“Alright, where is the problem with moving quickly between bubbles?” Elaine continued.
“You see… matron…” another of the women started.
“Elaine.”
“You see, Elaine, demons have their bubbles naturally well protected since they come from the Void, where you’re not gonna exist for long if you don’t have some really good defenses. Getting into one is hard and dangerous. They are also large so getting from one bubble to another takes a lot of time since you need to move through the first one. Same for going back to check the one next to it. I could go through one in the whole night… maybe one and a half?” she revealed.
“You say they are like bubbles… can’t you float around and see more bubbles at the same time?” Elaine pushed.
“That’s possible, technically, but kinda dangerous. I mean, the Void tries to suck you in and you have no way to tell the time or distance, so it’s easy to get lost… and then there are the demons who hunt there because they literally eat souls for a living. You also need to use a lot of power to float through the Void, so it’s really easy to backlash yourself,” Leena replied. “Oh and don’t get me stated on the Void currents. They are like rivers of darkness which freeze you to death in minutes if you get into one.”
“Sounds like you have done it,” Elaine observed. “All of it, in fact.”
“Yeah, sort of. I’ve tried a lot of things… but they didn’t exactly work and it was kinda terrifying.”
“So… there is nothing impossible about it, you would just need to be a lot stronger… or much less lazy,” Elaine concluded.
“That’s not how I meant it,” Leena sighed.
“I know. Now, the last thing, getting a location from Dream World bubbles… how hard can that be, Emmy?” Elain turned to Emma, their best mathematician.
“Eh… matron..”
“Elaine.”
“Elaine, it’s hard. The theory is mapped, but the application is difficult and not well practiced,” Emma evaluated. “
“Suppose you practiced it every day for half a year, how long would it take?”
“I really cannot say… a few hours at the least.”
“So… if Leena wasn’t lazy about it and did the Dream World scouting, Rosalind made her personally-tailored drugs and Emma did the math, we could actually do it. If each of the three of you trained an apprentice for it, we could do it easily. Or am I missing something?” Elaine summarized.
Nobody said anything.
“If we can easily do something with half a year of preparation, we can safely assume someone else can do it as well. We are looking for a dreamwalker who makes his own drugs and is really good at math,” Elaine concluded.
“That would require extreme dedication,” Claire observed.
“How many nests have been raided in total?”
“972,” Emma answered.
“How many demons are there at a nest, on average?”
“32.4357,” Emma replied instantly.
“That makes how many demons killed?”
“31 527.5,” Emma answered instantly.
“Someone killed thirty-one and half thousand demons in two years. Extremely dedicated is a soft way to describe it. I think whoever is doing it is, among other things, is batshit insane,” Elaine smiled happily.
“Now, Claire, get me twenty warriors with flying mounts and have someone prepare food and supplies at the eastern outposts. We leave tomorrow,” Elaine commanded.
“Roger,” Claire bowed and left.
“The rest of you. We know what’s going on, it took us half an hour to figure this out. That means the demons also figured this out and the catch is in finding out who’s doing it. For that, we need to see a snake lair straight after a hit when there are some fresh traces left. Figure out their hit pattern and get me a location of the latest snake lair hit. General one is enough; we will find it from air easily. We leave tomorrow morning,” Elaine ordered the rest of the Faye. They sighed and got to work. The next day, Elaine’s warriors put them on their flying monsters, which were a weird mixture of wyverns, gryphons, hippogryphs, pegasi, manticores, chimeras, demi gryphons and massive eagles. They left off for the Cotton Woods.
“Well, this looks like the place. We land!” Elaine observed. Their group went to land between the trees.
“Stay calm, the warriors will protect you in case of danger,” Elaine reassured them before they headed toward the lair. They made the formation and headed to the snake lair.
“Tell me all you see,” Elaine ordered once they got to the lair.
“Flies are around, stench feels fresh, this is less than two days old,” Claire pitched in.
“There aren’t many marks outside, suggesting nothing from the lair managed to escape even to the entrance,” a warrior added.
“Torches up, we head in,” Elaine commanded.
“BLAAAAAARRRRGGHHHHHHHHGGGGGG,” Elizabeth and few of the researchers started vomiting as they entered. Nobody laughed. Elaine didn’t blame them either. This was one hell of massacre. Mutilated snake demon bodies lay spread all across the lair. Blood, brains, body parts and organs were splattered everywhere. All covered by the ever-present slime of snake scales.
“I see a set of footsteps. One person, heavy, leads both in and out, male-sized,” a warrior noted.
“Got another. Light, visible only in blood, leads only outside, male-sized,” another warrior added.
“Focus on the wounds,” Elaine commanded.
“No sign of any elemental damage, no rocks out of place, no corpses without fatal wounds, no residual magic. We can assume the suspects didn’t use spells,” Agatha noted.
Elaine smiled back faintly. “What of the physical wounds?”
“No signs of tears or multiple simultaneous cuts. All wounds are clean. All points to weapons. Very sharp, likely used with strengthening magic,” Agatha evaluated.
“Give me weapon types,” Elaine ordered.
“The cuts aren’t too deep. Suggests a sword, heavy but one handed… arming sword? Otherwise… here. Could someone measure how deep this stab is?” Agatha asked.
“Never fisted anyone?” Claire remarked and slammed her fist into the wound. Agatha turned red as Claire’s hand disappeared into the wound. She took it out, blood that covered it measured the depth of the wound.
“Too deep for a sword. Spear perhaps?” Agatha pondered.
“Anyone found anything else?” Elaine asked the crowd.
“There is really no residual magic around… not even from the demons, which is weird. No arrows, bolts, daggers or other projectiles. No different blood, no non-demon corpses, no marks of side entry. Everything is dead. Smaller snakes, baby snakes and eggs. Whoever did this simply walked in, killed everything and walked out through the main entrance. The lighter footsteps don’t make sense. They are spread around randomly, completely disconnected. It’s like… like when we fight,” a warrior breathed.
“If we can do teleportation magic, someone else can likely do it as well. So… we have two men, first with a sword, second with a spear. They walked in, one through the main entrance and second through a side entrance that’s now blocked, killed everything, walked out. The swordsman uses some wickedly strong strengthening while the spearman uses teleportation,” Elaine summarized.
“Elaine… are you saying two men killed over thirty thousand demons in two years? Who the hell are they?” Claire breathed.
“We are going to find out. We need to pinpoint their location, course and set up a trap. Any ideas?” Elaine demanded. Nobody said anything.
“EWWWW! This will take forever to wash!” Elizabeth exclaimed as she stepped into a pool of slime.
Elaine grinned wickedly as she announced “By the river. They need to wash themselves. We go back to the outpost to prepare; there is only one river around so we should find them easily in a few days.”
“What if they use magic to clean themselves?” Claire tossed up.
“Then we figure out some
thing else.”
14
Raven
“What happened to all the rivers? We can’t go to the village like this,” Raven exhaled. It hadn’t rained in over a week and forest streams were almost dried up.
“Afraid of your image, prince?” Lucas poked him as they walked.
“I’m afraid whoever meets us would get a heart attack the second they smell us.”
“Yeah… let’s circle around it and go against the wind,” Lucas agreed and they took an extra half an hour to do so. This was their first village in over three months.
“I still feel embarrassed about this,” Raven shrugged. They were both covered with a mixture of dried blood, slime and feathers. His otherwise stunningly handsome face and midnight hair were downright unrecognizable. His usually well-polished white armor and shield were borderline impossible to see under the mess.
“Me too… but we are out of bolts and killing the birds without ranged weapons is annoying as hell.”
“I know,” Raven sighed.
“HOLD! Who are you!” a guard shouted from the gate. The village wasn’t large. It had a palisade, about twenty visible guards and a small field around it. There was no way the village housed more than a thousand people.
“Calm down, we just want to trade,” Lucas shouted.
“You look like trouble. Go trade somewhere else!”
“Look, we just need to wash ourselves and buy some crossbow bolts. We will be gone in an hour,” Lucas retorted.
“Who are you anyway? You look like you bathed in a slaughterhouse,” the guard tossed up.
“Travelers. We just happened to run into some demons and couldn’t find a river to clean ourselves.”
“Sounds fishy. There is just two of you, you don’t run into demons and survive with just two people,” the guard countered.
“We are getting are not exactly winning this conversation,” Raven whispered to Lucas. Lucas shook his head in irritation.
“Can you just call the major? We are willing to buy our way into the village,” Lucas was visibly losing patience.
The guards exchanged a few words and one of them ran back. Lucas and Raven waited impatiently. Soon after a group of ten guards with a large man in the middle arrived. Judging by the embroidered clothes, he was the major.
“Greetings, travelers. I apologize for a rude reception, but who might you gentlemen be?”
“Is that?” Raven leaned to Lucas.
“Yeah.”
Lucas disappeared and instantly reappeared in front of the major. He ran his spear through the major’s chest. Everyone stared in shocked silence. The major shrieked and wobbled back. His face turned pale and wrinkly. His eyes went yellow and body extended. In a few seconds, a large snake with two claw-tipped arms stood where the major was.
“Killll themmmm!” it hissed.
Half of the guards charged at Lucas. Lucas disappeared and Raven appeared in his place, sword drawn. Raven’s blade wheezed through the air as he met his opponents. They weren’t ready for him. His blade swung sure and true; blood sprayed around as the shrieks of pain filled the air. A few seconds later, the ground around him was littered with half-snake half-man bodies. Raven looked up and saw the major on the ground. Lucas was on top of him and was leisurely stabbing him in the skull.
“Anyone else wants a piece of us?” Raven shouted. Nobody replied.
“Have someone burry them,” Lucas remarked as they walked into the village. The rest of the town guard didn’t dare to approach them. The people in the village stared at them. Angry, but terrified.
“Just keep going,” Lucas whispered. Raven nodded.
I have a feeling that the celebration of us heroically saving this town from the demon snake major isn’t going to happen… is it?
They went straight to the blacksmith.
“We need crossbow bolts,” Lucas announced coldly.
“Here! Take them! Just please don’t kill me!” the man shouted as he was hiding behind an anvil. They went to gather the bolts.
“Not the reaction I expected,” Raven tossed up as they started packing the bolts. There were dozens of them. Enough for the next few months.
“Tell me, blacksmith, did you know the major was a demon?” Lucas asked the terrified man.
“No! I swear!”
“Calm down, we know you aren’t one so we shall not harm you,” Lucas reassured him and tossed him a pouch full of gold. “That’s for the bolts.”
The blacksmith took the pouch and checked its contents. His eyes shone when he saw the golden coins inside.
“There were rumors," he admitted.
“And you thought you could just live alongside them for as long as you don’t make trouble,” Lucas pushed.
“Yes,” the blacksmith bowed his head.
Raven’s face twisted in disgust. “Let’s clean up the rest,”
Lucas nodded and they walked out to the village. Lucas teleported into the crowd and stabbed a man. People started screaming and running. The man slowly turned into a snake demon and Lucas finished him off. Raven drew up water from the city well and started cleaning his armor as he waited. He had no way to tell the disguised demons apart from men. Lucas did. The village was a complete chaos. Half an hour later Lucas came to join him. Everyone from the village was barred inside their houses.
“Done?” Raven asked.
Lucas nodded and went to clean himself.
“Do you think you have helped us? That you saved us from the demons? We will all get killed because of you!” a woman shouted from the window of her house..
Lucas took a deep breath, but Raven spoke first. “No. We didn’t come to save you. We didn’t come to help you. We just came to kill the demons. Almost all the demon nests in these woods are cleared out; we shall finish the rest soon. Make of it whatever you will,” Raven shouted back in a stone-cold voice.
“More will come! It doesn’t matter how many you kill! The new ones will be worse than the old! They always are!” more people came out of the houses and started shouting at them.
“We will kill them too… but feel free to do it first if you don’t feel like waiting,” Raven replied before he turned to wash his face. He left it for last.
“Murderers! Who the hell do you think you are?”
Raven wanted to speak up, but Lucas stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Another time, we have nothing to win here. Let’s go,” Lucas said softly.
Raven sighed and followed him. They left the village showered by insults and curses.
“Are you sure you want to keep going?” Lucas asked out of nowhere. “Because we are approaching the last convenient point for you to walk out of this.”
“How come?”
“We shall soon kill a champion. Once we do, you shall have a target painted on your back. From then, were you to leave, the demons would hunt you down to use you against me,” Lucas revealed.
“Don’t tell me you are finally planning to tell me the full story? We have been killing demons for almost two years now and there had seemed to have been no end to them,” Raven exhaled as they walked away from the village, “until now.”
“You know how to pick a moment to get philosophical,” Lucas was just trying to scrub some more dried blood off his tunic. Not that his efforts mattered much since he was wrapped in dried the mixture of demon blood and slime just like Raven. Their efforts to clean themselves were becoming rather futile. The mixture of dry blood, feathers and slime were more than just difficult to remove.
“I thought being free would be different… you know… less routine, more free?”
“Well, you can go wherever you want and do there whatever you desire,” Lucas smiled.
“Yea… you go wherever you want and then what? I don’t know… I always thought that getting rid of my shackles would change something. It hasn’t. I’m still the same; the world is still the same… so I still kill monsters, because ending live is the one thing I’m good at. I just do
n’t get it served into my arena, but have to travel a bit,” Raven continued.
“You can go back to being a prince,” Lucas offered.
“And do what? Sit by a table? Come on, Lucas, I can’t even organize myself, how am I supposed to rule a city?” Raven admitted.
“And a few towns with a few dozen villages,” Lucas grinned.
“I don’t want to be a decorative ruler, but neither do I want to mess things up or just become a manipulated puppet… anyway, back on topic. We have just about killed every demon in Cotton Woods, what’s next?”
“We head further east and get to the big ones,” Lucas revealed.
“The big ones?” Raven tried to hide how happy this made him. It sounded interesting. He had no illusion about the Cotton Woods going back to being cotton fields, which they were before The Upheaval, but he knew that killing demons was never pointless. It just didn’t seem to be too… impactful.
“There is a hierarchy of demons. Small ones, medium ones, big ones, champions, princes. We are gonna kill a prince or two by the time we are done.”
“Why are we killing the small ones and not just skip up to princes? How many princes are there anyway?” this picked Raven’s interest. This seemed worth the time… or well, at least a goal. Raven hated to admit it, but he just didn’t have one. Freedom was surprisingly hard to deal with. Hell… it was downright overwhelming. Being able to do anything was really close to doing nothing due to getting swamped in choices.
“There used to be eight demon princes; now there are seven. All demons below champion rank worship the prince in exchange for power or promise of it. The prince gets power from being worshipped and gives a part of it to his champions. In this sense, they work exactly like Gods. To kill a demon prince, you have to break the faith, kill its champions and only then the actual prince. If you skip straight to the prince, he will just possess a champion after his main body is destroyed. Afterward, he makes a new champion and you are back to square one. There is no trick to cheat it… at least not as far as I know,” Lucas explained.
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