Scarlet

Right as I’m about to begin heading over towards Gramps’ castle, a very loud and very powerful voice begins to echo seemingly throughout the entire planet. A voice I recognize as belonging to King Oberon of the Fae. And along with the voice I feel a very powerful life force. As if the King is spreading his entire being across the planet.

“Attention all contracted beings of Earth and Tartarus; the time of the new Dawn has arrived. Now that the curse on the demons is no longer amongst the living, I, King Oberon of the Fae, have decided to begin the process of my abdication of the Fae Throne.”

My eyes widen in shock along with every last demon here. Meanwhile one fae after another begin appearing all around us. As if every single contracted fae on Tartarus is appearing from the In-Between at once in response to their king’s words.

“The abdication process will begin with a tournament where all of the contracted partners of my children will compete amongst themselves. This tournament will be set place within the In-Between, in an alternate dimension created by my own hands, and it will determine the heir to the throne.”

I grow serious as I narrow my eyes slightly.

So the fae tournament you told me about is finally going to begin.

“Yeah,” Tar mutters from his place on my shoulder.

Oberon finishes his little speech up, “The tournament will begin in one week’s time. I bid my children good luck and their partners adieu.”

As soon as he finishes, his life force vanishes, and everything returns to normal again. Then silence fills the area.

“Now I can tell you what I wasn’t able to earlier,” Tar says, breaking the silence in my mind.

Wait, really? That wasn’t much of a wait.

“Yeah,” he says while floating off of my shoulder to move directly in front of me. “What I wanted to tell you is that one of the perks we’ll get if I were to become the King of the Fae is the ability to teleport to any planet in the universe.”

Oh. Yeah, that’ll help a lot in hunting the void creatures for their reality energy.

But wait a second, how am I going to compete with the other competitors for the throne? Most of them are all a lot higher leveled than I am.

Just the Demon Lords alone could beat me.

“About that…” Tar says, pursing his lips slightly as he looks away, avoiding my gaze.

What did you do?

“I asked Father for a favor,” Tar says. And mere moments after he says that, I find myself blinking in surprise as everything around me goes completely black.

What the hell is going on?

“I’m sorry, but Father didn’t give me a choice in this after I asked my favor,” Tar says, sounding more than a little apologetic. “He said that if he is to help send us to void creatures for you to grow stronger, then he will have to do it right now. And he didn’t give me a choice since he forced me to accept his condition before he told me it.”

Why the heck would you accept his condition before he even said what it was?!

“It’s just how Father is,” Tar says, making me grimace in response. “He won’t even give you the time of day when asking favors if you aren’t prepared for anything in return. And agreeing to his terms before hearing them is the only way to get him to help us. I just didn’t expect them to be this rushed.”

I frown at the tanuki who is still in front of me as strange silver streaks seem to fly through the blackness around us. Then I let out a sigh.

Whatever. I wanted to talk to Gramps and deal with the ritual part of the curse first, but I guess that’ll have to wait.

Do the others know what happened? That I didn’t just vanish out of nowhere with no explanation?

“Father already told your grandfather about it,” Tar says, reassuring me.

Very well then.

The silver streaks continue moving faster and faster through the endless black around us with more and more streaks appearing as time passes. Eventually all of the darkness is covered in a luminescent silver.

Then a strange warping sound echoes out and I find myself stumbling onto the sand in a desert.

I quickly raise my head at the sounds I hear above us, only to find a rather terrifying sight greeting me.

Completely blotting out the sky, for as far as I can see, there are nothing but black creatures. All just masses of tentacles and insect-like parts and limbs.

Absolutely disgusting.

What’s even more terrifying is that life sense doesn’t pick up anything on them at all.

“They don’t have life energy or life force, so of course it wouldn’t,” Tar says as the two of us stare up at the void invasion. “Father made sure to send us to a passing planet without any sapient creatures on it, and far away from the strongest forces of the void creatures. So go ahead and devour them as you please. You don’t have to worry about collateral damage.”

For some reason, a strange hunger fills me from deep within and I feel drool beginning to fill up my mouth before dripping out. But almost immediately realize it’s not drool.

It’s blood.

Red Plague blood that begins devouring the ground after dripping down.

That can’t be a good sign.

“The Red Plague is hungry,” Tar mutters, making me glance at him with the Red Plague drool still building up in my mouth despite me swallowing it. Which isn’t actually as unpleasant as I’d expected it would be. “You have to remember that the plague is intelligent, even if it’s not sapient. Think of it like a wild animal that is hungry right now.”

Right. Makes sense when I think of it like that.

So it’s hungry enough that it’s trying to make its way out of me in any way it can. Which isn’t doing much.

On that note, I raise my head up to the sky and flash a grin.

Then again, it won’t have to soon.

It’s time for a banquet.