The forest's green path winds aggressively from juncture to juncture, paving its way from the woods' entrance across a vast expanse of glass pillars.
Asahi and Aletha stood at their limit, striding and pushing through the lands to catch up to the dark-haired woman crossing the streams and demolishing boulders.
Telos's voice sounded inside while Chloe and the others were chasing the wanderers.
(After all these dreadful years of searching, I could still recollect my wife's appearance. Asahi, please... keep on going.)
Asahi mumbled, wheezing and panting, feeling warm droplets of sweat sliding down his face.
"W...Why do you want her so much? I... I can hardly catch my breath."
His breathing paced quickly like an engine's exhaust; he saw the dark-haired woman hop and wall jump across the solid towering brown cliffs. In a desperate attempt to save himself, Asahi closed his eyes and opened them, revealing the Tenth Eye back into his vision.
A green health circle revealed that it was nearly half full, the red stamina bar looked depleted, and the other alien glyphs were hard to understand, floating around Asahi's vision.
He shut his eyelids and opened them back, removing them and hearing Aletha's piercing screams from a distance.
Aletha's piercing screams sounded out from a distance.
"Asahi, HELP!"
Telos mumbled while he noticed Morwenna darting into the forest, vanishing through the bushes.
(She's gone. Heaven knows how long I've waited to see her again...)
Despite relenting with the arrangement with Telos, Asahi couldn't ignore her sister, even if it was the cost of punishment. He stammered tremblingly, glinting at the sight of three strangers charging straight at Aletha.
"I'm sorry, Telos, but... *gasp*."
His eyes targetted what looked like a group of masked individuals wearing wooden armor, and quickly he drew his sleek Sword of Eventide out, feeling weakness linger among every edge and hilt on it.
Pacing by and holding his breath, Asahi found Pridia along with Chloe and the boy who saved him, rushing onto the four humanoid creatures, searing their way from boundless to another.
Ropes flew toward the tall treetops, lassoing and wrapping around the extending branches, raging from the boy's soft palms.
His green coat flew the pattern of the wind, the chains dangling on him jingled like a golden bell, and his stockings gleamed in the sunlight.
"Goodness..."
It doesn't seem that his actions would be enough to repel the enemies, but the determined look on his face disagreed.
As he bent and tautened the dark figure's tendrils, the boy hollered to Asahi with a tone of uneasiness, hearing Pridia unleash her chaotic mess toward the other two masked monsters.
"Hey, you two! I'll just make this quick..." The tendrils pierced through the group of ropes, and its sharp head poked out from above, showing a lavender glow emerging from the pink rifts opening out from the goopy creature's skin.
The boy struggled to unwind the monster but fabricated eighteen more ropes out of thin air, screaming to Asahi while choking the beast.
"My name is Canyon! I'm the God of Ropes!"
Asahi raised a brow, dashing over and sliding along the tender Soil.
"W-What?!"
"RAH!" Screaming, wailing, and struggling to escape the ropes suffocating grasp, Canyon tightened them like a rope and squeezed the creature into slobby chunks of black muck.
The beige cords splintered and exploded like raw chunks of meat, forcing a sticky magenta explosion to scatter on the patch of flower-infested land.
Asahi and Aletha stood still in shock, overwhelmed by the startling sight of the monster's suffocation. Their minds hopped from anger and confusion to relief; their vision continually flashed with crimson lasers, green bullets, and screeching faceless creatures surrounding them.
A chaotic cluster mess of magic,
"Take that!" Said Pridia as she exploded another creature while dancing.
"Don't escape the likes of my ropes!" Screamed Canyon, delivering another blow with his multitude of ropes. To both of these sprawling characters, this encounter was nothing but just another battle for them. But for the wanderers, it was something extraordinary.
As Aletha raced to safety, rubbing the sparkling white dust sliding down her face, Asahi tossed his sword into the air and forced it back into particles.
"I can't believe... I haven't passed out yet. Who are they? And what do they want?!"
It wasn't easy for Asahi to pass through this grueling encounter after having just fought a mechanical creature from god knows where. He had to do everything he could to defend himself and Aletha from getting hurt.
On the other hand, Chloe was seen digging her hand through the dirt, revealing a sparkling green luminance from the hole.
A stream of fluorescent shades of emerald sputtered into the air, releasing ripples of energy across the grass toward her hand.
"Hope this works." She muttered.
Wielding a strange green luminance, Chloe brushed her tassels over the ground and threw the thick, rich Soil into the air.
Suddenly, a barrage of green vines emerged from each increment of the pieces of The Soil and blasted every creature into oblivion, surprising Canyon and Pridia.
Jotting her red skirt down, Pridia praised while cheering and clapping.
"Oh my goodness, you used the Technique of The Soil!? I thought people never used it since there are many other ways to use magic. But, wow... she is excellent with that!"
(Interesting, so even people foreign to these lands know how to use the magic of The Soil.)
Asahi's eyes moved to the same dark-haired woman racing across the path at ludicrous speeds, handling a black staff and exposing her skin to the sunlight.
Before he could even react, the woman struck Asahi straight on the legs with her staff, kicking him toward the ground and making a sharp movement with her weapon.
"HEY!"
Aletha quickly caught guard to it and tossed her sword toward the woman but was immediately stopped by her agile moves, pushing her down to the ground and squeezing her arms. She squealed in pain.
"HELP!"
Pridia and Chloe turned back, confused and afraid at the beautiful woman carrying both Asahi and Aletha in two of her arms. Even with her slender arms, she had the strength of a horse.
Pridia snapped her fingers and yelled at the dark-haired woman, galloping toward her, grabbing both Asahi and Aletha by the neck.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?!"
The dark-haired woman dropped both the wanderers, lowering her eyebrows and sneering at Pridia.
A silence dawned on the area. The birds chirped, the wind howled, and the shadows cast from the peaking sunlight.
Pridia and Clover lowered their arms, trembling in shock from the radiating appearance of the threatening dark-haired woman.
Skin pasty as cream, clear and smooth as a baby's face, her hair inky black, luxuriant, and reaching down to her ankles. A body as voluptuous and round as a supermodel, wearing one fishnet stocking on her right leg, two belts strapped around her left thigh, and a rose as dark as the midnight sky attached to her left head.
But despite her luxurious appearance, it did not once match her current attitude, actions, and personality. Telos seemed to know more about her apparel than meets the eye, even if his soul was chained in Asahi's body.
Her eyes targeted the opening of the forest, passing through the dead logs, kicking the glass pillars into pieces, and forcefully booting them straight toward Pridia. Five glass shards flew across the air, splintering through Pridia's body.
"AH!" Her confident smile faded away, falling to her knees and feeling drops of crimson slide on her arm. Morwenna sneered her gray eyes back and tossed Asahi's black sword into the air, jumping upward and kicking the hilt toward Canyon.
(Unbelievable. My wife's agility is so swift that all her movements and advances are nothing but a blur for Asahi's eyes. Just how much has she changed since we parted? She's using the glass pillars to her advantage. That's a combat tactic that's unheard of.)
"Look out!"
Morwenna sprung into the air in an electric swarm, catapulted a smoke bomb across the ground, and engulfed most of the area into a thickening black smoke. Aletha coughed and choked on the particles, scampering her way and screaming as she ran into a cliff.
"ASAHI!"
Thereupon, Aletha and Chloe hunted Morwenna across the forests, seeing Asahi kicking himself away from her arms.
"What the?! I can't see anything..."
The black smoke spread toward the corners, seeping, and flooding the landscape in a thick, parched surface. Asahi's metal arm pushed into the position of a punch, kicking and vaulting himself away from Morwenna.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this."
Morwenna pushed her dark hair to the side and sneered at Asahi, kicking her staff toward the treetops, replying with a menacing tone.
"Assisting you on your journey."
Asahi raised an eyebrow, dashing toward his blade, instantly racing toward Aletha.
"Sis, are you alright?"
She rubbed her fingers across the charcoal latching on her face.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Morwenna crossed her arms and shook her head, kicking one of the trees down and clenching her fists.
"Bear no care to the one who almost opened the seal of The Perpetual Storm. The warrior who fought her way up this mountain and scaled to its highest summit, challenging the void above. Taking grasp on the dragon's soul and replenishing the essence running through Linuxinia."
Not a single person understood a word Morwenna said. One even took the advantage to intrude upon her "speech," feeling all their power drain when their fingers touched Morwenna's skin.
"TAKE THIS!"
The mint-haired girl flew into the treetops, ripped a fresh branch off, and lobbed it toward Morwenna like a spear. Canyon grasped the stem and wrapped it with his fabricated ropes, swinging it toward Morwenna like a lasso.
"Foolishness. Weakness shall spread through every corner of this nation. Forth a challenge must be set to settle the gauntlet of The Dragon."
"What are you talking about?" Aletha shrieked, trying to balance on one of the logs. Morwenna sighed deeply, snapped her fingers, and forced her spear straight through the ground, corrupting it with a dark essence.
Just before the black consumed the land, yet another girl with lavender-green hair appeared from the wall of trees, unleashing a cyan luminance toward the woman. Asahi gasped, recognizing who her face was.
"K...Kali?"
Morwenna gritted her teeth and sighed, grabbing her thickening void spear and pulverizing it into the ground. The lush flora was moved away by a blossoming black rose, unfurling a weakening essence over the patch of grass.
Boulders were affected by the weakening power, crumbling before it could have rolled. Trees withered away.
"What's happening?!"
A stream of magical, colorful essence spewed out of everyone's bodies, streaming toward the consuming black rose. Morwenna giggled and covered her mouth with a smug smile, watching the entire group get wrapped from a stringy black essence.
Pridia shrieked while feeling all her magic drain away from her.
" I can't move! What did you do!?"
Asahi and Aletha fought the weakening power, struggling to breathe and forcing their fists through the weakening strings.
But it wasn't enough. Telos' voice sounded out in Asahi's mind with a quivering tone.
(I... I can barely articulate without feeling the urge to rest. A... Asahi, you might be fronting the power of The Dim. *cough* If only you could talk. So much energy is spilling away from your body. Escape, run out of here... and leave Morwenna. Something's not right about her...)
Asahi nodded his head and pushed through the black strings,
Chloe, Pridia, and Canyon felt all their energy relentlessly get sapped away as the dark midnight flower expanded and consumed their magic. Morwenna's mouth twisted into a sadist smile, watching as Kali levitated into the air.
"Isn't this what you have all so desired, Queen of Linuxinia?~ For all people in your nation to be weak? Have a slippery taste of impotence and lousiness, you ignorant ruler." She licked her upper lip and fiddled with her hair.
"I want to obstruct your path as much as possible, so my faction may reach the summit of Linuxinia Peak and reclaim ownership of the dragon. Then, conduct the next phase of one of my many children's souls..."
Kali grunted as she felt her power drain away from her grasp, feeling her hard-earned emotion of ecstasy gutter from her mind.
"You... all you have said was all of the past. I'm a changed person now; my beliefs have been altered! I...If you do this, my na...nation will be at risk. The absence of a ruler is dangerous for any country in Gincad. So... please... listen--
Her arms trembled and twitched, black essence entered inside Kali, and the radiant look on her glistening cyan eyes faded into a dull, hollow, and lifeless one.
The black rose sputtered and consumed Kali, draining and splashing green essence all over the ground. Before Asahi and Aletha's vision went dark, a loud scream sounded out, coupled with the sight of Morwenna fleeing the forest.
"Who is that?!"
* * * * * * *
(An unknown amount of time later...)
"So, where did you find these two? If I say so, they look different from many of the others we have captured. Not to mention that the other three look like they are not from here either." A grating voice said to a woman dragging a wagon.
The sun was growing closer to the horizon, with only a few more hours to spare before nightfall.
"I found them near that lush forest in Lily Leila lake. They look... severely injured. I'm concerned if they should compete in the race or not. I know they look fit and all, but..."
A wrinkly old man with a receding chin, furry brows, and thin hair squinted at the slender turquoise-eyed woman.
"Oh, and but... what? That boy's muscles look like they're in shape; maybe he can compete in the race. I need that money to feed my children after that devastating vortex ripped apart my town. Even his legs look fit. Not to mention, his entire is different from what I've seen on others."
The woman's beady turquoise eyes strayed at the injured siblings in concern, her lashes swept up, and she blinked, leveling a glowering look as she felt the sun pound her head.
"Sir, I don't think it would be wise to drag a random stranger into a race they never consented to participate in. That bright-haired girl doesn't look fit too. Even the other people look weak. I say we should escort them to Oksanna Village, heal them, and inform them."
The man's mink brown eyes narrowed to crinkled slits; he lifted his square jaw and peered over at the side of the open wagon, fidgeting with his dangling medals.
"Oksanna Village? Isn't that place like a center point for newcomers in Linuxinia? Why would we want to go there?! That's all the way toward Alpine Glitterfly Range."
The young woman shrugged her shoulders.
"It's a suggestion." Her pale fingers touched their heads. " There's currently only one running hospital in Linuxinia, located in Oksanna Village. I feel like these siblings need to be accompanied. Did you see what happened in Linuxinia City? There were several people flying in the tornado! Those poor people might have landed somewhere random and are in danger!"
The old man sighed and shook his head, glaring at the turquoise-eyed woman with an expression of impatience. After the wagon passed a rolling green hill across a field of bright white flowers, he shook his head and replied calmly.
"Alright, Emine... if you want to hospitalize those two, then go ahead."
The woman's ears wiggled.
"Really!?"
"Only if you promise me that you will accompany them throughout the week and bring them to Gushy Geysers on the seventh day for the race. I don't want you to waste your time."
Emine hurriedly nodded with a light smile on her face.
"Of course, I will! Thank you, sir!"
The old man bent his sleek black hat and kneeled over, feeling the wagon bump with the horses.
"Please, call me Mr. Gulliver."
* * * * * * *
[Okay, since I landed inside that streaming river, my first goal was to find where all the others were. I know Pridia was with me, but what about Brunella, Drimi, Phthonus, Ubel, and a few others? What happened in Linuxinia City? Did the monsters disappear? Where exactly am I?]
All Asahi found when he awakened was a comfortable, light blue bed beneath him, a wall made out of transparent glass, revealing the beautiful summit standing in the background, and a few cabinets, each with many books in a line. The floor was made of black and white pattern tiles, a faint ceiling light dangled above him, and a box of medical supplies stood at his right.
His silver eyes inventoried his surroundings, seeing no sign of Aletha, Chloe, Pridia, or Canyon anywhere. Confused, Asahi tried to get out of the bed but discovered that not a single drop of energy was in him. His back slammed back down on the mattress, his arms paralyzed, and his face was positioned onto the ceiling. Questioning his life choices, Asahi mumbled.
"B…Blink."
Telos' voice sounded out.
(Does there seem to be a problem, Asahi? It's been a few hours since you were last awake.)
Asahi sighed.
"Indeed, Telos. I don't know where I am, I have no idea where all the others are, and I can't move my body for some reason. Is there any explanation for this?"
As a silence emerged in the comfy, clean room, Asahi's tattoo flickered on and off.
(Hmm, well, it appears that you have been escorted by a few strangers to a tiny town called Oksanna. One looked extremely worried about you, seeing all the bruise marks from… Morwenna.)
Telos paused.
(...Morwenna. N-Nevermind. Anyways, it appears that you were about to be 'captured' for some sort of race, but then the course of direction shifted and ended you up here.)
Asahi coughed.
"And then what? Where are all the others? What do I do now?"
(Blink.)
Struggling to close his eyes, he took a deep breath and forced them shut, activating The Tenth Eye back into view. From there, he could see that his green circle was nearly depleted, followed by the red stamina bar that wasn't even visible and text saying…
[Oksanna Village: A cheerful town aiding outsiders if needed.]
Telos added while Asahi's eyes trembled.
(Oh dear, your stamina bar is at its lowest. Well, there is one thing I can say… you need to rest. I don't know what happened before my soul was locked into your body, but I suggest you relax and settle your nerves before you even think of walking out the door.]
Asahi wiggled his toes, seeing his boots against the wall.
"Rest? I've had a rest before, and I've relaxed too! WHY would I need rest?"
(I feel you would understand, as it would affect and maintain your energy levels. My people commended The Tenth Eye for tracking energy levels; not even the creator had expected that outcome.)
As Asahi rested his head against the soft cushion of the pillow, his fair eyelashes slowly lowered before passing out and instantly falling into a deep slumber.
* * * * * * *
But the sight that greeted him as he awakened was a vision he never would have expected to see.
Long dark hair, a cyan green chest plate, midnight blue eyes, and pink strings stood in front of him with the floor the expanse of clouds. Asahi's eyes widened in shock, feeling the calmness of the abode soothe him.
"W...Where am I?"
The moment he heard the voice from the approaching, tall man... Asahi remembered who he was.
"Telos? You're here too?!"