A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Ankhur's eyelids twitched when he noticed the pristine documents. The last time he'd looked at those they were practically disintegrating at his touch, but now they looked like new.

He immediately realized he'd underestimated Elora's means. Clearly, he was unaware of how much the fairies valued knowledge, nor how many techniques they'd developed towards the preservation of it.

"Can you even read ancient Egyptian?" Ankhur asked sceptically, an eyebrow raised.

But Elora ignored him, her eyes continuing to fly across the paper while Erik chuckled.

"I doubt you'll get much response out of her for now," he warned Ankhur. "But don't worry, she'll figure it out. All language in the universe follows similar patterns, and Earth's languages were even influenced by the rest of the universe in the past. She won't have much trouble."

Despite still looking sceptically at Elora, Ankhur took his seat again. Nodding, he finally turned to Erik wryly. "You're obviously a lucky man…"

"Hehe, of course," Erik chuckled, before glancing at Naeku and winking. "And soon, I'll be even luckier."

Unfortunately, Naeku barely noticed his flirtation. Her eyes were downcast, as her mind was still preoccupied with their previous discussion.

Sighing, Erik turned back towards Ankhur, and noticed a carefully hidden, shit-eating grin on his face, causing Erik to narrow his eyes. Ankhur was actually in human form right now, as Erik and Elora had already seen him anyway, which made it a little easier to read his expressions.

Coughing, Ankhur wiped the grin away and continued. "Anyway… let's continue while Elora reads those documents. Unfortunately, there's really not much I can tell you myself at this point."

He shrugged helplessly. "All I know about the situation in the past is that there was once a civil war within an organization named 'the guardian', which was ruled by someone named Audumla. Our ancestors fled that conflict and ended up here."

Frowning in thought as he tried his best to remember everything, he continued. "Later, the guardians fractured, and the hunters were born. Then, Audumla one day arrived in our village and designated my ancestor as one of her chosen, meant to keep the world in balance. She constructed an altar, gave them an amulet, and left again."

Suddenly, he pulled a familiar amulet from his pocket and held it in his hand. "Ever since then, my family has used this thing to gain power at Audumla's altar so that we could protect our village against the hunters."

When his story was finished, he looked up at Erik and shook his head. "That's all I know." He glanced at Elora for a moment. "It's possible those documents reveal a little more information now that they've been restored, but… that's basically all I could still decipher from them."

Erik nodded thoughtfully. "Right… nothing new then, so far. Although it couldn't have been Audumla herself who showed up that day. It must have been her last remaining ally at the time: Merlin. He basically carried Audumla along with him, though."

"Can you… explain that?" Ankhur asked, raising an eyebrow.

Nodding, Erik decided to give them a quick rundown of everything they'd figured out about Earth's past: its long history, including its past connection to the network, Audumla's most likely current situation, and finally, Erik's position as this so-called harbinger.

At this point, he didn't think it made sense to hide this stuff from Ankhur and Naeku, so he told them all he knew without reservation. It took him about thirty minutes to recount everything, and in that time, Naeku reluctantly shook herself free from her thoughts to listen to him, while Elora simply continued reading.

"That… is quite the story," Ankhur muttered softly, sinking into thought. "So you're actually saying this Audumla remains alive? And this city, it's… a remnant of those days?"

"Without a doubt," Erik nodded confidently. "We actually had a bit of a run-in with Audumla once. At least through a connection between our dimensions. She's definitely alive, and as for this city…" he looked around with a raised eyebrow. "…I don't see what else it could be. Although, I'm not sure why they wanted it to reappear like this."

"Fair enough," Ankhur nodded thoughtfully. Suddenly, his expression became sombre, and he looked at Erik intensely. "Now, please tell me about your connection to our enemy and… how tempted you were to accept that person's offer back then."

Although many other things had been going on at the time, Ankhur was there when Imogene made her offer to Erik, and Ankhur remembered how Erik appeared to think about it for a moment.

Erik didn't mind his implication, fortunately. Rather, he immediately grinned and shook his head. "Not at all, actually." The fires of vengeance passed though Erik's eyes for a moment. "The hunters and any organization born from them will be wiped out one day… I can promise you that."

"As for this, Imogene," Erik indifferently shrugged. "We'll see… If she sees the light at the end, maybe I'll let her live because she seems to know a lot of interesting things. Whatever the case, though, I won't betray my own subjects, Ankhur. You can take my word on that."

Ankhur looked at him sombrely for a moment as if trying to ascertain the truth of his words. Erik looked back calmly, not minding the scrutiny. To be honest, even with the contract binding him somewhat, Ankhur had been a very good sport about Erik's takeover, and that could only be appreciated. Enjoy more content from My Virtual Library Empire

Finally, Ankhur nodded, "Fine…" Looking back up at Erik, he frowned. "But that leaves us with the issue at hand: the hunters will return. So, what's our next step."

Relaxing back into his seat, Erik sipped an alcoholic drink and nodded quietly. After a moment of thought, she spoke up, waving his glass around. "Well, first of all, they've suffered a heavy defeat this time, and they've already been gearing up towards a war with the European Council, which will be a tough battle for them."

"So," Erik continued leaning forward. "I don't actually think we have to worry too much for the foreseeable future. They will return, but… they might wait until they've dealt with Europe. Plus… they might be invading Africa from Egypt as well."

"That all still sounds pretty worrying," Ankhur muttered, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah," Erik chuckled. "I didn't say it wasn't, just that we still have some time…" Fledgeling ambition sparked in Erik's eyes. "TIme we can use to unify Africa…"