Chapter 199 Onward Towards New Horizons



All around me were corpses, corpses of all types. Of the elderly, of the children, of the fittest soldiers. There was one thing in common with them though. It was that look in their eyes. As if that even in death they did not know their ultimate fate.

As if their personalities were entirely erased up and until their final moments. It was why I strode through their corpses with care. I neither touched them nor did I grace them with emotion.

Instead I took a different approach. Only stepping over them and ignoring them as if they were nothing.

It was hard to do that, the corpses had piled up into mountainous proportions, even still I was determined to keep them preserved. They may have been dead in both body and soul but they deserved at least that modicum of respect.

I closed my eyes and breathed out the breath that I had held. A tensing of my legs and I jumped from the wall that I stood on. I gazed down into the plaza of the town. My eyes like a hawks looking upon every corpse that had their lives ended because of that selfish mages plans.

It was a tragedy though it was not one that I regretted perpetuating. The mage was an enemy and a hindrance to my plans. I didn't just want to conquer this realm, I wanted to rule it. To make its citizens mine and uplift them into the empire I was to create.

With a soft footfalls my body landed on the ground, the disturbing bodies emotionless in their gaze as they stood still with no reaction. 

Not that I was expecting one, they were all dead. It was hopeful to even think they had free will in their death let alone being able to react.

Maybe I was just around extraordinary people too much, for me to think that they may have survived.

It was still a hope though that maybe in this mass grave, that someone would have resisted and was alive.

Soon I shook my head, the thought banished from my mind as I walk towards the northern entrance.

Behind me was Aoif and Delta who both seemed fine with the dead bodies. Delta I had expected but for Aoif to not feel anything. It was curious. 

I thought that maybe she might have some disgust at the bodies, or guilt for not saving them but I was wrong. 

'I really need to get to know her better' I thought to myself, we may have been connected so well but that did not mean I automatically knew what she would do. Though that was sort of countered by the feeling in the back of my mind that this was exactly how she would react.

Even the way that she had clung to my arm to comfort me at the sights of the fallen limbs of their bodies. 

The ones that had been held together by some force but in death were gradually falling from their sockets.

It was a disturbing sight, though one made bearable by the hold that Aoif had on me. It was like body horror. A dead body deteriorating at a pace visible by the human eye.

It took time, time that we spent in a leisurely walk but eventually after about half an hour we made it to the northern gate. Although it was locked by some mechanism that I didn't bother to find.

It only took a slight application of force to blow it off the hinges that held it to the wall. With a blast of wind it flew off into the distance before falling to the ground.

The scenery revealed to us. The dark caverns that seemed to be pathways into infinite caves. The deep chasms that served as moats around the walls and of course the animal life that skittered and ran into the surrounding vegetation.

I walked through all of this, my back turned to the wall. It was only at some distance that I finally looked back. Taking one last look at the city and castle that we had destroyed.

Bodies could be seen even from where I stood, their corpses hanging over the ledges of the wall. Speaking of the walls, they looked pathetically sad. Before when we had first entered, even with the lifelessness that the residents had given to the city. It still seemed alive. At least everything from the houses to the castle, to even the ground. They all looked like they were alive but now, with the death of all of its citizens the castle was nothing more than a ghost town.

eαglesnovel`c,om Nothing left for it to take life from. No more joy for its citizens to find. It stood there solitarily with nothing for it except a wall that lasted longer than its empire.

It was those sights that I saw, it looked sad… not enough for me to go back and do anything about it but it just felt wrong, for me to just turn away from the very death of the town that I had helped create.

I could do nothing though. Not right now at least. With the tasks at hand there was nothing that I could do. Maybe afterwards I could once again inhabit it, with the people that I would soon come under ownership of. 

Once I had conquered this realm I could reinhabit this place. 

It was with those thoughts that I turned from the castle. Resolve in my eyes as I step forward, a long journey in my sights.

…

I found myself sitting at the fire, the embers of the flame crackling at me as I poked at it with a stick. The tip would slightly burn but I would then infuse a speck of aether in it, bringing it back to life.

It was done out of boredom, however now it was quite interesting. To see as the stick was burned and restored over and over again. My aether having some sort of effect as it became more resistant to the fire that had once burned it in so little time.

Now, it took minutes for it to burn, fascinating wasn't it. I had the feeling that Aoif, who lay her head on my shoulder, found it fascinating as well. Either that or she was too spent from the running that we had endured for the past day to care what I did.

After we had left the castle Delta had urged us into a full sprint, one that she kept pace with. Of course both Aoif and I didn't want to be a burden to Delta so we sprinted the whole way. However it seemed that despite our best efforts that they had been for naught. As when after exerting ourselves as much as we could to run as fast as we could we looked to the side only to see Delta covering ground almost as fast as we were in a walk.

It was like it was a joke for her, the way that she leisurely walked despite the speed that we were at. 

It was why we were stopped here and hadn't continued our journey. We were spent. All of our energy spent on a fruitless endeavor. One to have Delta run as we had ran.

It was night or at least I assumed it to be by the feeling of time passing. I wasn't a hundred percent sure but by my internal clock it at least felt like bed time. It was hard to tell in these caverns. With no star to tell us whether it was day or night we couldn't know.

'Wait' 

We could have just asked Delta but by this point I was too lazy to even try to ask. It was why I gently laid my body down and closed my eyes. Darkness taking me as I fell asleep.

…

I watched as Aoif and Darwin fell asleep together, a slight blush on my face as my eye glances down at his crotch. Last night, when I had joined them in their lust filled sex was a spur of the moment thing.

But from the way that my heart had pounded, the pleasure that I had felt and given. It was too much. I had thought that it would have been a one time thing but this feeling in my heart was telling me that if he asked I would give.

It was weird. I had never felt this way. My mechanical heart had never allowed for that, the closest I could think of was when I had just stepped out from being evolved, still high on the power that I had gained.

But even then that was just emotions gained from power not lustful feelings that I had now. My hand reached down to my dress and curled it in my hand as I thought.

I couldn't help how I was staring at them the way that Darwin seemed to be so vulnerable while he was asleep. The fact that I could take both of them and cuddle them.

I had known that I liked cute things, it was the reason I kept stickers on me but I had thought that a bug in my systems, one that I was content to keep but maybe it was just a precursor. One telling me that I could love things.

It was something to think about. So I did, all while staring down at the sleeping couple enjoying the heat of the fire.