Awakening the Divine Spark-Chapter 241: Traces of god.

Apart from himself, Seren was the third person with the seal Lee met in his life. And while his curiosity was peaked, he knew better than anyone else that nothing good will come from the guy being here.

The previous two owners of the seal had either tried to set him up or directly kill, and neither displayed any sense of empathy towards others. What was even more important – according to Nevin, the Seren guy was someone well known, and there were two more in the world he came from.

"Hmph! Suit yourselves!" Seren snickered, and walked to the side.

No one from the big group intended to join him, but at the same time he didn’t directly leave. Elred and Vaerin were also reluctant to drive them away, and when after the short rest the group was on the move again, the five youths followed, keeping distance of fifty or so yards.

For the next two days the hunters continued to run through savanna. They had to fight the occasional insect swarms, but Lee soon learned the pattern – apparently the insects had their own area they patrolled, and as soon as the humans left it, they never followed.

There were two instances when on the way hunters cleaned up a large insect nest and were rewarded with hundreds of earth sparks. They basically performed a genocide against the termite-like creatures, many of which had ignited their sparks.

"It’ll take them around half a month to recover." Nevin explained after they cleaned up the second nest, "Before the queen reaches behemot level, it goes rather slow. Of course, after she does, she’ll be hunted as well and replaced by the next one. That’s the whole farming cycle in Skalara."

"What about the nests in the jungle?" Lee asked, "Why aren’t hunters cleaning up those?"

"From what I understand, the queen there is on the verge of a breakthrough." Nevin said, "My guess is that she’s the reason Senior Brother Seren came here. He’s quite famous for his love to hunt behemots single-handedly. In fact, it’s been said he killed the first one at the age of nine."

"What’s the big deal?" Lee was confused, "Aren’t the behemots just bigger and stronger beasts?"

He remembered very well that Arax killed one alone, although the guy did age forty or fifty years in a single fight.

"They are. But, trust me, you don’t want to go against one alone." Nevin said, "The slightest slip-up and you’re done. They’re just too strong."

"Apparently not ..." Lee said, glancing at the five youths chilling out at a safe distance.

Seren and his entourage observed the fight without taking a part in it, almost like grownups watch kids fool around. Them not leaving made Lee uneasy, as well as the fact that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t provoke Nevin to tell about the place they came from. The guy happily chatted about anything but not his or Seren’s origins.

Seren’s presence had another downside.

At first Lee used the hatchet for fun. But when he was ready to toss it aside, the guy with the overlord’s seal appeared. Obviously Seren wasn’t the previous owner of Soulcleaver, but there was no guarantee he didn’t know the guy. And even if he didn’t – if by any chance he recognized the sword that was likely crafted by the Overlord of the Voidforge, Lee would be in trouble.

***

A few days later the hunters finally saw mountain peaks in the distance and knew they were almost there. The couple of guys from the other expedition group who fulfilled the roles of guides grew serious and led everyone to the spot they encountered the centipede.

When they got there, apart from an elevated plateau littered with piles of rocks, there was nothing, and at first the rest couldn’t understand the reason for the shock the two guides were in. The men looked as if they couldn’t believe their eyes, but upon detailed inspection they verified they had arrived to the spot where their hunting party was destroyed.

The problem was – according to them right at their spot once stood a rocky mountain, and centipede dived at the bottom of it, causing the rockslide that killed over a hundred people.

Hunters were confused, upset and even angry. Most thought the two were mistaken or lying on purpose, when someone found remains of an insect.

Remains was a strong word considering it was only a leg attached to a piece of carcass, except that the leg was almost in the size of a tree. In disbelief, the hunters rushed to explore the plateau, and found few other pieces of the centipede, and everyone’s feet grew cold realizing there had been something that had actually eaten a behemot level creature.

There were only two people thrilled with the findings.

Lee, of course, inwardly cheered in hopes they had stumbled upon tracks of an old god. He didn’t have any illusions of being able to kill the thing, but for now he didn’t have to, at least not yet.

Seren, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He was fired up with the idea of killing whatever had eaten the centipede. He didn’t charge after it alone, though.

He inspected the area, climbed to a higher spot to the side, then inspected again, and after giving it a thought, clapped his hands, calling for everyone’s attention. Ignoring the incident that basically expelled him from the group, he acted as if he was the leader, not giving a fuck about the unhappy expressions the hunters had.

"Here’s the thing." He said, "By now all of you have realized that the centipede was eaten by even larger creature. What I can tell you is – the centipede disturbed a slumbering monster that was capable of destroying the mountain. It’s a flea-like insect, capable of jumping high and far, and it went that way!"

Saying that, Seren pointed behind him, and the rest could either take his words to be truth or go inspect the situation themselves. Lee, for example, had no clue what how particular direction differed from all the others.

"Thank you, but we already came to this conclusion." Vaerin said, remaining polite despite Seren’s previous stunt, "We will ..."

"You might find the thing, but if you want to have any chance of killing it, I suggest you follow me!" Seren said, completely ignoring Vaerin, "I’m the only one in Skalara who knows how to kill an old god!"

"You ..." Vaerin was about to flare up, but Elred helped out. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

He said, "Feel free to join the young and ambitions hunter if you like. No one here owes anything to anyone. We are all here to earn some coin, not to fight with each other."

His words sounded proper and polite, but the young and ambitious part made everyone grin. Elred picked the correct words to point out that Seren was nothing but a clown, but Lee knew the man had just signed his death verdict.

Seren surely wasn’t living his first life and had stomped on countless guys like Elred before. Seeing his faint smile, Lee knew that it was only a matter of time until the group of hunters was annihilated, but for now it only made sense for him to stay with the rest.

He did consider the option to join Seren, but it wouldn’t lead him anywhere. None of the five would consider him to be one of them no matter what he did, and most likely he would die even sooner than Vaerin or Elred.

One thing was clear – anyone bearing the seal of the Overlord of the Voidforge was dangerous. And Lee liked to think he was too.