The horses were tired but their riders forced them to keep going. in the middle of the dirt road Fred and his scouts were rushing as fast as possible to reach the source of the fire that he knew, must come from a nearby village.
The dense forest to their sides allowed them to see only what laid in front of them. The rest of the road or the sky above.
Always vigilant. While enemies so deep inside their territory would be weird, it wasn't impossible.
So he carefully watched the trees to his sides in every opportunity he had. That was until a bright orange shooting star crossed the sky for a brief second, enough for him to immediately know what it was.
"Drachen? If she's here..." He whispered, tightening the grip on his weapon "The kid must be here too!" He thought.
A memory of old appeared right in front of his eyes for the briefest of seconds.
Fire all around him, fathers carrying their wounded wives or the agonizing cries of the mothers kneeled in front of their kid's corpses. The entire town was set ablaze.
And a young child stood in the middle of the chaos, staring at him with tears in his eyes and fear.
He came back from the memory, shaking his head furiously. And then a beam of light pierced sky, coming from the village.
"Faster! We must reach the village as soon as possible!" He yelled behind him to his men.
The raucous hooves from the horses galloping invaded the quiet forest, getting ever closer to the far away clouds of black smoke.
A few minutes earlier, the burning village had only the clapping from the strange man's hands. Eventually, that came to an end.
"Your...toys?" Das asked in disbelief.
"Well, to call them servants I believe they should be capable of thinking" The man said looking a little bit embarrassed "I know it's weird, but it is better than calling them Projects, or Failures. I would feel a little bad if I did" He playfully twisted a strand from his long hair with his right hand.
Das, despite the welcoming attitude of the stranger, had his guard up. He was exhausted to the point he knew there would be little he could do if someone tried to end his life at that moment.
But soon his attention moved to the interior of the sanctuary. He saw a few villagers sitting on the wooden pews, men women, and children holding their hands together with their heads hung low.
It was at that moment he noticed the faint, but present chanting of the priest who seemed in the middle of a ceremony.
The stranger seemed to pick up on where was Das looking. He turned around for a moment before returning his attention to the archmage.
"Ah, yes, the ceremony" he smiled kindly as he pressed his hands together. " I told them that no harm would come to them while the ceremony was being given, they are celebrating a couple of kids that have become of age"
Das didn't know if the stranger was speaking the truth or not. It seemed unbelievable that such a calm and welcoming individual could be as brutal to butcher probably hundreds of people. Was he one of the bandits?
"You...are you insane?" He said in between pained breaths, his arms lightly shook. Sending waves of pain like needles from his new injuries.
It seemed somewhat logical. Any person could lose their sanity when witnessing the acts that must have been committed to these people while they were still alive.
"Me? no, no." The stranger giggled with amusement before returning his hands to his cloak " I'm a religious man, see?" He held out his right arm soon after.
Hanging from his hand he had a necklace. At the end of its chain, there was a circle with three lines inside of it that made up the shape of a pyramid turned upside down, exactly like the religious symbol of The Lightbringer except for the pyramid, which shouldn't be in that direction. It was made out of silver.
"I couldn't bring myself to kill them while they were celebrating such a joyous occasion "He said returning his arm to his cloak "Even if they follow a false god, I was moved by their devotion"
"So you are insane" Das replied as he tried to stiffen his posture that was hunched due to exhaustion. Even something as simple as that brought him pain "I need to regain my strength and quick" He thought.
Utilizing the cover of his own cloak, Das hid his left arm behind his back as he dragged his feet inch by inch closer to the burning pyre of bodies in the middle of the plaza. Trying to make sure the stranger wouldn't notice he was up to something.
"I take it you are not a man of faith then. It's understandable, when someone has the power to bend the world to its will, it must be difficult to see yourself as anything but almost...divine" The man remarked with a slight smirk.
"I do not see myself as a god, and it surprises anyone would say something like that to me. Haven't you heard of us mages?" The stench and increasing heat from the fire next to him made his face twist with disgust for a second "Besides, if The Lightbringer is real, then his way of showing love by permitting this to happen is very peculiar"
"Oh, I have. I know much about your kind, and especially about you, or I would rather say I like to think I have an idea of how you think" The eyes of the stranger conveyed knowledge, as they squinted at Das.
The man in front of him claimed to be the master of the bandits and whatever abomination that knight and his horse were. This meant that the possibility of him being extremely strong was high.
He had no reason to doubt the claims of the stranger.
"And if only everyone had your same thoughts on life, archmage," The stranger tilted his head to the side and looked down. His smile gone, brows slightly down."Thirty years of war. Countless widow mothers, orphan children, and burned villages. But they keep praying to a god that never seems to care about them" His face relaxed and attention returned to the archmage "Don't you think that's crazy?" He gave a step forward and the sound of metal coming from what must be his armor beneath the cloak was heard.
The archmage grew worried. He had already begun working on a spell to utilize mana to get back his strength, but it was a lengthy process without the help of his staff.
But the moment he decided to utilize it, its orb would shine giving it away. He chooses not to provoke the stranger.
"A little. But it surprises me you question their faith when you call yourself faithful" Das became tense when the stranger took another step forward.
"I simply have a very strong dislike for people that willingly jump off a cliff for a God that doesn't love them" The stranger turned around and looked at the sanctuary "The priest has been talking for two days now. And I made every one of them..." He says jerking his head at the pile of bodies near Das "...Pray to be saved too. I guess The Lightbringer was busy carrying his torch of light to other villages...while I torched this one" He turned back to Das, a sinister thin smile grew on the face of the stranger "Although, I guess you took it one step further" He said looking at the burning houses.
Das frowned in anger as his caution was swiftly thrown out in favor of his growing rage.
"So you killed hundreds to prove a point?!" He shouted, but immediately winced in pain as his arms began to bleed a little bit.
"No, I killed them because that is the will my god" The stranger placed his hand gently on his now visible breastplate. Where his heart lays "Soon he will be back to us"
"Who is your god?" Das relaxed a bit, the spell was now working and his hidden hand glows green as it heals his body.
The stranger opened his mouth to speak but before he could do so from the dark clouds of smoke above them a ball of orange light came down like lightning and struck the ground sending a powerful blast of air forcing him and Das to cover their faces.
"Das!" Drachen exclaimed with both urgency and happiness.
"Drachen! Heal me!" Das said without a second thought.
The fairy, at the moment the size of a human in her bird form, flew above him and stretched her wings to her sides. A beam of light came down from above, letting the light of the sun wash over Das, and in an instant the fatigue, pain, and injuries vanished.
His strength back, Das pointed his staff at the stranger and yelled.
"BIND!" His eyes burned with white mana as his staff reacted with his words.
A magical circle appeared in front of him and from its center three yellow chains made out of pure mana were expelled. Reaching the stranger and enveloping his body tightly from the neck down before digging themselves on the ground.
Das's eyes returned to normal as he began walking forward towards the stranger, furious and filled with the intent of killing him right there and then.
"Wait, Das!"Drachen shouted from behind him. Making him turn to her "Why bind this woman? I feel no hostility coming from her and no mana, she is a normal human being"
Das's confusion was painted over his wrathful expression, mixing the two as he returned his attention to the stranger.
"Tell me the truth. WHO killed these people? WHO did the bandits follow? and WHO are you?!" He yelled hitting the end of his staff on the ground. Cracking the stone slabs in a large circle around him as the mana erupted from his eyes once more and his cloak waved as if moved by air.
Drachen, who hovered right behind him, noticed the increase in size in the wounds of his arms. Her eyes widening in surprise.
The stranger was inexpressive for a moment before his thin smile returned and he spoke again, closing his eyes.
"I did this and the bandits served me. A failed experiment sure, I wanted to see if I could keep them alive and still control them. That just turned them mad" He opened his eyes and the blue had been replaced with a haunting red.
"How?" Das asked looking at him with squinting eyes, the orb of his staff glowing in preparation for a spell if the stranger was about to do anything.
Drachen, however, looked shocked that the stranger seemed to be more than just a regular human.
"Be careful, Das. Never before had I failed to sense mana in an inhuman being" She cautioned the archmage "I don't like this."
"I have my ways...but let me show you, after all, my second attempt followed the rules and they turned out perfect" He said as his body began to levitate above the ground. The magic chains struggling to keep it in place.
Then, the faint sound of the priest's chanting stopped. And everyone inside the sanctuary stood up.
"To be honest, the priest did stop chanting after an hour of the bandits decapitating the villagers outside the sanctuary gates..."The villagers began walking towards the stranger in an eerie silence, while the chains on the stranger's body stretched, drone and cracked "...so I did what I promised and ended their enslavement"
The chains gave in and broke, a loud blast followed them vanishing from sight as the stranger rose several meters above the ground.
The villagers stood idly beneath him, their shoulders slumped and arms limp, eyes completely glowing with red light, mouths open with some having their tongues out as well. Now being able to look at them up close, Das realized their skin was blue and sunken.
"But that was just the beginning, I'm sure they must be filled with joy as I was when they came back. Freed from their life, united in death" The stranger untied the knot keeping his cloak in place, letting it fall down.
Then, his fully armored body came to view. It was all steel plates from a common knight, yet the color was darker as if it were dirty but that was clearly not the case.
His arms were stretched to his sides a little bit, palms opened as if giving an invitation to hold them. His feet pointing down and close together, his hair turned white and raised upwards on its own, waving like a slow flame in a teardrop shape.
"And I..." His voice distorted and echoed just like Das's did not so long ago " I am the last acolyte of The Endless Night..." The dark steel of his armor turned a ghostly white "...Right hand of The Inevitable..." In fact, his entire body turned almost hollow, making the smoke and flames behind him visible while still retaining all the shapes of his body and armor clear.
"I am...The Phantom King" He proclaimed, never dropping his thin smile. Floating above the large crowd of undead while his body had seemingly become a similar substance to mist.
"It is a pleasure to formally meet you, Das The Archmage"