Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 560: Who’s your enemy

"I am a witch."

"I wouldn't go that far, maybe just a little crazy." Uriel shrugged.

"To be precise, my entire family comes from a long lineage of witches. It's the same with the other three families. The masons, the alchemists, the wicca, any sort of element based cult you can think of all belong to the same four families. We've been tasked with preserving ancient knowledge through generations in order to protect humanity from monsters..."

"Is that what you call slaying thousands of innocents!?" Kalos slammed his palms on the table shocking everyone but Medusa who remained toying with her food paying no attention at the conversation.

"You're one of them! How dare you enter my house, fiend!" Bella stood up to face Kalos, but Tate defused the situation by clearing his throat and crossing his arms.

"This isn't the time to throw accusations one way or the other." The soldier declared.

"But you hunted us, you..."

"If you are one of them, you must certainly know about the atrocities your people committed during the inquisition."

"Hang on, I assumed the inquisition was humans hunting hybrids, not the other way around." Uriel butted in.

"I'm not an expert in history and all I know if my family's side, but the little I know was enough to make me decide not to follow their footsteps. That's why I joined the army, they don't care about one side or the other as long as they're willing to fight against cryptids."

"What about the government? What about the corporations? I thought everyone fought against cryptids." Uriel asked.

"Not everything is black and white." Tate replied.

"It's just as my brother said. You see, the army wants to eradicate cryptids and 'save the world'. The government wants to keep citizens safe and productive to 'save the world', but can only do it with the help of private corporations and there lies the problem.

They don't care about the world only about profit." Bella made sure to make air quotes whenever she mentioned saving the world, leaving Uriel even more confused.

"What you're saying is that, even if eradicating cryptids was possible, they won't do it because our society needs flux orbs to survive." Uriel's eyes glinted as the pieces of the puzzle started fitting together.

"Bingo!" Bella playfully poked her tongue out.

"That's not all. The existence of hunters and flux orbs resulted in an unprecedented boost in our technology, but it also brought back some of our most ancient traditions. What Bella said is the truth, technically we are witches."

"Controlling an element would have been considered supernatural a couple decades ago, but now it's considered actual science." Uriel pointed out thinking on how Professor Fermi dedicated all of his efforts to unravel the science behind flux energy.

"Controlling the elements is one thing, but there's more to our families than just our traits. Our core belief is that the entirety of the human race came from the mixture of the four elements and any anthropomorphic creature that doesn't share our origin is blasphemous."

"Hey!" Kalos exclaimed offended by Tate's last remark.

"I'm not saying that is what I believe. This radical thought is precisely the one that made me turn my back on my family, but because I left the family I didn't finish my studies about our traditions which is why I needed to speak to my sister before having this conversation.

For whatever reason, when the arrival took place a vast amount of flux energy leaked into our world once more allowing us to finally use our abilities and also activate our artifacts. Tools, weapons, jewelry, all sort of cursed objects turned into artifacts we can now use, just like your red dagger, and that's not even all of it."

"Let me guess, there's spells too?" Uriel asked thinking nothing could surprise him anymore.

"Not just spells, rituals too." Tate said in a deep voice.

Follow curr𝒆nt nov𝒆ls on fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com.

"That's why they drew blood from so many people, they're trying to perform a blood sacrifice!?" Uriel gasped at the realization that he already witnessed something like that. Back on Chichén Itzá, it was Heinrich Schlieman's blood what awoke the nameless terrors.

If that small amount of blood was enough to raise such creatures, he couldn't fathom what use could the society have for the vast amounts of blood they took from the citizens.

"Here's the deal. I'll tell you everything you need to know, I'll even rescue the friends you mentioned before with one simple condition." Bella giggled as she blushed up to her ears.

"Let me be clear, I am not going to marry you."

"Wow, you're moving way faster than I expected. We aren't in the ancient times, you know?"

"Sorry, it's just that I've been getting a lot of marriage proposals lately." Uriel apologized for his wrong assumption and drank a sip of water to clear his throat.

"Don't be silly, I don't want to marry. Just having a child or two will suffice." Bella explained as though it was obvious.

"What!?" Uriel managed to stutter after duly spitting his drink and turning to Medusa in order to appease her anger, though her face was barren of emotion.

"Is she your girlfriend? She's kind of cute, I bet she won't mind sharing you for a while."

"You guys can do whatever you want." Medusa shrugged.

'The forbidden knowledge of the witches tradition, an explanation about their actions, their future plans and maybe even the location of the relics they've found, all at the price of what? Getting a girl pregnant? I must be crazy...' Uriel smiled wryly before shaking his head.

"No? Why not? Brother you said..."

"I said you could ask him, not that he would say yes." Tate shrugged.

"Why would you even want to have kids with someone like me?" Before Uriel could even finish his question, Bella took flight and shut herself into her room.

"You have to excuse my sister, she's an oddball, I know. But there's a reason why she acts that way. She's very special..."

"Yeah, right. Aren't all sisters special?" Kalos sneered thinking on her golden child sister.

"Well, she is my sister and I love her, but she's also very special. I bet you all noticed her hair is always waving in the wind even when there's no wind around."

"Yes, that's her trait is it not?" Uriel tilted his head.

"It is and according to our tradition it means she's perfectly attuned with the wind element. A case so rare it had only been registered once, the first of our lineage. It makes her an incredibly powerful wind user, but it has a downside. Ever since she acquired her trait she has never been touched."

"Huh?"

"It's just as you heard. There's a thin layer of wind surrounding her entire body at all times. She can't feel her clothes, her makeup is constantly ruined and worst of all, she hasn't felt the warm touch of another human being in years. Can you imagine what it feels like?"

"Her wind barrier, I thought it was an ability..."

"She has no control over it, she can't turn it off. No matter how desperate she gets, she can't even harm herself. Believe me, she tried. To her, fighting is the same as dating because she's looking for someone to break the spell... and after tirelessly searching, you're the only one who managed to do it."

"Giving her children is completely off the table, but..."