"You want me dead?" Anansi asked, not looking as if he received or was worried about any death threats.
Severin shrugged. "He didn’t seem particularly interested in you."
"Not until you made it look like I’m holding you under a knife," Anansi pointed out. "Why did you do something like that? They might just come after me."
"Are you afraid of that?"
"I am not. They don’t know who I am, so they might not really bother me. But why did you do that? Also, are you an actor?"
"I’m sure you noticed as well. Those guys have been following us since we entered the city, and they’re not the only ones."
Anansi stilled; his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Severin raised his hand. "Two groups of people are after us. One of them is the ECF, and the others, I don’t know. They seem to be spying on us through shadows."
The surprise on Anansi’s face was shocking. The man blinked as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. "You really are a cautious bastard, to think you would notice something like that. You are weak, but you don’t behave like a weakling. You act contrary to your standing."
Severin frowned. "You know, if I’m that weak, I shouldn’t be in Sector Delta. I guess that’s why the ECF is hesitating, to know the cards I hold before they engage."
"What, you don’t believe they want to send you home?"
Severin raised his brows. His way of judgment was to first believe the worst in anyone; that way, he wouldn’t be too disappointed later. Not only about people, but also about situations.
That was one of his coping mechanisms back on Earth.
Expect the worst and prepare against it.
The world itself is cruel that way.
Anansi grunted. "Looking at you, I don’t see much difference between those in Sector Delta and you. You’re both wretched creatures. They’re just way more wretched bastards."
"Thank you? Now tell me what you know about the two groups. They might want to attack. I want to bait the two groups into fighting each other, but I don’t want to be caught in between."
"ECF are scum," Anansi said flatly.
"What do you mean?"
"When Sector Delta was closed down, there were already humans here as well as some monsters and entities. Humans are just as scummy as all of us.
"All that shit about humanity is, well, shit. They’re just as dangerous as any of the other territories."
Severin sat up. He initially thought the ECF was some kind of gang, but the way Anansi was describing it, they seemed to have actual influence and power.
"The humans have their own territory?"
"The city is divided into four: east, west, north, and south. All parts have a lord, and none of them are humans. Guess where the human territory is?"
He did. "The center?"
"Yes. It is where the old research lab is located, the most dangerous place in the whole of Sector Delta."
Severin leaned forward. "How dangerous?"
"There are five Lords in Sector Delta. That hasn’t ever changed. Only the holder of the title changes, so at any time, you can say there are five most powerful: four here in the city and the last one in the wasteland.
"But that’s a lie. When I was a Lord, I realized a secret. None, not even me, of the lords dared to occupy the center of the city where the old research facility is."
"Why?" Severin was getting more and more interested.
"Because the facility itself is a chain, a binding formation."
Severin had heard of those: whole buildings built in particular shapes of rune patterns. They are extremely large formations that need incredible power to pull off.
Places like the palace or important places have formations like that.
"Something is living down there. It’s the focus of Sector Delta; it was why this place was created."
"A God?" Severin asked.
Anansi’s eyes had a faraway look. "I think not. I think it’s something more horrible than that. I was interested in it when I was a Lord, and I collected all the stories I could about the place.
"Do you know the history of your own world? When the Heroes defeated the... problem?" Anansi grimaced.
The Aberrant Singularity? Severin leaned forward. "Yes?"
"Of course, they didn’t defeat it. They could only seal your world away, but why was that even possible? Planets much more powerful than yours were already destroyed. How was the system even capable of shielding? Have you imagined what amount of power that would take?"
Severin frowned. Indeed, the scale of the power was unimaginable. The theory the author gave was that the System had turned into a God in itself, the greatest equipment ever created.
But now that Anansi was mentioning it, that amount of power must be incredibly massive.
"The... I will call it Doom. The Doom didn’t actually lead the monsters in the war. It had seven generals, and they were the ones who led the war."
Severin’s hand tightened. A sense of danger fell on him as he realized something important that he shouldn’t even have forgotten.
The book, Legacy of Heroes, had an open ending. The end was that everyone was dead after Lucas’s final battle.
That left most of the readers in dissatisfaction.
But what if that wasn’t actually the end?
What if the author had woven so many plots in the story to pick up a second book?
Because the lore that Anansi was explaining wasn’t done in the book. Was it even the Singularity that Lucas fought?
"... Fuck... I have understood the dangers of this world..."
Anansi continued, "Out of the seven generals, two of them, the weakest, were the actual Commanders. The other five were sent to other places; they did not directly participate in the war."
Severin could guess where things were going, and he didn’t like it.
"Apparently, the Heroes managed to kill two of the generals. But what happened next wasn’t really clear. You know the Heroes ’founded’ the continent in your world, right?
"And one directly created the Zenith Hero Academy of yours."