The whole group was in the kitchen sitting at the table, the lamp was flickering and Ben was stuffing pasta inside him. The other three watched him, and asked him many questions, he tried to answer the questions while eating, but it didn't work out.
"Ben, can you stop eating for a minute and answer our questions?"
Luca was annoyed by Ben, he was shocked when he saw Ben's note on the kitchen table a day ago. He came back late in the evening, just like Lena and Eddie, so it was a surprise to them that Ben wasn't there.
A warning was given to all the citizens of Sky Cloud City, so they all returned home earlier than expected but Ben wasn't there and the Dragon egg was lying on the kitchen table instead of its nest.
~Mhmmm~
Gulp
"I have to say, your pasta is the best Eddie!"
"Oh, that's nice to hear Ben, but could you finally talk about what happened? Were you the one who made that fuss in the poor district?"
Ben stopped eating and looked up from his plate, Lzca, Lena, and Eddie were sitting on the opposite side of the table. They looked at him with interested eyes, but there was a bit of sadness in their eyes.
Ben put down his fork, the pasta fell off the fork to the other pasta and Ben began to talk. He started talking, about how he passed out and that the Dragon egg was stolen while he lay on the ground, passed out. A waterbomb hit him in his face, he looked over to Luca and saw him holding up his hand.
"You let the egg get stolen?"
"Yeah, sorry but I got it back didn't I?!"
After the short argument with Luca, ben got back to telling his story. He told them how he chased the thief through the city until he finally caught up to the thief and how the thief nearly tricked him.
"So, your skill can get tricked?"
"Yes, but only by other Angels or Demons!"
They were interested in his new skills and continued to closely follow Ben's story, asking questions here and there, sometimes to annoy Ben, and sometimes they truly wanted to know more about it.
When he came to the part, where he met Luke in the laboratory, Luca stood up instantly from his chair.
"Let's go, we will beat that fucker up once and for all, just like I did it with his brother!"
"Luca, stop!"
Luca stopped and turned around to Ben, who managed to stop him. When Ben looked up at Luca, in his face, he could see an expression not fitting for him. It was a hateful, completely angry look which Luca had, Ben never saw his friend like this, and shivers ran down his spine.
"Luca, please sit down and hear Ben'S story to the end."
"I can't Eddie, Luke stole something from me, and I should just let him do it? Another point is that Ben was completely wrecked when he came here, he had to sleep for ten hours!"
"Luca, we feel the same, we also want to beat that kid and his friends up, but do you even have a plan?"
Finally, Luca could calm down at Lena's words, it was true, he didn't have a plan and that was reckless of him. He didn't even know why he raged so much, he had this weird feeling inside him like he needed to do it.
After Luca calmed down, Ben continued telling his story, and the faces of the three who were listening became completely blank. When Ben explained to them what happened in the lab and how he beat up the three people a proud smile appeared on Lena's and Eddie's faces.
Meanwhile, Luca was looking over at the Dragon egg in the living room, and he swore himself to protect that little thing with all his powers so thatdidn'tsn't end up in one of the labs, like the other rare creatures.
The excitement and tension peaked when Ben came to the point where he fought against Uriel. His friends asked him to repeat the battle at least ten times, and every time they became more and more shocked by what he told them.
"You fought toe to toe with another Angel Apostle, who was at least 10 years older than you? That's so cool!"
"You are crazy Ben, you know that don't you!"
"I think I need to punch some understanding in you Ben, what would have happened if she decide to go all out?"
The responses he got were all different but none were in any way saying that he had done something bad or that he was foolish, only Eddie wasn't so happy about his decision, but he still respected it.
"So you passed out, and what happened then?"
Ben stopped for a moment and looked at Lena before answering.
"I woke up the next morning, lying in a dump on our battlefield, and Uriel was nowhere to be seen!"
His three listeners let their heads fall down in disappointment, they hoped that they could meet her but it seemed like it would get hard to accomplish.
"Okay guys, it was a tough day, let's go to sleep and tomorrow we prepare for level eight, I want to reach level ten in two weeks and clear this first floor!"
"Whoohohoo, finally some action"
Ben and the other two yelled in happiness, clearing the tenth level means they would finally be able to explore and move freely in a level. They would not be restricted like in the first ten levels, only be able to do what the system had planned out.
After the tenth level, the size of the area of one level is much greater than the size of the ones underneath the tenth level, also they can freely move around, if they wanted to they could also live on a level.
They were all lying in their separate rooms and beds, different thoughts were going through each of their minds. Lena thought about a skill that she wanted to fulfil, but she was stuck one step before the finish.
Every time she tried to use the skill, a memory appeared in her mind and she had to stop, it was a very old memory, a memory you don't want to remember. Even now, she was thinking about that memory and had to stop thinking but stopping from thinking about the memory is near to impossible for a human.
On the other side of the hallway opposite to her, a man was lying in his bed. That man was Eddie, he was thinking about Ben, Luca and Lena.
He thought about all the trouble those three make, and how they all nearly die every time, when he thought about dying, he remembered how lonely he would be without them, and he pushed his head deep into the pillow.
Besides Eddie's room, there is Luca's room, and surprisingly he was already asleep, he dreamed about a certain person, a boy who always made him smile and who gave him confidence. He couldn't see the boy's face, or hear his name but he felt that he was an important person to him, almost like an older brother.
On the opposite of Luca's room and besides Lena's room, there was Ben's room, and today he and Luca switched roles, normally it is Ben who falls asleep fast and Luca who stays up longer but Ben had already slept for ten hours, and he couldn't sleep now.
He was thinking about multiple things, the first thing was about what Uriel had said, the thing about seeing with your eyes closed. It was true that he somehow could see the world, but it was more like he felt it instead of seeing it. This feeling got a little bit weaker when he was able to open his eyes again after treatment from Lena.
It was weird when he thought about it, the more he saw, the less he really saw. He didn't understand it, even after thinking about it for about half an hour.
The second thing was about Luca, it was weird how he got angry so fast, Ben obviously knew that Luca often gets angry when his friends get pushed around but it was different this time.
He wasn't only angry about him or the Dragon egg, he was angry about something else. Ben thought that he should ask Luca about it tomorrow morning but the most important and third thing he thought about was Luca and Luke telling two different things.
*It is weird how Luke tells me that we weren't the ones who killed his brother, but Luca says that he was the one who killed Luke's brother. What was his name again...Tom? No..no, it was Tim! Yes Tim.*
He was happy that he remembered the guy who got killed but that soon turned into nothing. The problem he has is that he doesn't know who to trust, he obviously can't trust Luke a hundred percent because they are enemies and Luca is his friend so he should trust him, but something felt weird about Luca being the one who did it.
The first thing that felt weird was that Luca didn't have any reason to kill Tim, he would have won the match if he knocked him out. The second thing is that he felt that someone else did it, and not Luca.
He looked at the ceiling of his room, the white light of the moon was there but something was weird, a shadow was in the middle of the white light, Ben got the feeling that the shadow was a player who was watching their house.
He slowly turned around and activated a skill, he slowly moved his head inch by inch up the window, until he could see outside with his eyes. He was right in his assumption, that shadow was a player, and the player was sitting on top of a mast, his feet were touching the mast and he was sitting in a kneeling position.
Ben didn't know who the player was because the player had a mask on, and a suit fully black. It would have been hard to spot him if he wasn't sitting in the white light of the moon.
The player looked in his direction the whole time and didn't even turn his head around once, after ten minutes Ben decided to get his binoculars but when he came back to the window the player had disappeared.
Ben quickly activated another skill and searched through the near area, but he couldn't find anything suspicious, no black shadow surrounding a player. He quickly decided that it would be better to get some sleep before it was too late.
The next morning was completely normal, there was no one else who had seen the shadow and Ben realised he was the only one.
"Are you sure you didn't dream it, Ben?"
"Hah, you're funny Luca, I am not an idiot!"
"I didn't say that you were an idiot, I also had a weird dream like yours, I met a boy without a face."
"You are the only one who has such weird dreams, and how many times do I have to say it, it was no dream, the shadow!"
"You two stop now and eat!"
Eddie stopped the arguing between Ben and Luca so that Lena and he could eat in peace. After breakfast they started planning on how they would clear the eighth level, they got a map and information on the eighth level from an informative.
They planned for four hours and then they went out to eat in a fancy restaurant but before they went out, Ben and Luca hide the Dragon egg in a secret room underneath the stairs.
"Just to be safe"
"Yeah, I don't want to hunt again!"
When they came back from their dinner, they trained till it got dark outside.
"Ok, great training boys and girls, tomorrow we will absolutely destroy the eighth level, to your information, I heard that two of the big ten guilds are also participating tomorrow, so be careful!"
Lena and Luca clapped at Eddie's inspirational speech, just kidding, they did it just to annoy him. Ben had other plans.
"Yes, boss!"
"Ben don't call me that, I am not your boss!"
"Yes but you are our guild leader, so you are my or our boss!"
Eddie shook his head in frustration, they always made fun of him when he made such a speech but if he was honest, he actually liked it.
"Ok then, have a good sleep guys, tomorrow will be a hard day!"