Chereads / Land Above Heaven / Chapter 20 - Watch your step

Chapter 20 - Watch your step

Written history within books and scrolls are sacred and full of wisdom, however, not everything that's been written is true. Some are miss leading, some are unwritten and some are false.

However, though it's very tempting to uncover the secrets, it is better to keep them locked up far from reach to those who are not prepared for the truth.

Many mysteries of the past are better left unsolved, many secrets of history are better left unknown.

Luke disgusted by the no eyes freaks, Luke focused his attention towards the two below to which they looked back at him.

Luke gestures his pointing and middle finger towards the balcony where Arthur and the others stood.

Luke signals towards were to up but the two did not catch up and only stood below wandering why Luke is making hand gestures.

Luke sighs.

A dark mist came out on Luke's left hand having the form of a staff.

The mist disappears and the staff that Luke usually uses materializes its place.

Luke then raised his right hand to look at the ring and found that it has a small crack.

Worried but desperate, Luke stumps his staff once and the earth beneath Luke raised up like a pillar.

The two below then saw Luke riding a pillar of stone that's slowly rising up.

"Won't! Look at that!"

"I can see, I'm not blind."

Suddenly, the ground beneath the two began to shake and lost their balance and fall.

The ground rises up beneath them going up towards the balcony.

Trish then looks down back to look at them one more them and saw the two laying down on a rising pillar next to Luke that's also rising up towards them.

Shocked, Trish runs back in disbelief while making up worried unrecognizable words and hides behind Clark.

Confused, Clark asked what was going on with Trish.

"What? You look like you saw a ghost."

"the- the- the guy! Going up!"

"What?"

They then heard noises coming from outside the balcony, like drips of rocks hitting the ground to which they looked.

There, they saw Luke with his staff with the two still laying down on their stomach.

"You…"

Clark spoke angrily.

"Luke!"

Said to the tied-up three.

"That red gem, Luke that the-."

Clark then hits Arthur's face and shouts him up.

"Well well, it seems you got rid of one of my guys."

"Seems so."

Luke then slowly drifts down on the ground.

As he landed, a bright red circle appeared beneath him.

"That's the last step you'll take."

Luke was then surprised on his mind because Clark managed to hide such a powerful spell that is right under his nose, to begin with.

"Move an inch and I'll blow you up."

The spell underneath Luke is a trap called "Red dynamite" from its name you can already think just how the spell function.

A simple yet effective spell, Red dynamite is one of the most banned spells in terms of power.

War is war, but wars still have their laws to follow. One of those is banning of traps that God of War disapproved of.

The God of war is also the God of peace and honor. For him, traps are no more than a cowardly weapon of choice.

Mortals must heed a god's order to which they made a law for how a war or a battle most commence.

Red dynamite is banned simply because of it destructive power it brings. However, it is quite used in mining.

The way Red dynamite triggers is manually pulling the trigger to a targeted trap (multiple traps can be casted).

Once stepped on, a mana-link is triggered to the caster that indicates that the trap has been stepped on but has no visual sight of who stepped on the trap.

The red gem you see is a gem that is hated by the wizards and sorcerers alike.

Often called upon by the wizards as the "Dragon's dung", the Gem of Malvern is a gem invented by the great sorcerer that helped for the defeat of the Demon Lord of the dark.

Once a power artifact now a hated stone, the gem was once used to cancel the spell of the enemy demons that specialize in demonic sorcery.

Now is just a gem that is very hated and despised among the wizardry.

If a spell is cast within the presence of the gem, the caster's hands (or some part of the body if the caster does not possess any hands whatsoever), will be shocked with pain, losing the caster's ability to focus.

The shock will continue shocking if the caster will not stop, but mostly, they stop once they got shocked.

Luke sighs.

The two then slowly got up and turns to find Clark next to the tied-up three.

"Father!"

Cecilia then realized that Clark is a bad guy jumps down.

Just as she stepped on the ground, she stops in the air with Luke's hand facing her direction.

Like then moves his hand towards the pillar of stone to which she drifts back on the pillar.

"Stay there and be quiet."

"But-."

"Hush."

Toru stood there listening to Luke as he learns his lesson to listen to what Luke said.

Clark then laughs.

"Oh? Do you love your father? How about I do this!?"

Clark then punches Arthur in the face again.

Angry, Cecilia tries to jump again but Toru stopped her from doing so by holding her right shoulder and waving his head from left to right to tell her to not do it.

"Damn that felt so good!"

Clark then starts laughing again and stops as fast as he started laughing.

"You don't know how much I hate you shit!"

Luke stares at Clark aggressively.

"Specifically you, Luke, if you didn't deter with my goals, I wouldn't have done all of this! I would've done much more!"

Clark then walks on the side and grabs the sword to one of his men.

"I've waited for this moment to come you know…"

Clark starts moving to Luke with the sword in his hand.

"I've waited and planned a lot of shit for this moment."

Clark then trusted the sword on Luke's stomach.

Clark then smiles as if he has done his work.

Clark feels something on his hand as if something was missing.

His hand was light as if the sword was gone.

Clark then looks at his hand that used to hold the sword but found only sand flowing down and off his hand and to the floor.

He looks back at Luke and finds Luke's eyes staring daggers of murdering glare with pure grim intentions.

Clark smiles as if nothing happened and walks back to the tied-up three.

Though you wonder why Luke is not fighting back, this is the horrifying answer.

One Luke's eyes and Merlin's, both masters of wizardry. They possess an ability called "Arcane vision" an ability to see arcane aura within everything that's been grappled with magic.

Only the highest, skilled and talented can wield this kind of power.

This, however, unknowing to how Clark hid his traps bypassed their sight and saw the traps far too late.

The place they stood is filled with traps, hundreds if not more.

Even the walls are filled with traps, Luke can only hope for a slight opening.

"Tell me, are you the one who stole the earth dragon's eggs and used them to attack the villages?"

Clark offended by the words of Luke turns around in rage.

"Of course! If you just let it happen, maybe that pissing Demon lord will finally appreciate me!"

Clark then calms down.

"Demon lord?"

Clark went silent and turns back as to not answer Luke's question.

"Shenru… Demon lord Shenru, correct?"

Clark then turns around again to face Luke.

"How in the blue hell did you know his name?"

"Shenru? So that's the bastard's name!"

Arthur shouted.

Clark then punches Arthur's.

"Take them to the cage, I want to talk with Luke more."

Clark subordinates then take the ropes that tied up the three and pulled them away and out of the room.

"Where are you taking them!"

Cecilia shouted.

"Hush, this is the last time I'll tell you."

"Relax, I won't kill them, ....yet"

"Bast-."

Toru then held Cecilia tightly and covers her mouth.

"The eggs, hand them over."

"You forgot to say please."

"It's not a request."

Luke then grips his staff.

"This will be my first and final warning, hand over the egg and I'll let you live."

Clark then smirked.

"For someone who's rapped, you sure got good threats."

"You do not want to play this game."

Clark smiles intensively.

"Ohhhh… but I do want to play this game. I've been playing this game for a long time now!"

"This will be your last."

"Pffft, you're not the first one to say that."

An intense silence with a heavy atmosphere dragged down on this single room.

Like and Clark stares at each other waiting for each other next move.

A complete stare down.

Suddenly, an arrow flew towards Luke's head from behind the door where they took the three.

The arrow stops at Luke's face with only a few inches away from his right eye.

It quickly turns around and flew right at Clark to which he barely dodged in a neck of a second with left cheek getting hit.

A small yet long scar opens on Clark's left cheek with a few drops of blood going down.

A splint of panic went to Clark's veins and made him trigger his trap where Luke stood.

With a quick reaction, Luke stepped away as fast as he could only to step to another trap.

The trap was close to the two and they covered their eyes because of the previous explosion.

In just seconds of thinking, Luke lifted his right hand towards the two and pushed them off the pillar.

The trap explode along with Luke and made him fly out to the balcony.

Luke's right arm tore off from his shoulder and blasted his left shoulder to mess.

As he falls slowly gaining sight, he saw the two almost in the ground lifted his right hand towards them, and stopped their fall just enough for them to have little no injuries.

Luke falls on the ground of the arena followed by a loud thud that Luke created by this body.

He landed horrendously painful to the point that his body hopped and spins followed by the sound of twisting ligaments as he rolls and finally stops with his body facing down in the ground.

The two got up slowly with slight aching pain and with a few bruises on their shoulders and knees.

Cecilia then saw Luke on the ground with his body facing the ground, covered in thick dust and small drops of blood close to where he fell.

"Luke!"

Cecilia then runs towards Luke with Toru following and wiggles his head as he walks.

Cecilia then stops next to Luke and turns over his body up.

She saw blood on Luke's left forehead with bruises on his face and very wrinkled clothes.

She then looks across to find Luke's right arm gone missing but there was no blood, but a dark most flowing up like smoke.

"Hey, Luke, can you hear me?"

Luke opens his eyes and puts his hand right on his blunted and painful forehead of his to which he aches in pain.

"Can you get up?"

Asked Toru.

"Ye-yes… I can…"

Luke slowly gets up and almost falls down but lucky Cecilia was there to catch him.

"Luke, you arm… it's-'

Asked Cecilia.

"It's okay… I'm fine…"

Cecilia let's go Luke.

As Luke tries to find his balance, Cecilia finds Luke's right arm a few meters away from Luke.

She ran and took his arm went back to Luke.

"I don't know if-."

Luke then suddenly grabs his right arm and shoved it back in the right place.

The two were stunned.

Luke then looks at his right hand and found his ring still attach but still has a small crack.

A tentacle of mist then wraps around Luke's right shoulder as a pitch dark smoke slowly gushes out from his healing arm.

Luke then let's go of his right arm and let out a gush of heavy breath once.

Though the fall was painful, Luke endured as not to worry the two.

A dark mist then manifested on Luke's forehead and starts to heal the damage slowly.

Luke then saw his in the ground close to Toru and lifted his hand towards the staff.

"Ta-haa!"

Luke then coughs and spills out blood and falls but Cecilia caught her again.

Toru then saw Luke's staff on the ground and grabbed it then gave it to Luke.

Luke grabs the staff and used it as a cane.

Luke touched his chest and aches in pain.

"I think…I broke a rib…"

Luke then tries to move only to hear his bones crack.

"And…a few bones…"

"Can you walk in your state right now?"

Asked Cecilia.

"I can walk just fine…"

Luke then saw his left foot facing backward and kneeled down slowly.

*Cracks*

Luke twisted back his foot back in place and stood back up again slowly.

Luke then looks at the balcony where he falls and finds Clark looking down at him.

"More importantly, what do we do next?"

Clark then looks away and turns to walk away.

"What do we do about Clark?"

"We will think of a way soon, now let's-."

Just before Luke finished his word, a loud single stump of feet stopped right behind the three followed by a flush of breath.

Cecilia and Toru turn around to find the beast looking down at them with a murderous glare.