Undead Beast Master: Living Solely for My Desires

The male body truly worked in miraculous ways. Despite the blood loss, his body responded predictably. Ari's naked form was impossible to ignore.

Well, who could blame him? Her body was breathtaking. It was his first time seeing an elf naked, after all. And her curves, strikingly similar to Luna's, were more than enough to stir any man.

Vera, meanwhile, had her own charm. She wasn't the type one would call hot; rather, she exuded a soft, innocent allure. That kind of cuteness oddly intrigued Zaroth more, perhaps because he had grown somewhat numb to beauty after constantly being surrounded by stunning women. But cute ones? They were rare.

Still, they were his comrades. He forced his gaze away after only a few seconds. He quickly got up and entered the water once again, since the battle with the statue had pretty much made the last bath meaningless.

Ari clenched her teeth in embarrassment. Of all people to witness her naked form, it had to be a human male!

Vera didn't seem stunned for long. Surprisingly, she entered the lake as well. It was obvious Zaroth wasn't going to keep staring at them, and even if he did, he had already seen what was there to be seen. Why would she be embarrassed?

The bath passed in relative silence after that.

*****

Now dressed, Zaroth found himself recounting his strange interaction with the statue.

"So, you were pulled in by some kind of force?" Ari asked, reading the inscription on the stone.

"Yes," he simply nodded. It was indeed strange how he kept on walking deeper into the cave, despite knowing it was a bad idea. Some kind of mental force was the only way to explain it.

The elf let out a sigh. "Nothing. There is no rune nor anything else that could point me to the culprit."

Vera also seemed to fail to find anything worth noting.

"Don't you at least know who the statue was? It was an elf, after all, and according to the text, it was some kind of great figure," Zaroth reasoned.

"No," Ari shook her head. "No one comes to mind. From what I know of brown elf history, there's no mention of a being like that. If I had to bet, the Inner Circle might know something..."

With the cave yielding no answers, the group returned to their original objective, visiting villages in search of ancient runes.

Ari still thought that they were doing this to help the villages in case they were in danger.

Meanwhile Vera and Zaroth knew that studying the runes would help the Oracle get a better insight into their nature.

"Its last words…" Zaroth whispered to Vera, ensuring Ari wouldn't overhear.

"It said that 'he' is waiting for us, not to mention that it knew we were Fragment Bearers."

The Oracle nodded. "Most likely it's connected to the thing that Night and Sira want us to kill," she reasoned.

"We're missing too many pieces of the puzzle," the beast master sighed. It was becoming clear they'd need to reach the Inner Circle of the continent to find the truth.

The rest of the day passed without anything noteworthy happening, so the party went to sleep.

*****

"Once again," Zaroth groaned, looking at the weird cloud and the shifting lines resembling runes high in the sky.

'Having the same dream twice now can't be a coincidence, right?' Zaroth thought, eyeing the only thing that seemed to be able to provide information, the cloud.

"What do you want from me?" he shouted.

The reply came, distant and fractured, "Run… Come… Doomed… Learn."

"Useless," Zaroth frowned, watching the runes pulse and dance. This wasn't a normal dream. He was lucid, but couldn't control it. And no enemy hunted him, so it wasn't a nightmare either.

Seeing that he wouldn't be able to do much here, he began to study the weird waves of energy in the sky.

If that really was some kind of highly advanced rune, then he could in theory decipher and learn it with time. Yet it didn't seem possible at the moment. The waves moved with no pattern or purpose, like a language he couldn't decipher. It felt similar to trying to make sense of the wind or the ocean waves.

It was like trying to understand the lawless with logic.

There was little progress, obviously. Even after hours of silent study, the patterns remained an enigma, unbound by any law he could grasp.

After he woke up, he cooked breakfast for the party and they departed once more.

"The next village will not be under attack or ruined, right?" Zaroth asked Ari.

"Hopefully," she spoke without much confidence. "We have been pretty unlucky up until now, so the next one should still be standing at least."

With a frown, he turned to Vera.

"There are no demons where we're going," she assured him, catching the unspoken question in his eyes.

Relieved they wouldn't have to face a demonic enemy, they sped up.

Soon the village houses appeared on the horizon.

It looked just like Ari's, same buildings, same street layout, almost identical.

"What are they doing here?" Ari whispered in disbelief.

Zaroth grimaced, already sensing trouble ahead. Gazing to where her eyes were locked on, he saw two elves walking in the village streets, catching the attention of the ones nearby.

One was a white elf—the first one he had seen since coming to this continent—she was clad in robes, armed with silver armaments. And the other one was a brown elf, similar robes to hers. His however were colored in gold.

"What's so special about them?" the beast master questioned.

"Just from the sight alone, it is obvious they are from the Inner Circle," Ari spoke, eyes still wide in disbelief. Apparently, it was rare to see members of the Inner Circle.

'They are just elves in the end,' Zaroth thought, about to approach the village. It was sooner than expected, yes, but if he were to speak with members of the Inner Circle, he could gain information.

Before he could move further, a soft hand grabbed his wrist. "Where do you think you are going?" Vera asked.

"To meet them," he replied plainly.

"Did you forget you're part demon?" she snapped. "What do you think will happen once they notice? The elves in Ari's village looked ready to kill you and you saved them. You think these two will be friendlier?"

With a groan, he smacked his forehead. "Why does everything always have to be so complicated?!"

"We'll have to split up," he decided. "Ari and Vera will enter the village. Ari can inform them about the destroyed village we found. Vera will try to gather intel."

"Can't you just use your shadow?" Ari suggested.

'Not a bad idea,' Zaroth scratched his chin. 'As long as I stay in the natural shadows, they will not see me.'

With the plan set, he slipped into his shadow form and merged into Vera's.

Just in case, he dismissed Luna. Ari might not have noticed that she was a dragon and she hadn't minded when she found out the truth. But how the members of the Inner Circle would react… that was unknown.

That left the two girls alone, walking toward the village.

Now it was time for answers, assuming they didn't get caught first.