Reincarnated as the favorite of an obsessive goddess: gave me a system-Chapter 35: There are six of you, right?
Kai was in a moment of peace, walking between the furrows of damp earth, feeling the satisfaction of seeing how life sprouted where before there were only ashes. However, that peace was shattered in an instant.
[ WARNING! ]
[ WARNING! ]
[ SYSTEM MESSAGE! ]
ENEMY DETECTED
Approximate threat level: SEMI GOD
Distance: 30 meters and closing.
The message was not like the usual notifications. The letters flashed in an intense red, and a sharp hum vibrated at the base of his skull. Kai stopped dead in his tracks, his heart pounding hard against his ribs. His fingers instinctively sought the hilts of his daggers, still hidden in his inventory. Never, since he regained consciousness in this world, had the system reacted with such a level of panic.
"Kai! I’ve found someone new on the perimeter," Mira’s voice broke the silence. She approached walking along the main path, looking unusually relaxed. Beside her walked a man who seemed the very definition of ordinary. His face was kind, with the smile of someone who has seen much of the world but retains his courtesy.
"Kai, this is Qaxy," she introduced, reaching him. "He says he’s a cloth and spice merchant who got lost looking for the southern route. I told him that you are the leader of this place."
Kai forced a smile, making a Herculean effort to keep his hands from trembling. When he looked at Qaxy, his eyes did not see a merchant. They saw a distortion. The air around the man seemed to vibrate unnaturally, as if reality were a veil poorly draped over something much darker.
"A pleasure, Kai," Qaxy said. His voice was mellow and calm, but charged with a vibration that made the hair on the back of Kai’s neck stand up. "Mira told me that this village is a miracle of reconstruction. I would love to see how you work here."
"The pleasure is mine," Kai lied, feeling a sudden wave of nausea. "Mira, it’s fantastic that you brought him. Precisely Bram and Grom were asking for an outside opinion on the new foundations of the warehouse. Why don’t you take him to them? Let them give him a full tour of the forge and the village, they’ll love to show off their work."
Mira, completely unsuspecting of the storm raging inside Kai, nodded and guided Qaxy toward the dwarves’ area. As soon as they turned the corner, Kai’s mask crumbled. He ran toward the central building with a speed that startled a couple of children playing nearby.
Upon entering, he slammed the door shut. Lyla was sitting reviewing scrolls next to Allice, while Thorne, Roshia, and Mira who had just returned after leaving Qaxy with the dwarves, watched with curiosity.
"Listen to me carefully," Kai said, his voice an urgent and sharp whisper. "That man, Qaxy... is not a merchant."
Lyla sprang to her feet, her face losing all color at the sound of the name. Allice tensed like never before.
"Did you say... Qaxy?" her voice trembled. "He is a subordinate of Malk, one of the most faithful to him."
Allice was completely frozen. "If he is here, he knows who we are. Or at least he suspects enough to come in person."
"What do we do?" Kai asked, glancing out the window to make sure they weren’t being watched.
"He not only perfectly masters all elemental magic, but he has also pushed illusion magic to extreme limits, he can recreate entire worlds in your mind," Lyla explained urgently. "But his greatest danger is physical contact. If Qaxy touches you, he sees your soul. He sees your deepest fears, your memories, your traumas, the things that break you from within. And once he sees them, he manifests them as realities in your mind. He makes you lose your head."
"We cannot fight here," Thorne intervened, gripping the handle of his battle-axe. "If a battle against a god’s subordinate breaks out in the middle of the village, nothing will be left. The children, the families... they would all die."
"I’ll take him away," Kai said, regaining his composure. "I’ll tell him I want to talk business in private, away from the village’s ears. I’ll lead him toward the eastern lake, outside the forest. You all leave right now through the back route. Hide in the brush. As soon as we are far enough away, we will attack all at once. We can’t give him a single second to think."
The plan was sealed with looks of determination and fear. Two hours later, the afternoon sun bathed the lake in a melancholy orange light. Kai walked alongside Qaxy, maintaining a prudent distance of two meters. They had been talking about trade routes, taxes, and the relationship with Athelgard. Kai felt as if he were walking a tightrope over an abyss.
"It’s a fascinating place, Kai," Qaxy commented, stopping at the edge of the crystal clear water.
"Thanks, it’s actually a good place. Mostly because most of the people here don’t practice any religion, so there are no conflicts," Kai responded cautiously. "Have you ever had trouble for believing in the religion of the Return of the god Malk?"
The silence that followed was absolute. The wind stopped blowing. The splashing of water against the rocks seemed to halt. Qaxy stopped walking and, very slowly, turned his body toward Kai.
"I... never mentioned my religion, Kai," Qaxy said. His voice was no longer mellow, it was firm.
Kai took a step back, his hand ready.
"There are six of you, right? There is no need to continue with this theater."
Without waiting for an answer, Qaxy lunged forward. His right hand, fingers extended like claws, sought to touch him. In a fraction of a second, Kai’s daggers appeared in his hands. He crossed the blades in front of his chest, blocking Qaxy’s advance just before he could touch him. Three arrows shot out from one of the trees, courtesy of Mira. Qaxy, without looking back, moved his head with perfect elegance, letting the projectiles pass millimeters from his ears.
But Allice did not stay behind.
"Burning Arrow!" Allice shouted from her hidden position. Her attack forced Qaxy to retreat. In that instant, Thorne emerged from the shadows like a grey furred demon, bringing down his axe with a war cry that shook the forest. The axe hit the ground where Qaxy had been just a millisecond before.
Roshia recited a spell, and from the ground beneath Qaxy’s feet, spikes of solid ice erupted, attempting to impale him. Qaxy leaped backward, suspended in the air for a moment, laughing. His merchant’s tunic finally tore, revealing his true form, a being of an unreal paleness. Lyla was casting gusts of wind to support Kai.
"Kai, don’t let him get close!"
Qaxy landed on the surface of the lake, walking on the water as if it were solid ground. He looked at Kai with genuine fascination.
"So the suspicions were true. The way you move, your name, your ability to defy the gods... It’s you. The famous hero has returned from the dead."
Kai did not answer. He lunged into the attack, his daggers clashing against an invisible barrier of illusions that Qaxy manifested around himself.
"But you are weak, Kai," Qaxy continued, dodging a slash to the neck. "You aren’t anywhere near the level of what you once were. In your past life, you could have wiped out this lake with a sigh. Now... now you need someone to watch your back. You won’t be able to stop me."
The fight became a whirlwind of violence. Mira never stopped firing, each arrow was a distraction that forced Qaxy to move. Roshia created snow blizzards to reduce the enemy’s visibility, while Thorne tried to flank him to deliver a decisive blow. Lyla acted by sending gusts to deflect Qaxy’s attacks.
"What I don’t quite understand is why your goddess doesn’t act directly," Qaxy mentioned while still fighting everyone at once. After several milliseconds of silence, he began to laugh.
"Because she can’t, of course! She’s weak, that’s why she doesn’t act, she doesn’t have her power. This will make Malk very happy."
Qaxy launched a small ice sword without reciting, which pierced Lyla’s leg. She screamed in pain, and Kai, filled with fury, began to attack faster, using everything he had. Suddenly, Qaxy multiplied his image. There were ten versions of him surrounding the group by the lake.
"Which one is real, hero?" the ten voices asked in unison.
"They are all real!" Lyla warned as she tried to heal her wound. "They can do real damage!"
Kai tried to use absorption for one of Qaxy’s spells, however, he was faster. He took advantage of Kai’s pause to slip beneath his guard. Thorne stepped in between, receiving a palm strike to the chest that launched him ten meters back, crashing into a tree.
"Thorne!" Mira cried out, losing her concentration for a second.
That small crack in the group’s coordination was all Qaxy needed. He moved with devilish precision. He dodged an ice spear from Roshia, ducked under a fire spell from Allice, and with a spinning motion, appeared in front of Kai.
"Your resistance amuses me, truly. But I am curious to see what is inside that head that has died and been born again. What fears does someone who has crossed the veil of death hold?"
Kai attempted one last desperate slash with his left dagger. Qaxy didn’t even bother to dodge. He simply moved his right hand with insulting slowness. Qaxy’s fingers, long and cold, closed firmly on Kai’s left shoulder.
[ CRITICAL SYSTEM ALERT ]
[ INTRUSION DETECTED ]
"KAI!" Lyla’s harrowing scream was the last thing he heard before the real world faded away.
Kai felt himself falling into a void. The lake, the forest, his friends, Lyla... everything vanished. Suddenly, he was in the middle of a city in flames. His hands were small and covered in blood. In front of him, his parents’ bodies lay lifeless while soldiers in golden armor laughed.
"Is this it?" Qaxy’s voice resonated in that nightmare world. "Is this your fear? The loss of your family? No, this isn’t it. Let’s keep looking."
Outside the illusion, in the real world, Kai’s body collapsed to its knees. His eyes had turned white, without pupils, and a cold sweat soaked his clothes. Qaxy remained there, maintaining physical contact, with a smile of absolute triumph as the rest of the group ran desperately toward them, knowing that if they didn’t separate Qaxy from Kai in the next few seconds, it would all be over. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
Qaxy formed a bubble around them, preventing anyone from approaching. He closed his eyes, savoring the feast of traumas he was extracting from Kai’s mind, unaware that, deep within his mind, something was awakening.
