Bro, I’m not an Undead!

“The Evenfall has been around for a long time. They are a group of bastards that believe in Boron, the Traitorous Deity. They have been more of a nuisance than anything up until now to be honest, their existence mostly being the Purity’s problem, just like the Green Neolists are considered a Capital problem,” Tulnas explained as he saw clearly from Skullius’ expression that the Discount Human didn’t have strong background knowledge on the organisation.

It wasn’t outlandish these days to find people who didn’t have any interest in the Deities whatsoever.

Skullius seemed to know something at least.

“I’ve heard about this before but, why is this Boron guy called a traitor?” Skullius asked.

“Well, it’s a long tale with many conjectures but the prevailing theory seems to be that Boron wanted to create his own world. You see, the idea is that the four Deities were bound by their own self imposed will to create life. To produce something of not with their grand power.”

Boron however, had a grand idea for a utopia of his own that he claimed would be the ultimate shelter for himself and the other Deities. However, the other Deities refused and sought to make a singular world where they created living beings with their own creativity as they believed they were meant to.”

“Unfortunately, Boron didn’t like their idea very much and sought to take their power from them forcefully, to create this haven for himself to enjoy. This selfishness to not want anything to do with the greater goal of creating a whole world and attacking the others instead was what gave Boron the moniker of Traitor. Of course, the rest of the story is as you can probably recall. He was barred from creating anything here and is bound to the lower verges of Aigas. The Under.”

Skullius nodded.

With all the data he had absorbed, it had skipped his mind to ask about this piece of the puzzle that had been missing for so long.

Until now that is.

“An informant that I placed in one of the cities under my care notified me about strange activity that had been going on for the past weeks. I sent one of my ladies to check it out and she has been tracking the lead with the informant. I made a trip there to check for myself and discovered subtle signs of the Evenfall’s activity.”

“It wasn’t that hard to detect wisps of dark energy in the air. These wisps caused ailments, anxiety and rage in the minds of the people and it took a while to solve this. It took even longer to narrow down the search to where the source of the energy was coming from and that’s where we are now.”

Ailments, anxiety and rage?

Where these the traits that were caused by the Evenfall members or by their Deity?

Wasn’t he sealed away?

Skullius couldn’t wrap his mind around it and Tulnas didn’t plan on lecturing him of all the details right now.

Still though, the Discount Human was curious.

“How are you so sure it’s this Evenfall group that’s causing this?” he asked.

“The Adaptation rooms have bolstered my senses towards energies to a considerable degree. I can identify types of energy higher than Mana and Aura easily, above what I could already do, of course. I’ve been in contact with these people before during some of journeys so I know what the energy signature feels like.”

Oh. That made sense.

What kind of energy was this then? Higher than Mana and Aura?

Skullius’ mind churned and he also thought of other energy forms that could be higher.

Null Life Essence and Undeath energy.

Where did they fit it in, he wondered

“We can’t waste more time. I have to stress that this will be quite the dangerous mission and while it’s safer to have other Guilds come along, it can produce the opposite result. Also, like I said before, I don’t want anyone else’s blood on my hands if there’s a chance that I miscalculated something. I can handle casualties related my Guild, no one else.”

“Alright then.”

“Good. Put on your gear and let’s get going.”

“Wait now?”

“What part of ‘we can’t waste any more time’ don’t you understand?” Tulnas said with a sigh.

Skullius nodded and was about to put on his new armour when he recalled something.

“Right, there’s something I need to show you..”

***

“Pfftp! I said I’m good now! I’m not angry anymore, alright?!” Bustifina said as she blew her hair away.

“Un, un. You don’t seem very calm to me. You should really talk a walk and cool off,” Ginie said as she played with her staff in her seat.

A burst of dark orange energy shot from the lady as she sat down on one of the many chairs, her expression turning fierce with the pupils in her eyes transforming into slits!

She held a cup of tea with a small plate at the side on which a few biscuits were placed but this seemingly peaceful picture didn’t fit with her expression.

Throbbing veins popped out of her face as she turned to Ginie, her teeth grating against each other in imminent violence.

“Does this look like…. I’m still angry to you?!” Bustifina growled.

Ginie’s face remained blank for a moment before she pushed her plate up to Bustifina.

“Biscuit?” she asked in a cute voice.

“Knock it off, already,” Renialid who sat with a cultured posture as she sipped on her tea said with a calm voice.

“Instead of bickering, you should be thinking about who Tulnas will choose to go on this expedition with him.”

“What? He’s not taking all of us?” Castamine who lazed on her seat with her curvaceous body laying lateral across it said in a concerned tone.

“Of course not. It’s only logical that some of us will only be deadweight that will serve no further purpose than to hinder our master’s strength on such a perilous mission,” Riyana said as she sipped her tea with an apathetic face.

Her words stung.

There was silence for a time.

Every one of the ladies knew that they were not weak by any stretch, but there were those that were more dependable than others.

“You’re right, sister,” Natalika said. Even though she had a blindfold on, one couldn’t help but feel like her eyes radiated an intense stabbing illusion when her senses focused on them.

“While we all have our strengths, this mission requires strength at a calibre a notch above the rest.”

Another bout of silence persisted.

Riyana’s eye twitched a bit from hearing Natalika, her twin sister’s words.

She thought they had grown past this phase already.

“Relax, ladies. Nomatter who is chosen, all of us are important to Tulnas. For some of us, our strength is our mind, for some it’s our raw physicality. But in the end, we’re what makes up this Guild,” Renialid said with a gentle expression.

The sound of footsteps came from the stretch of stairs to the right, causing the ladies to fidget and turn their heads.

Not two figures came walking down but three, all decked in armour and all looking quite powerful in their own ways…