Just as the sun was dropping below the horizon, a small shift in the stalker’s movement alerted the group to her awakening.
“Heads up.” Klaus warned the group.
Linley stepped forward to question the girl’s intentions.
“So, what’s your name?” He decided to start off small to gauge how willing she would be to answer their questions.
She raised her chin arrogantly and sneered as she replied. “My name is Scarlet Blade.”
“That’s a rather strange name.” Klaus scoffed, suspecting she was using an alias to fool them.
“No way! That Scarlet Blade?” Merry exclaimed in surprise. “There’s no way you’d be that easy to capture if you were truly her.”
“Huh? Who is she?” Klaus turned to ask Merry.
“She’s an elite assassin in the Royal Guard. No one knows her real name, but they say she earned this one when she slaughtered an entire ‘evil’ guild alone. As you can imagine, by the end of the massacre her sword was scarlet with the blood of her victims.” Nihil explained coldly, disgust dripping from his voice.
An ‘evil guild’ was just a generic term to refer to groups of people that cultivated or practiced magic through ‘evil’ methods. Some of these methods were harmless, but went against the teachings or religion of the country they existed in. However, some truly were despicable as they increased their powers through sacrificing innocent lives – and not a small number either. The group that Stella and Lunam grew up in was an evil guild of the latter kind. However, the kind of evil guild that Scarlet slaughtered was the former type. Since they were harmless, Nihil didn’t care for this woman one bit.
Knowing their leaders’ past, the party automatically assumed that the guild Scarlet destroyed was also the latter type. As such, they didn’t notice the disdain in Nihil’s voice, and were suitably impressed by Scarlet’s history.
“That’s amazing. That must have been a tough battle.” Klaus replied in awe.
At the same time, Linley looked towards Nihil and Ignis. “That means she’s with the Royal Guard.”
His implication was obvious – it was highly likely that her targets were the two boys before him.
“Now that you people know who I am, you should realise that I won’t stay captured for much longer.” Scarlet spoke up haughtily.
“Who were you targeting?” Nihil asked, pointedly ignoring her comment.
Nihil knew that she was likely after himself and Ignis, but he had no intention of blowing their cover until she confirmed this objective herself.
“Do I really have to tell you? I should think that much would be obvious.” Scarlet replied, rolling her eyes. “My mission is to track you two boys down and retrieve what was stolen from us, and to bring you back with me – by any means necessary.”
“Great job you did there …” Nihil replied sarcastically.
“Just how bad of an assassin do you have to be to get captured as easily as you did?” Ignis piped up mockingly. “It seems that your so called ‘perfect record’ is just a result of weak opponents.”
“Seems like you’ll have some trouble fulfilling your mission.” Nihil said before the woman could voice her complaints. “Anyway, how much does the Royal Guard know about where we are and who we’re with?”
“Ha! Do you take me for a fool? There’s no way I’d tell you that.” Scarlet replied, effectively distracted from the earlier mocking.
“OK then, how far away are the main troops?” Nihil asked a different question after looking towards Ignis and seeing him subtly nod his head.
“Are you kidding me? If I didn’t answer the previous question, what makes you think I’ll answer this one instead?” Scarlet asked incredulously.
“Well, it’s not like it hurt anything to ask.” Nihil replied, shrugging. He then continued in a sarcastically optimistic tone. “But maybe you won’t mind answering how many are pursuing us?”
“Of course I mind!” She angrily responded, then she turned to face Ignis and continued. “He’s an idiot, right?”
At these words Linley and the others quietly chuckled to themselves, while a frown flitted across Ignis’ expression.
“Since you refuse to tell us anything, I think we should confiscate your belongings and ditch you somewhere the Royal Guard will find you.” Nihil commented with a bright smile, while he shook his head at his friend to prevent him from acting rashly.
“You just try it.” Scarlet replied viciously, suddenly releasing a wave of magical power that shredded the rope tying her up.
“Crap! Sorry guys, I didn’t realise she was a mage!” Linley exclaimed in frustration as he quickly released a flurry of small blades similar in size to a scalpel. They travelled at tricky angles, seemingly magnetically drawn towards their target.
It was clear that the group was a seasoned party of adventurers, as everyone was instantly up and prepared for battle. Frowning, Nihil stood back from the fight and disappeared into the tall grass without anyone noticing.
Very soon, Archer’s blades also joined Linley’s in their attack, surrounding Scarlet with a whirlwind. Scarlet resisted the attacks for a few seconds before releasing a spell that caused the blades to all fall motionlessly to the ground, revealing her form covered in several small scratches.
“A pathetic attack like that wont work on me!” Scarlet exclaimed as she whipped her hand out horizontally and unleashed a wind blade attack on the group, knocking Claude back as he skilfully stepped in to use his whip to counter the magical attack before it hit Linley and Archer.
Having successfully blocked the magic, he flicked his wrist to send out a rapid counterattack that managed to strike her squarely across the front of her neck. Taken by surprise, she coughed and spluttered for a second before forcing out a furious roar to use a sonic attack that blasted into everyone’s ears.
This attack was especially effective against this particular group that comprised of elves, demons and mysterious beasts. Even as a half-demon, Claude’s senses were still just as strong as a pure blood’s. Most of an elf’s senses weren’t particularly better than those of a human’s, but their vision and hearing wouldn’t lose out to those of a mysterious beast. As a result, the sonic attack was just as devastating to Merry, Alexis and Lucas as everyone else present.
Grimacing due to the pain, some blood even dripped from Ignis’ ears as he tried, in vain, to muffle the deafening roar with his hands. The others were doing much better than him, but they still couldn’t remove their hands from their ears.
At this point Lucas sent a bolt flying from his crossbow. Luckily he’d loaded it before Scarlet had started screaming, and was standing further away from her due to being a ranged attacker. However, he still couldn’t completely remove his hands from his ears, so he had to fire the shot one-handed. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds, since he used a heavy crossbow so that he could use it as a makeshift shield in case he was forced into a close-quarters battle.
As could be expected from his desperate attack, he missed his mark but still managed to shut her up for long enough for Alexis and Merry to send their own arrows flying her way.
Growing annoyed with the protracted fight, Scarlet gathered a massive amount of the world’s energy and manipulated it to form a tornado that spread it’s diameter to blow back the entire party – with one exception that is. Scarlet had managed to grab Ignis before casting her spell, so she took him with her as she disappeared from the surrounding area. Despite the chaotic situation, she still didn’t forget her mission. She had noticed Nihil’s absence after her sonic attack failed, so she decided that she should save time by avoiding the fight altogether.
About 5km away, Nihil was planning an ambush in a clearing, when he heard a loud roar coming from the direction of the party.
“Shit! She had a sonic attack?” Nihil swore to himself, worried about how Ignis was coping with it given his exceptional hearing.
Nihil had known that the adventurers wouldn’t be strong enough to defeat Scarlet. Besides, there were some questions he wanted to ask her – ones he couldn’t with everyone else around. He’d asked Ignis to stay behind to keep an eye on the woman, and help guide her to the ambush point if she didn’t head in the direction Nihil had predicted.
Nihil was much better at stealth than Ignis, so that was why Ignis had been the one to stay behind. However, with this development he started to think that it would have been better if they had switched their roles.
Shaking his head Nihil decided to trust his friend’s abilities and focused on the direction Scarlet should be coming from, as he didn’t know how long he’d have until she arrived. He didn’t have to wait too long, as she soon came flying over with Ignis in her arms.
Scarlet was human, but she was using her wind magic to improve her speed by supporting herself in the air.
Given that the practitioner didn’t have an innate racial ability (such as the demons’ or dragons’ wings, even some bird-type mysterious beasts had the natural ability to fly), flight was something that was only possible for wind specialised mages, or for the high level wind attribute expert cultors.
It was more difficult for cultivators to fly, as it required emitting a large amount of their internal energy out of their bodies. As such they could only use this technique for short periods of time to help them escape. There were legends about special cultivation techniques that altered the body of the practitioner, causing different animalistic traits. Some of these techniques could supposedly even allow a cultivator to grow wings. However, these types of techniques were incredibly rare – if they even actually existed, that is.
Seeing his friend’s still bleeding ears, Nihil’s expression turned severe as he became almost as angry as he was when that had happened back then. The only difference now was that there was only a single enemy.
Furiously slashing his hand down in a chopping motion, Nihil opened up a spacial crack in front of the two figures. Spacial and flame magic happened to be Nihil’s specialties, and most of the time he could barely use any other spells without enchantments.
This spacial door just looked like a slight shimmer in the air, so Scarlet didn’t notice that anything was there – nor could she dodge it. As a result, she ended up flying full force into the ground (which was where Nihil had set up the exit). With his spell, he had skilfully separated Ignis from Scarlet’s hold, and the boy fell through a second crack that had appeared next to Nihil.
Catching his friend, Nihil worriedly checked Ignis’ condition. Nihil’s expression relaxed when he confirmed that the boy had just been knocked unconscious, but he soon narrowed his eyes again when he heard the sounds of Scarlet struggling to get up.
As a mage, she naturally had a much more fragile body than cultivators, so the force with which she hit the ground was enough to break her arm and give her a minor concussion. Groaning in pain, she shook the stars out of her eyes and growled in anger. If she hadn’t been an elite in the Royal Guard, an onlooker could’ve easily believed that she was actually a high level mysterious beast in human form.
Ignis may have turned out to be ok, but Nihil was still furious with her. Now that his friend was unconscious, there was no one left who could even try to calm Nihil down. Frowning, Nihil’s eyes locked onto his opponent – focused on first capturing his opponent. Fortunately it wasn’t a difficult problem for him at all.
Taking advantage of her dazed state, Nihil launched himself towards her, leaving a deep imprint in the ground from the sheer force he’d he’d applied to his right foot. He covered the 20 metres between them with just one stride. Stomping down with his left foot, he efficiently halted his forward momentum and punched Scarlet’s stomach at the same time. Even with just a fraction of his strength, the woman was sent flying backwards as she choked, desperately trying to breathe again.
While she was still spluttering on the ground, Nihil flipped his palm and a pair of heavy manacles appeared and dangled from his hand. Clasping the chain, Nihil approached Scarlet. Grabbing her wrists he attached the manacles so that her arms were behind her back.
Naturally she had tried to resist, but Nihil’s arms hadn’t even budged a millimetre so her efforts remained futile.
“Damn you, bastard!” Scarlet snarled as she flung her head back to glare at Nihil.
“Hey, you’re the one who was chasing us. It’s not my fault that your superiors underestimated our strength.” Nihil responded calmly.
“DAMN IT!” She shouted in frustration. After releasing her pent up frustration, her face relaxed again. “Have you already forgotten? It’s not that easy to subdue a mage.”
Under Nihil’s mocking smile, Scarlet’s expression quickly changed from smug, to confusion, to concern, and then finally to full-blown panic as she finally figured out what was happening.
“Y-you have Azoth Shackles!?” She exclaimed in shock. “It shouldn’t be possible for -“
She quickly shut up when she remembered just how easily the two boys had managed to steal those high profile items from her bosses. If they could swipe even the void-space storage ring, then naturally some anti-cultor shackles wouldn’t have been a problem. What she didn’t know was that the manacles were actually a ‘souvenir’ from their past.
At this point, Nihil dragged Scarlet over to another space door. Throwing her in, he turned around and carefully carried Ignis through with him.
The other side of the spacial crack opened up to a simple concrete room. The only things present were dark copper stains, covering almost every tile on the floor and walls; a chain and hook, hanging from the high ceiling; and a single door in the corner. It was clear that the room had been used a lot in the past.
Nihil brought Ignis through the door, leaving Scarlet sprawled on the floor. Behind the door was a small, simple room with a comfy-looking sofa. However, the wall decorations weren’t nearly as innocuous. Every available surface was covered in vicious weapons and strange looking devices.
Gently laying his friend on the sofa, Nihil returned to the main room. Strangely, neither of these areas had any other doors or windows – except the one door connecting the two.
Removing the chain from one of the manacles, Nihil brought Scarlet’s hands in front of her, and then reattached the chain. Next, he hung her chain on the hook dangling from the ceiling. Scarlet glared fiercely at Nihil while she let out a sharp grunt of pain and surprise.
Nihil decided to wait for Ignis to wake up again before he questioned Scarlet. This would probably turn out to be faster and definitely more reliable than simple torture. Besides, there was no way for her to escape these rooms without Nihil knowing immediately. After all, this was a pocket dimension that Nihil had created a long time previously. He continuously supplied it with his own magic, so it was extremely stable despite being such a small dimension.
Normally the larger a pocket dimension, the more stable the space would be. This was because the creator of a space was effectively transforming a section of the void into a usable area. The larger dimensions required a huge amount of magic to create, but would become fairly self-sustaining after that point. This was because they would require formation stones that would clearly mark the boundaries of the dimension. These boundaries resisted the encroaching nothingness of the void and stabilised the entire plane.
However, smaller dimensions were generally designed to be temporary and as such didn’t require the formation stones to stabilise the domain. In exchange, the creator’s own magical energy would instead be used to solidify the boundaries of the dimension. As such, unless the magical energy was periodically replenished, the domain would collapse in on itself once the supply was completely drained.
In this way, it was easy to imagine just how sturdy his dimension was compared to others’.
“You have a cruel streak don’t you.” Scarlet spoke up at this point.
She’d just got her breathing under control, after getting accustomed to the pain from being hung from her broken arm, but Nihil just ignored her.
“They didn’t warn me about any of this. How come you’re so freakishly strong!?”
“Naturally they couldn’t tell you about that which they do not know.” Nihil begrudgingly answered her, just to shut her up quickly.
“But shouldn’t they have found out stuff like this while that was happening?” In her pain, Scarlet unwittingly let something slip that she immediately regretted. “I-I just meant when you were stealing the void-space storage ring!”
Her hurried attempt to explain away her slip up only gave her away even more. At this point, Nihil’s expression had gotten even colder, with his golden eyes almost appearing black in the dim lighting of the room.
* * *
Just as a dangerous glint appeared in Nihil’s eyes, he seemed to notice something which cleared his expression slightly. Punching Scarlet’s stomach once again, he knocked her out and headed back into the smaller room.
Ignis was just rubbing his head and sitting up when Nihil entered.
“How are you feeling now?” He asked in a quiet voice, worried that a louder sound would cause his friend even more pain.
“Ugh, like someone’s crushing my brain in their fist.” Ignis replied with a groan.
Hearing this, Nihil quietly approached his friend and gently rested his hand on Ignis’ head with a frown as he concentrated. Nihil let out a small stream of magic and Ignis’ tense jaw loosened a little.
“Eat this and regain some of your strength.” Nihil instructed his friend after conjuring another dense green flame similar to the one Claude had seen him produce before.
“Thanks.” Ignis replied before obediently eating his fill.
By the time he was done, Nihil was looking like the weaker of the two instead.
“Where are we, by the way?” Ignis asked, licking his lips in satisfaction from the meal.
“My pocket dimension.” Nihil responded in a steady voice, despite his pale complexion. “Well, I had to use it a few times before we met, but it’s been a while since I’ve come here.”
“Before we met? You regained your memories?” Ignis questioned, realising the significance of what his friend had just said.
“It’s all a bit jumbled, but I understand the gist of the parts that have returned. But I get the feeling that I’ve only unlocked one part of the seal on my memories.” Nihil replied with a flash of frustration quickly passing across his expression at the end.
“That’s great! We’re one step closer to figuring out who you are!” Ignis exclaimed in excitement.
“Is it a good thing?” Nihil muttered.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Ignis asked in concern.
“Well, I get the feeling that the rest of these seals were placed by me.” Nihil explained. “Perhaps I would be better off if I didn’t remember it all. I think I know enough now to understand the key points, and I don’t like the direction they’re headed.”
“No matter what you choose, it’s your decision to make.” Ignis responded gently, then continued in a slightly sterner tone. “Though, for what it’s worth, I think that you should face yourself honestly and straightforwardly. And that would require you regaining all of your memories.”
Smiling wryly, Nihil let the matter drop with a sigh as he thought through his friend’s advice. Honestly, even just the existence of this pocket dimension was enough to raise warning flags in Nihil’s mind – just why would he have needed such a room that was obviously designed with dark purposes in mind. Nihil just couldn’t think of any legitimate reasons for doing so. He could also say with confidence that he could get anyone to talk – no matter how loyal or stubborn they were – as long as he could get them into this space.
Shaking his head free from these dark thoughts, Nihil knew that he wouldn’t be able to properly mull it over within just a few minutes. As such he changed the topic back to the memories he currently did remember.
“Recently I’ve been having these images flash through my mind. And, from what I’ve understood of them, I seem to have lived longer than either of us first guessed.” Nihil started, feeling somewhat apprehensive about his friend’s reaction to his following statement.
“Oh?” Ignite prompted, thinking that it would just be a difference of a century or so.
“I can remember my birth …” Nihil explained in an attempt to stall the conversation slightly.
After saying this, Nihil mustered up his courage and started describing the relatively few memories he currently had. Despite trusting Ignis completely, he was still nervous as to what his friend’s reaction would be upon learning the truth.
Aerone Grey 