Chapter 438: Elves?
Laz didn’t know how to judge the strength of these pale skin, blonde haired humanoids, but they were definitely stronger than a normal human despite their thin bodies.
That aside, he felt no threat from this group. In essence, he started to wonder if the classifications he had learned from the Asura blood memories could really be related to the whole universe? After all, like many similar species, they based things on their bloodlines, but that couldn’t be the only gauge right? Still, since that was all he had to go on, he ranked them around the condensation realm while the big man in front of him was definitely in the foundation realm.
But that aside, it was a far cry from what Laz was capable of.
Laz stepped back and reached out, moving his hands like the flow of water and grabbed all ten arrows from the air before calmly lowering his hands. Setting the long shafts into his left hand, he reached out as though he wanted to hand them back to the tall blonde man he was still standing in front of.
The pale man backed away, his already whitish skin turning even more pale as he looked at Laz in shock.
As for the reason Laz decided to undergo half of his transformation? That was because he wanted to show strength while still hiding it. In truth, Laz could have not transformed at all since this half measure was simply for show, only giving him access to his better eye sight to ensure a successful capture of the arrows.
Still, seeing Laz change like this was enough to give the warriors facing him pause, which was what he wanted.
"Elves? Are these elves?" Laz heard from someone behind him as he stayed facing forward. Seeing Laz handle the attack smoothly gave courage to the rest even if most of them hadn’t fought before once in their lives. Like Ruth and Shelby, most of those gathered were the products of growth thanks to their bloodlines without the battle experience to back it up.
Even then, Laz noticed one group that didn’t seem intimidated by these strange creatures and that was a bleach blonde guy along with his buddy and the two women with them. In fact, it was his buddy who had said the word elves.
Strangely, this word seemed to cause a reaction to the hunters in front of them. While they were tense before, now they showed obvious signs of anger on their faces at the sound of this word.
’They recognize the word elf? And they do not like it,’ Laz noticed as the tall man in front brought his wooden sword to bare and leveled it at Laz.
’Seems his anger has overrode his fear, eh?’ Laz thought with a slight laugh.
No one laughed with him.
One of the archers in the back raised his hand and uttered a word, sending a bright red light into the air. Like a fire cracker or flare, the light reached high in the sky before finally burning out, a clear sign of a warning signal.
"FUCK!" The blonde member on Laz’s side swore as he took out what looked like a metal rod. Not only him, but the guy next to him pulled out a small axe as the two women also drew out something, a matching set of daggers.
’They aren’t newbies, huh?’ Laz thought as he also noticed Jill gripping the wooden stick tightly.
Since Jill was still in the group of Ruth and Shelby while hiding behind Dave, none of the attackers saw this.
Sensing that things were going to get bad, Laz looked over at the blonde haired man.
"Back off friend. I know what you’re thinking, but if you attack them now, that will cause even bigger problems for us," Laz advised, hoping the man would listen.
Of course he wouldn’t.
"Fuck you friend. These fairy elf fucks want to fight, then we will fucking fight," the man shot back at Laz as he let his strength blaze.
’He broke into the void realm... good for him. Obviously his palace is just beginning though,’ Laz thought to himself while watching the projection behind the man.
Slight changes could be seen once one started their journey as early as the awakening realm if they couldn’t control themselves and let their bloodline run wild. For most though, full transformations only started in the foundation realm while partial changes could occur as early as the condensation realm.
Since most everyone here was in condensation realm with only a couple being in the foundational realm, seeing someone bring out a palace gave them all a sense of hope. As for those with the blonde man, they grinned bloodthirsty grins, both guys and girls and summoned their transformations, each one taking on a different form including the blonde man who finished letting out his power by transforming, his body becoming a mess of dirty blond fur while his arms grew into large, wolf like pads with sharp claws. The metal rod he held before that appeared too big initially now looked small in his large hands.
Oddly enough, the three with him also turned into were-wolf style beasts, with their fur matching their original hair color.
’Holy shit... it’s actually a pack of werewolves?’ Laz was amazed considering this was the first time he had seen so many people share the same sort of bloodline.
’They aren’t all related right? Cause the sounds they were making last night were clearly not cries of comradery.’ Laz shivered a bit at the unbidden thought.
Seeing the four of them transform, the others in the group started to do the same, obviously feeling the will to fight spark within them, even if they had never experienced it before.
Unfortunately for them, this wasn’t going to end well.
While Laz hadn’t initially felt anyone else in the area, as soon as the signal went off, Laz could sense many presences start to rush to their location and by many, he meant hundreds.
Not wanting the ’elves’ to arrive on scene to see one of their groups having been torn apart by the group he was with, Laz decided to act accordingly.
Laz stomped his foot on the hard ground, causing a muffled boom to spread out from where he stood as a wave of dirt spread out like a wave. For everyone not expecting it which was pretty much everyone gathered, they lost their footing and fell on the ground immediately.
The blonde werewolf was the only one still standing after this surprising move and he turned to look at Laz in surprise, temporally forgetting his bloodlust.
"Thankfully you weren’t too far gone," Laz said with a smile and put his arms up.
Just then, the hundreds of presences Laz had felt arrived from all around them, materializing from the grass as though they had just transported here.
Hundreds of arrows were aimed at their group as hundreds of swords and spears were also aimed in their direction.
As for the strongest of these hunters, she was in the middle void palace realm while there were several early void palace realm warriors with her.
Had they come upon a scene of violence, the result would have been bloody and swift.
Seeing this, the blond haired man wanted to fight still, but after a hand was placed on his shoulder from the red furred friend of his, he transformed back into a human.
The woman who arrived was pale skinned like the rest of them, but her hair shimmered like gold as opposed to just being blonde. The spear she held pointed towards the blonde haired infected was black in color and had a rather deadly feeling to it, not at all something that could be produced by just sharpening a tree branch.
She yelled over to the elf standing in front of Laz who then yelled something back.
Ignoring the wolf man, the golden haired warrior walked forward to stand in front of Laz, still standing in the middle of the circle of overturned dirt thanks to his earlier action.
She brought the spear up to his face and rested it right next to his chin, as though saying she could pierce his throat without a moments notice.
Laz just smiled back, waiting.
Somehow Laz got the feeling that how to proceed would present itself as his golden eyes locked with the woman’s bright green blended with the yellow.
:You come from hell’s door?: She asked, her voice entering Laz’s head.
’Ah. Yes. This.’
Laz turned to look at the unassuming wooden door. He remembered it felt like metal despite being wood, but only now did he notice the carvings on it. They depicted large beasts fighting with glowing figures all while surrounded by masses of dead bodies.
:Well. I agree the place needs some work, but I wouldn’t call it hell since it is home,: Laz replied back, keeping his strength in check. Ever since growing into the void Lord realm, his spiritual sense had grown many times stronger as well, so much so that Laz could have knocked this woman on her ass with something akin to a thought attack if he wanted too.
But of course that wasn’t his intention.
:Coming here to kill us with so few warriors was a bad idea. We are not so weak that ones such as yourselves can just hunt our people as you please,: the woman replied back, her hand poking the spear a little closer to Laz’s neck.
:To be honest with you, I have no idea how we got here... As you can clearly see... the door is closed, is it not?: Laz presented the problem with the woman’s thought, indicating that, as he said, the door was closed.
:There should be other’s waiting to open it on the other side. After all, for us here in this cage, they probably don’t want to let us get out and be free.: The woman’s tone was venom with her words, making Laz understand a bit more about what was going on.
’They are prisoners?’
:There aren’t. If we could go back, we would. It’s not like we are exactly prepared to be over here.: While they had some supplies visible since it appeared like the whole camp of twenty people were transferred over, their was very little in terms of food or weapons to be shown, helping to give further credit to Laz’s claim.
:And yet you bring hunting dogs with you? Ones that don’t seem to need a leash I see.:
:Yeah. Sorry about that. I’ve never met them before and they seem to want to follow their instinct. You can’t really blame them since your people got here first and pointed their weapons at us.:
:I don’t want to hear your lies. If it wasn’t for the fact that we need you to get out now that the door has opened again, I would just order for all of you to be killed right now. Still... we have instructions for something like this happening. You are to be taken prisoner to see our queen. If any of your party chooses to resist, well.... we don’t need all of you to get them to open the door again.: The woman smiled, her beauty like a sun on a moonless night. For some odd reason, Laz couldn’t help but be attracted to strong woman.
’Really Laz? Really?’ Laz chided himself inside while simply nodding his head.
:Alright. Alright. Relax. I’ll tell them.:
Laz turned to those gathered, most of whom had frightened looks on their faces.
"Some of you know me, many of you don’t. My name is Lazarus Crowe and believe me when I say, I’m the strongest one here. Anyway. Our new friends want us to come and stay at their house tonight. Maybe for a few nights. I would suggest we follow that suggestion considering it seems like they might know a way to open that gate and get us home," Laz announced, turning away from the woman with the spear as though he wasn’t bothered by it at all.
"Gate? This is inside a gate?" The red haired werewolf man asked, surprised.
"Yep. Welcome to.. another world? Another dimension? Somewhere else in the universe? I’m not actually sure where this one has led. Or better yet, how we all got sucked into that gate in the first place. But yes, that was a gate and we are trapped here."
"You’re him... right? The one who is on every major law enforcement agencies most wanted list in the country?" One of the werewolf woman asked, one with brown hair and a well toned abs as revealed by the fact that after losing her clothes in her transformation, the only clothing left on her body was a stretch band around her breasts and spandex shorts on her lower half.
"Sounds about right. So will you all listen to me for now?" Laz said, getting the conversation back on topic.
"Whatever you say sexy!" The brown haired woman replied, while her friend punched her in the arm and called her a slut.
"Oh. One last thing by the way. If you don’t listen to me and do as I say... well... these nice people will likely make a pin cushion out of you so... there is that too."
Once they heard this, the faces of everyone seemed to drop into frowns while the blonde once again muttered his catchphrase;
"FUCK!"
