Chapter 99

I fiddled with the coin-like token Gabriel had given me as I sat in the coach’s seat of the carriage. I didn't actually need to be here as I actually commanded the undead horses through magic, but it would be strange if there was no one in the driver's seat, at least during the day. The token was always slightly warm and I could definitely feel that there was some sort of enchantment with it. Half of me wanted to believe that Gabriel was just fulfilling her familial duties and it was a harmless good luck charm, while the other half thought it was too out of character and whatever the token was, it wasn't a good thing.

The best way to know her intentions would be to use Seshat's Library, but I almost didn't want to know what Gabriel had given me, as I wasn't sure what I could do if it was something that would negatively affect me. However, my reason eventually won out and I focused on the token, only to be completely stunned by what was revealed.

'Token of Lost Divinity: An extremely rare item that houses a fragment of a Divine's power. This Token contains a fragment of the Divine Assassin Hathor.'

This was an extremely valuable item, one that I couldn't understand how Gabriel had gotten a hold of, or why she had decided to give it to me. I wasn't one hundred percent sure, but I was fairly certain that this was the equivalent to the other Aspect Skills I had, though I wished I knew what part of the Divinity it was. Thanks to the @#$! tome I'd gotten from Ellie I was able to at least discern that whatever Skill it housed was neither Yin nor Yang in nature, but also that it shared something in common with Sekhmet's Vengeance.

I was extremely troubled by the 'token' Gabriel had given me. Was there a deeper reason? Did she even know what this token was? If she didn't then it was simply a coincidence, and that was the situation I hoped it was, as if she did know, there could only be some kind of ulterior motive behind giving it to me.

As I struggled with what to do with the token, I had a strange idea. The white lioness woman that manifested when I used Sekhmet's Vengeance was bound to be able to help me better understand the purpose of the token, the two Skills shared some sort of connection after all. I didn't really want to summon the lioness while we were in a place like the fields we were crossing through that made it easy to spot us, so I would hold off on doing anything with the token until we reached somewhere that I could keep out of sight and not damage the surroundings too much.

Arya told me that there was a perfect place inside the village of the Yin-Yang Clan, after all they needed somewhere private for those who inherited the Sacred Yang Body as while immediate family members were immune to the curse, the other villagers were not. The journey wouldn't be long as we would be traveling non-stop with the exception of dealing with our daily needs, which included cultivation, though that was essentially just sex. Because it was best for Arya to be under the sunlight I had made what was the equivalent of a sunroof, as I figured if anyone was trying to get atop our carriage they likely deserved death, something the Unworthy Burning Yang would solve unless I quickly interfered.

It was much to Arya's surprise when she peeked her head out of the sunroof and realized we were only about ten minutes away from the village. The journey had taken us three days in total, but only because most of the seventy-two hours were spent moving towards it. Usually the journey took around a week depending on how you decided to travel as not many caravans or other means of transportation came this way. Since I'd never actually seen a map that marked the location of the Yin-Yang clan and was completely relying on Arya's memory, I could only vaguely guess our relative location to Phoenicia and Eldora.

Most of the journey was boring and uneventful, though I imagined some of the things I dealt with would have caused issues for regular people. The only thing that I thought to be a fun distraction was when I spent an hour or so clearing out a bandit hideout. Besides dealing with Hiroshi, I'd never actually fought or killed in the real world yet so I found the sensation to be different then when I'd been in the Dreamscape.

I had left Arya to watch the carriage and horses despite them not needing it as I had planned to rampage, something I didn't want her to witness since I wasn't sure how good she was with the gore of sentient beings. The bandit hideout became drenched with blood, various bits of flesh among other things as I tore through the bandits with my claws, Sadism and Masochism working to full effect as I slaughtered while enjoying myself like a psychopath.

It was the first time in this world that I got to truly experience combat and, just like Velen, I enjoyed every minute of the massacre of the weak. Unfortunately, there were two prisoners who also saw my rampage and they were more terrified of me than the bandits probably. I didn't mind freeing them and seeing them to a nearby town as it wasn't like there would be any harm, other than the chance of them claiming that I was something like a Demon, but honestly I didn't really care what an out of the way town thought of me. Plus on top of a reward I got gratitude when I told the town mayor the location of the hideout since I had left just about all the stolen goods in there. I took the best weight and size to value ratio items as, even though I really thought about taking the solid gold statuette, we didn't have the storage space for them.

When we'd first started the journey and began making our way west, Arya had told me that her clan's village was located on a mountain in the Joron mountain range, something I thought was strange since I had assumed they would live in a forest. However, once we drew closer, I realized just how large my misconceptions had been.

The mountain was covered in trees and the closer we got the more vibrant and lush the greenery seemed. The village seemed to be anchored to the steep mountainside and various bridges, stairs, and scaffolding connect the buildings, all of which were grown from local trees or other sturdy plants. The village seemed to split in half by a waterfall that I could just make out as having various water wheels being turned by it as it led to the river we'd been near for the last day or so.

Near the top of the village on a small outcropping that momentarily split the waterfall there was what looked like a temple, not the overly fancy ones like I'd seen in the city, but a more simplistic one that was reminiscent of Shinto shrines from Velen's life. Unlike the cities I'd seen so far there wasn't any wall surrounding the village, rather, the village was naturally defended and the only apparent way to get to it was a long set of stairs that could fit at most five people per step.

I didn't know enough about what other defenses the Elvish village had, but purely from a melee focused fighter's perspective, I wouldn't want to be told to charge up the stairs, there were simply too many ways to decimate a force that came up them. In Velen's world he'd taken outposts that were quite similar, most of them having airtight anti-air defenses making a ground assault to disable them a must.

Thankfully I was no longer Velen and this was not his world so I didn't have to risk my life to climb these stairs, the only problem being that there wasn't really anywhere to put the carriage for the long term. There wasn't much of a choice but to unhook the undead horses after putting the carriage by the stairs. The horses would fake being alive and stay around the bottom of the stairs, hopefully not causing any issues.

Me and Arya stood at the bottom of the steps looking towards the village and taking a breath. Neither of us knew what kind of reception we'd get, or what kind of news was to be had, but we were determined to convince Kavir to push the marriage through.