ARTHUR OLVASEN

The cacophony of thunderclaps arrived a second after the Lorentz Contraction—contraction of objects in the periphery—left my sight due to the speed at which I was travelling. My overwhelmed senses—from the mixed colours of everything in conjunction with the little lighting—returned back to normal as I blinked a few times.

A few seconds of utter silence passed before something exploded… no, landed right by my side. A tremor coursed through the entirety of the road that had now caved in to my left side. Looking from the corner of my eye, I saw Michael, a huge scowl over his face as his eyes glowed eerily.

The sound of army and police vehicles was still there, but everyone seemed to be going towards the Frontier. The place from where the shimmer was expanding.

"What escaped from the Frontier?" Michael asked, his arcanum taking an almost tangible form around him, and hissed against my own. However, his aura was like an agitated, hungry beast, ready to pounce on its prey at a moment's notice.

"Beats me." I replied, just as unsure as him. We had personal differences, yes, however, if we kept them at this moment, it can result in both of us dying. Our arcanum reserves were really low, compared to even middle class monsters in Eden.

Or that is what makes logical sense according to Dotun's calculations of years of famine of ambient Arcanum and our body getting used to it.

And if a higher grade threat had escaped from there and we are busy in personal scuffles, we both might die. Thankfully, despite being simple minded, Michael could understand our current predicament and merely nodded in response to my answer.

"And it's messing with Arcane Arts as well, yeah?" He confirmed without looking at me. "Ah fuck! Without proper intel or location, there's only so much we could do." He clenched his teeth. "Only so many people we can save."

It was quite surprising. Thinking deeply over it, there was a high chance we could die here as well. However, he was still thinking about others. And exactly because he doesn't seem like this kind of person, hearing him say all of this makes it all so unbelievable.

"We don't have to save everyone." I replied, voicing my thoughts. "Our primary objective should be to mitigate the bigger threat. Sacrifices are always necessary."

Just from the way his Arcanum blistered like a volcano bubble popping, I could tell how agitated he was. But he stayed silent.

"It's messing with the magnetic field." I tried to change the topic. "That's why it's quite hard to pinpoint it."

"We don't have enough time though. We can't just jump into the Frontier and leave the threat that has escaped alive." Michael retorted, his frustration boiling over as he kicked a lamp pole. Its foundations juddered before getting uprooted as it went flying into the nearby car, causing it to create a sudden, systematic start of every car beeping. "Oh fuck me!"

Ignoring him who was letting out frustrated breaths and gnashing his teeth, I tried to focus on locating it..

My—The Olvasens' Arcane Arts revolved around Magnetic and Electric fields.

Electromagnetism, in a simpler and much more familiar context.

The Arcane Arts that allowed the users to detect, follow, and with enough training manipulate them. However, everyone in the Olvasens was born somewhere on a wide spectrum.

The Arcane Art was related to electromagnetism, but it didn't allow one to use all of its applications. Just like how my father—Aksel Olvasen—could only use electrical fields. As an external application. My mother's arcane arts is much more complex, since internal application of our Arcane Arts is always intricate. Multifaceted.

Back to the main topic at hand. Whatever had escaped the Frontier was my natural enemy. It was interfering with the magnetic field I was using to detect anything out of the ordinary. Well, it was not interfering perse, however, it's method of communication was via waves. Almost the same frequency as my pseudo SONAR.

Letting out a deep breath, I turned on my heel and faced Michael. "Cover me for a moment. I will try once again." I spoke and then closed one of my eyes, keeping the other open. Waiting. Waiting for whatever he was about to say.

"Haven't you tried that already?"

"Do we have a choice?"

He licked his upper lip and then shook his head a few times, as if talking to himself in his mind. His intentions were quite clear. "Fine. But I will give you 5 minutes. After that I am leaving to find it myself and then head to the Frontier." He spoke, his tone impatient. "And do not expect me to save you. I am not your little clingy girl."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I don't think there was a need to bring up Astrid here… whatever. "Fair enough."

Not wasting any more time, I closed my other eye as well and focused my mind. The already palpable layer of Arcanum around me got snuffed out like a candle and I absorbed it inwards.

Focusing on the inside, the Arcanum—like molten gold being poured in a mould—was flowing like blood through my veins, accelerating and decelerating according to need across the various nodes spread throughout my body.

With concentration honed over years of practice and suffering—events I had more of a muscle memory rather than recollection—I grabbed a hold of my Arcanum.

Like a balloon inside another balloon, as the inner one automatically expands the other one—upon blowing inside it—as I took hold of Arcanum, it took a hold of senses in return and expanded it outwards.

Every sense. I could make use of it in an extremely enhanced way. Despite closing my eyes, and trying my best to bar away any foreign sound, I could hear everything in the vicinity. See everything. Feel it. With an almost uncomfortable clarity.

The sound of my nails biting into my palm and grazing against the skin as my concentration strengthened, the tread design of Michael's sole as it scraped against the asphalt, the sound of wind coming from the northeast, the clamour of soldiers marching, the clatter of tanks as they went over a speed bump, Astrid's heel clipping, the wafting smell of the Pajeon we were eating and had dropped to the ground due to the abrupt change in circumstances…

Useless.

These are not what I was trying to find or discern. As the overload of information flooded my mind, a strained shiver ran through my head and then down into my body.

Focus! I reminded myself. Pain was not a new concept to me. This much was nothing. Perhaps I might be gritting my teeth, but the concentration in maintaining the hyperacute perception made me unable to focus on anything else.

My senses expanded like a dome, outwards, more and more. And the more it did, the more I felt like I was losing my grasp on my body, the strain on the continuously fraying ends of my nerves serving as the only reminder - tether back to my normal self.

As the dome of my enhanced perception increased from the street where I was and the one adjacent to it, it expanded more, engulfing blocks after blocks.

A thin tremor ran through my heart, the reserves of Arcanum taking a hit. It was the first time it was happening. After all, I had never needed to conduct a search this big before. It felt like my heart was being cooked in lukewarm water.

Not that I had any experience in this… thing, but if I had to put this feeling in words, this was the only way I could explain it.

Extrapolating the naturally existing magnetic field, I grabbed a hold of them and made whatever metallic object I could find oscillate, creating sound waves of different frequencies.

As they clashed and rebounded, I could make much more sense of objects, their shapes, density and composition. Needless to say, however, even ultrasounds could only do so much.

Materials like concrete and metal often distributed it, making it almost useless.

The nerve in my temple stretched, making me wince and disrupt my concentration. At the same time my senses shrank back into my body as my hold over the spell broke free.

As my senses retracted, I felt like an ant amidst the towering skyscrapers and other buildings, the previous feeling of omniscience as I could register everything and felt above everything slowly ebbing away, robbing me of the high I had obtained while using the Arcane Art.

"Anything?"

"It's not working. It's camouflaged." I shook my head. Annoyance was something rare to experience. Perhaps it was because of the lack of competition.

However, I could feel mild irritation slowly creep into me. Like a snake, coiling around the leg. Scratching the back of my head, I ruffled my hair.

"Keep finding, I will break into a building or two." Michael spoke and then jumped into a building in front of us. Kicking into the glass window, he went inside the building, followed by frightened screams of some people.

Seems like there were still people hiding in their homes. Or perhaps packing to leave?

It doesn't matter.

Turning around, I sprinted. Astrid would still be quite some distance away from the entrance to the Frontier. I have to get rid of this thing that has escaped as soon as I can before moving onwards. Logically speaking, I should be inside the Frontier. But from what I can tell, the thing communicates using some special frequency of a wave.

The shimmer overhead seems like a timer. As soon as it fully breaks, the Frontier would no longer stay a Frontier but would become a permanent part of our world.

If it's in the city while its kin is inside, it can coordinate with them and bring harm to Astrid who would be sealing their free ticket into our world.

I can't let that happen. Not yet.

Spiralling down a vortex of self-doubt, I lost track of where I was going for a moment. And then something clicked.

I was thinking too hard. Or rather I was too fixated on getting the intricate details. Up until this point it was trying to communicate with its kin which was still inside the Frontier.

That attempt at communication was hampering my ability to pinpoint it in a localised area.

What I didn't consider was that by a method of elimination, I could narrow down the location to a few blocks by selecting only those areas which clashed with my spell.

Coming to a screeching halt as my feet dug into the road, I closed my eyes once again. However, this time, instead of disabling my Arcanum outside, I let it roam free.

Like a tsunami flooding the streets, some of it poured out of me and some of it took a hold of my senses and expanded it once again.

The almighty feeling returned once again as I felt one with the source of my power.

Ever expanding. The shrill screech of the shimmer made me almost break my concentration and return back. Almost as if it was moaning, crying… in protest.

Strange.

As I was contemplating it, my concentration was drawn towards something more… important, for the current moment at least. Like a small oculus, a few floors of a tower were completely shutting out each and every frequency of the wave that my body was emitting. A tall building with a huge… antenna on its top.

That's it!

My senses returned immediately as I took my phone out. Typing in Michael's number from pure memory and wishing it was correct, I called him.

One ring… second…

Come on, come on.

「WHAT?」

He screamed into the phone.

「I found it.」