“Huh?!” I let out a surprised gasp as this long hallway just ended with a wall. The princess lead us through a path that had no signs of the elves. I was thinking that she was leading us through an old passage but it turned out to be just a dead end.

“This can’t be! This is one of the only paths left leading towards the underground system of the Kreylin,” Princess Evergreen remarked. The elven princess had managed to navigate throughout the palace without trouble until she reached this dead end.

I pressed my hand against the wall, trying to feel its thickness. I was trying to check if it was a false wall by trying to feel out a hidden button. After a few minutes of looking like a pervert molesting a wall, I gave up and turned.

“Hey, what a minute. You’re not going to bother to reverse rotation?” Kendra stopped me on my tracks.

“Do what now?”

“I was thinking you were going to reverse rotation when you placed your hand against the wall but I was mistaken. Fine, I’ll do it.”

Kendra walked up to the wall and knocked on it. Taking out a brush, she dipped it in a pouch of blood. After checking the thickness of the paint, she started splattering the wall with her brush.

“Now’s not the time for vandalism! We’ve got my coffee to save, I mean, elves!” I angrily snapped at Kendra.

“What? You’ve never seen graffiti inscribing?”

“Graffiti what? Why do you keep hitting me with all these technical terms which I can’t understand?”

“And I thought I was the student…Let me give you a demonstration.”

After scribbling on the wall, she snapped her finger and sliced the air with her brush. Blood flew from her brush and towards the drawing she made but the blood stopped midair.

“Stand close to me, this wall is affected by reverse rotation,” Kendra ordered everyone remaining in the group.

By now it was just Blackhair, Arrowski, Aera, Kendra, Princess Evergreen and I left since we had to leave Maven behind who was hunting down people who were turning her pies into magical drugs.

Moreover, my lieutenant who was carrying the unconscious bodies of Lard and the crazed priestess girl offered to stay behind and hold the palace entrance by himself to keep anymore unwanted guests out.

As we grouped around Kendra, my vision when looking at the weird drawing she made got worse until everything became a blur. It was like I was speeding towards the wall so fast that my mind couldn’t register what was going on.

In an instant, the vision returned to normal. Nothing happened, except…

“We’re in the other side of the wall?” I mumbled.

“So you really don’t know some forms of spell, huh? This is great! I can use my knowledge to bargain with yours. Heh heh heh…” Kendra mischievously rubbed her hands together as she chuckled to herself.

“Wait, what did you draw on the wall?”

“Huh? Can’t you read or something? It was just Angolian for ‘rotate’.”

“That doesn’t make sense, is it like writing in a scroll or something?”

“It doesn’t really have to be in a scroll. What are you? Five hundred years old?”

As we continued our way down with the princess guiding us, I continued to understand a bit more of what Kendra did. Just like how Sarjay’s grandest daughter Asha inscribed Sarjay’s name into his new sword, Kendra inscribed a rune onto the wall.

A long time ago, or at least back in my days, doing something like this would take too much willpower and mana so inscribing magical runes were limited to certain types of scrolls, which was why I rarely scribbled magical runes onto the floor to cast a big ball of fire when I can just do it with a flick of a finger.

“Wait, so you often draw in the heat of battle?”

“Not really? You can’t just keep staring at whatever you were drawing while an angry berserker is charging at you. Besides, good ink is expensive and carrying blood everywhere would just stink your clothing up.”

“Can’t you just draw the runes beforehand and just use the spell?”

“It must be freshly made or its intentions would wear out. Scrolls are still the exception to this rule and we’re still figuring out why.”

Still, why scribble some words when you can just conjure the spell with less effort?

I sighed as I gave up asking further on it. I felt like I would lose face towards my own student and add to the fact that I felt like graffiti inscribing is very inefficient.

I looked around to inspect the large underground area we were in so I could think of something else as the curiosity of graffiti inscribing was starting to eat away at me.

“Hey, princess. Where are we? This place looks too big to be an underground area…”

There were large pillars holding up the unobservable dark ceiling and my voice echoed throughout the room. The room was also dark, only having the pillars with lit torches as our sources of light.

The floor was covered with old, rough stone tiles as opposed to the hardwood floor common inside the elven buildings. I could see moss growing in between the gaps of the rough floor and the pillars themselves looked ancient. There were still dead branches growing everywhere which was our indicator that we were still inside the palace.

“Over there! There’s some elves at the exit!” Blackhair pointed at the other end of the room. There were some elves wearing golden-and-green plate armor unlike the common soldiers who wore just plain wool or fur coat. Whatever they were guarding, it was obviously important.

“That must be the entrance to the heart of the Kreylin. It looks like the rebels haven’t broken through this side,” Princess Evergreen noted as she waved towards the soldiers.

“Come on! There’s not enough time! The evil doers won’t be too far behind from us. We need to inform those elite guards of what’s coming so we can stop the rebels’ track right here!” Blackhair shouted as he started running towards the guards.

Just as he said that, both Kendra and I stopped and realized the air in front of us looked…liquid like.

“Blackhair, wait a minute-….”

“Hey, you dumbass! Get back here-…”

As I shook my head, the guards standing by the entrances were replaced with corpses lying on the floor. The entire scenery changed as the plain stone floor was suddenly coated in blood.

Just like how I distorted the visions of the elven prison guards a month or so ago, it seemed that I was caught off-guard and was blinded into thinking the fake scenery in front of me was real.

It was like someone drew a realistic picture of a door onto a wall. I wouldn’t know it was a drawing until I rammed my nose into the wall.

As we passed through the thin veil of deception, elves with leaf-like plated armor appeared in front of us and attempted to massacre us with their sickle-swords.

I raised my palm towards Blackhair, who was still unaware of his imminent death and clenched my hand into a fist. Pulling my fist downwards, Blackhair’s body suddenly fell down as I pushed his weight down using magic.

Blackhair winced as his ass slammed onto the floor and two swords flew over his head. Kendra also noticed the elves and immediately responded with casting her spells at them. Blackhair’s wince caused Aera to blink, refreshing her vision to normal.

“What the..?!” She interjected as she parried a sickle-sword with her armguards. There wasn’t enough time for her to be confused as three elves immediately started throwing their attacks against her.

Arrowski couldn’t use his bow in such close ranged and the darkness didn’t help much either so he was forced to meet the assailants with his own sickle-sword.

Meanwhile, Blackhair recovered and quickly took out his weapons to fight off the elves. Kendra had the right idea of sticking close to me as I sensed four elves slithering around me around the darkness of the room.

I wanted to get information about this ‘graffiti inscribing’ over the time so I couldn’t just have Kendra dying on me. I stomped my foot and clapped hard.

As a necromancer, as long as something is organic and dead, it’s a tool to be used.

This included the dead branches that littered the room everywhere. I tangled the elves who attempted to control the branches with their own elven magic but was useless as death was my ultimate domain.

As their life was choked away, a wave of mana erupted across the room, cutting down the branches holding the elves up.

“Fools! Who dare interrupt the liberation of the elves?!” A familiar voice boomed. An elf wearing elegant glass armor appeared by the entrance of the heart of the Kreylin. He was dragging a dead elf by the throat.

Judging by the dead elf’s uniform, it must had been Premier Oakinov, the leader of the Union. The rebel dragging his corpse was also badly beaten so they must have just fought an intense battle for the entrance.

The rebel spat blood onto the floor and wiped his mouth before continuing, “If it isn’t the heroes’ party. Heroes to the lies, that is! Once I’m done with you all and kill the Kreylin, the truth will all be revealed!”

“Give it up, evil doer! You are obviously incapable of fighting all of us by yourself!” Blackhair pointed around the room, showing the rest of the rebels who were either dead or dying on the floor.

“Heh. Ha! HAHA! That is a funny joke, human.” The rebel let go of the premier’s corpse and faced both of his palms upwards, “My name is Ruslan, leader of the elves who would cut the chains of all elves and set us all free!

You forgot one important thing, human. You’re fighting in MY home!”

My control for the dead branches was suddenly cut off as large tendrils started attacking us in every direction relentlessly. The heroes swiftly dodged every thrust but there were too many to defend against.

At this point, I had the princess crouch low in order to keep her from getting in my way. I managed to gather enough mana to weave her a magic shield cocoon which was enough to keep her from dying in one hit.

As the tendrils flew towards us, I had to use various form of spells that could cut through thick ancient wood in order to keep the heroes alive. I also tried sniping Ruslan down but he was just surrounded by those damned branches.

Now, I could just use near-divine teleportation to stab Ruslan dead but in that one split second that I would disappear, nothing would be stopping the tendrils from skewering the heroes and the princess.

What was that Lard talked from then and on about a form of entertainment from his world? He kept saying something about ‘escort missions’ but I never understood it until now.

I tried to override Ruslan’s control of the tendrils but just as he had said, his very spirit was tied to the Kreylin itself. It was as bad as fighting a water elemental in the middle of the ocean.

Using fire was out of the question as it would not only kill Ruslan, but also the heroes, which was counterproductive. As I maintained a barrage of spell to keep cutting down this oversized garden, I just remembered my surrounding.

Using the death essence I got from the battle raging in the capital city, I gathered a small amount of it and compressed it as hard as I could with my will. Black mist started to leak from my robes as mana danced around me.

I quickly released the compressed magic in every direction, corrupting the corpses in the room. I snapped my fingers and the corpses rose up immediately to grab hold of the nearest tendril and explode with a gory eruption.

The corpses around Ruslan latched onto him as he was caught off-guard. He tried to shake them off but their undeathly strength was no match to him. He turned to face me with fury in his eyes.

“So you were the necromancer! I will-“

Ruslan disappeared in an explosion of blood, gore and bits, which caused the tendrils to stop moving and shrivel up. I didn’t want to wait for him to give some kind of speech or give him a chance to power up in his dying moments. Only idiots would do that!

Kendra let out a long, relieved gasp as she fell on her knees, tired from the fight.

The other heroes were knocked out by the tendrils when I stopped slicing the branches in order to raise the dead. Fortunately for me, they were still alive so I didn’t have to write an excuse letter to King Argo later.

“He…he said something about you being a necromancer?” Kendra slowly raised her head as she caught her breathe.

“What?”

“You…You raised those elves! I saw it!”

“Er…no, I was not the father of those elves so I couldn’t raise them from birth.”

“Not that! I mean, you raised them from the dead! This isn’t a joke!”

“They coincidentally got up and exploded. It wasn’t my doing.”

“That’s bullshit!”

I tapped my mask and thought about it for a second.

“And what will you do if I am a necromancer?”

“That depends on what I could gain…”

“Wait, you’re fine with me being a necromancer?”

“Even though you’re a terrible teacher, you still managed to get my magic level higher than I wouldn’t have thought to be possible. It’d be too stupid to lose an opportunity at getting stronger just because those idiot zealots from the Path think people shouldn’t practice necromancy.”

“Well, as long as you don’t tell the others.”

At the very least, Kendra doesn’t suspect me of being undead. I looked around and it seemed that the only other conscious person is the princess. I started shaking her shivering body and she got up with a scream.

“Ah! Sorry! You…you scared me!”

“How much of that did you hear?” I asked the princess.

“Excuse me?”

“About the whole necro..er…did you hear Kendra and I talking?”

“No, I didn’t? I had my ears covered…”

“Good. Let’s get back to business, princess. I’ve killed your buddies so that means the elves are safe, right?” I gave a ‘finally got that done’ sigh and stretched my back. Unfortunately, my relaxing stretch had to be cut short.

“Not yet! Th-there’s still one more person inside the heart of the Kreylin! We need to go, now!” The princess got up from the floor and sprinted into the entrance towards the heart.

“God damn it! Wait for me!” I started running after her through the entrance, leaving Kendra to look after the unconscious heroes. As I chased after the damned princess, I was cursing her in all the languages that I could still remember since she was making my life hard. She said there was still one more person, so that meant that rebel elf could be waiting in an ambush!

Just one stab would be all it needed to kill the princess. Damn it, I thought I killed the last of those annoying rebels. The place we were at is far below underground so how many more rebel elves could there be?

Show yourself, you pesky rebel! You’re making my life hard!

“Here I am.”

A voice invaded my head as I stopped. I looked around and noticed nothing but silence and darkness. It was like that time when the mini-Abyss came and time stopped, except in this case, existence stopped.

“P..princess?”

The princess stopped, turned around to face me and fell lifeless. It was not like she lost her life. In fact, she had no life at all. Her body, just like a hollow doll, dropped onto the cold blackness.

“There are no elves here. Only I…”

I tried to look for the source of the voice but it sounded like the voice echoed from every direction. Feeling uncomfortable, I unsheathed Fatebinder from its scabbard and prepared every shield spell I could think of.

“And who is this ‘I’?” I asked into the darkness.

“You and I…we’re so alike. We’re stuck in this constant cycle of repeat and relive. The world changes, dimensions shift and fate split into different ends and yet, we remain a Constant.”

The voice continued to echo not only within the ‘room’, but also within my head. My mind shield wasn’t even enough to keep the intruding voice off my head. Memories started to seep back to me.

Ah, yes. This was the same as back then…

“You entered my realm. You should be aware what happens when two Constants meet in an ever-changing world.”

I grasped my will within my head, letting my entire body loosen. I started to fluctuate the mana in the surrounding, preparing every spell I could. Voices of unknown origin started to hymn a song in my head.

I felt cold. Genuinely cold. My bones shivered slightly as I could see human-like figures surrounding me, dancing in joy.

The mana stirs, fate to be changed in this very moment.

When had I stopped relaxing and tensed my entire self before? Not even The Abyss in her weakened form made me do this.

“First, show yourself.” I pointed my sword blindly into the darkness, a large tree trunk seemingly appearing in front of me. The trunk itself was colored ebony and ash-like, the darkness blending in so well with the edges of the tree.

At the side of the trunk facing me, I could make out a tiny humanoid body glued to the tree. Only the upper portion was humanoid, with the lower portion being molded into the tree. Was the body trying to get out of the tree or did the tree grow out from it?

The skin of the body had the texture of bark with vines covering the entire body. At the head was a barely recognizable face with no mouth. I could tell it was a face as the eyes glowed with an eerie white light.

“You’re…a fairy?”

“Fairy…been such a long time since my kind was called that.”

“What happened to you?”

“Torture. Deception. Cleansing. I could go on and on, but that doesn’t matter. You will understand my trauma as I would understand yours.”

The voices in my head had now formed a choir, strumming both familiar and unfamiliar chords. I could feel my humanity slowly disappearing, evident that I had already stopped pretending to breathe. The mana levels were starting to fluctuate in the surroundings, making me even feel like my bones were being grinded down into nothing.

“You’re the heart of Kreylin? No. More like the heart of the Sayitsi.”

“Indeed. Isn’t it quite a surprise? The demon, the very core of an entire race and its nation. But like I said, nothing matters. Whether I am a fairy, demon or tree, none matters. My true identity was shed long time ago and was replaced by bits and bits of my former self.”

The fairy’s intention was starting to leak, her killing intent was clear. I realized that fighting her normally was impossible. I sunk my sword onto the floor and sat down. I cracked my neck, showing my intentions to play with her.

“When two Constants meet…”

“…Only one remains.”

“My trauma will be yours, and yours shall be mine,” I chanted the conditions the fairy had put forth.

“I invoke my first name, Satel the Lonely and Deprived,” The fairy finally said, beginning our duel.

In an instant, the darkness surrounding the room was replaced with a burning forest. This was part of the fairy’s memory. Satel had once been here, and this place was a source of one of her trauma. Ghostly fairies fled in terror in all directions as bolts of magic fell everywhere. It was all silent and slow, like I was watching a silent performance.

Emotions overwhelmed me – Anger, sadness, despair. Satel herself was revealing her bare self to me and I watched her very memory come to life.

As I watched the bolts of magic fall from the sky, they all immediately changed trajectory and aimed towards me. The present and the memory of the past clashed, time no longer making sense in this dimension we were in.

“I invoke my first name, The Dreaded One of Follis,” I responded.