Chapter 454: Echo From The Past
Laz wanted to ask a question, but decided this wasn’t the right time for it seeing as how everyone around him had a look like someone had just punched them in the gut.
Instead, he observed the tiny creatures more, straining his eyes to the point of almost hurting. While he had called them beetles since their shiny black frames and little horns kind of reminded him of beetles, he also didn’t think they were exactly like beetles either since they looked like the had a rather faint marking on the back of their shells. It was hard to make out, but it looked slightly orange in color and he could have sworn he had seen it before. Besides that, there was also the issue with their mouths. Once again, Laz had never studied beetles or insects in general, but he noticed that the mouths of these little things were so big it was like their little heads split in half while taking a bite. Just from what Laz saw, he would say their mouths made up almost a third of their bodies which obviously didn’t make sense in the slightest. Sure, he had seen some crazy stuff on animal show documentaries that he remembered watching when he was younger, some of those including the world’s weirdest insects, but this was far weirder than anything he had ever seen before.
"ENOUGH! THERE IS NO PROOF OF THAT SO JUST SHUT YOUR MOUTHS FOR A MOMENT!"
Sylvia’s voice brought him back to the present as her yell had shut up the arguing elders and Ivana.
Sylvia looked over at Ivana and asked,
"What else do you know about the Infernal beetles? Anything else? It’s been so many years that for them to just show up like this is impossible. We’ve been in this damn world for several thousands of years so how the hell could those things just come out of nowhere?"
Ivana looked a little flustered and angry at the rebuttal, but she swallowed it down and thought to herself.
"They.. uh... They have the marking of the Infernals on their backs..." Ivana responded, thinking as hard as she could.
"So if we can see the marking we will know that they are those beetles?" One of the elders asked.
"Yes. It makes sense. I used to read quite a bit when I was younger and I remember that anything birthed in or by the Infernals has that marking on it..."
"Wonderful that you only think of that now?"
"And what good does it do? Without this boy’s help, we couldn’t even tell that they were beetles in the first place."
"Well, according to the histories, Infernal beetles were about the size of a large bovine so how could one relate something so small to something normally so big?"
’I thought elves had excellent eye sight?’ Laz thought to himself, somewhat unfairly. It wasn’t that they didn’t have excellent eyesight, it was just that the Heaven’s Gaze was that powerful.
Still though, Laz had a bad feeling that the marking he saw on the little insects backs might just be what they were now arguing about, so instead of interrupting, he used his finger to draw in an exposed patch of dirt.
"Is this the symbol you are speaking of?" Laz asked, interrupting them.
The mark looking like four lines, intercepting and folding on each other until they formed what could be called a flame like pattern.
For the second time today, all gathered gasped in fright, seeing something they had only ever heard or read about in history books or scary stories of the past.
The Infernals were the enemy of their race, the nightmare in their sleep and the boogeyman lurking just out of reach.
"How..." Ivana’s words cut out, not wanting to ask something she already felt she knew the answer to.
Sylvia wasn’t as scared though.
"How do you know that symbol?" She asked, her eyes pleading with Laz to tell her anything other than what he was going to say.
"It’s hard to make out, but each of them has this symbol etched in a reddish color on their backs.
"It’s over... It’s over..."
"We’re all going to die..."
"I haven’t even fucked my son’s wife yet and now I only have a few years to do so?"
"We can’t even leave this forsaken place...."
’Did he say fuck his son’s wife?’
"ENOUGH!" Sylvia yelled again, getting them to calm down.
"Laz... are you sure about that? absolutely sure?" Sylvia asked, using his name in an intimate fashion despite those gathered.
"Yes. It’s actually pretty clear once you see it. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it though."
"WHAT!?!"
"BOY!?!"
"HOW!?!"
The questions came one after another, but Sylvia stopped them first. Bending down until she was right beside Laz, she rested an arm on his shoulder as though trying to calm him before he told them a devastating story. At least, that might have been what it looked like on the outside, but for Sylvia, she was trying to draw strength from him since she was starting to feel as overwhelmed as the others but was unable to show it.
"My master... well... one of my masters, was a prince of the Asura, named Rak’sha. The first and only time I met him was after he had already died but he was able to hold on long enough to help me... set me on a path. He taught me the skill Heaven’s Gaze..."
Laz briefly thought of Heaven’s Gaze and even the other skill he had gained from that, Faded Darkness. Although he hadn’t used Faded Darkness in a long time since disappearing wouldn’t have helped in the slightest lately, that didn’t mean he hadn’t practiced it. The only thing he hadn’t done lately was think of the teacher who was in his life for only a brief moment, but who’s help had given him a path to survive more than once.
"Anyway, in his memories, he momentarily showed me scenes of his life, of the universe we are in and many more like it. And he had shown me the Asura’s greatest enemies and the ones responsible for their fall... the Infernals."
The gathered were silent while looking at Laz like he had suddenly become something both awe-inspiring and something dangerous. Even Sylvia hadn’t known what he was since she had never seen an Asura before.
Only Ivana spoke at this time...
"Please... Please change one more time into your battle form?" She asked, her voice a mixture of awe and pleading, as though she was begging for her life.
Laz looked over to Sylvia who simply nodded her head.
Laz drove the energy through himself, causing his blood to boil as his hair turned white, his eyes became gold, his skin grey and the black tribal lines extended outward until they ran the entire length of his body.
This was the first time Laz had taken on this form since he had grown into the middle Void Lord realm but he noticed something different as his tongue felt around in his mouth.
’Fangs?’ Laz thought to himself as he smile and touched them with his finger.
Do to this, he didn’t notice how his appearance which was already desirable had affected the ladies gathered.
The older elves blushed and started fanning themselves, feeling the need to indulge in something they hadn’t wanted for years.
Ivana and Sylvia shivered as they felt a heat start rising within. It was even worse for Sylvia though since she had already had a taste of what he could do. Luckily she managed to stay on her feet.
As for the guards who had gathered around, both the attendants of Sylvia and the silver masked guards of Ivana hit the ground as their legs gave way, unable to control themselves. Only those at the later stage of the Void Palace realm were able to stop themselves from watering the grass they had fallen on.
Even the men felt the need to bow down to his form, as though something inside of them wanted to swear allegiance to Laz just by seeing his form.
Ivana recovered the quickest and while everyone else was in shock and awe, she strode forward quickly on unsteady legs and lifted his shirt, revealing the blackened tree and blood red moon tattoo.
Seeing this, she fell back and barely stopped herself from crying out.
Laz finally noticed what was happening after this ’attack’ and cancelled his form, allowing those who had gathered to collect themselves.
"SO... anyway... what do we do about this now?" Ivana said quickly as she got up and dusted herself off, quick to try to change the subject before anyone questioned her actions.
No one spoke as their eyes were still glued to Laz, making him feel a bit uncomfortable. As such, he decided he needed to do something, anything, to move things along.
"Well... if you will give me a chance, I have something I want to try."
"Something to try Laz?" Sylvia said, still being informal with him.
"Yeah. Something that might get rid of these bugs?"
"YOU HAVE A METHOD?" The elders all screamed at once, as though competing as to who could be the loudest.
"I’m not sure. But it’s worth a shot!" Laz said before grabbing his storage sack and using his sense to see if he could find what he was looking for.
"Some strange magical device from his teacher?"
"Perhaps some skill that requires a catalyst?"
"Surely this boy... ack... surely Laz here is a great man among his people. Perhaps we’ve been judging the humans too harshly over the years?"
"What is that? That... is that a can? And what are those markings on it? Some strange script? I think I’ve seen the humans have things written like that before but it seems so... clear...."
Laz shook the can in his hands, took off the cap and pressed down on the nozzle at the top of it.
"Don’t worry. This is formulated to have no negative effects on plant life, just simply the bugs themselves," Laz said, spraying over the black spot that they had been studying.
Fire didn’t work, nor the herbs that grew wild, nor any other kind of treatment that had been developed over the years, both new and old.
But this magic can device of Laz’s, with a simply spray of white mist, caused the black patch to melt away into nothingness.
Laz turned to look at there faces with a bit of a grin before noticing that their mouths were hanging open... as though their jaws were just held on by some wire.
Laz turned back to the blue can and said,
"I guess it really does kill all flying insects. Hmm?"
