Two months after the war had started Diana finally reached Rank Five. It wasn't amid a battle, or in a dangerous life-and-death situation, it was near one of the Empire's strongholds, with only Ciaran nearby.
She had been near a breakthrough for years now, and after eating high-rank meat, and participating in the war for a few weeks, she was finally ready.
As she stepped into her new Rank her whole being changed. She was still Diana but she was now more of herself than ever before. Before her eyes and hair glowed when she infused herself with Moonlight, but now the element was drawn to them normally. She had to consciously tell it to go away if she didn't want to light up everything like a lantern.
Ciaran was ecstatic that his partner managed to achieve her goal, and he was ashamed he could not do the same. Try as he might, Rank Two was simply staying a breath away from him.
He thought he would break through first so when Diana surprised him with the news she felt she was evolving, he was a little sour about it. Seeing her now, however, melted the jealousy away. He just couldn't feel anything negative for this woman.
"Congratulations, you are now promoted to senior night lamp. May you always light up my way to the bathroom." He joked with her.
She smiled all the way to her ears and nodded.
Ciaran really didn't like that. She was an honest girl, and that was her 'I thought of a very funny prank' face. It usually involved a lot of suffering for the boy.
Last time, she threw him into a river full of carnivorous fish and told him it was survival training. The boy still had marks of teeth on his ass, which proved his tenacity.
"Listen, I am really proud of you, don't let my envy fool you." He tried to beg, but she wouldn't hear of it.
She got him and blinked them back to Hunter's camp. Now that she was stronger, her blinks would cover a lot more distance, and in a second they were in the camp nearest the war zone.
"White, Silver I am glad you are back, and congratulations on the promotion. Are you ready to test out your new strength? "One of the Hunters asked.
Now that they were more allies rather than competitors, the Hunters had assigned personnel to take care of the administrative part of their job. Meetings with the army, reward distribution, and signing paperwork, all fell down to people like this man.
There were multiple administrators in each camp, but this one, in particular, had the most. Each one of them was responsible for a certain number of Hunters, and this man was the admin for the duo.
"Ready to make some money. Is any new fight brewing? We need something small, I don't want Silver to overwork herself." Ciaran was still fearful of his partner's pranks, so he tried his best to butter her up.
They were given seven different options. Two, the ones with the priest and the necromancer, were eminently removed.
Another three were trashed, as they would require moving and cooperating with other Hunters on a deeper level. So in the end, there were only two options left. One was to engage members of the patriots, who were trying to blitz through their defenses and burn them down alive in the camps, and the other was to engage one of the other side's stronger Warrior.
Ciaran didn't want to ruin his relationship with the fanatic group, so they opted for option two.
The man in question was called by the Hunters – The Lonely Swordsman. Much like the pugilist, he just came to this war to find someone strong and fight to the death. He always fought alone, and either killed everyone or ran away when someone too strong came to deal with him.
According to the information presented to them, he was a Rank Five Sword Warrior.
"Ok what the hell is a sword warrior, what is his element his sword?" Ciaran sneered, but the two just nodded.
He was flabbergasted.
"So Sword element is a thing? Ok, now I have heard it all, what else, Shirt element? Maybe a Ball element? What about, and you are going to love this, my Granddad's smelly sandals, the element. This is ridiculous." He said disgustedly.
Ciaran didn't know it yet, but he had subconsciously started sharing the opinion of most mages. They were snobbish elitists, who viewed the natural elements, psychic elements, and the occult arts as superior to all martial tools.
He wasn't that far gone yet, but the idea, that someone's very body and soul would be bound to a manmade tool was ridiculous to him.
Diana knew what he was thinking, and she would chastise him for looking down on other people, especially considering her grandfather's element was silver. But when she remembered how eccentric her grandfather could get, she let it go.
They took the mission and headed off. They avoided battle after battle before they finally locked in on their target.
"This overconfident bastard, does he think he is invincible?" Ciaran asked.
The man was standing on an open field. No traps, no reinforcements. He was close to enemy territory and was just waiting for someone to come and challenge him.
The duo took their positions, Ciaran in the sky, and Diana on the field. With her new strength, Diana was confident she could take down a regular person in her Rank, but this man was far from the norm.
Ciaran wasn't going to be much help in the fight, but a good pair of eyes from sky-high wouldn't hurt her either.
He saw her, and without wasting a single moment, they clashed. He didn't have any fancy moves like the blink, or empowering his whole body with light, but his sword was fast, precise and it cut deep.
With one exchange, Diana understood just how much stronger this person was. He cut through her armor and left a deep cut on her chest.
She didn't leave him hanging either. Although her warglaives, couldn't touch him, her Moonlight curved and took one of his hands. Sadly it was his left hand, and he was right-handed.
That being said, he was in a much better position than her. Even with one hand, he could still kill her, if they clashed like that again. Before he could move, he saw her armor starting to repair itself. Without two arms, he wouldn't be able to cut through it again, so he charged, and then he felt the boy.
He knew of his existence, but a little Wind Apprentice wouldn't even be refreshing to him, or so he thought. He never believed his nation's propaganda, that mages were the closest things to Gods, but here on this field, he was proven wrong.
For just a second, Ciaran forced his soul to listen. At the Novice Rank, he heard only sounds. Now he heard words. If he pushed himself, he could hear phrases. And now he forced everything he had in one moment, to hear a whole sentence.
"How can I help Diana kill this man, tell me the most efficient way, without getting any of us killed. Keep it simple, I am too weak to understand you, for now." He asked. And the Wind answered.
For the first time in history, Dyrta saw one of her Apprentices cast a Grand Mage-level spell. It was just a single Wind Blade, but it was fast, and the man never expected it.
If it was after his life, or his sword hand, he might have felt a premonition, but it wasn't. It took his left leg and left him completely off balance.
Ciaran passed out from exhaustion and started falling. Before The Swordsman could so much as process what had just happened to him, Diana plunged both of her warglaives into his abdomen and spun them.
He was torn to pieces, and sliced into minced meat. She didn't even linger to sever her first victory in her new rank, as she dashed and blinked at her partner.
She caught his unconscious body and sprinted back south. Without the boy, she was far from stealthy, but no sane person would bar her way, not this close to her own territory at least.
When she got back, she was offered aid for her unconscious partner, but she refused. She knew exactly what was wrong with him, and she was molding under her helmet.
After a day of bed rest, he woke up, feeling like complete shit.
"We agreed. You weren't supposed to use that level of magic unless things got dire." She said, still furious.
He struggled to stand up and touched her shoulder, right where the cut started. Slowly, his hand moved down, until he felt it in its entirety.
"You showed me that I am no Warrior Diana, and I am grateful for that. Warriors take risks. They are always in the thick of it and are always in danger of death. I don't do that, not anymore."
"I knew you couldn't take him on, and I knew the longer it went on, the worst it was going to get. I also knew that if I took his balance you would end him with no chance of failure. I just believed in my partner, you can't fault me for that." He said with a beaming smile, and she wrote down in a small notebook she owed him an ass-beating when he got better, the reason she put down read 'Pure Fucking Cheekiness'.