Foreboding Storm - Chapter 144

“You people, you followed me before, haven’t you?” Princess Qamari glared at the group of ten, her cold voice sounding as if it came from the depth of hell.

The group of ten startled before turning to her. At first, they couldn’t recognize her. She was covered from head to toe in white with only her golden eyes exposed. But when their gaze fell on the golden sword in her hand, their eyes widen as if they had seen a ghost.

“You…you’re the prophecy girl?” Great Seven Heavens! No wonder they couldn’t recognize or find her. She had changed her appearance…

The group of ten felt like idiots as they had failed to consider this fact in their search.

“She’s really her! How did the Leader recognize her in that get-up?” The female of the group spoke out in astonishment.

“If one is searching hard enough, it isn’t that difficult actually. Just one look at her sword-wielding hand and you’d know who she is.” The head of the group added.

“Yes, but we failed to recognize and forgot about the golden sword.”

As the group discussed among themselves, the Tribe Leader stepped forth.

“Enough with your chats and arrange for the settlement of our guests. Make sure they are settled well enough so that the night winds won’t reach them.

“Yes, Tribe Leader!” Getting the amnesty to leave from their Leader’s pressurizing aura, the group bowed and raced into the distance.

Princess Qamari’s eyes flickered with complex light as she watched them run away. These people knew who she was and what she was. They chased after her the moment she set foot into the East Minions Factions. And from their actions, it felt as if they were waiting for her.

Who are these people? They knew her when she herself didn’t have any idea what she was…

She turned to Bai Lan with an equally questioning gaze, but the girl pat her on the shoulder and ran away as well.

“What’s going on with these people?” They seemed too untrustworthy to trust or depend on.

“Are you okay?’” Leader Ku came up and asked with worry. The peaceful and calm girl suddenly became eerily quiet to the point where a cold aura exuded from her body.

“When are we beginning the training?” Princess Qamari coldly asked.

“We can begin tomorrow itself if you like.”

“Let’s begin tomorrow then.”

Princess Qamari left Leader Ku with a confused expression on his face as he watched her back.

“What happened?” He could sense something was different about the girl, but he couldn’t imagine what could’ve happened to cause such a drastic change in her aura.

“Forget it. I’m only here to train her.” Leader Ku turned and sought out the tribal folks in charge of settling their sleep arrangements. Finding the cave which he shared with other tribal folks, Leader Ku spread out his cot and laid down.

Too many events had taken place within the last few days, making him exhausted and confused. A good rest was what he needed to begin the first lesson tomorrow.

Closing his eyes, Leader Ku fell into a deep slumber.

The next morning, on the training field of the Bai Settlement, stood two individuals facing each other.

“Qamari, how much do you know about Jinns?”

“As much as everyone does.” Princess Qamari hadn’t been interested in the subject before and didn’t have the time to spare on Jinn study. So her knowledge was as limited as an ordinary individual.

“Nothing much then…Alright, let’s first go over the topic of Jinns. As everyone knows, Jinns are creatures born out of the fire. Their physical properties are such that they can neither feel pain nor get injured. But the most daunting of all is their immortality. Because they have immortal life, the Jinns have greater experience and knowledge than ordinary humans.”

“This is why they look down on humans, right?”

“This is only one of the many reasons why they look down on humans. But yes, their immortality is their greatest advantage. Where we get born into the realms and die after a few years, they live forever. Where we forget and begin a new, they never forget. And where we rush to learn something new every day, they take their time learning and observing before impersonating or replacing.”

“Replace?”

“Yes, replace. The Jinns have been on the move trying to find a way to get out of the Dark Forest. They kidnap certain individuals and test them to see if they could replace them in the Dark Forest. However, this intention of theirs has also failed. But the Jinns aren’t ones to admit defeat. And with immortal life, they have all the time they need to begin a new experiment.”

“New experiment? What new experiment?” Princess Qamari tensed when she recalled the Dark Jinn. Creatures such as those were already difficult to defeat. If they freed themselves from the Dark Forest, then only disaster would await the seven realms.

“More than a thousand years ago, there was a case where the Dark Jinn tried to kidnap a Marikeen.”

“Marikeen!? What would the Dark Jinn want from the Marikeen? After all, she’s a healer.”

“It appears the Dark Jinn found out about the miraculous abilities of the Marikeen. He wanted to use her to free himself and his kin from the Dark Forest, but the Marikeen has an acute sense of danger and ill-minded individuals. So the moment the Dark Jinn appeared before her, he was exposed by her heightened senses.”

“But the Jinns are more stubborn than humans. The Dark Jinn shouldn’t have given up.”

“He didn’t. On the contrary, he felt he’d become a step closer to his goal because he found a weakness in her, a weakness to free themselves. The Dark Jinn came to know that the Marikeen was innocent of heart and kind by nature. As such, he began to think of ways to take advantage of her kindness to free themselves.”

“Kind by nature and innocent of heart?”

“Yes, the Marikeen’s heart is usually referred to as the golden heart. Because she loves humans, wild beasts, and ordinary animals alike without any discrimination. Moreover, as smart, intelligent, and naturally sensitive as she was, once an injured or ill person appeared before her, the Marikeen didn’t use her brain, but her heart.”

“Oh…” Princess Qamari felt unsettled with the topic. For some reason, the moment Leader Ku began mentioning Marikeen’s, she had a faint inkling of something, but she couldn’t name what the strange feeling was.

“500 hundred years ago, the Green Jinn managed to kidnap a young Marikeen by faking an injury. He made his injury such that in order to treat it, the Marikeen needed an item from the Dark Forest. So, even while knowing the dangers of the Dark Forest and the beings that dwelled within, in order to save the one she believed to be a human, she entered the Dark Forest.”

“Then…did she die?”

“No, the Jinns didn’t want to kidnap her to kill her. They wanted to use her to leave the Dark Forest. Being an individual of kind nature and innocent heart, the Marikeen entered the Dark Forest and acquired the item for the Jinn. In the process, she got injured severely, but she still didn’t stop, because there was someone she needed to save.”

“The other Jinns in the Dark Forest didn’t try to keep her there?”

“No, they wanted to follow her in secret and leave the forest through the path she cleared. It’s said because of her golden heart, no curse, darkness, evil, or impure creature can block a Marikeen’s way. The moment a Marikeen appears, any curse or impure matter melts away on its own. And that’s exactly what happened in the Dark Forest. Every path the Marikeen traveled, the curse that kept the Jinns sealed in the Dark Forest dispersed on its own.”

“This…then the war 500 years ago, does it have anything to do with the Jinns?”

“It partially does and doesn’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“The war 500 years ago was waged by the Ahankar realm to take over the Amayan Empire. The Jinns fulfilled a wish of the Ahankar reigning King in which he promised the Jinn a maiden kind of nature and innocent of heart. This was the Marikeen. But as the Jinns never revealed their legislations or tricks to anyone, the Ahankar reigning King got blindsided. He promised the Green Jinn what he sought most. When the Green Jinn fulfilled his task, he asked for the maiden, which just happened to be his daughter…”

“So the Ahankar King promised the Jinn his Marikeen daughter?” Heavens! No wonder the Jinns never lost a deal.

“Yes, he unknowingly promised his daughter to the Green Jinn. But when the King heard the Green Jinn’s revelation, he refused to give his daughter and stated how the condition never stated the name of the maiden. Their confrontation didn’t end well as the Jinn Hunter of the Ahankar realm pushed the Green Jinn out of their realm, hence, the reason why the Green Jinn approached the Marikeen as an injured person. Since the King promised the Marikeen to him, when he appeared before her as an injured human, the Marikeen wasn’t able to sense his ill-intentions.”

“Because at that time, he hadn’t appeared to commit a crime or cause chaos. He had appeared to take back what he perceived as rightfully his, right? Since he perceived the Marikeen as his and with the binding of the promise the King of Ahankar made, the Marikeen didn’t detect any ill intentions.”

“That’s right. The Jinn believed her to be his and no one in the seven realms had the right to snatch or forcefully keep that which belonged to another. And when the Marikeen entered the Dark Forest and retrieved the item necessary for his treatment, the other Jinns were able to follow because of her connection with the Green Jinn.”

“They weren’t sensed or injured by her ability because they were of one family?”

“But that wasn’t all. The Jinns didn’t approach the Marikeen either because they didn’t want to alert her. Even if she was a being with a golden heart, if she knew, she wouldn’t allow vile creatures like the Jinns to escape the Dark Forest through her help. So they stayed away so as to not give themselves away.”

“Then they must’ve successfully escaped from the Dark Forest.”

“They did. The Marikeen could remove any curse without conscious direction. The land she walked on cleared of its shackles and unchained the Jinns. When she returned to treat the injured person, she found out he’d already left. The Green Jinn walked behind her to enter the forest and left behind her as she walked out. This way, his curse got removed as well.”

“These…must’ve made the chaotic seven realms even more deadly.”

“Forget about the seven realms. After the Marikeen realized she’d been used, she entered the gate of hell to end her life. This brought another devastating blow to the seven realms because without the Marikeen, the human injuries and death toll raised three times the original number.”

“She was just one healer. How could her disappearance alone place the sevens realms in such a critical situation? And the Jinns? What happened to them?”

“The Green Jinn had entered the Dark Forest with the Marikeen and saw her endanger her own life to save his. His heart was moved by the act and he fell in love with the Marikeen. But when he had to choose between her and the Jinns, he chose the Jinns.”

“…” Well, that was quite a wretched ending for a blessed girl. Princess Qamari felt pity for the kind-natured Marikeen that became the Green Jinn’s target.

But when she recalled the Dark Jinn that had appeared before her, a cold shiver ran down her spine.

“The Jinns were free from the Dark Forest, but the Marikeen that entered the Gate of Hell hadn’t truly died. Her body broke and shattered apart, but her spirit returned to right her wrong.”

“Are you saying the Marikeen returned? How?”

“She stole the ‘gem of three lives’ and lured the Jinns back into the Dark Forest by creating an Illusionary Fiery Paradise, the original home of the Jinns.”