Chapter 150: Feeling Inspired.

The undead priest’s hot breath swept over the young man’s face, his body frozen as fear overcame him. The creature’s black fur was stained with dried blood, and its antlers cast a strange shadow across the boy’s face as it held his hand firmly in place. He could barely breathe, his eyes fixed on the undead creature standing directly in front of him.

Damien’s black miasma slowly began to spread all around the crowd, making the already cold cavern even colder. The dark mist crawled across the frozen ground and around the survivors’ feet, causing several of them to instinctively step backwards. The people were already terrified to begin with, so Seris didn’t want Damien to scare them even more.

"Wait. Damien, order your undead to stand down, they are harmless."

Damien raised his head with a sarcastic expression. "You will be surprised what an angry mob can do to a person, especially one that has been exposed to death and loss for the last year. Whatever sanity you think they have, is non-existent."

Seris shook her head.

"That still doesn’t mean we should hurt them, please, let him go."

Cracking sounds were already echoing from the boy’s hand as his screams grew frantic. His fingers were being crushed inside the undead priest’s grip, and the sound was enough to make some of the survivors recoil. The young man struggled against the undead’s strength, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even pull his arm free.

Damien didn’t immediately order the undead priest to release him. Instead, he once again faced Seris and said seriously, for perhaps the first time since she’d met him.

"It’s better to be feared by the people than loved, love is often fickle, but fear is lasting and controlled."

The words left Seris silent.

The undead priest dissolved into black miasma and returned to Damien, although the miasma still permeating the ground remained. Damien was determined to maintain order; they couldn’t afford to lose control of the people they were trying to protect. The survivors had already been pushed to their limits, and the situation could easily become worse if fear turned into panic.

"You can continue." Damien said, but she remained silent.

The crowd were all still looking at her, although it was clear most of their attention was on Damien. The young man whose hand had just been held by the undead priest quickly pulled his arm back towards himself, cradling it against his body while staring warily at Damien. Nobody spoke for a few seconds, and the tension that had filled the gathering hadn’t disappeared.

Her lips met, she didn’t like the look of fear in their eyes, but it was clear that it was what they needed. She looked up at the distance, Andrea and Vincent were standing side by side atop an ice boulder overseeing everything below.

Neither of them had intervened.

Seris didn’t bother trying to stop Damien when he got aggressive, which was louder than any words she could have spoken. She had tried to calm the survivors herself, but they had already stopped listening. Damien’s method was harsh, but it had at least forced everyone to stop.

Seris looked down at Damien.

"Why don’t you do it? They seem more interested in you anyways." She stepped down without waiting for Damien’s response.

Damien nodded and went up the little wooden crate with a short leap. Everyone went completely silent, even the remaining high-level Awakened in the distance turned their heads. There were slightly less than three hundred people left, and they were all now looking in one direction.

Damien coughed lightly, but his cold smirk was taken even more seriously by the survivors. Nobody laughed, and nobody dared to interrupt him. The atmosphere was still tense after what had happened, but at least they were listening now.

Damien looked over the gathering, his eyes passing over the exhausted survivors before settling somewhere beyond them. There were people with blood still covering their clothes, people leaning against others because they were too tired to stand properly, and people who had lost someone during the battle. None of them looked like they had the strength for another fight.

"This world is not concerned with our well-being. If you are weak, it will drag you to your lowest and hit you while you’re down... a bit similar to our old world if I say so myself, except here, no one will laugh at you, no one will turn their eyes away, because we are all in this thing together."

His voice wasn’t particularly loud, but with everyone remaining silent, his words carried across the cavern clearly.

"To this world, me, Yuri, Elias, Ryan, Vincent, Claire, even Andrea, we are no different from the rest of you. We are weak."

The words caused some of the survivors to look at him strangely, but Damien continued without stopping.

"That’s why we have to stick together, endure the cruelty of the Tower of Mysteries and be victorious against its cruel trial... And the first step to doing that, is to keep moving. No matter what, we keep moving forward."

Damien didn’t bother waiting for a reaction. He jumped down, pulled back all his miasma and held Seris’ hand, then dragged her with him.

Before Damien even left their sight, the survivors had already begun moving. They began to reorganize and follow orders from the warriors.

Soon, they would be ready to continue deeper into the cavern. Until then, Vincent felt the need to swing his little walking stick around like a child in a playground.

"How inspiring. I do believe I’ve found myself inspired. What about you, Andrea? Or was that speech insufficient to pierce the formidable armour around your heart?"

Andrea didn’t respond, nor did she even grace Vincent with a smile.

Vincent shrugged.

"Have you ever wondered whether everyone who managed to walk through the Tower gate was brought to the same place? It’s something I’ve been musing over for a while now. If there are so few of us left, just how many people have died?"

Andrea turned and met his gaze.