War For Underworld

Moon Cradle

...and the Moonbeam Sword is blocked. Ronie's eyes widen in amazement as Noxium emerges from the smoke, his dark uniform charred in many places that it reveals more of his skin. His right chest received the heaviest damage with a hole Ronie could fit both her fists through if she tried, a hole so deep that there's no humane way he should be standing on his feet.

Not a single drop of blood from that ghastly wound would have eviscerated his right lung and part of his heart. She figured the First Children would be powerful, but she swung a Divine Object into him. Those same class weapons killed Hersyrian, Administrator, PoH, and Vecta, yet Noxium manages to block it solely with the larger of his daggers? Then he swings the smaller, greener one. Ronie sees it in time for her body to evade, but her cloak suffers a rip. The next thing she hears is Noxium's stomach being punctured by a steel element-made stake.

"Ronie! Get away from him!" Tiese's return comes at a good time. Ronie retreats away just as Noxium attempts to poison her again, giving Tiese enough time to form a second stake. "Discharge!" It hits Noxium in the back and pierces him completely, this time enough to draw blood from the grey-skinned warrior. Thinking there's no way he could have survived that one, Ronie prepares to slice the man's head off.

"No! He's still moving!"

"Wha...?" Ronie hears Tiese's warning in time to lean back as much as she could to avoid the man's lightning-fast knife. It was so close she could feel the wind zip down her neck, He uses the opportunity to head back to the circle of candles Primus sits within, softly chanting still.

Tiese approaches Ronie's sword and points her standard-issue blade at Noxium. "He's not human, Ronie!"

"Huh...? What do you mean...?"

Tiese turns back to the broken window she exited out of earlier. "In the woods, I found a huge pile of those sacks. They were all filled with soil...nasty-smelling clay."

"Clay?" Something about that word churned something in Ronie's head. That's right, Noxium's current appearance is similar to that of the monsters she saw in Obsidia Palace. "A minion!" Tiese nods in agreement, and as if he's proud of her answer, Noxium smirks.

Minions are simple-minded beings created by the dark mages of the Dark Territory. Their claim to danger is their massive life and resistance to heat and cold elements. That brings up a few answers about how Noxium (or this minion that looks like Noxium) survived the heat element attacks, but it leads to a genesis of new inquires. One, is this the real Noxium, or did he manipulate his earlier appearance, and two... "Minions...are mindless monsters that can't talk. But he..."

Noxium stands up straight and begins to pace in front of the candles and speak despite his injuries. "Administrator...the Dark Mages...both looked for the clue to eternal life, but that you know. But so did the emperors, all four of them, and all as one. Shocking, huh, that the imperial families worked together despite what everything seemed on the surface. You considered the four kingdoms distant, united only by the cathedral at the core of the empire, but you're wrong. And that isn't a recent development. It has gone on for centuries."

"What kind of sacred art is that?"

"The power your goddess kept for herself, the ability of eternal life." Noxium's grin grows as the stunned girls repeat his last two words. "Yes, eternal life. They tried every poison, every art, and every possible cruelty in experimenting with eternal life just as how Administrator did her experiments with the Orthinanos family. But you're probably wondering 'What does that have to do with us, the First Children, who probably know the art that preserves life?' You're right, we did preserve our lives before Adminstrator stumbled upon the art herself, but the point is... No, you figure it out. Why would the royal families seek those arts? Why would they envy their god?"