Chapter 72: Chapter 72: Isaiah

Isaiah

Isaiah didn’t like the marks that had formed on his spear. It was only a G rank Rare grade artifact, nowhere near strong enough for his current self, but he couldn’t bring himself to change weapons.

The spear was all he had left of Varick, and it was the only present he’d ever received without any ulterior motive.

Isaiah had started training by himself when he was five. He was mostly left alone in the Gale Clan and almost no one talked to him, but his older brother was his idol, and Raven trained every day in the yard of the compound they shared, always practicing with his sword. No one would give Isaiah a sword, though, so he picked up a stick and tried to follow his brother’s movements.

At the time, however, he was small and the stick the size of a sword was too big for him, making his movements uncoordinated, but, in the best moment of his young life, Raven saw this, grabbed a spear, and came over to show Isaiah a basic kata for the weapon. Up until that point, his older brother, who was eighteen at the time, had mostly ignored him, so Isaiah focused like he never had before and quickly memorized the movements.

From that day forth, Isaiah practiced the kata every day and, when Raven left for training at the Krisholm Academy and Isaiah was moved to servants quarters, he started going to one of the clan’s smaller training halls used by external members every day to continue the practice.

That’s where he met Varick, an old soldier of the clan and the master of the training hall. After a week of Isaiah coming every day, Varick started giving him pointers on the kata. After a month, Varick started assigning him alternative training routines. And, after six months, Varick started to train him directly.

The old man didn’t have a family or really any friends, so he didn’t know how to interact with a child, and this meant he treated Isaiah just like any of the adult recruits who came into his hall. He was gruff and he was demanding, but, unlike most of the clan, he actually used Isaiah’s name, and that meant everything to the young boy. Up until that point, only Raven ever called Isaiah Isaiah, and being treated like a person instead of a stain meant a lot.

For the next seven years, he spent most of his time in the training hall and, after puberty started, he began to grow big. Varick, on the other hand, grew older. He had only ever made it to level 6 as an F rank spearman, and he was approaching the end of his life. For Isaiah’s thirteenth birthday, however, the old man used most of his life savings to buy a spear Isaiah could use as an adult and, with Varick dying only a few months later, that spear meant everything.

Walking into camp after his daily hunting trip, Isaiah was so focused on his spear that he almost didn’t notice the oddness. Normally, he could find people all over camp. The few craftsmen the Gale Clan brought would be building more permanent shelter or making weapons from the resources brought in. The more numerous combat personnel would be training, eating, or making merry of some kind. There would be noise.

Aleron and Ava had brought most of the combat cultivators with them, leaving only a little under a thousand to protect the pillar, and this was the right move. Other invasion forces couldn’t do anything to the pillar, and the natives would have to touch it and then defend it from him for half a day, so he didn’t need much help.

The fact he couldn’t see a single cultivator after entering into the Gale Clan camp, however, meant something was going wrong.

“Welcome, Isaiah!”

He heard a female voice coming from the center of the camp and looked up somewhat, spotting a woman he didn’t recognize sitting on top of the Pillar of Conquest and smiling at him. She had long red hair and unnaturally bright pink eyes. She was wearing the grey-black clothes of an assassin, pants and a short-sleeved shirt. And it looked like her left forearm had been cut off and was slowly regrowing.

Isaiah moved toward her and soon saw the Gale Clan cultivators all sitting around the pillar, most looking nervous.

“Let’s have you not come any closer.” The woman continued smiling, but there was a slight threat in her tone. “I would rather you not try to kill me like last time, so I took your entire camp hostage. Let’s just have a good conversation and I’ll let them go.”

Isaiah looked at the faces of the Gale Clan cultivators, most of whose names he didn’t know, and saw none of them believed she was lying, so he stopped well outside the range of his Kinetic Senses skill.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“My name isn’t important.” The woman transformed to look like the elf who’d attacked him over a month ago and then back to the form of the red haired pink eyed woman, though in both cases her left arm was missing. “What is important is that up until two days ago I was working for Princess Silveea Night.”

Isaiah was confused for a few seconds, but then he realized the woman was a tricky person and pretty much anything that came out of her mouth could be lies.

Still though, it was probably best to just take things at face value anyway. “Why’d you stop two days ago?”

“Silveea died. Jameel Fa betrayed the princess, allowing two thirds of the soldiers and all the commanders of the allied army to become poisoned. Then the forces of the Amoranth Kingdom attacked and all the commanders died.” The woman raised the stump of her left arm. “I only escaped with the help of a teleportation formation I set up after arriving on this planet, yet I still lost an arm to Tomin Amoranth.”

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Isaiah felt his heart start to beat faster. “Ava and Aleron?”

“Almost certainly dead.”

Isaiah didn’t want to believe her. He’d known Ava and Aleron all their lives. Sure, they’d always been mean to him. And, sure, there were a total of seventeen times over the last year where Aleron beat him up after ordering him not to defend himself. But that was a large reason Isaiah had improved his defensive Law Eggs.

On a the list of people he was closest to, they were second and third.

Tears started to form in his eyes and he didn’t know what to do.

“You’re sad they’re dead?” The woman on the pillar sounded confused. “From the way they talked, they seemed to despise you. And they weren’t subtle about it.”

“You knew them?” Isaiah wanted someone to commiserate with and for a second forgot about the hostage situation.

The woman paused for several seconds and just looked at him, seemingly trying to study his expression. “We interacted.” The woman frowned. “They seemed like terrible people.”

More tears started to flow. “They were a bit mean.”

The woman looked down at the crowd. “The person who knows best, explain to me why Isaiah is having that reaction.”

“Uh, um.” Simon Gale, the middle aged butler Aleron had left in charge of the camp, coughed, and everyone looked at him. “From what I’ve seen, the clan master deliberately isolated Lord Isaiah. Almost no one in the clan interacted with him, so he’s probably had more interaction with Lord Aleron and Lady Ava than almost anyone in his life as they trained together.”

The woman looked back at Isaiah and there was something weird about her eyes, an expression he’d only ever seen occasionally on Varick’s face. “You poor thing. You must be all kinds of messed up. Why do you serve this absolutely shitty clan?”

Isaiah held his spear and prepared a Power Attack, even though he knew it wouldn’t reach her. He was just too angry. “You take that back. The Gale Clan is the best clan in the universe.”

“Why?” The woman kept having that look in her eyes. “What makes the Gale Clan great?”

“They took in a bastard like me, even when my mother abandoned me. The clan master and next clan master gave me powerful skills, even though I’m worthless.” The tears kept flowing. “And Varick served the clan his entire life.”

“Is Varick the one who gave you that spear?”

The woman kept looking at him with those eyes and Isaiah felt slightly uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“Everyone, move two kilometers to the west and stay there for one hour before coming back. If I die, kill yourselves.”

To Isaiah’s surprise all the clan members, without question, followed the woman’s orders, and the woman just kept looking at him. “I would like to have a conversation about your past and future, Isaiah, and I don’t think it’s polite to have an audience.”

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