Chapter 1175: Meeting An Old Friend (1)

Chapter 1175: Meeting An Old Friend (1)



A group of beasts of different kinds - goblins, boars, lizardmen, bears, Dare wolves and many more - bunched up in neat rows, all standing on two legs and doing a funny dance where they threw up their right feet into the air, then their left ones and arched their torsos to the right slickly - some with a nasty crunch that caused them to shriek in pain as their bones cracked - marched through the deeper part of the Tremur forest.

Their march and movements rang through the trees and grasses with a strange, sombre rhythm that hardly had the capacity for levity. Bestial screams were mixed into the sound of their feet thumping, and it was likely these sounds of agony that forced some of the creatures that would have pounced at anything that breathed, to hide and merely watch from the shadows under the harsh sun.

"How delightful. I don't know if I've mentioned this already, but you all enjoy some unnecessary gifts in flexibility up here! I can't get enough of this!" Ashema cried jubilantly from the skies where he puppeteered the mass of two hundred beasts with strings of blood that oozed from his fingertips and branched out to attach themselves to his victims.

His eye gleamed, his expression trembling with joy as he saw hooves and dirty feet fly up. Blood was pumping, heating up within the bodies of the ensnared, and this greatly excited him. Ashema had hardly gotten a chance to mess with as many of the surface dwellers as he would have liked over the last few days, but today, he got his chance.

Ashema was a Carven with shiny grey skin over his face which featured two, great, twisted ebony horns and a fierce, red eye. He wore what might have been called a blasphemous set of armour from which, burnt-looking, scabbed limbs protruded freely, heavily emphasising that where Ashema was born, there might have been great heat, but no light.

As a Carven, Ashema had always considered the creatures that lived above him, above his master's domain - the Under - as the prizes of the traitorous trio of Deities that had locked his master below, forcing him to create a world limited in every sense of the word. Thus, Ashema felt no small amount of glee from torturing beast and man alike.

So far - as evidenced by the blood stains on his grey face - the Carven had amused himself by donning the cleaved and cleaned head of a goblin whom he had had a particularly delightful time torturing. To Ashema, it was quite comical to be heading the dancing beasts below while wearing the face of one their own.

He had used one boar's spine to conduct his dance group as well, but when that proved too difficult in conjunction with some of the moves he had been forcing upon the hundreds of beasts, he had settled for simply watching as they broke, cracked and shattered for him. Of course, Skullius didn't mind.

This might have been the best thing that attracted Ashema to this man.Fôllôw new stories at novelhall.com

He didn't care when he, Ashema, had drained the blood from a family of a six they had passed on their way to the Tremur Forest, having them all turn into human raisins that he munched on as snacks for the trip.

Skullius had said nothing when Ashema had used a few children to try out how his blood incarnation worked with shorter, smaller humans. The Carven had almost gotten the impression that Skullius would have helped if he could.

Since their meeting in Opungale, Ashema couldn't deny that he had grown fonder and fonder of the individual he had decided to follow and enjoy the exploits of as a spectator. Well, a devout spectator.

Skullius gave a long look towards the plateau.

The golden-brown soil that made it extended as far as the eye could see, but of course, back then, it had transitioned into a darker hue that had caused him much dread. A particularly powerful beast had stood guard, its Dormant Territory protecting the 'treasure' hidden here. "Is this what we are looking for?" Ashema said curiously and he made the beasts under his control start to do what might have been push-ups.

"Yes," Skullius said, and a soft breeze beat at his face, whipping his auburn hair back. "Sadly, as I don't have any of the keys required... Well, I wasn't here for this anyway."

The Hybrid Luman brought his hands together and cupped them. He then blew into the shape they made and a strange whistle blew out from it, ringing far and wide.

Ashema drifted low, reaching Skullius' side just as he finished the whistle.

"Are you calling someone?" he asked.

Skullius chuckled.

"Yes. An old friend. Though, I'm not sure he still considers me as such."

Right then, birds perked on some trees in the distance flew away and the thumping of great

paws against the ground sounded.

Soon, a great, furred beast emerged from the cluster of trees from Skullius' right and he

turned with a welcoming smile.

"Long time no see. Or, I suppose not at all."