“Master, a warrior named Evan sent after the tribe girl has been reported dead. His location of death is unknown. The tracking charm is most probably being blocked by stronger magic and only the animal tribes are capable of doing this,” a robed messenger bowed low as he reported the results of the latest hunt. He braced himself for his master’s anger and the blow that usually came with it.

He was not disappointed.

His body was run through with a thousand spears, the pain unbearable and felt as though his body was being burned with the flames of hell. He screamed in agony as the spears withdrew from his body slowly, one by one. Blood gushed out like a fountain, staining the already red carpet, turning it a dark crimson shade.

Just as the last drop left him, he found himself still bowing to his master, his body unscathed with not a single scratch on him. But the memory of the pain was all too real. “Perhaps this will prove to you how strong my magic is. The animal tribes are nothing but some primitive fools who refuse to relinquish their land and their magic is no better than ours. Do not give me excuses for your worthlessness.” The master glared coldly at him.

“Y-Yes Sire. My apologies Sire,” the messenger trembled and left the room, hands checking his chest but finding no wound. The wound may not exist, but the pain he experienced was definitely real, he could even feel a slight ache in his chest still. He retreated to the research laboratory to continue his attempt to track the body of the dead warrior. His master was best not angered a second time.

Uziel swore loudly and paced back and forth in the room. A hundred years had passed and yet, he still had not succeeded in purging this world of the tribes. It was also impossible to increase the city to more than its current size due to whatever protective runes the tribes had secretly placed around the city. The ground became hard and it was impossible to build things when they tried to expand. A small buzzing sound came from a wide screen behind him. He swung round and saluted to the figure on the screen just as it turned on.

“Sir! I have devised a plan to take over this world as an addition to our empire.” He told the person on the screen after they had gone through the formalities.

“Oh? And what is this brilliant plan of yours?” The figure was a man who appeared not to have distinctive features. His hair, eye colours could not be told by looking at him. They seem to be subtly changing colour in a way that made their colours impossible to determine. It was also somewhat impossible to tell his age.

“We will bring in modern weapons from other worlds and imbue magic of this world into them to improve their abilities. The tribes would be unable to counteract as from my experience, they have no idea there are weapons more powerful than magic,” Uziel stated. It was a simple plan but required a lot of resources.

“Your idea is accepted but you may not take more than a hundred soldiers from our army and should your plan fail…well you better hope your plan doesn’t fail.” At that, the screen blinked off and Uziel was left to gather his troops.

I will win this war, I will win and I will show all the worlds the power I have at my hands. He glanced at the screen, determined not to let anything get in his way.

The sound of drum beats rang loudly in the air, and the carefree melody of the wind flutes wove in and out of the steady rhythm mixed with the soul-warming tunes from the conch shells. Children from all tribes played different games with each other and some competed against each other to see who could draw the best runes. Adults gathered to boast about their latest accomplishments and elders shared old stories and reminisced the times before the City appeared.

Finally, the meeting started and everyone gathered round the fire to share the latest stories about the lands they live at. As usual, the Sea Tribes started first, reporting the activity of their individual sea creature and whether their part of the sea had been investigated by city folks lately. The salmon tribe claimed more and more humans were coming to catch salmons, decreasing the chance the salmon had to lay their eggs.

The Land Tribes went next. They reported humans exploring more of the territory around the city and further into the wilderness. This was worrying as most of us were even against them building a city originally. The city was founded about a hundred years ago and while most of us could live up to 200 years old, we found that those of us living closer to the city died younger. As a result, we moved further away from the city, placing runes to prevent the city from growing further.

Next were the Sky Tribes. The skies and mountainous region was still untouched by humans as most of them found it difficult to scale the steep sides and while we laughed at the idea of them ever developing machines that allowed them all to fly, we noted that more Blood Warriors used wings nowadays.

Suddenly, the Rat Tribe Chieftain stood up, discussions around the fire stopped as we all waited for him to speak. “Friends, last night our spies from the city reported back to us. They said the Blood Warriors’ master is planning to open a portal to another world to obtain weapons we have no knowledge of and they plan to ambush us and wipe us out.” Cries of disbelief rang out from all sides. Clearly, this news had caused a huge uproar. This was the very thing we feared when we let them built their city and allowed them to live.

“Friends, friends. Calm down. We are all well adept in the art of rune crafting and we’re also blessed with abilities from our animal counterparts. Even if other weapons are brought in and a war is started, chances are, we’ll win. Or we’ll at least be able to hold out longer than them.” A member of the Oxen Tribe had bellowed this to calm everyone down. The loud buzz of conversations and protest died down, some nodded their heads in agreement with the Ox Tribe.

I stood at the sidelines watching the meeting progress as we started to plan our counter attack and different strategies to either raze the city or simply scare the inhabitants away. The next few years are sure to be interesting. I felt slight amusement despite the gravity of the situation.

I lost track of the chapter numbers :( (Good or Bad?) - Wolf