gave birth to machines and devices some would call miracles, and thus it was only natural that there would be something behind the wall that would allow him to bring his beloved back from the dead. True, there were no known ways past the wall but he should have realized that the tunnel made into the cliffside underneath would probably lead through to the other side, into the unknown, dead lands.

Oh, how stupid he was. Remembering the mutant-filled tunnels, he realized that there was ancient technology scattered all around him even then and there. Perhaps Leonie did not need to die at all. Perhaps he could have saved her. Perhaps that was the reason why she despised him so openly when she visited him in his visions…

“Soon, my beloved.” He muttered as he drained the six-manned Glaerian patrol dry. He did not apologize to them. Instead, he smiled brightly. “Soon.”

***

Anaid sat in front of a large mirror set in a brass frame that was richly adorned with blooming flowers. She brushed her hair slowly and patiently, evening’s breeze caressing her bare breasts. Although she seemed completely drowning in adoration of her own image, she listened to Xanwryn’s monologue very closely.

“It all goes as we’ve planned, my darling.” He said with a sweet, slimy voice as he laid in the messy bed, stroking himself slowly. “The Citadel is overrun by refugees, and their peace envoy has been crushed under the feet of the lowlifes. Although, from what I’ve heard, they made quite a spectacle during their last stand.”

“Uh-uh.” She hummed distractedly.

“The citadel will soon start to rot from within. Literally, and figuratively.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, playing dumb for his pleasure.

“I came with a plan to send mostly sick and hungry people there, although there weren’t as many sick people as you might think, so we had to… make some.” A single drop of sweat ran down Anaid’s spine. He admits it freely, although I already had my suspicions… She thought.

“They can’t help them all. They can’t feed them all.They will crumble, and we will divide the spoils among our lands. No more will we be forced to bow our heads before them, no longer will we be choked by their strangling grip!” His words were quickening, keeping in pace with himself stroking his cock.

“What if they can and will help them all?” She asked meekly, as her mind quickly worked. When did he ever bow his head to the Citadel? When did anybody? All we did was once in a while pay a tribute in resources for them to take care of our wounded, to uplift our nations…”

“They can’t. Soon, our armies will march, and as their hands are full with refugees, we will… crush… them… oooh…” He moaned those last words as he ejaculated all over his torso. Panting heavily, he turned his head to Anaid. “They can’t feed them, but I can feed you. Come clean me, darling. Lick me clean, as an obedient slut you are.”

Anaid put the brush away slowly and took a deep breath. You do it for Antigan. You do it for your people. You had a choice - submission, or slavery. As she walked to Xanwryn, she thought of the blood rot epidemic that ravaged the cities of Antigan, remembering all the people from the Citadel that came to their help, asking for nothing in return. She remembered kneeling in the blood, stench of decomposing bodies all around her, as she pushed some child to the ground while a white-haired girl catered to his every wound, every pustule, every infected body part. She remembered the boy’s screams as that medic injected something white inside his body, and she remembered the laughter of that same boy a week later when she visited the orphanage again.

As she knelt by the bed and licked Xanwryn’s seed from his own, sweaty body, she shuddered slightly. She’d rather be knee high in rotting bodies, covered in pus and clogged blood than doing this. But it was her duty, she had to serve. Antigan was ravaged after the epidemic, their military almost non-existent, and the threats came quickly and unexpectedly.

I’ll do it. I’ll be your little whore. I’ll lick your cum, balls, ass, I don’t fucking care for I know that the time will come when I will carve out your heart out of your body you sick son of a cunt.

“That’s enough. Put it in your mouth, darling.” Xanwryn purred. As she moved her head up and down, trying her best to pleasure him as quickly as she could so that she would suffer for the shortest possible time, plans were being born in her mind. Soon, Heers will get his task, and a chance for revenge. He will gladly take it, of that Anaid was sure. Xanwryn was wrong - the peace envoy was coming. And when they will come, the golden city will burn.

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She chuckled at that thought, which Xanwryn understood as a moan of pleasure. “You live for this, you slut, don’t you?” He said as he held her head and pushed his cock deeply into her throat. She gagged, but continued to serve him.

As she thought of revenge, a small part of her mind kept returning to that day in the city of Antiga, to that day when she helped a filthy, bloody white-haired medic help that boy. They saved him, and Anaid never felt better. Until then, she never felt like she mattered, like she did anything actually good but then… It was then that she decided that she will do whatever is necessary for the good of her people.

I wonder where she is, what she’s doing… she thought of white-haired medic as she swallowed Xanwryn’s hot semen.

***

The sun was setting and the small valley was darkened by the shadows from the forest. Hidden in the darkness of forest’s trees and shrubbery, Rhaivid watched the wielder with cautious interest. He was old enough to remember the Bashen empire at its peak and he remembered what the power of wielders can do when unchecked. As he watched the bald man tear through the Glaerian patrol, memories of a long forgotten past appeared in his ancient mind, yet he remembered them clearly as if it all happened just now.

He remembered how the uprising began, how the wielders turned on one another. He remembered the destruction and bloodshed it all caused - the scorching flames of unbound power that swept entire cities, the neverending lightning that turned his desert home into a city of glass, the carnage of torn limbs and broken bones, the geysers of blood that turned the sky scarlet…

He was but a young hatchling then, his first carapace barely hardened, but he remembered. The world forgot - or, more accurately, it was forced to forget - but he remembered.

The memories brought a kind of nervousness into Rhaivid that he hadn't felt in decades, and his six insectoid mandibles started to chitter as they hit the hardened carapace around his mouth opening. He felt the storm brewing, he saw the fields covered in ash, the rivers of blood, the pus-ridden nature decaying in front of his four eyes… Was it the past, or the future?

The wielder moved away from the dried patrolmen, and Rhaivid followed him, his body low to the ground, half slithering, half running on his scythe-like six legs. He knew that the past was going to repeat itself and it filled his large, insectoid body with cold dread. The past was going to repeat itself, but this time, Rhaivid knew of nothing that could stop the wielders. This time, there was no Sphinx.

***

As the carriage jumped on the uneven road, Auria tried to read the shaking pages of the journal. She came to a part in the journal that did not connect to the one before, and she thought that something horrible must have happened between two paragraphs.

“Listen to this, Naira.” She turned towards her friend as she read out loud.

‘I believe, dear wielder, that you have already drained a life or two. Perhaps some memories started to appear in your mind that are not your own - do not worry, you are not going insane. Not yet. This is completely normal….

They have burned the Kochos to the ground. When we arrived there, only ruins remained filled with heavy, yellow clouds of toxic gas. Broken towers were sticking to the sky like broken teeth of a needle-mouth shark. I’ve seen my own share of death, but this…

I’ve never killed for pleasure. Always out of necessity, or due to the orders of my commanding officer. I admit, I’ve led carnage on uncountable planets for the prosperity of our galactic empire, but this…

Carayan disintegrated the toxic air and what it revealed has shaken us all deeply into our cores.

Bodies, violated, torn to shreds with visible marks of abuse and depravity that have been forced upon them. Women and men, young and old, bound to crosses, their hands and feet pierced with nails, random pieces of debris pushed into their openings, eyes plucked out, teeth torn off, nails burned away, their skin molten from acidic splashes…

In years, I haven't seen anything as depraved as this.

We’ve taken them all down and buried them. As we dug the holes in the ground, chimneys of dark smoke appeared on the horizon. More towns were under siege.

I remember the look Carayan gave me. The contempt, the disgust, the understanding, the shame, the sorrow - all mixed in his eyes equally. I remember when he asked me the question “Why?”

Truthfully, I cannot. I’m afraid that if I use them one more time, I will lose. I know my powers and my limits, I know that with a thought, I could end them all, that I could purge them from this planet. A single thought would be enough…

But I fear that I will lose myself. The Deadvoid is calling me more than ever, and I fear that if I lost control, the world would come off much worse than it is now.

I would enslave them all. Forever. For they cannot control themselves - aggressive, barbaric, lustful and greedy breed of humanity. The last of our kind, the last hope for humanity to survive… And they only wage war, kill one another, rape one another, abuse and torture for the sake of feeling powerful… For the sake of feeling in control over others, yet they can’t even control their own primitive desires.

Fuck the humanity. We should all be like Valyera - a synthetic, unnatural machine, yet more humane than anyone I’ve ever met.

I’ll give humanity one last chance. One final solution. And, if it doesn’t work, you can all go fuck yourselves with a dry broom handle.’

Auria raised her eyes to her friend. They were both silent for a long while, listening only to the clattering wheels. “Have you ever heard of Kochos?”

Naira shook her head. “No but… What you have read, that was… What was that?. Did that really happen? When? It had to be eons ago…”

Auria nodded, bile rising to her mouth. She swallowed hard. “I’m… guessing that a terrible war had raged in our world long before the Citadel was even thought of.”

Naira looked deep into her eyes. “If you are right, why aren’t there any historical documents and artifacts from this age?”

Auria pointed towards Naira’s hands. “One artifact is embedded into my spine. Another is merged with your hands.”

“Yes but… there is still no evidence of what happened then. Read along, please. You’ve piqued my interest.”

Auria nodded and continued.