The heat was eager to kiss Alix's skin, and Alix relished in each peck. They were waiting outside the spire for the driver that Vaylor had called, Vaylor tapped his foot with impatience.
"Where is this driver?!" Vaylor raged.
"No clue. But, you know, we could just…fly there?"
Vaylor waved him off, "Unwanted attention!"
"As if you yourself wouldn't bring attention," Alix grumbled.
"What was that!?" Vaylor bellowed, flinging his head around.
"Nothing!"
"No, you said something! Speak up!"
Alix flew his arms up in surrender. "I-I said as if you yourself wouldn't bring unwanted attention, not anything insulting!"
Vaylor looked him up and down, and then growled at nothing but the air. "Agh, forgive me. I don't like being kept waiting. It irks me. They won't notice me in the city centre, I hope."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because there are many people who look just like me. Grey hair with red streaks, crimson eyes, all of it. You know of the empires history?"
"I told you, I don't care for the empire that enslaved me."
Vaylor sighed a deep lung-rumbling sigh. "Look, all you need to know is that we weren't always ruled by the phoenix tamers, this empire was ran by dragon tamers like me at one point in history. There were more than seventy dragon tamer families in total, now there are only thirteen. Why do you think it's called the Draconian Empire? Emperor Saladan, after killing the later emperor Draconis Mulliven, allowed his leal subjects to keep the name."
I don't care
Alix didn't dare express that thought to his face, the man was agitated enough already.
"Ah, he's finally here, the fool!" Vaylor roared, and hurried towards a moving vehicle. The windows were tinted, and the driver could only be seen from the front.
He was dressed sprucely, and a nervous look was fixed upon his wizened face. When he got out of the car, Alix could see him shaking violently, as if an icy cold breeze had knived him.
He bowed, and Alix witnessed his bald head glinting underneath the blazing sun. "L-L-L-L-Lord V-V-V-Vaylor, sir! I am so, so t-t-terribly sorry f-for my impudence, I-I beg of you, m-mercy, m-my—"
"Shut up, Claymore! You stupid, stupid butler!" Vaylor howled at him. "You ever keep me waiting this long again and I'll feed you to Blackwing! Do you hear me!?"
"Y-y-y-yes, m-m-my Lord!"
"Good, now get in the car. Stop bowing, you fool! Get in the car!"
Alix had briefly seen this side of Vaylor when he had laughed at him. It made him even more frightening. Alix followed after the two and got in the backseat, while Vaylor got in the passenger.
The drive was long like Alix knew it would be, and there was nothing to do but talk and watch the city go by them as they drove to the centre. Alix had grown up in a different zone, and its cities were nothing compared to this.
"To think that all of this will soon be destroyed. It's unsettling. How do people cope with it all? I'm finding the knowledge hard to swallow."
"The same way people cope with anything, through acceptance." Vaylor replied.
That was a fair enough answer, Alix had accepted his death in the arena.
"That makes me think back to the windows, Vaylor. There's a reset option under the personal window. Is that an indicator as to how many times one has gone through the Great Reset?"
"Yes. The upcoming one will be my first."
"Your first?" Alix said, puzzled. "But you've already been through one, no? I mean, you're how old?"
"I was born during a Great Reset—I haven't experienced one myself. Well, I have, but I mean I haven't gone through the process of losing all of my strength."
"To lose all of your strength…I don't understand why more people don't just rebel against the emperor at that point. It would be easy, no? It's why you're only going after him then in the first place."
"The emperor has loyalists, believe it or not. People who support his system, laws, and ruling. There are a group of tamers who go by the name silent fangs, they're people who lurk in the shadows, snoop for traces of rebellion, espionage, and swiftly execute those that they suspect to be conspiring against the empire. And then there are the fang guards, staunch servants who are deemed as heroes, but really they're just flashy idiots with capes."
"Who are they? What do they do?" Alix inquired.
"They serve the emperor directly. They're his personal group of tamers, all ten of them. They've vowed to protect his life during and after the Great Reset. You won't get past men like that, men who are willing to throw away their lives for something they strongly believe in. It's like shouting at a brick wall, or being a tamerless and trying to punch one down."
That disturbed Alix greatly. The whole entire thing also felt so silly to him. Why throw your life away for anyone?
The car swerved onto a motorway, and Claymore pressed his feet against the gas, forcing the vehicle to speed through the long road ahead. The three had sat in silence for a while, until Alix severed it with a vague question.
"What about the other empires?"
Vaylor raised a brow. "What about them?"
"You say that the emperor will have his people protecting him, right? How will they stop threats from the other foreign empires and the smaller kingdoms."
"They won't need to worry about anything foreign for a while," Vaylor confirmed, "the foreigners will be too busy fighting amongst themselves, and will be trying to stabilise power as many tamers seek to change the hierarchy on their land. The emperor will have to deal with all of this, too. His fight in the civil war will be much more arduous and taxing, though."
"How so?" Alix asked.
"The Draconian Empire controls the southern hemisphere of the planet, the largest out of all of them. More landmass means more people, and more people means more civilisations that need to be controlled, and so there will be many more kingdoms, zones, cities, strongholds, and borders."
"Jeez. Ruling is hard. Which empire controls what?"
"Let's see…ah, in the northern hemisphere you have the Noorvian empire. They're a bunch of overly-honourable fools, but don't let that fool you, they can be extremely cruel, too. Perhaps it's their environment, many say the northerners are as harsh and cruel as their winters. They rule over large and smaller kingdoms; the Frostfang kingdom, the Noorsian, the Ironfists, and many more."
"Harsh and cruel as their winters. More harsh and cruel than the Draconians?" Alix asked.
Vaylor shrugged. "Perhaps, I don't know much about them myself. I only know what I've been told. I do know much and more about the Lin Ti Dynasty, however. They control the eastern hemisphere. They're an extremely powerful and illustrious empire, specialising in the trading of goods, the provision of slaves, troops, and those who specialise in certain fields like engineering for instance."
"Did you say troops? Why would they provide troops? Wouldn't that work against them?" Alix said.
"They don't just give the troops up freely. It's like an investment, the Lin Ti Dynasty will only send troops into battle if they believe it can be won, if they see an opening that the enemy may have then they'll designate their men to provide tactics, battle formations, and limited resources to ensure the battle is won. Once it is, they'll reap the benefits by taking in all of the remaining enemies as slaves, taking new territories for themselves, and establishing strategic outposts, kingdoms, work sites, all belonging to the Lin Ti."
"Tamers as slaves?!" Alix shouted out abruptly. "How the hell?"
Vaylor shrugged again. "Beats me, but they manage to make it work."
Serves them right
"How do you know so much about them anyway?"
"My wife is from there, and my mother was born on their land. She moved here at least a couple centuries ago and married my father. Her home kingdom had been destroyed by a rebelling Lord and their clan. That was often the case over there in the east, I can't tell you just how many billions of tamers have died and how many empires have fallen for Lin Ti to exist. There have been too many."
"Those men most likely died protecting a kingdom or an empire that doesn't even exist anymore." Alix sighed. It was all so stupid to him. "What about the west?"
"The west? They're a savage bunch," Vaylor recalled, "would you believe me if I told you that there were once two empires that combined forces to stop them?"
"They were that dangerous?" Alix said, nonplussed.
"They are colonisers. They take and ravage land wherever they go, and slaughter those that did not comply or dare to fight back. They still have land that we have lost to them, and they had even taken some of the northerners landmass. The Azmerian Empire, their words ring true, 'power goes to those who take.' They're a populace to watch out for during the Great Reset."
The driver had finally left the motorway, and drove around a roundabout, then cut through into another road. Just ahead, a myriad of spire-like buildings greeted them, and so did the diminutive ones just below them.
"Well, we're here. Time to go shopping." Vaylor smiled.