"Ebony, and she's Scarlet." Ebony introduced.
Ning Xin was sitting on the centipede's head, busy absorbing dark red liquid into her mask and packing the solid crystals that formed.
"Don't look down." Navin informed the young and old townsmen.
Ebony's eyes naturally looked down only to see a blur, he tried hard not to blink but the speed they were getting carried by was unimaginable. He didn't even feel like they were moving through the air at insane speeds.
From time to time, red splatters would appear around them.
He was perceptive enough to tell that birds or avian monsters were pancaked onto the invisible barrier. Although the Gorpede wasn't dead and its vitality should've scared most creatures away, they just weren't fast enough to avoid the large mass. It probably wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the size of the Gorpede.
'Should I be asking something?' Ebony wondered if normal people should have questions if they met the King of an empire. Navin seemed like he didn't care for a conversation after the introduction. Ebony was just staring at him and vice versa.
They were both awkward and poor conversationalists but Navin broke eye contact first. He went and chatted up the old couples, asking what they were planning to do. Two were retired fighters with a grandchild, they didn't plan to work. Only living off their regeneration and training their grandchild whose parents died on the field. The rest were non-combatants that would try finding a job if there wasn't a cheap place to rent to open a shop.
"We're arriving." It hadn't even been an hour of flight when Navin slowed down the flight. Although he said arriving, he let the riders gaze at the landscape around for some time before they actually arrived.
Tidal's walls were intimidating and the soldiers didn't just fire those ballistas or cannons at the incoming beast. Navin waved to the patrolling soldiers and did the same to the citizens that called out and welcomed him. The citizens had good eyes and no one batted an eye at the humongous monster just waltzing over their heads.
Navin placed the Gorpede's body in an empty plot of land far from the residential area.
"It'll probably die in a day or two, I'll bring these people to the Quest Hall to settle them in. It was nice meeting you kids."
He could tell Navin was confident that even without him, the living king-classed monster couldn't cause a rampage inside his city.
Ning Xin was still silently absorbing as much blood as she could so he remained by her side, playing a little music to pass the time.
Not even ten minutes passed when a foreign wave of mana washed over his senses, overriding Battle Song and forcefully taking over the mana he vibrated by enveloping them.
"Gosh! Shut up! What the hell is that soulless cacophony?! I can hear it from Tova!" A high-pitched voice complained.
[Muse]
'Muse? A bard?' There was no grandmaster title or even a level profile but the colour and the leaking vitality told him enough, perhaps the class-hiding skill or item she used wasn't as good.
Ebony tried to vibrate his own mana but the Muse only strummed her string instrument once more. The particles of his conjured mana burst and got out of his control. He sensed the broken fragments sink into the ground. He knew about how Tidal could absorb mana within the walls but it was the first time he even entered the Capital city.
The Muse's string instrument was a rectangular board as tall and wide as she was, she held it like a strapped guitar.
"Stop that! Bardic Amplifier? I feel bad for those who had to take in that soulless music to enhance themselves." The Muse covered her ears.
"What soul?" It wasn't the first time he saw a bard but the first time he talked to one.
"Music isn't just a tool you brute" The lady didn't answer him directly.
"Calling me a brute was uncalled for." Ebony replied.
'Hmm? Since when did I care about such things?' He would usually never bat an eye at what some stranger called him. He chucked the thought aside since he was probably just following the flow of the conversation.
The lady sniffed and got all teary-eyed. "Don't scold meee!" She backed off and tripped on a rock, using her instrument as a shield.
He cocked his head, befuddled.
"You're supposed to ask me if I'm alright." The Muse had the same aggrieved but somewhat pouty expression as she stood up.
"Oh, you're a crazy lady" He finally understood.
"Excuse me?"
"There's no one around, you ran here to stop me from casting sound magic, called me a brute, fell down on your own and dictated that I should ask if you were alright. What does that sound like to you?" He didn't have to look around the dirt ground to know they were the only ones here together with the Gorpede's body.
"Sounds like crazy to me." Then the muse gasped, she looked offended.
It was as if every little noise the muse made had cadence, although he loved Ning Xin's voice the muse's voice was indeed pleasant to the ears.
She strummed her instrument again, his head throbbed and he bled through his nose while Ning Xin didn't even detect anything happening.
He moved to grab her by the collar before he could think, his nosebleed wasn't stopping.
"Relax! I was healing you! There's a weird tumour in your head." The Muse put her hands up defensively.
"Nonsense…" Ebony sensed the surrounding mana intruding on his body, ignoring his resistance. It wasn't the Muse, and he was indeed getting healed.
'Do people really not die inside Tidal?' He found it hard to believe.
"What's in your head? I didn't even scratch a layer off."
"You are pretty weird" He let her go, sensing no hostility.
Coming from Ebony, this was serious. He just didn't understand why she was doing whatever she was doing. "Why did you attack me?"
"I told you! There's a tumour in your head."
"I don't think so. And wouldn't I get healed just by staying in Tidal?" Ebony had a constant scan of his body, the chance that he didn't know there was something like a tumour inside him were too low.
"Your soul. There's a massive tumour in the head of your soul. The healing properties of Tidal should indeed heal you but It doesn't seem to be working from what I see. The healing is just bouncing off the tumour."
"First I've heard of that. You can see souls?" He tried to take her words seriously, he couldn't think of a reason for her to lie unless she really was a little mental.
"See? No! I encompass it as do all souls around me!"
'Crap she really is crazy.' Ebony didn't know how to deal with crazy people at least, not this type of crazy.
"So um. What do you want?"
"There's a taint in your soul. I swear to remove and cleanse every filth in any soul fate has brought before me!"
"I don't know how to talk to crazy."
'Oops, I didn't mean to say that out loud.' He reflected.
She cried.
She was noisy.
He couldn't even silence the noise because her cries were filled with mana capable of rendering his mana vibrations useless. He sat beside the undisturbed swordswomen and brought out a table, taking out snacks and juice for the Muse.
It worked and his ears were finally released from torture.
"Care to tell me what having a soul in music means?" She never stopped chatting and he might as well ask her something productive.
"What kind of sound spells do you use anyway?"
"The enhancement one that you don't allow me to use and destructive infusion."
"Brute. Do you even feel the meaning of the lyrics in your music?"
"...I understand them."
"You're not even confident in your own words."
"So? Does that change the effect of the vibration in mana?"
"You see. All you're thinking about is the practical use of mana. Not once did you care about what music you're playing, just the effects they give, am I right?"
"Yes."
"Music is not your tool. It's not anyone's."
'Why do people enjoy being cryptic? Must be fun, I should try it in future.' Ebony got nothing much out of her answer.
After a couple of hours of snack eating where the Muse didn't want to leave him alone, a team of people arrived. Navin called them here and they started taking apart Gorpede from the tail. These people didn't even have trouble cutting into the king-classed monster.
Mostly a bunch of blacksmiths and alchemists.
Ning Xin seemed to react to that and sped up her absorption, the bubble of red liquid on her mask got larger.
"You should just drain out as much as you can for now, the purification can wait." He pat her shoulder to get her attention.
"Mmm." She nodded.
"Part of her soul is in that ugly mask. So that's what the Xengs do, bleh." She stuck her tongue out.
'So she really can sense it…' He didn't actually believe the Muse before but now he did.
"More cookies please!" The 1.63 m tall lady swung her feet back and forth as she picked off the crumbs on her plate.
"That was the last one." Ebony didn't keep many cookies on him since he wasn't a big cookie consumer.
The look of shock on her face was meme worthy. Then she cried and he experienced the same discomfort along with all the blacksmiths and alchemist nearby. The blood on Ning Xin's mask rippled but she didn't even appear to be affected.
"Do something about her boy!" A gruff voice shouted.
"Mmm." He nodded, realising the gravity of the situation. It didn't hurt them but it was extremely uncomfortable, not just on the ears.
"I have some candy."
Thank goodness, it managed to distract her.
❅❅❅
"Buuha!"
Hector took a deep breath of air after he surfaced.
"I got a good catch today!" He dragged a net over his shoulder with 3 large fish.
"Thanks Hector!" The captain of his fleet slapped his back.
26 of them were on this beach. Hector recalled the journey they had to reach where they were today.
They capsized in the middle of a storm, all three ships were put to sleep by a school of [Drowsy Tuna]. The moment the ship capsized, the human-sized fishes swarmed them. The ship's defences were rendered moot when no one was awake to operate them.
Stronger veterans woke up and those under the deck were lucky that they had some air and weren't washed away by the currents. Hector was lucky he was awake and held onto the ship tightly enough, the others who fell asleep on deck were all gone.
Hector was the first to get attacked and the first to fight off the slippery fishes. He clung to the wooden rails as if his life depended on it, a weak mega panch was unleashed to scare the fishes away and it worked. The fishes were weak, their main tactic had been putting their enemies to sleep and eating them after all.
Some of his crew mates swam out from their rooms, they signalled each other and abandoned the sinking ship with numerous holes. The ship had been the first thing the tunas started destroying. The warriors each grabbed one or two unconscious soldiers and made their way to the surface while their breath lasted.
Hector had the slight advantage of being able to stabilise the water around him. He was still pretty much a fish out of the water, just like some of the less experienced soldiers. Many didn't even manage to surface before they were entangled by a couple of tunas. Unable to fight back with their arms busy pulling their fellow soldiers up.
Hector dived back into the water to save anyone around him that was slowly being eaten underwater. The captain saved the most important person which led to their current survival. The only wood conjurer. The other two ships didn't even have a wood mage.
The wood mage didn't have much of a chance to get his bearings before he got an ear-piercing scream in his ears to wake the hell up. The non-warriors didn't have as strong of resistance against unknown magic or perhaps a physical sleeping gas of some kind.
Hector tossed as many people up onto the conjured board of wood that was slowly being formed into a makeshift ship. Some smartass decided it was a good idea to swim up with every single rope he could find before the ship fully sank and it saved a lot of lives. He was tied to the rope and didn't have as much fear of being washed away by the fierce currents, making his diving attempts to save more soldiers less of a risk to his own life.
He didn't have the strongest bodyguard follow him out to sea. It was honestly a scary experience but one that excited his adventurous heart like never before.
The tunas gave up readily. The moment he saved everyone he could find that wasn't already eaten and the entire crew was back aboard the small makeshift ship. It was too dark underwater when a storm was going on. He was momentarily brought back to his past when he was blinded, deafened, muted and had an extremely sensitive sense of touch due to his extreme element affinities.
The other ships got swept away and they didn't know where they ended up, since his captain couldn't contact the other captains the other ships' situation was unknown.
The threat of the school of tunas was gone but they had to brace the storm on an unstable conjured ship. There was little he could do. Hector had a very poor ability for external magic despite his immense affinity. He was in the same position as any other soldier. Wait for the storm to end or their death to come.
They had water mages, brought to sea for a reason. The water mages were better at handling themselves when they were underwater too, the only ones not present were those that didn't manage to wake up to fend for themselves. It was due to the water mages' combined effort that they didn't get capsized again.
No one could tell how long the storm lasted but they survived.
Navigating wasn't that big of an issue. Even without equipment, the captain and most of the sailors had knowledge of sea navigation.
Food was troublesome as they were in the middle of a sea, it had been difficult. The first two weeks or so, he shared his rations in his bag. He didn't have enough to feed dozens of people for an extended period. They didn't ask why he had so much on him but they must have figured something out from his hair colour.
They lost a few men who dived in to get some hunting done. That was the start when they weren't organised. The deaths stopped when they formed diving and hunting parties with the water mages, never going deep. Out at sea, they went for days, maybe weeks without spotting a single fish.
Water also wasn't a problem with the mages around and most of them who had carried their baggage around all had a water mana ore with them.
The wood mage had to repair and improve his ship over and over as they were attacked over and over again. A beam of water from under them split the ship in half once. They lost dozens.
They didn't know what hit them. Perhaps a stray attack from creatures of the deep that was facing their direction.
The wood mage survived. He was under everyone's constant protection. They had to row the ship with huge oars since they had no sail, it ate into every warrior's stamina day in and out but also made them too busy to lose hope.
The problem was that they were about a month or two into the sail before they were capsized and separated from the other fleets. On those specialised ships, the sail was estimated to take two to three years to get to Tova. On a flimsy ship with no enchantment driven by manpower?
The worst thing was that only 2 water mages remained after the beam of water destroyed their previous ship.
The captain was forced to take more risks along with everyone else with their hunting.
They finally reached Tova's beach a week ago with the wood mage and one water mage still with them.
Hector's ability to survive underwater improved leaps and bounds. He constantly volunteered to go swimming to catch some food. The others were very inclined to stay away from water as much as possible.
Obviously, he was still a Journeyman. The only one that survived till date.
There was zero chance he was going to stay knocked out for a week or more on the sea.
Although the long periods at sea built some trust with the remaining crewmates, they were on Tova and didn't even have the confidence to protect themselves, much less protect him while he evolved.
"How's the surveying?" He asked as he put on the fragments of armour that he had left. His captain and the rest of the survivors were all in better shape after they fattened themselves with fruits, wild vegetation and a few birds.
"Gather around!" The captain smiled.
The soldiers didn't dally.
"Rested enough? Fools! We're on enemy territory!" The captain yelled aggressively.
After a tense second they laughed in tandem.
"Alright alright. Let's get to business. We've got some good news, some bad news, come share it." The captain gestured to two half-naked men.
"We've found out where we are."
"The nearest hidden camp is only 2 weeks' march away. For us, about half that time if we rush."
"Bad news is. We saw lots of Trolls but they weren't large. At around level 200, they must be young Trolls. The real bad news is, there's a good chance they were looking around the area where our hidden camp is. I don't think they know where it is yet but that was before we made our way back here to inform you."
"You heard it, people. We gotta move fast. I doubt our fellow Imperials don't realise they are about to be spotted but we sure want to join up with them before they relocate or are attacked. We move out in 20, eat up!"
Hector smashed his fist together. "Finally. Some real action."