Soon enough, the sun would begin to set, the day they faced the parade of the dead would commence tomorrow day when Morgan's squad arrived.

  Yet as all the soldiers went to sleep, Arata was restless, Rachamah's teaching was only stage one of his plan.

  Alright, everyone’s asleep… I should summon Ravenna.

  “Hey Arata, shall we get going to face the Erlking?”

  Arata wore a cloak, departing so as not to wake Rachamah.

  She's got some crazy abilities… but I don't think she’ll notice.

  With that, Arata opened the door, fate on his side as the hinges made no sounds of resistance. Arata was on the move.

  Stepping out into the camp, Arata glanced over at the sleeping soldiers, spotting the light in the distance, it was the base’s patrol.

  “Alright, 3 2 1, move, they're turning,” Ravenna exclaims, floating in the air.

  The disembodied eyes truly helped with stealth, especially since nothing could escape her vision. Arata took his chance to sneak outside the fort’s walls, past the tents, when a voice sounded.

  “Huh, Arata, where are you going?”

  Arata turned to face Rachamah, rubbing her sleepy eyes. She carried around her Magurokiri like a teddy bear.

  Ah shit… think of a lie, come on Arata-

  “I was going to go take a leak.”

  What the fuck is wrong with you?!!

  Rachamah wasn't having it, “ok, maybe don't tell me next time… you're in a hood going towards the Erlking's direction? Clearly, you're not deserting or defecting. I have a hard time reading your intentions… do you wanna die?”

  Mmmm, that was part of it but-

  “Well, make sure to bring back souvenirs, Arata. If you die I get your scissors.” Rachamah comments before her legs drift away, going back to sleep.

  Is she insane, truly? I’ll still take it.

  Ravenna guides Arata to the elven kingdom, a fantastical mirage of marble, where the streets were lined with color mimicking that of an Aurora Borealis.

  The sightlines extended upwards towards the focal point of the elven castle, despite its height, the building had remained hidden among the canopy of the trees, only now made visible in the clearing.

  There were no fortifications, no walls, the city was hidden through stealth, an illusory barrier that encases the forest. Even though that wouldn’t be quite right to say, Arata knew himself the main takeaway, there was a very sparse use of wood interwoven with any nonflammable materials that worked for building. To add to the issues, the buildings were surrounded with magic mist to increase the humidity so that even the flammable material may show resistance to being burnt.

  Yet despite the scenery, the streets felt dead, not just like it died once but that it portrayed itself a history, a faint iron scent of suppression, slight damages as evidence of civil conflict and alongside every alley was some different form of gallows for the perpetrators.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Yet buildings meant planks, dead wood, a dryad’s thousands of fluorescent eyes could be staring him down, yet that would only be his desire.

  His hand brushes a small cabin, he senses the faint presence of magic, yet that presence would recreate its form through flames.

  Demiurge’s foundry, a perfect counter to fairies who existed as mana in physical form, furthermore, the mist would serve as achilles heel to Arata. Arata could convert the cause of humidity into energy itself.

  A screeching wail is heard from the walls of the building, now up in flames to put to death the Dryads residing within the wooden supports.

  Ravenna claps her hands, “Oh! That's smart, by killing someone only once near the entrance, you planned to set your checkpoint out here for the sake of retreating huh?”

  Yup, I'm not leaving till I've got the Erlking's power down to a science.

  “Ravenna, you can theorize about the fights right? The Erlking’s power is an inversion of being, I want to understand more, though, the application of the hive mind’s mechanics. We’ve got scripts from each of the three soldier types now, the fairy knights, the alraune, the dryads. Yet I don’t know how the link works, it’s our first agenda.”

  Some sort of an alarm was set off, not a stampede but a flood of alraune, men possessed like dolls by the fae began their zombie-esque charge towards the fire. It wasn’t a mere hundred, their numbers were almost in the thousands, an endless sea of mutilated faces coming pouring down like a river.

  Arata would make his way down an alley, just to get mauled to death. Fighting the horde was useless, too, as he didn't want to create a new checkpoint.

  Arata died five times just to figure out this part, the alraune couldn't climb.

  Arata had learned to use Blood Mary for climbing, they would always pierce and fuse to a surface, as there were two of them, he could scale the buildings with proficiency.

  He would parkour his way across when he would next enter into phase 2, the fairy knights. They had fewer numbers to disperse, only three to five would intercept him at any given time before he could reach the castle.

  Arata finding himself facing off against a fairy knight who had a whip, needed to again use Bloody Mary to ground himself against the tornadoes they could cast.

  Arata threw his blade into the wind fairy’s armor, constricting their movements, even if theoretically, their bodies were already cast to the metal armor coating, there was no rigidity to said connection or else the Erlking would've created hundreds of useless soldiers through said method.

  Even two weren't a threat to Arata, how could they? He was expected to be able to kill them en masse tomorrow. It took fewer deaths to figure out than the alraune.

  Finally, Arata managed to sneak his way out of the army’s eyes. He made his way into the castle.

  As Arata took his first step forward, his throat erupted in vomit. It was a paralyzing fear, his body attempted to shut his eyes close to play dead. Even his subconscious would have to recognize that fight or flight was useless.

  Arata’s trek through the opulent halls marked the last action he'd take before his death.

  Yet some otherworldly force compelled him, instead of entering his around a pillar, Arata heard the thud of shoes, the man who had been described to instill fear within the scripts he had read.

  “I can see you. Why don't you come on out?”

  The voice sounded cheeky yet deep, if a fierce commander inhaled enough helium to fill a balloon.

  That's too absurd a noise to come from a bastard that disgusting.

  Arata felt his limbs grow paralyzed, his head slowly turning its way around the pillar, “Arata!”

  The figure had a plastic smiling face, rosy cheeks like an elf on the shelf which Arata had fond childhood memories of. He has a blemished point for a nose, pointy blush pink ears and long, brown hair.

  Stepping out, the figure’s body moved gyroscopticly around his head, the creature’s original height should’ve put him on eye level with Arata and yet, the figure’s elongated form fully stretched out, towering 3 meters tall over Arata’s awestruck eyes. With a snap of it’s disproportionate fingers, crimson began to flood the interior of Arata’s vision.

  “A curious creature, aren’t you? Strange, I can detect even the faintest whiff of mana in the air, evenly dispersed throughout the entirety of this planet’s surface… so I can tell when something is missing, such as a hollow soul that sticks out like a sore thumb among the masses of the dead.” The Erlking began chuckling to himself.

  For such a powerful man, it was a sad sight, to only be fair to him, he had no one to talk to, Arata was already dead.

  Arata was trapped in place. From the floor beneath him, dark hands had reached out, alongside their spears, leaving the poor boy’s corpse dangling over the ground.

  *Thud*

  Arata’s disconnected spine hit the ground, perfectly pulled apart from his back from a well-placed stab right from his tailbone.