When did I begin to love the fight?
It sure as hell wasn't on Earth. Or anywhere in the Sol System, for that matter. Where, regardless of the reason, two groups of humans- mostly young, were enthralled in the deadly dance of war started by those creeping towards their deathbeds in some faraway land of wealth and squalor.
But at the same time, it was a game where only skill, wit, determination, and sometimes luck resulted in the victorious nectar that was life.
There eventually came a time when there was no hostility toward those at the end of my sights. There existed an entirely different reason for my prowess in battle than mere survival, however. Sure, the opposition wanted to kill me, but I hated them not for it; for I wanted to kill them equally. I wanted to live. Despite the harsh realities I'd been forced to witness thus far. The curses of a still primitive mind, I suppose, forced such a desire upon me.
There was more to it than a mere willingness to live, however. I faced Marie Antoinette levels of trauma. And like some who experienced such things, I had a veritable death wish. As such, I was just as I am in this life: a walking contradiction.
And so I killed. And so I lived. But there was always respect for those I faced in combat. I was the victor in those conflicts, only because I was slightly better than them. Yet any number of variables could've changed the outcome of each and every engagement.
No. It couldn't have been in my past life; when I began to love the fight.
There was nothing to love about seeing a seven-year-old kill your best friend, after all. But when I see a demon shatter a city block with but a stomp of its foot? I can't help but feel exhilarated.
When I see a dragon engulf an entire country in flames with but a single breath? I can't help but be astonished.
When Legions of the living and the dead eclipse the sun and shatter the ground with their march? I can't help but be inspired.
Somewhere along the line after my rebirth, an obsession formed. A lust to be challenged had been birthed. Yet, I knew not the consequence of what such a desire would cost.
Nor, however, did I give a fuck.'
A.A. Vol. ?. Ch ?.
***
I departed from Eotrom shortly after my talk with Doyle and Olga. Like the astronauts of the Apollo Missions, I spent three days in the void of space, diving- accelerating towards the vibrant world under the influence of gravity.
The only difference was the dilated time. Three days from the perspective of those on the Mortal Plane, assuming they even could see me. From my perspective, however, the trip was only a few hours.
In either case, it was enough time for the Owl to move down the Rogue and Sorcery Paths, granting many painful changes to my body that I was still coming to terms with.
I was coming to terms with them still. Even though the Owl had far more time to contemplate it, with him overseeing Archie's work.
While he was bored enough to look for wicked souls, I was eager to finally begin learning how to create enchantments. And so, after those long and contemplative hours in the void, I landed near the border of Vrur and Bakewia with a wide and excitable grin plastered across my face.
At least until I heard the sounds of unsheathing swords and readying bows behind me.
"Hail!"
***
Lord Maurice Garchid.
***
"Ahh."
It was about time I took a rest. Traveling from Shujen to Bakewia was a lucrative endeavor in terms of data. But oh, was it dangerous. Orcs and goblins and barbaric humans alike. The Walking Monks and, rarely, Drau.* The Wizarding Republic of Knighilia was somehow just as bad, as it was as if the barbarians of Shujen held magical prowess.
In comparison, the fields of western Vrur were tame in comparison. Not to say they weren't dangerous. For they often held a far more dangerous entity.
Regardless of that fact, here I was just outside the border of Bakewia, resting the weary legs of my horses so that I could make the last leg by nightfall. And of course, my cloud-watching session was cut short.
"Well met, traveler."
"Ugh, gods." I groaned, resisting the urge to turn. Only to see a woman in a proud set of brown and green armor, the likeness of a unicorn carved into a pendant hanging from her neck. Another woman and a man stood to either side of her, dressed in the leafed tunics and brambled headdresses of a ranger and a druid respectively.
'Fucking adventurers.' I mentally spat. "I am a Lord of the Garchid House of Bakewia and a Licensed Artificer. No." I sighed heartily. "I don't need an escort."
"By Corellon's grace, none do." The cleric spoke in a Rharian accent thicker than frozen molasses. I studied her curiously, groaning in distaste as she bowed in greeting. "Unfortunately, your Lordship, I must inform you that a battle is to take place here. It is paramount to your safety that you leave at once."
I began to protest until I looked off to the side to see a seasoned fighter and an armored paladin with many scars talking amongst themselves while pointing to various regions of the featureless plains.
"Fucking adventurers." I physically spat. "You think you can do whatever you please? That's a main road!" I pointed just a few dozen meters away. "Take your bloody battle to Shujen like everyone else for fuck's sake! Or better yet, go back to Rhar where you came from!"
"I am afraid such a decision isn't ours to make. And…" The Cleric calmly said, then paused, looking down with a guilty eye. "We cannot."
"No." I stood my ground.
"We'll pay you for your troubles." The Ranger approached, offering a clumpy bag.
I nearly swatted her hand aside. "I don't want your fucking blood money! I want you to fuck off!"
"Calm, Sir!" The druid stepped forward this time. "Our intentions are well and just. Someone dangerous is coming."
"Incoming!" The paladin from afar yelled, cutting their words to silence immediately. As one, they turned to him and after following his gaze, turned their widened eyes up in horror.
"Hah!" I laughed. "If you're really a bunch a' doer wells, let's see you protect me from this big bad thing you're all so scared off." Steadily chuckling to myself, I looked up to try and spot the object of their fear.
Instead, I saw only a black streak conjure a powerful gale that lasted for but a moment. When I looked down, no longer was I laughing or smiling. My eyes widened just as much, if not more so than the seasoned warriors around me.
Equal parts confusion and primal fear swirled through my body and mind, for I first saw a pair of feet spaced apart at eye level. Finely crafted boots, they were. As thin as a second layer of skin that reached above the ankles. Smoke-gray pants, stitched with a fine quilted pattern tucked into those boots cleanly, permitting the trousers to be free and flowing over the thin frame of an elf.
A gilded sash separated the trousers from the bottom seam of a similarly quilted tunic; of a smoky gray color with white stitchings. In and of itself, the tunic seemed to be imbued with machinery or, at the very least, metal plates around the yoke and stand collar. Otherwise, the only design seen was the impossibly black tree spread across the front, a trim of gold surrounding every leafless branch.
But the thing that was most peculiar to my eyes was the long coat trailing upwards as if the ground was the sky. So similar it was, to the standard garb worn by the professionals who so often handled corrosive and dangerous substances. It too held the same color pattern, his artificer's cloak, but it boasted a collar of gilded feathers that hugged his neck tightly.
But… the thing that was most terrifying to my eyes was the visage of the being who wore such finely made apparel. A dark elf. But the iris of his eyes were as white as snow while what was normally the whites of the eyes were impossibly black. And at the center of those indifferent orbs were pupils not unlike those read about in many texts throughout the lands.
Almost exactly. They appeared almost exactly like the eyes of a dragon. But, no dragon with eyes of such color was ever recorded. And certainly, no drau held such eyes.
At least, not before today.
I was glad I stayed.
Using some unknown magic, the strange, black-haired drau used some strange magic to flip himself right side up and place his feet gently on the ground. Prompting the cleric to usher me behind them while the ranger stomped his way.
"Hey!"
"Hey." The under-elf said nonchalantly.
"Are you the one they call Amun?"
"Amun?" I muttered, noting the resemblance for the first time. "From the Bodhi Tree?"
"We care not where he is from." The ranger grimly stated. By this time, the paladin had approached while the others continued distancing themselves as much as possible. Ensuring I came along with them.
"And if I am?" the strange drau- Amun, calmly asked.
"Then, in the name of Corellon, you will perish for your crime. Unicorn Slayer." The paladin seethed.
A snort of a laugh came through his nose, though his expression didn't change as he flicked his eyes between the seasoned warriors; and then, to me. "If I may ask a question," he said, turning back to the party, "why, presuming I'm this… Unicorn Slayer, would I waste my time fighting the likes of you?"
"Do not assume we will let you leave!" The paladin growled.
"Do not assume you could stop me from leaving." Amun laughed. Then looked around at the party.
"Yes, my name is Amun." He nodded proudly after several anxious moments. "And, not that it matters to you, but I killed Carbury only in self-defense. If that's enough reason to come for my life then so be it. But, like I said." He said heavily, draining the humor from his visage in a single breath. "I don't have much time to waste fighting weaklings.
"I do, however, have a lot of energy to burn off. So." He smiled manically and with an open mouth, allowing a disturbingly long and thin tongue to unfurl from his mouth and hang loosely below his chin as he growled. "Dig your graves."
His words continued on, but in a hauntingly fiendish tongue that warped the world around me, slowing the party's actions down to a crawl while my eyes absorbed every detail before me.
Though I still couldn't move and though I felt as if I'd been taken leagues away, I could perceive their movements with the greatest acuity imaginable.
The drau- Amun acted first, stomping with a shout from the heavens that bellowed, "Susanoo. Release!"
A blast of blue encompassed his frame with those words and dissipated to reveal a dark elf with lightning-fueled scars carved through his skin and hair, bright white and standing on end.
He pushed forward lightly, darting a few meters forward and up into the air in the blink of an eye before he returned to the ground in a crash of lightning and singed earth. While most of the party scattered with the winds, a second lunge put him across a dozen meters and left him sliding to a halt before the paladin with a leg cocked and primed to kick into the armored knee.
Though his leg was smashed to hell, Amun persisted with a one-two-three thunder kick to his hips, ribs, and head, halting his momentum and leaving him suspended in midair before he spun to into a final kick, blasting the paladin toward the ranger.
Another flash of lightning and scattering rocks came before the paladin even landed in a mess of gore and crackling blue energy. By then, Amun had appeared above the ranger, his leg poised overhead while he somersaulted at a furious pace, inching ever closer to the ranger's unknowing head.
Even with my perception slowed as such, I could hardly keep track of the heel as it made contact. It only appeared as a spinning wheel of lightning that caused the panicked face to simply vanish on contact.
Only then, did I turn my eyes away to see large bolts arcing through the air as slowly as they were being carried by the hand of a running child. From the point of their origin, I could see the fighter suffering from the recoil of his heavy crossbow. Meanwhile, the distorted prayers of the cleric, now behind me, came crawling into my ear as they attempted to cross the seemingly impossible distance to aid the mangled paladin.
That was when the magic bloomed.
Arcana. The potent energy that made elves among the most powerful beings in existence poured through the environment like wildfire. But I saw no effect until a blot of red and silver streaked past me.
The paladin's mangled body, accelerating under some unknown force, smacked loudly against the fighter and his heavy crossbow, showering the fields with a spray of wood and red mist.
Like with the ranger, I saw the crash in vivid detail. Like with the ranger, it was as if the fighter wasn't even there to begin with. As if it had blinked and reappeared a dozen meters away in a mangled mess of glowing energy.
A splash of blood pulled my eyes towards the cleric, the last remaining assailant.
Her body was bowed from the impact of a thunderous kick that smashed her arm into her ribs, shattering them both. Blood gushed from her mouth like a crimson waterfall, spewing forth from her ribs like a geyser as she flew away from the recoil. And the drau, ever agile, lunged forward to cross the distance in the blink of an eye.
In the span of another blink, they were meters higher in the air. He, floating with his arms crossed defiantly, and her, floating; her arms and legs impaled unnaturally into her torso by some unknown crushing force. His lips moved with words I couldn't hope to hear. And then…
Gone, she was. Disappeared by the brightest flash to befall my eyes accompanied by the largest bolt of lightning I had ever seen.
And then, all was calm. All was quiet.
The wind once again blew softly on the pink-stained snow and the drow stared silently from the blue and white sky, staring blankly at the now empty space before him as he slowly raised his hand from his side.
One by one, what remained of the bodies lifted from the ground and surrounded him. He muttered again. And then came a brighter flash, one that remained in the sky like a lantern or a smaller, third sun until it suddenly blinked out of existence.
There were no bodies when the world resumed its pace. None except Amun, floating above several craters that hadn't been there before, a bemused expression crossing his face until, strangely, he smiled at me. And with a salute, he flew off into the distance.
Only then did I breathe. Only then did I smell the hot stench in the air and feel the warmth in my trousers. But I remained there for minutes all the same. I remained there for hours trying to process what I just saw.
I remained for hours more to muster the courage to get up and go home.
And yet, it took seconds to decide on the most important fact of the day.
I saw nothing of this battle. I heard nothing of this battle. And, by the gods, I would say nothing of this battle for as long as I drew breath into my lungs.