“We are in quite a bind,” Ewan muttered, peeking down the roof ledge. The glowing crowd of fiery-white eyes stared at them from under the veil of night, surrounding the building they were on. Trapped on an island ringed by hungry sharks who eyed them, this was quite a fresh experience, a hint of excitement sneaked behind his apprehension.
“How do we leave?” Nana whispered, standing beside him, her hands painted in dried blood, dried tears marking her cheeks.
Ewan panned his eyes around, there were some other buildings in the area, and at the same height. But the distance in between was too great to cover in a simple jump, more so if he had to carry one person with him. His Ryvia wasn’t strong enough to support him through either. And the memory of the strain and the backlash was too fresh to force it. Luckily, it just resulted in sprained spirit last time and some popped veins, nothing too serious. A persisting throbbing headache was his only punishment for it, and a healthy and breathing Nana was his reward.
“If we get trapped on that….” Ewan checked from the rest of the ledges. The buildings in the vicinity had intact entrances. If the wolves were smart enough, they could trap the two on them and climb the stairs. “Let’s not jump over recklessly.”
Their current situation was a stalemate, they couldn’t run but the wolves couldn’t reach them either. And the longer it sustained, the more the status quo would lean in Ewan’s favor. His ‘Spirit’ would soon peak and break through to the fourth awakening, it was only a matter of a day. Not an overwhelming advantage but it would give them an edge for sure. It would be better to stay on this building for now.
“I’m hungry, cook me something,” Ewan said, turning to Nana.
“Now? They’ll smell it,” she whispered.
Ewan snickered, baring his fangs with malice. “Yeah. I’m betting on that,” he said. They trapped him up here, a little payback torture was owed.
……
Under the starry sky, Ewan ogled the sizzling pieces of marinated chicken thigh in the pan, its aroma making his mouth water. His stomach grumbled, and he gulped.
“How much longer?” he asked.
“Almost done,” Nana said, taking out the dishware from her tear-shaped pendant and pouring in the salad she made on the side. She poked the searing thighs for a moment then put them to the side to rest and switched off the stove.
“You’re better than me,” Ewan said, looking at her cook with ease. Her hands looked practiced.
“Mum taught me.” She smiled.
“I still remember her food. Pa tried to copy and failed so many times.” Ewan chuckled. “He always made me taste them; they were horrible.”
The alpha wolf bayed, and the rest of his pack cried with him. The silence of the starry night shattered.
“What was that? Are they attacking?” Nana asked, looking around warily, clutching the knife with a piece of onion stuck on it.
“No,” he said, his lips curling into a sneer. “It’s a threat. The smell of food agitated them.”
“How’d you know?” she asked, still grasping the knife handle.
“Instinct,” Ewan said. “Can't explain.”
She bobbed her head and loosened her grip.
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“Let’s eat, I can't wait anymore,” he said.
……
The saffron barrier was barely visible against the canvas of the night sky, the twinkling stars blurring it even more. Ewan sat cross legged, his stomach satiated, craning up at the cage. Nana curled up in the quilt beside him, her breaths slow and steady, and her eyes scuttled under the lids—must be a thrilling dream. Even the wolves had calmed down and only a few glowing orbs still stared at them. The songs of the nocturnal insects echoed and kept the stillness of the night, the peace returned.
What basis did this barrier work on? How much energy did it cost? How could it support its structure and still defend against the attacks? Ewan’s mind churned. Studying the cage was a necessity if he wanted to get out of this mess. But it was too stable and tranquil. He had to make it react to see the changes, the more violent the better.
So, he hurled a pebble at it and readied his
The pebble struck it and bounced off, the part where it hit flashed a deep saffron then dulled again. Ewan squinted. Hexagonal nodes had appeared in the area, connected to each other. Finally, he had a lead to work with. He took out his diary and pen and started experimenting.
Pebbles rained on the cage through the night, some scratching it, some smacking it hard, their feeble ripples powerless against the grand barrier. But the small reactions they produced filled Ewan’s diary with speculations, theories, and conclusions—some with dead ends, while some fruitful.
The core of the cage was the nodes, it was a decentralized barrier. His hypothesis branched off from this inference. He couldn’t calculate the energy needed to maintain such a barrier but saw some success in approximating the energy required to destroy it. Its connected structure allowed it to share the damage with the neighboring nodes if the attacking energy exceeded a single node’s capacity. Half a meter nodes covered this massive colony, so they must number in millions. If Ewan wanted to destroy this cage, he had to attack with enough energy to destroy the whole thing at once…
He inhaled and exhaled a deep breath; the result worsened his headache. He had to find a way to reduce the energy needed, a change in approach was vital. The nodes must take defensive measures against outside attacks, it would spike the power required to demolish it even further. What if it wasn’t an attack then? What if he changed the method?
His mind went to his spell
“You didn’t sleep?” Nana asked, rubbing her sleepy eyes, and fixing her bed hair. Ewan looked at her then at the sky; it had grayed, the sun’s arc loomed at the horizon.
“I was studying the cage,” he said, shutting his diary, rubbing his forehead, and massaging the temples.
“Did you find anything? Can we break out?”
“No, we can't even dent it.”
Her face fell and her shoulders slouched. “Will we be okay….”
Ewan smiled. “We can't dent it, but I found a way to destroy it.” He asserted the word ‘we’. “I’m going to sell that method and its preventive measure to the Crown and buy our tickets out.”
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Status: Healthy
Step-0 [3rd Awakening]
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 1.4
Spirit: 6.8
Anima: [Fire – 6.8 | Ice – 6.8 | Blood – 6.8]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-0 [3rd Awakening]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-0 [Level-3] [Grade-C]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-0 [Level-4] [Grade-C]
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Blood Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-3] [Grade-C]
Equipment: Common Clothes.
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Anima-Crystals; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 192
Crelith: 4984