XIV.

Kogar

A crowd of men in a dingy tavern lit by dangling bronze candelabra: a man enters from atop a wooden staircase that leads to city streets.

The crowd cheers. The man waves. He comes down the steps.

A round of ale makes its way around the tavern, masking the nauseating scent of the men's unhygienic bodies.

Raiders. Killers. Barbarians.

A drink makes it into his hand. The man who grants it to him raises a glass.

"To Lorik," he declares. A tan-skinned man. Bald headed. Black tattoos line his bulging, bruised skull.

"Rog." he knows. He admits to himself.

"You'll lose it tomorrow. Your name—ready to be him?"

The man—the black-haired Lorik answers, "Tomorrow I will become him. Cedric. Cedric Castelbre. And Nelreign Castle leaves the Hunters' hands."

"Freiya'kara is next. Long live the Sylvet."

"Long live the Sylvet."

And he strikes his drum in hellish announcement.

X

There was one desolate moment—not as short as a second or as long as a minute, but simply…

He didn't know how to put it. It was like a cold chill, like the crowd of dancers expanded infinitely around him—the drumming didn't stop, but slowed and sped up like it was out of control. Or maybe it was just slow. Maybe it was just fast. He could discern the individual sounds for a moment as they quickly faded out of his mind, could study and scan the dancers around him in intricate, frozen detail—for a time.

And then all went from grey to black. Everything was gone. Complete darkness. Silence.

Except for the man in black and white, standing twenty paces behind him.

He could feel him…

And he could feel the dread surrounding him.

The weight.

And then he gasped back to consciousness. There was a hurried movement. His sweat dripped and sprayed from his forehead when Rithi struck his back and began to fall. His ears and eyes became strained and burning as those senses jumped back to life, like pulling himself up from the bottom of a cold, dark ocean.

"C-Cedric!" squealed Rithi as he went down.

Cedric's mouth moved but no words came out.

The crowd around them continued their rapturous dance.

A crystal clear voice called out amid the noise; it growled, "Let show the limits of human perseverance."

Not his voice—who was that…?

Faunia and Marisol were behind him too, between the man and his quarry. They were likely to feel the next attack…

The etheric leylines shuffled, gently. Like a slight breeze. Like a shallow gasp. They converged at him more rapidly than he knew possible.

No!

He clawed at the leylines. He gripped them in desperation, twisted them in horror...

And then, unceremoniously, down went the crowd all around them. Like a chunk was carved out, a living chunk was removed and dropped to the ground. Dozens were dead in an instant.

"Impressive." said that crystal-clear growl in his mind.

Kogar didn't flinch. He continued to approach.

"Now do it again."

The leylines twitched. Even more subtly.

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He's not pulling, he's—

It felt like the rush of an opponent's blade. Cedric swept his hand up and called forth his Sylvet weapon.

Another chunk—dozens more choked out their deathrattles and dropped dead as Cedric impulsively deflected the second strike, completely oblivious to his own effect.

Kogar's eyes narrowed.

"What are you doing!?" he screamed out at the man.

The crowd was in a frenzy. They'd begun screaming and running moments ago, just after the first group fell.

"Stop there!" Marisol shouted. She placed her hands before her chest in a Hunters' sigil, with her left palm placed atop her right fist as though holding a sword vertically. "Hunters command you!"

A challenge of the man in black and white who stood out even from the vibrant and uncoordinated crowds of Calamon. A man with a squared jaw, and a flawless complexion, unlike the rough and messy skins of adventurers and denizens of Kylinstrom.

Faunia was beside her, locked in place by fear. And then, seeing Marisol's resolve, she fell into posture alongside her. "The Hunters… The New Hunters of Kylinstrom—of Calamon and Caloria command your arrest, Kogar."

Kogar didn't turn to them. The leylines shuffled once more.

He's bending them!

"Focus it, boy!" came that growling in his ears again.

And so he did—he locked his eyes onto Kogar and grit his teeth. He grabbed the leylines, pushed them right back to their origin, and…

"How?" Kogar finally uttered. The leylines settled back into peace. His eyebrows twitched momentarily. He reached up and adjusted his collar.

Cedric's arms fell limply to his sides. His face and body were covered in sweat.

"These… These lives, are they worth nothing to you!?"

"Nothing?" his solemn voice asked, "That's all they are. Azatos."

He raised his offhand fist. As he opened his palm…

Those bodies began to squirm again on the floor. They were alive—

"And again—"

"NO!"

Faunia caught his oversized wrist in a sudden throw of her scabbard's strap. Only then was it apparent just how large the man was. She dropped all of her weight onto her sheathed weapon.

Kogar spun as she fell with him attached, reeled back his fist…

Cedric's teeth clamped hard. Magic ran through him.

Bzzzzt!

The air hissed. His hair stood.

Just with his concentration, lightning swarmed around him and then blasted against Kogar with a thunderous boom. His balance failed him. Marisol, too, leapt fully onto his other arm to ensure he'd go down.

The etheric leylines grew tense, no—they snapped entirely in an instant. The energy surged. Cedric felt only devastating pressure. Complete dread.

"I know, but we have to save them."

The sky was already blackening all around as he glanced in hectic desperation at the crowd left behind, the clusters who were now beginning to pick themselves off the ground in daze. Only a few had thought to run.

"Damn you, Serkukan. I'd sooner let myself die. Take my blood, take my life. But this time, make it certain."

Horror struck his face. There was no longer a conduit for his Etherian. No longer could he bend reality.

But then—no more could Kogar.

Cedric turned to him. Faunia and Marisol were still holding him down while he chanted beneath his breath.

Faunia raised her hilt to strike him.

"Don't!" Cedric shouted to her. She froze.

He began to approach them, stepping carefully over the slow-crawling stragglers.

"Cedric…" came a man's mutter. He turned to see Rithi, sat clumsily and confusedly upon the ground. He had been concussed, seemingly, by his posture and slow movements. "His chanting… a portal to Etheria…"

"A portal…?" His mouth hung open toward the sky as it began to brighten again, not to blue but to a spectrum of unimaginable color. The colors he had seen over Freiya, not hidden anymore through a crack in the sky, but filling a great ring which surrounded their petal entirely.

"It is not that we are without Etherium now," said a cold, chilling voice from behind him.

Kogar was no longer between the two, the two who had fallen limp on the cobbled ground.

"It is that we are now greeted by raw Etherium."

Cedric turned. Kogar was walking toward him. Slowly. Calmly.

Twenty paces. He only had twenty paces to think…

"You don't need the leylines...?"

Finally, Kogar grinned. He chuckled, "Bow before a true god."

"If all it takes is a god..." He outstretched his arms, beckoned Serkukan to the fore, screamed out his war cry…

And then his head fell limp.