The Primeval Era-Chapter 106: Blue Flames II

Masamuk knew this territory well enough, though he rarely had reason to visit. It was a transitional zone, a place between places, where the Lands of Beasts gradually gave way to the Lands of Humans.

And it was boring.

Terribly, painfully boring.

Which meant Masamuk had to talk.

"These Unbound Tribes," he said, gesturing vaguely at the landscape below. "They’re situated in quite a unique place, aren’t they?"

The Tokoloshe glanced at him but said nothing.

Masamuk continued anyway.

"Behind us, the Sacred Mountains. Mount Vorrath and its sisters. The territories of the Noble Primal Beasts and the Behemoths who have ruled since before humans learned to make fire."

His obsidian body pulsed thoughtfully.

"Ahead of us, the Neolithic Empires. The Dominion of Crimson Stone to the east. The Obsidian Throne to the south. The Covenant of the First Stone to the west. Three great powers that have divided the nearby territories among themselves and spend most of their time scheming against each other."

He tilted his round form.

"And here, in the middle, the Threshold Lands. Too close to the Sacred Mountains for the empires to claim without risking conflict with us. Too far from the mountains for us to bother defending."

His crimson eyes studied the human.

"The Unbound Tribes persist in this gap. Tolerated by both sides. Protected by neither."

He paused.

"How did someone like you come to be in such a place?"

The Tokoloshe flew beside him on that cloud of blue flames and Mana, his ragged Dross clothing flapping in the wind. He looked entirely out of place. His bearing was too refined for a tribesman. His power was too strange for a wandering cultivator. And his knowledge of Imperators and empire politics suggested familiarity with worlds far removed from these backwater territories.

"I’m a hermit," the human said calmly. "I just like to move around."

...!

Masamuk shook his body with a smile.

A hermit.

Right.

And Masamuk was just a simple slime with no ambitions or attachments.

But he didn’t press further. The Tokoloshe clearly had secrets, and Masamuk understood the value of secrets better than most. Whatever this human was hiding, it had led him to heal Tiaret when no one else could.

That earned him a certain amount of privacy.

For now.

They continued across the Plains of Shattered Bones and Stones.

The landscape passed beneath them in endless stretches of gray and brown, occasionally broken by patches of hardy vegetation that had somehow found purchase in the unforgiving soil. Masamuk spotted a few Unbound Tribes in the distance, their primitive settlements clustered around sources of water or a Mountain.

They looked so fragile from up here.

So vulnerable.

It was easy to forget, when you lived among Behemoths and Noble Beasts, that most creatures in the Lands of Stone existed on the edge of extinction. One bad harvest. One Primal Surge. One ambitious Imperator looking for easy conquests.

Any of those could wipe out generations of accumulated survival.

Masamuk had never particularly cared about human tribes before.

But flying beside the Tokoloshe, watching the way his dark blue eyes tracked the landscape with something that might have been protectiveness, he found himself thinking about them differently.

This human had risked his life to stop a Primal Surge.

He had negotiated with Behemoths not for personal gain, but to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves.

He had healed a Noble Beast he had no obligation to heal, simply because it gave him leverage to accomplish his goals.

Whatever else he was, the Tokoloshe was not a typical human.

And then, in the distance, something unique appeared.

A mountain rose from the plains, its peak shrouded in mist that pulsed with faint Mana. It was smaller than Mount Vorrath, younger, less saturated with the accumulated power of ages. But it was still a Sacred Mountain in its own right, still home to weak Primal Beasts who had claimed its slopes as their territory.

The Roaring Stone Mountain.

And at its base, nestled against the stone like a child against its mother’s side, a small settlement came into view.

Walls that gleamed crimson-blue in the afternoon light. Huts of mud and timber clustered within that protective barrier. Smoke rising from cooking fires. Figures moving about their daily tasks, unaware of the beings approaching from above.

It was the Purple Stone Tribe.

Masamuk felt the Tokoloshe’s attention sharpen.

His distant expression shifted into something more present, more focused. The weight that had been pressing on him seemed to lighten slightly as his destination came into view.

This was his home.

Or at least, the closest thing he had to one.

Masamuk studied those crimson-blue walls with new interest. He could sense the Mana saturating them, the same strange power that flowed through the Tokoloshe himself. Those weren’t ordinary defenses. They had been transformed by something, changed into barriers that pulsed with energy that felt almost... familiar.

Like the flames that had healed Tiaret.

"Interesting," Masamuk murmured.

The Tokoloshe glanced at him but said nothing.

And together, they descended toward the tribe.

As they descended toward the settlement, his crimson eyes studied the barrier that surrounded it with growing fascination. The surface gleamed crimson-blue in the afternoon light, a color that shouldn’t have been possible for simple timber and mud. The Mana saturating those walls was dense enough to rival defensive structures he had seen in the territories of far more powerful tribes.

What materials had made this?

The wood seemed to have been transformed at a fundamental level, changed from dead timber into something almost alive. It pulsed with a rhythm that felt disturbingly similar to a heartbeat.

It was fascinating.

They landed atop the wall, the Tokoloshe’s feet touching down on the crimson-blue surface with practiced ease. Masamuk floated beside him, his obsidian body hovering at shoulder height as he surveyed their surroundings.

The Inkanyamba stayed further back due to its slightly larger body, its serpentine form coiling in the air above the plains rather than attempting to land on defenses that clearly couldn’t support its weight. Even shrunken, the Behemoth was massive. Its presence alone was enough to make the air feel heavy with pressure.

But even Masamuk’s aura was too grand for this place.

He could feel it pressing down on the tribespeople below, making them flinch and huddle and look toward the walls with expressions of barely contained terror. They were Dross, most of them. Some Flesh Awakening Warriors at best. His mere existence was overwhelming to their senses.

And yet...

Those atop the wall looked fearless.

Masamuk observed them with growing interest. An older man with bronze skin and thick muscles softened by age stood near the Tokoloshe with an expression that had shifted from worry to relief.

Beside him, a shrewd old woman with a slightly bent back was looking at Masamuk with a fervent gaze. Her gnarled hands gripped a staff decorated with bone ornaments, and her yellow teeth were visible in what might have been a smile or a grimace.

And then there was another who caught his eye.

A young woman similar in age to the Tokoloshe stood nearby, her body buzzing with Mana. Her eyes held wing-shaped pupils that marked her as something other than ordinary. Her bearing was refined, almost noble, despite the rough Dross clothing she wore.

She was looking toward Masamuk with caution.

Masamuk found himself questioning what he was seeing.

There were two of them with the same mannerisms? Two young people in this backwater tribe who carried themselves like royalty despite their circumstances?

Was this... the mate of the Tokoloshe?

It would explain certain things.

But, Masamuk was in a good mood.

Tiaret was healed. His beloved was restored. The weight that had been crushing him for years had finally lifted, and he felt lighter than he had in longer than he could remember.

So he decided to be magnanimous.

His slime body bounced upward, floating higher in the air so that all those present could see him clearly. His obsidian form pulsed with stellar blue points that danced with satisfaction, and his crimson eyes curved into something resembling a smile.

"You do not need to worry about Primal Surges any longer!"

His voice boomed across the wall with cheerful authority.

"Elders of the Tokoloshe!"

He looked at the old woman and the bronze-skinned man, watching their expressions shift to astonishment.

"Mate of the Tokoloshe!"

He looked at the young woman with the wing-shaped pupils, watching her turn dumbfounded.

"I, Masamuk, have arrived to solve all your problems!"

...!

A heavy silence fell over the wall.

The old woman’s fervent gaze had become something closer to bewilderment. The bronze-skinned man was staring at Masamuk with incredulity. And the young woman...

Her wing-shaped pupils had gone wide, her refined composure cracking as she looked between Masamuk and the Tokoloshe with an expression of shock.

And the Tokoloshe himself...

Damian had a cloudy expression on his face.

His dark blue eyes were fixed on Masamuk coldly.

Masamuk blinked.

He looked around at all the strange expressions directed his way.

"What?"