153 Guessing and getting it righ

Even if she had broken the magic circle and destroyed many runes on it, she still hadn't harmed anyone. Even the two dwarves that were relatively close were unscathed, meaning that the soul could at least restrain herself. Seeking the opinion of his trusted friend, the king only saw him fully concentrated on the being called Leilade. "Zärtar Kûrlam ô Jyzref."

After he finished saying those words, he finally saw the shadows retreating and the appearance of the black soul. Blinking for a few seconds, he wondered if it had been a defect of the circle for him to see the soul completely white for a moment. The only things white were her eyes and her hair, nothing else. But right now, she seemed perturbed by something. "Yes, I know what he said. But it was not directed to you, but me. You don't need to be bothered by it anymore. Was he called Akama?"

Seeing the face of the soul that was far too similar to the one of a lost small girl, the king felt a bit sorry for her. Since the beginning, she had not shown anything but her impassive face, far too serious for the age she supposedly had. However, right now, no one would be able to distinguish her from a real little girl. Searching in the book, he found the answer she was looking for. "Yes, he said he was named Akama and was part of the ..."

"The Death Corps. I know that already." A bit sulking, she knew now who could have the power to turn an entire country into a kingdom of the undead. But she also knew that killing him would have been too difficult, if not for those Heroes. If those gods hadn't interrupted them, neither Candaith would be reduced to a terrible state nor her most genius student would have been killed. That old man was someone she took care for many years, and all her efforts had been reduced to nothing.

This time, she could even feel that her other self was even more affected than her, and did not even attempt to seize control. Even if she had a heart of stone, she was still human in the end. And therefore, couldn't help but be attached to people she met every day for the last decades. Remembering the sentence pronounced by the king of the dwarves, she found it quite fitting too. "Maybe you should forget this, for your own sake. For not hiding the truth from me, I can forgive you for defending yourselves. But the rest of the world will not share the same fate."

Even as she was speaking, the Iron Beards and the king could all see something moving behind her. For the first time, the shadows began to group into one form, a terrifying monster that was staring at them. And it was not stopping from growing, beginning to be higher than the riflemen that were on the floors above. "This is not in our nature and doesn't seem to be in yours either. Thousands of dwarves died, the humans we could call friends all turned into undead without souls. Our grudges will be cleansed by blood."

Leaving his throne for the first time, the king grabbed his axe and did not seem to be threatened at all. Even as the commandant of the Iron Beards nearby was panicking a bit, not expecting him to be so reckless. Quickly, dozens of warriors formed a line in front of their king, ready to defend him. "HAHAHAHA!" The loud laughter of Leilade did not appease the situation, as it was filled with anger and folly.

"I did not expect anything less from a dwarf. Killing all of you would be wasteful. Your souls are worthless and your bodies are not any different than absorbing stone. However, that doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy hearing your screams of pain and terror, fair retribution for your participation in killing Akama."

She began to float toward the king, only to see his bodyguards finally reacting. "FIRE!" Bullets began to fly, as the deadly cannons released what was inside them. Instead of a regular projectile, they threw a river of fire toward her. But all of this did not even slow down the soul of the little girl as she kept laughing even more. "By IronSkull's beard, what is this thing?" Even now, the king could only see the monster staring at him, high above the little human.

The dark hands that were part of it began to approach the ground and then launched the Iron Beards in front of it in the air. Soon, every warrior had been thrown away from the king, leaving only the commandant still standing. Grabbing his mithril axe, he dodged the massive dark hand and managed to cut one finger. Smiling at that sight, he regretted it when he saw the shadows that fell to the ground immediately rushing back to the monster. Only to notice the darkness that was approaching too fast. "OH FUC ... ARGH!"

Losing his last support, the old dwarf was inwardly terrified. But on his face, only a mask of concentration could be seen. Even as the Grim Reaper was standing in front of him, he would not show anything. The moment Leilade was close enough, he violently slashed down with his weapon, only to see it pierce through her completely. The blue glint on his axe showed that it was just not a piece of metal. But, contrarily to what he expected, instead of even harming the soul, he saw it fused back the two halves in a matter of seconds.

"Can you feel it, the despair of being the only one to survive? Can you feel losing all hope against a foe you can't beat, that you can't afford to wake up? Can you feel the cold touch of death spreading in your body? Knowing your last instant had arriver, but still hoping for a miracle?" She was very close to the king, almost leaning on him. Her right hand was even playing with his beard, that was beginning to rot and spread to the dwarf. Approaching her mouth to his ear left ear, she murmured her last words. "Do you know what to do?"

"Ye-Yes." He was having a hard time even agreeing. At this very moment, he knew that even if they had refused her to enter inside the Iron Kingdom, it wouldn't have mattered. In fact, nothing they could have done would have mattered. Nothing they could ever do would matter. She was not something that belonged to this planet. Not something that should ever appear in this world.

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Stepping back, Leilade calmly returned to the magic circle and watched all the dwarves beginning to gather their spirits. Everyone had ashen faces, all shocked by what they experienced. Inwardly, they were rejoicing that they did not try to attack her earlier, as her anger seemed to be similar to a death sentence. Still sitting near the pillar he hit, the commandant of the Iron Beards felt powerless. Since when a monster had ever entered the capital and harmed their king like that? He felt his name would be associated with weakness for the rest of his life.

As he was ashamed of himself, he felt a foreign power surging inside him. However, barely after sensing it, he raised his head to see the living nightmare staring at him a few centimeters away from his face. Frozen on the ground, the surge in power did not stop and only grew bigger. Noticing the cruel face that was growing larger on the face of that little girl, he knew that she knew. And if she was still not speaking, he could easily guess what she wanted.

Not accepting anymore that foreign intrusion in his body, the commandant of the Iron Beards fought back as hard as he could. Pearls of sweat could be seen rolling down his forehead, as his entire body was shaking. At the same time, he could hear from very far away a voice telling him to stop fighting. It was nothing like the voice of the soul, but just to be sure, he still resisted. A minute after, he collapsed on the ground, happy to have not submitted to that monster.

However, like him, many were feeling that it was Leilade that harmed him. When in fact, she just wanted to see how the gods will react when someone dared to resist their powers. By now, she was certain that they had not given up killing her. In fact, they were actively targetting her, for good reasons. Without her, they would easily be able to dispatch the weakened Malakov and the clueless Ymir. "It was the power of a god. But you can resist it. Or embrace it, who knows, maybe you will be strong enough to face me."

Carelessly speaking, she knew that if her first sentence brought quickly hope to the dwarves, the last extinguished it as fast. The still pale face of the king was only looking at the ceiling with fear, worried that he would be chosen. After what she had done, none thought they could harm her, with or without the power of the gods. At the same time, it will be much easier in the future to control them if no Hero was present.

"By decree, I hereby order all the soldiers of the Iron Kingdom to resist with all their strength any intrusion of a foreign power in their bodies. Transmit this to all the armies."

"Yes, my King." The messenger that was present ran away as quickly as he could. He was extremely glad to finally exit this place, where that terrifying thing was still present. Even now, the monster formed by the darkness of Leilade was still guarding the small child. However, no one could affirm with utter certainty which one was more dangerous.

"Now that I have all your attention, I want to ask you a few questions. One thousand years ago, near the beginning of the Age of Darkness, did you stumbled on a creature that was sleeping. A very, very huge creature." At this point, since she had full confidence they wouldn't refuse her anything that wasn't implicating killing someone, she could uncover all the dark areas inside human history.

"This ... I think it would be better for you to ask this to the Royal Engineer. Someone, lead her to him." With his friend still unconscious after fighting a god, the king that truly didn't know what she was talking about decided to ditch the problem to someone else. However, no one seemed to be particularly thrilled at the idea of escorting the human soul away. Hitting with his fist the armrest of his throne, finally, someone approached Leilade.

"Farewell, king of the dwarves." Exiting with the Iron Beard and Glini that was still following obediently, she could not see the old king collapsing on his throne. Glancing at the book that was still near his throne, he began to carefully read every page. The next time he would meet her because it was a certainty it would happen, he would not make any other mistakes.

After only a few minutes, the group of three arrived in front of a door, where the Iron Beard left them. Starring at it, she wondered how the other dwarves will react when they will learn their king basically sold them. However, that small time where she was pondering was interpreted differently by the ranger near her. Rushing to open the door, he acted no different than a butler. His obedient posture did not even lighten her mood, as she was still thinking about Akama, the last survivor of her Death Corps.

"Ah, so how was the meeting with that souuuuuuuuuuuu" The dwarf did not even finish his sentence, as he saw who was in front of him. Definitely not his old friend apparently. Examining the dark thing that was floating slightly above the ground, he immediately noticed her white eyes and white hair. And wondered why it was not also black. "Greetings, may I know how should I call you?"

"Leilade. I am searching for answers."

"Then answers will be what you will find." The scholar did not seem to be perturbed by her, as he was calmly conversing with her. Because they were quite late, everyone else had already left. As for the few that worked the night, because of the news he received he ordered them to walk outside for a few hours. At the same time, he glanced at the door, wondering what happened beyond it. However, since he hadn't heard any screams of panic or shouts, that meant she had arrived her peacefully. The ranger that was escorting her also proved that.

"Thousand of years ago, you dig and found something sleeping, a giant to be more accurate. Is it true? It was probably surrounded by a metal that you never saw before." Gazing at her surroundings, she saw countless of scrolls and papers laying on the ground, one displaying a completely dismantled rifle while another one showed the anatomy of an orc. Everywhere she could put her eyes one, she could see a book, not falling short at all compared to the library of Massalia.

"Thousand ... you mean in the Age of Darkness?" Looking at the soul, he wondered what did she wanted to do with something that old. But because she was here, that meant the king allowed it. Or that everyone was dead. Disregarding his pessimistic thoughts, he began to walk toward a pillar. Grabbing the light on it, he pulled it, opening a door leading to stairs. "Ranger, you stay here." Glini obediently stopped moving.

Descending downward, they ended up in a room with only a few books that were carefully protected. Their covers were strangely similar to the one that the king had in the audience room. Deactivating a few runes to pick one book, the engineer did not forget to do it carefully. Putting it on the table used for that, he began to read the table of contents, to search for what she was asking for.

"Found it. It was right when the Heroes appeared, let me see the exact report." Quickly reading all the unnecessary stuff that was always present, he found what was told by the leader of the team of miners.

"We were digging a vein of silver when a part of the wall began to detach itself. It was not logical, nothing had detected a cavern in the vicinity. After that, we saw that green metal that like pulsating. There was a light on it, and every three seconds, it flashed us.After discussing with the others, we decided to try to dig it. However, even the strongest of our pickaxes barely made a scratch and was completely destroyed in the process. So, we had this crazy idea."

Hearing this, Leilade began to shook her head. The eternal greed of the dwarves. Rarely a race had been seen so fervently trying to dig every resource in their sight. When a dwarf sees a vein of an unknown metal, the first thing he would think would not be is it dangerous, but how deep it can go.

"Using a complete barrel of black powder ... A COMPLETE BARREL? ARE THEY CRAZY? Nevermind, hum hum. By luck or not, it happened right when the light was passing by. I still don't know if it had an impact, but we managed to create a hole, allowing us to see what was beyond. The scene will be forever engraved in my memory. Inside a lake of lava, only something was visible. Two small metallic pikes, or at least that was what I was thinking. The next second, I could see a red eye appearing on one of those, but it was not living. It was, I don't know, dead. But moving."

The dwarf stopped for a second, watching the reaction of Leilade. But the latter was impassive.

"After that, that thing moved a bit and I could see it. Half of its body was made of metal, but the rest was, it was made of magma. Fire. Something like that. I don't know how to write it, but think of an elemental. But with metal parts all over it. I could only see the top of its head, but even ten dwarves would be bigger than that. And then, it roared. Strangely, it did not seem that loudly for me, who was watching it. Even the dwarves nearby thought it was just audible. But from what the quartermaster said, even when he was hundreds of meters away, he also clearly heard it. Even now, the one that is asking me to write heard it, when he was probably dozens of kilometers away. After that, they ordered me to close all the tunnels in the entire region. We had lost two veins of silver, two good veins. But that thing. I hope no one will make the same mistake as us."

It was the first time for the scholar to learn about this as well. However, he was instantly capable of linking that zone with the only one in the entire kingdom were no miners were allowed. "If you want, I can tell you where ..."

"Haven't you read the report? No one would ever seek a Saksa on his own if he could avoid it. Yes, a Saksa, you can write it down. It would be best in the interest of everyone to never awaken it. It is probably the only thing capable of destroying me." She paused for a moment, starring at the puzzled face of the dwarf. He was surprised to hear the soul talking so casually about what could be used against her. "Along with the entire planet, of course."