Heir Of Chaos

Dale went back down the stairs and grabbed the phone Erin had given him. He opened it and immediately went to the contact list.

Truly, there was only one number saved. He dialed the number and placed the phone against his ear.

He waited as the number rang a couple of times before cutting abruptly with a voice speaking. "Hello, who is this?" The voice behind the line was rough and coarse.

Dale hesitated for a moment then spoke. "I am Dale Green and I was assigned to Watchtower One to watch the worms."

The person behind the line mumbled something under his breath, then replied. "Dale Green? Oh, okay. I’ve confirmed your identity, what is the issue? Are the worms moving?"

"No. It’s just that there is a certain giant bird here that I wasn’t made aware of." He replied pensively.

Dale listened closely to the phone. He could hear faint movement in the background and what was unmistakably the chatter of a television program.

’So if I was calling while already running for my life, this is how they’d respond?’ He could already imagine himself being ripped to shreds by the numerous teeth possessed by the worms.

The man cleared his throat. "Oh... The vulture is part of a migratory species. It hardly ever flies over that part of the desert so we thought that there wouldn’t be a reason to tell you."

A vein bulged on Dale’s head as he gritted his teeth. So it was something that had been documented and they considered it but chose not to tell him.

’What if I didn’t have Energy Pulse?’ That ability skill was what saved him and recruits, especially Dormant ones, wouldn’t have been able to escape from the vulture’s grasp.

To add insult to injury, the person at the other end of the call didn’t even seem curious as to how he had become aware of the existence of the vulture.

"Well, today the bird did fly over and almost killed me as I cleaned the lens of the telescope." Dale spat out coldly.

The person at the other end stayed silent for a few seconds, then replied in the most lackluster voice imaginable. "Sorry about the experience."

Dale immediately hung up the call and inhaled sharply. He gripped the phone until his knuckles turned white.

All this was a clear reminder of something he had nearly forgotten. The worthless were always left behind, turned into meat shields.

At first glance, it seemed like a cruel, inhumane thing to say but it was something so fundamentally inscribed in humans that most people never noticed it.

A standard case would be if the world’s richest person were to die in an accident that claimed five lives.

Dale was a hundred percent sure that the headlines would read ’Accident kills world’s richest person and four others’.

Weren’t the ’four others’ humans with lives, ambitions, and families? They were. Their only crime, however, was not being valuable.

’Assuming I was Awakened or maybe even Ascended, they would have told me every single detail and would have reacted promptly to any call I make.’

Alas, he wasn’t.

Dale was tempted to smash the phone against the wall but didn’t. He might still need it and it would be foolish to know he died just because he couldn’t control his anger.

Having confirmed that the bird was something known and not a cause for immediate alarm, he walked back up the stairs to the telescope room.

Once he was there, he looked through it and back at the desert. By then, the vulture had finished its meal and flown off.

Luckily, no worms had come out to feast on their brethren’s remains so that gave him a little reassurance that there were none in the area.

He turned the telescope to the skies and scanned the horizon yet couldn’t find any trace of the vulture.

"I guess it’s better that way." Aside from nearly being bird feed and the indifference of a few gears in the military, nothing had really gone wrong.

Avoiding the sun, he turned the telescope back to the soil... specifically to the body of the worm.

He glanced at the carcass and a thought crept into his mind.

’Am I crazy? Why did I even think of that?’ He shuddered at the thought of doing it.

Yet every time his mind jumped to the thought, he lost his will to resist it.

Soon, he found himself justifying what he was about to do. "I mean it’s not like I’d be the first to try it. People have... granted they had permission."

He wanted to argue that it would be the death of him but everyone knew that satisfaction brought the cat back to life.

His eyes drifted to the red bandage around his sides. He hadn’t forgotten what stepping outside the first time had done to him.

In fact, with the constant stabs of pain, he doubted he could forget even if he wanted to.

Dale cursed and walked back down the stairs and opened the door. He looked both ways, then at the sky.

’It is clear.’ He stepped back inside and grabbed his sabers. This time, he wouldn’t take the risk.

As he stepped out again, his eyes were trying to keep track of both the sky and the sand beneath his feet.

He could have used the sabers to dash to his destination but who knew how long he’d be able to with the injury on both sides of his body.

After three minutes of careful walking and navigating through the desert sand, Dale was drenched in sweat but at least he had gotten to his destination.

He looked at the decimated worm in front of him and tutted. "Serves you right. You tried to eat me."

Despite his taunts, he hadn’t gone there to gloat. Rather, he went there to examine the beast.

This was the first time that Dale had actually had the time to take a proper look at one.

Every single time when there was a beast, the opportunity never arose. As soon as they killed the bear, they had to run because of the other beasts whose blood it attracted.

The eagle had turned into a mass of shadows and dumped them in front of a centipede.

And as for the centipede, he hadn’t even been conscious to witness its downfall. Now that he was conscious and well awake, with no beasts in sight, he planned on studying it.