The wind whistled in his ear as he raced through the night, his ears catching even the faintest abnormalities in the melody of the night.
The sounds this night were chaotic. The screams of evading people, the crashing of body against body, the sound of broken bones, irregular breathing, heart attacks and the guttural growl which was the sole cause of all this noise.
'Disharmony might just be what I hate the most, wait or was it cheese? Nope I can't quite place my finger on it'.
He thought as he leaped across the top of the building to the area over the mall. The phantom was there in plain sight, a mix of multiple different animals.
'A chimera, disgusting disharmony'. He waved his finger in the air tracing the patterns he had done countless times in my life.
"Arlder, there are people in the area!" A feminine voice screamed next to him but he was no longer listening, completely focused on the plague in front of him as he zoomed through the air.
"Rule 2, the law of gravity."
The building around them trembled as his enigma made its way to its target, everyone surrounding the phantom froze as gravity held them in place and when they could finally move the phantom that had plagued them was nothing more than a stain on the pavement.
•• The New Eclipse ••
"What if you had crushed the people around the phantom?!"
"But I didn't right?" Arlder answered the lady currently huffing beside him. "I can literally see the fumes of rage emerging from your head," he said, waving his hands dismissively over her.
"You take too many risks," Ayra said, smacking his hands from above her. He always took too many risks but she was already used to it by now.
"The phantoms have been getting really wild lately, although the chimera wasn't rare, phantoms of that class appearing three times in a single week…" She continued.
"Yes, it would cause problems for the regular venators. That ugly thing would need the attention of about 4 of them." Arlder said.
"Well then, let's be on our way." He said as they began to jump from roof to roof until they finally landed softly on the roof of an old building. "This place never changes."
"I hear the clans like to keep it that way for whatever reason, it's hard to figure out what they are thinking sometimes. Well let's not keep them waiting." Ayra said.
As they approached the front door it swung open a sign that they had been invited and then they stepped into the darkness.
It was always a weird feeling, one he would probably never get used to, it felt like they were walking through water then through oil and then finally an area where they felt no air and after that they suddenly appeared in a small rectangular room with old school oil lanterns hung on the walls.
"I hope we weren't summoned because you did something weird again, Ayra."
"You're the one who does weird stuff!"
"I'm pretty sure it's you." He argued.
"You are in the presence of the 5 clans!" A man said in a stern voice a little bit too loudly.
"And we are nothing more than 10 feet apart, no need to scream like a b-"
"Arlder!" Ayra sharply whispered, pinching his forearm mercilessly to prevent him from completing his sentence.
The moon clan was first to speak, the aging man glanced over at Arlder a small smirk appeared on his face but quickly vanished as he began to speak.
"Something is stirring, and we have ignored it for far too long," he began. "phantoms as we call them are nothing new to this world and we the 5 clans have kept them in check for centuries." He picked up a scroll from his desk and unrolled it glancing at the contents before resuming.
"Although powerful phantoms have been recorded throughout history this is a first of its kind."
"Not to sound rude but the phantom we fought was not unusual in any way," Arlda said, cutting in.
"Not that phantom," the earth clans representative spoke up.
"Kushiro." The moon clan's leader called out and the man with the upsettingly loud voice came forward, took the scroll from him and handed it over to Arlder.
It wasn't rare for venators to die in the line of duty, in fact it was actually pretty common. But this was different, the official statement was that he was reported missing for a month now but Arlder always knew it was a coverup.
Even still Arlder didn't expect this, he simply thought his friend was still away on the highly important mission that was apparently too classified for even someone of his ranking.
"We covered up the facts of the story to prevent panic within the community but Javi in truth is dead, killed by a phantom."
"Arlder," Ayra called out in a soft tone.
Javi was not just one of Arlder's closest and oldest friends he was also one of the few people that he could trust. Although he was not from any of the major clans he was able to claw his way to becoming a decent venator after he, Ayra and Arlda completed their training at the academy.
Hearing the news of his death, especially the circumstances behind it made his blood boil as he struggled to regain his composure.
'What went wrong?' He wondered.
Although Javi wasn't the strongest Venator out there he could handle himself extremely well when it came to phantoms and if he couldn't beat it he should have been able to escape easily.
"Tell me everything I need to know." Arlder demanded.
The youngest of all the clan leaders then rose up to speak. The head of the Scarlet clan, Elias. "There were reports of a ghost in one of the southernmost towns. Normally something as trivial as that would not require any attention from us but…" he paused as if the words themselves were hard for him to say.
"Official reports from our venators said that this ghost or phantom, whatever you want to call it, used Fire." The earth clan representative stepped in.
Fire was a forgotten technique so old that no one except those in top positions even knew of its former existence. He turned to look at Ayra, them letting her hear this means they have placed the secrecy of this conversation on his shoulders. If she slips up, he has basically slipped up as well.
"And you assumed that it was not a phantom, but a person." Arlder said, he was far more interested in what they had to say now. Ayra on the other hand stiffened next to him as heaps of highly classified information kept pouring out.
'Perks of being the partner of the number one venator'.
Elias said nothing after Arlder spoke.
"Why wasn't I assigned instead? Why send Javi."
"You have a history of breaking rules, this was a delicate mission and your unpredictable nature was not a good fit for it." Elias argued frowning as they stared at each other the tension in the room slowly rising.
"And now you've come running back to ask for help from someone with that unpredictable nature." He was about to reply when Arlder cut in.
"Next time you plan to carry out an assassination have the guts to call it one." Arlder said his anger in full display.
"I don't care whatever or whoever it was, ancient technique or not I am going to bury him for what he did to Javi, just like we did in the past." He said his voice taking a dark tone
Arlder turned to leave Arya following closely behind him.
"What about your little project?" Elias asked just as he was about to leave.
"It's coming along nicely. Arlder said a small smile playing on my lips as his mind wandered but it did little to subside the anger, or the hate.
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Thank you for taking out your time to check out my book I really appreciate it!
If you enjoyed the first chapter please consider adding it your library and any other form of support will be very much appreciated.
Things are just getting started, this is going to be a fun ride with a number of twists and turns, I just hope I'm able to write the story just as I envision it in my head.
Get ready for the thrill!