Tag: Version 2

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. This meant that the larger dimensions could produce their own energy fast enough to supplement the energy being drained by the void. However, smaller dimensions couldn’t produce enough energy fast enough, so the difference had to be constantly made up by the mage. Most people would install formation stones around any sized pocket dimension in order to mark out the boundaries.

For a smaller dimension, though, these stones had an added benefit of acting as batteries in the case that the mage stopped being able to supply energy to the area for some time. Formation stones would only have a finite amount of energy however, so any normal smaller dimension would inherently end up being temporary and unstable even when properly in use. As such, unless the magical energy was periodically replenished, the domain would collapse in on itself once the batteries were completely drained.

In this way, it was easy to imagine just how sturdy Nihil’s dimension was compared to others’. Especially considering the years that he was unable to provide magic to sustain it at all.

“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 can sense my mana coming from the rest of the seals … so I’m pretty certain they 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.

After eating their fill at a nearby impartial tavern, Stella and Lunam crossed the city square and entered a large enchanted equipment shop. The store was called The Draconic Armoury. Since dragons were well known to have the toughest hides and the sharpest claws in all of Axis, this name was a clear indication of the store’s confidence in their enchantments’ power and efficacy.

Immediately upon entry, the two girls were greeted by a young shop attendant. With the new atmosphere in the capital, it was easy enough to tell which stores were neutral and which ones were refusing to serve non-humans. The latter stores would require the customers’ visas or citizenship cards. These cards indicated a person’s species and if they weren’t human, then most stores would discriminate against them. In comparison, the neutral stores wouldn’t request any proof of identity, and would serve any customer that approached them.

“Welcome to our store, my name is Peter. Is there anything specific that you’re looking for today?” The attendant asked with a genial smile.

Peter was a young man with tousled mousy brown hair, and chocolate eyes looking to be around 16 years old. Stella and Lunam had been watching the store from the earlier tavern, and they had noticed that The Draconic Armoury didn’t request proof of identity upon entry. The reason they chose to check out this store first, was because they had thought that this would be the case. The Draconic Armoury was a world renowned store that was commonly regarded to sell the best equipment in all of Axis. They had many branches in every country, so it was highly unlikely that they would be swayed by the opinions of just one country’s future ruler. Avalon also couldn’t afford to offend the franchise by creating trouble for them.

“We would like to buy a grade 10 blueprint for a passive poison resistance enchantment.” Lunam answered the boy’s question.

“Is this a service that this store could provide? If not, is there a place you’d recommend that would be willing to do so?” Stella questioned Peter, somewhat embarrassed. Even low level inscription patterns were highly regarded by most enchanters.

“If you would come this way to our meeting room, I will immediately go and ask to see if one of our enchanters would be willing to make this trade with you.” Peter replied kindly. “It will end up costing more than just buying an item that has already been enchanted with the same effects, though.”

“That’s fine. If you can find an enchanter that’s willing to trade with us, we will do our best to meet the price that person sets. If we truly can’t afford it, then we would be more than happy to buy a similar item that this store has enchanted.” Lunam replied with a smile. The two sisters had already agreed that they would just buy one if it truly wasn’t possible to obtain the blueprint.

“Very well, then.” Peter agreed, before leaving the room that he’d guided the women to.

Lunam and Stella sunk into the comfy leather sofa in the waiting room. It was the sort of sofa that was too soft to allow one to easily stand back up again once they sat upon it.

“As expected of The Draconic Armoury, even their furnishings are top quality.” Stella commented with a mock sigh of envy.

In truth, she was very happy with the way she was living her life at the moment. Despite the sisters’ dubious upbringing and the desire for vengeance that they carried deep within their hearts, their master had not only taught them cultivation, but had also instilled in them the importance of not letting their dark pasts consume them. As a result of her teachings, the two girls had decided to become adventurers and had gradually met everyone who was now a member of Diei Noctis.

“If those two are really as you say, I wonder just how strong they actually are.” Stella commented quietly.

Peter was likely to take a while, so she brought up the subject that was most on her mind at that moment.

“Hmm … they’re either using a rare Mysterious Technique to lower their realms, or they’ve reached a high enough realm that they can freely control their auras.” Lunam mused, immediately knowing that her sister was talking about Nihil and Ignis.

“I wonder why they would go so far to hide.” Stella muttered. “Surely displaying their strength could only bring them benefits. If the Royal Guard knew their true realms, wouldn’t they be more likely to back off? After all, strength is the only absolute law that people unremittingly obey.”

“True. But since that’s the case and they’re still hiding their abilities, then there must be more antipathy between them and the Royal Guard than either party is willing to admit to uninvolved parties.” Lunam pointed out calmly. “I get the feeling that those two have a more complicated past than even us.”

“Well, it’s at least certain that they are deeply entangled with this country’s royalty if the Guard are getting involved. We might just happen to have a common enemy.” Stella hadn’t realised that her feelings towards Nihil were slowly becoming more positive now that there was some distance between the two of them. However, it still remained to be seen if her opinion would remain favourable when the two groups met up once again.

“If that’s the case, then we probably shouldn’t mention their names within the capital. Talking about them just now was risky too, but we’re at least in a private room in a neutral store so the risk isn’t as bad as it would be in a busier place.” Lunam realised this too late, but she hurriedly ended the conversation before any damage they may have caused could get worse.

“Ah!” Stella exclaimed in surprise. “It’s a good thing I didn’t mention their names just now, then. I hadn’t even thought of that. Hera just warned me about being too loose lipped in Imber as well.”

“It should be fine since we haven’t said all that much about them and it’s just the two of us in this room, but we should be careful from now on.” Lunam once again reassured her sister.

A few minutes later Peter came back into the meeting room along with an ageing, grey haired old man. He looked to be around 70, but considering his status as an enchanter, he could have been anywhere from about 20, up to 1500 depending on his talent and preferences.

“You’d like a passive poison resistance blueprint?” The old man directly questioned. His arrogant tone was normal for an enchanter – especially the top class ones – since enchanted weapons and armour were indispensable for adventurers. They could also enchant tools, making the daily lives of the regular citizenry much easier.

“Only if you’re willing to sell it to us.” Lunam responded, her tone respectful but still calm. “If we’re being too presumptuous with our request, we can only apologise and buy a ready made charm with similar effects.”

“Hmm … it may just be a low level enchantment, not requiring too much energy to carve, but it does require a steady hand and an accurate placement of all the lines. Are you sure you guys still want such a blueprint?” The man inquired, seemingly testing them. “Besides I can tell that you’re both cultivators, do you have a suitable mage to perform the enchantment?”

His displeasure was clearly obvious as he asked the second question. Lunam and Stella paled slightly, realising that the man was offended that the enchanter apparently didn’t personally come to make this request. However, the two were still reluctant to reveal that Stella could actually enchant despite her status as a cultivator.

“Ah, yes our friend is a mage and they said they’d be willing to carve the enchantment for us. It’s a present for our master so we really wanted to personally create it together. Unfortunately our friend suddenly got called back to their family because their mother suddenly took a turn for the worse and could be passing away soon.” Lunam explained. The sisters even convincingly managed to squeeze out a few tears, seemingly distraught over their non-existent friend’s plight.

“N-not to worry. I’m sure we can quickly come to an agreement so that you guys can hurry to your friend’s side.” The man didn’t seem to be able to handle seeing the two girls suddenly weeping in front of him.

Sniffling, the sisters tried their best to suppress their tears. The enchanter grabbed a box of tissues from the table behind him and offered them to the girls. Dabbing at their eyes with a tissue each, they ‘finally managed’ to control their emotions and looked up at the old man with bloodshot eyes.

“Thank you for your concern. We grew up with Marie, and her mother practically raised us. If possible we would have immediately rushed back with her, but she insisted that we stay behind and get the blueprint.” Stella sniffled out, even casually naming their imaginary friend. “It’s looking like Marie’s mother was poisoned, so she’s probably especially scared of people close to her being poisoned.”

Stella was worried that she was giving too much background to ‘Marie’, making their deception more obvious. However neither Peter nor the enchanter seemed to find anything amiss with their story – even asking further questions due to their genuine concern.

“Poisoned? Who would do such a malicious thing?” Peter exclaimed in horror.

“She had just brought up divorce with her husband – on the grounds of cheating – when she suddenly fell ill and collapsed. Marie refuses to admit it, but we believe that her father thought that being a widower was preferable to having been divorced.” Stella’s voice was barely even a whisper by the time she reached the last sentence, as if she was upset to even think of the possibility.

At these words, both sisters started tearing up again and hurriedly grabbed another tissue each. Exchanging awkward glances, Peter and the enchanter hurriedly decided to stop this line of questioning and changed the subject back to the blueprint.

After a while of discussion, it was settled that the girls would exchange a dwarven made spear for the blueprint. However, Stella and Lunam knew that the price was only so low due to their deception. As a result, they directly added several swords, shields, and another spear to their price. All of these were made by the dwarves in Agartha. The two sisters had been gifted them by a friend of their master’s, while they were adventuring in the underground metropolis that spanned the entire country.

Dwarfish craftsmanship was the best in all of Axis, and the materials were able to support several high-level enchantments. This made it very desirable for all adventurers, and this many items could pull in a massive amount of profit for the store.

A smaller store wouldn’t have been able to guarantee the protection of such items before they’d be able to get sold, but The Draconic Armoury was internationally recognised as the best, and had more than sufficient security to do so. As such, they were absolutely not loosing out in this deal – even ending up on the better end.

Handing over a storage ring, Lunam and Stella quickly wrapped up the deal. Fergus (the enchanter) promptly emptied the ring’s contents onto the table, both to look over the items’ quality, and to return the storage ring to the girls. Though the space inside the ring was only a few cubic metres in volume, the cost of such an artefact was still exorbitantly high due to it’s rarity and difficulty to produce.

Once he was certain that all the weapons were in good shape, Fergus swept them into his own storage ring, and immediately handed over the inscription pattern design. He also included a detailed hand-written explanation of all the key points to pay attention to while inscribing the array.

It was immediately evident to the two sisters that these were Fergus’ own notes that he’d made when he was teaching his student to inscribe this pattern. These made the instructions clear and easy to understand, and also went beyond what was agreed upon for their trade. It was clear that Fergus was a nice guy underneath his rough persona from the beginning.

Expressing their gratitude, they returned to their room in the inn. Stella and Lunam quickly poured over the notes and the blueprint, and carefully memorised every line that was recorded down. Looking over the inscription pattern, Stella rapidly became daunted by the complexity of the design.

The overall shape was a simple skull and crossbones with a line through it, enclosed in the usual curved border. However, that was where the simplicity stopped. When one took a closer look at the picture, the lines were made up of ancient runes that formed the spell that was the base for the enchantment.

“This looks like it’ll take some time for me to study before I can even start trying to engrave it on an actual core. If I want to thoroughly understand the design, it could take me several years.” Stella commented sadly. Then she continued in a determined voice. “But if I just want to learn the pattern, and the shape and placement of each rune, then it should only take me a few days to start practicing on the actual materials. I should be about done just before our visas run out in 10 days*.”

“Ok, I’ll let Hera know our schedule, and ask her to get in touch with our master.” Lunam nodded her head. She had been underestimating the difficulty of enchanting, but now she had a new appreciation for the profession. “I’ll leave now so I don’t distract you from your studies.”

Hearing her sister’s comments, Stella just grunted – she was already deeply absorbed into studying the principles behind the pattern.

* * *

Meanwhile, Nihil and the others were making their way through a grassland where each blade of grass was more than 1.5 metres tall. Linley was the shortest member of their group and he was only a head taller than this grass. That combined with his green camouflaged outfit, he quickly merged into the plants whenever he bent over. Even his onyx wings and tail seemed to blend into the shadows. His cultivation technique mainly focused on stealth, so it was almost an unconscious effort for him to disappear into the background by now. As a result it was normally quite difficult to notice him, let alone when he was seemingly being swallowed up by the surrounding foliage.

Noticing this, Nihil approached the man and muttered something to him inconspicuously. Thereupon, Linley gradually decreased his presence even further before seeming to vanish from the spot altogether.

Noticing the two’s shifty actions, the rest of the group gave them both questioning looks. However, they quickly realised that something was up when they saw Nihil’s concerned expression. Upon comprehending this, they stopped the questions that were forming on their lips and immediately acted as if nothing had happened.

After travelling with Nihil for this long, they had started getting better at reading the boy’s moods. That being said, this was the first time they had seen him worried. He was usually serious, but no matter the situation he always seemed to give the impression that nothing would ever phase him.

Just then a muffled grunt of pain echoed out from behind them. Turning around to look, the group were surprised to see a huddled figure about a kilometre away. She was bending over in pain – apparently Linley had socked the stalker in the stomach while incapacitating her. Another blow to the neck knocked her out and stopped her struggling.

“She should be out for a few hours now.” Linley calmly informed the rest of the group.

“What’s going on?” Merry demanded at this time.

“She’s been following us for quite a while now. I thought it was a coincidence at first so I didn’t mention it. However, a few minutes ago I felt her killing intent directed toward us, so I decided to talk to Nihil about it.” Ignis explained casually.

“Just what kind of crazy senses do you have? Not even us mysterious beasts noticed anything out of the ordinary.” Klaus replied, shocked. It was well known that mysterious beasts had the strongest senses, closely followed by demons – well, except for dragons that is.

At that moment the same thought flitted across everyone’s mind, but was then quickly dismissed by most of them. They had never heard of a dragon that could take human form – they weren’t the same as mysterious beasts, as a dragon’s power was far too much for a human form to contain. Only one person in the group had heard about a special clan of dragons that were rumoured to be able to shape-shift into any form they wished. However, as a cost of this none of their numbers could use magic. This was especially hard on them because they had to eat highly concentrated fire energy (similar to that of the power of magma). Due to this, they rarely left Tartarus and it’s abundance of volcanoes covering the entire country’s surface.

A flash of surprise flitted through Lucas’s eyes as he thought of this possibility. However, he ultimately decided not to voice his suspicions to the group as he felt that it wasn’t his place to say anything. Besides, he wasn’t certain that Ignis was one of these ‘Fire-Eaters’. Some people were born with uniquely strong characteristics and talents, after all.

As if he knew what Lucas was thinking, Ignis revealed a conflicted expression and shared a look with Nihil. The two seemed to have a silent conversation before smiling and shrugging their shoulders, deciding to leave things as they were.

At this point Linley had finished dragging the stalker over, and tying her up so that she couldn’t cause any more problems.

“Let’s wait here until she wakes up. Then we can question her – we’re still not sure why she was following us.” Linley suggested.

“Nor if she was targeting some of us specifically.” Ignis muttered under his breath remorsefully.

At his words everyone subconsciously looked towards the two boys in concern.

“Well there’s no point in speculating at this point.” Claude spoke up to calm the group down again.

Everyone agreed with Claude and Linley’s logic, so they all settled down and each went about doing their own things to pass the time. Nihil pulled out a book written in an ancient language and started to read it, drawing several shocked and impressed glances – not that he noticed any of these.

Meanwhile, the others split into groups to train, or just to chat. Ignis however, just quietly accompanied Nihil as he read. Nihil could immediately tell that his friend was trying to distance himself from the group again, since it was likely that the woman had been tailing the two fugitives on behalf of either the Royal Guard, or for that place.

Sighing, Nihil simply let his friend act as he wished. After all, they were still separate groups that were just travelling together – it wouldn’t do to get too close to them.

Nihil himself wasn’t sure why exactly he felt that way, but some part of his subconscious deeply rejected letting anyone get too close to him. Ignis was the only one who’d somehow managed to slip past that barrier through sheer persistence.

It was dusk before any changes occurred to the stalker’s condition.

---

* A/N: 10 days = 1 week, 5 weeks = 1 month, 10 months = 1 year

While Stella had been talking to Hera privately, Lunam had spoken to Clark, Paul and Carl about the use of the magical beast cores they’d collected. As expected, none of the three had a problem even if all of them ended up becoming scrap. They also agreed that the rest of the Star and Moon adventurers would share the same opinion on the matter.

“I may know the basics of enchanting, but it’s not like I’ve ever studied it before.” Stella cut into her sister’s thoughts. They were sitting around a small table in their room.

“You have a valid point.” Lunam responded with a vague frown as she tried to think of a solution. “For now at least, I think we should test to see if it’s actually possible for you to complete a functional inscription pattern. This will only require basic knowledge, and then we can try to find a more experienced enchanter to teach you the specific pattern we want.”

“That’s true.” Stella replied. She’d been so concentrated on the outcome, that she’d forgotten to worry about the process to get there.

Tentatively choosing a lower quality core, Stella cleared her mind of all the distracting thoughts drifting through. For lack of a more specialised tool, she grabbed her operating stylus in order to engrave the basic Energy Focussing Array. This stylus was made of orichalcum which could help draw out the internal energy of cultivators. Stella would often use it when performing highly detailed operations.

Orichalcum was vital for a cultivator to emit their internal energy, normally Stella would use special gloves with a thin plate of the metal covering her palms. This helped her to draw out a large amount of her internal energy, allowing her to manipulate it to heal her patient.

Stella tested to see if this stylus would mark the core, and when a line appeared her face lit up in celebration. Quickly composing herself, she continued with the carving. The next stage was to see if the healing technique could stir the energy inside the core enough to allow the completed diagram to activate.

After an hour of difficult engraving, a complicated pattern slowly emerged on the palm-sized core. As with all patterns, the centre of the the inscription was framed with a curled border. The main part of this particular patten consisted of hundreds of strokes to make up the form of a swirling vortex.

This pattern was the most basic starter inscription as it didn’t matter too much about the placement of each individual stroke. Only the number of strokes and the overall shape mattered in this design. With more advanced patterns, if even a single line was fraction of a millimetre off then the entire enchantment would fail to activate.

The Energy Focussing Array that Stella was drawing, would gather external energy to increase the density in the surroundings and was beneficial to developing a mage’s power. This change would also help to focus a cultivator’s mind, helping them to bolster their internal energy at a slightly faster rate. However, it’s help to both types of cultors was negligible at best. After all, this wasn’t even a grade 10 (the lowest grade) inscription pattern.

Upon completion, Stella breathed out a sigh of relief. Taking a few minutes to stretch out her stiff muscles, she finally looked up at her sister. A nervous smile flitted across Stella’s lips, as she tried not to think about the possibility of the enchantment failing.

“I don’t think I can bring myself to try it out.” Stella spoke to her sister weakly. She was knackered after expending so much mental energy, and would have to spend some time recovering before being able to activate the array, let alone carving another inscription.

Without saying anything, Lunam just nodded at her sister’s words and picked up the gem. Inserting her mental energy into the core, she sensed the presence of the enchantment array and sought to activate it.

With the influx of mental energy, the inscription started gathering the world’s energy around them. Soon, the amount increased enough for the still air in their room to start swirling into a helix around the two sisters.

Cutting off the link to the pattern, the wind soon died down and the two girls were left staring at each other in excitement.

“It worked!” Stella shouted happily, grabbing her sister’s hands.

The two quickly packed away the tools and started discussing what sort of enchantment they wanted to inscribe for their teacher.

“I was thinking of some sort of defensive enchantment.” Lunam mused. “She has a bad habit of forgetting to worry about her safety. But I think that any defence formation we could engrave wouldn’t have much of an effect for someone of her level …”

“That’s true …” Stella agreed with her sister. “It would also have to be a passive enchantment, so we’d have to store a lot of energy inside the formation. Only a high level core would be able to withstand that kind of energy.”

“So which formations are easier to convert to a passive status?”

“Well, most low level defences normally start out as passive. The stronger shield-type defences that have to block magic or physical attacks, have to be active, though.” Stella seemed to have a higher base knowledge of formations than her older sister.

An active enchantment was an inscription that required a constant influx of mental energy in order to sustain the effects of the formation. However, once a passive enchantment was completed, it’s effects would constantly be present until the energy stored inside was used up. The quality of the base material was the predominant factor that affected how much energy an enchantment could store.

“How about a poison resistance enchantment?” Stella suggested. “That way, even a low-quality formation could potentially save her life.”

“That’s perfect!” Lunam’s eyes lit up at her younger sister’s idea. “Now we need to find an enchanter who would be willing to teach us just such a formation.”

“Yeah that’s not gonna be easy, though. Formation blueprints are an enchanter’s life.” Stella replied dejectedly. “Even grade 10 ones.”

“We won’t know until we try.” Lunam pointed out optimistically.

Stella reluctantly followed her sister out onto the capital’s busy streets. The two headed towards the centre of the city to find one of the larger enchanted equipment stores. Since they had access to more (and better quality) formation blueprints, they were generally less protective over the lower grade formations. As long as one had enough money, or an object that could tempt an enchanter enough, a copy of the original blueprint could usually be bought.

The reason Stella was pessimistic about their chances, was because neither she nor her sister had much money on them. Due to the Sun and Moon adventurers being such a large party, a lot of the money they earned would go towards daily expenses such as food and lodging.

“Stella,” Lunam started as they were making their way through the busy streets. “What do you think it is about Nihil that makes everyone instinctually abrasive towards him?”

She knew that Nihil was a touchy subject for Stella, but Lunam was genuinely curious as to what her sister’s opinion on this would be.

“Ugh …” Stella wasn’t expecting her sister to bring that guy up all of a sudden. “I’m not sure why I even react so strongly against him. If I calmly think about our exchanges, it’s clearly always me provoking him while he remains the same as ever. If there’s anyone who rises to my provocations, it always seems to be Ignis, and yet I’m perfectly normal around him.”

Not even Stella could explain her own behaviour. Whenever she was around Nihil, it was almost like a red haze covered her vision and made her act obnoxiously.

“Well, it’s usually pretty amusing at least.” Lunam commented, suppressing a small laugh.

“Why did you suddenly bring him up now, though?” Stella asked her sister in confusion.

“There’s something about him that has been bothering me ever since we first met in the inn.” Lunam started explaining. “Even just a brief glance at him across a crowded room was enough to rub me the wrong way. I thought I’d ask you while you’re calm because he isn’t nearby.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Stella replied grudgingly. “But why would you invite him to join our party if he bugged you?”

“Hmm … I’m not really sure …” Lunam mused. “I guess that despite him pissing me off, I also got the feeling that there was more to him than it seems on the surface?”

“Really? I don’t think he’s as complicated as all that.” Stella commented.

“Well, I will admit that he certainly doesn’t help himself. Even if he has a face that pisses people off, he could be friendlier to help people get past that.” Lunam shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “He gives me the impression that he’s actively trying to keep people at a distance.”

“You have a point … I’ve also got that feeling from him before.” Stella agreed. “There have been a few exchanges where I’ve felt that his response was originally going to be different, but in he end he decided to go for the more abrasive option. That’s part of what pisses me of so much about him.”

“I wonder how he and Ignis became such good friends.” Lunam muttered. “They seem to be polar opposites, and yet they’re a perfect team.”

“They grew up together, so I guess they naturally ended up growing close.” Stella wasn’t too interested in such a story.

“Really? Somehow I have a hard time believing that.” Lunam questioned. “They look to be similar ages, but there’s something about Ignis’ implicit trust in Nihil that makes me think he’s much younger. Also, I’ve often caught Nihil looking at Ignis with a sort of ‘fatherly’ pride when he thinks no one is watching.”

“Huh? That’s creepy.” Stella said thoughtlessly. “How old would that make him? There’s no way that’s possible. I’ve heard of people looking younger than their actual age, but that kind of gap is just gross.”

“If a person trains to a high enough level, they can look whatever age they feel like looking.” Lunam pointed out.

“But those two clearly have low cultivations. Their auras were only at the 6th repetition, and they’re already past the age where they could have reached the ‘Expert’ level. They’re clearly just ordinary people who pissed off the wrong guys.”

“And yet they’ve managed to keep up with our pace without slowing the group down at all.” Lunam commented pointedly. “If anything, we’ve actually sped up since they joined us.”

Stumped for words, Stella realised that her sister had brought up a very good point. She hadn’t really thought about it since she could move that speed with ease, but it was certainly true that normal people would require a horse for long distance travel in order to keep up with the group.

“It’s not surprising that they’ve kept secrets from us – we’ve only just met, after all.” Lunam spoke up, seeing her stumped sister. “It’s not like we’ve told them about our own circumstances.”

“That’s true …” Stella agreed.

If she had been around Nihil when Lunam had pointed this out, Stella would have overreacted and kicked up a massive fuss, demanding to know the truth. From this, it was evident that Nihil’s aura affected her behaviour more than she cared to admit.

“Maybe he’s not entirely useless …” Stella muttered.

Unknowingly, Stella’s feelings towards the unsociable guy had improved somewhat. However, it still remained to be seen if this improvement would actually help the two get along better, or not.

Hearing her sister’s comment, Lunam smiled in amusement. Stella was never straightforward about her feelings, and Lunam always found it interesting to watch.

“Hey, you’re thinking something rude about me, aren’t you?” Stella demanded when she saw her sister’s teasing smile.

At Stella’s remark, Lunam just let out an even bigger smile in response.

“Let’s have a late lunch before heading to find an enchanter.” Stella eventually changed to subject in mild annoyance.

It was always impossible to deal with Lunam at times like these.

* * *

At this point, Nihil was finally starting to get along with the adventurers.

“As usual, your cooking is top notch.” Linley sighed, even his onyx tail was gently swaying indicating his satisfaction.

At Linley’s words, several enthusiastic grunts of assent echoed throughout the group while they continued stuffing their faces with the the stew and bread that Nihil had prepared.

“Speaking of the food, how come this bread seems so fresh?” Lucas asked curiously. “It’s even still warm, like it’s straight from the oven.”

Glancing at Ignis, Nihil decided to reveal at least this much.

“The truth is that I have a void ring.” Nihil replied, twisting the emerald ring on his finger. Void ring was another name for a void-space ring, and was often more commonly used.

Naturally everyone’s eyes were drawn to the movement and they noticed the ring for the first time.

“When you say ‘void ring’ you are talking about what I think you are, right?” Merry spoke up in shock.

“The storage ring that can stop even time …” Alexis muttered. “That’s a super high level enchantment, how did you manage to get ahold of one? Not even all the money in the world would be enough to buy it.”

“One of the clients of our merchant caravan was in desperate need of some medicine that only we had. They didn’t have any money, and they thought that this was just a normal ring, so they used it as payment.” Nihil calmly responded. “It wasn’t until later that we figured out the truth, and by then the man was long gone.”

Of course this wasn’t the truth, Ignis and Nihil had snatched this one from the Royal Guard during one of their heists. It was the only one that the entire Kingdom owned, so that was the reason that all the lower ranked Royal Guardsmen were told for why the two boys were being pursued.

Ignis also owned a void ring, but the reason behind that was a bit mysterious as he’d actually had it since birth. Naturally the researchers had taken it from him, but since they hadn’t managed to recognise what it truly was, they hadn’t placed too much importance on it. Thinking that it was just a family heirloom, they hadn’t investigated it too deeply and just kept it away from Ignis. As a result, the two friends had managed to steal it back as they’d been escaping from that place.

“How could someone even make that mistake?” Claude exclaimed, dumbfounded.

“Void-space rings have a slight trick to activate them.” Ignis jumped in to reply. “An untrained eye can easily make the same mistake, but it’s also very easy to check if you do happen to know how.”

“There’s a trick to it? Are they not controlled by mental energy just like other storage rings?” Lucas asked. Since no one present had ever had the chance to use a void-space ring, they were all confused.

“Kinda … you need to circulate your mental energy through it in a particular pattern. It’s also possible to seal the ring to your particular mental signature.” Ignis explained. “When sealed, the only way to overwrite it is with the owner’s death.”

This pattern acted as a sort of key, and the ring had arrays that were effectively the lock. Each ring had a different mental pattern that needed to be activated in order to use the ring, but it was still possible to figure out the correct path.

Since the Royal Guard had needed to pass the void-space storage ring around (with many different people needing to use it) they hadn’t yet sealed it to a particular signature. As such, it was a simple matter for Nihil to use and imprint his own signature upon it. If no permanent owner was designated, then every time the user wanted to put something in or take anything out, they would have to unlock the ring again.

This was annoying so countries would usually have a designated owner who would then travel around with the ring under heavy guard. However, their most recent owner had just died and they hadn’t yet designated a new soldier to claim the ring. Ignis and Nihil had taken full advantage of this opportunity.

After a while, the group packed up their lunch and continued on their way, quickly leaving the small woodland. It wasn’t long before they got attacked again, but the enemies this time weren’t anything they couldn’t handle easily.

Ignis suddenly sensed something and glanced behind him with a small frown of concern flitting across his features. Leaning towards Nihil, the red-haired boy whispered something into his friend’s ear, and a similarly concerned look flashed through his golden eyes. Quickly composing himself, Nihil told Ignis not to worry, and the two reintegrated themselves into the group.

Claude was the only one to notice this exchange between the two boys, but he decided to leave it be. He figured that if it was anything they needed to know, then Nihil would tell them sooner or later. He was already feeling guilty for pushing the boys to tell him some of Nihil’s secrets.

Naturally Claude was aware that he wasn’t told everything, however he was perfectly fine with the outcome. He could also tell that Nihil had only revealed his true form in order to distract Claude from questioning Ignis about his secrets as well. After all, while Nihil’s tail was questionable, he could have played that off as being a fox type Mysterious Beast. However, it was unknown which species could happily eat fire – especially a flame that dense and powerful.

Truthfully Claude was extremely curious, but he didn’t want to risk their tentative friendship over something which didn’t really involve him. Moreover, he had faith that if it ever did concern him, then either Nihil or Ignis would promptly tell him.

“Hurry up Claude, you’re starting to lag behind!” Archer shouted, turning back to check on his friend. At this point, Claude was already over half a kilometre away. Shocked out of his thoughts, he hurried to catch up to the group.

However, no one had noticed the shadowy figure swiftly approaching, hidden by the tall grass underfoot.