“Young prince, this…”
One of the elders following after Aurion leaned over to whisper in his ears, but Aurion held up a hand.
“This matter is too important to return now. Whatever the fallout is, it’s already happened. Whoever it is can’t act out boldly now even if they wanted to.”
The elders still seemed hesitant, but in the end they were still forced to abide by this young prince’s words.
Aerwyna sighed a breath of relief when she realized that they weren’t here for her. In that case, she would just slip away with her team.
Unfortunately, things were never so simple.
“You. Stay.”
Aerwyna froze, but in the end she, too, was forced to comply.
She knew that this wasn’t a method Aurion was using to get close to her. It was a simple risk analysis. He knew that even if he was here, whoever was behind the scenes might be desperate enough to still kill him. However, if she was here… the heir of the Stormveils and heiress of the Galesongs… well, they would be hard-pressed to choose such a nuclear option.
As for why he was waiting, Aerwyna wasn’t sure. It couldn’t be to target Sylas; the system would never allow such a loophole. Plus, judging by his reaction to the corpse, he had nothing to do with what happened here.
In that case, it must be something else related to the Dungeon. Her gaze flashed. ‘The last combat stair challenge… Maybe?’
**
Sylas frowned. His instinct was to attack first, and he was going to, but the man across from him actually spoke first.
“… I can read your stats… You’re from Earth…”
There was an odd mix of complicated emotions on the man’s face. There was reminiscence… surprise… disdain.
The last seemed to be the most potent, almost as though he couldn’t be bothered to speak to Sylas, but was going to anyway because he simply hadn’t been able to speak to anyone in so long.
Sylas, though, had rarely ever bothered with such things. It was rather the implication of the man’s words that shocked him. Did that mean that this man was from Earth? Or had he acclimated himself in an unknown way?
For example, Azrael and Lucirius had acclimated themselves in unexpected ways and Sylas could read their stats as well. But they certainly weren’t people of Earth.
But another point of confusion was how this man could read his stats at all. Even Aerwyna and the others couldn’t do so. The only person that managed to was the old man behind the bonfire, but due to the restrictions of the system, he couldn’t tell the others about it.
Sylas had hardly felt any senses touch his own.
“I guess that since you’ve made it so far, I can’t look down on you too much. But I don’t know why you bother. It’s going to end the same as it always does. Maybe one day you’ll be standing in my place.”
Sylas still didn’t respond, but these words confirmed something else. This man was truly a person of Earth. But how?
Earth had never had such blue men; at least there was no information about such a thing. The closest thing to the man before him should have been from the Sixth Summoning, but such individuals shouldn’t have had blue skin.
The races of Earth had all been mixed into a single melting pot; however, Sylas wasn’t an idiot. There was no “blue race” before this integration, and there was certainly no scaled and pointy-eared race either. If there had been, at least some of the latter features would have carried over.
What the man was saying just wasn’t making any sense.
“Is there a need to be thinking so hard?” the man laughed an odd laugh. It was almost like a dolphin’s chirping, but it had a guttural depth to it.
It was then Sylas realized that this man definitely wasn’t speaking the current language of Earth. Was it one of the ancient and integrated languages?
Thankfully for him, the system was translating or he wouldn’t be getting any of this information.
“How did you end up here?” Sylas finally asked.
“Oh? You speak? Now you want to get information out of me? That’s quite adorable.”
“After the Summoning is complete, it wouldn’t be impossible for me to help you leave this place if that’s what you want.”
The man burst into an even cheerier laughter, or so it seemed. There was a darkness to his eyes that didn’t fade away no matter how hard his chest rumbled.
“Save me? You certainly have an overactive imagination.”
Sylas didn’t reply. Normally, he would never promise such a thing, but he could tell that this information was invaluable. Whatever this man knew, he had to know, and he couldn’t allow this opportunity to slip away.
However, he also didn’t expect something for nothing in return, which was the only reason he had made such an offer. But this man either didn’t know that Sylas always kept his word, or he didn’t care to find out one way or another.
“I actually don’t mind telling you for free. My Race is known as the Clypsians and we failed the Second Summoning.”
Sylas’ pupils constricted into pinholes.
He didn’t care about the words themselves; he cared about the implications. The Second Summoning should have been the Late Devonian Extinction that occurred 372 million years ago. But… something was telling him that this wasn’t the Summoning that this man was speaking about at all.
If this wasn’t the Summoning he was speaking about, then wouldn’t that make this current Summoning the Eighth, not the Seventh?
The man suddenly began to laugh. He laughed so hard that Sylas could practically see the Runes around him quaking.
“We aren’t the only ones. There’s another Race, the Dogons. Those sand munching, boar-nosed, shit-slinging monkeys. So whatever iteration you’re on now, go ahead and add two.”
His laughter filled the skies.
Sylas didn’t even have time to mind the obvious racism as it set in.
This wasn’t the Seventh Summoning.
It was the Ninth and Final.
—Volume 3 End—
