But for a reason unknown to me, they all vanished at a certain quest, quest twenty. I never knew what caused their extinction, and never felt the need to dive deeper to know the answer.

Unlike me, Hilary seemed to be all familiar with such a term. “Are you the Selvating Pillar? Or the Sparkling Fire?”

“Are you familiar with our cult?” the girl that was acting hostile against Hilary suddenly shouted as she pointed at her, “I… I know you… You were the one who tried to join us before and ended up causing a fight with our boss!”

“Oh lord! It’s her!”

“How come we end up meeting this heretic girl?”

“The world is really such a small place!”

“Shut up!” again Mouven had to step in to stop them. I ignored all of them and instead focused on my chick.

“Do you have any relation with them?” I asked, while closely watching her face.

“I tried to fix a few things before the beginning of everything… You know, using my experience to help avoid a disaster,” she spoke in such a mysterious way, but I generally got what she wanted to say here.

She seemed to know about their future. They would do something crazy in the end, and she tried to step in and prevent them from doing it.

And clearly she failed!

But it was the first time for me to notice this… She didn’t rewind time back to the beginning of the apocalypse, but just much prior to that point.

Smart! I had to give her that credit. If she could go back in time, then why not starting earlier than the apocalypse? This way she might have a chance to tweak a few changes that might help later on.

And she seemed to place such cults as her target.

“Our past isn’t related to any of the present events,” Mouven said before adding in a tone that told me he was trying to get to the best side of me, “this is the way we always used in our cult.”

“What’s the name of your cult?” I asked, “and is this city your cult’s main shelter?”

Such cults never used base or headquarters as the word, the right word would be the main shelter. His eyes shone slightly when I said this, as he realised I wasn’t that clueless towards his cults.

“The Sparkling fire,” Hilary was the one to answer, “they believe the world will end in a big fire that will engulf the entire world and kill most of humans. Yet this fire was like a sun, birthing new life and giving humans new opportunities to live on Earth after that.”

“Aha, my lady is really well aware of my cult ways,” Mouven spoke, using such words in an attempt to get to the good side of Hilary.

“Humph, but you are all a bunch of arrogant fools,” yet the next words she said demolished any effort Mouven placed before, “you believe the fire must be a real fire! You will try to seek the birth of such a disaster, to end humanity!”

I turned sharply to her. She wasn’t joking, or on purpose saying such mean words to belittle them.

She seemed to truly believe every single word she said.

“You…”

“How dare you…”

“F*ck yourself!”

“Hooker!”

“…”

Even Mouven was taken aback with what Hilary said, yet the other four shouted at the same time at her.

“Shut up,” this time it was me who spoke. I slowly stood up, moved my eyes at the five of them, “Is this true?”

My words carried immense pressure coming from my authority and strength. After all, if what Hilary said was true, then getting rid of them here was the best option.

For a moment I started to get a glimpse about what truly happened to such an elite group of humans at early stages of the apocalypse. They didn’t vanish out of nothing.

“This…” Mouven took a step back. He wasn’t the only one to react in such a way, and he was the best at controlling himself.

The rest took a few steps back, even one of them hit the side of my chariot before stopping.

“I just want to hear the answer…” I said while snapping my fingers, calling all my forces to surround my chariot, “or else none of you will survive one more second.”

From my tone and the appearance of my forces in such a threatening way, it was clear my threat wasn’t just directed at the group of five here. If their answer wasn’t something good, then they just announced the death sentence for all of their cult here.

“Well…” Mouven started to grow restless and nervous. The others looked in silence towards him, as if when things went south they’d listen to his words and follow his wisdom.

“Don’t trust any of their promises,” yet before Mouven could find a way out, Hilary snorted, “they are just a bunch of liars! I know they aren’t the leaders of the cult, but you have to know they follow a strict pyramid order system inside their cult.”

“Then they should sign a loyalty contract with me,” I shrugged, turning this whole weird situation upside down. After all I never cared about what people might think or believe, I only cared about them serving my goals.

And if this bunch of people here were led astray by some foolish guys, then I had nothing to say about this. They would either submit totally to me and follow my orders from here on, or they had to face their creator and try to ask for justice from him.

That if he or she really existed!

“A contract?” Mouven finally found a word to say.

“It’s something bound by the system,” I said, “just a way to make sure you’ll follow my path, not someone else’s.”

“But the cult…” the girl that was all hostile to my chick said. I didn’t have any good feeling towards her from the start, so I purposely added:

“And every single one of you will be tested.”