Chapter 12: A whole lot more

The basement was large, filled with 20 to 30 others wearing the same robe aside from four others. Everyone's attention was shifted onto the two of us, more specifically the spear in my hand, " everyone, the Spear of Transient Darkness has been successfully stolen from the vault, brought to us by Henry, our Branch leader!” rejoices the weird guy, silence befell the room before it erupted into a cheer, this Henry guy was their leader, and it seems none of them know what he looks like. Everyone had gone back to doing what they were doing before we arrived, reading, chatting with others, practicing “dark magic” which is probably the dark energy. “ So this… the door, how’d you open it,” I ask the door guy. We had stepped over to the side after his announcement, " This is my first week here so I know a little, were all followers of the Celestial eater as you already know, mostly everyone here can use small portions of dark magic, this is but a small branch, at the main domain theres the source of our power, a broken fragment of the celestial eater, each branch has a small beacon that keeps us connected to it at all times, while the four elders have the most reserve out of everyone here and have more flexibility with where they can use it!” The guy proclaims. Celestial Eater was an unfamiliar name, but these guys were capable of using the dark energy, I had the option of either subduing everyone here or reporting back to Aurum about this finding and coming back with backup, as in the full force of Queen Aurum. “ So, how many kingdoms have branches as of this moment?” I hadn’t thought about it but the Branch leader asking a low ranking disciple how many branches are in the organization could’ve given away the truth, fortunately he wasn’t very bright. " Per orders from the Paragon, The founder of our cult, a year ago we expanded outside from the main hq, currently we have branches in every Kingdom aside from the Shadow Kingdom due to the ruler wiping out everyone we send, with the main HQ begin in the Kingdom of light,” The disciple explains. Once I’ve dealt with this uprooting their headquarters would remove them before they become a bigger threat than they should be. What felt like hours of listening to this doorguy go on and on about the cult, the chattering began to die down when one of the four not wearing a robe raises his hand, standing beside him were three others wearing red robes, with the symbols etched in black ink, but the guy in the middle simply wore a grey suit. He seemed to be old, his grey hair combed to one side neatly. " I may have misheard what you said, Henry brought the spear? How could that be?” the suit guy asked a strange question I had no answer to but before I could he answers, " none of you have seen the face of our great leaders, the Celestial Eater and Henry, its impossible for that man over there to be him, “ he says leaving the crowd to guess but none spoke up. “It's simple, Henry was to break into the vault and take both relics as he planned, and yet he returns with only one. I am Henry, I stole the artifacts and gave them to the carrier,” apparently the real Henry was here the whole time, not sure why he didn’t make it known who he was. The first one to act was Doorguy, he grabbed the spear in hopes of taking it except he recoils his hand as if it had burnt him, which it did. The others wielded weapons or conjured the dark power, the ones in red had no intention of getting involved, including Henry. I manage to keep them back using the dark energy to repulse the attackers back surprising them, “ you too are blessed by the Celestial eater, allowing you to wield the dark magic but stand against us?” Henry asks clearly intrigued by this new finding, " I’m not a disciple of this Celestial guy, I don’t really understand how Im able to wield this dark power either but we have very different goals, no way am I gonna let this weird cult continue,” that clearly was not what he wanted me to say, he leans back in his chair, " Our goals aren’t too different, we both want Onyx gone, that's where it ends, after you fall every other Kingdom will be conquered in the name of the Celestial one! Even your pathetic Kingdom of Light will fall and I will see to it personally!” Henry yells, giving the disciples the push they needed to get back into the mood of fighting, although it was a stand-off of sorts, until one charged in, I acted instinctively empowering the spear to shatter the sword into tens of pieces, the sound of metal cracking filled the room in an instant, and then the spear went through his chest.