Anansi smiled. "I feel as if I can kill a god."
Severin nodded. "Maybe you can try your luck with them? I’m sure they’re less powerful than a god."
Anansi stood, his posture rigid as if he was trying to hold something in. His back was hunched, and he stumbled before he righted himself.
He swayed like a drunkard. The concealing magic around them was gone, and all the people in the room turned their attention to him. Anansi took several deep breaths, his glazed eyes slowly gaining focus. "Ah, it’s been a while, this feeling!"
He turned to Severin. "So, which of the groups are you willing to follow now?"
Severin didn’t let the surprise he was feeling show on his face. He expected Anansi to betray him immediately. Apparently, he had more restraint.
Severin looked at the options.
He needed his shadows, and the best way to know their whereabouts was to talk with the shadow people. Likewise, he wanted to know more about ECF.
Both were dangerous, but one directly affected him right then.
Those without their shadows are not long in the world.
"I want to meet the Shadow Lord," Severin said firmly.
Before, Severin thought his preparation for the world was enough when he was coming to Sector Delta, but he was far too wrong.
It wasn’t that there weren’t means of equipment or artifacts that could fight the Shadow Lord and his like, but Severin didn’t have the ability to own them.
So, his newfound confidence wasn’t about his own power or the preparation he made before coming to Sector Delta.
Severin looked at Anansi. The coincidence that happened, and he snorted coldly. "The Shadow Lord, let’s meet him."
He was watching Anansi as he said it and saw the man show a strange expression on his face.
The silence in the room was broken immediately as one of the ECF guys stood up and pointed at Severin. "Shit! Do you really have a death fetish? The Shadow Lord will kill you!"
Severin nodded gently.
The people from the Shadow Lord showed their surprise openly. What was happening? They were there to find a way to forcefully take him, but instead, he wanted to go to the Shadow Lord himself?
It was the first time they’d ever seen a situation like that where the person they wanted to kidnap was willing to go themselves.
But the ECF guys were not going to allow it.
Initially, their faces were calm and their disposition warm, but now, cold, ugly bitterness crawled into their faces as they stood. They weren’t about to let their chance slip toward the Shadow Lord.
Again, there was a brief instance where there was a pause.
The calm before the storm.
It was as if each side was waiting for which side would make a move first. Severin decided to. He smiled. "I will come to the ECF. That’s a promise. After all, I want them to take me home."
A lot of them didn’t believe him. Why should they when the Shadow Lord sits above the door?
"After all, this is neutral territory," Severin said again, a warning.
The ECF backed away after that. They weren’t exactly the most popular group in Sector Delta, and mistakes and their enemies would use it to come at them hard.
Severin turned to the Shadow Lord people. "Let’s go."
There were no other words exchanged. The shadows of the different people twisted and rippled, connecting together and throwing the room into darkness.
When the shadows cleared and light returned, Severin and the others were already gone.
They found themselves in the throne room with the Shadow Lord sitting on his stone throne.
Severin blinked hard to adjust his senses to the recent teleportation and the deep darkness that folded around the room. His attention was immediately turned to the man sitting on the throne, and he studied him curiously.
"This is the most realistically ’Demon Lord’ type of shit I’ve ever seen before. Even his appearance shows exactly what he represents, bad news," Severin thought to himself and again he turned to Anansi, who was beside him, deep in thought.
His voice was dry and raspy, as if he’d just finished crying. "You are here. Come closer."
Severin couldn’t see much in the room due to the darkness in it. He took steps forward, his eyes catching everything he could and then committing them to memory.
Suddenly, he froze, and his heart went cold. "What is that?"
Right behind the throne was a stone slab, and on it was engraved an image of a head, but the thing about the head was that the skin had been removed, leaving behind a screaming bloody skull with a lot of its muscles still intact.
For some reason, the image of the skull made him shiver. He took another step forward and stared at it. An image flickered in his mind, too fast for him to make sense of.
Severin reacted in ways that surprised even him.
He flinched and recoiled. His whole body shook, and his eyes went wide. His two hands went up as if he was trying to defend his head.
"Eh?"
Anansi was surprised and confused, as was the Shadow Lord, who stared at him with narrowed eyes.
But nobody was more shocked than Severin. What the fuck? Why did his body react like that? And what was that about the unreasonable fear he felt just looking at the image of the bloody skull?
It wasn’t just fear. It was a deep fear that was planted in his deep heart. But the strangest thing was that Severin didn’t know why he should be feeling such fears.
"I have never seen this before, so what the fuck just happened? Why am I afraid of that bloody skull? It’s as if it’s an image that broke my mind and spirit together with my body, but I’ve never seen it before!"
An uncomfortable cold truth lay in Severin’s stomach. He might not have seen or interacted with the bloody skull before, but his body remembered it.
His body.
Severin frowned.
Just what were you, Severin? Before I entered the body?