The first sign of calamity was the necromancer cultivator with pure speed that evaded Rhyn’s attacks, the two adept rankers blitzing around each other, metal clashing with loud shrieks as Elyria diced the dead guards into pieces, watching as their rotten flesh began to decompose rapidly on the ground, Sorin and Shiro stepping in to corner the adept of undeath. Elyria was a blur as well, her silver orbs reacting at breakneck speed, saving her from the all too potent venom-laced blades of the adept who looked more like a sickly person than a healthy cultivator.
Rhyn had managed to avoid the cuts of the blade, Elyria snapping him up with heavy liquid metal balls that caught his feet, holding him on a spot long enough for Sorin to decapitate him, the body toppling to the ground. She had only gotten a few seconds of reprieve when another presence landed within their midst, pure terror running through their bodies as they realized who it was. Elyria’s first thought was to retreat as fast as she could, whipping out her silver orbs into tiny sharp projectiles that shot at the cultivator in front of them.
A lord.
What cruel jokes were the heavens playing on them?, her blade and metal arm gleamed as she shot into the air watching as Rhyn and the rest did their best to push themselves away from the lord. He was injured, torn bandages hanging in strips around his body, an entire arm gone, and his face a mess with a hole in his chest that luckily missed his heart and was healing rapidly thanks to the nature of his concept.
All that didn’t matter when she saw the inscriptions that rapidly appeared on his body and peel away, firing for them, raw speed and Ethra powering them. Her silver armor did nothing against the soul-based attack. It hit with the fury of burning fire and with the malevolent taint of undeath, her insides alight with burning agony as she slammed into the ground, body spasming. The rest were all the same, save for Rhyn, who somehow maintained his standing, blade firmly gripped in his hands as his eyes were bloodshot, tears of blood welling up in them as he coughed crimson phlegm.
The lord nodded.
“Rhyn Verdan, Scion of Verdan, one of the prime targets, impressive” the lord croaked.
Elyria could feel the presence of Lady Lirien above her, she waited, hoping the lord would come to their rescue, and yet, she flew away without so much as a technique to buy them time, realization dawning on her.
This was revenge.
It would have been hilarious had it not been for the situation she found herself, struggling as she pitted her entire cultivation into healing her body, just enough to have her run, to get out of the way of this lord’s mission. She didn’t matter, none of them did, Shiro and Sorin, only Rhyn, and if the lady Lirien wouldn’t step in, then it wasn’t her place to do so. Agony ran rampant within her as she dragged her flesh hand to her mouth, biting down on her void ring, opening it up, and swallowing a healing pill just away from the gaze of the lord as pain wracked her.
Feeling its effects in her body as it numbed her pain, she swallowed another pill, this one a personal mixture of hers she had taken from back home, something she had needed a long time ago. She felt her nerves die out, her body numbing itself to any and all forms of stimulation, she could get stabbed and not feel a thing, perfect for the situation she found herself in.
Watching as the lord raised his single left arm, red inscriptions writing themselves to life on them, Rhyn exploded with aura as he shot forwards, a blur that clashed with the lord who fended him off with one arm coated with red and green aura. He was playing with him, playing with his prey, Elyria got to her feet and shouted at Rhyn to retreat, Shiro and Sorin, joining him in battle as she stared on in mute horror.
The lord laughed, a most cruel thing as his entire body blazed with aura, taking them down as easily as one did a kid. Elyria cursed again for what felt like the tenth time that day, this wasn’t the plan, not in the least. She was supposed to be an adept of the technocracy by now, on her way to obtaining a second affinity, one that would see her cement her position not as a child of Silvershade but as an artificer in the training of one of the factions of the guild.
Raising her blade as she gathered metal Ethra, she swung it, willing it to cut through the lord, it was wishful thinking, but someone a long time ago had told her that willpower was something to be feared the higher cultivators advanced, and only wishful thinking could get them out of this mess. As if practiced, Rhyn, Sorin, and Shiro jumped out of the way of the silver-lined attack, the lord taking it to the side of his arm as it bit into him, a snarl coming from his throat, surprise etched all over his face.
Suddenly, she was his attention, not Rhyn with his blurringly fast blade, not Shiro with his staff that rode the wind with raw force, or even Sorin with her two short blades imbued with aura. Those, he slammed aside with a burst of his Ethra-infused inscriptions that had them wracking on the ground, blood pouring from their eyes. Soul-based attacks that also inflicted bodily damage were bad news, cultivators like that usually belonged to powerful families and sects, not unorthodox groups like the revenants.
They watched him gather a sphere of Ethra, aura, and inscriptions in his left hand, Elyria taking a deep breath as her heart stilled, her metal arm gleaming, becoming rusty brown, her Ethra cycling within her body even as the lord stopped short, his body still leaking black blood from puncture wounds that refused to heal, courtesy of the merciless spear.
He nodded at her as if approving.
“Finally, a true cultivator” he croaked.
She spared him no response, taking a stance as both her hands gripped her blade, raising it high while drawing it closer to her chest. For the first time in a long while, Elyria heard a voice in her head, her voice, the voice of the person she had crossed the boundless seas and ran far from to carve her own path from.
“Raise your shear child.”
The lord cocked his head at her.
“That brings back memories, a child of Silvershade.” he said.
Elyria took a deep breath, rust metal, and silver metal Ethra beginning to fuse, running up and down the length of the blade.
“You prepare to cut down the chaff, to cleanse the crops.”
“They are nothing but unwanted weed.”
The lord burned brighter.
“I would have my revenge for what your people did to me at the grove” he snarled before hurling the projection attack.
It painted the area around her red, drawing on the Ethra in the air as well to add to its power, a devastating attack that would at least crack her soul or in the worst case, turn her into a shattered mess of incoherent pain, an end to her cultivation path, an end to her life as she knew it.
She couldn’t allow that.
“So, what are you waiting for?” the soft yet lethal voice asked.
Time slowed for her, not in reality, but in that moment, every second feeling like an eternity, a never-ending loop of cause and effect. Elyria gathered everything she had within her, her Ethra, her aura, even that little piece of power she had been nurturing for her advancement, realizing there would be no advancement if she didn’t live to revel in it.
Her blade burned with silver flames, the power licking its edges as her aura and Ethra drank it in, a pang of regret flowing through her as she felt what had taken her a year to gather flow into that technique she wove to perfection. She saw the lord’s astonished and alarmed look at that moment, taking as much joy as she could from the bitterness that filled her heart.
She added them to the technique as well, allowing it to temper her will and resolve at that moment. Again, she felt weak, and yet she held on till the voice whispered again.
“Cut them down”
She swung the blade down in a straight line, blistering silver-laced projection technique tearing through the air in front of her. It split the curse projection technique of the lord in two, unraveling it like paper thrown into water, slamming into the lord who hastily put up an aura projection field. It cut into him like a hot blade through fat, the lord screaming in agony as he fell to his knees, attack embedded within his body like shards of metal.
Elyria fell to her knees, weak, powerless, empty. Watching as Rhyn stabbed straight into the heart of the lord, Sorin stabbing her blade into his shoulders, and unleashing her aura, Shiro puncturing his chest with his staff. In that moment, she thought it over, she could lie down and pretend to be dead while the battle glazed over, her senses already failing her. She felt her body grow cold as the lord’s left hand snapped out, grabbing Shiro by the neck, the adept’s eyes bulging in shock and terror, watching as he snapped it.
Terror filled her body, Shiro’s dead form falling to the ground as Rhyn abandoned his blade in fear, scrambling back.
“he’s undeath.” she thought to herself.
They should have taken his head; they had missed their one chance at killing a lord and now he would make them pay for it. His left hand shot out, aiming for Rhyn as Sorin placed herself between him and the lord. She paid for it in an explosion of blood as he punched her heart out of her chest, her body dropping to the ground in a mess.
He got to his feet, body leaking black blood like a tap, pulling out the weapons lodged within his body as he took a step forward.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“you’d dare!” he growled, blood pouring from him.
Rhyn gathered jade Ethra only to have the lord step on his hands, hard. Elyria could hear the bones shatter as he screamed, another kick to his ribs that shattered as well raising him in the air. An orb of red aura seized him, cocooning him as his mouth opened in wordless agony, his body wracked with untold pain.
Elyria could do nothing, simply watching, waiting for her turn as he glanced at her.
“Oh no, you don’t die here.” he said in a sickly-sweet voice.
Her eyes went to the bodies of the two adepts she had spent time with, Shiro, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, Sorin leaking blood all over the ground.
“You will accompany me to Necropolis, your skin will be flayed for writing leather, your bones crushed and used in making pills for me, and yet, you will live” he continued with a forced chuckle.
“Your soul forever imprisoned within the walls of my abode, relieving this moment for eternity” he finished with a sigh.
Elyria felt hot tears leak down her face, wishing that something, someone, anyone could come and end her. She had been a failure back where she came from, running to start afresh, and now, she was a failure once again. Her heart refused to cycle Ethra, her body caught up in pure terror as her mind refused to work, she felt like a prey within the jaws of a predator, consigned to her death.
The lord didn’t see it coming, like a wraith coming out of the shadows, a form manifested, punching his aura-coated arm through the chest of the lord as if in a cruel joke of revenge.
“We can’t have that can we?, I owe her” a voice she couldn’t be happier to hear said.
The lord glanced down at the hand whose fingers poked out of his chest, as if unwilling to tear out his heart just yet. The lord’s head twisted 180 degrees, Elyria feeling bile rise up her chest.
“I hate it when you revenants do that,” Thorne said, a bloody smile on his face.
“You,” the lord said, as if recognizing him.
Thorne nodded.
“Yes, me, now, would you be so kind as to point out where that male accomplice of you is?, hmm?” he asked calmly.
He must have clenched his heart as the lord dropped Rhyn who had passed out, frothing at the mouth. It would take an insane amount of healing sessions with a powerful rejuvenator to reverse the damages done to him, assuming the clan survived anyway.
“Sabri, wasn’t it?, a weird name for a man” Thorne added as he winked at her.
Her dulled senses failed to reveal to her in time that Thorne was now a lord, a revenant lord, his skin lined with black veins, emancipated muscles now healthy and bristling with aura. He raised the lord higher.
“Highlady Sabri!” he screamed out loud.
Thorne frowned.
“That can’t be right, I know who killed my captain, who made me this.” he said, gesturing to himself.
“Highlady, morph, face skin, Highlady!” he kept screaming as pain wracked his form.
Elyria couldn’t deny she felt a sick savage sense of enjoyment watching his features contort in agony, she wished it could go on forever. Thorne watched the lord point to the skies, where Rowan Verdan and the Highlady fought.
That was Sabri?.
Thorne seemed to mull on it for a moment before nodding.
“Perhaps,” he said.
Then he turned his attention to the lord and promptly tore his heart out, the body dropping to the ground, bandages floating away, revealing a scarred pale white flesh. He glanced down at the missing hole in his chest, blinking as if unbelieving of what he saw, and then at Thorne who grabbed his skull.
“g-ghoul k-I” was all the lord said before Thorne crushed his skull as easily as breaking congealed sand.
The body fell to the ground, green spectral aura and Ethra limbs appearing from Thorne’s body to grab the dead form of the lord, the body shrinking, liquifying before being absorbed into Thorne who sighed in relish, closing his eyes and opening it back to glance at her. For the first time, he seemed to really take her in, glancing at the unconscious form of Rhyn before wincing.
“How the mighty have fallen,” he said.
Glancing back at Elyria, he walked close to her, scooping her prone form as she seemed to recoil a little, her limbs suddenly gaining purpose as he dropped her steady on her feet, Elyria taking a deep breath.
“Why?’ she asked, her voice hoarse as a whisper.
Thorne frowned.
“a thank you would be better” he replied.
She was standing in front of a lord, one with black veins all leading to his chest where his heart lay, a mark, almost akin to being branded, a black skull crowned with twisted thorns. She stared at it, almost enraptured before shaking her head, dragging herself from its eerie gaze that seemed to stare at her.
“they’ll never take you back,” she said again as he flinched.
“You know that, right?’ she asked.
Thorne shrugged.
“As long as I get to kill Sabri, I could care less,” he said.
“no” she refuted.
“You do care.” she said, a wind carrying the smell of blood and burnt flesh filling the air.
Thorne said nothing as he stared at her, black and red irises boring into her eyes.
“where’s Tunde?” he asked.
“Away, edge of the wastelands” she replied.
He nodded, exhaling as he spoke.
“Hide Elyria” he started.
“When this is over, get out of here, make your way to the technocracy” he continued.
A sad smile on his face.
“I wish we parted in better terms” he completed as he flew in the air, raised on aura that spirited him away at top speed.
Elyria watched him go, high into the skies and into the titanic battle of highlords going up above her. Then she vomited, hurling her guts onto the ground, shaking as she fell back to her rear, shuddering slightly. She wiped her mouth, realizing her silver liquid orbs were nothing but smears on the ground, her metal arm now corrupted with rust Ethra, releasing it and watching it fall off, leaving her with a stump in its place.
She got to her feet, staring at the bodies of Shiro and Sorin, a pang of regret and pain welling up in her chest as she walked over to Rhyn, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him to a corner where a building had fallen, pushing him into an opening. He would be safe there; it was the best she could do for him. She glanced down at the broken cell, making her way into it quietly before stopping abruptly on the stairs, staring at the skeletons that lay on the ground and their robes.
She had seen this particular technique before, she knew who did it even though some part of her struggled to find an excuse as to why he did it but came up with none. Staring at the bones of Thalas, she turned and made her way out of the dungeon, heading in a direction she was unsure of, but as long as it took her away from here, Elyria was fine with it.
*****************************
Tunde went through a bunch of emotions within the moments he lay on the ground. Rage, frustration, helplessness, they all came crashing down on him as he stared into the blue eyes of the artificer who tsked.
“Should have guessed even that abomination and your teacher wouldn’t be enough to kill you,” Borus said.
“a homunculus, who would have guessed, and one of the keepers again!” he exclaimed as he crouched above Tunde, tapping the manacle on his hand.
“The fang of Alana,” Borus said, almost as if in reverence as the relic began to glow, jolts of power running up his arm.
Alana, the pathmaker
A word in his tongue, a tongue discarded for the common language of Adamath, something taught to him by his mother. He locked eyes with the artificer who stared back at him, drawing his gaze away from the relic.
“I see Shadowfang served you well,” he said, rising to his feet.
Tunde found his limbs beginning to respond to him as he maintained his posture, a sense of calm coming on him. Now was not the time to grieve for what he had lost, he would have time for that later, right now though, there was someone else he had to deal with.
“I must apologize,” Borus said, walking over to where the broken pieces of Shadowfang lay.
“It was never my intention to give you such a flawed weapon, and to call it a soulbound weapon as well, it taints my reputation as an artificer”
“But some things must be done to nudge things in a certain direction, and it appears I wasn’t the only one it seems,” Borus said with a chuckle.
“The keepers, the technocracy, even the revenants, although I must say I doubt they realize what sort of prize walks beneath their gaze,” he said.
“It’s a pity though, at least they’d get jade peak city as they wanted, a shame your friend was there, Elyria, was it?” he asked.
Tunde swallowed as he fought the urge to get up, bringing up his Ark screen that looked different. Where it was once a blue screen with gold writings, in its place was a black screen and gold writings.
Name: Tunde Dark Fist
Stage: Adept [peak-tier]
Ethra Heart: lord [early-tier]
Essence Flame: Cosmic [ember]
Tempering Art: Void forged
Tempering Stage: Lord [early-tier]
Aura Stage: Lord [early-tier]
Battle Art: Flowing fists (Early)
Concept: None
Ethra Affinities:
* Cosmic Ethra
Attributes:
* Strength- 100
* Agility- 100
* Constitution- 100
TECHNIQUES
Imbuement: Void strike [tier 4]
Projection:
* Void spheres [tier 4]
* Void discs [tier 4]
Dominion: null
Special Technique:
* Void touch [tier 4]
* Ethra sight [tier 4]
A lot of changes had happened that shocked him, and in a pleasant manner he had to admit. He was peak-tier adept, his heart though, had advanced to lord rank, explaining the violent rush of Ethra that circulated within him. And then something known as an essence flame, his mind going back to the black flames he had so painfully forged from the golden fires of Joran. He swallowed at the memory, rage within him.
His tempering stage had advanced to lord rank, even if his body hadn’t, the same went for his aura as well, his battle art now carrying an early tier. Normally, Tunde would feel a cause for elation, he had done it, technically. He was on the precipice of lord rank, his attributes all at peak level, an affinity he resonated it, not sure how or why he felt that way though, even his techniques had advanced as well. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he readied himself.
“But have faith that I will unlock secrets so ancient, that the crimes done against your people will be avenged” Borus continued, oblivious to Tunde who began to slowly get to his feet, quietly, almost like a wraith.
“But for that to happen, you must- “Borus said, glancing at Tunde who was on his feet, swaying lightly.
“die” he completed.
Tunde took a deep breath.
“No,” he said.
“No?” Borus asked.
Tunde raised his manacled hand.
“This doesn’t belong to you” he said.
Borus laughed.
“You think it belongs to you?” he asked incredulously.
“I had the relic before you stepped your filthy feet on Bloodfire” he continued.
“You think it appeared by luck within that pit?, I watched as they dropped you and your filthy kinsmen off, I subtly guided you all to the pit, I only needed one of you alive, you were nothing, a null, with no affinity, nothing!”
Tunde should be raging, wanting to tear the elder apart piece by piece, and yet, he felt nothing. It was like his anger was being drained somewhere else. He stared at the artificer.
“Your people couldn’t even be buried in your domain for fear of unraveling the illusions of the weavers, how the mighty seekers have fallen, reduced to one single failure of a Scion, you should be glad I’m about to reveal your secrets to the world”
Tunde cracked his neck as he took a deep breath.
“I am Tunde, of the dark fist” he started.
“What are you doing?” Borus asked.
“Child of the seekers, of Luwaye”
“You wouldn’t even know who that was if I hadn’t told you” Borus snorted as his form began to glow.
Highlord's aura was what exuded from the artificer, blue fire licking the metal that began to armor his body. His eyes glowed as his metallic arm burned with plasma Ethra, still, Tunde continued as he too began to release a midnight starry aura, void spheres forming behind him along with void discs.
“Rightful wielder of the fang of Alana,” he said.
The relic glowed, taking shape right in his hand as it became an axe, the exact replica of Shadowfang, the shards of the actual weapon on the ground glowing too as they flew to him, merging with the axe in his hand. He looked like a cloaked dark figure, aura and Ethra flowing around him as he tapped into his affinity.
Cosmic affinity.
“I will give my people rest even in death” Tunde said.
He pointed the axe at the artificer, black flames bursting to life over its head as the artificer’s eyes widened.
“And it begins with your death” he completed.