Devil's meadow

Chapter 16- Soulless creature

Blaze and Crystal woke up before me, I remained wide awake for a while contemplating my life choices early in the dark. They saw that I wasn't beside the extinguished flames, and wondered where I went. They eventually found me not to far away from their resting spots and grew a little concerned for I remained still at rest.
"Hunter? Are you okay...?"
"I think he's still sleeping, Ashbury."
"I know but...he wasn't over by the fire. I don't think he slept well."
"Maybe we should give him a while. He's probably sleeping because he didn't get sleep at all last night."
As the air grew hazy and as they both moved away, I moved my arm slightly. It wasn't too noticeable, but somehow Blaze saw that I was starting to wake up.
"Hang on. Hunter?"
"Hm?"
"Oh. So you were sleeping."
"Yeah. I couldn't really sleep last night. So, I moved. I didn't want to disturb you two."
"Oh. Well that's considerate of you."
"Y'know I don't actually do that that often."
"How come?"
"I'm not the best when it comes to being considerate."
"I think you did a great job."
"Thanks B."
The sun was just over the horizon, we all woke up after sunrise, and the alter was debris covered over the hilltop. Crystal had a look of guilt, and she slowly started pondering forward.
"Crystal? You...er...okay?"
"Yea...I'm doing just fine."
I was clutching my chest, and Blaze knew that I was in pain. I didn't want him to worry, but he knew that I wouldn't be able to keep myself safe. He mumbled something that I didn't quite catch, but I don't think it was about me.
"I just...."
"You just what?"
"I....wish that I hadn't have told Alex to step outside the medical room. He probably thinks I'm dead."
"I wouldn't be positively sure that he definitely thinks you're dead. But you thought the same way."
"I know. I have anxiety."
"You what now?!"
"I didn't know when to tell you two. I was going to."
She seemed dim. I could feel it. But I couldn't tell her, she already felt....ashamed of herself. Blaze gently placed his porcelain hand on her shoulder and I looked over at the alter, completely demolished. Something had caught my attention a few moments of me squinting my eyes. A figure, stood with what looked like a trident. He had dusty brown hair, and a crown lay on his head.
Sh*t!
I knew who it was, but I didn't want to tell them who was stood by the debris. But I couldn't keep it a secret.
"The king."
"What?"
"The king is looking at the debris. I think he might be responsible for the fire."
" I thought we told him not to mess with us?"
"We did. Because it's not us he's after. It's Crystal."
"What?!"
"Are you hiding something from us?"
"No! Why would I?"
"You literally had an office with files about us. Bullsh*t Crystal."
"Okay. I was supposed to give the king back money. I owed him cash for having the alter on his turf. The actual border is 5 miles away from here."
"So you're telling us, that he caused the fire, because you didn't give him money?!"
"...yes."
"We could've died again because of you!"
"I didn't think he would burn the alter down!"
"You're coming with me."
Blaze grabbed her by the arm and walked all the way to the base of the hill. The king turned around to find Crystal standing beside Blaze and as they were explaining things to Satan, he clutched his trident tightly in his hand and slashed Crystal in the throat. As she collapsed, Blaze took multiple steps back in shock, and starting sprinting, back up the hill. He watched Crystal die.
Oh. Now I feel bad for her brother...
By the time Blaze came running back over to me, his face was stained with tears, he was visibly distraught and scared, and as he collapsed into my arms, the king approached us both.
"What the f*ck was that?!"
"She didn't repay her debt in time."
"SO YOU HAD TO KILL HER?!
"You're not a king. You're just a soulless creature."
"I am a royal. Which means I deserve respect."
"Well you don't deserve ours! I don't have a hand anymore, Alex just lost a sibling, and now you've practically just given Blaze f*cking PTSD! Remember the last confrontation we had, where I said you would regret messing with us? Well, you're about to find out why I warned you not to p*ss me off..."
"Now, Ortiz, let's not do anything too hasty..."
"Stop calling me by my last name, you son of a b*tch."
I stood up, clenching my fist. I was seething with rage by this point, and I could visibly tell that the king was scared of me. He started taking steps backwards, and he let go of his trident. I picked it up, and threw it towards him with all my might. It skimmed him, to the point where one of the prongs actually scratched his face. It flew passed him, and managed to get stuck in the ground. It wobbled for a moment before it remained still in the wilted grass. The king glanced over his shoulder, to see his weapon had pierced his land. He looked back at me, and started to slowly take a few steps away from us. He knew that I was prepared to try and hurt him even more than I already had, and hastily teleported away. I noticed that he didn't pick his trident back up, so I took it and took a better look at it. I stumbled backwards and collapsed onto my knees. As Blaze was sat beside me, he acknowledged that I had the trident and was taking a better look at the symbols engraved across it. They looked like devil symbols and the colour of the weapon was a wine red. The prongs at the top were stained with blood and they curved slightly. Their points were sharp but I could touch them. Blaze was looking at the bottom of the trident and noticed a weird looking symbol.
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"There's a symbol on the bottom of it. Different to the others."
I turned the weapon round so that the bottom was facing me. Blaze looked at it closely. It looked like a skull, but it was extremely dark and discoloured.
"That's an interesting symbol."
"Do you...recognise the symbol at all?"
"No. I've never seen it before."
As we sat there looking at the trident, I accidentally flipped the weapon, tapping the prongs on the ground. Something emerged out the ends of it. Some sort of black substance the colour of tar, was making the grey grass wilt. It turned a murky black before it started to spread even more.
"The hell?!"
"What the f*ck!?"
"Is this trident used to kill?"
"I don't want to find out."
"Should I...test it on the trees?"
"I mean...if it doesn't do too much damage. But I would be careful about messing with substances we don't know about."
I got up onto my feet and walked over to the nearby trees. As I clutched the trident in my hand, Blaze was cautiously watching me. He slowly got up and stood quite far behind me. I pointed the prongs at the bark of the trees and as I started getting closer to them, they started making a weird crackling noise, almost as if it was about to collapse. As I stopped for a moment, Blaze wandered an inch closer. He was interested too, but he was skittish about coming too close. As I looked at the trees, I clutched the trident in my hand and moved it closer, a certain area of the tree began to turn black, and within a few more seconds of me moving the weapon closer, it started sparking with red particles. I moved my hand forward to the point where the trident was touching the bark and the tree suddenly lost colouration. Grey patterns surrounded the birch tree and after a while of silence, the substance started spreading upward towards the twigs and branches. The ends of the tree eventually curled up and it had lost its shape. The trident's power had killed the tree.
"Imagine the damage this weapon could do to a whole group of people."
"It already did damage to Crystal. I don't think I should be holding this."
"Well we can't give it back to the king. He will probably kill you."
"I'll keep a hold of it for now...."
As we both stared up at the dead tree, we started to trace the substance up the branches. It seemed as though the magic was dripping, as there were small pools of the black liquid gathering on the ground.
"It's gathering."
"I can see that."
"I don't feel comfortable here anymore."
"Well, we can't go back to the alter. We'll have to go to the border that Crystal was talking about."
"It's 5 miles away. She never told us which direction."
"I'd imagine that it's behind us."
We both looked north. If the border was that direction, we could find civilisation. It was worth a shot.