Crown Of Blasphemy: Rise Of The Legendary Villain

"So what are you?" Lay asked softly, while dusting dirt off her leather shirt and pants—the same garments Mr. Valen had worn moments before.

In turn, Mr. Valen wore hers which was much more comfortable than his previous clothing.

He'd seized her clothes by force—a technicality that didn't violate their deal since he hadn't harmed her.

"Are you another species of Alien?" The woman continued again, her eyes narrowed to slits as she walked closer while brandishing her blade.

Unfortunately, Mr. Valen seemed threatened by that, no, that was an understatement, he didn't like that at all, "What. Are. You. Doing?" He asked, his voice glacial, his eyes darkening slightly.

"Huh?" Lay hummed quizzically before sheathing her blade, "Why are you so jumpy? It's not like I could hurt you even if I wanted to. I don't want to die."

"Die?" Mr. Valen echoed while still keeping his distance, "What makes you think you'll die?"

There was a brief silence in the air, a pause during which Lay's surprise sharpened into realization.

"It makes sense that you wouldn't know, you're new after all," Lay muttered with a soft chuckle.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Valen asked, his tone deeper, tired of the pointless dialogue.

It only took one look for Lay to understand that her new partner was annoyed, so she spoke. "Look, I don't know how you got here but my clan controls one of the permanent passageways. Most aliens stumble through it into Thornak.

"I see," Mr. Valen hummed, urging her to continue. He knew what a passageway was after all.

Letting out a sigh, Lay sat down on the wet black soil, her brows furrowed, "Every Alien who comes through is immediately branded by the world itself," she said with a pause before going on. "They are then subjected to unbearable pain until they make a deal with a person native to this world, and of course the penalty for breaking said deal is death."

Lay paused after that to let the words sink in, letting out a shallow breath as she watched.

"Death?" Mr. Valen muttered while remembering how he had broken his deal with the cannibal clan; he had promised not to hurt them, and yet he did.

Yet nothing had happened to him; he also felt no inexplicable pain when he first arrived in this world, In fact, all the pain he had experienced had an explanation.

Like the time he was impaled, bitten, burned by acid, and eaten alive.

One thing that was true, though, was the mark itself; it was on its back, and it seemed to grant him the ability to speak to the natives of this world.

Another noteworthy thing was the fact that the mark disappeared after a deal was made; it happened with the cannibal clan, and it happened after he made a deal with this young woman.

But the one thing that stuck with him was their location.

"You said we're in the Thornak Empire, right?" Mr. Valen asked before saying, "What is the Thornak Empire?"

The name Thornak stuck to him because it was the name of the place where the Whisper Stalker had been recovered from.

This would mean the beast whose blood he'd used to alter himself had, at some point been alive in this place.

Lay seemed a bit eager to answer, to brag about her knowledge of the world but was disturbed by the sound of movement in the distance.

"We have to hide," she mouthed silently moving her body to take cover behind a large rock.

Simultaneously, Mr. Valen felt every hair on his body stand on its ends, something he had never felt before yet it made him aware that he was in danger.

So he hid much like Lay and peeked out from the rock, but what he saw, what he thought he saw didn't make sense.

It looked like a very large bird, a wheel, or a triangle mashed up into one, bending space as it observed everything yet nothing at all.

It levitated, and it had eyes, thousands of them throughout its shapeless body.

That was all that could be described of it.

The sheer absurdity of its existence made it difficult to portray in a way that would deliver an accurate mental image.

'What the fuck is that thing?' Mr. Valen thought grimly, his mind aching in pain, but he didn't care, he was too amazed.

It was then that one of the things' eyes locked in on him, and like a missile honing in on its target, the rest of its eyes pinpointed his location.

A reasonable person would have hidden immediately under such circumstances, but Mr. Valen was stuck, bound in the awkward position of his head poking out by some unseen force.

This monster was strong, unbelievably so, but in an event that could be described as nothing short of a miracle to Mr. Valen, the space around it flared, and the entity streaked eastward.

It was gone.

"My god," Mr. Valen let out a breath before muttering, "what was that thing?"

"Folklore Level," Lay muttered under her breath, her eyes trembling. "I've never seen one before."

"Folklore level? Define that, now, " Mr. Valen demanded, his eyes squinted in curiosity.

"Don't you, who am I kidding you probably don't know," Lay said as she rested her back against a wall.

Turning to look at Mr. Valen, she whispered, "First, we have silver-clawed Skilions who evolve into gold-clawed Skilions by feeding on humans. These gold-clawed Skilions then feed on more humans to evolve into the monsters you see today."

"These strong monsters also have advantages. Most of the time, they don't care about humans and won't actively attack unless they feel threatened or meet someone truly powerful. They feed mostly on monsters weaker than them yet stronger than us, thereby controlling their population."

"So every monster evolved from a Skilion," Mr. Valen muttered in shock. He had assumed that Skilions were just another species of monster.

"That's not all," Lay continued, "the way my teacher explains it, the way they evolve is not random either, take the story of the Biri clan into consideration."

"The-"

"The story of the Biri clan is famous around these parts," Lay interrupted Mr. Valen before continuing, "it goes like so, a clan of normal humans called the Biri Clan was known for their fixation on Takito, a god that was half human, half horse."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Mr. Valen asked curiously.

"Well, as they were normal humans living in unforgiving lands like this, they were easily wiped out by a single gold-clawed Skilion, who then evolved to that same god," Lay continued.

"That's interesting," Mr. Valen muttered and as a normal person would do, he began to think.

"Argh," a piercing headache intervened stopping any of such attempts and in turn causing Mr. Valen to frown.

Lay didn't seem to notice this, though, as the look in her eyes turned a bit dreamy, "There's so much we don't know about these beasts, that's why I wish to grow strong enough to travel East."

"And what do you hope to find in the east?" Mr. Valen muttered, and Lay chuckled.

"The Unyielding battlefield, that's where the forces of the Royalian Empire and the Veridianan Empire form an alliance to fight against our Thornak Empire. I don't mean to brag, but we Red-eyed Witches grow stronger at a faster rate than green or Purple-eyed Witches."

"Hmm," Mr. Valen hummed in realization while closing his eyes, "so your dream is to fight?"

"Hell no, I just want to travel, but you can't get to the Veridianan Empire without crossing the Unyielding battlefield," Lay mused, smacking her lips before saying.

"The Veridianan Empire is the second most knowledgeable Empire in the world, and they accept outsiders too, they have real schoolers and teachers of Nethercraft."

"But aren't you-"

"Yes, I'm a descendant of the Varyn clan, one of the seven strongest clans in the Thornak Empire. We answer only to the emperor city," Lay muttered proudly.

"Would you stop interrupting me?" Mr. Valen grunted before asking, "What are the other clans in the Thornak Empire?"

"Sorry..." Lay responded and turned quiet for a brief moment, but that moment was only brief as she began again.

"Well I haven't been taught about the other clans yet," she mused before saying, "but I do know how they relate with each other."

Mr. Valen listened to her for hours on end, and the more he heard, the more astonished he became at how brutal this world was.

The Thornak Empire was founded by a single man who fled the once-thriving Veridiana, formerly known as Guliyam.

After escaping to a perilous region, he established a tribe that quickly grew into a formidable empire.

Despite being regarded as the weakest of the empires, Thornak thrived due to the harshness of its land.

The territory was infested with deadly creatures, and it was plagued by frequent volcanic eruptions.

The soil was infertile, making the land undesirable to others, but it made up for it in other resources.

Within this unforgiving environment, only seven major clans managed to endure, while countless smaller clans were in a constant state of conflict, frequently changing leadership and territories.

The empire, however, encouraged this chaos. The seven major clans oversaw the smaller ones within their regions, maintaining order amid the turmoil.

Each year, these major clans were required to send thousands of 15-year-old boys to the capital as part of a strict quota.

Failure to meet this quota resulted in a brutal purge, where the imperial forces would descend upon the failing clan, annihilating its male population.

This would significantly weaken the clan, making it vulnerable to being absorbed by one of the remaining six clans, while allowing a smaller clan to rise in its place.

Despite its harsh and undesirable land, the Thornak Empire was constantly at war with two more powerful empires, which were growing increasingly wary of Thornak's rising strength.

Thornak, in turn, sought to conquer these empires, coveting their fertile and secure lands.

"This land, it's a war games," Mr. Valen muttered grimly his heart dropping at the realization of where he was, and yet he was excited, a single thought pulsing in his mind. 'How efficient.'

"Well, you can always follow me back to my clan after my expedition," Lay, who noted Mr. Valen's frustration, chimed in, but she was met with a small scoff.

"Do I look like I want to be enslaved?" He asked.