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Arc#4 Epilogue: The Angel in the Dark
🕑 Added 2024-10-14 03:43:11 +0000 UTCUnder the dark cyan sky, Viktor Suprana idly stared out into the bleak and horrifying landscape that filled the world they knew as the Outlands.
Or what he could see of it, that is. Which, to be honest, wasn't very far.
Because of Outland's strange fog, an Ascendent's seventh sense was made useless in this place. Ironically, that meant his hearing—far superior to that of a human's—was a lot more useful here than anywhere else. That made him a worthy commander of the investigation team sent out to search for clues of a sentient civilization—of which they've found a lot in previous expeditions.
This expedition was a tad bit different, however, given how far they were from the portal as well as the sheer number of Ascendant knights involved. Excluding him and his assigned adjutant, there were a whopping one hundred Ascendants in this party. A staggering force capable of leveling a nation in minutes if left to their own devices. None of them were newbies either, every single one of them being experienced veterans who’ve been in service longer than Viktor’s life.
It would be a tremendous loss for Aizen if their entire contingent was wiped out by some random Transcendent Nightmare Spawn, though. This was also why they'd spent months sending out feelers before fully investing in a long expedition.
Plus, they had their own preparations. Even if a Transcendent did show up out of nowhere, Viktor and the others wouldn't be utterly helpless. They'd all likely end up dead, sure. But at least they'd take the other side with them.
'What a shitty place. Wonder what happened to make it like this... Or was it like this from the start? Hmm...'
The soil was black with a mysterious corruption that nobody, not even the Sword Star, could completely fathom. Trees looked like they were simply shadows shaped to mimic plant life. His hypersensitive nose might as well have fallen off from the putrid stench that filled the air, seemingly a mix of brimstone, the gunk you found in swamps, and a moldy pair of socks. In essence, it smelled like everything horrible you could think of put together and it took all his willpower just to stop himself from gagging.
It was a horrid place to be in and he really wished he never had to come back. Of course, he knew that he had to, but one couldn't fault a man for dreaming, right?
"Commander. It's time to switch."
"Right. Thanks." Viktor looked back and found a knight decked head to toe in armor, which wasn't strange because everybody was constantly in full knightly regalia at all times. Even him.
One never knew what could show up around here, after all.
"You know you don't have to join the watch, Sir Viktor." The knight, who Viktor recognized as a knight with a penchant for womanizing, emerged from the thick white mist, which was noticeably different from the one that hindered perception in the Outlands.
"Eh, I'd feel bad if I didn't." Viktor shrugged with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Plus, I'd have to deal with Her Majesty more often if I stay in camp."
"Pff. C'mon, she's not that bad. People'd think you were talking about the queen if they heard you."
"You don't have her as an adjutant, so you don't get to say anything."
“Ah, well, knights normally don’t work together like this. So you could say having an adjutant at all is a privilege.”
“Privilege, my ass. Anyway, I’ll try to get some rest before we depart. Stay sharp out here.”
“Will do, Commander. Will do.”
Viktor gave his colleague a friendly tap on the shoulder before walking past him, into the thick white mist that both concealed and protected their camp. The moment his skin made contact with it, he immediately felt the mist "accept" him. In a short moment, his perception linked with the mist, allowing him to know everything that happened everywhere it occupied. It was a normally impossible phenomenon in the Outlands, but here it was anyway.
Within the mist was a modest camp where around fifty Ascendants were sitting cross-legged in the air, meditating to recover their essence or chewing on rations to stave off the boredom. The others were just outside of the mist, serving as lookouts for anything too powerful for the mist to kill on its own.
Placed around the campsite, as if to act as a border, were seven sword-like banners with the Aizenian wolf embroidered with threads of gold on blue. These were gifts from the Sword Star that the old man had apparently been making precisely for the day he left the portal unattended.
There were twenty such banners, refined by a Transcendent for centuries. The other thirteen had been placed around the portal in case anything thought they could get lucky. With these Transcendent artifacts, the expedition wouldn’t be unconditionally wiped out by a passing Transcendent.
Hopefully.
Well, they still could, but at least the other side would have to bleed for it. They would just have to wish that the threatening aura released by the banners warded off the true monsters of this place.
As for his adjutant, who was responsible for the strange white mist serving as their only way to increase perception in this damned place, she was likely within the only structure in the entire camp—a small hut.
It was made of earth that looked like normal stone, which didn't exist in the Outlands. And since she herself didn't have the earth attribute, she must have ordered someone else to build it for her. It was especially apparent given how much essence was packed into it, making the unsuspecting hut a surprisingly good protective structure.
'Abuse of authority...'
Viktor didn't bother trying to stop himself from sighing. It wasn't such a big deal, really. The hut looked like it could take a couple of hits from an Ascendant before it went down, so it would serve to shield a high-value member of their party who single-handedly made this expedition feasible.
But what annoyed him was how the woman inside probably didn’t care about that. She just wanted her own closed-off space. He had to listen to her intermittent complaints about it these past few weeks so he could tell.
‘Bah, whatever. It feels like I’ll lose if I get angry.’
A few of the knights around him opened their eyes to greet him with a nod as he passed by. He returned the greeting with a nod of his own, unwilling to break the silence. Eventually, he made it to the earthen structure where all the mist was coming from, signaling that his adjutant was inside.
Strangely, he couldn’t perceive her at all. But given how she controlled the mist, she could probably prevent people from peering at her.
“Lamorak,” Viktor called out once he stepped inside. “Who the hell told you that building crap like this is okay?”
“Eh, what’s the harm? I’m trying so hard, don’t I deserve some perks? Like some gosh darned privacy? Privacy’s really important, you know?”
With a snort, Viktor noticed a wooden stool to the side of the room with his name carved into it for some reason so he graciously used it. His gaze then fell on the ebony-haired young woman lounging on a canopy bed placed smack dab in the middle of the hut.
‘Who the hell puts their bed in the middle of the room like that…? It's really bothering...’
Viktor decided not to ask. It didn’t really matter and he felt like the reason would piss him off.
Lamorak Mercer—one of the Twelve Helms and also given the title of “Mistweaver”—took a pull from her pipe and blew out a stream of smoke, all while smiling at him as if everything was right and peachy.
Like all the people who came from the Mercer bloodline, Lamorak looked like she was made to be the muse of a masterpiece-level painting. Dark hair and equally dark eyes, with pearly white skin—truly the trademark of the most respected family in Aizen other than the royal family. Her lithe and curvy figure was on display too, given how she—annoyingly enough—wasn’t wearing the gods damned armor she was supposed to wear at all times, instead opting for just her uniform.
That said, she had a certain edge to her presence that set off certain alarm bells in Viktor’s head. Something roiling off the top of her skin like a viscous shell. An armor of invisible malice. It was an instinctive thing that most people would miss.
Despite not knowing what it was called, Viktor wasn’t unfamiliar with it. He felt the same thing when looking at people of a certain specialization. The greatest examples he could think of were Valter and that insidious brat, Mordred.
Viktor’s nose wrinkled just a bit. Rather than blood, their scent evoked dark and sinister impressions on him, as if the countless lives they had reaped clung to them and festered.
It wasn’t as if Viktor was some kind of saint, nor did he think of himself as such. He, like them, had killed people too. Reaching his level of strength meant that he’d gotten into a few scraps.
There were Ascendants that had probably slain thousands or tens of thousands of people. But people like Valter, Mordred, and Lamorak were… different.
Viktor wouldn’t be able to describe it all that well. But he felt as if people like them had grown so proficient at killing that they derived some sort of twisted satisfaction out of it. A method. Or some kind of aesthetic.
Hell, the literal Sword Star had probably killed an insurmountable number of people in his extremely long and arduous life, yet Viktor didn’t feel that something from him.
Given the appearance of the portal to the Outlands and the relative peace with Aizen’s neighbors, most knights were a lot more experienced fighting Nightmares Spawns than people. As such, this breed of knights who were masters of killing fellow humans was rare and dying.
That made them stand out all the more to him.
‘Looks can truly be deceiving, sometimes.’
Who would have thought that this delicate beauty smoking drugs was such a person? Viktor certainly wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t noticed the signs.
“Don’t be so uptight, Commander. It’ll be fine. I can purge the effects any time I want,” Lamorak said with an easygoing smile as she offered her pipe. “Want some? It’s good stuff. Premium Skybliss leaves.”
“How can that even affect you when you’re an Ascendant…?”
“If I purposely let it, it’s fine. There’s a trick to it.”
“I should write you up for this.”
Lamorak let her head fall back on the bed, staring up at the canopy bed’s ceiling with a loose face. “I was starting to go on withdrawal… Cut me some slack, please? Look, I’ll even give you this thing I found.”
Viktor frowned, looking at the object that rolled over to his feet after being pushed out from under the bed by what he assumed to be the mist Lamorak was releasing from her bare feet.
‘What even is this?’
“It’s an Outland rock shaped like a wolf’s head. See?” she said, as if reading his thoughts.
Viktor picked it up and when he really tried to, he could see the resemblance to a wolf. There were signs that it was artificially shaped, so it wasn’t all that impressive. “You can’t fool me with this crap. What if the mist gets compromised while your mind’s three mountains Sword Sanctums high in the sky?”
Lamorak shook her head before briefly sitting up to take another puff. Right after, she let herself fall back into bed again. “The mist I make is already trained to act even without me babysitting it so it’s fine.”
“How does that even…” Viktor shook his head and sighed. He probably wouldn’t understand her explanation anyway. For some reason, talented kids from House Mercer were horrible teachers.
And among the talented, Lamorak was certainly up there. She was born with three elemental affinities, after all: those being the Mercer’s prided [Wind] along with her mother’s [Water]. Then she was randomly blessed with the [Fire] affinity too.
The Mistweaver was the result of tremendous talent, the optimal environment to raise a knight, and hard work. Viktor just wasn’t seeing the last part right now.
‘I heard she could force the mist inside through the pores and then boil people from the inside.’
He wasn’t sure how that would work against fellow Ascendants, but Viktor certainly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a test run. Well, he could probably deal with it by freezing the mist, if he really had to. But judging by how seemingly little effort it took for her to produce enough mist to encompass such a large area, Viktor would likely lose in a battle of attrition.
They had sparred a decade or two ago and Viktor had beaten her along with all the other Twelve Helms. That had gotten him the title of the strongest knight below the Sword Star.
But that was just a spar.
Punches were pulled and the truly lethal techniques never came out. None of them wanted to kill their colleagues and rob the kingdom of strength. That was why even Viktor didn’t let the wins get to his head.
At the very least, the Everpresent and Mordred could kill him rather easily if they really wanted to, given their special skillsets and expertise. And maybe Lamorak could do it too, who knows?
‘Well, it’s good that I don’t ever have to think of a countermeasure for her because we’re on the same side.’
Viktor scoffed and stood up. “I wasted my breath here.”
“Leaving already?”
“I’m giving you that privacy you want so much.”
“I don’t actually mind you being here, y’know? Stay a while."
"And what? Drink tea and eat cookies?"
"If you have any, feel free to take 'em out. But other than that, we can chat about... uh... whatever it is people chat about these days. How about the weather?”
"Here? Weather's been the same as always. Dark and shitty."
"True enough."
Viktor rolled his eyes and left the hut, his perception of Lamorak and the hut’s interior immediately cutting off. He then picked a free spot on the floor and sat on the air a meter above it, preparing to meditate.
During his turn on the watch earlier, he only needed to take out four Ascendant Nightmare Spawns along with a few hundred mortal ones. He’d gotten away with just using brute force on those, so he actually didn’t need much rest. But he’d rather spend his free time restoring himself to full than loitering uselessly.
Just as he was about to begin, however, Lamorak suddenly burst out of her hut. She looked alert and quite unlike her previous appearance, making it very clear that something had happened. Her lack of manifested armor meant it wasn’t urgent though.
“What is it?” Viktor turned to her and raised a brow. “Found something?”
“You can say that.” Lamorak gestured to the north. Or what counted as north for them. Directions were a bit whimsical in this world. “Fly with me.”
“Just us?”
“It’s not that dangerous. Let the others rest.”
“What about the mist?”
“We won’t go far enough for it to matter. I don't need to be in the middle of it, you know? Come on.”
Viktor nodded and followed her lead. Despite her words, caution still dictated for him to take one of the Sword Banners from the campsite’s perimeter, implying that the others should readjust the other six. Unfortunately, these powerful artifacts destroyed any spatial artifact they were put in, so they had to be lugged around manually.
As they left the comforts of the white mist and reunited with Outland’s atrocious conditions, Viktor casually waved a dismissive hand at the other knights who’d been standing guard outside, signaling them that everything was fine and they should stay in their positions.
It didn’t take long for Lamorak to stop and point downward.
Now, Ascendants had their perception—their seventh sense—significantly hampered in the Outlands. Hampered didn’t mean disabled, however, so they exceeded a mortal’s vision even if they’d fully adapted to the Outlands. An Ascendant could still watch a mortal without them noticing at all.
A mortal like the one they were looking at.
“That thing doesn’t look like a spawn…” Viktor muttered as he squinted. “That doesn’t even look human.”
“Looks human enough to me,” Lamorak said with a grin. “Just, with large black wings. And half-naked.”
‘Wings…’
Viktor didn’t know of any races that had similar features. Even in his homeland in the Eastern Continent.
There were avian-type Warbeast tribes but none of them actually had wings while in human form. Sometimes, their legs would be bird-like. Most of the time, though, they would simply transform into a form that allowed flight after learning beastification, but had no flight capabilities before that whatsoever.
The entity he was watching was different.
They appeared just like an ordinary human teenage girl with a tunic that looked like it should accept its fate as a rag. Aside from the beautiful black wings sprouting from her back, she didn’t have any additional eyes or any other strange appendages.
The dark-haired girl was just a young lady with wings and strikingly red eyes.
‘She’s flying though. And quite fast for a mortal too. Interesting.’
It didn’t make sense how a human body could be supported by such small wings. It looked as if they were almost twice as tall as the person they were attached to, but the problem was how the wings weren't large in comparison to the weight of the person they were carrying. They must have been infused with some sort of racial ability—similar to how Warbeasts had Beastification and enhanced senses.
‘In any case…’
“Should we save her?” Lamorak asked. “There’s a high chance she belongs to the civilization we’ve seen signs of.”
The winged young woman was currently being chased by a small horde of nightmare spawns. And by small, Viktor meant a cute number of about three hundred. Hordes could grow up to tens of thousands after all.
All of the little bundles of monstrosity were mortals, however. If one of them had been an Ascendant, there wouldn’t have even been a chase. The girl would have already been digested or turned into something grotesque. Though the girl was doing quite well in fleeing mortal nightmares, that would become moot when an Ascendant came along.
‘Well, we finally found what we’ve been looking for. Can’t let the kid die.’
With a shrug, Viktor casually snapped his fingers and the entire horde of myriad nightmare spawns chasing the winged girl turned into ice statues for a moment before shattering into countless pieces.
Lamorak then began descending. “Let’s give our little damsel in distress a closer look, shall we?”
Viktor followed after he dematerialized his helm. He didn’t want the native to think he was some kind of metal golem or something. Once he reached the ground, Viktor immediately noticed that the girl was already talking.
In another language, that is.
The girl smiled with apparent relief and seemed to be thanking them. Viktor naturally couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the fact that their neighbors from the other side of the portal could express gratitude at all was a good sign that they could be reasoned with.
“I can’t understand a word she’s saying, Commander.” Lamorak turned to him with a disappointed look on her face. “And I was really interested in talking with someone from this side too.”
“Did you seriously expect we’d have a similar language to them?”
“Who’s to say we can’t? I mean, isn’t the concept of other worlds strange enough already?”
“This isn’t the time to talk about this crap. Let’s get back to the topic of the literal alien we’ve encountered.”
The moment they started talking, the girl tilted her head and started slowly backing away with caution.
‘Hm. Strange. She doesn’t seem to be confused about humans…?’
There was no wonder in the girl’s eyes or any attempt to confirm if Viktor and Lamorak had wings as she did. Furthermore, it was almost as if the girl considered the two of them immediate allies just for being humans. The only reason she reacted the way he did was because he discovered that they spoke different languages, making the girl realize that Viktor and Lamorak weren’t what she thought they were.
‘Are there humans here as well?’
That was, in his mind, not a wild assumption to make given all the clues.
“Hm?” Viktor grunted as he noticed the girl pointing somewhere. “What is it?”
The girl seemed agitated to say the least. In fact, she seemed about ready to grab them if she wasn’t so afraid of them. She was furiously pointing in a certain direction, trying to explain something in her language. Naturally, the two knights couldn’t understand a lick of whatever it was she was spouting.
“I don’t know about you, Commander.” Lamorak gestured at the winged girl. “But I think she’s asking for help.”
Viktor grunted as he stabbed the Sword Banner into the ground. “She could also be warning us that a horde of Transcendents are coming from that direction.”
“That’s a scary thought. We’d be goners for sure!” she exclaimed as she took out her pipe and a packet of skybliss. “Ah, well. It was a good life. Might as well use up as much of my stock as I can. Before I go, and all that. MMaybe if I'm high enough, I won't feel anything.”
“Stop wasting time and make a scout.” Viktor snarled.
“Haha. So uptight. I’m just kidding~! I’m already working on it. Look over there.”
Viktor, his brows furrowed, looked toward their base and saw a flock of white doves, each made completely out of mist. The flock flew over their heads and scouted the area ahead. Each of the doves was connected to Lamorak’s mind, so she could see from all of them at the same time, making her the perfect person to explore the Outlands with.
‘And I still don’t understand how she can do it.’
Knights could conjure elemental attacks that mimicked beasts when they used Aetherblade arts, but those weren’t actually alive. On the other hand, Lamorak’s mist creations were imbued with something she called “The Fire of Life” or whatever the hell that was—meaning they were kind of alive.
And that meant they could send her information.
Or they could blow up. Also, they could just attach themselves to someone and become superheated, essentially boiling the victim's flesh off. She used them against him when they sparred a long time ago.
“See anything?” Viktor asked after a respectable amount of time had passed. He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder to keep her from running off or doing anything stupid—like attacking them.
“Nothing yet…” Lamorak, her eyes closed, had already lit her pipe and taken a pull of skybliss despite his earlier rebuke.
Viktor nodded, leaving her to do her work. Also, he decided not to say anything about the blatant use of narcotics. He was starting to think she needed them to help with her technique’s side effects. If any existed, that is.
‘She could’ve told me if that was the case.’
If it was for work, he obviously would have allowed it. But he’d initially thought she was just getting high for leisure.
Suddenly, the girl tapped Viktor in the hand, and then patted her chest. “Kass-see-ah.”
After that, the winged alien pointed at Viktor.
“Cassia?” Viktor raised a brow but decided it was fine to play along.
The girl, Cassia, nodded with a smile. She then pointed at him and tilted her head.
Understanding what she wanted, he said his name slowly. “Viktor.”
“Veeek. Tooor?”
“Vik. Tor.”
“Viktur?”
Shrugging, Viktor sighed as he placed a hand on the girl’s head. “Eh. Close enough. I don’t really care, to be honest.”
‘It’s not my real name, anyway.’
Cassia seemed confused by the physical touch but not repulsed. Just perplexed at how to feel, perhaps. While he was at it, he procured a spare cloak he kept around just so he could copy it with his Soul Armament and gave it to her. Since, it was sized for him, it was absolutely huge on her. Luckily, it should also be enough to cover her and her wings.
As he was frowning over how to fasten it while not hurting her, his fellow knight spoke up.
“Ah, I think I found what this little birdie was trying to tell us about.” Lamorak opened her eyes and took another deliberately long pull from her pipe, stretching Viktor’s patience. “There’s a fight.”
“Mortals?”
“No, the mortals are cowering. Or dead. Mostly dead. Lots of dead. Three Ascendants are fighting off eight—no, it's seven Ascendant spawns now. They seem to be holding their ground quite well, all things considered. No wounds or anything.”
Viktor frowned, shaking Cassia’s head a little and causing her wings to burst out of her cloak in shock, as if the feathers were razor-sharp blades. “Do they look like this girl who just ruined a perfectly good cloak?”
“The mortals do. The Ascendants have four wings. Oh, and they’re properly clothed. Not like this little one, who makes beggars look well-dressed.”
‘That’s… close enough, I suppose. Are the wings some kind of bloodline ability and so the number depends on one’s realm? Eh, it doesn’t matter. Let the scholars research this.’
Viktor pushed Cassia toward Lamorak and pulled the Sword Banner out of the ground. “Get this kid back to base. We’re retreating after this. Get the others ready.”
“Eh? I wanna go see too. All my familiars got popped by the shockwaves from their fight so I can’t see now.”
“If it’s just seven, I can handle it on my own.” Viktor frowned. “Besides, on the off-chance I die, you take command.”
Lamorak grimaced as her shoulders slumped a little. “Please don’t die. I don’t like being in command.”
“As always, no promises… Is it just a straight shot in that direction?”
“That’s right,” she said. “If you almost fly into a mountain, you’re close.”
“Right.” Viktor rose from the ground as he winked at the winged girl. “See ya later, kid. I gotta teach you the king’s English so you can apologize for my ruined cloak.”
Leaving those words behind, Aizen’s Knight Commander carried the kingdom’s banner to battle on his own.
════════════════════════════════
Viktor flew into the site of a gruesome battlefield.
The cursed landscape was gouged out and the mountain Lamorak mentioned had been turned into a crater by the time he arrived. Spawns didn’t leave bodies behind so he couldn’t tell how many had died here, but one thing was sure: plenty of Cassia's people perished here today, their mangled bodies strewn across the scenery.
He could vaguely sense a few dozen mortals hiding somewhere underground, right above the battlefield where three four-winged people were fighting seven nightmares of varying shapes.
Just as he detected the ten combatants, they also detected him. All turned in his direction, some with feral malevolence while others with confusion.
‘I kind of wanted to take a look at how these winged people fight…’
That would have to come a bit later or not at all, however, because he’d already gotten himself revealed. Also, two of the nightmare spawns nearest to him charged forward with murder in their gazes.
Victor waited for them to get close enough before his eyes glowed golden. His muscles squirmed under the strain of barely-repressed power. With a yell, he rocketed forward while transforming into a massive white wolf. Surprised, the nearest spawn, an amalgamation of disgusting tentacles, was unprepared and was utterly ripped to shreds by his claws.
The other one followed soon after, having been too close to retreat and too weak to resist destruction.
Pleased by his kills, the urge to howl overcame him. Viktor let it run its course as he raised his head and announced his presence. It was just one of those things Warbeasts had to deal with.
Warbeasts.
To other races, they gave off the impression of mindless warmongers but this was wrong. War required both savagery and intelligence. A Warbeast possessed both, that is why they are called such.
Beastification, their innate ability, abandoned this intelligence in favor of greater savagery. And young Warbeasts always tried to resist it, afraid of losing their sanity.
But Viktor was a hundred and six years old now. He was old, though he didn’t want to admit it. And with age came wisdom and experience.
That is why he knew.
He knew that the madness was a part of him. And it shouldn’t be denied, but accepted. Nurtured, even.
Or in Vianna’s case, controlled.
‘Funny, how siblings have gone down two different extremes.’
Vianna controlled.
Viktor unleashed.
His howl gradually grew louder and louder as the surroundings were increasingly covered with a layer of frost. The other performers in this battle were not saved, their skin freezing over as well.
The whites of Viktor’s eyes were tainted by bloody roots from the exertion. Fang and claw were both laced with the chilling cold drawn from a bloodline most ancient even as his lupine body grew bulkier. His beautiful white fur glowed with the icy blue of his power and the red that used to be his blood.
His power climbed higher as his mind grew dim but all of it was simply to endure what he was about to do.
‘Flash Frost.’
The words spoken only in his mind jogged him out of his insanity, reminding his body of what it had to do.
In just a single instant, all of the power he’d built up was unleashed onto the concept of “the world”, freezing it in place.
Everything turned white as time stopped, and for that briefest of moments, the world gave him the special treatment only afforded to the pinnacle. And with that special treatment, only he was not frozen in place.
Wasting no time, he ran through the air, his legs launching off of frozen space. His body felt heavy, heavier than it had ever been. Almost as if the world was trying to pull him back to where he was supposed to be. It was like wading through a morass of snow and mud, every inch was fought for with grit and determination.
It was a slow crawl. Or that was how it felt for him, but barely even a second had passed. His body wanted to surrender, the agony warning him that his body was about to be torn apart. Yet he endured, because he knew his current form would handle it. He would not have wasted essence to use beastification if it wouldn’t.
Soon, after what seemed like an eternity, he made it to his first target. It was an ugly thing, this nightmare spawn. In the throes of madness, he couldn’t even come up with the words to describe it. All he knew was that he disliked it. No, he despised it.
Enough to crush it underfoot.
The frozen spawn shattered easily under the softest touch. A shame. And so he would move on to his next target in this frozen playground.
This one looked like a woman. A beautiful young woman at that, and with four wings whose colors he couldn’t tell because everything was white. He didn’t particularly feel anything about this one but he would destroy it too.
Because he could. Because nobody could stop him.
‘No.’
As he raised his claw, Viktor didn’t stop. He guided it toward another of the spawns. Then another. And another. Until all the spawns were gone.
And just in time too, because time broke out of the frost and motion returned to the world. Viktor’s body was pulled violently back to where he was before time was frozen, his body a mangled mess when it reached its destination.
The nightmare spawns he’d been fighting, however, did not return. A shower of shimmering sleet was the only proof that they were here at all.
‘Agh, fuck. That hits like a runaway rhino-kin.’
Viktor immediately undid his beastification. And as his body returned to its original form, so too did his madness recede, ready to be unleashed when called. His entire body was bleeding, crack-like veins under his armor leaking the essence that composed the body of all Ascendants.
As such, he retrieved a tiny pill from his spatial ring and popped it into his mouth. His injuries visibly healed and he felt rejuvenated. Even his mind seemed clearer.
‘Thank you, little nephew. I wouldn’t have been courageous enough to try such crazy things without these.’
With a smile, Viktor clenched his fists and felt the tingly sensation in his fingertips.
He had done it. Time was a concept that only Transcendents played with. Space too, supposedly, but there were ways around that, as shown by the handful of knights who could teleport.
‘I did it.’
The pinnacle was in sight.
Those seemingly insurmountable beings who stood atop the tallest mountains, who raised empires with their legends, who built the tallest towers that pierced the heavens...
These unreachable beings, were not, in fact, unreachable.
If one worked hard enough, it was possible to touch upon the feet of their brilliance. And today, Viktor proved to himself that he deserved a shot.
With this, he’d truly thrown his lot in the ring. A bid to the throne of the strongest. For he didn’t just want to be a colleague to that lonely old man atop the mountain. No, Viktor wanted to surpass him. And perhaps with that power, he could take revenge for his clan and protect his new home.
Gods be damned, it hurt though. Trial and error was a pain sometimes.
‘I supposed I’ll have Vianna to thank for this.’
They’d argued plenty of times about how to use their race’s innate ability. In this continent, where there were no other warbeasts but them, they had no teachers to guide them on this particular subject. And so, they both had to wade through the darkness and pioneer their own paths forward, with only each other to consult when they got stuck.
So while they’d disagreed, inevitably, they also learned something from the other’s path.
If Viktor hadn’t, he would have unnecessarily slain someone he didn’t have to.
‘This technique needs a lot more work.’
Viktor sighed, glad that he had something to practice on. The Sword Banner was there to help him if he was attacked while recovering too, so it was relatively safe.
‘Hm. This is why combat is necessary! Growth is fueled by strife!’
Sparring was nice and all but nothing beat life-and-death battles like this. It truly pushed someone through limits they didn’t even know they had. In the end, it was the right choice to hole himself up in the Outlands for months on end instead of meditating in some cave—though meditating did help him think more clearly, so he would still have to do it sometimes.
“Ah, right.” Viktor’s brows shot up as he turned to the three quad-winged personages he almost turned into shaved ice. “Hello there… Fuck. Language barrier… Right, almost forgot about that.”
If only there was some kind of way to instantly learn each other’s languages. That would be so helpful right now. More than time-stopping techniques, that is.
Looking at the winged people, Viktor noted that all of them were women too. Very beautiful women, at that. With sizable breasts that his little nephew would probably love. Viktor didn't particularly care about those lumps of fat, however, since he preferred ones with pretty ears and luscious fur.
‘Hm? Come to think of it…’
Scanning the surrounding carnage with his seventh sense, he realized that all the corpses were female. And the surviving mortal winged people were female too.
‘Why are they all women…? Did all the men get wiped out?’
Would that not mean that these people were done for as a people? If they couldn't reproduce, they'd eventually die out. Though he supposed they could avoid that if they luckily had the biological capabilities to have children with other races.
Warbeasts, as Vianna had proven with Reivan's birth, apparently had this capability.
Viktor was perplexed but he set it aside for now. Instead, he scratched his head over how to communicate with these winged aliens.
Then an idea struck him.
“Cassia.” Viktor pointed toward the campsite and then smiled. Though he didn’t know if the gesture would be interpreted positively, he also gave them a double thumbs-up. “Cassia. Cassia.”
Since that was literally the only word he knew they would understand, he kept on repeating it while gesturing for them to follow.
One of the Ascendant aliens flew forward and said something, but he may as well have talked to a rock. Maybe the rock would understand her more than Viktor could. It didn’t help that she was utterly expressionless and didn’t make an effort to use gestures.
‘May Sormon grant me patience… Actually, just send a diplomat over here. No need for patience.’
In the end, he decided to just slowly fly back to base and hope they followed. He took the Sword Banner that was still fluttering loftily in the wind while stabbed into a floating piece of ice. It was a good thing he didn't have to resort to unsealing it, given how long it took the Sword Star to refine each one.
The three Ascendant aliens were clearly surprised by his actions, one of them leaving to retrieve the others in their tribe while the other two trailed him from behind. It didn’t take long for an entire flock of winged aliens to shadow him. And as he expected, all of them were women.
‘Ah, I only wanted a representative to come… They brought the entire tribe instead.’
But he supposed that was the wise move given how dangerous it was to split up. They must have been extremely desperate if they were willing to follow some random man covered in armor. With wolf ears atop his head, at that. Much less one that could transform into a giant wolf that could freeze time.
Viktor, at least, wouldn’t trust someone who looked like him.
‘If these aliens follow us all the way to the other side, it’s gonna be a riot.’
With any hope, his nephew was back from his duties abroad. That would mean he could take a look at these aliens and see if they were dangerous.
Otherwise, he couldn’t let these winged ladies through the portal for national security reasons. It wouldn't feel pleasant to have them camp out here in this shitty place when paradise was just a few steps away.
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“Well, there he goes.” The one called Lamorak sighed as she watched the one called Viktor go. She then picked Cassia up and slung her over the shoulder, giving her butt a tap that made the little girl squeal a little. “Hehe. Let’s get you inside, little birdie.”
The knight called Lamorak then flew over to the vast fortress of mist and called out to the other knights nearby. “Look alive, ladies and gentlemen. I think we’re going home!”
The other knights chuckled like swine and cheered like monkeys, not even giving Cassia a second glance. Smiling like the fool that she was, the knight called Lamorak entered the misty cage of her own creation.
In the brief instance right after Lamorak’s entire body penetrated the mist before Cassia’s head could do so, the winged girl’s eyes flashed from bright red to a striking cyan color that seemed to reflect the bleakness of the Outlands.
'Finally. Just a little more and I'll be free from this accursed place.'
But first, this puppet that has fulfilled its purpose would have to be disposed of without arousing suspicion.
Comments
Lire
Infinite Milkers are here too!🥛♾️
The3rd
Infinite cookies are here 🍪♾️
mechanizedbush
Tftc! "that placed his hearing" -> "that meant his hearing"? "were to the portal" -> "were from the portal"? "Kasto’s people" -> do we know who Kasto is?
Tsorov
Thx for the chapter! And we finally have found the other Archons race! Let's see if they join Aizen under the protection of Reivan.
Tsorov
that placed his hearing—far superior to that of a human's—was a lot more useful here than anywhere else This sentence doesn't make sense
