Einen looked at him and then winked. An exact replica of him emerged from the shadows. This Technique was difficult to use in fast-paced combat, so Einen, cunning as always, had found a different way to make the most of it. His clone wasn’t that much different from the original, even when looked at through the World River. Just before the trio of nobles had arrived, he’d put his clone to work.
“What would we have done if Tom hadn’t taken the amulets out? Or if someone else had put them into their spatial ring instead?”
Einen had managed to make a copy of the map. After that, the search for the tomb had become a game of skill. The islander had thrown the amulets on the ground in anger, but not before attaching a copy of the map to each one. He’d placed them deep in the items, ensuring that no one but a skilled Lord would’ve been able to find the trick.
“Tom’s an aristocrat, but he’s still quite greedy,” Hadjar said. “He wouldn’t have wanted to squander something so valuable.”
“He didn’t do it because of greed, but out of necessity,” Einen objected.
Hadjar knew that the islander was probably right: it was unlikely that Tom’s uncle, a kinslayer who’d seized power in the Predatory Blades clan with a coup, had spoiled his nephew as much as the elven Head had spoiled his daughter.
“It was all pure planning!” Hadjar exclaimed. “I don’t believe in blind luck!”
“If you say so,” Einen just shrugged.
As for the key, they’d replaced it the moment they’d gotten to the sewers. The only purpose of their ‘alliance’ had been to lure out the people who held the map. Had the Dinos siblings and Dora not been the ones with the map, Hadjar had still had a plan; however, it hadn’t been a pretty one.
“Here.” Holding the map in front of him, Einen stopped at a boulder.
Peeking over his friend’s shoulder, Hadjar looked at the ancient manuscript. The mark that looked like a small, black dot on the side of the mound where they were standing appeared only when the key was held up to the map.
“Interesting,” he said.
Taking the ancient medallion from his friend, he went over to the stone and, holding his breath, placed it against the rock. A couple of seconds passed, but nothing happened.
“We better hurry,” Einen said calmly. “The bird was clearly visible. I think we have about half an hour before the other squads get here.”
“Not to mention the fact that Galkhad and the others will probably manage to free themselves in half an hour,” Hadjar added.
He walked around the boulder several times, holding the key and the map up to it in various spots. Once he was done, Einen took the artifacts from him and tried out his own ideas, but he didn’t succeed, either. Of the twenty-five minutes they’d allotted themselves to try and open the tomb, ten had already passed.
They sat down with their backs to the stone and stared at the map and key.
“Something’s not right here.”
“What do you see?” Hadjar asked.
Einen’s purple eyes saw far more than the eyes of a simple cultivator. That was why the islander had been terrified when he’d first seen Helmer: he’d been able to see the demon’s true form, not the mask that he put on to visit the mortal world.
“Nothing that can help us,” he said.
“Then let’s think this through.” Hadjar went over everything he knew about the age of the Hundred Kingdoms. He didn’t know much, of course, but unlike all the other people in the Wastelands, he was the only one who’d actually seen Erhard, the man who’d built this damned tomb. And the only one who’d ever been able to get into it was Decater. But why? Why had his followers hidden the map and key after his death?
That meant that Decater had visited the tomb at least twice. The first time had been when he’d acquired the Techniques and the Inheritance, thus becoming the strongest in his generation and seizing the throne. The second and probably last time had been just before he’d died. Before his death…
“He was still alive when he came here,” Hadjar said thoughtfully.
Einen nodded.
“He was a very powerful cultivator,” he said. “Did he sense his own death was imminent? Did he come to the tomb to lay down and die?”
“That sounds unlikely.” Hadjar muttered. “He would’ve fought to his last breath…”
“Apparently, he did... but ultimately decided to hide.”
They looked at each other and then simultaneously turned toward the stone.
“Can it really be that simple?” Hadjar frowned. “Damn it, Einen! That can’t be it! The mere presence of such a structure should’ve created visible anomalies in the energy flows. Such an artifact would’ve destroyed all life for miles around!”
“Well, we should at least try it,” the islander suggested.
Getting to their feet, they placed the map on the stone and then the key atop it… Nothing happened.
“Who’ll go first?” Hadjar asked and took out his carving dagger.
“Let’s do it together,” Einen replied and followed his example.
“All right.”
On the count of three, they cut their palms and, clenching their fists, let a few drops of blood land on the key. Nothing happened. The two of them let out disappointed sighs, but then...
There was no flash of bright light or explosion of raw power. Instead, the two friends were sucked into the stone like they weren’t even people, but objects that had been placed into a spatial artifact. And that’s exactly what this mound was. This place wasn’t Erhard’s vault or Decater’s tomb. It turned out that Decater didn’t even have one. Before his death, he hadn’t gone off to die in a beautiful sarcophagus, but to look for a way to fight for his life. He’d gone to the Last King’s repository of knowledge. The stone turned out to be a spatial artifact that violated all the known laws of the path of cultivation.
***
“Einen? Einen, where are you?”
Hadjar, his Call wrapped around him and the Black Blade in his hand, stood in the middle of a thick fog. It was so thick that he couldn’t even see his own feet through it.
“Einen?”
“You deceived me.”
Hadjar’s heart sank.
“You deceived me, Hadjar.”
A figure stepped out of the fog. She was tall, beautiful, and... Deathly pale, with a gaping wound in her chest and a throat that had been cut open.
“You never came back…”
“Elaine?”
Chapter 717
“N o,” Hadjar recoiled. “You aren’t Elaine...”
“You left me alone, brother…” Crimson tears ran down his sister’s beautiful face. Her terrible wounds were so deep that they exposed her internal organs. Blood bubbled in her throat as she spoke. “You left me all alone.”
The fog around Hadjar exploded in a kaleidoscope of color and he found himself in the middle of a blooming garden that was at the edge of a big pond. On the other side was a mountain, atop which stood a structure that was currently ablaze. Hadjar’s eyes widened as he recognized the castle of his ancestors. The garden of the Royal Palace of Lidus was littered with corpses. Among them, he recognized Lian, bent over the spear that had pierced her body. He spotted Tuur’s head and part of his right shoulder trapped beneath a mound of other bodies, and Simon, hanging from a tree, swaying in the hot wind that brought ash with it.
“Where were you?” Elaine’s bloodied hand reached out to Hadjar. “Where were you when we needed you the most?”
Hadjar fell to his knees. His heart was pounding so fast that he feared it might jump right out of his chest.
“They came for us.” Elaine sat down next to him and wrapped her crimson-stained arms around his neck. She pressed him to her chest, right where her arrow wound was. “Your enemies came for us, but you weren’t there.”
How many enemies did he have? He’d lost count long ago. The only thing that stopped them from going after Lidus was the fact that he’d kept his origins a secret. Trav
eling across the continent and studying martial arts, he’d given it his all to fabricate a legend that would protect them.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, stroking Elaine’s dry, disheveled hair. It no longer smelled like a field full of flowers, but like metal and ash. “Forgive me... I let you down...”
“You let us all down…” Elaine picked up a dagger from the ground. “Your selfishness got us all killed.”
Hadjar had naively believed that he could deceive everyone. That passing ‘The Holy Sky’ School’s age test had been enough to stop people from associating him with the Mad General. He’d hoped that he had buried his secrets deep enough.
“Forgive me,” he whispered and hugged his sister. He didn’t care about the blood and dirt that now covered his clothes. “I should’ve been there... I should have…”
“You should have,” Elaine repeated.
If it hadn’t been for Anise, no one would’ve ever known about his past…
The dagger in Elaine’s hand dropped a little lower. Its blade was pointed directly at his heart.
He should’ve finished her off back in the icy chambers of Greven’Dor! If he’d done that…
The dagger came a little closer. Only a couple of inches separated it from Hadjar’s back.
…he would’ve taken his secret to the grave with him. Goddamn it, Anise. If it had been anyone else, he would’ve killed them without a second thought. But then he remembered that Einen also knew his secret. If he knew… And if Anise also knew… Others might find out as well. For the sake of his family, for the sake of his country, he had to kill Einen…
The blade sank into his back.
“I’m sorry,” Elaine whispered, dry lips cracking as they moved. “Forgive me, brother.”
The wave of pain and the blood running down his back sobered him up for a moment.
“No,” he cried out. “No! Einen would never do that to me! He would die before he betrayed my secret. And I would do the same for him!”
Elaine’s eyes widened. They were a jade green and shone with deep sadness.
“You’re betraying us again, brother... Why do you always choose others over us? Why do you-”
Hadjar looked at his sister. Her words opened up some old wounds, ones he’d thought had healed long ago.
“Listen to your sister, my dear brother…”
His heart skipped a beat.
A man stepped out of the fire. His once snow-white hair was now the color of ash. His high cheekbones, once rosy, now looked as sharp as mountain peaks. The spark in his eyes was gone, extinguished like a candle flame in the wind.
“You betrayed us all,” Nero said. “You chose revenge over me. And I believed in you. I believed in you as much as I believed in myself.”
Hadjar stared at his brother in silence. The blade of his own sword still protruded from Nero’s chest.
“Did you find happiness in the Empire, my friend?” Serra followed Nero out of the fire, her bronze skin almost black because of the flames. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Was it worth our son’s, your nephew’s, life?”
“Shut up!” Hadjar screamed desperately.
He tried to move away from them, but all he managed to do was drive the dagger deeper into his back. He’d suspected that Serra had been pregnant, but every time he’d thought back to those events in the Palace, he’d told himself that he’d been mistaken. That the World River had deceived him by showing him what he’d wanted to see.
“You betrayed us all,” Nero repeated. “And for what, brother? What did you even get out of it? Did you find the justice you were so adamant about pursuing?”
The wounds on his soul only grew larger. He could feel it crying out in anguish. His energy and life force flowed out along with his blood.
“I didn’t,” he whispered.
“Do you at least understand the difference between revenge and justice?”
Hadjar remembered Anise asking him that same question not that long ago. He hadn’t been able to answer it then, and he couldn’t answer it now.
“I don’t.”
“Then tell me… What did I die for, my brother?” Nero’s eyes were full of sadness. “What did your sister die for? Your mother? Your father? For what!”
He was drowning in the pain. His energy body, unable to withstand the pressure, began to gradually crack and decay.
“I don’t know… I don’t know… I don’t know…” he kept repeating. “Forgive me,” he whispered, looking into Nero’s eyes.
Something invisible, but very tangible, struck him in the shoulder.
I’m leaving now, you idiot. Hadjar suddenly remembered an old dream in which he and Nero had sat on the shore of a lake by the campfire. And remember, if you ever start blaming yourself again, I’ll reach out from the other side to give you a good smack.
His brother had kept his word. If he, a man whose soul had already left the house of their forefathers and gone on to its rebirth, had been able to keep his word, then why couldn’t Hadjar? The two wedding bands were still in his leather wallet. His brother and sister were still dead. Just like his father, mother, uncle, their friends, and many others. All of them had died because the Spirits, blinded by power, had started thinking of themselves as gods and playing with the fate of the worlds. It was they who’d ripped apart the threads woven together in the Book of Destinies and renamed it the Book of Thousands. Thousands of their mistakes, which had gone unpunished thus far. Hadjar no longer cared about revenge. No. He cared about justice. He didn’t want to punish them, but to make it so that neither he nor anyone else would ever again have to bow their heads and submit to the will of others.
“Justice,” Hadjar croaked. “Maybe you’re right... Maybe it really doesn’t exist. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be created.”
He let go of Elaine.
“Where is your sword, my dear sister?”
Those beautiful, green eyes reflected her surprise.
“My sister wouldn’t have died in such a pretty, but ultimately useless dress. Oh no. She would’ve fought in full armor, and her sword would’ve been drenched in the blood of her enemies by the time she fell.”
Hadjar reached behind him and pulled the dagger out of his back. He got to his feet and turned to Nero and Serra.
“And you two are just a shamefully poor imitation of my brother and his wife. The words you say are empty. Your eyes haven’t seen the battles where we fought side by side and the rivers of blood that we crossed together. You’re just shadows.”
His soul wounds were closing as quickly as they’d reopened. As soon as the last one disappeared, the Black Blade appeared in his right hand.
“Whoever you are, I’ll kill you for defiling my family’s memory!”
He raised his sword and was about to deliver a vicious attack when he saw a pair of familiar, inhuman purple eyes.
Chapter 718
E inen?”
“Hadjar?”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then asked in unison:
“Are you real?”
Followed by:
“Holy shit!”
They were standing in a wide and dark corridor that didn’t seem to have a beginning or an end. They were standing on opposite sides of it. Behind each of them was a dagger sticking out of the wall. They’d pushed one another onto those daggers. Had they not been able to see through the illusions, they would’ve ended up killing each other.
“By the Evening Stars.” The islander pushed himself off the blade. His blood trickled down onto the cold floor.
Hadjar followed his example. “Seems that getting to Erhard’s treasury won’t be as easy as we’d hoped.”
Einen said nothing. He took several bottles full of ointment and a couple of wide bandages out of his chain. Whatever the blades were made of, it wasn’t allowing their wounds to heal. As far as Hadjar knew, that was possible only if you used special Techniques, but the ancients must’ve had their own secrets.
�
��Help me,” Einen said.
Once they were done bandaging each other up, they summoned their Calls and armed themselves.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Hadjar looked down the branching corridor, but didn’t dare take a step further. “I can feel the World River in here.”
“So can I.” Einen nodded. “This spatial artifact couldn’t have been created in the Hundred Kingdoms. Their understanding of artifactoring was more limited than ours.”
“Which means Erhard must’ve found it somewhere,” Hadjar guessed.
They exchanged glances. The stone was much older than they’d first thought and it might have initially belonged to someone much more powerful than Erhard. Hadjar wondered why the Black General hadn’t mentioned such an important detail…
“By the Evening Stars, where are we?” He exclaimed.
“Come on,” Einen said. “Who knows how long we were in that... fog. The people outside might’ve freed themselves already.”
Hadjar nodded and took the first step forward. Einen followed, and the two of them began their careful advance across the ancient marble floor. The walls, several yards high and emanating a dim glow, loomed above them.
When they came to another crossroads, they stood there in silence for a while, and then Hadjar, out of sheer habit, turned left. As soon as he did so, a wall materialized behind him.
“Fuck this place!” Einen cursed. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” Hadjar glanced around — it looked the same as the corridor he’d just left behind. He found himself facing a wall with two daggers mounted on it. But these blades didn’t have any traces of blood on them.
“What do you see?”
“Hard to say,” Hadjar answered. “Look, are you still in the corridor with the daggers?”
Einen paused for a moment.
“Yes… I am… Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m in it as well.” He went over to a dagger and deliberately cut his finger. Just like last time, the wound didn’t heal. “Either that, or an exact copy of it.”
Dragon Heart: Land of The Enemy. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 8 Page 33