Chương 162: Mirabelle

Creatures of the night, their bane – only silver rends them into morsels. Monsters of shape and soul. Inhuman. Hunted for their pelts. Hunted as slaves. Hunted gratuitously. Mirabelle sat atop the highest point of a now derelict building. One that stood at the heart of the dome encompassing the sky. The central building. Few made it near — those who did were cut down by her kin. Painlessly. Swiftly. With Mercy, of course! Unlike the hooligans the cult had provided for the sake of violence and violence alone.

It was pathetic how far she had fallen. She once stood at the pinnacle of her tribe, a warrior queen, revered by her kin and feared by her enemies. Mirabelle pinched her brow and snarled, "Is this truly the only way to get the attention of the Lord?" Her kin surrounded her; the starry projected skydome shone artificial starlight onto her ebony skin. A moment went by… Then another… Then… another…

Finally, a small milky orb resting in her palm lit up, letting out a gravelly yet shrill voice: "All for the attention of our Lord, of course! Our blue-blooded gifts must have gotten his attention!... Are you by chance doubting the progenitor? The origin of all!? Our Lord!?" If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Mirabelle squinted and looked at the chaos in front of her; her hand tightened around the orb, sending a jolting crack through it.

Clenching her teeth, she forced out a single word.

"No... I am not." The orb lit up once more, this time with a hazy, ear-piercing feedback with every word.

"Very well, we both know, you more than I, how much your people NEED our Lord's salvation — Carry out your deed in full earnest!" The ball cracked once more and shattered, failing to pierce Mirabelle's palm. She ground her teeth loudly; a vein bulged on her bicep and her forehead; she was clearly enraged. She was tired of her tribe being hunted for their power, their skins, and some false notion of justice. They were people too.

Even the damned vampires and their thralls had managed to weasel their way into the good graces of the public eye, but when it came to lycans, they were still viewed as nothing more than beasts for slaughter, akin to werewolves, trophy kills nonetheless! The ancestors, the beings who were supposed to watch over her and her kin, the gods that granted the blessing and curse of lycanthropy, never did anything to help them when their boon was flipped.

At the same time, other races had their gods' divine power to aid them in their now ordained crusade against the different.

'They even dared to compare us to flesh-shapers, ' Mirabelle shuddered at the thought. She may have been her tribe's warrior queen, but she was powerless. If the ancestor forsaked her people when they needed it the most, it was only right to forsake them back. To search for greener pastures, a new guardian, one that would actually grant them a well-deserved reprieve. The cult offered just that: a way out, the method to end her kind's perpetual pain.

As her tribe's strongest and as a Dreamer, Mirabelle would do anything for her people. She callously looked down the mountain of debris she sat on; far below was a pile of corpses, mangled, torn, desecrated.

"Filthy!" She looked into the heap of bloodied mass; some faces were recognizable, others were not. She knew some; some had hunted her and her kin in the past, others had an ongoing campaign… some of the bodies below were young, old, just of age… innocent, perhaps? The ancestors loved the hunt, the thrill of catching prey. Her people lived by the ancestors' creed for hundreds of years… this was no hunt; it was a massacre… A necessary sacrifice!

Mirabelle tilted her head to the side; a loud chime echoed throughout the campus like parterre. In the distance, a plume of towering ice froze in place like a splash stuck in time…

"Interesting, that must be that Dreamer…" Mirabelle snapped her fingers a few times, remembering said Dreamer's name… With a final snap, her calloused expression shifted to a slight amusement.

"Lilia! The ice mage!"