“The god of the demons in this world has also been keeping his eye on you, and he has finally decided to make a move. A team is on their way right now.”
“They will not be some low rank soldiers this time, like the ones who attacked your village. This time, he has had his high priest move to send his personal servants. Their primary objective is to capture you, although they will gladly take the two boys who are under your instruction as well.”
“It is inevitable that the attack will happen. They will track each of you down, and attack wherever you happen to be at the time.”
”In order to get through this event, you will need to use the first of the five true keys. You already have access to the first three, of earth, water, and fire. You will need to use the key of earth. The events of the attack will give you the insight you need to access it, even had I not told you about this. The only question will be whether or not you can access it before something irreversible happens.”
This was the entirety of the demon’s new prediction. After I woke up from the dream, I had become so enraged that a new species of plant had been created on top of the hill we were meditating on. A type of grass that grew so large it was almost like a tree.
That entire conversation with that demon was designed to sound like a friendly warning. It was, in fact, just him gloating. It might as well have been a James-bond style villain speech as they rattled off their evil master plan.
Near the beginning of the conversation, he’d dropped the information he was able to whisper thoughts and ideas into my mind, which were responsible for the uncannily accurate predictions I’ve been able to make since coming to this world. Then, he ends the discussion by saying an attack is on it’s way, and it will target me, Levin, and Rolwen wherever we happen to be at the time of their arrival.
Reading between the lines, the message that had been delivered was “I knew this attack was coming. I manipulated you to send Levin and Rolwen to that city. That city will be destroyed by the demon’s servants, and it will be your fault when it happens.”
When I had first come out of the trance, I had been stunned at what I’d just heard. Of course, I had realized almost instantly just how many layers upon layers of wicked and twisted hidden meanings were packed into that conversation.
“Damn it!” I had sworn in a whisper as I considered the message. The more I carefully went over the events in my mind, the more I kept coming back to those two points. The fact he could sneak messages into my mind, and the fact that he knew the attack was coming.
“God… fucking… DAMN IT!”
My fists curled around the grass. There was a ripping sound as the blades broke and left me with fist fulls of chlorophyll-leaking tufts of plant matter.
“That sadistic… manipulative… callous…” Tears began to well up in my eyes as words failed to describe how truly evil this bastard really was.
Yes, evil. Evil was the only word that really described this sick bastard. The word had been devalued in our culture. It would not carry the proper punch. But, this was truly evil, to the bottom of the depths of the definition.
The callous disregard for human life and well-being.
The active seeking of a single objective for the sake of self benefit.
The seeming active desire for pain and violence.
If the pain and destruction is not the objective, he does not hesitate to delight in it when it does happen. It is seen as a perk. The term “unfortunate consequence” does not even enter into his thoughts, except maybe as a thin cover for how much he revels in the destruction he has caused.
The most infuriating thing about it is how he can always just seem to so effortlessly wear that mask of the beneficent angel when he talks to me. He knows that I see right through him, but he has the gall to keep wearing it anyway. And, he is so skilled at weaving his words in just the right way that the sheer audacity he has to keep wearing that mask makes it almost impossible to press the issue and call him out on his utter shit!
It’s mere insult added to injury though. And this time, he has gone way too far. This time, he has hit me on every level where it hurts the most, at the exact same time.
Last time, he hit my blood family relations and most reliable line to reliable information. This time, he has hit more of my family, my morality, and my sense of mental integrity all at the same time.
I will literally no longer be able to trust my own intuition from this point forward!
My vision had blurred with my own tears of shame and rage.
I lost track of what was happening around me.
I noticed my legs being brushed by something growing near me.
I noticed the ground deforming beneath my feet.
I knew that I was the cause of this dramatic change on the landscape.
It was responding to my subconsciously released and overflowing mana and spirit energy.
Good.
It was cathartic.
It helped me deal with these chaotic thoughts.
The fact that the mere fact I was angry was visible within the world around me.
The fact that it was creating a warped and alien lifeform never before seen in this world.
It brought a strange sense of delight.
I had started to laugh.
I laughed.
Why was I laughing?
Why?
Why?
Why was… why was I crying now?
“WHYYYY!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
I threw myself against the closest of the newly grown blades of grass.
I lifted a trembling hand.
Some rational thinking part of my mind realized what I wanted to do.
I could sense the nascent intelligence I had just given birth to within this blade of overgrown grass.
I infused it with even more mana, using it to reinforce it’s cellular structure so it could withstand even a punch from me.
By the time I’d finished doing so, I’d lost the will to throw this punch.
I could not tell for certain why this was.
Was it because it wouldn’t feel as good if it did not destroy something?
Was it because, if I did this now, it would have gone from an act of blind rage to an act of deliberate infliction of pain?
I collapsed into tears at the base of the three stalks of oversize grass immediately surrounding me.
[Asaren!]
I heard someone calling me.
[Asaren! Asaren! What is happening? What is wrong?]
I recognized it was the voice of Rimir.
I had no words to respond to this person with.
I missed Tiaren.
Tiaren knew about the satans.
She knew about them better than anyone.
If she was here, all I would have to say is “The demon,” and she would know exactly what I was talking about.
I had filled the boys in about this. If they were here, I could also tell them. They would not know as well as Tia would about the true terror of a demon. They would not be able to truly understand as she would. But… at least they would have some level of understanding.
“The boys.” I whimpered.
My hands gripped the fabric of Rimir’s sleeves as my tears fell down on his bent knees.
‘ASAREN!’
A powerful spirit-based voice reached my mind, so loud I felt Rimir cringe as it hit his mind as well. In addition to the words, I also felt waves of worry, anguish, and fear in addition to remnants of an underlying frustration.
‘Asaren. This is Kiriia. This is your mother…’ The voice said, rapidly loosing the edge it had started with as it was strangled back by a growing fear with every word spoken. ‘I… this… Asaren, I… I’m sorry. Please! Please just tell me what has you upset! I want to help!’
So, she wants to be my mother now, huh?
I had seen her over these past three years. She would often watch me as I participated in Eirlathion’s lessons. We would interact more like fellow students rather than as mother and child.
I rarely returned to the tend the tribe had allocated to our family, so we rarely saw each other there.
As I was training, she would often find excuses to come along and watch us from a distance.
Back in the village, shortly after my birth, she had abandoned me and Tia. Since we all escaped to the village together, it was pretty clear she was conscious of the rift that had put between us. She would keep her distance, and I would keep mine.
I did not resent her for not being much of a mother to me. She had her own issues she had to deal with, due to the traumatic matter of how Tia and I were conceived. However, I had never really acnowledged her as anything more than the woman who just happened to have given birth to a pair of gray elves. That those gray elves happened to be Tia and I was a separate issue in my mind entirely. And, I kept my distance from her, out of respect and caution that me being near her might remind her of her daughters, who I had long since disassociated from the idea of myself being one of those daughters.
Hearing that woman suddenly calling herself my mother. I felt like I’d just received a whole new wound. All the mental artifacts I’d used to cover up this hole in my soul had just been ripped away all at once.
For a moment, a dark urge flashed across my mind. An urge to have all those artifacts re-assert themselves at once in a single hurtful statement.
I stood and slipped out of Rimir’s grip on me, and silently stepped over toward the current strongest of the three sentient stalks of tree-size grass. The one which I had poured an overwhelming amount of mana into in order to strengthen it against my own destructive impulses.
I placed a hand onto the stalk of grass and reminded myself of that moment that had taken place mere seconds before.
She may not be much of a mother, but right now… I can probably spare some memories of what the idea of a mother was like to me back when I was a child in my past life all those decades ago.
And then, after that…
Things are about to get incredibly ugly. I don’t know exactly what will happen, but if that demon’s involved, things are about to change irrevocably in our lives once again.
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