“Ahh, there you are…” Jormun whispered in Leon’s ear as Leon took down some of the villa’s defensive wards.

Leon immediately swapped out his stolen servant’s attire for his armor and drew his sword.  His eyes flitted from corner to corner in the small enchantment control room, but he took in nothing that he hadn’t before; nothing but the enchantment control consoles, the five glass-covered pillars, and some spare enchantment materials in the corner, behind which Leon had stashed the corpse of the guard he’d killed to enter the villa undetected.  The woman who’d been working in here before Leon had entered was also unconscious in a corner, still not yet recovered from the jolt Leon had given her to cover his entrance.

Nowhere did he see Jormun, nor did he see any sign that Jormun was screwing with his head or with this ‘trial world’.

“Sorry about that,” Jormun continued, chatting with a tone as if he and Leon were but old friends who’d run into each other while out running mundane errands, “I don’t like to keep people waiting for my company, but you were so hard to find!  And these controls up here certainly don’t help.  Anyways, how are you doing?  All right, I hope…  After all, I can’t win someone’s allegiance from beyond the grave…”

Jormun’s voice was buttery smooth and so tantalizing, his every syllable seemed to offer something new and wonderful, so naturally, Leon immediately raised his mental defenses and let his Ancestor’s lightning course through his veins.  He wasn’t about to leave Jormun an opening that he could magically exploit.

And he did it not a moment too soon, for he felt a few tiny currents of darkness magic that had wormed its way into several parts of his body, including his ears and forearms, be immediately torn to shreds by his lightning magic.  As they were, Leon found himself much less taken with Jormun’s words and profoundly thankful that he’d practiced even just some basic precautions for mental attacks like these.

However, he was also mildly concerned, for there had been no darkness magic touching his brain, and yet he’d still been mildly affected by Jormun’s words.  It was as much proof as anything could be that his mental defenses were anything but perfect… and Leon’s thoughts momentarily turned back to the Thunderbird look-a-like before he refocused on the situation at hand.

“That’s playing dirty,” Leon growled, his normally-smooth voice resonating within his Magmic Steel helmet.

“Mmm, dirty,” Jormun crowed, obviously relishing every syllable.  “Just how I like it…”

Leon scowled and went back to work on the pillars.  He wasn’t sure how much control Jormun had over the trial world, so he wasn’t going to just abandon all caution just because the pirate had found him.  The sense that he’d need to do so soon, however, was rising within him.  Jormun had already proven himself capable of manipulating at least some of the temple’s enchantments—either that, or he took credit, either implicitly or directly, for several very convincing coincidences—so Leon had no doubt that things here in the trial world were about to get much more complicated.

“You talking just to talk?  I’m not that big on conversation for the sake of itself,” Leon asked as he removed another ring of glass from the pillars, and he immediately sensed the change in the way magic power flowed through the walls of the villa.  He’d be able to use his ring of invisibility without reservation, now.

At least, he would once the ring recovered in another minute or two, assuming Jormun didn’t try to pull any shenanigans.

“No, I’m not talking just for the sake of talking,” Jormun retorted, sounding almost insulted that Leon had even asked at all.  “Listen, Leon, I was serious when I suggested that we work together.  You need allies, do you not?  The Serpent has told me so much about you and your Clan that I couldn’t help but sympathize with you…”

“Fuck your sympathy,” Leon muttered as he removed the third and final glass ring from the pillars, leaving nearly all of the villa’s enchantment scheme completely intact, just missing its main passive defenses.

“Now, now, Leon, surely you’re a bigger man than that?  Can’t you hear the sincerity in my voice?”

Jormun sounded so genuinely upset that Leon had to fight for a moment not to be taken in.  He wasn’t falling for that.  He’d made his peace with Justin, but that was over the man’s personal attacks against Leon and his family, and for the sake of Valeria, whom Leon had strong feelings for; Leon had seen with his own eyes the unconstrained destruction that Jormun wrought, how far it went beyond personal issues, and he knew how much further Jormun was going to take this.  He’d make no peace with the man.

“You’re a proven liar, and a man who has perpetuated at least one massacre on the previous island in this chain.  I can make peace with just about any enemy I make, but there’s a world of difference between those who personally harm me and mine, and those who bring death and destruction on a scale like you’ve done.  So, no, I won’t be wasting my time talking with you.  Instead, I think I’m just going to find whatever hole you’re hiding in and drag you out into the light.”

“I mean it, Leon.  Nothing good will come of our conflict, and we only stand to benefit from working together.”  Jormun’s voice was quiet and earnest, but Leon still ignored it as he felt his invisibility ring return to normal functions.

With that, Leon completely ceased participating in this conversation and made for the door, the light all around him bending and warping until Leon was rendered invisible.

“Oh, come now, Leon,” Jormun droned on, “we don’t have to do this, we should be united in this.  After all, we’re in practically the same situation!  Your family once ruled as a dominant force in this world, as did mine!  Your family was unjustly overthrown, and so was mine!”

Jormun paused a moment for dramatic effect, and Leon didn’t take the opportunity to speak up, choosing instead to test out if his strategic removal of wards from the enchantment pillars had worked by brushing his hand against the control room door’s doorknob.  What Jormun said next, however, brought him to at least a momentary halt.

“… You bear the power of an Inherited Bloodline, and so do I!”

Leon stood there, in front of the door, blinking in surprise at what Jormun had just claimed.  He wasn’t going to take what he said at face value, but… if what Jormun was saying was true…

“This world is cruel to people like us,” Jormun quietly stated.  “People will always resent those in power for having that power, and by virtue of how our kind reproduces, those without powers like ours will always heavily outnumber us.  Now, we may make a few friends, we may even gain a great deal of power every now and then, and we may even keep that power for a long period of time, but the people will never accept us.  They see us as less than human, when in reality, we are something more!  But they will never accept that we are inherently superior; they will covet our powers, our ancestors, and our very blood!  So long as we exist, all of humanity will be our enemies!  The only way we can survive is if we unite!

“Think about it, scion of the Thunderbird.  You, ruling the skies, and me, ruling the seas.  With our powers combined, all that exists will be forced to bend their knees to us.  We need only make a mutual alliance, and the world is ours!  All of the powers and positions that have been taken from our families, we’ll take back!  Not even the Four Empires will be able to stop us!”

Leon stood before the door, his heart pounding in his chest, his hand outstretched, fingers brushing against the doorknob.  He wasn’t of a mind to accept Jormun’s offer, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he wanted more information.

‘Nothing he says can be taken at face value,’ Leon thought to himself as he took a few quiet steps away from the door and, without dropping his invisibility, asked, “Are you saying that you’re the descendent of some Ascended Beast?”

As soon as he was done speaking, he moved a few steps over, not wanting Jormun to be able to figure out where he stood by the sound of his voice, just in case that was even possible with the magical way they were now speaking.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, young Leon,” Jormun replied, the swaggering smile he wore evident in the tone of his voice.  “My family is descended from the legendary Serpent of my people.  We were the last of his descendants, and after the death of my father at the hands of the Penitent Paladin, the only remaining man who bears that legacy… is me.”

Leon frowned, though not so much at the story told as he did at the remarkable coincidence it would take for Jormun’s story to be exactly as he said—it was close enough to Leon’s own story that it made it impossible for Leon to believe.

He didn’t voice those doubts, however, and simply let Jormun talk while he began to sidle back toward the door.  He also began to, as subtly as he could, project his magic senses through the villa in an attempt to get some idea of what to do and where to go once he left this room.  Now that the wards against such things had been disabled, there shouldn’t be much of an issue.

Almost immediately, he saw almost the entire villa in near-perfect clarity, from the small army of guards that filled the main villa’s halls—many of whom were now scrambling about and locking the large building down—to every plant and blade of grass in the garden courtyards, if he cared enough to examine them.  The one exception was a large section of the top floor that appeared to have its own independent ward scheme, for as his magic senses brushed against the walls of this section, they were immediately scattered.

‘I guess that’s where I have to go,’ Leon thought just as Jormun began to speak again.

“I know the pain and the strife that comes when those who bear powers passed down through their blood start to gain power,” Jormun continued, obliging Leon’s curiosity.  “Those already in power don’t like to see others rise out of fear that they’ll try to supplant them.  They also resent us for having a magical edge.  This prevents us from having any true friends or allies.  Trust me when I say this, Leon: you will find no one except for me who will accept you when they learn who you are and the advantages that you enjoy because of your Thunderbird.  I’ve been all over this plane, finding those who’ve inherited powers from their ancestors, and their story is always the same.  They, if they wish to participate in human society, must either give up their powers, or resign themselves to a life of paranoia and superstition—either their own, from others, or some combination of both.

“So, Leon, all I ask is that you support me in my endeavor.  When I raise the Serpent, a new world will be born.  If you join me, you will be greatly rewarded by the Serpent, and you will take your rightful place as the ruler of the skies!”

Leon had to hold himself back from snorting in derision.  Even if he wanted to seize back all the power of the old Thunderbird Clan with blood and blade, he would never do so by unleashing some terrible creature of yore that had been sealed for at least eighty thousand years.  He momentarily grimaced when he realized that that had been exactly what he’d done with Xaphan, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that Xaphan’s power had been incredibly drained and they’d made a magical contract—plus, he hadn’t even needed to sacrifice a single person to do it, let alone the thousands Jormun had sacrificed on the previous island, let alone again the number of people he’d sacrificed that Leon didn’t even know about.  He wasn’t about to aid Jormun in releasing this Serpent and watch as it destroyed this world.

But that wasn’t the only reason Leon found the offer so repulsive, and after several long seconds, his urge to laugh managed to break through his self-control, and he slowly began to laugh harder and harder at Jormun’s offer.  It started as a low chuckle before growing into full-bodied roaring guffaws as each successive laugh made it harder and harder for Leon to get control of himself.

Even more intense were the emotions that were cutting through Leon’s being as he thought about some dinky little water snake being so arrogant as to think that it could vassalize him!  If that snake were here right now, Leon felt like he’d rip and tear into it with fang and claw, stripping its scales, rending its flesh, and finally burning it into ash.

It was only the strangeness of that feeling that allowed Leon to bring himself back under control.  As he took a deep breath to steady himself from more than ten seconds of completely uncontrollable laughter, only one thought ran through his head: ‘What in the hells is wrong with me?’

It wasn’t the first time that he’d felt some kind of instinct compelling him to move or use body parts that he didn’t have, and he had no idea where they were coming from, only that it was a recent thing.

‘Something about these islands, maybe?’ he wondered, for he’d never felt such things before arriving at Kraterok.

“What do you say, Leon?” Jormun asked, his voice soothing and inviting, though tinged with an undercurrent of offense from Leon’s outburst.

But Leon wanted nothing he had to offer.  The very idea of accepting anything from Jormun had his blood boiling.  But he kept his reaction as neutral as he could, and he asked, “On the last island I was on, I found what looked like a mass blood sacrifice.  Your doing?”

Leon already knew it was, but he wanted to know if Jormun would admit to it or lie.  And it seemed that Jormun might’ve been thrown for a bit of loop by the question, because it took him a moment to respond.

“It was,” Jormun slowly admitted.  “Nothing changes without sacrifice.  Those people gave their lives so that my dream could live on.  They went to that ritual site willingly, and offered themselves up to the Serpent.”

Leon smiled behind his helmet, understanding that Jormun both told the truth and lied.

Or, well, he supposed he couldn’t know that the thousands of dead people he’d found at the ritual site had gone there willingly or not, but he doubted they did—especially not the children—but Jormun at least admitted that he did it.

“It sounds like the powers-that-be on this plane aren’t going to take kindly to you messing with their sandbox,” Leon observed.  “As you said, those in power don’t like it when those beneath them start getting too big of their britches.  Do you not worry that they’ll retaliate?”

“Their time to retaliate has come and gone,” Jormun smugly stated.  “They could’ve stopped me thirty years ago when I was in the southeast, raiding and pillaging the southern coast of the continent.  Got my hands on quite a few nice magical toys and made a big enough name for myself that there’s not a single pirate in all of Aeterna that doesn’t know who I am!  But for all my successes, they didn’t consider me worth their time.  The eyes of the Emperors don’t turn this far north.  Ever.  They don’t care about the troubles of people this far from their seats of power; the only things they care about beyond their own borders are Titanstone and the Sky Devils far to the southeast.  By the time they realize their mistake, the Serpent will already have been unleashed, and their time will have already ended.  I don’t fear them.”

Leon didn’t ask any more questions, even though everything Jormun had just said brought quite a few to mind.  Instead, he just pushed open the door and left the control room without a shred of hesitation.  Jormun wasn’t going to stop, and Leon wasn’t going to join him.  He’d lost his patience for the conversation, and there was no point in indulging Jormun any longer, not when he still had yet to find Gaius or Maia.

“Hang on, now,” Jormun called out, his voice sticking with Leon, proving that it wasn’t limited to the room.  “We’re still talking, it’s rude to just walk away like that.”

“It’s rude to murder thousands of people to satisfy your own vanity and lust for power, too,” Leon retorted as he strode through the courtyard, still invisible.  The guards who’d been stirred up by his incapacitation of the servant were still assembling and running around, so he still had some work to do, but now, he had unfettered use of his ring and magic senses again, so he moved with greater purpose and confidence than he had after stealing the servant’s clothes.

He slipped past guards and other household servants as they did their best to lock the villa down, but invisible, Leon was able to slink past them all for a short while as he crept through the villa.  Eventually, he knew he’d have to kill someone or resort to violence to get past a closed and guarded door or something of that nature, but he didn’t run into any immediate troubles.

Although, he supposed he did have one trouble: Jormun was continuing to try and entice him to go back to the control room—or any other private place where they could easily talk—and was growing increasingly frustrated that Leon wasn’t doing as he wanted.  Strangely, it didn’t seem like anyone else could hear the man, for he wasn’t being quiet, and yet no one reacted to his voice.

Eventually, as Leon set his foot down upon the first step of the closest set of stairs that would lead him to the top floor, Jormun sighed dramatically and said, “I suppose there’s no convincing you, then.  A shame.  I regretted immediately lashing out at you when you started putting holes in this place, but now, I do this with no regret.  I tried to convince you, but you won’t listen to reason.  My regret is better spent on others.”

Only a moment later, a great pulse of magic power swept through the entire villa, doing largely nothing at all, but when it hit Leon, his shell of invisibility conjured by his ring was torn to shreds, revealing him there on the stairs to the guards both below and above.

Guards who immediately began to shout and draw their weapons, drawing other guards with their shouts of alarm.  Even as Leon was drawing his blade from his soul realm, at least a dozen other guards appeared from around corners and from within other rooms as if from nowhere, quickly surrounding Leon.

None of them were above the fourth-tier, but that didn’t seem to matter all that much to them; none of them seemed at all intimidated by Leon’s unrestrained aura and prodigious killing intent.

It was with a conflicted heart that Leon began to cut them down as they charged at him.  With his power and lightning magic, none of them could so much as scratch his armor, let alone do him any real harm.

It was over in less than a minute.  Leon hadn’t even had to use any elemental attacks, he used only his blade to end the fight.  He was left standing there on the stairs, surrounded by corpses and the sounds of additional guards running in his direction.

He sighed and began to run up the stairs, scowling as he heard Jormun’s voice again.

“I’ll admit, that was petty, but it seems clear enough to me that you’re not going to stop.  So, how about I do… this…”

Leon came to a swift halt as three more guards made their presence known at the top of the stairs leading from the second to the third floor, his sword going up in preparation for killing them, too.  However, a moment later, all three guards dropped dead on the spot, causing Leon to stare in disbelief, and then project his magic senses.

As he’d suspected, everyone else that he could see within the villa had fallen where they stood, killed in an instant.

“That’s a little better, isn’t it?” Jormun cooed with a grave and sinisterly excited tone.  “You’d just cut them down, anyway, why let them get in the way?”

“That’s still damn cold, though,” Leon couldn’t help but mutter.

“How so?  They’re not real, not like they’re deserving of much.  They’re conjurations of that place you find yourself in.  Well, actually, truth be told, I’m not all that sure what they are, not even the most powerful of the artifacts that I’ve managed to acquire over these past few decades even comes close to what the enchantments in this temple are capable of.  Truly, they’re the work of a god…”

Leon scowled again as he started to continue running up the stairs, very concerned at what Jormun might do next.  He just needed to find and grab Gaius, then try and find a way out.  He supposed such an exit would be near Gaius, but regardless, time was feeling much more precious with Jormun making waves than it did only a few minutes ago.

And Jormun wasn’t just going to shut up, either.  “Ahh, you’re hurrying.  I suppose I would, too, given the circumstances, but I’m afraid whatever you want will remain forever out of reach if you plan on spurning my offer of friendship…”

Suddenly, Leon’s mental defenses, so far untested—at least, as far as he was aware—came under so much pressure and strain that he was driven to his knees there on the landing of the third floor, only one more set of stairs to go before he reached the floor with the section he couldn’t scout with magic senses.

Dark magic power had appeared with no warning and wrapped itself around his head, putting such extreme pressure on his defense shell of magic power that insulated his brain from such attacks that it began to crack under the strain.  At the edges of his vision, he could see that his head was being coated in some kind of inky black magic, telling him everything he needed to know about what was happening.  His magic was still surging through his veins, so it took nothing more than a quick thought and—

His insulating shell shattered, and the darkness magic swept into his mind.  Less than a second later, Leon’s lightning magic erupted into his head, tearing all of that darkness asunder and bringing strength enough back to Leon’s limbs that he was able to groggily push himself back to his feet.

He felt terrible, like he’d suddenly come down with a terrible flu.  His vision was distorted and dark, his sense of balance was all out of whack, and his limbs were jittery with weakness.  Worst of all, he had a splitting headache that felt like someone had just cracked open his skull—which, he supposed, someone just had.  However, he could feel himself quickly recovering as his magic power flooded his brain, eradicating any traces of darkness magic that remained.  Unfortunately, Leon felt like it was too little, too late; the darkness magic had penetrated his defenses, proving them weak and unsuited to the challenges they faced.

Leon groaned in pain even as he could hear Jormun’s laughter resounding from what sounded like every direction.

“You did quite well, there, Leon,” Jormun gloated, “but it seems you weren’t fast enough.  The temple got what it needed…”

Jormun went quiet as all the light in the villa went out—not just the villa’s magic lanterns, either, but the sun and the stars in the sky behind it winked out, leaving the entire trial world in pitch darkness.  All magic that Leon could sense in the walls vanished along with it, leaving nothing magical remaining in the trial world that he could sense save for the area on the fourth floor that even now still scattered Leon’s magic senses.

Leon groaned again as he started struggling up the last flight of stairs, his power enough that this new darkness didn’t slow him down any.  He was quickly recovering from that mental invasion, and his blood was again starting to boil in rage and humiliation—behind his visor, his cheeks felt like they were being smelted with how warm they were with his indignant anger.  He kept moving up and on.  The end of whatever all of this was had to be in that blank area on the fourth floor.  It had to be.  This was a trial, there had to be some way to win and finish.

But Leon couldn’t help but think that maybe there wasn’t, that maybe with Jormun controlling things behind the scenes, he might be stuck here indefinitely.  He’d managed to break his way through the spatial tunnel, but there was no guarantee that he could do the same here and escape back to the real world.

With those thoughts weighing him down, Leon arrived at the top of the stairs, and found himself staring at a door on a landing.  Beyond was what looked to be a large empty sitting room—probably for receiving guests who were honored enough to be invited to the personal quarters of the villa’s owner, Leon figured—but as he approached the door, he froze.  He saw all of the furniture in the next room suddenly vanish into black mist.  The sofas, chairs, tables, and even the thick red carpet all disappeared, the ceiling shot upward until it towered over the floor by at least five stories, the walls stretching like gum to keep the ceiling from flying completely off.

The room was left completely empty, with nothing but a hardwood floor and another door on the other side of the room.

Something was going to happen in that room.  Leon knew that, and he could feel dread settling into his stomach like a rock.

[Xaphan…] he whispered into his soul realm, [I think I might be needing your help soon…]

[I’m with you, Leon,] the demon whispered back, his crackling voice sounding just as anxious as Leon’s.

Surprisingly, Nestor also spoke up, whispering, [I might know a way to escape, if you need one.  Just be careful, if there’s no other way, this won’t be easy…  Just get through whatever’s next…]

Leon nodded, then pushed open the door and entered the room.

As if space meant absolutely nothing in this trial world, the ceiling shot upward and the walls immediately fell back, new hardwood floor appearing in its wake.  The room didn’t even shake, it just suddenly became much, much bigger, as big and as wide-reaching as the arena back in the capital of the Bull Kingdom, Leon noted…

About thirty feet in front of him, a light appeared.  Leon, being a seventh-tier mage, had been able to see even in this darkness perfectly fine—or so it seemed, for as the light appeared, it revealed something just in front of it that had completely eluded all of Leon’s senses, magical or otherwise.

Or, he supposed, it revealed someone.

A man, tall and broad shouldered, his face obscured by shadow, sat on a small stool, his head tilted down as if he were supremely interested in the floor about five feet in front of his toes.  He was dressed in simple clothes—a tunic and plain pants, but Leon noted that the tunic was made of valuable green silkgrass, and the pants were a familiar leather.  At his waist, the man also had something familiar: a plain, average-looking weapon, a sword with a long and straight blade, with a hilt just long enough to use with either one hand or two.  It was the same sword that Leon held in his hands.

The man had relatively long dark brown hair that looked like it hadn’t been properly cut in months.  His nose, just barely visible in the light, proudly stood out on his face, long and as straight as his blade.

As the man looked up, more of his face was framed and illuminated by this light, showing a strong jawline, a clean-shaven face, and an angular face that possessed an almost hawkish quality to it.

It was a familiar face, and as the man stood up, he stood about an inch or two over Leon, showing Leon his familiar lithe, yet exceptionally well-built muscular body, perfectly framed by the light behind him.

Leon could only stare in horror.  He couldn’t help but take a couple steps back, his eyes wide, his hands shaking, the lightning magic in his body fizzling out and returning to element-less magic.  Leon’s mouth hung open behind his helmet, unable to make any sound, unable to do anything other than shake in fear.

Of everything he’d ever seen, this was the worst.  Nothing could compare.  Not Xaphan when he was just a voice in his head asking for freedom as Leon wandered the prison; not Nestor when he invaded Leon’s soul realm seeking to possess his body; not ice wraiths and their attendant banshees with shrieks that could drive even a powerful mage’s magic haywire; not even the krakens that Jormun possessed, with their massive, powerful limbs capable of tearing entire war galleys to pieces, their water magic that could drown cities, or their darkness magic that could paralyze with a single glance.

This was the worst.  No despair Leon had ever felt was worth considering as he stared at this figure, his heart racing as if it wanted nothing more than to break free of his chest and run to safety.  Leon wanted to run away, but his fear had turned his legs to jelly.  He could do nothing more than watch in horror as the figure drew his blade and took a step forward.

And then a light flickered on behind Leon, bringing the figure’s face fully into view, confirming everything that Leon had just seen, banishing any and all attempts Leon might’ve made to try and convince himself that this wasn’t real.

As he took another step forward, Artorias smiled and brandished his weapon.  Without a word, he lunged at Leon, faster than Leon’s eyes could track, and slammed his blade into Leon’s cuirass, punching right through the metal and driving unstoppably into Leon’s chest.

—-

—-

Thank you to my Seventh-tier patrons:

Efflorescence – Scarab6 – MildWhiteGuy – Ray Ibit – ZRhulad – Michael Mooney – Tim Fleper – DJ9warren – Neptune – Ari Noordermeer – Jeremiah – Ricardo – Orims – Derek Rogers – GroteZiel

---

Please be sure to visit Royal Road and leave a rating or review!

Patreon (Up to 40 chapters ahead)

Discord