The Primeval Era-Chapter 133: Expansion I

Serala looked out across the skies while sitting atop the flying beast body of the Tokoloshe.

The Lands of Stone stretched beneath them in endless waves of forest and plain and distant mountain, all of it painted gold by the descending sun. Wind rushed past her face, but the warmth rising from the golden fur beneath her kept the chill at bay. She could feel Mana flowing into her body from his massive form, a steady current filling the hollow places battle had carved within her.

He hadn’t answered her question about the Vakochev prince.

She hadn’t pushed.

She hugged her knees to her chest and let the silence remain.

The warmth continued to seep into her, comfort she hadn’t asked for but couldn’t refuse. Her cultivation responded to it instinctively, accepting the gift without resistance. If she focused, she could sense the threads of connection between her essence and his, pathways forged when his flames had elevated her to Vessel Completion in moments rather than years.

She was currently questioning everything.

The values the Hallowed Voice had taught her. The doctrines the Saint of Stone had burned into her memory. Peace. Honor. Good. These were supposed to be the foundations upon which the Covenant of the First Stone had been built.

She was not seeing any of that in these Lands of Stone.

She had seen honor in the grand palaces before.

She remembered an incident from her fourteenth summer, when a woman had come to the gates of the Hallowed Citadel with nothing but desperation in her eyes. Her husband had died. Her children were starving. She had offered the only thing she had left, her chastity, to the High Paladins of the Hallowed Legions in exchange for food and shelter.

The High Paladins had refused her offer.

Not with cruelty or judgment, but with kindness she hadn’t expected. They brought her inside the gates and gave her clean clothes and a warm meal. They enrolled her in the training halls of the Holy Women, where she learned to read and write and serve the Covenant in ways that didn’t require her to sell her body. They provided for her children while she trained, and when she completed her initiation, they placed her in a position where she could earn coin through honest work.

That was honorable.

She remembered hearing of Anointed Ones who used their wealth and power to protect those beneath them.

Lord Covenant Amare, whose family had sworn themselves to the First Stone seven generations ago, sent grain to the Sworn Tribes near his territory every winter without fail. Even when his own harvests suffered, even when his advisors counseled him to keep the surplus for emergencies, he loaded carts and sent them north. Thousands survived harsh seasons because of his generosity.

Lady Covenant Zara maintained healing houses throughout her domain, staffed by Shamans who treated anyone regardless of their ability to pay. She had reportedly sold jewels from her own treasury to fund the houses during lean years.

These were the stories Serala had grown up hearing. These were the examples she had been taught to emulate. This was the honor the Covenant was supposed to represent.

She was not seeing any of that.

Instead, she saw Imperators who initiated Primal Surges without regard for the innocent lives trampled beneath beast hooves.

She saw Sworn who controlled and hunted Dross Tribes as if they were animals rather than people. She saw corruption in the families of the Covenant itself, traitors who had allied with the Dominion of Crimson Stone and helped bring down her Master.

And she saw Imperators implanted with Seeds of Demons.

Demons.

Creatures from beyond the River of The World, entities that consumed flesh and souls and had nearly destroyed everything in ages past. The Murderous Saint hadn’t merely allied with human enemies of the Vakochev Empire. He had bargained with forces that threatened the very existence of the Lands of Stone.

That seemed to be the last straw.

And now, even what she knew about Land and Sky Physiques seemed to be wrong.

The sacred texts said transformations were temporary. The archives of the Hallowed Voice documented the strain such changes placed upon the soul. Every record, every account, every piece of scholarly evidence pointed to the same conclusion.

Yet the Tokoloshe had forged a second body from his transformed flesh and showed no sign of releasing either form.

He sat nearby in human shape, those golden-winged pupils fixed on the crimson medallion as if he could unlock its secrets through sheer force of will. His beast form continued flying beneath her, nine tails streaming through the air and mane of blue flames burning with steady radiance.

Two bodies. One mind. Zero apparent strain.

Everything she knew was crumbling.

She raised her head and looked at Damian’s human form.

He had stopped studying the medallion, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was fixed on the distant horizon, toward something only he could see. Whatever thoughts moved behind those borrowed pupils, he kept them to himself.

She hugged her knees tighter and felt the warmth of his beast form continue to infuse Mana within her.

With how lost she felt right now, she wished he would talk to her. She was finding herself questioning everything she had believed, everything she had been taught, everything that had defined her identity as the Holy Daughter of Stone. A few words might have helped. A few sentences of reassurance or explanation or even simple acknowledgment.

But he remained silent.

Thinking about many things, no doubt. Perhaps the same things she was thinking about. Perhaps things far heavier.

Oh, right.

If he was that prince of the Vakochev Empire, the Outcast Lugal who had fled into the night while his parents were murdered, then his hatred toward Anointed Ones should be immense. They had destroyed his family. They had shattered his cultivation. They had taken everything from him and left him to rot as a Dross farmer in territories so remote that even the Threshold Lands seemed civilized by comparison.

Why would he want to talk to her?

She was one of them, wasn’t she? An Anointed One. A product of the same system that had produced his enemies. The Holy Daughter of a Neolithic Empire, raised in luxury while he scraped survival from unforgiving soil.

But hey.

She was currently cast out just like him, wasn’t she? Her temple had been corrupted from within. She was flying toward a Dross tribe on the back of a beast, hunted by forces that had once sworn to protect her.

Though he had to have lived out here for years.

Eight of them, if the timing was right. Eight years of hiding who he was, of suppressing whatever remained of his former identity, of being nothing more than a farmer while the people who murdered his parents built monuments to their crimes.

She couldn’t imagine it.

She thought of this and many more things as they crossed the Lands of Stone.

The questions multiplied faster than she could examine them. What did honor mean when those who preached it betrayed their oaths? What did peace mean when demons lurked within the bodies of Imperators? What did good mean when children died holding their mothers’ hands beneath the hooves of beasts driven by Warriors?

The golden fur beneath her remained warm.

The Mana continued to flow.

And the Purple Stone Tribe drew closer with every wingbeat, waiting for them with answers she suspected would only lead to more questions.