Deridiv Listes thrust his spear, Ewekbarrnad, into the neck of a rebel soldier. Blood splashed as the man stared at him. The man held the spearhead as he gagged and struggled to breathe. "Y... You dog... of the emperor."
Deridiv pulled his spear and slashed. He averted his gaze to the north, where his legions swept through the rebel forces on the red barren land. His five lieutenants, children of fate, led fifty thousand fully armored men into the enemy's fortress. Each of them maneuvered ten thousand men to siege the base.
A soldier with black armor from head to toe rode his botsahopper to him, a creature with two short hind legs and 2 front legs as tall as two men hopping through the barren ground, sending dust and dirt into the air. When he arrived a few meters away, he jumped from his mount and raised his visor. "High General Deridiv, sire. Twenty five thousand rebels have fled to the northeast. They have women and children in their midst. Should we attack them, sire?"
"No. Send ten men from the Black Scout unit to follow them. Let them guide us to their home."
Deridiv looked to the side where ten of his guards stood with black spiky armor and a spear in hand. Behind them, ten thousand soldiers with dark thick armor stood in order. Thestidis Rozo, the captain of the Black Guard, nodded and took a war horn from his back. Taking a deep breath, fate energy swirled around him and entered his nose. He blew the war horn, and the sky reverberated as the sound wave spread.
Ten shadows fluttered to the northeast.
The rebel atop the fortress wall held their stance in a desperate fight against his legions. The soldiers climbed the wall with their black gauntleted hands and killed the rebel on the fort. Arrows ricocheted off their armor, and they ran through a line of soldiers, slashing their swords left and right. Blood spilled from their blades. Against a superior army, the rebel forces were nothing.
The gate of the fortress stood unscathed, for his men had avoided it to give hope to their enemy. Of course, there was no hope, and there was no mercy, not when The Epluxron Corp came with a full force of fifty thousand soldiers and five thousands child of fate.
Deridiv raised his spear. "Fun time is over. Let the rebel force taste the sense of despair once more. Let us turn their dreams into dust. Let them know the might of the Black Legion. For the emperor!"
"For the emperor!" His men followed.
***
Aidan sat on the sofa with a glass of strawberry juice in his left hand. He took a sip through a straw and the sweet and sour taste of the bright red liquid permeated on his tongue. It was nice to see something he knew from earth, like this strawberry juice. At least they have fruits that he was familiar with. On the table were a few slices of sweet golden mango served on a plate. A fork wrapped in thin paper stood beside it. Yep, it stood on its handle.
He took the fork, removed the paper, and stabbed a slice of mango before putting it in his mouth. "It took them a while to cook the meat."
Maninsov swirled his glass of sky blue juice. The juice was made from a small blue fruit called eryreb. It was not cultivated in Bleassephere, so this juice was quite expensive.
"The recpeodatyl meat is quite hard and thick, so it's normal for it to take a while."
"You're right. I just can't wait to eat the flesh of my opponent." Aidan laughed.
"The growth rate of recpeodatyl is quite fast. I think Mrs. Zahir has a lot of confidence in you for her to let you fight it."
"How fast?"
"It only took them three months before they reach adulthood."
"Three months!? That's too fast. How's that even possible?"
"Well, if you ask me how. I think it's because of evolution. Like basilisk, recpeodatyl will generally leave their child when they hatch. So they really don't have the time to enjoy some fun childhood experience like us. That reminds me, the hagur also has the tradition of making their children go on a journey alone, and only when they became an adult would they be allowed to join the society."
"Hagur?"
"You have seen the guy who works at the information center, right? Big, tall guy with hair all over his body and looked like a tiger. He's from the hagur race. Some people call them hagor. But you can use whichever you want, there's no difference."
Aidan nodded with tightened lips. He didn't know the receptionist guy had actually gone through such a thing. For an entire race that went through a journey alone at such a young age, it must be hard. But who was he to judge? Everyone had their own view of what was right. He couldn't think like a person from earth. As the mountain guy said, he needed to have a lot of tolerance for cultural diversity. But now that he thought about it, how was it possible for a world filled with hundreds of races to live in harmony. What was the price? In stories, the humans had always fought with any other race they know. Even in real life, humans had fought among themself just because of their skin colors and belief.
"You might not agree with their ways," Maninsov said, "but their culture actually let them advance quite fast. Because the parents don't have to take care of their children, they can do so much work for society. And when the child reaches adulthood, they would be independent and use their knowledge and experience in their journey to improve their nation. It's not that bad when you think about it."
Aidan nodded. "You know a lot. How did you know all of this?"
"I live here since I was born. All I said is common knowledge."
"But how could we live in peace with the other races? Have any races waged war against the humans? Are we the dominant forces on this continent? What about human greed and ambition?"
"So many questions. But I get what you mean. On your continent you don't have any other races, I assume, since you are very surprised by our harmony." Maninsov took a sip of his juice. "Of course, our peace comes at a great price. Every scholar had the same question as you. How can we live in peace with other races? Why the other races didn't wage war against one another?"
"And? Did they find the answer?"
Maninsov smiled as he took another sip."They don't need to find it at all. The reason was recorded in detail in a history book called 'Written Destiny'. I will just tell you the short version because the whole version is just too long. More than ten thousand years ago, all the sentient beings of the Inworld had met and traded with each other. There was no kingdom or border at that time. Swords, bows, shields, spears did not exist. No war was ever fought. All the races just went on with their lives and depended on each other. The hagur hunt for meat, the human cultivated the crops, the farune picked up fruits on tall trees and every race had what the others did not. Not much is known of this era, but we called the Era of Diversity."
Maninsov looked to the window and drank his juice. "I think we'll continue the storytelling later. We have a problem at hand."
"What problem?" Aidan looked through the window.
Three contritum were stopped by a group of ten with high collar cloaks. Half of them had a sword as tall as a man on their back, the other half had held a magic staff in their hand. The three shuttles in front of them opened their door and 2 men with high collar cloaks entered each shuttle. Walking towards their shuttle, a pair of men and women stopped below the window.
"Order from the Praepositor. Open your shuttle and let us in," the man said.
"What should we do? Should we let them in?" Aidan asked.
"No, don't open the door yet. This is bad if the Praepositor questioned us. It will take a long time and they might put us in custody for a few days. We should escape or hide."
"Escape? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"We don't have a choice."
"What if they mark us as a criminal? I don't think that's better than being in custody for a few days."
"You don't understand. They are the Praepositor. This is not common knowledge, but they are evil and cunning in nature. God knows what they will do to us."
Aidan frowned. Evil humans official, as expected, corruption and exploitation would always exist in any world. He hated them the most. Using their power to take advantage of the weak and the innocent, these types of men deserve to be burned in hell.
"What should we do?"
Maninsov glowed with fate energy, swirling and rolling around him like dust clouds orbiting a star. He closed his eyes and his shadows flickered before it sucked in the fate energy. The shadow rose and stood before it morphed into a male human. The next shadow stood up and morphed into a fishman with blue scales. Unbelievable! This was shadow cloning!
"Our problem is not solved yet. My shadow clone can copy appearance and movement, but they cannot have their own voice. We need to hide nearby so that we can speak with the Praepositor."
"Where should we hide?"
"Let's hide in that storage space. It's used to store luggage, but it should be big enough for us." Maninsov pointed under the sofa."
Aidan pulled the handle on the storage space right below the sofa while Maninsov went inside the storage space of another sofa. Aidan got in and closed it. The world turned dark except for the ray of light that came from a small hole that barely illuminated the storage space. Maninsov was right, the space was enough for him, but it was cramped and tight. It was hard to breathe and he could barely hold his fear of tight places. He took a deep breath with his nose and he heard the door click. Maninsov had controlled the shadow clone to open the door.
Footsteps came from outside. Shoes against the floor, Aidan guessed. The steps sounded heavy, likely because of the swords that the man held. The Praepositor approached, their footsteps became deeper and through the small hole, Aidan saw a shoe.
"Maninsov Urbi, we suspect that you are involved with the murder of Harn Yorbin, the son of Baron Keres Yorbin."