It moved! The particle, seemingly unmovable actually moved. It was only a slight vibration before snapping back into place, but it moved!
I was ecstatic, since this was the first step to defeating the Vritra.
2 more weeks later
I could now easily move a few particles at a time, creating a tiny glowing orb of aether. It didn't have much destructive power, but it was a perfect counter to regular magic, destroying it as if it was nothing.
Shaping them into something other than a sphere was at least for now a complete failure, my control over aether slipping at the slightest change of shape.
Sylvie has gotten much stronger from absorbing Cadell's mana, and started sparring with Kath and occasionally one of the lances. It didn't take long, however, before she started to regularly win in her fights against the lances.
Virion suddenly barged into the room, his expression grave.
"Arthur, Alacrya has begun an assault on one of the big camps near the beach!"
'Sylv, let's go.' I said to my bond as she turned into her fox form, hiding in my jacket.
"Alright, let's go."
I was about to leave with Virion, when I heard a quiet voice behind me.
"Wait, Take me with you please."
Looking Kath up and down, I could immediately see the difference between 4 weeks ago and now.
"Alright, but Sylv will stay with you at all times. Let's go."
Walking through the portal, Virion pointed in the approximate direction of the attack.
Sylv hopped out of my jacket, transforming into her dragon form.
'You got bigger' I sent with a laugh
'Excuse me, I am a lady you know' Sylvie tried to sound serious, but started laughing half way through.
"I will be going forward, Sylv will carry you there, alright Kath?"
Kath nodded, saying
"See you there."
I shot off in the direction Virion pointed, soon hearing the sounds of battle reverberating throughout the land.
I soon spotted professor Glory fending off a battalion of mages by herself, so I rushed in, killing her adversaries in the process, to talk to her.
"Hello professor Glory."
Professor Glory had a stunned expression seeing her opponents cut into pieces.
"Damn it, Arthur. Don't scare me like that!" she sighed. "What are you doing here anyways? Virion didn't tell me we were getting reinforcements. And call me Vanesy."
"Well, it's only me, Sylv and Kath. Virion came into our training room to ask us for help, so we said 'Why not'".
"Well, it's damn reassuring to have you with us, but do you have any idea how an Alacryan force this size was able to get past us?"
I shook my head. "How about we leave a few alive to try and get the answer out of them?"
Vanesy's lips curved into a wicked smirk as she raised both her longswords. "Sounds like a plan."
Effortlessly cutting through many Alacryans allowed me to take out my rage a little, when all of a sudden I felt a decently strong presence, most likely a retainer, about 2km away.
"I think a retainer just arrived, I'll go deal with it." I said in a calm voice.
I watched its trajectory, triangulating the direction it came from. After I had a good idea of the direction, I flew right into its path.
It was indeed a retainer. Her skin was pale, with black hair ending in two ponytails and a face mask covering her face.
She suddenly walked behind a tree, disappearing completely from sight.
'Aren't you a cute boy. Could it be that you're lost?'
I flinched from the unfamiliar voice that rang in my head, looking around for any signs of her.
Even with augmented vision and hearing, I couldn't find her. Yet, I knew she was there, her high, grating voice still scratching the insides of my ears.
'Are you, perhaps, looking for little ol' me?' her shrill voice screeched inside my head like a coarse blade being dragged against ice.
Her voice seemed to come from all around me and at the same time, inside me.
[Unleashed Realmheart]
The once lush green and brown scenery washed down into shades of gray with only speckles of color radiating from the mana around me.
"If you wanted to make me confused, you've achieved that!" I yelled in no direction in particular.
Suddenly a flicker of light whizzed past the corner of my eye like a green shadow. I immediately turned around, watching as my enemy disappeared inside a tree.
'Sharp eyes, little boy. Sharp eyes.' She moved once more, travelling from inside one tree to another, using branches as if they were tunnels, leaving behind traces of sickly green mana. She seemed more and more scared, as my eyes perfectly followed her every movement.
"Am I here?" she asked, farther away this time.
"How about here?" Her grating voice sounded to my left.
She let out a childish giggle. "Maybe I'm here!"
I stood unmoving on the tree branch, not bothering to play her little game.
"I could be over there..." she taunted once more, her voice suddenly coming several yards away to my right.
"Or I could be right here!" Suddenly, an arm shot out from inside the tree I was perched on.
I pivoted on my foot, grabbing the retainer's arm and pulling her body out of the tree. Her wicked grin suddenly changed into an expression of pure fear.
The sickly green mana appeared below me, so I instantly dispelled it, not even bothering to move.
I looked her in the eyes and shot her a smug look.
"Close fight" I said as I cut the tiny horn on her head and her head itself in a quick motion, making it seem like they had both been cut at the same time.
Well that was anticlimactic.
I decided to check up on how Sylv and Kath were doing, creating a portal right next to them. What I didn't expect was to be immediately assaulted with a barrage of ice spears upon stepping out of the portal.
Stopping them in midair, I redirected them at Alacryan mages around us.
"Hey, I came to check up on how you were doing." I said with a grin.
Kathyln spoke first "We're doing fine, although I'm running a little low on mana."
"That's fine, you're not too used to fighting alone against a large number of enemies. You're doing well, just try using less ice spears. It usually takes one or two well places ice spears to kill an enemy." I said, killing an enemy with an ice spear to demonstrate.
"Alright, I will try, thank you." Kath said with a tenacious look.
VANESY GLORY POV
While slashing through another Alacryan, Arthur suddenly appeared between my attack and the enemy, grabbing my weapon and backhanding the enemy, launching him at least 15 meters away.
Catching my breath, I told him. "You scared the crap out of me."
"Sorry, I am here to ask for permission to destroy the Alacryan ships."
"Yeah, of course you can. You single-handedly turned the tide of this battle." I responded
Shooting me a cheeky grin, he said. "Alright, thanks", before disappearing again.
A few seconds later, I heard numerous loud explosions accompanied by a large amount of smoke.
ARTHUR POV
After destroying the battleships, I told Sylv I'm going to be heading in the direction the retainer came from.
'I already dropped Kath off back at the camp, I can go with you.'
'Alright, let's go.'
Rushing full speed, we very soon arrived at the edge of a narrow ravine almost devoid of water attribute mana.
We slowly climbed down the steep slope, the whistling wind masking all other sounds. Once we were at the bottom of the ravine, the faint trail of missing water attribute mana disappeared but it didn't matter.
"Damn it," I muttered softly, peering down the cliff. "I was actually hoping I'd be wrong."
'Your suspicion... don't tell me...' A wave of realization exuded from my bond as she felt the rumble of the hollow ground beneath us.
'Yup. After this, I'm still only eighty percent sure but I suspect that the Alacryan army we fought got into Dicathen with the dwarves' help.'
There were radical implications if the dwarves were really allied with the Alacryans, but regardless of my hunch, I needed to make sure my suspicions weren't just me being over skeptical.
It took me a few minutes to find one of their hidden entrances, which took me a few minutes to figure out how to open.
We walked down the hallway, concealing our mana with Mirage Walk and sound with sound magic.
The hallway opened up into an enormous cavern with a domed ceiling so without imperfection that, for a second, I doubted that we were still underground. Rather than candles, massive torches lined the walls to reveal just how large the cavern actually was and who were within.
I let loose a string of curses in my head as I peered down. In the center of the cavern floor—roughly two stories down—was a massive teleportation gate surrounded by dwarves and steadily trickling out from the shimmering gate were Alacryan troops.
Suddenly hearing footsteps behind us, I enveloped the area with sound magic while swiftly dispatching the Alacryans with strings of pure mana.
'Sylv, want to kill some dwarves?'
'Well how could I say no to that.'
I let Sylvie rampage while I created dozens of string of pure mana, slicing apart dwarves and Alacryans into pieces.
"A dragon! Notify Seris Vritra!" Cried one of the Alacryans before getting swiftly cut in half by Sylvie.
Soon, a powerful presence walked through the portal down in the cavern.
A girl that looked no older in appearance than Kathyln. She possessed elegant features, dark eyes and a thin frame underneath a fur-trimmed obsidian robe, yet even amongst a crowd of dwarves, she appeared small and petite. Looking at the two spikes protruding from above the girl's temples and veer back toward the crown of its head, they exuded a sense of prestige and regality, like a tiara placed gently on its head.
I was about to attack her, when she said something that caught me completely off guard.
"I am on your side."
I shot her a skeptical and confused look. "Why should I trust you?"
"I wouldn't be so foolish to show myself to someone who killed two of my fellow scythes. I can tell you have potential to bring peace, which is all I desire."
She had a point.
"Reinforcements are coming, we don't have much time. I will tell you everything when I see you later. Now go. They can't see me talking to you."
I still didn't trust her, but I let her live, because she was not a threat.
I along with Sylvie flew back to the castle, telling Virion and Aldir about the situation, but excluded the Scythe.
"We need to see where the allegiances of the two dwarven lances lie. A large-scale battle is nearing and I don't want any unforeseen obstacles."
Author's note: thanks for the support as always, it is always great to see new comments.