Crimson Servant

Francis Blade pressed his eyes. His eyes were like two bright starry nights. The dividing line between reality and precognitive vision was blurred again. The familiar phantom stirred up confusion in his brain. A sense of dizziness came over him. The dark elf's The body inevitably shook a few times.

Even though his mind was in chaos, the dark warrior's refined combat skills still perfectly controlled his body. His forward direction never deviated, and the distance between each step was as precise as mechanical movement.

Francis saw his enemies, their sights familiar yet unfamiliar. The coming future overlaps with reality, familiar plots reappear, and the dark elves lose their interest in communication. He leaned forward, unsheathed his scimitar, and accelerated his steps, like a ferocious panther hunting.

An armed patrol of Eversa was retreating to the rear. The hostility aroused by the military mage had not yet turned into action. Francis had already rushed into a very dangerous distance for the spell caster.

The dark elf twisted his body and used a thrilling movement to dodge the fireball coming close to him. The ends of his flying silver hair were ignited by the high temperature, and the next second, the galloping speed left the sparks behind. The guard soldiers raised their shields to attack, and the other mage being guarded was chanting Burning Hands. Francis saw everything.

Everything is just as Francis predicted, everyone is stepping on the fixed beat of fate. Francis' body passed through the soldiers' swords like a ghost. He rushed into the center and released his most proficient innate ability.

The spherical dark barrier enveloped everyone, and just as the eyes of the Eversans went dark, Francis' dark steel blade accurately cut their throats.

Before they started shouting, blood foam had already blocked their trachea.

The dark barrier collapsed after twenty seconds, and the bloody scene hidden inside it emerged. Francis stood among the corpses, carefully wiping the blood from his scimitar. When the last bit of blood disappeared from his sharp blade, the dark elf turned his head and looked at the young man in red who came out of the red mist. Time happens to be like two perfectly meshed gears, biting together to form a moving world.

"Francis." John read the name of the dark elf. He was a little surprised, and the excitement was quickly replaced by reason.

"John," Francis said, like an actor pronouncing his lines.

The dark elf patted the bleeding mage's corpse at his feet with a clean blade, and said something like a greeting from a neighbor and friend: "Would you like to eat? It's still hot."

John's face darkened and he said, "This isn't funny!"

Francis closed his eyes slightly and said with regret: "You still lack a sense of humor. However, this reaction...it seems that Nora is not dead."

The warlock responded with silence, the color of his pupils changed from dark blue to blood red, and his robes moved automatically without wind, accompanied by the crackle of lightning.

The dark elf put away his weapon, ignored John's rising hostility, and turned around to leave. Francis looked back at John, who was standing there, raised his arms and swung them back.

"Follow me."

"Where to go?"

“A place that is suitable for solving your doubts and filling your belly at the same time.”

"I'm not hungry."

"Then watch me eat."

A fully roasted wild boar was fixed on a simple grill. The grease dripped from the burnt skin and fell on the firewood pile, causing crackling sparks to fly. Francis turned the grill, reached into the side pocket of the travel bag beside him, and sprinkled a few spices from the bottle onto the meat. Because the barbecue has been going on for several hours, the aroma of meat has already spread, causing wild beasts to howl one after another in the woods shrouded in darkness.

Francis cut off the steak with a knife, served it on a wide leaf prepared in advance, pinched the two ends that were not hot, and stuffed the roast into John's hand. He himself quickly removed the plump roasted pig hind leg, carried it with one hand and ate it.

The flames illuminated the shadows of the two people, and for a moment there was only the sound of eating.

The moment John's lips came into contact with those warm spices, a hunger that he hadn't seen for a long time quietly arose. He slowly chewed harder, enjoying the heat released by the juicy meat strips between his lips and teeth. Those annoyances were thrown out of his mind, and John squinted his eyes in enjoyment, feeling a warm feeling of happiness from head to toe.

"It all started with that prophecy, that prophecy about you."

Francis's voice rang in the evening wind, and he raised his head, searching for the stars in the night sky.

John remembered the prophecy that he transformed into a vortex of blood and brought disaster to those around him.

After experiencing the Advent rite at the Pearly Sanctuary, John gained new insights into prophecy. Casting the [Advent] spell again, John did better than the first time. This time, he is not a slave persecuted by fanatics. His will and body are stronger and more determined than last time.

He clearly remembered that before he communicated with the incarnation of Vertis, he had felt his consciousness leaving the body as the crimson ring expanded, rising upwards in the opposite direction as the divine power descended. He felt his inspiration pass through that door, and he deeply sensed the terrifying power in that dim star realm. He touched Veltis, a huge corrupt force entrenched in the non-material star realm, igniting the crimson nebula of the stars.

The Ritual Ring opened a channel for the Crimson God to connect the star realm and the material plane. The [Advent] ceremony carried out by the Crimson Beloved, the Crimson Ring produced was enough to affect the nebula itself. The majestic divine power was pulled by the door and fell into the mortal realm one after another. As a result, in the star realm, in the sea of ​​power of the crimson god, a large whirlpool similar to running water was created.

The vortex of blood is a vision caused by John using the power of the Beloved to set up rituals that lead to the descent of the god Veltis. This sign should have been understood as early as the first ceremony, but at that time John had been forced by the fanatics to the point where he only had the will to survive. His mind had not been sorted out by Mariana, so he forgot the memory along with the ceremony.

The death of companions caused mental loss, which triggered the [Advent] ritual. The ritual represented the vortex of blood, and the prophecy seemed to lead to a bad ending.

Francis's magical eyes, like those of a starry night, would capture certain broken fragments from the future, most of them blurry, like scenes from a dream. There are also some fragments that will be so clear that Francis feels as if he has witnessed them with his own eyes. These clear pictures have been anchored and are fixed scenes that will definitely happen in the future.

Francis doesn't like lies, he only declares prophecies that are destined to happen.

John was once afraid of Francis's prophetic ability. He didn't like the feeling of being at the mercy of fate, and most of Francis' predictions were biased toward bad disasters. Francis spent many years wandering around the world, delivering many sad news to the victims themselves. He was like a calamity priest of Talos who was ostracized by the people of various city-states. The skin of the dark elf aggravated the slander of his reputation, but this could not hinder his actions.

"The signs of disaster I foresee are signs of danger. Although they are destined to happen, there is still a trace of life under the surface. The fragments of prophecy are one-sided, and there may be different branches hidden under the unified appearance, pointing to different end points. Just like Now, in the eyes of others, we may be enjoying barbecue, exchanging answers to our respective confusions, or we may be negotiating the distribution of the Thief Druid's inheritance."

John made a disgruntled sound.

Francis continued: "I saw the scene of Wendigo being beheaded in the red mist and thought she was dead. Now, I am sure that Mariana's plan did work. Nora Sebas came back from the dead."

"You told Mariana the prophecy," John said. "When I told Nora the prophecy, she said you were a fool."

"Mariana Dahl is a calm and intelligent woman. She is one of the few people who did not scold me when she learned of her tragic end. Before you left Juancrit, we had already started planning, and Nora was the one who came later. She just joined the plan and Mariana convinced her.”

"Does she have no suspicion of you? Francis, you have always been a strange fellow."

Francis set his sights on another roasted pork leg.

"It is indeed difficult for smart people to trust others, but as long as it is proven once, smart people will have no doubts about you."

"I told her the outcome of becoming a mind flayer. I also told her that in the hopeless land of crimson corruption, there is a glimmer of hope."