DANGWE

Lino stood at the edge of a tall cliff with an odd smile on his face; it was merely for a second that he had stopped hiding his presence when a black-hooded man suddenly stepped out of the s.p.a.cetime and landed a few meters behind him. Though Lino couldn't discern the man's features, his general bearing had starkly resembled that of the other cultists. He almost entirely blended into the world around him without consciously attempting to do so, and Lino realized quickly even he'd have trouble spotting the man easily.

"... you're a hard man to find, Lord Empyrean." the man commented, suddenly removing his hood; old, worn and wrinkled face seeped out, two eyes bearing cutting scars across them, perpetually closed. White beard, styled into mutton, was rather well-kept, unlike the scarred neck beneath that had a ma.s.sive, red, oval-shaped wound extending over from the jaw down to the collarbone.

"I'm uniquely flattered," Lino replied with a smile. "As I'm barely finding you right now, despite standing right in front of me."

"Forgive me," the man said. "It is ingrained in my bones by now."

"Don't fret it. How can I help you?"

"Seeing your reaction, you must know who I belong to." the man said.

"I do." Lino nodded.

"My name is Yog'son," the man said. "You may call me Y."

"... I'd rather call you son, though." Lino remarked, grinning.

"I am currently three point nine billion years old," the man replied, grinning as well while tilting his head slightly. "I may be many things to you, but son is not one of them."

"... you know, I'd be shocked had I not met someone even older than you." Lino replied with strange calmness, shocking the man slightly.

"Oh? May I inquire who?"

"No."

"... very well."

"What can I do you for, Yog'son?" Lino asked.

"My Master wishes to meet you," the man said. "As to discuss a possible alliance."

"..." Lino remained expressionless for a moment, seemingly contemplating, before replying. "Rumor has it that the Cult has no Master -- that each branch exists independent of one another, only ever united against external threats, each led by a generally-elected Council."

"... for starters, we are not a Cult," Yog'son said, smiling faintly. "We are an organization."

"Ah."

"And, while true that that's how we operate on a daily basis... what organization doesn't have a founder, Mr. Lyonel?"

"... I was merely wondering aloud," Lino replied with a smile. "I am most intrigued to meet a man who has an Origin Awakened fella calling him a Master."

"... you have a keen eye, Mr. Lyonel." Yog'son chuckled. "And I even consciously tried to hide it as to not scare you away."

"... how could you scare me away?" Lino said as the man tore open s.p.a.ce next to him, inviting Lino over.

"Indeed. Empyreans are hardly the ilk to run with tails between their legs." Yog'son took a slight jab with a half-hidden smile, causing Lino to stop and glance at him.

"I was talking about your Will," Lino replied with a somewhat colder voice. "No being with a Broken Will can enter my eyes, be they Mortals or Origin Awakened Cultivators."

"..."

"--go ahead," Lino stopped next to the portal and met Yog'son's eyes squarely. "Lash out. If I don't have you kneeling within a second, I'll gift over my all to you."

"....."

"That's what I thought." Lino scoffed. "Don't pour salt on the open wounds, son," he added as he stepped through. "Especially of those who wouldn't mind snapping your neck off as though you were a chicken."

Lino found himself inside an eerily dim room, void of any decorations save for two chairs at the center. Rectangular walls were dull, stone-cast, and windowless. He quickly realized there were no traps nor formations anywhere around, and the portal remained open even after Yog'son walked through, still sour-faced.

Sitting on one of the chairs was a young man Lino never saw before in his life; judging by the appearance, Lino would put him in late teens at best. Although not terribly handsome, he was nonetheless pleasing to look at. What shocked Lino the most, however, was that he couldn't gauge the youth's strength -- nor his Will.

"I apologize on Y's behalf," the youth said with a faint smile, pointing Lino to the chair opposite of his. "He was never very skilled with social situations, I'm afraid."

"... nah, I think he's just a jacka.s.s." Lino shrugged, sitting down.

"Ha ha ha ha ha, true, that may be it, actually." the youth laughed freely, glancing at the pouting man who drew the hood back over his face once more. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Lyonel."

"I'd say the same thing if I knew who the h.e.l.l you were." Lino replied, replying to the man's handshake.

"My name... ah, I've many names, but, seeing as I wish to be your friend, you may as well know my actual name: Dangwe." the youth said. "Perhaps Dan, if you'd like."

"Very well... Dan." Lino said. "How can I help you?"

"I'd like to think we'd be helping each other, Lyonel," the youth said, summoning a wooden table stacked with a variety of drinks that caused Lino to nearly drool -- all of the legendary booze he had long since reconciled with never drinking... lay there, before him. "Ah, this--you know-- this wasn't my offer. It's not as though I'd just give you alcohol in return for your cooperation."

"... if you pushed hard enough you may have gotten it."

"Ha ha ha, spoken like a true--khm..."

"Alcoholic," Lino grinned. "You can say it. It's one of the few t.i.tles I bear with pride. But, don't ever tell my wife I said that."

"... ah, wives. Aren't they a proper treasure?"

"You have a wife?" Lino exclaimed softly, surprised.

"Of course I do," the youth chuckled. "Much like you, I've remained faithful to a single woman since the day I met her. Though, you know, I've been faithful for billions of years. You only for a few."

"... weird flex, but alright." Lino shrugged, slowly beginning to indulge himself in the variety of bottles of liquid, ranging from cool crimson to terribly hot twilight. His taste buds had never been as abused as in those few minutes before in his life. "You're not what I was expecting when that son over there told me he had a Master."

"... why not?"

"I expected a bearded, embittered, angry and resentful fella tired of the world's horses.h.i.+t, ready to wipe it clean."

"... on the contrary," the youth his, his smiling expression turning soft for a moment. "I love this world, Lyonel. Perhaps, I dare say, I love it more than you."

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"..."

"However, just like you, I can see it is diseased, rotting from inside out. And, however much it pains me to say, no matter what I tried to do in eons past, I've been unable to heal it."

"..." Lino remained silently, carefully inspecting the youth's harrowing expression and pained look in his eyes.

"When I was a little boy, my world wasn't very big." he chuckled lightly. "There was our house, the farm, the tall mountains and the lake. That was my life. My father used to tell me that the rest of the world is just fire and harsh winds and that our corner is the only safe place. Of course, I believed him unconditionally. It wasn't until he'd pa.s.sed that my mother told me he made all those stories up to keep me there."

"..."

"Over my life, I've explored nearly every inch of this beautiful, magical place we call our home," the youth added, looking up and meeting Lino's eyes. "And I've met so many people I'm sad to admit I've begun forgetting many of them. Do you know why I founded what you know as the Void Cult?"

"... why?" Lino asked, slowing down on the consumption.

"To prevent all those inhabiting this world from raping it into oblivion," the youth replied. "Back then, I was a meek youth, slightly older than you actually. And I had to watch, year in and year out, skies being pelted away at by scorching fire, and watch mountains cleaved and razed, and watch holes the size of cities dug out from beneath our feet." Lino's shoulders relaxed slightly; though he still kept his guard up, he could tell, from the bottom of his heart, that the man wasn't lying.

"That was actually when I met Layla."

"Layla?"

"My wife."

"Ah."

"She was a survivor of the so-called Fiend Uprising," the youth chuckled bitterly. "In wanting to prove themselves to Gaia, Fiends took to arms against the Primes, not caring who they harm in the path of their crusade. They were devastated, of course, nearly beaten into extinction, but, which one of lesser us could care about that? She had to watch her entire village burn out in a matter of a single breath. I'd learn later that this was the reason my father told me that about the outside world. In a way... he wasn't actually lying. It really was lakes of fire and seas of anguish."

"... you are not a human, are you?" Lino asked, frowning.

"... not your kind of a human, no," the youth shook his head, chuckling faintly. "But, still a human, nonetheless."

"Not my kind of a human? I didn't know there were more types of humans than one." Lino said, smiling lightly.

"... there are four, to be precise," Dan said. "To be fair, one branch has already gone extinct, and one can be considered endangered species, but your kind, despite being most populous, certainly isn't the only sort of human to exist. Most of your books refer to us as proto-humans, and you as our descendants. Completely fabricated. Your kind existed well before the Skyhaven Era, and Prosperity Era. Origin of Humans, both your and mine, dates back to the Origin Era."

"... your fat a.s.s is five billion years old?!!" Lino exclaimed as he slowly connected the dots.

"... pretty much," Dan chuckled, nodding. "Though, I wouldn't say my a.s.s is fat. If anything, because Layla likes pinching it, I ensure it's always fit."

"..."

"Don't be so shocked; it's only natural that the world wouldn't know of it, as we were very much primitive back then. We didn't have a written script, we didn't have cultures, we were largely nomads... the first Human Civilization indeed came to be during the Skyhaven Era, so that's something. Until then, we lived largely in obscurity, hiding and trying to survive the world that was very much larger than us. Eventually, our numbers reached quite high, which is why Gaia elected to help us during the Skyhaven Era."

"... even after so many years, if you failed to clean up the world... aah, it's kind of discouraging." Lino chuckled bitterly for a moment.

"I didn't take you to be a man who gives up."

"... if you hadn't, how could I?"

"... I've wanted to. Many times." Dan said with a somber expression. "Whenever I'd see us falling back to old patterns... my heart would crack and bleed. I'd cried in rain and fire, and I'd called out to them, and I'd screamed at them... but my words always seemed to fall on deaf ears."

"..."

"We'll only ever move backward if even Gaia herself sees it as the best choice to murder the innocent on the off-chance it might make the Empyrean go mad." Lino's heart creaked for a moment, his lips quivering faintly. "She's done it many times before. I don't know why I expected it to be any different this time around."

"... done it many times before?" Lino mumbled.

"Aye," Dan nodded. "Every time the Empyrean in the past was on the cusp of a victory, or at the very least on the cusp of winning the world back over, she would do it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but each and every time the innocent would end up suffering the most."

"... if you've known that for so long, why didn't you ever kill her?" Lino asked.

"Oh, I've tried," Dan chuckled. "But, the furthest along I've gotten was killing six of her Avatars. I was never able to locate her actual body -- even after billions of years of searching. I am almost certain it's not even located on Noterra."

"How come I've never read about you, then?" Lino asked.

"Because I've done it under many different names, t.i.tles and appearances, and because millions of things were never written, or were deliberately forgotten. In essence, the world itself is a giant lie."

"... alright, I'll bite." Lino said, sighing faintly. "What are your terms for cooperation?"

"I thought you'd never ask..."