CHAPTER 93: MEETING OF CITIES (2)
"But why can't I go with you?," Lili said looking disgruntled with Night as he sat in the study reading a book. He only had one day to prepare for leaving so he was trying to answer a few questions before he started checking his supplies.
"Fuck if I know," Night said angrily, "It's your mother that's making me go anyway. I don't even understand how we are getting to the meeting so quickly....it took me six months to get here...and now the whole group is going that distance in a month."
Night didn't really know how they were going to get to the meeting in a month's time. It took him over 6 months to travel to The City of Setting Sun. From what was described to him, the trip to the meeting was an even longer distance. The travel through the large desert would take a long time considering conventional travel methods.
"Oh, you're going to travel that quickly? My mom must be making everyone travel on Khepri....forget I asked....I don't want to go now," Lili said as she turned to leave the room, "...and you better save some strength for tonight...I want my fill before you leave."
Lili left the room and Night was left sitting alone in the study.
'Fuck...I'm gonna give you your fill alright,' Night thought aggravated that she just left him hanging, 'What the hell is a Khepri?'
Night's search for that answer was going to have to wait until he finished his current studies. He had been undergoing a geography lesson. For the demons, the desert was divided into four quadrants that fall under the rule of the four cities respectively. That was until, the humans set up a city near the border of the western and southern deserts.
When he tried to figure out what touched the western desert on the other side, Night had only been able to find "more desert" in most of the references. The City of Northern Wind was bordered by mountains and the City of Southern Wind and the City of Rising Sun had a large ocean at their limits. The City of Setting Sun just had more desert....however, the books did note that the desert changed as it spread out. The dunes became bigger, appeared endless and were devoid of life. However there was one account that the large desert eventually turned into some rocky plains then into mountains. From what Night had read, one group had traveled that far to explore....but only one made it back with tales of gigantic beasts and an almost endless desert.
The actual lay of the land was well known within the demons territories, but outside was a mystery. There were a few reports of creatures descending from the mountains in the north and there were tales of beasts coming from the ocean depths....but other than that....it almost seemed like these demons were alone in this world.
Of course, Night knew otherwise since the humans were scattered about the large planet. The place was just very big, so it created isolated populations. Night had read a bit about explorers, but most that went far out into the sea or deep into the mountains....they never returned.
With as much information as he could gather, Night left the study and began gathering his supplies for the trip. He had a few fingers full of space rings at this point, so he figured why not fill them with supplies before he leaves on a month long trip.
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The next day, a very tired Night was riding in a carriage to meet up with the others that were leaving today. With a yawn, he was left unsure exactly who won the battle that happened last night in the bedroom...all he knew was that Lili was still sleeping when he left...so he felt that he must have won.
Although he was in a slightly better mood because of his victory, he was still a bit bothered because he couldn't find a reference about Khepri in his books in the study. He was still clueless on how they were going to be traveling.
When his carriage arrived, Night realized that he should have assumed something about a Khepri.....after all, every demon he knew rode on some type of big ass bug. The beasts were a streamlined jet black with a hard exoskeleton and wings. Seeing a few familiar faces from the Limim Clan, Night walked over to find out the scoop on the beasts.
The other men told him that the insects were really fast moving beetle beasts. From what the men described, the beetles could run quickly on the desert sands....but that's not why the group was using them. The beetles can also fly steadily for a long duration without stop. That would allow the group to travel quickly at nonstop pace to arrive on time to the meeting.
Soon, all the City of Setting Sun participants for the meeting had arrived. Only about half of them had ever ridden a Khepri before, so a brief introduction was given by one of the older looking participants. After about 20 minutes of instruction, the group prepared to set off toward their destination.
Soon, Night was traveling quickly through the desert at an intensely high speed...on the back of a beetle. The flight was only about 50 feet off the ground, so the height wasn't bad. The bad part was the constant droning of the beetle's wings but after a while even that was barely noticeable. The best comparison Night had for the experience was one time when he went around 80 miles per hour on a motorcycle of a friend's back on Earth. Although this ride was about twice as fast, the general feel was similar and Night actually started to enjoy himself on the ride.
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After traveling nonstop for a month, the group from the City of Setting Sun arrived at the meeting location early one morning. The meeting was being held at an oasis that was once the ancient home of the Limim Clan near the border of Northern Wind territory and Rising Sun territory. The oasis was now deserted, but no clan had moved into the location because of its past history.
The oasis was a decent size of about 50 acres and it seemed like the City of Setting Sun group was the last to arrive. Two sets of tents were already setup at other corners of the oasis.
"Set up camp. We will be meeting sometime around mid-day," Countess Asta ordered as they settled in a spot that appeared to be the rubble of old buildings.
Night got off of the beetle with an overwhelming relief that he finally got a break from riding the flying beetle. He now understood why Lili had passed on riding these beasts. While the ride had started off exciting, the endless droning of wings and the never changing sight of sand dunes quickly made the experience very monotonous and boring. Night had spent most of his time training his soul strength and thinking over his concepts while on the back of the beast.
The month on the back of a beetle had actually been pretty good to him and he had finally decided on a route to train himself to become a God. In consideration of the upcoming war, he worked to gain experience with the Darkness Skill of Destruction. The skill allowed for a quick boost of energy if needed...sort of like a berserk state...but it did require a rest period after use.
During the ride Night had tested this skill over and over again hoping that he would stumble upon something that would help him create the concept. While the skill worked fine, the chant needed to initiate the skill was slow...if he condensed the Concept of Destruction then he would be able to have instantaneous bursts as needed during battles....which would be very, very helpful.
For now, he could maintain the skill for about a minute and it took him between 2 to 30 minutes to recover depending on how much he overdrew on his body. Night thought that the time would be much longer if he didn't cultivate the Body of Recovery. The body based skills were very beneficial to him and he really wanted to get his hands on some of the manuals for his missing body skills...if he mastered them all then he could develop body concepts also. Night had never lost track of the importance of having a strong body...he saw the scars from his weak body every time he looked in a mirror.
Wrapping up his planning as he setup his own room sized tent, Night began to shift his thoughts to the upcoming meeting. Apparently, the leading Gods of each city were in attendance. Each of these cities had two Gods, so they left one behind so the other could attend the meeting. The three attending Gods included Countess Asta of the City of Setting Sun, Count Renault of the City of Northern Wind, and Count Agrat of the City of Rising Sun.
From what he heard in his previous time in the City of Setting Sun, the leader of the City of Rising Sun was Roth Dreamwalker's older brother. From the whispered tales, the two men had actually fought over Countess Asta with the younger brother, Roth, winning a victory. So, there were some weird hostilities between the two cities...but nothing that Night should be overly concerned about. Mostly they just performed petty spying to make each other look bad.
After everyone was settled, a horn blew across the oasis to signal the start of the meeting. As the Countess had said, it was around mid-day and the sun was blazing down upon the oasis.
The three leaders walked out and sat together in a previously prepared meeting area. Night thought the scene was comical because the meeting setup looked like a lounge area on the beach of an oasis pond...it didn't look like the kind of place an important meeting was held....it looked like a beachfront resort that he had been to as a child.
After about an hour of discussion, Night and everyone else present could feel that the meeting was getting nowhere. The three leaders all agreed that a war to regain the City of Southern Wind was necessary to put the Diego Family back in their proper place. However, the three leaders were going back and fourth about which party would lead the campaign against the humans....well...it was mostly a dispute between Count Agrat and Countess Asta. Count Renault's forces were the weakest so he seemed to have stepped aside to let the other two fight it out.
"Asta and Renault, I think it would be appropriate to hold a contest to determine which city will take lead in this campaign," Count Agrat of the City of Rising Sun said, "How about we have a short battle to determine the outcome...I say a quick battle between one of our top warriors should do."
"Leave me out of your dispute. For this campaign, the City of Northern Wind will follow whoever wins between the two of you in the challenge....so have at it," the grey haired werewolf looking old man said.
"Alright, I agree. Let's move over to the sand. The contest will be the best of three. First to two wins," Countess Asta said.
Almost immediately, the three gods shot up from their spots in the lounge and headed to the gigantic dunes outside the oasis. The groups all moved to follow and soon everyone was situated at different crests of the dunes. Night actually ended up standing close to Countess Asta. Since their confrontation, the woman's attitude toward him had changed...to that of a mother-in-law that's daughter married to a rich doctor. She was very friendly toward Night. It was weird.
A loud voice rang out between the dunes. These dunes had to be separated by almost a mile, so projecting a clear voice that far must have required the use of some special tool.
"The City of Rising Sun would like to send out our first representative now. Sar Osir, please come out to fight for your city," Count Agrat yelled loud enough for the distant groups to hear.
Night focuses his energy on his eyes to help him see that far off. A haggard looking young man with bright red eyes walked out from the City of Rising Sun crowd. Despite the blaring sun, the pale man didn't have a bit of tan color to his skin.
Seeing the man, Night couldn't believe that he was actually mistaken for a member of the Osir Clan at one time. His appearance back then looked nothing like the man he saw in front of him now. Even the red eyes were different. These people had solid red eyes with a little dot of black pupil in the middle. Night's red eyes had only looked like the normal eyes with a slight red color. There was no similarities what so ever.
Seeing Night's interest in the man, the Countess leaned toward him and said, "The Osir clan is also known as the Clan of the Dead. They have special methods to manipulate the dead to fight for them. From what I am told, when they battle, they battle with their own personal army of undead. You seem interested. Do you want to fight him?"
Night didn't immediately respond as he was watching the man pull animated corpses out of a storage ring attentively. The man had pulled five corpses out and laid them down on the sand....then he walked by each of the bodies and touched them. After the touch, each of the bodies rose up to stand like a normal person. He was amazed by the skill as it was somewhat similar to the Keres. However....in the middle of observing....Night saw something....one of the faces caught his eye among the corpse soldiers of the Osir Clansman.
"Mr. Lester," Night whispered out loud as he recognized the beat up figure of the corpse.
"What?," Countess Asta asked Night's odd response, then she felt a large burst of energy from her side.
A roar was heard echoing out from the group from the City of Setting Sun. The sky began to darken as if a cloud was passing over head. Everyone, even the Gods, instinctual looked up at the sky only to see no clouds above.
With an explosive movement, sand rose from next to Countess Asta drawing everyone's attention. In the next moment, all the groups could see a streak of shadow flying out from the crowd into the open sand.