A Rattling Monster - Chapter 146：A Very Small Universe
More and more of those birds are coming after me while I keep floating toward the sky. At first, they don’t notice the corpses that have crashed on the ground, but as I get closer, they ask more and more questions. No one raised the alarm and all my kill were silent. Someone can even consider me as a silent assassin here, even if a lot of collateral kills are happening. Or not, since everyone is my target. When I am only at a little more than a kilometer away from the city in the cloud, I get surrounded and stopped where I am.
That’s not a patrol of two or three guards, no that’s an impressive one. Twenty warriors, one of those magicians in white. They look surprised to see me, they were probably leaving to accomplish a mission or something. Not too big, but still enough to require all of those people. As the rest of the guards, they ask me questions, about my identity, my race, my intentions. And my answers were exactly the same, unless, this time, I was visible from the rest of the city.
When all of those bodies began to fall, I hear a scream from far away. There, I see a guard rapidly flapping his wings to fly away, not caring at all about what will happen. The other is still screaming while pointing at me. I use an orb of acid to shut the noisy squeak coming from his beak. But the damage is done, soon, more and more are coming toward my position. They see the fleeing and panicking guard, but the space around me is empty. The bodies are on the ground, and the guard melted entirely. Just a simple ghost floating here, totally inoffensive.
But they are cautious and don’t come near me, they arm their bows and begin to sing something. Too bad, I wanted to eat your life. Well, I guess killing you and gathering your blood will be enough. I float toward them slowly, wanting to see the power of my two shields. I am certain that the first is my [Veil of Darkness] and I want to see how strong it is. As for dying, I don’t think that it will be easy, especially against such weak beings. Three Heroes tried to do that, and none of them succeed.
As expected, they have the brain of a bird but are not that hopeless. When I keep getting closer and ignoring their demands, they fire at me, only a few at first. But when they realize that I didn’t slow down and even receive any arrow, they all shoot their deadly projectiles. I can see a rain of arrows getting negated by my [Veil of Darkness], not even creating a crack in it. No, they keep coming, getting the arrowheads destroyed in the process, with the wood part falling because of gravity.
After seeing the efficiency of such a thing against me, they all begin to flee, following the example of the first guard. Only the mages are staying, but they are all scared. I expect the white cage and the divine judgment to fall on me. Instead, I get something looking like a fireball but being made of light, like a lightball? Is it a thing? Anyway, something like that, but blue and another one white. They keep firing those two spells, nothing else.
I am really disappointed; it should be a huge city. Clearly, the concentration of blessings here is important, and even before I really attack the city, there are dozens of magicians surrounding me. But they can’t even break my first dark shield. I have no idea if their spells are deadlier than the arrows because both are doing nothing visible on my [Veil of Darkness]. In the end, I am getting bored and just teleport in the middle of all of them. Spreading my tentacles on everyone and draining everything from their lifeless body.
Ah, feeling a lot better. They are the real agent of this god, they are loved, that’s for sure. And I keep approaching the city but feeling that something is off. Why? More of those pigeons? They are not a problem. What did I do … I used my orb of acid. Stupid me. Well, that’s a way to see if they are capable of finding me because of my spells. But I have at least a few hours before anyone arrived. Let’s see how much I can eat here.
The answer was a lot. I spent 3, maybe 4 hours hunting everyone in the vicinity. The first ten minutes, I annihilated a building looking like a temple, but that was filled with those magicians. When they saw that they were losing, it was a nightmare to catch all of them. Their wings are really effective to flee away. As for the rest of the city, the normal citizens, same thing. Surprise allow me to kill a lot of them, but when they start screaming and flying away, it is bothersome. I know some managed to escape, it was not a small village as before. But I think I did a good job.
After that, I found an even stronger trace of the god ruling this world. Maybe that will be the real capital. I didn’t use any of my spells during the massacre. To see if they can find me with only one acid orb. For now, I have nothing stalking me, my spirit is above me, doing a circle around my position. I ask him to warn me about anything that is not looking like a huge pigeon. He found different types of birds, but they were clearly living on this planet.
However, at one moment, he found something that both made me laugh and surprised me. A group of human, where one managed to turn into a rock. Guess who I found on this planet? Maybe he will be able to tell me more about the current situation with the Nine Heaves. In the end, only a god can really know and understand this. As for why should he tell me, well, I did kill his Prophet. And all his forces on Astria. But now, I am sure that I will be very persuasive.
We trail that group of hybrids, without them notice. Of course, at one time, I was really scared. They encountered a horde of wolves, bad and big wolves. With two heads, bigger than a bear from the Earth. Honestly, if those wolves were present on Astria, I would have been so dead when I left the undead cave. As for the group of humans, they all died, except one that fused with the ground and the one turning into a rock. I guess the other didn’t have a way to hide. After that, I had to wait a lot of hours before they were not scared to leave their hiding spot.
If I had lost them, I would have never found out the base of Krieg on … on … the name of this planet. I don’t know about it. Let’s call it Birdland. The base of Krieg on Birdland. It took five days for the humans to reach it. Too much ground to cover. Maybe their base is well hidden, but when your sight can pierce the ground, it is quite visible. Especially the permanent movement coming from the ground. So, I found it, what should I do now? Destroy everything? No, why Krieg will help me if I do this?
In the end, since they probably can’t kill me, I just walk in by the front door. Scaring everyone by my presence. But I don’t know if they are too terrified to do it, or maybe smart enough to understand that I won’t hurt them immediately, but no one attacked me. Not even a tentative. So, I float across the corridors, following the normal path. Except for the fact that I bypass all the locked doors. And I arrive at the bottom of the underground base, where someone looking very similar to the Prophet is sitting on a chair.
I know he can’t be the Prophet since I killed him a month, two months? Some time ago. Maybe he is called the Prophet, but he doesn’t have the power of Krieg yet. Would have been really bad for me if I had fought a fake Prophet on Astria. No [Blood Touch], my life would have been very grim. As for the human in front of me, he is shaking. I don’t think it is because of me, but because Krieg told … no, it’s because of me. He can’t speak to Krieg right now, so I have to make him do whatever he needs to do that.
-I need to speak to Krieg right now, no, I am not with you, if you slow me down, I will make sure that no humans leave this place alive. Now that we made that very clear, what do you need to exactly to open a conversation with Krieg?
