Shadow Slave: The Endless Serpent

Mercurion rode down the wide road, manoeuvring through a tight mass of pedestrians and horse-drawn carts. On both sides stood tall, bright buildings, each large enough to house at least two families.

"The people here are definitely not living in poverty," he told himself as he watched street vendors and merchants tried to sell their goods. Some sold food freshly cooked on the spot, others sold clothing, and some offered raw materials. The angel's eyes were already scanning for the latter, seeing if there was anything he might later use to create charms or in rituals.

"I'm not even sure a ritual would work here if I pray to anything but myself," he whispered, his horse never pausing its steady pace.

It moved straight toward the castle, weaving from one road to another.

Even though Mercurion had never set foot in this world before, he moved through the city as if he had been born there. No matter which path he chose, it would always lead him toward his goal.

The deeper he ventured into the capital, the richer and happier the people seemed. To his surprise, there were no homeless or beggars crowding the streets, something he would have expected in the capital of such a vast empire. And he soon discovered the reason. He watched two knights drag a man into an alley and execute him without hesitation. They tossed the corpse into a cart and pulled it away. No one around them seemed to care. Some even laughed, covering their lips with their fingers and whispering to each other as if they had just witnessed a harmless joke.

Mercurion was not one to care for the poor, but even by his standards, this kind of behavior was disgusting. 'I'm curious why the city doesn't reek like a giant trash heap if they just kill people like pests,' he thought with a scowl.

Tapping into his spirituality, the angel released a strong surge of Bad Luck upon the people around him. Not enough to kill them outright, but enough to make their lives thoroughly miserable for the next few months.

"Anyway, where were we…" he whispered, looking up past the buildings that surrounded him. The castle was still as far away as before, despite him riding for nearly half an hour.

The capital was truly enormous, divided by two massive walls into distinct layers. The first layer lay between the outer and inner walls, a vast area reserved for farms, villages, hunters and etc.. The second layer — protected entirely by the inner circular wall — was the actual city, with its many districts and packed population.

Turning onto a narrower path, Mercurion couldn't help but wonder why a city would need such extreme fortification. The first wall made sense; the monsters in the hollow mountains were genuinely dangerous. But the second one? Not as much.

As soon as the alley-like road ended, Mercurion was hit by a chaotic myriad of voices and sounds that immediately pulled him out of his thoughts. Bells clanged, horses neighed, wood clacked against wood, and carriages rumbled over uneven paths.

It was a bazaar. A ginormous one.

Men were shouting at each other, each trying to carry his voice over the next. One yelled that the price was too high, while another complained about the quality of a robe he had bought two days ago.

Countless other conversations buzzed all around, and Mercurion quietly used the overlapping chatter to further learn the local language. Something he had been passively doing since joining the caravan.

He gripped the reins tightly, carefully guiding his horse through the maze that was made of countless stalls and boutiques. The merchants shouted at him, desperately trying to advertise their goods, but Mercurion didn't spare them even a single glance.

The white angel stood out sharply among the crowd. His ivory skin and silvery hair glistened under the bright sunlight streaming down from above. Many people threw him quick, curious looks while some just outright stared, admiring the stranger's breathtaking beauty.

In this world, anyone native knew that those with such abnormally perfect features were almost always strong. Powerful beings walking the path to divinity. The higher one climbed, the more beautiful they became through rejecting the imperfections of their bodies.

'These damn worms!' he growled inwardly, making sure his horse didn't accidentally step on a child or kick someone's dog into the abyss. He was more than tempted to simply let the stallion loose, considering how everyone insisted on standing in his way.

'Strange. My luck should've smoothed the path to the castle, so why am I suddenly facing trouble here?' Mercurion thought, his eyes narrowing as he tapped deeper into his spirituality to probe the space around him.

Meanwhile, the crowd thickened even more, blocking his way entirely.

But then he felt it. A strange force pushing against him.

Mercurion's eyes glowed softly as he sensed a sudden surge of wind slicing toward him, followed by a thunderous clap that silenced the entire bazaar.

Raising his hand calmly, he caught a black arrow just before it pierced his eye.

The crowd froze, paralyzed by the attack. Their minds took a moment to process what had just happened.

Then, a heartbeat later, panic exploded. People screamed and rushed away from the stranger as Mercurion's brown stallion snorted and reared dangerously.

Soon enough, the streets were cleared from bystanders.

"Who dares attack me!" Mercurion growled, snapping the arrow in his hand and tossing it aside as his horse began to calm, its hoof stomping the ground in irritation.

The only answer he received was a shower of a dozen more arrows hurtling toward him from every direction, their heads whistling through the air at blinding speed.

Mercurion didn't care, nor tried to resist, simply scanning over the hideouts where the archers were obviously located. Meanwhile, the arrows simply hit each other midair or suddenly snapped, not being able to support their own weight due to a mistake made by the smiths.

Simply put, nothing touched him.

'How did my luck fail me?' he wondered, still feeling the subtle pressure pushing against him. "Only one way to find out," he hissed, before unleashing a Misfortune Domain and intensifying his Calamity Attraction.

Instantly, a nearby stall caught fire, ignited by a lens focusing sunlight onto a hanging cloth. The flames spread downward, hitting dozens of oil jars hidden beneath the stand, triggering an explosion.

Sharp winds that appeared seemingly out of nowhere intensified the flames.

In less than a second, the entire bazaar turned into an inferno, thick black smoke and roaring orange flames swallowing the space.

One archer burst from the fire moments later, running and screaming as he burned alive. More screams soon followed as the remaining archers died, burning to death or killed in the initial blast.

Mercurion grabbed the first archer by the collar, leaning in and gently blowing on him. The flames vanished at once, his scorched skin instantly cooled.

"Who sent you?" Mercurion asked in the man's native tongue, his eyes staring down coldly from above. But the archer only squirmed and cried in pain, clawing at the angel's grasp. "Don't want to speak?" Mercurion scoffed, "Good."

He raised his free hand — fingers pressing together into a blade-like shape — and in one smooth motion, sliced the man's head clean off.

"If they don't want me to go to the king," the angel said, dropping the head to the ground as a nasty grin appeared on his face, "I'll just make the king come to me."