Novel Aeterna Saga Volume 1:. Walking with Giants Ch. 47

Spoiler: Chapter eighteen, part one.

Eighteen


“It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord Damien. This servant of the Empire goes by the name of Sir Marcus Dawson.”

Damien did his best to remain expressionless. But it proved to be somewhat difficult, especially facing this unexpected guest, now standing opposite of him in the office.

It's hardly been two days since Derrick and his son, Kain, left for Somerset. The family judged it to be prudent to have the only male heir to the Lomax name away from home, at least for the time being, while the suspicious Agent of Special Bureau was nearby.

But he didn't count on the man in question, seeking him out on his own accord like this. He got caught off guard, so to speak. What a blunder that was.

Regardless, there was still a matter of keeping decorum. He couldn't be rude to an official of the Empire. No need to give the opposition an inch, lest he might try to take the mile instead.

“Welcome to the village of Riverfield, Agent Dawson. I do ask for your sympathy in this time of urgency, as I'm drowning in work. Please, tell me of your business here in haste, if you would.”

Damien coldly smiled, studying the demeanor of the man in front.

Even though he was balding on the crown, the aura exuding from Dawson was nothing to laugh about. Although obviously suppressed, this man would've been able to easily defeat several higher ranked Adventurers than Damien on the basis of his strength alone.

Even Damien was getting chills, just thinking about it.

Would I be able to fight against him on equal footing? He sure looks like a bad opponent to go up against. Derrick, you picked yourself one helluva scary fella as an enemy, didn't you.

Damien could only ruefully smile.

“I'll be brief, my lord.” Dawson smiled thinly, his eyes unreadable. He then slowly reached into his robe, producing a rolled up scroll that had seen some usage. “Sir, under orders, I'm currently in pursuit of one Lady Valette of House du Francis. I believe you are well acquainted with her, Sir Damien.”

“Lady Valette?”

Damien was somewhat surprised to hear that name. Leaning forward, he shifted his focus onto the scroll.

“That's a name I haven't heard of, in donkey's years. Well, at least not since I've been charged with the running of this village. That's over seven, eight years ago.”

“That long? Haha. How unenviable a task I've been given.”

Dawson pleasantly chuckled. Again, there was no mirth there.

“I thought she retired to somewhere more scenic. Why are you pursuing her? Is it related to what's on that scroll?”

The indecipherable smile never left Dawson's lips as he placed the scroll down on the desk. “It seems nothing escapes your attention, my lord. Indeed, it does. Now, normally I can't show this to anyone, but since you are a member of the Lucius Lomax....”

Dawson slid this scroll carefully toward Damien as if signaling it was okay to undo the strings and pore through its contents. For some reason, Damien had this premonition he shouldn't even touch it.

He touched it nevertheless.

Only a single drawing was on it. But it was of something Damien recognized.

“This is...?”

It didn't take considerable willpower to pull a confused face, as that was what Damien did, after seeing the drawing. It depicted an object, cut into a shape of an octagon, and various unknown symbols were scribbled along its perimeters.

Momentarily confused at just how this Agent from the Special Bureau had a drawing of the mysterious object found in the hidden basement of his own home, Damien only then grasped at possible motives why Dawson was searching for Valette, the previous owner of this building.

Trying not to show any change in his expression, he returned the scroll to Dawson and asked in the best quizzical voice he could summon up.

“What is it? An ancient artifact?”

“Quite. It is indeed an artifact of tremendous value for the good of the Empire. My investigation has led me to your doorsteps, the last persons to see Lady Valette before her inexplicable disappearance.”

“So, you wanted to find out if I know where she might be. Is that right, Sir Dawson? Hoping that perhaps, she's still in possession of this artifact.”

Dawson nodded, as he hid the scroll away. “That is correct, Lord Damien.”

“Well, it is unfortunate that I can't assist you. As I said before, it's been almost a whole decade since last I saw Lady Valette. I do not know of her current whereabouts.”

Damien shook his head as if he was regretful.

In his head, he calculated. Whatever that wooden block was, it must have been rather important. Why else an Agent as highly ranked as Dawson show up on his doorstep after all this time, trying to track it down?

Moreover, he grew curious as to what it could do, never mind what it actually was.

“What is this mysterious item anyway? I've not seen symbols like that before. Could it be.... from the lands of long-eared ones? Or, even beyond that?”

Dawson's smile became even broader still. “The symbols are letters of an advanced civilization, from a realm higher than ours. That is all the information we have at the moment. However, it is certain that it contains powers capable of changing the world.”

Oi, oi, oi. Changing the world? Now that sounds very dangerous.

Damien had a flash of another unpleasant premonition. If that little octagonal wooden block held such a deep secret, then he couldn't help but think he was hoarding a potential disaster right under the same roof as his loved ones.

The assault on his family almost five years ago seemed to make sense to him now – the intruder was searching for it, Damien determined.

If so, could it be possible, that it was an Agent from the Special Bureau that night? A lethal poison to commit suicide, infiltration technique that could circumvent the sensitive hearings of a Pantherikin, as well as combat skills to rival a Bronze ranked Adventurer while suffering grievous bodily injuries.

….

It is definitely possible.

Realizing the possibility, Damien felt his long forgotten anger swell up. He didn't know whether Dawson was involved or not in that incident, but he sure as hell didn't give a damn either way.

Holding himself back was difficult, but he had to do it. If he acted rashly here, the repercussions would be harsh. For one, he didn't know who was Dawson's backer, his superior. Plus, he had no evidence that it was the Special Bureau that night. Other than his gut feelings, he had no basis to form this opinion.

He didn't show his inner turmoil, remaining calm and nonchalant outwardly. Damien wondered if his little acting fooled Dawson or not.

“I'm well aware that you haven't had any news of Lady Valette. I'm here for another purpose. When you became the lord, Lady Valette had left the village by then. Records indicate that she left just about every belonging of her behind. It is a long shot, but I'd like to take a look at them if they are still kept here.”

Hearing this, Damien frowned. It was true, that Valette did leave almost everything behind as if she had to leave in hurry. Her collection of armors, prized spears, the expensive jewelry and literature were all left where they were stored as if forgotten.

Over the years, Damien was forced to sell some of them in order to acquire funds for the village. The poor financial situation was mostly because he tried to reinvent the wheel called farming and most of that didn't turn out as well as he'd hoped. Well, he did learn from his mistakes, so there was a silver lining at the end of it all.

Anyways, the items of Valette weren't complete. Surely, this would raise a certain amount of fuss – first of all, they weren't his to freely sell off, and secondly, they were evidence if a foul play was suspected of. And he had gotten rid of more than a few. Some might call that suspicious.

It was natural for him to hesitate.

As if knowing the problem beforehand, Dawson offered some help, with a clear sly smile.

“I'm also well aware of the financial hardships this village had to go through. And so, it's inevitable that there were... certain concessions made to alleviate those said hardships. It is understandable, truly. I do not ask for much, my lord. I'd be satisfied if it were just the remaining articles.”

Damien didn't know whether to laugh or frown. He felt like he's been had, for some reason.

“Fine. I'll arrange it. You might take some time to go through them all, however. Have you arranged a place to stay the night?”

“Oh, it is quite alright, Sir Damien. I've arranged an alternate accommodation for myself and my subordinates. But thank you for your consideration.”

Dawson stood up from the chair and bowed slightly.

Feeling a little relieved, Damien also got up, while rummaging his desks for the keys of the locked storage next to the stables.

That's when Dawson snuck in the next question.

“Hmm, it is peculiar. I was under the impression that Sir Derrick was staying here with you. But I can't seem to sense his imposing aura nearby.”

“....He's out on a personal business. He won't be back for quite some time.”

“Oh, I see. How regrettable, indeed. Oh, and when I was in Lafayette, searching for clues to the mystery of Lady Valette's disappearance, I ran into your son. A delightful chap, he was. I didn't see him today as well.”

Damien's face grew cold. He stopped his search for the keys and sent out an icy gaze to his guest.

“What are you playing at, Agent Dawson?”

“My apologies, Sir Damien. I did not mean to offend you and touch upon a sensitive topic. Please forgive this servant for his slip of the tongue.”

Even though he said that, Dawson didn't look one bit apologetic. If anything, he seemed untroubled by the cold stare from Damien.

There was a period of silence between the two men. The first one to break it was Dawson.

“If I may be so bold, allow me to offer a small advice, an insight if you will. During my investigations, I encountered a group of men in Lafayette who were, shall I say, quite hostile towards the Lomax household. Out of my loyalty towards the Empire, and for Her stability, I eliminated one or two of these despicable men, but the rest escaped.

My advice to you, sir, is this. My lord, you should seek aid from your family. It isn't too late for reconciliation.”

“I'll take that under advisement. Now then, shall we?”

Damien coldly pointed towards the door, signaling that Dawson should start moving.

Ask help from Father, huh? Right, as if. I will never let Kaleena or Kain near that bastard. I've suffered enough. Dukakis suffered enough. Mother has suffered, my sister has suffered. Too many went through hell because of him. My kids will not go through that.

Simply recalling his wretched childhood brought another tide of anger and resentment towards his father. He wanted nothing to do with that man at all cost, and that was why he was on the opposite side of the Empire, here in Riverfield.

Although he felt a little bit of guilt, thinking that he'd abandoned his siblings, but in the end, his siblings were grown-ups. They should be capable of wiping their own bottoms. And from what Damien heard, they were doing quite alright.

If he were to seek aid from someone, might as well be that geezer Marquis Phillips. At least the feelings between the two of them were much more amicable, even if they parted ways under a bit of smoke.

As Damien accompanied Dawson out the door, he sensed movement from afar, outside his house in fact. There was a rider on horseback, steaming in towards his residence.

Dawson too sensed the approach and frowned. He couldn't tell the purpose of this rider, although he felt that it was an incoming message of sorts. As to whom it was intended for, now that roused his intrigue.

The answer came soon enough. The rider arrived at the front door of the house, jumped off in one breath, and produced a sealed envelope that Damien was familiar with.

“An express delivery, for Sir Baron Damien Lucius Lomax, from his lordship Count Dukakis Lucius Lomax!!”

For the third time that day, Damien was struck with another unpleasant premonition.

Receiving the envelope, he checked for the wax seal and felt its weight. A single letter, and nothing else. The seal was genuine too.

Under interested gazes of the rider, Dawson, and Delilah, he slowly broke open the wax and read the contents, only to be stunned into silence by it.

As he expected, it was only a letter, small enough to consider it as a memo. On it, only three lines were written.

Father's terminally ill. Please return home right away. Dukakis.

Before Damien could sort out his jumbled bag of feelings, a raindrop fell on the letter, staining it. And soon, more drops fell, signaling the beginning of another Monsoon season.

 

So.... yeah, I had a small issue with my modem. It's not 100% sorted out right now, but I'm back. Until it all goes wrong again, I suppose.

Spoiler: Chapter eighteen, part two.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the village, Lizbeth sat under a cooling shade of a five-hundred-year-old oak tree. Alongside her, Kaleena and Katrina, watched over intently by Rosy.

The family, minus Damien, came out here to enjoy the sun, and maybe get some Invocation practice done. Also, there was another special reason for the sudden picnic.

The night before, Kaleena dropped a bombshell that needed verification.

Apparently, she could see Aeterna's flow, if she concentrated hard enough.

As far as Lizbeth knew, not a single Invoker alive have claimed he or she could do something like this. Not even those mythical ones who had broke past the rank of Master and soared to a realm no mere mortals ever hoped to touch. She couldn't remember if there were any mention of it in historical records either.

Yet her daughter said she could, although she also mentioned it was getting harder for her to see the Flow nowadays. From the things she said, it was almost as if her ability to see the Flow weakening recently had some kind of correlation with her growing knowledge in Invocation.

The reason why Kaleena spoke out was due to this. She was afraid something was wrong with her somewhere, and after a lengthy deliberation, she let her parents know.

Now usually, she was reluctant to talk about matters troubling her, and tried to solve whatever roadblock she encountered with nothing more than her own willpower and strength. She was that kind of child. But she told her secret. She was scared that much of this unknown problem.

And it also scared Lizbeth as well. As a mother, she wanted to help but didn't know how. Seeing the Flow of Aeterna was something out of her scope. Even more so, if this ability was slowly eroding away for some reason or the other.

She wrecked her brain overnight but nothing came. Besides worrying about her son going on a distant journey for who knows how long, there was a small matter of her feeling rather unwell for the past couple of weeks.

She was familiar with this sort of sensation, the one coming from her belly, as it had happened to her twice already.

She was certain, that another seed of life was growing inside her. Thinking this, she was happy but at the same time, slightly miffed at Damien for being unable to temper his wild ways. Well, he did hold it back this long so, it was bound to erupt sooner rather than later. The fact that he held on for so long was a miracle in itself.

Under the pleasant summer sun, with a rather thick and dark clouds mushrooming over yonder, Lizbeth was trying out various methods to see if there were anything she could do. What she excelled in, were always Light Elemental Invocations. She could reattach severed limbs, piece together smashed bones, and repair broken blood vessels. So, whatever Kaleena was going through, if she looked hard enough, Lizbeth thought she could fix it. Or at least, figure out the cause.

She could do neither, after spending the whole morning under the shade. In order to utilize Light Elements to its fullest, it was always better under the direct sunlight, or a bright light source. This was a given. Hence them being outside. A picnic too, to help relax the minds while they were at it.

But nothing she tried worked. She couldn't really tell what's the matter with her daughter. She was a perfectly healthy seven year old girl. Physiologically, she was as well bred as any parents could hope their children to be.

So, the other possibility remaining was that Kaleena was not being truthful. That she was making stuff up.

This was unlikely. Kaleena was not that kind of a child. So that left Lizbeth at an unenviable crossroad.

Ignore this heaven-sent opportunity and let it die, or do everything to grab hold of it and reach for glory, so to speak?

The answer was simple but the road leading to it was not.

“Anything?”

Kaleena asked, after she saw Lizbeth frowning. She swiped the beads of sweat on her forehead with a handkerchief.

She have cast one more spell but it was still a failure, and Lizbeth finally ran out of ideas. Leaning against the tree, she sighed in defeat. She was mentally exhausted from worrying too much and trying too hard.

Seeing this, Katrina sneered softly from the side. “Well, at least it's nice outside. Chasing after a non-existent shadow is a complete waste of time anyway.”

Sensing contempt in the words, Kaleena shot her cousin a sharp look. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

Faking a mortified expression, Katrina brought a hand over her mouth. “Heavens, no. I would never dream of such a thing!! It's just that, cousin Kaleena is lagging behind this magnificent me, so, it's only natural you would try anything to hog the limelight.”

“What?! I wasn't trying anything, you know!! It's all truth – I really do see the colors when people cast Invocation!”

“Oh, sure.” Katrina pursed her lips. “And no one else can. How convenient.”

Kaleena angrily gritted her teeth. It was true that she was not as good as Katrina was, but the reason for that was their age difference. The older girl had more time to study and practice, so she held an advantage in that regard.

“Enough, both of you.”

Lizbeth rebuked the two quarreling girls with stern words, and returned to resting her weary shoulders. To help with that task, she picked up a cup full of scented herb tea and quietly sipped the light green liquid.

Delilah packed a picnic basket before the departure so they weren't short of snacks or drinks. If it weren't for the search of her daughter's mysterious illness, it would have been a pleasant day out.

“Oh?”

Rosy's ears perked up, as she sensed an approach from an unknown presence.

Whoever it was, the movement wasn't concealed, so she figured it shouldn't be someone out to harm the mistress and the kids, but it paid to be prudent. She couldn't recognize this presence at all, implying that it was most likely not an acquaintance of hers.

In the distance, a cloaked figure on a horseback slowly came closer to the small hill and the oak tree, where Lizbeth and her family were. A warm breeze fluttered the light gray cloak, momentarily revealing the fine, embroidered tunic underneath, the kind of apparel not worn by common folk.

The second person to notice the figure was Lizbeth. She sensed someone familiar approaching, and stood up from the ground, her eyes studying the aura of this rider. There was a bag of luggage slung over the rear of the horse, alongside a simple but solid-looking longsword tied to it.

It didn't take long, before she finally confirmed who this cloaked figure was. A radiant smile spread on her lips as she stood up greet the person.

“No, it can't be?! What are you doing here?”

Lizbeth's excited voice surprised everyone present. She never sounded like this before, at least not recently, so it startled Katrina the most, who had never seen this side to her aunt.

“Why can't it be? Is there a problem with me coming to visit my favorite pupil?”

The cloaked figure chuckled, and lowered her hood. The face of an attractive woman in her late forties appeared. Her light blonde hair, almost pale silver in color, wrapped tightly behind in a bun, and a pair of deep green eyes sparking with health and humor.

She was smiling quite happily as she dismounted from her ride.

“It's been too long, teacher.”

Lizbeth respectfully bowed her head.

“Yes, too long indeed. Ten years, no? Time flies.”

Receiving her teacher, Michelle Matis Banovsky, in an open field like this, Lizbeth felt slightly unsatisfied. She should have greeted her important teacher in her home instead.

“Do not mind it, girl. It was a sheer luck that I run into you like this. I was on my way to meet you at your home, but this is just as swell.”

Michelle laughed, and waved her hand.

Lizbeth introduced the kids to her teacher. “Kaleena, Katrina, this is my master, Michelle Matis Banovsky of the Invocation Academy I attended a long time ago. Please, offer your greetings.”

“Greetings, I am called Katrina Septima Lomax. A pleasure, miss.” Katrina smartly curtsied, raising the corners of her dress.

On the other hand, Kaleena greeted with less sophisticated bow. “Kaleena Lucius Lomax. Good day to you, miss.”

“Oh my. Suddenly, I feel rather inadequate, seeing my young disciple having a family before me. I should've found a good partner and settle down when I had the chance.”

Michelle showed a mixed expression at the two girls in front of her. A hint of regret flashed past in her eyes. It passed by too quickly to be noticed by others, however.

“What brings you here, teacher? Last I heard, you were promoted to the position of an Elder in SOIR.”

Lizbeth asked as they all sat on the picnic cloth.

Thanking Rosy who offered her tea, Michelle waved her hand again, this time rather dismissively.

“I've decided to retire. Not as an Invoker, but as an active member of SOIR. I wanted to leisurely travel around the world, now that the Sky Arks have gone operational. So, here I am.”

“Wait, teacher. You did inform the Academy and SOIR properly, yes? Please tell me you have...”

Lizbeth's cheek twitched. She remembered one very unpleasant incident when she was still a student under direct tutelage of Michelle. Just thinking of that day made her shiver from apprehension unlike any other.

“Hohoho. Of course I have. What do you take me for? I wrote the letter of resignation and left it by the Administrator's desk. Surely, that old fart have seen it by now.”

“You didn't receive the approval?!” Lizbeth frowned.

“What's the point? They can't refuse me anyway. I've done more than enough for the Society. As for the rest, let the fossils masquerading as men do something for a change.”

Michelle snorted derisively, and picked a cookie. She bit down on it with gusto, and exclaimed “it's good!!”

Such mannerisms deeply shocked Katrina. To her, someone capable of teaching a lady as refined as Lizbeth should also be a refined lady but, right in front of her, there sat an individual that were boorish and totally not lady-like. If it weren't for the luxurious clothing, she'd think this older woman was a commoner.

Before Katrina came to Riverfield, she was supposed to enter the Academy when she turned eight. That should have been this year. But that plan had long thrown out the window.

It was fine to enter the famed school for aspiring Invokers when one was aged a bit, provided she was still a teen, but there would be some disadvantages with that – comparing someone who received a formal education from a group of dedicated masters to a person who got home schooled, there would be a large gap present, the longer this status continued.

Katrina was unhappy at this. All those smug faces of her peers, sneering at her from the sidelines came back, haunting her ever so irritatingly. She had mostly forgotten about them while living this idyllic village life, but seeing this woman reminded of her past, of the pressure cooker life she lived in, from the moment she was born.

Oblivious to her cousin's dark thoughts, Kaleena innocently asked Michelle.

“Are you an Invocation teacher? Which Element are you specializing in?”

“Oh, I'm pretty good at almost everything. But my specialty is in erecting barriers.”

“Barriers?”

“Yes. I used to teach how to erect the most sturdy barriers to save lives. Among other things.”

“But no attack spells?”

“Hohoho. Of course, those too. It wouldn't be much fun without knowing how to kick butt, am I right?”

“Teacher, please don't teach the children unnecessary phrases.” Lizbeth swiftly tried to rebuked Michelle.

“Oh well. Fine, fine. No sweat. I'll be staying by your place, if you don't mind. You don't, right? I'll reimburse you for the lodging, obviously. I'm not that shameless, you see.”

“...Yes, you can stay with us, teacher. It'd be an honor to host you.”

“That's good, 'cause now then I can take a good look at these two. You seem to have gotten yourself very good pair of eggs here, Lizzie.”

Michelle slyly leaned closer and peered at the girls. Kaleena felt uncomfortable at the intense gaze, while Katrina brushed it off as if it didn't affect her in the slightest. Of course, it did. She just chose to not show it.

Lizbeth felt helpless at the sight. Michelle was always perceptive at finding Invocation geniuses with a simple glance. Her ability was legendary among Invokers the world over. It was a great deal to be chosen by her – it indicated there were huge potential sleeping within a person. All sorts of doors would be unlocked after that kind of acknowledgment. Like how it was with Lizbeth.

Suddenly, a thought occurred.

“Teacher, may I ask you about a confidential matter, involving the matters of Invocation and Aeterna?” Lizbeth quietly asked Michelle in a serious tone.

Raising an eyebrow, Michelle nodded solemnly after recognizing how serious her former pupil sounded. “Speak. I swear my lips will remain sealed.”

Taking a deep breath, Lizbeth seized this opportunity and told her teacher about Kaleena's issue. She deeply trusted Michelle, a trust born out of respect and recognition of skill, and further tempered by years of friendship they shared. She knew her teacher would never betray this trust, no matter what.

Plus, Michelle had researched a great range of topics regarding Invocation and its apparent Elemental dependency. The breadth and scope of knowledge possessed were unparalleled in SOIR's corridors. If there were unanswered questions on all matters Aeterna, it was not a bad idea to consult with her.

“Is there such an ability? And if so, is there a way to slow down the process, maybe even reverse it?”

Lizbeth desperately asked, as she gently squeezed her daughter's hands. If her teacher didn't know, then she was really out of ideas. If this condition were real, and it affected Kaleena in some negative way, she feared it might permanently damage her in the future, even threatening her life. She'd give anything to prevent that, of course.

Michelle showed a surprised reaction, then it turned into one of more serious, contemplative mood.

Digging through the maze of her memories, Michelle carefully raised her voice.

“...By the sound of it, it seems your daughter is born with a certain condition. It doesn't have a name yet, as the condition itself is exceedingly rare. I can only recall two other cases that are similar to hers.”

“Oh? Then, is there a cure? Something to help Kaleena with?”

“Mmm. In both of those cases, young children were born with abilities to discern the flow of Aeterna with their naked eyes. But as they grew older, this ability disappeared, leading to speculation that either those kids were lying their butts off, or as their body ages, something inside changes and they can no longer see it.”

“Meaning.... there is no cure?” Lizbeth asked, her face falling a little.

Michelle patted Kaleena's head and smiled reassuringly. “No, do not worry. Those children lived their full lives, with no complications. I don't think this little girl will be harmed in any way.”

Hearing this, Lizbeth felt deeply relieved. It felt like a heavy weight was lifted off her shoulders. “If that's the case.... Even though it's a loss, as long as my daughter will be fine, then it's fine.”

Michelle nodded, then suddenly, began to leer at the mother and daughter with an evil-ish smile. “Hohoho, aren't I the luckiest person alive. I decide to come and see my favorite disciple, and behold, I run into an interesting case straight away. Lizzie, you don't mind me taking a closer look at your child, maybe prod her here and there? I promise I'll be gentle.”

Kaleena's face paled in panic, and withdrew quickly. She hid behind her mother, shaking her head. “Mommy, the old lady is scary.”

A vein popped up in Michelle's forehead, while a chilly smile remained on her lips. “Old... old lady?! Listen here, girl. I'm not that old. Hear me? Besides, I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to help you. You see, there are variety of special medicine refined from rare herbs that helps with illnesses related to Aeterna. I think one or two of them might be the cure you seek. Let me take a look at you, and maybe I can find out what's what.”

Lizbeth's face brightened even more. “Ah, yes! Indeed, there are potions and elixirs that could help with Aeterna Pool depletion, addiction, and poisoning of internal organs. It's possible there is a medicine that should help Kaleena retain her ability.”

“And that's where I come in. I know most of those herbs and where to find them. And on top of that, I know the skilled potion makers.”

Michelle bit on another cookie, a hint of smugness spreading on her expression.

On the side, Katrina was listening attentively, but was feeling a bit more irritated than before. She still thought her cousin was lying through her teeth to gain attention but it seemed no one would believe her now. She wished someone would raise her voice and stop this nonsense from going any further.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Lizbeth and Michelle continued on with their conversation.

“Which herb should be the most effective in your opinion, teacher?”

“Hmm. Let's see. There's a herb called Firegrass, found on Northern territories. When refined into a potion, it stops any damage accumulated from Aeterna addiction and poisoning.”

Aeterna addiction was a condition known to happen to regular people who were not Invokers, or haven't received formal Invocation training. Once a strand of naturally-occurring Aeterna enters a person's body without going through one's Pool, it momentarily produces an ecstatic sensation.

Most who experience it feel sick afterwards, but a small percentage would be addicted to that moment of bliss. Obviously such an activity would damage the internal organs, turning the victim into a crippled vegetable within years.

The cure for such illness was rather costly. However, as most Aeterna addiction sufferers were wealthy to begin with, the high price was not an issue. The reason why the wealthy suffered the most was that the only way to absorb Aeterna without receiving training was to come in direct contact with Aeterna-rich Invocation Tools, and they were expensive to procure.

The Aeterna poisoning was much rarer. It happened to a handful of battle hardened Invokers who have been in an environment thick with the air of death. The researchers at SOIR deduced that such air's Aeterna were polluted by endless blood-letting and loss of life. A pure, unused Aeterna would be harmless most of the time, but in order to cast a spell, it had to be manipulated into forms Invokers wanted, and that process slightly corrupted it.

When such corruption continuously stacked on top of another, then it inevitably led to Aeterna poisoning.

It was just a theory, however. It haven't been fully proved, or disproved yet. Still, those inflicted by the illness suffered a great deal of pain before withering away in agony. The only way to cure it were to consume rare elixirs and not cast any Invocation for a time.

“Firegrass, is it? Honestly, I've never heard of it. But it does sound promising. I should speak to Damien about this.” Lizbeth nodded. Then she caught on to that one part in her teacher's words. “....Did you mention Northern territories?”

Michelle nodded, while sipping the tea.

Lizbeth sighed, shaking her head. “Damien's family is from there. He doesn't have a good relationship with them. Not for a long while. If we were to find a rare herb like Firegrass, then his family might get involved in some stage.”

“Hah. If your hubby knows what's good for his kid, then he'd jump through flaming hoops to find help. What's some bad family relation compared to that of his child's health? And, there's no guarantee that they have to talk to each other. Just ask an Adventurer Guild or something to find the herb for you. Simple.”

Lizbeth agreed with her teacher. Indeed, it should not be so complicated. Just by hiring a group of Adventurers to procure the herb would be enough.

A drop of rain fell on the cloth laid out on the ground. The dark clouds had gathered above their heads while they were conversing. From a distance, turbulent roars of thunder rang repeatedly.

“We should go back,” said Lizbeth, shielding her face from the falling rain.

The picnic was over.

 

Spoiler: Chapter nineteen, part one.

Nineteen


When Kain woke up, his entire body hurt like hell. It was worse than the worst hangover ever. If it hurt any more than this, than it would be better to just die, so he didn't have to suffer through this pain.

Knowing he was thinking of nonsense, he tried to get up. His head ached, a disorientating pulse of irritation coursing in his veins.

Dude, it really feels like a hangover.

Kain groaned. Of course, he didn't drink any alcohol. Physically, he was still a five-year-old kid. There was no way in hell Damien and Lizbeth let him anywhere near a cup of that fermented stuff.

Yet, as soon as he stood up gingerly, the first reaction his body gave was to empty his gut on the muddy ground.

Once the retching ended, then it was the turn of the bone-chilling cold, taking a bite out of him. When he confirmed his status, he was wet from head to toe, water dripping from his now-ruined clothes. If a passerby saw him now, he'd look like a washed-out hangdog begging for a penny.

Totally dazed, his eyes wandered to and fro, trying to find out just where the hell he had ended up in.

There was a raging torrent of a river to his right, the water gray and angry. He assumed that was either River Styx or Anderlicht. It all depended on how lucky he was.

To his left, a dense forest, dark and foreboding. It was so thick that he couldn't see past a few feet beyond the mouth. It was almost like nighttime in there, even though an occasional ray of sunlight peeked out between the heavy clouds above.

Beneath his feet, a mixture of mud and round stones. He was standing on a shallow riverbank, a small opening in an otherwise inhospitable riverside.

Kain slowly looked up, and around. He hoped to see a sign of civilization, but instead, what greeted him was the sight of sheer slab-sided cliffs surrounding the forest and the river. Like a wire fencing of a maximum security prison, it was tall and jagged and utterly imposing.

He could think of two reasons why he was seeing this wall, that to his mind without a doubt cliffs of the Tetamus Range.

One, he got carried down by the river and got transported near it.

Or, he got carried by the river, into the opening Derrick mentioned before, and now he was inside the Range, pleasantly nicknamed as Hell.

That first theory got busted almost immediately. He couldn't see the cliff with the road on it, the one he fell from. Instead, in a not too far distance, he spotted a slender rift in the wall, and the roaring river storming through the said rift. It was a definite proof of theory number two, whether he liked it or not.

Crap...

Kain muttered inwardly.

Shivering from the ever-present cold, he shifted his gaze toward the forest. He weighed his options at hand – should he enter or not? He knew that he couldn't stay here, like this, forever.

He had never been stranded in his entire life before, including in his previous one. He didn't know what should be done, in order to raise his chances of survival, until the rescue team shows up.

A long time ago, he watched a program on the boob-tube, showing what to do when stuck in a wilderness, but for the life of him, he could only remember small bits and pieces, not the whole thing. He felt like cursing out loud. Not that anyone would hear him anyway. Or maybe something might.... So he didn't say anything, in the end.

At least, he figured he needed to keep himself warm. That meant making a fire. Then, finding a shelter. And it was quite likely he'd stuck here for a while, drinkable water and food.

He had no idea how long it would take for Derrick to mount a rescue mission - if one was coming at all. He had to be prepared for a long haul here.

Worse still, Derrick wasn't in too hot a shape, last time Kain checked. There was no guarantee that he survived the ordeal.

Even he could tell those hooded men weren't some common bandits.

Did they come for Derrick's neck? Or.... was me the target?

He shuddered even more at the possibilities, remembering the ominous words about male heirs not appearing in the Lomax households due to some mysterious outside influences.

Thinking about it a bit more, he concluded that he could not have been the target those men were after. After all, they were surrounding Derrick, not him. The rest of the travelers were nothing more than collateral damage, or maybe killed in order to leave not a single witness behind.

If so, then who could have sent those assassins? Kain recalled briefly a piece of information he overheard from gossiping Delilah and the local village womenfolk regarding Derrick and his circumstances. It all seemed like a bunch of unfounded idiotic yapping back then, a story of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving high-ranking government individuals and a jealous brother, plus lots of wealth and political influence at stake.

Derrick's father, one Augustus Septima Lomax, a duke, fell sick with an unknown illness two years ago. So naturally his two sons who were, up until that point competing in secrecy, held nothing back and publicly clashed for the right to inherit the title. Allegedly.

The result was that Derrick lost, and had to find a refuge at Riverfield, where his brother would not be able to reach out that easily.

The now-reigning Septima Lomax, Duncan, was a complete mystery to Kain. No one in the house mentioned him, not even once. And outside of groundless gossips, there were precious few avenues of collecting information.

It's true that most of Riverfield's residents didn't really have much interest in the political matters of some distant city, and didn't actively go out of their way to inquire about it. That fact alone made getting hold of useful facts quite hard.

If those hooded men were sent by Duncan or his supporters, then it was probably safe to assume that he's no saint. He fought and then kicked his own flesh and blood to the curb, so obviously, he couldn't be a saint even from that, but still, to send a bunch of assassins after his brother...

Kain wondered dejectedly whether that was how nobles behaved in this world. Was it a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog world full of conceited, paranoid miscreants waiting to backstab each other at every waking moment?

Will Kaleena and Katrina end up being just like that? Well, I dunno about Kal, but surely, if it's that Katrina....

Kain shook his head. Kaleena was a good girl. Katrina, on the other hand... she would just try too hard at times.

Anyways, he held no desire to compete for the title of Baron Lucius Lomax. Kaleena was a better candidate for that. Smarter, kinder, and harder working. Surely, those were the qualities one needed to become a good lord of a village. And those were things Kain lacked severely in.

There was a chance that he was over-thinking this whole thing. He had no proof that those men were after Derrick. For all he knew, they could have been just a regular bunch of bandits, simply wearing hooded raincoats because of the crappy weather.

“Whatever. Hope you made it, uncle Derrick. Just don't forget to come and save my sorry ass,” Kain mused weakly, his voice barely audible even to himself.

Then he recalled Sandra. They fell in the water together, but she was not with him anymore. She wasn't on the riverbank too. She was gone.

“I hope you made it too, little Sandra. Sorry if you didn't...”

He imagined her laughing and crying, safe from the flooding river, in her mother's arms. That was a mistake.

Because when he did, he remembered the scenes of Laurel dying. He imagined the little girl's bloated, decaying body being fished up by dispassionate men in uniforms.

He felt bile rise up again.

More and more, images of corpses entered his mind. The horrible smell of blood came rushing in too, hitting him like a freight train. It was like as if he was right back in the middle of the bandit raid all over again.

He recalled screams. He recalled blood. Severed limbs. Lifeless eyes. Cries of help. The sickening sound of flesh getting cut.

He vomited again. And again.

He knew this was becoming dangerous, his body shivering a lot harder than before. He needed a fire to warm his weakened body, and he needed it super fast.

He could start one just fine, even in this condition, but sustaining it for a period of time without supplying it with Aeterna was something else entirely.

He needed to find dry wood, or whatever he could use as fuel. But it stopped raining not too long ago, and there was heavy moisture hanging around in the air, meaning nearby trees and fallen branches would be too wet to be useful.

After thinking for a bit, he had a lightbulb moment. He could modify a Wind type Invocation to dry out the wet wood. He had the target, the amount of Aeterna in the Pool, and he also had a good idea how it should be done. Better still, he didn't need to chant any Requisite Words since he was going to combine spells he'd been practicing until now.

But he also needed to either find a shelter or build it. Without that, when the heavens decide to open up and bless him with another painful deluge, it would definitely wash away the fire.

That brought him another dilemma. Where should he try to build his shelter, then? Near the river? There was just too much risk of flooding if he got close to the water's edge and it rained a little more than usual.

But he couldn't afford to get too close to the forest either since he could sense some sinister Aeterna floating around in deeper parts of the forest. Who knows what that meant, and he didn't feel like finding out so soon.

So, he stood there like a lone tree, unable to decide on where to build his precious shelter. He was getting colder still, and his limbs were growing numb. Even that couldn't force him to choose quickly.

As if it got tired of waiting, the mother nature decided to chose for him, playing the role of a cruel mistress. Rain started pouring down again, and it became heavy pretty quickly.

The river swelled up further, and so, that was the clincher. He wasn't going to stay anywhere near that dangerous-looking body of water.

Sighing, Kain rushed towards the edge of the forest and summoned just enough Aeterna out of his Pool to cast an Earthen Wall. His plan was to build an improvised igloo with it.

He quickly cast three Earthen Walls in succession, erecting three sides to a structure, and another to place a roof on top. He regulated the height and made them around five feet tall. He thought that there was no need to make it too tall, seeing that he was still a shorty anyway. All that's left to do was to make a door to block out the wind and rain. That had to wait until he started a fire, of course.

For that purpose, he tried to break off branches of nearby trees, but as expected, his physical strength was too pathetic to even bend one. He made a promise to himself that if he makes it out of here alive, then he'd dedicate all of his being into practicing the Body Enhancement spells in the future.

He gathered fallen leaves and branches, but he felt that was not enough.

After another brain-storming session, he decided to cast Breeze, but instead of a simple breeze, he would try to condense the wind as thinly as possible and turn it into a blade. Kinda like in video games. He modified Earthen Wall and Firelight, so it wouldn't be too hard, or so he figured.

He imagined a sliver of fast moving wind, sharp enough to slice a metal panel, and cast it repeatedly. First few attempts ended in failure, but the tenth one worked, and he was able to cut a wrist-thick branch.

Elated at his success, he tried a few more. His limits were around the thickness of a human arm. Thicker than that, it was just an exercise in wasting Aeterna reserve.

He cast this new spell of his, which he imaginatively christened as a Wind Blade, about a dozen times. He even surprised himself by having a reserve of Aeterna more than half of his Pool still left. There were enough to fool around if he wanted to.

He shouldn't have – he forgot that the branches cut with his Wind Blade had very fine edges. And he got cut by that. It wasn't a deep one, and the blood stopped flowing after a short while, but he did bleat out a four letter swear word that began with an F, ending with a K, the one he hadn't used in the past five years.

He learned his lesson. So, he took his hard earned loot – branches – to his shelter, and after digging a small depression on the ground with another Earthen Wall in order to create a door, he chucked them all in.

Making sure there was ventilation, he set upon creating his second new spell of the day. Which he decided to call Drying Wind. Sounded about right, so he was more or less happy with his naming sense.

He imagined a drying desert wind and cast Breeze. The resulting air was lukewarm at best, but it wasn't dry enough. So, he gave it some more thought, wondering how he could improve it.

He cast it with a different image in mind, this time of a wet washing drying under an intense, hot midday sun. That did the trick. The branches dried out real fast, withering right in front of his eyes. Hell, even the muddy walls were drying out as well. It seemed like he had stumbled onto a pretty useful Invocation through necessity.

Unfortunately, it proved to be something of Aeterna hog. It tired him out as fast as the first time he tried to cast a spell.

While he was feeling sluggish, coldness renewed its attack with vengeance, getting worse by the minute. And to make matters more complicated, he felt thirsty too, which he found to be rather ironic, seeing that he was literally surrounded by water.

After a few more minutes of casting Drying Wind, the branches became brittle enough to use as the fuel source. Kain quickly cast a Firelight and just like how he shot it at the bandit's face, he carefully transferred it to the pile of dried wood.

It was a success. He made a fire.

He cried out “Hell Yeah!!”

In no time at all, the warming fire grew and became pretty vigorous, spreading heat all over the shelter's interior.

Once some warmth soaked into his body, he felt a whole lot better. Still felt like crap, but at least a warmer crap, which was obviously better. Wet clothes on him were still a problem, but he wasn't sure whether he should take them off or not. The rain was coming down pretty hard outside, and the cascade of the noise pounding on his eardrums gave him an unbearable migraine. Or it could be cold, he couldn't really tell.

As for the thirst, he knew better than to drink from the river. The bitter, repugnant taste was forever etched in his psyche now, and there was just no way in hell he'd gulp that down without purifying it first.

There was this Water Elemental Invocation that he had never try out before, as it required a large amount of Aeterna to pull off. The spell was called Water Vein Summoning. He heard about it being discussed when one of the farmers came to speak to Damien about his land not receiving enough water. Of course, he couldn't try it now, regardless of whether he was exhausted or not. Such a spell needed someone with a good Affinity with Water Element. Which he didn't.

The one other alternative he could think of was to purify the rain or the river water, but he haven't got the foggiest idea how to. And he had no confidence about succeeding either.

He was really thirsty, thinking of all the water. And he couldn't think properly, nor form a single, continuous line of thoughts with this pounding migraine playing a Thrash Metal number in his head. He felt drowsy as well. He mused those were one funny mixed bag of symptoms he got.

He did a quick mental check on how much Aeterna he had left. It was enough to sustain him for a bit, but the real danger wasn't him running out of the precious energy. It was actually encountering a Fiend or two before he fully replenished his supply by resting.

He had no battle experience other than what happened with the bandits. Even worse, he was not sure if any of the spells he knew could be used as a means of attack. Maybe the Wind Blade, but then, it could only cut up to a thickness of human wrist. It wasn't powerful enough. Not yet, anyway.

He did blind one bandit with Firelight, and also, most certainly killed another by accident, but he had this gut feeling that when fighting a Fiend, an unpredictable monster, he'd need lots more than simple luck.

He heard a distant roar, that snatched his attention right back away from the drowsiness. It sounded like it came from a far away, but the level of its fierceness didn't diminish not one bit. The vibration from the roar shook his innards, and he almost threw up again. Good thing, he had nothing to throw up in his gut, otherwise he'd have to work extra to clean out the sick.

He wondered about just what kind of monster could make such a loud racket. It could be the dragon Derrick mentioned before.

Grimacing, Kain sighed weakly. “Oh, man. Just how the hell am I gonna survive?”

As to mock his despair, another roar issued out from the depths of the forest. It was a different Fiend, judging from the sound. Another powerful, awful monster he was not looking forward to having a meeting with.

He felt scared and frustrated. And helpless too, all at the same time. He felt so small and weak. Depressed, he could think of nothing at all anymore.

It wasn't easy to make out anything in the rain. All the sights and sounds were masked by the insistent falling water drops,and he began to develop an irrational hatred for it.

All he wanted now, more than anything, was to go home.

He hugged his knees close, and slowly buried his face in the crook of his arms.

He drifted off to a fitful sleep, small but warm fire flickering away on an equally small pile of dried up wood.

I might post the second half of this chapter later today. Might not. Who knows how the future will turn out....

 

Spoiler: Chapter nineteen, part two.

Kain was surrounded by the faces of people he knew. Only, they were no longer people. Their flesh bloated, rotting, bloodied, bits falling off. Gray, fading bones exposed to the elements, decomposing internal organs on show.

These bodies slowly approached, gripping him, not letting go. Their hollow, distant eyes accused him of living while they all died. They accused him of their death, pointing bony, decaying fingers at him, disfigured jaws opening and closing in perfect sync.

Kain denied it all. He shook his head fervently, denying it. None of their death was his fault. Those hooded men didn't come for him. It was just a coincidence, nothing more. He too was a victim of the circumstances and was not guilty.

“Stop!! Stop accusing me, damn you!!”

Kain woke up from his nightmare with a shout.

Before him, the fire he took so much pain to create was dying. Outside, the accursed rain had eased its angry pounding, but the calm had not been restored yet.

He heard winds howling sorrowfully, shaking the makeshift shelter like a washing machine on “rinse”.

All his muscles were numb. The dull and rhythmic drumbeat of a headache pulsed like a muffled bass of a really bad disco song.

Besides being thirsty, now he was beset with hunger too. Things were not looking up. He threw up everything in his stomach, and his body needed energy. Regardless of how he felt about stuff, he was still a growing child. Balanced nutrition was a must. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen here, however.

He tended to the fire and noticed that there weren't enough wood. At this rate, he would have to go out of the shelter and find more. Looking outside, he confirmed the rain had become a weak drizzle. Sighing, he decided to brave it, and head to the nearest tree.

He has been sitting in a huddled position with knees pressed to his chest, and his thigh muscles complained loudly when he tried to stand up. It felt like someone hit him on the back of the knees. It was painful.

He crawled for a bit until he got the blood circulation going on his legs. Even then, it was difficult to move, his body telling him its limits were reached already. Kain felt bitter about this – if he had been training his body, then at least he would be able to better endure the ordeal. As things stood, he was far too pampered for his own good.

“Whew. Should've gone on camping trips with dad or something.”

Kain sighed bitterly, mocking himself for looking back at a life that could have been but never was.

Briefly, he pondered why his previous family never spent much time together. They didn't even have a Sunday barbecue, just like how it was with most middle-income families.

“Yeah, there was something wrong with us. Definitely.”

He couldn't help but chuckle. Then he chuckled some more upon realizing that he's been speaking in English, not the native tongue of Argos Empire. He got used to talking in Noa's standard dialect, so it was actually strange to hear himself yapping in a language nearly forgotten. Not that anybody would understand anyway.

Ignoring the drizzle, Kain gingerly left the shelter and headed for the tree. It showed signs of abuse, most of them coming from him practicing the Wind Blade on it.

Once he reached it, however, he felt hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He came to a halt right there and then, and began to search up ahead with his eyes. He saw nothing other than the still darkness. Nothing moved, or breathed. But the creepy sensation didn't go away.

So, he instead tried to look at Aeterna fluctuations. All things attracted Aeterna to some degree, so as long as he could sense it, then he could also tell what might be lurking in the depths. He hoped that he was wrong, that there was nothing out there.

There was something there. Something large.

Something definitely not friendly.

A cold chill ran down his back.

Oh, crap. I got careless!! What do I do now?!

His feet got stuck, unmoving. Gritting his teeth, he willed them to move and succeeded in retreating very slowly. He didn't want to make any sudden movements. He still had no clear idea what was hiding in the shadows, but at that moment it didn't matter. He couldn't fight it whatever it was, and running away was the only option on the table for him.

The space between the raging river behind and the dark, foreboding forest up ahead weren't all that big. By steadily retreating, Kain's back pressed against the temporary shelter's mud wall, and he couldn't move anymore.

More cold sweat broke out, but he had to move to his side. There was no choice here. Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, he shifted to his left.

Right then, it pounced.

A big, dark figure shot out like a flash of gunfire.

It was a minor miracle that he somehow managed to dodge its unfurled claws by slipping and falling on the wet and muddy surface.

Once out of the dark confines, Kain could finally see what it was.

It was a black panther. But it was bigger than a 4 by 4. Much bigger.

He recalled seeing its images in the bestiary back at Riverfield. So it wasn't a Fiend nor an Awakened, just a regular, hungry apex predator out for a meal.

Of course, he had no plans on sating its appetite whatsoever.

Since it wasn't a Fiend, he thought that he could chase it away by somehow scaring it.

Knowing that it was just an animal and not a bloodthirsty Fiend, he felt oddly calm, surprising himself somewhat. Even though it was too large to be normal, he still felt not as threatened as before. Normally, he should have freaked out by now.

He had a bit of confidence that he could handle a normal animal just fine, as long as he used the right Invocation at the right time. But he knew better than to become cocky. Nothing killed faster than being conceited, after all.

The panther looked at the boy and snarled menacingly. Its bright, beady eyes firmly locked on him and nothing else. Its jaws slacked slightly, thick drool mixing with the drizzle. Its pink tongue slathering about its fangs, as if it's already savoring the flavor of human flesh.

Because of the adrenaline, Kain's headache lessened a lot. He felt alert and ready. All that heaviness clouding his thoughts were blown away, allowing him to formulate a plan of escape quickly.

He could scare it away using either Fire or Earth Elemental Invocations. If he could use it, Lightning Type would have been ideal, but he didn't know how. Besides, it was raining, so there was a chance he might get sucked into the spell's effect as well.

It continued to snort, slowly circling the boy, its tail wagging this way and that. After maintaining the distance between them for a minute or two, it lowered its posture, and leaped forward, charging at Kain's direction. It was fast.

He was about to cast an Earthen Wall right in its face when, in the corner of his eye he picked up yet another movement.

Before he could even lift a finger, this new player engulfed the panther and gobbled it up in one gulp.

His brain froze. But he could still come up with some words as a natural reaction to the scene playing right in front of him.

Holy. Mother. Of. A. Freaking God!! Is that, is that a goddamn T-rex?!

Once he came up with the appropriate words, he woke up from the daze, and he started running in the opposite direction, as fast as his short legs could carry him. No way on god's green earth he was going to stay around to observe that huge, brown scaled lizard-type Fiend having a nice little cat-flavored snack.

He ran like a madman through the whipping branches, losing the track of time, moving ever deeper into the dark forest. Not even the shortness of breath bothered him.

One little sentence continued to echo in his head, whispering like a small devil sitting on his shoulder.

“......This place is cursed.......”

It seemed like there was some evidence to back up that claim.

Every one of the trees and shrubs blocking his ingress looked identical. No matter how far he ran, it might as well that he was standing still. If it weren't for the rude slaps on his face from the sharp branches and leaves, he'd have thought that he was indeed not moving forward at all.

That illusion got painfully shattered when an exposed root tripped his ankle, and he tumbled down a small but steep incline, ending up in a ditch at the bottom.

The rain had washed off the mud off of him. The tumble down the slope coated him head to toe with the brown stuff once more.

He was too spent to get up. He couldn't even lift a finger. Let alone move a leg. It was clear that he was done with the running. Not because he was no longer scared, no, but because his five-year-old physique just couldn't take the abuse anymore.

All around him, sinister, crooked and ugly trees leered at him. After five years of getting used to nice, friendly, shade-providing trees of Riverfield, he couldn't help but shudder at these haunting vegetation that seemingly leaped straight out of a very bad nightmare. It certainly did his nerves no good whatsoever.

It felt like there were eyes staring at him, leering at him. Watching, waiting, until he was lying dead on the ground so they could feed on his corpse.

Bastards. As if I'd let you.

Mustering what little strength he had left, Kain dragged and propped up his tired body against a wall of exposed earth. The drizzle doggedly found its way down, even with the dense canopy made up of intertwining branches and leaves above blanketing the overhead. As if it's only mission was to soak him to the bones.

He was too tired. He was too fatigued to cast any more Invocations, meaning that building another shelter was not possible currently. The ditch he crawled into had a small overhead cover and the falling raindrops didn't bother him as vigorously as before. That helped a little.

The goddess of a sweet slumber beckoned him ever so gently, and he was inclined to accept the tempting invitation.

But he resolutely refused.

Sleep was not a luxury he could afford at the moment. Not when he sensed many, many weird, unsettling Aeterna all around him. Like a toxic miasma, a fog of uncertainty pulled a wool over his eyes, obfuscating all before him.

Damn it, I need to focus. Wake up, me!!

Kain slapped his own cheeks hard, trying to stay awake.

Right, I need to find a new shelter, make new fire, and for real, find something to eat.

He thought about catching a rabbit or something, a prey small and non-threatening so he could hunt in relative safety. He hesitated slightly on catching rabbits though, after recalling something about their meat. It was no good as a wilderness survival food because it lacked fat. It was too lean, and so was not a good idea to rely on that exclusively.

He thought about catching birds instead. He could improvise another Wind type Invocation and knock one off the air. It sounded quite simple to execute. Reflexively he looked above him, but maybe because of the weather, he saw not a single bird, not even one perched on the numerous, crooked branches.

He decided to wait until the end of the rain. Then go on a hunting spree. A small pool of drool formed on the corner of his mouth as he thought of all the possibilities.

Right, don't forget. I've gotta do this quietly.

He didn't want to rouse the attention of that lizard monster, that huge Fiend, from before. At first glance, it resembled a T-Rex, but now that he was somewhat calmer, it looked more like a super-sized Komodo Dragon. Or maybe a Gila lizard.

Whatever the case may be, that Fiend was no cuddly, kid-friendly neighborhood mascot. It could even be poisonous. It went without saying, that he needed to stay as far away as humanly possible from that creature.

But he could still faintly sense that Fiend's Aeterna in the distant. He was fairly sure of it approaching where he was hiding. As long as he kept on sensing its presence via his Aeterna.... vision, he would be alright, but still, he was worried about the fact that he couldn't even see something that huge until it suddenly appeared to swallow whole the panther.

And judging by all the reaction he got through his Aeterna vision, that Fiend wasn't the only danger in this forest.

There was no way he would be able to hurt that kind of Fiend with his puny powers, so should another creature with just as much ferocity and size appear before him, then he'd be royally shafted for good.

It was truly a miracle that he escaped from the predicament unscathed. He thought that the lizard Fiend didn't even see him as an appetizer, due to his tininess. Which was a blessing in disguise, really.

One thing for sure, with those thick-as-a-tank, impermeable-to-all-things scales covering the whole body of the Fiend, he wasn't going to leave a single scratch mark on it no matter how sharp the edges of his Wind Blade were going to be.

All he could do was sigh and lament his weakness. Also his rotten luck too.

With more of those monster roaming about, the thing about this forest being cursed sounded right to him.

No, wait. Snap out of it, me!!

He shook his head, admonishing himself for only thinking of negative things. He needed to keep a level, cool head, so he could survive in this place.

Stay focused. Focused!! Yes. Yes, I can do it. I'll live through this. And I'll make my way back to Riverfield. You just watch. I'll go home. I'll be damned if I lose a home twice in a row.

….

….....I am going home. No matter what.

I'm almost done with the chapter 20 as I type this.... Should I post it later? Hmm...

 

Spoiler: Chapter twenty, part one.

Twenty


Kain set upon immediately to disguise the ditch with Earthen Walls. He may be still thirsty and hungry, but by resting, he had recovered enough Aeterna to cast his most trusted spell. This way, he made a new shelter that didn't stand out too much from the surroundings, that blended in pretty well with the small hill itself. Plus, there was enough wiggle room for him inside. With a little housekeeping, he could stay here indefinitely.

He took another break after finishing the shelter. He was low on energy after all, and couldn't sustain any extended activity. Feeling somewhat secure, he ended up drifting into a soft slumber, but only to wake up when he heard a sound he shouldn't have.

It was a distant, eerie laughter.

He snapped out, and became alert immediately. He quickly spread his sense of Aeterna to see if anything's amiss, but there were none. It was as if he was hallucinating.

It probably was. The laughter was that of a girl, playful but ephemeral and fleeting. He told himself it was his mind just recalling Kaleena's laughter from the past, because of his homesickness.

The rain had stopped, and the sun was out from the overcast clouds. By his estimation, it might not rain for the rest of the day. He could be wrong, but still, this was good. He would use this opportunity to hunt for food.

Procuring sustenance was the utmost priority. His belly has been growling so hard, he got scared that the noise might alert the nearby Fiends. That would not have been nice at all.

Confirming there weren't any man-eating creatures nearby, he carefully slipped out of the hiding place and started his search for birds. There were audible chirps coming from above, signaling they were indeed out and about. Strangely though, he couldn't spot a single one.

And so, Kain wasted an hour trying to locate a bird. He became pretty desperate, so eventually, he decided to expand the scope of his search to include even the small animals. At that point, even rabbits were fine because he needed food so bad.

His searches were regularly interrupted by the massive Fiends the size of trucks and buses passing by, necessitating him to hide his presence, away from their sights. One common theme among these huge monsters were their sharp fangs. Even he could tell they were not herbivores. One bite, and he'd be a dead man. Hiding was all he could do.

He had to rely on his Aeterna sense for the survival. It was impractical to do so all the time, however. It drained his stamina, and if he was too fatigued, then that would be curtains for him, for real. But it was truly an emergency situation, so there was no helping it. He had to rely on it, and push himself hard.

When he couldn't find anything, he decided to change tact. Rather than aimlessly wandering around, he'd stand still, and observe instead. Be still with nature, become as non-threatening as possible in the eyes of the small critters.

Coupled with his Aeterna sense, his patience eventually paid off. He was able to spot well-camouflaged birds sitting on the branches, unmoving.

Kain was understandably elated. However, his excitement cooled down quickly after that. Because it turned out that finding a prey and hunting the said prey were two very different things.

He was able to pinpoint the location of a bird, but trying to snipe it with a Wind type Invocation was an exercise in frustration.

The big issue was that he had no formal training, lacking knowledge in many different spells for the different occasions. He had to use an improvised spell to get by, and that was not sufficient enough.

Just like it was with a Wind Blade, he modified Breeze into a sniper rifle-like spell thinking the idea might give him the necessary penetrating power he needs. But then, he lacked a projectile that could act as a bullet. So he picked up small pebbles and rocks. Two problems reared their ugly heads with his attempt at becoming a hunter.

All living things, be that birds or rabbits, ran away the moment they sensed disturbance around them. Kain couldn't hit a moving target at all, no matter how many times he tried. He needed practice and experience for that.

Secondly, he simply lacked enough oomph to propel the pebble into a killing weapon. It needed to be really fast, but he just couldn't do it. All that trying led to him wasting more time and energy, nearly depleting his Aeterna Pool.

No matter how he looked at it, things were not going well at all. In hindsight, he hadn't thought this through properly.

But desperate struggles for survival could bring forth an amazing miracle. A lucky event that can only be described as a heaven-sent.

When another attempt failed to hit a medium-sized bird sitting well hidden on a branch, it flew off with ruffled feathers. But rather than running off like the usual, this foolhardy avian creature swooped down and went straight for Kain's head instead. It was clearly going for a retaliatory strike.

Instinctively, he raised his hands to defend his poor head, and fired off an Invocation with his eyes closed out of fear. He wasn't even fully aware of what spell he cast, but whatever it was, it worked splendidly.

The speeding bird slammed hard into an invisible barrier mere inches from his face, and fell down on the ground. Its neck was bent at an uncomfortable angle, as if someone had twisted it hard. It wasn't the first time Kain caused death with a broken neck, and his luck netted him one more victim to add to the list.

He was dazed for a second, trying to understand what just happened. He picked up the limp bird, and it hit him – he cast a spell of Earthen Wall, except he did that with Wind Element. So, he ended up with.... Wind Wall instead. Or was that an Air Wall?

It was all done reflexively, to protect his body from harm. But now, he somehow lucked into a meal thanks to that.

Realizing that he finally tasted success, Kain fell on his knees and thanked whatever deity that provided him with this glorious, life-saving meal.

But again, his enthusiasm cooled quickly once more. A new problem came to light when he tried to pluck the feathers. He had no idea how to prepare this game.

He didn't know how to skin it. He had no idea what to do at all with blood and the internal organs. What about its brain? Just thinking about the gooey mess caused him to lose appetite.

Oh, man. How the heck should I eat this thing?! Dang it, if it isn't one headache after another. Gimme a freaking break.

And looking at the dead bird in his hands, he felt slightly melancholic. He took a life without hesitation. It didn't matter that this wasn't his first time doing that. It still felt wrong somehow and the ordeal left a bad taste in his mouth.

In the end, what's done was done. There was no going back. In order to survive, he had to kill. Even though he understood this cruel and uncaring fact of life, he still felt like he had chewed on a cockroach or something equally bitter.

What a screwed up way of living. Or is it just me who's being too sentimental?

As he stood around feeling conflicted, he was completely unaware of a pair of eyes observing him. Of course, there was no way he would ever feel them – the eyes probing his actions were situated a huge distance away.

There was no malice in those deep, mysterious stares, only the sparkling glint of interest, as it continued to probe the boy silently.

~

In the end, he ate the bird faster than humanly possible. That was the power of unjust starvation at work. Kain got a small flame going once more, and he roasted the whole bird in one go. Using the newly-developed Wind Blade, he cut the meat in half, and ravenously dug into it, not even bothering to return to his shelter.

The smell of sizzling flesh was too much for his ravaged psyche and he lost all decorum. The taste he experienced in that moment was the single most life altering one ever, unlikely to be forgotten for the rest of his life. It was that good.

But he still held onto enough sense to avoid eating the internal organs, as well as its head, not to mention the feathers. As expected, he couldn't go past the gross factor of those gooey organs and the brain. He had his limits, and those were in danger of breaching them.

The remains were buried beneath a mound of dirt he dug quickly after the meal. It was to hide any traces of him being here, lest some Fiend catches on and seeks him out. He did not want that to happen, obviously.

Still, to be prudent, he moved away from the area. Since he was now quite confident of his chances at catching his meals, he had no problem moving from this particular area which was well stocked with birds. He was able to hunt any type of birds now, so he wouldn't go hungry, as long as he remained careful of his surroundings and utilize his Aeterna sense to its fullest.

After moving, he hunted for a while longer. He'd rouse the hiding birds from the tree branches, and when they take flight, strike them down with Wind Wall. It worked 90% of the time, rapidly turning this day into a good one for him.

Of course, he had to evade some troublesome Fiends and other, large fearsome predators roaming the forest. Thanks to Aeterna sense, Kain could avoid the biggest ones since they were easiest to spot, but since his detection range wasn't all that stellar, the small to medium sized ones posed serious challenges.

He'd hunker down, and stop breathing until the giant creatures sauntered by. This happened infrequently though, and he didn't get discovered once. Scary, but they all counted as a learning experience for him. At the rate he was going, he might morph into a first class shinobi in no time.

He did become painfully aware of his lack of power and a serious need to come up with other, more effective Invocation spells as quickly as possible. His current set of spells were too inadequate, too limited in scope. He wasn't going to stay breathing for long at this rate.

The forest was too full of dangers at every turn – from easy-to-miss poisonous plants of various sizes and guises to giant centipedes spewing out toxic gasses, from purple colored insects that shoot out corrosive acids to giant scorpions with metallic carapaces, from ten-feet tall roosters with oily feathers to dinosaur-looking monsters as tall as a building, this place was a choke-a-full of super Fiends that would be classified as Walking Disasters in a modern context.

Never mind killing one, Kain wouldn't even be able to leave a scratch. The disparity of strength was too much.

Without his Aeterna sense, he would have died a dozen times over. By the time he made his way back to the ditch after a bout of successful hunting session, the irrational hatred he developed for this forest grew exponentially. If he had power, he wouldn't hesitate burning down every inch of this place. Good thing then, that he lacked such an ability to go mad at will. Not yet, anyway.

~

Kain fell asleep as soon as he returned to the ditch.

And during his fitful slumber, he was beset with yet another dream of questionable caliber.

He dreamed a dream where he was flying.

Not falling, like that time when he came to this world, but flying properly. With wind on his face and warm sun kissing his cheeks, accompanied by the feeling of liberation.

For the first time after falling into this forest, he felt content and safe.

He looked down and saw the forest of Tetamus Range beneath. It was far, and to his delight, it was definitely not getting closer. He was flying for real.

Overjoyed, he flew around for ages until finally, he noticed that he was no longer alone in the sky. He shifted his gaze behind, and saw a darkish, gigantic mass of convulsing.... things, nearing him at a breakneck pace.

Alarmed, he squinted his eyes, trying to get a good look at just what it was, and received a shock of his life. That mass was entirely made up of all the birds he had hunted and eaten.

The dream devolved into a nightmare in a heartbeat.

Kain flapped his arms faster and faster in vain, hoping to increase his flying speed. But the humongous black mass caught up with him in no time at all.

The angry birds swarmed him, pecking him, slapping him with their wings, punishing him for stealing their lives.

Oh, god!! Help me!! I'm sorry, I'm really sorry for eating you. I was so hungry, I had no choice. Please, please forgive me!!

Kain shouted at the top of his voice. Not a single sound came out. Not even a squeak.

Then, before he noticed, the faces of all the people who died replaced the heads of the dead birds. They sang in unison, accusing him again and again. Same old nightmare, now with extra added flavor.

He was sweating profusely. He was delirious. He lost all his bearings. Eventually, he fell towards the verdant sea below, screaming silently.

Mercifully, a loud explosion jolted him wide awake from the nightmare, as the entire ditch shook like an earthquake. The concussive vibration was strong enough to dismantle the Earthen Wall he put up as the door like a pile of falling Lego bricks.

Outside, it was raining heavily once again.

Kain hurriedly extended his Aeterna sense outward. He may have just woken up, but he was already alert and poised to take action. He saw the need to quickly figure out the source of that explosion, and determine the level of the threat on his life.

In front of the ditch, there used to be countless thick bushes and twisted trees growing abundantly, to a point where one couldn't even see anything past them. Not anymore.

Every object in front of him was totally leveled. Flattened to the ground, as if a truck full of TNT had gone off nearby.

But he knew it wasn't some modern explosives causing all this destruction, but something just as powerful and large. And certainly, just as deadly.

 

Spoiler: Chapter twenty, part two.

Outside his shelter, he saw that dinosaur-like giant lizard, the one he ran away from earlier, thrashing about violently.

Kain froze on the spot. Not even a curse word entered his mind.

It has been a few days since he saw this huge Fiend, and it still looked as imposing and scary as before. Longer than an eighteen wheeler, taller than a building when it stood on its hind legs. The rows of sharp, serrated teeth coated in thick, drool-y mucus. Muscular biceps cracking with hideous strength. A tail thicker than a pipeline transporting crude oil. Scales as thick as a tank armor.

He was so, so very small compared to this monstrosity.

Thankfully, it's attention was focused elsewhere, sparing Kain from a quick, immediate and painful death. Almost exclusively, it was facing the other way from his position, which was a good news.

Of course, it didn't mean he was safe here. That massive tail swayed violently this way and that only a few inches from where his Earthen Wall used to stand. He didn't have to think too hard to figure out the culprit responsible for knocking down his muddy and improvised door.

He wanted to move away from this spot, but a cold fear of being discovered gripped his limbs and wouldn't let go. If he moved just a whisker, then this Fiend would sense him and attack. Because of this cloying fear, he even forgot to breathe.

Before his face went blue from the lack of oxygen, Kain finally noticed the reason why this Fiend was not looking at his direction. There was something in front of it, hovering in mid-air.

Even from this distance, he could make out the shape of a bird, as big as a falcon, completely ablaze in crimson flames.

If he didn't know better, he would have said that was a phoenix.

It was an awfully small one though, especially compared to the enormous lizard Fiend. The phoenix was no bigger than one of its claws. Maybe even smaller.

This size disparity between the two cooled his enthusiasm quickly. From his point of view, there was just no way a bird that small could triumph over a creature a hundred times its size. That was not logical.

Also, there was more important matter of him still stuck in a dangerous position, still pinned to the entrance of his ditch, a giant tail swinging close to his face. One hit from that, and he'd kiss his life goodbye.

The falling rain bounced off on the lizard Fiend's thick murky brown scales, and the distinctive roars of water breaking apart from the impact ricocheted around loudly.

The fiery avian creature moved, unhindered by all the water around it. A fine mist of steam rose near its flames, its high body temperature dissipating the rain well before the creature was affected by all that douching.

At the moment, the two seemed to have reached a stalemate, amazingly enough. Both of them didn't move from their respective positions, nor did they take their eyes off each other. Kain felt the thick tension in the air, thick and heavy enough to slice it clean with a knife.

There were wounds on the lizard Fiend's body. As for the phoenix, he couldn't see, but that was mostly due to the flames covering its body. The way things stood, he thought that the bird had a slight upper hand. Which was quite incredulous.

Fascination gripped him. He too, couldn't tear his eyes off the two, fearing that if he did, he might miss something miraculous. His heart pounded hard, fear and anticipation coursing through his veins like a drug, numbing his senses from every input other than what's right in front of him. Even his Aeterna sense came on.

Why aren't they fighting? Why isn't the lizard attacking right away? It has the size advantage, and that thick armor plating. Surely, a puny little bird should not stand a chance against that huge thing. Are they...., uh, sizing each other up?

His Aeterna sense told him the answer, as soon as he looked at the bird.

That phoenix was absurdly strong. Maybe, even stronger than the Fiend. These two locked in a stalemate wasn't all that surprising, in light of this revelation. It still could go either way at a drop of a pin, but as far as strength was concerned, size no longer mattered. At least that's how Kain thought at that moment.

The amount of energy pulsating from the two of them were incomparable to Kain's own pathetic little supply. He didn't even feature into this situation – he might as well be an invisible existence, forgotten by everything and everyone.

He was a merely a spectator, or maybe a speck of dust.

Now that he knew how powerful the fiery bird was, he hoped sincerely in his heart that the creature didn't see him as food. If it did, then, he had to admit that was something of a poetic justice, since he preyed on birds extensively himself.

Whatever the case may be, it was stupid to stay here and tempt fate. It was time he hightailed it outta there.

He took the chance, and moved to his right ever so slightly. That was a mistake.

Nothing more than a twitch from him, and both of the monsters spotted him. Just like that.

The phoenix had the disdainful, arched-eyebrow facial expression, as if to ask him, what the heck are you doing, kid?

The lizard on the other hand, stared at Kain with one of its beady, googly eyes, then suddenly, whipped its huge tail at him as one would swat a fly.

There was no time to think. He just reacted. He threw up multiple Earthen Walls and Air Walls with no regard for Aeterna consumption, trying to make them as sturdy as possible, while diving backwards.

Also, he did something he had never done before, out of the instinctive desire to protect his body from harm – wrapped his entire self with Aeterna, like a protective membrane, a force-field energy shield, so to speak. In other words, a rudimentary Body Enhancement spell.

All of these consumed massive amount of his Aeterna reserve in one go. Still, he had no guarantee he would make it from the impact. He rolled himself into a ball, raising his arms and knees to cover his face and chest.

The thick tail smashed through all the barriers with a comical ease that beggared belief. However, each Wall managed to slow the speed down gradually and by the time it slammed into his torso, it was no longer as deadly as before.

Still, Kain felt all the air being forced out of his lungs from the impact. His heart stopped beating for a second, and his blood flow halted.

He nearly blacked out from the wringing pain. Quite literally, he could remember nothing from the impact other than thinking that he was just a pesky little fly in the eyes of the giant lizard Fiend. That was all he amounted to in this forest.

When he recovered, the very first thing he did was to inspect his body for any serious injuries. As far as he could tell, no bones were broken, and other than sharp aching coming from here and there, he was okay. Those aches told him he would feel the brunt of all this damage tomorrow.

If he manage to live through the night, that was.

Somehow, he didn't die from the attack. On top of that, he avoided getting hurt too badly. When he thought about it, the rudimentary protection he created in a hurry saved his bacon.

Derrick mentioned in passing that Body Enhancement came in many different flavors – not his words – and if Kain wanted an example, he just got one.

Now that he did it once, he could remember the feeling. With a little more practice, then he'd be able to cast it with his eyes closed. Provided, he lives through the night. Obviously.

While all this was happening, the flame covered bird initiated an attack. There was a second of opening created when the giant Fiend swiped its tail on Kain. The assault of the phoenix was impressively fast, swooping in a graceful arc. The sharp claws aimed straight for those beady eyes of the lizard.

At the very last second, the lizard turned its head, and the phoenix narrowly missed its intended target. Instead, the lizard's ear was torn apart, capacious amount of blood shooting out as a result.

As if the pain surprised it, the lizard Fiend thrashed even more wildly. The ground rumbled and quaked like a middle of stampede by an enraged Wildebeest herd.

Kain had to dive again as fast as his reactions could act as the pointy, scaly tip of the rampaging lizard's tail swung by where he used to stand, gouging out a chunk of ground in an explosive fashion.

He continued to dodge by rolling on the ground from side to side, the erratic movement of the thick appendage making it difficult to predict just where it might come down next.

He had to create as much distance as possible. That was the only way he'd survive this ordeal. He was discovered already, so acting timidly to remain hidden no longer mattered. Now, it was literal do or die situation.

He took half a dozen steps before a crazy thought popped into his head, halting his movement.

There must be something I can do to stop the dang lizard from tearing the whole forest down. At this rate, no matter where I go, it will remain dangerous, like, forever!! What can I do?

It was mad for him to try something against these two monsters. Something inside him wouldn't submit to the obvious course of action, however. That something wanted him to at least get a sucker punch in, for the pain it caused him. That something wanted him to teach the overgrown lizard a lesson.

He shuddered at this crazy thought taking a firm root in his head. His heart was definitely swayed.

He lacked power to deal any critical damage to the lizard, never mind the phoenix. But he still wanted to try, give it a shot, however long the odds were.

It was preposterous.

Yet his feet wouldn't budge. He bit his lips, and turned his gaze towards the two entities battling in the middle of nowhere, causing utter devastation. Numerous trees were flattened, the ground were gouged, rocks were smashed, the land was on fire, and the persistent rain kept on pounding from the gray, overcast heavens.

A scene of Apocalypse. And he was thinking of participating in it. It was pure madness. Normally, he'd never, ever even think of joining in the fray.

But he knew.

If he just ran now, then the Fiend, specifically the lizard, would come after him. Or not. But his gut told him it would. It could run faster than him. If it gave chase, then no matter what, he would die. So, he had to deal with it if he wanted to flee.

It was better to defeat it here, right now, and cut the budding seed of trouble before it bloomed.

He only knew one spell powerful enough to give him a fighting chance.

Earthen Wall.

When he cast this spell to make a wall of soil, the corresponding amount of it came from the ground below. If he were to make a ginormous wall of soil, then the amount of dirt needed would be equally ginormous. If he wanted to, then he'd be able to open up a huge hole on the ground. One big enough to trap the lizard inside. One deep enough to prevent it from climbing out of. Or, even burying it underground altogether.

The principle of digging a hole shouldn't be too different from the ones he dug to hide all the bones and entrails of the avian victims he caught. If it was deep enough, then it would not be easy to climb out of, especially with all this falling rain making the ground mushy and soft, offering little to no grip.

He estimated that the spell this large might eat up all of his Aeterna reserve, and maybe even cause him to black out, but it could work. It was worth the gamble, if he wanted to live for longer.

The biggest worry left was the phoenix's eating habits. As long as it was vegetarian, he wouldn't have any problems with it. If not....

This certainly was a worrisome matter, but for some reason, he felt it was fine to take the chance. He felt he could trust the flame-covered bird and not get burnt in the process.

He began to gather Aeterna and slowly exerted control over it.

Meanwhile, the phoenix smoothly dodged snapping jaws of the giant lizard Fiend with grace. From afar, it looked like as if the much smaller bird was simply toying with the bigger Fiend, but Kain knew better.

The battle was physically demanding, draining the bird's stamina constantly. It was only a matter of time until it ran out of steam.

The rain didn't help. After all, Fire Element naturally had a so-called opposing Aeterna Nature against Water Element. Through his Aeterna sense, he knew the phoenix was utilizing Fire Element to its utter limits, enveloping its entire body in eternal flames.

But the falling raindrops contained minute amount of naturally-occurring Water Element in them. One or two splashes were fine, but as long as the fight dragged on, the disadvantages would only grow. It might looked confident, arrogant, even, but the phoenix sure was not in any enviable position at all.

To make matters worse, the giant lizard had one more trick up its sleeve.

When the flame bird launched another swooping attack aimed at the lizard's head, the giant monster shot out multiple lengthy protrusions from its scales without warning.

Those things looked sharp enough to cleave a mountain. If one was to get hit by one of those, it'd hurt quite a lot.

The bird reacted a fraction too late. It twisted its body midflight, and managed to avoid hitting it head-on, but still crashed into the side of one of the protrusions. The resulting impact was forceful enough to break the said protrusion clean off the Fiend's scales, knocking the bird off the air. The phoenix spectacularly crash landed, raising an almighty cloud of dirt in the process.

The sucker-punched avian creature slid ungracefully on the mud, until eventually coming to a stop near Kain's feet.

This was bad.

Oh, crap, crap, crap. Don't draw the dang lizard's attention over here, you stupid bird!!

The phoenix twitched weakly, barely alive. Most of the flames covering its body had died out.

It was nearly dead – and soon, Kain would be too, judging by the way that ugly lizard Fiend was leering at where he was.

Kain grimaced, biting his lower lip in frustration.

Ah, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon!! Stupid Aeterna, gather and form already!! I command you with my mighty will!! Make a big-ass sinkhole, right now!!

The Fiend skulked over leisurely to him in that lizard-like gait.

The Invocation was taking too long to prepare. With no guarantee of it working, he was rightfully nervous. It was too late to turn around now. Now or never.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he prayed. To whom, he didn't know. It didn't matter anyway.

He heard a soft laughter of a girl, distant and echoing, fleeting and surreal. But he had no time to check where that mysterious sound came from.

Because, right then, he felt a ton of Aeterna leave him in an instant. It was the familiar feeling of an Invocation spell activating.

Almost immediately, he heard a loud boom, followed by the earth shaking like crazy.

He slowly opened his eyes. Good news was, that he was okay.

Even more good news, he confirmed that the ground right in front of him had opened up, and the giant Fiend took a quite tumble towards the bottom in a comical fashion.

He stood on the edge and checked how deep the hole was. It was really, really deep. Deep enough to reach the door to Hades, even.

That felt oh-so satisfying.

As Kain peered over the edge to the hole's depth, the Fiend raised its bruised and dirtied head, confused at the sudden change in scenery. He could tell this monster was stuck there for good, with no way to climb out, at least not right away.

“Ha! Hahaha!! How's that, for trying to bully me, you big dumbass?! Hey, wait a sec. Did you just eyeball me? Huh, what? You angry or something? Eh? So what are you gonna do? Nothing, that's what!! Boo-yeah, eat that!! Hah!”

Kain stood over the edge triumphantly and shouted at the top of his lungs like a madman. His words were laced with maniacal cackle, and even if the Fiend didn't understand human speech, it would still get the gist of the words thrown at its face.

It was quite a proud creature, so to be humiliated to this extent by an insect-like being, it was deeply infuriated. Angrily, it thrashed and stomped around, causing the ground to shake violently. Kain almost lost his balance and fell inside the hole, only managing to regain his footing inches away from the edge.

He went pale from that near-death experience, and retreated quickly. He couldn't help but wipe the cold sweat on his brows, realizing that was too close for comfort. It would not have been funny if he fell in there along with the enraged Fiend the size of two double-decker buses. He could be wrong about the size, though.

Anyways, he at least knew he deserved a pat on the back. Celebrating his hard-earned victory, no matter how temporary, was in order. Hell, he still had a bit of Aeterna reserve left in his pool too, which was a pleasant surprise for him as well. From the size of the hole he figured that the spell should have sucked him dry.

“Well, see you around, buster. Or not!!”

Cackling, Kain turned around to run away, ignoring the ground still shaking beneath his feet. His worn boots pressed on the twitching bird, which, in all honesty, he had forgotten during all that excitement.

Looking at the pathetic state the bird was in, he arrived at a crossroad without realizing how he got there. He stood there, debating what to do.

Logically, he should leave it behind. He didn't know whether this bird was a friend or foe. His gut said it was the former, but he had no evidence. He could very well be wrong. And if he was, then the consequences were going to be deadly for him.

He could help it, somehow. He still had some Aeterna left. Like in comic books and wuxia novels, he could transfer that amount to this bird, and possibly get its fire going again.

But why should he help it? Because it was fighting against the giant lizard Fiend? No guarantee it was doing that for his sake. For all intents and purposes, it could have been a territorial dispute between two top dogs in this forest. So, once the phoenix revived, it might try to eat him. So why should he try to get it back on its feet?

Hmm. More headaches, huh.

A deep frown formed on Kain's face.

Spoiler: Bonus: Two Steps From Hell's Aeterna.

 

Spoiler: Chapter twenty-one, part one.

Twenty One


On a large clearing in a forest near the town of Somerset, a group of tents, with men and women of various races, stood erect. In the main tent, a number of people had gathered. Lizbeth, Damien, Derrick, plus a burly man. He was a leader of the guild of Adventurers Damien hired from the Somerset's Adventurer Association, to aid in the search for his missing son. The atmosphere inside the tent was tense, however.

“I apologize. There's nothing we can do anymore.”

The burly Adventurer from Somerset shook his head. He sighed and gave meaningful gazes at the other occupants inside a large tent.

“Well then, I shall supervise the withdrawal process.”

As he lifted the flap to the tent open, the roar of the falling rain entered, reminding everyone present inside the terrible condition they had to work in.

The sound of the falling rain remoselessly echoed in the silent tent. No one dared to raise a voice, different reasons affecting their ability to speak for the moment.

After a long while, the first person to break the lengthy, uncomfortable silence was Damien. Rather than speaking out, he angrily slammed down on the wooden table in front of him that had a map of the region on top. The table couldn't bear the brunt of the force, and got pulverized, shattering into million pieces.

The other two people present, Derrick and Lizbeth, didn't say anything else. Their expressions were just as grim and gloomy. In Lizbeth's case, she emitted a harsh aura deadly enough to frighten grown adults.

As for Derrick, he was slightly pale from the lack of rest. Ever since he defeated the assassins, he managed to get to Somerset with the survivors and urgently hired help to look for Kain. He took not a single hour of sleep as he searched for his nephew. Only when Damien and his wife arrived to join in, did he get a few hours to himself.

A week had passed by since then. The Monsoon season was in full swing, relentlessly dumping hundreds of liters of water on the world everyday. Visibility was poor, the footing was treacherous, and the constant lightning flashes threatened to strike those unwary men and women down below.

It was the worst set of conditions to search for someone.

The terrain made things more difficult; the overflowing river made it harder to launch boats to scour the bottom of the river. The surrounding forests around the river Anderlicht were vast, much more than that of Riverfield's, and contained numerous Fiends.

The hired Adventurers couldn't simply continue with the search. To them, a five-year-old boy would not have survived the fall from the cliff. And even if he did, the untamed wilds were teeming with one too many dangers. There was just no way he'd live through all that. As far as their feelings were concerned, this was not a rescue operation, but a recovery of a body.

Even that was hopeless. Owner-less remains were a free meal for the passing animals and Fiends. It'd be a miracle if a sliver of the boy's clothing were to be found at this stage.

It was not unreasonable for them to give up and return home. This was an errand with no good end to it. Rather than spending more time on it, it was better to find another assignments for the Adventurers and earn “Request Completed” tokens that'd help them advance in the rankings.

Damien and Lizbeth, of course, did not believe their son was dead. They simply couldn't. Derrick at first also thought the same, but with every passing day, he too had to concede the fact that the chances of them finding Kain alive was diminishing rapidly.

“I refuse to give up,” Damien growled like a wounded lion. “No. I will continue here. Damn it. There is the one sector we haven't searched yet. He could be there, waiting for us at this very moment!!”

Damien clenched his fist so hard, his nails broke skin and slight amount of blood drew up. Not noticing the pain, he picked up the fallen map and tried to find another flat surface where he could place it. Only then did he see the blood stain.

Frowning, he wiped it on his leather chestplate, ignoring it for now.

“Look at this place over here. Originally we couldn't go there, because it's too close to the mouth of the Tetamus. But that's the only area we haven't searched yet. The river easily could have carried him there.”

“Yes, it's possible. That area is dangerous, so if we're to go there, we must prepare thoroughly, and quickly.”

Lizbeth nodded, her eyes shining with determination.

Her motherly instincts told her that Kain was alive and well, trapped somewhere terrifying and fighting for his life at every moment. Time was of an essence, but she didn't lose heart. She just knew it, felt it in her soul that her son was still alive.

And she would do anything to ensure that. If that meant braving the dark, dangerous depths near the fabled and unexplored Tetamus Mountain Range, then so be it.

Derrick didn't say anything. He had never worked a rescue detail before, and lacked experience in dealing with these types of situations. He was a soldier, a knight trained in the art of war, not of humane actions. So, he didn't take the lead, nor did he readily volunteer useful-sounding ideas.

But even then, he felt compelled to voice his opinion.

“Hold on, you two. I wish to say something.”

He raised his hand and spoke in a firm, resolute manner. No hint of hesitation whatsoever in his voice.

“We don't have enough people with us to attempt a search in that area. Either we hire more, or.... I advise against going in that direction.”

Damien shot him a sharp look. So did Lizbeth.

Undeterred, Derrick continued.

“The Fiends become exponentially stronger the closer we get to the Tetamus Range. The hired Adventurers are planning to return to Somerset. Us three simply won't cut it. And remember, we all still have children to look after. Getting hurt, or worse, dying, will not help us, nor help Kain.”

“So, are you suggesting we abandon him?”

Damien spoke before Lizbeth could. But she was going to say something similar anyway, meaning there wasn't a need for her to rebuke her distant brother-in-law.

“No, that's not what I am saying. We need to hire more people. For a start, we need to rehire the current set of Adventurers before they depart. As long as there's money, then they will still cooperate. Then, hire more to expand the scope of the search.”

Damien clenched his fist tightly. He knew this already. It was just that, he had spent a large chunk of his wealth on this operation. There wasn't much left to hire more. Even if he called on his old acquaintances, it wouldn't be enough to sustain the search for his missing son.

“Excuse me,” a young Adventurer entered the tent hurriedly, carrying a letter with him. “This is from a person in Lafayette, named Dawson. It's marked urgent.”

“Give it to me.”

Lizbeth, who was closest to the exit, received the letter and quickly opened it. Before setting off to this part of the world to find their son, Damien requested Dawson to search for those men mentioned briefly during their conversation, the ones who were allegedly unfriendly with the Lomax family.

In return, Damien were to offer his fullest cooperation in regards to the mysterious, world-changing item Lady Valette supposedly had hidden with her. Of course, the item was now in Damien's possession.

If the origins of the assassins were uncovered, then he was going to offer it up as the suitable reward. He was clearly grasping at straws. According to Derrick, who fought off the attackers, they were seemingly after Kain.

This revelation angered him much.

To send a squad of men proficient in murdering for his kid, he swore to find the men responsible and make them bleed, regardless of who they were.

He didn't think it was a coincidence that those “unfriendly” men were present in Lafayette the very week his son was trying to get his Invocation talents appraised. It could very well be, but he didn't want to take that chance. If it was a lead, then he'd pursue it.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do that personally. He had to find his son first. Everything else came second.

Rosy was taking care of Kaleena and Katrina, here at the base camp. That was one less thing to worry about. Still, he left Riverfield in a hurry, leaving behind a chaotic village under the threat of the Monsoon season.

Well, it will be alright – those old village elders know what to do, in my absence. The village will be fine. Do not worry about them.

Damien believed in the elders. They were living there a long time before he arrived to take charge of the place. It stood to reason that the village would remain even if he wasn't there to guide it. It was just that, he had left too hastily. He just hoped there weren't any confusion in the village itself, what with their lord suddenly vanishing from his duties. He did leave a quick message with the sitting militia captain but, miscommunication did happen occasionally. Especially more so, when it was an emergency situation.

The letter from Dawson held a simple message.

Found an underground broker, extracted information encouraging. Tracking the group of assassins, perhaps from the Far West. Expect further communique.

“The Far West....” Lizbeth slowly murmured those words. She handed the letter over to her husband, before turning to the young Adventurer. “How many men and women are still in base camp?”

“Two dozen, my lady,” he replied.

“Hold them fast. I shall speak to them about extending their contracts.”

Before leaving the tent, Lizbeth nodded at Damien, and they exchanged a meaningful look. Damien trusted her to make the sound judgment so he could let her call the shots regarding the Adventurer issue. For now, he had to plan out their next course of action. One false step, and they'd end up wasting valuable time. That was not what he wanted.

“Look, Derrick, at this map. Over here, at this part.”

Damien pointed to the spot of clearing near the river on the roughly drawn map. It was near where the river exited from the unscalable cliffs of the Tetamus Range.

This unnamed river, cutting through the mammoth geological feature of the wall-like cliffs, was the only way in or out of the Range, unless one knew how to fly. Due to unknown reasons, the water was deceptively rough and didn't allow anyone to easily approach.

The river flowed outward during most of the year, but only when it was the Monsoon season, the flow reversed. If Kain were to carry down by the river, then he could have ended up there, washing ashore.

As for the boy entering the Range itself, it seemed highly unlikely.

There was a strong whirlpool blocking the entry to the inner parts of the Range. The rotation of this phenomenom was such that, once swept up, one would end up getting spit out outside once more. When it rained this heavy, the whirlpool became even more obstinate, meaning nothing was going through there.

He believed His son was outside the Range. He had to. He felt that Kain was alive, so he had to believe that his son hadn't been swept up in that crazy swirling pool of water.

Derrick narrowed his eyes.

The clearing Damien pointed at seem like a good place to land a boat and go ashore. If the weather played ball, that was.

Currently, there was no way they'd get there using the river. Going through the forest was the only way. From their current position, it was another full day of hard travel to get there, as long as Fiends didn't interrupt the march.

Derrick felt this was wrong. No, not the desire to find the boy, but something else. He was not knowledgeable in search and rescue operations but, his logic told him that the boy couldn't have landed on that place Damien was pointing at. And even if he did, that place was too close to the Tetamus Range. It was too deep into the forest.

It was too dangerous a place for a squad of well-trained soldiers, let alone a small child. If they were to go that deep, then it was no longer a rescue, but a recovery instead. On that basis alone, it made little sense to spend more coin to procure extra help, or endanger lives to find a dead person. It simply wasn't worth it.

Before, it was a feeling of guilt stopping Derrick from saying it aloud, but he only now understood that this was a lost cause. The moment the boy fell in the water, he was gone. No way he'd survive that kind of fall, under that kind of conditions.

Obviously, this incident angered him greatly, as it highlighted his failures as a knight. He swore to protect, yet when the time came, he couldn't uphold his oath. All he could do was to grit his teeth in self-admonishment.

But now, with Damien about to commit further into a desperate and foolhardy journey into the dangerous Tetamus Range, Derrick felt it was his responsibilities to stop this. And allow his cousin grieve.

To give him, and Lizbeth, time to accept their loss. To give them time to grieve for their son, and move on.

In this world, lives were cheap. Many people died in unjust ways. Whether it was done by the Fiends, famine, natural disasters, plague or in the hands of other mortals, lives were ruthlessly taken away everyday. Just because Lafayette and Riverfield were peaceful, that did not mean it was safe throughout the whole of the Empire.

Thus, people learned to accept the passing of their beloved ones as the matter of course, as the journey of the life itself. One was born from the Ether, and returned to it when dead. A cycle of life.

“Damien....”

Derrick slowly grabbed his cousin's shoulder.

“What is it?”

“....It's time to go home now.”

“....What are you saying?”

“We've done all we could. There's nothing we can do here anymore.”

“You're giving up too early, Derrick. There's hope. Kain's alive.”

“Damien. It's more than two weeks already. Kain's.... It's been too long. If he's alive, then we would have found him by now.”

“You said it yourself. You never participated in a rescue op before. I have, plenty of times. I know what I'm doing.”

“In your experience, what's the window for finding the stranded alive?”

“That.... That doesn't matter, Derrick! I know Kain's alive. Damn it, man. Do not question me, I know my son is alive!! I know he's out there, shivering in the cold, waiting for his family to come and pick him up!!”

“Listen to me, Damien. Kain's gone. He's dead. Those assassins caused his death. Come to grip with the reality, of this situation!”

Angrily, Damien grabbed Derrick's collar and twisted it.

“You better be careful of what you say beyond this point.”

Damien stared hard at his cousin's eyes while emitting bloodthirst akin to a crazed lunatic, but then, he was startled at what he'd found in them.

He saw nothing but guilt and sadness. Something he never saw in Derrick before. He was an eye opener, for sure. Realizing this, Damien felt rather foolish.

What am I doing? Why am I getting angry at Derrick? He's just trying to help me.... I just need to.... I need to find my son....

Kain's smiling face flashed by in his mind. Then he imagined that he'd never get to see the boy again.

Damien let go of the hold on his cousin, suddenly losing strength in his limbs. He stumbled, and clattered into a crate of supplies with a bang. A wave of dizziness overwhelmed him in that instant, and he couldn't see anything, his vision blurring into a fog. He fell butt first, unable to stand back up again.

Derrick hurriedly tried to help him, but he was pushed back. Damien just waved his arm about, shaking his head.

The banging noise brought Lizbeth back into the tent, her face full of concern. She noticed the state her husband was in, and immediately realized what had transpired while she was unsuccessfully negotiating with the departing Adventurers outside in the pouring rain.

“Damien....”

She knelt besides him, and cradled his head. He was sobbing silently.

She too, began to quietly shed tears.

The Adventurers told her the hard truth. That her son was dead, that it was a fool's errand to continue this search. They said it was time she stop denying the reality and accept the situation as it was.

Watching this scene, Derrick became even more angry. Not at the couple, no, but at himself, and at the men behind this murderous scheme. He swore, under his breath, to bring all those responsible to justice, if it was the last thing he'd do.

Lizbeth held her love in her arms and while sobbing, she whispered to him softly.

“....I'm pregnant.”

 

Man I m so disappointed!
So they are gonna move on swearing to themselves that they would take better care of the new born and kaleena and forget that they had a son and many years later kain would come back only to find his family happy and well and with no place for himself
That was really too much sh*t man

 

Sorry 'bout that!!

Spoiler: Chapter 21, part two. Yep, I'm gonna use numerals from now on...

Dawson put down the quilt as he finished the status report, second of such letters he wrote today. One for Baron Lomax and his wife, and the other for his superior, back in Argos. He wrote the first letter earlier in the day and sent it via the messenger service in Adventurers' Association. As for the second one, he had to delay it slightly, due to a slightly unexpected development, a windfall of sorts coming his way.

A small sigh left his lips, as he felt cramping on his shoulders. He took off the heavy and cumbersome official Agent Robe long before and had slipped into less conspicuous garments, but still, the stiff muscles found their ways to bother him. He hasn't had a good rest ever since agreeing to find the culprits responsible for the assassination attempt. There were many matters to attend to even before this, and now, adding another one on top of the pile sure didn't help out with his resting schedule. How could he not sigh, under this kind of situation?

Well, in the end he didn't mind it, however. Such things came as the inescapable part of his job.

Besides, when he thought about it, he was not the one in a terrible bind.

Although he wasn't there, Dawson understood full well that young Kain wouldn't have survived the ordeal. Which was a pity, really.

He leaned back on the wooden chair, and thought back to the day he met the boy.

Dawson thought Kain had potential. For a five year old child, he certainly had an abnormally large Aeterna Pool. It was far too big, almost to the point where it didn't seem natural. Trained Invokers would have been quite jealous if it were known.

Special Agent Marcus Dawson was one of only a few people in the world who had learned a very special Invocation spell called The All Seeing Eye, belonging to the system of controlling Dark Elemental Aeterna.

At a glance, he could see the target's Aeterna Pool, and if he spent a little more Aeterna, even the Elemental Affinity. In the entire Empire, those capable of casting this spell could be counted on one hand, Dawson being one of those fortunate few.

And after seeing through Kaleena's Pool and her Affinities, Dawson was rather envious of Damien. To be able to produce two monsters in a row took some doing, like the gods intervening or the stars aligning perfectly at the exact moment. Or his seeds were just that potent.

These two children would've added a tremendous amount of firepower to the Empire's defenses. A pity, then, to lose one of them under such a suspicious circumstances.

Dawson did some investigation prior to his arrival at Riverfield, and knew of the assassination attempt at Kaleena's life over four years ago.

As he wasn't assigned to the case back then, he couldn't have known the finer details, but he wasn't a fool to dismiss that incident now, seeing that Baron Lomax's children were in the firing line once more. The evidence he compiled up to now, clearly showed that both of the incidents were connected, that it was done by the same culprits.

Now normally, he could have refused Baron Lomax's urgent appeal to locate those men Dawson took care of. After all, it didn't line up with his real mission, that of retrieving the Bagua Board. But his instincts as the Agent, built upon the foundation of two decades' worth of experience, told him it'd be good to lend a hand in the investigation.

He felt that Baron hid things from him, but unsure of what exactly. The location of the board? Doubtful. Lady Valette's likely whereabouts? Probably. And then, there was the matter of the case itself. His predecessor had no luck whatsoever in finding either Valette nor the Board for the ten years. So, Dawson thought that spending another few months currying a favor with a potential person of interest didn't seem like a total waste of time. What were a few months, when already 10 years flew by? The Board, or Lady Valette, wherever they were, they could wait a little longer.

He slowly scratched his chin, wondering about the current time. It was in the middle of the night, every soul in the near vicinity fast asleep. With the exception of the Agents under his beck and call, of course.

He told his subordinates to notify him, once about 40 momenta, one hour in modern time measurement, had passed. By his own estimation, there were only a grain or two of sand in the hourglass left before the time limit was reached.

If that's the case, then might as well.

Dawson stood up from the creaking chair, and stretched his shoulders. It was time, so he decided to move first. He checked his appearance and confirmed not a hair was out of place. He didn't mind going bald, as he made peace with that ages ago. All the males in his family went hairless from fairly young age, so he had to resign himself to the fate awaiting him. Not like there was an Invocation out there to stimulate hair growth or anything....

Sensing footsteps on the corridor belonging to one of his men, Dawson stifled a yawn and carefully lifted the oil lamp, the only source of light in the dark, sparsely furnished bedroom, situated on the upper-most floor in an abandoned three story building at the outskirts of Lafayette. This house, plus the surrounding land, belonged to a small-scale merchant based in the city, who was in reality, a sleeper Agent planted here as a local operative.

Outwardly, it was a well maintained but unremarkable piece of property, one where not many passersby would give it a second glance at. Such a place was pretty much perfect for the kind of work Dawson and his men had to perform on a regular basis.

Pushing open the wooden door, he encountered his subordinate, just about to knock on the door.

“No need.”

Dawson smiled thinly, fully well knowing he timed it perfectly, giving himself a small spike of pleasure from seeing the bewildered facial expression of the Agent in front of him. This man was new at his post and wasn't fully aware of his superior's penchant for deriving happiness from unexpected places, mostly from the awkwardness of the others around him.

The two of them climbed to the lowest floor of the house, the basement, in complete silence. Even their footsteps failed to emit any kind of noise. Only when they reached the basement door, did Dawson speak up.

“Does he feel like chatting to us now, I wonder.”

Another thin, imperceptible smile appeared on his lips. He carried that as he pushed open the door and entered.

Below, the passage extended to a disused cellar, bereft of wines and alcoholic beverages. The empty racks cast sinister shadows as the lit lamp moved past, cobwebs strung across the shelves performing a demonic puppet show on the walls behind.

They stopped before a brick wall, flanked by broken wine barrels on both sides.

Dawson gave a simple nod, and the junior Agent beside him operated a lever, causing the wall to canter slightly.

Another darkened passage beckoned them in.

The smell of feces was noticeably strong in here. Those who were unfortunate enough to get dragged into this place tended to soil themselves regularly so that was to be expected, what with none of the trained Agents caring much about being hygienic. It also added to the atmosphere of fear, which was quite helpful in extracting information from the said unfortunate subjects.

They headed to the furthest chamber in the passageway, and Dawson knocked on the thick wooden door three times. When he heard an acknowledgment from beyond the door, he entered.

It was quite hot inside, the high temperature of the chamber being the result of torture based on flames, a large hearth spitting out scolding heat menacingly at the back. There were four men present, with two of them strung up on the middle, their limbs lifted up and chained up to the ceiling, their postures spread-eagle and faces down. Dangling on the chains, the recipients of the brutal treatment looked about half dead, their clothes ripped, their flesh caked in thick blood and bits of mangled flesh.

The other two present were, of course, the torturers, decked out in black leather aprons that were stained with dried and wet blood. Funnily enough, one was the torturer designate, while the other one was there as a healer. It'd do no good if there was an accident, and a valuable source of information ended up dying from too much pressure, after all.

“How are we this evening, gentlemen?” Dawson smirked softly. “Forgive my men from being impolite to your stations. It does come with the territory, unfortunately.”

He grabbed one of the tortured men's head, and lifted it to take a better look at his eyes. It was half dead, distant. This man was barely breathing.

Dawson continued. “Now, you gentlemen of noble standings must have understood that we wish to talk to you urgently, and in earnest manner where there are no lies exchanged between us.”

Letting go of the limp head, Dawson moved on to the next man. This time, he saw a deep hatred in the pair of burning eyes staring back at him when he jerked the head of the second man.

Seeing this, Dawson couldn't help but smile even deeper.

“How rude of me. I am well aware of who you are, but I've never really introduced myself, haven't I.”

Discarding the bloodied head, he walked a bit away and stood with his feet slightly apart, hands behind his back. He noted that the second man locked that hateful gaze on him, refusing to yield to the weight of his own head trying to droop down.

“I see your fierce nature have not been weakened one bit, Sir Alistair. Well, it's to be expected of a man famed with his sword arm. Although, you have met your match today.”

“Shut your mouth, you damn Agent dog!” Sir Alistair returned a heavy growl at Dawson's taunts. “You, you are Dawson. I've heard of you. A loyal mutt of the Empire, never questioning and never wavering. A fool, in all purposes but the name.”

Dawson raised an eyebrow. “I'm honored that you know of a lowly person such as I. Well then, perhaps you can also surmise why you were treated so poorly by my colleagues?”

“How should I know? Your men just kidnapped me from my home. You even bundled my butler like some kind of unwanted luggage. I swear, I shall have your head when all this is finished!!”

Dawson chuckled. “Oh, my. Playing innocent, is it? Even though you've heard of me, yet you try to pretend your way out of this predicament. How disappointing.”

Alistair grimaced. “Again, I do not know what you are on about. Release me, before you escalate this matter any further than you have already!”

Shaking his head, Dawson gave a small signal to the torturer. The burly man pulled out a red-hot, scalding iron rod from the hearth, and began to sear the exposed back flesh of Alistair.

Sizzling sound of meat burning filled the torture chamber for a short while. Alistair bit his lower lip, stopping a desperate scream from escaping his lips, thereby denying Dawson from deriving some amount of satisfaction.

“Shall we get started then?” Dawson knelt beside the trembling head of Alistair. “Now tell me, honestly, what is.... The Children Of The Amber? And what do they, and you, want with Baron Lomax and his children?”

Hearing the questions, Alistair suddenly let out a laughter. It grew, until it became a howl.

Frowning, Dawson signaled his man again, and the hot iron rod worked its deadly magic once more. That put a stop to the uncontrolled, wild chortling quite effectively.

After regaining his breath, Alistair scowled. “Hahaha. I've never heard of anything like The Children of The Amber before. And Baron Lomax? Why would I want anything from a small time lord like him?”

Dawson shook his head. “You see, Sir Alistair. I've done my homework. I know for the last decade or so, an organization calling themselves The Children of The Amber had been active. I know that you are a member, and have been from almost the inception of the said organization. And then, there's this.”

Dawson received a small dagger, not much bigger than a person's finger, from his subordinate, and slowly waved it about.

“This weapon is coated with a fast acting poison, too fast for an Invoker to cast a healing Invocation. My men recovered it on you, as well as on your butler. Not to mention, on the men who led me to your doorstep.”

“What of it? I carry concealed weapons for my own self preservation. Many other do the same thing. Are you going to arrest and torture them too, because of that?” Alistair barked back.

“Not everyone,” Dawson smirked again. “Only those with the very same type of a dagger, as the one recovered from the assassin four years ago. At Baron Lomax's residence, no less.”

Alistair's face went rigid.

Back then, Damien requested help from the Lafayette City Garrison with the investigation. An investigator was duly dispatched, and this man kept various records.

The investigation itself went nowhere but every single step the investigator and Damien took were recorded, and Dawson was able to peruse them. In those records, he read the extensive report on the poisoned dagger the assassin used on himself. Since it was an unusual design on top of a prohibited chemical applied on it, the investigator tried to pinpoint where the blade was manufactured, as that seemed like the easiest way to track down and identify the culprits.

The dagger in Dawson's hand was the exact same design as the assassins. It was too good to be a coincidence. As for the poison, he had yet to test it, but still, he was confident it was the same as well.

On the side of the slender blade, a small carving of a mountain, and a sun rising as its backdrop. Again, same as the one from the assassin.

“I suppose this mark on the side signifies The Children of The Amber, no? I'm not sure what it means, but for a murderous organization such as yours, you sure picked an inspirational motif.”

Alistair scoffed. “Hmph. Is that all you have? A trinket I picked up in a market, and some words from a disreputable source? With only that much, you dare to put your hands on me? You're finished, Dawson!! Finished!!”

Dawson sighed tiredly. How many times had he heard such threats in the line of duty? Too many to count. And how many times did he yield?

None. Not even once.

With a signal, the torture recommenced. The scolding hot iron struck the exposed flesh of Alistair with vengeance, and his body twisted in agony. Dawson watched it with a calm expression, while glancing at the healer.

Nodding, the healer approached the second, almost-dead man and began casting Water Elemental Invocation. Healing spells belonged not only to Light Element, but to Water as well. The latter Element's healing spells weren't as potent, however, but to compensate, there were more Invokers with Affinity towards Water, meaning, low to medium quality healers were not that difficult to find in the world.

Oblivious to the healing of the other man, Alistair did his best to muffle the terrible screaming. His resistance continued on for a few momenta, until finally, Dawson raised his hand, a gesture designed to stop the pain and subconsciously increase a sliver of hope in his heart. A hope of survival, a hope of making out of here alive, and exact a swift revenge on the person who wronged him.

Dawson lifted Alistair's head and stared deep into the flickering eyes. “Well, now. Sir Alistair, how about this. You tell us everything you've been part of, and we shall consider making a deal. Between us, of course. No one has to know, yes? As long as you can leave relatively unhurt from this ordeal, then wouldn't you agree it's a wonderful suggestion? Please consider it carefully.”

Alistair gritted his teeth, blood dripping from the torn lips. His gaze became hard enough to smash a rock if it could, the previous wavering dissipating.

Dawson simply returned an amiable smile, and continued. “Let us be more realistic, shall we? You're trapped and being tortured. And no one is coming to rescue you. Your comrades, if you can call them that, have forsaken you. If you do not take my deal now, then I shall simply dispose of you, and find another member of the Children to interrogate. Like your friend from The Far West over here.”

The man next to Alistair shuddered, making a fearful expression. He shook his head, and whimpered. “No sir, no. Please, please spare me. I'll, I'll tell you everything you know!! I didn't even want to join them in the first place!!”

“You!! You shut your mouth!!” Alistair blared out in fury.

Dawson calmly struck out with his fist. It was faster than eyes could see.

The attack splendidly connected with Alistair's face, spraying blood and broken teeth all over the ground.

The second man grimaced even more, fear growing larger still in his heart.

“Now, good sir. Please enlighten me, as to what your organization's purpose is.”

Dawson smiled thinly, as he slowly wiped the remnants of blood off his knuckles with a cloth.

Swallowing nervously, the second man opened his mouth hastily. “These crazy people want to topple the Empire!! It's true!! They wish to bring forth the Fall Of Crystal once more, and bring ruination to Argos!!”

“Fall of Crystal?” Dawson narrowed his eyes. “What is that? How is that related to Baron Lomax's children?”

“Lomax? Who? Oh, that man? No, it's not him, it's that Ravenswood woman's bloodline they are after. They say she's special. Her offsprings are supposed to be a bad omen. That's all I know!!”

Hearing this, Dawson frowned. This confused him slightly. Disregarding the fact that the Five Founding Families were locked in some high level political intrigue which caused various deaths, the Ravenswood family hardly had anything that could be called a remarkable legacy or history.

But to go after that bloodline? To topple the Empire through that?

And what was this Fall of Crystal all about? It somehow sounded familiar, but at the same time, so alien and distant.

His expression darkened. “What about Lady Valette? What do you know of her story?”

“Valette.... She.... We... I, was told to find something called Bagua. She had hidden it. I don't know what it is. I swear, I'm telling you the truth.”

Dawson's frown deepened.

What the.... This is strange. The search for the mysterious object known as the Bagua should be a top secret matter. Only a few should be aware of the investigation. But a group of rebels knows of it too?

Dawson had to consider whether there was a traitor amongst their midst. A shadowy figure, acting against the best interest of his beloved nation. A figure very, very high up in the social status as well, not to mention holding a very important position in the government.

Before he could ask his next questions, however, a loud boom resonated throughout the torture chamber. The ceiling shook violently, and so did the dirty chains holding the victims.

At first, confusion entered his mind, but then, Dawson understood. He was under attack.

He exchanged grim glances with his men, and immediately shot out of the chamber, trying to head outside, only to meet a powerful surge of Invocation aura slamming into him. A strand of blood escaped from the corners of his mouth as he collided with the wall, destroying it.

Seeing this, the faces of the two chained up men twisted, one in abject horror, while the other, a sneer.

The walls of the basement began to crumble, the foundation of the house itself trembled, and before Dawson could gather himself up, the whole structure collapsed on top of him, along with his men, burying them all under the barrage of rubble in a noisy instant.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 22, part one.

22​

Oblivious to the happenings going on outside the Tetamus Range, Kain sat on a boulder, staring at the flowing river a short distance away from him. His eyebrows were deeply knitted, as if he had lots of things to think about. Which was true.

At the moment, he was planning to build himself a raft, and float out of this hell.

Next to him, a bird not much bigger than a hawk lay on its side, snoring softly. Its reddish fur reflected the warm sunlight, flickers of flames rising and falling whenever it breathed.

Kain couldn't help but contemplate the last few weeks that flashed by in a frenzied rush to survive, as he watched the serene waters gently flowing by.

Lots of things had happened, most of them being, a too-close-for-comfort brush with death. He didn't venture too deeply into the interior of the forest. He felt it was not a good idea, seeing that Aeterna got thicker the further he went in.

He couldn't even climb up on a tree to take a gander at just how big the forest was; his physical body couldn't support it. Not only that, the trees were super-duper tall. Only a monkey with long, dexterous, and strong arms would be able to climb them.

But to compensate for his shortcomings, he improvised a way to temporarily run faster by shoving Aeterna down to his legs, sort of how he protected himself from the giant lizard Fiend's tail swipe. The whole thing tired him out super fast, but it proved to be invaluable a couple of times so he wasn't complaining.

Then, there were the passing days.

He marked the walls of his new shelter every time the sun went down the horizon. This way, he was able to tell how long he spent in this place. And also, that's how he knew no rescue was coming. Too much time had passed. Even if he was a pragmatic idiot, which he wasn't, he could imagine the rescuers giving up, believing he was dead by now. If the shoe was on the other foot, he'd think the same.

Therefore, he decided, it was high time he did The Great Escape.

Monsoon came and went, and the sweltering heat enveloped the entire forest. Now, it was in the middle of a proper Summer.

The river water had become a lot calmer, with the rain subsiding. He'd been waiting for that. Actually, he'd waiting for lots of other things too, but never mind that.

He attempted to leave via a raft before. Three days ago, in fact.

But then, his desperate escape came to a grinding halt the moment an aquatic Fiend that sort of resembled a goldfish sprung out of the water and tried to swallow him up. That monster was a size of a minivan. Thanks to the phoenix, he safely avoided becoming a fish bait.

It remained a problem, though. He couldn't sense its approach, even with his Aeterna vision. It seemed like he couldn't gaze into the water. He wasn't powerful enough yet for that. He had to wonder just how he lived through falling into the river and then carried down without getting eaten by these large fish.

Now, how do I solve this, eh? C'mon now, think.

Kain pondered. He couldn't come up with an answer.

The other day, he asked the phoenix whether it could carry him above the mountain range.

Even though it couldn't speak, it had amazing intellect, maybe even surpassing that of Kain. So, conversing with it was possible. Understanding what it wanted to say took some interpreting from his side, but still, it could be done.

However, its personality could do with a little more friendliness.

It totally dissed Kain, as if he was beneath it. Which was true, if one looked at it objectively. Still, its I'm-bettter-than-you attitude grated on his nerves a bit.

Honestly speaking, the bird was fearsome enough to cause most of the medium sized predators to back away. And there were many, many medium sized Fiends and creatures in this forest, all of them possessing sharp talons, claws and fangs. Kain would have been shredded to bits if he were to fight a single one of them.

“....Well, I guess it's better than being alone, right?”

Kain muttered slowly, as he shifted his gaze at the bird. Its eyes were closed, it snoring softly. It was slightly irritating to see it so nonchalant about everything, but he couldn't deny the fact that hunting for food became a lot easier with the bird around. He was thankful for that, at least.

Sighing, he shook his head and concentrated on finding ways to overcome his current dilemma.

“So, yeah. Now what should I do, huh?”

Kain looked back to his first attempt at escaping. The lone giant goldfish was enough to destroy his raft and nearly swallow him on one go. He poured his all in crafting that – and to see it break into pieces, really made him shed a tear of blood.

“Maybe I should make the raft more sturdy?”

He could do that. He used Wind Blade to chop down trees and then used various vines and roots as ropes to tie all the cut logs. This time, he could cut thicker, bigger trees and use double the number of vines to tie everything down.

Kain's index finger rested on his chin, his head tilting slightly as he fell deeper into thought.

“No. That's not going to work. I need a way to defeat that underwater nasty first. Or, at least, a way to increase the speed of the raft.”

He glanced at the river and narrowed his eyes, checking out the direction of the flow.

It looked oh-so-serene now, as if the earlier deluge was nothing but a lie concocted by a passing drunkard. Even the wind was gentle, to a point where it might as well be an asthmatic trying to blow through a straw.

Another sigh escaped from Kain's lips. This was hopeless. Only if he was a bit stronger.

“Why can't you just fly me over the mountains, you dang stupid bird?”

He gritted his teeth, remembering the time he asked the sleeping phoenix for a favor. Instead, the damn thing cawed and aggressively lectured him in a bird tongue, ending the tirade with a cold harrumph.

That was unpleasant. Not only it had a shrill, nails-on-a-blackboard voice, its chirping was quite incessant, enough to drive him around the bends.

If it weren't for his strong mental faculty, he'd surely try to choke the living daylights out of this flame-covered bird with almighty haste.

Anyway, he knew he was asking the impossible. The mountain range itself was tall. Taller than his eyes could see the top, now that he was near enough. He craned his neck but still failed to discern just how tall the tops of the range were. The clouds hung like drapes over most of the top, obscuring his vision.

Which was somewhat weird, considering he was able to see past the range and at the tall, spindly peak in the dead center before while traveling in the merchant train.

Well, at the time, he was in an elevated position to begin with. Still, that wasn't a good enough explanation for the height discrepancy.

“....Must be magic. Oops, I mean, Invocation.”

He chuckled bitterly.

The range was too tall. The bird was hardly any bigger than a well bred parrot. Even if it could lift him up, sustaining a lengthy flight while combating heavy headwinds wouldn't be a walk in the park, even for an Awakened.

Kain figured his avian partner was one such mystical creature. Otherwise, it was hard to explain away the flames on its feathers. It was not hot to the touch but still possessed enough strength to burn away things. Only the Awakened had the ability to wield Aeterna, so it was safe to assume the bird was too.

Unfortunately, none of his deductions helped him out at the moment.

Frustrated, Kain hopped down from the boulder he was sitting on and stretched his limbs a little. This kind of leisure could be afforded simply because of the phoenix. Unless it was a huge Fiend, others kept away. He was genuinely grateful for this breathing room, of course. One of many things he was grateful about, really.

“If anything, I'm glad I decided to save you back then,” Kain shrugged his shoulders slightly, and poked the still-sleeping bird. “Hey, hey you lazy bird. You coming?”

Irritated, it flapped its wing, brushing off his finger and sat up, drowsiness clearly visible in its eyes. Yawning loudly, it flew up slowly, and circled around his head for a while and then descended, perching itself on Kain's head.

Before he knew it, the top of his head became the bird's spot. Kain at first tried to wave the stupid thing off but it was far more crafty and stubborn, and he had to give up in the end.

As they carefully tread past the undergrowth, Kain suddenly remembered something rather important.

“Hey. I still haven't come up with a name for you, haven't I? I can't keep on calling you The Bird.”

Hearing this, the phoenix narrowed its eyes sharply in a frown.

Ignoring this, Kain continued. “So, yeah. How about...., uh, Firebird? It's a great classic car, y'know.”

The phoenix shook its head in disapproval.

“Okay. So... uh, how about.... Flame-O?”

The phoenix slapped the back of his head.

“Hey!! What was that for?”

The bird glared at him, its eyes cold and obviously not pleased.

“Oh? So it's like that now, huh? Fine. I don't care. I'll just call you whatever, whether you like it or not. I was just being nice but now, all bets are off!!”

As he bickered with the bird on top of his head, Kain suddenly sensed some creatures up ahead. He immediately shut his mouth and crouched, making himself very small. Seizing all movements, he remained deathly still, waiting. Even the bird quietened down, although it didn't look worried at all.

A several breaths' worth of time passed by, until a loud stampede could be heard, shaking the ground like a small earthquake.

Kain raised his head and peeked past the dense, dark and fragrant shrubs to confirm the source of the trembling earth: a herd of large deer-like creatures, at least hundred strong, briskly running through the forest.

Behind them, a dozen or so figures following the herd.

Kain narrowed his eyes, and shrank himself further.

Each of these deer was at least 1.5 times bigger than a moose, and possessed ferocious countenances that didn't fit that of a peaceful herbivore. As a matter of fact, these creatures were actually omnivores. In other words, they didn't discriminate when it came to food.

Lots of animals living in this forest were like that. Even a small, furry little critters aggressively sought out meat, placing Kain at near the very bottom of the proverbial food chain. Were it not for his Invocation prowess, he'd be in the last place.

One or two of these deer presented no problem for Kain. With the phoenix by his side, it was even better. Heck, he could prey on them if he wanted to.

However, they weren't the only parties here.

Those following the herd consisted of one Hobgoblin, and a dozen Goblins. Now they were something else.

Now, it was not the first time Kain ran into these dastardly foul-smelling fantasy genre staple monsters. Oh no.

After the bitter struggle to entrap the giant lizard Fiend in a sinkhole, Kain carried the injured bird away, trying to find himself a new shelter. That's when he ran into a group of Goblins, four strong.

They were scouts, sent out to check out what all the ruckus was about. Obviously, Kain was shocked out of his skull at the sudden arrival of the unwanted players, and ended up freely firing off Wind Blade toward every which direction while panicking like a screaming little girl.

These Goblins were only as tall as he was. And they weren't too well armored. So, the sharp, compressed air sliced through them like a knife through hot butter. Gore and filth flung everywhere. That was not so nice.

Even then, he had to struggle even more. He had to fight one on one with a single surviving Goblin which was missing its left eye, struck blind by a stray pebble roused from its resting ground by the wayward Wind Blade.

Because of that memory, Kain dared not to tangle with Goblins. And if there was a Hobgoblin in the mix, stay the eff away. It was a rule he strictly adhered to, whenever he ran into a Goblin pack.

A Hobgoblin was as tall as a teen, covered from head to toe in thick, dull green skin, and smelled even worse. At one time, he saw it cleave a bear-like creature with a single swing of its rudimentary ax, surprising him greatly. It was a wise idea not to tangle with one, at all cost.

For now, he couldn't move until the herd went past him. That much was obvious. He silently watched as the various members of the Goblin pack kept on shouting and herded the deer forward. It was like a scene from a cowboy movie, where a group of rugged-faced riders urging the slow and dimwitted steak-on-hooves toward the greener pastures.

That alone showed these Goblins, Fiends or not, possessed intelligence far above that of ordinary monsters.

Eventually, the stampeding herd went away, moving towards the river's direction. They were probably trying to get water for their livestock.

Thinking that this was a chance, Kain made his move and crept out from the bush, dashing madly deeper into the forest. Even with the aid of the phoenix, there was no guarantee he'd survive if he was found.

After all, there was only one phoenix, and there were more than a dozen of them. It took a single hit from the smelly Goblin's weapon to kill him. So being prudent was the best.

He ran for a short while, mindful of other creatures in the vicinity. Thinking the coast was clear, he slowed down a little, only to hear an enormous boom coming from behind, followed by a huge, primal roar in some distance away. Near the river, where he was contemplating on his escape plans.

“I really don't like the sound of that,” Kain grimaced, and increased his running speed. Unfortunately, he was still a little kid, with short legs, so he couldn't run that fast, so, although reluctant, he began sending Aeterna down to his legs. It seemed too early for this life-saving emergency measure, but something about that roar disturbed him greatly, and thus he decided to not to dilly-dally.

Even the phoenix sat up in alert, once it heard the roar.

During his stay, Kain heard quite a diverse array of roars emitted by the largest, most ferocious Fiends occupying the forest, turning him into a pro when it came to identifying the sound, but this one, he couldn't tell.

One thing's for sure, it was loud. Very, very loud.

As he ran, a shockwave laden with Aeterna began to sweep up from behind him. Trees were pushed back, dirt and fallen leaves swept up, and Kain momentarily felt weightlessness as both of his feet left the ground.

He stumbled back down to the ground, but quickly regained his posture and continued to run. Unwittingly, he ran past a few Fiends on his way, including, somewhat ironically, another pack of Goblins led by a Hobgoblin.

And yes, they began chasing after him.

There was not much Kain could do, even though a monster train was rapidly forming behind him. The reason being that, shortly after the boom and the roar, the deer herd emerged from the forest, frantically chasing him down. Huge panic clearly etched on their faces, and panting out of their skulls.

Obviously, they were running away from whatever it was that made the noise near the river.

Kain even heard screams of pain and death behind him, coming from the various Fiends and monsters. That made his frown deeper. Something was going very wrong back there, and he had a feeling it was not good, to put it mildly.

He was sweating buckets now. He thought that during his stay in this forest he got used to being under deadly pressure but hell, he sure wasn't. He was scared out of his mind too, the only thought running inside his mind was to escape. Didn't matter where to, as long as he was safe.

That statement proved to be so true when the source of that horrific roar came to Kain's view. He had the misfortune of turning back when he heard the earth beneath his feet tremble unnaturally.

A ginormous, blood-red head full of razor sharp fangs shot out above the treeline, like a nightmarish candlestick. Four whiskers thicker than a tree trunk flowed luxuriantly on its maw, a hind leg of a deer visibly stuck between its teeth.

By his estimation, the parts that appeared above the forest canopy were as large as the giant lizard Fiend. And he knew that there were more to this new king of Fiends as far as the body's length was concerned.

Holy moly, jesus, mary and joseph!! What the hell is that thing? A dragon?!

Kain felt the kind of chill he'd never, ever felt before. He froze on the spot, when the crimson creature bellowed out, sending out another shockwave.

It wasn't just him that stopped in their tracks. The Goblin pack, led by the Hobgoblin, also froze on the spot, gazing towards at the gigantic Fiend, their entire bodies shaking in pure fear.

Kain's daze broke only after the phoenix slapped him in the forehead. It then pointed towards a direction, with a grim expression, telling him to go that way.

If he went as he was told, then he was heading straight into the center of the forest.

Do I even have a choice?

Kain looked back at the crimson Fiend.

The huge monster groaned, and thrashed its body once, sending out an incredible explosion of air as well as thick, murderous aura. Goblins yelped out and began to scatter like a headless chicken.

Kain inwardly cursed. It was just moving about, yet it was causing destruction on the level incomparable to pretty much anything he'd ever seen.

As if to make the matters worse, it then turned towards Kain's direction, and began to slither forward.

His scalp went numb. All the hair on his body stood up.

Without thinking twice, he ran towards where the phoenix pointed.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 22, part two

The further he ran, taller and denser the trees became. Sunlight ceased to penetrate the black canopy. The air carried an aura of something arcane, something that should not be disturbed.

Kain had no choice. Currently, the huge blood-red Fiend was right behind him, seemingly intent on chasing him down till the ends of the earth.

Actually, if he bothered to change his direction – like the way most of the fleeing Goblins did – then he'd come to an understanding that it was not coming after him, but rather, they happened to share a common destination.

And that destination was the center of the forest, where the spindly, towering mountain stood, unmoving for all of the eternity.

A single flicker of strange fear, totally unrelated to the chasing Fiend, slowly took root in Kain's heart, as he neared the unnamed mountain. He wasn't sure why, but his fearsome ability to sense ominous future flags was coming back in a lively swing. This made him deeply worried.

For the last few weeks in this forest, not once had it gone up. But now, as he neared the mountain, it was rousing from its slumber.

He bitterly smiled inwardly, thinking that maybe this ability to foretell bad/inconvenient things happening was his cheat skill after all. What a waste of a cliched divine gift, if it was.

Oblivious to his thoughts, the phoenix kept on directing Kain, making him stay on a certain course. The trees here became less crooked and sinister, but taller and unbelievably thicker. On average, the vegetation here would be as tall as a ten story buildings quite easily.

Traveling below such tall trees, even the vicious-looking red Fiend looked somewhat less imposing than before. That did not mean Kain wasn't scared of it, of course. Oh, no.

Just like the taller trees, Aeterna got thicker, heavier and more sinister with every step he took. Now normally, this meant there was a powerful creature up ahead, but for some reason, he did not encounter any so far. It was as if.... there were no living things within the forest.

Powerful boom resounded, and a bellowing gust of wind smashed into the back of Kain. He cried out in shock and pain, and rolled on the ground, smashing past several shrubs and low lying branches. Blood seeped out from the small cuts and bruises on his exposed skin, his already worn and damaged clothing becoming worse dregs in a blink of an eye.

Kain hastily gathered himself and resumed running. But he knew. He knew that at this rate, he'd be squashed flat by the red Fiend. It was time to come up with a new plan. A plan to save his bacon.

And that plan was pretty simple, really. He'd chance it and hide. It worked before, so he didn't see why it wouldn't work today.

A place to hide? That was also simple as well; just dig a hole and climb in it. All he had to do, was find a patch of ground that was not covered tree roots or rocks, and then he'd be golden.

Unfortunately for him, though, he was in a middle of an increasingly dense forest. Everywhere he looked, there were tree roots jutting out of the ground like writhing snakes.

He had to find a small clearing. That's all he needed.

The trembling grew louder. So loud, in fact, his internal organs were shaking. Kain grew desperate at that.

“Damn it!! Hey you, you stupid bird!! Help me out here, will you?”

The bird had an unsightly frown on its face. Not from what the boy had said, but from the deadly aura coming from behind. At the rate he was running, it was only a matter of time before Kain became food for the approaching giant Fiend.

As to reinforce its premonition of the future, the red, bloodied and scary face exploded out of the thick undergrowth with vengeance, less than 20 Ruten, around 100 meters, away from Kain. The Fiend's glittering golden eyes immediately locked on to fleeing boy's terrified face, and the fiery bird perched on top of it.

It was then the phoenix decided on its next course of action.

It was told not to help Kain out in combat. But, it was told by its master to look after the boy and make sure he wouldn't get killed before its master emerged from the secluded meditation. It was too early, but seeing how the situation was playing out, the phoenix knew there was no other choice.

Sighing, the phoenix suddenly flew off Kain's head, and swung around behind him. Before he realized what was happening, the sturdy claws grasped hold of his ratty tunic, and lifted him off the ground.

“Eh?”

Kain could only emit a sound of confusion at his weightlessness. Then he screamed as hard as he could, when his body and that of the phoenix turned into a crimson blur, shooting forward like a bullet train – leaving behind an unending streak of red.

His face stretched at the sudden burst of speed. His uncut and unkempt hair smashed around like a bundle of whips on his face, his ears and the neck. It was rather painful. Most of them though, tried to rip out of his skull. And that was doubly more painful.

Thankfully, he squeezed his eyes shut, so his eyeballs were spared from being mercilessly poked. Also, he clenched his teeth tightly, so he wouldn't accidentally bite on his own tongue.

The bird's speed was quite extraordinary. If enhanced Kain could run as fast as an Olympian, then the bird was equivalent of a Bugatti Veyron. Quite clearly, incomparable.

In a proverbial blink, he was flown deep into the forest's core, towards the spindly mountain. However, it somehow didn't really feel like he was getting any closer. In fact, he was, but the illusion was maintained because of the enormous size of the mountain itself.

No matter how close he got, its huge girth didn't seem to grow. His perception was thrown out of whack due to the impossible speed his body was moving at.

Constantly, Kain sent out Aeterna out of his reserves to protect his body. He felt that if he stopped doing that, the air pressure would shred his skin to bits.

His Pool was barely holding on. They were moving too fast, and he could not replenish his supply at all. At the rate it was being used up, he'd be running empty in less than ten minutes.

Kain was inwardly angry. Not at his small Pool of Aeterna, no, but the fact that this bird could've easily taken him out of this forest, out of the tall mountain range if it was so inclined, judging by its amazing speed. Yet it refused to.

Why? Why didn't you take me out of this place? You could've done so easily!!

Kain couldn't voice his anger, though. He was far too busy clenching his teeth to open his mouth. His tirade had to wait for a bit.

Amazingly though, the blood-red Fiend was keeping up. It was actually keeping up with the phoenix's speed. Granted, the bird had to carry a passenger, and also had to weave between the trees, but still, it was fast.

The giant Fiend however, it just smashed the blocking trees apart with its ginormous body. Simple, and Kain had to admit, way too effective.

So effective, in fact, as the splinters of the destroyed trees whistled by Kain's face like a sharp shrapnel. Get hit by one of those, and he might lose a pound of flesh.

Kain panted, his face turning visibly pale. At any moment now, his Aeterna Pool would go completely empty. That meant saying a bye-bye to his skin.

Miraculously, the phoenix then emitted a cold harrumph, and suddenly, Kain felt warmth flooding in. It was Fire Elemental Aeterna, deeply nourishing his depleted Pool.

That instantly made Kain dumbfounded.

Back when he rescued the bird, he had no idea on how to treat the wounds on the bird's body. After some deliberation, he thought of transferring his own Aeterna to it. The problem was how he could do precisely that. He even tried to feed it a ball of flame produced from the Firelight spell, only to have his fingers nearly bitten off in anger.

Thinking back to the ordeal, how could he not feel dumbstruck? Most likely, the dang bird knew all along how to send Aeterna back and forth between him and itself. How stupid he felt, realizing that possibility.

His bubbling anger had no bearing on the chase itself, however. Ever since noticing the phoenix and the boy, the red Fiend continuously honed in the fleeing pair with a single minded doggedness that deserved some praise. It even disregarded other prey and focused only on two of them.

With a cold snort the phoenix shot forward, pushing itself faster. And as if to answer the increase in speed, the Fiend roared and pursued harder.

The distance between the giant, blood-red creature and the bird neither increased nor decreased. No one gained an inch nor lost one. It was a stalemate.

They remained like this for two full days. Kain did not count incorrectly. Oh no. He definitely saw the sun go down and come up again twice.

By this time, he was completely aghast at the sheer size of the forest. Logically, no such place should exist. But it did, and he was inside of it.

What's more, he was even more shocked at the seemingly boundless stamina of the phoenix itself. It was like.... it was like, as if the time it got injured by 'running' into one of the protrusions of the giant lizard Fiend was all an act. An act to make him take the bird along, wherever he was going to.

To say he felt angry, humiliated and whatnot was an understatement. Of course, it was natural for him to feel somewhat betrayed by this duplicity of a small, weak-looking bird of fire. All he wanted was a companion, a friend to ride out the rough patch together. Maybe, even a cute mascot, like a certain yellow rodent-like creature with a penchant for lightning attacks.

What he got instead, was a sneaky, scheming piece of.... something.

At the beginning of the third day, they finally arrived at the foot of the spindly mountain. What greeted him, was beyond his expectations.

The mountain was devoid of any trees. It shot up straight through to the sky, like a thumb tack ready to prick an unwary finger. As for who's "finger it might be.... well, it could only be that of a heaven, since Kain couldn't even see the tip. It simply pierced through the cloud cover and disappeared into the blue.

There were huge clearing around the foot of the mountain. The radius was massive enough to house all five boroughs of New York and still have space left for the rivers that ran in between.

The place Kain and the phoenix emerged from was on a hill, looking down on the clearing and giving him a stunning view of the vast open space.

And then, there was one more thing that waiting to shock him, down below: a ghostly city of ruins.

A bit short half chapter today. Sorry.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 23, part one.

23​

Kain thought he was hallucinating. He hadn't eaten anything for the last two and a bit days, and intense hunger had a way of screwing with a mind.

What lay before him, was definitely a city; a medieval city surrounded by tall, imposing ramparts.

Yet, its bleached and decaying walls spoke of an unfathomable ancientness of the structures. He couldn't even begin to speculate on just how old the city was.

Between where he was, and the walls, lay a desiccated and barren wasteland the length and width of several football fields stuck together. Absolutely nothing grew on it, not even a blade of grass. Oddly, not a breeze blew through there either. It was all very eerie, and not in an "oh it's so mysterious" kinda way. No, it was rather deafeningly silent, as if the only thing permitted to enter the area was death herself.

Kain might have been dazed by the sight, but the phoenix wasn't. It shot forward once more, its speed not slowing down one bit. It was clearing heading towards the decaying city with all its power. This caused Kain no amount of shock.

Are we going to enter that dead city?!

Kain grimaced, and gritted his teeth. He lacked energy to even voice any complaint at this point, and was a pitiful example of a hapless passenger, simply going along with the flow.

As they got nearer, the forest behind exploded, and the blood-red giant Fiend's head popped out amidst all the flying debris, its glittering eyes briefly searching, then zeroing on the city. It let out a shrill roar, as if it wanted to call forth the calamity of the heavens on itself, then charged forward even faster than before.

Its roar felt like a needle piercing through Kain's heart, causing an intense pain that felt like all his blood flow suddenly reversed its direction and tried to rush out of all his pores. The ground below them rumbled and quaked in ripples.

When the dead area up ahead of them vibrated, an imperceptible changed occurred. Naked eyes would never pick up on the subtle change, but the phoenix felt it. And so did Kain, who at the time was employing his Aeterna sense, casting it all around him like a radar.

What's going on? There's something.... underground!!

As soon as he thought this, the soil beneath the flying duo exploded, and a hand shot out. A hand made up of rocks and mud and everything in between.

It wasn't just a single hand; one after another burst out of the dead ground, causing a thick mist of flying pebbles and dry, sandy dust clouds. The phoenix expertly dodged and weaved past the aroused dust storms, missing every one of them with a room to spare.

Kain looked back to see humanoid shapes emerge from the dust storms one by one, each one exceeding twelve feet in height. Shocking amounts of Earth Elemental Aeterna oozed out of them, circling around them, fusing with each creature and acting like glue holding all the bits together.

Golems!! They are the legendary Golems!!

Kain held his breath, as he realized what they were. The question in his mind was now, whether these monsters appeared to repel only the giant Fiend, or everything else as well, which included him?

By the time Kain and the bird got a third of the way across the dead field, hundreds of Golems rose and rushed toward the approaching Fiend like a mindless army of zombies.

The resulting boom, and the shriek, made his scalp go numb with fear. Ignoring the sound of carnage behind, the phoenix continued to shoot forward at the top speed.

The Golems pounded on the Fiend with wild abandon, completely disregarding their own safety in the process. Still, there was too much difference in the body mass; one hit from a Golem did very little damage, if any, to the Fiend's tough scales.

But one shake of its body, dozens of Golems broke apart into pieces, showering the ground with debris.

Still, attacks didn't abate. One after another, Golems pounced and pounded on the Fiend, overwhelming with it with sheer numbers. Whenever one Golem got smashed to bits, three more would take its place. It was one never ending cycle where there could be only one loser.

Aeterna seethed and boiled over the whole land, and Kain felt it so clearly. He had never, ever felt so much of it, not even once. Truly, he was stunned beyond words, his hunger now long forgotten.

Bizarrely, the reason why he could forget it was that his body began to rapidly absorb all that abundant Aeterna. His Pool topped up in a blink of an eye, and suddenly, began to overflow. When it did, his hunger was sated, albeit temporarily.

Of course, he hadn't figured it out just yet. He was too busy scanning the world around him with his Aeterna sense to notice the change happening in his own body. Talk about unable to see what's in right front of his nose.

By the time Kain got half way through, there were now more than two thousand Golems attacking the Fiend. That number didn't sound like a lot, but considering each of those Golems were the height of two adult males, the amount of space they occupied was quite significant. So was the ruckus they raised – it was rowdier than a post-final championship football match brawl between two opposing fan clubs.

Weird thing was, though, not one of the Golems targeted Kain or the phoenix. Not a single one turned around and tried to seize the duo. Not one of them hurled massive boulders in their direction. Not one stood to block their flight.

Why?

Kain was puzzled at this. He couldn't understand at all. He and the bird must be just as strangers as to these Golems as much as the giant Fiend was. Obviously, these non-sentient creatures of soil and rocks were guardians of the city up ahead, and would not allow anything remotely threatening to enter the domain.

Unless....

Kain shuddered suddenly at the possibility of the phoenix being a resident of the city. Or at least, being recognized as one. It clearly had intelligence, so it was possible that this place was the bird's home.

And then.... he felt he was missing something here. Something he should have foreseen. Something out here that was not included in his calculations, whatever the worth of that might be. This thought alone terrified him.

The giant Fiend roared angrily at the growing number of Golems forcing it to retreat. Kain felt a huge suction of Aeterna right behind him, and reflexively he looked back, to see the monster sucking all of it in.

As proficient as he was at knowing the fantasy genre must-have things, he could tell the Fiend was getting ready to use some sort of Breath attack, favored by the dragon type monsters.

So, it IS a dragon, after all!! No wonder it's so effing monstrous!!

Also sensing the accumulated energy that was ballooning up, the bird cawed loudly, and exerted even more strength, obviously in order to escape the range of the attack's influence. There were now more than 50 Rutens, 250 meters, between them.

But that was not enough.

The blood-red Giant dragon Fiend let loose a crimson colored Breath out. Winds howled, the ground seethed, the clouds dispersed.

Kain felt all his blood freeze, figuratively. All because of the purest form of fear inundating him.

Then his eardrums nearly blew out at the concussive sound of explosion. The light emitted from the blast blotted out the sun's rays, paradoxically darkening the world all around him.

It felt like all his internal organs were about to go bust. Even the phoenix let out a painful howl.

Both of them tumbled out of the flight, heading straight at the tall, imposing walls at a breakneck pace, totally out of control.

Oh, crap!! At this rate, we'll become a pair of blotches on the wall!! Damn it, I gotta do something!!

Kain gritted his teeth, and quickly shot his hands forward, casting Air Wall. He slammed into it with some force, the illusory wall shattering due to his and the bird's momentum greatly exceeding what the Wall could withstand.

He thought his bones broke. The pain assaulting him was indescribable. His vocabulary was not rich enough for it.

Kain rolled on the ground and finally came to a halt about 10 Ruten away from the wall; same for the phoenix. It raised itself up from the ground, shaking loose the dirt on its feathers.

Meanwhile, Kain pushed his upper torso up and tried to stand, only to falter and collapse on one knee.

The phoenix hastily flew back up and tried to goad the disorientated boy towards a small opening at the bottom of the rampart. It cawed and slapped him all over the back, trying to get him to cooperate with its efforts.

At the far back, the ground had become roasted blackness, a crater forming where the Golems used to be. The thick, acrid smell of sulfur filled the air like a stench of death.

The Fiend's face was unsightly, and growled angrily. Its attack was beyond powerful, absolutely pummeling every Golem within an arc of 40+ Ruten, but there were still thousands more rushing at it from all sides. After the Breath attack, it expanded a lot of Aeterna, and it needed to recuperate before it could use it again.

There were just too many obstacles for that, thus its angry expression.

Sensing it might get injured seriously if it remained, the Fiend roared, and began to retreat at top speed.

It only took a few seconds, but the giant monster entered the forest, disappearing from the view quickly, its huge frame melting into the darkness.

The Golems didn't chase their quarry down. Instead, they froze on the spot for a few seconds, before slowly turning toward where Kain sat, slumped weakly on the ground.

The phoenix let out an alarmed cry, and desperately lifted the boy to his feet, only to have a hand made of sand shot out from the ground, wrapping around him tightly.

Kain let out a scream of pain, as he felt intense pressure bearing down on him. At any moment, his body would be squashed to bits.

The phoenix hurriedly stabbed forward at the emerging Golems' hand that held the boy, managing to destroy to the fingers and letting the boy fall down. It then snatched him, and flew up, fast.

The Golem transformed, its damaged arm changing into a spike. It fired this new appendage like a bullet at the airborne duo.

Sensing a crisis, the phoenix let out an angry howl and fired a large ball of flames from its beak. The flame and the spike collided mere meters away from Kain, causing a powerful blast that made him scream out more.

Blood dripped down from all the wounds on his body, and he flickered between being awake and blacking out.

Inside, he was flabbergasted. He was beyond feeling angry now. All he felt at that moment was an overflowing sense of shame.

How can I be so weak?

He felt tears welling up.

How can I be so weak, as to let the others decide my fate for me?

He felt the burning blades of shame branding him in his heart.

Why? Why can't I do something to save my own skin?

He could've just said that it was because of his physical age. Because of his small and frail body.

Yet, he thought all that was nothing more than some interchangeable excuses. The bottom line was, he was far too weak, far too unprepared. He knew too little, and he lacked motivation, an unwavering heart to wade through whatever tribulation he had to face. All he ever thought about was living a nice, comfy life in Riverfield, not worried about anything and everything, as long as he had a roof over his head and food on the table.

Was that so wrong? Wanting simple things? Am I not supposed to have that?

Gradually the shame became rage.

Enraged, Kain lifted his head and stared hard at the Golem below. It was firing multiple spikes at the phoenix and him. Soon, two more Golems joined in, all of them firing spikes in unison. Even if the bird was one nimble creature, there had to be a limit, and it had been flying non stop for the last two and a half days. It was about to run out of energy too.

Kain felt his rage boiling inside. He sharpened his senses, and sought out that one spot where Aeterna converged. From his knowledge, he knew about the controlling array, a formation of Invocation spell, or a disc performing the similar function, formed the nucleus of a Golem. Destroy that, and it was nothing more than a lump of clay.

Found it!!

Kain narrowed his eyes, and spotted a small disc-like item that acted as the control center for the Golems.

Without hesitation, he flung off one Wind Blade after another, trying to hit the item, buried deep within the Golem's torso.

His ploy didn't work – its protection was too sturdy, and his spells lacked bite. He needed to change the tactic.

Next, he tried to manipulate the Golem itself with his own Affinity.

Since he had Earth Elemental Affinity, it was worth a shot.

The affected Golems froze on the spot, trying to break free from his influence on it. Kain felt his blood surge painfully at the backlash of his attempt, but endured it and continued to exert pressure.

“Blow up, you bastard!!”

Kain roared, blood and spit flinging out of his mouth.

The Golem obeyed, and blew up. The item exploded too, sending a massive wave of accumulated Aeterna outward.

The explosion this time was smaller in comparison to what the giant Fiend's Breath attack caused, but nevertheless it was still quite a powerful one.

The phoenix was gripping Kain's clothes to haul him around, but at that moment, the fabric decided to give in.

With a loud rip, he was flung out of the shocked bird's grasp, and flew over the rampart of the city. The bird itself was not spared from the blast, but it could endure it just fine; all it needed to do was to reorient itself in the air.

The phoenix was about to chase after the flying boy, but was interrupted by the barrage of spikes fired by the Golems. Now, there was more than five of them, the number swelling up in an instant.

Desperately it cawed at the boy's direction, dodging the spikes and trying to weave past the incoming attacks.

It was in danger of being overrun. On one hand, it wanted to save the boy before he crashed against the wall. But on the other hand, there was no room for it to do just that. Either it sacrificed itself to save the boy, or let him die and save itself.

The phoenix cawed angrily at the hopeless situation. It tried to call its master, sleeping deep within the center of this dead city. Its pained cry pierced past the cacophony of explosions and destruction, reverberating like a church bell ringing to summon the faithful.

And it got a reply.

A booming voice resonated in the world. Only two words were spoken. That's all it took.

“Be.... QUIET!!”

A huge wave of unseen energy surged out from the base of the spindly mountain. It permeated past the buildings like ghosts, emerging from the other side unaffected.

But when the Golems were hit by this wave, they all busted apart where they stood, like a series of fireworks going off.

Meanwhile, a dozen or so of thin, withering vines shot up from who knows where, and wrapped around Kain's weak, failing body, stopping him from crashing into solid objects.

All of this took less than a blink of an eye.

The vines were gentle, and Kain didn't feel any hostility from them. As he began to black out, he thought he heard a soft sigh, coming from somewhere in the city's center, near the base of the spindly mountain.

It sounded weak, almost feeble.

That was the last thing he could remember.

I'm in the midst of finishing up the second half of this chapter ATM. When finished, I'm gonna post it. As for when that will be....
{shrugs shoulders}

 

Spoiler: Chapter 23, part two.

The funeral dirge seemed to go on forever. At least it didn't rain during the procession. Not one person present at the service thought of thanking the heavens, however.

As soon as the rescue operation ended in failure, everyone involved dispersed and went their separate ways. Lomaxes returned to Riverfield, dejected, fatigued in both the mind and the body, heartbroken.

Damien and Lizbeth barely spoke during the trip, and that continued after. They barely looked at each other, or anyone else for that matter. So, Derrick had to take over pretty much everything.

The casket was empty when it was lowered into the ground. They couldn't even recover the remains. Not a scrap of clothing, no bones, nothing. That was far, far worse than having an actual body.

Kaleena, at first, didn't fully understand what had happened, but gradually she figured it out. Katrina helped with that as she was already familiar with death. They both cried, one out of sadness, the other in a mixture of sadness, just like her cousin, and of the past, when her mother lay wasting from the incurable illness.

Everyone seemed to cry for a long time. Beside Kain, Rolf and Jones also lost their lives. It was another heavy blow for the village, after going through the difficult period two and a bit years ago.

But the time didn't stand still for anyone, not even for grieving parents. On top of that, there were the assassins still at large out there. Damien, Lizbeth and Derrick simply couldn't afford to wait. They had to do something.

“I propose sending the children to Argos, and to its Academy. I can't think of a safer place than it for both Kaleena and Katrina at the moment.”

Michelle offered her opinion.

The Lomaxes and the famed Invoker sat in the living room late at night, discussing the future and the way forward from this predicament.

Michelle continued.

“It's not safe in Riverfield, not anymore. This was the second time, wasn't it? First, it was Kaleena. Now, Kain. Since Katrina is here, she could be caught in the crossfire.”

Derrick frowned. “Dawson is missing. No correspondence from him whatsoever. At this point, something untoward must have happened.”

Damien nodded grimly, his face deeply furrowed.

Gaunt-looking Lizbeth wearily spoke up. “I agree with the teacher. I believe it'll be safer for.... Kaleena and Katrina if they are in SOIR's care.”

She was clearly pained to say such things, but objectively speaking, she knew it was the best option available. It was proven that she, her husband, nor Derrick could protect her kids from danger. She didn't want to part with her daughter at all, but she knew there was little choice.

Derrick massaged his temples for a few minutes, before picking up the wrapped object sitting on top of the living room table.

“So, this is the item Dawson wanted, yes?”

Not waiting for confirmation, he unwrapped it and exposed the metal box. His eyes narrowed as he studied it for a second, before he creaked open the top, revealing the content inside.

Damien told his cousin and teacher Michelle about the strange wooden board Dawson was searching for. He had not told anyone, not even his cousin nor his contacts at the Adventurer's Association.

But with Dawson helping with the investigation with this item as the compensation, he just had to tell the others.

Now that Derrick looked at the object, his mind shook. He felt his own Aeterna Pool reacting against the aura oozing from it. Michelle too had a strong reaction, her breathing quickening.

“Never seen anything like this before. These symbols, this type of wood, the level of the craftsmanship – it's clearly not an ordinary item at all.”

Michelle murmured after observing the Bagua Board for a few moments.

“We couldn't get it praised at the time we discovered it. Couldn't find anyone trust worthy,” sighed Damien. “Well, that's not important right now. Anyways, I can't think of any other options. Let's go with Michelle's idea. I have to go and see... that man anyway. I don't want to travel with Kaleena on an unsafe road anytime soon, nor leave her behind exposed.”

Michelle gazed deeply at him and replied. “SOIR will provide more than adequate protection. Even the Imperial Court tip-toes around the old Grand Elders. And since I know a few of those fogies, it'll be fine.”

With the exception of her, the others let out a long, weary collective sigh. The thick, invisible curtain of fatigue fell on the room like a fine mist, blanketing all.

“So, yes. Right, Lizbeth and I will head to Argos first on a Sky Ark. Teacher Michelle shall accompany us. We will stay in the capital for a few days while the admission for our children is complete. Only then, will we head North.” Damien spoke authoritatively. “Derrick will remain behind in the village. I need a qualified proxy to look after this place while I'm away. Teacher Michelle, could I trouble you for staying in the capital and looking after the kids? Apologies, I know you just handed in your resignation letter.”

“It's not a big deal,” Michelle chuckled softly. “I was going to suggest it myself. I'd feel better if it's me watching over the girls.”

“What about Kaleena's condition?” Lizbeth asked her teacher. “We still need to treat her fading ability to see Aeterna's flow.”

“I'll access SOIR's archives and do some research on the subject. When I gain more concrete insight, I shall send you a missive containing what herbs you need to gather.”

“That works, I think,” Damien smiled warmly for a second, before changing back to a passive face. “Thank you, Michelle. It seems like we're always the one to owe you. Derrick, will you be alright? I'm sorry for asking you to stay behind.”

Derrick shook his head. Raising his hand, he spoke firmly. “As much as I'd like to go, I understand your reasoning. Don't worry, I'll do my best and run this village well. But....”

“Yes?”

“Look, Damien. I know it's not my place to say this, but please, do not take it the wrong way. Go and make up with your old man. And seek his aid, however little. With his influence, finding the culprits will become much easier.”

Hearing this, Damien grimaced. He stayed silent, sinking back in the chair. But eventually, he nodded, showing his consent.

Lizbeth was the one who voiced her deep-seated fury. “When their identities are uncovered, I shall personally make them pay. I won't spare any, not even one.”

Anger brought color to her wan complexion. She clearly was not settled in her grief, and needed an outlet to vent her anger. So far, she had done an admirable job of holding it in, but it was taking its toll on her physical body.

Damien, though, was visibly worse. He looked like he lost ten, no, twenty years of his life force. He had no energy. He showed no emotions. He was like a walking zombie.

He even stopped his daily morning training. Staying indoors most of the time, he passed the days by sleeping the whole time. He spoke to no one, unless absolutely necessary.

As for food, he only ate the minimum amount needed to stave off hunger. His health would suffer even more so, if this continued.

That's why Derrick suggested that he seek out his father, Count Caleb Lucius Lomax, of the Grand Northern Territories. More than anything, Damien needed help. Whether that be financial, or comfort he needed it. Lizbeth was too angry to give the latter, and as far as Derrick knew, Damien's relationship with his siblings was rather amiable.

Lizbeth needed help too. She was pregnant, and a stable frame of mind and the body was critical for the development of the baby. With the couple unable to help each other, it was left to the rest of the family to do something. Being around Dukakis and Damien's older sister would do a world of good – or at least that's what Derrick was hoping.

And the real reason Derrick agreed to staying behind.... well, it was because he felt he saw resentment from Damien's and Lizbeth's stares. Not always, but sometimes. That's why, he figured, it'd be better if they were to separate for a while.

Derrick thought that by being near the grieving parents, he reminded them of their son. And most likely, his failure to uphold his promise to safeguard their child.

The dagger of guilt, lodged deep in his heart, twisted every time he received their silent eyes. It was getting ever-so unbearable. If they were to separate and not see each other's faces, then perhaps, their wounds might heal to a point where his own guilt would no longer hurt him.

That was his reasoning. It sounded cowardly, but that's how he felt about it.

Currently, he didn't show it, but Derrick feared being abandoned. He feared being alone. He always put up a brave face and stoically pushed forward, but deep inside he was afraid of being alone, shunned by the others.

He would not be able to stand it, if Damien and his family were to give up on him.

The silence in the living room grew uncomfortably. It was Damien who stood up first, and announced that he was going to bed. Lizbeth shot him an angry glare, but ignoring her, he left without even looking back once.

Michelle sighed, and murmured her good night, leaving for her own bedroom.

Lizbeth followed soon after, her destination Kaleena's room.

Derrick remained behind, trying to sort out his complex emotions. His heart didn't want to be settled, continuously roiling about and making him feel terrible.

He leaned back on the couch, thinking of resting his head. As his hip sank down, he felt a dull poking of an object buried somewhere between the cushions.

Irritated slightly, he reached in and dug out the offending item. It was a simple wooden brooch that was used as a clothes pin for Kain's diapers.

“Huh. How did you end up in there?”

Derrick muttered, and disinterestedly left it on top of the wooden Bagua board. He no longer paid any attention to it as he leaned back on the backrest, his eyes closing.

He didn't notice it, but a few seconds after the brooch was placed on the board, the Bagua began to emit an eerie violet glow. It was soft and weak, not easily seen by a naked eye, but it glowed regardless.

The brooch was near Kain for a very long time, slowly absorbing his life essence over the course. And as soon as it came in contact with the mysterious wooden board, a reaction occurred.

It wasn't just any old reaction, however.

It sent out a small beep, undetectable by almost all living things.

The beep traveled beyond the worlds. It traveled past the walls of each of the Ten Realms, threading its way toward a certain place.

Not even the gods residing in the Ether, the world between worlds, could not detect its penetration of the realms. If they did, then surely, they would have done everything in their powers to track the origin of the beep down, and eradicate all evidence of it...

The beep quickly traveled past one Realm after another, until it arrived on the most primordial Realm, the First, the nearest to the Zero Realm, the World Tree itself.

The world of the First was quite different to that of other Realms. For one, there was no night, nor were there days. Instead, one could tell the passing of a day by the changing colors of the sky.

When the sky was light green, it was daytime. If it was hazy blue, it was considered to be nighttime.

And instead of distant stars, thousands of large constellation bodies could be seen. They seemed so close that, if one reached out, one could actually touch them.

On this particular planet where the beep was shooting towards, the lands were rich with stunning amounts of Aeterna permeating just about everywhere.

But not a single sign of life could be seen. Not a single bird, not a single animal, nor a blade of grass. The barren mountains stood tall, harsh winds kicking up dust wherever they blew. In the center of each massive continents, a huge tree grew, its bony, leaf-less branches shaking gently at the heavens, sending out waves of endless Aeterna as they danced.

The beep finally arrived at a grand golden temple that stood majestically over a huge plateau spanning hundreds of kilometers. The tree spewing out Aeterna stood only a few hundred kilometers away.

On the temple's uppermost floor, a gigantic feng shui board, bigger than a small mountain, was suspended in the air, slowly rotating in the clockwise direction.

There were numerous empty pockets visible on the board, and within each of the pockets, an old man or woman wearing strange robes sat still, meditating silently. An incredible aura of ancient wisdom emanated from each and every one of them.

The beep came to a stop in front of one such man, and formed into a thin, visible white strand.

This old man's closed eyes shot open suddenly, and he snatched the strand off the air, his deep violet colored eyes glittering with a profound energy as he examined it.

“So.... that's where you were.”

He flashed a soft, mysterious grin, before resuming his meditation. However, his hands slowly began to form strange hand signs.

Every time he completed a sign, Aeterna converged and dispersed in a strange fashion around him. A shape could be seen right in front of him, then it dissipated. Another form coalesced, then went away again. Whenever the ancient man performed a hand sign, a shape nearly materialized before dissipating like a fading smoke.

Finally, a solid dark gray form that was no bigger than the man's palm appeared when the thousandth hand sign was performed. Even though it was ostensibly solid, its shape was not set, constantly changing from one to another in a span of seconds. At first, it was a crow, then a snake. Then, a lion. Followed by a bear. Then it was a spider, a deer, a stallion.

The ancient man spoke, without opening his eyes.

“Go. Find me the boy. He's in the Fourth Realm.”

Shockingly, a violet eye suddenly opened up in the center of this ever-changing mass. It blinked once, before it shot out at the speed too fast to see, leaving behind the grand golden temple.

The ancient man breathed in softly, and murmured nostalgically.

“Perhaps, I may get to see you soon....”

Surprise!!! Ninja update, here we go!!

 

Spoiler: Chapter 24

24


An annoyingly intense sunlight tickled Kain's closed eyelids, until he had no choice but to open them.

Dazed, he slowly sat up from where he lay, only to see crumbling walls, pockmarked with holes and vines coiling around surrounding him on all sides.

Even more dazed, he looked down on himself, and saw that he was covered in animal fur as a sheet, lying on a simple bed made out of a hardened mud.

His confusion grew, unable to recall how he'd got here.

Uhm, where am I? Is this....uh, back in Riverfield? No, it can't be, can it?

When he swung his feet over the bed, he noticed his tatty, torn clothes were no longer on his body, instead replaced by altogether less tatty and torn ones.

“Huh. Imagine that.”

There was an unfamiliar pair of shoes neatly gathered by the bed, waiting for him to slip his feet inside.

Now he felt even more confused, and somewhat disturbed.

Now wait a dang second here. I blacked out while being hammered by the Golems. I remember that. But how did I end up in here in this new clothes? No, no, no, WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!! Someone actually.... stripped me while I was out cold!! Eeeee???

He hurriedly began checking his body parts. Lifting the loose fitting tunic up to check his torso, to see if there were any foreign incision marks around where his vital organs might be. No surgery marks, so that was good.

Next, he checked his.... rear end. Seemed fine, no strange pain and stuff. One could never be careful in this world full of perverts and miscreants.

After checking out his body thoroughly, Kain breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing wrong with him. He was so healthy, in fact, not a single mark or scars were visible on him. All those little nicks, bruises, and scratches were miraculously healed, not even leaving behind a trace.

“Seriously?”

Kain scratched the back of his head, his confusion now firmly transformed into a speeding bullet train, barreling down the Lost Highway going around in circles.

“What the heck is going on here....”

He cautiously slipped his feet inside the shoes. It was one size too big, but felt rather nice, warm and snug and all that.

Next thing he did, was to approach one of the walls and try to gaze outside through a hole on it. His suspicions were confirmed when he did so: he was indeed inside the ancient dead city.

Well, it wasn't completely dead, as a flock of birds flew past not too far away from the room he was in. Judging from the angle, as he could easily see the roof tops of other smaller buildings down below, he figured he was at least on the sixth floor, or higher up. As for how deep he was in....

Well, should I try to go outside and find out?

He looked around, and to his left there was an ill-fitting wooden door, slightly ajar at the hinges and seemingly only a push away from falling down completely. It was so dilapidated that, Kain couldn't even guess just how old it was.

The corridor beyond the door was dimly lit, although there were holes and cracks that let sunlight in. Other than various vines here and there, he felt not a single sign of life, after he swept around with his Aeterna sense. Whether that was a good sign or not remained to be seen, obviously.

So, uh.... go up or go down?

After deliberating for a short while, he decided to go up. If he was in a tall structure, it'd be easier to get the lay of the land. Provided, of course, he could go up to the roof in the first place.

Before that, though he didn't know which way to go.

Argh. Whatever, man. Let's just start walking, see where that gets me.

He went left first. It didn't take long for him to run into a dead end. But it wasn't a total waste of time as it turned out. He found another room on the corridor, that seemed to have seen some use not too long ago. A sign that maybe someone alive and possessing of some intelligence lived here.

After retracing his steps, he eventually arrived a spiral staircase made of what looked like limestone. Signs of years of neglect and decay were clearly visible, what with broken steps, missing hand rails and piled up debris all accompanying the echoing sound of creaks and moans.

One look, and he no longer felt like stepping on it. But since he had no choice, he steeled his nervous heart and climbed up.

At the top of the stairs, he encountered a locked wooden hatch. The lock itself was rotted beyond recognition so it presented no problem, but the hatch itself was rather hefty.

Kain nearly slipped a disc as he managed to pry open the heavy hatch and gained access to the roof. The fresh air and the warm sunlight brushing his face felt like a tonic for the frayed soul of his.

Breathing in the air deeply, he trotted over to the edge and took a good look around. The roof was flat in design, with no guard rails to speak of, allowing a shorty like him to take a gander without clambering up dangerously over potentially worn down railings.

Every single buildings he could see showed signs of disuse. Walls had crumbled, vines sprouted out of every pore. Roofs have caved in. The streets rutted and broken.

The city seemed to go on forever. The building he was in was the tallest in the vicinity, and he saw the ramparts in the distance, with the forest beyond that in a blur.

“Wow, so far away.”

Kain muttered, feeling somewhat shocked.

He went to the other side of the building to take a look at the rest of the city, towards the direction of the spindly mountain, and saw that he wasn't too far from the center, where the base of the peak lay.

There, he saw a massive, massive fort built into the surface of the mountain.

“HUGE!!” Kain exclaimed after rubbing his eyes repeatedly.

If this world had no magic – Invocation – then he'd have to believe he was seeing things. But since that wasn't the case, building such an impressive structure didn't seem impossible.

The ramparts were taller than the outer walls of the city, and he could see nine spires set a fixed interval connected to a central tower-like structure. Numerous other, smaller buildings filled the gap in between the spires.

Despite the decay and destruction, overall the fort looked remarkably well kept. Sure, those vines were visible everywhere, even on the surfaces of the fort, but compared to the rest of the city? It was like comparing heaven and earth. No comparison there.

“If this city was still.... alive, then that must have been where the lord lived.”

He shivered as the aura of the place swept across him. Even though the whole architecture was very impressive, imposing and fantastic, at the end of the day it felt dispassionate and cold, as if the person who designed it wanted to impart the message where no one was supposed to enter.

Well, it wasn't like Kain was thinking of entering anyway.

“Okay, now that I see what's what, how do I get outta here?”

From where he stood, he couldn't really see an exit of the city. There was a flowing river cutting through the Eastern section, and that could potentially lead him out. It looked deep, though, and he felt reluctant to jump into a body of water that was an unknown quantity at this point in time. Who knows what kind of Fiend was lurking in the depth?

“This can't be that difficult. This is – was – a city, so there must be gates on the four cardinal directions, just like how it is with Lafayette. I mean, gotta be, right?”

He decided to find the biggest street, and follow that outward. He figured that method would get him near the exit.

But before that, he had to determine whether there were any Fiends within the city limits. He really didn't feel like running into one at the moment.

He spent a good few minutes checking out every nook and cranny, stretching his Aeterna sense as far as possible. Instead of spreading it around like a radar, he could narrow it which increased the sensing distance by a great deal. Both had their pros and cons, but since he was so high up, might as well choose the option to look far, or so he reasoned.

Around the half hour mark, he decided the coast was clear.

“Whew, hopefully I'm not making a mistake here, trying to leave this city....”

He was right to feel nervous about leaving the city, which seemed safe enough to him. The troubling thing was, he was smack dab in the middle of this unimaginably huge forest. If he ever wanted to escape, then staying so deep didn't seem like a smartest decision in the world.

Also, there was this air of uncertainty hanging around the city itself. Kain couldn't really put his finger on why was that, but something definitely felt very off about this place. Even though it was a sure thing that the city was dead, it felt like someone was watching him. It was a very disconcerting feeling indeed.

He wasn't an idiot, of course. How could he forget that voice, booming out from somewhere in this city that disintegrated those sturdy Golems like they were nothing?

Or, where was the phoenix? It brought him here in a hurry when that gigantic, blood-red Fiend came after them. Now, where was it hiding?

At the moment, he didn't even want to know. The further away he was from the bird, the better he'd feel. He didn't even care for the fact that he wasn't hungry either, nor why he wasn't in the first place.

“Okay, let's go.”

He turned back to the hatch, but the moment he tried to lift it open, a new problem rose: it was too heavy for him.

Veins on his forehead began to bulge as he gave the almighty heave, trying to lift the heavy and obviously stuck hatch. But it wouldn't budge, no matter how hard he grunted and gritted his teeth.

This infuriated him to no end. After stomping on the hatch for a few minutes relieving his anger, Kain fired a Wind Blade, hoping to slice apart the stupid wooden blockage.

He got a small chip. Not very encouraging, but it was something. The sun was blaring down hard on him now, and Kain just knew he had to get under a shade before he withered up like a mummy. So, more Wind Blade it was.

“Break.... Open.... You.... dumb piece of....!!”

Kain swore as he fired off one Wind Blade after another. One small shave after another, the wooden hatch slowly fell apart and his much deserved escape from this unjust entrapment was getting nigh.

Emboldened by his rapid progress, Kain poured more Aeterna in the spell, and fired the most potent version of Wind Blade he had ever fired so far. It took a fair chunk off his Aeterna Pool, but he felt that it was worth the gamble.

An extremely sharp Blade formed from his efforts and shot forward, slicing through the hatch as if it was a sponge cake. The cut wooden panel fell down, exposing the way down.

But Kain had no time to celebrate just yet.

“Eh?”

For the second time in his new life, he emitted a sound of confusion, when the roof began to rumble, literally.

His super-fine Blade cut past the hatch, and also ended up slicing a particularly thick vine that snaked around the staircase. When that bit was cut open, suddenly the support pillars that held the building together became weak.

The end result was that the whole building buckled on its own weight.

“No way....?!”

Kain muttered dazedly as the roof began to crack apart, brick by brick. In a blink of an eye, the building broke apart in a spectacular fashion, with the boy still on the roof.

He spat out several expletive-laden screams as he plunged below.

Oh crap, am I gonna die like this? After all that I've went through?

It's said that in the moments right before death, time would slow down. It certainly happened for him, allowing Kain to see smallest, most minute details of every falling pieces of debris surrounding his body.

It was surreal. And also weirdly enough, serene.

Morose images of his dying figure stirred up in his imagination. Now that was quite unpleasant, imagining himself buried and crushed under the piles upon piles of ancient rubble, with no one to dig him out.

It sure as hell felt unfair, and he seriously wanted to complain to someone, anyone. Didn't matter who, as long as he or she had ears to listen with.

But it turned out, his intuition regarding him being watched by some shadowy figure proved to be correct.

As Kain fell, a human-shaped shadow materialized on the roof top of a nearby building.

The figure nimbly jumped across the chasm, rapidly closing on the boy by lightly stepping on the falling debris like they were convenient footholds placed just for the occasion.

While approaching him, the figure shot an arrow toward another building's roof, the end of which was tied to a sturdy, dark-colored rope.

The rope in turn was tied around the figure's waist, acting something like a bungee cord.

Before Kain could fully realize what was happening, the figure snatched him off mid-air like a certain well known red-and-blue spandex wearing web-slinger, and by utilizing the momentum from the shot rope, dragged both the boy and herself across the gap.

By the time Kain snapped out of his daze, he was standing on the rooftop of another building, relatively unhurt from the ordeal.

Blinking his eyes like a goldfish, he turned around to see his rescuer, and felt his heartbeat increase by a ten fold.

Before him stood a tall and elegant figure, the pony-tailed verdant green hair slowly fluttering from the wind. She flicked dust off her shoulders, and gave him a cool gaze, before asking him in English.

“Whew, you sure do know how to party big time, dontcha? And wowsers, you also know a lot of naughty words too. I gotta do something about that, since you're still a little kid. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Something's on my face? Oh wait a moment, you haven't seen a long-eared kin before, have you?”

Kain gulped as he focused on those pointy ears, barely hearing the non-stop assault of words directed at him..

Because she was an Elf.

~​

As the pair made their way toward the grand fort in the center of the city, Kain found out that all his preconceived notions regarding Elves were smashed to bits. For one, he always thought they were aloof, dour and maybe even a little cold. Not her, though. She was a literal chatterbox.

“This one has inherited the family title of Schwinn Fransis. Hailing from the Great Forest of Boscage, the first name is Embouchre. My whole clan hailed from the Great Forest. It's called a Grand Forest because it's so big. Bigger than the Tetamus, by many measures. You should come and see it some time. You'll be left completely flabbergasted!! Oh and the food there is truly divine as well. There are two hundred different tribes dwelling in the Forest, and all of them have different recipes on how to boil a potato!! And they all taste subtly different!! Oh, and then carrots!! Those too!! There was this one time, where Cousin Maratoma did something really funny with a carrot!! You want to know what she did? And, and... oh and....”

Kain developed a pretty hardcore migraine when subjected to this non-stop barrage of yammering. It was a small wonder how she was able to keep it all in, while she observed his behavior from the shadows. The uncomfortable feeling he had back then was because her, apparently.

Disregarding the million and one things she told him just now, Kain asked. “Uhm, so, uh. How should I address you?”

“Embouchre is fine, young one. That's this one's given name, after all. Although I'd understand if it's a smite too long. But I had no trouble from my fellow brethrens. So, yes, you can...”

“Riiiight, okay. Understood. How about Emma? It's shorter.”

Embouchre Schwinn Fransis of Boscage shrugged her shoulders. “Mmm. I like it. But it really matters not, the young master can call me this or that, as long as there's some semblance of Embouchre in there somewhere. I'll be content.”

As she continued talking, going off on her own pace, Kain let her words flow into one ear and slide smoothly out the other one, barely registering the words she spoke.

Meanwhile, he took this opportunity to study her better. She was definitely an Elf, what with her long, pointy ears, tall, slender but stunning frame, and a peerless face of beauty. Her eyes, especially; they were of striking amber hue contrasting with her equally striking green hair.

There was a shocking amount of Aeterna oozing from her, unfettered by the leather-and-metal body armor protecting her vital parts. On her back, a quiver full of arrows and a large greatbow slung around. A length of rope wound around her waist. And a curved scimitar tied to her left hip. A half dozen throwing knives slotted around the various parts on her armor completed the look of a warrior.

One bit of decoration that looked out of place was her necklace. It contained a dull ruby-like gemstone, emitting a very weak Aeterna signature of indeterminable Affinity. It was fashioned like a common trinket that could be picked up anywhere, but the way she treasured it, it clearly held a lot of value for her personally.

And there was something else about her; some sort of.... unseen energy that was similar to Aeterna, but at the same time, not really, pulsing and coursing about her. It was a bizarre sight for sure, but didn't seem hostile, so Kain wasn't too alarmed by it. Still, something to take note of.

But there was this one question he asked earlier on that remained unanswered. When her presence was finally revealed, Kain asked her who she was – answered – why she protected him – also answered, in a roundabout way – and how come she spoke English, to which she replied, “Why.? Is it so strange? All the other long eared tribes speak the same tongue. You call it English? That's funny. We call it Elvish. So another tribe called Engs also use our tongue? Now that's something new!”

The final question, the most important one out of the lot, didn't get the answer. You know, the one concerning about who it actually wanted him in here, inside this dead city, and had him placed under a careful observation.

Rather than giving out an explanation she said, “Just follow me to the Tetamus Fort. You'll see when you get there. I promise.”

So, against his better judgment, he was walking to the ginormous fort in the center of the city, guided by the ever-chattering Emma.

That voice, though. Kain mused quietly as he followed her. That belonged to a guy. An old guy, no less. So it was definitely not Emma who, uh, shouted out back then. That means there's another person here in the city. Is that who I'm going to meet?

They walked on the snaking streets, weaving past the crumbing ruins that once formed a part of a thriving city, now nothing but a haunt of fading memories.

Oddly though, Kain didn't spot a single dead body. Not a single bone, nor anything remotely resembling a dead thing. Occasionally, he saw small, furry creatures scurry about here and there but other than that, there weren't any signs of life at all, currently or in the past.

They must've walked for an hour or so. Kain got this impression that were it not for him and his slow walking speed, Emma could've arrived at the destination in a few minutes. She didn't seem to mind it though, as the stream of words leaving her lips continued to flow like a raging river he crawled out from not too long ago.

She even complimented that he was good listener. To that undeserved compliment, he could only offer a cramped smile.

Soon though, the time for talks came to an end, as the pair arrived at the only entrance to the fort. The once imposing archway had partially collapsed on its own weight, scattering pale white stones all around and creating sort of a field that might suit a paintball gun match.

“In through here, off you go,” said Emma, as she ushered Kain in.

“Wait a sec, you are not going in?”

“No no no. This fort's a sacred place. I can't enter. That's sacrilege, you know!!”

“What is? You entering here?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I can't enter no matter what. Why do you think my room was on the building you demolished, instead of here in the fort which is in a much better shape? Hmm? That's because it's a sacred place, that's why!!”

“Okay, okay. I got it.”

Kain stopped her from continuing, and hurriedly entered the fort. She seemed to pout a little, before vanishing into a nearby shadow like a ninja. Kain still felt her gaze on his back, though, so she was still carrying out her duty to keep tabs on him. How industrious, he mused.

Now then, shall I? Do I even have a choice?

Kain sighed, and slowly made his way forward.

The fort's wall was incredibly thick, even compared to that of Lafayette's. Kain thought it was at least 1.5 times thicker. Even modern weapons like a ballistic missile would have trouble knocking this sucker down.

Past the walls, the bailey – or was that a ward, Kain couldn't recall – stretched out far. Weeds and the vines broke the monotony of the perfectly aligned tiles, a sign of color on otherwise white and barren land.

He saw signs of other structures, but they were nothing more than foundations, with wooden bits above all having decayed away thanks to the ravages of time and the Mother Nature.

There was more than three hundred meters between him and the entrance of the fort proper. As he got closer, he couldn't help but notice that vines seemed to come out from the fort, although none were around the path he was walking on. Now that felt a bit unsettling.

Closer he got, more awestruck he got. The scale of the fort built into the cliff face of the Tetamus mountain, the spindly peak, was something else. Although different, he was reminded of the ancient lost city of Petra when he studied the face of the fort.

Vines came out of cracks and holes, giving off a sad aura of loneliness, unlike when he was looking at it from afar. Suddenly, even Kain felt melancholic just by staying still and leaving his gazes on it. If he lingered any longer, he felt he might burst into tears for no reason whatsoever.

Maybe that malarkey about sacred place and whatnot might be true, Kain sighed weakly, and made his way towards the entrance.

There were no doors blocking his ingress. Only the hints of metal hinges bigger than him hanging loose on the door frame acted as the surviving proof that there once was a pair of grand doors welcoming, or blocking, all visitors.

“Uh... Hello? Anybody home?”

His nervous voice echoed against the massive but empty hallway.

Kain looked around, and was puzzled to see the level of cleanness displayed. The floors, the walls, even the partially collapsed grand staircase, all shone majestically as if they were polished only an hour ago.

Funnily though, he couldn't see not a single furniture, nor any decorative things anywhere. No paintings, no sculptures, no obligatory standing plate armors that seemed to populate every haunted castles ever – not one of them could be seen, at least in this hallway.

There was one bit of decoration, if you could call it that, a huge carving of a blooming tree on the biggest wall on the middle of the staircase that was wide enough to allow an army to march up no problem.

The carving itself was very, very intricate. Kain even thought that the tree was alive and actually swaying gently with the imaginary breeze. Such impressions only reinforced the overall aura of spookiness, though.

So, which way?

Kain pondered, as he weighed his options. There were passages on either side of him, both of them only sporadically lit and dozens upon dozens of vines curling in and out.

Up on the second floor, there were more passageways, accessible by climbing up on the grand staircase.

Hmm. This place is huge. I really don't want to get lost in here. Right, last time I went to my left, and that didn't go well, so this time.... to my right.

After deciding, he carefully tread over the vines and headed slowly into the passage.

Even here, it was rather clean and well kept considering the ancientness of the fort, with the exception of those vines of course. He found several rooms on the way but they were, as expected, devoid of furniture.

What's more eerie, was the fact that Kain didn't run into a single dead body, just like how it was in the city.

It just didn't make any sense, not to encounter anything remotely resembling the dead. Surely, a city this big must've had population of hundreds of thousands, if not more. Yet, there were no signs of that.

His imaginations ran wild, all of them without any basis whatsoever, yet there they were, busy frazzling his already nervous mind. In one of the more colorful versions, he wondered if there were some sort of Fiends that swallowed whole the citizens, not leaving a single trace. And now, those Fiends were asleep, deep inside the earth.

In another one, they all migrated out of this place. That was a more pleasant version out of all.

Maybe I should've asked Emma....

Kain regretfully thought back to the time when they were walking toward the fort. Maybe she did say something about the city and its apparent lack of people. He wouldn't know, since he was far too busy not listening to her. Oh well.

Another thing that bothered him was the concentration of Aeterna. It was quite thick by the entrance, but as he got further away and deeper into the inner sanctums of the fort, it only got thicker and heavier.

Such concentration even exceeded what he was subjected to while visiting the branch of SOIR back in Lafayette by perhaps a factor of ten or more.

Regular people wouldn't even come anywhere remotely close, otherwise they would just fall unconscious and even die.

The passageway curved inwardly, making him think he was getting closer to the center of the mountain, or some such. The light got dimmer and dimmer, necessitating him to start a Firelight and maintain that as an improvised torch.

Eventually, he had to stop when a pair of jet black doors made of unknown materials blocked the progress.

Now, the passage he walked in was on the tall side, easily four meters high. The chamber he was in, though, this place was something else. On the opposite side he saw another passageway, leading him to believe that if he went that way, he'd no doubt arrive back at the main hallway again.

The chamber was about the size of a gymnasium, with just as tall a ceiling. The black doors occupied almost the entirety of the wall to his right. If they weren't ajar already, he'd have no hope in hell opening them.

The question was, whether he wanted to open them or not in the first place. The answer he reached was refreshingly simple, which formed right after he took a gander at the carvings on the doors' surfaces. Yep, he didn't want to. Although a little curious about the doors and what was on them, he didn't dare venture in any deeper. The fear of the unknown was stronger than the desire to satisfy his curiosity.

It was difficult to make out what was depicted on the surface as a whole, but that didn't mean there weren't any snippets he could see.

It looked like a some sort of battlefield where countless number of people lay wasting. People on horseback, people with swords and lances, headless corpses, hills of the dead, spears and other polearms sticking out of the mounds, cackling skeletons madly hacking away, flying Fiends swooping down on the people below.

Thousands and thousands of soldiers clashing in waves upon waves.

“Damn. That's crazy.”

Kain muttered. He didn't dare touch the doors, since he felt quite a powerful Aeterna oozing off of them, but he continued to observe and study the carvings. He figured maybe with this he might get some clue as to why this city was so barren and lifeless, besides it being so old.

He was totally absorbed in what he was doing and forgot about the time. Minute after minute ticked by while he stood around poring over the carvings, trying to see if there was anything. Sure, there were lots of things depicted on it, but whether they were of any value wasn't clear.

Before he knew it, he had inched closer to the open gap, and the deep, unsettling darkness beyond.

“Okay, maybe I should stop here and go back.”

No matter how much he shined his Firelight inside, it didn't seem to illuminate anything, making him think that the darkness was busy sucking in the light and obscuring his vision.

It was feint, but he felt a sense of danger coming from the depth of this darkness, so he promptly decided not to go any further.

As soon as he turned on heels though, a snort rang out from the darkness, followed by a vexed voice that sounded quite unhappy and impatient.

“Hey, you coward! Where the hell do you think you're going?! Come here, right now!!”

Before Kain could start running with all his might, the vines around his feet wrapped around his waist tightly, forcing almost all the air out of his lungs. That meant he couldn't even scream, only whimper in shock, as he was lifted up in the air.

Next thing he knew, the vines were violently yanking him into the darkness beyond the jet black doors.

He didn't even have time to grab hold onto things.

Announcement time: I'll try to release around two chapters per week from now on, until the end of the holidays. The emphasis on "try", of course.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 25.

25


Is this it? Is this finally the end of the brief life of Kain Lucius Lomax – me? Oh, man....

Kain's face flickered grimly as his body flew in the air, yanked by the damnable vines. The stupid things had wrapped him too tightly and didn't even give him an inch of space. Actually, that was for the better: the path he was on snaked downwards in a huge spiral, occasionally scything past stunningly massive pillars that seemingly propped up the spindly Tetamus Mountain itself. If he wasn't secured tightly in the grip, then he no doubt would have flailed about, which could have resulted in him slamming into those massive pillars. That wouldn't be too pleasant for him to experience, obviously.

He didn't feel angry, though. No, he wasn't completely not angry, but at least it was no more than a simmer, not a full-on, boil-your-noodles kind of anger. The grim expression was simply due to the cramping of his stomach muscles.

The reason was pretty simple, really. After going through one tough situation after another, he came to realize the fact that.... no matter how much his spirits were willing, his flesh just couldn't keep up. He wasn't some sort of a superhero from a Saturday morning cartoon who could power up in the moments of deadly crisis, and then overcome the said crisis like a champ.

Oh no, nothing convenient like that existed for him. So, there was no point in getting all hot and peeved, he mused.

Instead, he'd save his energy and enjoy the scenery in the meantime. Just go with the flow, he told himself. Let the fate carry me, to wherever I'm supposed to go....

Every once in a while, Kain went through an open doorway, each with a pair of imposing black stone doors similar to the one with the depiction of an ancient battlefield.

He must have gone through a dozen of those doorways before emerging into a clearing. It was so bright in here, he momentarily thought he was outside again, only to confirm that he was still underground.

There were countless Lazulites shining lights all over the tall ceiling. There weren't just the blue ones either, as he could spot the whole rainbow spectrum of colors above, these disparate beams merging into a single, bright, sun-like glow that enveloped the clearing.

The area turned out to be some sort of a secret garden/jungle combo, filled to the brim with exotic vegetation and flowers, littering the landscape with dazzling display of colors. Tall trees swayed against the invisible breezes, chirping of multiple insects buzzed in the air, and most of all, confusing mixture of scents wafted all around the garden.

This scent quickly overwhelmed his senses, causing him to experience the gamut of physical and emotional reactions, as the vines continued to yank him through the parts of the garden.

He felt blissful, even languid, then disgusted and irritated; he felt excited, then sad. He felt his appetite flaring, then felt like falling into a deep slumber. All these, coming from the potent cocktail of odors from the plant lifeforms below.

By the time he was pulled into the darkened passage beyond the garden, he was able to shake himself loose from the stupor.

What the hell was that? Hallucinogens? I think I saw weed back there. Holy cow, did I get just high?

Chuckling wryly, he began studying the new surroundings as he sped by. It seemed to him that this passageway was noticeably different from the previous one.

There were Lazulites here and there acting as lamps so he was able to see, and even he could tell this passage was not man-made. It resembled a cavern, more or less. Except, there were none of the stalactites and stalagmites to be found anywhere.

In their place, thousands upon thousands of vines completely covering the floor, and boring holes into the walls and the ceilings, like veins of blood. If they pulsed like real veins, then he'd think the whole mountain was actually a thriving, living thing.

Man, this place is weird. Besides, just how long do I have to go? I must have flown for.... hundreds of miles. Okay, maybe not true, but still. This whole vine pulling thing is getting really tiring by now.

Kain inwardly sighed, hoping this infernal ride to the very depths of the earth would end soon. Ever since he had accepted his fate, he felt calm about his current predicament. However, with such calmness, inevitably, boredom followed suit.

He was bored stiff with the scenery that changed little. If it weren't for the sudden appearance of the secret garden, he'd have fallen asleep a long ago, figuratively speaking of course.

The passage continued to spiral downwards, but gradually, the slope was leveling out. Even the passageway expanded to double the original size.

Before he knew it, soft, pleasing scent gently filled the air. It was quite subtle, almost imperceptible even. Catching a whiff of it, Kain couldn't help but experience a nostalgic feeling sweep over him like a gentlest stroke of a master painter's brush. It was a warm and comfortable sensation.

In the distance, he saw a light, much, much brighter than what the numerous Lazulites could serve up. It was like, as if he was leaving the cavern and emerging outside into the daylight.

But that wasn't possible, since he was clearly deep underground.

Kain's heart grew nervous once more, the nostalgic scent unable to do anything to calm it. The concentration of Aeterna had reached a ridiculous amount and he felt the immense pressure trying to squeeze him.

Oh boy, something big's at the end of this road, isn't it?

He thought he was at peace with whatever the fate had in store for him. But now, he was genuinely feeling apprehensive.

It was his preternatural pseudo-ability to sense the troublesome flags kicking in. The thick foreboding sensation warned him that, the moment he reached his destination, which wasn't too far now, he would find himself in a heap of totally unnecessary complications.

Oh crap. What are the odds that I'll be proved right?!

If he didn't know better, it'd be too damn high.

Soon, he was enveloped in that blinding brightness as the vines successfully pulled him into an area that defied all common sense.

When his eyes adjusted to the light, he was left speechless at the sight waiting for him.

He was now in a dome-like space that seemed to stretch for thousands of miles in every direction – left, right, front, back, the ceiling, wherever.

Speaking of the ceiling, Lazulites, numbers easily surpassing millions, shone brightly. But their impressive light show paled in comparison to that of the crazily overflowing Aeterna and what this mysterious substance was doing.

The source of all that indescribable amount of Aeterna, as well as of the countless vines, was a humongous tree that sorta resembled a Baobab, standing tall and proud smack dab in the middle of the space. Its bark was smooth like flowing water, the color flickering between pale green and gray. It looked old and sacred. Touching it might constitute a grave offense to some long forgotten religion considering how holy it felt to him.

Instinctively, without being told by anyone Kain knew exactly what this tree was supposed to be.

The World Tree.

The supposed source of all Aeterna flowing in the world.

The vines rudely deposited him right in front of the trunk. He landed on his butt, and let out a painful groan as he rolled on the ground.

Veins bulging, he shot up to let out some choice words, but he saw that the vines have retreated far from him. At this point, it seemed like a waste of energy just to speak ill of them.

Sighing dejectedly, he turned to look at the tree behind him, shuddering at the nonsensical scale of the thing.

Actually, everything he had experienced so far in this dead city, this forest, the mountain range itself, bothered on total lunacy. His modern day logic was having a hard time trying to support his slightly-overworked brain.

Kain was better prepared than most folks in his readiness to accept the absurd occurrences happening in front of him, although barely. He was thoroughly trained in boundless imaginations of web novels and all those anime shows, so this much wasn't.... uh, much.

But even then.... he had his limits, and if he wasn't careful, he might end up breaching it in not too distant future.

The World Tree in front of him emitted the kind of ancientness that easily surpassed all the others he had felt before in the dead city up above. If the city existed for ten thousand years, then this tree, probably for billions of years. The trunk was so wide, from where he stood, he couldn't even see the edges, never mind trying to walk around it to satisfy his curiosity.

As for the branches, there were so many of them he couldn't count at all. But weirdly, there weren't many leaves, making the tree look a bit barren and lifeless.

The thick roots extended outwards to all directions. The vines seemed to sprout from them, like tiny root hairs. Except in this case, they weren't tiny at all. Or, in relation to the roots themselves, maybe they should be considered tiny.

The root Kain was standing on was thick enough to park an ocean liner on top with room to spare. And there were hundreds of similar roots, none of them smaller and some of them even thicker and bigger. What a truly absurd scale, especially considering that everything was still underground.

All around him, streams of Aeterna oozed out from the tree's surface like mist. There were so much here, now they no longer looked like thin fog but actual, flowing river. As a matter of fact, because of this stunningly high concentration, the normally-formless substance often swirled into various illusory shapes depicting countless lifeforms – fireflies, birds, lizards, monkeys, what have you, right in front of him, glowing in beautiful and dazzling light shows. All these shapes were no bigger than his palm but, they were still beautiful to look at.

Suddenly, a ferocious, palm-sized Aeterna tiger formed a few inches away from him. Its body flickering in a rainbow of colors, it roared soundlessly. When it did, Kain's body shook from the resonance.

He panted, his mind reeling. His somewhat unstable Aeterna Pool seemed to stabilize, then expand like crazy. Then without warning, it condensed into one fifth of its original depth, causing a massive, back breaking pain to whip him mercilessly.

He fell on his knees, desperately enduring the pain. It took only a few breath of time for the excruciating pain to leave him, but it sure as heck felt like an eternity to him.

Other illusory shapes materialized and roared soundlessly, but they didn't cause as violent a reaction as before, and gradually, all the pain went away.

His eyes bloodshot, Kain gingerly rolled on his back, gasping for breath.

“What the heck was that all about?!”

He shivered like a wet dog, before crawling into a fetal position.

As he continued to tremble, he heard an unhappy grunt not too far from where he was.

Alarmed, he quickly shot up, and searched for the source of the noise, only to have his common sense nearly reach that breaking point.

Before him, an old man stood. Wearing a white robe, his hair also white, his flowing beard white too – almost everything about him was white, except his race.

“Uh.... Gandalf?”

Kain muttered dazedly. Even though he already called out the very first name he thought of, after taking another look it'd be more correct to call this old man Master Pai Mei from that infamous movie about killing some man named Bill.

The Old Man raised an eyebrow, his expression clearly showing how annoyed he was.

“Who the frack is Gandalf? Anyways, you kept me waiting, kiddo. About damn time you showed up.”

Even the nostalgic scent couldn't dispel the confusion in Kain's heart, as he heard the Old Man speak in English. Because of his shaken mind, he nearly blurted out in English too, but he caught himself right before the blunder.

He quickly replied in Argos's standard dialect instead.

“Uhm, who are you? Where am I?”

The Old Man gave him a bemused glance, then shook his head. “Look kid, I know you're not from this world. So, give up the acting, alright? Let's not waste time here.”

Kain persisted with the feint, because the longer he stood before this Old Man, the stronger that foreboding feeling grew. He knew he had to somehow weasel himself out of this place, or else something very troublesome might happen to him. He was so, so very sure of this now.

The aura coming from the Old Man was neither threatening nor friendly, but still there was something rather overbearing in it. Kain didn't want to get involved here if he could help it. Especially if he asked the boy to do something totally impossible. Like, go fight me a dragon, or some such.

“I'm sorry but, I don't understand?”

Kain tried his best innocent look, with the puppy dog eyes and all. This always worked on his mother and sister, not to mention his father so he was at least 60% sure of it working against the Old Man too.

With a snort, the Old Man gave him a fat smack in the back of his head. Kain's brain rang loudly, and his vision swam for a brief moment.

When he came to, a vicious amount of pain assaulted him, so he squatted down and hurriedly rubbed his head.

“Ouch!! Hey, what's the big idea?!”

Kain angrily shouted in English at the Old Man who simply returned a cold snort, then pointed at him. “Oh, now you feel like speaking properly, eh? I told you not to waste time. You got what you deserved, kiddo. Listen to your elders when they speak to you.”

“Okay fine. What do you want from me?”

Kain grumbled as he stood up. He cautiously gazed around, searching for an exit. If there was an opening, he'd make a break for it.

The Old Man's eyes flickered, before he chuckled wryly.

“Oh my rotten luck. I knew you were a self-absorbed coward but to be this discourteous to your benefactor? Looks like I'll need to discipline you properly from now on. Kids nowadays.”

Hearing this, fear sprang up in his heart. “Wait a second. You still haven't told me what's going on. Will you just tell me what the heck is happening here? Who the heck are you?!”

Kain slowly backed up until he tripped on a rough bit of a root. He regained his balance before falling butt first, which was a first. This little break helped him regain his composure a bit, however. That's also when he noticed a little ball of flames lazily gliding in an arc from the exit.

Kain realized that it was the phoenix.

The fiery bird gracefully danced in the air before settling on the Old Man's shoulder, and softly cooed like a bloody pigeon, its face full of affection towards the person lending his shoulder out. Suffice to say, Kain's jaw hit the floor.

“Hmm, on top of being rude, he's unexpectedly slow, isn't he, Orion?”

The Old Man gently rubbed the head of the phoenix like it was his pet. What's more, it looked happy to be stroked, which was in complete opposite to when Kain tried to touch it.

“Orion?”

The boy blurted out. It wasn't what he wanted to say at that moment, but somehow it came out first.

“Yep. She's called Orion. A Fire type Roc hatchling,” replied the Old Man. “I hear you've been trying to give her funny names.”

“I don't think Firebird is a funny name, though... No wait, that's not really important is it? Please just tell me what's going on here... uh, sir. And.... you called me slow just now, didn't you?!”

“Tsk, this kid. Alright, here's the deal. You are currently standing in my domain. This whole mountain range is my home. I've been watching you with great interest ever since you accidentally entered via the river.”

The Old Man waved his hand dismissively.

“You've been watching me? If that is so, then.... why didn't you help me when I nearly died? Why were you watching me? Are you.... *gasp* a perv....?”

“This little punk!? You looking to die?”

The Old Man flared up menacingly. Kain backtracked quickly but oddly, he didn't feel all that threatened. Sure, he was still scared of undue violence erupting from this mysterious Old Man, but he felt that his life wasn't in danger. Otherwise, he wouldn't be pressing the wrong buttons deliberately like this.

For some reason, he just wanted to irritate this Old Man. It was like an itch that had to be scratched. There was something about this man, the way he carried himself, the first impression of him, that irked Kain so much.

The Old Man, sure enough, stopped short of pummeling him. Taking a deep breath, he continued with the explanation.

“At first, I thought about leaving you to your fate. But then.... I found out that you are not from here, from Noa. So, I sent my Familiar, Orion, to look after you whilst I decided on what to do with you.”

“Wha... how did you figure that I'm not from around here? It's not like you can tell apart, you know. Or you can read minds?”

“When you were building your first shelter, you cursed out a particular word that starts with an F and ends with a K. And no, it's not 'funk'.” The Old Man chuckled as he stroked his beard leisurely. “Imagine my shock at the scene – a helpless, cute little boy blurting out like a sailor. Very amusing, it was.”

Kain remembered that. He wasn't the type of a guy who swore a lot back in his previous life and that personality carried over to this one as well. So it took extraordinary circumstances for him to utter one.

To think, there was someone around to actually hear him say that. Felt like he got wronged here, somehow, just unsure why that was so.

“Judging by your appearance, you were born here still possessing all the memories of your past life. Am I right?”

Kain took a deep breath. His whole body shuddered from the shock.

“Surprised? Don't be. You aren't the only one who were brought to this world, The Fourth Realm, against their will.”

“Fourth Realm?” Kain mouthed the unfamiliar term slowly, until he vaguely remembered something about the Ten Realms and the World Tree. But more urgently though, “Wait, if there are, were, others like me out there, then.... is there a possibility for me to return?”

“Well, I wouldn't say it's impossible but it is, for you as you are. But besides that. Let's not beat around the bush, eh? You piqued my interest. You have a certain knack for survival, and is blessed with a decent amount of luck. Heh, and perhaps most importantly, you're young. A good combination of qualities, for what I have in mind for you.”

A deeply sinister light began to shine from the Old Man's sneering eyes. The alarming chill Kain felt in that moment was indescribable. Instinctively, he began running, as fast as he could.

A cold laughter rang out like a bell, booming around the huge underground chamber and causing numbness to Kain's sense of hearing.

“You are not going anywhere, now that I decided to take you.”

Like hell I'd let you!!

Kain gritted his teeth and cast a Body Enhancement Invocation down on his legs, instantly increasing his speed.

“I'm going to train you, I'm going to reform your fragile, weak-ass body into something much, much more suitable for the tasks that await you in the future.”

The Old Man continued to laugh as he talked. Bizarrely, no matter how fast or far Kain ran the voice seemed to come from mere inches away, right behind his ears. That was seriously terrifying.

“I'm going to teach you.... kung fu!!”

They were simple words on the surface, but carried unseen power which struck him like a category 5 hurricane. Kain reeled in shock, dazed from the sheer force of will transmitted in those seven words. Before he knew it, vines swept him up again, and he was brought to face the Old Man once more. Seeing that hateful, leering mug, suddenly Kain developed this incredible urge to knock that stupid, content smile off of his face at any cost.

Obviously, that would be very far in the future. Make that very, very far indeed.

~​

As the dawn broke, Derrick's sleeping figure stirred quietly.

It only took a millisecond before clarity returned to his eyes. As he sat up, he took a long look around the empty bedroom.

Realizing that he was alone in the entire house, he let out a lonely sigh, before pulling himself up.

With Damien and Lizbeth leaving only yesterday, taking the kids with them the house was eerily silent, devoid of life. Actually that was not completely true – there were odd creaks and groans coming from the aged wooden floors and the roof. But other than that....

Rosy had to accompany them too. Delilah commuted from her own home. Derrick was indeed all alone.

Shoving the doubt rising in his heart, he dressed and went downstairs. The sun was about to break past the horizon. The early morning air was refreshingly crisp, none of the daytime's stifling heat remaining in it. A good time to get some daily exercise done.

After sweating, his mind was clearer. Much helpful, as the day beckoned. Today, was the beginning of the work as a proxy for a lord.

He failed to become one, yet here he was, still able to act out as one. He wondered briefly if that qualified as ironic development or not.

He took a long cold shower to wipe away the built up sweat. Since there weren't the modern type of shower, he simply filled a bucket with fresh water from the house's well, and poured it over his head. Normally a noble of a fine birth would never dream of doing such a crude thing, but now that he'd been doing it for the last two and a half years, he got used to it.

“How rustic,” Derrick commented softly, as he ruminated on his own cultural retardation. Or maybe it was a liberation. He couldn't tell just yet. But one thing was for sure, if his peers back in Argos saw him like this, they might scoff and throw ceaseless ridicule at him.

He looked down at the towel in his hands, wet from the water on his body. It was cheap and crudely made. A kind of cloth that not even a middle class commoner would use back in Argos.

And now, he was using it, out of necessity.

“Maybe I should.... sell one or two of the items in my possession.”

Derrick murmured, gripping the rough and unsophisticated fabric hard.

When Damien was around, he didn't dare to show off things he brought with him. Not because he was afraid of getting ripped off, no, but out of consideration for his cousin.

Damien worked his ass off just make the ends meet, even though ostensibly he carried the title of the lord. He barely collected tax from his subjects, only just enough to keep his family going, and instead choosing to encourage the farmers under his care to cultivate the land more. He earned a lot of praise because of that, but that meant he never really had much wiggle room for himself when a time of need rose.

Still, the man never complained – much – about it. Rather, he didn't even really treat as a problem. His main focus laid with his family's upbringing, and that of taking care of his people. That was it. Nothing complicated nor sinister.

Derrick couldn't just wave around his wealth in front of such a man. That would be unwise, and could also be the one of the fastest ways to buy irreconcilable enmity. He didn't need that, nor did he want it.

Entering the kitchen, he saw the breakfast readied for him by Delilah the night before. She hadn't come in yet.

Sitting alone in the dining room, he slowly chewed the bread. It was tasty, even if it was not freshly baked. The goat cheese was very good too. Sliced ham went well, accompanied with a mug of goat milk. He didn't know how to warm it though, so he drank it cold. That was probably for the better. He recalled how much Kain enjoyed it however, and wondered slightly if it tasted nicer that way.

He looked around blankly at all the empty spots around the dining table. Usually, there would be his family members chowing together. Katrina would yawn in an unladylike manner, earning a simple rebuke from Lizbeth; Kaleena would be busy trying to feed Kain her share of vegetables she hated eating.

Damien would be frowning at some documents in his hand, not really noticing the food entering his mouth, until he ended up stabbing himself with a fork.

Now, all gone.

Derrick sighed, and not for the first time this morning, wondered whether he made a right decision to stay behind. Maybe he could have gone with his family. Surely, the village would survive without him acting as a proxy. There were elders who could take care of things just fine.

Taking the last swig of the cold milk, he stood up and headed for the study, trying to dispel useless thoughts from his mind once more. The decision has been made already. It was too late to go back at this juncture. As the old proverb said, it was too late to un-spill the blood that's already been spilled.

He sat behind the old Oak desk, and began reorganizing the chaotic environment of the office. It was pretty hard to understand how Damien got any work done in such a messy place. Derrick liked things orderly and neat, so the very first thing he'd do as a proxy was to make everything all organized.

He spent the next hour or so sorting out the mess. Before he knew it, Delilah came in and reported for her duty.

She brought him much needed tea, which he appreciated.

Time went by quickly, and it became afternoon. The office was more or less cleaned up, organized and orderly enough for him to easily find the documents or materials he needed.

Delilah commented that it was truly nice to see the place so thoroughly tidied up, a small glint of tear visible in her eyes.

That's how the first day as an acting lord went. Pretty much eventless, as Damien predicted before leaving for Argos, and for his old hometown.

But the next day came, and things changed.

Derrick sat on the chair, pensively reading a report written by someone clearly not well acquainted with penmanship. Just gazing at the error-strewn document alone gave him a sense of hopelessness at the task before him, and a swelling respect for his cousin who endured nearly a decade of this sort of things.

His outstretched senses picked up approaching presences in the distance. Wondering who could they be, Derrick stood up from the chair and headed for the window.

His sharp eyes made out the silhouettes of three riders. It seemed like they were not in a hurry, their gallops relaxed and gentle, almost like as if they were on a stroll.

Which was strange, seeing that not too many people living in this village would go on a stroll riding a horse. That would be seen as a waste of precious resources.

“Outsiders,” Derrick murmured. “Most likely nobles.”

Derrick wasn't sure why, but he felt somewhat apprehensive about this unusual occurrence. Not once nobles came to Riverfield for a picnic nor a holiday while he stayed here. This village was for farming, not leisure. There were other areas around Lafayette that better facilitated such activities.

Gradually, the riders' profiles became clearer. As he suspected, two of them seemed like nobility, the way they held the reins. It was unmistakable. Even Derrick himself rode like that.

The odd one out was the local village guardsman. Probably here to escort the nobles to the village lord's residence.

“A courtesy call, maybe?”

It wouldn't be too surprising an etiquette to pay respect to the governing lord of the area.

Both riders were males. Both carried an aura of knights. Both were formidable men, as far as Derrick could make out.

Eventually, they were close enough for him to recognize at least one. The other rider, he wasn't too sure.

They too, seemed to have sensed Derrick's eyes on them, as the person he recognized began waving his hand in a friendly manner.

“That's.... Sir Alistair Patrona Warburton, from the Western Reaches. What is he doing here?”

Derrick muttered under his breath. Alistair was a prominent member of the Western Reaches Knights Division, a prodigious band of warriors based out of the Norwood province to the West. Well known for his fiery temper and a capable sword arm which he deftly advertised back a few years ago when he helped to quell a minor rebellion, he was not really known for traversing the countryside for a leisurely stroll. Derrick remembered seeing his face proudly beaming at the award ceremony held at the Imperial Palace.

“The person next to Alistair can't be of a simple identity, then.”

Derrick frowned. Why would two men like that come here, he mused.

Soon enough, he got the chance to find out for himself as they sat in the office face to face.

“It's a pleasure finally making an acquaintance, Sir Derrick. Please allow me to formally introduce myself and my associate. I am Sir Alistair Patrona Warburton and this is Sir William Fordham Wincaster.”

Derrick observed both men deeply, quickly affirming the impression he formed earlier on. Alistair was bronzed, well-built, broad shouldered and roguish but quite handsome. He'd be quite popular with songstresses of the nights.

On the other hand, William was a pensive man, hardly showing an expression on his cold, detached face. He was thin and tall, his bleached blonde hair swept back and tied firmly. So much so, it looked like his scalp might rip if he frowned a little.

“Welcome to Riverfield, gentlemen. I am Sir Derrick Septima Lomax. I'm currently in charge of administration of this village. How may I of your assistance?”

Derrick consciously avoided calling himself an acting lord, lest it bring forth a moment of derision from the guests. It was not really necessary a caution, but he wanted to avoid dealing with that kind of stress if possible. Besides, they probably figured it themselves. No point in telling them, then.

“We came specifically to speak to you, good sir,” Alistair smiled deeply, as William pulled out a large navy blue scroll from his bag of holding.

The wax seal on top was unfamiliar to him, a mountain with a pair of new moons on either side.

“This is?”

“That is the in-depth proposal for a cooperation between the farmers of Riverfield, and that of the Young Entrepreneurs' Association I represent, Sir Derrick. In it, you'll find terms favorable to both the people you represent, as well as to the people I represent.”

Alistair laughed genially and handed the scroll over.

Even though he had lived in the village for the last two and a bit years, Derrick wasn't well versed in the trials and tribulations of farming. When he cracked the seal and started reading the scroll, he didn't understand half of what was written in there, all the technical terms he was unfamiliar with flying over his head.

This had all the hallmarks of turning into an extremely embarrassing situation if not handled right.

Coughing lightly to clear his throat, Derrick spoke. “This is not a matter that I can decide on my own. I must discuss it in detail with the village elders first, as it would affect them the most.”

“Of course, of course. We expected that,” Alistair kept that genial smile as he nodded in understanding.

Derrick found it difficult to get a proper bearing on the man. Whether the smile was faked or not, whether he was sincere in this proposal or not – he just couldn't get a reading.

Perhaps, making him talk more might help.

Derrick nodded softly.

“The decision shouldn't take too long to make, but still, it might take a couple of days at least. In the meantime, will you two gentlemen be staying in the village? I can provide with accommodation if you so wish.”

Alistair gazed at William for a few moments, before resuming his smile. “We shall kindly take you up on that, Sir Derrick. Besides, it serves another of our agenda if we were to stay a little while longer in the village.”

“Oh? And what'll be that agenda you speak of, Sir Alistair?”

William then produced another rolled up scroll, amber in color and sealed in golden wax. This one had no emblem on it.

“We're also members of a youth organization calling ourselves The Children of The Amber. We haven't been active on the scene for long, but, our ambitions mean it's only a matter of time before we reach the stars.”

Alistair handed the scroll over to Derrick, urging him to open it. Feeling skeptical, he broke the wax seal and unrolled it.

The contents were simple. It was hand written by a high ranking member of the organization who wished to have Derrick join them.

Of course, it wasn't the first time such an organization, or even guilds, tried to recruit him in the past. With his station being as it was, he refused them all. Although there was this one group that Derrick was advised to join as soon as possible back then, an advice given to him from Hurst von Himmelmann.

But his arrest, and subsequent prosecution as well as the fallout of that, meant he was instead refused entry to the group. It was one of those things that left him shaken badly. He'd gotten over it, though. Or, at least he thought he had.

But now, when he saw the name on the scroll, the name of the person who wanted him, his mind shook. Suddenly, he thought a shining path have opened up for him.

Of course, he wasn't a naive and impulsive young man anymore. If someone wanted him, obviously there was a condition or two attached. Or even some other agenda.

However, it was hard to deny the attraction of this group. If Derrick were to acquire the help of these people, then maybe he could locate culprits responsible for Kain's demise....

“I see. So your organization wants me to join. Well, it's an honor to be considered like this.”

Derrick replied, trying his best to keep a still face, not wanting to give anything away.

Alistair chuckled. “No need to make a hasty decision, Sir Derrick. I already made plans to stay in the village for a few days and convince you of the benefits of our little group. As you can see, we're backed by that individual. We're not lacking in power nor in finances. Plus, since we're quite picky when it comes to who joins us. Meaning, there aren't any wastrels poisoning our air.”

Derrick nodded coolly, before turning his attention back to the scroll.

He began to salivate. He felt a certain dormant excitement surge inside.

Is this the chance I've been looking for? The chance to... redeem myself?

…

….That's funny. I thought I was done with all that. But now.... I....

Should I accept?

~​

Many, many hours prior, the Sky Ark carrying the Lomaxes was entering the capital city's airspace.

Both eyes of Kaleena sparkled like a pair of diamonds as she excitedly pressed her face against the crystal screen acting as a window. Below her, the vast metropolis of Argos spread in all directions, the quietly setting Sun casting a soft orange haze over the city like a hazy blanket.

She greedily took in the sight of the biggest humanoid settlement in the entire continent. Flying on a Sky Ark was an indelible experience in itself but being able to see such a majestic city up so high was an amazing stimulus as well.

Next to her, Katrina was acting cool and lofty. She had seen the cityscape from the Sky Ark before, so she felt slightly less awed this time round. Instead, after sensing the arrival of a golden opportunity, she was doing her best to clearly assert her superiority over her country bumpkin cousin.

Suffice to say, Kaleena was too busy being awestruck to care at the moment, the pain of leaving behind her friends in Riverfield all long forgotten, never mind the pain of losing her little brother.

A new adventure was waiting for her down there in this new and foreign city, and she was literally chomping at the bits to get cracking.

Was watching X-Men Apocalypse on BluRay. What a waste of time that was. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

 

Spoiler: Chapter 26

26​

The docking platform for the Sky Ark was, plainly speaking, impossible to describe without resorting to elaborate hand gestures.

The entire station was built to the East of the Metropolis, where it wouldn't impact the lives of the citizens too much. Might as well – the real estate the station took over equaled that of a large town, maybe even more.

It hasn't been long since the introduction of the Arks but the number of them in service swelled remarkably fast. Currently, only those involved in the project knew the exact number of Sky Arks in service but a regular layman could estimate roughly thirty of them in existence. Building that many in relatively short amount of time were a feat of engineering far too difficult to achieve unless a humongous amount of resources were sacrificed on the project itself. A kind of resource a small kingdom could survive on for years.

Seeing through the crystal window pane, Kaleena counted ten different-sized Sky Arks anchored in mid-air around the station, throngs of people bustling around them like worker ants doing who knows what.

These Sky Arks had various paint schemes applied to them, signifying either the different routes they serviced, or the divisions of the Imperial Government they belonged to.

The smallest was as big as a ship-faring galleon, at least thirty meters in length. The biggest one, however, that one was nearly ten times the size. It was painted in distinct hues of violet and gold, with the Imperial Crest prominently displayed on the bow.

There was no mistaking it to whom this particular Ark belonged to the Imperial Family. More correctly, the Emperor himself.

When Damien looked at it, his face hardened slightly, before relaxing a bit. The reason for that was, he saw what resembled a bunch of long range cannons on deck, with uniformed men and women milling about around them, clearly performing maintenance.

Since it was the Imperial Family's personal Ark, it stood to reason that some amount of protection was built into it. Damien remembered that Marquis Phillips initially had no plans to turn an Ark into a military weapon, but also had to remind himself that he had been away from the capital and its ever-changing political landscape.

A lot could change in a month, never mind a year.

Suddenly, he began wondering about the balance of power in the structure of the Empire itself. The Founding Families had not been seeing eye to eye on a number of matters, and had been for years like that.

It was rather obvious to see, now that there were potentially many militarized Sky Arks out there, all of them under the command of the Emperor, those nobles thinking of dissent had to think hard before throwing tantrums.

Out of the six Families, The House of Argos always fostered a close relationship with The House of Phillips. It was a given that the Imperial Institute developed and funded Arks would form the backbone of the Emperor's expanding iron-like grip on power.

Then there was the Lomax bloodline. He hadn't kept up with the latest gossip but even Damien knew that the ties between his namesake House and that of the Emperor's weren't all that amiable at the moment.

It wasn't to the point where daggers were drawn publicly. The path for reconciliation remained wide open, but still, the history of enmity would be impossible to erase. Once a rift of distrust formed, it'd be difficult, nay impossible, to completely mend it no matter how much time has passed.

Even one or two of these heavily armed Sky Arks would leave behind a trail of destruction never seen before, with very little means to defeat one without sacrificing even more.

Things Kain said a few months ago suddenly sounded uncannily omniscient. How did a five year old kid predict stuff like this, Damien mused inwardly.

Naturally, thinking about his son caused Damien to fall back into the previous gloomy state of mind. Frowning, he sat back on his seat, sighing. What did any of this stuff matter? His son was gone. None of this gave him comfort. All of it, was nothing more than noise.

Lizbeth glanced at her sighing husband, her face wan and gaunt. She resisted the urge to shake her head in disapproval, and instead tried to keep a placid face. Her son's death pained her immeasurably, but she still had to mind Kaleena and her unborn child. She'd dwell on her grief in private, and unleash the built up anger on those responsible when the time came. That was how she rolled.

As the sun set below the horizon, countless beams of light began pulsating from the ground around the station, illuminating the area as if it was still in the middle of a day.

Guided by the light, the Sky Ark carrying the Lomax family touched down and docked with a loud clunk. Dozens of metallic cables, each one as thick as an ox, connected with the Ark as circles of Invocation array swirled around them.

There was a slight vibration as the Ark resonated with whatever Invocation spell there was in the docking station, which lasted for a few minutes.

Soon, a disembodied voice announced that the passengers were now allowed to disembark.

Everyone, even Katrina, couldn't get used to this voice. They were told that it belonged to that of the Ark's captain, and the messages were broadcast via an Invocation spell. Still, to hear someone speak but not see the person say it was a bit hard to swallow for the uninitiated.

It was a simple affair, getting their travel papers processed. In order to travel between different provinces, a permit for each and every passenger was required from the point of origin. It acted sort of like as a passport, in other words. Everyone had to get it, regardless of age. Wherever they went to, there would be marks on the paper denoting where they have been to.

Have a permit, stand in a queue, get a stamp on the piece of parchment along with the customary Truth Board once-over – and one was allowed to enter the Capital of the Empire.

By the time the family caught a carriage taking into the city proper, the evening had fallen. But unlike any other city, not even Lafayette, the sunset didn't mean the beginning of bedtime for its citizens.

Every street had rows of Invocation array supported street lamps casting bright light, illuminating the surroundings and allowing the public to carry on with their lives uninterrupted. Various businesses continued to offer their services deep into the night, and there were unending throngs of people walking around regardless of what hour it was.

If Kain saw this scene now, he'd be all nostalgic and like. After all, it was exactly like the kind of nightlife he used to enjoy back when.

Damien and Lizbeth, even Rosy, were acquainted with this kind of hubbub, but for Kaleena, this kind of vibrancy was completely unexpected and refreshingly different. The buzzing of life she felt here easily eclipsed what she witnessed in Lafayette. These two cities were totally incomparable as far as the liveliness went.

The first thing the family decided to do was to find a lodging. Michelle still had her residence in the city but it wasn't going to suffice for the six people in her party. She also had a small house in the Academy's grounds, which she requested to be built when she first started working there because she couldn't be bothered to commute every morning.

But ever since tendering her resignation, it was most likely no longer there.

After finding an inn that offered good food and clean beds, Michelle left them and went back home, in order to get some things ready.

It was a truly good timing to arrive in Argos at this precise date because the admissions for entry were about to be open for the prospective learners. Certain portions of the would-be students had to go through a prior procedure to sort out their talent levels to see if they met the minimum threshold of acceptance, while some other, more fortunate individuals would be given a leeway of sorts when recommendations issued by recognized Invokers accompanied them.

The procedure to determine the talent levels was held every mid-year in the capital cities of each of the six provinces. It wasn't a tournament or something like that, but rather, it was boring exams concentrating on testing Aeterna Affinities and aptitudes in casting Invocations. Anyone aged between seven and seventeen could enter.

Going by the inspirational name of The Festival of Soaring Will, it certainly presented a golden opportunity for those looking to make something of their lives. After all, becoming an Invoker opened a lot of doors, all of them leading to fame and fortune of unprecedented scale.

Obviously, Kaleena and Katrina didn't participate in The Festival, so they lacked qualifications. But with Michelle around, that bit was already not a problem. The question was the burden of the admission fee and who would be able to take care of that.

Michelle assured Damien and Lizbeth that with little Kal's latent talents, she would enter the Academy as a scholarship student so there was no problem. As for Katrina, she too possessed a solid foundation as well as highly sought-after Affinity with Dark Element so the elder Invoker foresaw no issues there.

Feeling weary after a taxing travel, both Damien and Lizbeth retired early, but Kaleena couldn't still her excited heart and so she kept on pestering her cousin on many strange things she saw in the city.

“Katrina, why was there men and women in funny dresses singing on the street corner?”

“They are traveling bards.” Feeling slightly irritated at her sleep being disturbed, Katrina frowned but answered regardless. “Didn't you see them in Lafayette? Oh right, they weren't as elaborate nor as many of them there, weren't they? Oh well. In Argos, there are lots of Bard troupes that perform for money. Even I can't count how many of them are here in the city.”

“Singing and dancing for money?” Kaleena was shocked. “You can earn money like that?”

“Obviously you have to be talented first. Failing that, you could earn coin in many other ways.” Katrina sighed as she fiddled with the pillow. She was all ready to hit the sack but Kaleena didn't seem to.

With more irrepressible energy bursting forth, she jumped out of her bed and directly landed on Katrina's.

“Really? So there are other ways to earn money? Not just farming and being an Invoker, right? Just how many could there be? And can I see all of them here in the city?”

“Get off my bed this instance!!” Katrina tried to shove her cousin away and the two began engaging in an impromptu tug of war with a brown colored pillow.

The struggle lasted for a few minutes, before the physical exhaustion forced the two to stop. Although Katrina kept on frowning, Kaleena didn't, and a small smile was etched on her face.

Seeing this, even Katrina broke out a rueful smile as well, then chucked the pillow at her cousin's face. “Just go to sleep, will you? Ask me tomorrow. I'm tired now.”

~​

The following morning, the family waited until Michelle returned with news. In the meantime, Kaleena continued to pester her cousin with more questions. Fluctuating from feeling irritated at the constant questioning, and proud of the fact that her country bumpkin cousin was relying on her, Katrina explained this and that to the best of her knowledge, sometimes even concocting 100% bull manure of a story when she had no clue about topics she was asked.

Next to them, Lizbeth and Damien carried a pair of complex facial expressions, both of them mentally noting to correct all the misunderstandings Katrina potentially have caused before they become bigger headaches later on.

Before long, Michelle returned with news.

“Well, I've spoken to the dean of admission, and he has agreed to let Kaleena and Katrina take an out-of-season Festival. They should be ready by early tomorrow. For preparation, let us depart and head for my place in the Academy. Apparently, those old fogies left my residence as is. Not sure why that was the case though.”

Michelle spoke, her face showing a bit of confusion when mentioning the last part.

Lizbeth silently mused that the reason for her teacher's place still remaining within the Academy was probably because of the Grand Elders knew of Michelle's personality. She was impulsive, lacked deep thought regarding certain matters, and they figured that eventually she'd return once she got bored of whatever she was doing.

And so, they were almost proven right, although it was with a different reason why she had to return so soon.

Of course, Lizbeth would never reveal her thoughts on the matter to her teacher. That would be considered.... quite inconsiderate.

After settling the account with the inn, they traveled once more. From one side of the city, to the other side where the Academy was located. The trip itself took several hours, due to the distance as well as something both Damien and Lizbeth least enjoyed about the capital city. Something that could not be seen anywhere in the world.

Midday rush hour traffic.

With a city this big, and with so many people living in it, all of whom needed to go somewhere at the exact same moment, a traffic jam was bound to happen, regardless of a fantasy world or not.

As they – Lomax family, Rosy and Michelle – sat in the horse drawn carriage, they witnessed the kind of scene that Kain was quite intimately familiar with from his previous life.

As far as eyes could see, the cobbled roads in every which direction were packed to the brim with other horse drawn carriages and goods supply caravans, as well as people on horseback scything between the stand-still vehicles, while raising the ire of those stuck in this stifling situation.

Seeing this, Damien chuckled wryly. “The traffic jam looks worse than before. Is it because of the Sky Arks with cheaper fares bringing in more folks to Argos?”

Michelle shook her head, as if the whole thing was giving her a mighty migraine. “You're partially correct there, Damien. Ever since the introduction of the Arks, the speed of urbanization exploded beyond what the Imperial Government can manage. I hear that nearly ten thousand souls arrive in the city almost everyday.”

“Gee, that's a lot,” Rosy murmured, her whiskers bobbing up and down. However, she looked confused. “Uh, how many is a ten thousand?”

“Apparently, it's one too many the way things are deteriorating.” Michelle sighed. “I don't mind folks migrating to find work and to provide better lives for their families, but there's a need for a line to be drawn. The Capital is indeed very impressive, but even she has her limits. Exceed that, then all-encompassing anarchy will rise. An anarchy born from resentment. Resentment of not finding work, resentment of being marginalized, resentment of seeing other, less deserving people succeeding where you failed.”

“But isn't that human nature?” Lizbeth countered. “Such resentment grows whether it's caused by migration or not.”

“Well, in the past, nations often went to war to quell the thirst of anger in the masses. Cull the number of mouths to feed, increase the breathing room, create opportunities, incite the masses into a frenzied, blinded loyalty – that sort of things. But now, with the Empire at its peak with no one else to wage war with, I wonder how the current Emperor will tackle the matter...”

“A war averted is a precious victory earned,” murmured Damien as he recalled something the previous head of the Adventurers' Association once told him. “If I were the Emperor, I'd probably ask the citizens to expand to other, more available territories out there. I would think there are more opportunities for wealth and fame out there than here.”

“But can you deny the attraction of the Capital? Where the rule of the law is upheld better and the threats of Fiends and miscreants are that much lower, where their children can attend educational institutions, where they can find professional healers quickly? Where jobs are seemingly easier to find, even if the truth is different?” Michelle sighed again. “Even with the loyalty of the citizens, at the end of the day, we all want what's best for our individual selves, and not for the collective good which is something not many of us can sense on the ground level.”

Not really understanding anything the adults were talking about, Kaleena, Katrina and Rosy ignored the heavy topic and gazed outside the carriage, hoping that the infernal traffic jam would clear up as soon as possible.

~​

The cross-town trip took almost the whole day, but eventually they made it to the grand gates of the SOIR's Academy on the West section of the metropolis.

Actually, the plot of land occupied by the Academy was not seen as a part of the capital city at all, but instead as a self-sustained district replete with its own branch of city hall and corresponding governors. In this case, the Grand Elders and the SOIR council acting as such. In all intents and purposes, calling it another city was not incorrect.

To put into perspective the overall size of the Academy, it was as big as Lafayette itself, maybe even more. That's how massive it was.

Of course, it also included the training facilities which were larger than some residential areas in major cities and towns for obvious reasons – when Invocations go off, even in mock battles the collateral damage was no laughing matter. A large, uninhabited area to train Invocation was a must. The empty plot of land in front of Lafayette's SOIR branch served that very purpose as its own training ground, away from the areas where civilians lived.

The entire Academy city was cordoned off by a series of gigantic Invocation arrays that prevented the unwanted from invading SOIR's grounds without permission. Their protective power was so great, even an army of a million wouldn't be able to breach it.

Inside these protective spells, the Academy was further divided into several districts. The residential district where the resident Invokers, students, visitors and regular folks stayed, the open market district where trading took place and anything Invocation and Aeterna related could be purchased, the research and development district where dedicated number of Invokers devoted themselves in the matters of research, the central district where the old fogies, as Michelle liked to put, ran the day to day operation of the city, and the school district for, uh, schooling purposes.

Suffice to say, there were thousands of buildings and structures in the Academy. And also over a hundred fifty thousand souls calling it home, more than two thirds of that number Invokers of various ranking.

Right in the center of the city was a giant mountain that was shaped like a pyramid, every line and angle in a perfect geometrical symmetry.

It was so wonderfully symmetrical, any person standing before it had to question whether the gods themselves personally carved it when they were bored silly.

Also, it was kind of funny looking too, if you saw the mountain for the first time. The lower half was in lush green due to the dense forestation covering. But from then, jagged rocky surfaces lay exposed, coloring the upper half in the mixture of dull gray and brown.

Right at the summit, a thick layer of permafrost coated the tip like a layer of sugary cream on a dessert.

So, the whole thing sorta resembled a cake.

Of course, no one dared to take a bite off the mountain, literally or figuratively. Not only it wouldn't taste good, but it was heavily guarded by SOIR and even by some Imperial soldiers.

The reason?

“Because that mountain, The Heavenly Ascension, is considered one of the holiest sites in the entire continent, that is why. Only the Grand Elders and the Emperor are permitted to enter.”

Michelle explained to Kaleena and Katrina, her tone that of a kindly teacher.

“But why? It just looks like a mountain, you know. What's special about it?”

Kaleena asked, tilting her head in confusion. She had heard about places like Sacred Acres which were too dangerous to enter for normal people, but other than that, it seemed a bit fishy to deny everyone from climbing a mountain just because it was supposedly holy.

“One legend has it, that the mountain was the place where the Twelve Deities descended to this world and spread their teachings. Another one says that the mountain hides an enormous treasure, or itself is a treasure.”

“Oh, I heard from father something similar before,” exclaimed Katrina. “Father said that the mountain was the place where the First Patriarchs of the Founding Families met for the first time and became comrades over five hundred years ago.”

Damien nodded as he looked out of the carriage and gazed at the mountain, The Heavenly Ascension. “Right, I've heard that story before too. Supposedly there's a hidden cave in the mountain that leads to some kind of an altar of worship built by an ancient civilization. That was where the Treaty of the Six was formed, or so I was told.”

The road their carriage traveled on was wide and smoothly paved, no doubt with no small help from the Invocation spells. The traffic here wasn't as bad as the center of Argos and they made up a good deal of time lost there.

Lizbeth mused inwardly how the roadside scenery had changed since she last came here as a young novice Invoker looking to make a name for herself.

Back then, it was wide grassland with a smattering of crop fields. Often times, a herd of cows or sheep could be seen, grazing lazily on the grass. There was even a small lake, where Nobles spent their holiday there on the shoreline.

Lizbeth suddenly recalled that there was a restaurant there, by the shore. Damien and she used to go on a date there, with Damien struggling to order anything costly while trying to look manly in front of her. That recollection brought a small smile to her lips. When she turned to see her husband, now he looked less dashing, less manly. Instead, he looked withered, tired, and weakened.

She felt anger swelling up again inside. Not at Damien, not necessarily, but at the bastards who cost her her family's happiness. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to continue observing the changed scenery.

And change they have done. All she could see now, instead of grasslands and a lakeside holiday area, was a sea of cheap housing projects built to offset the headache caused by the explosion of urbanization.

There was an unspoken rule of not building any dwellings close to SOIR's Academy but many unscrupulous real estate developers saw opportunities for a quick buck here. Their avarice meant reneging on this rule by expanding shoddily built houses and shacks around the area without caring for the consequences.

Since SOIR didn't own the land all they could do was lodge a complaint with Argos's administrators, And all these greedy businessmen had to do was grease a few palms and et voila, they were the legitimate land owners. The complaint fell by wayside, rebuked by the same greased-up officials as privileged being insensitive towards the needs of the others.

Of course, this wasn't some unique problem only found near SOIR. No, it happened all around the metropolis. The trouble was that, as more and more people from the rural areas moved in, the middle income families moved out of the city center.

The demand was high, and the developers were sort of justified in their actions as they were simply trying to meet this unprecedented thirst for housing away from the allegedly crime-ridden city centers.

It was the beginning of suburb-fication of a fantasy world, basically.

Thankfully, people still had some of their senses and the area around the protective arrays were devoid of houses.

There were three ways to enter the Academy, via one of its four main gates, via Invocation short space/time displacement spell which cost an arm and a leg to operate, or by riding on a dedicated Sky Ark.

Currently the Lomax family was planning to enter the Academy via the Eastern checkpoint.

As they got closer the dome-shaped Invocation shield could be seen. A thin ethereal film rose from the ground and cast a misty haze that could not be pierced by normal means. A wave of multiple colors sometimes rippled gently on the surface of this film, pulsing upwards in a bizarre fashion that, once witnessed, imparted a certain unsettling sensation.

Like, if you touched this wall of protection, you'd die. That kind of sensation.

Four gates, situated in the usual cardinal directions, allowed normal people to move in and out of this protective shield. Called Checkpoints, the structures resembled The Arc de Triomphe with guard stations built by the foot. All who wished to pass by here had to meet certain requirements like holding a correct permit or a recommendation.

As for flying in, the protective shield could be disabled in parts to allow the Sky Ark to enter.

And for the space/time displacement Invocation, the permission must be given beforehand otherwise the spell wouldn't work.

Because Michelle's presence, the family believed they could safely negotiate past the Checkpoint and enter the territory of the Academy. They didn't get their wish, though.

Because as soon as they neared the entrance, they encountered a huge blockade, preventing everyone from entering through the grand archway. In front, a large crowd had gathered, and they sure didn't look friendly.

“What is going on?”

Damien frowned deeply as he studied the commotion up ahead. He could hear the shouts of dissatisfaction but it was difficult to make out what was being said there.

However, his past experiences as an Adventurer and the lord of a village told him that it was nothing good.

Turning towards Michelle, he asked. “Teacher Michelle, do you know what's gotten into these folks? They seem very unhappy about something.”

She looked concerned and confused at the same time. Shaking her head, she replied. “Not sure. It wasn't like this last night. Wonder what happened.”

“Shall we go and find out?” Damien swept his gaze across his family. “Liz, Rosy, can you stay here and look after the kids? Michelle and I will go and try to find out what's going on.”

Lizbeth nodded. “Be careful.”

 

Thanks for all these chapters

 

No, thank you for reading.

Aaaaand here's another one!!

Spoiler: Chapter 27

27​

“Oh, this can't be good,” Damien grimly whispered to Michelle as he stared at the twenty-plus caskets arranged inline on the ground. The lids were open, allowing all the observers to peer inside.

Inside, cold bodies of men and women were seen. Even more worryingly, in five of the caskets there were young children lying in there, all no longer with the living, their faces pale and twisted in pain.

Surrounding the caskets were men and women of various races, shouting at the top of their lungs. They held various tools of farming, as well as one or two crudely maintained weapons. Their eyes bloodshot, the level of anger flowing from each of them was unsettling to say the least. A slight push would be all that's needed for the violent madness to break out and sweep over all those present here.

Standing in front of them, in between the bloodthirsty crowd and the Academy Checkpoint were the two dozen grim-faced guardsmen, nervously holding their lances and spears tightly. Wearing the same uniform as the ones outside Lafayette branch of SOIR, their usual arrogant and aloof demeanor was nowhere to be seen at this moment.

“Bring out an Elder, now!!” One of the crowd shouted at the guards. “I don't care who, someone better come out now, this instance!! Or there will be murder!!”

The crowd around this man churned and seethed in unison. Their blood-thirst rose to a new level, seemingly closing in on that point of no return.

Michelle's eyes flickered worriedly as she scanned the crowd. As she and Damien went in deeper within the mob, they also noticed not only the overwhelming presence of anger and murderous hatred, but of unprecedented grief as well.

“Can you tell me what happened here?”

Damien asked a man who looked like an Adventurer. More than that, this person seemed to be a bystander and not involved with whatever was going on at the moment.

The Adventurer shook his head. “Not really sure. All I know is that, these folks came from the newly developed area just South of here. Apparently, there was an accident of some kind, and Invokers were responsible. Beyond that.... I haven't a clue.”

Thanking the man, Damien moved on. Because he wore a light leather armoring, and was equipped with the saber, Frostbane, hanging on his hips, he certainly looked the part of an Adventurer himself and drew very little gazes his way. As for Michelle, she also didn't wear the usual garb that Invokers wore, making her more or less a neighborhood aunty in appearance.

As Damien got nearer the front of the angry crowd, one of the guardsmen stepped forward, his hands resting on the hilt of a longsword by his hip. From the way other guards stole nervous glances at him, Damien figured he could be the captain of this particular post, tasked with wresting back the control of the situation.

He looked unsettled, sweaty and ready to draw his weapon if things devolved in the wrong way. He addressed the crowd, with what seemed to be his best effort at sounding stern.

“Listen, every one of you. This is not a proper way to lodge a complaint against the members of SOIR. Fall back, and do not block the way!! Your presence here is illegal, and we WILL use force if necessary. Fall back, I say!!”

“Fall back? Are you serious? You stupid fool, get out of our way now!! Or else, in the name of Eternal Flame Goddess Aaromaeir, we will burn this place down!!”

“Yeah!! Burn it down!!”

“Burn 'em all!! They deserve the divine punishment!! To hell with 'em!!”

Damien grimly looked at those shouting out the harsh words and inciting the already incensed crowd. One or two were genuinely with the mob, but there were some who didn't seem like they belonged here. They were dressed to blend in, but to his eyes, spotting them wasn't too difficult.

However, spotting them and doing something about them were two different matters altogether. Infuriatingly, the provocateurs hid among the angry mob, darting in and out and constantly changing their position, making it difficult to pin them down.

Damien estimated that there were at least a couple hundred of people here, maybe more, and that made tracking the suspicious ones through the crowd harder than necessary.

Meanwhile, Michelle asked another man who stood next to one of the caskets that held a boy no more than ten years old.

“What has happened to this boy? What happened to the others?”

The man, half buried in grief and the other half in murderous fury, didn't even look at her, but still answered, his voice roaring out like a lion.

“A damn group of Invokers, in the name of their research, fed my son poison!! They fed all these people, saying their medicine would make them feel better!! And now, they are all dead. Dead!!”

“Poison? Medicine?”

A cold glint of suspicion flickered past in Michelle's eyes, before something resembling calm was restored in them. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and knelt closer to the boy's casket.

“Hey?! What do you think you're doing?”

The man roared, which drew the attention of the mob almost immediately.

Damien knew this could become real messy if not handled right. He quickly stood beside Michelle, his left hand closely hovering around the hilt of Frostbane. He was ready to unleash the powerful weapon if it needed be.

He judged that excluding a handful of Adventurers and those men who went around inciting the crowd, the rest of the mob consisted of nothing more than regular common folks with no combat training. It'd be bad if he were to cut any of them down even under the current circumstances.

So, he decided to exert some of his Gold-ranked Adventurer's aura on the mob, push them back and let Michelle do whatever she was trying to do.

“Let the lady take a look. No harm in that, right?”

Damien's tone was icy and dry. Normal people felt cold sweat breaking out involuntarily as if they were being pressurized by a horde of finely-honed swordsmen. Even the boy's father was astonished by the pressure, and stumbled backward, his mouth hanging loose.

Trained Adventurers, as well as the inciters' faces, showed a glint of surprise at the display of hidden strength from him.

Ignoring the commotion around her, Michelle went to work. She was one of the most preeminent Invokers of this generation when it came to the matters of medicine and healing Invocation spells.

Her Affinities with Water and Wood Elements allowed Michelle to practice a certain type of spells where she could analyze the type of chemical compounds in pretty much anything, provided they were of biological in nature.

Right now, she was trying to ascertain just what kind of so-called medicine was administered to this boy, if any. She placed her left hand on the cold forehead and softly murmured a shortened Requisite Words chant, inaudible to anyone except to herself.

“Willows of whisper, disperse and surrender.”

A wane azure colored light emitted from her palm and sunk into the body. Michelle opened her right palm and gazed into it.

Soon, a window of information began appearing on her open palm. Information regarding the composition of the so-called medicine, broken down to its fundamental composition and chemical make-up.

Seeing this, one of the inciters exclaimed from among the crowd. “Hey, look at that!! She's one of 'em bloody Invokers!! I bet she knows who did it, and now is protecting the guilty!!”

Damien grimaced. The bastard was too far for him to cut down without involving the innocents. The crowd's bloodthirst was rapidly redirecting this way, and so he had to think of a way to defuse the situation quickly.

If Michelle hadn't stepped out to examine the body, then his headache would have lessened considerably. Not that he blamed her on the matter – after all, for some reason SOIR and its members were being maligned here. She wouldn't take that lying down.

She was a proud Invoker, even if she sometimes acted like a slacker. The tumultuous road she tread to become what she was, made her very proud of all that she had achieved. That road wasn't hers alone to tread either, and she knew that every Invoker had to walk a painful and difficult road, just to have a chance at grasping his or her dreams.

To her, only Invokers, or at least people who tasted the bitterness of the similar level, were qualified to lay insults at other Invokers. That's it. If there was an injustice committed by a group of Invokers, then she'd make sure those involved would pay.

But if not, and the accusation was proved to be false, then she'd unleash her fury at those who pointed the finger. She was a firm believer of if you want to accuse someone, better be ready to face the equal amount of pain you wanted to dish out.

It was easy to see where a part of Lizbeth's temperament originated from.

“Congeal, and reveal.”

Michelle finished her chant.

The floating window of information rose up in the air, then suddenly, with a gentle swirl, changed into an azure-colored illusory and indistinct figure of a person, lying on its back. Many gasps echoed out at the same time when it happened.

“That Invocation.... could she be....?”

The guard captain gaped in astonishment as he remembered this particular spell being performed. To his knowledge, only one person could use it, and that was Michelle Matis Banovsky, a former Grand Elder, currently an absentee, and totally, utterly, highly revered member of SOIR.

He wasn't the only one who recognized the spell, though.

One of the faces belonging to an inciter turned ugly, after encountering an unexpected factor to their plan. He quickly shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Everyone, quick!! That woman is trying to destroy the evidence of their wrongdoing!! We must stop her at all cost!!”

Damien frowned. He gripped the hilt tightly as the mob surged forward. At the same time, the guard captain raised his voice at his subordinates.

“Men!! Protect Master Banovsky at all cost!! Forward!!”

Damien's expression grew worse. Sandwiched between the two mobs, he was now firmly wedged in the worst possible position.

On one hand, he had to protect Michelle. It's not that she needed his ability to look after herself, but regardless, it was his duty to do so. On the other hand, he could not injure the mob of regular citizens. Well, not too badly, in any case. One or two broken bones would be fine.

The complication, however, was the guardsmen. If they jumped in on the fray, then it was possible deaths might occur. The level of training was far too different here, even with the mob of angry citizens outnumbering them. The backlash from this clash would be rather substantial, in other words. SOIR would lose a lot of face here, and that could lead to further complications down the line.

He had to make sure no one died here. That was a tall order.

But he was going to try, anyway. Too many people he knew and cherished have died around him. He'd be damned if he let the strangers start dying around him too, if he could help it.

He glanced at Michelle, right next to him. She was too absorbed in examining the illusory body floating in the air to pay attention. Asking her to evacuate wasn't going to work when she was that deep into solving the mysteries of human body.

Damien decided. He'd do whatever he could, and if it became little too hectic, then he'd evacuate with Michelle in tow.

He had to maintain a certain area of influence, where he'd be in absolute control. Damien imagined drawing a wide circle around himself, longer than an outstretched arm's length, but a handspan shorter than what would be like with his saber, Frostbane, drawn.

This circle was his area of influence. This sphere demarcated his effective range of movement as well as which attacks he needed to defend against. If an attack entered this area of influence, he'd have to parry, block or dodge it. If not in the area, then he didn't have to bother. And when an enemy entered this area, then he'd have to take him or her out. Simple as that.

In a fight involving a mob, no matter how many there were, he only had to pay attention to four different directions at once. Front, both his sides and the back. These four directions were the only place potential attacks could come from.

If there were more than four, all that could accomplish was interfering with each other and reducing the overall attack power and speed greatly.

Damien didn't draw his saber, as that would mean he might end up cutting a wrong person in the heat of the battle. For now, he'd keep it sheathed until the right moment.

The first unlucky person to invade his area of influence was a guardsman holding a spear. It'd be more correct to say his spear invaded the area instead. He was making a beeline toward the dead boy's father, who happened to be the closest to Michelle as well.

Although the boy's father wasn't a threatening figure, nevertheless this guard figured it'd be better to eliminate a potential disaster early on. Damien disagreed.

He lightly kicked the spear's tip as it invaded his area of influence and altered its trajectory. As a result, the guard stumbled and missed his target. He looked astonished and looked at Damien confusedly, but he didn't hesitate and swung his weapon over in the father's direction again.

So, Damien pushed forward, keeping low, and elbowed the guard in his stomach. That took the man out of commission.

Next, this time a citizen wielding a pitchfork. Damien pushed forward again, deliberately making the man enter his area and thus keeping him in check. Less than a blink of an eye later, the pitchfork flung to the side and its owner toppled over on the ground.

Meanwhile, the world around him became a madhouse. Guards engaged the incensed mob, and blood began flowing.

Frowning further, Damien looked at Michelle again. She was still knee-deep in her thoughts while gazing at the illusory body. But, she was explaining things to the boy's father. Encouragingly, the man was listening attentively, occasionally nodding, even.

Damien's focus had to move to somewhere else when he heard a scream nearby – and noticed that one of the guardsmen was cut down by an inciter he had marked earlier on.

The bastard had a cold, ruthless grin as he brandished his well-maintained shortsword.

However, when their eyes met, the inciter narrowed his eyes, then shifted his gaze over at Michelle. A cold, calculating glint flickered, something Damien noticed quite easily.

The inciter was quickly joined by another one of his colleagues, both of them sharing a whisper before heading towards Damien and Michelle's direction.

Seeing this, Damien couldn't help but smirk a little.

Oh, good. They are coming over here. That saves me the trouble of searching for them in the crowd.

One of the inciters was a tall, gaunt man wearing a brown shirt. He was the one who slew the guard, so Damien kept a closer eye on him. As for the other one that held a blackened iron rod, he was nondescript and unremarkable in appearance. Surely, a plus point in this type of work, Damien mused silently.

Ignoring the fighting breaking out all around, the two inciters approached rapidly, then split before arriving at Damien's location. Partially obscured by the pandemonium going on around them, they closed in menacingly, cold smiles eerily etched on their faces.

However, Damien wasn't alarmed nor did he really care. His eyes were like that of a hawk's, keeping tabs on the positions of both his opponents.

The nondescript one came at him first. Damien correctly read the trajectory of this man's iron rod and slightly adjusted his torso, dodging it effortlessly.

He followed that up with a low kick on the man's shin, destroying his balance. By this time, the gaunt man was on his six, his shortsword flashing towards Damien's back.

Damien stepped past the nondescript man, letting the strike that was meant for him land on the poor sucker instead. Of course, the unwitting victim screamed out in painful agony.

Before the gaunt man could recover from the shock, Damien moved. Pivoting on his front leg, he shifted his weight lower in one go, and by utilizing the momentum, let out a powerful kick aimed at the man's kneecap. A loud cracking noise was the end result, the gaunt man collapsing in a heap, also screaming.

This scene drew in the other inciters. Out of the remaining, only one of them decided to try his luck in fending off Damien while the others took flight, slipping out of the melee and disappearing beyond the proverbial horizon.

Meanwhile, Damien used the gaunt man's own blade to stab him on the shoulder, immobilizing him on the ground. His new opponent was slightly better skilled, as he swung his sword in a practiced manner.

Dodging to his side, Damien unsheathed Frostbane and took a quick slash in a rising arc. His Aeterna-reinforced saber easily sliced through the man's steel sword as if it was made of paper.

Not stopping there, Damien switched the grip and held the sword in reverse. Thrusting forward, the pommel of Frostbane made a splendid connection with the man's tummy, sending him tumbling backward and crashing into other, crazed combatants with a loud bang.

That interrupted all the fighting going on around.

Holding his enchanted weapon high, Damien shouted in his loudest voice. “That is enough!! Cease all your fighting, NOW!!”

An icy cold blizzard rose from the pale white blade, whipping the air like a mad hurricane, instantly sending chills down the backs of everyone around him. Excluding Michelle, of course.

Suddenly, a deathly still silence descended on the impromptu battleground. Even the pained whimpers of the injured were suppressed by the overwhelming aura of the unsheathed Frostbane.

~
​

While Damien was showing off his skills as a Gold-ranked Adventurer, Kain was showing off something else at the same time. His ability to moan.

“Just how long are you planning on beating me up, mister???”

Kain whimpered in agony. He was strung in the air, spread-eagled. Each of his limbs were suspended by the thick vines, pulled tight with no wiggle room at all. What's more, there were four more vines that were in the midst of.... pounding him silly all over his body.

This had been going on ever since the Old Man took over the.... education of the boy rather forcibly.

“I told you, you imbecile. Stop, calling, me, mister!! Address me as your Shifu!! How hard can it be, eh?”

“....What was that? You want me to call you tofu?”

“You're asking for it!!”

The ferocity of the vines increased and now, one of them even struck Kain in his man sack. Or his boy sack. Whatever, it was still very, very painful.

That took all the wind out of his sails, nearly doubling over in agony that was simply indescribable in all of the known human languages.

Day in and day out, all he did was to get beat by the vines while hanging in the air. The Old Man never gave out any explanations at all. He just ordered the infernal vines to just go to town with Kain's small and frail body.

“How is this kung fu training?!”

Kain cried out more than once. His pained words fell on deaf ears. At least he was getting beaten under the sunshine, which was nice.

After the introductions were made, the Old Man brought Kain out of the underground chamber of the World Tree, and out into the open courtyard of the fort. This was where the beating was taking place. Not too long ago, Kain even caught the sight of Emma, silently watching from the shadows of nearby buildings, her facial expression alternating from that of a pity to sympathy and horror and other, complicated ones.

She was definitely thinking something along the lines of, better you than me, brother. Or, at least that was the impression Kain got.

Today was no different. After force feeding Kain some disgustingly vile concoction that was supposedly breakfast, the Old Man then commenced the daily beating like it was a par for the course. That was a double the amount of torture – the stinging pain besides, the food was the worst. But that was something to complain about later on.

He got beaten black and blue until noon, which was the time for lunch. Kain was lowered from his position, and immediately, he fell head first on the ground, exhausted from the undeserved ordeal.

“You like licking the ground that much, brat?”

The Old Man mocked him as he brushed past the prone boy.

Gritting his teeth, Kain pushed himself up and couldn't help but realize something was a bit different with his body, besides all the constant aching, of course. It was hard to pinpoint just exactly what it was, but most certainly there was a change.

There seemed to be a bit more strength in him.

I must be hallucinating things....

Kain sighed bitterly and sat on the ground, trying to recuperate. Right on time, his stomach grumbled loudly, signaling to the world how empty it was.

“You not coming yet?” The Old Man grumbled from the entrance of the fort. “I can hear your tummy from here. Come, come. We haven't got all day.”

Sighing once more, Kain forced himself to stand back up, again surprising himself with a surplus of energy in his footsteps.

His destination was the grand dining hall of the fort, where his meals were served till now.

It might have been grand once upon a time, but now, with the absence of any and all furniture it looked barren and forlorn. The signs of decay and time were visible everywhere, the tumbling vines failing to disguise the slow decline of the fort itself.

In the middle of the dining hall, a round table made up of vines stood, with a pair of stools, also made up of vines, waited for the arrival of the guests.

As soon as Kain and the Old Man sat, more vines sprout out of who knows where and brought plates of.... food out.

Kain had to wonder whether these vines were sentient enough to know how to cook. Judging by the evidence in front of him, the answer was a resounding no.

On top of the wooden plates, there was a rather suspicious looking lump of a thing that might have resembled a steamed bun that one could find in a Chinese takeaway. Except, it didn't look anywhere as appetizing, nor did it smell as good.

It more or less looked like what a dung beetle might have rolled on the dry Kalahari desert. And it smelled just as bad.

“What are you waiting for? Eat up, kid.”

Nonchalantly, the Old Man picked his share up, and began chewing it, as if it was a matter of course.

Grimacing at the image, Kain replied testily. “Look, I have a name, you know. Please, stop calling me a kid, or a brat, or any of the other rude stuff you've been calling me with.”

The Old Man raised his eyebrow, a gesture that reminded Kain of Orion the Roc hatchling's behavior whenever it was bemused of something. It was a case of “Like father, like son,” except with a bright red fiery bird instead.

With a voice full of ridicule, the Old Man asked him.

“Oh? So what should I call you, boy?”

“My name is Kai....”

“It doesn't matter what your name is!!” The Old Man roared. When he did, the thingy he was chewing on came out like a shotgun blast. “That name is what you're given in this world. Remember this, you were taken without consent. You were forcibly ripped off from all you knew and cared about. That name.... it signifies the grave crime committed against you!! While you train under me, you will NOT use that name, got that?”

Needless to say, Kain was stunned silent. He sensed real, naked anger in the Old Man's hoarse voice, in his words. Instinctively, Kain knew not to argue with him about this.

Seeing the shocked look on the boy, the Old Man regained some of his lost composure. “Ahem. So, yes. In regards to your training, you must not depend on Invocation as well. I have seen you rely on that body enhancement spell quite often, but in truth, that's only going to hinder your progress from now on.”

Frowning, Kain slowly picked up the food. “You say you're going to teach me kung fu, although you look like a wizard. But why? You haven't answered why you want me to learn.”

He stuck his tongue out and licked the surface of the disgusting ball of something. He was hoping that the flavor had improved since from the morning when he constantly complained about it. But no cigar, it still tasted like a sweaty foot.

“I said kung fu, but that's because I guessed, correctly I should add, that you're a no good foreign devil who knows nothing more than some Hollywood CGI, chop socky Hong Kong movie scenes. That's not real martial arts. What I'll be drilling in you, will be proper wushu.”

“You mean, like Wing Chun, Shaolin and stuff like that?”

Kain took a deep breath and bit off a chunk. His face paled but, since this wasn't his first time eating it, he somehow could keep it down. Besides, this was the only form of food around here. He could go out and hunt for meat, but the Old Man wouldn't allow it, saying given half a chance, he might make a run for it.

The pungent taste rushed over his tongue like a sandpaper from hell. His throat burned and his esophagus went into an involuntary gagging reaction. Keeping it down was a real torture, much more so than the actual beatings.

The Old Man looked at the boy's reaction with a displeased face. “What's the matter, boy? Still can't get used to the meat bun?”

“This, this ain't no dang meat bun!!” Kain spat out flabbergasted. “This, whatever this is, it's absolutely horrid, you know!! What is inside this thing, anyway? And who the heck cooked this?”

“I didn't cook it. But they did.” The Old Man disinterestedly pointed towards a wall behind Kain. And the boy nearly fell off his vine stool the moment he checked out what was there.

His reaction was understandable. Right behind him, obscured by the shadows, a dark, slumped-shoulder figure was hovering about a meter away from his back. And the closer he looked, with a bone-chilling sensation he noticed other dark figures. Dozens of them, in fact. He was absolutely creeped out at this juncture, ready to scream like a girl in a horror movie. Again.

What was worse, was that they were not humans, Caniduskins, dwarves or any of the recognizable races. Heck, they weren't even the much-dreaded undeads.

Rather, they were formed by the vines that came from the World Tree itself. The vines twisted and turned and combined together to form vaguely humanoid shapes, complete with heads and arms and what have yous. However, as they were in essence vines, their movement was naturally very awkward, uneven, as if they floated over things like ghosts. Of course they did. How else would they creep Kain out even more than he was already?

To up the creepy factor to eleven, they even had.... faces. Eyeless, expressionless wooden faces. When Kain's eyes met with one of the vine.... uh, man's empty eye sockets, the wooden face contorted into what could only be described as an ill-advised attempt at smiling.

Kain swallowed a cold spit, and slowly sank back on top of his stool, frozen stiff. Seeing that the Old Man was totally fine around these creepy vine-like creatures, Kain couldn't help but feel a begrudging respect.

“Uhm... yeah. So, uh, what.... what are these, uh, people?”

Somehow, Kain recovered some of his faculty, enough of it anyway, to ask the Old Man.

“Spirits. Spirits of the dead that have become a part of the One Tree's Soul. Don't wet your pants yet, brat. They are harmless as long as you play nice.”

“One tree? You mean, that big tree underground?”

“Yep. That's the One Tree. Oh right, you kids are taught about a World Tree and whatnots. I s'ppose that's not incorrect either. Anyways, be nice to it, as that thing feeds the entire area with Aeterna or whatever. As for the dead people, that's a long winded story that's got jack-all to do with you. I'll tell you later. Now finish your meal.”

Kain pursed his lips, and slowly picked up the.... alleged meat bun off the plate. Taking another deep breath, he was about to take a bite when he noticed the vine man gazing at him with an expectant face.

Oh, c'mon man. Stop staring at me, dude!! I'm creeped out as is. You wanna give me indigestion or something?!

Half smiling, and half frowning, Kain waved at the vine man stiffly and took a tiny bite, trying his very best to not to show his disgust. The vine man looked elated, and happily nodded its head, before fading away into the shadows.

Grimacing even more, Kain sighed and took another bite. As he chewed, he did wonder how come he didn't fall violently sick after consuming this thing before. If anything, he felt livelier and more energetic than before.

“Hmm. Wonder what's in this so-called meat bun.” Kain muttered to no one in particular.

The Old Man must have felt like answering, because that's exactly what he did. “Meat of some Fiends mixed with a cocktail of potent herbs and vegetables, all of them quite rare.”

Hearing this, Kain tilted his head. “That sounds more like a recipe for a medicine, not a meat bun.”

“Because this is exactly that, a medicine to fortify your flesh quickly.”

Kain was taken aback. “Eh? Really?”

“Yep, really. The herbs and meat of the Fiend will strengthen your body's internal structure, the muscles, the bones – the whole lot. As for the beatings, they are not just me having fun here. No – they are reshaping your dan tian and the ch'i channels inside you. The thing about learning martial arts in this Fourth Realm isn't a simple matter.”

Kain took a deep, meaningful look at the ugly, alleged meat bun in his hands. It didn't seem like he was being lied to. There wasn't a reason, at least he couldn't think of one, as to why the Old Man might lie to him in this fashion.

Not noticing Kain's glittering eyes, the Old Man leaned forward and put on a serious expression. “Let me tell you a little secret. You came from the Sixth Realm, while I came from the Seventh. Even though there isn't much of a numerical difference, in actuality, the gulf between the realms is incredibly vast.”

Kain took another bite, this time a bit faster. He decided to ignore the terrible taste for now, if it meant acquiring a strong body quickly. After all, becoming stronger in order to escape from this hellhole was currently his number one priority, something he hasn't even realized consciously yet.

“The realms above fifth receives very little Aeterna from the Mother Tree at the center of the Ether. Human bodies, therefore, went through some sort of genetic mutation where it's just impossible to perform magical feats.”

Ether? Mother Tree? Kain raised an eyebrow at the terms he hadn't heard before. But he didn't want to interrupt the Old Man's flow, so he kept quiet.

“But throughout history, there are records of men and women performing miracles. Those are humans not originally from the respective realms they were active in. Lower the realm, the thicker and purer the flow of Aeterna becomes. As a matter of fact, there is such an abundant amount of Aeterna that pretty much every creature born below The Second Realm can be classified as a god.”

“Wow. That's super interesting.” Kain muttered as he swallowed the last chunk of the bun. Then he lifted the empty plate and waved it in the air. “Seconds!!”

Ignoring the boy, the Old Man continued. “Those creatures born in the lower realm, have found ways to traverse the Ether dividing the realms, and entered the higher realms to play gods and monsters of our legends. So, humanity of the higher realms found various ways of fighting back – one of them is martial arts while the other, science.”

The vine man suddenly reappeared from the shadows, looking rather happy. It carried another plate of the alleged meat bun, and left it in front of Kain, before scurrying away.

Kain dived in for another bite, as the Old Man carried on.

“The buns you eat, the vines I use to pound you – all of those will remold your body so it can be more conducive to ch'i absorption and integration. Your Fourth Realm body isn't nearly as suitable, but with the method I have devised, soon you will be.”

“So that's why you've been trying to kill me the last few days,” Kain mumbled as he chewed. Now that he knew this was good for his body, the taste wasn't so bad. “You know, I figured you were into S&M or something.”

That last remark earned him a fat smack in the back of his head.

“I'm not finished talking yet. Ahem. Where was I? Oh right. The higher the Realm, the less amount of Aeterna there is, to a point where it's hardly there at all. Like your Sixth Realm, for example. Out of seven billion people, only less than a handful would be able to wield Aeterna there. In Seventh Realm, there isn't a single soul. But conversely, science and martial arts have made a great progress.”

“You said you're from the Seventh Realm, right?” Kain asked, as he busily rubbed the back of his head trying to cool the stinging pain down. “How different is it, compared to the Sixth, where I'm from?”

“How should I know? I've never been to the Sixth, you dunce. But I'll tell you this, in my world, the Seventh, we have already colonized a vast chunk of the solar system well before I was dragged in here. How about your world? You haven't even gotten to the nearest planet yet, have you? Tsk, tsk tsk. So unmotivated.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. Following your logic, then in Eighth Realm and above, they would possess some seriously sick tech, right? And how many Realms are out there anyway?”

“Nine Realms. That's it. And yep, you're correct about higher Realms and the advanced technology.”

“Well, color me confused. How do you know all this?” Kain asked, his voice not hiding his skepticism. The Old Man was telling him stuff that could not be found on books. And unless he had personally experienced it all, how could he possibly know all of this information?

Suddenly, the Old Man's expression reddened. He lightly coughed, clearing his throat, before urging Kain to finish his lunch so he could get back to the vine-induced beatings.

Seeing this, Kain's skepticism grew a bit more, but for now, there was nothing he could do.

“Okay fine. You won't tell me. That's cool. But you know, you still haven't told me why I need to learn martial arts in this world. What's wrong with learning Invocation?”

The Old Man snorted lightly. “You honestly think the abilities wielded by the false gods would be effective in taking them down? Fat chance. You need ch'i and martial arts for that.”

“Wait a second. I think I just heard some, uh, strange things in what you just said, uh, shifu.”

“What strange things?” The Old Man shot back, irritated.

“You said something about taking down... false gods?” Kain asked nervously, his voice trembling in apprehension.

“What of it? Haven't I told you already? That's why I'm training you. Why do you think I was wasting my precious time buffing you up like this? So you can participate in Dancing with the Stars? This kid....”

Kain lost all his appetite suddenly. The alleged meat bun fell off his hands, and rolled on the table before splashing on the ground. Automatically, vines shot out from nowhere and began mopping up the dirtied floor.

“You.... are crazy!! I knew it!! Are you out of your mind?! Why should I fight these so-called false gods? They haven't done anything to me!! If you got a beef with 'em, then YOU do something about that, instead of trying to use me!!”

Kain shouted until his voice cracked from the strain.That was the first time he raised his voice like that, to anyone, ever since he became the member of this fantasy world.

The Old Man's face fell. It flickered grimly, before he sighed. “It's your fate to be here. Think about it for a second, you fool. You were unceremoniously ripped out of your existence by a creature for whatever twisted reason. Then you were dumped here. And somehow, by riding the coattails of the river of fate, you are facing this old man, me, in this god-forsaken ruin, while your families and the loved ones are going through the shock and pain of losing you. Now, imagine that same pain and suffering, spread throughout all the Realms, repeated every once in a while whenever these false gods feel like it.”

Kain's eyes narrowed. Angrily, he spat out. “Still, it's got nothing to do with me. Are you asking me to become some sort of a hero, for a cause I don't care about? Not interested. Leave me the hell out of it.”

The Old Man frowned deeply, his sighing becoming longer.

Shaking his head, the Old Man squeezed his fist tightly and spoke in a chilly voice. “You don't have a choice, kid. I'll hammer in all that I know in you. And when I'm done....”

He raised his head and stared directly at Kain, causing the boy to jump and then cower at the awesome pressure generated from that simple eye contact.

“....The false gods will be coming after you, on their own accord. To eliminate you.”

 

Spoiler: Chapter 28

28​

Kain's face was the very definition of pale at the moment. It was as if he had not a drop of blood flowing in his body.

After a minute or two of total silence, he somehow managed to squeak out some words.

“....Say what? They will come for me on their own?”

He even ignored the intense pressure emanating from the Old Man. Because to him, nothing else mattered except the shock of the revelation.

Originally Kain stood up as he shouted at the top of his voice. He was full of righteous vigor back then. But now, it felt as if there was a giant boulder crushing down on him. The pressure weighing down was terrific and suffocating.

He staggered backward, nearly tripping on the uneven floor.

Seeing the pale faced boy, the Old Man sighed, and eased the pressure coming from his aura. “Look, kid. Now that the things have come to this, you don't have a choice. Train like there's no tomorrow, and just maybe, you can defeat whatever bastards comes knocking on your doorstep.”

Kain's face flushed with color as he came round. He hadn't forgotten about the difference between him and the Old Man, but still, his fury hadn't cooled yet.

So, without hesitation he angrily shot back at the Old Man instead. “What?! Hey, this is all your fault, you know!! If you hadn't chosen me to learn kung fu or wushu or whatever, then I wouldn't have to worry about fighting in the first place!! Wait, that's it!! I'm not going to learn anything from you. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna leave, right now!!”

Kain then stomped his way out of the grand dining hall, storming out of the fort's entrance. He didn't even slow down, as he ran right out of the fort's crumbling defensive walls and entered the empty streets of the dead city.

The Old Man could only sigh and shake his head. He was about to raise his hand and command the vines to bring the boy back when, suddenly, his face darkened.

Grabbing his chest, he began fitfully coughing, until he spat out a mouthful of dark blood that smelled like a rotten egg. He looked visibly weakened, as if the candlelight of his life was flickering unsteadily.

Grim faced, the Old Man wiped the blood off his lips, wryly chuckling at his sorry state. “Looks like.... I need to hurry.”

As soon as those words left his lips, his expression changed to that of a determination. He closed his eyes, and manipulated the boundless ch'i swirling inside of him. This was the only way to suppress that dark blood from rising up again.

As the pain in his chest slowly receded, some color returned to his face. By his own calculation, if he continued to exert pressure on this.... illness, then he'd be able to hold out for another dozen decades or so.

By his own estimates, when that time arrives, then he'd be strong enough to face the tribulations that were coming to this world. But, as his eyes focused on the empty stool where Kain had sat, he knew there was someone, or something, that had thrown a wrench in the grand plans of the creatures calling themselves the gods.

Taking a deep breath, he sent out his ch'i-infused sense, Yi Hai, outward, trying to locate the boy's current whereabouts. To his bemused surprise, Kain had made quite a good distance, while the Old Man had to meditate for a second or two. Chuckling to himself, he wondered whether it was better to simply force him back, or let him taste yet another trial by fire, which could lead Kain to discover the reason why he needed to learn to become stronger.

He extended his Yi Hai further, and swept across the entire forest in one breath, scanning and analyzing. When he found what he was looking for, the Old Man's eyes glittered.

While the vines shot out from nowhere to clean out the blood on the floor, the Old Man murmured a new command. As to who it was directed to....

Meanwhile, unaware of what was happening back inside the fort Kain wondered around the dead city as he fruitlessly tried to find the elusive exit. He had run like hell using the Aeterna-bolstered legs but once he was out in the crumbling streets, it was not easy trying to pin down his exact location in regards to the city limits.

Recalling what he had seen from the rooftop, he decided to head towards the canal on the East side.

Oh wait, was it towards the West? Bah, can't remember properly. Whatever, let's just go there and see. Even if it's the wrong way, I am sure there will be an exit somewhere. And no one can stop me from leaving this place. Absolutely no one!!

He only wasted a breath before deciding on the direction. It was unusual for him to be so certain of anything, especially when it came to the matters of the unknown, but the harrowing experiences of the last few weeks had changed him. Whether he was aware of this change within him was another matter entirely, however.

Before he could take another step, though, he was interrupted by a crisp voice of a girl.

“Oh hey, Lil' Kain. Where are you off to now?”

When he turned around, he saw Emma staring at him with her deep amber eyes, while munching on something that sort of resembled a carrot. She was half leaning against a wall, the jagged shadows of the ruined buildings embracing her like a cozy blanket. If she hadn't said a thing, he'd never even find her there.

“Uh, hey Emma. Right, yeah. Well, I'm trying to leave the city, you see.”

“You're leaving? Looking like that?” Emma gave him a wide-eyed stare of shock, her mouth agape as she stopped chewing for a second. After recovering from the shock, she resumed the consumption of the carrot-like vegetable, while shaking her head slowly. “You do know how far it is to the outer rims of the mountain range, right? You could walk for weeks before arriving there, you know. And never mind all the fierce Fiends out there.”

Kain froze on the spot when he heard this. Now that he was a bit calmer, it was easy to see how ill-equipped he was currently for the journey. He had no water, no food, no protective clothing, nothing. Not even a vague sense of where he should head towards, for that matter.

“Oh, well. I came here empty handed anyway. Might as well leave just as empty, too. Somehow, I'll manage.”

Kain shrugged his shoulders, and began walking.

Emma tilted her head in confusion. She was wondering what had happened between the Old Master and the boy – usually, the older man would shut himself behind the fort's closed doors to meditate. But for some reason, he decided to open the doors for this kid.

She couldn't understand it. Sure, he had a bit more Aeterna Pool than an average non-Elves, but from as far as she could see, it wasn't anything special. Heck, she could easily tell the boy haven't even received the blessings of the Nature Spirits, like every Elven children ever born had. So what was so special about him?

Suddenly, her curiosity flared up. Smiling gleefully, she swallowed the final stump of the vegetable in one gulp, before calling out to the boy.

“Hey, wait there, lil' Kain. Let's go together, wherever you're off to. You don't mind, right? At least you won't get bored with me around, right? Right?”

Kain hesitated. He turned around to see Emma and her excited face that kinda resembled that of a ten year old kid all ready to go to a Disneyland or something. “Uhm... why would you want to go with me? It's not going to be much fun, you know.”

Emma frowned sadly, unable to hide her disappointment. “I can't go? You don't want me?”

Kain felt a knife of guilt stab him in the chest. Cursing inwardly, he smiled apologetically and scratched the back of his head. Her pleading eyes were bearing down on him like a sharp power tool, and he began sweating hard. Before long, he lost to her pressure, and ended up carefully weighing the pros and cons of her suggestion.

Finally, he nodded his head. “Okay, sure thing. Let's go together.”

Emma smiled brightly, and punched the air, before jumping right next to him in one motion. Seeing this, Kain too smiled, albeit in a wry manner. He was inwardly musing just how old Emma's exact mental age could be.

So, the two of them set off, followed by Orion the Roc hatchling who watched from a distant roof top, its face still and observant.

~​

Lizbeth and Michelle aided with the healing of the injured after the rioting was brought under control. There were many wounded, and some even perished but the good news was, due to Damien's actions three of the men who incited the crowd were now under arrest by the Academy's own garrison. Although having said that, one was only a hair's breadth away from dying, while the other two were in not any better shape themselves.

Of course, as it is a norm in life, a good news always had a habit of accompanying a bad news as well. In this case, because of the turmoil in front of the Checkpoint, the impromptu Festival, the rudimentary testing of Kaleena and Katrina's abilities, were postponed to another day. This meant the family had to slum it out in Michell's residence within the Academy's borders for a foreseeable future.

Her house was actually more opulent than that of Damien's back in Riverfield, the fact which made him feel rather complicated. Not ashamed, no, just that he ended up contemplating all the decisions he had made in life so far. And he found that he didn't regret becoming Riverfield's lord one bit.

Anyways, his job was far from over. After getting the girls settled in, Damian and Michelle were summoned to the central district of the Academy, to answer the questions of the investigators.

They opted to rent a carriage rather than taking Michelle's own supply of horses because she wanted to talk to him about that one body she was able to examine. And her analysis was a grave and uncertain one.

“Basically, you are unsure of the composition of the toxins,” said Damien while furrowing his brows.

“Yes. It is a strange concoction indeed. There were a few medicinal plants that even I'm not aware of. But....”

“But?”

“I'm not certain whether the item ingested was supposed to be a poison in the first place.”

Michelle wasn't sure what to make of her own findings. Even though the concocted item took lives away, she couldn't tell whether that was the item's intended purpose. It was as if, the victims were nothing more than guinea pigs to test out the potency or the side effects of the so-called medicine.

What she was sure of, though, was the level of alchemist required to prepare such a complicated item.

“I'm sorry, Damien. At the rate this matter is heading, it seems like I'll be tied down for a while, trying to cooperate with the investigation. More than likely I will be too busy to look after your girls. Well, at least not until we find those responsible, that is.”

Damien shook his head. “Yeah, well. Don't worry about it, Michelle. Somehow we'll manage.”

If Kain heard the words uttered by his father, his expression would've become strange. After all, they have said the exact same thing. Sure, the soul inside Kain was that of a twenty-something year old dude from another realm, but by staying together for more than five years, certain habits had become ingrained in both of them. In other words, like father, like son.

Just like how it was with Orion and the Old Man.

Their trip didn't take too long, as there were no traffic jams within the Academy. Rather, the whole place had this vibe of caution, as if the late morning's activity weighed heavily in the minds of the residents here.

Arriving at a large, squarish gray slab-sided building, Damian and Michelle were ushered into an office of sorts with a large round table and not much else, not even a window. Michelle took a seat and waited, prompting Damien to do the same.

While waiting, Damien looked around the room, thinking this place was more like an interrogation chamber than a room reserved for friendly interviews. The walls were devoid of any and all furnishing, and there were only two doors here, one behind him and the other on the opposite side. Other than that, it was eerily quiet.

Damien didn't like it. The atmosphere he encountered while coming here was somber, which he understood very well why so. But the way some of the Invokers were eyeing him when he entered this building was not all that friendly.

Perhaps that's not quite right. Not hostile, no, but rather wary. Wary of strangers, probably.

Damien nodded as he reorganized his thoughts. He mentally went through everything that had happened, putting them in order so he could answer whatever questions the official investigators might have for him.

Before long, a whole bunch of somber and serious-faced people entered through the door on the opposite side to where Damien sat. Judging by their attires, all of them were Invokers of high ranks. They sat down on the opposite side of Damien and Michelle, each of them placing various scrolls and notes along with quills and jars of ink.

Michelle broke the ice first.

“This room never gets old, no matter how many times I've been here.”

Directly opposite of her was a man in his late nineties, his face like that of a weathered leather bag. There was a large black spot on his left cheek, the only bit of skin on his face that actually had any sort of color. Even his swept-back hair was paler than white.

He radiated such an aura of ancientness, Damien had to wonder, rather rudely, how the hell a man that decrepit still hasn't died yet.

The old, decrepit man opened his mouth and spoke slowly.

“Master Banovsky. I have to say, it is unfortunate to see you here in this room once more. Although, as I understand, it wasn't completely of your choice.”

Michelle chuckled. “We're all victims of malicious circumstances, Master Grisham. More to the point, though – I'm not the one in the proverbial doghouse today.”

“You're correct, Master Banovsky. This meeting is just a formality to ensure that we have visited all the avenues of investigation, nothing more.”

The decrepit old man, whose name was Grisham, nodded as he languidly unfurled the scroll in front of him. Then he cleared his throat of phlegm loudly.

He was handed a quill dipped in ink by the person to his left, an attractive Pantherikin woman with black furs and a pair of piercing golden eyes. Thanking her, Grisham coughed lightly again, before scribbling something on the parchment leisurely, his thick and ancient brows trembling in concentration.

“So.... Master Banovsky. Could you be so kind to tell us once more what you have uncovered in your primary examination of the.... corpse sample number 12? Ah, from the very top if you would, please.”

Grisham said without looking up from the parchment. The other investigators also unfurled their respective scrolls, and readied their quills, ready to scribe.

The way Grisham referred to the boy's remains slightly ticked Michelle off, but she chose not to bring that point up. Instead, she nodded lightly and imperceptibly glanced at Damien to silently communicate her thoughts, before opening her mouth.

She basically repeated what she had already told Damien. But she also added one more thing – that she thought the toxin, or whatever it was, could not have been concocted by a non-Invoker. Rather, she believed it was done by a member of SOIR who successfully appropriated the Society's considerable resources to his or her own gains.

She added to that by saying she needed more time to closely examine the other “samples,” which would then give her a better, more complete picture.

Next, it was Damien's turn, He described the facial features of the inciters that got away, and although he could not give a detailed description, it was better than nothing. Next up, was his opinion regarding the men he fought, such as their level of training and even their possible professions.

The Q&A session went well, and ended soon after. Since there was a surplus of time, Damien couldn't help but ask a question himself at Grisham and the other investigators.

“What of the three I've apprehended? Have they talked yet?”

“No, not yet. Even though their injuries are.... on the light side, one man hasn't recovered from the coma, while one has asked for a legal council. As for the other one, he refuses to speak at all.” Grisham chuckled, fingering the black spot on his cheek absentmindedly. “It won't be long before one of them talks. We'll make sure of that.”

“Will you provide council as he asked for?”

“Legally, we are compelled to, but at the same time.... well, there's still time before the deadline for that.”

Grisham flashed a cold smile, showing off his crooked and mostly missing teeth. He gingerly stood up from his chair, and waved his hand at the posse he brought along.

As they began to file out one by one via the door, he turned around and gazed meaningfully at Damien and Michelle before speaking.

“Please don't leave the Academy's premises while the investigation continues. I'm well aware of the time isn't on your side, Sir Damien, but please, try to understand.”

Not saying anything, Damien vaguely nodded his consent.

~​

Later that night, Damien slipped out of the Academy and headed for the Capital. His destination was in the Commons District, where at night it was inadvisable to enter unless one was well armed and ready to take action. Damien was both of those things.

Smuggling himself out of the Checkpoint wasn't too difficult. In fact, calling it smuggling would be a disgrace to all the smugglers out there. All he had to do was to flash a metallic totem that was an Invoker's identification. Lizbeth had one custom made for an assignment that involved rogue Invokers many moons ago.

Even though he couldn't use Aeterna all that well – no, he couldn't utilize it at all, unlike his cousin Derrick – still this bit of fakey little identification totem came in handy numerous times in the past. It only reacted to his life signatures, his own unique Aeterna Pool. Just because he couldn't cast Invocation, that didn't mean he didn't have any Aeterna in him. After all, all living things in this world were born with a certain amount of the mysterious substance in them. That included Damien.

Since the totem indicated that he was an Invoker, the guards manning the station didn't really look too hard. After all, only the qualified Invokers were allowed to carry a totem like Damien's. Who in their right minds would suspect a man leaving the Academy while carrying a seemingly genuine totem in broad daylight? Or in this case, late evening, with the sun now well and truly gone for the day.

He had borrowed a horse from Michelle and set off towards the city with one singular purpose.

He still had the city entry permit on him so there was no need to get reexamined by a Truth Board. He breezed past the guards and entered Argos, and headed straight for a certain bar in the seedier side of the capital.

He had to leave the horse behind in the city's communal stables since where he was going to wasn't such a nice place to be. It was a pain to walk there, but he had no choice as no carriage would go there at night.

He walked briskly, and as he got deeper and deeper into the seedier underbelly of the city, he noticed there were more eyes scanning him than before.

Even at night there were a fair number of people out and about, disregarding the ever-crumbling public order. Hustlers of various races and ages, burly pimps oozing arrogant attitudes, greedy-eyed cutpurses, hoodlums out to ruin someone else's evening, those looking for a quick score of illegal narcotics – all sorts of them wandered around the streets as Damien waded past all these shifty eyed men and women.

Once, a cutpurse tried his hand in fleecing Damien but he got his fingers broken instead. Whimpering in pain, the would-be thief ran off in a hurry, screaming bloody murder and expletives at his way, even going as far as promising a righteous retribution.

Seeing the back of the fleeing man, he ruefully smiled, his mind going back to the days when he was treading the very same streets all those years ago while working under Marquis Phillips.

Nothing much had changed, even after all these years have passed. The buildings remained largely the same, the shops remained the same, almost, and the only thing that did change were the faces of the pimps, the whores, and the forgotten of the society.

Passing by a gaudy bordello and the alluring girls in front, Damien opting to head for the back alley next to it.

Hidden against the backdrop of a darkened backstreet, an old but sturdy three story building came to the view, lights dimly flickering out from the heavily draped curtains. Outwardly, there were no signs of this place being anything other than a regular residence. There was no sign boards, no drunkards loitering about, no litters and vomit stains.

The only thing that could rouse suspicions was a pair of really butch Caniduskin males, sitting around on empty crates of supplies and conversing in a lively tone.

When Damien arrived near the entrance, the two stopped their chatting and slowly stood up. Their eyes went over him like a fine tooth comb, searching for any untoward signs.

Ignoring the pair, Damien pushed open the thick wooden door and entered the building.

Almost immediately he was greeted by a thick haze of blue-gray smoke and the unforgettable stench of hard drinks.

He walked past the scantily dressed ladies giving him a seductive gaze, their perfume wafting into his nostrils. With it, some of the memories of this place rushed back in, causing him to smile ruefully once more.

There were thick burgundy curtains blocking his way, but first, he had to contend with burly men, also Canisduskins, giving him cold stares. One of them spoke in a cool voice.

“No weapons allowed, including hidden ones. Leave 'em here with us.”

For this journey, Damien had loaned a simple steel shortsword before coming here. As much as he liked keeping his life, he didn't trust this establishment enough to hand over Frostbane and risk it being stolen.

Wordlessly, he took the sword off his hip and lightly tossed it over. A Caniduskin man then handed him a receipt. Not even bothering to read it, Damien brushed past the curtains and walked in.

Past the narrow and dark corridor, until he was in the wide open hall. More husky smoke, more smell of booze, and more clamor of noise; before him, was an illegal gambling parlor, a casino of sorts.

The Empire had banned all gambling activities, including even horse racing. Of course there was always a thirst for betting one's hard earned coin on pointless competitions no matter what the worlds were, so without an exception there were many illegal, hidden-from-view casinos like this all over the continent.

The walls were gaudily painted but devoid of any embellishments. There were two dozen tables reserved for the gambling activities, while to the one side, there was a large bar that served strong alcoholic beverages. The crowd mostly consisted of rowdy, half drunk nobles and merchants here to blow off some steam, accompanied by young and bouncy girls of various races.

And as if remind everyone to behave, now and then burly Caniduskin bouncers could be seen, silently observing the organized mayhem unfolding on the floor.

Wrapping them all in was a sensuous music gently floating in the air like a distant memory, just beyond one's grasp but distinct enough to leave an impression of sorts behind.

Damien ignored all these, and instead headed towards the very end of the hall, where there were several private booths set up for certain discerning customers who sought out privacy.

Among those, there was one booth that was heavily guarded by the combination of Pantherikins and other races that rippled with power, intimidating all those wishing to approach.

When Damien got close, one of the guards stepped forward, blocking his way.

“I came to see Mikael.” Damien unhurriedly told the guard.

However, the guard didn't even change his expression, and simply replied. “So does a million others. Back off, human. Or you lose the other arm too.”

“Tell him its Damien Lucius,” Damien calmly gazed at the man, letting loose just a tiny bit of his Gold-ranked Adventurer's aura. However, the guard wasn't too badly affected, only narrowing his eyes and observing the one armed human in front of him.

A short pause later, the guard signaled to his partner, who then entered the booth to convey the message. The answer didn't take long, before Damien was allowed in.

“I'm watching you,” the Pantherikin guard threateningly growled as Damien walked past him.

Ignoring the man completely, Damien stepped past the throng of guards to stand before a large table and a bevy of beautiful women surrounding a man.

He looked young, yet it was difficult to tell what was his exact age. In one moment, he might be in his twenties, but then, in the next instance, in his forties.

And he was shockingly handsome, almost otherworldly so. His skin was flawless, smooth and unsullied by the passage of time. His golden hair gently flowed downward, and he carried an abundant amount of elegance that seemed inborn, rather than from a protracted practice.

However, all was not perfect, as shocking scars could be seen on both of his ears whenever he ran his fingers through the strands of his hair. It was as if the tips were roughly cut away, and the wounds were not healed properly since then.

He wore simple yet expensive looking clothing, oozing the sense of refinement from every pore, and with every action he performed, such as picking up a goblet of wine and sipping it.

The women were also beautiful but next to the man, their aura seemed to deem ever so slightly. Although, it was clear to see how besotted these women were with him, as they dotted on the handsome man like he was their god, their savior, their soul mate.

“Damien, it's been a while,” the handsome man smiled warmly. “Please, take a seat. Let us share a toast to your much delayed return to the streets of Argos.”

“Thank you, Mikael.” Damien nodded and sat down, but politely declined the drinks. Rather than beating around the bush, he stated the reason for his trip here. “I'm looking for some people.”

“Aren't we all,” Mikael chuckled lightly.

“True,” Damien shrugged his shoulders. “But they are a bad news. To me at least. So, I came to collect on the favor you owe me.”

Mikael kept his enigmatic smile as he took a long gaze at Damien. His eyes narrowing, the handsome man slowly tilted his head to a side and probed softly.

“You.... have certainly changed. A lot has happened to you, some of them rather unkind. The years sacrificed as a lord in Riverfield, was it worth it, now that you're here at this point in life?”

Damien grimaced a little. “Mikael, I didn't come here to discuss my life choices with you. I only seek information, and that's it. I know you already possess the knowledge I came here for. Please, share it with me.”

“Impatient as always,” Mikael sighed softly, before shaking his head. “I hoped that living in the countryside might have slowed your temperament a little, but alas, it is not so. Very well. But I still need to ask you.”

Mikael leaned forward, and rested his elbows on the table, his hands locking with each other. He then lowered his chin on the hands and gave Damien a long stare.

“Why do you seek this knowledge? Do you feel you have enough strength to go up against whoever it was that caused you this grief, the knot in your heart?”

Damien's grimace became deeper. He didn't say anything but his fist clenched harder, popping noise escaping from his knuckles.

His mind flared up angrily just thinking about the bastards that caused his son's demise. How many times did he dream of flailing the skin off those responsible? How many times did he think of tracking them down and punishing them?

“Mikael, just tell me. I'll take care of the rest.”

His voice seethed with barely-masked rage. The anger seeped out from him and tainted the air, causing the guards to frown in concern. One or two were ready to draw their weapons and strike Damien down if he were to act impulsively.

Seeing this, Mikael sighed softly again.

“Very well. Even though it pains me, I can only provide you with small snippets of information on the men responsible for harming your children. My ability to collect intel has not diminished one iota, but it is difficult to gather any meaningful data on these men.”

“Who are they?”

“An organization of personages from across all spectrum of the society. More worryingly, they seek to introduce anarchy to the streets of Empire.”

“Why was my family targeted? Why my kids?”

“I do not know. But one thing's for certain – there's a traitor in the midst of the Lomax House. More than one, in fact. Traitors intimately connected to this organization, and could become a major threat to you and your family. You'd do well to take note of this if you're planning to return to your ancestral lands.”

“What are they called? This organization, what's its name?”

“The Children. It's only a half of their full name, and I'm in the process of uncovering the rest. But it'll take time.”

“The Children....” Upon hearing the name, Damien's face couldn't hide his derision. A shady organization named like that trying to harm his children was a very definition of irony, at least from his point of view. “You know who the traitors might be? Anyone I know?”

“I am certain of one man, but for the rest....”

“Who?”

“A merchant named Westbrooks. He has had a great deal of business dealings with your brother, and earned a considerable influence in the Northern Territories. It is safe to assume that some, maybe all, of his associates could be suspected of being in the same organization as him.”

“This information has been verified?”

“Yes. My augury skills haven't let anyone down yet, least of all my valuable customers.”

Damien nodded, and slowly got up. “Thanks, Mikael.”

“A piece of advice, if you will,” Mikael raised his hand, calling for Damien's attention on him. “You need to tread on this one carefully. The reason why I couldn't unearth more about them yet is because there's someone very powerful, someone quite frightening supporting them. I wouldn't be surprised if their hidden reach has already penetrated into the most spheres of the government.”

“I'm aware of that,” Damien replied coolly. “Well, take care of yourself, Mikael. Don't get killed.”

Ignoring the gazes of pity and sympathy, Damien left the illegal gambling establishment and emerged into the cooler night air.

Breathing in deeply to expel all the dour and corrupted smell out of his lungs, he headed back to the communal stables where he had left behind his borrowed horse.

As he rounded the darkened corners one after another, he sensed several presences tailing him from the shadows. Their technique was shabby and easy to see through so that didn't concern Damien one bit, but what made him frown was just how many of them were there, all emitting high level of hostility.

It can't be because of that pickpocket, can it?

Damien held the hilt of the sword in reverse grip, ready to unsheathe it in a moment's notice. He calculated that a wide open space with plenty of lights would serve him well and so, his eyes locked on a well-lit crossing ten Ruten away. There weren't many people out and about around here, as if they all sensed something was about to go down and decided to avoid the trouble of getting involved inadvertently. Damien preferred it that way, actually.

By the time he arrived at the crossing, he was surrounded. They were more than a dozen of them, all baying for his blood. All of them held weapons of various lengths and sharpness.

Surprisingly, Damien recognized the faces on one or two of his attackers, as the ones from the day's rioting mob. They were the inciters that had escaped, and now they were licking their lips in anticipation, circling him like a pack of predators eyeing a juicy prey. A cold, murderous light shone from each and every one of them.

Damien examined them all indifferently. Inwardly, however, he was calculating whether it'd be better to aim for escaping unscathed, or taking them down for good.

He didn't want to get tangled in SOIR's business. They had sufficiently qualified people to handle their own mess. He figured that as long as the fools behind the rioting situation left him alone, then he'd not poke them with a stick. Yet, here they were.

Suddenly, a vicious and devilish smile lit up on Damien's face. His chained anger violently rebelled against his control and began to break free.

The truth was that he had been keeping his rage in check until now, hoping to unleash it at those responsible for his son's death, but seeing that these men decided to kindly throw away their lives, he also figured that he might as well let off some built up energy.

Otherwise, he'd go insane from the frustration.

“What are you waiting for? I haven't got the whole evening. Hurry up.”

Damien's words caused the men to act. They attacked in unison. But he was faster.

As the men closed in, Damien already identified the potential weak links in the group, and went for that first.

As he bopped and weaved out of the slashing blades and other blunt weaponry, he caught the sight of the attackers' shocked expressions. That was quite satisfying, he thought. Since he lacked an arm, his close quarter combat style had to evolve, where he never, ever blocked an attack, nor did he try to win in a struggle of pure strength.

Rather, all of his moves consisted of dodging and parrying, a style of combat refined over time by sparring with Derrick on many occasions.

Compared to his cousin, these men were nothing special. The number might put him in a disadvantageous position, but by adhering to the basics of watching out for the four directions, Damien would be fine. Him not losing concentration was the key.

Since he was short of one arm, a lot of his attacks now centered around his legs. Using a feint of drawing his sword and swinging it in one motion, he caused his target to raise his own weapon to block. Of course the expected attack didn't come, but instead, Damien's well practiced kick directly landed on the unprotected kneecap, shattering it an instant.

There was no time for a pained cry, as Damien's naked blade smoothly came down, piercing through a minute gap in the chest armor of his target. He clearly felt the sensation of internal organs getting crushed by the thrust of the weapon.

“One down,” murmured Damien. His eyes radiated a cold killing glow, and if his wife, Lizbeth, saw him in this state, she'd have a hard time recognizing him.

The swiftness and the decisiveness of the strike caused the others to stop in their tracks, shocked. One or two even looked hesitant, glancing at their comrades to see whether a withdrawal was on the cards for them.

Damien calmly pulled the bloodied sword out and flicked the blood off it by sharply slashing downwards. A line of crimson streak formed on the cobbled stone ground.

Cracking his neck, Damien coolly called out to the men. “Hey. If you're going to attack, then come already. If not, go away. It's been a long, lousy day so I'd like to go and take a bath soon.”

D'oh!! I've forgotten completely to post the chapter here. Oops.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 29

29​

“No, no, no, no. Not like that!! Look, Lil' Kain, you grip it like this, and swing it just like so. See? Like so!”

Emma impatiently swung a branch around in a practiced manner. All Kain could do was sigh and scratch the back of his head. “C'mon Emma. What were you expecting? I'm not even six yet, you know.”

Currently, they were at the edge of the forest, not too far from the desolate clearing surrounding the dead city. Due to Emma's guidance Kain found the exit rather quickly, which turned out to be a crack in the city's defensive ramparts big enough to let a person through on all fours.

The real exits, the grand archways built to demonstrate the city's wealth, all had collapsed due to the passage of time and damages from the weather among other things, making it untraversable by normal means. So the only way in or out was either fly over the walls, or crawl through the openings.

Once out, none of the Golems appeared. Kain figured it was probably due to Emma being here with him. Whatever the case may be, as long as it was as uneventful as it had been so far, he'd be a very happy man.

As the two of them conversed, though, one thing led to another, until they arrived at this point. The point where Emma was teaching Kain on how to properly hold a weapon, like a shortsword. The branch was supposed to represent that.

How the heck did we get here?! I can't even remember the chain of topics that led me till here. Did I get suckered in by her pace?

Kain smiled bitterly as Emma handed over the branch with a face like a stern school teacher admonishing a naughty kid.

Actually, he didn't mind something like this. He had already acknowledged her as a far superior being than himself, so getting a tip or two sounded like a pretty good idea. As long as there was no string attached, obviously.

Gripping the branch as he was told, Kain lightly swung the branch, making a swish sound. It was a bit crisper than before, at least to his ears, so that was something. One more swing, and he got this strange feeling in his gut, something akin to an understanding of the unknown, maybe even an enlightenment.

Huh. Okay. So, maybe, if I use my wrist like this when I swing it....

….

Ohhh, would you look at that. Well, well, well. So that's the trick, is it? This stuff is surprisingly easy!!

After figuring out that by manipulating his wrist a little while slashing the branch he could add a little more venom to it, he was rather pleased with his level of perceptiveness.

“See, I told you!! Your wrists, use your wrist a bit more, and everything works out, right?”

Emma chuckled proudly while checking out Kain's repeated swings. Even to an untrained eye, his movement looked a bit more refined than before.

“Uhm, yeah. Sure thing.” Kain wryly smiled and nodded in agreement, not wanting to burst Emma's bubbles by saying she never told him to use the wrists in the first place, that it was all him figuring it out by himself. No need for a sour face to cloud the happy occasions, really.

“Anyways, practice that non-stop for the next... uh, ten years, and you will be as good as me when I was six. I guarantee it!!”

Emma sounded quite proud of her assessment. Kain wasn't as sure as she was, but what could he do? He didn't want to learn some shoddy kung fu from a shady old man which might get him killed in the long run.

It'd be a big fat lie to say he didn't regret running off in a huff. He knew he was being rash. He could go back and apologize. And, while doing all of that he could politely ask for an escort so he could leave the Tetamus Range safely.

But for some reason, whenever he remembered the smug face of the Old Man, he just wanted to punch the guy so badly, all of his thoughts got jumbled up in a total disarray.

He found that quite odd. Why did he feel like that? If looked at objectively, the Old Man hadn't done anything to him. As a matter of fact, he sent Orion to watch over him during difficult times. Were it not for the fiery bird that sorta resembled a phoenix but wasn't one, he'd be a poo of some large and toothy Fiend somewhere.

The only thing that didn't gel was the motivation behind the Old Man and his drive to train him. Obviously, fighting false gods or whatever was completely out of the question.

Kain thought he had it all figured out. That he had come to grips with his situation. He was at peace with the fact that he was living a new life in a fantasy world full of magic and whatnots.

So he didn't feel any antagonism toward the so-called false gods who may or may not be responsible for his new life here. As for the beef the Old Man had with them, he had nothing to do with that stuff after all. Besides, he wasn't 100% convinced of the motivation behind the Old Man's desire to fight the gods, now that he thought about it more rationally.

Oh, well. It's not like I care, right? Me and him? That saga's finished, as far as I'm concerned.

Even though he was distracted thinking about other things, Kain kept on swinging the branch in the same manner as before, until Emma, who was growing bored of doing nothing but watching him, decided to take a break.

“Alright, let's stop for now, and rest. Otherwise, your arm might fall off.”

Emma's words broke him out of his thoughts. Nodding his consent, Kain lowered the branch and as a test, moved his arm about, wanting to see if there was any change. Although he couldn't actually feel it for sure, there seemed something definitely different about himself.

Or maybe he was just imagining things.

Emma pulled out a carrot from a bag she carried on the side and plopped down on the ground, urging him to sit next to her. Originally she didn't have one when Kain ran into her, but as soon as he told her he was leaving, she went to her new home and fetched it. While she was at it, she blamed him for destroying her previous home, even if it was an accident.

She offered another carrot stick at him, which he accepted hesitantly. He wasn't really hungry yet. Still, sitting around doing nothing sounded a bit.... boring, so he began chewing on it.

It was unexpectedly tough to chew.

“Hey, Emma. Where did you find this, uh, thing?”

“Oh, this? I found it in the forest a while ago. I liked the taste, so now I am growing them inside the city.”

“Oh. You grow anything else?”

“Yeah, lots of stuff. I don't know names of them all, but they are all pretty tasty.”

Kain didn't really find the carrot that good, but since it was possible his taste buds were adversely affected by the alleged meat buns so he couldn't fully trust his senses just yet.

Talking about senses, Kain took a glance at Emma. She was chewing while contemplating something quite seriously. That much was easy to see as her frown was deep enough for a canal boat to wade through if it were filled with water. Complete exaggeration, obviously, but that's how deep it looked to him anyway.

Also, he had to admit, the first time she was in total silence for an extended period of time.

Something else came up in his mind at this point. How can a chatterbox like her live alone in a city as big as that, all by herself? The Old Man would not make for a good company what with his personality, and the rest of the forest was filled with man-eating Fiends and other unfriendly creatures. She must have been quite lonely.

“How long have you been staying in the city?” asked Kain.

“Hmm? Oh, I don't know. It's been many, many years, but hmm, I am not sure really. You should ask the Old Master about it.”

“Why him?”

“He and I came here together. Actually, he brought me here. I think he knew about this place before meeting me.”

“So, how do you pass the time when you're, you know, all alone?”

Kain asked as he finished the carrot and dusted himself off the ground, ready to roll.

“At first? I was soooo bored, you have no idea. It was really really terrible. The absolute worst. In the history of the world, you will not find anything as boring as an empty city!!”

Emma puffed up and began trembling in anger all of a sudden as she recollected her initial memories of the city. Kain thought she was ready to blow a fuse or something, the way she was reddening up like that.

“Right, okay. Cool. So what did you do?”

“I wandered around, here and there. And guess what? I found lots of cool and interesting places hidden deep, deep inside the city. They are so well hidden, it's nearly impossible to find them even with hundreds of people!!”

“Then how did you find them?” Kain asked her skeptically.

“Oh, that's super easy. I'm from Boscage tribe, you see. Things hidden in the shadows, we can find them with our eyes closed. It's true!!”

She nodded proudly as if she'd achieved something remarkable. Maybe she did. Maybe she did find some amazing heritage somewhere in the city's underbelly.

“What did you find, then?”

“Old murals, paintings, books, the usual stuff. Lots of nice but old weapons, lots of weird, freaky items I've no idea what they are supposed to be. Those kinda things.”

Huh, is that right, Kain mused inwardly. Maybe I should've had taken a look at those before leaving. Hmm, is it too late to go back now?

He thought about going back quite seriously now. His mind was wavering. The mere mention of “nice weapons” had his ears perked up. He may be a kid, but still, equipping a sharp blade or two would do a world of good to his confidence. Especially if he was serious about traversing this forest and make his grand escape.

While he was dithering about, Emma got up and slapped him on his back. “Alright!! Time to get a move on. Forward!!”

“Hey, wait a sec. Where are we going anyway? Do you even know where we are headed to?” Kain asked hastily, while trying to regain his lost balance. His arms flailed about for a brief moment or two, before he was able to stand straight.

“Of course!! All you have to do is believe in your big martial arts sis!! I won't lead you astray, you'll see!!”

Emma gave him an imperious, I-know-everything type of look, as she stood with her legs slightly apart, her hands on hips, in what could only be described as a heroic pose.

“Huh? My martial art sis? What do you mean by that?”

Confused at the foreign term, he asked for some clarification. If it was nothing than a term of endearment, then it was all good. But if not....

“I'm your big sis, because we learned from the same master. That's why. At least, I think that's how it's supposed to be. Am I right?”

“Eh? You also learned kung fu from that Old Man?” Kain was surprised, both inwardly and outwardly.

“Yep. That sword move I showed you? That's from the Old Master.”

Kain ruefully chuckled as he couldn't help but notice the sleight of hand played by the fate here. He thought he had escaped from the accursed future of not fighting the gods or whatever by not learning a thing from the crazed old fool, but now, he has received a bit of his knowledge, albeit in a second hand fashion. Still, it was a “passing down” one way or the other.

Oh, c'mon. Surely, this much is fine, right? I mean, there's just no way this counts as that. No way.

So off they went. further into the forest even though his heart was wavering this way and that.

Occasionally, Emma made him hide and remain dead still, while a huge Fiend sauntered by. The so-called encounter rate wasn't too high but hell, almost every single one they did run into could easily be classified as an end-of-level boss. If it weren't for Emma's great skills in blending in with the scenery, he'd be dead many times over.

This feeling of smallness, of being totally helpless felt rather familiar to him by now. Naught he could do about it, unless....

Unless he got a bit more stronger.

When this line of thoughts crept in, he wanted to tear his hair out in frustration. He didn't want to learn martial arts from the Old Man. No guarantee he'd become strong as he said he would. And just how long that process of becoming a kung fu master might take? He simply didn't want to waste his life in here. Besides, that threat of a showdown with the false gods loomed too large in his mind. He couldn't ignore that. That was the biggest reason he didn't want to learn.

His thoughts were mixed up, with no clarity in sight no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't even ignore the small, bickering voices fighting with each other over this definitely life altering decision.

Like this, the two of them traveled forward, slowly but surely.

On the second day however, something bad happened that made up his mind for him.

~​

The progress halted more often than not as they left the city behind, further and further away. The number of strong Fiends increased dramatically, almost to a point where it was nigh on impossible to travel unnoticed.

In the encounter that mattered, the two of them ran into a huge humanoid Fiend with six arms. It was as tall as a certain well-known Mech from a long-running Japanese anime franchise, had a dull gray skin like an armoring on a tank, and a row of viciously sharp fangs ready to devour any and all prey unlucky enough to cross paths with it. It had no nose but a pair of prominent nostrils that sniffed the air constantly. Worse still, it had eyes on the back of its head, literally. It had a total of six eyes, one for each of its arms, Kain supposed.

It emitted such a terrifying aura, even Emma tensed up when she sensed its approach. And she rarely tensed up.

When they encountered it, the gigantic Fiend was locked in a mortal combat with another creature, the two managing to destroy the surroundings like a pair of wild bulls in a China shop. Trees were leveled, blood flew off everywhere, the ground was gouged out. The giant Fiend used a powerful ray of something out of its mouth, scorching the earth and everything with it.

The unlucky recipient of that blast was a flightless bird like creature, another giant Fiend with an impressive set of antlers and razor-sharp talons at the tips of its wings. It didn't lose to the six armed Fiend in terms of sheer physical strength, but that, uh, energy blast done it in. It was too fast an attack to dodge.

And as a result, the victor was set. The prize was the meat of the loser.

Kain felt slightly sick watching the giant chow down the burnt and smelling flesh of the bird-like Fiend with wild abandon. Emma signaled to him that they should move, clearly not minding the grisly sight in front of her. Of course he agreed with her suggestion immediately.

They didn't go far away from there before Emma froze up on the spot. She felt a strong resonance coming from the forest, a sign of a massively powerful Fiend on the move. What's more, it was headed directly to where they were.

Kain couldn't sense it just yet. He wasn't as developed as Emma was. But if he did sense what was causing all that sweat to fall off her, then he'd understand too.

Before long, the ground rumbled. This rumbling reminded Kain of one particular Fiend he didn't want to meet, no matter the circumstances.

Hastily, Kain looked around for a place to hide. None met his strict criteria of providing an adequate shelter. So he had half a mind to dig a hole and jump in there, dragging Emma with him.

However, digging a deep enough hole would take time, and judging by the way the rumbling rapidly increased, Kain just knew he had no time. He exchanged a glance at Emma, who looked as pale as ice.

Grimacing at this turn of events, Kain just grabbed the Elf and they dived into a thicket nearby, hoping to use that as a cover while they crawled to safety. Her bow nearly got caught in the branches, but she was quick witted enough to free herself out of it before she got tangled in it.

By this time, the six armed Fiend also noticed the rumbling, and stopped its feast. Looking at the direction where the disturbance was coming from, it roared threateningly, chunks of bloodied entrails falling out of its mouth. The cause of the rumbling returned the roar in kind.

When that roar hit Kain's eardrums, his memories got triggered. He remembered this roar. It was from that crimson dragon-like Fiend.

A cold chill ran down his back. Out of all the Fiends populating this accursed forest, that Fiend was the very last thing he wanted to see, even less than that of the smug face of the Old Man.

Sure enough, the familiar head of the crimson Fiend burst out of the dense forestation like an explosion of TNT, emerging out into the open. Kain knew the Fiend only ran off from the extended assaults from the numerous Golems, but to see it not even hurting slightly from that fight made his heart sink to the very bottom.

But that was the least of his problems.

The moment Emma saw the crimson Fiend, she muttered a single word, before her eyes glazed over in fear, her body trembling like a wet puppy.

She said, “Wyrm.”

The Wyrm easily dwarfed the six armed Fiend. Even its fierce countenance looked scared now, its six arms rising up in a defensive posture. Kain couldn't tell how this fight would go, but whatever the case may be, he didn't feel like waiting around to find out.

“C'mon, Emma. Let's get out of here. Come on, snap out of it!!”

Kain whispered urgently at Emma, who have completely lost all control of her self. She simply gazed on at the Fiend, her eyes glazed over. There was even a hint of tears in her eyes too.

She then proceeded to hug her knees and plopped down on the ground, terrified out of her mind. This shocked Kain more than he thought it might.

She had been unflappable until this point. She didn't hesitate in her actions, she was precise in her movements, and most of all, she knew when to take an appropriate action.

Yet, here she was, an emotional wreck, unable to move from her spot.

And it got even worse.

The necklace on her neck began to emit an eerie crimson glow. More correctly, the dull, ruby-like gemstone that hung on a cheap leather string around her neck did.

The emission of light grew stronger in a blink. It was too fast for him to react. Panicking, he rushed in, trying to grab the necklace with his open palm. The idea was to hide the light-emitting gemstone inside his hands.

He was mere inches away from grasping it, when an outward explosion of Aeterna knocked him off his feet, throwing him backward like a stuntman from an action movie. Kain nearly cried out in shock and pain.

The light show and the Aeterna explosion attracted the attention of both the Wyrm and the six-armed Fiend towards where Emma was kneeling. As for Kain, he was tumbling backward into some bushes, blood oozing out of the corners of his mouth, his innards in deep turmoil and his energy going haywire.

He felt like all his blood flow reversed and was trying to reenter his heart, thereby causing a cardiac arrest or something similar. Suffice to say, it hurt like hell.

When he finally stopped tumbling through the sharp and pointy branches he vomited out a mouthful of blood, before falling face first on the dirt with a thud. Every time he took a ragged breath, the dust of the forest floor swept up and some entered his nostrils, stinging him even further.

As his mind cleared, he recognized this incredibly painful sensation. After all, this was not the first time he had experienced it. In fact, this was his second time that he got blasted with Aeterna like this.

Back when he entered the underground chamber of the World Tree, the thick and pervading Aeterna flowed all around him and formed into various shapes of animals. One of them roared and gave him a similar internal injury.

Compared to that, though, this one was a dozen times worse. He couldn't even sit up, nor even move. He was literally licking the dirt, just like the Old Man had said before.

It felt like every bone in his body was broken. It felt like both his lungs have ruptured. It felt like his brain had turned into a mush. Yet, his vision was remarkably clear.

In his vision, he saw the two giant Fiends trying to approach Emma who remained rooted in her spot, still kneeling and hugging her knees.

In his vision, he saw the two giant Fiends starting a fierce battle against each other, seemingly trying to claim Emma as the prize.

In his vision, he saw the Wyrm tear off one of the arms of the Giant, making it no longer a six-armed, but five-armed instead.

In his vision, the fight intensified, the destruction caused by the two giant Fiends increasing in its radius.

The Wyrm swiped its massive tail out like a baseball pitcher going for a home run. The five-armed Giant caught the tail, but ended up throwing up a mouthful of black blood. The impact pushed the Giant back, causing the ground to gouge out and starting a minor earthquake and a tempest of fierce wind.

Emma was swept up by the wind, and was flung away. She didn't even scream.

Kain watched, his eyes bloodshot, as the Elf flew and smashed into a broad trunk of the tree, completely shattering it. Amongst all the flying debris, he lost sight of her.

No!! Damn it!!

Anger swelled up in his heart, pushing down the bone-shaking fear until it was pretty much forgotten. He wanted to make a mincemeat out of those two Fiends, but he couldn't even lift his finger.

No, I can stand. I can, and I will!!

Gritting his teeth, Kain somehow forced his arms to slide under his torso and support his weight. Every muscle, every ligament and every bone in his body creaked and moaned in pain. Yet, through nothing more than sheer willpower, he managed to sit up.

Now what? What can I do?!

Kain grimaced as the stabbing pain almost laid him flat again. Enduring it all, he kept on pushing himself until he was on his feet, swaying from side to side like a drunkard. His vision clouded over as blood from a cut on his forehead flowed down on his eyes.

He raised his hands to wipe away the blood only to see the two Fiends still engaged in a mortal combat. However, Kain now could see the Wyrm had a small advantage. As for how he could discern that, he wasn't quite sure, just his gut feeling telling him so.

He also noticed a burn mark on his palm. It was jet black, it stung, and was still smoldering like a fresh brand.

However, in front of his widening eyes, the brand, the burn mark, slowly morphed its form, its outline.... until it became a bird!!

Through it, Kain felt an enormous amount of Aeterna converging from the nature surrounding him and trying to flow inside his body. That was just as painful as him getting struck with another Aeterna explosion. Stupefied, he didn't know what was going on, nor what to do with this bizarre mark.

Before long, there was so much Aeterna swirling and entering him, the ground began to crack apart, and the air started to boil. His long, unkempt hair stood up on the end, so did his ruined tunic, lifting up in the air as if there was some kind of updraft around him.

Kain felt power like he'd never ever felt it. It was intoxicating and horrifying at the same time. His thirst for power exploded, and he began to laugh maniacally. Even his voice changed, sounding distorted and deep like a monster's.

He didn't notice any of that. No, what he noticed was his perception increasing to an alarming degree. He could perceive every minute strand and wave of Aeterna flowing in nature. He could discern every little detail of each and all of those strands. And if he willed, he felt like he could control them. The more he looked, more he was sure of this.

On top of that, he began to perceive another form of energy, hidden well beneath the flowing Aeterna, and much harder to spot. It was colorless, formless, shapeless, yet full of vitality.

Is that... is that ch'i?!

Kain suddenly gained an enlightenment. He knew, instinctively, that strange energy was the ch'i of the Nature, an invisible thread that held the heaven and earth together.

When he reached out, just a tiny bit of it floated and entered him, nourishing him in an instant. When it did, his vision cleared up, his injuries hurt less, and he understood even more than he did before.

What he understood was that, this boost in power and perception wouldn't last. His body wouldn't be able to bear it for much longer. He needed to release it, or else.

But if he did, then all he gained right at this moment would be lost. His enlightenment, his ability to perceive ch'i, all of it would be gone.

He didn't hesitate. His choice was an obvious one from the start. He'd use up this temporary power up to kick some serious ass.

His increasing aura caused a brief halt to the deadly fight between the Wyrm and the five-armed giant. Both their eyes grew even ruthless as they stared at him, avaricious hunger all too visible in their eyes. Now they wanted to devour him at all cost no matter what.

Through the temporary clarity, he knew he couldn't possibly take both of the Fiends even with this power up. He needed to become even more stronger than now. That was the only way to survive this ordeal. Good thing, he knew exactly what options were available to him at this very moment.

Kain reached up and called out. “Orion!! Get your butt over here, right now!!”

His voice boomed out, sending out ripples of power that didn't lose to either of the giant Fiends. When his perception increased, he also spotted Orion the Roc hatchling not too far away, as well as another type of sense observing the battle scene.

Kain figured that sense belonged to the Old Man, the smug bastard observing and doing nothing again. This pissed him off much, and an idea formed in his head on how to mess with the crazy old fool.

Since he seemed to cherish that bird, Kain would naturally abuse it and gain an extra boost of power.

His voice reached Orion, who was watching the whole thing develop with a grim expression. But when the ripples contained in the voice entered its brain, it froze up, losing all sentient will. Instead, it quickly flew down to where Kain was, and landed on his outstretched hand.

Kain roared out like a primordial beast, his energy surging. This feeling of power intoxicated him, inundating his logic like a golden honey drizzled over the finest pancake ever made. This power and him went so well together, it was as if they were meant for each other.

The moment he realized this, one more amazing thing happened. Suddenly, a small void opened up in his lower belly. This void was invisible, and did not exist in the physical realm. If one cut open Kain's belly now, it wouldn't be there. Yet, he clearly sensed it opening.

This change was accompanied by Orion dissolving into a form of pure flame-like energy.

Kain's body, without a prompt from him, absorbed this energy. It burned through all his nerves, his blood vessels, his marrows, and settled down on this open space, merging with it as a single entity.

When it did, the surge in power went through the proverbial roof. His entire body was now enveloped in a pure crimson flame-like aura, burning away his clothes and everything around him in a 10 Ruten radius.

With his clothes all burnt away, his body was now in full view, and even more shockingly, now on his back a mural of a grand, magnificent Roc wrapped in Eternal Flames appeared. It was so vivid, as if the Roc depicted was alive, and ready to take flight at any given moment.

This Roc lifted its head and cawed. At its call, the heaven ceased turning over, the air stopped circulating, and the time came to a grinding halt. Even the two Fiends trembled in fear.

The sunlight faded and the overwhelming darkness blanketed the entire world. The only source of light was Kain and the Eternal Flame burning as his aura.

He slowly raised his hand, and pointed his index finger at the two Fiends. He spoke softly, but his voice was no longer his.

“Burn.”

The Roc cawed again from his back.

Suddenly, the ground rumbled like a magnitude 9 earthquake. The air sizzled, boiling and hissing as if it was water trapped in a pot.

If they had hairs, the Wyrm and the five-armed giant would've felt theirs standing on end, as the indescribable deathly chills caressed their cheeks like a graceful lady grim reaper might do.

It was at this point when the Wyrm decided to chicken out. It valued its life more than an opportunity to devour a creature that possessed such a strong connection to the Ether. Its long life had ensured it that a certain instinct to prioritize survival take root in its heart.

Might as well, because as soon as the Wyrm turned tail and began to run, a two hundred meter-large Roc made up of pure flames broke out from the rumbling ground. It cawed aggressively and flew directly towards the giant and the fleeing Wyrm.

The resulting explosion was even heard in Somerset, a hundred of miles away. It was so powerful, in fact, even the Old Man, who was sure enough observing via his Yi Hai, was deeply shocked and impressed by the ferocity and the scale. It wasn't strong enough to take down a false god, no, but it sure was powerful enough to destroy a God Remnant if it were hit directly in the face.

The Old Man was delighted, of course. This result exceeded his estimation. Who knew there was such a secret in the boy's.... physiology. With a right type of nurturing, not even the heaven could oppose this kid at his full flight, let alone a puny false god or two.

Meanwhile, out in the forest, the world was burning down. Nothing in front of Kain remained. Not a thing, not even a blade of grass. The absolute darkness that blocked the sunlight was fading away, and as the light returned to the world, the air once more began moving as well.

The five-armed giant was burnt to a smoldering heap, and so was the vegetation around the explosion site. However, the Wyrm survived, just, and was fleeing at its top speed, not even bothering to look back.

If it did, then it would have seen Kain limply falling back on the ground, unconscious. The mural of the majestic Roc slowly faded away, the aura of Eternal Flames dissipating away.

And right next to the boy, Orion materialized as the last of the Flames disappeared. The bird looked quite confused, quickly looking around and trying to figure out what just had happened while it was distracted.

Orion didn't notice the open space in Kain's belly closing up. But surprisingly, it didn't close completely, and a tiny sliver, not even a 1/100th of its original size rapidly filled with ch'i that hadn't escaped from the boy. The open space began to gently and quietly hum away and slowly filled him with restorative power.

Orion was utterly confused. It could not figure out what happened here. It sensed a shocking amount of Fire-type Aeterna all over the site of destruction but as to what caused such a scary scenery, where the earth was scorched right in front of it in the radius of dozens and dozens of Rutens, it had no clue.

Orion didn't even contemplate Kain as the culprit. The thought didn't even enter its mind, not even once.

After searching for a bit, there was nothing more he could do, so it swept down to the heap of the giant Fiend, and rummaged through the ashes until it found a large gray pearl the size of a child's fist. It cawed happily and embraced it like a lover, before throwing suspicious looks around to make sure no one saw what it was doing.

However, Orion couldn't do anything, as out of nowhere, the vine people from the Tetamus fort popped out from the ground and began carrying Kain and Emma back to the city. It heard its master's call, telling it to hurry back.

Reluctantly, Orion took flight, the glittering pearl reflecting the crisp late summer sunlight.

No more chapters until possibly the 26th. Way too busy till then, no time to write stuff. Sorry!! Oh, and merry X-mas to y'all.