Chapter 17.1

  I listened to the pained grunts of the punishers and glanced at them when Grek and Whily flanked the injured damned, keeping her in the middle. Stone hadn’t come to. She had been grievously injured, with her neck bent unnaturally. Their magical artifacts were healing them, and by the looks of it, it was working. However, my eyes were locked on the damned that was running away.

  Injured and in a panic, the damned didn’t even take precautions to hide his tracks. I saw its limp tail dig a furrow in the snowy mud. Honestly, I expected more of the damned. If I had presumed that he was going to be so reckless, I wouldn’t have shot the damned a second time. Instead, I would have just followed his footprints.

  The drake-like creature turned a corner and dragged his tail out of view, leaving me looking at a snowy slope and the furrow the creature left behind. I took in a breath and looked down at the ethereal ferret frolicking among the dead. That was the other reason I was standing here surrounded by corpses. Both Rustle and my seeds were busy consuming death mana released by the recently killed. That didn’t mean that my ice seed was left behind. The snow, the cold, and the snowdrifts kept it supplied by constant mana. Death was just harder to come by. And for a moment, I worried what would happen when I would have to leave the Voss range and go to warmer lands. Or when I would have no more foes to kill.

  I shook my head; that was foolishness. I would always have more foes. Ice, on the other hand, was a problem. I couldn’t lose the range. I needed these lands to grow my strength.

  I turned and began walking down the slope. This time, I didn’t keep my footsteps silent. My feet met ice and crunched through. The damned looked at me with worry, but I didn’t care about her distress. I headed straight for Grek.

  “You death and destructionness.” Grek smiled and bowed. He couldn’t do anything more; his arm hung loose from its socket, and there was a hole in his midsection.

  “I need mana crystals, a healing potion, and food,” I stated firmly.

  The man could read my thoughts and knew I was not in the mood for jokes. He still tried to lighten the atmosphere. “Your Highness. Have a seat. Take a load off. There is plenty of warm leather to sit on.”

  Grek’s morbid humor did not distract me. Thankfully, Whily was already taking out the supplies from his pouch. He placed mana crystals, a bag of jerky, and some bread on a rock between us and backed off. Finally, he took out three healing potions and carefully placed them over the jerky. He needed to do that. The punishers weren’t healed as of yet, and the shield separating them from the world around them would let me take it from his hand.

  “Take one now, Your Highness, and a second one after you finish eating,” Whily instructed.

  I did as advised and popped a healing potion in my mouth, and immediately started chewing on bread and jerky. My body was too large and needed a second potion to finish healing myself. The final healing potion I let Rustle hold onto, along with the other supplies. The armor’s leather flaps curled and ripped to make pouches that held my supplies.

  I began to turn when Grek spoke up. “Your Highness, please don’t leave us behind.”

  I looked at the Punisher Captain. Grek could read my mind and knew what I was doing. There was no point in lying to the man. He knew that I had to hold back in the last battle and couldn’t release my reaper form because I had been worried about them. Sure, having Grek and the punishers around was enjoyable, but I was going on a hunt now. And exterminating the predators would require me to be unencumbered.

  “We were at fault. We should have seen the other mage. We will do better. Give us a chance, please,” Grek continued.

  I held up my hand to stop Grek. “Mouth, heal yourself and your people. Gather my sister and catch up. I want you next to me. I don’t know this world as well as you do, and I would like your advice. But right now, I need to track my quarry to its den.”

  Grek closed his eyes and exhaled. He looked at Whily and asked him to take out a communication artifact. It was palm-sized and in the shape of a shield. In my hand, it was small. Only one and a half notches of my smallest finger. Grek took the artifact and looped a hook around it.

  “This is a communication artifact, Your Highness. It will help you keep in touch with us and it will help us track you. Please wear it on your torc.”

  I tightened it around my torc with a nod.

  “What about the damned woman?” Grek nodded at the naked woman sitting on a headless corpse to the side and shivering.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Damned, if you try to escape...”

  “I won’t. Please. I didn’t choose this life. I was forced into it,” the damned woman babbled.

  I let a loud breath come out of my nose. “Give her to my sister. I don’t know why, but she needs them for law.”

  Grek looked at me. He blinked rapidly. His lips twitched up and he chuckled. “I will add imperial laws to the knowledge stone lists.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I frowned. The way Grek said laws sounded like a lot. “How many are there?”

  “Twenty-five tomes, Your Highness.”

  I winced. “I am going now. And no. No to the laws.”

  Grek laughed. “Be careful, Your Highness. We will join you soon.”

  I nodded, turned, and started following the tracks. The track led on past the bend and into a valley full of pine trees and snowy slopes. I saw the damned stop at places and held back. I didn’t want him to know that he was being followed. The hunt would have been boring, but the communication artifact kept me entertained.

  The punishers that I had left behind continued their conversation. It all started as soon as I left, and Whily asked, “Are we going to let His Highness go all alone, Captain?”

  “Look around you, Whily. Tell me, how am I supposed to stop a semi-divine being who did all this to creatures who nearly killed us?” Grek asked his subordinate.

  “Yeah, but what about the other semi-divine being who we just sent a message to?”

  “I am just going to point at the corpses and shrug. What does the Emperor's Wind Flower expect of us lowly punishers?” Grek asked.

  “Lowly punishers, Captain?” Whily snorted. “We are the Emperor's chosen blades.”

  “Yes, but we are not Imperial Gods of Death. Our lord is.”

  That had slowed the conversation until Stone woke up and pointed out in a creaky voice, “Captain, you are broadcasting.”

  “I know, Stone. If I can read His Highness’s thoughts and if he trusts me with them, he can overhear our conversation.”

  “Great Emperor,” Stone coughed. “Now I have to worry about two men overhearing me abuse them in my mutters.”

  Grek laughed. “She means you, Whily.”

  “What did I do?” Whily asked.

  “You failed to spot that blighted lizard who broke my neck,” Stone growled.

  “So did you,” Whily grumbled.

  They were silent for half an hour. I took that time to track down the damned to a check post. The damned guards met the fleeing injured male, and they all rushed out of the check post back towards the trail, leaving only one guard behind.

  I moved to the top of the snow slope and covered myself with the white powder. I let the guard settle down. He was fixated on the trail and didn’t see me atop the snow. I raised a finger when he had his head turned. A purple flash, and the guard fell with a death bolt in his throat. Obviously, it wasn’t going to kill him, but it would stop him from calling out to his people. I raced down to the wooden logs blocking the trail. A stab, and I was on my way again. Following the footprints. It looked like the damned had regained mobility in his tail. That didn’t matter anymore. I had caught their scent in the dark waters, and I was close.

  A few more minutes of tracking them led me to large boulders blown away from a cave mouth. I was looking in when Whily asked, “Captain, if His Highness is the Imperial God of Death, then what is Her Grace? Imperial Goddess of Storms?”

  Stone groaned.

  “What? Why do you always react like that to me?”

  “You picked the worst time to open your mouth, Punisher Whily,” Stone responded.

  “Why…” Whily started to ask and then stopped.

  “If you were going to categorize me like that, Punisher, it would be Imperial Goddess of Gale Winds,” Ilya’s voice announced. “I rule an archipelago, after all.”

  “Umm…”

  “Your Grace,” Grek greeted Ilya.

  “Grisslow, I see my brother’s handiwork but I don’t see him. Where is my brother?”

  “He decided to go hunt, Your Grace.”

  “Hunt?”

  “Yes, My Lady.”

  Ilya exhaled loudly and asked, “What happened?”

  There was an awkward silence from the other end.

  “Stone, I think I just broke the men. Care to explain what happened?”

  Stone sighed and responded. “We decided to knowingly walk into an ambush to eliminate a mage. There turned out to be another mage hiding under an illusion artifact. We all got injured. His Highness snapped and started killing everything. And then left to kill everything else.”

  That was an oversimplification of things, but it was more or less true.

  “Is this normal?”

  I flinched as soon as I heard the crazy Lisk girl’s voice.

  “With my brother? Yes, sweetie.” Ilya sighed. “You will get used to it if you agree to court him.”

  Sweetie? Sweetie? Why was Ilya calling Selly Lisk sweetie? And what did she mean court me? I was not going to court anyone.

  “He did like my tits,” Selly Lisk stated.

  Her words almost made me stumble.

  “That’s true, Lady Lisk,” Stone affirmed. “He didn’t even look at this damned woman’s breasts once. But yours? He said 'wow' for them.”

  “Really?” Selly Lisk asked. “Men don’t usually like tits. They usually say that they are too small.”

  It was good that I was kneeling. Because I found my hands going to my ears trying to block out the words of the crazed manaborn.

  “See…” Ilya said in an upbeat voice. “Only with a manaborn can you have a normal relationship. Only one of us can look beyond the physical and appreciate the mana we are made from.”

  “Hmm…” Selly hummed considerately.

  Why were they doing this to me? What was wrong with them? Thankfully, Ilya changed the subject.

  “So, let me get this right,” Ilya started and continued. “You all got injured. Voss blamed himself and now Voss has decided that he will take on an army of damned alone. Because he doesn’t want to see anyone of you hurt?”

  I took it back. I didn’t want her to dissect my feelings like that anymore. I prayed she went back to talking about the Lisk girl’s tits. They didn’t.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Grek replied in a mutter.

  I almost let out a loud groan. Thankfully, I stopped myself. I was too close. Just hiding behind a boulder while I watched the damned being led to an old bearded man in armor.

  “Do you know where he has gone?” Ilya asked.

  “Here, Your Grace. We can track him with this too.”

  “A Punisher's badge… Wait. Is he listening?” Ilya asked.

  “Yes. Although he was in combat a while ago,” Grek answered.

  “Voss?”

  I remained silent. There were enemies nearby. Yes, that was the reason. Not because my sister was going to tear into me.

  Ilya started with a smile in her voice. “Brother, if you don’t answer me I will fly to you right now, grab you, and fly into the sky. After which, I will let you go and catch you five feet over the ground. Then I will repeat the process again and again. Until you don’t just talk, you sing.”

  I cleared my throat and whispered, “Enemies.”

  “How many, Voss?”

  “Not many.”

  “How... Many... Dear... Brother?”

  “Twenty…” I started.

  “Twenty?” Ilya hissed.

  “...Five,” I finished answering her.

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Voss… I need you to turn back.”

  “No.”

  “Voss!”

  “Ilya, they are trying to get into a cave.”

  “And?”

  “My weapon tells me there are women and children in that cave.”

  I wasn’t very sure, but Dark Hunter’s Edge was pointing at the cave. And with the words before, I theorized this is where Hunter's Edge had been taking me.

  “Blight! Wait, let me ask Selly about that cave.”

  “Ilya, I need to move.”

  “Why?”

  “I think they spotted me.” I saw a damned looking down at me from a tree. I waved at the damned and smiled.

  “What? Are you sure?” Ilya asked.

  The damned snarled and hurled the largest fireball I had ever seen at me. I tried to leap clear, but a thunderous boom caught me mid-air, flinging me through the snow like a ragdoll.

  “Yes. It saw me,” I answered Ilya.