Everything had gone according to the initial plan so far, like a well-rehearsed opera-performance.
As I had guessed, The Wujins were an extreme case of a hivemind. What made them specifically such a huge threat was not even their sheer numbers and the pure vicious nature of them. It was the Queen.
The Queen – if I had to assume – had better leader qualities and general traits than most of human politicians in our current era. She was a true leader, and her intelligence, despite the fact that it was a monster, was frightening.
Monsters were supposed to be mindless creatures, not capable of complex, intricate thought processes. But what the Wujin queen did was beyond one could expect. The only reason why I was able to still outplay its defences, because I continued to overestimate the specific criteria of monsters.
I had thought of it as a veteran army general.
And I am glad I did so. Because even when I executed my actions using this thought process, I still had a hard time. It would've been easier if the soldier and commander Wujins could think on their own since that would bring other uncontrollable factors into play.
However, much to my dismay, they were like puppets attached to strings to her. They could not even breathe without her. This absolute dominion over her subjects, coupled with intelligence was something that – if not dealt with in due time – could result in a total wipeout of a whole city in a few minutes.
I suppose it was our – humans' – luck that me and Michael were teleported here.
Just as the Wujin was my natural enemy, I was its natural adversary as well.
1/3 of the whole fleet was immobilised after it passed through the ravine that I had told Michael to make. Using it as a chokepoint, I had lodged many swords there with their metallic surfaces pointing outwards. This – when imbued with a specific frequency of a sound wave – acted as an antenna.
During my previous fight with Ed, something had happened to me. I am not sure if it was my paranoia or something else, but I had morphed into someone that was not me. An irrational beast who had nothing on his mind, save for pure bloodlust and the undying urge to kill.
That was not me. Despite the vague, hazy past of myself, I could tell this much.
When I gained my rationality, I felt someone was watching from afar. Someone much, much stronger than Ed. He could've attacked, but he didn't. It was strange, but it told me a few things.
The main thing was that the person in question wanted to talk.
Just so I could talk with the person and not get interrupted by a vengeance seeking son, I had Michael take a role which didn't tire him out but at the same time made him look like a really big nuisance if not removed in due time.
And while talking to someone from Eden who has nothing on their minds other than killing us was one of the most stupid things a human could do, it was still worth a shot.
Ed didn't immediately attack me. He wanted to talk things out.
And the one who was stronger than Ed didn't attack as well. He just merely observed from afar and even suppressed his aura.
As I watched Michael engage in a full-blown fight against Ed, I breathed out a sigh of relief. As I had guessed, I was not targeted.
I suppose that person will be coming soon as well. As I jumped off the pile of corpses, a huge runes inscribed circle stretched over the entire place before I could even step on the solid ground.
I suppose I miscalculated. Or perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, but this doesn't feel like a thing a person who is in a mood to negotiate would do.
"Technique Deployment." The Demon who had introduced himself as Jayden Cromwell mumbled with a huge grin over his face. "Requiem of Eternal Rest."
The entire expanse suddenly turned white. My eyes snapped shut for a brief moment. However, I snapped them open, mild panic slowly rising from the pit of my stomach.
I was trapped. There was no way I could get out of a Technique Deployment. Nor did I have a way to counter it.
The only chance that I had was…
I looked up at the sky which was now the same bright white as everything else around me. I was trapped in separate—for the lack of better words—pocket dimension. My sole chance of making it out alive, my trump card, was not yet here.
I was in a deep mire of odds callously stacked against me.
Before my lips could move to say something… anything to buy time, shadows seeped into the white static void, twisting and coalescing as it turned the monotonic world into a grim and bleak graveyard.
Hoary, gnarled trees loomed overhead, bare branches clawing at the grim, murky sky like bony fingers.
The ground was a heterogeneously eclectic jumble of cracked earth and decaying leaves, broken only by rows of crooked, weathered tombstones between the wide columns.
Small graves sprouted in every direction, each one marred by crumbling stones that were covered in disarrayed moss, clumps of clay and ivy.
A thick mist swirled around the graves, clinging to the ground and then raising upwards until it covered my ankles. My feet seemed to squish, as if trapped in a viscous solution of something uncongenial.
Worn paths wounded through the cemetery, leading to deeper shadows and hidden corners that stretched for as far as my eye could see.
A chill ran down my spine. As I looked back, a solitary Christian Cross—or that is what it seemed like—hung from nothing, silhouetted against the darkening horizon.
By the time I returned my gaze back at Jayden, he had already removed his hand from his eye, signalling the completion of his Technique Deployment. He stood straight, his arms clasped behind his back and he had a vulpine grin on his face.
I waited, looking solemnly at the man in front of me whose mere presence seemed to scorch the air in my lungs. It was painful to breathe, further punctuated by the usage of Slipstream which I had exploited way more than what my body could handle.
My left arm seemed fairly silent, and I couldn't move it freely. Even curling my fingers sent such jolts of pain through my left arm that I had to bite my tongue to suppress the groan. However, the pain also filled me with some hope. It was not lost.
I had just exhausted it.
But I couldn't dwell on the slight glimmer of hope for too long.
I was trapped inside a Technique Deployment, an environment crafted specifically for the user's advantage. No amount of effort or strategy could save me from this situation.
Except for external help. Unfortunately, Michael was unable to use even his Arcane Art, let alone perform a Technique Deployment.
'Fuu…' I breathed out.
Every inhale felt like a shard of glass scraping against my throat and lungs, scuffing against my tongue like sandpaper being forcefully rubbed against it.
My body screamed at me to not even think about it, however, I had to try it. Expanding my senses, I tried to look for it.
Any small presence of a spark. Anything at all. His technique deployment was already complete. However, if I managed to get out of here using Slipstream, at least I could avoid getting killed with one strike.
But any sort of connection I had with the outside world was severed and I couldn't even feel the naturally occurring fields that usually exist all around us. Not just the fields, even the ambient Arcanum felt out of reach.
I tried to fight against it, the hold—or rather the void that had been created around us, shutting down everything for me. But nothing budged. Like the bond of an atom, it refused to let go of each other, maintaining the hardened shape.
"Your efforts, despite how futile, are quite amusing to witness, human." Jayden's voice reached my ears. However, unlike how one would normally perceive someone's voice, it was like a murmur.
Like a ghostly apparition whispering—above and beneath, from my sides and even from underneath the ankle length slimy liquid that filled the entire inner domain of the Technique Deployment.
The voice was garbled.
Or was it my ears that were so heavy that even my heartbeat now felt like hearing to something underwater? I couldn't tell.
I didn't, or rather, couldn't reply.
My limbs were weak, and the last flickers of Arcanum danced erratically inside my primary node, ready to vanish at any given moment.
I struggled to steady my breath, desperately clinging to the Arcanum, refusing to let it slip away. Like a child clutching a beloved toy, unwilling to let go. My fingers trembled as I straightened my hunched back.
My breath gave out a slight quiver, audibly as I swallowed a spiky, dried lump of saliva.
"Judging by the typical progression of human ageing, despite your rather vintage appearance—at least according to us—you seem quite youthful," he mused as he picked a stray lock of his curly hair and gently eased out the tangle that it had formed around his front horns. "Your level of talent and power at such a young age…" He raised a genuinely curious brow as he continued. "Is quite remarkable. I must admit, it's almost flattering to be in your presence."
There was no hint of sarcasm in his voice. His words felt genuine, and his face shadowed with an equally honest blend of curiosity and mild amusement.
"I don't think you are in a situation where you need to delay killing me." I spoke for the first time, keeping my voice from cracking as I willed the little Arcanum that I had left to speed up the healing process of my body. "Unless."
I paused deliberately, the frigid pain shooting from my left arm feeling like a barrage of spikes of ice stabbing it. The loss of blood from my torn muscles and cuts was catching up to me.
My vision blurred and doubled over as the last wisps of Arcanum in my node sputtered out, leaving the healing process to decelerate to a near standstill, reverting to its natural, sluggish pace.
"Unless?" He arched a brow, faking a puzzled expression. "Let's hear it."
"You either want to negotiate," I rasped through a ragged exhale, every word a struggle beyond words, "or you never intended to fight humans at all. Right from the start" My voice wavered, filled with the weight of exhaustion and the direness of the situation, as my body trembled, barely holding on.
There was no point in delaying our conversation. I could not syphon any Arcanum present in the air. It was inaccessible. I had already expelled any thought of fighting back. Because I might've had the slightest of chances if I was on 100% of my Arcanum reserves.
"Interesting choice of words." He took a step forward. He was standing on the surface of the viscid, syrupy liquid that was subtle holding me in place. As he walked, the water body? underneath let out loud wet squelches. "Or should I say an interesting line of thought?"
A step he never took brought him right in front of me. His form was towering over me, looking down with no visible emotion on his face. I kept my back straight, refusing to neither bend underneath the growing ache in my spine due to the symbiote's attack a day ago nor the growing pressure of Jayden's aura that weighed down slowly at me like a boulder.
"That is a question to be left to your own interpretation of my words." I spoke again, keeping my words measured. "Afterall, I am not the one with options in the current scenario."
He looked down at me with a frown. He was quite tall and looking up at him tired my neck. However, just as the silent stare down was about to get suffocatingly oppressive, he replied. However, it was strange.
It was oddly familiar, like a whisper of the past. Someone I had talked to. Someone whose voice would follow me, even after her death.
Jayden's looming shadow had wilted and a wave went through his entire skin. It felt like a million different bugs were crawling right underneath his skin, each mandible and sensory appendage's silhouette marked along the pale skin.
Before I could look away, or even blink, the tall stature shrivelled down, like a person disappearing behind the silk curtain in a magic trick. His clothes undulated in the air for a few seconds before plopping with a squishy sound.
But before it could make contact, I blinked- hesitatingly, and it was gone too.
A voice. Like a sharp knife slithered across my skin, raising gooseflesh across my body.
I didn't bother to turn around. There was no killing intent. And even if it was subdued, there was no reason for me to panic. It was better to stand in place and save as much breath as I could.
In the far distance, far beyond the 'walls' of this Technique Deployment, across the sky, the towering translucent dome—I felt something. A source of power. A source that felt like my own, yet so distinct... brutish that I dislodged the idea from my mind.
It was inching closer. With every second.
Closing in while tearing the fabric that separated us, battering the atmosphere itself. I couldn't tell what it was. Was it the effect of Michael and Ed fighting?
I couldn't tell. My senses weren't heightened enough to tell such intricacies apart.
"So, you know how it feels to be on the other side of the cutting board, human?"
It was a familiar voice. I shouldn't have doubted my senses. The cause was Jayden Cromwell, of course, but the voice did not belong to him.
I slowly turned my head to my left, looking in a straight line to my shoulder. A head peaked in, slightly tugging at my roughed-up sleeve.
As I looked down, I let out a deep, shaky breath.
It was a woman.
A woman well past her prime.
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.
"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 didn'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. Turns 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 felt myself frowning. For some reason that comment annoyed me. "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.