Walking down the winding hallways of the Exousia Famiglia Mansion, Lieren couldn't help but shrink.
Enormous presences, much greater than anything he has ever felt, surrounded him at all sides, bombarding him with their overbearing auras and physical might. Even without looking, he could tell that the people around him, were, one of the most powerful creatures in this godforsaken city.
The young scion of the Exousia Famiglia walked a few steps just in front of him, her steady gait carefree and casual as she walked down with the confidence of royalty among peasants. Her white hair billowed in the wind, her very existence summoning catastrophic winds.
Lieren glared at her and regarded her subconsciously higher, the terrifying presences of the masters around him crushing him slowly and silently:
"Hey, so, uh… what exactly do your want me to do?"
The mirthful lady turned around with a pout, flexed her shoulder, then looked forward again with a barely-concealed grin on her pale face.
Her tone was teasing and jovial as she muttered matter-of-factly:
"To become the strongest contestant."
Lieren sighed, then caught himself at the same time. Some part of him refused to show any kind of weakness around these strong folks. He straightened his back and cleared his throat, trying to sound high and mighty as he strained his vocal chords to sound more "adult" and "mature."
"Um, yeah. I know that."
He had to pause so as not to bite his tongue involuntarily. The crushing presences almost made him trip over himself.
"What I meant to ask was how exactly are you going to do that in one week? I'm not a Vritra or Indrath descendant. I don't have a shred of talent in my body."
If his Resistance was not diluting the presences considerably, at least the magical aspect of it, then he would have already been kissing the floor, frothing white bubbles in his mouth.
He did not want to do at all costs.
"Oh, you don't have any talent, you say? I beg to differ."
A still silence descended on the winding hallways. Sweat rolled down Lieren's forehead.
"What's going on?"
As the young scion stopped dead on her tracks, the other did too. Her overbearing presence demanded it to be so.
Her voice was cold and lifeless as she said without remorse:
"Kill him."
◇◆◇◆◇
A creeping sensation ran down Lieren's back, as if touched by an Ice Elemental.
'Above!'
Enhancing his body with augmentation mana, he ducked down and below, catching himself with his left hand so as not to touch the floor. Letting the augmentation enhance his entire body even more, he pushed with his feet on the tiled floor, dashing out of the way of any more danger.
When he shot a look back with Manavision, he saw one the masters, a blind woman wearing light clothing: a pure white robe with close to no motif whatsoever with a red sash tied around her slender waist and sleeves that reached all the way down to her wrists. She wielded a simple long staff to feel the world around her and walk. The blind woman's walking staff was in the air where Lieren was just at, the unadorned wood cutting the air with a sharp whistle.
'What is she—'
Before Lieren could regard the blind woman and her surprisingly precise technique, another creeping sensation ran down his back.
Fortifying his body, he raised his arms and planted his feet on the ground, lowering his center of gravity.
A shock so powerful that it traveled all throughout his body, from his raised arms to his locked feet and gritted teeth, shook him to his very core. His ears were ringing with an unnaturally sharp ringing that confused his senses and made the world through his eyes seem hazy and illusionary, as though a fog was clouding his vision.
Noticing this, he closed his eyes and exhaled once. Sucking in one quick breath, he parried the master's gigantic arm with a sweep of his arms, pushing the brawny fist away and taking a step back.
Another master was in front of him, different from the blind woman.
"Are you a giant?"
The gargantuan man was tall and rigid giant with enormous arms and muscular appendages. His face was a bit rough, weathered down by years — possibly decades — of rigorous training and brutal combat; the war kind. The man looked more beast than human, primal and ancient, in fact. A thick, almost palpable wall of fortified mana covered him at all times.
The man grinned wildly, flashing his pure white teeth.
"Close, but not quite," his voice was deep and rough, as if a primordial being had been summoned from the depths of the world.
That was the first time one of the masters have ever talked to him.
'Oh, so they're peacefu—'
That thought almost cost him his life.
Feeling every nerve scream at him, warn him, and yell at him to live, Lierne jumped up, barely dodging another swing from the blind woman. He didn't come out unscathed, however. His delayed reaction, couple with his unskillful augmentation, failed to evade the blind woman's inhumanly precise swing, bludgeoning the naïve boy's left leg with surprising strength and power.
The blow sent tremors running up the boy's left leg like a miniature earthquake.
Lieren bit his lip to counteract the spreading pain.
'What… what did she just do?'
Shelving the questions and speculations for now, Lieren increased his fortification even more. It was a risky move, as doing so not only reduced his enhancement significantly, but also left him unable to counterattack, leaving this battle unresolved. He needed to do something, fast.
If he didn't, then the young scion's orders might as well have already come true.
Straining his muscles, he pumped more wild augmentation mana through it to balance out the fortification. It was a torturous ordeal that almost brought him to the end of his mental and spiritual capacity, almost breaking him in half from pain and strain.
He had no other choice. The situation demanded him to change.
Balancing the two similar but opposite elements, Lieren caught himself landing on the tiled floor, his blue eyes shining with stalwart ferocity and madness, with just the smallest resolve of sharpness and desperate resolution.
The blind woman stared at him through closed eyes, as if she could see. Her brows were raised and her lips curled up. She had an amused grin.
The gigantic man, on the other hand, was stroking the rough patch of hair on his chin. He was grinning, too, but not for the same reason as the blind woman. He looked like a child who had just found a new toy.
…While the third, most mysterious master barely spared him a glance as her eyes glanced through a tome floating up to her chest. She seemed not to care one way or another, more interested in whatever knowledge was written in the ancient pages of the grand tome than the deadly battle occurring mere meters away from her.
Then, there was the source of all this nonsense, the young scion of the Exousia Famiglia, whose name still awaits to be known. She flashed a bright smile and spoke jovially, truly happy at the sight of battle she had just witnessed.
Or entertained by it, which was more or less the same, but still felt more dire and foreboding than the former.
With her tone chipper and high, she clapped her hands once and made the master stand on attention, standing by… except for the sagely master.
"Well, that should enough of a practice run."
Lieren's nerves were on end, his body ready to explode at any moment. The young scion's words almost made him collapse at the spot, but he knew better now that relaxing before the end of any chance of combat was a mistake not worth repeating.
He squinted his eyes and look at the young scion dubiously.
The young woman, however, only smiled and sauntered over with the casual gait of a morning walk.
She said with an overly-teasing tone:
"I told you. You have plenty of talent."