Dorian locked eyes with the man before him who was fuming with anger.
"What?"
"Bastard!" the man muttered under his breath as he got behind Dorian and repeated the same hand gesture he had used to unlock the tree bark handcuffs.
Dorian's eyes narrowed for a split second before relaxing.
"So, what is a Dreadwalker?"
Dorian asked, seemingly accepting that it was only natural for him to be cuffed again, as he was only uncuffed to eat.
"Shut up!" Commander Obyron furiously took him by the collar and looked him in the eye.
"You're coming with me. Try anything suspicious and your head will get severed from your neck! Got it?!"
Dorian shrugged at the blatant threat, as he looked back at the angry man before him. "Sure, point taken. I love my head very much. I have no plans to part with it just yet."
Seeing Dorian's nonchalant attitude, Commander Obyron gave up threatening him…
...and smacked his head against the edge of the table before walking out of his office, Dorian tottering behind.
…
Just as they walked out of the settlement, Dorian's eyes reflected the great wall that they had talked about earlier inside Commander Obyron's office.
The Great Wall that separated the world of the living and the world of the dead (according to Commander Obyron) was just as great and magnificent as he had observed while flying in earlier.
Shards of giant metal alloys, seemingly melted into each other, formed a great wall whose height rivalled modern-day skyscrapers.
It left one to guess as to how this gigantic wall came to be.
As Dorian was running a wall construction simulator in his head, he saw something move on the wall, from the ghost of his eyes.
He & Commander Obyron stopped, cocked their heads up, and looked at the strange sight happening overhead.
An elevator.
Though a rather crude and rusted one, the thing slowly descending from high above the wall, was undeniably an elevator.
As it reached the ground, without wasting a moment's breath, Dorian & Commander Obyron promptly entered the elevator and began their ascent up the Great Wall.
As they got higher and higher and higher still, the wind hit hard on his face, and the moonlight shone bright in his eyes.
And far above, the battle cries of men made Dorian's ears buzz!
…
Dorian did not know when he had reached the top, or when he had moved to the edge of the railing, gazing at the other side of the wall. But he knew one thing; the sight before him was pure, unblemished, untouched - a twisted godless tapestry of living insanity…
Seemingly larger than twenty or more giant worms combined, they bore a human appearance and wore human clothing, though it was crudely stitched and torn in several places. There was something about them that stirred a faint sense of kinship within him, however minuscule it may have been, or however absurd it may have sounded.
But they were clearly anything but humane.
They were bent at the waist in what could pass for a perfect 180°, their arms dangling from shoulders that clung stubbornly to decaying flesh and bone, barely holding together at the waist.
Looking at the ground with their butchered, eyeless faces, they had a wide open belly that spewed out an acid-like liquid, overflowing with bones, torn apart intestines, and gooey flesh soaked in bloody pus as they marched towards the wall with disturbing speed.
In that instant, without needing to say a word, Dorian understood who they were.
The Dreadwalkers.
And their numbers exceeded far beyond what he imagined!
…
The liquid acid that fell from the Dreadwalker's bodies touched the worms, squirming on the ground and caused them to erupt into violent motion, as they slithered into the holes on the ground and the nearby buildings for refuge.
But not all of them.
Some of the worms, scorched by stomach acid, were inching their way toward the wall, desperately seeking solace from their agony of burning alive.
Dorian's breath caught in his throat as he gazed at the scene unfolding before him.
If he could see through someone else's eyes, he would have realised just how terrified and lost he appeared in that moment.
Just as his thoughts began to drift, a sudden jolt in his shoulders snapped him back to reality.
"Stay close to him! Don't let him do anything suspicious. You hear me!?" Commander Obyron instructed his subordinate who glared at Dorian with unrestrained anger.
"Yes, Sir!" said his subordinate.
"Kill him if he moves, kill him if he says anything strange, kill him if he looks at you for too long. And kill him if he breathes too quickly, is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ok, then. I'll leave you to it."
With these parting words and some slightly concerning orders, Commander Obyron ran in the opposite direction.
Dorian looked at the commander's back and cursed.
"That fucker!"
Hearing that, the subordinate pointed out an abnormally large crossbow right at his face.
Seeing that, Dorian shrugged.
"What? He did not tell you to kill me for cursing, did he?"
Though inwardly he was sweating bullets.
The subordinate contemplated for a moment before slowly retrieving his crossbow. He looked away from Dorian and began firing spears made of divine light from the massive crossbow down at the creatures below.
Seeing this, Dorian felt a wave of relief wash over him, though it was short-lived.
His brow furrowed as he pondered something strange.
'If he thinks I'm the cause of this sudden monster attack, then why leave me here with a subordinate? If it were me, I would never take my eyes off myself. Did he figure something out? Maybe he realised I'm not behind this. Or perhaps he's needed elsewhere? Does he have something that can kill the Dreadwalkers more effectively?"
As he was wrestling with those thoughts, the ground beneath him began to tremble violently.
As if suddenly finding the answer he was looking for, Dorian's gaze shifted and landed on something that sent chills down his spine.
It was a cannon.
Though it was far larger than a typical cannon, hosting a separate cockpit for the user, and adorned with bizarre patterns etched all over its surface, Dorian could only call it a cannon, as his vocabulary seemed to fail him in that moment.
Suddenly, the subordinate in front of him shouted in relief, "That's Commander Obyron's [Authority]! The [Authority] from the Domain of Artillery! We're saved! He'll take them all out!"
Dorian realised Commander Obyron must be the name of the man he met earlier.
But, at that moment, there was a particular word that caught most of his attention.
[Authority]
'So that's what an [Authority] is capable of?!'
Dorian was awestruck, his mouth agape. But just as he tried to shut them back, the colossal cannon moved.
It aimed at the Dreadwalkers advancing toward the wall.
Boom!
With an earth-shattering sound and violent shockwaves, A purple orb of compressed energy shot forth, striking the group of Dreadwalkers below.
As it struck the Dreadwalkers, the impact sent burnt meat and bloody pus flying in all directions!
With a single blow, five of the dead walkers were already gone.
But it didn't stop.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
…
Unbeknownst to Dorian, time began to go adrift.
It felt as though time itself had become an enigma as he watched with blurred, distant eyes, all the Dreadwalkers slowly reduced to nothing more than a pile of flesh and shattered bone, drenched in blood-red ruin.
…
Enthusiastic cheers rose from all the people standing atop the wall, their faces filled with relief.
Some fell on their knees, some heavily supported their bodies by the railings.
Everyone looked spent. And why wouldn't they be?
This was the first time in a long while they had so many Dreadwalkers marching towards the wall. Even the sight of those hideous monstrosities was bad for their mind.
Yes, yes.
This was a happy ending. It was all over and now they could go home and cuddle up to their pillows.
Only…
It wasn't to be.
"...!"
Dorian gasped.
His pupils dilated as he stared at the scene unfolding before him.
Everyone turned deathly pale.
In the distance, a dense grey fog began to rise.
Rising and rising. It climbed higher and higher, unbothered by the towering buildings, undeterred by the looming Dreadwalkers, and even unfazed by the mighty height of the great wall itself, stretching toward the very heavens.
It was the face of a serpent. A Godly serpent. A Catastrophic serpent.
Bearing its fangs, the immense, catastrophic serpent fixed its gaze on the slumped figures standing atop the wall.
Then, with a sudden hiss that pierced the air, it halted.
Slowly, it began to slither toward the wall.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The cannon fired once again, but all that resulted was a slight ripple across the serpent's massive, misty tail made of thick fog.
Dorian could only watch helplessly as it swallowed him whole, along with everything around him.
The world was eaten by a snake!