Age of Heroes (Age of Heroes Chronicles)

Chapter 557: The three harbinger of darkness

While the Arakian tribe was destroyed by the Darkly Thing, on another ancestral land of one of the tribes of the thirteen tribe, there is the three winged person overlooking an area of mass slaughter.

Bodies of people scattered around the land like some bizarre plants that shoot out from the ground.

Darkly Things roamed around the area, some of them are eating the corpses, while some others are standing still, absorbing the Darkness to become even more solid.

Many of them become solid and possess body and blood. It became stronger and it shrieks even louder

Like the sound of an insect chirping, like the sound of a cockroach twittering, like the sound of a fly rubbing their hands together, the sound of this shriek is unnatural.

All over the Shadowlands, the ancestral lands of the ten tribes that lives in the area not protected by the Godstree was attacked by the forces of Darkness. 

On certain places, Darkspawn was created. 

On others, Mudborns rose from the wet lands drenched with the blood of the fallen. Regardless of what methods was used, tonight, there is slaughter and tragedies.

One of the three person is smiling looking at the corpses. 

The other one is very attentive as this other person seems to be trying to locate something using the Darkness.

And the other one look at all of this massacre of people with complicated expression. This person eyes look a bit different than the other two. There is a trace of light even inside all of that Darkness.

These three person is Jurgan, Astiel and Elkar. Astiel purple hair sways left and right as the cold wind blows around them. 

His long flowing beautiful hair is surrounded by swirls of dark mist. From it, is where the Darkness come from

His purple eyes are scanning all over the area. 

'These people are quite stubborn' he mutters. As he walks forward, his handsome face seems to morph a bit. Jurgan saw it and said

'Brother, curb your emotions' Astiel then realizes he is getting to excited and take a deep breath. 

Breathing in the dark mist into his nose, his face once again morphed into a beautiful face. 

A handsome face that could melt any woman heart. Beautiful face always has dangers accompanied with it.

His color of skin is red but as the dark mist swirls around him, there is a change in the color of his skin.

Astiel is a creature of Darkness. As the Darkness grows, there is also changes that is happening toward Astiel.

Jurgan skipped around the corpses like he is a kid surrounded by toys. His step splashes the blood that pooled on the potholes around the area of the fight.

During the battle, Jurgan is very ferocious. With his attack, he had killed all of these people with one move, and each time it was bloody.

And since Jurgan is also able to do magic, he created some large fireballs that swallowed a few hundreds of these people.

So, there is bloodied corpses and charred corpses everywhere. 

Some of the blood pooled on the old streets of the ruins while some of it splashes to the sandy desert of the area.

Jurgan is no longer seven feet tall. Instead he is now six feet five. While he had become shorter, his magic and power have grown even stronger

Jurgan changes his height because being seven feet tall is quite conspicuous. Since there were many things that needs to be done secretly, being too tall might create unwanted attention.

And he is no longer bald. He had long hair which he then knotted it to a hairstyle of tangles and knots.

It is called Elflocks. In the lore of the humans living in Davarus, the old name for the Human Continent, it is told that elves appear at night to tie knots in people hair. 

There is magic in each knot. Like Astiel, he had purple eyes and he wear a purple robe that emanated an aura of approachability. 

Like a trap. 

If he did not appear in his demon form, he could deceive his enemies, making him approachable before turning around and killing his enemy.

His horn is longer than before, but he mostly hid his horns. But during the battle he bring out his horns and rain down thunder and lightning from the tip of his horns.

Jurgan like to play around before killing his enemies. Jurgan then arrive beside Astiel and patted his shoulder.

'We have time. Do not worry too much. Enjoy it a bit' Jurgan said. Astiel pretended he did not hear anything as his eyes keep scanning the area.

The Darkness around him seems to be able to sense the stormy emotions of Astiel as even the Darkness seems to distort, and moves in a chaotic wavelike manner.

Elkar on the other hand did not come closer to Astiel and Jurgan. His reason for following these two did not change. He wishes for the destruction of humankind.

But, there is something wrong with his heart. Something has birthed in his heart. He takes a dep breath and reminded himself

'Everything in this world has a price. Since I already know that this is a path of no return, why should I lament it now?' he thought to himself.

Astiel and Jurgan summoned the Darkness and blanketed the Shadowlands with more Darkly Things. 

Elkar had asked for the reason. 

Astiel only said, that they need an army. And just like the army of Men, they need time to accumulate.

In the Darkness, great dark things would come out. This is the army of which Astiel would use to fight against the fated enemy of his father, Asrana Mahava.

And like most of Astiel strategy, he did not just attack the ancestral lands just for the sake of it. 

He had a very valid reason to attack it.

The ancestral lands are not simply the ancestral lands of the thirteen tribes. 

Those ancestors of this tribe knew that one day the Darkness would return. The Great Darkness is not the same as the Darkness they knew and fights with.

Since they knew about this, why would they not prepare? Why would they not try not to delay the coming of the Great Vanquisher of Light?

Hence, in many of the tribes, in their secret places, they put out some formation. This formation could not be seen by the naked eye

It had some word characters that is used to restrain the Darkness from getting to wild. 

These characters are very different from the alphabet of the humans living in the Human Continent or any of the other characters of word of other continent

Elkar saw one of these characters in the tablet that Astiel had shown him. 

It is a form of written language. Elkar himself was a knowledgeable person and had learn about the many methods of writing words and its differences. 

The character is a logogram, a written character that represent a word or morpheme. The attack on the Shadowlands by using the Darkness is a strategic move.

Astiel is the strategist of the Dark One.

And while Jurgan is a chaotic being, he also has his abilities that made him very dangerous. 

He could see the seals and this character and destroy them. 

The more that they destroy this character that is written in some secret area of the tribe, the more Darkness would envelop the Shadowlands.

Until it would become the place of where the Darkness would rise. 

That day, the Darkness of this place would be so dark that those who lives inside it would not be able to see the sun shows it face, could not see the blue sky and could not even see the area in front of their eyes.

With this, the land where the army of Darkness could thrive would be created to fight against the army across the Wall that would pit itself against Vasir.

When such Darkness arrives, it is time for the Great Battle to commence. 

But, Astiel and Jurgan coming here personally is not simply to destroy some characters of words that would help spread the Darkness.

Today, they come here for a different reason. A more important reason

Astiel eyes is shining with some glint of yellow. 

Astiel look at the area with narrowed eyes. He then smiles as he senses it. The feeling is faint but it is clear that it is here.

'I will not mistake this feeling. It is here, Jurgan' as he laughed. 

Jurgan was standing beside Astiel as he licks his lips. There is still the blood of the people of the people he had eaten dripping from the end of his mouth.

He was twitchy and look left and right like some anxious kid. But this behavior is not because of anxiousness but because of him being excited.

'You sure?' he asks Astiel. 

And there is a trace of hissing sound from Jurgan mouth. Astiel retracted his wings and close his eyes.

A trace of dark mists spreads out from him and then it explodes creating a large mushroom smoke that fills the entire area.

All of it happens in a blink of an eye. Elkar did not even have time to react as he was also enveloped by the Darkness. 

Fortunately, the Darkness did not harm him. Only for a few second he could not see anything. 

But he does feel the sense of being watched even inside that Darkness. 

He then knew intuitively that this mist of Darkness is different than then mist of Darkness that created the Darkspawn.

It is used to see. 

To sense. This is the feeling that Elkar got when he was inside that mist. And then a second later, the mist of Darkness was retracted back into Astiel.

It almost felt like everything was a dream. He saw Astiel is still in the same place where he was but this time, his smile is wider.

Opening his eyes, he then said

'Now, I am really sure. It is below.' 

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