"K-Kath?"
"Arthur! Please, help!" Kath choked out a desperate scream.
[Godspeed Impulse]
My brain went into overdrive. Do I stand a chance against an Asura yet?
Well, there's only one way to find out.
[Awakened Realmheart]
Using pure mana, I forcefully locked the Asura in place, and flew Kath away from it. I took out Dawn's Ballad, and rushed in, slashing the Asura into pieces.
"Wren, stop this!"
The pieces of the Asura laying on the floor turned to dust, and Wren emerged from the rocky ground.
"You caught on quick. How?" Wren asked, shooting me a curious look.
"Well, first of all, why would it attack me here. Second of all, why wouldn't it attack me when I was asleep? And third of all, it was full of earth mana." I responded
"Well you're a perceptive one. Alright, let's continue your training..."
...
"Boy, give me your dominant hand." Wren barked
Spreading my right hand with my palm facing up, I stared at the asura curiously. I could never read his face since he always had the same tired expression, like he'd drop to the floor snoring at any moment.
Taking out a small, black case the size of a fist from his coat pocket, he opened it and held out a small, pyramid-shaped, opaque gem. "This is a mineral called an acclorite. Now, by itself, it's a rather rare but useless piece of rock. However, with the right refining and synthesizing process that I will keep to my grave, it is capable of doing something remarkable."
"Remember when I said I don't forge swords, but create them?" the hunched asura asked, still holding out the tiny gem in front of me.
I nodded in reply.
"Well, with the use of this small little gem and the right tools, I can essentially grow a weapon."
"Normally, I would use the feedback from years, decades even, worth of constant observation of how you fight, in order to get the proper information to create a weapon that perfectly suits you, but because of the circumstances surrounding you, I'm going for a bit of a gamble by doing this," Wren clarified.
"What do you me—" A sudden, sharp pain cut me off as the asura suddenly stabbed the gem into the center of my palm.
"Gah! What are you doing?" I winced as Wren continued burying the opaque gem deeper into my flesh until it was completely submerged under my skin.
"Oh I'm sorry, I forgot to count to three," he jibed, rubbing my blood that'd gotten on his finger on my shirt. "I synthesized the acclorite with a portion of Lady Sylvia's feather as well as a scale from Lady Sylvie. These are both indispensable parts of what make you who you are. By doing this, I'm going to hope that some of the unpredictabilities will be accounted for."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not quite following along, Wren. Why do it this way if the outcome is uncertain? And besides, I thought you weren't going to make me a weapon?"
"Well, you're going to need more than just a sharp stick to get by in the future if you're going to be facing those ingenious basilisks from the Vritra Clan and whatever spawn they conjure up," he grumbled.
The asura's face turned solemn before continuing. "And it's because we don't have that much time."
"Wait, I thought that I would have about two years left before the war starts?" I stared at Wren as an uneasy feeling crept up from the pit of my stomach.
There was a hesitant pause from Wren as he deliberated on what to say next.
"Kid, Windsom just received word from Aldir about the most recent news of Dicathen."
"And?"
"Arthur, although the full army has yet to arrive...the war has already started."
ELIJAH POV
After Arthur had left to train with the Asuras, I joined a team with Kathyln, Curtis, Theodore and Claire to clear dungeons in preparation of the incoming war.
"Alright, listen to me everybody. I hear we have some newbies, so let me introduce myself. I am Damien, your squad leader. Solid silver core, I specialize in wind and sound magic, I am fairly proficient in water magic and I use daggers. We have the task to eliminate a SS class mutant from a dungeon. We will be departing in an hour!"
...
Stepping into the dungeon, instantly a musty smell bombarded my nose, and the cold bombarded my skin. There were stalactites on the ceiling, along with what seemed to be a colony of huge ants, each almost the size of my pinky.
As we advanced further into the dungeon, a group of dog-like scaled beasts with too many rows of teeth and three tails ran straight past us, as if running away from something.
Something too fast for me to see was piercing the beasts bodies, swiftly taking them out.
"Fifth defensive position!" Barked Daniel, our squad leader
We all huddled together into a circle, Daniel watching the direction these beasts were running from while the rest of us looking around for any more threads threatening to slash us into meat paste.
From my peripheral vision I could see a silhouette of a human calmly strolling through a massively dangerous dungeon, carrying a mana beast the size of a cat on his shoulder.
It seems Kath beat me to it, as I heard her faintly say. "Art?"
ARTHUR POV
a few minutes earlier
Waving goodbye to the Asuras, I was transported in front of a seemingly angry Hydra looking mana beast. Its six bright green heads with too many rows of teeth started spraying fire at me and Sylv, as its six legs stomped the ground with earth magic creating huge earthquakes.
"Thank you kindly, Wren" I mumbled to myself, as Sylv shot it with a blast of pure mana.
'Arthur, could you let me handle it?' said Sylv telepathically. I gave her the green light, thinking about how sad I was that she didn't call me papa anymore.
The monster screeched from pain, its side now having quite a prominent hole in it.
Three of its heads snapped at Sylvie, who swiped her claw at them, giving two deep laceration, while chomping down on the third. The rest were for some reason trying to kill me, so I just dodged. A multitasking fail if you ask me.
With the hydra's head firmly in her mouth, Sylvie took off to the sky, taking the hydra with her, and smashed the hydra into a wall.
Another powerful mana blast later, and the hydra was dead, Sylvie happily eating its beast core.
...
Walking out of the boss room, I noticed an abundance of scaled dog-like beasts with three tails and about eight sets of teeth.
I still needed to get more comfortable with using pure mana, so I restricted myself to it for the time being. I was walking through the dungeon, killing the seemingly unending wave of the dog beasts when my senses picked up a faint sound of footsteps about 500 meters ahead of me.
'Sylv, turn into your fox form. there's at least 80 people coming here, we don't know where Wren dropped us. Prepare for a fight, they could be Alacryans.'
As we inched closer, cutting through more and more beasts, I could hear familiar voices.
A wave of relief and happiness washed over me.
'Sylvie, it's fine. It's Kath and Elijah.'
Approaching closer, I could hear more and more beasts in one place. It seems like they were planning an ambush, all hiding in the shadows waiting to pounce.
Swiftly cutting the beasts down, I continued approaching.
It seems the beasts had beyond basic level intelligence, seeing their allies slaughtered the bigger ones quickly blocked my way using rubble and started running away while the smaller ones started quickly running. I was working on a reliable long range technique, thus letting some of them escape.
I shot an extremely quick and accurate beam of pure mana, piercing all the beasts in front of me.
I kept walking forward, and I finally saw them. Kath, Elijah, Theodore, even Claire. Kath's face turned into shock, then into a small smile.
"Art?"
Smiling back, I said
"Hey, I'm back. I missed you."
"Arthur!", "It's really you Arthur!", "You've come back!"
Theodore, Claire and Elijah said in that order.
My expression changed into a childish glare, looking at the four of them.
"So, how've you been?"
...
The rest of the team except Damien, who was guarding Kath, has gone ahead, leaving us alone in the cave.
It seems all of us needed it, a little time to ourselves to talk about our fears, hopes, and more. It felt like we talked for hours, when it was only about 20 minutes.
Leaving the cave, however, I smelled blood.
"Be careful, there's blood ahead. Better hope it isn't your team members." I said, pulling out Dawn's Ballad.
We slowly inched to the entrance to the cave, the smell has gotten much more pungent.
KATH POV
One last turn remaining between the us and the entrance, we proceeded as carefully as we could.
Walking out of the cave, I could see it. Dead bodies of my teammates laying everywhere, the ground stained with blood. The cave closed as we left it, leaving us stuck there.
A barrier created by Arthur enveloped us, when suddenly four being emitting extreme pressure appeared in front of us.
One of them spoke. "Hello, lessers. I am Cadell Vritra, and we are scythes from Alacrya, working directly under the high Sovereign himself, and you have something that belongs to us." - pointing at me and Elijah - "Give me the dwarf and the wheat haired child, and I can guarantee your life." Cadell's expression turned into a smirk.
"No. The Lances wi-" Kath was saying, when Damien suddenly brought his sword to her neck.
"Go, let them take you or she dies!" He yelled
DOOM
Damien fell to his knees, dropping his sword from the pressure, when I shot him in the heart with a bullet made of pure mana.
Catching her breath, Kathyln said
"thank you"
I turned to the Scythes, asking
"Why didn't you take Elijah, and then me? Why at once?"
"High Sovereigns orders", responded Cadell
"What are your names?" I asked
"Why do you nee-"
"Because you surely struck a deal only because Agrona told you to do so. Otherwise, you would have already attacked us. So, introduce yourself, have you not been taught proper etiquette?" I said with a smirk on my face
A purple haired woman with pale skin and black eyes devoid of emotion started talking first.
"Viessa Vritra"
Next talked a colossal standing well over 7 feet tall with the physique of a titan, blood red eyes and horns jutting out from the sides of his shaved head curving to point forward similar to a Bull.
"Dragoth Vritra"
A female with silvery-gray skin, pure white hair tied in a brain, and dark lips and eyes matching the two sets of onyx horns erupting from her head, curling sharply back.
"Melzri Vritra"
Cadell sighed, looking at me with an angry expression, but Dragoth beat him to the word.
"Enough wasting our time, will you come with us willingly or forcibly? The high Sovereign is merciful, if it were up to me we would have already been on the way!"
Finishing the sentence, he started getting bigger.
The smirk on my face got even bigger as I said.
"Let's play."