Belgianfri
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Chapter 158: A painful conflict.
🕑 Added 2023-01-15 13:15:47 +0000 UTCWhen the light faded, Emeri and I found ourselves surrounded by a thick, hazy mist. Her body had turned translucent, strangely, and when I looked down at my own hands, I found out that the same had happened to me. I felt neither hot nor cold, nor hungry or fulfilled. It felt as if I was floating, like I could phase through objects. In fact, it felt similar to when I used [Ghost apparition].
“Are you alright?” I asked, concerned. My voice came out like a hoarse whisper, though my throat felt fine.
“I am.” I heard, in a similar voice as my own. Had we turned into ghosts? Had we died? I shook those thoughts off. For now, we only knew that we had become translucent.
Emeri joined me in looking for a sign of life, but the thick mist hindered us from seeing more than a few meters in front of us.
Suddenly, the mist started to lift. The ground beneath our feet gained texture and colour, though I still couldn’t feel it. Our surroundings lit up and as the mist abated, we found out we were in a village of some sort.
Wooden cabin’s were arranged neatly along the path and a village square was visible in the distance. Furthermore, there were people! Emeri walked up to a farmer that was passing through, pulling a rickety cart of hay behind him.
“Hello there. I’m afraid my friend and I…” She stopped. The farmer hadn’t even spared a look in her direction. Instead he just continued walking. Walking throughEmeri, in fact.
“What the…” I mumbled under my breath. We were intangible and invisible.
Emeri turned to me. “This is a vision. One that Helios himself imparted on us.” She proclaimed confidently, as if there was no other possibility.
I sighed, but nodded anyway, indulging her. As if Helios would bother showing us anything…
We continued deeper into the village, until we reached the village square. Sure enough, no one acknowledged our presence or heard our words. However, there seemed to be something going on at the church. Emeri had quickly gotten convinced that Helios was trying to impart some kind of holy message upon us, so she eagerly half-walked, half-floated inside. The tiny church was the only building in the village made out of stone, and it’s architecture was only vaguely similar to the churches I was familiar with.
Once inside, we found out that the place was packed to the brim. At the center of the church, two priests were arguing. One was dressed in red garb that I wasn’t familiar with, while the other was wearing green. Neither were something I had ever seen any priest wear before. They only wore white and gold, right? As we got closer, their argument began to escalate. In fact, they had nearly gotten to the point of starting a fistfight!
“Leave your hedonistic heresy on the other side of the river!” The green priest shouted.
“Aritsi be praised, your god of plants only intends to use these happy people as nourishment! Listen not to this traitor to humanity, people! Aritsi can give you the freedom you desire by your very nature! Listen not to this…” his chant was cut off by a right hook that sent him tumbling to the ground. The green priest had had enough and charged at him while he was still caught off guard. The red priest wasn’t an easy target though, and gave as good as he got. Different skills were used, and people started to clear out of the building before they got hurt. The priests were only tier 2 or so, but their passion was commendable. There was one thing that stood out to me, though.
“Neither of those priests served Helios.” I commented idly.
Emeri grit her teeth, but didn’t respond.
Before the fight could spread, a voice of reason finally appeared. A handsome young man wearing a single broadsword and simple clothing entered the church with a young boy in tow. With a single movement, he pulled the priests apart.
“Don’t squabble like children!” he chastised them. Neither priest relented from their intense stare down, even as the young man held them at bay. Eventually, the red priest was the first to give. He broke eye contact with the other priest and shook the young man’s grip on his shoulder off.
With the parting words “This isn’t the end…” he stalked out of the little church and, presumably, left the village.
“I should thank you, young man. Are you a fellow believer of Ormitros?” the green priest asked suspiciously, once he had been released.
The young man shook his head. “I don’t believe in any god. They only exist to divide us.” The young man countered.
The priest’s face turned red in fury. “Then I suggest you leave this holy ground, non-believing spawn.” He bit out. “May Ormitros have mercy on you, misguided child.”
The young man snorted and left in a huff, while the young boy followed along silently.
“We have to follow them! That young man looked like the statue of Helios!” Emeri said quickly, before running after their disappearing figures. I ran after her, excited to see more of that legendary classer, before he became a god. Was it heresy to even think that?
Before we made it out of the church, however, the mist enveloped us again. For a moment, we were scared the vision would end. Thankfully, the mist cleared up a little later.
This time, we were near the edge of the village, where we found the two from before sitting down near a deserted tree on the outskirts of the village. They were eating a dry-looking piece of bread, while conversing. Or, more accurately, while the young man spoke to the boy, the boy didn’t respond.
“They’ll see the truth one day, sunny. Those damned preachers fight their wars and have their battles, while the people suffer. Even if their so-called ‘gods’ were real, they would still be parasites. This world doesn’t need any of those.” The young man preached.
‘Sunny, meanwhile, just continued to stare at his companion.
“Hah!” the young man laughed, “Maybe I should become a god, myself. If I united all religions under me, there’d be no more war…” he mused. Sunny’s eyes went wide.
The mist came back in, much to Emeri’s visible frustration and my hidden amusement. It took a few for it to clear up this time, but once it finally did, we wished it hadn’t. We were standing in the same village square from before. This time, though, many of the nearby cabins had been set aflame. Classers dressed in blood-red armor marched through the village, slaughtering villagers whenever they encountered them. Even the kids.
The church belonging to that nature god wasn’t doing well either. Its priest hung from the church bell by his neck. His blood dripped onto the dirt below.
Emeri didn’t take the sight well. She was mortified, so shocked she just stood there for a while, unable to respond. Even I felt sick to my stomach from the senseless slaughtered. At least I couldn’t smell the blood, or feel the wind. I could only see and hear their anguish, which made it easier. On top of that, my affinity made it easier to shut out the pain of others, which came in handy for once.
“We have to find those two kids!” Emeri shouted, suddenly breaking out of her shock, before running in the other direction. I ran after her, but tried to dissuade her. Those kids would probably be dead by now…
“And do what, Emeri? We can’t help them in this state!” I shouted after her.
“I- I have to see it, at least.” She whispered, almost inaudibly.
Soon enough we found them. Surprisingly, they were both still alive. The older boy was wielding his simple-looking weapon and using it to defend the younger boy. He blocked a few attacks from the Aritsi followers, but was clearly on the back foot. Outnumbered and outclassed, his time was coming to an end soon. Already, he was covered in bleeding wounds.
“Sunny, I want you to run. Go to the inn I told you about in Yrma, tell them my name. They’ll take care of you there…” he whispered to the young boy. Sunny shook his head stubbornly and grasped onto the young man’s clothing, unwilling to let go.
The young man, however, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He grabbed sunny and threw him straight into the air, towards the edge of the village a dozen meters away. He must have used a skill, because sunny got up pretty quickly. Then, the young man shouted some kind of skill-infused roar. It sent the Aritsi followers into a rage, while sunny started to run for his life in the other direction.
Though sunny couldn’t see it, the young man was pierced by half a dozen swords in the chest. He stopped moving. By then, sunny had already disappeared into the forest. Clearly, I had been looking at the wrong person since the start. Something told me sunny would be the one to make his friend’s dream come true, in the end. So Helios had been a person at one point.
