180 - The Sun's Domain

“Alexandra Ward?” Kyle repeated as Alexandra was sizing her up and down.

Four against one. Two were injured. Maybe she could take them. Her solar skills were powerful, and so were her curses. Perhaps winning would be a stretch, but she could make it painful for them.

But she’d rather not let it come to that.

Let’s see what she has to say.

“How do you know my name?” Alexandra asked.

“So it’s you. Your hair is different than what we were told.” She looked at the fur growing all over Alexandra’s body. “I mean, your real hair. I didn’t…”

Alexandra raised a hand to stop her. “Who?”

“Who?”

“Who sent you?”

“The Vanguard.”

Alexandra frowned. This made sense. Kyle and her squad were Paladins. They only answered to their order.

“Jade hasn’t seen me. How did she know my hair had turned white?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Kyle answered, the confident air of the captain having long vanished. She wasn’t looking her in the eyes.

For a moment, neither woman talked. Alexandra wasn’t sure how to approach the situation. The Paladins didn’t seem hostile, but it meant very little in the grand scheme of things.

“What do you want?” Alexandra asked.

Kyle straightened up. “Our orders are to protect you.” She hesitated. “I apologize. I had been the opposite so far.”

Alexandra exhaled. Jade had never been a schemer.

No. I can’t think of her like the girl I used to play with.

None of her friends were the same person they used to be. A hundred years in Laika had changed them.

“To protect me from what?” she asked.

Again, Kyle hesitated. “I don’t have many details, but the cult of rot is unusually active in this region.”

Alexandra remembered the notice she’d seen in Izrum asking for information about the cult. She tapped her fingers against her thigh. Really, she was faced with two options: either she believed in Jade, or she didn’t.

If Jade truly believed the cult could be a threat to her, she had to take it seriously. The memory of what happened in Esmera with the cult of blood was still painful. She had no reason to believe the Oc’s adepts would be more merciful than Augustus’.

In that sense, keeping the Paladins with her would be safer. Despite their struggles in the battle on the pass, they were still elites for their ranks, better than most people in the basin.

On the other hand, it would mean getting entangled with yet another order.

She didn’t know enough.

“What does the threat look like?”

“Unclear. But I assure you it cannot be good. The cult of rot rarely takes action because they believe they don’t have to, but they do worship rot. They wish for the end of the world. We have to assume the worst.”

Alexandra nodded.

Okay, so another city-ending disaster. Great.

“Will they get anything out of it? Like a bloodline.”

Kyle shrugged. “Unknown. I’ve never heard of the cult of rot doing anything, so…”

Alexandra could leave the basin, but she hadn’t come here on a whim. Low-level regions were safer, but as illustrated by Sera and Arlen, higher ranks could come in. The basin was officially limited to Gold, but unlike the vast majority of low-level regions, people above Platinum would actually be weakened if they set foot in the Gray Basin.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She rubbed her temples, feeling her thick fur on both her head and fingers.

Kyle and her squad had fought the Architects. The latter were definitely enemies. That left Raymond and Jenna as potential suspects. They knew where she was, though anyone with a decent information network could figure it out. They knew her appearance. More importantly, they had shown themselves interested in her and were influential enough to contact Jade.

It doesn’t feel like Raymond. He would send his people.

So Jenna was the culprit. She’d learned about the threat and had Jade send her Paladins to help her. What would they get out of it?

She didn’t know. But as long as she stayed in the basin, the cult was the more immediate problem. The cults.

“Okay. Fine. You can stick around,” she said. “But I would prefer if you didn’t announce yourselves as Paladins.”

Kyle frowned. “Why? I know we’re technically trainees, but this is an official mission. We lost many good people.”

“Nothing of the sort. I just don’t want to attract unwanted attention,” Alexandra said. “First, we need to evade the pursuit from Arlen and his men. The cult of desire has been poking around the basin, and you would be broadcasting our position to them.”

Kyle nodded. “Right. We are not in a position to fight them. Not yet.”

“Second,” Alexandra continued, putting her furry hand on Kyle’s good shoulder. “If we want to investigate the cult of rot, it’s better if they don’t know we’re onto them.”

“Acceptable,” Kyle said. “To be clear, our orders are to listen to you as long as it doesn’t break our oath to Yshar. We will listen to what you say.”

Alexandra grimaced. While that was better than someone trying to order her around, it wasn’t what she wanted.

“Let’s start with making it to Balrum alive,” she said. “We’ll see what happens when we’re safe. Kyle, I do have one more question for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“How much do you know about me?”

If they were aware of her divine class…

“Heroine. We know.”

Alexandra closed her eyes.

Well, that’s how it is.

“I trust you’ll know to keep quiet about it.”

“Of course.”

“Good, then gather the others. We have to move.”

It wasn’t night yet when they set off for the solar elemental’s territory. Part of it was that they were still worried about Arlen chasing them, but there was also something else. If asked, Alexandra wouldn’t admit it, but she wanted to take a peek at the elemental. If she was going to hunt it, she had to know what she was up against.

Not that she expected to do so anytime soon. Her best skills were based on lifeforce and solar energy. The former had next to no impact on elementals, while the latter was obviously a bad match against an incarnation of the sun itself.

She’d love to upgrade her Uprising title by slaying a beast three ranks above her, but there was a limit to how much risk she was willing to take to do it.

The gray boulders of the stone fields gradually gave way to bleached earth. The atmosphere shifted. The afternoon light of the Gray Basin faded, replaced by an unnatural glow. Light was everywhere, drowning even their own shadows. Heat radiated off the cracked earth, spreading through the leather of Alexandra’s boots.

“This is absurd,” Erik muttered, shielding his eyes with his forearm. Sweat trickled down his back, running into his leather armor as he adjusted his hold on Alicia, who was helping herself onto his shoulder. “It’s like walking straight into a furnace.”

“Stop complaining, Erik,” Alicia said. Her face was pale from her injuries, but her eyes gleamed as she stared at the landscape. “Imagine fighting a beast like this.”

“You’ll die,” Erik snapped, looking over his shoulder. “And we still have a Platinum cultist on our heels.”

Alexandra removed her coat to cool herself, leaving the glowing fur on her arms exposed. In this unnatural light, her glowing body was actually less conspicuous than it had been elsewhere. The ambient solar mana hummed violently against her core, filling it faster than ever before.

Perhaps this place was worth returning to in order to practice her skills.

They walked up a ridge and stopped behind a stone to rest. Alexandra leaned her shoulder against the rock, wincing as the heat radiated straight through her clothes and fur.

Then she peeked over the edge.

Far in the distance, across the cracked floor, the air distorted from the heat. High above the horizon floated a sight that they would never forget.

A massive creature moved slow across the sky like a miniature sun. Its massive, towering human torso supported its head, but below that, the elemental possessed no lower body at all. Instead, it dissolved into a swirling tail of light, scorching the earth beneath it as it passed.

It would take hours of walking to reach it, but even at this distance, they could see it clearly.

I have to fight that? Alexandra thought, feeling her already low chance dwindling even more.

“Let’s not linger,” Kyle whispered, her voice low. “It hasn't spotted us. Or it doesn’t care. Keep moving.”

Alexandra tore her eyes away from the titanic elemental and nodded. Ducking behind the ridge, the group pushed forward into the heat, setting their sights on the distant mud wastes.

Night would fall soon. They just had to stay on the outskirts.

Every so often, she couldn’t help but throw a glance toward the elemental. In her head, she was already brainstorming how she would approach the fight.

Maybe Speck could smother its light.

She asked her familiar.

“Of. Course. I. Can.”

Alexandra tilted her head, unsure if the darkness elemental was bragging or if it was seriously suggesting it could take on a Platinum.