ALL NOVEL Chapter 57: The Twisted Dream
The air strip had a large hangar meant for the people who were about to go to the jaws of death. On the side stood the young master of the Tomas Family. To his left was the Storm Vanguard that would cut the womb of the beast nest.
Robert found himself surrounded with only ten soldiers. Though armed with the exoskeleton frames that the Holmians had provided. The rest were rugged men except for the female one with her face burnt to a crisp.
The Storm Vanguard who stood next to the young master. Robert found it hateful that they had ounces of respect towards the young master. Knowing that the young master would have disregarded them for they were only tools for his vengeance.
The young master took the podium with everyone. Behind that podium was the extra ‘frames’ that they would wear to armor the exoskeleton frames that they’d be wearing.
The young master examined the exoframes with deep interest. He allowed the Storm Vanguard to assist him in wearing one. There was no strain in the young master’s face as he easily lifted the gear that they needed tools to lift. He wore the exoframes, and moved about, swinging that 20mm rotary cannon attached to the forearm of the exoframe. He lifted the cannon from the forearm, deployed the saw blade that revved the moment it came out.
“Seems useful,” the young master said to the Storm Vanguard.
The Storm Vanguard brought over the tower shield that accompanied the frame. It was certainly a piece of equipment that couldn’t be carried without any tools. The tower had a mechanism that allowed itself to be stuck in the ground. Behind the legs of the exoframe were forelegs that supported the frame.
“We are facing demifiends. Though they come in varying sizes and strength, the methods of the people of Lazon in fighting them had allowed us to create an optimal strategy. The strength and agility to hold down the horde.”
The Storm Vanguard eyed the exoframe, his eyes going to the Vulcans standing in the background. The young master examined the exoframe before he had let himself out.
He sat on the edge of the podium with his eyes trained on everyone.
“You have been selected because you are the best. You have nothing to lose. The few of you here have decided to take their lives in the form of saving this Empire,” he began. “This Empire who had been eager to desecrate the womb of the demifiends.
“Some may call our future actions to be genocide. Make no mistake, it is not genocide, but merely a culling, those fiends that can be eaten, will be domesticated. This womb doesn’t have these animals that are good to be cattle.
“I had worked hard to bring out this operation. If you succeed, not only that will decrease the chances of the demifiends. You will fortify this Empire from the demifiends that will come at your doorsteps.”
The young master stood up. His hands on his back. “You have known by now that there is news of the demikins pushing the east in what seems to be a hasty migration. In the founding of the Empire, my family, which was sworn to the Strongarm Clans, had retreated from the southern continents to escape the life of battle. We had come here to seek comfort, only to find that the demifiends lived in this region that is now called the Greater Lazon. My family had maintained the tradition of killing the demifiends, and only seven years ago that I had been able to subdue the demifiends. But that isn't enough.”
He clenched his fist in front of them. “It was only when I had placed a bullet in the head of a sixteen-foot-tall beast that I had understood how there was much to do. Unfortunately, I cannot continue my righteous crusade for it would stir this quagmire of an Empire, they would fear that I would be a secessionist, a traitor for an Empire. When the Lazonians and the Empire were bound together, it was through a contract that had been written in a ritual of blood, where power had been involved. You might have heard it, how everything started from the ‘spark’ that lit up the world. We use the same ‘spark’ to bound the Lazonian bloodline through the Empire.”
He paused for a moment. His eyes fully inspected the Vulcans that stood ten-foot tall armed with armaments that could allow them to reach the heart of the womb, plant the bombs and finish the mission.
“The Great Silence had dissolved that contract. The Emperor knows this, and he can think what he wants. Whether it was part of my plan to do this from the start. It does not matter. I have the means to assault this nest without anyone from this 108th nobles to give a damn about. No war to stop all of you from taking your rightful revenge. It was not my plan, but the Nullers and the Magi would not interfere with what had happened to them in the recent Great Silence that I had created. I had crippled their source of spark, and I will not hide this from all of you. Because you are the people that I chose to be part of this great demand. When I came to you in my youth, I did so without telling you lies. I told all of you that I need tools to destroy the demifiends that took the lives of my parents.”
He eyed everyone in the room. The dull-eyed look that he had was replaced by a burning desire that Robert had not seen for thirteen years now. There was a darkness in those eyes that made even the battle-hardened soldiers here flinched.
Lord Mavin Tomas had been born strong because of his bloodline. The boons he and the Lord had collected throughout the years had strengthened them further, that when he heard the feats of the young master in the war. It didn’t surprise him.
He had expected the young master to survive. It would have been odder if a man like him couldn’t survive a war. A demon wouldn’t go down so easily.
‘Yet someone found your weakness,’ Robert snided. ‘No, it’s like the raven found another raven. The Lady Bellatrix of all people, I guess there is always something about the young master that attracts the worst.’
“I came to all of you without fear of hiding my true intentions. I came to the Storm Vanguard, told him that I would be throwing his life away, in exchange for the safety of the Empire. I had told you when I offered my hands that I would give the vengeance to those who had perished because of the beast. Unfortunately, we live in a world of miracles, technology, and monsters. We live in a world that had experienced a great war that killed the age of knights of chivalry. We once feared the demifiends because of their tough furs, feathers, scales, and the layers of rock-like skin on their bodies. However, with the invention of the great equalizer, we had been able to completely eradicate them. We had defeated our enemy with the might of our guns and the tenacity of the machines that the Holmians had prepared for us.
“My ancestors would have smiled at me at the thought of their lifelong dream accomplished, however, it came to me that we had not been done yet. The threat that still hides in the south of the capital and the east of the mouth of Pustalo had not been eradicated. I had seen the demifiends crawl down their tunnels to reach this womb. We had neutralized this tunnels, buried the creatures alive, and had flooded their homes with water from the cold sea of demifiend region. I had burnt their nests and purged their tunnels.”
He stared at the hangar’s ceiling. “It was not enough to destroy their homes in the south of Lazon and the east of the mouth of pustalo. I had not lied to any of you ever since I had demanded all of you to come here. I did not deny that you people are nothing but tools in my eyes. You hear me speak right now, but inside I know that you are filled with thoughts such as why this evil and heartless man would try to cuddle us up with so much bullshit in our ears,” he said jokingly. “Nonetheless, I still tell you this from the bottom of my heart what I want you all to do. Seven years ago, you had told me to live instead of coming with all of you to die. You of all people had figured who I am and what I had stood for.”
Everyone nodded to the young monster that ordered them to die for the sake of an Empire and his home. It didn’t matter to them that he was a strange lord who had many masks to associate himself with others. He was a distant young man who looked at others as if they were paper puppets. There were only a few people who he didn’t look at like that.
“The time has come,” he said loudly. “I had decided that this is the time that we will end the demifiends. I assure you that all of you will die in this mission. Each and every single one of you will become a sacrifice for the sun that will be dropped. The Nullers would spend their forces trying to kill me if they know what we have here. Nonetheless, the sun that you will place in their hearts would cause tsunamis, earthquakes, and what they would call green wind to drift into the lands. Some of you are tempted to kill them on their own, but I assure you that the bullets you will carry will not be enough. The blades that your armored exoskeletons will carry, would not be enough.
“I am sending all of you to the very heart of death itself. Expect thousands and possibly millions of these creatures. Do you understand why I only gathered the best of you? Why had I chosen to do this in hopes that you could place a bomb in their heart?”
Robert knew.
He had accepted it.
He had been trained like everyone here to be the Korps that would take the wishes of this young man to the depths and the heart of the nest and the very womb of the demifiends. Robert still had a name because he was the one who needed to reach the nest. The Storm Vanguard and his troops were nothing more than the shield that will take Robert to the heart of the nest.
Robert was even impressed how the young lord could have gathered such an impressive amount of people who had such death wishes. People who had nothing else to live other than death.
No sane man would come to this hangar without knowing what their mission was. The worst thing about all of it was how willing they were to die for someone such as him.
They had been told and grown that they were his tools. They were nothing more than tools he had grown strong enough to take on such a mission.
All of them accepted it.
But there was a mockery that they hid.
The mockery that soon they will leave behind the rest of their wishes to this despicable young lord. Their families would grow rich, and they would become unsung heroes. Nonetheless, they all knew that there was more pain coming for this lord who had turned them into such foolish people who wished for nothing more than death and vengeance on the demifiends.
This was their sickness.
Perhaps they had let this lord believe that was what they wanted. Robert knew they were being suicidal fools, but the fire and anger that burned inside their hearts had been burning for too long.
They had become twisted.
All for the sake of a twisted dream.
