All about twenty men rushed at him with killing intents and bared their weapons at him. The murky hall trembled a bit due to the erratic march of the disciples of kongieus.
...The intruder—Conan.
Their bodies made a trail of smoke and the smell of burnt skin permeated the hall. The men clustered, leaving their rationality behind, and rushed towards Conan, some even shoving themselves. All were driven by an intense desire to kill, driven mad by the pain they received from the blast.
Conan—The one they wanted to kill—stood in place and waited for the first man to get to him and then, the carnage started.
An axe was swung aiming for his head, with the intent to sever his head from his body in one clean attempt—a vile dream.
Conan grabbed the axe casually with a hand "I love axes."He said before snatching it from the owner, with little to no effort.
He severed the head of the man from his body with the axe and used the blunt side of the head of the axe to hurl the head away.
The head was hurled towards another disciple, who stopped and reflectively caught the head in his hands, thinking it was something dangerous.
"Aaaaarrrrghhh-"
On seeing what it was, he screamed out loud in terror. It didn't last long though, as a terrifyingly sharp axe cleaved through the head he was holding in front of his face and his head with it.
What the man saw last before his bisected head gave up were the corpses surrounding the intruder. All killed in the most savage and gruesome manner he'll ever see—turned out it was the last thing he'll ever see.
Like a puppet made to shed blood, Conan killed the men, snatching their weapons from them and killing them with their weapons.
His lips curved to form an absentminded smile hidden by his mask, and serpentine eyes full of sadistic gleam. He felt something that had been dormant inside of him for the last five thousand years had finally come up—life.
A man rushed towards him and leaped, he made an overhead swing with his broadsword at Conan whilst coating his sword with Dark energy.
Conan swerved and fluidly kicked the sword out of the hands of the man and took it in his own hands but threw it away towards another direction, impaling three men together with a flinch and an "ow!"
He held the hand in which he used to hold the sword and gruntled in pain as viscous steams rose from it like it was on fire.
He felt a searing pain that he'd never felt before in his hand, he felt like his hand was melting which accentuated the pain it caused, but what caused the pain wasn't foreign to him.
The Sword of Marriage between him and Phiona was still alive, and as long as it was still alive, then the oath was still alive, thus, he won't be able to use any other sword.
"We should think about the future before we make an oath..."His serpentine eyes blurred a little and started turning normal as he dizzily muttered.
The men of Kongieus had all waited to observe, probably might be their god at work. At least that is what they wished for.
They all felt glad that he had a turn in knowing what it feels like to be burned because that's what he did to them at first and then, Kongieus retributed on behalf of his followers—Was what they wished for in their weirdly fantastical minds.
"Hm? Doesn't smell bad though..."A pot-bellied disciple said, stroking his mouche in silly amusement.
Conan's eyes snapped back to focus and turned back to serpentine. He stood straight and addressed the men of Kongieus.
"Okay guys it's almost daybreak, let's finish this..."He sighed and continued softly "... I've lost count of how many times I've said that."
The men of Kongieus all looked at with wide eyes. All look like they just woke from a dream only to wake up into a nightmare
Conan spread his arms, summoning a highly pressurized swirl of air around him. With a wave of his hand, the swirl started enlarging and grating anything it came in contact with—except for the interdimensional doorways of course.
Conan reserved them to be explored later, but not before he killed every last one of the men of Kongieus.
The swirl whistled and expanded so fast that none of the men managed to take a step away from it. It grated them into vicious bloody sludge, wasted on the murky floor of the spacious hall in streams.
Silence prevailed for a moment before Conan's sigh sounded. He looked around seeing the mess of bloody bits and blood-colored lamps with organs impaled on their stands.
On further scrutiny, he saw a desk in a corner. On which had blood all over an erected button, which served as an alarm trigger of some sort.
He circled the desk and opened its drawers, there he saw different books with different titles, all of which aroused his interest.
He sat down on the chair and placed his legs on the table, making himself utterly comfortable before starting to read the books.
A few seconds into reading, he already kissed his teeth in annoyance and had cast away many of the books as they were all doctrines and scriptures of Kongieus.
The others that benefitted him were notes jotted by someone he could only guess was the one he killed by the desk and that same person whose death inadvertently triggered the alarm which doomed the men of Kongieus to the moment where they had all died in the hands of a single intruder.
The first note he read was about 'Noble families' and the 'gods incarnates'. An interesting topic that he turned the cover over to start reading with so much vigor that it almost ripped apart.
His serpentine eyes skimmed through at a lightning-fast pace, his old mind grabbing the essentials and gradually, he felt like he had been catching up with the world.
"Exactly what I was looking for..."He muttered in glee as he saw information on the 'god's incarnates'. The one who made the notion also considered them as a threat to his 'sect', well they were threats to Conan also.
There he saw names and the families they belong to, Tianah included and who would have thought her mother was Athan's Incarnate?
And these Incarnates bears the divinity of their gods. The gods chose people with compatible bloodlines and implant their knowledge and divinity into them, to become their avatars on Eardale. Since the gods can't come into the plane without the plane giving them access.
There was a particular verse that says 'Gods in men, direct disciples the incarnates are; Proclaimed as heroes of our era and pillars that uphold mankind.'Conan cringed on reading it.
"Wow...So much information. So much to catch up with."
Then next were notes about 'potential targets' of the Goose Creeds. The list was full of strong and popular women who were no doubt beautiful. For a second there, Conan felt like killing the one who made the notes for being so stupid, even though he had done so already.
And so he continued reading, the things he learned from the notes were fundamental and might help him wrap his head around the current happenings but he didn't feel like stopping anytime soon.
The one who wrote the notes detailed it so much that he felt like he was reading a story and an interesting one at that. But alas, a few minutes since he started reading he was disturbed by new forms coming from the interdimensional doorways.
"What in Kongieus balls happened here?!"A profane cuss prevailed in the bloody atmosphere as soon as the first form took a step out of the doorway. Startled by the squelching sound his feet made when made contact with the bloody bits on the floor.
Soon, other forms came out of the other doorways and cusses followed. All startled and horrified as to the wreak they met. All blamed themselves for not coming earlier, if they had, then maybe their brethren won't have been reduced to such a mess.
Soon, they noticed Conan, who was busy reading and stormed toward him with fury.
Conan noticed them but he chose to read important things over observing useless mobs. The noise got so loud that he lost concentration for a moment so he decided to communicate.
"Hey! Can you shut up for a moment? I'm in the middle of something important here!"He hollered in irritation and continued reading afterward. Not paying their armored priestly robes and capes to heed in the slightest.
"Who are you!"A man with a bald head, snub nose, and bushy, absurd beard spoke.
He had buffed and large physique. Donned a rough leather cape-shaped pauldron and a cuirass over his sleeveless priest robe with smart gauntlets and greaves.
The two other priests were in the same apparel as him, except that they had differences in some areas. But in describing how angered they all were, there was no difference in that aspect and there was no word to describe how angered they were.
Angered for various reasons: First for disturbing their daily routine of cultivation by forced coitus and extracting dark energies; Secondly, for killing their brethren in such a savage way and last for ignoring their honorable selves.
"Do you not know who we serve?"Another asked, his mane-like hair billowing in the breeze-less hall as he bellowed. The only thing boosting their confidence so much that they couldn't identify a threat was because they served gods, and were indoctrinated in such a way to look down on others.
Conan packed the useful notes into his spatial ring and swatted the desk away with a wave of his hand. He stood and calmly said to the priests "I'll be leaving now, I got what I came for..."
He turned and was about to walk towards the exit when the fourth doorway opened and the last man came out of it. But Conan frowned not because the man looked shabby and immensely ugly, but because he sensed the presence of a lower existence from the other side of the doorway.
He turned back and tilted his head, looking at the door, and asked the man who came out of it "What did you keep in there?"
"None of your business!"The man wiped his sweat and panted. He must have been in the middle of something important before rushing over.
Conan tilted his head in confusion and curiosity. Wondering what might be hidden in there. They awoke his curiosity and he won't rest until he is satisfied.