CHAPTER 147

  THE ANOMALIES

  As Zilong’s command fell, the hidden ones emerged.

  One by one, scarred and resolute, they came out of the shadows. Half mutants, half battered, all bound by one purpose: to get out of this hellhole which the Parvian prince promised two years ago.

  Hans watched their faces—some fierce, some haunted.

  He knew a few, and there were also new. “You burst out some more?” he whispered.

  “Yes. These idiots thought entering the red demon trials through the Council Node was a good idea. They served themselves on a silver platter to Anfaleen.”

  “Generating sunstones does not feel like his end game—”

  “I thought that too. And the last time I raided his lair, I began to gather some clues about the one backing him up—”

  “That must be an Ancient.” Hans interrupted.

  “Not just an Ancient but the one they call the Sixth. And that seems not the end but the start of this forsaken chain. Someone is above them. Someone who can order around the Sixth with ease.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t care, but you do, don’t you?” Hans asked, and his demeanour said the same thoughts as his words.

  Zilong, on the other hand, knew too much, saw too much to instil fear of where he was stepping in.

  “You don’t have any idea what kind of forces you are dealing with, little Parvian.”

  “Despite knowing that, you are here,” Hans raised a brow, looking at the rest of them. “They are here too, to get another chance at life. So let me take care of the rest. The only thing that should bother you is how to get home and live like any other father should. I lost the chance, but she…”

  Hans stopped there; the gazes of their audience were oddly pricking him.

  “Who is that, Zilong?” The one familiar, the woman who first treated him when he came here, called out.

  “His name.” Zilong pointed. “Theodred Atelier. The current eighth-rank knight in this blasted world. Hans of Parv sent him as a liaison with an army outside. It’s the day you were waiting for. Some of you might not see the dream coming to life, but some of us will.”

  “It’s better than dying as a Bakran scum.”

  “Don’t dissuade us, Zilong.”

  “Yeah. We entered these god-ridden lands knowing the risk.”

  “The Parvians at least came.”

  “I’ll be glad if my family at least gets to know my fate.”

  “Yeah. Let’s burn that bastard down.”

  “Destroy his everything.”

  One after another, people cheered on.

  “Yes.” Zilong didn’t know wether laugh to cry. But it was still better than dying as Red demon. The existence of Parv with them was fuelling courage. He roared “Who am I to stop your path to freedom? It comes with a cost, but to me as well, we are willing to pay the price. So let’s charge.”

  “Aye!” The crowd cheered.

  Hans looked at the faces of unheard-of death. It was their last chance to survive. He needed to make this happen and it should be as loud as possible. Because he was about to put his foot on top of Dietrich-level entity’s tail.

  That was the king of bad ideas.

  But there was no cowardice in his eyes. “I will make it so to cover that up they need to kill a country’s worth of people.”

  He resolved, counted. Around a hundred strong heads. All mixed with elf dwarf and humans. Excluding children and the unables. “What are the exact numbers, Mr Zilong?” He turned to their chief.

  “128 strong, plus me,” Zilong said. “Knights of seventy-grade, mages of six circles, healers, aura-walkers. We are a lot, but nearly not enough to strong-arm Anfaleen. What is your plan? They will have anti-siege weapons and artefacts. Not to forget their own shield surrounding the node.”

  “You’ve infiltrated as you wished, before, Mr Zilong.”

  Zilong’s eyes flickered. “You think my method is foolproof? If you thought you could depend on my method, then we are cooked, boy.”

  Hans shook his head. “No, but it will keep my trump card concealed.”

  “I can only get inside because of the bribe I give to one of my contacts.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Sunstones?”

  “Yes. The currency of the wealthy in these parts of the lands.”

  Hans pondered for a moment. Rather than his main plan, he decided to try something different. If he could get someone strong inside, he’d destroy the internal shield from within, effectively declaring open season on Anfaleen.

  And he had the perfect candidate for it.

  He explained to Zilong, and the foreign god showed a positive response.

  “That is possible, but even I am not capable of it before their warlocks pinpoint and capture me. If it is a one-on-one, I can beat them, but they come like vultures. Cowards, in groups.”

  “Don’t worry.” Hans affirmed. “The one I’m sending is an arsonist of magnanimous proportion.”

  They got ready, their dwarven weapons made from strong chitin of red demons. Armours that complemented their half-infected skin. And the makeshift bombs, comprised of sunstones.

  The last one took Hans by surprise.

  He marvelled at their ingenuity, which almost reached the carronade design Arat gave him. His primary plan was to destroy the internal shield of Anfaleen’s node with the cost of giving away his true identity at the worst but another one rose in his mind like a young sapling, which was growing at much larger pace.

  Another one of his tactic was to summon Solunox to distort reality, but there was no way of confirming if Solunox would heed his call or not.

  He looked skyward, had another plan saved but didn’t want to: “The consequence will be unimaginable. I hope I won’t be pushed that further.” He murmured.

  This time he had contingencies over contingencies. “I will not fail.” He assured himself.

  Zilong studied him, then nodded once, sharply. “Then let’s move. But know this: once we cross this threshold, there is no turning back. You’ve to take responsibility for whom you save, boy. That is your duty as a ruler.”

  “I know.”

  The veil shimmered open, and all 130 of them stepped through. Rage in their eyes. Resolve in their bones with a mindset of someone who had nothing left to lose.

  Hans clenched his fists.

  The fire in his chest was not just ambition—it was to calm his inner voice, the regret of Armin, his predecessor of Inheritance, that kept torturing him to kill, and his troubled emotions that wanted to give Zilong back to his family. A father back to his daughter as he wanted the same for himself.

  That was his main goal too, to get back the Knight king, Samson Parv, his father.

  He would bend Xandor to his will. He would shatter the node. And he would reclaim Rebellion—he didn’t know what exactly convinced Xandor to take his hand in slaying Anfaleen, but it didn’t matter.

  He was going to use him to achieve his goal. With his killing intent all time high, he took the steps to lead them towards the rendezvous where Xandor was waiting for him.

  But it appears his luck with working plans was about to run out.

  And it did.

  A stalemate.

  Two parties.

  And Hans, who was looking at them with a distorted face.

  “Tell me, am I seeing correctly?” Zilong put his shivering hand on Hans’s cursing face. Trying hard to hide his hideous self from the people who were supposedly waiting for Theodred.

  “Fuck! Fuck.”

  Hans kept cursing. His arrival had turned the two parties that were pointing blades at each other, unitedly against him. “I need to contain this loony shit situation. Think, think, damn it.”

  “Gentlemen,” he finally intervened, “Before we start taking off one another’s head. We are bound by a transaction, and we must take transactions very seriously.”

  “The transaction—you must be out of your minds to think I’d work with red demons.” Xandor was disgusted. His dark mana began seeping into the deadlands crazily.

  “Look at them with your eyes open, you batshit bastard.” His words stopped the more experienced Eclipse but not the other party.

  He turned to the two anomalies.

  “Lady Winters and Christopher Hodges. You two are not part of that transaction. Take your useless lives and lose somewhere else. Do not ruin this.”

  He looked at the staring faces of Delimira and Chris. “Fuck, please, Deli, don’t use your head and move on.”

  Hans knew the allegiance of Xandor and Eclipse was not well known to these infected people. Even if the new rescued knew some of it. It was easy to assume it as a Parvian plot to manage control through shadows.

  But Chris and Delimira, who were close to Hans, knew better, and their words could significantly damage his carefully knitted scenario.

  And his worry turned true when Chris and Delimira didn’t change their stances. To them, Theodred was part of Eclipse, or so they thought, but from the looks of it, he was working with red demons. That was unacceptable in every proportion.

  “You people aren’t working for the same?” Xandor mused, looking at the stalemate between the three youngsters.

  His words had no effect on him, but he knew Delimira very well; her stubborn nature only gave a little leeway to Hans, and he was not Hans currently. Someone she hated for some reason.

  “I need to stop them from spilling anything.”

  “You two.” He pointed at them, “Take a walk with me. He turned sharply to Eclipse. “And you. Stay as the hidden blade of Parv as you are.”

  His words meant to stay in character, and Xandor found an odd amusement in playing this show.

  If it was out that their front-liners had defected from Parv. The whole morale would drop down like a dead fish.

  At least, Chris and Delimira followed catching the uncertain gaze of the behemoth.

  After a few paces, away from the confrontation, “What the hell are you doing with red demons?” Chris agitated.

  “Not your place to know, so go away. Or do you think you can take on the collective force of us—you two alone? Think. I am giving you a way—”

  “What if we aren’t alone?” Delimira chimed, “Hans is just around the corner.”

  She said it so confidently that Hans barely stopped himself from laughing. “And what if he is here?”

  “Together, we might not be able to defeat you a lot, but we can damage what you are plotting with red demons and get away with it. You don’t have any idea what kind of cluster fuck he can create.”

  “Stop praising me, you mad woman.” He cried inside, but before he could say it to the blind eyes of Delimira, Chris noticed something that Eclipse did way before.

  “They are not red demons, are they?” He glanced at them hard. “Is that how they look when controlled? How did you manage it? This…this could help the Genas to finally get rid of them.”

  “Oh, you foolish and ideal knight.” For a second, Hans thought Chris was onto something, but his words had opened Delimira’s blinded eyes. And she was too smart to ignore it.

  “They are people, aren’t they?” She finally hit the nail on the head of Hans’s Theodred face.

  “Ugh god man it.” At this moment Hans knew he fucked up.