Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The grand shade of gold was annoyingly bright and exceedingly ominous. Every Cluster had its own unique traits, with higher level ones more often than not having particular traits that aimed to benefit their denizens much more than lower ones. This fact made everyone wary of what this golden hue represented.

Replicus felt the ambient mana constrict and grow thin in the next moment, which made him prepare for an unusual phenomenon – as that was normally the case when the surrounding essence suddenly became less abundant.

It happened very quickly.

Replicus' ship crashed against something that rendered its forceful momentum completely useless. The Penetrator looked below at the sea, and saw that it had turned to gold.

Swathes of thick, shiny gold that glistened mesmerizingly now surrounded the vessel, keeping it absolutely still despite the vicious bellow of the runic propulsion behind bit.

There was barely a dent where the keel of the ship met the gold, and anyone who took a closer look below could determine that the mineral was extraordinarily thick. The oceans around them had been transfigured to gold, and perhaps this phenomenon continued at least halfway down the depths of the waters.

The same fate was wrought upon all the other ships around Replicus'. They all stood in place, facing the massive crooked channel cutting the space.

The Reverse Clusters persisted above the gold, untamed, and as for the Scorching Tears...

One fell at that very moment, landing on the spot of gold. The mineral was of course unable to handle the absurd heat and it melted instantly, relenting inward, and onlookers could see an orange glow dipping down the deep swathe of gold, as though it had no end.

A moment later however, where an unshapely hole had been made, the gold regenerated itself, bringing its shape, suspended in what the previous waves had been doing, back to normal.

"Boss..." Grim said with a frown.

"Yeah," Replicus said. "Looks like we were always meant to abandon the ship. We can't teleport it past this area, unfortunately," he said.

Pherdanta had left the control port and had joined the Penetrator at the edge of the deck, along with Baddan and Allora.

They all looked where the mouth of the Cluster had shattered. The night helped them to keep track of its edges quite well.

Seconds later, figures, tiny in comparison to the gap in space, emerged, three in all.

The gold behind them cast their shadows in an unusual manner towards the fleet of ships.

It made the beings to emerge seem greater than they were.

They stood on the platform of gold beyond the ships, and as their details came to focus – to those whose vision could overcome the glare that made them look like copies of their elongated shadows – several among the Factions grimaced.

Hideous was the wrong word to use.

Beautiful wasn't fitting either.

The creatures before them existed somewhere in-between the two adjectives, though 'inspiring' could have served as a good enough description for their looks.

All three of these figures were adorned in large, light cloaks that looked as though they were made from ancient lingual characters sown together by dark string. The first had one with a white colour, the second owned a cloak with a purple hue, and the last wore one in deep maroon.

These creatures had oddly humanoid bodies, but with four arms each, all accommodated by their cloaks with an excess of sleeves. In one of their four hands, the creatures wielded what looked like short, exquisitely decorated rods carved from different shades of gold, a terrible pulse of energy radiating from all three.

Their faces were smooth, devoid of bumps, which also meant they had no noses. They did, however, have an excess of mouths, one where a human mouth would normally be, and the other where a human set of eyes would be.

Replicus and those that could see well confirmed this peculiarity because these marks over their faces opened as they addressed the lot.

"Residents of the other world..." said one of the three – the one in white – with a thoroughly jovial tone that seemed friendly, "...we come in place and give fair greeting. Please, come and meet us. We mean no harm. We simply wish to converse."

There was a stretch of silence. Evidently, no one seemed to believe it.

The fact that the beasts could communicate fluently didn't make anyone believe any better.

Replicus certainly didn't.

Most Cluster beasts were hostile towards humans, or rather, as they called them, invaders.

"Do you think they are friendly?" Allora asked, looking at Replicus.

"I'm not sure, but I'm not ready to commit my faith into believing them just like that. It all depends on what they know," Replicus replied while looking around.

Allora didn't understand what he meant, and neither did Grim who looked at the Penetrator quizzically.

Pherdanta understood it though, and she studied the edges of the Cluster's mouth.

Unexpectedly, someone disembarked from their vessel to go and meet with the Cluster beasts.

Replicus' sockets flashed.

It was Eaniss.

She was decked in a ferocious peach-coloured armour with each of its parts modelled after fierce faces of terrible beasts that were likely slain by her. It was somehow both slender and bulky, fitting the woman very well, though there was something that made it stand out even more.

A ghoulish emerald flame wreathed every part of the armour, highlighting portions of Eaniss' gorgeous, solemn face magnificently.

The Head Faction leader took steps over the gold, with Aurolio – all healed up and with a change of clothing – following behind her.

"Let's get down," Replicus told his crew.

Because the Reverse Clusters squeezed the life out of large scale spatial manipulation, the boarding mechanism of the ship was unsafe to use, thus the group merely jumped from the deck onto the rugged surface of the gold.

Afterwards, Replicus stored the entire ship in an special storage space of his that allowed living things within – much like the Bottomless Dent and the Elimparidis Stone Staff.

He then led his crew forward and watched other Factions disembark and head towards Eaniss as well, though most chose not to safe keep their ships as he did.

Eaniss didn't wait for anyone to draw closer before she began conversing with the Cluster beasts.

Fortunately, they did not talk in whispers, allowing everyone to hear.

"What do you call yourselves?" Eaniss broke the ice.

The Cluster beast in white smiled with its bottom mouth – which lacked any lips – and replied:

"You may call us the Ardent Curses. I myself am Thrill, and these are Dander and Musing," Thrill said as he then named the Curses in maroon and purple respectively.

Eaniss raised a brow.

"You are named after some kind of emotion?" she asked.

Thrill chuckled and answered with his top mouth.

"We ARE emotion."

Eaniss nodded lazily.

"You can call us humans. We have much in common appearance-wise, it seems. One of us must be based on the other," she jabbed and only Musing returned a somewhat fitting reaction in a stifled laugh.

"Indeed," Thrill said, his smile diminishing.

"What do you want from us? We are in the middle of something. Might I ask for you to transfigure our ocean back to how it was?" Eaniss said with a chilling tone.

"Oh, of course, of course," Thrill said in a friendly manner while stroking the pale golden, almost crystalline rod in his hand. "As we said, we come in peace. We would rather settle things without violence. But you see... we need a new home to inhabit. We three are the last of our race and it simply wouldn't work for us to remain as we are. If you could settle with us or perhaps even journey with us, showing us your world and designate a place for us to live..."

Eaniss tilted her head.

"You three are all that remains of the... Ardent Curses?" she asked.

"Indeed. Just us. Musing, Thrill and Dander."

"What happened to the others?" Eaniss asked, though while expecting the answer already.

This time, it was Dander who answered.

"We killed them."