Restraint
”Enza, go help with the rescue. Don’t forget to show yourself.” Frein stood at his floating Shinemoon Scabbard. Floating might not be the right term now that he thought about it. The word gave the impression of movement, however slow. Even the word hover meant the object bobbed slightly up or down.
The meiyal-charged material was spatially affixed in place, uninfluenced by any external factors, be they wind or other forces. Sturdy as a floor, or ground.
“Roger that,” Enza replied, appearing as she dove down to the battlefield over the Great Sea Dividyr.
While they were closer to Atlas Sid compared to the others fighting at sea, Frein didn’t exactly have the time nor the leisure to personally make his reports, nor would he risk his yuma to do it on her own amongst the giant rocs still attempting to break past Katherine.
Sending her to assist the people below was the safer, more practical option. Until, of course, Katherine showed up to tell him why Kristel’s group was having trouble in the first place.
“It’s a Deep Nightmare,” she said while she briefly appeared beside him, sending a wave of her complex Sandai-Katastro-Diferenfra before flying away again. It invoked a feeling of apprehension in Frein, almost forcing him to call Enza back. But he stopped himself, believing that the yuma would be capable enough to make her own decisions. Instead, he focused on Katherine’s Meiyal Art.
There was nothing artistic about the Art’s name. In fact, it wasn’t even a true combination of Arts, like how Mesiffera was a combination of an observation Meiyal Art and Siffera. The Lady of the Void was simply unleashing a multitude of devastating, high-level Arts simultaneously.
“Are you sure? I don’t feel its influence,” Frein shouted as he unleashed a Meteoric Lightning towards the Cloud-Nesting Roc leader. It responded by combining its hovering blades in front of it as defensive shields. The clash of meiyal reverberated throughout the skies. “What Deep Nightmare is it?”
“It’s called a Da’bloop,” Katherine yelled back. “Its influence travels specifically on water. We’re not in its range at all.”
“Excuse me?” Frein confirmed, unable to believe his Siffera-enhanced hearing. Maybe something went wrong. How could a Deep Nightmare possess such a ridiculous name? Who, in this literally godforsaken world, came up with such a name?
“We’re safe up here, Frein.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t understand, Kat! Why would someone name a Deep Nightmare Da’bloop?” he asked as soon as he Ribbon Blinked and Sword Stepped away from the roc leader’s bladed retaliation.
“No idea,” Katherine replied. She took a lungful of air and unleashed another wave of massive sword slashes, which erupted in flames as soon as they made contact with the rocs. “Maybe it’s the smile. Whoever named it had a weird sense of humor.”
The smile?
That only piqued Frein’s curiosity by tenfold. He wanted to take a look at the Deep Nightmare and find out what it looked like, or understand whether it was Abyssal or Chaotic in nature. But most importantly, he wanted to know why someone would give it such a ridiculous name. Anything possessing a weird name like that, and still thriving under the intimidating classification of a Deep Nightmare, was interesting beyond anything else.
“Maybe it’s so scary that they gave it a name to help fight the fear,” Elizzel said. “I don’t know what it looks like either, but we should take care of this one quickly so we can kill that Deep Nightmare. Whatever it is, you should eat its core.”
“Not everything’s a power up, Eli,” Frein said.
“This one is.”
He sighed. “Kat, we can take care of these. You go help them out.”
Katherine agreed. Her final barrage of Meiyal Arts had finally convinced most of the rocs to flee back to their cloudbark. Those stubborn enough had joined their leader. Six rocs and one leader, that was it.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” she said as she pushed off the air, plummeting straight to the commotion below.
Before Frein could even say anything, three of the six rocs zipped through the air, their gigantic beaks aimed straight towards him.
“Nidai Song of Aya: Meteoric Lightning!”
The Nidai-level Art was the culmination of Frein’s hasty training. He had been proud of it—and had hidden it as a trump card to impress Katherine—right up until the point when the Lady of the Void had unleashed a Sandai-level Meiyal Art combo and had repeatedly colored the skies with a fiery sun.
Now the Nidai-level Meteoric Lightning seemed to have lost its purpose, but definitely not its effectiveness. In one fell swoop, mixed with the blinding flash of darkness and the burning surge of electricity, the three rocs fell past Frein, smoking as they fell utterly lifeless towards the sea. He began to wonder how they would retrieve such bounties through all the chaos if these carcasses all ended up sinking into the ocean, but he didn’t really have time to consider an answer.
The roc leader had equipped its lesser goons’ tails, wings, and beaks with its sharp, meiyal blades by showering them with its down. They cawed, trying to intimidate him, but he simply responded by flexing his Fulgurblade.
It was an odd feeling, flexing the meiyal-charged material. Intuitive as it was, it still felt jarring trying to treat something external like it was his own muscle. But the blade responded with vigor, surging with black, white, and red lightning. The thunderclaps that followed silenced the mob in front of him.
“Back off,” he said quietly, relying on his Siffera to echo his voice strong enough for the rocs to hear. He made sure the Art did not resonate any of his malice in order to avoid spooking the beasts any further. “You know how this ends.”
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While he could not speak with the rocs, Frein still relied on their instincts. If he could prove to be infallible to their eyes, they might choose survival over hunger. Not only would that conserve a lot of his meiyal, he could also help with the Deep Nightmare sooner.
The moment that followed was accompanied only by the crackles of lightning and the flapping of wings. The longer the standstill, the more Frein risked. He couldn’t take his eyes off the mob, so he had to rely on his enhanced awareness to track any stray enemies trying to flank from his blind spots.
Just then, something moved within his range. A drift, cutting through the clouds closest to him. It was obviously another roc. While it diminished his chances of convincing these predatory birds to back away, he could still make use of them as—to put it bluntly—practice.
He would’ve preferred to test and improve his skills without stepping into life or death situations. But alas, this world wasn’t as peaceful or as whole as Earth, no matter how much more fantastical and better it was, compared to it.
The sneaking roc moved closer at the same moment the roc leader moved in front of its goons. With the way they were coordinating, he could tell the option to resolve this peacefully was futile. But Frein wasn’t one to give up so easily.
In response to the leader’s movement, Frein lifted up his sword, pointing the tip at the leader and purposefully leaving his backside open.
As expected, the sneaking roc took advantage of it and propelled through the air like a missile, pointing its beak directly at him. At the same time, the rocs in front of him lunged as well, intentionally delaying their attacks a breath later. And lastly, the roc leader prepared to unleash the largest concentration of bladed feathers.
It was a well coordinated combination, intended to prevent Frein from recovering once he dodged the sneak attack. But these rocs missed two things. First, the roc leader held his attack in order to avoid killing its own goons. Second, while they compensated for the fact that their target might be cautious about a sneak attack, they didn’t know that Frein knew exactly where it would be coming from.
Frein, in one single motion, ordered his Shinemoon Scabbard to slightly drift backwards and reached out a free hand to grab the first roc by its wing. It was massive, too large for his fingers to completely curl around. But it was no different than when he had held the giant weapons of Nightmares that had tried to kill him. He yanked the wing hard in the complete opposite direction, taking advantage of the roc’s momentum. The wing cracked, crunched, and snapped in a single instant.
The roc cawed and retaliated, but Frein followed up by slamming it against the other two. He connected with their heads, but he was careful enough to make sure the one in his hands didn’t get stabbed by their bladed beaks.
The impact was enough to daze the captured roc, causing it to dangle helplessly and cry in pain. Frein silenced it by placing the Fulgurblade on top of its neck.
He didn’t like what he was doing, and he projected that disdain towards the roc leader. In his heart, he believed these creatures still valued their lives and their comrades. Even a dog would know if they were getting scolded. Even a snake would know when to back away. Predators, no matter how proud they might be, had a limit. And they have sacrificed enough. There would be no feast for them today—no doubt they would settle for lesser bounty—but at least the flock would survive.
This time, there were no more tricks. The roc leader dispelled its bladed feathers, including those attached to the other two, and reverted back to its bird form. It cawed once, and Frein understood exactly what it meant.
He wasn’t willing to let go of the one in his hands just yet. Not without one final test. He began to Draw.
“Are you crazy?” Elizzel asked as the pattern of a closing wound was projected into reality by eight-meiyal. “What if they attack you again.”
“Then I will kill them without mercy,” Frein replied simply, focusing on Samesia. It was much harder than he thought, mainly because of the size he was trying to heal. His Emerald Guidance worked overtime and it cost him more eight-meiyal than he estimated. Less than half of his initial reserves remained.
The Art fatigue was also unexpected. It wasn’t quite there yet, but the strain in his meiyal system made themselves known. Frein didn’t let up.
The Meiyal Art manifested completely and began to heal the roc, bathing its broken wing in yellow brilliance. The other birds cawed, unaware of his intentions, but the one in his hands cawed back, livelier than before.
It took only a few seconds.
Frein released the roc, and as soon as it was free, it and the rest returned to their cloudbark nest without turning back. Except for the leader.
Its bladed feathers had not completely disappeared. Instead, they coalesced into an azure orb. It floated slowly in Frein’s hands, and once he took hold of it, the roc leader cawed once and flew to the rest of its companions. He could’ve imagined it, but it looked like it bowed slightly first before turning away.
“What is this?” Frein asked, turning the orb around his hands. He knew it was a meiyal-charged material, but not what it was called.
“Azure Calm,” Elizzel replied. “That’s weird.”
He agreed. “Why would a creature like that have a meiyal-charged material? And why Azure Calm? There was nothing calm about it at all.”
“Except the last moment.”
“But why would it have one?”
“I can only guess it’s because of the nature of this material. Colors of Power, like Emerald Guidance, are not simple natural meiyal-charged materials. You can imagine them as representation of Brymeia bestowed upon significant parts of her world. They’re difficult to find because of how much attuned to nature these materials are, so, as a result, their requirements to attain one and the reasons behind them are also a mystery.”
“So what does it do?” Frein asked while absorbing the material into his Mind Palace. “Do we integrate right away?”
Elizzel sighed. “I know you want to integrate the same way Katherine does, but she’s more experienced than you are. I can only help you make sure nothing wrong happens, but you’re ultimately the one responsible for speed.”
“We can speed up our time inside the palace, right? Like when we finalized the Tether and integrated with Emerald Guidance.”
“We can, but that takes meiyal. And with a Deep Nightmare involved, every second counts.”
Frein agreed. “Fair enough.”
He turned to observe the battlefield on the sea, figuring out what was going on before making his entrance. It was a Deep Nightmare after all. His arrival might be beneficial, but it could just as easily be the worst detriment to the battle if he entered the fray hastily.
Frein could read four sources of power through his Mesiffera. One was obviously from the Deep Nightmare, but the other three were Katherine, Kristel, and Fill.
He could feel the Aria’s hymn Meiyal Art resonating throughout the battlefield and even reaching him despite his distance. It was invigorating and confidence-boosting. Beat per beat, he could feel his strength bursting forth. It felt like placebo, but the rhythm literally tugged at his meiyal system, that even Elizzel was brimming with power.
The Princess was almost unrecognizable with the output of power she was releasing. Frein couldn’t believe it. She was like a different person. Her conservative nature was gone, or at least, she was trying to ignore that side of her. She unleashed one inflamed, gigantic meiyal blade after another, throwing them like darts on the Da’bloop.
Katherine was playing support and defense, blocking everything the Deep Nightmare was throwing at them. It was all her. Tidal waves, body slams, and blasts of meiyal and Nightmare influence, one after the other, it was the Lady of the Void who deflected them all, saving the Jumpers numerous times.
The Jumpers were doing the best they could, but it was futile, and Xiv was busy swimming around trying to get to all the injured and incapacitated.
This all meant only the Princess was actually inflicting any significant damage to the Nightmare. Despite all her effort, it was taking her all to hold back the Da’bloop, and the Deep Nightmare looked irritated more than anything. Or was it just the smile? Frein could barely see through all the pillars of seawater gushing out from all its flailing.
Not enough.
Frein jumped off his Shinemoon Scabbard, tricking it like a skateboard while he twirled in the air. He caught the hilt by the tip of his toes. With a burst of eight-meiyal Siffera, he kicked it off, shooting the scabbard straight down. It zipped through the sky, piercing through air resistance as it caused a sonic boom.
Frein Sword Stepped a second later.
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