A/N: The truth comes out~

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The gargantuan creature’s next step clears most of the space between them and it. In an instant it’s upon them, and Mikael knows that there’s no running anymore. There’s only fighting… and hopefully not dying to this damn monster. At least, that’s what he assumes… right up until the thing suddenly goes still.

Mikael blinks as unnatural silence suddenly falls over the area. The Beast, so utterly massive, is suddenly as still as a statue. He’s not even sure the monster is breathing as it freezes in place. However, one thing is for sure… those eyes that it’s sporting, those eyes as big as a person… are fixed on the ground before him. On them. No, Mikael suddenly realizes.

The Beast isn’t looking at them. He’s looking at Bula. At this realization, Mikael looks over at Bula, who still stands frozen where she’s been since the Beast first arrived. Her head is tilted back and her eyes are looking all the way up at the monster as it looms over them. If Mikael didn’t know any better, he’d say the two were engaging in a goddamn staring contest. What the fuck was going on?!

“… She’s doing it outside the circle. But… how?”

Turning to Daylor as those words come from the stunned High Executor’s lips, Mikael frowns.

“What are you talking about? What exactly do you think Bula is doing?”

The elven man doesn’t even look in Mikael’s direction. He’s too busy staring at Bula in wonder. For a brief moment, Mikael thinks he might not even answer him. But finally, in a tone of awed amazement and baffled confusion, Daylor speaks.

“… She’s connecting to the Beast without the circle. It shouldn’t be possible. No High Priestess has ever been capable of this, not in centuries. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Well, Timothal had said that Bula had a pretty intense connection to the Sylian Woods. Maybe it was never to do with the elves at all. Maybe it had everything to do with this… thing. Whatever it was.

Of course, before Mikael can say anything else, a voice suddenly rings out. Except at the same time… it doesn’t. It takes Mikael a moment to realize that it’s not a voice at all, but rather a presence in his mind… and judging by the way both Daylor and Avina wince, its in all of their minds as well. Bula’s too, but she doesn’t so much as flinch as the ‘voice’ buffets their senses.

<Curious. Very curious.>

That causes Bula to jolt. And surprisingly enough, a look of shame blossoms across the half-orc’s face.

Meanwhile, Mikael gapes. The monster could TALK?! Wait, could the others speak too? He’d thought they were engaging in a battle against hyper-aggressive wildlife. Not… intelligent beings! He has a lot he wants to say in that moment, but he holds his tongue. There’s a conversation taking place here, and he’s very much not part of it.

<Little one. You who know what it is to have chains foisted upon you… to be bound and enslaved by another. You would still try and rebind me? Enslave me once again?>

Wait, what? There’s a sinking feeling in Mikael’s gut and he exchanges a look with Avina. His Soul Mechanic is pale by default, but she looks even paler now as they make eye contact with one another. Surely… surely not, right?

At the same time, Bula lowers her head sheepishly, her eyes fixed on the forest floor.

“… I did not know.”

Her voice sounds weak, as though she does not consider her defense strong enough. But to the surprise of everyone present, the voice chuckles.

<Hah. I believe you, little one.>

Well. That was surprisingly magnanimous of the Godzilla-esque creature currently towering over them all. Unfortunately, someone close by didn’t think so.

“What do you think you’re doing, you fool?! If you have a connection to the Beast, USE it! Control the damn thing, don’t… don’t just SPEAK with it!”

High Executor Daylor Krislamin looks completely and utterly done with all of this. The incredulity on the elven man’s face is only matched by the outrage in his eyes as he hisses at Bula to do her ‘duty’. That sinking feeling in Mikael’s gut has turned into a yawning chasm by this point. It’s become increasingly obvious that the High Executor wasn’t in the dark about this. It wasn’t some well-kept secret that he, as the lowliest of Executors, simply wasn’t privy to. And that meant he’d known all along what Mikael, Bula, and Avina were just finding out.

Bula, in a very typical Bula move, scoffs as she turns to look at Daylor with a sneer.

“And why would I do that? Why would I enslave Syl, your God? This is the God of the Forest himself… and you want me to control him.”

There it is. All of the pieces had been right in front of them for a little bit, but it wasn’t until the gargantuan creature actually spoke that Mikael was finally able to put things together. A glance at Avina shows she’s in the same boat as him, thankfully. They’d both figured it out before Bula’s reveal, but only minutes before.

Still… why not, right? Since arriving in this world, Mikael has had his mind torn asunder, been stabbed in the heart and killed, resurrected and came back to life, and gained magic by eating the soul of the evil wizard at the root of all those woes. And then, in the aftermath of that victory, they found out that an even greater evil wizard had been using the first evil wizard as a pawn to help him create an army of undead summoned heroes for who knew how many years.

All things considered, if the Sylian Elves could be real, why not a Living God, right? And if there were a Living God walking the surface of Vaclatora… yeah, it would probably be a creature like this. Staring up at the surprisingly quiet God of the Sylian Woods, Mikael swallows nervously, wondering how exactly they’re going to navigate this incredibly delicate situation.

“Yes! OUR God! Our SLAVE!”

Oh. So they weren’t, great. Turning to face Daylor Krislamin, it becomes immediately obvious that the High Executor is becoming increasingly… unhinged. His eyes are wide and wild as he tries to ‘reason’ with Bula, only to sound like a mad man. Or maybe… just a monster.

“The People have survived here in the Sylian Woods for CENTURIES, you little ingrate! Do you think that we did so in spite of the dangers inherent to this forest?! Of course not! We dominated this forest from the very start, as is our BIRTHRIGHT!”

Scowling, Bula crosses her arms over her chest and juts out her chin.

“You made it sound like you had a pact with Syl. You lied to me.”

To his credit, the High Executor looks baffled by this. Had he truly not realized he was keeping crucial information back? Did he think it was somehow obvious and they should have known already?

“A pact?! You cannot break bread with a GOD, you foolish girl! You cannot make a deal with a creature such as Syl! No… there is no reasoning with a monster like that. The only way was to control it. So that we could in turn control the entirety of the Sylian Woods!”

Bula looks disgusted. Mikael isn’t surprised by that though. This was… well, he’d said before he felt like the High Executor was a lot like Zadicus Quinn. That comparison was becoming more and more apt by the moment. Both of them were, as it turned out, wannabe slavers. It made sense in a sick and twisted sort of way.

The Sylian Elves might have been different in some ways from humans. Probably longer lives, obviously the shorter ears, and they clearly had affinities for both nature and archery from what Mikael had seen so far. But they were still human-sized. They were still much smaller than anything else in the entirety of the Sylian Woods.

How was it then, that they were able to not just survive but thrive in this mega-sized forest? How did they manage to not just live in a place as deadly as this, but build an entire way of life? Nine massive, sprawling, treetop cities. An entire civilization. All built on the back of slavery. And not just your average run of the mill slavery of another race deemed lesser or inferior, no. The Sylian Elves didn’t dream small. They’d gone ahead and enslaved a fucking God.

Of course, if the High Executor realized he’d already lost them by this point, he didn’t show it. Probably, he just didn’t care. He was in full-on rant mode again by this point.

“For hundreds and hundreds of years, it has been the duty of the High Priestess to dominate Syl via the ancient control circle! Through that domination, The People have thrived in the Sylian Woods for CENTURIES! Controlling Syl gave us the ability to control his children. And with them as our beasts of burden and our protectors, we were able to CONQUER these trees, to make this forest our own!”

Finally, the High Executor takes a deep breath. His hands have fallen to the pommels of the two swords he has at his waist, but he does not draw them… yet. Instead, in a much more measured tone, he rolls his shoulders and even tries to give Bula a smile. It comes out as more of a grimace.

“You are connected to Syl now. You should know how much hatred lies within his heart for our people. Every High Priestess has spoken of it. If you do not use that connection to control him, he will slaughter us all, including you and your friends. We are like ants to him. This, Bula, is your one chance. If not for The People… then save yourself at least. After you have dominated Syl, we can… discuss your role in our society.”

Wow. He really thought that would work too, didn’t he? Holy shit, from what Mikael remembered from fiction, he knew that elves were supposed to be egotistical, arrogant assholes… but this really took the cake, didn’t it?

“… You don’t even know, do you?”

Bula tilts her head to the side as she studies the High Executor with a look of curiosity on her face. In response, Daylor begins to scowl but quickly marshals the expression, now trying to turn on the charm despite it being way too late. Of course, for someone like him, ‘turning on the charm’ just means looking incredibly constipated.

“Know what?”

Huffing, Bula shakes her head.

“You don’t even know where I was before you started calling me. You don’t know what I was doing. Or what was being done to me.”

Daylor’s feigned patience is rapidly wearing thin as the elven man growls under his breath.

“What in blazes are you talking about?”

For a moment, Mikael thinks that Bula will tell him. Syl had already mentioned it in passing, the God of the Forest clearly having gleaned something from whatever connection he had to Bula at this point. But instead of telling the High Executor all about her years of enslavement at the hands of Zadicus Quinn, Bula just shakes her head again.

“Doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t care. Know this though, you stuck-up elf bastard. I will never enslave another creature. Not man, not orc, not elf… not god. And I definitely won’t do it for a cowardly little BITCH like you.”

Mikael’s eyes widen as Bula goes off on the High Executor. He almost wants to whistle lowly because… DAMN, that was a takedown. Of course… Daylor doesn’t take her words well. Not at all.

“Cowardly- you stupid little cunt! You think you have a choice?! I’ll cut your arms and legs off and drag you back to the control circle myself if I have to!”

Daylor Krislamin draws his blades at that, ready to make good on his threat. Bula, meanwhile, hefts her battle axe, savagely grinning in response. Mikael considers for a moment whether or not interfere… and then the High Executor seals his fate.

“We should have done that with your BITCH of a mother! But I see now that we were too lenient with her. If we’d only removed her limbs, she wouldn’t have been able to kill herself when the Council finally gave the order for her to bear another child to continue the bloodline!”

Mikael frowns at that. That was new information. They knew Renna had taken her own life… but it had been framed as a consequence of the experience Bula’s father had forced upon her finally weighing too heavily on her soul after many, many years. But to hear that she’d only committed suicide because Daylor and his fellow Executors had decided she was going to HAVE to bear another child so they could keep their Empire of Slavery going for another generation was… a new twist on things. A monstrous new twist on things that nevertheless lined up with everything else they’d uncovered today.

In that moment, Bula freezes up. She might have put on a brave face, she might have done her best to pretend like she didn’t care about who her mother was or the things she’d done… but right now she’s standing there wearing her mother’s leafy green dress covered in blood, finding out that the only reason the elven woman committed suicide is because of the bastard right in front of her.

As Daylor charges forward with lightning swiftness, Mikael is sure Bula will recover in time to stop the desperate, maddened High Executor. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to risk it. In the end… the elven man isn’t even paying him the slightest mind. Even after everything, the High Executor’s racism means he can’t possibly truly see Mikael or Avina as threats. They’re just humans, after all.

Which is why Daylor Krislamin doesn’t see it coming, even as Mikael steps forward and sweeps his sword right through the roaring High Executor’s wrists. The elf’s hands come away from his body in an instant and both they and his twin swords go flying through the air.

It takes elven man a second to realize what’s happened as he stumbles forward another step. Then, he falls to his knees, his roar of outrage turning into a scream of agony as blood spurts from the stumps.

He lands on his knees right in front of Bula as a matter of fact… just in time for the half-orc to recover, a snarl on her face and death in her eyes as she steps forward and swings her axe, removing his head from his shoulders.

With that, the last High Executor of the Sylian Elves dies, his decapitated, de-handed body slumping over lifeless on the forest floor.

Silence blankets the Sylian Woods for a moment… and then all hell breaks loose as the hundreds of elven soldiers still alive to witness this finally react. Needless to say, things get a little dicey after that.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Not much of a weekend cliffhanger tbh. Unless you think the leaderless elves are somehow going to get the better of our intrepid anti-heroes. (Spoiler Alert, they won't pfft)

Be sure to let me know what you think!