[Current Balance: 11,889,052,129 R]
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Alaric's smile didn't waver.
It remained fixed, a calm, almost lazy expression that stood in stark contrast to the dozen blowguns aimed steadily at his heart. The chieftain's question hung in the damp, stormy air between them, heavy with suspicion.
"You are not the Ghost Woman, but you carry the same scent of the outside world. Why have you come to the Serpent's Teeth?"
"I'm looking for her," Alaric replied, his voice even, the foreign language flowing from him with an ease that made the chieftain's eyes narrow slightly. "The Ghost Woman. She is my... family. I'm here to find her."
He raised his hands slowly, palms open, a universal gesture of peace.
"I don't want any trouble. I just need information. If you know where she went, I'll be on my way. I can pay you, if that's what you want."
The chieftain stared at him for a long, silent moment. His gaze was sharp, analytical, like a predator sizing up a strange new creature that had wandered into its territory. The other warriors remained motionless, their blowguns held steady.
Alaric could feel their hostility. It was a low hum in the back of his mind, a tense energy picked up by his enhanced senses. They weren't just wary; they were ready to kill.
Finally, the chieftain spoke again, his voice was a low growl.
"The Ghost Woman brought a curse to these islands. A shadow followed her. Now you arrive, another outsider. You bring the same shadow with you."
He lifted his hand, pointing a single, tattooed finger at Alaric.
"You are not welcome here. Leave now, or your bones will feed the jungle."
Alaric's smile faded slightly, replaced by a sigh. He lowered his hands. "Look, I told you, I'm just here for information. I don't want to fight you."
The chieftain's face remained a mask of stone. He gave a sharp, guttural cry, a command that echoed through the clearing.
Instantly, the air was filled with a chorus of sharp thwip sounds. A dozen poisoned darts, swift and silent, shot towards Alaric from all directions.
It was an ambush meant to be overwhelming, a volley impossible for any normal man to dodge.
But Alaric wasn't normal.
To him, in the space between heartbeats, the world slowed down. The darts seemed to crawl through the air, their dark, glistening tips inching towards him.
He didn't move with frantic speed. He simply… shifted.
A slight tilt of his head here, a subtle turn of his shoulder there. He took one calm step to the side. The darts whistled past him, missing by millimeters, embedding themselves harmlessly in the trees and sand behind him.
He stood untouched, the rain dripping from his platinum hair, his crimson coat unstained.
Silence.
The native warriors stared, their mouths slightly agape. They had seen their poison work on the strange, tusked beasts of the island, felling them in seconds. They had never seen anyone, man or beast, simply step out of the way of their coordinated attack.
Fear, for the first time, flickered in their dark eyes.
The chieftain let out another sharp bark, this one laced with fury. The warriors dropped their blowguns, and from straps on their backs, they drew crude but effective weapons: long wooden spears tipped with sharpened obsidian, and heavy clubs studded with shark teeth.
With wild, synchronized cries, they charged.
This time, Alaric moved.
He flowed forward to meet them, a blur of motion. The first warrior thrust his spear. Alaric slapped the wooden shaft aside with an open palm, spun inside the man's guard, and delivered a single, precise chop to a pressure point on the side of his neck. The warrior's eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Another warrior swung his club in a wide, powerful arc. Alaric ducked under it effortlessly, his fist shooting out to strike the man squarely in the solar plexus. The warrior wheezed, the air driven from his lungs, and collapsed, gasping like a landed fish.
Alaric moved through them like a ghost. His movements weren't about brute force; they were about efficiency. He used their momentum against them, redirecting a spear thrust so that it tripped a fellow warrior, using a charging man's body to block another's attack.
A palm strike to a jaw. A quick kick to the back of a knee. A simple, almost gentle push that sent a warrior sprawling into the undergrowth. He disarmed them with casual twists of their wrists, their weapons clattering uselessly to the ground.
It wasn't a fight. It was a lesson in futility.
The natives were skilled hunters, moving with a jungle stealth and coordination that would have overwhelmed any normal group of men. But against Alaric, they were children, their attacks were clumsy and slow. Their strength was meaningless against his superior technique.
Within thirty seconds, all of the warriors were lying on the ground, either unconscious or groaning, clutching bruised limbs. Not a single one had landed a blow on Alaric. He stood in the center of the clearing, his breathing perfectly even, not a speck of mud on his crimson coat.
Only the chieftain remained standing.
His face was a mask of disbelief and rage. He let out a furious roar and charged, his own spear, tipped with a larger, wickedly sharp piece of obsidian, held ready. He was faster and stronger than his men, his movements more practiced.
He lunged, the spear aimed directly at Alaric's heart.
Alaric didn't sidestep this time. He simply raised his hand.
He caught the spear shaft just below the tip, his grip like iron. The chieftain's charge stopped dead, the force of the impact absorbed completely. The chieftain stared, his eyes wide with shock, as he tried to wrench the spear free. It didn't budge. It was like trying to pull a tree from the earth.
"I told you," Alaric said, his voice dangerously quiet. "I just wanted to talk."
With a simple, contemptuous twist of his wrist, he snapped the thick wooden shaft of the spear in two. He tossed the broken pieces aside.
The chieftain stumbled back, weaponless, his face pale with a mixture of fear and awe. Alaric closed the distance in a single step. Before the chieftain could even raise his hands to defend himself, Alaric's hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around the old man's throat. He didn't squeeze hard, just enough to hold him in place.
"Now," Alaric said, his blue eyes turning cold as he lifted the chieftain slightly off his feet. "Let's try this again. Where. Did. She. Go?"
The chieftain's eyes darted around at his fallen warriors, then back to the terrifying, calm face of the man holding him effortlessly in the air. The fight was gone from him, replaced by a primal fear.
He finally spoke, his voice was a choked rasp.
"Japon," he gasped. "She sailed north. Towards the rising sun. Towards Japon."
Alaric held him there for a moment longer, his Mind's Eye confirming the truth in the man's terror. He eased his grip, letting the chieftain drop to his knees, gasping for air.
"How do you know that?" Alaric asked, his tone still hard. "Did she tell you her plans?"
The chieftain coughed, rubbing his throat. "No… not directly." He looked up at Alaric, his earlier pride shattered.
"The Ghost Woman… she was... arrogant. She saw us as... children. Savages. Not worthy of her notice." He spat on the ground.
"She spoke often to the black sphere she carried. Sometimes in her language, sometimes in ours, when she thought no one was listening. She let her guard down. She spoke of her destination, of the artifact she sought there, a sword of great power. She did not think us capable of understanding. But we listen. We always listen."
Alaric absorbed the information, a grim understanding settling over him. Caroline's arrogance, fueled by the Apple's power, had been her undoing. She had grown careless, underestimating those she deemed beneath her.
He looked down at the defeated chieftain, then at the unconscious warriors scattered around the clearing. He had his answer.
He turned away without another word and started walking back towards the beach where he'd first landed, leaving the chieftain kneeling in the rain-soaked clearing amidst his defeated tribe. He didn't look back.
The storm that had raged over the island began to subside, the dark clouds thinning, the lightning ceasing. It was as if the island's strange guardian, having witnessed the intruder's overwhelming power, had simply given up.
As Alaric reached the shoreline, he looked north, across the vast, churning expanse of the Pacific.
Japan.
The Hermit Kingdom. A land closed off to the world, a place where foreigners were met with suspicion and swords.
And Caroline was heading right for it, with an Apple of Eden.
Maybe she was already there…
Alaric just sighed. This was going to be complicated.
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