"No wonder you could feel my presence…"
As the voice finished speaking, the spot Black was staring at rippled once again and a silhouette slowly came into view. It seemed like it was materializing from thin air and not just coming out of a hiding spot.
The grains of sand slowly took shape.
Hao Xuan squinted when he saw its real shape. It was a horse. A 20 meter long four-legged black horse with 3 heads and glowing white eyes without any pupils whatsoever. It had white manes on all three heads and the tail. (Pic in authors note)
Its skin looked like burnt paper with small scraps almost falling off of it. There was no meat on its emaciated body and the skin looked like it was attached directly to the bones. It looked quite eerie because with every move it made scrapping noises, much like the rubbing of sandpaper against a metal surface.
The middle head was looking at Hao Xuan while the others were staring at the others.
"A human…? She wasn't lying then…" the creature mumbled after looking at Hao Xuan up and down. Its voice sounded both masculine and feminine at the same time.
Hao Xuan who was bubbling with anger just moments ago suddenly calmed down. He was staring at the creature in front of him and his eyes could see it, but none of his other senses could pick it up. It was almost like it didn't exist and was merely an image being projected from godforsaken place.
The creature came forward, walking on nothing but air yet its hooves made clip-clop sounds that reverberated in the cavern. It came to a stop right above Orc corpses and stood there staring at Hao Xuan and the rest.
"Who are you?"
Hao Xuan was the first one to break the silence. The creature's broken lips arched into a hideous smile, showing razor-sharp fangs hidden underneath.
"I am his messenger. His ambassador in this little world. Who are you?" it answered clearly, enunciating every single word with a wide smile. It seemed to be taking joy in the current situation, much too relaxed.
Hao Xuan kept a straight face and didn't show any emotion.
"Who is he?"
"He is he. There is only him and no one but him," the creature answered cryptically.
Hao Xuan stared at it for a few seconds and knew he wasn't going to get a straight answer.
"Why did you kill them?" he looked at the thousands of corpses in the basin.
"Because of you. Because I got bored waiting for you to return. And because they lied to me."
Hao Xuan's brow scrunched up as tightened his grasp around the Glaive. The creature was toying with him. From the start it had no intention of giving him any actual information and now he knew as well.
Hao Xuan looked to his right.
"Bring me it's head," he said to Black.
Black was more than happy to oblige and as soon as he got the order, his massive body coiled up and shot towards the creature like a bullet.
"You can't fight that thing like that," a familiar voice suddenly rang in Hao Xuan's mind. But before he could ask why, he got the answer.
Black was more than 8 times the size of that creature. He went after it with his toothy maw wide open which was twice as big as its entire body.
Yet when he got near, he passed through it like wasn't even there and crashed into the basin more than 300 meters away.
"Hyde?" Hao Xuan spoke out loud, making Jin Wang and the creature both look at him.
"That's a spirit-type chaos beast. It doesn't have a physical body so any such attacks won't work on it," Hyde's voice came again, informing him of the situation.
Hao Xuan looked at the creature and swung his Glaive towards it. A yellow and red crescent wave of Qi came out of the glaive and shot towards the creature, once again passing through it without doing any harm.
Creatures all three faces grinned amusingly. It did nothing and said nothing, simply…waiting.
Hao Xuan hesitated for a bit before asking Hyde for advice.
"What do I do then? How do I kill it?"
There was no response for a few seconds but eventually, Hyde spoke again.
"You don't. This isn't your fight."
The response wasn't what Hao Xuan was expecting.
"Then whose is it?"
"The one who is sleeping below. Soon he will wake for the last time and avenge his people, you don't have to do anything. But he will need your help after it is over. Accept it, in return ask for his final technique. It 'could' save your life someday."
"What? Who are you talking about??"
"Someone that once raged a storm. Someone whose stories of conquest and bravery are told as cautionary tales to the monsters hiding in the ether…"
Hao Xuan was left even more confused than when he first went into this conversation. Who was sleeping underground? Who was going to take revenge for his people? But as he thought of that the answer came to him naturally, for there was only one character that fit this description.
"The last King…?"
*Tremble*
As if waiting for Hao Xuan to utter the words, the ground shook once and started splitting from the middle. The creature's expression changed for the first time since it had shown itself and it quickly moved back.
"Watch out!" Hao Xuan shouted to warn the others as they all jumped to one side. The earth split open and an overwhelmingly majestic aura fell on everyone present.
It felt ancient and holy, something that you would normally never see in a million years. Even Jin Wang who was nonchalant about these things suddenly became respectful and lowered his gaze.
As soon as the aura appeared, five figures sitting in different majestic palaces located all over the continent of Tertium stood up at once. Some were human while others belonged to beasts. All of them looked in the same direction.
"An ancestor has awakened?!"
****
Authors notes:
Short URL: https://urlzs.com/tVErw
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