Liberi Reader

For a few moments, perhaps more than a few moments, no Sarkaz dare to speak.

It takes away all things, and shapes all things.

Blood rises from the spine of the Feranmut, apparently only a drop, but it draws all eyes.

It leaves the intertwined bones, dancing in the dim cave, rising in the freshly sprinkled sunlight.

A drop of blood, just one drop of blood.

Pure blood—

Glorious blood.

It has been wounded, it has been betrayed, it has been forgotten, to the point of being spurned.

For millennia, the land called it a disaster, treated it as an enemy, trampled it until it abandoned its glory and defiled its body.

Teekaz became Sarkaz, their homeland lost.

Today, the blood of 'those with a homeland' returns from history.

All men across the lands should pay tribute to it.

The bead of blood dissolves, and silence reigns.

No explosions, no vibrations, no grand visions or chaotic whispers.

Even if blocked by the hills, all eyes turn toward Londinium.

At this point, all the storms called by The Shard feel like nothing but harmless drizzle.

Now, what gathers atop the tower can no longer be called just a dark cloud.

The storm has become a cradle.

The trembling nerve bundles begin to close, and the bone gangways start to drift.

The Feranmut has decided not to let anyone walk on its spine.

The rising airflow of the grand explosion sends the three mercenaries into the air.

Hoederer adjusts his posture with some effort, looking down to see the cave being engulfed in flames.

The Feranmut seems to sense something. It swings its body, its white tailbone slashing at the three like a whip.

The red-haired Sarkaz kicks up dust, and the black-haired Caprinae weaves darkness.

The scraps form beams and the shadows form steps.

An invisible staircase, stinking of gunpowder, spirals upward and pierces the chest cavity of the hovering skeleton.

The mercenaries rush into its hollow interior.

A rain of bolts falls through the gaps in the bones, followed by the eerie glow of Sarkaz witchcraft.

Dangerous and chaotic power gathers in Ulšulah's fingertips as she prepares to cast her Arts.

But a moment before she can cast, a black shadow crawls up her ankle.

Ulšulah has to take a step to the right in order to shake off the persistent entanglement of the shadow.

Her Arts go out of control, and a red glow shoots out from the damaged seams of the spine.

The sound of a muffled explosion booms from the distant cave wall.

Blood crawls along the bones, creeping toward them.

Blood is filling the place, overflowing the damaged gaps, connecting the long, cold body.

It... begins to grow warmer.

Power accumulates in the bones again, the spine sways left and right, audibly creaking.

The Feranmut resumes its roving.

Ulšulah and her men all have bleeding wounds on their wrists.

Drip, drip... it starts as beads of blood, then turns into ribbons, then rivers.

How much blood is in a human body?

The blood flowing out of the guards joins with the bloodstains spreading over the bleached bones.

The guards' exposed skin is now visibly pallid. Ulšulah's complexion is also looking worse.

Finally, the flow stops.

A Sarkaz soldier will give everything for his liege, not only his blood.

Their skin shrivels, and finally, they collapse.

Perhaps due to her blood loss, Ulšulah is basically powerless to resist. Hoederer takes the lovely pocket watch without any trouble. Its cold metal case is engraved with intricate witchcraft runes.

The watch is ticking backwards.

A murmur that no one else hears fills his mind for a moment.

Hoederer grits his teeth and leaves behind the loud whispers.

He searches within it for the true, dormant consciousness of the Feranmut.

At the center of the disaster, the silent Feranmut slowly swims. Where it wanders, there is only ruined emptiness.

The past lifts it, and the future is separated by it.

A figure stands in front of it.

Powerful witchcraft condenses in the Vampire's hands, and a giant crimson spear falls from the sky.

One massive wound after another pierces it.

The silent Feranmut finally speaks, as if waking from a dream.

'Kazdel...'

'Oh... I may have slept for too long...'

'Kazdel... When... did it become a city?'

'Your... 'King of Sarkaz'... is he not your sole chosen leader...?'

'Why is he not... standing before me?'

An image that all have forgotten is shattered by the moving Feranmut.

It has not roamed in centuries.

It gently moves its fins, now only bleached bones, pushing through layer after layer of space.

The one who once killed it now bestows warmth upon it again.

The skeleton searches for a suitable place to stop.

Until finally—

The crimson river connects with a dark blue nerve and intertwines tightly.

The slender murderer closes his eyes and feels the pounding rhythm of his victim.

With blood for reins, he harnesses the creature that can only wander through history.

Crimson ripples spread, and at this moment, the sky is no longer the sky, nor is the sea the sea.

They are only refractions of blood, reflections of blood.

The Sanguinarch smiles faintly, a blood soul pumping like a heart in his palm, reflecting the face of the young Banshee in a structure as deep as life itself.

And then, the blood soul shatters.

Black Arts erupt from the girl's hand, parting the sea of blood.

But the blood does not yield, it roars.

The King of Sarkaz's Arts dissolve and shatter, and the red surges even more intensely.