Chương 106: Darkness and Her Stars

'Only one more week!' June's feet dangled off the edge of the new Brighthaven castle's battlements as he sat with his gourd beside him. A wistful look overtook his face while he looked outward from the castle to see the unlit ruined terrain. The first event may have been one of the worst weeks of his time within the simulation, but the remnants that remained as a morbid reminder were striking to say the least.

The magnificence and power of nature were on full display; it wasn't a natural display of power, but still, seeing familiar forests turn into plains, plains into marshes, and marshes into beds of hardened igneous rock was a jaw-dropping sight, and witnessing it afterwards in its stable form was a chilling reminder. Even now, it wasn't odd to find uprooted trees or charred animal corpses encased in dark glasses that spouted from the earth in its violent rage.

June, on the other hand, felt a bit stifled in the moment. He couldn't figure out if he wanted to engage in the last bit of peace that he would have the privilege of enjoying or if he should be working as hard as he usually would be. For now, he sat quietly, hoping for the silence to both break and stay.

'Only 13 people died in the last week; considering that there's an IMP and a demon out there, that's….' June took a swig from his gourd, forgetting that there was lemonade in there instead of alcohol. Of approximately 3400 people within his faction, only 13 were killed by an invisible enemy. That may seem like a great feat considering how he and a few others were the only ones capable of keeping the Wendigo in check, but while the other Dreamers celebrated the low rate, the number of failures weighed on him.

He lifted his gourd and toasted to himself, hoping to make himself feel something other than a tepid disappointment, but the small action seemed to highlight his failures further to him.

'At least I'm not dealing with a Demon and the IMP at the same time…' The rate of Royal Faction defections had drastically decreased over the past 3 weeks, which either meant that they managed to tighten their grip on their now dwindled force or the Demon was dropped near them and had either been keeping them busy, like how the Wendigo kept Brighthaven busy, or, to Brighthaven's detriment and benefit, they were all dead. Did you know this story is from Royal Road?

Read the official version for free and support the author. He leaned back to hover his back over the floor using his core strength.

'How the hell did I manage to take down an IMP as a mundane?' June pulled himself up, turned his body around, and placed his feet onto solid ground.

'I need to lie down.' He rubbed his eyes tiredly and grabbed his gourd before hitching it on his waist. He walked over to an open-door archery pillar tower that rested on the new castle's walls and climbed up a ladder to the top, where, other than a few jagged half-battlement walls, was an empty open area. June unhitched his gourd, gently placed it down, and plopped himself onto his back with his head resting on his hands. He finally caved in when the construction union itself made him a room without him knowing.

Having his own room, his own bed, and his own closet with clothing that he could wear felt like a heavy internal knot had been lifted from his shoulders; it felt like home, but not quite home. He pointed at the artificial stars and mouthed the words of his lover to himself, hoping she would reach through the dark veil of the sky and pluck him into her arms where he yearned to be. To her, only twelve days have passed, but to June, each of those days was figuratively and literally a month.

He felt a noticeable hole in his being; he missed his dog, he missed Lilia, his friends, the Harths—hell, June even began to miss Mortimer despite him being the reason he was in this conundrum in the first place. He missed the friends he lost along the way and kept reminding himself that they weren't truly dead, just in a place where he would be tonight or in a week if he survived.

He listened to distant guitars, drums, flutes, lutes, and other novel instruments being played in symphonies that were either together or apart in different places; dozens of individual songs; and dozens of individual people. This was the song of Brighthaven, for realistically, the last time.

A group of people fled from the imposing figure; their outfits ranged from those in haggard rags to dirtied yet somehow still gaudy robes, but no matter how good or bad their taste was considered, a single seemingly interminable blade extended and reaped lives like a farmer's sickle. The tall figure was not a human but a demon, not a demon of rank but a noble.

It took the form of a large man, dressed head to toe in traditional samurai armour, none of whose skin was visible since it was covered by a thin grey layer of clothing. Bright white hair flowed from the scalp of his head and presented the unmoving mask of an enraged red ONI with fangs, curved horns, darkness settled in its eyes, and a singular vertical eye that looked perpetually bloodshot.

The monster, presenting itself with the poise of a samurai, stood imposing, illuminated by both midnight blue mist emanating from several corpses and a blood-moon mist emanating from underneath its armour. The false man screamed bestially, and the air shook as the bloody aura emanating from his body exploded into a ring of taiko drums hovering behind his back.

With another scream, he slammed a fist into one of the people fleeing from him, who simply and instantly exploded into a million midnight blue chunks of mist. He stabbed the sword into the ground and manically started laughing as he repeatedly beat the drums with each resounding thump, accompanied by the screams and rain of viscera of his enemies alike. The night was young, and to the towering ONI, their screams were never going to grow old.