*PSHHHT*

With blood splashing on the ground, a body fell down in the rubbles with a gaping hole where its heart was supposed to be.

A frown on his face, the killer looked rather displeased.

'That's all?'

Leaving it with a feeling of disappointment, he left the corpse where it was, and exited the area.

-

Earlier this morning.

Orion left Horizon without telling anyone. As everyone was asleep, he took the chance to sneak out of the house by warping.

Minutes later, he was standing in a patch of grass near Croates.

'Alright, let's finish this quickly, and return home early.'

Stretching his body lightly, he stepped forward, before disappearing.

His destination was Ryghs, a city in the south-west ruled over by the Apostle named Neon Ultis.

The real question now would be, 'Why did Orion changed his plans to go with his companions, and instead went alone?'

The day before helped him make up his mind. Before it would be too late, he would give more of his time to everyone.

While the quickest solution was the most effective, it would also be the most dangerous.

But Orion was not about to throw his life away. He trusted his own abilities and the efforts he poured in his own body.

So with his usual cautiousness, he traveled to Ryghs. On the way, he noticed a few corrupted beasts that he quickly disposed off as a warm up.

As he moved rather early in the morning for once, he arrived at the city just when the sun peaked through the horizon.

Orion observed carefully his surrounding, and noticed how deplorable it was.

Ryghs was shell of its former past. It was to wonder how it was still standing.

There was nothing interesting, nothing worthwhile. No shops, no citizens, no army, nothing.

The only thing that had light in this ghost town was a manor at its center. All other houses had no signs of life.

'What could have happened? It doesn't look recent either.'

That was Orion's first experience with this place.

While carefully entering the broken down gate of Ryghs, he walked through the snow packed empty streets, and observed the unattended houses that had massive cobwebs inside.

'How many years does it takes for a house to end up in this state?'

Trudging with caution in the snow, he took a convoluted path to avoid having his footprints being noticed.

Everywhere he looked, it was the same. A forsaken city with no residents.

It made it easier for him to be unnoticed, but he couldn't shake off that feeling of weirdness. Just the day before, he went to visit Triazils most bustling cities, and today, he was in this one.

Only one single soul lived in this city, and it was Neon Ultis.

It was time. The sun had risen higher, lighting the snow.

Orion walked up to the manor, and noticed only one room with lights on. He opened the front door as if he was thief, making sure it made no noise.

With light steps, he moved in the dilapidated corridors, his hands in his pockets. For some reason, he felt quite confident at this point.

As he approached the only lighted room, he stopped in front of the door. He heard someone moving frantically inside.

'I've been found out, huh?'

He smiled and opened the door, cancelling his ability to sneak around.

The moment the door opened, Orion dodged a number of knives made of water by taking a step back.

Looking at the knives stuck in the door, he thought.

'Don't tell me that's all? What is this? An Apostle at this level?'

"Stay back!"

An old man with a weird mustache and what seemed to be a wig was looking at Orion with a high-and-mighty gaze.

"You! I recognize you! You were at the Apostles' meeting."

"Yes, and?"

Orion grabbed one of the water knives and inspected it.

'It's even worse than Amelia's first time using water. I don't understand what is happening.'

The knife had bubbles inside it, meaning that its power itself was lacking.

Elements have a simple rule, the purest the form, the strongest it was. That was the distinction between the strong and the weak magic users.

Though, you still needed to work on other aspects if you were expected to fight.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Just to be sure, Orion threw it back at the old man.

"Neon Ultis, if I'm not mistaken. Though, this is rather disappointing."

The dagger went past the man, cutting a part of his left cheek as it went by and pierced the wall behind him.

He looked around the room. It was maybe the most normal room he seen so far. It wasn't as broken down as the rest of the house.

There was a beautiful red carpet at his feet, a red cushioned chair where Neon was seemingly sitting at before Orion arrived, the walls were painted with an impeccable white, and the furnitures looked quite expensive.

But, that was it. The old man in front of him was still a weaklings, against his own expectations.

"Disappointing? You mean me?"

Neon touched his bleeding cheek and wiped it off on his chest, soiling his white shirt with red.

"How could I not? I was at least expecting someone powerful holding the title of Apostle, but you seem to be one of the weakest. I don't remember you looking so weak from my memories."

"And I remember quite well."

He picked up another knife from the door, not showing any signs of moving further in.

"Tch! Mind you own business, half-breed."

Orion twitched at this sudden insult, but returned to normal quickly.

"I guess it's fair, I've been insulting you until now too. Though..."

This time, Orion threw the knife in his right forearm.

"I rather don't like being described as that."

"Gah!"

The blade pierced his flesh. Neon grabbed his arm in pain, and glared at Orion.

"It's your own magic, for crying out loud. At least cancel it before it hits you."

In exasperation, Orion sighed and moved his left hand in front of his eyes.

'What am I even doing here? Even Senia could beat this guy at this state.'

'The worst is, it doesn't even seem to be hiding something.'

Remembering the old man's previous answer, something might have happened to him.

Orion warped to him and placed his hand on his shoulder.

'!'

He quickly warped back to his the entrance of the room.

"What did you do?! What was that?!"

With a shrug, Orion let his magic out.

"Nothing really. I just confirmed something, and it was rather troubling."

"Tell me. How did you manage to free yourself of corruption?"

The old man twitched and looked away with a very displeased expression.

"Like I said, mind your own business."

Alcyone appeared in Orion's hands.

"You can talk to me now and buy some time for yourself, or die immediately. I don't mind missing on details if I can kill you."

With fear in his eyes, Neon looked at Orion.

"So it was true, you really are hunting us down."

Orion nodded, before adding more to the man's despair.

"I've already killed more than half of your ranks."

'I wasn't alone, but he doesn't need to know that.'

"Impossible!"

The man ignored his wound, and shouted at Orion.

"Believe it or not, I don't care. Are you going to talk, or do I pierce you now?"

"Kh..."

In front of the crossbow pointed at him, Neon remained still, weighting his choices.

"I've been thrown away! The corruption itself left my body right after returning from the meeting! When I returned, the residents had left, my soldiers all died in front of me at the meeting because of that berserk state..."

"All because you were there! If you had not showed yourself, they wouldn't have died! I don't know who told my people what had happened, or where they even went, but I've remained alone since then!"

"Without the corruption, my magic began to deteriorate, and that's where we are! Now let me be! Or what, are you going to-"

*Click*

Orion fired without any hesitation. In his eyes, this man was still an Apostle. If the chance to recover his power came in front of him, Neon would most likely take it again, and bring more destruction around him.

The bolt pierced Neon's chest, destroyed the walls behind him, flew outside, and went as far as to get stuck on another house a few hundred meters away.

Neon coughed blood out of his mouth, and stared at Orion, before looking at the hole in his chest.

His knees wobbled, and he feels backward, falling on the pile of bricks.

Until the light in his eyes vanished, Orion quietly glared. Neon glared at him back, until he couldn't no more.

'Another Apostle down.'

He frowned while looking at the corpse of his enemy.

'If you hadn't insulted me, maybe I could have considered sparing your life. But this world doesn't need people like you.'

A loud cracking sound echoed around him, signaling him that it was time to leave.

Confirming one last time that Neon wasn't going to revive as a corrupted being, Orion looked down.

'Disappointing.'

With that last thought, he warped back to Horizon, never to set foot in this place again.

A few minutes after he had left, the manor Neon resided in crumbled to pieces, burying to old man forever.

~

"I can't believe you!"

"She's right this time, how could you go without even telling us anything?"

When he returned, he had to tell them about his change of plan, and as expected, they weren't very happy about it.

The only one who didn't care was Stella, sitting on his lap in the living room.

"Say what you want, it wasn't even worth your time. That old man was the weakest."

He said with a smile as he caressed the little girl's hair.

"That doesn't excuse you going off somewhere without telling us."

Amelia was the least happy about this whole thing. She felt like Orion had no more need for her.

"At least tell us why you've done that."

Karteira was calmer at first glance, but quite irritated inside.

"I wanted it to be done quickly."

"Why?"

Stella looked at him from below and asked.

"Because I wanted to be home with everyone today."

With a gentle smile, he continued caressing Stella's hair.

Amelia and Karteira blinked a few times, questioning his sudden change of mentality.

"Weren't you the one always moving here and there doing stuff because there was not enough time?"

He looked at Amelia, and nodded.

"Yes, but you've said it yourself. There is not much time left."

"We have about two weeks left. There is no need for me to try getting stronger, since it will most likely backfire at one point. I will not be able to focus at all anyway."

"So, I'll do the bare minimum. Instead, I'll just enjoy the remaining days with you."

They both noticed a detail that made them angry and sad at the same time.

"You've given up? Is this what you're telling us?"

Karteira clenched her fist in anger.

"..."

Orion chose to remain silent.

"When I told you that there wasn't enough time, I never asked you to give up!"

Amelia felt that it was her fault. Tears began to roll on her cheeks, as she stared at Orion in frustration.

"I know, but there's nothing I can do. I can struggle all I want, I haven't gotten closer to my parents level. I am not strong enough, and two weeks is way too short to bridge the gap between Elliott and me."

"Why aren't you sealing the space? Can't we pass a year in Horizon and barely have any changes in Triazils?"

Karteira looked at Amelia and quickly went through the calculation.

"One year in Horizon is like fifteen days on the continent, right? We still have more than two weeks before Elliott returns, isn't that perfect?"

"I can't."

Orion broke his silence, and looked down.

"Why?!"

He sighed and looked straight inside Amelia's pearl eyes.

"Because I can't control it anymore. The moment the Elemental Shrine came to exist, I've lost control over Horizon's time dilation ability."

A long silence fell in the living room, as both Amelia and Karteira understood why Orion was slowly giving up.

They sat next to him, and looked at the ceiling.

"Then..."

"There's really nothing we can do anymore?"

"..."

Orion really didn't like this either. He had not given up completely, as he was still going to confront one the greatest threat of Triazils, but he wasn't convinced either that he could win.

It would require the greatest of miracles to change the outcome of this battle, and those only came once every blue moon.

Just when he was feeling greatly displeased about his feelings, a memory resurfaced, having absolutely no link to his current situation.

-

"First, the arachnea disappeared around here. The current Apostle and his ancestors have either forgotten about them, or think they have killed them all."

-

Kamala's words on Ryghs.

'The arachnea?'

Orion grabbed Stella by the waist, and stood up. He placed her where he was sitting, between Amelia and Karteira.

"Where are you going?"

With a nod, Orion made up is mind once again.

"Do you want to go and find the arachnea while we're at it?"

Both opened their mouth in surprise, while Stella tilted her head.

"Arachnea?"