The chief of the Sunwardens hadn’t come to this prison in a very long time, not since he first told Alex that he would let him die here without reason.
Alex could feel the fury within him reigniting upon seeing the man’s face.
He seemed thinner now. His posture ragged, his body lacking size. He also had more gray hairs on his head, which seemed to be thinning as it was. That quite surprised Alex.
The group of warriors paused at once, each one surprised by what they were seeing.
“He survived?”
“I was sure that bird one flew here.”
“Look at his clothes, he was clearly attacked.”
The sight of Alex standing there without much damage to his body except for his clothes was not something any of these people expected to see.
“You lived?” the chief asked.
Alex sneered. “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m sure you would have loved to see my mangled-up corpse.”
“Of course not,” the chief said, sneering back. “I want you to live here forever without any hope of ever doing anything else. The only death of yours I will be satisfied by is one that comes from your own hand.”
“We’re of the same mind there,” Alex said. “I will only be satisfied when your death comes with my own hand as well.”
The chief chuckled. “Alas, I must disappoint myself. You will die much earlier than that,” he said, and brought out a storage bag before tossing it into the prison.
It landed on the sand right next to Alex.
“What’s this? You’ve brought me a gift?” he asked.
“Only as much as a wolfsbane tea is a gift to a guest,” the chief said.
“You’ve brought me poison?” Alex asked, feeling quite funny that someone would try to poison him.
“It was merely an analogy. Wolfsbane would be too kind a fate for you.”
Alex ignored the man and picked up the storage bag. When he tried to look inside, he realized that it was no storage bag, but just a regular bag with no added space inside.
That was weird, but he ignored it, looking inside anyway. When he did, his eyes widened in surprise.
There were 3 things inside, all the same, and he brought out one.
A single orb of glowing light like shadows dancing around that which would be a sun.
“An infected beast core?” Alex asked, frowning. “You’re giving me this?”
“Giving you?” the chief asked, laughing. “What makes you think I would give you a way to create problems for me by giving you an infected beast core?”
Alex frowned. “Then why did you bring it to me?”
“I didn’t bring it to you,” the chief said. “I brought it here to this prison. This was initially meant to be a place to destroy Sun-Wraiths. We merely repurposed it to keep you here. Since we have no other place like this, you’ll have to be here while the beast cores explode.”
Alex juggled the beast core in his hand, listening to the chief while trying his best to quell his anger, when a thought crossed his mind. What he was about to do was incredibly stupid, but hearing the chief talk down to him left him with no other choice.
Without a second thought, Alex chucked the beast core away, throwing it back toward the city.
The several warriors immediately acted, jumping to catch it, but the beast core never escaped at all. It immediately slowed as it reached the edge of the barrier, and propelled back toward the center, surprising Alex.
The chief laughed. “Did you not hear what I said? This was initially a formation meant to destroy the Sun-Wraiths. Do you honestly believe it would ever have a chance of escaping this place?”
Alex frowned. He hadn’t felt any sort of force keeping him from escaping physically. Which meant that it only acted on the beast cores.
‘A formation barrier to kill Sun-Wraiths as it passes or when it forms,’ Alex thought. It was a brilliant solution to a problem that was prevalent in the desert. As angry as he was, he was impressed.
“Who came up with this formation?” Alex asked.
The chief shrugged. “We’ve been using it for as long as we can remember,” he said. “And we’ll continue to use it far long after you’re gone.”
Alex scoffed. “I’m not going to die.”
“Good. That would be too easy an escape for you,” the chief said, turning to leave. “Although, I doubt you alone can survive the Wraith that will soon form from those three cores.”
The chief looked at him again. “And if you do, we’ll just bring more to you anyway.”
The chief walked away, and along with him left everyone but two guards who stayed behind to look after Alex.
Alex picked up the core that had slung back into the prison and looked at it. If his few weeks of understanding beast cores had taught him anything, he made a guess that this core was going to hatch into a wraith in between 9 and 12 hours.
He brought out the other ones and checked them. Another one would hatch in about 2 hours, and the last one would hatch much later.
If he didn’t do something about them quickly, these beast cores would likely end up killing him.
Alex looked at the two guards who were now facing him, watching his every step. They were likely here to protect the city in the unlikely chance that Alex somehow did toss the cores back out of the prison.
He found joy in the fact that they would never know what would actually happen to them.
They would see no explosion, hear no rumble, feel no heat.
He made sure to make whatever was going to happen next be a pure mystery to them so that the only thing they could do was despair for something to eventually erupt altogether.
What they wouldn’t know was that the thing they had to worry about coming out of there would be him.