Bro, I'm not an Undead!-Chapter 1459: A Last Visit To The Severed Union

"Welcome back, Bright Storm," said the dark humanoid with a deep bow. It didn't quite sound like a formality this time, like it did previous times when Skullius came to the Severed Union.

"I don't go by that name anymore," said Future Skullius, all four of his hands slotted into the pockets of the nimbus jacket. "I never did, really."

"Sure, you didn't," commented Aurolio with a shake of his head.

Future Skullius waved his hand at the dark humanoid and it allowed them to pass through the barrier that obscured the location of the Severed Union. It felt like forever ago when he last came here. Well, to him, it might as well have been forever ago.

Elita lingered on the black humanoid which kept staring at them. Only after the others had started getting too far ahead did she follow.

She reached Future Skullius' side and nudged him.

"What is that thing?" she asked.

"It's one of the millions of unique semi-autonomous humanoids made by Eaniss. She owns the Head Faction of the Severed Union. Essentially, she is the leader here," said Skullius somewhat exhaustedly. "She possesses a Class that allows her to generate and manipulate Chaos energy – a foreign power source with a shocking level of utility and offense power."

This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.

"Sounds formidable," said Elita, and then she smiled. "So… Bright Storm, huh?"

Future Skullius wore a soft smile.

"You should have seen how dashing I was while wearing that." He manifested a small Ju`wtte hand that pointed at Kenno's starry armour.

"It was a cool name. I don't know why you hated it," commented the Unlimited Star. "It fit your powerset back then too."

"And now it doesn't," said Future Skullius calmly.

It bothered Kenno quite a bit that this Skullius didn't quite opt to lengthen conversations with quips, jokes, and the very frequent, "Sockethole!"

He was strangely, mature.

Elita also noticed, which was why she had decided to tag along with Future Skullius on his endeavours. There was something she wanted to ask, but she held it off as the Severed Union came into full view.

There was a ceiling to the entirety of the Severed Union, rough, as though made of great house-sized bricks and with no visible end. Great robes as thick as baobab tree trunks hung from this ceiling, as did great, bright lanterns whose light reached all the way to the vast continent-like land mass below.

The Severed Union was divided into four parts – for quarters, really.

The Depraved Side, the Bright Side, the Brighter Side, and the Pristine Side.

The group of five – Skullius, Elita, Aurolio, Red Rage, and Kenno – had appeared in the Depraved Side.

As always, this place was littered with all kinds of shady characters – from brigands, Stray Knights, to hawkers – swimming in a sea of subpar enterprises hosted from shabby stalls. There were a lot of people here. It seemed none of the Severed Union's forces had been deployed to help with the war effort on the other continents on Aigas.

Not even a single Cavern could be seen here. It appeared they either hadn't been able to find the location of the Severed Union because of its barrier, or they had found it but had been eliminated before they came in and caused any kind of havoc and chaos.

Even with the Severed Union drained of many of its top Factions, it still possessed great power, after all.

Skullius recalled that the Mad Bishop, Em-Sul (Eaniss), and a few other notable Factions remained. They were the ones that were necessary to keep the Severed Union going after all, and the others could easily be replaced.

Skullius' appearance hardly attracted the attention of the populace on the Depraved Side.

It wasn't because the sight of Skullius didn't beckon the attention of the eye, of course.

It was because...

"It won't go away, man! I've tried everything I have in stock!' cried one Sif man as he repeatedly rubbed his forehead.

"Why are you still bothering with it? It's not doing you any harm. It's probably not meant to hurt us," said another soul, an old man selling a choice selection of daggers. He had resigned to his fate.

"With everything happening outside, how could you think this is anything but some disaster waiting to happen when the time is right? Even Riba can't tell what is going to come from this mark."

There was widespread panic as a result of the marks of [Just Light] Skullius had sent to brand onto every living thing on Aigas in preparation for the great battle or perhaps battles, that were going to take place. Everyone was scrambling, asking each other for Mythical grade artefacts to try on the beams of light on their foreheads. They hoped something would work to remove them.

Of course, nothing they had could do anything about the effects of an Andori.

"Why aren't they out there helping against the Cavern?" Kenno asked. "I mean, the Severed Union rules be damned. The world is falling apart. Everyone should gather about and fight."

Future Skullius sent little bits of Ju`wtte clinging onto everyone and in a flash, they had disappeared from the Depraved Side and appeared in the Pristine Side.

Aurolio felt a little dizzy. He took deep steady breaths.

"Could you try warning us next time you do that?" he cried.

Future Skullius ignored him. Instead, he began walking forward through the strangely deserted streets of this section of the Severed Union... and then answered Kenno's question.

"The only one with the kind of power to give the whole Union the urgency to act is the Herald of the governing Deities - the one who established the Severed Union in the first place. I imagine Eaniss might have wanted to mobilize the Faction Leaders to help, but was told to hold the thought by this Herald. It's not like the Severed Union can do anything about Boron anyway," he said.

"But still, they could save lives with these numbers. I mean, they could house some of the commonfolk here at least - for safety," Elita chimed in.

"They could," said Future Skullius, "but that would presume defeat. The Heralds aren't going into this expecting the end of the world, I imagine. At least not this particular Herald. According to Erlton, he might be the one most interesting in preserving the status quo, even in this tragic apocalypse."

"Status quo?" asked Kenno and Elita at the same time.

Future Skullius sighed.

"If you live long enough knowing a single objective – one that you excel at, at that – it's unlikely that you'll see how infeasible it is even when everything around you comes crumbling down."