Dalric managed to spend almost every moment of the flight conceptualizing what it would mean to purposely create sapients. The only times he wasn’t were when something decided to try and make him a meal. Usually it was some form of unnecessarily large bird, but a few ground based beasts shot projectiles at him as well. None of them were as powerful or menacing as the bird he assumed to be an owl was. They were more just irritants he handled quickly or ran away at the first sign of aggression on his part. They only briefly took his mind away from the most important topic at hand, having the power to create sapients.

From creating an entire warrior race that served as your personal army to building up an advanced civilization that worshiped you as their eternal sovereign, the scope was limitless. You could become a God. You would become a God, without ever needing to ‘ascend’ as well.

This was all based on an assumption, but Dalric felt over fifty percent sure he was on the right track. It would definitely explain what he was doing here. Nothing the Gods hated more than competition.

Why did the Dance appear now though?

That was the piece he hadn’t quite worked out yet. If it was due to Aegeus’ actions, then why appear now? He literally opened his eyes to it. The chances of him not being directly related were infinitesimally small. Unfortunately, that didn’t tell him anything about the situation other than a relation existed. He needed to know how and why.

He could guess the basics. As soon as he contacted the Gods, they’d send him to wipe out the tigers. That would dip his foot in the water.

If Aegeus founded any other... races? Would they be new races entirely? Hm. Whatever they are, they’d send me to wipe those out too. Then what? Unless Aegeus is already walking Frysta as a God, this doesn’t seem ‘Dance of the Forgotten’ worthy. If he is, surely that isn’t my responsibility? Right?

It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be… but he also shouldn’t be alive. Yet here he was.

Albeit scant and unproven, all the information he had available to him pointed towards a battle between himself and Aegeus at the beckoning of the Gods to cull the formation of a new, more powerful God. That would be an event worthy of the Dance… if he was the old Dalric.

The current him was weak, embarrassingly so. Even if he had ample ahjer, much of his strength came innately from his body. That very same body limited his mastery of ahjer, something he could potentially rectify in this life, but that would take decades to centuries. For now, much of his technique and skill required his former frame. Without it, he was nothing like the titan he used to be and completely unfit for such a bout.

Thinking about it, he found that odd. If the Gods wanted him to fight immediately after resurrecting him, why make him human? It would have been in their best interest for him to be in top shape. Besides pettiness, what would robbing him of his power achieve? He must still be missing something.

A slight sigh slipped from within him.

I could be missing it entirely.

He slowed himself down. The strangeness of the past... four bells, he estimated, was getting to him. There was much he didn’t know and even more he didn’t understand. He couldn’t afford to let his mind and emotions be so unstable. There were few things he truly knew. As sure as he was that his first theory’s correct, it wouldn’t do to treat it like the truth. It was just a theory. A theory that stood on shaky foundations at that.

He spent the rest of the flight silently practicing incantations. The spells were nothing flashy or really visible at all, but they were extensive in their intricacy. They ranged from healing his right arm to creating a fingernail-sized fold in space, each incredibly complex, some more so than others. He failed to execute roughly half of them, healing his arm included. The process overall was a rousing success, though. He got a firmer grasp on how to effectively utilize incantations and the wanton us of the ahjer around him seemed to keep beasts away. Best of all, he sufficiently distracted himself until he spotted the town. The next morning.

Strange.

Taking a longer look at it, it appeared more like an encampment. The fortifications were largely wooden, the walls were entirely so. Despite that, they stood tall and thick. Several lookout towers stretched beyond the wall, each housing at least two sentries. The military presence was clear, the crowds he could glimpse lacked any of the disorder a civilian settlement held. There weren’t many buildings he could spot either and the few that he could were all massive and unadorned, resembling barracks rather than homes.

There were also one or two pieces he couldn’t easily identify from such a distance, like the two wooden circles dipped into the river close to the dock.

Best-case scenario, a local guild set this up as a forward base and they planned to claim this part of the forest for resources. That would make their main opposition the environment and wildlife, not other humans. Anything else and he’d probably be seen as a threat, if not a direct enemy.

I wonder how much they know about the tigers. Apparently they don’t have someone who knows the All-tongue so they must be in conflict. Though this is also quite far away.

Now that it was day time, he got a good look at the jungle. He knew it was overgrown, overripe with vegetation, but he’d didn’t quite appreciate how much until now. Trees of varying types coated the area, some wider than his wingspan and some taller than two hundred meters. Where there weren’t trees there were shrubs and grass of even more varying types. Green, while still probably the dominant color, but it served as a mere background to the array of multi-colored plant life that grew here.

He’d noted the light blue moonfire before, but that was only one of several rare plants he noticed. Each had their own splash of color to add to the environment; the deep purple of grave thorns, the pure white of spinroot, the neon yellow of lightleaves. There was even a cluster of iridescent lucyberry bushes. That was the most surprising of all, lucyberries produced the most addicting drug he’d ever seen. They hooked you after your first hit and killed you after your tenth. So devastating were its effects, multiple city-states, kingdoms, and empires ordered all lucyberry bushes to be burned. Spotting some here meant he was truly far away from Aonica.

Dalric had circumnavigated the world though. There were always more secrets to uncover of course, especially below ground, but he was sure he hadn’t just missed a jungle of this size. He should know where this was, but he still didn’t have a clue.

Where on Frysta would lucyberries be allowed to grow?

Nowhere came to mind. His best guess would be a small island deep in the ocean, but the massive river to his left steered him away from that conclusion. He didn’t believe a tiny island could house such a thing.

Looking at the river he hovered down to its edge. Now under the light of the sun, he remarked at how clear the water was for a river that ran through a dense, muddy jungle. He would not have expected any level of transparency. Yet here it was, appearing exceedingly appetizing. He wouldn’t drink from it yet though, he could sense a lot of ahjer within it. Ahjer-tinged water wasn’t always safe for consumption and he had no clue how his body would react. It could be a boon to him, it could be a poison. With civilization so close, there was no need to cast that die.

He did hover over to a deeper spot to catch his reflection however. The river obviously wasn’t still, but it moved slow enough for him to make out his face. He couldn’t recall what passed for attractive to humans, but he’d definitely go down as handsome to giants. If he was more than twice his height of course. He’d noticed his olive skin before, but with it came an exceptionally chiseled jaw, defined cheeks, dark grey hair, and bright green eyes. He could nitpick the nose and ears being on the bigger side, but he was too busy celebrating the small victory to notice them. His old face was the picture perfect opposite of appealing. He wasn’t too busy basking in his small blessing to notice the enormous alligator burst out of the water though.

Its massive jaws, longer than the length of his body, shut just as he slipped away. They both made eye contact as the gator fell back into the safety of the river. He could spot the early sparks of intelligence within them. It seemed to take the ease in which Dalric foiled its ambush as a sign to skedaddle, but Dalric was having none of it.

~”Deep sea or shallow pond, I reign.”~

He injected some of his ahjer into the spell to quicken the process. The gator was rapid in water, but it wasn’t rapid enough to escape. Its entire multiple ton, multiple meter frame halted instantly within a large blob of water. Dalric slowly lifted the sphere blob as the gator furiously shifted around. It moved enough to slightly distort the sphere, but all that accomplished was a few gallons of displaced water. Once the sphere, with the gator trapped inside, was eye level, he squished it. The water immediately pressed in on itself. He could have made the process slow, but there was no reason to torture the alligator just because it chose the wrong prey. Locked within the compressed sphere of water, it was swiftly squashed to death. It’s bones breaking and its organs turned to mush.

Dalric laid the crushed corpse on the side of the river, some wildlife would get a nice hefty meal out of it. He considered bringing it with him to the camp, but he wasn't sure how that would go down. Especially considering he’d definitely ruined most of the parts one would want to extract. It would be a good show of strength, but he just didn’t know if that would get a beneficial reaction. It could just put them on the defensive. A man flying in with the crushed remains of a fifteen-meter beast hovering behind him wasn’t necessarily someone you’d be eager to trust. So he left it.

The hunter became the hunted and now it would feed the jungle. Such is the circle of life.

Now, back to that camp.

"Mom! Dad! What happened?!"

Raphaela dashed towards the procession of soldiers coming through the gate. They’d been gone for so long and she’d been worried sick. It was deep into the night now and they left for the Gathering at midday. Last time they went, they were back before nightfall.

Her father was usually at the front, leading the soldiers, but she couldn’t spot him so she ran towards her mother’s guards instead. None of the outer line of soldiers dared bar her way, not that they had the strength to. She easily wedged herself between them as she frantically called for her mother.

"Mom! Where's dad?!"

Her mother didn’t respond. She laid unconscious on a thin hammock held aloft by four of her guards. All four of them were injured. So was she, even more so than them. While they all sported spinsilk bandages and excess healing ointments, only her mother still bled through them. Her father was still nowhere to be seen.

"WHAT FUCKING HAPPENED?!"

"Be silent child. Now is not the time."

Her aunt, Selene, trudged through the gate not long after her mother was carried through. She was also injured, but not enough to incapacitate her.

Raphaela couldn't possibly be silent. Never in her life had she wanted to scream more.

"What happened to you all? What's going on?"

"Quiet. Come, I'll explain once we're inside."

She didn’t want to be quiet, she wanted answers. How could she stay silent and obedient when she could see her mother bleeding through her hammock. Where was her father? No. They needed to stop being quiet and answer her. She’d force them to if she had to. And she planned on doing just that, until she caught a glimpse of what laid beyond the gate.

Corpses. Many, many corpses.

“What..ha… hap—”

Selene averted her eyes, “Enough child, come with me.”

This time Raphaela listened.

They both walked in silence until they reached the archon’s castle. Even though it was meant to serve as her father’s home, he never used it as such. Instead, it was reserved for important meetings, festivals, and ceremonies. Raphaela was born in it and would one day complete her coming of age in it. Today however, they would be conducting a funeral. A massive one… and Raphaela had yet to see her father.

Once inside the castle, the guards handed her mother off to more experienced medics. Her aunt assured her that she’d be okay, but the sullen look in her aunt's eyes gave her no confidence. She didn’t dare ask where her father was. The answer may break her.

Still in silence, she and her aunt made their way to the Hall of Heroes. Though it was called a hall it was actually just a large room within the castle. The largest room in fact. Within it, statues of every previous archon stood at attention, spiritually guarding it against their enemies. Paintings of each of their triumphs, be they in combat or technology, adorned the walls. Holy scriptures, written in gold and outlining the core edicts of their colony laid in cases next to them. Its name may have only mentioned the great leaders of the past, but the contents of the room were far richer than that.

Also within this sacred chamber was an exceptionally detailed map stretched across a large table. This was the venue, under the guidance of those that walked before them, that any and all important discussion about the colony occurred in.

“Sit. We’ll wait here for your uncles.”

Only uncles? What about aun—No. Don’t think about it. At least they lived. At least… at least… but dad...

Raphaela shook her head. She wouldn’t think about that until she saw him. Alive or…

…

An hour passed before her uncles appeared. Only two of them walked through the door and they were both injured, heavily. Her uncle Cleon was missing a leg.

Without saying a word, she ran to embrace him.

He struggled to withstand the weight of her hug, but once he did he carefully rubbed her back, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

She didn’t know when she started crying, but by the time she unlatched herself from him his shoulder was drenched. Seeing his soft smile, his attempts at reassuring her, only made the tears flow more. She didn’t understand what was happening, everything was perfect just this morning. Why was the whole world upside down? Her advanced stealth training just started last month and her parents had been taking her out hunting every week. Their next hunt was supposed to be tomorrow. Now they were...they were…

Before the streams of tears turned into hysterical waterfalls, her mother lumbered into the room.

“Mom!”

She wanted to run to her mother immediately, but she stopped herself. Her mother didn’t look good at all. The bleeding had subsided, but her face looked almost withered. Her whole body seemed shriveled and wilted. They weren’t the typical signs of battle.

“Come my daughter.”

Raphaela listened and walked towards her, slowly. As soon as she got close enough, they tapped foreheads.

“It’ll be alright.”

“...Wha..what happened?” Raphaela was almost too afraid to ask anymore.

Her mother heaved a heavy sigh, “That is what we’re here to determine.”

“We know what happened! We’ve been betrayed! If not for Aegeus’ blessing we’d have all died there. They’d have massacred us all!”

Betrayed? The Gathering?

Her mother slowly made her way to a seat as her other uncle continued yelling. She sat on the central one. The most prominent one. The one reserved for the leader of their colony... in taking that specific seat she had accidentally confirmed the thought Raphaela had been desperately avoiding. Her mother was now archon. Which meant her father wasn’t. That meant..he was…

“Dead! They won’t stop until we’re all dead, we must evacuate immediately. We must!”

Cleon took a seat to her mother’s right, “Ewan. Stop. Have you no shame? You speak of running away in the presence of our ancestors?”

“This is no time for shame. They killed more than half of us! If they strike again now, what could we do?”

“First.” Her mother cut in, “Let’s ascertain the facts. What actually happened?”

Everyone looked towards her aunt, the best spymaster and scout in their colony and probably in all the colonies.

“Ewan is correct, we were betrayed. After the Gathering of the Archons, we were all to begin our marches home as we do every year. Two of the archons didn’t. They circled back with their armies and ambushed us in a pincer attack.”

“How did they manage to sneak around our scouts?”

“They didn’t, they killed them. Swiftly and silently... It is my failing, I had grown complacent and gave that role to our most inexperienced. I… I did so as a form of training. I would have never thought they’d actually dare attack us.”

Cleon attempted to comfort her, “It is not your fault. No one could have expected such an ambush. The Gathering is a sacred event.”

“Sacred no longer. Aegeus may have saved us once, but now we must make the wise decision.”

“Enough, Ewan. The last, very last option is evacuation. We will not abandon these grounds.” Her mother stared him down. Even gaunt, her stare was frightening. “I only fought Fedon and his band of buffoons. Who was the other that betrayed us?”

“Alexander.”

Raphaela watched in awe as her mother ahjer burst from her body in fury.

“That disgusting rat. I should have known. They’ve feared our power since his father’s time. Years they’ve been seeking our position and now they’ve made their move.”

Cleon chimed in, “Until you’re healed, we’re likely bottom of the pile now. Even below them.”

Ewan snorted, “Likely?”

How can they be so calm??

“Yes, likely. Our strength had never been direct combat.”

“True, it’s always laid in ambushes. Like the very same one we suffered from. They used our own tactics against us and it worked! We barely survived.”

“Speaking of which.” Her mother redirected the conversation, “Do we know what that was?”

“Aegeus’ blessing no doubt.”

“Ewan, please. I’m asking for specifics.”

No one said a thing.

“So my ahjer triples out of nowhere, my guards suddenly gain strength at the brink of exhaustion and we have no understanding why or how? Cleon?”

“I already checked the scriptures and there was no mention of it.”

“Serene?”

“I’ve never heard of or seen anything like it.”

“I see. Something to look into for the future then. Now we must discuss what t—”

One of Selene’s top scouts burst through the door panting.

Ewan yelped, “They’re here!”

“Calm yourself! What news do you bring?”

The scout was truly out of breath, “An..an… angel. An angel appe...appeared. It attacked the..the…”

An angel?

“Take a deep breath. We’re not understanding you.”

The scout did just that, taking a moment to catch his breath before delivering the news, “An angel appeared in front of the tigers’ colony. They attacked it, but the angel can control the sky. They may all be dead.”

Her mother looked around the table, but she only met confused expressions

“What?”