A mortal is a terrifying thing.
They die so easily, but they can survive much worse.
Excerpt from an immortals notes.
---
When Ren opened his eyes, the ground had been torn apart and the flames had disappeared.
Ramzan himself was split in half, his upper body separated from its lower portion, both halves twitching grotesquely as they spurted blood.
'...What happened?'
Blinking in confusion, Ren hissed as pain flared in his left eye, the memory of a blade entering it followed closely by everything going white.
Then after he recovered from where he sat on the ground, everything was destroyed and quiet.
'Did I do that?'
Looking at it emotionally, he really hoped that he did, but it was more likely that whoever put the barrier on him was the culprit.
Staring at the broken cane in his hands flickering with numerous lines on its surface, Ren felt a distinct hunger only to be startled by a groan.
"Ugh...."
'What the!?'
Turning to the source of the groan, Ren found himself shocked to no end when Ramzan was seen pulling themself up and off of the ground.
"How?" He unwittingly voiced causing Ramzan to snap his head his direction.
Bleary eyes taking in Ren's face, Ramzan's eyes widened with recognition as his mouth poured blood. "How... Did you do it?"
"How are you alive?" Ren asked back, staring in shock as Ramzan grunted despite the lack of a lower body and much of their right arm.
"Answer my question"
"You tried to kill me! Why should I!?" Ren threw the broken stick at Ramzan who caught it with his face.
"Ugh"
Breaking the skin across his face revealing how fragile and flaky that it had become, Ramzan stared at the flickering stick on the ground before voicing his words in perfect clarity.
"Because I want some answers."
Ren flinched while grabbing the other half of the broken stick, pointing the sharp end at Ramzan and already regretting his choice to throw it at Ramzan.
"Why would I even do that?" He asked, slowly making his way closer and closer to the door that he had entered from.
"Because I have the answers to the questions that you may no doubt be asking, an answer for an answer."
"You could just be telling a lie"
Slowly moving to the doorway, Ramzan showed signs of panic "Wait! I have a way of making sure that we're only telling the truth! What is one plus one?"
"Two?"
"No!" Ramzan flailed his one limb. "I mean, what is the right answer for One plus one but say a lie!"
"Th-" Ren tried to say the number three only to feel his tongue get tripped up all over itself.
Frowning, Ren tried to say the number three, four and even five only to have all of his efforts thwarted by a strange sensation of something stopping him from speaking.
"Are you convinced now?"
"Not really..." He inched closer to the door.
"Wait! How about this! Instead of me asking a question after you have asked for yours, how about I ask a question after your every two questions!?"
Ren paused at the edge of the doorway, despite what he had said about not wanting to question Ramzan for answers, he really wanted to know why Master Ramzan became a roaring madman all of a sudden.
Ren's mind connected two dots together.
'Just like Dip lip'
"...Fine. Why did you do it?" Ren let the stick tap against his leg. "Why did you suddenly want to kill me?"
Ramzan let out a sigh of relief before saying "Because I am a Plunderer."
Ren's eyes widened. 'A plunderer?' Nearly stumbling from that revelation, Ren stared at Ramzan with a heightened wariness than before.
Not because he had tried to murder him earlier although that did have a hand in his wariness.
But because he was a plunderer.
One of the many common enemies of all the mortal races of Ars and some of the Immortal ones.
Ren gulped down his saliva.
He had heard from his mother that if it weren't for the fact that the disappearance of an entire village would go noticed in due time, the borderlands would've been filled with the stench of blood.
No. Actually on second thought, even the blood would be offered to the Anti Spirits that the Plunderers obeyed.
"One plus one is th-" Ren felt the same restriction placed onto the air stop him from saying what he had wanted to say.
'So he's telling the truth...' Ren furrowed his brows before looking at Ramzan. '...Is he?'
"Ramzan."
"What is your question Ren?" Ramzan had an ingratiating look on his face, a slight pinch of impatience appearing on the corner of his face.
"Is that thing that forces me to tell the truth also on you?"
Ramzan froze in place, a disgusted look replacing the ingratiating one. "What do you take me for?"
"A madman who wanted me dead."
"...Well I put the truth thing on. One plus one equals th-" Ren watched as he mouthed the word three only for his voice to not carry.
So either he just put it onto himself during the brief pause, or he always had it on.
Ren wasn't sure which one was better.
"Since you've asked your two questions. Tell me, how did you destroy my carefully prepared ritual?!"
Ramzan shouted, blood exploding out of his mouth onto the ground in front of him, black goblets splattering in front of him.
Slightly intimidated by the sight but nevertheless reassured by the fact that it went to show that Ramzan was going to die soon, Ren answered truthfully.
"I don't know."
"..."
"..."
"Are you sure that-"
"It's my turn to ask the questions now" Ren interrupted Ramzan who reluctantly agreed.
"Fine. Ask your question."
"How long have you been a Plunderer?"
"Ten years."
'Oh. Oh no' Ren widened his eyes at the fact that a Plunderer had gone for so long unnoticed.
Ren gulped down his saliva as a thought occurred to him.
"Unless you had someone helping cover your tracks.
"...How did you know?"
"It's still my turn to ask the questions Ramzan." Ren inched away from the door, his one eye pulsing with pain at the sight of some flickering figures at the doors edges.
"So if you've been a plunderer for this long... who helped you. Who helped you stay hidden as a Plunderer for this long?" Ren clarified.
"The Antispirit helped me."
"You know that's not what I meant by the question."
"I answered the question didn't I? Should've worded it better" Black flew out of his mouth with a cough as he laughed. "Entertain this dying man's question why don't you?"
"...Fine. What is your question."
"Who. Helped you."
"Well that would be my dad-"
"He didn't help you survive a knife granted to me by the Anti spirit did he? Tell me the truth." Ramzan interrupted, a harsh glow coming from his eyes.
"Now I can't tell my own twisted truth's?" Ren sarcastically asked. "Someone told me that telling me that they can do it while I can't is..."
Ren searched for the word lingering on the tip of his tongue. "Hypocritical"
Glaring at Ren as if he would kill him despite nearing death's door himself, Ren nonetheless stepped farther away from Ramzan while keeping his eye on the door with several lingering white figures.
'Just what on Ars are those things?'
Watching as they shook frantically, as they moved, Ren continued to step away from the door as discomfort lingered in his chest like an itch he couldn't scratch.
Plus, he didn't even know who helped him himself.
"My next question." Ren felt something touch his foot and glanced down to see nothing. "Who are your mortal helpers?"
Body facing down as he glared at the ground, blood continued to pour steadily out of his mouth, splattering onto the ground like rain seeping into stone.
Except the blood wasn't seeping into the stone and was instead disappearing the very instant that it touched it.
'What the...'
And now that he was looking at the entire place, why was there suddenly a trail of blood on the ground?
"My mortal helpers are... the Barbarians."
"What?"
"After I betrayed the Djinndian Army and became a Plunderer, at the order of the Most High, I was sent here to become to help our Barbarian Allies."
A chill ran down Ren's spine as something grabbed around his cast covered left leg.
"To become a captain to better help our barbarian allies, I became a scout and led those poor fools into an ambush." Voice coming from down where Ren had brushed something that he couldn't see, Ren instantly grimaced as a piercing pain shot up the leg.
"They never knew " Ramzan's smile couldn't have distorted his face any further as his eyes turned into bloodied crescents when Ren looked at it.
"And guess what?" Ramzan turned to look to the side. "The Barbarians are here."
Kicking the hand grasping at his right leg and instantly regretting the decision as the leg now bearing a bone knife in its side bore all of that pressure, Ren ran.
Looking back to see beast skin wearing figures appear from where Ramzan was looking, his heart leapt to his throat as he ran faster and faster despite the pain in his ankle and the numerous white figures lingering at the door.
"Enjoy being sacrificed to their Totem God!" Ramzan called out jovially from behind Ren before his voice morphed into one of confusion and terror. "What are you doing? Chase after him! Hey! No! NO!"
Running out of the door and feeling something akin to cool air brush against him as he barreled through the white figures, the confusion lasted a few moments before he continued to run.
Puzzling out what had just happened and what those white figures were could come later, the only thing he needed to do is run.
Ignoring the ache in his leg as it continued to thump harshly against the ground, Ren darted through the house, his mind desperately recalling every turn that he had made before entering the room and reversing it all.
'The door!'
Spotting the door after making a final turn, Ren desperately ran towards it and slammed the door open with a final sprint.
Heart nearly beating out of his chest, Ren slammed open the door and prepared to shout out Ramzan's identity as a Plunderer only to be struck by a wave of heat.
Blinking away the shock, another wave of shock washed over him as all that he saw was Flame
Then something struck him on the back of his head.
Everything turned black
When he awoke again, instead of the ceiling of the medical hall that he had hoped to see as a result of waking from this terrible nightmare. He was greeted with a cold unfeeling ceiling of stone.
The constant ache in his eye and leg made sure to remind him that this was still reality.
'What the hell just happened'
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