Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1176: Meeting An Old Friend (2)

"Long time no see. Or, I suppose not at all," Skullius said relaxedly.

The beast that appeared before him was a great white fox with dark eyes. It pushed away nearby trees, its immense size causing rocks and pebbles to bob up and down with each of its footsteps.

It stopped only when it was five meters away from Skullius, sat on its hind legs and wore a menacing grin. This grin, however, did not have an ounce of mirth behind it. It was merely a behavioural trait engrained in the beast, as hinted by its name - Grinning Jester Fox.

A harsh breath left the creature's nostrils and it peppered Skullius lightly.

Ashema gave a whistle and released the strings of blood connected to his victims. They all slumped down, laying flat on their chests and he used their bodies, which rose in a mound, as his seat. Producing a large, dirty gourd somewhere unseen, Ashema then excitedly began to extract the blood from all the beasts he had been toying with, feeding it into the vessel.

Soon, he was sipping the mix of bloods with intrigue while watching the proceedings expectantly.

The Grinning Jester Fox didn't spare him a glance. It only had eyes for Skullius.

The Hybrid Luman waved with a bright expression.

"Have you gone senile, Dellan? I think I just offered you a greeting," he said.

The fox didn't seem to acknowledge him. Only after taking a few drawn-out breaths did it frown, one of its eyes shimmering in a vibrant orange hue, and then asked:

"Who are you?" the fox, Dellan, asked sombrely.

Skullius chuckled.

"How rude. You guarded my labyrinth for four thousand years and you dare to look me in the eye and declare that you don't even recognise me?" he said coolly.

Dellan trembled ever so slightly. Skullius went on.

"Speaking of eyes, that eye of yours should already be telling you who I am, shouldn't it?" And indeed it was so.

Dellan's orange eye, which had been able to tell the peculiarity in Skullius' existence all those months ago, when he still wore the most basic flesh, was sending a great deal of information up to the fox's brain. However, he couldn't quite fathom what the eye saw.

"No. You aren't Fulgardt. But... you are..."

"I am the little skeleton you accompanied through this very forest as a gift for conquering the Labyrinth. I know you remember," Skullius said and he began to walk into the plateau, his shadow and the Heart of Revelation following after him like loyal, living monstrosities. "Back then you seemed so intrigued. You were so eager to see what I would become. You always harped on the fact that you were different from other beasts, uncaring about the normal conventions that should concern beasts of your calibre."

(A/N: Refer to Ch.104&105).

Dellan gave a keen look to Skullius and slowly, hesitantly, followed after him. Ashema remained on his throne of corpses. He could hear the interaction just fine.

"You seemed so unfathomable back then," Skullius said, and his smile broadened comically. "But now I laugh. You benefitted greatly from guarding my Labyrinth, didn't you? You learned a great deal. Well, I'm pleased for you. All that time you spent holed up... it helped you quite a bit. You are no longer a docile little cub in need of strength just as you were back then."

"WATCH YOUR TONGUE!" Dellan hissed and terrible ripples of power exploded from him, casting a frightening shockwave that made the trees in a hundred-meter radius lean backward, some shattering from their trunks.

Ashema whistled again and gulped a few human raisins in excitement.

Skullius ignored Dellan. The release of power hadn't affected him in the least. He kept walking on.

"Ah, yes. How wise," Skullius mocked. "Bare your fangs against the one who sharpened them."

"You are not him. You're merely an imitation. If I had known that the little critter I watched march out of this forest triumphantly, after merely succeeding because of luck would end up becoming a pathetic copy of the glory of Fulgardt, I would have-"

"No, you wouldn't," Skullius cut Dellan off, his voice cold, and he came to a stop. "You wouldn't have done anything. And still, you will do nothing."

The Hybrid Luman turned and gave Dellan a sinister grin that drove the beast back a step.

"See? You see Fulgardt's shadow in me, don't you?" Skullius said and he turned back and walked on. "Fortunately for you, I am not Fulgardt. I am Festos. Festos Dawn. I don't intend to become another calamity, another Immoral. I have better, greater sights, old friend. I wish to build and expand, rather than to focus more on destruction."

As he said this, Skullius extended his hand forth, and space seemed to melt around him as a terrifying blob of [Evil Darkness] shot from his ever-changing shadow and began to construct a vast, wide tower that rose three hundred meters into the sky, so solid, and so reproachful of light that it might have been a pristine painting.

Slivers of golden white [Just Light] then raced from his fingers and painted select portions of the massive, exquisite structure, marking what might have been windows and roof tiles that seemed to mark the end of each floor on the rise and half skulls that hung from the rafters of said roofs.

Skullius, Dellan and Ashema looked up at the tower. It was rather impressive, and the shadow it cast against the Tremur Forest seemed absolute. Everything that was touched by it seemed to lose its state of existence, as though it didn't exist.

"I will never regret my hunts and idea to eradicate the Deities from back then, but it didn't serve as grand of a purpose as I thought. What did I stand to gain by killing those embodiments of falsehoods - those hypocrites? It's best to teach others to look upon the Wanderer Who Seeds, master of all. To believe in him is to cast away - to shed rather - all unneeded impurity. The past, meaningless connections. Everything worthwhile on Aigas deserves to leave it and experience the broader world above," Skullius said.

Dellan didn't know what to say to this.

From the way the individual, the creature rather, before him spoke, he could tell that there was indeed bits of Fulgardt in there. If that had simply been the case, he wouldn't have been so disconcerted. However, there was something undoubtedly ominous about the way Skullius

spoke.

There was something evil about the way darkness crept from the shadow, how light sprang erect, aloof, from his fingers.

Above all, the obvious hypocrisy and feigned righteousness with which he imbued his words.

No.

This was likely to be worse than before!

Skullius then turned to Dellan and pointed a blameless finger at him.

"But first," he said, "I need your eye."

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