"What…what just happened," Sen muttered in shock but no voice came out. Feeling the shield that was supposed to protect him should things go sideways nowhere to be found.
As soon as he attempted fusing the two energies, a blinding light was discharged that he was sure was enough to take away this life of his. Luckily that shield probably absorbed the blow for him. The same could not be said for the inn though as the building was disintegrated into dust.
His body had no injury. Yet, he could not move his it. Not a single muscle could be moved. He just continued to lay there in the cover of dust, forgetting he was not in his human body at all.
'Wait, so did I succeed or not?' he wondered.
Connecting with his body and entering the meditative state once again, he was shocked by what he saw. The once calm sea of internal energy was nowhere to be found, instead, all that was left was a world of thunder and lightning.
Crack!
Crack!
Thunder continued booming while he searched for any source of Mana and internal energy. But no trace of them was found.
"Is this lightning the new energy formed?"
He tried to touch a bolt, but the result was getting kicked out of the meditative state.
Sen felt his body slowly recovering at a slow state. But that was not just it. Instead of recovering, it was like something was changing within him. The most obvious reason he could think about was the Mana and internal energy merging together.
'This could take a while' he said and entered the meditative state again.
He could see that although the thunder and lightning were booming, it was calming down progressively.
"There it is!"
He found his sphere of blood, still the same blood-red color, he had come with the expectation that it would change its size. And indeed, the core did change its size, just not the way Sen wanted. Instead of growing bigger, the vitality sphere shrunk to the size of a yoga ball.
"What the…,"
Calming down, Sen knew there must be a reason for this. Trying to sense his energy level, he couldn't feel it anymore, nor can he feel the Mana. Instead, a completely new sensation overcame him. Ferocious like thunder and smooth like jade. It was a whole new power much stronger than Mana or internal energy.
He looked again at the sphere. This time there were no veins feeding it, it was directly getting hit by lightning and growing stronger in the process.
Due to his state, Sen couldn't maintain being in this meditative state any longer since the potion effect already wore off.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw the dust around him condensing into a mass before a voice shouted 'scatter' and it exploded high up in the air. He was still paralyzed but he could clearly hear the gasps of people around him.
'm…mm…monster" someone shouted and the rest followed with screams.
"Enough" the same voice again spoke and the noise quieted down.
Moving his eyes, Sen Saw an old woman in silver robes approaching him. Several crimson armor-wearing guards surrounded her while looking at him in extreme fear and vigilance.
By now, Sen knew what was happening and couldn't help lament in his heart, "really…this body was so cool back on earth. All my friends envied me that they couldn't have one like it in their virtual games…why are people here so without taste…?'
"Night…what is this?" the woman said with disgust.
"Lady Ebara, we should kill it…maybe…maybe it's recovering right now," a guard said and Sen cursed him silently. He was now struggling to lift just an arm, much less defend himself.
"Yes my lady, this thing was probably what caused the explosion, we should…" another crimson guard chimed in but the woman Sen understood her name was Ebara, interrupted him.
The expression on her face was weird…it was like she was…ecstatic.
"Perfect!!"
"Perfect specimen…and that energy. I've never seen nor felt anything like it before… I need to find out more." She waved her hands, and Sen felt his body tightening up as invisible chains of compressed air locked him in place.
"This is my first time seeing a creature like…you shall do well on my experimentation table…that is if you can survive…well, no matter, even dead, you still have your uses."
The guard sighed, their lady's hobbit of dissecting creatures of all kinds surfaced again. They could only imagine the torture that this creature will go through.
All of a sudden, Ebara dodged to her side. Which made the guards perplexed and cautious.
"What's this? Invisibility?" Ebara's eyes went wide again. Before dodging once more. "Oya…crude movements,"
This time, the blow came from her back and managed to scratch her robes. But before the invisible hand could be retracted, Ebara had already clutched it with her arm. Wind chains appeared once more and bound the invisible figure in place.
"Oh? So there are two of you?" she giggled as she saw that ridiculously long-eared creature being dragged away.
Another wave of her hands and the air thinned around the creature. She heard a gasp as if someone was holding their throat out of breath and bound them as well.
Ebara chanted something in low voice before forcefully saying, "Dispel magic"
The next second, the invisibility started waning off as Leonas's figure appeared with his throat clutched in her palm and Risa bound next to Sen.
"A drow and an elf?" Ebara was surprised before once again laughing. "Great, I haven't dissected your kind in months. You shall do great and maybe I'll even find out about how you concealed yourselves so well.
Now Sen was truly angry. Leonas and Risa had stepped forwards and risked themselves to save him. Although he knew it was hopeless as the woman was way stronger than Cassil, he still felt very much touched, glad that his choice of taking in the two was not a wrong one.
"Let them go!" he weakly said. Which successfully caught Ebara's attention.
"Oya? So you can speak? Tell me, what and who are you? Did you cause this explosion, what is this energy I feel within you? What is your purpose here?"
"I can speak. My name is Sen. What am I? You probably never heard of it before. This energy I just invented and doesn't really have a name yet." Sen answered very patiently, his weak voice gaining force and life with each word spoken. "And my purpose here…" Sen suddenly stood up, the air chains were blown apart. "Is to burn this city to the ground"
Lightning cracked from his mouth. Ebara had barely recovered from the shock of him getting away from her air binds when the creature disappeared and flashed right in front of her eyes, bent over with his tall body towering at her petite one and his nose touching hers. Those wide pale eyes staring at her soul.
Sen stretched a hand backward and like an arrow leaving the bow, his fist connected with Ebara's stomach. The old mage flew backward, crashing into the nearby building.
Luckily, she had managed to react in time and create an air cushion behind her to soften her fall.
"kill…kill him" she addressed the crimson guards while pointing at Sen. But if there were anyone more afraid than her right now. It would be the said crimson guards. If even the royal court mage was sent flying like a stone pebble, what about them?
But unfortunately, Sen wasn't planning on letting them off even if they surrendered. They followed the order of their dog of a master, so they were held accountable for the same crime.
Ebara wanted to use the time to recover and then maybe she would have a shot at fighting that thing called Sen. But the next thing she saw was Sen blinking from existence, lightning crackled around his body each time he did and with every time, a crimson guard would fall down.
'Wind wall' she called out and Sen was stuck inside a vortex of wind the next second.
Sen, however, was not worried in the least. Stepping from the vortex-like a knife slicing through butter, he smiled at Ebara.
"I was wondering how that what's her name princess would be that rotten and arrogant, but it looks like the entire royal family is crooked"
What this woman had said about dissecting, and experimentation was not missed by Sen. He had heard every single word and already decided to put this old psycho pervert on his list.
"You…you killed Princess Jenna?!"
"Yes I did, but you should be more concerned more about yourself."
Ebara pursed her teeth, at that moment, she knew that fighting this creature was out of the question since she would die without a body if that happens.
"I…I'm a member of the royal family of the Grandor kingdom…we…we can give you whatever it is you want…territory, money, slaves, and even precious high elf women that only our king enjoys"
Risa's teeth ground together. High elf, those were the most respectable elf races to exist. Although they were arrogant and somewhat looked down upon other elf races, they were still one big community, and for this woman to say that and offer an elven woman as a luxury hit a nerve hard.
Poor Ebara did not know that what she just offered had sealed her fate.
Sen blinked again like lightning and appeared in front of her. Holding her from the throat and suspending her in the air, green flames started flickering from the ground before it turned into a blazing fire that ate her body wholly, turning her into ashes. If one were to take notice, then they would see a small white light that entered Sen's abdomen. That was Ebara's soul being harvested.
The next moment, Sen's body collapsed on the ground. Leonas and Risa rushed to his side, his figure was bigger than any of theirs, so they had to support the unconscious Sen each from a shoulder before disappearing in the dark of the night. Since the fight started, the people all cleared the area plus all the guards were dead
But they did not notice a trembling crimson guard hiding behind a nearby window. This guard was late to join the rest and when he did, he saw the terrifying creature and froze in his place. Then, later on, he witnessed how that thing unleashed a one-sided massacre.
As soon as the battle ended, he thanked his lucky stars for being late. Quickly running away from the scene, the guard reported what happened to the prince word by word.
"What?!" the second prince was both enraged and terrified. Although the royal family was arrogant and the absolute rulers within Grandor, they were not stupid and knew how to be cautious of others stronger than them.
"We leave for the capital tonight. You said that thing fell unconscious. We need to take this chance and leave Lavin C-" the prince did not finish speaking when he suddenly remembered something.
"Ebara is dead, her magic is also gone…quickly go to the dungeon and check on what we brought with us"
The prince panicked, Ebara's loss wasn't something of importance compared to losing that thing.
It didn't take long for a guard to return. He dropped on one knee, sweating as he stuttered, "my…my prince…escaped…the whole dungeon…a pool of blo…retch!" the guards vomited in his place after remembering the bloody sight in the dungeon.
The prince was having his own panic attack to care about the guard. He calmed down after a bit and ordered. "We leave in two days if by that time we still haven't found…it, then we leave for the capital"
Yet, three days past and there was no trace of the thing he wanted to find and thankfully, that creature called Sen did not make an appearance either. The prince left Elaila to handle things here after hearing the report that the Sen Creature was the one that killed the princess.
Before leaving, the prince sighed deeply, "what a waste….with no heart, how could you survive? Truly a loss."
----Author's note:
power stones keep the work going. If you liked the chapter and have one or two to spare, click on that vote button ^.^