Bab 16: Chapter 16: The test

"We need to test if you can go out into the sunlight now before the sun sets," Nikola said, as he tried to get up, but he was pulled back down.

Wei Caihong took his hand and kissed each of his fingers before beginning to trail kisses up the length of the arm.

"We don't have time for this now," Nikola said, a pleasant sensation going through his body.

Wei Caihong finally reached his neck, licking the spot from which he had drunk from.

"But afterward, we can continue?" A kiss was placed over the bite marks.

Nikola sighed.

"I have to teach you something you want to learn in exchange for you doing the Abyss finding ritual. It's our deal, remember?"

Wei Caihong's groan made Nikola laugh. Just when did the man begun to appreciate sex with Nikola more than his knowledge? He got up finally, although his hand was in Wei Caihong's grip.

Their fingers twined together. Opening the door, he left first and slowly tugged his lover into the brightness. Wei Caihong used his free hand to shield his eyes, but as he pulled it away, he laughed.

"It's so warm outside," the noble whispered. They were in the front garden. Protected from their neighbor's sight by the tall walls surrounding the house.

Like a parody of Adam and Eve, Nikola could not help but think.

Nikola wondered which one of them was Adam and who was Eve at this moment. Maybe he was Eve, for he had knowledge, and he was shearing it with Wei Caihong? And Azazel was the serpent. Nikola imagined him slithering on the ground, apple in his jaw, and shuddered.

"Are you cold?" Wei Caihong's concern was evident. Nikola's eyes soften, and he raised the hand he was still holding to his lips and gave it a kiss.

"No, I imagined Azazel crawling on the ground. Trying to tempt us with power and knowledge," he said, the shudder passing through his body once more.

"Why would he crawl? Can't he walk?"

Wei Caihong was adorable at times, Nikola thought fondly.

"I just imagined him as the serpent of the Garden of Eden," Nikola told him, as he took in the slight pout on Wei Caihong's lips, which was just begging to be kissed into turning into a smile.

"You have strange knowledge," Wei Caihong said, his dark brown, almost red, eyes narrowing.

Wei Caihong led them back inside. Nikola stared at the mess. Blood and semen splattered on the floor right in the middle of the shop. He guessed he wouldn't be opening it this week after all.

He had been making knickknacks with magic as of late. Vases of porcelain with golden edges, knifes and daggers with runes on them that made them always sharp and protected them from rust.

He had many weapons made now, but he still kept making more. He wanted to gift the best sword or dagger or what have you to Wei Caihong. Had already gifted Penemue his sword many centuries ago, after pledging his love.

His masterwork. Grafted when he took over the dangerous jungles in a continent far away. Made from a metal extracted from a meteorite. He had had the merfolk bring it to him from the bottom of the ocean.

Why should Wei Caihong not receive the same show of affection?

He wondered what the savage and human sacrificing jungle people did now. He had tried to bring civilization to them, and yet they remained naked and willful. Maybe he should visit them one day?

With a book in hand rather than a sword, words of peace on his lips.

He sighed.

He should have visited all the nations like this. When he started conquering the world, the age of plenty for Atlantis ended.

There was still enough food to go around, but the men left their families to fight in campaigns against nations which couldn't even cross the ocean to fight back.

China had nearly reached Atlantis once. Nikola had cast a spell, murdering a hundred infants, to cloak the island with protection magic.

It was not something he was proud of. He could still hear the cries of the mothers outside the temple of Tangra as they begged him to return their children.

There had been insurrections afterward.

The Nephilim had barely managed to keep order. And once the bloody deed was done and the corpses of the newborn babes were given to the pyre the spell had taken effect and Nikola remembered taking his heir apparent at the time to see it.

His granddaughter, Petrana. He told her that if she ever wanted the throne, she needed to be ready to do the same.

She had taken off her tiara and thrown it in the pyre of the babes. Nikola named a new heir the same day. Didn't end up leaving the man the crown, either.

Shaking his head to clear it from the memories, he looked towards the skies. He could vow to do better. But that would be a lie. The bandits might be villains, but who was he to decide whether they died or not?

What of the servant whose heart he had eaten in another ritual? If he ever died, then he would be dragged to the deepest and hottest region of Hell.

Not even that won't be enough of a punishment for him, he knew.

They took a bath with cold water, too lazy to heat it up themselves. He might accidentally boil them alive if he started heating the water and then fell asleep.

Afterward, Nikola went and got on his knees to scrub the symbol from the center of the shop. He never allowed his servants to help with this part back at home.

There was always residual magic left in the markings, and he didn't want them to get hurt just because he was lazy.

He had learned this lesson the hard way in the first days of his reign as emperor. A pregnant servant went into labor on the ritual circle and gave birth to a deformed thing, dying soon after.

He burned mother and child himself and placed their ashes on his shrine in his room so that he could always remember that magic was dangerous.

Cleaning a ritual circle had to be done manually. No magic used. Magic didn't mix well together. He did use spells to clean normal messes, though. As he scrubbed, a foul scent reached his nose.

He looked down and saw that his fingers were charred black, and something was oozing out of them. He sighed and soldiered through the pain.

This was nothing.

He'll heal or regenerate, but this mess needed to be cleaned and if he let Wei Caihong do it, then he would be in agony for days afterward.

Nikola's stomach twisted into knots with the thought of the noble suffering, and he began to scrub harder.

Splashing some saltwater on the floor where there was no longer a trace of the circle, Nikola looked down at his hands again. They were not worth the magic for a healing chant. He could see his finger bones, his skin having completely fallen off.

He picked one of the new blades he made and then used magic to have it hover over his hand. The former emperor had done this before, more than once. He could do it again.

The cleaver came down on his hand hard, and it fell off. Nikola reached out with his other hand and repeated the action.

Using a water incantation, he gathered the blood into a vase and watched in fascination as bone begun to appear from the cut-off places. Then veins and finally flesh.

His new skin looked deathly pale, and Nikola knew that he would need to explain it all somehow. But for now, he gathered his cut-off hands and put them in the vase that held his blood. He found a lid for it and stashed it away.

Who knew what potion he could make with this as an ingredient? His flesh always yielded the best results. Was it because of his immortality? He did not know.

Had he used just about anyone else's eye during the ritual that brought about Atlantis' destruction, he would have created a storm and nothing more. His eye was responsible for the creation of new seas and the deaths of thousands, if not millions.

Looking around just in case he missed something, he went back outside, where Wei Caihong was looking at the sunset. Nikola smiled.

Oh, what a marvel lady Luck had gifted him with…