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[PR: Ash]

The group came to the depths of the abode, where a stone arched gateway that was big enough to let a few horse-drawn carriages pass stood. The liquid coral on the ceiling spilled rainbow upon the gateway, illuminating patterns of lightning, claw, petals, branches, insects, and complex runes. Roy had no idea what went into making this gate. It was smooth to the touch, and chaos energy swirled around it.

All Roy did was approach the gateway, and his blood was starting to respond. It started to dance and floated behind his shoulder, converging into star-shaped light. The closer he was to the gateway, the more lights were conjured.

The moment he touched it, the stones around, the river above, the fluorescent plants, the witcher, the Elders, and Regis were illuminated by a beam of magical yellow light. The runes, in an ouroboros pattern, danced. The Elder Blood had activated them, and they flew out of the bright gate. The shimmering stars and runes danced in the air, and the four thought they were standing in the galaxy, a scroll of beauty unfurling before them.

In the center of the light was that gateway, and it felt solemn. Sacred. Roy let out a gasp of astonishment, then he turned to the Unseen Elder. He glanced at the arm that was hanging outside the armor.

dTarher…

CienSiss…

The Elders’ blood pact was turned into a tattoo that clung tightly on the arm. Once they made a successful return to their homeland, Roy could use this mark to command all 328 higher vampires throughout the Continent. Once twenty years had elapsed, the mark would disappear.

***

“Trayche, Sif, are you ready? Do you need to pack before you leave or leave some messages behind for your kin?”

The Elders looked calm. Almost aloof, even.

“We have nothing to pack.”

“We have left… the important messages… in their bloodline… They will know… naturally.”

Roy wasn’t happy with just that. He took this chance to ask all the questions. “After your departure, will there be a new Unseen Elder to take over this place?”

Sif looked at him and answered impatiently. “It takes… at least… a thousand years… for life to evolve… enough to turn… into an Elder… There will not… be an Elder… for a hundred years.”

Roy heaved a sigh of relief. That means this place and the gate belong to me after this. With this gate’s power, I can team up with Ciri and Eileni and travel through worlds with a team of people. “I played a game with that cunning merchant a few years ago, and I won through sheer luck. Perhaps we can defeat it together,” Roy said, licking his lips.

Trayche gave Roy a warning look. “The mysterious merchant… does not have… a permanent address… This world… and the multiverse… are its trading spots… Once we return… we will ask… our kin… to settle this score.”

So sending these Elders back home is also setting that bastard up for a trap. Roy felt happier hearing that. He hoped these powerful vampires could teach that skinhead a painful lesson. “So what’s your homeland like? What’s special about it?”

“You will know once you are there… Do not push your luck, witcher… No more questions…”

Roy turned his attention to the barber-surgeon, still in awe and fear.

“One last chance, Regis. Do you want to go with the Elders? I can’t take the whole tribe back, but I can take one more passenger with me.”

The Elders turned to their lowly subordinate. They didn’t force or request for him to come. They were merely curious.

Regis’ lips twitched, and he froze. He’d gone numb from everything he saw. The things he went through over the last two days were more dramatic than everything that had happened over the last fifty years. Go home? To the place that gave birth to the most ancient and noble of this bloodline? To where the Elders were born? No.

Regis shook his head quickly. He was born in this world, and he was used to the way of living here. Not to mention he’d made friends out of Natanis, Orianna, and Dettlaff, all of whom shared his ideals. And the girl he saw as a daughter, Erin, had just gone through a big change and gained a new lease on life. She needed guidance. He didn’t want to risk going into a new and unfamiliar world.

But most importantly, the two Elders’ pressure was enough to make him nervous. Going back to the homeland of vampires would mean ten or a hundred times more Unseen Elders having power over him. The possibility of that happening froze his blood. He’d rather die than face that.

“That’s a shame.” Roy sighed. He scared Regis a little more, then he handed his silver sword and crossbow to the passengers who were ready to go, just in case the weapons got lost. He took a deep breath and made a push at the empty gate.

Winds howled, and a black diamond-shaped doorway tore through the air. It was only slightly taller than six foot six and enough for one person to pass through at first, but when the shimmering rune shone on it, the doorway turned taller and wider. In an instant, the doorway overlapped with the gigantic gate, cutting off the abode. Light came from the darkness within the gate. Dim starlight, azure aurora, and suffocating void came together and formed an infinite space where a sea of stars resided.

Roy leapt into the gateway, his cloak billowing in the air. The Elders were linked by crimson chains to him, and they jumped into the gateway as well. One star among the sea of stars blinked brightly. The light in the chamber quickly turned into spinning runes and pulled back into the gate.

When Regis regained his sight, Roy and the Elders were already gone. The only things left behind were this door and the dark, spacious abode. “Finally gone. That guy is bolder than I ever imagined.” Regis snarled, and he fell on his knees, feeling weak. He half-cursed and half-prayed, “Don’t get lost.”

***

The sunset burned through the skies, draping the mountains and woods with an orange blanket. In the corner of the birch woods, a dark, tough boulder and a row of sharpened wooden stakes surrounded a rickety wooden house. A burly, broad-shouldered woman in a thick jacket made of birch bark, beast hide, and thistle was swinging an axe half the size of an adult man, chopping the wood between two stakes. She swung her braid, her mountainous muscles and the scars on them wriggling as she chopped the wood.

The edge of the axe gleamed, and the air was torn open. The wood was chopped in two and fell into the trough. The woman wiped her sweat off and looked at the skies. Her face, skinned and scabbed, was filled with despair and exhaustion. She gritted her teeth and kept chopping wood.

Suddenly, she heard something fall behind her. Shocked, the woman turned around, looking horrified. Three translucent silhouettes appeared before her eyes. At first, they were like reflections in water, vague and unclear. All she could make out were three silhouettes standing right there, but then, five seconds later, the silhouettes turned sharper and clearer. Two were elderly men. They were naked from the waist up, their skin was gray and covered in bruises. Another was a young man with black hair and silver eyes. He was in an outfit the woman had never seen before, and there were two swords behind his back.

“Elder?” The woman’s eyes went wide, and she grinned, revealing her yellowing teeth, her fear replaced by surprise. She trotted to the Elders and knelt humbly, prostrating herself. She then raised her hands, revealing her wrists. “The mist attacked the East Fountain. Everyone died. I am the sole survivor. Please, Elders, take me away. I, Patricia, will present you with an offering. I humbly beg for your protection. Deliver me from the mist.”

The Elders knew this accent. It came from their homeland. They took in the air. It was richer in oxygen. They exchanged a look, smiles finally cracking their eternally icy faces, like a sliver of light tearing through the darkness.

They pointed their index fingers ahead and swiped it through the air. The women’s wrists were cut open, and a pair of strings of blood flew into the Elders’ open mouth. They closed their eyes, tasting the sweet blood in their mouths as if it was gourmet food. They had missed this for a thousand years.

Roy crossed his arms, watching this bizarre scene quietly, musing about something. His medallion showed no response, which meant the Elders did not use any spells to beguile this woman. So why did this burly woman prostrate herself and give the Elders her blood like they’re gods? And back in my world, these Elders can shake a nation, but this woman isn’t afraid of them. In fact, she looks fanatical about them, like she’s facing her gods. What kind of world is this?

“Wstawaj (Stand up).”

“Konsekrujdozaakia (Your offering is accepted).”

Trayche nodded at the woman. His finger, dabbed in his drool, wiped over the woman’s wrists, and her wounds closed up and formed scabs.

“Zabierzu (We will take you to the nest).”

The woman shivered in excitement, tears spilling from her eyes. She kept banging her head, gratitude and delight filling her face, as if she’d escaped from the clutches of death.

Sif looked at Roy. “Do you think this is bizarre?” He could speak smoothly even though this was Common Speech, and there was no hint of suppressed pain in his voice, as if he’d tossed away the shackles that had locked him down for so many years. He looked livelier too. “This is the rule of our homeland.”

He waved his hand. The woman darted back into the wooden house and quickly packed up her stuff. She only afforded Roy a single glance throughout the process. Roy’s charm that was usually enough to captivate anyone, lost its magic.

“Most humans give us offerings, and we ensure their safety.”

“Humans need your protection? What kind of danger is out there?”

And then a stream of freezing winds howled through the woods. White mist rose into the air, blocking the sun, the woods, and the house around them.

“Stand there and don’t move, witcher,” Trayche and Sif said, as if they were facing a dangerous enemy.

Roy could feel danger overwhelming him. He heard a thud coming from the mist, as if something heavy had just buried itself into the soil. The woods and even the ground underneath were shaking. The air was starting to shiver, and beasts howled in panic and despair.

The birds perched on the trees screeched and flew into the mysterious mist. Roy then saw something he would never forget. As if a ship were breaking through the sea, a gigantic silhouette appeared in the mist far away from them. Is that Behemoth?

***

That was a monster hidden in the mist. It was nearly a hundred feet tall, and from afar, it looked like a mammoth in ancient times. It had six towering legs covered in gray fur holding it up. The monster, as a whole, felt asymmetrical, but there were countless tentacles on its head and its body. Upon closer inspection, the monster’s back was covered in a layer of fur as strong as needles, and inside it was covered in something like an insect’s maw, crunching all the time.

The beast speared the mist with its tentacles and slowly pulled back. On the tentacles were the carcasses of beasts, and they looked like shish kebabs. The tentacles popped the corpses into the monster’s maw, and the monster started to crunch on its food. The blood that flowed out of its maw spilled into the mist and drenched the earth underneath.

***

Behemoth. It’s scarier than an eldritch god.

***

“Child of the Elder Blood, the universe is a big place. You were lucky enough to be born in a peaceful world where humans rule,” Sif said. Returning to his homeland unlocked his emotions, and he couldn’t hold back his excitement. “In your world, most human children can live through their childhood, despite its constant disasters and infighting, but things are different in our homeland. Humans are weak. They are born to the bottom of the food chain, and they must survive by becoming the vassal of powerful species. Not even our tribe can make the rules here. The true rulers of this world are the sea of powerful monsters that came with this mist. If humans and us bloodkin are to live, we must fight since childhood. We must keep moving to safer places and survive through deadly battles.”

A crimson glint gleamed in Sif’s eyes. “Our homeland is a lot deadlier, but it’s more interesting.”

“Now it is time for you to leave, witcher,” Trayche said. A patch of black smoke covered the woman from head to toe and held her in midair. “This is not your battle. Behemoth’s saliva can harm even our immortal bodies, let alone mortal ones. We’ll need at least ten Elders to take it down, so we have to set off and reunite with old friends. You do what you have to.”

The Elders leapt and turned into slivers of smoke. They then darted deep into the mist. Roy held his breath and stared at the beast. As if feeling Roy’s stare, the beast suddenly turned to the witcher. Within the tentacles was a pair of eyes as bright as white suns. Within those eyes was a desire to destroy and consume everything.

***

It’s an incredible and powerful beast. If I kill it, I can get tens of thousands of EXP. Dismayed, Roy took out a blue diamond carved like a rose. It was Brisingamen, Freya’s treasure. The diamond was the size of his fist, and it shone as brightly as the summer sun.

And it was also buzzing violently. Time to go home. If I stay here, Freya and Melitele will think I broke my word and ran to another world to escape the White Frost. That will cause unnecessary problems. Besides, the mark of the bloodline is a waypoint. I can first deal with the problems back at the witcher world before I come back to this thing.

Roy had made up his mind, and he opened a second Worldgate. He could do that twice a day with the power of Guardian. A tentacle fell from the sky, hurtling at Roy.

A crimson beam flashed, and the tentacle was split in two. It fell to the ground, turned into a cloud of smoke. Behemoth’s furious roar pierced the mist. When it rumbled the ground and came to where Roy was, the puny prey was already nowhere to be found.