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Ch170-The Story Of The Seven Suns
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“EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Sylver screamed, and slammed his hand against the wall for extra emphasis.
The panic-stricken dark elves all temporarily stopped their bickering and turned their attention towards the pale man standing on a platform made from his own shadow, holding a solid slate of gold.
“Alright, thank you. Now, I am only going to explain this once, so please listen closely,” Sylver continued, in a slighter calmer, and quieter voice, but still spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him.
“If you ignore them, they go away. I know I may not look it, but I am the oldest person in here right now. You cannot imagine the number of prophecies I’ve been told, that all predicted the end of the world if a certain person isn’t killed, if a certain town isn’t destroyed, if a certain princess isn’t saved, if a certain king is allowed to live, and so on and so forth,” Sylver continued.
There was a quick wave of murmuring in dark elf tongue during the brief pause.
“But here’s what I learned from dealing with prophecies! If an old man, old woman, or a child with their eyes rolled back in their head, walks up to you and starts telling you that you’re going to die alone, underground, with a dagger in your neck, or something you don’t like, here’s what you do,” Sylver explained, as he moved got into a basic boxing stance, and turned sideways so that everyone could see.
He punched the air.
“If they keep talking, punch them again. What you want is one clean solid hit, that sends them to the ground, and results in them spitting out teeth, or at the very least a bleeding lip. My advice is to aim for the nose, but the general stomach area can also work. If it’s a child, kicking is easiest, but be careful not to punt them away from you, because they’re very brittle, and can die from hitting the ground at a bad angle,” Sylver explained and mimed out the actions he was describing.
“You should do that because prophecies are bullshit. It’s the same as a bluff to make you do something, except they’re a little cleverer about it. To a clairvoyant their words are what a sword is to a warrior, they’re tools that they use to achieve their goals. Unless you’re also a clairvoyant, you’re not going to win against them in a battle of words, or bullshit,” Sylver said.
“If you don’t have the body strength for a good solid punch, I recommend picking up the nearest solid object, and smashing it over their head,” Sylver continued.
Sylver’s speech was interrupted by Ruslana jumping up onto his improvised stage. She said several short sentences in dark elf tongue and gestured towards Sylver several times.
After Lily’s “healing” Ruslana didn’t look quite right. There was a softness to her face and hands, that didn’t belong on a person with her eyes. In fact, just about everyone that had been “healed” by Lily had the same problem.
It was hard to describe and even harder to explain how this was a bad thing, but none of them moved like people with healthy bodies. There was a hesitation in each step, an awkwardness when their joints bent further than they normally would.
People that just yesterday walked with a limp, now used their healed leg too much and walked with an uneven gait. What Lily had done wasn’t a proper healing, but it was undoubtedly better than any alternatives they might have had.
Ruslana’s calm words swept over the crowd as if they were a wave. Sylver could see faces that lost their fear and went back to being giddy about their son or daughter walking again.
“You want them to forget about it, right?” Ruslana asked.
“Yes. Tell them I already handled it, and if they don’t recognize any of the names, they have absolutely nothing to worry about,” Sylver said and wanted to slap Ruslana to get rid of the face she just made.
She didn’t flinch and didn’t back away, but she must have sensed the flash of anger Sylver felt.
“In our language “Solnoshko,” means “sun.” But it’s a childish version of the name for the sun. The way you would call a man named Tom, Tommy. Sonso, Solnoshko,” Ruslana explained.
“Alright, just a coincidence-”
“We have a man named Nikita in our midst. If he were to have a son, the child’s last name would be Nikitich,” Ruslana said.
Sylver waited a moment, to make sure there wasn’t more bad news. And could almost feel the tension inside the dead silent room.
“As I said, coincidence. I already sorted everything out, there is absolutely nothing to worry about,” Sylver said, and it warmed his heart that Ruslana believed him, and went on to translate his words to the rest of the dark elves.
Instead of focusing on the fact that he was currently in a world that had a ton of issues due to its sun, and that one of his dark elves could theoretically have a child that would have one of the names the book mentioned, Sylver followed his own advice and didn’t worry about it.
He had gone beyond punching the book into silence, he had removed it from the realm as a whole.
By the time the crowd had dispersed, and Sylver reached Chrys’ room, he had all but forgotten about it.
It was a lesson Sylver had learned firsthand, very early in his life. Some games can only be won by not playing.
He looked down at the solidified puddle in his arm and saw that it was now melting, and during the time it took Sylver to blink, disappeared inside his right arm’s sleeve.
“I almost killed everyone…” Ria whispered into Sylver’s ear, as Spring opened the door for him, and moved a chair over to Chrys’ bed.
“Not to pat myself too hard on the back, but if that slip of paper so much as grazed against me, literally no one would be able to stop us,” Sylver said out loud, as he entered the room and sat down on the small chair, while Spring got to work closing the door behind him.
“Instant death magic aside, if someone were to use even one of the “forbidden” rituals I know about, they would be unstoppable,” Sylver added, as he gestured towards the small wooden box sitting on the nearest table, and floated it over to himself.
Sylver opened the box, and looked inside at the “instant death circlet”.
“Hypothetically speaking, even as I am now I could summon a 10th tier named demon into this realm. And once the book got hold of that demon, which would now be able to use all the magic I’m able to use, I think it’s safe to say no one would be able to stop it,” Sylver continued, as he removed the circlet from the box, and turned it around.
Ria remained dead quiet.
“Then the demon would open a gate to Eira, and would then have access to a countless number of mages, monsters, maybe gods, who’s to say? The adventurers in Arda might be impressive, and powerful, but raw strength is useless against something like this. Oh, and the three death lords Eve is holding hostage, forgot about those,” Sylver added, as he covered his left hand in [Necrotic Mutilation] and slowly and gently extended a tendril inside the circlet.
Ria remained motionless and didn’t say a word.
“After that, gates to other realms, rinse, repeat, and now the level of control is so impossibly massive, that even a thousand [Hero]s wouldn’t be able to put a dent in it,” Sylver said, as he pulled out a small piece of fingernail from the circlet, and sealed up the hole he had made.
The circlet would still work, but now it would need a bit more time to build up enough negative energy to start.
Sylver put it back inside the box and then spent a couple of minutes gradually increasing the amount of negative energy the circlet was absorbing.
“But you’re not the one at fault here. The error is entirely mine. As the highest “authority,” I should have been clearer, I should have stopped you. If the worst were to have happened, it would have been because I was negligent. I’m sorry,” Sylver said.
He couldn’t feel or hear a response from Ria.
“Which brings me to my next point… You don’t trust me. And because you don’t trust me, you didn’t trust that I knew what I was doing. You tried to cover up the initial distrust, by a literal leap of faith. The book used this to its advantage, and forced itself open, to save a tiny scrap of itself from getting destroyed,” Sylver said and felt Ria become just a little looser around his bicep.
“It takes time to build trust between two strangers. We don’t share a common companion, that I could point to and say “he trusts me, and you trust him, so because you trust him, you should trust me.” So we’re strangers, in that sense. Which doesn’t mean we can’t trust one another, it just means it’s going to take time,” Sylver explained.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Ria said.
“Don’t apologize. If anything, it would be stupid, to trust something like me. I know how I look. I know how I sound. Truth be told, the fact that anyone is willing to take my word without the Ibis backing me up, is ridiculous. I’m a walking corpse, with dead people’s souls trapped inside my shadow, with an unknown background, a weird accent, and on top of that, I’m bald,” Sylver explained and felt Ria hold back a grin.
“…”
“Do you want to know why Rose is being so helpful? Because I am such a terrifying monster, that the risk of trying to kill me and failing, is so great that it’s infinitely smarter to just help me, and then leave me alone. If she wanted to, Rose could wiggle her pinkie, and I would disappear. I don’t think I’ve ever told you my real name. Sylver Sezari. I used to be a lich,” Sylver explained and felt as if a heavy weight was lifted from his shoulders.
“…”
“I used to be a necromancer, capable of using 11th tier magic. I once decimated a city with a population of 4 million, because their king kidnapped my master. I got lucky that time, I made it just as they were about to kill the baby that would later be named Aether. I killed the royal family, got Nyx out of there, everyone was safe and sound, but then I had a thought,” Sylver said, with both hands clamped tightly in his lap.
“…”
“What if I was late? What if I’m just a little too far away to make it in time? What if they do it to the mother of my child? What if they do it to Oska, or Helca, or Sonya? They’re my apprentices, the whole point of me taking them under my wing is so that they’re safe when they’re vulnerable. The tradition of male mages having female apprentices, and vice versa, stems from this. In exchange for training, I protect my master while she’s weak, and I protect my apprentices when they’re weak,” Sylver continued, as small wisps of yellow-tinted smoke started to pour down from the lower part of his robe.
“Tradition?” Ria asked.
“I let it go for a while. About a year, maybe more. But it ate at me. If immortality is on the table, what risk isn’t worth it? When Edmund’s wife became pregnant, I had this… this fear inside me. Nyx brushed the whole thing off “they already know you’ll kill them if they try, leave it be.” And because it’s Nyx, I did as I was told, and left it alone,” Sylver said, and sparks of gold jumped around his tightly grasping fingers.
“You just said you killed them? 4 million people,” Ria reminded.
“It’s just... he looked at me. Aether had this glint in his eye, I can’t describe it, but something snapped inside me. That very night I went back to Aetheria, lifted the whole city out of the ground, turned it upside down, and then I threw it as hard as I could, into the crater I had created. There were no survivors, I made sure,” Sylver said, and couldn’t tell what was on Ria’s mind, going by the reaction of her soul.
“The Ibis banished me for it. It was my second time being banished. I was the first person in the Ibis’ history to ever be allowed to return after being banished, and then I was the first to be banished twice. If Nyx hadn’t disappeared, I truly don’t think they would have let me come back,” Sylver continued.
There was a silence for a while, as Sylver rummaged through the dusty memories.
“Did it work?” Ria asked.
“Banishing me? No, I did something even worse that got me kicked out later. I learned to be smarter about my actions, but I wasn’t smart enough,” Sylver answered.
“No, I meant Aetheria. Did destroying it stop people?” Ria asked, and Sylver felt an ancient pride swelling in his chest.
“It did. The next royal family that planned to do the same, was forced out of their castle by their own advisors and were all lynched. I was once actually asked to consult on something similar. They thought Aetheria had been destroyed due to a rampaging revenant. All 41 of them were burned at the pyre, to keep the aforementioned vengeful spirit at bay,” Sylver said.
“… Why are you telling me all of this?” Ria asked.
“Because I want you to know who and what I am. My goal has, and always will be, the same. I want myself and the people I care for to be considered off-limits, by everyone and everything. I want to be unassailable, untouchable, unbreakable, unreachable. I want to never fight ever again because it will be accepted as a fact that I cannot be beaten,” Sylver explained.
“Ultimate power… So you’re planning to become a god?” Ria asked.
Sylver stared at her through his sleeve, and almost asked if she had been listening to him.
“Why would I ever do that? Gods are powerful but they’re limited, they’re wearing diamond-encrusted handcuffs. No, I don’t want to be a god, I don’t need to be a god. I want to be the kind of creature, that the gods will avoid, the way normal people would avoid an active volcano,” Sylver said and realized about halfway through his words, that Chrys was completely awake, and merely had her eyes closed.
With his attention centered solely on Ria, he hadn’t noticed.
“Sounds like paradise,” Chrys whispered.
Sylver straightened up in his seat and helped her sit up.
“How much did you hear?” Sylver asked as Chrys pulled off the moist towel that had been covering her eyes. As she opened them, Sylver saw that she had two identical bright green eyes, but the left one moved with a heft an eye shouldn’t have.
“I woke up when you introduced yourself. Do I call you Tod, Amaranth, or Silver?” Chrys asked as she looked down at her hands, and experimentally opened and closed her fists.
“Sylver. But with a “Y,” not an “I.” How do you feel?” Sylver asked.
“How can you tell she said it with an “I”?” Ria asked.
“When you get to my level of soul perception, you’re able to feel how people pronounce things inside their heads,” Sylver said.
“Really?” Chrys asked.
“No, that was a joke,” Sylver said but didn’t get so much as a smile out of either of them.
“Do you have 12 people with bunny ears in your house?” Chrys asked.
It took Sylver a second to register what exactly she had just said.
“I have 8… I think…” Sylver said, with a crease of concentration on his forehead.
“There are 8. Ging, Benny, Chloe, Maul, Lao, Wen, Lai, and Yan. Are 4 of them very small, like children?” Spring asked as he materialized near the door.
“They’re all kind of small… But 4 of them are a little smaller than the others,” Chrys said, and Sylver swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat.
Certain things, there was no point asking.
Because it would cause unnecessary panic and worry, and because it didn’t matter what the answer was.
“What else do you see?” Sylver asked.
Chrys closed both eyes, and Sylver felt such a weak and limp ripple pass through him, that he had to be careful not to accidentally disturb it.
“I don’t know. I’m not seeing anything, it’s more like… Like someone told me what they saw, but not quite like that either...” Chrys explained.
Spring was less capable at keeping his surprise suppressed, as the information on Sylver’s mind passed through their bond, and ended up being shared with Spring.
“But Eira is-”
“Why do you think I made sure everyone was being protected while I was gone? Are the children the same age, can you tell? Do they look like siblings?” Sylver asked, and Chrys sent another pathetically weak ripple.
“I think so… They look like the short one, he’s the only one wearing a green suit,” Chrys answered.
“Their species is rather small, very fast metabolism… A year, maybe? Possibly 2? Are 4 kids a lot or a little for them?” Sylver wondered to himself, considering no one other than him and Spring even knew what he was mumbling to himself about.
Sylver placed his hand on Chrys’.
“Ria, stay with her please, I need to go check something,” Sylver asked, as Ria slithered off Sylver’s arm, and wrapped herself around Chrys’ perfectly smooth, and scar-less, arm.
*
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“5 years,” Sylver repeated calmly.
“A little less. This realm is an anomaly, in just about every way imaginable. I warned you this might happen. When you tried to discuss hypothetical situations. But you’ll be happy to know, you were locked in at a maximum of 5 years. Even if it took you 90 years to find and destroy the book, only 5 years would have passed on Eira,” Rose explained, as Poppy continued gesturing towards the small pool of liquid mercury and nodded along.
“Did anyone die? Lola? Ciege? Yeva? Ben? Leke? Sophia? Salgok? Ron? Misha? Ma-”
“No, everyone is fine… I sincerely apologize for this, but I can’t say anything else,” Rose answered.
Sylver thought about kicking up a fuss.
Insisting she tell him about everything that had happened while he was gone.
Pushing Rose, until he got his way.
But 5 years is nothing.
Even back when he was considering coming into this realm, and accepting the woman in white’s offer, Sylver would have agreed to 100 years easy.
5 years is what? Ben is probably already walking... Lola expanded her business, turned my millions, into billions…
Even Leke probably hasn’t changed that much…
The way someone would shrug off a coat while sitting in a room that was too warm, Sylver shrugged the pointless thoughts away and went back to preparing to leave this realm.
He briefly considered staying here, to train for 100 years, but he had the dark elves, and without access to Eira’s magical ingredients, there wasn’t all that much he would be able to do here. If he killed enough stuff he could increase his level, but more importantly, Sylver wanted to go home.
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There weren’t that many words exchanged when “Sylver” came over to take the wand of instant death.
Sylver handed him the box, showed him how to activate and deactivate it, and that was all…
…
…
…
And Sylver traded “Sylver” a handwritten grimoire with several useful 4th and 5th tier spells, in exchange for 3 of the silvery skeleton’s ribs. Sylver wasn’t sure what he was going to do with them, but he wanted them, so he took them.
If nothing else, it would be interesting to see how a creature born from Sylver’s curses leaking mana functioned.
With that out of the way, there was nothing left.
Everyone was ready, and the only thing that stood between Sylver and his home was Poppy double and triple-checking the gate was perfect.
To Sylver’s eye, it was.
Unlike the gate he used to come here, a bubbling mess of silver and mercury, the one Poppy had made looked clearer and smoother than a mirror.
They would be arriving at the same temple Sylver had gone through to come here.
From there Sylver would lead them to Arda, ask Ron to house them while he sorted things out, help them conquer and settle in the area with the explosive ants, and then he would go and save Edmund.
Rose, Poppy, and Lily were all unable to tell Sylver anything about Edmund, but he did get the impression he wasn’t “alive,” in the sense he was growing old.
And even if he was, all Sylver would need to bring Edmund back would be to throw his corpse into a nice big fire.
The danger of weak souls being altered by the gate was minimal… but not zero. Sylver organized the dark elves to have an adult with a powerful soul, hold a child with a weak soul, in their arms. Sylver carried Chrys, and a small sleeping boy he didn’t ask the name off.
While they waited for the go-ahead, Sylver realized something else.
Poppy and Lily knew Rose wasn’t coming. But given the fact that they weren’t glaring daggers at Sylver, Rose hadn’t told them what he had said to her, how he had threatened her into helping him.
But it didn’t matter.
The important thing was finding Edmund.
And making sure the dark elves arrived safely and managed to settle down. They weren’t Nyx’s descendants, Sylver was just short of certain, but…
Either way, he had accepted responsibility for them, and that was that. The details, and reasons, didn’t matter.
“Is it going to hurt?” Ruslana asked, with an uncharacteristic shiver in her voice.
To make things easier for Poppy, they were all going to jump into the gate as one. Sylver had emptied his [Bound Bones] storage of everything useless, the dark elves left behind all their tech and guns, and had just enough clothing to keep themselves presentable.
Luckily for them, and Sylver, the little piece of “tech” at the bottom of their spines was old magic, something they had been passing down through the generations, as were the suits the Serpents wore. They were bringing them along with them, as Sylver planned to take them apart, and rebuild them to not kill the wearer.
“No. It’ll be like stepping from a warm room, into a cold room. You’ll barely notice it,” Sylver said and could feel the collective group of dark elves holding their breath.
Truth be told, Sylver was almost as nervous as they were. He couldn’t imagine what story Ruslana had spun Zelvash, to explain how few dark elves there were here, and right now, he didn’t care. He was her grandfather, and her problem to deal with.
Sylver opened his eyes and looked around.
Near the edge of the gate, Rose and Poppy were embraced in a hug, and Poppy sounded to be whispering something into Rose’s ear.
Sylver just watched them, two women, that were as close as any two people could be. Even though they were [Hero]s from another world, and people who dangled Edmund over his head like a worm on a hook, a part of him couldn’t hate them.
Rose started crying first, followed by Poppy, and Lily, who had been standing a distance away, rushed towards the two and joined in on crying with them. Sylver couldn’t understand the language they were speaking, it was very quiet and very soft, but he could guess the words from their body language and context.
“Be careful, wear warm clothes, stay safe, stay strong, eat well, don’t forget me, and please don’t hate me for this,” Rose said, or at least Sylver thought she did.
“Come with us, we’ll figure something out, we’re going to miss you, we can try this thing, that thing,” Poppy said in response, or her body language did.
Lily was the one that made her intentions clear, without saying a word. She walked over to Rose and simply held her hand.
The next series of words out of Rose’s, and then Poppy’s mouth, Sylver couldn’t even begin to guess. Neither seemed happy nor sad, if anything, they both appeared to be relieved.
Finally, Rose and Lily disappeared into thin air.
Only Poppy, with tears still freely flowing down her face, remained. She spent a few seconds wiping her eyes with her sleeves and managed to calm down and stop crying in record time.
Sylver and Poppy stared at each other, and for a split second, her gaze lowered to Chrys, specifically her left eye. Sylver carefully adjusted his grip on the small girl and brought the toddler in his other arm a little closer too.
A smirk formed on Poppy’s face, as if she had just heard a joke at Sylver's expense. She looked up at the giant metal dome above them, and with a single snap of her fingers, the dome disappeared.
Scratch that, the dome was floating, hundreds of thousands of meters above the bubbling ocean, trying to pour through the empty space the metal had left behind, but an invisible force kept the glaciers and boiling water at bay.
Sylver looked away from the sight and could see a worryingly calm expression on Poppy’s face.
“After this, I never want to see you again,” Poppy said.
There was no malice in her voice, no threat, it was such a simple and pure desire, that Sylver couldn’t even muster up a good comeback.
“Likewise,” he said with a limp smile.
Poppy snapped her fingers again.
Sylver and every single dark elf left in this frozen piece of shit of a realm, appeared midair, directly above the perfectly smooth gate.
And as one, they all fell, and disappeared through it.
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Ch170-The Story Of The Seven Suns
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“EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Sylver screamed, and slammed his hand against the wall for extra emphasis.
The panic-stricken dark elves all temporarily stopped their bickering and turned their attention towards the pale man standing on a platform made from his own shadow, holding a solid slate of gold.
“Alright, thank you. Now, I am only going to explain this once, so please listen closely,” Sylver continued, in a slighter calmer, and quieter voice, but still spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him.
“If you ignore them, they go away. I know I may not look it, but I am the oldest person in here right now. You cannot imagine the number of prophecies I’ve been told, that all predicted the end of the world if a certain person isn’t killed, if a certain town isn’t destroyed, if a certain princess isn’t saved, if a certain king is allowed to live, and so on and so forth,” Sylver continued.
There was a quick wave of murmuring in dark elf tongue during the brief pause.
“But here’s what I learned from dealing with prophecies! If an old man, old woman, or a child with their eyes rolled back in their head, walks up to you and starts telling you that you’re going to die alone, underground, with a dagger in your neck, or something you don’t like, here’s what you do,” Sylver explained, as he moved got into a basic boxing stance, and turned sideways so that everyone could see.
He punched the air.
“If they keep talking, punch them again. What you want is one clean solid hit, that sends them to the ground, and results in them spitting out teeth, or at the very least a bleeding lip. My advice is to aim for the nose, but the general stomach area can also work. If it’s a child, kicking is easiest, but be careful not to punt them away from you, because they’re very brittle, and can die from hitting the ground at a bad angle,” Sylver explained and mimed out the actions he was describing.
“You should do that because prophecies are bullshit. It’s the same as a bluff to make you do something, except they’re a little cleverer about it. To a clairvoyant their words are what a sword is to a warrior, they’re tools that they use to achieve their goals. Unless you’re also a clairvoyant, you’re not going to win against them in a battle of words, or bullshit,” Sylver said.
“If you don’t have the body strength for a good solid punch, I recommend picking up the nearest solid object, and smashing it over their head,” Sylver continued.
Sylver’s speech was interrupted by Ruslana jumping up onto his improvised stage. She said several short sentences in dark elf tongue and gestured towards Sylver several times.
After Lily’s “healing” Ruslana didn’t look quite right. There was a softness to her face and hands, that didn’t belong on a person with her eyes. In fact, just about everyone that had been “healed” by Lily had the same problem.
It was hard to describe and even harder to explain how this was a bad thing, but none of them moved like people with healthy bodies. There was a hesitation in each step, an awkwardness when their joints bent further than they normally would.
People that just yesterday walked with a limp, now used their healed leg too much and walked with an uneven gait. What Lily had done wasn’t a proper healing, but it was undoubtedly better than any alternatives they might have had.
Ruslana’s calm words swept over the crowd as if they were a wave. Sylver could see faces that lost their fear and went back to being giddy about their son or daughter walking again.
“You want them to forget about it, right?” Ruslana asked.
“Yes. Tell them I already handled it, and if they don’t recognize any of the names, they have absolutely nothing to worry about,” Sylver said and wanted to slap Ruslana to get rid of the face she just made.
She didn’t flinch and didn’t back away, but she must have sensed the flash of anger Sylver felt.
“In our language “Solnoshko,” means “sun.” But it’s a childish version of the name for the sun. The way you would call a man named Tom, Tommy. Sonso, Solnoshko,” Ruslana explained.
“Alright, just a coincidence-”
“We have a man named Nikita in our midst. If he were to have a son, the child’s last name would be Nikitich,” Ruslana said.
Sylver waited a moment, to make sure there wasn’t more bad news. And could almost feel the tension inside the dead silent room.
“As I said, coincidence. I already sorted everything out, there is absolutely nothing to worry about,” Sylver said, and it warmed his heart that Ruslana believed him, and went on to translate his words to the rest of the dark elves.
Instead of focusing on the fact that he was currently in a world that had a ton of issues due to its sun, and that one of his dark elves could theoretically have a child that would have one of the names the book mentioned, Sylver followed his own advice and didn’t worry about it.
He had gone beyond punching the book into silence, he had removed it from the realm as a whole.
By the time the crowd had dispersed, and Sylver reached Chrys’ room, he had all but forgotten about it.
It was a lesson Sylver had learned firsthand, very early in his life. Some games can only be won by not playing.
He looked down at the solidified puddle in his arm and saw that it was now melting, and during the time it took Sylver to blink, disappeared inside his right arm’s sleeve.
“I almost killed everyone…” Ria whispered into Sylver’s ear, as Spring opened the door for him, and moved a chair over to Chrys’ bed.
“Not to pat myself too hard on the back, but if that slip of paper so much as grazed against me, literally no one would be able to stop us,” Sylver said out loud, as he entered the room and sat down on the small chair, while Spring got to work closing the door behind him.
“Instant death magic aside, if someone were to use even one of the “forbidden” rituals I know about, they would be unstoppable,” Sylver added, as he gestured towards the small wooden box sitting on the nearest table, and floated it over to himself.
Sylver opened the box, and looked inside at the “instant death circlet”.
“Hypothetically speaking, even as I am now I could summon a 10th tier named demon into this realm. And once the book got hold of that demon, which would now be able to use all the magic I’m able to use, I think it’s safe to say no one would be able to stop it,” Sylver continued, as he removed the circlet from the box, and turned it around.
Ria remained dead quiet.
“Then the demon would open a gate to Eira, and would then have access to a countless number of mages, monsters, maybe gods, who’s to say? The adventurers in Arda might be impressive, and powerful, but raw strength is useless against something like this. Oh, and the three death lords Eve is holding hostage, forgot about those,” Sylver added, as he covered his left hand in [Necrotic Mutilation] and slowly and gently extended a tendril inside the circlet.
Ria remained motionless and didn’t say a word.
“After that, gates to other realms, rinse, repeat, and now the level of control is so impossibly massive, that even a thousand [Hero]s wouldn’t be able to put a dent in it,” Sylver said, as he pulled out a small piece of fingernail from the circlet, and sealed up the hole he had made.
The circlet would still work, but now it would need a bit more time to build up enough negative energy to start.
Sylver put it back inside the box and then spent a couple of minutes gradually increasing the amount of negative energy the circlet was absorbing.
“But you’re not the one at fault here. The error is entirely mine. As the highest “authority,” I should have been clearer, I should have stopped you. If the worst were to have happened, it would have been because I was negligent. I’m sorry,” Sylver said.
He couldn’t feel or hear a response from Ria.
“Which brings me to my next point… You don’t trust me. And because you don’t trust me, you didn’t trust that I knew what I was doing. You tried to cover up the initial distrust, by a literal leap of faith. The book used this to its advantage, and forced itself open, to save a tiny scrap of itself from getting destroyed,” Sylver said and felt Ria become just a little looser around his bicep.
“It takes time to build trust between two strangers. We don’t share a common companion, that I could point to and say “he trusts me, and you trust him, so because you trust him, you should trust me.” So we’re strangers, in that sense. Which doesn’t mean we can’t trust one another, it just means it’s going to take time,” Sylver explained.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Ria said.
“Don’t apologize. If anything, it would be stupid, to trust something like me. I know how I look. I know how I sound. Truth be told, the fact that anyone is willing to take my word without the Ibis backing me up, is ridiculous. I’m a walking corpse, with dead people’s souls trapped inside my shadow, with an unknown background, a weird accent, and on top of that, I’m bald,” Sylver explained and felt Ria hold back a grin.
“…”
“Do you want to know why Rose is being so helpful? Because I am such a terrifying monster, that the risk of trying to kill me and failing, is so great that it’s infinitely smarter to just help me, and then leave me alone. If she wanted to, Rose could wiggle her pinkie, and I would disappear. I don’t think I’ve ever told you my real name. Sylver Sezari. I used to be a lich,” Sylver explained and felt as if a heavy weight was lifted from his shoulders.
“…”
“I used to be a necromancer, capable of using 11th tier magic. I once decimated a city with a population of 4 million, because their king kidnapped my master. I got lucky that time, I made it just as they were about to kill the baby that would later be named Aether. I killed the royal family, got Nyx out of there, everyone was safe and sound, but then I had a thought,” Sylver said, with both hands clamped tightly in his lap.
“…”
“What if I was late? What if I’m just a little too far away to make it in time? What if they do it to the mother of my child? What if they do it to Oska, or Helca, or Sonya? They’re my apprentices, the whole point of me taking them under my wing is so that they’re safe when they’re vulnerable. The tradition of male mages having female apprentices, and vice versa, stems from this. In exchange for training, I protect my master while she’s weak, and I protect my apprentices when they’re weak,” Sylver continued, as small wisps of yellow-tinted smoke started to pour down from the lower part of his robe.
“Tradition?” Ria asked.
“I let it go for a while. About a year, maybe more. But it ate at me. If immortality is on the table, what risk isn’t worth it? When Edmund’s wife became pregnant, I had this… this fear inside me. Nyx brushed the whole thing off “they already know you’ll kill them if they try, leave it be.” And because it’s Nyx, I did as I was told, and left it alone,” Sylver said, and sparks of gold jumped around his tightly grasping fingers.
“You just said you killed them? 4 million people,” Ria reminded.
“It’s just... he looked at me. Aether had this glint in his eye, I can’t describe it, but something snapped inside me. That very night I went back to Aetheria, lifted the whole city out of the ground, turned it upside down, and then I threw it as hard as I could, into the crater I had created. There were no survivors, I made sure,” Sylver said, and couldn’t tell what was on Ria’s mind, going by the reaction of her soul.
“The Ibis banished me for it. It was my second time being banished. I was the first person in the Ibis’ history to ever be allowed to return after being banished, and then I was the first to be banished twice. If Nyx hadn’t disappeared, I truly don’t think they would have let me come back,” Sylver continued.
There was a silence for a while, as Sylver rummaged through the dusty memories.
“Did it work?” Ria asked.
“Banishing me? No, I did something even worse that got me kicked out later. I learned to be smarter about my actions, but I wasn’t smart enough,” Sylver answered.
“No, I meant Aetheria. Did destroying it stop people?” Ria asked, and Sylver felt an ancient pride swelling in his chest.
“It did. The next royal family that planned to do the same, was forced out of their castle by their own advisors and were all lynched. I was once actually asked to consult on something similar. They thought Aetheria had been destroyed due to a rampaging revenant. All 41 of them were burned at the pyre, to keep the aforementioned vengeful spirit at bay,” Sylver said.
“… Why are you telling me all of this?” Ria asked.
“Because I want you to know who and what I am. My goal has, and always will be, the same. I want myself and the people I care for to be considered off-limits, by everyone and everything. I want to be unassailable, untouchable, unbreakable, unreachable. I want to never fight ever again because it will be accepted as a fact that I cannot be beaten,” Sylver explained.
“Ultimate power… So you’re planning to become a god?” Ria asked.
Sylver stared at her through his sleeve, and almost asked if she had been listening to him.
“Why would I ever do that? Gods are powerful but they’re limited, they’re wearing diamond-encrusted handcuffs. No, I don’t want to be a god, I don’t need to be a god. I want to be the kind of creature, that the gods will avoid, the way normal people would avoid an active volcano,” Sylver said and realized about halfway through his words, that Chrys was completely awake, and merely had her eyes closed.
With his attention centered solely on Ria, he hadn’t noticed.
“Sounds like paradise,” Chrys whispered.
Sylver straightened up in his seat and helped her sit up.
“How much did you hear?” Sylver asked as Chrys pulled off the moist towel that had been covering her eyes. As she opened them, Sylver saw that she had two identical bright green eyes, but the left one moved with a heft an eye shouldn’t have.
“I woke up when you introduced yourself. Do I call you Tod, Amaranth, or Silver?” Chrys asked as she looked down at her hands, and experimentally opened and closed her fists.
“Sylver. But with a “Y,” not an “I.” How do you feel?” Sylver asked.
“How can you tell she said it with an “I”?” Ria asked.
“When you get to my level of soul perception, you’re able to feel how people pronounce things inside their heads,” Sylver said.
“Really?” Chrys asked.
“No, that was a joke,” Sylver said but didn’t get so much as a smile out of either of them.
“Do you have 12 people with bunny ears in your house?” Chrys asked.
It took Sylver a second to register what exactly she had just said.
“I have 8… I think…” Sylver said, with a crease of concentration on his forehead.
“There are 8. Ging, Benny, Chloe, Maul, Lao, Wen, Lai, and Yan. Are 4 of them very small, like children?” Spring asked as he materialized near the door.
“They’re all kind of small… But 4 of them are a little smaller than the others,” Chrys said, and Sylver swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat.
Certain things, there was no point asking.
Because it would cause unnecessary panic and worry, and because it didn’t matter what the answer was.
“What else do you see?” Sylver asked.
Chrys closed both eyes, and Sylver felt such a weak and limp ripple pass through him, that he had to be careful not to accidentally disturb it.
“I don’t know. I’m not seeing anything, it’s more like… Like someone told me what they saw, but not quite like that either...” Chrys explained.
Spring was less capable at keeping his surprise suppressed, as the information on Sylver’s mind passed through their bond, and ended up being shared with Spring.
“But Eira is-”
“Why do you think I made sure everyone was being protected while I was gone? Are the children the same age, can you tell? Do they look like siblings?” Sylver asked, and Chrys sent another pathetically weak ripple.
“I think so… They look like the short one, he’s the only one wearing a green suit,” Chrys answered.
“Their species is rather small, very fast metabolism… A year, maybe? Possibly 2? Are 4 kids a lot or a little for them?” Sylver wondered to himself, considering no one other than him and Spring even knew what he was mumbling to himself about.
Sylver placed his hand on Chrys’.
“Ria, stay with her please, I need to go check something,” Sylver asked, as Ria slithered off Sylver’s arm, and wrapped herself around Chrys’ perfectly smooth, and scar-less, arm.
*
*
*
“5 years,” Sylver repeated calmly.
“A little less. This realm is an anomaly, in just about every way imaginable. I warned you this might happen. When you tried to discuss hypothetical situations. But you’ll be happy to know, you were locked in at a maximum of 5 years. Even if it took you 90 years to find and destroy the book, only 5 years would have passed on Eira,” Rose explained, as Poppy continued gesturing towards the small pool of liquid mercury and nodded along.
“Did anyone die? Lola? Ciege? Yeva? Ben? Leke? Sophia? Salgok? Ron? Misha? Ma-”
“No, everyone is fine… I sincerely apologize for this, but I can’t say anything else,” Rose answered.
Sylver thought about kicking up a fuss.
Insisting she tell him about everything that had happened while he was gone.
Pushing Rose, until he got his way.
But 5 years is nothing.
Even back when he was considering coming into this realm, and accepting the woman in white’s offer, Sylver would have agreed to 100 years easy.
5 years is what? Ben is probably already walking... Lola expanded her business, turned my millions, into billions…
Even Leke probably hasn’t changed that much…
The way someone would shrug off a coat while sitting in a room that was too warm, Sylver shrugged the pointless thoughts away and went back to preparing to leave this realm.
He briefly considered staying here, to train for 100 years, but he had the dark elves, and without access to Eira’s magical ingredients, there wasn’t all that much he would be able to do here. If he killed enough stuff he could increase his level, but more importantly, Sylver wanted to go home.
*
*
*
There weren’t that many words exchanged when “Sylver” came over to take the wand of instant death.
Sylver handed him the box, showed him how to activate and deactivate it, and that was all…
…
…
…
And Sylver traded “Sylver” a handwritten grimoire with several useful 4th and 5th tier spells, in exchange for 3 of the silvery skeleton’s ribs. Sylver wasn’t sure what he was going to do with them, but he wanted them, so he took them.
If nothing else, it would be interesting to see how a creature born from Sylver’s curses leaking mana functioned.
With that out of the way, there was nothing left.
Everyone was ready, and the only thing that stood between Sylver and his home was Poppy double and triple-checking the gate was perfect.
To Sylver’s eye, it was.
Unlike the gate he used to come here, a bubbling mess of silver and mercury, the one Poppy had made looked clearer and smoother than a mirror.
They would be arriving at the same temple Sylver had gone through to come here.
From there Sylver would lead them to Arda, ask Ron to house them while he sorted things out, help them conquer and settle in the area with the explosive ants, and then he would go and save Edmund.
Rose, Poppy, and Lily were all unable to tell Sylver anything about Edmund, but he did get the impression he wasn’t “alive,” in the sense he was growing old.
And even if he was, all Sylver would need to bring Edmund back would be to throw his corpse into a nice big fire.
The danger of weak souls being altered by the gate was minimal… but not zero. Sylver organized the dark elves to have an adult with a powerful soul, hold a child with a weak soul, in their arms. Sylver carried Chrys, and a small sleeping boy he didn’t ask the name off.
While they waited for the go-ahead, Sylver realized something else.
Poppy and Lily knew Rose wasn’t coming. But given the fact that they weren’t glaring daggers at Sylver, Rose hadn’t told them what he had said to her, how he had threatened her into helping him.
But it didn’t matter.
The important thing was finding Edmund.
And making sure the dark elves arrived safely and managed to settle down. They weren’t Nyx’s descendants, Sylver was just short of certain, but…
Either way, he had accepted responsibility for them, and that was that. The details, and reasons, didn’t matter.
“Is it going to hurt?” Ruslana asked, with an uncharacteristic shiver in her voice.
To make things easier for Poppy, they were all going to jump into the gate as one. Sylver had emptied his [Bound Bones] storage of everything useless, the dark elves left behind all their tech and guns, and had just enough clothing to keep themselves presentable.
Luckily for them, and Sylver, the little piece of “tech” at the bottom of their spines was old magic, something they had been passing down through the generations, as were the suits the Serpents wore. They were bringing them along with them, as Sylver planned to take them apart, and rebuild them to not kill the wearer.
“No. It’ll be like stepping from a warm room, into a cold room. You’ll barely notice it,” Sylver said and could feel the collective group of dark elves holding their breath.
Truth be told, Sylver was almost as nervous as they were. He couldn’t imagine what story Ruslana had spun Zelvash, to explain how few dark elves there were here, and right now, he didn’t care. He was her grandfather, and her problem to deal with.
Sylver opened his eyes and looked around.
Near the edge of the gate, Rose and Poppy were embraced in a hug, and Poppy sounded to be whispering something into Rose’s ear.
Sylver just watched them, two women, that were as close as any two people could be. Even though they were [Hero]s from another world, and people who dangled Edmund over his head like a worm on a hook, a part of him couldn’t hate them.
Rose started crying first, followed by Poppy, and Lily, who had been standing a distance away, rushed towards the two and joined in on crying with them. Sylver couldn’t understand the language they were speaking, it was very quiet and very soft, but he could guess the words from their body language and context.
“Be careful, wear warm clothes, stay safe, stay strong, eat well, don’t forget me, and please don’t hate me for this,” Rose said, or at least Sylver thought she did.
“Come with us, we’ll figure something out, we’re going to miss you, we can try this thing, that thing,” Poppy said in response, or her body language did.
Lily was the one that made her intentions clear, without saying a word. She walked over to Rose and simply held her hand.
The next series of words out of Rose’s, and then Poppy’s mouth, Sylver couldn’t even begin to guess. Neither seemed happy nor sad, if anything, they both appeared to be relieved.
Finally, Rose and Lily disappeared into thin air.
Only Poppy, with tears still freely flowing down her face, remained. She spent a few seconds wiping her eyes with her sleeves and managed to calm down and stop crying in record time.
Sylver and Poppy stared at each other, and for a split second, her gaze lowered to Chrys, specifically her left eye. Sylver carefully adjusted his grip on the small girl and brought the toddler in his other arm a little closer too.
A smirk formed on Poppy’s face, as if she had just heard a joke at Sylver's expense. She looked up at the giant metal dome above them, and with a single snap of her fingers, the dome disappeared.
Scratch that, the dome was floating, hundreds of thousands of meters above the bubbling ocean, trying to pour through the empty space the metal had left behind, but an invisible force kept the glaciers and boiling water at bay.
Sylver looked away from the sight and could see a worryingly calm expression on Poppy’s face.
“After this, I never want to see you again,” Poppy said.
There was no malice in her voice, no threat, it was such a simple and pure desire, that Sylver couldn’t even muster up a good comeback.
“Likewise,” he said with a limp smile.
Poppy snapped her fingers again.
Sylver and every single dark elf left in this frozen piece of shit of a realm, appeared midair, directly above the perfectly smooth gate.
And as one, they all fell, and disappeared through it.
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