《Soul's Curtain》Chapter 2 - Muscle
Advertisement
After being freed by the voice he had been plagued with, the first thing Illias did was listen to himself. Or rather the buzzing in his chest, his truesoul. It simply vibrated a bit and provided a warm feeling in his chest but it provided him with feelings of comfort and safety, however as he turned eastwards after exiting the abandoned prison and coming to face with The Great Curtain, his chest throbbed and he felt the almost tangible excitement towards the prospect of heading towards it. Illias decided to reavaluate what he knew before heading off in that direction, the pilgrimage to the great curtain wasn't a long one but it'd make him sufficiently tired.
Illias listed the things he knew about his circumstances, he was almost certain that he was one of the rumoured Called, one of the few people allowed to pass The Great Curtain during it's Triannual reverse wave. These Called, as far as he heard were spoken to by the Curtain to enter it and no one survived refusing though it was generally agreed that if one could enter they would and should.
The Great Curtain as he knew it was one of the two so called 'borders of the mortal realm', The curtain stretched tall, into the azure sky, and was delicate in appearance. It seemed to be made of crystal, ever-shifting like the great lakes in both shape and colour - seamlessly shifting between most colours with the exception of white, black and grey. The second 'border' was the truer of the two in relation to it's nickname, for it was called the Abyss. It is said that at the edge of the mortal realm all land just ceases and descends to an infinite darkness, it would be called the truer of the two due to no record of anyone entering surviving. While not actually having seen it himself, Illias had deemed it a place worth exploring, but he would never really go out of his way to go there because of the sinister connotations surrounding it.
Advertisement
As Illias made haste across the scorched fields of Dunlock, he thought about his time in prison. It'd been horrible obviously but what he really meant was when the calls began. At first it really wasn't that bad, if not bad including being incapacitated convulsing on the floor or vomiting up what you had eaten three dinners ago, but then it had gotten bad really quickly. Illias had to get special medical attention each time, he thought it was likely that each time they saw him produce enough blood from each of his holes that they'd get the memo around this time of the year that something wasn't quite right, that he was one of the Called. When the rumbling began was the first time in his life that Illias had ever felt so vulnerable, it was like the fabric of his world was collapsing around him leaving him alone, and once the guards stopped coming in at his screams it had gotten worse. He was glad in a way that the prison ended abandoned because of the War between Dunlock and Valsiek, because when he screamed he knew that there was no one left to ignore him.
Honestly Illias would be glad to put this saga of his life behind on his journey to the so-called 'Land of Immortality', but what really really irked him was the reasons that he was left in prison for. It was a well-known fact that if the Called didn't recieve their call that they'd die. Or rather that they'd turn into a rampaging beast beyond control. He was annoyed that they didn't kill him, or at least let him go - many thousands of people were held in the now-abandoned Dunlock Prison. He found it was weird that he was annoyed that the people which brutally imprisoned him didn't kill him but he was irked nonetheless.
Advertisement
The threat of death didn't feel like much to Illias, he never felt much about himself in general but the threat of others dying because of him really made his blood boil.
Illias made it to the curtain but the buzzing didn't feel right, which annoyed him a bit. He could only think 'Why hadn't you pointed me in the direction I had to go right in the first place' but he supposed that without being in close enough proximity to the Curtain he would never find his way to the entrance. From the intensity of the buzzing in his chest he expected that it was still a day or so from his time to enter the curtain, and that he still had a ways to go - he was tired but he had to go so he moved along the curtain.
Feeling exhausted from his trek southbound, but satisfied from the heat in his chest subsiding to the point of near-non-existence, Illias approached the group of people camped outside the curtain. They had obviously seen his approach as did he see their encampment in the tree-less, hill-less lands surrounding the curtain because as he neared the encampment so they sent a figure to meet him midway.
"State your intentions" the muscl-(Illias barely stopped himself from blurting that out) man said, he was a tall man - probably the tallest that Illias had ever seen - but it was an understatement to call this beast a man, the way he was built made him seem more muscle than person. He donned leather armour, no shirt below, and appropriate matching legwear. The man wore no shoes, and his muscles seemed to shape the armour itself with it contorting around his body perfectly even when he was moving.
Illias naturally said the truth;
"I have been Called." He said, Illias felt that as all the called originated from the mortal world that they should stay together, or he at least thought that it wouldn't be good to be openly anatagonistic to one another thus he simply said the truth.
The muscle cocked his eyebrow at this, bringing Illias's eyes to the shining blad head that he'd somehow managed to look past, probably because his pecks were larger that the mans head. Muscle then reached behind to the satchel held to his left side, pulling out a rhombahedrical crystal, not perfectly shaped but crooked with scrapes and indentations. The crystal glowed like The Great Curtain and shared its colour - which led to the obvious conclusion that it was a piece of The Great Curtain removed in some fashion and clearly it was a struggle to get it off.
As muscle moved the crystal towards Illias, he reached for it and as his hand neared the crystal its colour shifted abruptly before settling on a jade-like colour and even texture.
"Welcome aboard" Muscle laughed, which sounded more like a battlecry, before patting Illias on the back nearly flattening him. He raised his eyebrow conspiciously again but continued laugh uproariously. Muscle led Illias back to the camp to meet the others that had gathered.
Advertisement
Super Gene Optimization Fluid
Due to an unexpected turn of events, Xia Fei consumed a Super Gene Optimization Fluid that bore no brand, expiry date, instructions or stated its place of origin. Our story begins here…
8 197Rise of New Olympus
Percy arrived in a dimension where Avenger from the movies are real. In this world there are no Olympians no Camp Half Blood. Now he has to raise the New Olympus with the help from Avengers and the remaining Greek Gods. This is a story where Percy becomes the God of Seas.
8 229To Be Heard: A MHA Fan-fic
Why were they so cruel ? Why did they have to treat her differently just because she was different? It wasn't her fault. She didn't choose to be this way. She didn't choose to be different. It wasn't her choice. So why? Why was she being treated as if she brought this on herself? Why was she treated as if she did something wrong? She never hurt anyone. She never did any wrong. So why? Simple. She came to realize that the word was a cruel place no matter how much they tried to disguise it. If the world didn't care about her, why should she care about the world? No mater what she did, no one would hear her anyway. She was voiceless ~~~~~~~~~~ Soooo, I have this story posted on webnovel by the same name and image, feel free to check it out over there if you wish. I also have the same user name and profile pic.
8 125The Heroic Tales of Silas Horne
In the year 1858, the system came to the world. It brought with it beings from fantasy and mythology the likes of which the world had never seen before. In the American frontier, a place already known for being a dog eat dog world the system gave bandits the capacity for untold violence, not to mention monsters and system loving fanatics hell-bent on the murder of the innocent. But are they truly so innocent? No one knows what the system is or why it came, they do know one thing though. That the world post system isn't a place for a hero. Luckily for the world, U.S Marshall Silas Horne is no such man. ----- AN: This story is a litRPG inspired by "Randidly Ghosthound" and "The New World" but after reading many such stories and finding them to be a tad samey I decided to write this in a new setting, the Wild West. Also, my release schedule is chaotic, expect at least one 1000 word chapter each day but probably like two more will also be released.
8 71Tales of the Animists
New updates every Monday & Friday (pending me catching up to my own writing) . Length of updates varies as the chapter dictates. Eil has turned thirteen years old. This year he must participate in the test to join King Paulus's Military Institute. It's the one opportunity every Leonaisian gets to escape a lifetime of mining earth stones at-the-risk of punishment from the Sovereign State of Buffon's prefects. Eil is fortunate he belongs to one of the four noble tribes and already knows the secret to passing the test. What he doesn't know is the trick to surviving an institute more determined to see every one of its students dead than graduating alive. It's only when the odds are staunchly against you that the greatest animists are made. This is the philosophy of King Paulus's Military Institute.
8 205Shadows in the Wasteland
A League of Legends fanfiction. COMPLETE. "Such a disappointment. He would have loved to keep this one's soul, lock it tight into a special lantern where she would spend the rest of eternity with him and clip her wings."
8 69