The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 521 - The Smoking Blast From The Illusory Past

While pushing up to his feet, Anper brought the flat of his blade against the burning projectile to try and dislodge it before it was too late - but it didn’t travel far enough. The crack of clay vessels, some filled with a thick and slow burning pitch and some filled with low flashpoint oils, heralded a rapid firestorm that cut off the route back to the warehouse where three enemy fighters stood.

And made the groaning first attacker roll off of the pier to get away from things. Leaving only two still standing out over the water as the heat and light began to become a quick problem. Glancing at the dock worker raising his hand, the swordsman changed his grip and stance before opening his mouth.

"The owners of the dock don’t seem to care about you very much."

"I’m a good swimmer. Also, they’ve just given me everything I need to-"

A sharp, high pitched hiss followed the pitch Smoke unnaturally pressing back down onto itself. In a curved, almost V shape behind Anper er Yecine that acted quite similar to a breechblock. Preventing the vapor-fuel mix from traveling his way, snuffing out the closest Fire - and releasing white, flash-steam jets from the cracks of the pier’s wet wood.

Without anywhere else to go as his Element control compressed away the Danger, the superheated fuel sputtered, ignited, and with a *whump*... blasted back toward the three who would not wait their turn to duel like gentlemen. A cone of heat, gritty carbon, and most of all concussive force that slammed them all right into the warehouse wall. Their ingenious trap turned around on them thanks to the sort of physics they might understand better if their cult allowed people to really dive into spiritual pursuits and the mysteries of the cosmos.

"That was rude of me, I suppose. You were saying?"

Anper himself didn’t ’know’ all of the mechanics of what he’d just done. He was merely familiar, from self-practice, with the concept of smothering a fire using the sooty smoke it produced. He had never actually had to do so over so much freshly burning fuel.

Meanwhile, the few embers that had drifted over and been made into a handheld, controlled Fire by the other cultivator... ended up looking like the threat of a candle being brandished against TNT. A threat much lower than the Danger he felt when the man first raised his hand up and telegraphed his intent to take control of the flames.

His shocked expression and weak attempt to fend Anper off with the iron lever also did not amount to much. Clearly, the man had spent too long as a worker - and not enough time training to use a weapon. Winning handily and easily was something he often felt was a natural result of holding strong to Yecine traditions.

"Pathetic."

But as he looted the first corpse, the black-suited man felt that it was unfortunate that none of these so called cultists posed anything of a lengthy challenge. He’d started to believe that only one closer to his level of strength would have any of the real answers. Crunching boots stepped on crusted tar that looked like a black shadow extending from his direction.

The three were hurt but alive and he considered sparring them to interrogate them as he used some remaining smoke to put out what he could see burning along the building walls. Before he could come to a decision, horns sounded out. The Void Defense Society were coming. They could handle these few people. He...

"Please... it hurts..."

"You asking for mercy? An amusing request."

Grabbed the Armor Physique wielder by the hair after he made it to shore and dragged him away. To interrogate ’on the run’, the man had already either pulled out or dislodged the weapon and it had landed squarely in a spot that would at least corrode his lung if any of the metallic powder remained lodged inside. But he was conscious and that was more than could be said for those who smashed their heads in the blast.

"If cultivators across the world asked you for that, if they begged you to quit what you were doing... I don’t think you’d even consider it."

"Would you?

Chuckling even as his hip struck a rock on the road, the cultist changed his tune like a musician switches key. Still strained, still hurt, but no longer pleading. He sounded amused.

"I know who you are. What you’ve done. You’re more like us than you think. Stepping on others to get ahead. Systematically trying to destroy something, or someone, in order to protect your ideal."

"Sounds close to correct."

"Maybe you weren’t lying when you said you wanted to help the Promised. You could be Ouras, newly awakened. Is that why you came after us?"

Anper thought about lying again. The injured man might not be able to tell the difference. But he had only seen a Physique... and was a bit wary of the two Aspects this cultivator may have that he did not know of. Waiting for his Danger Astralism to warn him of anything.

"No. I came to kill Teovar. For robbing my family and using them for his own gains. I don’t care about much else that you all are doing, in some ways. But you do have one thing quite wrong in your assessment of me."

"Oh? Do tell. And let go of my hair, you bastard, before I-"

The Yecine complied, which surprised him so much he stopped talking. Of course, the boot that slammed into his throat the next moment would have managed the same interruption. His eyes goggled out wide as he was looked down on like a particularly stubborn ant.

"I step on others in our way because it’s the right thing to do. Because they don’t deserve anything less. And our family deserves everything. Does your beloved Promised deserve what you do?"

Choking sounds were hardly something he could make sense of. And while he had been meditating quite a lot in the wake of realizing what the cult was ’against’, his spiritual sense still could not tell emotions apart like his daughter or Navuill could. Definitely nothing close to the ability to read people of that ’witch’ of a Goltbred.

"F-forty seven."

"...And that means?"

Letting the brutalized man massage his own throat without growing too impatient, the swordsman still raised his hand to his sword hilt once more. Something was telling him to.

"The number of cultivators he has hunted already. Enchanters, mostly. But soon... nearly enough. Nearly strong enough. He will corner a Primalist. And things will change. When the time comes, we will witness the Restoration. Finally, finally we-"

What found the throat next was a blade edge. He wasn’t sure what the man had been doing to him. His Danger had not spiked. But something told him he needed to kill him there and then. So he beheaded without much question at the time, the man he wanted to interrogate.

The man who had told him interesting enough things. Today was a win. He needed to go. Holding the side of his head and slinking off, Anper didn’t bother to search through his belongings.

Which was good for the other cultivator - still bleeding out, but alive for now - because he was pretty sure that the artifact that let him mold Illusions would not have lasted a whole minute of a competent cultivator searching a fake body. Velauyn’s training on how to use them... had suggested as much to the Armor Physique wielder.

’Wish I didn’t have to report back to her though. She’s going to want to experiment on the hole in my chest...’