NOVEL WEB Chapter 239: Night Meet
Good frend for Nitok sake forbeare,
To arise the dvst encloased heare.
Bleste be ye man yat spares thes grovnds,
And cvrst be he yat distvrbes ye dominion.
___________
A sigh troubled the night inside of the royal capital, guards scoured the wealthiest city of the kingdom even at this hour, allowing for a certain man to go in and out even at this lateness.
Wanneckssa, royal capital, was surrounded by large plains of green on one side, and humble woods on the other, situated upon a hill that watched over the rest of the landscape, it all looked so peaceful.
Quideos would have loved to stop and stare at the scenery illuminated by soft moonlight, but he could not allow himself to indulge in the sight, although the seer was at a loss right now.
His visions had not much more to give him, he had visited countless graves of ancient heroes, none had answered his call however, rejecting the call to protect, he had done all that he could to warn the great powers of the dangers looming ahead, he had done so much, tried to delve deeper into visions but nothing more of substance could be gleamed, at least, nothing that he could use or tell others.
His only remaining hope was to get a hold of the three great heroes, one of them at the very least, but that was an nigh impossible task, they were shrouded in mysteries even in his prophecies, not to mention the third one who seemed to slip out of existence, out of memories the instant he wasn't thinking about them.
Where to begin? Where to look?
The First Death Hunter, Elven Light and a forgotten hero…
He had asked the death hunters, every single elven population for clues and directions, the first was rather mysterious, only known for his ability to manipulate life force and being known as the bane of the undead, no physical descriptions had passed the test of time.
The second, quite a lot representations and paintings of her were to be found all around, pink hair and eyes that could blind people, yet somehow, impossible to get a hold of her, or even a sighting.
The third, no need to mention anything, Quideos might as well look for a phoenix and dragon hybrid at the bottom of the ocean.
He rubbed his chin, deep in thought, perhaps he could try and enlist the help of other people bearing an affinity for revelations and fate, that might work.
'Well, I also have issues of my own to deal with…' he had a zombie invading his mind and the lingering hold of The Unceasing upon him, not that he had any idea as to what could be done about those unwanted guests.
A shadow passed over him, snapping his attention back to reality, black feathers raining down on him, a figure silently landing right in front of him, appearing like a corrupted angel, a deep purple glow emanating from behind a bar-faced helm, the rotten wings stretched to their maximum length on each sides, the night visitor walking toward Quideos Audit, not an ounce of hesitation or apprehension to be read from its movements.
The winged being stopped exactly one meter away from the seer, holding out its hand as though offering Quideos to hold it, but instead, he spoke in an incomprehensible language, lowering the head with a slight creak.
"Herm, you are an undead right?
Am I supposed to understand something?" he smiled wryly, expecting something more to happen, but instead, it was like something left him, like a cold wind blew right past from behind, licking the nape and side of his face, apparently, it was the reason why this animated corpse had been offering its hand, as the undead retracted back, turning around, wings twitching, preparing to take flight once more.
The seer hastily jumped back, narrowly avoiding having his throat ripped out by a jagged horn protruding from the one of the wings, black blood and other gut-wrenching bodily substances flying past and onto him, immediately eating away at anything it landed upon.
"Ahah, that was not- Not very nice at all! What is the big deal? Did I speak too much? Did the festering zombie tell on me?" he chuckled nervously, trying to predict his opponent's next action, but that was rather hard, it was like trying to understand the thinking process of an actual dead body.
'Is this just a mindless undead?' its prior actions seemed to indicate the opposite, but the amount of actions he could gleam upon ahead of time was limited to an instant, and it only came barely before it happened.
Double bone blades extended from its fists, slashing at both air and the ground, once again, the seer foresaw the attack early enough to efficiently evade the attack.
And without further explanations, it took off into the skies, pushing off the soil with enough strength to largely imply that it could have attacked with more ferocity than this, but no, something must have been convincing enough to warrant leaving.
"Audit, Audit, Audit… Where are my thanks? I am the one who saved your skin just now, and honestly, it's only because you are the most useless of all that you weren't executed" Irmandos suddenly appeared from the corner of Quideos's eyes.
"You know what? I am going to be exceptionally nice today, this undead you just saw, you should focus on him instead of whatever you are doing, come on, I'll guide you"
"I don't trust a word you spew, zombie"
"Of course you don't, it's obvious that you would do the opposite of what I would advise" Quideos didn't know how, but he could have sworn the decayed and flaking cadaver squirming with insects smiled, somehow, despite lacking everything needed for it.
"Hold on a second-"
"Oh, you are thinking that I am actually telling the truth, hoping that you reject my words, some sort of double bluff, but If I may ask, what about a triple, or quadruple bluff? Even more?"
The undead walked in circles around the living, swinging his disembodied head around, sneering and laughing.
"Maybe, just maybe, I am actually the one who called this undead here, and this is all a set up, or maybe, I called it here and what I said before is also the truth, oh, so many combinations and possibilities! Maybe even that the undead was nothing but a hallucination? I have been gaining quite a bit more power, manifesting outside of visions…"
"Nice try but-" Quideos turned to the marks left in the ground by the claw attack, finding no signs of anything.
"Audit, look closer, maybe you will be able to see that there are actually slashes in the dirt and that the lack of marks is the actual hallucination, but what to do? How to properly check, how to know for certain? If I can do this now, what else can I do? Fake people? Conversations? Make you think you are somewhere when you aren't?
Maybe we are actually in a vision? Or are you actually soundly sleeping and this is just me messing with your dreams?"
"Audit! Look at me when I am speaking! Have you even considered the possibility… That when you gazed upon The Unceasing, that the insanity it brought was not temporary? That ever since then, you have been nothing but a raving lunatic yelling at the clouds?" Read latest stories on empire
"Audit! Why are you closing your eyes? Why are you walking away? Are you not going to check the ground more closely? Not curious? Where are you even going?
Aaah…"
"You have failed all that you attempted, Quideos Audit"
"You will never prevent the reestablishment of our dominion! Neither will anyone else, life shall know, oh you shall know!"
Quideos covered his ears, to no avail.