It was a gaudy environment in his opinion. The parlor he was in, meant to host all manner of opulent gatherings, tea parties and important people. Dazzling chandeliers of gold hung from the ceiling, the walls were made of sparkling marble and inlaid with jewels and the curtains and banners lining the room were of the finest make. All while the sunlight filtered in and created a scene the old Orodan couldn’t have even dreamt of.
It was a stark contrast to the dreary and haunting landscape of Narictus in which he’d died in the last checkpoint loop. Beauty and luxury at the start, destruction and the end of his loop at the finish.
“Still, I’m of half-a-mind to call this entire venture off... I was not aware the enemy had that vile weapon prepared,” Zhou Shan said as the High Sovereign stared at the ground in thought and a bit of worry. “Should that weapon successfully hit you I’m not sure there’ll be much left to salvage even within a time loop.”
“Absolutely not,” Orodan immediately rejected. “If the beam hits me, I’ll find some method of countering it. Besides, with how quick Zaessythra is to kill me, you needn’t worry to begin with.”
Zhou Shan shook his head.
“You don’t understand, Orodan. That thing... the records we have suspect that it’s not of this world or any that we know of. The ancient records state that it’s been brought out quite sparingly, however whenever it has... the victims have had their souls damaged in some irreparable way, unable to access the System at all! This is no casual matter!”
“It was the weapon used against me,” Zaessythra said. “My memories are still partially jumbled, and I cannot recall exactly why the Hegemony saw fit to use such a thing on a mere Transcendent. Regardless, it worked frighteningly well, and my access to the System and my Status is still tenuous.”
“Define ‘tenuous’,” Orodan stated.
“As you know, skills are a product of our own understanding and that of the System’s coming together. It’s why people suddenly improve at level thresholds and how skill levels don’t exactly have diminishing returns even as you advance to high levels,” she explained. “That however... can be taken away...”
“Dangerous... it would weaken someone dramatically...” Orodan muttered.
Just how much of his skillset was reliant upon the System? True, he made advancements in many skills and was rewarded with subsequent level gains, but the corresponding benefit from such advancements weren’t just his own. Especially when advancing past tier thresholds. The sudden jump in power couldn’t be explained away as just his own understanding.
The two skills he could be certain were purely his own understanding... were his Celestial skill, and Eternal Soul Reactor.
“If they even recover from the mind and soul shattering that the weapon causes,” she added. “Before you found and assisted me, I was bound to a book, pitifully attempting to recover for hundreds of thousands of years. My memories were mostly lost, my personality in tatters and my day-to-day was filled with naught but the struggle to remember something, anything.”
Orodan winced at the thought of that, and it must’ve shown for she gave him a reassuring smile as though saying she was fine. He was stubborn as a bull and had the willpower of a mountain, but the thought of spending hundreds of thousands of years as a mentally broken shell of himself made even Orodan respect the scale of that struggle.
And most importantly...
“Then, your current skill levels, aren’t they affected? Your performance during our spar was rather impressive,” Orodan praised. “What part of your System is different?”
“I never said my skills weren’t affected,” she answered, an airy and smug smile on her face. “I have access to the System once more, but my connection is still shaky. Aside from my core skills I have a difficult time maintaining the connection to the System for more ancillary ones. Frankly, I’m surprised my detection spell went off and gave you as good of a picture as it did.”
Well... damn.
She claimed to not know why the Hegemony utilized the weapon on her, yet given how powerful she was with an unreliable connection to the System... just how mighty could she be if the weapon had never struck her? Orodan didn’t like tricks and skullduggery, but he could see the logic in making sure a dangerous enemy couldn’t re-join the afterlife and potentially reincarnate.
His powers over time weren’t absolute. Chronomancy wasn’t all-encompassing, he couldn’t roll back changes to the inner soul core of an individual. Reverting skill level gains or removing subtle marks of the System deep within was still beyond him. He’d heard of no one capable of such a feat.
Hence, curing Zaessythra fully hadn’t been possible. In fact, Orodan didn’t have much to do with repairing her soul, he’d simply guided her to the moon, helped recover her memories and Zaessythra had done most of the work herself.
Which meant these weapons were dangerous, as their effects would persist through the loops. Just what were they?
“Do they have a name? Referring to it as ‘the weapon’ is getting a bit old,” Orodan remarked.
“The oldest mentions of them come from outside our galaxy, and they’re simply referred to as the ‘shards’,” Zhou Shan answered. “Shards of what? We do not know. But they’re an amplifier, a lens through which power is funnelled and then the resultant beam is capable of causing irreversible damage to even the sacred soul core. An act which causes even Administrators to descend whenever the weapon is deployed.”
“Using it is illegal? If that’s the case, the Hegemony don’t fear punishment?” Orodan asked. “How has the scale of galactic power not changed with its usage?”
“It’s not a miracle weapon which changes the tide of battle. It’s only a devastating blow if the attack connects. Beings of sufficient power can block or deflect the beam, it takes a long time to charge up and is expensive to maintain,” Zhou Shan explained. “But for those unable to defend against it... not even an Embodiment-level soulmancer can heal the damage. The soul itself is indestructible, but through that weapon, it can be broken to such a state that it may as well be a true death. As for the punishment, the last time it was used a few hundred-thousand years ago, the Administrators descended, and some sort of accord was reached. An oddity, given that the other documented uses of them throughout the records indicate that Administrators have razed entire star-systems to the last atom to root it out.”
“If they’re against its use, why allow it at all? And how the hells did the Hegemony get a hold of it?”
“That, we do not know. History points to an accord being reached, but to so flagrantly violate it... they must be taking you very seriously to risk it,” Zhou Shan said. “Prior to the current times, the last usage was a few hundred thousand years ago, but before even that there was a rather notable inter-galactic conflict a few million years ago where a number of the shards went missing in the void between galaxies. They’ve presumably wound up in the Hegemony’s hands from there.”
In other words, the politics and power struggle behind these shards were incredibly ancient. The question remained as to where exactly these shards came from and why the Administrators were vehemently against their use. Still, Orodan’s current concerns lay not with the history behind these weapons, but how to counter them.
Brute force was an option, yet it wasn’t one he could rely on during this loop. And from everything he’d heard and the terror the intrinsic parts of his soul felt... it wasn’t the kind of weapon one should test themselves against wantonly. Much as his warrior’s heart demanded he face it in honest battle, he had others relying on him not to die. At the very least, he would try other options first.
“Alright, I won’t lie and say that I haven’t thought about attempting to take the beam head-on,” Orodan admitted even as Zaessythra wearily sighed. “But I’m not reckless enough to endanger your lives by acting how I usually do when a lot relies on me. However, I do still intend to work on a method of resisting these shards, to that end, once we steal the one from Narictus, I intend to experiment with it.”
“I must advise against that, the sheer danger involved would still be high, even if you subject yourself to a little bit of it,” Lady Sujana, Knight Commander of the Holy Conclave said, speaking up. “And given what everyone says of your methods... even riskier.”
“I’m not one to remain idle and leave the outcome to chance,” Orodan countered. “If I’ll be facing this weapon anyways, best I get to preparing myself against it. Fate and chance won’t bring us victory, hard work and the willingness to embrace danger will.”
The Knight Commander’s face scrunched up as though wanting to offer rebuke, yet she gave a begrudging nod of respect. It seemed the prickly God had some values which were in line with Orodan’s own.
“I must concur with Lady Sujana. Yet, despite my disagreement I don’t dispute your results and all you’ve achieved for us thus far, Orodan,” Zhou Shan said. “Let us speak of more pertinent matters, however. We now know you’re walking into a trap. They’re not only waiting for you, but have the shard primed and ready to use across dimensional layers. A prohibitively expensive attack to use under ordinary circumstances... yet when facing a time looper, they would of course be willing to commit their all. It was a good thing the Conclave loaned us one of their holy weapons, otherwise your first attempt would’ve ended in unmitigated disaster.”Rêađ latest cha/p/ters on no/v/e/l(b)in(.)c/o/m
“The spirits are an issue, our point of entry onto Narictus is within the Fraakshal Forest and it’s swarming with wraiths and ghosts,” Zaessythra said as she hovered her hand over the mental projection cube, zooming into the finer details on the projected display. “Is there no other infiltration zone?”
“Try as we might, that forest is one of the few areas with enough distance from a major city that the dimensional ripples won’t be detected,” Lady Sujana answered. “Our foes are neither foolish nor complacent. The planet seems relatively normal and relaxed from our distant scans and divinations, however beneath the surface, the Hegemony and its affiliated forces are on high alert, their spies and wards emplaced at all key locations. Our infiltration involves sending you into a multi-layered dimensional bubble and then inserting this bubble in as small a form as possible into Narictus. This bubble then unfurls layer-by-layer until you’re dropped off into the material plane at your location. It’s a highly advanced technique, however the problem is that the Midnight Court also has dimensional specialists, one or two of them better than I. Performing entry anywhere else would lead to your immediate discovery.”
He couldn’t even create a dimensional bubble yet. To make a multi-layered one... Orodan was nowhere near the skill level required to pull off such a feat of dimensional finesse. Yet, despite this advanced and precise application of the art, the enemy could still detect them if they appeared too close to a city. Each faction within their galaxy had its own bag of tricks. However, specialties inevitably arose. And given how the Hegemony could field a planet-swallowing dragon who drew worlds into a separate dimension... it was only natural that their affinity for dimensionalism was quite high.
That they could make an unannounced entry at all was impressive enough.
“Information: Planetary denizens on high alert. Likelihood of unknown travellers being reported: high. Solution: stealth-oriented infiltration operation,” W78 intoned.
“Against that many wraiths?” Zaessythra asked. “None of us have relevant infiltration skills. Any attempts to harm or eliminate the wraiths will cause their masters to take notice. Spells or obscuring magics also risk detection by any wards or specialists that may be nearby.”
“Why not?” Orodan countered. “We have many attempts, and most importantly... we need not go to the same village every time.”
As he spoke, his hand went towards another hamlet on the mental projection cube’s display. Small, perhaps less than ten buildings overall compared to the hundred or so he’d seen in the first village. But... it was quite secluded, and rather far out of the way. Without Zaessythra’s scan they might not have even known it was there.
“What would visiting some run-down group of huts bring us?” Zaessythra asked, but then even her eyes narrowed as she looked closer. “That’s...”
“Yes... a hamlet where the denizens seem to hunt the ghouls and wraiths of the forest,” Orodan remarked.
Her scan was incredibly detailed and caught everything within a two-thousand-mile radius. This was what allowed them to zoom in on the detailed projection of a wild-eyed woman with a musket and pitchfork facing down a pack of three wraiths.
A far cry from how he’d seen the denizens of the first village act towards the supernatural. Furthermore, a closer look at this particular hamlet revealed another telling feature. There were no banners in sight demarcating which noble house it belonged to. Every other village and town in the radius of her scan had some sort of banner, standard or uniformed guard denoting who the village owed allegiance to. Not this one though.
If the wraiths were spies for the enemy, and the first village they set foot in held hostile forces... then perhaps it was time to aim for a different destination. One not as closely aligned with the Midnight Court and their overlords in the Hegemony.
#
“Pay attention, we’re within a mile of where the first of the wraiths are,” Zaessythra said, nudging Orodan whose gaze was locked onto the contents of the scroll he was reading. “If you’re so intent on studying, then perhaps waiting for a few days before launching this operation would’ve been better.”
“First, I am paying attention. If you recall, I have multiple minds, and with how my body now works, I can see from my forehead or my hair, so needing to look up isn’t necessary,” Orodan replied.
“Information entered into database. Hypothesis: Lowered effectiveness of flanking assaults on subject,” W78 said as his friend was in scroll form strapped across Zaessythra’s back.
“Indeed, one could even say I have eyes in the back of my head,” Orodan said.
“And these eyes of yours are a bit covered given the re-purposed rag you have over your head,” she reminded.
“Not at all. Every cell in my body can see, as long as I don’t have clothes over it, I can see from there just fine,” Orodan said. “As for my studies, I find I work better under a bit of pressure. The gains are better and the insights more profound.”
The half-dragon simply shook her head and grumbled something unflattering under her breath.
Regardless, they were close, and she was right. Orodan put away the scroll on chronomancy and they proceeded onwards.
All conversation was brought to a halt as the trio began to consciously lower the blinding luminosity of their souls via dampening the natural soul emissions they produced. Orodan through his naturally high skill levels in Soul Mastery. Zaessythra through her own methods, and W78 through a specialized module he’d brought along.
The golems he’d seen on Alastaia didn’t have souls, but the fact that his friend not only had some sort of personality but also a connection to the System? Orodan never doubted for a second from their first meeting that W78 had a soul. A somewhat sarcastic one at times, but overall, a friendly and gentle one.
As they trekked, Orodan reflected on what he’d read of Narictus and its ethereal denizens.
All souls produced soul energy; however untrained people simply weren’t in-tune with their souls to the point that all of the soul energy was utilized. Soul energy naturally converted to mana and vitality, however whatever was wasted ended up as minor emission. An emission that could be detected.
Particularly by wraiths and ghosts, which were supernatural and ethereal creatures themselves.
He’d never seen wraiths on his home world, they were something novel he’d seen only upon Narictus so far. The necromancers back home raised corpses, but the ones here could do not only that... but also bind a soul to their servitude through magic rituals. It was the soul’s natural tendency to be drawn towards a soul nexus upon a person’s death, however a necromancer could stop this process through binding the soul to a physical item, which in most cases ended up being the tattered rags and haunting robes most wraiths were known for.
On Alastaia he’d grown up hearing stories of how ‘fell spirits’ and ghosts were supposedly immune to physical damage but were vulnerable to magic and the holy power of the Gods. It was in fact, the opposite with wraiths. Destroying the physical object binding them to the material plane was a quick method of banishing them to the afterlife. A sword stroke could do this just as easily as a fireball. As a result, necromantic circles upon Narictus widely agreed that wraiths were the inferior form of ethereal minion. The only thing they were good for was bypassing conventional physical defenses such as armor as the blade of a wraith was known for its ability to pierce even the thickest of shields and armor. Provided they weren’t ensorcelled, enchanted or empowered by any other energy source. Melee combatants going up against one were advised to bring magical equipment, not to deal a killing blow, but to protect themselves. After all, stories abounded of wraith blades simply passing right through ordinary swords when the warrior expected a clash of blades.
Wraiths were the far more common sight in the Fraakshal Forest, still, they were a trifling matter for any fighter at the Adept-level and above.
Yet, before he could act...
...was that a flying broom?
The poor herbalist was yanked backwards by telepathic force, thrown out of the line of fire. And at the same time a cavalcade of elemental destruction rushed towards the Transcendent vampire.
Women sitting atop flying brooms wearing floppy, pointed hats like old wizards did wasn’t what he expected to see. Orodan wasn’t sure who they were, but he could approve of their decision to ride flying brooms. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“Ah... you lot again. Have the witches of the Fraakshal Forest come to learn their place once more? How many times must I humiliate you and slaughter your sisters before you get the message that the Midnight Court has won the war?” the vampire said and then had a sadistic smirk upon her face. “Your sisters still scream for mercy in my dungeons.”
“We will pay back every grievance tenfold, Isadora,” the leading ‘witch’ said. “You will die, and House Evgaros will fall soon enough.”
“Hahah! Come then, entertain me. Struggle and fight as though you have a chance so that I might savor the moment you break all the more sweetly.”
The battle began in earnest and many spells were cast. And while the addition of the witches was a good thing... Orodan began to understand that this was a lopsided battle.
The witches were all merely Grandmasters with not a single Transcendent among them. The strongest witch was but a quadruple-Grandmaster, and her battle-power was nowhere near this Isadora, the vampire who’d discovered him in the last attempt.
Furthermore, he could sense no tethers between Isadora and the wraiths and ghosts of the Fraakshal Forest. Which meant she wasn’t even the spymaster watching over the forest. Engaging and killing her wouldn’t even solve the issue of the enemy’s surveillance capabilities.
Flasks of bubbling acids and poisons were flung, elementally destructive spells cast, and the trees came alive to whip at the target alongside flocks of crows which all rushed towards the vampire. Yet, it was for naught as a simple, yet powerful shield of blood blocked all assaults and waves of crimson power shot out, grievously wounding two witches with just the first strike.
Isadora was clearly some sort of attack dog for whoever this unknown spymaster was. She had no tethers towards the ghosts and wraiths of the forest... but she did have a tether herself, likely leading back to her master.
And all this time Orodan had spent trekking through the forest and closely examining the tethers, it had borne some fruit. The tether was essentially a link between master and servant. The wraiths and ghosts were the servants of this unknown spymaster of the Hegemony... but so was Isadora.
The link was essentially a connection to share information and the senses through. However, like all connections... it could be disrupted, tampered with.
Breaking it entirely would simply cause immediate alarm and the descent of the Hegemony followed by the end of the loop. Yet... what if one tampered with the very information being sent through the connection? And what if the recipient assumed that their servant had been defeated not by Orodan... but by these witches? The vampire getting killed wouldn’t be nearly as much of a concern then.
The battle was going poorly for the broom-riding spellcasters. As a result, the leading witch brought out a final gambit, a long and sharp piece of wood. Piercing a vampire through the heart with an enchanted weapon wasn’t a new concept, the Cathedral on Alastaia was known to do such things during vampire hunting. What was new, was the fact that the witch wielding it sank a full four-fifths of her vitality, mana and soul energy into the weapon.
It was an all-or-nothing attack. One that was doomed to fail as the vampire knew it was a weapon lethal to her and would defend herself accordingly.
Of course, neither side of the battle had accounted for a slight helping hand from Orodan Wainwright.
Orodan had two targets. The tether, and the vampire Isadora herself.
He hit both simultaneously.
The vampire screamed in horror as her mind was assaulted. At the same time, Domain Of Perfect Cleaning shot out and the Psionic Assault portion of it smashed into the vampire’s mind and altered her very senses to make it so that she perceived a defeat at the hands of the witches, that they’d employed a powerful ritual to successfully attack her mind.
[Domain Of Perfect Cleaning 91 → Domain Of Perfect Cleaning 92]
It wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny, and this vampire’s master would question how a group of Grandmasters had managed to best a decently strong early Transcendent. Yet, the evidence was undeniable. It would be by the hand of the witches that this vampire died.
The leading witch holding the vampire-killing weapon looked confused yet proceeded with the attack, her broom streaking towards the vulnerable Isadora, until finally, the sharp piece of wood pierced her heart. With one final scream, Isadora exploded into tiny motes of dust, even as Orodan saw her soul be pulled far away in the direction of the tether.
The leading witch’s gaze suddenly turned in the direction of where they were hiding. A fireball blasted apart the copse of trees the trio were hiding behind and she gazed sharply at them.
“We see you, outsider, we... we must flee immediately,” the leading witch said. “We were not expecting to actually slay her today, yet against all odds we’ve succeeded. This will doubtlessly anger her master into arriving soon.”
“How soon?” Orodan asked.
“It could be any moment now, we must flee!” she exclaimed.
“We must go with them, Orodan. Them being caught is one thing, but if we’re spotted the entire planet will be destroyed as the Hegemony descends!” Zaessythra yelled.
“Information: dimensional scanning detected. Unit is shielding against hostile scans. Solution: exfiltration alongside allied forces advised,” W78 said.
Orodan hadn’t even known that his robotic friend was preventing enemy scans from picking them up all this time. W78 had more useful abilities than he knew, no wonder it had been sent along on this mission.
With a final look around the haunted forest, the trio followed the witches through the portal they created.
#
It wasn’t the hamlet they’d been taken to, but someplace all the more secretive, farther to the east. Zaessythra’s scan hadn’t picked the location up, mainly because there were no enchantments or magic obscuring it at all. Just an expert usage of camouflage, blending in and the concealing properties of being very deep underground.
It wasn’t a natural cave entrance either. It was a genuine living tree which opened up and led downwards. They were essentially within its deep roots, each root being the size of a hallway and branching out into many rooms. Even with a scan, such a thing was incredibly difficult to make out. Magic scans would see nothing out of the ordinary as there was no active spell craft involved. And physical scans would simply see a large tree.
Now, they were sat at a table, after having finally explained their situation to the woman before them.
Her floppy and pointed hat comically dropped down to cover one of her eyes, even as the other one had its eyebrow quirked upwards.
“In other words, your presence here is for the purpose of stealing a dangerous weapon from the Midnight Court, but in actuality, it’s a weapon which serves the Hegemony,” she stated, and Zaessythra nodded. “No offense meant to you, after all you’re our saviours, but this all sounds far above our station.”
“Yet, the Hegemony are overlords of the Midnight Court, the very rulers of the night who oppress you and those who refuse to submit to their rule,” Zaessythra countered. “Will you not consider lending us your aid? Together, we could usher in a new age of freedom from the night.”
Orodan wasn’t one for speeches or impassioned attempts at persuasion, yet he had to admit that Zaessythra clearly was.
“I... we-”
“Zaessythra, it’s fine,” Orodan interjected. “We don’t need them to directly help us. How about this, if you simply give us information on where the weapon might be or where the bases of power for the Midnight Court are, then we’ll be on our way. Hells, we can even kill a vampire or two that’s been bothering you.”
“That will not be necessary,” the witch spoke. “You’ve helped us enough, and the fact that Isadora Evgaros’s master did not descend unto the battlefield in utter fury the moment she was slain is proof enough of your story.”
It had been a full day since they’d killed the vampire and neither House Evgaros nor the Hegemony had descended in fury to their location. Or rather, nobody powerful had anyways. According to the witches’ crow scouts, there were plenty of roving patrols and small armies that had marched through the location of the battle, but these were more so investigative and meant as a show of force. There had been pairs of Transcendents that had also come by, but nobody any stronger than the slain vampire herself.
The implication was that the higher-ups and powers of the Midnight Court were simply too preoccupied with the risk of an attack by the allied forces. Sending a powerful Transcendent to immediately respond could leave a very real vulnerability in Narictus’s defenses elsewhere. Orodan wasn’t the only person they had to worry about. The Conclave and the reformed Celestial Court led by Zhou Shan were of serious concern too. In fact, it had been a strategy proposed by Zaessythra, to bait and draw out the powerhouses of the enemy to one location of the planet and then striking another.
However, as seen, it wouldn’t have worked. With the assumption that Isadora had been killed by the witches, the Midnight Court didn’t consider it something worth sending a truly powerful Transcendent or God over. Far as they were concerned, Orodan Wainwright was still on Xian. The Hegemony had many star systems under their rule, and Narictus wasn’t the only place which hosted one of the shards, the Hegemony’s core world was another.
From their perspective, Orodan and the allied forces could just as easily be plotting an attack there or on some other world. While a Transcendent’s death was exceedingly rare and would doubtlessly cause some serious scrutiny upon the planet, it was difficult to justify sending a very mighty individual to check up on it immediately. Patrols would be increased, Transcendents wouldn’t go out alone any longer and security measures would be increased.
All in all, their task had gotten more difficult, but it was a successful attempt thus far.
They spoke for a little bit more and the elder witch, leader of the coven gladly provided the trio with information on where they might strike at to acquire more information on the location of the shard. Zaessythra had insisted she create a memory packet and ferry it into his mind. After all, with just that information alone the current attempt was a very successful one.
The coven of witches was a holdout from the elder days of Narictus, when the world wasn’t just ruled by the Midnight Court but by many factions, of whom the Midnight Court was just one of many. A few hundred-thousand years ago there was a civil war on Narictus when the vampires decided to conquer it all. The witches and their people were the losing side from that conflict and had taken it upon themselves to preserve as much of their culture and history from the old days as possible while protecting the small groups and communes of non-subservient humans.
At last, as they made to leave, Orodan ran into a familiar herbalist.
“M-my lord! Wait! I wanted to thank you for saving my life!” the woman cried.
“Lord? Does this common tunic of mine make me look the part?” Orodan asked. Frankly, the fanciest thing he’d ever worn was likely the outfit House Firesword had forced him into so long ago for some social function. That aside, he much preferred the basic tunic of the county militia. “Anyhow, thanks aren’t necessary. You fought a good fight, keep it up and you’ll go far as a warrior.”
The woman looked quite pleased with the praise and looked ready to babble his ear off if not for the leading witch coming out front and shooing her away.
“She’s young, but overly excitable... and perhaps a bit too eager to get into a fight,” the witch said.
“Heh! That’s a good thing!” Orodan declared. “She wouldn’t have even gotten into trouble above her head if not for my presence. Speaking of... weren’t you lot a bit too conveniently nearby to save her?”
“She’s my personal apprentice. And it’s no great secret... but she’s the youngest descendent of the ancient line of our house, from before the civil war which tore us apart,” the witch said. “In her veins runs the blood of the ancient ancestor who was an Avatar of the Sun Goddess. Yet, it is a cursed bloodline which also bears the taint of the betrayer and his night lord ilk. The duality grants power yet must be closely monitored to prevent the descent into madness.”
“Is that why she fights with such zeal?” Orodan asked, and the witch nodded. “As for the betrayer, who’s that?”
“A foul man who accepted the blood kiss directly from the Lord of Night himself to become a True Vampire. A stain upon the noble line of the sun... he was the spouse of the Goddess’s Chosen, yet in the end he slew her and caused the ruin of our entire nation,” the witch said. “No matter how desperately he rejected the blood after, he will never absolve himself of his sins. Even the vampires exiled him into the void, and it is better that all forget the name of Aherozam.”
Orodan stared for a long moment, and even the witch began to look a bit perplexed. He then shook his head and sighed.
The vampire... or now, the man, known as Aherozam, had floated through the void between stars until he’d at least been found by Alastaia, and then... cured of his vampirism by Orodan when he’d descended to conquer Alastaia’s world core. It was a sad tale which even Orodan found to be quite depressing. And while these people didn’t seem to have it in their hearts to forgive him, he hoped that the man himself found a measure of peace. Once the current crisis with the Administrator and the war were settled, he wouldn’t mind returning just to bring the man’s wife back. He wondered how the True Vampire would feel about meeting his descendents.
Still, this trip to the remaining non-subservient humans on Narictus had yielded great results. Who knew how long he would have had to search around until he found someone with useful information otherwise?
Most importantly, the elder witch of the coven had given them the obscure location of the Palace of the Eternal Moon, the Midnight Court’s centre of power and where the Lord of Night himself was rumored to reside.
Orodan wasn’t sure if he was yet up to the task of fighting and overpowering a Transcendent at level 149 and numerous vampiric Gods and other monstrous creatures of the night. But he would have to try. Mainly because if anywhere on Narictus held the shard he was looking for, it was of course the enemy’s strongest base of power.
He looked forward to it, a joy tempered by the thought that Zaessythra and her fail-safe weapon would make it as un-fun for him as possible. Still, now that he had an actual goal in mind, it was time to break into the home of Narictus’s first vampire. A being widely hailed as the progenitor of vampirism in their galaxy.