WIEDERGEBURT ACT VII: Chapter 12

My eyes widened as a fist came soaring at my face! I only had a second to react, but in that instant, I transformed my body into light and disappeared within a Flash Step Version 3: Light Step.

“That’s not going to work on me!!”

With a roar, Morden spun around and launched a kick at seemingly thin air, but black miasma burst from his foot and struck me just as I had reappeared. A scream tore through my throat as I was sent flying backward.

“Darling! Damn you! How dare you hurt my darling!!”

It said a lot about Lin’s state of mind that she hadn’t referred to herself in third person. She and Siv launched a simultaneous assault on Morden. Lin came slithering in with a series of powerful claw swipes. Her hands were coated in negation energy. Each one of her attacks was blocked as Morden met them head on, matching the amount of negation energy she put into each attack, canceling them both out. However, Siv used that time to warp behind Morden and launched a powerful punch to his spine.

Unfortunately, not even the vaunted strength of a Drakvarian was enough to hurt this man.

“That tickled.”

With adroit movements, Morden slapped aside Lin’s claw-swipe before sending the snake woman sailing with a kick to the face. He then spun on the balls of his feet and slammed his heel into Siv, who had crossed her arms to block the attack. While the blow was powerful enough to send her skidding, Siv proved her mettle by remaining standing, and she used the resulting force to launch herself at Morden once again.

Morden was soon forced to engage Siv in hand-to-hand combat. While Siv’s attacks were a lot like Lin’s in that it relied on her overwhelming strength to smash through her enemies defenses, Siv had a lot more speed and power behind her punches. She had also honed her abilities to incorporated space-time techniques into her attacks.

She thrust out her left hand, causing the space between them to ripple with spatial tears. Morden grimaced as he moved back and waved his hand. A burst of negation energy erased the tears, allowing him to move back in and launch a series of well-timed punches that Siv blocked with her forearms. A dull thud rang out as his left fist was blocked. Another thud. His right fist was blocked too. Siv then spun her arms around and locked Morden’s arms underneath her armpits. While Morden was powerful spiritually, his physical abilities did not exceed those of a Dravkar.

“Now!” Siv shouted.

In that moment, I appeared above them, my body already spinning around as I slammed my foot into Morden’s face. Siv let go at the very last moment. My foot connected. A noise like the sound barrier breaking nearly shattered our eardrums, but the end result was Morden got sent flying backward at speeds so fast I didn’t think the human eye could follow him.

He traveled right into Lin’s waiting tail.

“TAKE THIS!!!”

Lin walloped Morden with her tail, infused with untold amounts of negation energy, and the Sekbeist Lord was sent soaring straight into the air. It was a lot like he’d been blasted into the air with black powder.

Siv and I were about to follow him, but Morden suddenly stopped in midair and raised his hand. A giant black ball appeared above his palm, quickly grew to the size of at least two whole people, and then he tossed the ball at us. I could already tell it was packed with enough death energy to kill an entire army.

“Siv, spatial barrier!” I commanded.

“Haaaaaa!”

Siv thrust out both hands and channeled spatial energy to form a barrier around us. It didn’t look like anything had changed unless someone were to look at us with Spiritual Perception, but our bodies were now out of phase with the world around us. The ball of descending energy passed through us and struck the desert. A huge explosion went up, pushing aside dunes like the hands of a giant playing in a sandbox.

Siv was unable to hold the spatial barrier for long and soon dispelled it, but the attack had passed, and I didn’t hesitate to fly forward and launch a solid kick that struck the underside of Morden’s jaw. Or I would have. But he caught my kick with his hand.

“Annoying pest!” Morden roared as he raised his left hand and channeled negation energy into it. There was so much that I could tell he was planning to kill me with this attack.

“Not on my watch!” Siv shouted as she warped in from above. She spun around using her wings to generate torque, then slammed her heel onto the crown of Morden’s head.

The man was forced to let go of me as he was sent sailing back toward the ground. He kicked up a massive plume of sand as he struck it, disappearing. Not one to miss an opportunity like this, Lin slammed her hands into the ground and created several massive waves of sand that surrounded where Morden fell on all sides. Each wave was at least thirty meters tall.

“Let this desert be your grave!” she screamed.

Then the sand collapsed on Morden’s location. Even I winced when I saw how many tons of sand our enemy was being buried under. If this man was anyone else, I was certain an attack like this would have killed him, but I knew better, knew what a Sekbeist Lord of his caliber was capable of.

“Don’t let your guard down,” I said as Siv and I landed on the ground. “If such a simple strategy was enough to kill a Sekbeist Lord, the war five thousand years ago wouldn’t have ended in a stalemate. He’s still alive.”

Morden had mastered the Concept of Life, meaning so long as he had Spiritual Power to spare, he could avoid dying. That was what it meant to attain mastery over life. I myself had mastered this concept too, so I knew the benefits and weaknesses of it.

“Well… that sucks,” Lin lamented.

“Indeed,” I said wryly.

At that moment, the sand Lin had buried Morden under exploded in all directions, and Morden himself appeared within this storm. He was breathing hard. However, I didn’t think it was because he felt exhausted. No. I was pretty sure his heavy breathing and red face was due to anger. This was the second time we had committed an act upon him that could be considered humiliating.

“You… bastards! Every single one of you is a fucking cunt! And I will take great pleasure in dismembering you! I’ll tear you limb from limb!”

I had noticed it before, but while Sekbeist Lords were definitely a cut above Sekbeist Slaves, they had the same anger issues. It was very easy to rile them up. I only hoped making this one angry wouldn’t backfire on us.

None of us were given a chance to say anything as he suddenly appeared right in the middle of us. My eyes widened as I tried to leap back, but Morden became a whirlwind of activity. I was struck hard on the cheek by what I believed was a fist. Meanwhile, Siv and Lin were equally blown back by powerful physical attacks.

The three simultaneous attacks had forced the three of us to separate, which made me think Morden was trying to separate us. It would be much easier to kill us if he could fight one-on-one.

Morden turned his mad gaze on me and disappeared within a burst of intense speed. I used the Flash Step Version 3: Light Step to disappear as well. While this type of speed technique would have been enough to avoid any other enemy, it was not enough for me to escape Morden, who appeared right next to me and attacked by slamming his toes into my gut.

Version 3 of the Flash Step involved utilizing the Fourth State of Spiritualism. It should have been technically impossible to attack me while my body was made of light particles, but Morden had infused his foot with negation energy, which served to disrupt my technique and send me crashing into the ground. I flinched as sand was kicked up all around me. I knew, however, that I could not afford to just lie there, and so I rolled to the side seconds before a knee slammed into where I had been.

I leapt to my feet and flew forward, hoping to capitalize on Morden’s lowered posture to launch a direct assault to his face. It was too bad my opponent was so experienced. He rose from the ground and blocked my punch with his right hand. The dull thud and shockwave that echoed from my attack was quickly followed by another one as I spun around and slammed my foot into his left leg. I grimaced. I had meant to go for his torso, but he’d raised his leg in time to block.

Before I could attack again, Morden threw his fist at me. I gritted my teeth and opened my arms wide. Morden’s eyes widened as his fist speared through my chest, but he didn’t have time to be surprised for long as I wrapped my arms around him in a tight squeeze.

“What are you doing?! Let go!”

“No can do! Now Lin!”

Like used her tail like a springboard to launch herself into an impressive flip. Wings of pure Spiritual Power sprouted from her back, and she used them to accelerate her descend, then flipped around and slammed her tail onto me and Morden—or what looked like me. The moment Morden was crushed, I dragged myself out of the ground several meters away, flinching only a little as the hole in my chest closed.

“Got him!” Lin shouted in joy as she saw how her tail had crushed Morden, but she didn’t have much time to feel joy because Morden grabbed onto her tail a moment later. “Oh, shit.”

“RRRRAAAAAAA!!!”

Morden spun around on his heels. His strength was such that Lin was lifted clean off the ground and scent into uncontrolled spin with Morden as the fulcrum. They were soon spinning so fast a small tornado formed, though it didn’t last long, as Morden go of Lin, causing her to fly far away—so far she disappeared from my line of sight.

“This isn’t good. Siv, go get Lin before she can fly too far,” I ordered.

Siv didn’t speak, but she disappeared within a spatial tear. I could only assume she’d gone after Lin.

“Now that you’re alone, I am going to enjoy killing you,” Morden said from behind me.

I didn’t react startled, even though I was shocked by his speed. Already spinning around, I created a Dragon’s Tail Ruler out of life and death energy, using the massive slab to block Morden’s punch. His attack was so powerful I felt vibrations travel through my arms and into my body, rattling my brain.

“If you think… you have what it takes… then… be my guest,” I grunted.

“Don’t bother acting so tough. I know bravado when I see it,” Morden said with a snarl as he injected more power into his feet. It was enough that my weapon was knocked wide. I tried to recover, but he slammed his open palms into my chest before I could, and I felt blood spewing from my mouth as he injected negation energy into me.

Backing away, I attempted to recover by circulating my own Spiritual Power through my body, and it worked, but only to an extent. Pain wracked my every nerve. It felt like my insides were being consumed one organ at a time.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Morden said with a chuckle. “The Concept of Negation—or the Void, as you people call it—is one of the greatest powers in the entire universe. There is nothing more destructive. And for people like me who can wield it, the Concept of Negation becomes a power more formidable than any other concept.”

I wanted to say something snarky in response, but I felt like just opening my mouth would cause me to spew blood. It was clear this man’s attack had caused serious internal damage to my organs.

“If it’s so powerful, then why don’t you try it yourself! Have a taste and tell me how powerful it is!”

Morden was given little time to prepare as a ball of dark negation energy struck him in the chest and sent him back. He screamed in shock, pain, and rage. The negation sphere was already eating away at his chest. I thought this might be enough to cause some serious damage, but then Spiritual Power erupted from his body like geysers, and the attack was met with a wall of negation energy that swallowed it up.

Since I didn’t want to give him time to recover, I closed the distance and slammed my right fist into his face. My fist was covered in death energy, which he was not channeling right now due to how it was not possible to use death energy when using negation energy. It was one of the few concepts that could not be used in conjunction with other concepts.

Of course, even using two concepts at the same time was tough. Didn’t matter which concepts you were trying to use.

Morden spun around like a top as I decked him. That was when Lin popped out of the ground and swung her tail, smacking him across the face again. This attack was strong enough not only to lift Morden off the ground and send him flying, but it caved in his face, bones shattering under a spray of gore as several fragments punched through his skin. If that wasn’t enough to add insult to injury, then Siv descended from the sky and planted both feet on his chest. The shockwave that rippled across the ground after her attack was powerful enough that even I was knocked off my feet.

“Do you… do you think that got him?” asked Lin.

“No,” I said as I climbed to my feet just as Siv set down on the ground beside us. “That is nowhere near enough to deal with him.”

“Dammit. How powerful is this guy?!” Lin huffed.

“Very powerful,” Siv said.

“That doesn’t tell this princess anything!”

“We’re not going to kill him like this,” I said with a sigh. “Remember what our goal is. Don’t worry about killing him. Just keep wearing him down.”

“Grrrr! Fine! This princess won’t kill him, but you can bet she’s gonna take her pound of flesh!”

Had the situation not been so dire, Lin’s enraged comments would have been amusing, but Morden’s hand had already burst from the ground. Our enemy pulled himself from the desert. He stood up and revealed to us that our attacks had not done any permanent damage. His caved in face and chest, the bloody skull fragments that had flown out, all of it was healed.

“You people are pests,” Morden grunted.

“I think you are the pest,” I fired back.

“You’re like a cockroach,” Lin said as she crossed her arms. “You keep coming back no matter how many times this princess beats you down.”

Morden gritted his teeth as anger appeared on his face, but then he took a deep breath, sighed, and rolled his shoulders as he began walking over to us. The sudden calm that had descended upon him unsettled me. Had he discovered what we were doing? I hoped not, but I knew it was possible.

“Don’t think I’ll play along with you forever,” Morden said. “You think I’ll make a mistake the angrier I get, but that’s not how I work. True anger doesn’t run hot. It’s cold.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but then the gravel he stood on turned black, and that blackness spread across the ground. None of us knew what this was. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out and took to the sky—even Lin, who created wings on her back. I felt absentmindedly impressed by how Lin could manipulate the Concept of Negation like that. I didn’t think such a thing was possible.

However, most of my attention was on the ground below.

The amount of Spiritual Power permeating this area was suffocating.

“I think he’s about to use one of his ultimate attacks,” I said.

“Bring it on. This princess will smash his attack with an even stronger attack.”

“No.” Siv shook her head. “This is too powerful for us. We should pull back.”

I was about to agree with Siv, but then the darkness covering the ground spread to the sky, causing everything around us to disappear. Immediately after, I began feeling weaker. It felt like my strength was being zapped. I realized what this was, having seen something similar before. It was a kind of killing field created from someone’s understanding of a concept. Only someone who had truly mastered a concept could create something like this.

“Create body armor with your concepts!” I shouted at Siv and Lin as I put words into action, layering the Concepts of Life and Death over my body like armor. This helped mitigate the affects, though some of the damage had already been done.

“Welcome to my killing field,” Morden’s voice echoed all around us. “There is no more escape. I am death incarnate here. So long as you are trapped within my killing field, your death is assured.”

“That’s not quite true,” I said. “You might have us trapped, but so long as we can outlast you, we can survive.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?” Morden laughed. “How much Spiritual Power do you think I have? I’ve already taken my measure of you. While you three are indeed strong, you do not have the power needed to outlast me. Even if you were twice as strong as you were now, it still would not be enough.”

“We’ll see about that,” I muttered. However, he did have a point. Morden’s Spiritual Power definitely exceeded ours by a large margin, and his ability to use the Concept of Death was greater than our understanding over the concepts we could use. That meant he used less Spiritual Power than we did as well.

The situation was not looking good.

I summoned a Spiritual Power Pill from my storage scroll and was just about to pop it into my mouth—my hope was that I could replenish my Spiritual Power to outlast this technique—but the pill crumbled in my palm. I grimaced.

“You cannot use pills here,” Morden declared.

“What should we do, Darling?” asked Lin.

“We need to break this technique,” Siv said before I could. “That’s all we can do.”

“But how?” I asked.

Siv was correct. We needed to break out of this technique, but none of us were powerful enough to overpower it. We were already using every ounce of power we had into remaining alive.

“By combining our powers,” Siv said seriously. “Remember what Fray said? Our bond has created a spiritual link between us, which means Spiritual Power can flow between all of us. This ability is just a much stronger variation of Shulong’s Space-Time Prison. If we use that connection to give Lin our Spiritual Power, then I think she can create an attack powerful enough to break this barrier.”

“It’s worth a shot,” I muttered.

I was not at all sure how well this would work, and there was a lot of danger to myself and Siv, who would be saturated with Morden’s death energy, but we really didn’t have any other choice.

Taking a deep breath, the two of us placed out hands on Lin’s shoulder, deactivated our conceptual armor, and opened the spiritual connection that had been created between. I’d never once tried to do this. However, now that I was aware of just what this connection was, finding it was a lot easier. I could feel Lin and Siv right beside me. And I could even feel Kari several kilometers away and Fay even further away. I focused only on Lin right now, focused on pouring all of my Spiritual Power into this woman.

“Oh… oh, my.” Lin shuddered from her head to her tails. “This princess… feels odd. What a warm feeling. She feels like she can take on the entire world right now.”

“Well… you’d better hurry up and take on the world,” I grunted. “I can’t… keep this up for long...”

Siv did not speak, but she was even worse off than me, her skin rapidly paling as if she was losing blood and her body growing emaciated. It was like she was becoming a mummy right before my eyes.

“You’re right! Then here I go! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Lin screamed as she exploded with Spiritual Power erupting from her like the creation of a newborn star, but that power soon transformed into a negative concept—a concept that destroyed other concepts. She channeled negation energy and sent it crashing against the killing field. It slammed into the outer edges of this field, which was even bigger than I had realized, and cracks began appearing.

“WHAT?!”

It was just a few at first, but then more cracks began appearing one after the other, and those cracks spread until there was not a single part of what I now recognized as a dome was covered in them. I thought I heard someone screaming, but it could have been my imagination. The killing field shattered, and the three of us found ourselves back in the desert.

I summoned several Spiritual Power Pills, popped one into my mouth, and gave the other two to Lin and Siv. Spiritual Power flowed through my withered Spiritual Pathways. I channeled life energy through them to revitalize them, then channeled the same life energy through my connection with Lin and Siv, helping them heal. Siv’s body had become decrepit from being subjected to so much death energy, but she quickly recovered right before my very eyes.

I popped another pill into my mouth.

“Damn you! Damn all of you!” Morden appeared several meters from us, but this time he looked haggard. “How did you learn of this techniques weakness?!”

“How?” I tilted my head. “Shulong used a very similar technique on me before. After I broke through it, I began thinking of how to deal with a technique like that. Siv and I tossed some ideas back and forth… but I eventually stopped thinking about it whereas Siv continued to create solutions to counter such techniques in the future. Isn’t my wife the greatest?”

While Siv blushed under the praise, Morden screamed I outrage and threw himself at us. He was still quite strong. I sensed the negation energy pouring from him, but he was definitely weaker now than he had been before. Lin and Siv shared a glance with me. I nodded.

It was time.

Lin slapped her tail into the ground and summoned several pillars that slammed into Morden, who was so enraged he didn’t bother dodging and just punched them, blasting them apart. Siv manipulated the wind element and created several vacuum blades that sliced into him. Blood spurted from each wound, but Morden ignored them and continued coming at us. I also launched my own attacks—powerful bolts of lightning that charred his flesh.

He ignored it.

While attacking him from a distance, the three of us began retreating. We moved further and further away from our original battlefield. Morden didn’t seem to realize what we were doing as he attacked. Sometimes we would engage him in hand-to-hand combat, but we did our best to keep him at a distance as we fought.

“Haaaa… haaaa… you fucking… pests… I am gonna… kill you!” Morden grunted in a strained voice. He was finally beginning to really feel exhausted.

I grinned. “The one who dies today isn’t going to be us.”

“Ha! Ha ha ha ha! You really think you have what it takes to beat me?! Don’t make me laugh! You’ve done a good job of staying alive so far, but you don’t have the power to kill me!”

“Maybe not in a fair fight… but whoever said we planned on fighting fair?”

My question made Morden pause, but by the time the implications set in, it was already too late.

Kari appeared a little ways behind him, hands on the ground. Distortions and ripples appeared around her as she channeled time energy into the sand. Glowing red runes lit up around Morden, who tried to retreat, only to discover that his body had become locked in place.

“I can only place you in a timelock for a split second under my own power,” Kari began with a grin, “but I wonder how long I can keep you like this if I use the power to runes?”

While Kari herself was incredibly powerful and well-versed in all aspects of combat, what made her really dangerous was her knowledge of runes. Kari was a Grandmaster and second to none. The only person who might be better than her was Hriedmar, currently under the control of our enemy, but I honestly believed my wife had already surpassed him.

The timelock Kari placed Morden in was so complete that not only could he not speak, he couldn’t even move his eyes. His face was set in a surprised glare, and it remained in a surprised glare, even as his body began to rapidly age, even as his cheeks became hollow and sunken in, as wrinkles began appearing along his skin and growing more prominent.

“Time is an interesting thing for mortals,” Kari announced. “The older we grow, the less active our vital organs become. They eventually begin to lose some of their functions. It occurs in all of the body’s cells, tissues, and organs. This isn’t such a big deal for powerful Spiritualists. We can live thousands of years… but you’re already quite old, aren’t you? I’ve taken away two thousand years worth of your life, and this is what you look like now. With this, even if you had the Spiritual Power to break free in your prime, there’s nothing you can do to escape my technique.”

I wondered what Kari was thinking when she told the frozen Morden about her technique, but maybe she just wanted to brag about what she had accomplished. It was impressive. Terrifying, but impressive.

Morden said nothing—could say nothing—as his brittle bones snapped like dry twigs, as his skin turned to dust before our eyes, as his eyeballs dried out and his body began dissipating. It was shocking to watch someone as their entire body turned to dust like this. It was different than decomposition and more like he was just withering away like a dried out tree.

Like that, Morden died in a manner that I felt was anti-climactic but fitting.

***

We journeyed back to the caravan, which was located twenty kilometers north of us. It was much easier to find than I thought it would be. I just needed to follow my connection to Fay.

“Welcome back, you four,” Fay said with a gentle smile. “I’m glad you’re all safe.”

Fay did not reject the hug I pulled her into. She wrapped her arms around my torso and pressed her face to my chest, not bothered by the sweat and dirt covering me. I think she wanted physical assurances that I was alive and well.

“It was a tough battle, but we were able to win thanks to Kari’s plan,” I admitted.

“I should have known. I’ve yet to see a plan of Kari’s go astray,” Fay muttered as she pulled back. Her face was caked with some dirt from my chest, but I wiped it away with my hand and the water element.

“Of course.” Kari held out her hand and gave us the traditional V-shaped sign for victory. “I’ve thought extensively about how to deal with Spiritualists more powerful than us… though I’m also glad my plan worked. I was very worried for awhile there. If you three hadn’t weakened him so much, even those runes would not have been powerful enough to contain him.”

“Heh. This princess played a very big part in defeating Morden.” Lin placed her hands on her hips and puffed up her modest chest, looking quite proud of herself. “You should have seen the way this princess laid the smackdown on that idiot. This princess was also the one who broke his killing field.”

“You would never have been able to break it if I hadn’t come up with the idea to empower you using our spiritual connection,” Siv muttered.

“T-that might be true! But it was still this princess who did the legwork!”

Kari looked at me with a raised eyebrow as the two began arguing. I smiled and shrugged, as if to tell her not to worry.

“It sounds like a lot happened.” Fay blew out a deep breath. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help.”

“You did help, though maybe not in the way you wanted.” I placed a hand on her cheek and began softly running my thumb along it.

“Maybe. But I am going to work harder so I can fight beside you. I dislike being the only one among us who cannot stand by your side,” Fay said.

Siv reached out and grabbed one of Fay’s hands, causing the redhead to turn and look at the petite woman.

“I understand how you feel,” Siv began earnestly. “I didn’t like… that I was such a coward. I decided after being thrown into another realm that I would become more courageous like you and the others. I wanted to be able to stand beside you, Eryk, Big Sister Kari, and Lin. I’m working very hard to become even bolder. Let’s work hard to reach our goals together.”

“I would be happy to,” Fay said, squeezing Siv’s hand.

“Father!”

Another cry suddenly rose up as Raul came forward. He huffed several times as he looked at me, then Fay, Lin, Kari, and Siv in that order before turning back to me.

“What’s wrong, Raul?” I asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Raul shook his head and smiled bitterly. “Not a ghost, no. I’m glad to see you have all returned safely, but we have other problems to worry about. Please come with me.”

I shared a glance with my wives, who appeared just as confused as I did, but then shrugged and followed my son as he led us toward an area where the other caravans leaders were gathered. None of them looked the worse for ware. The worst ones off were Alexis and Ashten, whose clothing was covered in blood and dirt. They all looked at us when we approached.

“You did it?” asked Alexis.

“Yup,” I answered.

“You really beat Morden?” asked Ashten.

“I wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t,” I said, opening my arms as if to show myself off.

“That is true… but you could be an imposter.”

“Huh?”

I stared at Ashten with a blank gaze, but then Queen Medusa slithered over to us and began looking over her daughter. It was less like she was concerned and more like she was inspecting goods. Even Lin was freaked out by the way her mother was acting.

“What do you think you’re doing, Momma?”

“She certainly sounds like Lin,” Queen Medusa muttered as she leaned back. “Tell me, what happened on the day you disappeared sixteen years ago?”

Lin tilted her head, but answered honestly. “This princess had an argument with you and then snuck out to see a human village, but she was attacked by people Muhammad had sent to kill her. She turned into a snake out of self-preservation and wandered all the way to Nevaria.”

Several seconds of silence passed before Queen Medusa nodded and turned to the others. “This is the real Lin. No one except her, myself, and a few others know about what happened.”

“What is going on?” I asked.

The others looked at each other as if they were debating on whether or not to tell me, and I grew very concerned when King Menes and even Quwain looked at me with hostile wariness in their gaze. Something serious had happened while we were fighting. I didn’t know what, but I hoped they would tell me soon.

“Since it looks like you are who you say you are, I guess we should tell you,” Ashten said at last. “Several Sekbeists were somehow able to infiltrate our caravan. We don’t know if it was before or after we left the city, but they spread chaos among the civilians during the battle. Six hundred people died by their hands.”

I sucked in a deep breath. That really was bad.

Alexis continued where Ashten left off. “We were lucky. If it wasn’t for Raul’s quick thinking, a lot more people would have died.”

Raul blushed at the praise, but he didn’t say anything. I felt a burst of pride for my son. He couldn’t have turned into a finer man.

“How were they able to disguise themselves?” I asked. “Sekbeists have a very distinct Spiritual Signature.”

It was easy to determine who was and wasn’t a Sekbeist thanks to their strong connection to the darkness element and the Concept of Negation. That was also the reason I had spotted the Sekbeists that had hidden themselves in Ásgarðr, for all the good that did.

“We’re not completely sure,” Alexis admitted. “The only thing we know is that they were using a rune array of some kind. This is just a theory, but we think the rune array somehow masked their signature.”

“Do you have the corpses?” asked Kari, suddenly speaking up. “I’d like to examine the bodies.”

“Feel free, though I doubt you’ll get anything.” Alexis shrugged. “The rune array vanished after they died. I think it was somehow tied into their life, or maybe they created some clause in the seal so it would disappear once they died.”

“I would still like to examine the bodies,” Kari said.

“Suit yourself.”

This was certainly a grim situation to come back to, but it sounded like they had at least taken care of most of the enemies thanks to Raul. That was something to be grateful for.

“While this is definitely serious, I think we should also decide on what to do next,” I began. “Now that Morden is dead, I believe we should continue traveling toward the Northern Plains. We need to know what the situation is like everywhere else. We also need to meet up with Fray and her Valkyries. The people with us will be much safer under her protection.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a wise idea,” King Menes said. “Now that Morden is dead and his army routed, there’s nothing to stop us from returning to Muqadas and rebuilding.”

“Except that you never know when more Sekbeists will come,” Kari pointed out. “Just because one army of them died doesn’t mean they will give up. If anything, the death of someone like Morden will spark even more interest in this place, and they will probably decide to send someone even stronger than him. What will you do then?”

King Menes turned away with a grimace. I had the distinct impression that what he really wanted was to re-establish himself as a king. He didn’t like that his authority had been more or less usurped by an entire group of people. He wasn’t used to it.

“This queen agrees with you, Eryk,” Queen Medusa said. “She believes we should leave the Endless Desert and meet up with those people you spoke of. Even if the Endless Desert is now safe, this queen will not feel assured until she knows all the Sekbeists have been eradicated.”

“I second the notion.” Alexis raised her hand. “I would like to find Erica and the rest of my sect. We were all separated during the battle at Vahn, but I’m certain they are alive.”

“I’m with you as well,” Ashten said.

One by one the others agreed with me that we should leave the Endless Desert, until King Menes was the only one who didn’t agree. Faced with an overwhelming majority vote, he was left with no choice but to sigh and concede.

“Very well. I also believe we should continue on to the Northern Plains,” he said in a gruff voice.

His words made everyone at the council meeting smile. It looked like their journey would soon continue.