by Philip Read
The fight was furious but brief, his at least, and before I knew it the only sounds were those of my struggle, laboured breathing, and the beastman’s hisses as I used an arm shaped spirit forge to try to hold it down whiles delivering debilitating wounds. After finishing his own opponents Sachihiro stood there with arms crossed and watched as I struggled, still taking wounds.
The creature was more beast than man like some half transformed were with magical abilities that made it very resilient to damage. I kept looking at my companion as I fought, who’s only action was moving out of my line of sight. Being clinically watched while you fight for your life is a very strange experience and I found I had mixed feelings about it.
At times feeling indignant at the behaviour and the needless struggle he let me go through. Other times delivering a very well placed act and finding myself wondering if he noticed how good that thrust was. The creature eventually manage to get away though spotting several wound after a nearly 15 minute struggle.
I expected Sachihiro to chase after the creature because clearly I was wounded and exhausted, but instead he just came to were I had fallen on my ass and started helping clean and dress my wounds. Then the critic of my techniques started, how inefficient I was and how sloppy my footwork for a spear wielder.
The basics I had gotten long ago and I was now an Apprentice leveled shield and spear user. My Novice stage I had surpassed on the trip back to Pangaea but as soon as I got to these people’s conclave it was interview after interview for months before I was allowed to roam around freely around the Compound. Free time I used to listen in on the Spiritus teachings hungrily more than any physical activity martial or otherwise.
*
The second similar attack Sachihiro fought using his sharp short axe and the water element, I didn’t even suspect he was a mage of any kind until them. The fight was much longer against two opponents and I stayed well away from it as he had in mine. I worried if they killed him they’d kill me but I gained a fair bit of satisfaction from watching the man struggle.
The fight was furious and intimating to say the least but the magical feline beastmen used claw and teeth while he used water and axe, and teeth. They were fast, I’d dare say faster than him and their fur was very resistant to damage as the axe only gave them shallow wounds. He was struggling I eventually notice not because they were better but because he only used the axe when he was in a tight spot. Using the water element as the primary means of attack as often as possible.
The fight ended with him only taking shallow wounds with minor scrapes and bruises but he was visibly panting with his eyes bright from excitement. “What was that about?” I had asked him whilst he bent down to skin the poor creatures.
“Practicing.” Is all he said to me which was when I really started to suspect he was insane.
*
We fought against similar creatures twice more in that leg of the journey and I hate to admit that I actually got better following his advise. He went so far as to send advice to my mind directly as I fought and though I am an Apprentice with the spear actual experience in a life or death fight using them in my repertoire tempered me.
Nothing we killed went to waste I recall with rising bile as Sachihiro skinned and butchered the intelligent almost humanoid creatures for later consumption. Barbaric, but I admit to myself internally they were very delicious though at the time I ate them I had no idea what I was consuming.
Beastmen come in two main forms, children Ancestral Beasts have with humanoids and children Ancestral Beasts have with other beasts. And whatever else they were they were the spawn of an Ancestral Beast and a regular Awakened beast of some power.
The time we eventually met a group of humans, and I still don’t know what set him off but Sachihiro was stern faced and so angry that I couldn’t move from where I stood as he took a sword shaped club off his back and beat a group of people to death. The spectacle was gruesome to witness, there was hardly any fighting that took place. He just unleashed some sort of spirit wrenching pressure and beat bludgeoned them to death.
He didn’t even bother to unsheath what was clearly a swor but just unwound it on the move and used the heavy black thing to break bone and crack skulls before there were even salutations exchanged. I have never felt spirit energy used as an aura before but I found that I had pissed myself while gritting my teeth by the end of his onslaught. ‘Spirit oppression’, he called it when I asked about it later and he didn’t say a word or even smile for four days after that.
We didn’t even take the 12 people’s things and just left their bodies for scavengers to devour with the fall of night. I should have been able to withstand some of that spirit oppression with my background in sorcery and the might of an actual shape changing spirit within me. But I had never actually taken a direct attack of any kind on my spirit body before and again learnt another aspect of development I had overlooked.
*
Now here we are crouched at the edge of the ridge looking down at the human beings mercilessly and dispassionately slaughtering a large but hapless group of halfling people torturously and Sachihiro is lying beside me quietly on the grass. We watch the slaughter, torture and rape of the clearly civilian and underarmed caravan by people dressed in a uniform I recognize to be from the local militia.
I’ve seen similar sights before but I’d never actually watched if I didn’t need to. But with Sachi here, somehow I feel I can’t look away and maintain my dignity as a man. The problem with watching halflings undergo any form of harm though is that they look like children to us humans.
They are in the category of what we could consider cute, and they are only marginally taller than dwarves if at all. They don’t have the dwavern thickness or beards though, to my eyes they just look like very young men and women that still have their chubby cheeks, soft baby curled with big powerful feet.
They rarely breed with humans but when they do the offspring is generally more adorable than the average person throughout their lives and they are a favourite of a lot of slavers. I notice something similar about to take place down there as the men and boys are the ones being killed outright whilst the women and girls are being roughly handled and two being raped out in the open.
Sachihiro watches almost dispassionately besides me, his body not even tense. His aura almost completely retracted and barely perceptible even to me that has been at his side perpetually all these months. His behaviour is like that of an animal stalking it’s prey but why he doesn’t just go down there and help I really can’t say.
The two women end up being raped by almost all the 26 members of the militia and by the end of it they are bloody barely conscious things left unclothed at the side of the road. The rest, about 15 other halfling females are taken away and at this distance and with their natural sizes they could be anything from the ages of 10 to the ages lf a hundred for all I know.
We watch them leave after looting everything and leaving the now unhorsed and mostly empty caravans out in the open with the bodies scattered about. I don’t even get a mental sending of what we should do, I’ve never been the person to help others in situations like this though I’ve felt bad for them. Will we ambush them later? I don’t know what he is thinking but after watching him fight multiple times I know we could probably take them.
This is the world we live in and deeds like these happen on a daily basis, especially to races of people so specifically designed by nature not to be warriors that almost anyone can overcome them. The wailing of those being dragged away eventually disappears into the distance making the sudden silence oppressive with how thick it’s gotten in the very short time of it’s presence.
I make to get up and feel a hand like gauntlets grip me keeping me in place. We lay there for another 20 minutes, me frustrated but silently trying to avoid studying the carnage too closely. But perversely there is always something fascinating about bloodshed and scattered remains of humanoids after the aftermath of such suffering.
One of the ravished females manages to drag itself to the other one still laying still and unmoving on the ground with little heart wrenching moans and whimpers. It’s almost unbearable to watch but as I make to get up again that hand of steel is there to keep in position and silent.
It’s not even 5 minutes after him stopping me that I feel, then see the pack of scavengwrippers appearibg seemingly out of thin air to feed on the dead. The creatures are big, as big as an ostrich with birdlike features including feathers and sharp pointed beaks. They are black oily creatures that stable ungainly or hop as they walk to the dead, casting some sort of magic that pushes the bodies quickly onto the path of decay.
They have short delicate looking three fingered arms which retract and extend from their chests like some sort of kangaroo they use for fine tune manipulation. Many cultures consider them some form of grim rippers, leaving their dead out in the open for the scavangwrippers to devour. Seeing them is very rare for they avoid humanoids as they usually come out of nowhere and leave with barely a trace.
Their aura I can’t feel from here but for the first time in a long time Sachihiro is tense, which is freaking me out completely. Especially after he was so collected during the mess we were witness to. They move from body to body, not bending down to eat the corpses as I’d always imagined, but simply casting out their thin arms as they passed over a body.
Soon the two females are the only ones yet to be spelled. The creatures look at the poor halflings, almost standing over them and I’m not sure I want to know what happens next but I can’t unglue my eyes from the scene. The other bodies are decaying before my eyes at a visible rate, the smell suddenly very unpleasant but quickly blown aside by the wind.
The two females are taken away, how I don’t know even though I didnt blink. But instead of decaying like the rest of their people they are suddenly just wisped away. Then the grim creatures themselves stumble and disappear between the wind as though the entire thing were a figment of my imagination.
“How the fuck did you know those things were coming?” I whisper urgently completely incensed. For some reason the scene I just witnessed somehow seemed more perverse and less natural than the slaughter of humanoid on humanoid.
“Let’s leave this place quickly.” Is all he says getting up and into a jog in a single smooth motion leaving me no option but to follow.
* * *
Mira
I’m frustrated because I finally discovered that there is a samurai at this Den Compound but he won’t see me because of something Sachi did. Not that I was specifically told so but the moment the senior senpai discovered I was ‘Sachihiro’s wife’ he wouldn’t let me through to see this Master Masashi that’s the only genuine Hito soul-samurai from the Valleys in this place.
But I don’t really mind being barred more than I’m frustrated that being associated with that selfish fucker still gets me denied things. He leaves with not even a vague idea of a return date or even a return year. He leaves me with only one official lover, a lover I had to leave at the Academy while my own passage through was accelerated because of my aptitudes and prior training.
He leaves no clear instructions of how he feels about me and Shea being intimate, leaving both of us in a state of limbo with clear sexual chemistry but no definite ground rules or guidelines. Doesn’t he know this is my first relationship, that I have no ‘fucken’ idea what is permissible or isn’t? I swear I’ve even been eyeing Shea’s female form these days though I haven’t had a female lover since ….. Barathian.
I walk through the Compound’s streets aimlessly with no definite destination in mind. I’m bored today and I hate that Kuyoki went back to the academy manor after only a month at this compound. Shea is almost always busy and I’m not the training maniac that I suspect Sachi was when he was here, god’s I miss that man.
I turn into the market area and browse the stalls, how does a place like this even exist? We are out in the boonies in the middle of a huge ass forest which is also in the middle of absolutely nowhere and this huge ass compound with a cirrcular self sufficient economy as though it were an actual nation and not an organisation.
I don’t know how they do it but I do know that using the Stela, a coinage even I’ve heard of in the ‘rural’ Sandoria has something to do with it. I look through some silk and satin fabrics I have no idea what to do with wistfully. I’ve never gotten to be the girl in expensive silken robes and exotic perfumes at a ball but sometimes I wish I had gotten the chance.
I’m approached by a man who introduces himself as Seth and pleasantly asks if I would be open to having a trist with him at the baths. I politely refuse stating my mate wouldn’t approve and he ask whether we could become acquaintances. I don’t know how the management here keeps all these cultures from clashing but by the end of an hour I’m laughing with Seth, my ring is ladden with the expensive silks I was eyeing and a new friend who I’m only now noticing may not be an actual human.
“What are you exactly?” I ask curiously as the charming man with an air and look of maturity walks me to the infirmaries to see my sister wife.
He gives me a sideways look, “What do you assmune I am?”
“Well I assumed you were human but your aura is all wrong and you smell like a predator.” I say honestly internally wincing at having revealed too much about my abilities again. A habit I’ve been trying to break since I was made aware of it and its dangers at the Academy.
“Your instincts are sharp, and your senses as well.” He says with a grin and we enter the infirmary and I tell the man at the attendance desk who I am and who I’m here to see.
“So what are you?” I ask again because of course now I have to know.
“How about I pay for the tailoring and watch you model those fabrics if you guess correctly within three attempts?” The man says with a smile and I find myself considering it as I watch him.
“No, I don’t know enough about the other humanoid races to give an educated guess which makes the odds considerably in your favour. Besides, me modeling for you if I guess correctly is still definitely a win for you.”
“Ahh.. I didn’t think you’d notice that little slip into the bet. How about I give you three options, one of which will be accurate and if you guess correctly you ask me to buy you any single object sold publicly within the compound?”
“And if I guess wrongly?” I ask studying the man as thoroughly as possible.
“I get to wash your naked body at the baths today. Tell me, how long have you been part of the Conclave Civitus?” He asks and I know what he’s trying to do.
The man doesn’t seem like a warrior for some reason nor does he seem like a killer of some kind, but there is an air of danger to him. And of course I trust no one but this Conclave is populated by people deemed ‘trusthworthy’ by whoever approves acceptance into these compounds.
Maybe that’s made me a bit complacent, knowing that though these people are dangerous they aren’t likely to be dangerous to me. It’s crazy to believe that about a group of so many different people with different philosophies and cultures but it feels true.
“Seth over here is what most refers to as one of the cursed.” Shea says walking up towards us.
I get up from the chair and we enfold each other in a warm passionate hug. She is taller than I am and smaller than Sachi but her hugs are intimate and I rub my cheek against hers as our faces touch. Spirits beyond she smells good, how does she smell so good working with blood and guts all day?
“Ahh… Could this be the husband you mentioned dear Mira?”
“Yes.” I say without hesitation as I lean into her and give her a chaste kiss on the lips.
It’s our first kiss I immediately realise and it suddenly seems as though butterflies are fluttering about in my abdomen. She smiles at me and holds my hand possessively as we both face Seth whatever he may be.
“I see I am defeated by these two beautiful women. How about you both have a late meal with me in my rooms, I’m sure
I could find a way to accommodate both of you as attentively as humanly possible.” He says smoothly hardly missing a step.
“Unfortunately Mira and I have a prior arrangement, but I thank you for being an escort to my wife.” Shea says and I only give Seth a slight smile, inwardly I’m jumping up and down in excitement as I lean into Shea more intimately.
“Yes, I can see I’m not needed as of today, but please be in touch Mira. I enjoyed spending the day with you.”
“Only at my discretion will I allow that to happen Seth, I know your reputation well and it also includes your respect of other men’s possessions.” She says and I’m almost instantly wet in my nether regions.
I don’t think I can take this anymore, I haven’t had sex in two months nor have I masturbated in over a ten-day when Shea strongly suggested I refrain for a while. We’ve been the only two in our family living in the Compound full time and the pressure between us has been building. Especially with me staying in her apartments and seeing her naked womanly curves every morning.
Shea is a beauty that attracts attention, but if you haven’t seen her naked womanly hips and the glow of her skin when she is luminous and flushed from consuming blood you haven’t yet seen her fully. How someone who occasionally has a cock can have such a lovely curvous figure I don’t know, but it’s truly a wonder of shape shifting.
“Let’s go home.” I whisper, my nether lips tingling as I look up at her.
“Yes.” She says and we leave the infirmary hand in hand.
Chapter 114
Sachihiro
I become an initiate of the Order by the mere virtue of managing to find this place and petitioned to be a member. Maybe I’m spoilt by the exclusivity of the Conclave but I find it extremely irresponsible that they don’t have a more stringent selection policy here. From what I know Asriel to be able to do I know the knowledge that can be found within the Hidden Palaces could be extremely dangerous carelessly used.
