Crusader King

As Cades was flying towards the outpost he slowly began to realize multiple severe problems with it.

Firstly, Cades had no idea who was inside of it, those that had come here with him wouldn't have had the time or the ability to create something like this, at least not in such a short amount of time.

Secondly, why would there be smoke coming from the outpost.

And lastly, he slowly began to realize that the outpost was constantly changing how it looked.

The fences seemed to constantly change their colours, just as everything else about it.

Cades breath quickened and his eyes widened at the realization that this was just an illusion, he was unsure of the cause for the illusion or even just why there was one here, but he did know one thing.

Whatever the reason may be, it would certainly not be a good thing for him.

Stagnating in the air, with his wings causing him to go up and down, he began looking around once more.

On his left, just a few hundred meters away he saw a mountain region, with tips covered by snow, and on his right there was a seemingly black river with a gravel shore.

Cades, who was thirsty and exhausted, quickly decided to go to the river.

Flying to the river took him barely half a minute, however when he finally arrived the weirdly serene state of his mind had finally crumbled.

Cades threw up, he had not eaten anything so there was no colour, but he still threw up.

His mind, crumbling, was plagued by countless questions and pure dread.

Where was he ?

How did he survive ?

What did the unknown runic sequence on his body do ?

What happened to the others ?

Why was this happening ?

There were countless questions that Cades now began asking himself, but, sadly, he did not know even a single one of the answers he so dearly wished for.

He slowly began moving again and walked up to the water, still trying to calm himself down.

The currents of the water were surprisingly weak and the river wasn't strong either, he could see some aquatic creatures that resembled fishes but he didn't pay them any attention as he greedily formed a cup with his hands and drank a big gulp of the cold, calming liquid.

It tasted salty.

Just as he was thinking about what he needed to do now, in order to survive, a sticky material strongly hit him on his back, right on his wings that he had folded on his back.

The impact threw Cades onto his back, away from the river, but he was able to quickly stand up again and face his new opponent.

There was a kind of giant arachnid crab, four legs and two giant claws.

It stood at three metres tall, had thin legs, and a dark grey shell, it was looking at him with a disgusting face holding six, black round eyes and two big mandibles that seemed to be moving in anticipation of having a very exotic meal.

That very same monster was the one who just shot a sticky web at his wings.

Cades knew very well what that monster was called, it was a giant thomiside, a species that mostly lived in death zones on certain rare worlds, which was good for Cades, as he knew the names of those planets.

However, right now he had no time to think about all of that because that very thomiside was running towards him readying itself to attack and crush its prey with its powerful claws.

He reacted quickly, by trying to fly away, however, his wings could not unfold themselves, actually, he could barely feel them.

Reacting in a split second, Cades quickly drew his artificing dagger and attempted to hit the thomiside with it, he managed to cut one of its legs but the thomiside also managed to strike him in return.

Cades was thrown multiple metres back but managed to still stand up, all be it with his bones greatly groaning.

The thomiside was disoriented and tried to walk towards its prey, but it wasn't used to walking with only three legs and failed in its first attempts.

While the spider was still struggling Cades quickly cast a spell to defeat it, his first instinct was to use a fire spell to burn it, but the thomiside was wet and had a powerful shell, so he tried to immobilize it.

Cades used a spell to cool down the water that was on the shell of the thomiside and within its joints.

The thomiside struggled even more now, it's movements were severely slowed down because of the powerful ice and the now freezing temperatures.

After a while somehow managed to stand up and try to jump onto Cades, but he managed to evade its desperate last attack stabbed it into the underside of its carapace.

Dark blue blood gushed out of the small wound, as Cades had directly stabbed its heart.

The thomiside fell and with its eyes slowly becoming more milky it collapsed onto itself.

After the imposing creature had fallen Cades could see how a faint string of violet light came out of it and went into himself, right under his heart, right at the place where his mana organ was located.

Cades instinctively knew that that weird light was mana itself, he could slowly feel how his groaning bones were relieved, how his hunger for energy was slowly being stilled, how his exhaustion was thinning out and finally, after all of that, he felt how the residue mana spread inside his body, he felt how he grew stronger and how the mana he had access to became even greater.

After realizing all of this, Cades smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever.

He wanted to survive, yes, but his main goal was more so to avenge everything that he had lost.

Now, he had a tool to do so.

Still smiling Cades went up to the fallen thomiside and started the bloody part of his job, he needed to butcher the creature to harvest materials he could utilize.

Because this was the first time Cades had ever dissected a thomiside he had no idea where its organs were located, however, he did know how the separate parts looked and worked.

Thomiside carapaces were known for being resistant to mana, not that it had helped this one.

But more importantly, thomisides had a mana organ that tended to develop "mana stones", similarly to how humans could develop kidney stones.

The difference was that mana stones were very filled to the brim with mana, which an artificer could use.

And after a while, he finally found the stones.