"You're far more similar than I feared." Sil said with lowered eyes.
"Does she worry about you? The Golden Knight, I mean."
I silently stared at her as her eyes narrowed seemingly in thought.
"No… you two are basically gods. Maybe you don't even feel the way we do." Sil said before sighing.
"We held a meeting with everyone in both Eimval's while you slept and we managed to recruit the services of about two hundred Rendaro."
I raised my brows while eating and Sil nodded.
"I know. It's far too meager a force. Especially since we're up against mankind who probably number in the thousands." She said.
"I don't know what you plan on doing to make up for the difference in numbers, but I hope you think fast. A year isn't as long as we need." Sil said before chuckling.
"Say, since you're the Host of Darkness can't you just exterminate all of them?" She asked with wide eyes, but I firmly shook my head.
"Why not?"
"Because wouldn't it be cruel if they did the same us?" I said through the pain.
"A single legion could come to Eimval right now and wouldn't it be cruel if they murdered us all?" I asked with a frown.
"That being said, I don't plan on letting mankind do as it pleases. Should negotiations fail, I will see to it that every inch of the Expanse they take is well paid for." I said. My voice a whisper.
Sil simply sat frozen as she stared at me.
"You don't have to fight. Stay here, where it's safe if you want. If Yna and I end up being the only ones fighting, I don't care. Although, some help would be appreciated-"
"I don't get it."
"Mmm?"
"Why are you willing to go through all this just to give the humans a fair chance?" Sil asked.
"Because I would do the same if I was fully human."
"Fully?"
"Oh yeah. I forgot that no one really knows that I'm from another world." I said and even though my throat was still sore, I was happy enough just to talk to Sil.
She seemed like a caring and passionate woman.
I told her my life story with the help of dark dioramas.
However, when my presentation finished, she had a reaction far different from the one Yna had.
She simply glared at me as I finished my tale.
"And there you have it. The story of Riley X Katsíki." I said, but Sil's eyes narrowed scarily.
"Is that all why you won't kill all of them? Because you were once one of them?" She asked with trembling eyes.
"N- no. I have no attachment to any of the humans here. Matter fact, the only human I know is Yna and-"
I stopped myself, but this seemingly made Sil's animosity increase.
"Lord Katsíki, I can see that you're trying your best to ensure that no one gets hurt on both sides, but when the flames of war start to burn, you will have to make a decision. It's either us, the Rendaro you've worked so hard to help or them. Hesitating to make this decision will lead to many deaths and I just want to make sure you know that." Sil said.
I promptly nodded before finishing my food.
Sil then took the bowl and washed it while a certain Rendaro groaned himself out of sleep.
Anda awoke and sleepily walked towards the table where he sat next to me.
A moment passed and he quickly realized that I was sitting next to him.
His eyes widened and he immediately lowered his head.
"Greetings, lord Katsíki. I'm sorry for-"
"Don't worry about it. Sil and I handled everything. I'm gonna go back to Coh and allow you all to get ready for everything I've got planned." I said before hopping off the chair.
"Oh and one thing I probably should have explained earlier, if war truly does come for the Expanse, you'll have to fight alongside the Foph and perhaps even the Ash wraiths to protect it. Inform everyone who ends up going to the base that they'll be training with people from other tribes and that I will not tolerate any infighting." I said before facing the door.
Anda quickly opened it and led my outside.
We found ourselves on Eimval's second floor.
I could tell because there was a solid block of darkness beneath this level.
I turned around and looked at Sil one last time and saw that she was still glaring at me.
Hesitation.
I wouldn't hesitate.
I followed Anda as he led me out of Eimval.
We made our way to the High Office where we sat in what I assumed was his office.
I then briefed him on everything that had happened and after getting his insights on a few things, I left, but not before instructing him to hand over leadership to Sil and the other scouts now called Custodians.
I told him that he wouldn't work until six months had passed.
I could tell that didn't want to listen to my advice, but I told him that if he didn't, I'd release all of them darkness in the third level while making a scary face.
The young Rendaro agreed to my terns and accompanied me out of New Eimval.
I then began my journey back to Coh under the heat of the rising sun.
My small body cooked under the heat and my exhausted didn't help.
Fortunately, the silence and solitude allowed me to think clearly.
That terrible session of vomiting allowed me to understand something.
That core in my chest was like an engine.
It allowed me to manipulate darkness, but it also ran on and absorbed darkness.
Adding onto all this, the damned thing also let out darkness as a by product of me using darkness!
That's why Yna and Nel glowed when they used their magic.
It was their cores compensating for how much work they were doing.
My goodness!
That's what the lines around their skin was for!
I created a small shack and plopped down inside crossing my legs and thought deeply on the nature of aspects.
I needed to find a way to safely use mine and Yna had given me a hint on the day we met.
Those flares of light and golden lines weren't random phenomena.
It was Yna's body actively keeping itself from burning up.
When I puked out my excess internal darkness, I noticed that it was different.
Darkness up until that point always appeared in three forms. It's natural state like in dark spaces, it's crystallized state and in the form of smoke.
However, the darkness I puked out was like a mixture of all three.
It was like a sludge of sand except it was also hot and came out at an incredible rate.
I needed to find a way to do that without ripping my throat apart.
I took deep and even breaths while carefully inspecting my core.
It sat almost directly above my stomach explaining why the darkness poured out of my mouth and so I opened it and let out a bit-
I coughed as a torrent of darkness shot out from my mouth.
I clenched my teeth as my throat was assaulted my even more pain.
I needed to shift the point where the darkness appeared, but I couldn't just shift my core.
I tried, but it wouldn't budge.
Instead, I focused on how to expel the darkness without hurting myself.
With that in mind, I turned to my very own source of power, darkness itself.
I looked several deep breaths and tried releasing some through my nose and mouth.
Torrents of black smoke shot out of my mouth, but even as tears fell from my eyes and my throat and nose screamed in pain, I didn't stop.
Instead, I sat up and slowly, the black smoke reduced.
Instead, thick black plumes came from my nose and mouth.
I opened my mouth further, created a dark tube that went from my stomach to my mouth and with this, I spat out even more darkness.
It was incredibly uncomfortable, but I could immediately fell a difference.
I broke the tube into countless segments that seamlessly fit into each other allowing me to bend over and move freely.
I stood up and walked out my little shack looked up into the afternoon sky and spat out a ton of darkness, covering everything around my in hot darkness.
I eventually began feeling a strange feeling of relief and so, I closed my mouth, destroyed the tube and took a deep breath while forcing any lingering darkness into space.
My eyes rolled back and a certain vision flashed in my mind.
A dark world within which dark gods resided.
I felt their touch and shed tears as they spoke to me in a tongue I couldn't understand.
At this point, I was on my knees, exhausted and frightened.
The vision may have been brief, but it was enough to feel me with a sense if dread that paralyzed me and so I knelt. As though begging those things for mercy.
The fear, however, quickly disappeared and after destroying my little shack and sending all the darkness I'd spilt into space, I made my way north with a dreaded determination.
I completely ignored whatever I saw because it wasn't important.
Not yet, at least.
.
..
I eventually returned to Coh and saw about two hundred or so Rendaro camped outside it.
Standing near the southern gate was Yna, who stood next to Calëb.
Yna was still wearing the silky red robe given to her by the Blood Ravens and white hair hung loosely.
She quickly noticed me and she ran towards my tired self with an excited expression, but her smile quickly turned into a frown as she got closer.
I looked at myself and although I was covered in dirt and dark marks.
Yna picked me up and looked me over.
She then sighed before taking me to where Calëb stood.
"How did it go?" Yna asked as I inspected the small encampment at the foot of Coh.
Foph warriors could be seen speaking to each other in hushed tones.
They looked at Yna and I with a suppressed animosity.
They knew what I would make Yna do if they started any trouble.
Not that I wanted anything to go that far.
Most of them were dressed in thin leather clothes while a few were clad in dark, scaly armor.
They wielded simple swords and spears that I knew wouldn't be of any use against silver or golden knights.
"Pretty well. I create a base where you will train everyone. Created some farms where we'll try and increase food production. I also wanna domesticate some animals or gather some." I wheezed while resting comfortably in Yna's arms.
It's also here, after so many times, that I noticed that Yna didn't have a heartbeat.
"W- what about you?" I asked as Yna walked into Coh.
"Oh, the Foph all jumped at the opportunity to fight any humans. They're also looking forward to all the training we're gonna do. Speaking of which, I learnt the technique which the Foph use to strengthen their connection to their aspects and its pretty… I wanna say simple, but I'm a knight, so it might be different with other people. Anyway, it's called Nítho or Cycling and what they do is they take some of their aspect, like darkness for example and they cycle it in front of them in a perfect circle. Well, as perfect as they can make it. This supposedly increases one's connection to their Aspect and I must say, after trying it out, it kinda works but kinda doesn't. Does it strengthen your control over your aspect? Not really. I think it just builds ones confidence and can be really useful for teaching inexperienced magicians. So, I got us two hundred warriors. Twenty five of which are magicians."
"How many knights do you think will participate in the war?" I asked as we made out way deeper into Coh. I noticed that Calëb wasn't with us, but I shrugged it off.
"Each legion has seven people. Six knights and a priest. There are twenty five golden legions and twenty five silver ones at any given time meaning that if every legion was full, there'd be three hundred knights in total. However, due to many reasons, it's rare that all legions are full and so I assume that we'll be up against one hundred and fifty-ish knights give or take."
The odds were really stacked against us, but that wasn't going to stop me from trying and so, while Yna took me into Coh, I thought about building a factory where I could create armor and weapons. Weapons that could defeat knights.
I noticed that several Foph were also in Coh.
They moved various supplies around all while making as little noise as possible.
I didn't want to think about what Yna had done to make them behave so well.
"On average, how many normal people do you think it takes to defeat a knight." I asked as Yna walked past her cabin.
"Mmm… if it's a group of completely normal people, then even a thousand may not be enough. But if it's a group of well trained soldiers who are well equipped… it'd take fifty to kill a silver knight and about a hundred to kill a golden one, but that's only if those soldiers don't throw themselves at their opponents. You'd need to hit fast and hard, while limiting the amount of casualties." Yna said as she walked into the heart of Coh.
The waterfall.
She closed the short fence after entering the soothingly quiet space.
She then placed me down by riverbank before slipping out of her robe.
"Fortunately for us, you can create powerful weapons that can be wielded by ordinary people and so, with an extreme amount of training and a ton of refinement, we could reduce those numbers." Yna said as she dipped me into cool waters as the sun slowly set, casting a deep darkness over Coh.
She washed the dirt out of my curly black hair while I tried thinking about earth based weapons that could be effective against knights.
This world didn't have guns and even then, chances are that they wouldn't be very useful.
I needed to look back in time-
Ballistas!
If I could create a strong bolt and a machine powerful enough, it'd help us out big time.
I noted this as Yna turned me around.
She then forced my head up and looked into my eyes.
Nothing was said and Yna's eyes didn't glow even a little bit.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just making sure you're ok." She said.
"Can you sense life forces or something?"
"No." Yna said before washing the rest of my body even though I was fully capable of doing such myself.
She eventually took me out of the stream and dropped me on the drying grass before sitting next to me.
We sat in silence as I pondered many things, but it wasn't long until footsteps filled the air.
Calëb approached with a wooden box in hand.
She knelt in front of Yna and I before opening the box, revealing a dark grey gown.
"I did some thinking and realized that Coh didn't have a sigil of any sort and so I kindly ask that Calëb make this." Yna said.
I raised a single brow before grabbing the gown and slipping into it.
It was a sturdily made grey woolen gown that looked kinda like a poncho.
At it's center was a pair of swords that sat in front of a dotted circle.
One of the swords was paler than the other, but I didn't know what any of it meant.
"The pale one is my sword, defender of Coh's people. The darker one is yours, defender of its ideals and the dotted circle represents the many people that will one day call this place home. People of different places, races, cultures and talents. So… what do you think?" Yna asked with a bright smile, her eyes brightly glowing.
"I love it." I said with a grin.