Her long violet hair, roughed up and tangled, cascaded in disarray of interwoven strands of white and silver.
Pallid and marred by the passage of time, her skin had moved way past the rigidity of rigour mortis, hanging down with an odd looseness.
The once violet eyes held a glassy, vacant stare, framed by dark circles, as if she had been awoken from a deep slumber.
Everything about her was creepy.
Lips cracked and bloodless, fingernails dirt-encrusted and broken, limbs thin and frail, yet eerily animated with a life beyond the norms established around the living and the dead.
But what caught my attention the most was the mark on her neck. The deep wound I had inflicted as I slit her throat. My fingers were still imprinted across her face. A contusion.
When a blunt force trauma occurs, blood vessels beneath the skin break and leak blood into surrounding tissues. This causes discolouration and without the circulation to clear it, the bruise remains visible.
She was looking at me with a sweet look which sent a horrid tremor run across my spine.
She was the first demon I had vanquished in this world who was now caught in the twilight between life and death.
"I have been, yes... a few times." I replied, ignoring the queasy feeling in my gut.
Killing was not an immoral aspect. It could be justified. But I never knew looking at the face of someone I had killed would make me this uncomfortable.
"That's no fun."
The voice changed once again. This time it was oddly gruff and raspy. As I looked to my right, a short statured woman with a square face was standing, her hands oddly hairy for a woman. She had long dirty brown hair and the most prominent feature on her face—without a sliver of doubt—was her flared nose.
You could hide a gun in that thing!
A quiver was attached to her back and a bow was strapped around her wide, hulking body.
Not very feminine if you asked me.
"Why did you kill the old woman? Intuition? Well thought out plan? Self-gathered Intel? Insider information?"
She continued to speak; her eyes dead. They were devoid of life.
As I looked around myself, there were around a few hundred small graves.
Two of them seemed to be empty, like the top had been dug out instead of having the raised grave mound.
"She doesn't seem to be important." I replied. I could push for Jayden's motive here. But I had to be careful. Arcanum was floating in the air, like a million different array of weapons and the smell of death was stagnantly hanging in the air, heavy.
"She wasn't." The voice changed as this time it was already standing away from me, fiddling with a lump of rock floating on the syrupy liquid beneath our feet. "I am not interested in her, at all." He scoffed to himself as if the thought itself was ridiculous. "What I am interested in is your line of thought. What was the reason behind it." The ugly looking dwarf—Gunnar, I remembered—spoke.
From the corner of my eye, I watched as the third grave's mound began to collapse inward. The solid earth caved as if it were nothing more than a hollow shell, the mud cascading down into the void like a dark, gummy waterfall. It fell with a muffled thud, leaving the ground above eerily flat and with a gaping hole, devoid of any trace that it had ever been disturbed.
"A fleeting thought." I replied and his intent hardened, weighing down at me like a giant hammer. "Force won't make me change my answers." I kept my back straight, ignoring the ache in my spine. It felt like it would snap in half.
The man—Gunnar, or rather Jayden—let out a hearty chuckle, his voice much gruffer, matching the dead dwarf. The pressure dissipated as he looked back down again and started to fiddle with the lump of rocks again.
I noticed it was the same weapon that had returned to dust after I killed him. The weapon that could manifest out of thin air. The same one as Ed, but much, much weaker.
"It was common sense." I started speaking, taking in the poor-quality air. "You won't start a conversation with two strangers just like that." I paused as I felt a singular electric field flicker to life around me before disappearing, vanquished by the absolute authority of Jayden's Technique Deployment. "She was nervous. And fell into the white-haired guy's feet after deducing he was one of the Cromwells."
Gunnar—Jayden—took a step forward and he was then right in front of me, orange eyes looking deep into mine. I heard the clump of rocks, mud and gravel slip and another grave caved in.
He now had the appearance of the same dwarf that had first warned us about the powder along the road that led to the Black Pit and then later was the first one to die in the pub.
"So, you posed as one of us? Good idea." Although it was physically impossible for those void-like orange eyes to shine, I was quite sure they would be sparkling if he was himself.
I think I know how his Technique Deployment works. The usage of people one had killed to endlessly swarm them. No matter how weak that woman was, no matter how easy it was to kill Gunnar, if I had an endless version of them swarm me, I would be defeated eventually.
Especially when I can't even draw out on ambient Arcanum. Since he could take shape and reanimate their corpses as well, I am sure that element of uncertainty would be quite fatal.
"Not exactly a good idea." I raised my voice, the slight, buzzing static of sound waves suddenly getting abuzz in my ears for a second... or two before disappearing again.
"How so?" He asked, tilting his head as he had now taken the shape of a petite dwarven woman. She barely had clothes on and the single piece of clothing she was holding on her chest fell on the liquid below. Her giant breasts sagged down, like a deflated balloon.
She stood in a strange manner, poking her lower end forward, as if trying to make me see it.
Keeping my eyes level, matching with the woman from the brothel whose feet I had severed in that frenzied state, I replied. "It was a hunch before but now it is quite clear after looking at you."
"Hmm?" The naked dwarf tilted her head, taking a step forward.
Her body stank, the flesh that was in the middle of getting decomposed saggy and repulsive to even look at. The tips of her breasts had turned purplish red and were droopy, like mournful banners of mortality.
I took an instinctive step back.
"Horns." I spoke, hoping he would stop walking in my direction.
It was a revolting sight—a dead naked woman, who is a man inside, just wearing her skin. It wasn't morally conflicting, no, but it was her presence that made my skin crawl. I'd take a gander at Gunnar's appalling mug any day over hers.
Fortunately, the disgusting woman stopped and then disappeared. The next moment, another grave caved in, and a mammoth shadow extended, covering my entire body.
His words this time turned unintelligent—almost—like a baby attempting speech but with an extremely coarse edge, as though sandpaper were scraping inside its tiny throat.
I couldn't understand what he said but even without looking directly, I could tell it was the first Troll I had killed.
"As far as Demon hierarchy goes—from what I have observed, the shape and size of horns is a major indicator of one's status. Ed, your general, said his mom was a peasant. She had stub-like horns. Ed had long pointed horns. Longer and sharper than his mother's." I paused and hummed; the subtle static still persistent in my ear. "And he mentioned his father was a Duke. Now you, the auspicious Lord Cromwell not only has even longer horns but is also sporting another pair."
Again, his flesh moved, and he morphed into a young demon. Two goat-like horns sprouted from his temples.
"Your point is?" His voice was boyish, and he had an innocent smile over his face.
"Why did she deem us as Lord Cromwell, or thought we had any kind of association with Cromwells when we didn't have any horns at that time?"
The boy tilted his head. "She could've just assumed that you were trying to be… undercover." He argued after a long pause..
"In your own territory?" I paused, letting out a steady breath as my heart stabilised and the numbing pain began to slowly seep out. "Checks while disguising as a normal person would be a good approach to keep check and balance when a huge fleet like yours is mobilised, but disguising as a human is not a very good idea, is it? Especially when the hate for humans runs so deep in your veins that you are not even willing to reason. Even for a second."
He let out a brattish cackle. The laughter bounced off the walls—if there were any—of this confined space.
"Do I give off that impression?" He asked, taking a nonchalant skip over a brown blade of grass that was poking out of the liquid.
I turned around and shrugged my shoulders. "I guess?"
Suddenly the ground beneath me solidified, and then cracked, like a famine-stricken land. It was grey in colour. Mud caked foliage spread out through the entirety of the inner domain of the Technique Deployment.
It looked like a... boneyard in the heart of a stormy forest night.
"You are smarter than you look." He spoke, this time in his own voice and body as he wrapped an arm around me and leaned against my shoulder. "But you see, I am different from others."
The static began to intensify.
"You are?"
"You'd be surprised." His breath was cold against my warm skin that burnt with fever. "Mindless killing, holocausts, vandalism. I understand quite well that these result in drastic ramifications on both sides." He spoke as he left the support of my body and walked forward.
"I had the notion you—all of you would give priority to emotions over rationality."
"I am not a part of the Sylvan Fellowship!" He exclaimed, as if really offended and enraged at the notion. As I tilted my head, a raise of his brow indicated confusion as to why I am not aware about this 'Sylvan Fellowship' thing. "Ah, right!" He clasped his hands together. "Your Gods had already committed the day-light robbery by then. You won't know."
If I had to take the literal meaning of the word, it can just mean as a congregation of races that are associated with nature. Since Sylvan is derived from a Latin word, which literally means forest. It could mean that this whole "fellowship" is a collective group of races like Elves, Noble Frost Giants, Fairies...the list could go on.
And if Elves are a part of them, Jayden's reaction could also be considered as justified.
"But it's a long topic so I won't brood much on it." He spoke as a smirk formed on his face. "After all, your own body is eating you up."
A faint, unsteady breath slipped from my lips.
He was right. The lack of Arcanum for extended amounts of time could cause the nodes to go in a frenzy and collapse in on itself. Since Arcanum is like air to the nodes, just like how air is for the lungs.
"I am guessing you want to negotiate something with me."
"Right!" He clasped his hands loudly this time.
As if on cue, underneath the brooding sky the mounds of graves began to collapse inward. All at once.
The earth shuddered as the decrepit, makeshift tombstones toppled over. From inside these gaping graves, half-rotten corpses clawed their way to the surface, their hands that were half muscle and half visible bone, breaking through the soil.
With grotesque, wobbly movements like someone was forcing them to move, the reanimated dead rose, their hollow eyes looking at me. The air was instantly filled with the bitter reek and the eerie sound of bones creaking back to life.
"I have a few terms. Conditions, if you would."
"An ultimatum, you mean?" I asked and suddenly I felt the air electrify.
"That is one way to put it."
"Then you are talking to the wrong person. I do not have the authority to approve of your conditions."
He paused and regarded me for a while. "You don't have direct power, but I am sure you are related to the power that can make it happen."
I shifted in my place, the flat ground now morphed into quicksand. "Not bad. But I still don't get it."
"What?"
"Conditions for what? You don't think you have what it takes to overpower humanity unless we accept your terms?"
"Oh, no, no, no." He laughed, genuinely. "No, I won't be such a fool. I, of all people, know better than to underestimate humans." He spoke as he removed a glove from his left hand. It was badly charred, to the point that it didn't even look like a hand. The nails seemed to have been burnt and then stitched into the skin. "I got this from Eve." He spoke, his eyes narrowing. "I was a little boy at that time, yes. But I never thought much of her. Turned out I was wrong. So, so wrong." He laughed once again. "And to think I had the audacity to think of killing Adam."
"You are alive, at least. That says something."
"She had mercy on me." He instantly corrected me. "That woman was said to not take life as easily as that vile abomination." His eyes sharpened as he peered into mine. "You look...and sound exactly like him."
"I am flattered."
The corner of his lip curved into a smirk. "This effortless display of nonchalant superiority. It feels so ingrained into you that it could pass for ancestry. Wouldn't faze me if you claimed to be his forebear."
I deadpanned. "We all are."
"Hmm?" He hummed and then waved off as if he didn't want to bother with this topic anymore. Slipping his hand back into the glove. "To answer your question...I want to have ties with humans." He suddenly spoke, and a hush descended inside the chaotic mess of clattering bones and muffled moans of the reanimated corpses. "Peaceful relations. War, I believe, is not the way to solve things."
"And?"
"And of course," he sneered, "I want the main seat inside your council."
I don't think I should cringe him out by telling him what the seven families are called.
"You want to monopolise human power against Sylvans."
"I wasn't wrong when I said you're smart." He paused. "But you fail to see the bigger picture. As I said, war is not what I desire."
As the static in my ear reached to a disturbing crescendo, I cracked out a smirk—or at least I tried to.
"Regardless of whatever you mean..." I paused, getting his full attention, "...if I was you, I would put some flexibility in my conditions."
"Hmph! You believe you're entitled to make such demands?"
The corpses—zombies or whatever they were closed in on me as the quicksand began to solidify.
"I think I have stalled for enough time." I spoke as I pointed towards the sky. "You still have time to make amendments. Because...that man is unable to make logical reasons." I spoke as a tear formed in his Technique Deployment and the dimensions started to twist.
The single scenario where my survival was guaranteed was finally happening. The external factor. He was here.
Like standing inside a soap bubble, I watched the entire construct as it existed in a higher dimension, collapse, as two giant azure hands ripped the domain like a child wildly tearing away at a piece of fragile paper, reverting it back to the original dimensions of the world.
Arcanum rushed like a tidal wave into my heart and the queasy feeling began to subside.
Jayden looked at me and then upwards. "Oh, hoho." He let out an amused chuckle as a single man stood on a black cloud that thundered with crimson lightning.
The dimensions began to twist as once again Jayden's Technique Deployment began to take shape.
Jayden looked at me. "I guess this is who I have to discuss with?"
I shrugged. "You'd be lucky if you can make out a valid, logical argument with him."
Just as Jayden was about to open his mouth to talk, a few words reverberated through the air particles themselves. Despite it being a murmur.
The man in the sky's light brown hair was waving wildly as he closed his fingers, interlocking them and turning them inwards before twisting them around. Like a tesla coil.
He looked down, different coloured lightning coursing through his olive eyes.
"Technique Deployment: Thunderforge Coffin."
I snapped my eyes shut as the entire world turned crimson.