'How many years have actually passed?' 'Did something change?' His mind whirled, trying to piece together things he might have missed. Even as an immortal, he had never heard of mortals in the base realm having any form of power, except for the fact that they could wield stone weapons. Only for something different to stare him right in the face.
Lorety, the dark-haired woman, didn't stop there, as she went ahead to have two more men drop to the ground before she finally stepped back, her body brimming with power, even as Flonda, the other one, stepped forward.
Voldrak's eyes had been focused on the skies, where the remnant of the power he saw disappeared to, only to have his attention dragged back as he saw Flonda stand in front of him. A nasty smile flashed across his face as he settled an intense gaze on her.
"I have no intention of dying now!" he dryly spoke, too annoyed to spare any extra attention on her as he noticed the way her eyes roved over his body, dipping to between his thighs with reckless abandon.
He returned the favor, accessing her, his gaze settling on her huge breasts which threatened to spill out of the piece of cloth it had been tied with, wondering how she could fight without it coming undone.
"That one isn't broken in yet!" The puffed-up slave master said, moving closer to where they stood. "I can break--" Only for Flonda to interrupt before he could continue.
"You'll be fighting for your freedom?" she asked a question he didn't understand, but one he simply nodded to, since if she was looking for a fight, there was no way he would shy from one. But instead, he watched her nod twice before stepping away from him to his left.
"Then I wish you luck!"
A trace of annoyance flashed on the face of the one-eyed man who stood to his left, followed by disappointment when it became obvious that she had no intention of sparing a glance at him. She instead focused on the woman she had chosen, going ahead to ask her the same question she had asked him, only to get a different answer.
"NO! I won't be!" she answered clearly, even as her body trembled from what Voldrak couldn't tell if it was fear or anticipation. Flonda nodded and Voldrak waited for her to also get on her knees when he saw her lean forward, eyes turning slightly red, her incisor teeth lengthening ever so slightly as she grabbed the slave woman in front of her, digging her teeth straight into her neck.
The loud gulping sounds were deafening, and it took a while before she was done, gently lowering the dead woman to the floor as she slowly wiped her mouth of the blood that lingered on her lips.
"Barbaric!" Lorety snapped, but Voldrak's brows rose, especially since bloodletting, blood drinking, and blood rituals were something the base realms were known for. "We now have a better way of doing things!"
"I'd rather stick to blood than let someone's raw essence into mine. Moreover, unlike you, I'm not an idiot! I don't have enough to afford the purification pills." She responded with a satisfied shrug, delighted at having successfully thrown an insult in the mix.
Voldrak was bored watching them talk, focusing his eyes on Flonda's teeth, which had gone back to normal.
'A relative of the Night Walkers?' he wondered, confident that if Lorety had chosen blood, it would have been a more gruesome and sickly affair without the sharpened teeth.
Voldrak was just wondering whether or not to just leave and head to the more crowded place in the village compared to the edge where they stood when he heard the pudgy man speak.
"Hey! Afternoon approaches. We should get going!" he snapped with a frustrated tone in his voice, even as he drew out a wooden stick from what appeared to be a small pouch on his waist and blew it. A horse soon arrived, led by a man who looked just as thin-boned as the rest, to be called a slave.
"Is any of you fighting for your freedom?" The slave master turned to ask the hundred or so slaves that stood there, and Voldrak was shocked when every single one of them refused without flinching, a dead look in their eyes, with some going as far as to shrink themselves to appear invisible, lest they be picked regardless. Almost like their lives as slaves were much preferable to the idea of being free.
"GOOD! MARCH BACK!" he ordered, and Voldrak's brows rose again as he watched all of them, one after the other, bow and slowly begin to depart to the large grass-mud house he had woken up to in the distance. He caught the one-eyed man's eye and was amused to see him send him a slight grin as he passed beside him.
"I'll see you in the afterlife," he whispered, not sparing even a glance at Voldrak as he passed by.
Voldrak was tempted to smile at that, but he didn't, as he caught an intense stare being directed at him. Looking up, he saw the slave master looking directly at him.
"I could have sworn you wouldn't have made it through the night, considering the state in which you were sold," he spoke to Voldrak as he moved to stand in front of him, shining a set of brown teeth at him. "You will die, make no mistake! Yet profits will be made before your body is buried six feet in the ground."
Now, that was a statement that made Voldrak smile as he opened his mouth to respond, his eyes sharp as he looked down on the man, two feet shorter than him!
"I'm hard to kill. You'll need to dig deeper!" he said, surprised to see an amused look flash across the slave master's face as he turned around, shaking his head and pointing for Lorety and Flonda to get into the horse carriage that stood not far from them.
"Look at me talking to a dead man!" he muttered under his breath in such a low voice that Voldrak almost missed it, just before he sent Voldrak to sit right beside the driver.
Voldrak was extremely amused, even as he slowly did as he was told, curiosity burning through him as he wondered just what such a world could toss at him, enough to make him balk as the wooden horse carriage began to move.
Little did he know that a few hours later, he would almost regret not running when he should have.