Damian was greeted with foreign yet happy and enthusiastic words. Pigmen crowded over to shake hands with him, to touch him, or even just to look at him. It was getting increasingly uncomfortable. At last, along with Mindseer and his friends, Damian was led to a fancy inner castle room where a large table, steel chandeliers with glowing crystals, and other luxurious decorations were arranged.
The seven colorful spheres were placed in a safe place in the castle, he was informed. Damian could sense them, so he knew exactly where they were. Only people with authority were allowed entry, as the door to the room was closed by two armored pigmen. Mindseer, Sam, Evrin, Grace, Maelor, Alex, and Sariel were there. He could sense Elias and Reize above the stone shrine—not at the top, but somewhere in the middle. He could also sense Lucian in one of the palace rooms.
“How is Lucian? And Einar..” Damian asked Evrin, seated beside him, as the pigmen were still settling in.
“She is fine, just overuse of mana. We don’t have any liquid mana for her, so we’ll just have to wait until she wakes up on her own. Einar is awake, but I told her to rest; she’s still injured a little and excessive healing won’t do any good,” she replied.
Damian just nodded.
Bloodedge was placed in another room, guarded by powerful pigmen warriors. Without his mana, the guy could still use his transcendent body to cause trouble, even with the vines binding his body. Damian could feel the guy’s emotions though, and had already taken his ID—he wouldn’t be able to do much. He had told Mindseer about sealing his mana on the way, and she translated it to the others.
“The scouts are dead. We have no idea where the Shadecaster and his army are, or in what shape the rest of Bloodedge’s army is in,” Heather said in the pigmen language. There was a translator present who translated everything into English.
Over ten pigmen of different shapes and sizes were there, the biggest three being the three transcendents—they even had large chairs for their size, four in total. One of them was padded and decorated for the king, and another was empty.
Noticing Damian’s eyes looking toward the empty chair, Sam spoke up.
“His name was Lyska.. He could have gotten away alone, but he stayed and protected Einar. He died for her.. Rurik would have been dead too, if it wasn’t for the Dreamlight.”
“He died as a warrior should—protecting his people,” the king replied, and the nods of agreement from all the pigmen highlighted the resolve they had for this last fight of their civilization.
“Will the other Kasha join us?” Heather asked after a minute of silence they kept for the dead.
Damian looked at him.
“No,” he replied. “I don’t know when they will wake up..”
“Why are they in those things?” Another pigmen elder asked. When Damian looked at him, the elder’s eyes shook a little, clearly worried about offending him.
“They are ascending, or evolving.. Increasing their strength,” Damian replied.
These people did not believe in the Sun God, but Damian still didn’t want to reveal anything too drastic. They didn’t have any tools like a status tool to see their stats. Their tools didn’t work for them either, even though they did on Earth—probably something to do with their biology being too different. Damian had no idea if they had the Sun God’s blessing and lost it when he killed the Sun God, or if they never had it to begin with.
“We will have to quickly deal with all the black army currently near the valley before doing anything else..” Said the pigman in bandages, Rurik.
“No, that’s not necessary. We used Bloodedge to stop them,” Mindseer replied.
“And he complied..?”
“We can’t trust him..”
“It could be a trap..”
A bunch of elders and court officials spoke up at once. Damian just gestured for them to let it go.
“It’s up to you what you want to do with him. He can’t use his mana. If I were you, I would use him to control all the black pigmen army standing mindlessly on the other side of the valley and create some solid defense line. I believe the Demon Lord is about to arrive with an even bigger army.”
As expected, the news of their inevitable fight’s deadline getting cut short was not soothing at all. They started talking to each other in pigmen language so fast that even the translator was having a hard time translating everything.
“Is this another army from the one Shadecaster is commanding?” asked Heather.
“Armies aside, if the Demon Lord joins—numbers won’t matter,” Mindseer replied. “Bloodedge somehow sent a message back to the Demon Lord, and now he is coming for us all.”
“What are we going to do?” Sariel asked.
“Why haven’t you left this place yet?” Damian asked, confused.
Why were they getting so injured, receiving heavy losses, just to eventually die? Even a child could see they had no chance of survival here. But right after he asked the question, the faces of everyone told him all that he needed to know.
They couldn’t go—well, some of them could—the stronger second rankers and above, but anyone below could not. Most women and children were first rankers; the majority of the population actually were first rankers. That complicated things. Still, Damian looked towards his friends and said in a firm voice,
“Did I not tell you to save yourselves before anything else?”
Hearing the translation, many pigmen in the room widened their eyes. The meaning was clear—they were not important to him, well—not as much as his friends.
“That giant monster caught us off guard.. We had things under control till then,” Sam replied, staring at Damian.
“What do you suggest we do, Gaiz le Kasha?” The king of pigmen asked for advice in simple words.
Damian looked away from Sam, met eyes with the king, and replied,
“Send the best of your people back to Earth with all the knowledge, values, and culture of your people. Those will be the last of your civilization if we fail. You know how to fight the coming enemies in millions better than I do. Just try to hold on. Hopefully, I will be done before we lose too many people.”
“What is it that you are going to do?” Maelor asked. His face clearly showed he already had an idea what Damian meant—so did all the humans. The pigmen were the truly confused ones.
Damian stood up and looked out of an open side window showing the full view of the city built inside the shrine.
“You do what you have done till now. I have only one goal in mind, and I will do everything to achieve it. This all started because of my stupid mistake.. It is time to make it right or pay the price. I am going after the Demon Lord once I am done with a few things.”
“With your golem?” Alex asked, crossing his hands on his chest.
“No, that’s destroyed.”
“What!?” Alex asked, surprised. Everyone ignored him though.
“That is insane,” Evrin said at last, not being able to hold herself back.
“You don’t have to go fight him. He is hundreds of kilometers away from here. We have time and manpower with these black pigmen armies in our hands. Build something. I know you can—something that will protect this land, this city for a long time. Let’s buy some time. In time we can figure something out, a better plan. We could use the dungeons.. Get stronger, wait for the Highswords.. We can—”
Grace held her shoulder, stopping her plea and standing beside her. A strange silence enveloped the whole room.
“You think you can do it?” Sam asked, breaking the unnerving silence.
Damian turned back, spared a look for everyone present in the room, and said in a simple voice,
“I have to do it.”
Sam nodded.
The pigmen were too shocked to even say anything. To them, there was no winning—just fighting. Fighting, because that’s all they knew and had learned that it was what their ancestors did all the years before them. Now there was someone with a mad idea of truly facing what no one could even dare to think about facing in battle.
The darkness that destroyed their whole world, killed all their brethren. The darkness that could command an army with uncountable numbers.
Damian had said what he was going to do. All else was up to them. He nodded a little toward the king of pigmen and walked toward the door. The soldiers clad in armor escorted him to another fancy room—this was for him to stay in.
Damian exhaled as the doors closed. He quietly walked up to the open window. The city in the night, lit by thousands of lights, looked so.. delicate. The peaceful atmosphere felt suffocating, had he gone mad or did he seriously just think he missed the battlefield?
Taking a bath, changing his clothes, Damian used a waygate to come out near Lucian. She was still asleep. Her hands had those same uncontrollable mana blockage nerves as he had observed ealier in Sam, Einar, and some others; hers was the worst. A sign of mana abuse for a second ranker body.
He was lucky. Damian did not even want to think what would have happened if he had come even a minute late. He knew he was being overprotective of them.. He shouldn’t meddle in their decisions and yet.. They all had to take these decisions because of the situation he put them in.
Damian sighed, the queen sized bed Lucian was sleeping on had plenty of room. Damian laid down beside her and closed his eyes.