Chapter 164: The Death of Baron Green Swamp

He staggered backward, right in front of the different "Ming Datiss"!

Ron’s face twisted beyond recognition. The Elf’s Curved Blade had plunged into his abdomen and exited through his back. The searing pain nearly made him pass out on the spot.

He and Saran Laine were the closest, however, and they both clearly heard the sound of a blade sinking into flesh—not once, but twice, almost simultaneously.

As Ron clutched his wound and slowly collapsed, Saran Laine turned his head, stiff and incredulous, to see a face so familiar it almost made him sick.

Yet at this moment, it was becoming increasingly alien.

"You—"

Saran Laine was certain he had never created a Tiffling puppet. He found the inferior race so disgusting he couldn’t even stand to look at them. But this one... where had it come from?

He frantically searched the memories of the Ming Datiss puppet he had sent out. It seemed there was indeed such a person, but hadn’t he sent him deep into the Delusional Land? Why was this Tiffling here now?

"On my way back to Carolina, I heard Ming Datiss had left. I knew something was wrong." The surrounding puppets froze in place as Saran Laine’s main body was wounded. The Tiffling slowly twisted the hilt of his off-hand dagger, churning the Elf’s guts—an Elf who had faked his death several times—into a tangled mess. "Luckily, I was already keeping an eye on a few strange locations. I caught that Ming Datiss just as you were calling him back."

"You killed him, took his form... and slipped in?" Saran Laine’s thoughts grew sluggish. "But that’s impossible. That—"

His puppets were psychically linked to him; he would have instantly perceived any of their deaths. This was why Ron’s group was discovered after entering the cave, even though Victoria had stopped that puppet from speaking.

"Why would I kill him?" Quest bared his sharp, Tiffling canines. "You have so many Ming Datisses here. You might notice if one went missing, but would you really perceive an extra one?"

"I have Ron and the others to thank. If not for their trial and error, you would have discovered me long ago. I call this the arrangement of fate."

"Fate... To hell with fate." The Baron Green Swamp’s pupils began to dilate, but he still clung to a sliver of consciousness, though his words became more foul-mouthed and rambling. "I’ve dealt with fate my whole life, and I’ve resisted it my whole life."

"I refused to be put on a pedestal as some damn ’prodigy’ for show! I wanted to carve out my own path! I refused to believe the empire was doomed to fall, so I set out to find my own way! I refused to believe the Ghost Witch’s prophecy—I would act and prove it myself!"

"I... I succeeded! I succeeded twice! In this cursed land, not only did I not succumb to it, I even made it serve me! I used the blueprints and half-finished products left by past civilizations, improving upon them to finally create a path suited for the Hailan Empire—a path suited for me!"

"It was you! You people kept obstructing me, interfering with me! You’re the ones behind all of this! Don’t you dare try to blame it on some damn... fate!"

"I don’t believe in that crap!"

"I will still—"

A cold dagger, slick with warm blood, slit the Elf’s throat. Quest wiped the blood from the blade with his fingers and revealed an icy smile.

"No, you won’t do anything anymore. It’s all over."

A leader already deserted by everyone would hardly doubt the loyalty of those around him, and a "leader" who had turned everyone around him into himself would be even less likely to guard against a knife in the back.

"I thought the one I’d have to backstab would be Ming Datiss, but it turned out to be someone else." Quest pulled two Healing Magic Scrolls from his person and tossed them to Victoria.

"I know you’re exhausted, but this is no time to rest. Heal Ron."

"Any longer, and I’m afraid even Resurrection Magic won’t be able to save him."

Victoria struggled over to Ron’s side, tore open a Scroll, and began to treat his wounds.

"You little..." Ron could finally breathe again. He raised a finger and pointed it at Quest, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

All the thousands of words he wanted to say were finally distilled into one: "Thanks."

"Thanking me is useless," Quest said with a laugh, grabbing his long staff and beginning to mop up the surrounding puppets, which were now without a commander or a singular will. "If anything, you should be thanking yourself."

"Putting everything else aside, back when you were fighting the Ghost Witch, if you had killed me on the spot because you were sure I was Ming Datiss, I wouldn’t be here now. And all of you would probably have become fuel for his furnace today."

"This is all the result of your own choices. I was just completing my mission."

With a casual swing of his staff, Quest knocked Yelena’s hand away from Saran Laine’s corpse. "Don’t touch him. Even I have no idea what’s on that guy. It could be corruption, some kind of curse... You want to follow in his footsteps?"

"Before he died, he said he’d tamed..."

"Every ruler of a Delusional Land says that. They all believe it, too. And the result?" Quest pursed his lips. "You might as well go temper yourself in the Shadowfall Netherworld for a few hundred years. At least there you’d see enough tragic souls to keep you from being so reckless."

"Tamed? Every ruler is drawn in by the abundance and unique environment here. And without exception, they all find the resources and power they desire, then try to modify it for their own use."

"Look around. Look at these corpses. What did their ’taming’ bring?"

"The ruins of Green Swamp Town? Or this mountain of corpses and sea of blood?"

"And besides all that," Quest’s gaze lingered for a moment on Devin Booker’s body, "you still have a Teleportation Gate to the Elemental Plane that you haven’t closed yet."

"I’m afraid we’re willing but unable," Ron said with a bitter smile, sitting on the ground. "Look at us. Do we have anyone left who can fight?"

"Never mind something like an Elemental Giant Spirit. We probably couldn’t even handle the smallest Elemental Creatures right now."

Quest slapped his forehead. "Sigh, well that’s a problem... How about this: if you don’t mind, you can all rest here. I’ll stand watch."

"A few Elemental Creatures might wander out in the meantime, but we’re not Sorol Fishmen. We don’t need to be that strict about it. As long as we close the Teleportation Gate in the end, it’ll be fine!"