Chapter 298

Primal (IV)

Shae sipped topeka wine, comfortably seated in her favorite spot, a terrace facing the distant south. There, beyond the horizon, lay her dreams--not here, at the fringes of the world unknown. There, beyond the horizon, were all the people she admired her whole life--the people whose backs she chased relentlessly and without pausing.

She had, after all, spent a whole quarter of a century by now sitting in the chairs like these, watching the views like this one, and drinking the kind of wine that people were forced to drink in this place. Deep down, however, she knew she was better than this place, better than all the people who live here, better than the hand she was dealt at her birth.

Spending over fifty years trying to prove it had exhausted her, however. It wasn’t an easy task trying to break out and find means to get here, and it was far many more magnitudes harder to succeed in this place. Everyone who made it here, one way or another, was a cut above an average Conqueror. It made it that more difficult to succeed.

Even the little success she found on the fringes, managing Attasha, was dependent on others-- on the so-called ‘Council’. What they were was a heap of backstabbing leeches. Even thinking about them frustrated her and caused her to grind her teeth together. She was better than them, she knew. More talented. More beautiful. More perfect. If only, if only the world saw that.

Drinking the last of the wine, she tossed the glass aside and shattered it against the stone. The days were dull, the dreams she so passionately chased were dying, and she could no longer deny it. She had to do something to change this. Otherwise, as things stood, she’d be perpetually stuck in this hellhole, never achieving anything.

Just as she was about to call for some of her servants to prepare a bath, an explosion that shattered her eardrums and kicked her off the chair boomed out. The magnitude terrified her--not of the explosion itself, but the Mana released in the process. Whoever just used that skill... didn’t belong here, she immediately realized.

However, this was her territory. She had to defend it. Yelling lowly as to shake away the fear, she summoned a pair of translucent wings on her back and took to the sky. Quickly realizing she wasn’t alone in the endeavour, she sighed a breath of relief. All six other ‘Heads’ were here, all as pale-faced as she was, having themselves realized the magnitude of that explosions.

Looking forward to the epicenter, she noted that the gates of the compound were leveled beyond recognition, the entire landscape destroyed to the point of insanity. From within the dust and the rubble, they immediately spotted a silhouette emerge, clasped by a pair of flaming wings. He appeared relentlessly ordinary past the dirty-blond hair and a pair of soul-piercing eyes which immediately locked onto them.

Before they even realized what happened, he elevated in front of them, stopping some fifty feet in front, a quaint smile on his face.

“The legendary council, I suppose?” the man asked.

“... w-who... who are you?” of the seven of them, Shae braved herself and asked. This was her opportunity, she realized. Once chance.

“A passerby of sorts,” the man replied, looking at her. “However, in my passing ways, I’m afraid I must take over this place.”

“... h-humph, you really think it’s that easy?” one of the other six, Jay, quickly said. He often postured as their leader in the public and the only reason others let him was due to the fact that his younger brother would occasionally come and check up on him from deeper inside the world. “You have no idea whose gates you’ve leveled!”

“... uh, yours?” the man tilted his head in confusion for a moment. “Anyway, do we really need to fight? I can tell you right now, you stand no chance.”

“There’s seven of us and one of you,” another one of the six postured forward. “Do you take us for some beginners?”

Cain realized that they likely had some minor backing--his show of force should have been more than enough to completely dissuade them from even attempting to retaliate. However, seeing as how they still stood strong, or, well, strong, it meant that they had some wind in their back.

That wind, though, was unlikely to be strong; anyone who bothered with policing a settlement this far at the fringes couldn’t be of any true relevance. At the very least, that’s what Cain concluded from Xalt’s and others’ stories. Since they adamantly claimed that thrice-Awakened lived at the very least four-five hundred miles further inland, he knew he could be wanton about his behaviour.

Though twice-Awakened could definitely challenge him and even defeat him, they couldn’t kill him--in that, he was confident. He had a good chunk of experience both battling and watching twice-Awakened in his past run, and effectively knew the limits of what they could do.

Even if second Awakening did further improve one’s class, it was genuinely marginal in almost 99% of the cases since most people would elect for the so-called ‘Active Awakening’ where they’d gain access to the next tier of skills from their Awakened Class. Problem is that those skills were still in tune with all the rest--so though they had access to vastly more Skills, their overall damage and prowess remained largely the same outside of some extra gained utility.

It helped him vastly, though, that his Awakened Class already offered him access to the vast sea of skills at his disposal. As such, he already knew he’d go after the ‘Passive Awakening’ which simply evolved the already-learned skills and gave them that extra ‘umph’.

He couldn’t discard the possibility that there were others in this world with classes similar to his, if not even more powerful. That was, in fact, one of the main reasons he was happy Te’gha tagged along--the cat had exceptionally keen eyes when it came to gauging someone’s strength.

People like those, however--and just like him--wouldn’t be staying near the fringes and worrying over a random settlement.

Charging Mana into his fingers, he let it conjure up into tendrils of fire that extended into serpent-like phantoms, ten in total, that chained together into the shape of a coiled dragon. He let it sit there, above him, seeping away at his Mana. It was another show of force--if he could, he’d really like to actually avoid fighting since, if he did have to fight, he’d likely use up a lot of Mana. And since he didn’t want to waste time sitting around and restoring Mana, effectively being unable to actually push forward, he preferred to ‘talk it out’, as it were.

“What do you want?” the only woman in the group of seven suddenly asked him. She appeared to be less on guard against him than the others.

“I promised some friends this place,” he said honestly, smiling. “And they were kind enough to offer me a bed for a few nights in return.”

“...”

“...” it was clear that nobody bought a word of what he said, though, in fairness, he was actually telling the truth as he did ask of his ‘friends’ for a bed after he took over for them.

“Oh well,” he sighed, crunching his fingers into a fist.

“No, wait,” the woman suddenly called out. “Can’t we talk first?”

“... aren’t we talking?”

“I’m sure we can come to some terms,” the woman added. “There is no need to be so disagreeable.”

Cain glanced at the six others who had ugly expressions, clearly being... disagreeable. He cracked a faint smile, realizing he may not have to fight after all. Pulling back the coiling serpents, he nodded toward the woman.

“Alright,” he said. “If you can convince at least three of them that talking with me is better than fighting and hoping you stall out long enough until whoever the hell you called over arrives, I’ll settle it with a good, old-fashioned conversation.”

“... wait, you called him over?!” the woman turned toward one of the men and yelled, rather shrilly at that.

“Humph, of course I did. Unlike a whore like you, I’ve no intention of bending over for someone who just came here riding a high horse,” the man replied with a scoff. Cain, on the other hand, took out a chair and sat, mid air, sipping himself a cup of beer and expectantly looking forward.

That image was quickly seared in everyone’s minds--from the seven standing opposite of him to hundreds down below admiring the show up above. In the middle of the supposed conflict, the man sat down--in mid air, at that--and sipped something for himself before drinking it, as though he was enjoying a show that had nothing to do with him.

“Go on,” he then said. “That was a good start. I’m now expecting for you to retort with ‘how could you be this stupid?!’ and for him to retort ‘but insert whoever’s fucking him in the ass is many miles stronger than this rookie’. Honestly, I’m just here for the show--I don’t care where you take it from there!”

Apparently, what Cain thought was merely good fun, didn’t translate that well culturally. As such, he was forced to hastily take back the chair and Blink backward, avoiding a bolt of lightning that crescendoed from the open skies. Looking forward, he saw seven ugly expressions--even the woman, who was ‘on his side’, seemed to be absolutely seething.

“... could it be me?” he once again asked the wind, entirely ignoring the answer. “No, of course not. They just have short fuses.”