The Truth of the Dark Mold

Henry continued on his path, but never arrived at a place that contained the Crux Chaplet. Laughing, giggling, and smiling all the time, he looked happy as could be. Igius was watching over him, informing Seraphelle of his behavior. She became frustrated at his jittery appearance.

Seraphelle: “Why isn’t he miserable? It’s been way past the time that I told him. I want him to be depressed!”

Igius: “Haha. Finally not getting something that you want, miss brat? The man is basically a child. His thoughts are blank and he is just having fun searching for this thing.”

Asuka: “Now that I’m rested enough, who decided to bring this man here? Do neither of you know who he works for?”

Igius: “Uh oh, did we make gramps upset again? Hahaha. Now I’m having fun.”

Asuka: “That would make you the culprit who brought him here, Seraphelle. Ah yes, I know that face. We already have people at the Royal City trying to stop Mugen from collecting all the chaplets. Why would you possibly bring his right hand man into our territory and even give him a chance of securing the Crux Chaplet?”

Seraphelle: “Relax Gramps. I’m the one that sent people to the city. Stop pestering me. He’s not going to get it. I sent him on a long journey to its original destination, but don’t worry. I went and grabbed it before he got here. It’s in my pocket.”

Asuka: “Let me see it. Take it out of your pocket.”

Seraphelle: “You’re overreacting. Here it’s right he–”

She pulled her pocket out, but to everyone’s surprise, nothing was in there. The Crux Chaplet that Seraphelle claimed she had was not there.

It was empty.

Asuka looked extremely disappointed, but in a way that didn’t surprise her. Seraphelle ordered Igius to check on Henry again. When she did, Henry was standing still and turned back like he knew he was being watched. Igius jumped out of where she was sitting, shocked at what she was seeing. ‘Impossible,’ she thought. ‘How does he know I’m watching him?’

Henry put his thumb up in the air, turned it down, and in the other hand, he showed the Crux Chaplet. He then pulled out a Seeker Chaplet, Thinker Chaplet, and Yellow Egress Chaplet, pointed at all three and disappeared.

Igius: “You slimy, sneaky bastard.”

Seraphelle: “What?! What did you see?”

Igius: “He got away with the Crux Chaplet. He used a Seeker Chaplet at the beginning before he even left along with a Thinker Chaplet. He figured out what abilities we possessed and that we were lying to his face. I don’t know how he found out you had it the whole time though. Needless to say, you got outplayed, you damn idiot.”

Seraphelle: “Impossible. He couldn’t have known that. When did he use chaplets right in front of my face?”

Asuka sighed and Igius started to laugh again at Seraphelle’s stupidity. She was enraged at this, trying to blame it on anyone but herself. Ultimately, she walked away like a child and pouted, throwing a tantrum and stirring up trouble amongst the other witches.

Igius: “Want me to do something about that?”

Asuka: “Leave her be. It’s not the end of the world. If he decides to use it on our realm, then we can simply leave and make another. Who knows what’ll happen if all 70 chaplets are gathered, but I’ll say this…I doubt that man has the intelligence to find them all.”

Igius: “No doubt people have some. How is he going to track them?”

Asuka: “He can’t unless he throws a Rose Chaplet on everybody he possibly sees. Even then, its percentage is close to 0. I’m tired. We’ll worry about this later when rumors start to spread that he is close. I’m too lazy for this. It’s going to take him a long time to get all of them. Let Seraphelle learn her lesson. I don’t want any trouble with any swordsmen right now. We don’t need any more useless deaths than we’ve had recently. We have a pact with The Association, not anyone else.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Iki’s face was beaten so badly that his eyes could not open and his face swelled like a plum. Lorenzo threw a Healing Chaplet down to fix him before restarting the process all over again. Iki didn’t have a chance to try and kill them, nor could he break out of the barriers that surrounded him. He looked at a couple of the barriers, knowing they were made from dark mold material, but kept his mouth shut.

Lorenzo was able to pull substance from that realm over to this world…Something he didn’t know was possible. He couldn’t go near that place anyways, but he also couldn’t let them know that right now. If he could get out of the chains he was in and be able to touch that barrier’s dark purple substance, then he would be able to break out and kill all of them. At least, that’s what he thought.

Lorenzo: “What do you know, Iki? This torture isn’t going to stop. How do I fix the curse?”

Iki: “You're delusional.”

Lorenzo: “I’m disappointed. I really would’ve thought you were honest, but I guess a loser like you that can’t even control a few areas of land is not built to tell the truth.”

Iki: “Wh-What kind of a person…beats up a kid who knows nothing about what they are talking about. Dark Mold? That’s a fantasy story told to kids. Just cause I’m a little stronger than other people doesn’t mean I’m not still a kid.”

Lorenzo: “Reiken, please tell Iki here about what he exposed on the battlefield."

Reiken: “Ah yes, with pleasure. You see, Lorenzo has been developing new technology throughout the years behind the scenes for a moment just like this. The Rods were a successful attempt at a newly found fighting tool besides swords, although they don’t really hold up against the Great Swordsmen, so he could never invade, knowing he would lose. Even Lorenzo himself would admit this. He kept his inventions a secret for a long time in a place further than where his people resided, sitting in isolation for years trying to make something that would resemble chaplets using Dark Mold material. I specialize in barriers, and have been making my rounds to see who provides the best barrier, and out of all of them, the Dark Mold was tied with this shack of a cabin that houses a man that has overwhelming strength on par with the 1st Reverend I believe, and still cannot escape. Lorenzo extracted some material from the Dark Mold from human test subjects and combined it with Gravity Chaplets to make a device that can track who and what has Dark Mold material in this world. Well, a man in his land did this. He is quite good at making tracking devices.”

Lorenzo: “I wanted to check if any monsters from that pathetic place came over into our land and what caused my wife to be entranced with a stupid teddy bear. I knew already that your body housed Dark Mold powers, but you weren’t using them for some reason. Once you slipped up and your anger got the best of you, you used it. Reiken was able to create barriers that stopped you in your tracks. I even had his people store Gravity Chaplets underground that were within 10 feet of you, but it barely diminished your mana. It should’ve stopped it all, but this power that resides in you is clearly not something that chaplets can prevent. Should we test more chaplets on you at this moment, or are you going to speak up and tell the truth?”

Iki was trapped. His bluff didn’t work. They would kill him anyways no matter what he said though. He had to lie in order to keep himself alive, but mix in the truth, not knowing what they already knew.

He was struggling to breathe being beaten to a pulp every hour. Blood ran down his entire body, but they wouldn’t give him another Healing or Recovery Chaplet until he explained. He would tell the truth about who he was, but lie about how to fix the curse, as he himself did not even know.

Iki: “Tch, smart bastards. I don’t know who this Reiken guy is, but I’ll make sure to kill you first when I get out of here. I’m more pissed off at you than the truth about Lorenzo Cain. I’ll have Yahiko look into your names and I’ll show you that your stupid barriers you’ve been working out for all your life are a joke…Yeah, I’m from the Dark Mold. I’m the child of Yamao Ritus, 3rd ruler of the throne of Balasteru. There are 5 rulers total and 1 supreme ruler. We total 100 and are called demons by people like you because of our hair and horns. You kept calling me a child all this time, and I went along with it, but I’m much older than you. I’m 850 years old. Don’t sell me short you fool. I have more experience than you just from sitting in the Dark Mold than you fighting an army of 50,000 men. The cold, thin air there that reeks of death. It’s a power that you won’t ever harness. Sure, you made a barrier from it, but you won’t control it in a million years.”

Lorenzo: “Is he telling the truth, Reiken?”

Reiken: “Yeah, the Thinker Chaplet sure worked, but 30 seconds isn’t enough time. He’s going to keep stalling.”

Lorenzo: “We got plenty. Nothing to worry about.”

‘Crap!’ Iki thought, but then instantly shut off his thoughts before they threw another one down and he began to talk again. He couldn’t think of anything that revealed that he didn’t know how to break the curse, but knew what to say that would throw them off their path and still keep him alive.”

Iki: “You can bring the 10 Great Swordsmen all together and you still probably won’t win against them. They are a fierce group of warriors that guard nothing. There is nothing there, but immense strength and power from that purple substance you used. You’re lucky that you were able to extract it without dying yourselves. I give you my regards in that sense, but I wouldn’t try that again. 1 drop of that on your skin and you're going to die.”

Lorenzo: “You guard nothing? Interesting. What about you? Why aren’t you there?”

Iki: “I was a flaw. I was born from the ground and did not grow in height. Even though we all are old, everyone grows to an adult by 5 years old. I stayed the same height and got put back in the ground for 835 years until I got banished to this stupid place and ended up becoming a leader of The Association. The mental strain from working with idiots is worse than any torture I could ever receive from you all. I’m not allowed back into the Dark Mold. Someone has already taken my place and been reborn.”

Lorenzo: “Then what about the curse?”

Iki: “You’re going to kill me if I tell you how to do it. I’m not giving up that information.”

Lorenzo: “You bastard!”

Reiken: “If I may intervene, you said you were the child of Yamao Ritus, but then was born from the ground? The Thinker Chaplet did not lie, so what does this mean?”

Iki: “The 5 rulers plant us as seeds in the ground, which we sprout from. Technically, I’m his child, but everybody is born from the 5 rulers. The Supreme Ruler only makes 1 child every 400 years. I don’t know why.”

Reiken: “And who is that?”

Iki: “Kalbokulus. An entity that could destroy this entire world with a snap of his fingers. You both are barking up the wrong tree.”

Reiken: “So, if we manage to find this Kalbokulus figure, then we could break the curse for Lorenzo’s wife?”

Iki: “Be my guest. There’s only one sword in the entire world that has bested him and that’s A–”

Reiken: “Alcion. Yeah, I figured that was the case.”

Lorenzo: “What do you mean?”

Iki: “That man and his sword came into our realm right after I was let back out of the ground before I was banished. He confronted all of us and when he refused to leave, Kalbokulus himself got up and stood over him, 6 feet taller than him. That man looked in his eyes and just smiled. Everyone attacked him, but in a split second, everybody was on the ground. It was an embarrassment to us warriors. We have an ability that is greater than mana, yet someone solely with mana and a sword took everybody down easily.”

Lorenzo: “I’ve heard legends of that sword, but never really knew if it existed. Glad you confirmed that, but it doesn’t help me fix my wife’s curse.”

Iki: “I told you. Go talk to him. I might be your key to get in and get back out. After all, if you go in, you might never come back out.”

Lorenzo knew Iki was telling the truth, regardless of what the Thinker Chaplet said. Anybody that has gone into the Dark Mold has never come back out. There hasn’t been a single instance where this was true, even with his test subjects that he used. People that touched the substance would go crazy and eventually die from the same curse if they didn’t die on the spot. His wife only touched an object containing the substance, so she had more time.

Tenken walked in with a serious expression. He looked at Iki, shrugged, and continued. He served Reiken and Reiken only, and he allowed them to call him by his first name. Anything else that was in his way, he did not care for, but in this situation, he had some news that could change things for them.

Tenken: “Reiken, I learned some information that I think we should look into. Centennials Parrel close to where we are in the Land of the Witches houses a curse on everybody there. I talked to a few people with the curse, and they don’t know how to get rid of it either. The effects are similar to Lorenzo’s wife’s. People die within only a few years of having it. It could be a witch using Poison Chaplets throughout the air, but it’s strange. It’s like they are given a day in which they are going to die and it happens.”

Reiken: “No, it can’t be a Poison Chaplet. Those effects don’t happen with that. I wonder if someone is copying our idea with Gravity Chaplets and using Luck Chaplets and something else to spread the damage. Lorenzo, I’ll be back, I need to smoke and think…Sayaka!

Tenken: “Oh, hold on. Slow your horses. I wasn’t done. After this, I need to smoke too. I’m sure you sensed it already, but three of the Great Swordsmen are around here. They won’t find this place with the barrier, but I saw them enter Celenar Encrodian from a distance.”

Reiken: “It’s fine. They won’t find this place. A true waste of time.”

Lorenzo: “I’m coming too. We got what we needed from this kid.”

Sayaka: “Yes, Reiken?”

Reiken: “Keep beating this kid to a pulp and healing him every hour on the hour.”

Sayaka: “Okay!”