Meeting of Kings [P3]

Helel, Bael, Pazuyu and the 50 heavenly guards landed on the spacious mountain top.

With his sharp eyes, Pazuyu spotted a group of humanoid figures at the center of the flattened mountain top. "Over there my king."

The group walked towards and stopped several feet from the foreign race. Bael and the heavenly guards were wary and holding their weapons tightly. Pazuyu seemed nonchalant.

Helel inspected the leader of the Hezurians.

He was a slim man about 11 meters tall, two sets of black horns sprouted from the sides of his head. His eyes were blue, hair short and brown, jawline wide and nose straight. He had a solemn expression.

Metal armor covered the man's body quite thoroughly, it was simple in design but effective and a long beast skin cape hung behind him. Instead of wings, there was a long reptile like tail that swayed agily from left to right. Thick muscles could be seen bulging at the base of the tail and the tip was extremely nimble with a insanely sharp bone spear at the end.

Helel could tell this tail was in no way inferior to his wings in attack, probably exceeding them while it was weaker in defence. Not only that, the tail could be used as a third arm.

Outwardly he was smiling, inwardly he was frowning.

"Welcome feathered one, I'm Marx. The leader of my people." Marx greeted while inspecting Helel's wings.

Helel greeted him back. "You can call me Helel, I am the king of my people."

Marx waved his hand, a simple stone throne rose out from the rocky mountain. Seeing this, Helel did the same.

Two simple thrones 13 meters apart, each occupied by the leaders their races.

Helel observed Marx's subordinates. There were 80 soldiers similar to his heavenly guards and 3 unique individuals. One, a tall woman around 14 meters tall was covered in thick bronze armor. She had strong features and red wavy hair that had been cut short. She was eating a piece of beast meat with a satisfied expression.

Another was a rather shady looking man with a sullen face, he was short at around 9 meters. Instead of metal armor, he had a long black robe that gave ease of movement.

The last was a woman 11 meters tall, she wore a revealing robe which showed her jade skin and voluptuous body. Her expression was stony and cold.

Helel turned his gaze away and back to Marx. "Was it the same for you?"

"Same for me?" Marx replied with a confused look.

"9354 days ago, we awoke in a field numbering around 4000. I assume it was the same for you?" Helel focused his eyes on Marx looking for any change in his expression.

Marx's eye gave a faint twitch, he looked over to his subordinates and beckoned. "Victor! Come."

The shady man now called victor slowly walked over to Marx and the two whispered before he took his leave again standing beside Marx's other subordinates.

Marx coughed and replied. "That is indeed the case except we had 5000 people."

Helel's eyes narrowed and a faint smile rose from his lips. [A lie, he definitely doesn't have 5000, most likely they had 3000 just like us. Although Marx may be thinking that I have 4000.. ]

"Interesting, so we came into this world at the same time." Helel stroked his chin in thought.

"Why do you care?" Marx asked warily.

"Aren't you curious Marx? We suddenly appeared out of thin air one day, unknown knowledge already ingrained in our minds allowing us to quickly build up our civilizations."

Marx shook his head. "I'm not."

"Why? Can't you feel it?" Helel looked to the sky. "I feel it.. Something gazing down upon us like how we stare at the insects scuttling about on the ground." The aura around Helel began to change and radiate an immense pressure causing the mountain to shake.

Marx's guards surrounded him with their weapons drawn, they looked at Helel vigilantly.

"I felt it since the first day I awoke, everyday, day after day.. I feel it's gaze." Helel gripped the stone armrest causing it to crack, his red eyes blazed like a volcano ready to explode. "I want to find out what being has been staring at me all the time.. I want to poke it's eyes out!"

Marx frowned as he thought. [This man.. It's best not to provoke him.]

After the little outburst, Helel calmed down. "Forgive me, I got a bit carried away there."

Marx waved his hand causing his guards to retreat, he cleared his throat and replied. "I have some advice if you would listen."

Helel perked his ears, his curiosity was piqued. "Oh?"

"Instead of contemplating our origins, why don't you focus on what's in front of you?" Marx opened his palm. Beside his throne a stone detached itself from the rock floor and flew into Marx's hand with a swift movement.

Marx held the stone, rubbing it's sharp edges. "This right here is material, I can touch it, shape it.. or-" Marx closed his palm shattering the stone into dust. "Destroy it."

He smiled. "Why worry about the immaterial, something we can't perceive or understand? We exist in this world, whether or not it was on the whim of greater power shouldn't be of any concern to us."

Helel raised his eyebrow and asked. "Aren't you afraid that one day that being will come down and slaughter you?"

Marx shrugged his shoulders with a carefree expression. "What could I do? Something that could create us could as easily destroy us, there's no point in thinking about it."

Helel's brows knit. [So you're content with how things are? You disappoint me.] He thought.

His expression calmed, Helel decided to not bring up the matter again. "So let's get down to business then?"

Marx's expression brightened, he nodded and replied. "Yes, the matter of the beast hordes. They're getting stronger."

"Not just that," A cold light shone in Helel's ruby eyes. "They're getting smarter."

Marx stroked his chin with clear confusion in his eyes. "What do you mean? How could they be getting smarter? They're just brainless beasts."

Just the thought of such absurdity caused Marx to shake his head in denial, unwilling to believe it for a second.

Helel sighed and moved reached into the sleeve of his robe, pulling out a strange gem. It was a perfect sphere that fit in his hand like a marble, it glowed a red hue and radiated an fiery aura.

Marx focused on the gem with a hint of curiosity. "What is that?"

Helel rolled the marble back and forth across his knuckles. "This? This is what I've come to call a beast core."

Marx frowned. "Beast core? It comes from beasts? I've never seen it before."

"I pried this from the corpse of a beast, a behemoth. It was far stronger than any beast of it's kind I had encountered before. I believe that this gem is the fruit of the behemoth's cultivation."

Marx's eyes opened wide in disbelief. "Impossible.. " He muttered in a shaken voice.

He shook his head repeatedly. "Beasts can cultivate now? If what you say is true.. we are in grave danger!"

Helel nodded in agreement, his expression serious. "Yes, beasts are already uncountable in number. If they suddenly became stronger than they already are then we will not be able to fend them off. Beast hordes will roll over our domains like an unstoppable tide, even with our awakened forms we will eventually be overwhelmed."

Marx stood from his throne, his cape fluttering in the wind. "An alliance then?" He asked.

"For the preservation of our peoples." Helel smiled as he left his throne.

It was merely a spoken agreement since neither of the two's races had yet to develop any sort of writing system. Even though they were given a head start in the form of existing knowledge and verbal language that was in their minds since the beginning, apart from speech, their only other form of communication was primitive looking pictures that is quite common among early civilizations.

Although both Marx and Helel didn't trust each other, the benefits of co-operation were too good to pass up not to mention vital if their peoples were to survive the advent of the beast race.

"Well, It has been a lucrative meeting feathered King." Marx nodded his head towards Helel before turning around to leave.

"Yes it has." As Helel was about to leave with his entourage, the ground began to shake and rumble. The ground was quaking so much that a nearby rock face shattered and it's remnants fell down the mountainside.

Everyone present became alert as they looked around cautiously.

"What's that?" Bael asked what everyone was thinking as he drew his stone hammer.

"Maybe an earthquake?" Pazuyu wondered.

"No.. " Helel listened intently as his eyes narrowed. "That's no earthquake, that's the trembling of a beast horde!"