Chapter 196 - 197
Gripping the exquisite-class magic crystal that he had brought along for this exact purpose, Maels tapped into the vast stores of energies within and used them to bolster the energy imprint on the medallion that was meant to activate its summoning feature. As all of his followers prepared for a potential life-and-death struggle, he noticed something peculiar out of the corner of his eye.
The boy was staring at him with a wide gaze, clearly frightened but collected and observant. His eyes were solid silver, a pure shade the likes of which Maels had only seen on the faces of Duke Antoine and King Glenden himself. Arienne had been watching him too, though she was now staring at the sobbing children, her face twisted in disgust, not from their appearances but from their sufferings. Realizing both that the boy was no simple bastard and that Arienne needed to die within the next several minutes, he powered the medallion for dozens of seconds before a searing pain bit at his hand and caused him to drop the trinket amidst a sudden explosion of blinding white light.
Maels felt the demon’s presence before the light faded, a heavy aura bearing down on all within hundreds of paces of their location. In the following moments, everyone present aside from the frightened children was stunned into silence, including Maels. The frightened sobs increased as a tall, naked man appeared in their midst, a man that looked very similar to Gartur.
Maels’s heart sank as the man looked around with sentient, cognitive eyes the colour of roaring flames. Wasn’t he supposed to be a mindless puppet? Weren’t his magical and physical abilities supposed to be suppressed to a twentieth of their original potency? No matter how Maels looked at it, a powerful Inverted man had just emerged from the independent space within the medallion, an individual that was fully in control of his mind.
Built strong like a warrior, the man’s skin was red and scaly, shining like ruby-studded scale mail as he caught a pillar of sunlight from the clear skies above. At the centre of his chest was a strange birthmark that looked like twenty tiny candle flames arranged into a ring, as if a necklace of flame-shaped beads had been inked into his skin. It seemed unnatural.
"I—it can’t be!" Gartur seemed to recognize the markings and ran forward, throwing his hood back to reveal a similar complexion and then falling to his knees with a whimper that was a marriage of elation, fright and guilt. Heavy streams of tears spilled down his face as he grabbed at the man’s legs. "Forgive me, my king! If I didn’t do as they said...if I didn’t..." Gartur began to sob louder than the children.
The man, who was the first person that Maels had encountered that was taller than him, knelt down to rest a hand on Gartur’s shoulder, his sheer presence rendering everyone unable to make a move or even let slip a subtle sound. The guards around the clearing had all turned to see what the cause of the commotion was, but these renowned, handpicked swordsmen had gone weak in the knees at the sight of the towering Inverted man and were unable to move, much less draw their weapons.
Now that this person was in their midst, Maels and his people were as terrified as the immobile children. Although Maels had known what he was getting into before the onset of the summoning, he hadn’t expected the demon to look like the Inverted peoples of today. Weren’t those of the present era supposed to have gained more human-like appearances due to Lord Lucian’s grace in light of their repentance?
When the man went to help Gartur up, the old aid could only bow his head and press his face into the dirt, sobbing like someone that had sinned beyond redemption as he hugged at the man’s leg with trembling hands. Glancing at the crying children and then at the magic circle that they were arranged atop of, the man’s eyes flashed with evident rage before he turned his gaze on Maels, who instantly began to panic. He had the subconscious thought that if he didn’t do something within the next several seconds, he would die.