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Already happened story > Sins of the Forefathers: A LitRPG Fantasy Isekai > Chapter 253 – Dreams of Madness

Chapter 253 – Dreams of Madness

  PreCursive

  Sleep came hard that night, ed in my sleeping bag in the guest rooms of Mt. Umetsuji. All of us had agreed to spend the night here in the volo, secure in the hospitality of Shurenga and her Children. After a surprisingly normal dinner hosted by the queenly daughter of Tarus herself, we’d all bedded down, ringed around the va pit in the ter of this obsidian room.

  But sleep was elusive, leavio stare up at the ceiling. The Shurengans must have polished the obsidian, because I could faintly see my own faintly glowing emerald eyes staring back at me from that bck mirror. The flowing, flickering light cast by the va only enhahe effect.

  I gazed up into my own eyes for what seemed to be hours. Perhaps it was my mind pying tricks upon me, but I swore there was a mog glint iare that relentlessly bore into me.

  Had I dohe right thing? Was it the right decision, to turn down the position of ‘Envoy’ in the service of Tarus, Great Spirit of the Sun? Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Kawamarans would have jumped at the opportunity for the honor. With their religion, I’m sure my refusal would have sent a number of them into a frothing rage.

  But…I was wary of entering into any kind of tract, with ahese days. The freedom I’d enjoyed over my months of recuperation in Hinaga had been so intoxig. Ever since I’d been tossed into the deep end of Vereden, I’d been running from one crisis to the , but now that was finished. If I signed up with Tarus, who arently devoted to proteg the Veredenese from extraordinary threats, then I knew in my bohat freedom would vanish into the literal Aether. I would start running once again, at the mercy of another existehat was far older, and far, far more powerful than I was.

  Tarus’s offer…it was makihink quite a bit about the nature of my retionship with Grey. I...don't even know why. Perhaps it was because of his oareionship with the Great Spirits, maybe it was just because he was another person I was aligned with.

  But...

  My mentor had never done anything to make me question him. From the day I had met the eclipsean eyes of Grey, he had been forthwith towards me. He had never hidden a siention about what he expected from the two of us. We had started together as fellow sves, bound together uhe crushing grip of a spoiled madman. He’d been quite did about how he wao see what I could do to free the both of us from bondage. Later, once we’d gotten to know each other better, he had extehe offer of apprenticeship towards me. Naturally, I had accepted. I mean, what else was I going to do? Turn down a kindness from a person of siderable means, when I was a castaon a magical alie? You’d have to be a madman to do something like that.

  Except…

  Had Grey been forthwith towards me? There was o make me his official apprentice. I…sometimes felt like I didn’t know Grey, in a maher than official. Oh, we took meals with each other, and he had always made time for lessons. But…anything more than that was rare.

  Intellectually, I khat the man had been deeply involved in the running of the Order, in the midst of an actual civil war. The little time Grey could spare for me was more than generous of him, in sideration of that. But…

  But…I couldn’t help w.

  Did Grey just want a on? Had he seen the opportunity to mold a Precursor into his own personal attack dog, when he offered me the ce to join the Noe Division? I had barely questio at the time. Thrown into the midst of a civil war, after having lost an arm not long ago, and after having been ensved…

  I think…I had been desperate for a purpose. Had Grey…seen that, and decided to take advantage?

  Rhazal himself had told me that Precursors had been seduced into being divine ons, in the a past…

  Perhaps I’d been too quick to accept. Perhaps I’d felt desperate to repay the debt I felt, at how Grey had so ly found a spot for me in the Herztalian dynasty. He…hadn’t seemed angry at how I’d told him about my iions to abandon the war, ba Elderwyck. More sad, really.

  I ched my teeth hard. Hard enough that I feared the grinding would wake my panions, resting about me.

  God, I hated myself for doubting Grey right now. I hadn’t realized hile, in some ways, I still felt after the events of Elderwyck. Maybe it was just the gloom of this cave at this te hour that was getting to me. But I couldn’t quell my fears.

  Maybe…they had always existed.

  Eventually, I think it was the exhaustion of several days of hard marg across the stony pins of Goryuen that did me in.

  Sleep crept over me like an insidious fog, causing my eyelids to drift to a fitful close.

  I doubted my rest would be pleasant.

  …………………………………….

  Crashing.

  R.

  Screeches in the dark.

  Silence…deep, eg, all-enpassing silence.

  The twang of endless bows.

  A finger lifting my .

  “You want to know why?”

  A shadow…

  A shadow of MADNESS…

  ……………………………………..

  I jerked awake, violently shooting straight up into a sitting position, eyes wide in panic, breath ing in short, sharp gasps.

  Or rather, I tried to sit up.

  Turns out, someone had been trying to wake me up. Whoever they were was bending down towards me with an outstretched hand, moments away from shaking my shoulder. My c, immuo my panic, idly hat they must have been trying to wake me.

  But I was blind to its rationality. My eyes felt clouded almost artificially, to the extent I could barely see who or what was trying to take my hand.

  My jerking iurned into a lunge, shoulder-cheg the person and sending them ft onto the obsidian floor of Mt. Umetsuji. I stared into goldehe shade of dwarven nobility, and for a moment…

  For a moment, I saw a dead man.

  Or rather…a dead dwarf.

  My ears rang, and through the ringing I swore I heard a hateful voice.

  “Throwing a tantrum, cattle? Typical of your kind…”

  An old hatred rolled over me like a wave, and I tightened my grip on…something. I was holding something…wasn’t I? My hands were curled around a haft as familiar to me as the pencils from my youth, a I was barely scious of it.

  All I could focus on was the gold dominating my field of view, the depths of those pools growing ever more armed by the sed.

  Good.

  You should fear me, Magnus.

  I’d kill you a thousand thousand times and never feel satisfied.

  Distant shouting from my surroundings peed the haze of madness I found myself drifting in. Slowly, ever so slowly, I grew more and more izant, the murk of poor sleep and the disquiet of nightmares fading away.

  I…for the first time, I realized what I was doing. sciously, that is.

  I was crouched over the still form of my best friend, one of my daggers held to his throat. The razor-sharp edge of the Oninite bde was close enough that I could see a handful of fire-truck red hairs had been shaved away, to drift onto his Adam's apple.

  I stilled. For a moment, I etrified of making a single movement. Had I…had I almost killed Azarus?

  How…how could I…do that?

  Below me, Azarus must have seen a ge ihat my armed panions could not. “You there, Nate?” He whispered up to me, careful not to enunciate too hard.

  Lest the bde do its purpose.

  My lips parting in horror, I slowly, slowly drew the dagger away from him. I shook my head as I did so. “Azarus…I’m…so-”

  Before I could finish speaking, two pairs of hard armored hands cmped onto my arms and shoulders and wrenched me away from the prone dwarf. The dagger fell away from my limp fio ctter onto the obsidian below, and four strong arms ed around me iraint. Even if I wao, I couldn’t struggle my way out of this grip, not with all of my Skills.

  But I didn’t want to. All I could do was stare at the form of my oldest friend in Vereden, gingerly accepting a hand up from Renauld. I wao flinch as I saw him rub carefully at his neder his beard, but I was too numb to do so.

  I didn’t eve as a renewed Kazuma came to stand in front of me, a ed bde strapped to his back, and his usual bared defensively before him.

  Bel took offense, despite me thinking he had the right idea. In a fsh, she drew her own cutss and id it across the Kawamaran samurai’s throat, standing off to the side. “Now what are ye goin’ ta do with that now, eh?” She murmured dangerously. Kazuma stilled and dared not move an inch.

  The tension in the room only increased, but I was barely aware as it was, still stu horror from my own as.

  “Stop, all of you!” A sharp female voice said, cutting through the chaos in the guest rooms. Unnaturally so, in fact.

  Everyone in these volic walls, including the watchful, wary forms of Sena and Gin along the far wall, froze in pce. So much so that I could barely blink, much less think of struggling against the steel bars of the arms holding me.

  I was still able to watch as Shurenga padded into the room to interpose herself betweetle-ready Kazuma, and my restrained form. “There is no need for that, Lord Higanashi,” She murmured towards him, before turning to look at me. If I had the will, I would have quailed under her gaze. There urity to her slit amber eyes, but I would have flinched away from them if I could.

  The gold reminded of who I had mistaken Azarus for, and what I’d nearly doo him.

  The daughter of Tarus seemed to stare into my very soul for a moment, before abruptly nodding. “I see what has happened,” She annouo the room, still frozen ihis was an attaathaniel Hart was not in trol of his own as.”

  I wao blink.

  What?

  Everyone in the room unfroze all at once, as if released from a literal spell. Some stumbled in pce, but not Venix, who I could tell had grabbed me off of Azarus. Slowly, Bel lowered her cutss from Kazuma, who stepped away, eyeing the pirate warily. She just ignored him to foe, with a ed look on her sharp features.

  I couldn’t meet her eyes.

  Liora was the first to recover, and stepped forward to give voice to our collective fusion. “Please eborate, Lady Shurenga.”

  “I shall. You may release him, Sir Venix,” Shurenga said, nodding to the Antium. “The danger has passed.”

  Warily, the monstrously strong arms holdihdrew. Without them supp me, I started to bonelessly slump to the ground. I…didn’t have the strength or the will to hold myself up.

  Someone ued caught me before I could hit the stone.

  Azarus.

  Despite nearly killing him in a fit of madness only moments before, the dwarf had rushed forward to catch me in his hairy arms. I g to them, and wao weep at what that meant. I drew in a shuddering breath a his eyes again. This time, I didn’t see the person who had ensved me.

  Only the most loyal person I had ever met greeted my eyes. Wordlessly, he me.

  Shurenga watched us for a moment, sadness in her own eyes, and then turo Liora. “Sir Hart’s…kind,” She said, dang around actually saying the word Precursor.

  I…appreciated it. I’m not sure I wanted Kazuma to know that about me.

  Not yet.

  “Are unusually susceptible to spiritual influehere was…a disturbance, in the cord st night. I suspect that everyoh even a trace of trace of a e to that realm was affected by it.”

  Sena padded forward, casting a sidering gaze at me as she did so. Still, her attention was on her progenitor. “I…did sleep poorly st night, Mother. I sidered it odd, after su enjoyable evening. Was that why? What happened?”

  Shurenga took a deep breath then, and seemed to frown. “The Mad God stirs.” She announced grimly.

  …oh. That…didn’t sound good.

  Alveron’s grandsire…and the st god on Vereden was now active.

  “Shit,” I heard from above me. Shogly, the curse had e from Venix, who had crossed his arms in displeasure. I’d never heard such a thing from the samurai.

  With Azarus’s help, I struggled to my feet. “What does that mean? Is he attag somewhere?”

  Shurenga shook her head sharply. “No, thankfully. I had time to sult Father before your…episode, Nathaniel, and he believes he knows what happened. Normally, the Mad God rests in the ruins of Smaragd, quiest from the bloody sacrifices of his barbarous subjects. But st night, he stirred, and it was as if a titanic foot kicked out at the cord, disturbing the...'surface' of it to send waves across the whole of Vereden. They crashed over the Spiritually ected aive, and the echo of his own madness ied the dreams of hundreds. I believe you were…especially receptive to it due to your nature.”

  “I nearly killed someone, Shurenga,” I said hoarsely. I felt a wide, rough palm e to a rest on my shoulder, but did not turn to face the owner. Bel came to stand at my side and discreetly slid her hand into my own. I don’t think anyone even noticed, caught up in the a Mystic Beasts' expnation.

  But I did, and I appreciated it fiercely.

  “But you didn’t,” She replied gently. “The madness of Fynneas is not to be uimated. You are still a mortal, Nathaniel. With your e to one of Elys’s children, you are doubly sensitive to matters of this nature. I highly reend you take up the study of Mind Magic as your first true school, if only to build suffit defenses.”

  I was starting to calm down now and shook my head slowly. “That’s going to be a problem,” I muttered, thinking about my troubles eling Mana. At Shurenga’s curious look, I ged the subject. “What caused the Mad God to stir the way he did? Did Tarus know?”

  A troubled look crossed her furry face. “He did not. Aher did Lady Elys, when he spoke to her. But this does not bode well, young ones. I suggest you hurry and finish your business here upon Goryues of import are happening upon the mainnd.”

  Nobody could gainsay her, and so idly began to pack our supplies once more.

  It was time to begin the final push into the heart of Goryuen.