Hadjar inadvertently summoned the Black Blade, which responded with its usual eagerness. The sword was always ready to strike.
“Slave.” Arkemeya snickered. “You were a slave, and you’ll always be a slave. I’m offended by the fact that you and I are breathing the same air and-”
Hadjar’s loud laughter interrupted her. Steppe Fang tore his gaze away from the fire, looked at him, sighed, shook his head, then went back to his work.
“I thought that if I stopped talking to you, you wouldn’t be able to influence me,” Hadjar explained and dispelled the Black Blade. “I’m sorry that I underestimated your skill. I’ve met a few Lords so far. But I’ve met even fewer cultivators who are skilled at anything other than cultivating.”
Arkemeya’s haughtiness and arrogance evaporated.
“Kill me, human. Death is preferable to being a slave’s slave.”
Hadjar shrugged.
“I order you to tell me what you think about our flight.”
Arkemeya knew that if she tried to lie to him, she’d suffer a most unpleasant death in the fire of the World River. Some people theorized that it destroyed both the body and the soul.
“I wish you’d just killed me,” she whispered. “My father,” she said a little louder, “personally set up the veil. What you mistook for an anomaly was one of his traps.”
“And the flying monsters?”
“The serpents?”
Hadjar nodded.
“Father found them somewhere during his travels before he decided to establish his Kingdom. He brought them here to act as sentries. No one knows for sure how many of them there are and what level of cultivation they’ve achieved.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll decide to come down from the sky?”
“They don’t need anything except the ash.”
Hadjar begged to differ, remembering the creature that had chased him after sensing him wielding the mysteries of the Sword’s Heart. However, he decided to keep that to himself.
“What do you mean by that?”
“That your arrival didn’t go unnoticed.”
Hadjar nodded and pondered that. After a while, he turned to Steppe Fang.
“How long will it take them to get up?”
“They can get up right now,” the orc replied, “but they won’t be able to fight for another eight hours.”
Hadjar nodded and stood up. “I need to think.”
Chapter 602
Exactly eight hours later, the three disciples began to regain consciousness. Irma was the first to recover, despite being the one with the most severe injuries.
“Azrea,” she whispered the moment she opened her eyes.
Hadjar couldn’t help but feel jealous upon realizing that the two of them had formed such a deep bond.
“She’s all right,” he assured her.
Taking the sleeping cub out of his shirt, he placed her on Irma’s stomach. Tears appeared in the girl’s eyes when she saw the state the little tigress was in.
“I saw… I saw,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady but failing, “she saved us… She saved us all…”
Shaking her head, she moved Azrea to her chest with trembling hands and rubbed the cub’s head against her cheek. Purring, the tigress continued to sleep soundly.
Alea and Derek woke up soon after. The latter yawned, stretched, and then looked around to make sure they were safe. Upon seeing Arkemeya, he reached for his weapon, but didn’t find it.
So he hid under the blanket.
“She’s-”
“Calm down,” Hadjar said. “She’s our new… Uh, temporary… Well, she’s not an ally, but she’s not an enemy, either.”
Hadjar walked over to Derek, took his hand, and felt his pulse. Then he looked at him through the World River and almost cursed. Holy fuck! Whatever Steppe Fang had done to them, it was beyond his comprehension. Of course, he wasn’t as talented in the craft of healing as Hera was, but he’d just put all the human healers to shame. Just using a mortar and some herbs and roots, no less!
“Is she… Is she a Dah’Khass?” Derek was shocked. “How long was I out?”
“Eight or nine hours,” Hadjar answered calmly.
The young man fell silent. He then got up and, taking the blanket with him, went over to the fire to join the sisters and Steppe Fang. Alea was particularly quiet; she hadn’t said anything since she’d woken up. Steppe Fang, surrounded by humans, was strangely calm, and he even gave the trio some tea to drink. They seemed to feel safer next to the orc, thinking that he could defend them from the demoness.
“Tell us what happened,” Derek said some fifteen minutes later.
Hadjar told them about his visit to the gorge in as few words as possible. He paid special attention to the parts that involved the undead and the Prince.
“Those damned bloodsuckers,” Derek spat, ignoring Arkemeya’s glare. “They seem to be planning something really big.”
“It’ll allow them, as the Prince put it, to come under the protection of the laws of the Heavens and the Earth, whatever that means.”
“Well, we’ll get a chance to find out, won’t we, sugar?” Derek tried to smile at the demoness, but he ended up choking on his tea when he met her piercing glare.
“Call me ‘sugar’ again,” she hissed and reached for her sabers, even though they’d been put away into Hadjar’s spatial ring as he didn’t want her wielding her Imperial level weapons willy-nilly, “and I’ll tear your dick off and shove it down your throat.”
“A lady shouldn’t talk like that,” Alea reprimanded her. “What are these laws of the Heavens and the Earth?”
“I don’t have to answer your questions, human.”
“But you do have to answer mine,” Hadjar reminded her. He was grateful to Alea for bringing this up, as he had completely forgotten about it. “Answer me, Arkemeya, what are the laws of the Heavens and the Earth?” He persisted, figuring that he ought to learn more about the laws he kept hearing everyone mention. Strong beings like Freya, Helmer, and even the gods themselves obeyed these laws.
“They are laws,” Arkemeya said matter-of-factly, making Hadjar frown. “Everything and everyone that exists must obey them.”
She paused.
“Is that it?” Hadjar asked.
“That’s all I know,” she said and shrugged.
“Who knows more?”
“My father.” Arkemeya smiled widely, revealing her fangs. “Perhaps he’ll tell you more about them before he rips your heads off and feasts on your entrails. He always did like to play with his food.”
The Lascanians paled. Hadjar, used to her threats, just sighed.
“Who wrote them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where can I read them?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happens if you violate them?”
“They can’t be violated.”
“Any law can be broken,” Hadjar objected. “You tried to break your oath, which is also a kind of law… And we both saw how that ended up.”
Arkemeya just laughed.
“Can you go back in time? Can you resurrect your parents? Or put out the light of the stars? Or turn the darkness into light? The laws of the Heavens and the Earth can’t be broken. Everything that exists obeys them.”
“That’s stupid,” Derek said. “How can you obey something that isn’t written or spoken by anyone?”
Steppe Fang cleared his throat and gave Hadjar a warning look, hinting that he ought to keep his mouth shut. “Legends say that, somewhere in the abode of the gods, there are two books. One contains the destinies of all creatures, and the other the laws that these destinies must obey.”
“Did the gods write them?”
“These books are older than the gods,” Steppe Fang said and turned his gaze back to his mortar, signaling that he’d said all that he had to say.
Staring at the fire, Hadjar mulled all of this over. Apparently, even the gods themselves
had to obey some laws that they hadn’t even created. Something felt off about this. These laws sounded more like the laws of physics, but even those were often violated by various Techniques. The demoness and the orc had conflicting opinions on the topic, so he was pretty sure that they were talking about two different things that had somehow ended up sharing a name.
“The only thing keeping us here are the laws of the Heavens and the Earth.”
“So, you need something that’ll free you from them.” Hadjar suddenly realized. “And this something is clearly not just power or an army, otherwise you would’ve left the gorge a long time ago. However, your people have been killing and plundering… Which means…”
“That their King can’t leave the gorge,” Steppe Fang explained.
Hadjar looked at Arkemeya, who looked away.
“What does the King need to escape this place and create an Empire?”
“I don’t know.”
There was no golden glow around her, which meant that she wasn’t lying.
However…
“What do you think he needs?”
Arkemeya bit her lower lip. The golden glow gradually appeared around her, making Hadjar worry that she’d end up dying if she tried to lie to him.
“A child,” she said at last. “He needs a child to be born as part of the laws. Then he’ll be able to safely interfere in the lives of mortals and create an Empire within which every future pureblood Dah’Khass will be part of the laws as well.”
So, that’s why they needed you…
“Why didn’t it work out with you?”
Arkemeya narrowed her eyes. The golden glow intensified.
“The Black Heaven Curtain. It hides these lands from the Heavens, allowing us to live among the mortals. But it also prevented my father’s plan from coming to fruition.”
“The anomaly,” Hadjar murmured. “He’s using it to pave the way for his plan. He’ll do it-”
“On the night of the Black Star,” Steppe Fang finished for Hadjar. “Which is in two days. On that night, the worlds merge together and miracles happen.”
“Light and darkness… The blackened light.” Hadjar recalled South Wind’s stories. “So, we have two days to thwart the King’s plan.”
“Damn it!” Derek swore. “And how do we do that? We don’t even know where the King lives!”
Hadjar grinned.
“We’ll surrender to the Dah’Khasses, of course.”
Chapter 603
“Am I the only one who thinks this plan is doomed to fail?”
“…”
“By the gods, I can already see myself standing here and being eaten by flies.”
“…”
“It stinks. In-”
“Shut up!”
Surprisingly, it was the normally calm Irma who’d snapped at Derek. She was too nervous as they walked across the Dah’Khasses’ fields to tolerate his whining. The zombies, staring off into space, stood so close to each other that Hadjar would sometimes bump them with his shoulder or hand. Wanting to fit in among the undead, he did his best to imitate their clumsy walk. He’d demanded that the rest of the squad do the same.
“As you wish,” Derek muttered, and rattled the chains that bound him.
Thick shackles covered with various runes and hieroglyphics had been placed around their ankles. From there, a chain went up and parted to coil around their wrists and handcuffs. Connecting their wrists and the collars around their necks was a thinner, but no less strong chain. They were all bound in a similar manner. The only difference was that Steppe Fang’s bonds were thicker and larger.
Arkemeya rode in front of them, leading the squad through the fields. In one hand, she held the reins of her mount, and in the other, the chain that bound them all together.
“If you keep talking,” she hissed, “we’ll be discovered and sent to the fields.”
“We?” Hadjar asked curiously.
“They’ll mark me as a traitor the moment I bring you to the Palace.”
Even though he couldn’t see her face, Hadjar suspected that there wasn’t any real disappointment or sadness in her expression. If she really didn’t want to be a traitor, she would’ve already tried to break her oath. Given that they were in the middle of the fields, such a surge of energy wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. The fact that she hadn’t done so indicated that either she hadn’t given up and was planning to get out of this situation somehow, or… Damn it! Hadjar hated scheming.…
“You better make sure that we don’t get caught-”
“Shut up.”
Hadjar fell silent. Five riders were coming from the west. They raced through the fields, heading straight toward them.
By the High Heavens!
Spurring her horse, Takemeya covered the distance between them in a heartbeat. The fiery hooves of her horse loomed above Hadjar’s head as it reared up on its hind legs. He almost lost his cool and drew the Black Blade, but he managed to restrain himself.
“Arkemeya,” Takemeya hissed.
Her companions wore heavy robes, hiding both their faces and figures from curious gazes. Each of them exuded the aura of a peak-stage Spirit Knight.
“Takemeya.” The half-breed bowed.
Her voice was calm, but Hadjar could feel that she was anxious.
“What are you doing here?” Takemeya asked as her hair began to recede into her skull. Hadjar knew that this wasn’t a good sign. Her blade merged with her hip, and her fingernails turned into claws.
“Why do you ask? Don’t I have a right to be here?” Arkemeya shot back, raising an eyebrow.
Don’t do anything stupid, Hadjar pleaded silently. He was certain of the fact that he’d left no room for her to betray them. Nevertheless, Arkemeya was cunning. Talking to her was like trying to charm a snake.
“Shut up, half-breed,” Takemeya growled and stopped transforming. She was no longer a stunning beauty, but a winged monster instead. “We both heard our Prince’s order. It seems to me like the term he set hasn’t expired yet.”
Arkemeya glanced at Hadjar and smiled widely.
“Mind your own business.”
Takemeya let out a strange sound. Hands with three fingers topped with claws as long as daggers appeared from beneath the robes of the other riders.
“One more word in that tone and-”
“And what, Takemeya?” Arkemeya laughed derisively, unsheathing her sabers and unleashing her aura.
Only then did Hadjar realize that him capturing her had been nothing more than a stroke of dumb luck. Arkemeya was a Lord and wielded the mysteries of the Saber Spirit. Her power exceeded Hadjar’s and was equal to Orune’s, if not greater.
“Takemeya, you must be feeling brave to speak to me like this with only four servants to protect you. Do you have a hidden pair of extra wings somewhere? I’d be glad to cut them off.”
There was no humility or willingness to bow down in Arkemeya’s voice. She looked like a fearless warrior, absolutely confident in her victory.
“Do you think that your father will save you from the fields if you so much as touch me, you bitch?” Takemeya didn’t appear to be in a hurry to fight. “Try it and you’ll feel the full extent of the Queen’s rage. She’s put up with you for too long.”
Arkemeya’s gaze hardened. As it turned out, the demonic Kingdom wasn’t very different from any human one. No Queen liked to see a bastard anywhere near her, as they were a constant reminder of their husband’s infidelity and an indicator of their inequality. After all, a King could do what a Queen could not.
“Leave,” Arkemeya hissed. “I stood watch, just like the Prince ordered me to. I spotted spies and I captured them. I’m taking them to the King so that he can decide their fate.”
“Spies? To the King? You’re out of your mind.”
Shifting back to her human form, Takemeya moved closer to Hadjar. Removing his hood, she stared into his eyes. He tried to hide his mind as deep as possible inside his soul.
“Jus
t a piece of meat,” she hissed, and ran her tongue over Hadjar’s cheek, pushing him aside. “Remember this, Arkemeya: I’ll be the one who tears out your heart.”
“I’ve heard that threat many times since I was a child, Takemeya. But right now, I’m the one who can rip out your fucking tongue.”
Skirting the demoness and her servants, Arkemeya started off down the hill. Dragging their feet, her ‘prisoners’ followed. Hadjar thanked the Evening Stars that the Lascanians had managed to keep their cool.
Chapter 604
Lost in thought, they walked in complete silence for about three hours. Hadjar couldn’t even begin to guess what the others were thinking about. As for himself, he was back in Dahanatan. Somewhere out there, in that labyrinth of alleyways, streets, and squares was his friend. This trip, which should’ve taken only two weeks, now seemed almost never-ending. He hoped that Einen wouldn’t try to find him, otherwise they’d end up searching for each other forever. Hadjar was sure that the news of ‘Rukh’s Wings’ crashing had surely reached the capital by now. Relying on Einen’s prudence, he hoped that his friend had already gotten to Darigon and was now waiting for him there.
The moment they reached the top of a rocky hill, his mind went blank. There was nothing on the hill, save for an old, dead tree, and a winding path carved into the rock that descended into the gorge, gradually turning into a wide road leading to the wrought-iron gates of the barbican.
Situated atop the rocky ridge, the Palace loomed above them. The ridge was connected to the gorge by a long bridge submerged in fog. Around its perimeter were tall towers decorated with statues of various monsters. The bridge led to a high arch, which was also topped with towers. Long and sharp like needles, they were scattered all over the complex, making it look like the back of a porcupine. With its stained glass windows embedded into the gray stonework, bas-reliefs, and the statues on its countless towers and spires, it looked both magnificent and tacky. Hadjar recognized a few of the faces on the statues from horror stories that his mother had used to tell him.
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7 Page 27
