The Rise Of A Tribal Deadbeat - Chapter 74

The more Zok learned about the Guardians, the more he realised how amazingly weird the title of the guardian was. They might have been called so, however, from what Sofina had told him, they acted more like bullies rather than guardians.

There were twenty of them, each one had been allotted an area of the planet to rule over and take care of by some higher existence. An existence that even Sofina refused to tell him about. Zok suspected it had to be a god just like Okun or the depraved one.

Also, there was one more thing. Occuna was seemingly much much bigger than Zok could have even imagined. It was such a huge planet, that’s why it needed to have so many guardians to look after it. But even then, they were doing a terrible job at guarding anything.

He even got to learn about the ranking system that existed between the guardians. The list was divided into four tiers and each tier had five members in it. According to this tier list, both Sofina and Adrion were among the weakest of the guardians along with three others.

Just hearing that came as a shock to Zok. He had never expected them to be at the very top but he had not expected Sofina and Andrion to be at the bottom of the tier either. But as he thought more about it made a bit of sense.

‘There is no need to be that surprised…’ Zok thought to himself, ‘If someone like me could go toe to toe with them, it is more likely for them to be at the bottom.’

Zok quickly calmed himself and thought about it more. He was able to nearly kill Adrion and the level gap between him and Sofina had gotten narrower after he defeated Adrion.

He was more or less sure that if they had a battle at the moment, he would be able to hold on his own against Sofina and maybe even defeat her with the help of his pets. But it wasn’t wise to do that now, especially since he wasn’t nearly as strong enough to take on the rest of the guardians.

“Are all the guardians on our side? I mean, will they help me as you and Adrion did?” Zok asked Sofina who shook her head.

“Not all guardians associate with the beings of this planet as I do.” Sofina replied, “Even though it is our sole duty to look after the planet, some of us rarely if ever made contact with the world until and unless something happened to threaten them or the planet.”

“So you’re saying they only care about the planet and not the beings that live on it?”

Sofina nodded before continuing, “Some do not even care about Occuna. We have been living in the world pretty much since it came into being. Thus after living for so long, many of our ideologies and allegiances changed.”

“Some of us now only fight for themselves and not for their allotted zone that they were supposed to protect till their last breath. But I can’t even blame them,” Sofina continued to inform Zok about everything they had seen on the planet, “we have given our all to protect this place and yet…”

Sofina got strangely silent after that. She didn’t even complete what she was trying to say and stopped. Zok could feel there was something more she wanted to tell him but for some reason, she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t trust him as much as he thought she did, or maybe it was something altogether.

Zok did not try to push her as he knew it could have backfired badly. However, with the amount of information he just got out of her, it was safe to say that not all Guardian would help him take revenge on Skah and the shamans. As they were too self-absorbed to do anything.

‘I guess, I will just have to kill them and forcefully take all of their powers from them… but all in due time. Right now I need to do two things. First is to get Kaira and Shira get levelled up and second… increase my depravity using the most obvious means.’

With his mind made up, Zok got up and so did the rest of his party. But as they were about to leave, Sofina opened her mouth once again.

“Don’t you want to know how to resurrect Adrion?”

“You said it would take two years for him to- Oh, you’re talking about the special means to do that.” Zok turned around to face her once again, “You can tell me about it. I’ll try to make it happen if it is feasible.”

“Before I tell you that, let me see the egg Adrion left behind.”

Zok took the shiny egg from his inventory and handed it to the vine that popped up next to him. The vine then took the egg to Sofina who appeared to be on the verge of tears… Her reaction seemed a bit over the top to Zok. After all, it wasn’t like Adrion was dead, he was still there with them in all senses.

‘No wonder the Shamanka was able to fool them so easily. They are way too attached with everything.’ Zok shook his head in dismay, ‘Why am I blaming her when I am about to do something similar to them?’

He used to be attached to things as well, and that was what got him caught in all this mess. Gettig attached to the people who did not give two fcks about him or his well-being was his worst mistake. Well, he might have been a bit too uncaring about them, but the moment he started caring, he was screwed over tremendously.

After what seemed an hour, Sofina finally gave back the egg to Zok who once again placed it inside his inventory.

“Now tell me Zok, do you want to resurrect Adrion sooner or not?” Sofina asked him in a serious tone.

“Dependent on what I would have to do. But yeah, it would be good to have someone as strong as him by my side.” Zok confidently replied.

“Then you might have to do some things that you would not have done before.”

“Like what?”

“Killing hundreds of your kind. Maybe even more. We would need to do a blood ritual and for that, you need to get the prime ingredient… Blood of hundreds if not thousands of your kind.”

Sofina said it to gauge Zok’s reaction. She expected him to get all worried and maybe even deny her right then and there, but he didn’t. In fact, his response sent a chill down her spine.

“I can do that. In fact, I was planning to do that even before you told me.” He said with a weird smile on his face, “You just gave me a reason to not feel bad about doing so. What else do you need?”

“You have changed…” Sofina mumbled before getting back into the conversation, “I’ll gather the rest of the ingredients myself. I’ll ask you if I can’t find something.”

“Fine by me.”

With that Zok walked out of there, leaving a very confused Sofina behind.

‘Why do I get a feeling that this kid is no longer who he once was? Just what the hell happened to him while he was gone?’

Sofina had her questions, however, she had no way to answer them. She could only wait and see how the tale of the child unfolded itself.

***

“I was hoping to get something more out of her,” Zok shook his head as they got ready to sleep, “Well, I couldn’t anything about it so might as well focus on the things that I can.”

“Like what?” Shira asked through Hivemind.

“Level up and get stronger, what else? Also, I once again need to fill the depravity bar. Who knows when I would end up needing to use that. But before that, I need to get you and Kaira levelled up first and hopefully evolve Kaira as well.”

With not one but two Evolved beasts by his side, Zok’s strength would grow manifolds and then he might be able to start gathering the blood as per Sofina’s need. But there was a slight issue with his plan…

The Beastly Glades was a place no Occunian ever visited. Thus, it would be difficult for Zok to hunt anyone there. As for his immediate neighbours, he did not think it was the right time to confront his tribe.

Which meant, if he wanted to get some blood he would need to step out of the wilderness and head towards the other tribes.

‘What a drag… but there is no other way. I need to get the blood and using the Zukiras is not an option. Well, at least I will be able to see the outside world. That’s something to look forward to right?’

The night got darker and darker, and soon all of them fell asleep, unknown to the fact that Zok did not need to approach his tribe as they were already on their way to him.