In the total silence, that ruled the room, you could hear if a pin would fall on floor.

The blue masked blade master always talked too much, but it is better if he just talks, his other favorite activity results too much blood and gore.

Absence of his mask, or his presence here without his 'colleagues' is not important, the only thing I need to focus is getting out of here.

I always hated 'that' title.

"Sensei, you must joking. He can't be the Inquisitor. He doesn't look anything like-" voiced the youth in hakama with short spiky hair and pair of short swords.

"That right, there is no way he can be the Inquisitor." interjects another youth with staff and bald head.

I return to review status of my body. It is not the worst my body has experienced, but that does not change the fact that I am in critical condition, 'disabled' and surrounded my enemies.

The most pressing concern is the still lunged sword in me. I am not sure when or from whom around the next attack will come, and I shouldn't stop being vigilant just because everything is quite right now.

I have lost trust in everyone and everything a long time ago.

With quick motion I grab the pommel of huge slab of metal, that should not be called a sword, and rip it out of me. As the sword falls and clangs against the marble floor all eyes return to me.

My left lung is not is state where I can heal it, so there is no need to waste mana trying to repair it, later I will have to rebuild the lung from zero. But if I don't get rid of lung's remains they will stay and rot in me, causing inflammation in best case and death in worst. I could spend huge amount of energy to recycle lung's remains like last time, but that is not an option right now.

Plunging my hand into still open huge crack, which starts from my shoulder and ends in my stomach, I rip out as much of the lung's remains as I can. The grotesque pieces fall from my hand on the ground with a wet slapping sound.

An overwhelming desire to break the arrow that is stuck in my neck finally wins, but as always, I am really 'lucky'. The fired arrows are not just enchanted, but are also made out of thick steel.

I rip out the arrow, which is stuck in my neck, in the direction it was traveling before it got stuck in me. As I plug out the arrow, it's rear part is scraping the pass-through wound and making it larger, but with a bit of mana I stop the bleeding, and with a deep cough I finally clean my air pipe, which should increase the amount and speed of oxygen I can take in.

I return to breathing and circulating mana, which should help a bit with reconnecting the open arteries, that have been closed this whole time using mana alone. I feel as the wounds slowly close, but it is still too damn slow for the situation I am in currently.

"Calm down friend. No one will attack you anymore." says my old acquaintance.

He may say that, but it is not his decision.

Eyes of many guards jump between me and pieces of my lung lying next to the dead body of their colleague.

"This is not your decision blade master. He killed the personal attendant of her highness in the throne room, there will be consequences." says an old man in grey robe from the right side of the throne.

"If he really is the 'Inquisitor', then we have an international issue here. As the representative of Empire, is there anything you would like to say Councilor?"

Looking at the person on the left side of the throne, the horrendous situation finally sinks in.

Red clothes, that should have been obvious.

Empire always sends their representative to other kingdoms, but for one to be a councilor to king.

FUCK.

He can't say that there is an open hunt on me publicly, it will raise many question, which they can't answer, like why am I hunted, what did I do, or who made the official request, but he will try his best to get me killed, and send my head to Protus.

"Well, 'Councilor'?" says the amused voice coming from the throne.

With a smile he could barely hold back, he faced the throne and begun.

"As you know your highness, we had a small problem with the Zeron fanatics for the past decade, we tried our best to help them and 'clean' their ranks, but to our greatest regret, few perpetrators were able to slip, and run away."

Bowling slightly he continues.

"We humbly ask for apology for the damage our shortcomings have caused. The Sun Empire would be eternally grateful if you would take capital punishment against this fanatic for his crimes against the Empire and your great kingdom."

God FUCKING damn it. He actually did it.

Someone could say that I am the one who was attacked, and that it is fucked up that I somehow end up as the bad guy, but as soon as you understand how those in power think, and how they work, things start to make sense.

Laws, fairness, justice, right and wrong never existed.

That, what will benefit those in power will become the law and 'culture'.

You need self sacrificing soldiers? Make the people genuinely believe that it is the greatest honor to die for your country.

Need to weaken the nation? Destroy that what holds it together, education, customs, traditions, and especially children, the future of nation. Corrupt them, make them weak and gullible and the nation will crumble by itself within a generation.

If I die here-

[Don't you fucking dare! We are not dead! Not dead! NOT FUCKING YET! ]

It would be great if I got some help from the person that brought me here, but she is petrified while looking at me, from behind the shields of several guards.

She has seen me in similar physical state, so my appearance shouldn't be the reason. It may be because we are in throne room, and her shyness overwhelmed her, but by her previous eccentric behavior it could be ruled out.

It is hard to predict what happens next. So I should prepare for the worst.

People always needed scary stories, and because of that they created monsters. They morph simple wild animals into grotesque demons with huge claws and fangs, with hundred lives and size vastly disproportionate to reality.

I did a lot of stuff, I won't deny that. I deserve the title, I deserve the scorn and hate. But at some point the 'Inquisitor' somehow became something much more sinister and evil than Lucifer himself.

People started piling crimes that I did not commit, morphing me into creature of their nightmares. And all those images blended together, contradicting one another, but still somehow maintaining its shape.

Maybe it was just easy to find one 'object', a scapegoat of sort, to blame all the problems in the world for.

Blood brotherhood and blood legion did just that. They publicly blamed all their mistakes, errors and fails on that image, so they could clean the whole organization of the dark and evil past.

It doesn't matter if it is a lie.

If you repeat it enough, it will become reality.

My opinion did not matter then, it does not matter now.

I did not heal my body, just made sure that I could move. But now that the body more or less is ready for action I can start healing. But if I start ripping the arrows out of me, people around will instantly react, so for now it is better to keep them there while healing all the internals wounds and preparing for the moment they act.

The past several dozen of seconds of silence was taken by people to digest the fact that the Inquisitor is not just 'publicly' in the list of 'dangerous' fanatics, but Sun Empire would be grateful for his death.

Everyone visibly tensed, and even my old acquaintance became silent.

The atmosphere that was quickly tensing up more was cut short by the voice of the old man in grey clothes on the right side of throne.

"Princess, did you bring this person here for a reason?"

All eyes turned to Olana. She visibly paled and started breathing much heavier.

Another few seconds of silence were broken by the voice from the throne.

"Olana."

She visibly shuddered. While slowly turning in the direction of throne.

This slow movement of events is good for me, more time to heal, but I am not sure how can I slow it down even more.

"Y-Yes father." she squeezed

"Where are your personal guards?"

She visibly swallowed.

"T-They.. they.. died." she responds while looking down.

"Why did you bring the 'Inquisitor'?"

"I-I didn't know! I thought that he is just blood brother, I thought that he can help finding Melania! Using him we can finally reach uncle Jorgan. With him we can find Melania, she could still be alive. We still can, if we-"

"Enough."

Dozen seconds of silence followed.

"Olana." whispers the queen near her. Taking her hands in her own she looks at Olana while she quivers a bit. She open her mouth to say something, but closes it slowly. Queen tries again several times but fails.

"Yorgan died." says the King.

"What?"

"How?" squeezes Olana

"Quite some time ago. He died nobly in battle against Pkar shamans from Lort-thol continent." says the king

"We couldn't tell you." says queen.

"I traveled to Empire and Qing for nothing. They died for nothing." whispers Olana in half daze as she falls on her knees repeating 'sorry' again and again.

The room attention is taken by sound of laughter, deep, sinister, unhinged. I couldn't understand where it was coming, until I noticed that my chest was rising and falling.

Oh. I am the one who is laughing.

All the attention returned to me.

"Is this what they told you?" I say with barely recognizable voice.

"Noble battle? Against who? Pkar Shamans? Those overgrown magic orcs?"

The room continued to fill with my laughter which I can't stop.

"Pkar killed Jorgan? Ha! Fucking Pkar! They couldn't even leave a scratch on him."

It doesn't look like they will let me walk away. If this world wants to burn so much, then I will make sure that they have the biggest pyre.

"Did Empire emissary tell you that?" I said looking directly at the Councilor on the left side of the throne.

"If Jorgan really died in Noble 'battle' as Empire says, then they wouldn't mind telling where his body is buried."

In confusion and silence everyones eyes turn to the councilor.

He doesn't know.

He can't know.

He is just a small chess piece, nothing more. He may even have genuinely believed that information too. But you barked on the wrong tree, and because of your greed and desire for recognition from the next Legat, I will take you down with myself.

"Stop it friend." said the blade master. "I know you guys were close, but don't" he finished while looking at me with pleading eyes.

[If Jorgan really had noble or even royal blood in him, just few words from us can start a war. But who cares? The continent will be in flames one way or another.]

My attention is taken by sudden movement in my vision. Queen slowly walks to me and stop few meters from the place that I am pinned.

"My brother... Jorgan... please" She says pleadingly. "...tell me... please"

Looking closer, I find too many features resembling Jorgan. From many stories Jorgan told me about himself a name, I thought long forgotten, leaves my mouth.

"Twinkle"

Her eyes open wide, after which a smile breaks on her face, while tears start streaming down her face. "Yes" she squeezes through the wide smile and tears.

You know what, FUCK IT.

"We knew too much. He, even more so."

As I think of what I can say, words stop in my throat. I realize that no one can, not just believe, but understand the whole truth.

"We were sent on suicide mission, few survived." after few seconds of silence I continue "There were meant to be no survivors. During an official meeting we were back-stabbed."

Her face slowly morphs from confusion to disbelieve.

"Tvaar poison." I state shortly.

The previous emotions quickly change from disbelief to horror. From horror to realization, and finally from realization to anger and hate.

"Your Majesty, this is farce. This person is spewing ridiculous lies to save his life. We are not even sure if he is the real one."

This idiot. This could have worked if at the start you didn't confirm that it is me and you want me dead.

Tvaar is an anti-magic poison, made more likely of the same ingredient as were my anti-magic bombs, mana devourers from dead continent. Only the few have enough information to even theorize it.

But people know of only one place where tvaar comes from, the same location as anti-magical bombs, the empire.

Turning back to the queen, I finish what I wanted to say.

"I burried him in Andaral. At the place where you got your name."

Her mask of rage falls apart as her knees hit the floor and she starts sobbing. As her sobs fill the room, with my eyes I take a quick look around, to once more calculate the situation.

As if cold water was poured over me, I think over what I have said.

I can not see the kings face from here, but I don't think that even if he believed me he would tarnish his relationship with empire, even more, he would use it as a good exchange piece to get a better deal.

What happened doesn't matter, what will happen does.

Who the fuck cares about past.

[Just you.]

Not good. I think I stalled the events as much as I can. But as the attention is back at me, they can react or take action any second.

[Oh? But didn't someone want to die here and leave this shell for HIM? Whats with the mood swings? Decide on something and fucking stick to it!]

Taking a deepest and quietest breath I can, with a quick motion of my both hands, I plug the arrows sticking out of my legs and make the fastest leap I can behind one of the columns on the left side of the hall. The moment I reach the column sound of arrows crashing sweeps through the hall. A stinging sensation returns to the position where my left lung should be and looking down I find a new arrow head sticking out of left side of my chest.

Maybe one of those curses really got stuck on me. Somehow too much bad 'stuff' happens to my left lung and area around it.

I plug out the meter long steel arrow out of my chest and continue with the other arrows sticking through my body. As I have prepared mana beforehand there is not much blood seeping and the wounds start closing.

Shouts to regroup and take action sound from loud commanding leaders.

But I need to move as they will circle me in few moments. I no longer have protection from spells on the anti-magic path. Spells may take some time to cast but I have even less left, they will reach me before that.

I will live. Even if it is for one more day.

Not yet. NOT FUCKING YET.

Gathering mana in my legs i make a leap to the next column, which is closer to the entrance from which I came.

As I land behind another column another hail of arrows shreds the column and pieces of it fall off and with crashing sound impact the marble floor.

A new sound of something crashing brings much more horror to me. Peeking with one eye from behind the column I see the entrance closed.

GOD FUCKING DAMN IT.

Sound of metal boots clanging against marble floor come closer.

SHIT.

Enforcers, Mages and Skilled archers working together in combination with bad terrain is usually a sure path to doom and quick death.

Looking around for other exit is not possible right now.

Wait.

Where does the light come from into this hall?

I find huge colorful windows starting from about 15 meters high and reaching the ceiling.

'If you can't move horizontally, move vertically.'

I quickly climb the column using my open palms, thankfully strength returned to my hands.

With rapid movement I quickly reach a quite high point, but a sudden chill on my back makes me turn and look left and find archers in position and looking at me with their crossbow already pointing in my direction.

FUCK.

Sending all the energy I can, I leap in the direction of the glass windows which is filled with many colorful picture.

Halfway through, two burning sensations on my stomach and leg tells me that something hit me. But it doesn't matter, I will be much safer as soon as I reach the other side.

The windows was much thicker than I thought, at least 5 centimeters in thickness.

As soon windows glass breaks under the velocity and momentum of my body explosion of heat hits my back and sends me even furtherer, as I catch a glimpse of yellow fire spell exploding at the location where I was a fraction of a second before.

But that is not the problem.

Looking down I find that there is at least 250 meters distance to the ground.

The fucking hall was on the top of tower!

HOW THE FUCK DID I GET SO HIGH!?

Maybe some kind of illusion?

[FOCUS!]

Fuck. I will splat against the floor if I don't decrease the speed of falling. I rip the two new arrows out of me.

Reorienting myself I try to get closer to the tower wall. But I miscalculated and got closer to it too fast and just bounced back from it after the impact.

I try to repeat the action again, but this time much slower. Regretfully the ground which is quickly coming closer makes it much harder to stay calm.

As soon as I get closer I try to brush against the wall rather than hit it, and succeed in slowing down a bit, but quickly change the decision as some kind of balcony appears on the trajectory where I am traveling, which is somewhere in the middle of the tower wall.

Gathering mana in my legs I jump away from the wall and evade the balcony, after which I repeat the previous action and start sliding on the tower wall again.

Thankfully, I finally feel as I really slow down.

But another pressing issues appears. The location, where I will more likely land, is filled with guards.

Searching around for a bit 'better' location, I find an area which looks like a moat around the castle.

Landing in the water should be better than landing on earth.

Should be...

I try to calculate and at a specific point send mana into my legs and jump as far away from the tower wall as I can.

But I made another error.

I am on the right trajectory, but I am again gathering speed and I am already falling too fast.

SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT.

Bracing for the impact I bundle together.

My vision fills with explosion of yellow, red and white fireworks.

Groaning I find myself on my back in the middle of moat.

I feel nothing, as if my body is paralyzed. But I don't have time. I command my limbs to start moving, to float closer to the shore.

Who the FUCK said that water is better than ground. I feel as if someone tried to rip me apart, and used just enough strength not to succeed, but at the same time to make it as painful as he possible can.

As soon as I reach the shore I slowly climb out of water and collapse on my back.

I take several deep breaths.

I will not repeat that again.

I jerk up remembering that there are still people pursuing me. Sitting up I look around and find the shore empty. Am I really that lucky?

Or not. The adrenaline finally wears off and I feel as if I weight thousand ton. The wounds start bleeding and world starts spinning.

Not yet.

They can't track me my mana, so I may be safe. Wait... My lung should be still lying there in the hall room...

But do they have anyone who could track me by blood?

Do they even know that it is possible? It was quite commonly used during the operations of blood brotherhood.

There shouldn't be any blood brother in the city, but still.....

Fuck it. I stand up and start walking in south direction, trying to evade the main roads as much as I can.

With my appearance I may attract too much attention in this quarter.

I need to rest first, everything else can wait.

...

I sit at one of the back alleys of the city. The main roads tell totally different story in comparison to what I see around.

The main road is buzzing with activity, a lot of merchants, carriages and people.

Everyone is moving. Everyone has a different face. But one word can describe them all.

Alive.

Happy and sad, serious and carefree.

In contrast to it the back alleys look like a totally different world.

Dead eyes.

And most of the people are just the lying around, doing nothing.

They are more bones than human.

Luckily, I still have gold from the wyvern. They took all the equipment, but didn't search me. Who would believe that hobo looking man has a fortune in each boot.

I can change the fate of people of this alley if I want, I don't need that much gold anymore.

[Really? Do you really believe something will change? Money doesn't matter. Even if you give them all the gold you have they will either drink through it, spend it on bullshit or get killed by someone because of it. Resources are worth nothing if you don't know what to do with them.]

[So lie along these lazy bums and rest. We can think about escaping the city after that.]

....

Just because I was resting didn't mean I left my guard down. Sending mana into my ears I was able to listen to what people on the main road are saying.

Most of it as usually is bullshit and bragging, but few things I learned were worth the 3 hours I was resting.

First of all. King has nineteen wives.

19.

Who the fuck needs 19 wives? If you have 2 or 3 children with each you will get at least half a hundred offsprings.

How do you even please 19 wives?

Anyway. It doesn't matter. I made the right decision to run away. I don't think the King would care about the opinion of one of his many wives, even less about one of his too many children.

Second. Rumor that northern kingdom citizen were 'liberated' from their tyrants by Qing and Empire.

This makes no sense. Northern kingdom has too many ties to empire. It was more of a province than a separate kingdom. Why would Empire even give part of 'their' land to Qing.

But there is one point that strengthens that rumor.

The two wizards that destroyed Samolesh. One of them should have been from Qing. That fast beam magic was really strange, but it strongly reminded me of that fast and powerful ritualistic light magic from Qing.

Qing started.

And the third part, closely connected to second.

Desert Alliance is no more.

All the cities just fell apart. And the western cities were absorbed by Caliphate.

The Desert Alliance was always sketchy, but because their leadership was so well hidden, that I believed them to be nearly undestroyable. Like Hidra. Doesn't matter how many cities you destroy, new ones would always grow again.

Things became too chaotic.

I was in those cities weeks ago...

I can't be sure in anything anymore.

I need to move.

Standing up I continue walking, I need to get some equipment, food and water. And who knows if the king already has closed all the gates.

As I walk by an old man, who is barely more than bones, in filthy brown rag, he stands up and turns to looks at me with closed eyes.

Before I can do anything he appears before me and his hand squeezes around my neck with titanically strength. Before I can react I am slammed against the building wall.

Eyes of old man open as bright white light shines out of them.

He opens his mouth, out of which a bright white light is coming too, and an ethereal voice comes out of his unmoving mouth.

"THE WAR SHALL COME MORTAL. THE FALLEN ONE WILL BE REBORN, AND WITH THAT, WE, HEAVENS SHALL COME DOWN AND CLEANS THE EARTH."

Using both hands I try to unclench his hand but fail, as the already limited oxygen decreases with each second.

A bright white ring starts to shine on top of his head, while wings of pure white grow out of his back.

"THE FALLEN ONE SHALL BE REBORN MORTAL, AND YOU SHALL NOT STOP THAT. WE HAVE WAITED FOR TOO LONG."

As I gather more mana to try again to unclench the hand squeezing my neck, light disappears and the old man falls apart in ashes.

I fall down and after several coughs look at the location where the old man was.

Right now there is a small heap of black ashes and the same filthy brown rag on top of it.

Looking around for any other enemies I start breathing again.

After half a minute of breathing I start laughing.

Fucking light spirits. Now even they hunt me. Angeles my ass, nothing more than an over-glorified hungry spirits.

The thing is when a person has an affinity, it means much, much more. No one will give you mana just because you gave some of your own to them.

That gate is open in two direction. And when the other side wants, it can send mana and posses the vessel.

What?

Did you think someone is sending their to you mana just because you kindly asked?

People call it many fancy names. Avatar, Titan of Element, Chosen of Spirits.

I call it slave, vessel, invading module.

And as everyone has several affinities, there are none who can be fully possessed, as other spirits will interfere.

The bodies just fall apart.

But what if there exist a someone who is has one single affinity?

A perfect vessel just for you.

There of course exists is no such thing.

But there exists one which has absolutely no affinity.

A perfect vessel for anyone, who will be able to bind it.

But you can't find it, can't track it, can't possess it, as there are simply no connections to that vessel.

Usual methods don't work, and some, went as far as to do something that is against the world itself.

With my hand I trace down the red-black scar on right side of my face.

Everyone wants war, with its start everyone can enter the game.

Everyone wants something, and this is the greatest opportunity they will ever have.

And my death is start signal for this theater play.

Sound of door opening and sound of shouts fill the empty alley, which returns me back to reality.

"I work day and night, try to put bread on our table and what do you do? You drink to half-death and leave Clara alone!"

I turn my head right and see as woman slaps man across his face.

"Trash"

"Are you satisfied? Are you happy? Now give me money on booze." says the man in his late thirties and extends his swaying hand.

"You don't care. As long as you are drunk you are okay with everything?"

"Yes, I am okay."

"Why did I even marry you?"

"Because no one else would."

"What? I had dozens of suitors! But I choose you because I was young and stupid!"

"Suitors or clients?"

"Don't you are! You think I like this job? You think I like selling my body? I have to work like this to feed you and Clara!" woman growled

"Ahahahah. Me and Clara? Really? You are doing it for us? If so, tell me when is her birthday? Tell me?"

"Clara huh. When is the last time you spoke with Clara? When is the last time you read her a story?"

"I am a good mother, I love her and I will do anything for her."

"Enough lying. You love no one. You make it look like I am the bad guy here, but deep down you know the truth. You like this life. You like whoring. You love it. The attention, the things they do to you. You like as they violently rape you. You even search for men like that. That, is the only thing that makes you happy. Don't lie to yourself. Did you really think that I don't know? Did you really think that I don't know that Clara isn't mine?"

"Yo-"

"Shut up! Just give me the fucking money, I want to forget everything, maybe I will be lucky enough to die today and leave you to your happy life."

I don't even know what to say.

Everyone and everything is rotten.

Maybe a total cleansing is really needed.

Maybe.

...

After buying everything I need and a new horse I left the city that night.

Somehow, after the events on the day, I expected a hell lot of problems, but nothing happened. The city didn't change at all. I still believed that some kind of trap would be waiting for me at gates.

But still, nothing.

I don't even know what to say.

Well it doesn't matter.

The travel ends in the next city.

South Dungeon.

This is a story I heard from one of the summoned.

He told me about an evil ring that could not be destroyed. A ring that held great power. He told me that it was hunted after by everyone, and the only way to destroy it was to throw it into the volcano.

It sounded ridiculous back then. But right now, it doesn't.

South dungeon is actually active volcano.

And maybe as in that story, if I cast the evil into the blazing inferno, the world will become a better place.

I don't know if it will. No one can know that.

Will I even care? I would be dead by that time.

I always thought that there would be another day, a better day, a brighter day.

But now, that I can approximately count the time I have left, it doesn't look like it will be better for anyone.

Continental war, degradation of values, economical and social hell, and it looks like no one cares.

Or maybe I just care too much.