Crusader King-Chapter 116: Beneath the statue(2)

Cades eye twirled around, scanning everywhere to find something, and indeed he found a few opponents, the nearest being a kind of spider he had met once before, a spider he would never forget, despite this one looking quite a bit differetn, perhaps due to the fact that it seemed to have been born in this horrible place and currently be sitting above the endless light beneath them, in a web spun with it's own bodily fluids, and yet Cades knew exactly what this spider was, how could he not, he had almost died against it once.

What he saw, only a few islands, about two thousand food away, was an eximimus queen, another one, he was certain of that, he was so certain of it that he already began to feel his muscles burn in pain, feel the flow of his body as it rushed towards his brain, as if his body was remembering how he felt after his first clash against an eximimus queen, after his first clash against a being at the rank of the apex, after the first time he had been poisoned so badly, been so exhausted, after the first time he had been bathed in actual poisonous blood, after all of that, right now he remembered the feeling of how he had been set aflame by the fire produced by his own artifact, and he remembered the feeling of slaying that b#stard with his own hands, and despite him not even realizing, a sly smile crept up on him.

He could feel the intent of the creature, it was hiding, lurking, incapable of measuring him, and indeed quite scared, something that was quite the big improvement to the last one he had killed, or at least that's what it had seemed like to him at first, but after a short moment he had quickly realized that the thing had the intention of hiding it's own intention, subconsciously blocking his reading for just the smallest of moments and something that Cades noted to himself as a potential danger in the future.

But still, the mana and intent he could feel from the creature indicated the peak of the lord rank at most, incredibly powerful, even compared to the last eximimus queen who seemed to have been quite a lot bigger than this one who seemed to be only about 15 foot tall despite this being quite difficult to tell with it's back facing Cades, something that did however not hinder it much as it's entire body seemed to be covered in countless eyes that observed everything around it, and between all those eyes there seemed to be even more spikes covering everything, ready to impale attackers. freeωebnovēl.c૦m

However, Cades simply shook his head, ripping himself away from an idea he had just had, quite the interesting one that involved him making a prosthesis out of spider carapace, and pulled his mind back, towards the incredibly beautiful and detailed statue in front of his face, the statue that had now began to exude a glimmer of wisdom, or perhaps that glimmer had always been there and he had simply never noticed it, either way, the statue felt as if it demeaned respect and reverence, and Cades soon understood why, or at least he thought he could understand why he felt like this.

The statue that he now truly began to inspect, taking the whole body into consideration, did, other than the one before, not send out even an ounce of intent, something that he had felt from the previous one which had been an unidentifiable intent, but still very much there.

It was indeed beautifully made, the statues skin was covered in wrinkles and made to look old, as if it was defying the very laws of the material it was made of, although, as previously mentioned, it did do the very same with some of the liquid in the eyes, some of the hairs that were so thin they could perhaps break if they were even so much as just touched, and most of all, at least in Cades opinion, with the garments, simple clothes that reminded him of what was worn on ehetria during medieval times by farmers, tied together by a rope, which flowed across the frail body of the depicted old man.

And indeed, it was nothing else than an old man, an old man that Cades did feel as if he had seen before, but still an old man, one of the same species as he himself was right now, one that looked like a wingless ehetrian, and the old man looked weak to boot, so weak that Cades felt as if the old man would never ever stand up again if he were to sit down even once, snapping his entire back in half due to that.

His entire body, or at least the parts of the body that showed skin were covered in beautifully made spots marking the old age of the man and perhaps even the centuries, or maybe just decades, he lived through, causing him to truly show an aura of reverence that subconsciously seemed to influence Cades into continuing to analyse the relatively simple man that was depicted within the stone statue.

Finally, however, he moved on to the last part of the body that he hadn't really looked at, the part that he was for some reason slightly afraid of, the face.

The face of the depicted man was incredibly old, it was as if the entire thing was just about to fall off, revealing another face under what seemed to be a kind of mask, just that it wasn't, instead it was covered in hundreds of age spots, contouring his face, and his eyes that looked tired simply looked ahead, heading towards nowhere, viewing nothing, as if it had a so-called thousand-yard-stare, a sign of some people who returned from war and had witnessed horrible things, and yet the mouth of the statue was smiling, or at least Cades felt as if he was smiling slightly, but for the most part the mouth was just as the rest, completely neutral.

Cades sighed, taking one last look at the statue and finally turned bac towards the eximimus queen, planning something that would be quite interesting, both for his own strength, and for himself as an artificer.