Chapter 48: Chavazon

Salser stared at the creature before him, observing as it reassembled its body—enshrouded in decaying fur, its torso levitating, and its lower half billowing like animate dust in the wind. With one hand, it grasped a crude flint sword, which it held against the Dark wizard's black-red blade in a stalemate. The other hand, from the elbow down, remained misty, poised as if ready to execute some unknown action.

The T'lan Imass glanced at Jeanne in the corner, then turned his gaze back to Salser, emitting a grating sound of bones rubbing together. "Your weapon is not of secular steel," he said, his voice as stiff as rock and dust, devoid of any discernible emotion.

Incandescent flames, like a halo, surrounded Salser, penetrating T'lan Imass' misty lower body and illuminating his slightly yellowed bone helmet. The helmet was made from the skull of an extinct horned beast, with two curved saber-like fangs at the bottom and a gap in the middle for the head.

"Are you implying that, were my weapon crafted from secular steel, your flint sword would cleave both it and me in half?"

Salser locked eyes with him—if the two sunken black holes could be called eyes—examining the creature before him.

The T'lan Imass remained unchanged from Salser's previous encounters. Despite the magic that bestowed upon them eternal life, the inevitable traces of time had weathered their forms over the eons, predating even the existence of mankind. The creature's muscles were withered and taut, resembling numerous robust oak roots compacted together. Its deep brown skin, stretched tightly over its sturdy bones, bore the crisscrossing scars of numerous torn and healed injuries. His face was equally shriveled, akin to a mummy, with prominent cheekbones pressing against the fangs of the horned helmet. Its nasal cavities had dwindled to mere dark apertures, and its eye sockets were deeply hollowed, occasionally emitting a deep red glow from within the black voids.

Through the blackened old fur wrapped around his neck, one could see a section of exposed spine due to skin loss.

The last time he encountered such a creature was decades ago, before Empress Nero ascended the throne. At that time, he was a mage in the Third Legion of the Empire, carrying out Caesar's orders, while the T'lan Imass army was heading westward to the wilderness, briefly intersecting and then moving away from them.

He retracted the magic of the Warren, slowly descending as if sinking into water, landing without a sound. T'lan Imass followed him to the ground, his misty lower body re-solidifying, and he sheathed his flint sword.

"I had believed your kind to be irreconcilable with dark wizards, human of the Holy Cross Church, we have always adhered to the alliance," he said again, his voice like the grinding of bones.

"There are special circumstances," Jeanne said.

"What circumstances could outweigh hatred?" T'lan Imass turned and asked her in a stiff, lifeless voice.

Salser suddenly laughed. After healing his foot fracture, his curiosity quickly pushed the previous conflict aside, "Of course, it's love! T'lan Imass, my friend, I have fallen in love with the woman before you, an emotion that transcends hatred, do you understand?"

"Fuck off with your love!" Jeanne cursed, then asked T'lan Imass, "Ignore this idiot, tell me, what is your name?"

"Chavazon Turan, that is my name. I am a T'lan Imass of Logros, a member of the Tarad clan, born in the winter of the Year of Decay, the first son of the clan, and became a warrior during the second battle against the Jaghuts. Currently, I serve the bonecaster, Isa Onas—"

"Enough!" Jeanne interrupted his speech, pressing hard on her brow, showing a lack of patience for T'lan Imass' lengthy introduction, "I didn't know you could be so... talktive."

"This is a misunderstanding," Chavazon said calmly, "We usually do not communicate with humans, but if necessary, I will try to answer all questions as clearly as possible."

Salser didn't think it was a misunderstanding; it was more likely that this T'lan Imass was a chatterbox, as they were usually known as the silent army.

Salser's eyes flicked towards Jeanne momentarily before settling on the T'lan Imass' flint sword. "Might I pose a question, Mr. Chavazon? I was unaware that your flint swords possess the ability to dissolve magic," he remarked, "This is different from the information I've read before."

"During the twenty-fourth war with the Jaghut, we exterminated some outsider species controlled by them—what your human dark wizards call the kinfolk," Chavazon's gaze returned to Salser, "Our hunting brought death to countless large animals and pushed some races to extinction, but war is endless, and time itself is meaningless. We do not care about these things; the only thing worth noting is that the bonecaster found materials in their corpses to incorporate Otataral into the flint swords."

"The ore from the Seven Cities continent, reputed to nullify magic? Indeed," Salser shook his head, "I've only seen it in records; such material is a rarity in our locale."

"You are very curious, human who seek knowledge of the Outer Gods."

"Mages are all curious."

"This is also a misunderstanding."

"Is such rigidity a common characteristic among your kind?"

The T'lan Imass warrior pondered for a moment, then told him, "I have witnessed countless deaths and births in a total of twenty-seven extinction wars, and I am one of the earliest T'lan Imass born in the clan. In the twenty-sixth war against the surviving Jaghuts, our numbers dropped from nineteen thousand to twelve thousand, and our clan leader, Kig Aven, almost perished. My life is longer than the history of your human race, which is not strange."

"Enough! Shut it for a sec, both of you!"  Jeanne stared at the ragged figure before her and said, "Can you tell me how you knew he was a dark wizard?"

"I couldn't tell he was a dark wizard; you two just said it yourself when you contacted me."

A moment of silence.

"Damn it," Jeanne cursed, breaking the awkward atmosphere, "Mr. Chavazon, can you keep his identity under wraps?"

"Because of love?"

Before Jeanne's expression began to twist, Salser coughed lightly, "That was merely a jest, T'lan Imass. I presume you remain indifferent to the internal conflicts of humans?"

"I do not understand Kig Aven's thoughts, but the bonecasters only care about the surviving Jaghut in this world," Chavazon said, "I help you dispose of a few dark wizards due to the alliance, but if you don't want to, I have no opinion on it."

Who knows if you'll leak this out, considering you're such a chatterbox.

"Does this constitute an alliance as well?" Salser asked him.

"We usually do not form alliances with individuals, human," the warrior paused for a moment, then said, "But the times are about to change, perhaps we should change as well. You are a strange pair, and perhaps I can consider forming an alliance with you."

Salser picked up on a few words in his speech, which was one proof of his loquaciousness.

The Dark wizard asked him, "The times are about to change—what does that mean?"

"The summoning is imminent, the ritual will be re-enacted, and the T'lan Imass of Kron will soon appear," Chavazon replied briefly.

"Wait, the First Throne isn't the only T'lan Imass?" Jeanne interrupted the Dark wizard's unspoken question.

"In the past, we had over ten armies, but now, we only have six," he answered slowly, "I belong to Logros, under the command of the First Throne, but Kron is our largest army."

"And their arrival... what does that mean?" Jeanne frowned and asked him.

"The three hundredth millennium is approaching," the warrior told her, "Dispersion will end, Inquisitor of the Holy Cross Church."

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