by Aaron Oster
“What’ll be it tonight, miss?” she asked.
“Whatever you think I’ll enjoy,” Marrie said. “And no need to go overboard. Just something that will fill me up.”
Half an hour later, she sat by a crackling fire, cutting great chunks of meat from the oversized slab the woman had served her. The side of rice was almost completely ignored, as were the leafy greens.
Good food was one thing she would never tire of eating, especially after all her time locked up. The food the Inu had served her hadn’t exactly been first-class.
By the time Marrie collapsed into her soft bed, she was stuffed to bursting and already half-asleep. She’d had a very long day. Maybe she’d take Duncan’s advice and take tomorrow to relax and enjoy herself. There was a very nice garden surrounding the compound, so perhaps she would go for a walk.
Content and happy, Marrie drifted off, secure in her protection under the Herald Sovereign.
18
Roy slowed to a halt, both Ferry and Aika stopping alongside him. His heart pounded in his ears and the rushing of the wind was still present, despite the fact that he was no longer running. He breathed deeply and evenly, his cycling rhythm steady. There was a time when running like this would have been impossible, both due to the crippling injury the boar had inflicted and because he’d have run out of breath within just a few minutes.
Now, however, he’d been able to keep up the same pace for nearly two weeks, day in and day out. So long as he cycled at night, he would wake up fully recovered come morning, refreshed and ready to take on the day.
“Do we have to go in there?” Aika asked, shivering lightly as they stared at what was essentially the entrance to the Blackwood.
“Yeah, definitely not the most welcoming place,” Roy replied.
Behind them stretched a lush, green forest, and before them stretched a dead expanse of twisted dark trunks. The ground was blackened and diseased and Darkness Essence clung to every surface, drifting in the air, preventing almost any light from making it through.
“I like it!” Ferry said, dancing forward excitedly.
“Well, of course you would like it,” Aika muttered. “You’re on a Darkness Path.”
For Aika, a Light cultivator, this was one of the worst places she could enter, as there would be a distinct lack of the Essence she’d need to replenish her Core if she had to fight.
“How many Light Cores do we have left?” Roy asked.
“Just this one,” Aika replied, pulling the diamond-shaped Core from her pack.
Each Essence type had a unique-looking Core, and Light was no exception. It was pointy at both ends, widening at the middle and then tapering back off. It was multifaceted like a gem and looked a lot less like the square-shaped Darkness Cores that were perfectly smooth.
“It should last until we find Mordio,” Roy said.
What he didn’t say, and what everyone was thinking, was that that would only be the case if he were still alive.
“Are you sensing anything yet?” he asked as she tucked the Core away.
“It’s difficult for me to feel anything through all the murk,” Aika said. “In all honesty, once we get in there, I’m gonna have a much harder time than you when it comes to sensing things. Our best hope is probably to rely on Ferry.”
As though saying her name had been a cue, Ferry appeared before them, her body still buzzing with excitement.
“What will I do?” Ferry asked.
“We need to find Shah Mordio,” Roy said. “And it seems like you’re going to be our best hope. Can you sense anything in there?”
Ferry’s head cocked to one side before she shook it in the negative.
“No sense,” she said, tapping her nose. “Smell.”
“Do you smell anything?” Roy asked.
“Group of people back that way,” she said, pointing over his shoulder.
“Probably the exiled Beast clan members,” Aika said, her hands clenching into fists.
“And in there?” Roy quickly asked, pointing to the Blackwood.
Ferry’s nose twitched a few times, her brows scrunching up.
“Smells bad. Rotting bad thing. Not good at all.”
“Can you smell a man?” Roy asked, sighing inwardly.
“Yes. I smell a man. Rotten man. Stinks.”
“Which way?” Roy asked, feeling a small thrill of excitement.
Ferry pointed to a path that led slightly left, disappearing into the Blackwood.
“Four hours running that way,” she said. “Maybe more.”
Roy glanced up at the sky, noting the position of the sun.
“If we go now, we might make it before nightfall.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait until morning?” Aika asked, her gaze still locked in the direction Ferry had pointed before.
“And what, go wipe out a bunch of low-ranked Martial Artists who had to flee the Crater after losing the war?” Roy asked, taking a firm grip on her arm.
Aika whirled on him, anger flashing in her eyes.
“I didn’t get in your way when we went after the Shah…” she began.
“But I didn’t go in with the intention of wiping them all out. The Shah is a massive clan and one of the great powers of the Waterwood. The remnants of the Beast clan are few in number and weak. Your clan won the war, and the Beast King was killed. You only want one person, remember? And the Beast clan won’t be able to tell you anything about them.”
Aika growled, yanking her arm from Roy’s grip, but thankfully, remained where she was. It was rare to see her get angry at all, let alone to this degree. But Roy knew that everyone had their inner demons. Once, his had been the Shah clan, but after effectively destroying their leadership, he’d pretty much gotten what he wanted. Now, there was only one man left he needed to kill, and that would only be after he got the information he wanted.
“Let’s go,” Roy said, turning to Ferry. “Would you mind leading the way?”
Ferry nodded excitedly, then took off at a run, streaking into the darkened trees. Roy waited until Aika followed, then stepped into the tree line himself.
“Do you feel that?” Geon exclaimed the second they stepped over the barrier.
“How could I not?” Roy retorted as a wave of power washed over them.
It wasn’t just that, but the sensation of red, that crimson light, shone a thousand times brighter in the cover of the trees. And now that he was in here, Roy could sense something else.
“Is that the Dungeon?” he asked, feeling a low, dull throbbing come from the direction in which they were running.
“Yes,” Geon replied. “But even I didn’t expect it to be this powerful. That Dungeon would be a challenge even for Purple-Belts, let alone the two of you.”
“But we’re going to have to go in there regardless,” Roy said, feeling the sensation of bloodlust growing as they ran.
“Whatever is at this Dungeon’s heart is calling to the both of us,” Geon replied. “I can feel it tugging at me as well. This is so strange…”
Geon trailed off, lapsing into silence and leaving Roy to concentrate on running. The Blackwood was dark, the light of the sun barely shining through and illuminating their path. Here, in the shade of the trees, Darkness surrounded them on all sides, and Roy needed to extend his Armorer technique to keep the Essence from aggravating his skin.
At his level, ambient Essence should not be able to damage him, yet as he watched, Aika used her own Armorer technique, her body becoming shrouded in light. The only one who seemed to be doing well was Ferry, who dashed along, her body vanishing and reappearing regularly as though she were running through shadow.
As they ran, Roy imagined he could see Beasts, creatures lurking just out of sight, waiting to pounce. However, when he turned to look, there was nothing there. The Blackwood truly was a cursed place, filled with nothing but death, and yet, a member of the Shah clan had managed to live here for fifteen years. Roy had to wonder how he’d done it. The only log
ical explanation was that he was a Darkness Artist, but that was an impossibility. Everyone in the Shah clan followed the Path of Water.
So how?
They continued running, even as what little light remained faded into blackness, forcing them to slow and hold hands. Ferry was perfectly fine with the arrangement, but not being able to see at all didn’t exactly sit well with him or Aika. And while he could vaguely sense his surroundings, he knew she wouldn’t be able to see anything.
Even their Armorer techniques didn’t offer much light, only glowing around the outlines of their bodies.
“Almost there,” Ferry said, her voice floating back to them through the blackness.
Roy tried to expand his Spirit Sense, hoping to feel something, but all he got was an overwhelming sense of blackness. Of course, he could still sense the Dungeon, which was very close, but he made no mention of it. Only once they were finished with the man they’d come to see would he broach the subject of entering.
A light, soft and blue, suddenly shone through the darkness, and a moment later, the world around them lightened.
“Woah,” Aika said, stumbling out of the darkness behind him as moonlight was suddenly visible from up above.
“We’re here!” Ferry said excitedly. “See? I told you!”
Roy stared around the clearing, taking everything in. When he’d heard of someone living out in the Blackwood, this was not what he’d been expecting. A clearing, some twenty yards across, pushed away the darkness. It was so thick now that Roy could see the Essence coming up against an invisible barrier, which was holding it at bay.
At the center of the clearing was a single tree, and placed around it were six glowing blue gemstones. The tree itself looked perfectly healthy, vibrant even. But the strangest part was the door built directly into the trunk. No windows appeared anywhere on the tree, but the mere fact that it was there, showed that this had to be the place. And now that they were out of the choking darkness, Roy could finally sense something inside.
“That doesn’t feel right,” Roy said, looking at the strange treehouse.
“Not at all,” Aika replied.
She quite pale and was rubbing her arms to ward off the chill of the night air, as well as the lingering effects of the Darkness Essence.
“Like I said,” Ferry said. “Stinks. Rotten.”
When she’d said that before, Roy had thought she’d been talking about the forest itself, but apparently, she’d been talking about the man.
“Well, we’ve come this far,” Roy said, pulling on his Essence and enhancing his body just in case they would need to fight. “No sense in turning back now.”
The three of them strolled over to the tree, but before Roy could lift a hand to knock, the door was flung wide to reveal a man that Roy had only seen once as a child, but whose features were burned into his mind as a result of that dream he’d had.
The man looked quite a bit older than he had in the dream. His skin was sallow, his eyes were sunken, and he carried a cane which he used to prop himself up on. Seeing as the man had only appeared in his thirties in the dream, this was a drastic change.
“Are you Mordio?” Roy asked as the man looked between the three of them.
“Who wants to know?” the man asked, his voice coming out wizened but defiant.
“Me,” Roy said. “Herald Leroy.”
The man started at that, his eyes going wide as Roy approached. But before Roy could do anything, the man’s shoulders slumped.
“I always knew this day would come,” he said, then hunched over and vomited up a disgusting pool of black liquid.
Roy leaped back, letting out a sound of disgust, but the old-looking man just wiped his lips as though this were perfectly normal.
“I suppose you’ve come looking for answers,” the man said, looking up to meet Roy’s eyes. “Why don’t you come in?”
He turned, hobbling back into his treehouse and leaving Roy to wonder if this was some sort of trap.
He felt a hand, chilly and cold, slide into his, and he looked over to see Aika. Although she was clearly strained from the prolonged run through the Blackwood, she smiled, offering him her support.
“Are you going to come, Ferry?” Roy asked, but when he turned, the ferret was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s running around somewhere nearby,” Geon said. “No need to worry about her.”
Roy headed in, making sure to step over the gross black liquid, and entered the strange treehouse at the center of the cursed forest.
19
The inside of the home was quite a bit smaller than Roy had expected. It was just a single room containing a cookstove powered by Essence, a small table and cushion against one wall, and a bed shoved into one corner. A bookshelf took up almost all the rest of the space, with tomes littered about the room in conditions varying from fairly new to practically ancient.
“Sit,” Mordio said, all but collapsing back into his bed, which, judging by the signs, he’d been in before they’d arrived.
“How did you know we were here?” Roy asked.
“I may be cursed, but I can still use Essence to some degree,” Mordio snorted.
He leaned to one side, then spat into a clay pot that sat next to his bed.
“I suppose you want to know what happened to you as a child,” Mordio said without preamble.
“What I want to know is why the Shah killed my mother. How they even knew who she was, and why I was kept alive,” Roy said.
“Us? Kill your mother?” Mordio asked, “We would have a better chance of taking over the entire planet than accomplishing that.”
Roy started, his heart skipping a beat.
“Wait…My mother is alive?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Mordio replied with a groan.
“Are you going to give me a straight answer?”
Mordio gave him a sidelong glance, then gestured to the floor.
“It’s a long story. You’re going to want to sit down.”
His eyes flicked to Aika for a moment before fixing back on Roy as she sat, but he remained stubbornly on his feet.
“Fine, suit yourself,” Mordio said, grabbing a pillow to help prop himself up against the wall. “I suppose I should begin on the day I met the man with red eyes…
Mordio walked along the edge of the Shah clan territory, flanked on either side by his honor guard, though he wished they would just leave him alone. He’d been leading the clan for over twelve years now and, as a Base Green-Belt, could protect himself from anything shy of the Felrin and Diadei clan heads attacking him at once.
But seeing as that was unlikely to happen, he saw no point of having a pair of babysitters around. Korgo, the man he’d chosen as his successor, was back in the main compound, learning the art of mediation as he handled a dispute between four bickering families.
Well, perhaps it had less to do with teaching lessons, and more to do with the fact that Mordio just didn’t want to deal with them. As the clan head, it was his privilege to pass off his knowledge on others, and one day, when Korgo would choose a successor, he too would pawn this work off to them.
A small movement from the corner of his eye caught Mordio’s attention, and when he turned, he saw a long, scaled lizard slinking away through the trees. He’d never seen a creature like that before.
“Come on, we’re following that thing,” he said, feeling a small thrill of excitement as he streaked after the animal, intent on catching it.
His guards did their best to keep up, but Mordio was far quicker, and within just a few minutes, he’d lost them. The creature was swift, leading him on a long chase through the woods. Several times, he’d lost sight of it, only for him to catch a glimpse of a tail or a flash of scales.
Finally, Mordio found himself standing by a stream, his hands pressed to his knees as he panted for air. Never before had a creature in this area been able to escape him, but although he was sure it had come this way, there was no sign of it.
; “Greetings, leader of the Shah clan.”
The voice, deep and throaty, made him whirl in place, hands raised as he summoned what little Water Essence he hadn’t burned away in the chase.
Before him stood a man with pale white skin, dressed in a set of jet-black robes. Around his waist sat a Belt of the same color, though it stood out from the robes, as a smooth pattern of white traced itself along its surface. At one end sat four red lines, though they ran at an angle and seemed to waver in place.
It wasn’t the odd Belt that was this man’s most distinguishing feature, though. Rather, it was his eyes, which burned a deep crimson. The sclera was a pure black as well, making the irises stand out even more, and when he looked into them, Mordio could see an endless depth, a well of knowledge and power the likes of which he’d never imagined could exist.
“Who are you?” Mordio asked, feeling his knees begin to tremble in the presence of this god-like creature.
“My name is not important, what is—”
“Wait,” Aika interrupted. “You don’t know his name?”
Mordio glared at her, then shook his head.
“I never found out his name, so don’t ask. Now shut up, this story isn’t about you.”
Roy had to physically restrain her from throwing herself at the man, and it took him several minutes to calm her down.
“I would appreciate it if you treated my friend with respect,” Roy said, meeting the man’s gaze evenly. “If you don’t, I won’t hold her back next time.”
Mordio just snorted in response.
“Do you want to hear the story or not?”
“Go on,” Roy said, crossing his arms.
This man was less than pleasant, but he had information that Roy needed. When he was done with his tale, Roy would decide what to do with him, but for now, he would reserve judgment.
Mordio cleared his throat, spat more black stuff into the pot, then continued, his voice rasping a bit more than earlier.
“My name is not important,” the man said. “What is, is what I need you to do for me.”