Chapter 924 Man And Grass The words of the Empress froze the rest in their strides. As the strongest among the group and the one most responsible for their collective survival, she had easily hunted enough Frost Giants for their continual survival, for the skin of these Frost Giants was like ice and it did not last for long before melting, without a powerful presence among the travelers to locate and dispatch these giants, they would all be dead, her words naturally carried weight among everyone here. "Mother, you have never told us that story about the secrets of the Eldar." "I have never done so, because you also know a part of that story, and perhaps it is time for me to complete the gaps in your knowledge. Do you know of the disaster that has led us to flee our kingdom child?" "Of course mother, it was Nethis the Butcher. He… butchered a million worlds before breaking into the Home World and placed it to the sword." The Empress slowly nodded, "What you don't know is that he was a slave. A damned slave, born without the hope of ever advancing in his path to immortality, before he came across a long-lost Artifact of an Eldar, and from that moment he became a dragon that grew wings, he was careless in the early days of his advancement and let slip the reason he was able to gain power so quickly," Her increasingly quick breathing could be heard over the sound of her words, "So much power that he broke our empire in just a short million years, and the only price he had to pay for such powers was an unquenchable appetite. A relatively minor price to pay for such a boon. Imagine if a lost Artifact of the Eldar can cause such a change, how much more would we gain if…" "What is that?!" one of the travelers gasped and pointed at a mountain a thousand miles away. It was unknown the true power levels of everyone here since most of them kept their true abilities under wraps but everyone here could easily see an ant crawling in the grass ten thousand miles away. They were all Immortals, only this level of power could take you across the frozen waste. "Is that… a man? How could he survive without any sort of protection?" "Surely it must be a mirage, a phantasm born from the Siren's cries." "That is no phantasm, we should run, whoever can survive this place without protection must at least be an Outerdimensional entity with power over higher dimensions," the Empress whispered in shock, "with my Will, I don't think I can survive without any sort of protection for a few seconds, how long has he been standing there?" "The Creator watches over the frozen waste for a thousand years, I know not what he seeks. He no longer listens to his council. He watches only." A deep voice sounded within their midst making the seven figures turn around in shock and fear, but they could not see anyone around them, their fear heightened when they looked across to the mountain and the man standing there was gone as if he had been nothing but a shared dream. "We should hurry, this place is not one we should linger for long." one of the frozen figures panicked and began to run. There was a power in this place that could break the minds of Immortal, this traveler had been broken. "He is right, let us move ahead, but don't run like the fool ahead, he would lose his strength before long and be consumed by the Siren." Keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings they began to move ahead with as much speed as they could manage, and according to the Empress's prediction, they soon found the frozen body of their companion ahead. He was frozen in mid-run, his position meant that death had arrived quickly. The most likely reason for this was that in his panic a gap must have appeared in the skin covering his body, and the voice of the Siren had then reached him. "Strip him, and let us hurry, this spot should be a hot zone for Sirens. They call louder towards the end." Like a pack of hyenas descending on helpless prey, the seven travelers all descended on the frozen corpse of the dead and began stripping him of the skin of the Frost Giant, before long he was naked, but for his Spatial Ring and Amulets, but none of them tried to touch those treasures. There was something in the chill of this place that sought to keep any treasure that was in possession of the dead, if a treasure was removed from the body of the dead, the chill would pass on to the person who collected the treasure, many among their numbers had perished due to greed after retrieving the treasures from the dead. This road was among the greatest treasure zones in all of existence, yet no one knew how to harvest its bounty. The face of the frozen man was not warped in fear, only a weird look of expectation, it would seem he had no idea he died. His death had been that swift. As the six travelers began to stitch the skin of the Frost Giants to their cloaks, they watched as the skin and muscles of the dead man shattered into frozen dust leaving bones behind that collapsed on the road, becoming one of many. A decade later the travelers reached the edge of the frozen waste, and their journey ended, but there were only two of them left, the Empress and the quiet child, whose twin sister had perished alongside the other three travelers with them over the years. Ahead was a massive tree the size of a star, they had reached the portal to the land of the Eldar. "Hold your head steady child, beyond all odds we have arrived, remember the suffering we went through to reach this place, and let it be the fuel to your ambitions. We shall return conquerors." The boy nodded, following his Empress Mother out of the frozen waste, this journey had been one of an intense physical, mental, and spiritual ordeal, and he would rather die than subject himself to the strain of such a trial again in his life, he would keep this pain close to his heart and when the time came, he would return it a thousand fold to the slave who destroyed his world. His heart lightened as he took the next steps to the future, yet in the back of his mind, in a place that he feared to touch was the image of that man on the top of the mountain and the voice that called him Creator. Among the endless mysteries of creation, this was one he was not willing to touch. ? The seven travelers who passed him a decade ago were one of many that he had seen over this thousand years of watch. Rowan did not care for them, like most of everything in reality, they were fleeting. Most of them did not make the crossing, this land of death bore a great toll, although it was a fantastic location to farm Soul Energy. Over the last thousand years, Rowan's coffers of Soul had swelled to ridiculous heights, and yet he still gathered more. His companion for the last thousand years was a small silver grass. The only vegetation in this place of frozen death that spans the length of a thousand universes. This plant was doomed. It should have died long ago, but it was a miracle, a confluence of so many impossibilities that would never occur again. After it appeared this small grass should have lived for the barest of moments before vanishing. No one in creation would have known it had ever existed, for its life would be shorter than a flicker of a star's light. Rowan by chance was there when it was born, and he sat and took care of it. He watered the ground, cleaned the frost from its blue leaves and when the cold seemed to want to overtake the last fragile life it contained, he hummed gently to the leaves. Although there was no magic in his voice, he had forbidden himself from using his powers over this fragile miracle, the grass drew something for it and stubbornly fought for its life. Both of them had been here for a thousand years, man and grass.