Aramith didn't move a muscle as a figure landed before him with a loud boom. It was a tall man with a broad chest and big muscles. Another walked quietly from behind the first.
A light flashed high above them, and a dome started to form, sealing them in a place hundreds of meters wide.
"So this is the famous prince of the Vermillion Kingdom," The first man spoke. Aramith noticed the voice was different from the first voice he heard.
Before he could analyze anything, he rushed to Lia's side, seeing an arrow that was going to push her towards the door of death. He caught it, but it disappeared and an arrow pierced the back of his palm. He flinched, not expecting the first one to be an illusion. He caught a faint glimpse of someone on a building disappearing.
The anger in him burned more as he turned to look at the two men, but they had disappeared as well. Looking around, he saw people starting to appear all around him.
He frowned.
Mozrael dashed out when she saw Aramith moving out frantically. She was also bothered when she thought of what he said.
Something must have happened to Lia, she thought as she rushed after him. She couldn't move as fast as him and in a short while, he had disappeared. Luckily she could track him down and went after him.
In no time she had arrived in a deserted place. It was very bothering to her. The place had not been deserted for too long too. As she approached, she noticed an almost invisible wall before her. It stretched high and wide so she couldn't cross easily. A closer inspection drew her attention to the dome shape it formed.
It was sealed.
She studied it a bit and raised her hand to touch it.
"No!" A voice rang in her head, stopping her.
Her fingers were just an inch away from the pulsing and shimmering shield.
"What's wrong?" She asked, unsure.
" Look at it well. The formation was made a while ago, so it may be dangerous now," The voice replied.
She dropped her curious hand and looked at the black cat that seemed to have appeared beside her. It dropped a mouse at her feet and moved close to the wall.
"Try this."
She didn't hesitate and picked up the almost dead mouse, throwing it forward. A buzzing sound was heard as it got stuck mid-air, attached to the wall, shrieking loudly and twisting its body in agony. After a few seconds, it was shot away with a spark, flung to the ground, rigid as a statue with smoke coming out of its body. A burnt smell pervaded the air.
"The formation used to make it should be almost complete. It would shock anyone or anything with life in it for a few seconds, approximately 12 seconds. If the formation is reinforced, it could last a minute. If needed, they could reinforce that again to make it shock one till all life is gone from whoever touches it."
Mozrael looked at the wall, then turned to the cat. It disappeared and reappeared on her shoulder, pointing to a quiver of arrows slung on her back.
"I felt something like this could occur, so added an arrow with an aleus within it added to the set."
Mozrael remembered an odd arrow in the set and removed it. It was made of metal, and instead of the usually pointed arrowhead, it had a ball embedded at the tip which looked like a dark, starry night sky.
Gebreth taught her how to use these arrows. They were known as relocating arrows, and Mozrael liked how efficient they were.
The problem was how difficult they were to use. First of all, the shooter should be very good at calculating the fall of an arrow.
Arrows, when shot didn't travel in a perfect straight line till they reached their target. Gravity was always working on them, and at a point in time, the arrow would start to descend. This is what the shooter must know- the exact moment when it would descend.
In using the relocating arrow, the shooter has to be walking before shooting. This would open a portal that the shooter would enter. The exit would be the point where the arrow starts to descend. Upon exiting, the arrow would be found on the ground right in front of the exit.
Mozrael spent a long time mastering this arrow before Gebreth told her the dark truth.
The ball-shaped gem used at the tip couldn't be mined. It was obtained from space attribute users. To be specific, it was the eyeball of a space attribute practitioner. This disgusted her.
How cruel of fate to make her use the same thing again. It took some courage for her to take the bow and nock the arrow though she trembled.
Still trembling, she pulled the string, aimed carefully, and stood still for almost a minute, calming herself. With her eyes closed, she started to walk forward, then just as she was reaching the wall, let go of the arrow which flew forward. She opened her eyes, then kept walking into the space that had opened up. She walked fast, ignoring the red flashing images that would suddenly light up the darkness then fade ininto darkness. It was a frightening sight and it took all her will to move forward. THe images showed beasts, scary faces, massacres, every scary and uncomfortable thing seen by the source of the Aleus used.
With every step, her heartbeat quickened. The flashing lights stopped suddenly, and there was darkness so thick she could feel it. This made her speed up when a red light falshed brightly before her. SHe stiffled a scream as a face loomed before her and started to fade away. THe darkness started to fade and she could feel the evil space start to dissipate and the real world come alive. She calmed herself down, trying to control her breathing to stop her frantically beating heart. Everytime she blinked , the last image would flash in the back of her eyelids, floating in the air with a sinister look on the face.
Looking around, she could see everything in shades of grey. It took some time before color started to appear in her line of vision. The fear she felt as she thought of the fact that she could have been trapped there scared her deeply.
Why couldn't she remember any such thing when Gebreth had taught her about these things?
This only happened if the person was killed violently before the eyeball was forcefully extracted from the body. Gebreth made her go through one once when she was training, but right after that, he took it out of her memory so she wouldn't be haunted by such a thing at such a young age.
"Let's go," She heardand looked around and saw the cat.
"Wha...what was that? THe face...I almost-" she asked with a trembling voice.
"I'll explain later, but for now, I can only apologize."
"I was almost trapped, I don't understand." She was still in shock and couldn't shake off the feeling. Panic was something that could be classified as a trophy on Mozrael's face. It was so rare to see, but now it was easy to see how panicked she was. She looked very timid and fragile, trying to understand what happened.
"Look, we need to focus on following him . If we don't go now, we might be too late."
"I...okay," Mozrael was starting to get back to her senses.
Aramith was surrounded, but that wasn't his biggest difficulty. His biggest problem was how he was going to protect himself and keep Lia safe as well. One of the men with a staff rushed to attack him. Aramith timed perfectly and when the man got close enough to strike, he dodged and moved his fist from under to strike the man's jaw, but the fist didn't connect with the jaw. The sudden emptiness threw him off balance and he felt a slash across his back. Another force struck him in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs as he found himself on the floor. Before he could get up, someone kicked him hard in the face.
"We're only here to escort you to our superiors, so it would be good if you did good and came with us." A voice said.
Aramith rose to his feet and saw there were only three people before him. THe first two, and a third one. All the dozen or so people that surrounded hi m were gone.
"Go die!" Aramith spat.
The newest one spoke, "You're weak, we might end up killing you, so come along. You're just as weak as her. She couldn't last long before passing out. That worm you call a sister was just the bait, but she was too stubborn, and now look at her. Ha! you're such a lovable duo," he laughed as he pointed at Lia.
Aramith looked at her as she lay next to him, looking dead.
"You're pathetic, let me end this sore sight," he spoke again and quickly threw a dagger at Lia.
Aramith didn't see it too early "No!" He screamed as he moved like lightning to stop the dagger. He grunted in pain as the dagger pierced his palm a short distance from Lia's chest.
The man was angry that Aramith had stopped the dagger and pulled out a sword.
"Brat! I'll end that sister of your's for you"
Another illusion.