Ch171-Piping Hot Welcome

-

-

Ch171-Piping Hot Welcome 

-

-

Sylver was wrong…

It didn’t feel like stepping from a warm room into a cold one.

It didn’t feel like anything at all.

When doing something scary, for lack of a better word, the natural reaction is to close your eyes, hold your breath, and wait for it to be over. It was a reaction Sylver’s body no longer possessed, and during the transport, his eyes were both held wide open.

But even with that, the move was perfect.

One-thousandth of a second Sylver and the dark elves are in free fall, a perfectly smooth mirror directly below their feet, and the next one-thousandth of a second, they were all standing in a pitch-black room, surrounded by shattered crates and remains of an imploded gate.

A baby’s wail broke the silence before it had had time to settle in. People who were afraid, in shock, or weren’t sure of how to react, now turned their attention towards the source of the sound.

Someone said something in dark elf, as Sylver focused in on himself.

It wasn’t quite a rush of power, but it was akin to releasing the straps on a weighted vest and watching it drop to the floor. The skin around Sylver’s joints, his knees, elbows, shoulders, and most of his fingers turned charcoal black and splintered with bits of golden light.

As he shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands around, sparks of gold tore their way through the cracked and ashy flesh, and revealed black bone, embedded with line after line of gold wire.

With a hand lifted towards the ceiling, Sylver snapped his fingers, and the loose bits of rock, root, dust, and cobweb, rattled like a freezing man’s teeth. The ceiling exploded upwards, and the various rocks and brick fragments floated out of the way to reveal an enormous white sphere.

Sylver sucked in a breath, and felt something in the back of his neck crack, as he had looked up too hard and too fast.

As this was happening, every dark elf, turned to stare up at the moon, and in near-perfect unison, took a breath so long and deep that it caused a breeze to form within the deep hole they were all standing in.

A few of the men even began to crouch slightly, to hide a very natural reaction to experiencing existing in a world that wasn’t designed to weaken and stifle you in the worst way imaginable.

The same would have been true for Sylver, but thankfully his inhuman anatomy prevented anything that he didn’t want happening from happening.

They all just stood there, silently staring at the moon, as their bodies gradually filled up with a mixture of negative and positive energy. Even the baby stopped crying.

Sylver felt his soul slither uncomfortably in his chest, as it adjusted to a faint pulling feeling somewhere northwest from here. It was enough of a jolt that he pulled his eyes away from the admittedly beautiful full moon, and focused on the floor beneath his feet. He let Chrys down and handed her the child he had been holding.

Very gently, Sylver moved 5 dark elves out of the way using [Deadly Darkness], and what used to require several seconds of careful concentration and effort, was now achieved with a brief thought and flick of the finger.

A hole opened up, and a simple-looking wooden chest floated out of it, followed by a torrent of flat shadows that crackled with energy the closer they got to Sylver. For a few seconds, the moon’s allure was broken by the sudden output of mana, that Sylver leaked out as he bound the army of shades to himself, and Spring ordered and organized them into a neat formation.

The 15 shades that had accompanied Sylver to the other world, all accepted the gear their peers had held on to during their trip, and by the time the dark elves were all awake and conscious of their surroundings, every single shade in Sylver’s shadow was equipped with their armor, weapons, and tools.

For his part, Sylver floated the bones out of the chest and using [Dead Dominion] snapped them in two.

Showers of gold coins exploded out of one bone, a bucket full of darts exploded out of another, robes, masks, swords, daggers, miscellaneous armor pieces, empty flasks, vials, spell components, and about 30 dead bodies that Sylver had completely forgotten about.

All were grabbed by [Deadly Darkness] and pulled towards Sylver, who stored them away again. He’d felt it a while ago, but it was nice to make sure. With Sylver’s gradual change, [Bound Bones] considered Sylver’s current bones to be several steps above his original.

To the extent that, what used to require at least 10 femurs, could now be easily stored within one of the forearm bones. 

The mostly empty chest turned over, and two things fell out of it.

Or rather, one fell out of it and floated an inch above the ground, and acted as a cushion for the next item. The [Staff of Infernal Interference], an umbrella-shaped device that Lola had crafted for Sylver, to use against teleporters, sat like a gift, on the fluffy black robe.

It almost seemed to be shy, as it slowly moved towards Sylver, and in an unprecedented burst of speed, completely disappeared within the folds of his current, bulletproof, robe.

For a couple of seconds, Sylver’s form was impossible to see, as the two robes merged into one, and fluffed themselves up to the point Sylver looked like someone had turned him into a pompon. The fluffy robes twisted and weaved into each other, and turned into thin strands of thread. They shimmered as they compressed, and forced their way beneath Sylver’s skin, and flickered into existence as pitch-black smoke tendrils.

Like a dog shaking the water out of its fur, Sylver shook his body, and the smoke flickered and shimmered, as it became darker and denser, and took on a glossy, and sharp appearance, as darts and daggers organized themselves and interlaced among each other to provide the perfect protection.

Umbrella in hand, magic flowing through Sylver’s bones and veins, covered in armor tough enough to stop bullets, soft enough to absorb any kind of blunt force, and dense enough to shatter even the hardest of blades.

And directly underneath that, a thin layer of [Necrotic Mutilation], reinforced Sylver’s already powerful body and would stitch it back together, in the event something actually did manage to harm him.

Sylver used [Fog Form] to turn into vapor, and moved upwards, and materialized at the lip of the giant hole he had created when he had effectively disassembled the old temple. With the moon acting almost like a spotlight, the dark elves, and Chrys, all turned towards Sylver’s faintly glowing silhouette.

“Welcome to Eira everyone!” Sylver shouted, in Elvish, and found that his voice traveled much further than he would have expected. The conical shape of the hole seemed to act like a natural amplifier.

“My name is Sylver Sezari. Some of you I have spoken to, some I have not. I’ll do my best to keep this brief,” Sylver explained, as he saw all the dark elves glance at Ruslana, whose eyes were glued solely on Sylver.

“Until further notice, I need your complete and total trust and cooperation. If I say to jump, you jump. Once you are settled into your new home, how you govern yourselves is your business, but until then, if I give you an order, regardless of how stupid or absurd it may seem, I need you to follow it,” Sylver explained and gave the dark elves that were translating from Elvish to dark elf a couple of seconds to catch up.

Sylver then spent a couple of minutes explaining things everyone should have already known.

That he was going to find them a home, that he was going to keep them safe until then, and the rest was explained by Zelvash and Ruslana. During their explanation, Sylver realized Ria wasn’t on his arm. She wasn’t on his back either, and not in one of his pockets.

For a total of 5 seconds, Sylver stood there panicking, until Spring informed him that Ria was currently with Chrys and that everything was fine.

“One more thing!” Sylver said as Spring materialized next to him. He saw a majority of the dark elves flinch, and a couple even took a step backward.

“This is Spring. He’s one of my shades. You’re going to be seeing him, and creatures that look similar to him, a lot. They’ll help you carry your things, if there’s a fight, they’ll defend you, and if you can’t find me, just talk to one of them,” Sylver explained, as shades materialized in every available empty space around the edge of the hole.

He gave everyone a couple of seconds to gather their thoughts, waited long enough for the people translating to finish, and then started to move his hand in a spiraling motion, and caused the stone floor beneath the dark elves’ feet to start rising upwards.

Shades that hadn’t moved in 5 years were almost eager to relieve the dark elves of their bags and crates and helped Sylver open up the one that contained their clothing.  Sylver worried that their clothes might bind to their skin during the transport through the gate, but his worry turned out to be completely unfounded.

It was only when everyone was already dressed and ready to go, that Sylver noticed that he couldn’t see Poppy anywhere. Although considering that she was a [Hero] there wasn’t a whole lot that she could do that would surprise Sylver. She likely could travel between realms on a whim.

Either way, it didn’t matter, Sylver was done with her.

And Rose.

And Lily.

And the names the book had prophesized, that Sylver had already forgotten.

And that Nameless’ name was Aurick.

That was all behind him now, it was over and done with.

There was a grand total of 218 dark elves.

61 children, and 157 adults.

Out of those 157 adults, there were 39 incapable of combat.

Out of those remaining 118, there were 8 mages, 34 rogues, 21 serpents, and 63 warriors.

Considering the serpents were defenseless without their armor, and Sylver didn’t allow them to wear it until he had a chance to alter it, there were a total of 71 dark elves, capable of putting up a fight. The rogues were a mixed bag, a couple could fight, but their specialty was sneaking, shapeshifting, and attacking from a blind spot. In a direct confrontation, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

Sylver also learned that the implants in their lower backs that allowed them to look like a person of their choosing needed to be implanted within hours of being born, and then required years upon years of training and luck to control properly.

They had 9 left that weren’t inside someone, and as Sylver learned, this didn’t include the 5 babies that already had the thing in place of their coccyx. Apparently Lily decided to leave them in there, and Sylver hadn’t thought to ask…

With Ulvic’s pack refilled, there were a total of 10 wolves, big enough for several people to ride. With far too many people for even an empowered Will to carry, they had little choice but to travel on foot. The women, children, and noncombatants were prioritized and were carried by one of Sylver’s shade wolves, while the rest walked on their own two feet.

With the shades carrying all of their belongings, all they needed to do was to walk.

As they left the temple’s area, Sylver felt a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his “stomach.” It felt like something sharp running along his teeth, and out of caution, he had everyone walk almost shoulder to shoulder, and surrounded by materialized shades.

During the dark night, they walked for an hour.

And another.

They arrived at a cobblestone road that would eventually reach Arda if they followed it. But something wasn’t sitting right with Sylver, and he ordered the group off the road, and back into the dense foliage.

Another hour passed, of tense and quiet walking.

And another.

It spoke greatly of the trust these people had in Ruslana, and that they didn’t say a single word of complaint, as Sylver continued to seemingly pointlessly hinder their movements.

“I noticed Zelvash isn’t losing his mind,” Sylver whispered. A thin layer of fog hung over the slowly moving group and allowed Sylver to be wherever he so wished.

Ruslana answered in a calm and collected tone that had a dangerous edge of either breaking down into tears or hysterical laughter. 

Frankly speaking, just about everyone had that edge on their face, and in the soul, but they seemed to understand the danger of celebrating too early. 

Except for the kids.

The kids didn’t give a shit, they were amazed by the giant trees, by the big black dogs they were riding, and that the ceiling was dark, and had only 1 big bulb. And while the proper thing would be to ask their guardians to keep them quiet, it was easier to just surround them in a bubble of silence.

“He had been pretending not to know. He used my father’s credentials to find out the actual death toll. And once he realized how much it hurt me to see him whenever we lost someone, he played along with my attempts at concealment and suffered in private. Unless absolutely necessary, I do not wish to speak to him,” Ruslana explained, and Sylver could do little but quietly nod along.

With the fog spread out the way it was, Sylver had a near-omniscient view of everything within it. He struggled with details, reading a page from a book wasn’t possible yet, but he knew who was where, and could even feel the movements of individual insects flying around.

Which was fantastic, especially when Sylver felt something he didn’t like. It felt like someone passed an invisible and untouchable wire through the fog, and if the wire had been real, would have sliced everyone into two, through their stomachs.

Sylver did his best to be subtle about it, but most of these people barely understood him when he used words, trying to get them to bunch up, and get ready was difficult.

But not impossible, given that the combat-capable people caught on, and without raising a fuss, moved everyone vulnerable towards the middle, and formed a casual-looking defensive ring around them. Sylver left a shade dressed identical to him, black robe, unpainted plain wooden mask, behind, as he used [Fog Form] to materialize near Chrys. The girl had been staring at the place he materialized before he had started materializing.

“Ria, stay with Chrys, if you see anything coming towards you, try to block it,” Sylver instructed with a whisper and got a faint nod from Chrys, and the equivalent from Ria, before he switched places with his double again, and walked ahead of the group.

A spear with two prongs appeared in the ground directly in front of Sylver, embedded into the dirt, and without so much as a single twitch in the polearm.

Sylver reached into his robe and pulled out a large sack that made a clinking noise as he shook it.

“Who am I negotiating with?” Sylver shouted towards the seemingly empty trees.

He had guessed wrong, as a man appeared next to the spear in the ground, and yanked it out, to point at Sylver, in a single smooth motion.

“You’re far away from home lad,” the man said.

[A skill similar to [Appraisal] has been successfully blocked!]

His tunic was once a light green color, but he had apparently rubbed soot all over it, and blended in with the dark shadows the branches created. On his forearms he had two matte grey sword catching blades, the shape of a bread knife, but deeper, and less sharp.

His spear had two prongs on one end, and Sylver could now see that the other end had a spherical ball on it.

[Human (Swordsman+???+???+Herbalist+Swift Foot) – 150]

[HP-???]

[MP-???]

“Was it the accent that gave me away?” Sylver asked, and gestured towards the man with the large sack filled with gold coins. The man rolled his eyes at the sack and somehow leaned on his spear, as if it was sticking out of a wall or something, and wasn’t being held midair.

“Not a whole lot of homes around these parts. Means most everyone here is far away from home,” the spearman lazily explained, as Sylver focused on being careful but quick with how he used [Advanced Earth Manipulation].

“I don’t want any trouble,” Sylver said and jangled the sack full of gold one more time at the uninterested spearman.

“You know, it’s funny, just yesterday someone said that exact same thing to me. Is there some sort of book you lot get this from?” the spearman asked, as Sylver did his best to keep his eyes fixed at the man’s feet, and had his head slightly lowered.

“Standard procedure, sir. You desire gold, we desire safe passage, why complicate things? Life is difficult enough as it is,” Sylver explained, and kept one eye on the man’s steel-toed shoes, and kept the other on his MP, which kept resetting to 0.

“That it is lad... Take off your mask,” the spearman instructed, and flicked the two-pronged spear tip towards Sylver’s face, and was close enough to scratch it, but purposely not close enough to rip it off.

Sylver reached up at the crudely made wooden mask and allowed his hands to shake, as he counted under his breath, and waited for Spring’s word. Sylver let go of the mask and let his hand fall back down.

“I would prefer not to, sir. I have a terrible ailment, I think it would be best if the two of us were to-”

Where previously the spear’s tip was, now stood the spearman, with his face barely an inch away from the wooden mask on Sylver’s head.

“You talk too much. I’m going to count to three,” the spearman offered.

Sylver took a gentle step back, but the man’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“One,” the spearman counted.

“Please sir, we just wish to pass,” Sylver explained, and grit his teeth as Spring remained silent.

“Two,” the spearman said.

“There are over 500 gold coins in here sir, surely searching our corpses and such is more trouble than-”

Sylver felt an emptiness form in his abdomen and suddenly found himself flying backward, away from the spearman, towards where the dark elves were huddled into a neat circle. Sylver grabbed at the spear sticking through what would be a stomach in a normal person and pulled and tugged at it to no avail.

Bright red blood trickled out from the bottom of Sylver’s robe and poured down the large tree trunk the spear was embedded inside of. He struggled for several seconds before his whole body went limp.

“Ladies and gentlemen! But mostly ladies. Today is your lucky day!” the nameless spearman exclaimed, at the group of the oddly motionless dark elves.

“My merry men and I are in desperate need of companionship! As such we are willing-”

“Wasn’t your mother and sister already handling all that?” a voice called out from somewhere behind the spearman.

“Who said that!” the spearman shouted at the empty darkness. Men dressed in near-identical light grey, soot rubbed clothing, came out from the treetops, and jumped down towards the ground.

“Although given the number of you lads, you probably had to rope your cousins in as well. But I bet your grandmother is rather popular, especially once you yank the dentures out,” the echoing voice explained, as the spearman reached his hand towards his spear, and it pulled itself free of the tree and flew into his open hand.

With a single flick, the corpse on the tip of the spread smashed into the ground, or rather it should have since it turned out to be stuck.

It was only now that the spearman looked around properly, and could no longer see a giant gathering of exceptionally beautiful dark elves. Instead, there was only a small mound of moist dirt.

The spearman absentmindedly tried to get his spear out of the corpse, but no matter how hard he swung, it wouldn’t budge.

“I really would have paid you. Real gold, and everything. Wasn’t even going to try to trick you with silver. I mean, I could tell a numbskull like you would be too stupid to accept it, but I did try,” the disembodied voice explained, as the rest of the men hiding in the trees above jumped down to see what the fuck was going on.

One of them, a young boy with a bow on his back, walked over to the mound of dirt and pressed his ear up to it.

“But now that it’s just us, I’ll be honest with you boys,” the disembodied voice said, and suddenly stopped moving around and echoing, and everyone turned towards the only other source of light.

The first was the faint beams of moonlight that managed to pass through the various branches up above.

The second was the corpse, which looked like its bones were glowing underneath its skin.

“I’ve had a very tough couple of months,” the corpse said, as it lifted its previously limp and slouched head, and effortlessly pulled itself off from the barbed spear prongs.

“What the fuck?” the spearman said quietly, as the glowing corpse increased its grip on the spear shaft.

It twisted its hand, and shattered the enchanted piece of wood, and left the perfectly clean spear tips in his hand, while the wooden stick part remained in the hands of the spearman.

“Normally I would ask that you don’t take this personally. And you really shouldn’t, this is a prime example of wrong time, wrong place, and picking the wrong group to fuck with,” Sylver explained, as he landed on the moist ground below, and pointed the spear tips towards the spear wielder.

“Who are you?” the spearman asked, and with a slight tremor in his hand pointed the stick at Sylver.

“Good question,” Sylver said, as the spearman’s attention shifted away for a moment, and he saw one of his men on the ground, clutching at his throat. 

Some kind of metallic wire loosely dangled near the back of his neck, and a thin line of bright red blood sparkled under the moonlight, from where the loop had cut through flesh.

“I’m the guy who’s going to castrate you with your own spear. And then I’m going to shove that pole up your ass,” Sylver explained, as the spearman appeared right next to him, and swung his stick through a thin cloud of mist. 

The two-pronged speartip landed on the moist ground, as Sylver continued talking a short distance away from the spearman.

“Oh, but before that, I’m going to kill every last one of you. But today is your lucky day! Because I’m going to leave you alive, to spread the message!” Sylver explained, as the previously mentioned wooden pole harmlessly passed through the Sylver-shaped cloud of mist, and embedded itself in the tree trunk behind him.

“Find him! He couldn’t have gone far!” the spearman screamed, as he reached his hand towards the pole, and it flung itself back into his open palm.

“You think I would run away from an overcompensating bandit in the middle of butt fuck nowhere?” Sylver’s disembodied voice asked, as another couple of men fell from the treetops above, and smashed their heads open on a tree root that hadn’t been there before.

“I have you right where I want you,” Sylver said, right into the back of the spearman’s head.

As the spearman turned around and swung at Sylver, Spring caught the wooden pole, while Sylver head-butted the spearman so hard in the forehead that his eyeballs exploded and splashed plasma all over Sylver’s mask.

“Alright, more good news!” Sylver shouted, as he used his sleeve to wipe the plasma away, and flicked it down at the twitching body in front of him.

“I’m going to pick someone else to pass on the message,” Sylver explained, as he lifted his foot, and brought it down with a satisfying crunch on the spearman’s neck.

[Human (Swordsman+???+???+Herbalist+Swift Foot) Defeated!]

[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]

Sylver’s foot continued down through the man’s neck, and reached the ground, as the spearman’s head and torso began to liquefy, and took on a slightly glowing pale green color.

With a wave of his hand, the surrounding trees sprouted viciously sharp branches, that impaled the few still hiding in the treetops, the moist ground below turned to a slimy mush and managed to grab and pull 3 people into its depths, as the various shade archers waiting for the order, released their arrows.

As Sylver’s mud stopped a volley of enemy arrows from reaching him, he stopped trying to hold back and allowed himself a slight smile.

It hurt like a bitch to use such a large volume of mana, but with every damaged mana channel, like an exercised muscle, it would come back stronger and tougher.

The half of Spring hiding with the dark elves informed him that they were quite comfortable down there and that at Chrys’ suggestion they were all going to take a short break.

But as Sylver caught a swordsman spinning towards him by the throat, and used [Draining Blight] to bleed the man dry, Chrys changed her suggestion to a long break.

Because Sylver was just a little pent up and hadn’t had a chance to use his shades, or [Swamp Lord] related magic for quite a while.

[Human (Rogue+Rogue+Alchemist+Archer+Bowman) Defeated!]

[Due to defeating an enemy 10 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 23!

+5AP

He still preferred catching up with Lola, having a drink with Salgok, taking a bath, spending the night with Leke or Sophia, eating something that didn’t contain a cursed fruit, and then sleeping in his own warm bed, but as far as blowing off steam, this wasn’t too bad either.

Now is the perfect time to sub to my Patreon! It's the very start of the month and you will 100% not get double charged at this point in time!

Vote on TopWebFiction, if you have 10 seconds to spare!

Discord for discussions, updates, and memes.

Twitter for bad takes that will eventually get me canceled!