Richard
Richard
Ereta swallowed a breath, her reaction so obvious anyone would have noticed. The moment eyes turned her way, she realized she had let too much show and forced the swallowed breath back out.
The exhale came out sounding like a sigh, which only made things worse, but Maria didn't seem to care. She had the air of someone who had known from the start exactly who the woman in front of her was — the Saintess of Slaughter.
As if none of this were news to her, she added lightly, "You needn't worry so much. It was the Ground-Breaking Giant that got devoured, not the Fire-weaving Spider."
"The Ground-Breaking Giant...?"
Ereta didn't bother hiding her relief, exhaling openly. Aslan, however, was the one with questions now.
The Ground-Breaking Giant. One of the Three Evils, a god equal in power to the Poison-spitting Dragon — a being said to shatter universes beneath its feet and return them to nothing. A weakened Spider being consumed would have been one thing, but a Giant being eaten was beyond Aslan's comprehension.
Maria watched Aslan's expression, her own face an odd blend of innocence and cold blankness.
"Yes. The Poison-spitting Dragon devoured the Ground-Breaking Giant, and then its high priest, the colossus Blaz, fought the Artist. Blaz died. After that, the Cosmic Inevitability consolidated under the Poison-spitting Dragon."
The company's reactions split two ways at her matter-of-fact recitation. Those with knowledge of the Three Evils showed confusion and shock. Those without simply looked puzzled.
Only Aslan and Ereta stood apart from either camp. Ereta was visibly relieved, yet a thread of anxiety kept her fingers tight on the edge of Aslan's collar — or more precisely, one of the Stymphalos wing-feathers. Her pupils trembled as she looked up at him.
And Aslan? Something was rising in his mind as the exchange went on. Something he had never expected to see manifest here.
Unable to judge truth from falsehood, he watched as Maria took note of both his and Ereta's responses before she continued.
"Ah, right. After devouring the giant, the Cosmic Inevitability changed its name, I'm told. Its name is now..."
"Apocalypse's Grounds."
"You already knew?"
Aslan shut his eyes at the woman's answer and her toneless follow-up — a demeanor that all but confirmed his guess was right. He let out an irritated sigh and pressed his fingers to his brow. The others were watching him carefully, but he couldn't muster a response.
What was happening wasn't normal. It wasn't even something that existed inside the game — or rather, it hadn't existed until it was applied.
Of all things...
A curse slipped out under his breath, and he wiped a hand down his face, fatigue heavy on him.
All of this — everything happening now — hadn't originated from official content. It was player-made. Unofficial additions.
A mod. And a well-known one at that. One Aslan had even played himself.
The mod was called "Apocalypse's Grounds." That was also the name the fully developed faction took on inside the mod. Originating from English-speaking creators, it had its share of translation quirks, but it offered content to develop the Three Evils — ordinarily one of the weaker Evil God factions.
Its popularity had been significant. It let you formally recruit Ereta — one of the more visually striking bosses — as a companion without cheating, and it massively expanded content for Evil God factions that were barely developed in the base game.
The problem was that it was a mod. Unofficial. This sequence of events was never supposed to happen. Aslan couldn't state with certainty exactly what this world was, but he knew this much: it shouldn't exist.
He hadn't played Eternal Dominion after its official launch, of course. It wasn't unheard of for popular mods to be reverse-imported and added to a game officially, so maybe that had happened here.
But in twelve years of living in Geladrion, Aslan had never once thought this world felt like a game. He couldn't think that. The only thing that functioned like a game was the system window he carried.
This whole development stank of something wrong.
And so his thoughts landed on a face. A figure with mountain-goat horns curling from her head, her impossibly long white hair — near pure-white — wrapped around her neck like a muffler. A woman who radiated menace and was almost certainly a high priest of the Twilight Flock.
Valerie, Daughter of the Mountain Goat.
Aslan suspected the Flock's conspiracy here — that these mod elements had been applied without any player intervention. The Poison-spitting Dragon would have had no way to consume a giant of equal standing unless the Flock had helped.
Sensing the sinister schemes churning beneath the surface, Aslan slowly opened his eyes.
Maria had apparently lost interest in him and was now studying Richard. The moment their eyes met, something appeared in Aslan's vision. A system window, intimately familiar.
[Main Quest in Progress]
[ ! Investigate Olpasbet]
His eyes widened at the quest window. Across from him, Maria raised an eyebrow.
Why now?
The main quest line was supposed to go: choose between the Duchy of Hilsinger or Baramunz, survive the priest assault there, proceed with the investigation, head to Belus Alpen, receive the Ancient God's will, travel to the City of Mages to interpret it, leave that city for the Sanctuary of Sorrow, and claim the Sorrow Divinity. Then Olpasbet.
The complication, of course, was that he already had the divinity.
Aslan had no way of knowing how the follow-up quests would play out now. He'd simply hoped for quests to appear and pushed them as far as he could, roaming through the regions of the original quest line. A quest popping up should have been welcome — but something felt off.
He even sensed an ominous current beneath it. As if something wanted to send him to Olpasbet, wanted to isolate him from the present situation as much as possible.
Aslan quickly cleared the confusion from his eyes and let them cool. Even if this quest's appearance was inauspicious, it matched the original quest line. Disliking the circumstances didn't change the fact that he needed to carry it out.
I needed to go to Olpasbet anyway.
Quest or not, Olpasbet was his destination.
By the time his thoughts settled, Maria had turned to Richard.
"His Grace the Duke of Hilsinger asked me to ensure your safety, Richard, and to convey this: 'Flee the Duchy. Hide yourself as far away as possible, until the situation changes and I summon you back.'"
"...How bad is it? Very bad?"
"Not very bad. Not yet. Kardi is under siege, yes. Men are scouring the countryside for you, yes. The castle is surrounded, and they're demanding submission. But it hasn't gone further. Not yet."
"And he still tells me to run...?"
As Richard's face darkened, Maria turned her head toward Aslan.
"The Duke wishes for his heir to escape danger. Aslan, Master of Combat — if you aid in this, he pledges his full cooperation. And that bargain is guaranteed by me, Maria Auris Meland, in the name of House Meland."
Full cooperation between the Kingdom of Bida and the Duke of Hilsinger. It wasn't a situation Aslan had hoped for, but what he felt now was closer to regret — not because of the need to flee, but because this entire sequence of events had been fabricated.
The timing of the quest pointing toward Olpasbet was too convenient. With Kardi locked in a standoff against the Apocalypse's Grounds, the quest's appearance felt like something trying to lure him to Olpasbet.
Just as the God of Sorrow and Death had said — that this world was a trap laid by the Flock — Aslan saw a vast conspiracy. In that light, he couldn't even trust the system window. If the Flock had made this world, maybe it had made the window too. The window had never betrayed him, but perhaps it was stockpiling trust for one final, monumental betrayal.
Even so, he had to go to Olpasbet. What needed doing would be done. Quests had to be advanced. If it was a trap, at least he could prepare. Knowing where they were trying to lure him meant he could guess what sort of snare awaited. And if he could guess, he could prepare.
Above all, Aslan knew when the Flock revealed itself: only when he was cornered, when every escape route had been sealed, when crisis had him pinned. What the Flock wanted wasn't his meaningless annihilation. If it were, it would have acted long ago.
With his thoughts at that point, Aslan looked at Maria. She was watching him with clear, transparent eyes.
"You didn't specify a destination. Am I to decide that?"
"Do you have a place in mind?"
That was as good as affirmation. Aslan spoke.
"We'll go to Olpasbet."
The party reacted immediately.
"Oi, lad. Is that... really the right call?"
"Lord Aslan... Olpasbet seems a bit, how should I put it? There's a civil war..."
"Fay thinks it's fine. Aslan always has a reason."
Some approved. Some objected.
"Uh, Aslan... Lord? You're not planning to turn me in as a prisoner, right...?"
Richard, voicing an entirely unwarranted concern.
"Didn't we break out of there? If we go back, won't we get caught?"
Angie tilted her head, asking the obvious.
Only two remained silent. Ereta, chewing her lip anxiously, and Maria, watching Aslan with interest.
Aslan took in all their reactions before speaking.
"If the Poison-spitting Dragon truly devoured the giant and became the Apocalypse's Grounds, then the forces currently facing Kardi — especially the Artist leading them — are more than Kardi can handle alone."
"Is that so? Kardi has high walls, many mages, and soldiers."
"Not enough."
"And that is why Olpasbet? But what part of Olpasbet would help? It's merely a city grown rich off slaves and ore. Its defenses are sound, but little else. Its military is not exceptional."
Maria's assessment was accurate, and Aslan didn't dispute it.
"Then why go there?" she asked.
Aslan answered with a question of his own.
"What do you know of Olpasbet's history?"
"As much as anyone else."
"Have you heard the claim that Olpasbet is the corpse of the God of Law and Order?"
"Rumors, yes. But it's only a story, isn't it? The stuff of fairy tales..."
Maria's gaze shifted as Rumel suddenly raised her voice, a tremble of excitement in it.
"It's not just a story. The claim that Olpasbet is the God of Law and Order's remains — on the Northern Continent, it's dismissed as rumor, but in the South, where mages are more common and imperial records survive, it's accepted as established history. Olpasbet was the site of the final battle of Law and Order. At the time, Olpasbet was nothing more than a cave..."
She stopped mid-sentence. Fay had elbowed her in the ribs to bring her back to her senses; every eye in the group was on her.
Rumel clamped her mouth shut and let her thick braid fall across her face.
"I'm sorry..." Her voice was thick with mortification. Ears burning red, she swayed and ducked behind a tree to hide. Aslan tracked her retreating form, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"Lady Rumel is right. In the Southern Continent, this is already accepted fact. Olpasbet is the corpse of a god — a god defeated by the Poison-spitting Dragon."
"Huh..." Tiyamal let out a heavy breath. Richard just looked stunned. Angie's eyes glittered with interest. Aslan swept his gaze across them all.
"That's why I intend to go to Olpasbet. Specifically, because of the spear lying in its deepest place — amid a venom so lethal that a single touch reduces a human to a puddle of blood."
"A spear?"
"Yes. A spear."
At the word, Rumel peeked out from behind the tree. Aslan looked at her as he spoke.
"The spear's name is Verdict. One of the twin spears of Law and Order — the spear that represents law itself. Without that spear, the Artist cannot be defeated."
If these developments truly mirrored the mod, then Law and Order's spear, Verdict, was the sole solution. Without it, Kardi was finished.
*
Inside a tent of fine red silk, an old man held a strange-looking dagger. It resembled a free-form tree branch in places, a star in others. Whichever it resembled, the dagger was not built for killing. It was an artist's tool.
The old man's hands moved busily, carving away at something. He studied it closely, shaved with precision, rubbed with the downward-curving edge, gouged with the upward-curving edge. The only sound cutting through the stillness of the night was the rhythmic scrape-scrape of blade against bone.
Between those sounds, someone shifted a toe against the ground. The feet were planted in blood-soaked earth, yet they remained impossibly clean, almost unreal. The figure stood firm, radiating presence, but the old man paid her not a single glance, wholly absorbed in tending to his art.
When the old man finally presented his finished work, a sigh of satisfaction filled the silence. The recipient of that hot, rank breath was a skull. A skull as enormous as a giant's. Geometric patterns had been carved across its surface, gaps set with expensive gemstones, the grooves lined with thin metal.
The Artist — an old man in a faded red surcoat pulsing with something almost shamanic, plate armor lavishly strapped over it — stared at the skull a moment longer, then spoke abruptly.
"You think it's a grotesque hobby?"
No answer came. The woman, barefoot, mountain-goat horns affixed to her head and a splendid white robe draping her form, merely smiled in silence. That seemed reply enough for the Artist, and he went on.
"You might find it surprising, but I was quite close with this fellow once. This is my tribute to him. Cut down, polished, refined, until I carved eternal beauty into him."
True to his words, the skull did possess an aesthetic quality — a fierce intensity settled into calm stillness. Between its coexisting cruelty and beauty, something like personal conviction seemed to dwell. The medium and the subject might have been wrong, but the Artist was, in truth, an artist.
"The Spider's daughter, though — I couldn't grow close to her. She wasn't human to begin with, so how could I? It was only natural I'd be closer to Blaz, who used to be a man."
The woman didn't reply. The old man pressed on regardless.
"Back when the Three Evils were still the Three Evils, we cooperated in our own way and built up some camaraderie. Shared good drink, traded decent weapons. Well. That sort of thing. This one, he was an excellent cook."
A kindly smile rose to his face, and a grandfatherly warmth surfaced on skin that looked chewed at by insects in sparse patches. It lasted only a moment before the warmth cracked and savagery crept back into the gaps.
"Then why did you accept the offer?" The voice was clear and melodious, soft on the surface — yet entirely free of curiosity or doubt. A voice that already knew the answer and asked only to confirm.
The Artist laughed. "I want everything I do to be artistic. And art, by its very nature, is this." He planted the dagger into the table with a thud and spread both arms wide. "Exception, surprise, the unexpected encounter! Novelty built atop restraint and limitation, and the radiance of life it kindles! My battle with Blaz was precisely that — restraint and limitation. Art that severed two of the Three Evils and let brilliance burst forth."
The answer seemed barely connected to the question, but the woman said nothing. She only smiled quietly. The old man matched her smile with his own.
"The one I serve respected my intent as well. And through that, my master has at last become singular. Isn't that a fine thing? One cannot remain three forever, after all."
Chuckling, the old man retrieved his mace and shield from the corner of the tent. Both were forged of white iron, their surfaces dense with artistic engravings. He slung them across his back and smoothed his garments with an elegant motion. The skill with which he would wield those weapons, surely, would be grounded in art as well — so obvious in manner that anyone watching would know.
The woman standing before him recalled that the old man was called the Artist. That this same Artist had been a Master of Blunt Weapons a hundred and fifty years ago. Once a Master, now a high priest, a former baron turned bandit, bound deep to the Poison-spitting Dragon.
The old man stood to his full height — unusually tall for his age — and asked, "So. Olpasbet, then?"
Instead of answering, the woman let a curve touch her lips. The Artist watched that smile and spoke.
"I'm looking forward to it."
His voice carried a thick heat of anticipation.