I knew that this old man was about to ruin the mood. Immediately after saying that, I pulled my hand away from Nelly's and began wiping her tears, and then she hid her beauty from me. Her whitish peach skin color was replaced with pinkish red on her face. She was flustered, but that was the main goal of the old man. We both focused on finishing our food, and as I was eating, I kept my gaze fixed on the old man. He was still grinning, and I could tell by his eyes that he was saying 'Did I interrupt something?'.
While I was eyeballing the old man Nelly, who was now taking her time eating and kept stealing, he glanced at me. She was probably remembering the smell of my hair and can never be sure with her. The reason why I say that about her is because I know that look she is giving me. She is thinking about my scent, which is because it is her kink. Yes, the only flaw in this goddess of a girl is that she is a total pervert. She probably wants me to show her my abs before I leave.
"Um, Titen, since you will be leaving for a while, I would like to ask a favor of you."
"Do not worry I'll show them to you." I intervened before she dragged out her request because she's a shy pervert. I started lifting my shirt.
"No, it is not that, I was going to ask you to show me them later so they could still be fresh in my memory when you leave."
I knew that this girl was quite the oddball, but that still surprises me to this very day, but where is the shame?
"Then what is your favor?" I asked this question quite suspiciously, it was impossible for her to ask me to show her my 'mini me'. A bold request at the end I never took her to be the type and in front of the old man, or would she?
The old man leaned in a little bit like he could not hear our conversation from his previous position.
"Well, I would like you to make friends when you leave and join the Creed, but if you make female friends, please introduce them to me. I would like to challenge them to a wife material competition."
Me and the old man froze after listening to Nelly's request, then at the corner of the old man's mouth grew another grin. Oh no, the old man is about to speak. I must stop him but alas, I was already too late.
"What do you mean by that, Nelly?" The old man asked the question already, knowing the answer to it. Somehow, he grew another grin on his already grinning face.
Nelly's shoulders moved side to side, and you could see on her face that she was flustered. The outcome the old man wanted.
"Well, what I meant to say, Master Ryden, is that Titen is a handsome guy, and anyone with decent eyes can figure that out. He will attract other girls, and they might fall for him. I would like to be given a chance to fight for your love, I deserved that chance because I am your childhood friend, after all."
"Um, Nelly, you do not have to worry. I will not be falling in love any time…"
"Of course, he means he will introduce you to your rivals, Nelly. It is the least he can do, but I hope you are not all talking." The old man interrupted.
"What do you mean Master Ryden?" Nelly asked.
No, Nelly! you are falling deeper into the old man's trap.
"What I mean is will you be able to defeat the girls Titen brings in your competitors?"
"Yes!!" Nelly replied while pulling her left sleeve up and flexed her bicep in our direction, showing her resolve. The biceps were well toned and large for a girl, showing that she wasn't a delicate flower but a hard-working young woman. Her wife's material competitions probably consist of labor, like cooking, cleaning, and farming. Nursery might be one of the competitions since it is important for every mother to take care of their children and combat. That would not be surprising because when I first met Nelly, she beat the crap out of me with her village's secret combat style. Now, I am not sure who would win.
Nelly placed away her gun and went back to looking as feminine as she could in front of me. "So Titen, will you fulfill my request?"
"After asking me in such a…. cute way I can not refuse your request. I will bring any girl I think I have feelings for so that you can destroy them." I said sarcastically.
"No! no, I won't harm them!" Nelly said, exasperated.
I forgot she can't see when I am being sarcastic, another flaw of the purple haired goddess. This flaw, though, is a flaw because sometimes I laugh when I explain to her that I was being sarcastic, and then she starts shouting at me and pouts. As much as I would like to see her flustered, I can't because the old man is here. He is the main reason, so I can't tell Nelly that I was being sarcastic, damn you! old man. The purple haired goddess shines the most when she is somewhat angry and pouting, but that sight will be seen later. How will I ever get rid of the old man?
"Now that you promised to fulfill my first request, I would like you to do the other one." Nelly said somewhat energetic with cheeks red as blood.
I wanted to ask what the second request was, but I already knew, so it was best not to drag this out. I stood up and lifted my shirt, and to sweeten the deal, I lowered my pants a little. Not so much but only to the point where my v cut stopped and my 'mini me' nearly began. Nelly's being the pervert she is dropped to the ground, blood flowing, and gushing out of her nose.
"I... I... I saw pubs, short pubs." Nelly said half-consciously on the ground.
I had forgotten that my pubis hair started developing five weeks ago. My 'mini me' had company now. Apparently, the only thing that caught Nelly's eye was the hair. I might have made her kink a little worse today. She will probably want to see my pubis hair and then when they no longer do it, she will want something more. The only thing left will be my 'mini me'. No, I am lying. She won't want to see but touch. This is a problem but not mine. It is her boyfriend's or her husband's. I will be too busy to give her enough time to explore me from today onwards. Good luck, and I am sorry for the future romances of Nelly.
"Titen put away your…. brown army at the table." The old man teased.
I swear I must get rid of this old man somehow, but I am glad he has always been there for me these past four years. Unlike his friend, my grandfather. His methods of training were a little bit well suited for someone my age, but that doesn't mean they were easier. With my grandfather, I did such intense training that I could hold my own in a sparring match with two adults at the age of nine. The real difference and similarity in both their training was that I was taught to kill.
The reason I call it a difference and similarity is because of what type of people they made me kill. My grandfather's choice of victims for me to kill was wicked. He made me kill those who spoke against the Terragon house. My mother was among those people, but he gave me an ultimatum when it came to her. My heart became black after all those killings to the point where no matter who grandfather told me to kill, I would do it without hesitation. The only person he knew I could never kill was my mother.
In Master Ryden's case, he threw me into a forest at night and told me I would be hunted by a bunch of criminals that he released from prison. My heart was already black, and killing didn't move me, but after killing all those criminals, I realised something. They deserved to die. Those were not thieves who stole or innocent framed by nobility. These were scum who would rape a woman and then kill them. They would cut people into pieces and keep some pieces as souvenirs, and the rest would be scattered somewhere. These scums are the very scum the Terragon clan consisted of, and they had to die.
This was a lesson Master Ryden taught me without even saying a word. He didn't brainwash me like my grandfather. He allowed me to find my own reason behind killing. I am fourteen years old, and I have a kill count of 54. Half, I regret and wish to be punished for one day, but not now. Not before I kill the weapon. The other half, the only thing I regret about them was that I didn't kill them slower on those nights.
The other part of my training was called education, of course, back home in Metallum. I was educated. I was taught history, maths, read & write and mannerism. The most focused subject for me was mannerism because I was next in line to the throne. It was believed that I should know how to act and think like a king. The other subjects also helped me develop mentally and contributed to my reputation as a future successor.
When I came here to Amplexum, I barely sat behind a desk. Well, I understood them not seeing a reason to educate me because I was already well educated like other young royals and nobles. The information that reached my ears was monitored and filtered, so I was better educated back home.
I hid my brown coloured army of pubis and lowered my shirt. Nelly was still out for the count; the purple haired goddess flaw of perversion was the only bad thing about her. If the man in her future were to overlook this flaw, he would discover that she is the perfect wife if such a thing existed. No! such a thing does exist, and I am looking at it. If I wasn't who I was, if I didn't have the responsibilities that I had. If I grew up in different circumstances, I maybe could imagine a future with the perfect wife and call her my mine. I could live happily ever after, but as I am right now with the responsibilities I have—I can't even see myself in the next ten years. I hope I can change it all. Go back in time to the beginning and do something to change it all. I am sorry, Nelly, maybe in the next life, I promise that no matter what, I will choose you to be my wife if I can.
We began cleaning the table and packed everything that came with the basket. Nelly picked up her basket and said her goodbyes, me and Master Ryden, and I watched as she descended the hill." Today could be the last day I see my third childhood friend. The reason why I say third is because I had two friends in Metallum. I wouldn't call them friends because they were forced to interact with me in order to protect their houses by order of my family. Apparently, my mother requested that I interact with people my age so I could gain generals in my generation to work with me. Grandfather and the others would not have agreed to this because it could have been a ploy by mother to leak intel about the house. They first refused but later agreed when the father said it would be beneficial to my 'emotional growth'.
In other words, they planned for me to be emotionally attached to my friends in the future and then ask me to kill them to prove I still upheld the Terragon way. The only connection that matters to a Terragon is that of family. The others are either useful or useless, the useless will be cut off, so will the useful when they have served their use.
Twisted! I know right, in truth, this was a ploy by mom to leak intel, but it was too obvious that those people thought it was a joke on their part. Of course, surveillance was taken into consideration when my 'friends' arrived in the castle, my mother had zero contact with them, in fact my mother was always in the east wing of the castle and I was in the west. I still do not know the answer even now. How did mom manage to leak information under such strict conditions in that castle? The reason was obvious, maybe too obvious, so I guess my family figured she would never try something so stupid and endanger the houses of my 'friends' because she was still Metallum's caring princess.
The reason why my family agreed to me having friends was obvious at the time. As young as I was, I knew I would slaughter my 'friends' one day. The reason why they disapproved the first time, I thought it was about my mother but no, it was me. They didn't want me to have normality in my life because that could affect the plan, to make me into a weapon.
After I was kidnapped, I never thought about them much, I guess both were insignificant existences to me. I am lying. If they were insignificant to me, then why do I remember the moments we spent or their names and faces? Must be because of the theory that if you have a finite thing, you cherish it more. I am lying again. I do not care about my three friends or anything to be frank, only him who killed my mother. His long black hair was longer than my own, his black left iris, and his right eye that is covered by his hair. That man has no love in his eyes and no emotion on his face. I mostly inherited my looks from him, but it is a 60/40 ratio in genetics. My mother is on the 60 side, I have her hair color and femininity facial build, but I have my father's eyes. Even though they are different colours, their darker shade of brown makes them look like his black iris. That pisses me off even more. Could you imagine hating a part of yourself because it reminded you of your parents.
"You didn't have to tell her all of that about me and my family, old man." I said as my eyes peered into the view of the village down below where Nelly was headed.
"That is where you are wrong Titen, she must understand that you may never be the same again after this war. All men change after witnessing horror. Boys become men, men become heroes, heroes become legends, and legends become dust. You can not protect her from that truth."
"Yeah, there's nothing heroic or legendary about my story, the boy who murdered the last of his family."
"There is Titen, that is why she believes in you." I had never heard master Ryden speak so softly before, I might be guessing here, but I think my friendship with Nelly reminds him of his old days with his wife. "When did she heal your cheek?"
"I don't know, maybe when she touched me."
After we watched her descend, I went to bathe in the spring. It was a special kind of spring. The more chi you released into the water, the hotter it got. These springs are called Flux springs, and they are very common.
I stepped into the water; it was cold for a spring. I started pouring chi out from my body, and the water began heating up. I stopped the output of chi when the water reached my preferred temperature. The way chi flows in our bodies is quite simple. It flows in our bloodstream. So, you basically can call it our life force in a way. The reason why I say this is because when you bleed, you lose chi, so you are basically bleeding blood and chi. In other words, if you are bleeding out, you are knocking at death's door. The normal flow of chi is to flow with the blood current, but for people like me who have something called 'Evolved Element', the chi flows in the opposite direction of our blood flow.
I sat down and settled nicely in the water. The spring was very large. You could say it had a ten-metre radius and five feet depth at its circumference and at its midpoint a 9 feet depth. So, the water gets deeper when you move to the center of the spring. What I like about bath time is the fact that other than sleeping time and meals, it is one of my few breaks in the day. Believe it or not, but this was one of the smaller springs in Amplexum. I washed my long hair and the rest of my body.
Shortly after, I got out of the water and wrapped my bottom half with a towel. I went back to my shack. I folded my pillow and blanket and placed them both in my room's corner while still wearing my towel. I applied some herbal extract lotion on my body. It is a lotion that is only made in Amplexum, and the Amplexumian people grow the herbs themselves. By blending certain herbs for a nice scent, medical healing for skin and smoothness. The lotions from Amplexum are famous, and rich people all over the world buy the highest quality lotion. There are also cheaper versions of lotions here that are not of high quality but are better than other lotions and animal lard.
Amplexum makes its ends meet with agriculture, mostly herbal agriculture. The herbs here are the best in the world. They are used for cooking, hygiene, and health. Such a place of trade fame would be an easy place to find, and my family would have come here to take me back to Metallum a long time ago. While killing all those who stood in their way, Amplexum is the safest place in the world for me to be in right now.
There is a barrier around the entire village called the Time Dome. The reason for the name is that if you try to walk through it, something weird happens. If one tries to forcefully try to get past the barrier, they won't be stopped like hitting a wall. Instead, you will walk forever. I once tried to escape, no, I am lying. I tried it more than once. Every time I did, I would walk for hours at the Dome's circumference, to me at the time if I felt like I walked miles but, when I looked back, I would always notice that I was only a few metres from the tree that was my starting point. I quickly realised when I was a kid that unless the source of power for the dome was not found, I could never escape.
I searched for it, and I found it. It was a blue haired loli who wore robes and walked with a staff. The staff wasn't for support by the looks of it, so it was just for show, I figured. Now then, by mentioning she had blue hair, blue-green eyes, robes, and sticks. I almost forgot the fact that she is also a loli ,you might underestimate her and call her a weak character.
You couldn't be any more mistaken than you are right now in your life. The weapon told me that before the fall when he was still in the Creed, he fought everyone possibly powerful in the Creed, even the two semi-gods who are the leaders of the Creed. He told me he won and drew with many of them, but there was this one person who he challenged and felt he could never defeat. My father, said to be the greatest protégé of all time to be born, was defeated in record time by a loli. This loli's name is not known to me, but everyone calls her The Oracle, the reason is clear to how she defeated my father and why she is the source of power for the dome. Her power is that of time manipulation. In other words, her element affinity is time. The reason is that she can see into the future and past. When I first met her, I was astonished by her chi, it was large but not heavy. It was bright and lighter than an infant, the opposite of all the large chi's I have encountered. The Oracle is not the only issue that prevents my family from fetching me.
The second reason is my sensei, Master Ryden, who has the same element affinity as me and is also my grandfather's old friend. The fact that he is a family friend wouldn't be enough for my family not to kill him or anything. It is just that Master Ryden is strong. Our element affinity, me and Master Ryden and I, is called 'Alloy Manipulation.'' In other words, we can use any type of metals if they are an alloy. (Alloy means two metals combined).
This is a special power, and it has the name, 'Evolve Element'. People with Evolve Element are different from those who do not and are called evols. Those with normal affinities have chi that flows clockwise in their bodies, so with the blood flow. Those with Evolve Element affinities have chi that flow counter-clockwise, so in other words, against the flow of blood in our veins. This makes the manipulation of our chi harder because we use it against the flow of our blood. Now, when you consider this disadvantage and you would think me, Master Ryden and all those with evolved affinities are weak. You could never be any more wrong in your life. There is a saying Master Ryden said to me, "Those who live in tough conditions must be tough to adapt to those conditions and will be the toughest once they survive those conditions." That is why my Master is feared by five immortals, I used to think that once you've defeated death, then fear was no longer a challenger.
The power of Evolve affinities is not something to undermine, especially my own affinity. I can use any type of alloy as long as it is made from iron, tungsten, copper, titanium, tin, silver, platinum and... I am not sure what the eighth metal is, but Master Ryden said there are only eight metals we can manipulate. He, too, is not sure what the eighth metal is because the scriptures he read about Alloy Manipulation were very old and damaged. The eighth metal is still unknown till this very day because we tried mercury, elementium, aluminum, and even gold. Till this very day, that last metal bothers me because I feel incomplete as a warrior.
I put on my blue nagajuban, black pants, and black socks with my shoes. The only thing that felt like home was my clothes. I tied my long hair into a ponytail and looked around the room for my sword. It was an old, rusted steel katana in a leather sheath that had better days before it was mine. I walked out of my shack as I closed the door. I reminisced about the days of cold nights, muscle cramps, and certainty. Today was the last day of certainty because tomorrow will always be uncertain once I step outside the border. I have accepted this. In fact, I was born for this. My life was never my own; it was that of a weapon, sorry, mother. You tried to convince me that I was not a weapon, but your actions said otherwise. Instead of allowing me to become the weapon, grandfather wanted you to sell me off to his enemies in the hope I would be the weapon he dreaded.
I understand why, after all, you were the loving princess of Metallum, so you had to sacrifice for your people who are now slaves in their own country. In the end, I still must fight like a weapon, but I promise you, mother, after I have fulfilled my promise to you, I will.... What will I do after? That doesn't matter for me from tomorrow and not for me from today.
I left my shack with good resolve to face the uncertainty and chaos that is to come soon.
After descending from the stairs , Master Ryden was waiting for me with what looked like a katana in his hands. I drew myself closer to Master Ryden because I had to properly observe the blade, I had to make sure it wasn't the katana I thought it was. It was the katana I thought it was. It was the second katana on my father's waist.
The Tachi mother used to say it would be mine one day, I remember it clearly, even the day I last saw it. It was in my mother's hands the day I was kidnapped from Metallum, so it is clear she stole it and gave it to Creed to give it to me. I looked at it deeply, I thought the reality of leaving my shack had woken me up from my daze. Not quite, it seems, because when I saw the sword for the first time in years, I could not think straight.
I was overwhelmed with emotions, nostalgia, and the memory of that day everything changed in my life. The day I was on an enemy ship, the day my father did something unforgivable to my mother. I looked up at my master's face. It displayed no emotion whatsoever, but I knew that he could see the anger in my eyes even though I, too, displayed no emotion on my face.
I always wondered where it was that sword, a sword forged from Elementium steel. The strongest and hardest steel in the world, it is a worthy weapon to challenge the five Perdita blades. A worthy weapon to challenge even the swords said to be god killers