"Graahh!" I twisted my body quick and landed on the edge of the warship's deck. Caesar leaped next to me and we looked at the large hole a dozen feet in front of us. My heart was thumping against my chest. What just happened? Another enemy?
"This is . . ." muttered Caesar. "Jump from the ship!"
The warship shook once again, but this time, the entire vessel was tilting to the right. I knew in an instant that the warship was about to sink into the ocean. Caesar ran towards the edge of the deck and I followed from behind. He slammed his foot onto the metal ledge and jumped down from there.
"Tsk!" I went after him and both of us dived into the ocean, with the ship's vessel slowly being pulled towards the ocean's depth. I swam back up and gasped for air. I didn't know what exactly had happened back then. Trying to make sense of it didn't seem to be working for me. However, from what I could tell, that large hole wasn't something an ordinary C.U soldier could do with his bare hands. There could only be a certain group of people capable of such a thing.
I turned my head to look back at the sunken warship. "What the . . ."
The warship was slowly sinking no doubt, but there, casually walking on the surface of the water were two individuals. Red Aegis crystals wrapped the woman's feet, while the man beside her had yellow Aegis crystals supporting his weight.
'Enemies!' was my the first thing that came to my mind.
I formed my own golden Aegis crystals and it spread about fifty meters around me. Aegis crystals weren't heavy at all, and it could even provide a solid platform like this if the User wanted to. In this kind of situation where no nearby land was within sight, being an Aegis User was a blessing in disguise. Of course, one could make the Aegis crystals incredibly heavy when it came to combat, like the Aegis blades.
"Huff." I climbed onto the platform I made, my eyes glued onto those two people. They were just about two hundred meters away. I squinted my eyes to get a good look at them, and the mechanical parts wrapping around the left half of their bodies caught my attention.
They walked closer and halted a hundred meters away from me. The woman's short black hair and sharp eye made me think she was an Asian. The man had dark skin; with a bored expression on his face. They both wore the standard dark blue C.U military uniform, paired with a thick, white robe loosely draped on their bodies. The woman however only had half of her body covered with the white robe, in which it was the non-mechanical half.
Also, a triangular piece of metal seemed to replace her left eye, unlike her sharp right eye that was glaring at me. "That piece of trash Alexander is useless. We should not have depended on him to take care of Hope Domitius."
The guy beside her shrugged. "It is what it is, Liu Yang."
Liu Yang gritted her teeth and punched that guy in the back.
"Ow!"
"He is only here to lure Hope Domitius out. But it will be so much easier if he had gotten rid of him in the process, Namacui."
The dark-skinned guy with scraggly dark hair sighed. "Putting that aside, our time has come. Amathelia ordered us to take him down in the first place, so let's just get it done quickly. We can help Ernestine after this."
Liu Yang nodded and looked at me. "Hope Domitius!"
I formed a golden shield and held it close to my chest. My eyes glanced left and right, and sure enough, Caesar was nowhere to be found. Where is he?! And why am I targeted by these people?
I took a deep breath and looked at that woman named Liu Yang in the eye. "What do you want from me? Amathelia, you said? It seems like she had made a few new Aegis Users."
Liu Yang formed a scythe from her Aegis crystals, with its crescent blade pointed at me. "We are Amathelia's Aegis Meisters! She had ordered us. We are here to eliminate Hope Domitius."
"To kill me? Wait a second . . . That scythe . . ."
The giant scythe protruding from Liu Yang's mechanical left arm had the same crimson color as Ava's Aegis crystals. Not to mention, my eyes made it seemed like it was Ava herself that was standing right there, and not Liu Yang. Anger started to well up inside me.
"What did you do to Ava?!" I shouted. "What did you do to her!"
Liu Yang lowered her crimson scythe. "If you think both of us are normal Aegis Users, you are wrong. And we do not have the new version of Aegis like the Pillars. We, Aegis Meisters, are different."
I formed a golden sword from my right hand. "I said, what did you to do Ava?!"
Namacui sighed. "Kid. We are here to get rid of you, so think about yourself for a moment, alright? After all of this is over, Ava wouldn't have to be stuck with someone like you anymore. Though, that's what Amathelia said."
"Hey!" Liu Yang hit him in the back. "Don't tell him!"
Namacui just shrugged at that. He gave me a bored look and yawned. "I pity you, kid. Your fate is sealed the moment you met Ava."
"So what?!" I shouted. "That girl has suffered her entire life. If my fate is to be with her, then I will do whatever I can to help her."
"And yet here you are, separated from her," said Namacui smoothly. "You are dense, huh? Since she is so attached to you—like Amathelia said—then leaving her side is not really 'helping'. Am I right, Hope Domitius?"
I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. His words struck me hard. In a way, he was correct. After all, I promised to Ava that I would always be with her. I had sworn to myself that I would lead her to a happier life. And yet, I was there, fighting, with that girl nowhere within sight.
"I . . ."
Yellow knives flew towards Liu Yang from my right side, and she hit it with her scythe. I turned my head to see who was it that threw the knives.
"Caesar!"
"How are you holding up, edgy blond teen? Haha, sorry I took my time. And those two people . . . They don't seem like your typical Aegis Users."
Caesar walked to my side after he climbed up onto the platform I made. He looked at those Aegis Meisters for a few seconds and clapped his hands.
"Haha. I see—I see. So that's how Amathelia's Aegis works!"
Liu Yang's mouth curved downwards. "You . . ."
"It is not that hard to figure out," said Caesar, "The mechanical parts replacing half of your body. It helps in stabilizing the side effects of Amathelia's blood that has her Aegis chemicals flowing inside you. Basically, you two have access to some of Amathelia's Aegis ability since her blood had been injected into your bloodstreams."
The guy with scraggly dark hair, Namacui opened his eyes wide at Caesar's explanation.
I glanced at Caesar. "So—Amathelia's Aegis allows her to use other User's Aegis? Because that woman is using Ava's Aegis. Or something similar to it."
"Back when I was still with the C.U, I researched a lot about Amathelia's Aegis. There was no record of her ability, sadly. However, some data showed the Aegis chemicals belonging to other Users were present inside her blood. It doesn't take long to figure out what this means."
"I see." My eyes glared at Liu Yang and Namacui. "I know that it is impossible for people to inherit other Users' abilities, but those two people had their bodies modified for this very purpose."
It only made sense that Amathelia would make use of this characteristic of her Aegis like this. From what it looked like, the Aegis Meisters could access more than one abilities. After all, Liu Yang had a different shade of red color of Aegis crystals underneath her feet. It appeared red blood to me. It definitely was someone else's Aegis crystals, one that I hadn't encountered yet. Namacui, on the other hand, had yellow Aegis crystals supporting him, so it would be safe to assume that he could access Caesar's abilities.
Still, there had to be a restriction to how many abilities they could use. I couldn't underestimate these new enemies that popped up.
Namacui sighed. "Liu Yang. Let's get rid of Caesar as well."
Liu Yang spun her scythe above her head and stopped. Her murderous aura instantly covered the area. "I agree."
I readied my shield while Caesar manifested a shield of his own as well. Those two were about to attack, but we were ready for them. From this range of a hundred meter, if they wanted to initiate, that Namacui guy had to start with Caesar's Animated Aegis ability first. Caesar's Aegis allowed him to control his separated Aegis crystals, and there was no restriction to its range.
We knew what those two were about to do. We had the advantage. That guy Namacui started first. He lifted his right hand and brought it down.
All of a sudden, the right half of my body exploded and Caesar's left half was blown away to pieces.