Falling…

Falling once again into this endless abyss below me…

The ever present feeling of the presence below me that wished to consume me, and the abyssal power guarding me while it tries…

My mind always feels hazy whenever I am here, and I don’t recall much when I am here… Wherever HERE is

I hear a voice calling for me from far away, never able to quite make out what it is saying.

This time is different, I can feel the desperation in the voice. What is it saying?

[Lu-i-n!] The voice is getting closer, I can hear more of it!

[Luc-an!!] It’s getting louder, too loud!

[LUCIAN!!!] I grabbed my head in pain as the voice booms inside of it.

Wait, I heard it! It said my name! The voice… Is it coming from inside me? I remember now! The first dream of this place, the power inside of me trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t understand it, and it was getting frustrated by our language barrier!

I don’t know how to respond to it. This doesn’t feel like Selene’s mental magic.

[You can finally hear me?] The voice said, surprised at it working now.

I couldn’t speak in this voice, or move much at all. All I could do was barely nod my head.

[There’s no time to establish a mind link. I know you have a lot of questions, but they will have to wait! You need to form your mana care as soon as possible, rely on my power to help you! When you form the core, focus on forming the core where you built the reservoir near my power in your body. Focus on protecting the rest of your body as best as you can, and I will absorb as much of the damage as I can. I know it’s risky to you, but you HAVE to trust me on this. There is not enough time as it is!]

The connection to this dream was fading… I needed to know who or what it was. Is the Lady of the Abyss speaking to me, or is this some kind of remnant clone or something?

[Next time! We can talk when we have more time! Remember, you need to form the mana core as soon as possible to train more and learn my power!]

Plunged into the darkness, now I felt I was being grabbed by a powerful force and fished out of the darkness into a bright and blinding light.

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Awaking into an unfamiliar room, I shot up in bed huffing like I have never taken a breath in my life. Scanning the room, I did not see anything, but something was wrong. Someone was in here with me.

I channeled mana to both of my hands, prepared to dual-cast the Tier 1 Wind spell, Lone Squall, aiming to blast the entire room around me in a violent wind to find the invisible watcher. However, when trying to cast the spell, the ambient was silent to finish it. No, it was better to say the ambient was frozen.

The Fae! Of course they would have anti-elemental magic, they have fought against humans and elves before!

“SELENE! Someone is here, and I think they are tryingto attack me! Where are you?” I used as much force as I could to send the message as far of a range as I could, hoping to catch her.

There was no response, and I needed to act upon my instincts, legal issues were to be dealt with later. Causing a political storm is much preferable to dying to some invisible assassination. Think, what can I do?

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If I can not use elemental magic to find them, then it would need to be the riskier approach. Pretending I jumped out of bed to stretch, I calmly but quickly put on my black leather set from Selene for extra protection, and acted as calm and casual as I could.

I stood in front of the large mirror in the room, and started to brush my hair to look as presentable as I could, just like a normal guest would in a foreign land. Keeping an eye on the mirror, and realizing how much I came to rely on magic and ambient mana for my detection skills now, I felt weakened heavily. It has become a crutch, I will need to work on that issue later.

No noise, no visuals, but my instincts said they were approaching. I have been to many battlefields, trained to my limit daily, personally slayed countless monsters and people. An assassin will not be the one to end my life.

Trusting my instincts and body’s reflexes, I let it take the reins and when I felt a sharp object start to slice against my neck, I pivoted my head and neck to the opposite direction of blades incoming direction, and ducked to avoid the slice. Barely.

The attacker was still invisible, but it was the same to assume it was a Fae. I would have to work on rough guesses of the height and size based on the angle of the blade swing. I have always been at a disadvantage in this world in regards to size, and I have grown accustomed to it.

I channeled mana into my right fist before the attacker has the chance to get out of reach, and instead of casting a spell, I planted my left foot to close the gap between us, and used it to strengthen the swing of my punch towards the attacker’s position, aiming for the torso and hoping for a critical strike on an organ.

My punch landed on a thin but toned abdomen with a loud whud as it made contact, the mana reinforced punch did wonders to strengthen my small body’s blow, and I had an idea as well.

I controlled the mana in my fist directly, and ordered it to explode out of my fist, and it did exactly that. What was a solid blow, became a deadly one if it struck a critical point. When my mana exploded against the target I felt the attacker get the wind knocked out of them and flew back onto the ground, the invisibility fading as the blow had damaged what appeared to be a cloak on them.

It was not over yet!

Rushing forward as the attacker attempted to get up while catching their breath, I jumped on top of them and started swinging rapid mana infused fists into their face, one after another blood splattering with each punch.

I swung, and swung, and swung until the attacker had long ceased trying to move, and there was no longer an attempt to breathe. My fists are bloody, and I am once again covered in the blood of another. The face was heavily disfigured from the stream of blows, and I looked to see the dagger the Fae had sliced my neck with. It was an intricate and ornate dagger with a black metal handle, and a long silver blade with a thin thick black coating on the edges.

Shit!

I quickly search the Fae’s body for the dagger sheath, and see it is a thick black liquid inside that matches the blade. Poison! Searching the Fae’s body once again, there was no antidote or item of any kind. Nothing that would mark him as of a certain faction, or identity at all… The most dangerous type of assassin… One where failures means not returning entirely.

Testing if I could use magic once again after killing the assassin by lighting a small flame of mana on my finger, I quickly infuse mana throughout my body and cast spell after spell, destroying the room, windows, and the door with earth magic to make the biggest noise.

Looking into the mirror from the side of my view, I can see black veins spreading from where the slice is. Fast acting poison, and dizziness was starting to set in.

I could not trust the Fae to get me to safety, not after this so I stayed in the place that Selene expected me to be, and whoever ordered this assassination would expect me to either be dead in, or gone from.

Looking out the now destroyed windows, I could see Fae on the ground outside looking at the damages and noise I was making and a patrol of Fae guards and the Lord Wrath looking to my window, and Lord Wrath losing his temper and ordering the guards to follow him as he rushed into the tower and assumedly was coming to me.

The black veins were spreading quickly, and what was just a little above the slice, was now almost to my jaw line. I was focusing on staying awake, not letting the dizziness overtake me.

My strength began to leave me, and I collapsed to the ground on my back. Realizing that this was likely my end, all I could do was bitterly laugh at this situation. The absurdity of this life was almost unbelievable. Five years old and I have killed three different races now in defense of myself and parents.

I couldn’t save my parents, the twins, the townspeople who were always kind to me. My promises were not going fulfilled, and I will die fighting as Callum, and not being a better person.

The fucking irony of this is hilarious. Liam had my humor down perfectly. I let out another laugh, this time at the absurdity and irony of my deaths.

Callum’s life was one of conflict, and I followed my orders exactly and lived for the fighting. I died then trying to pursue peace at the end. This life as Lucian, I pursued a life of peace, and was involved in constant conflict. Five years old and I have already killed six people of three different races! I pursued to live a life of peace, and I will die embracing conflict to not let the invasion of my hometown happen again.

“SELENE! I killed the assassin, but they had a poison dagger that sliced my neck and I can feel its effect trying to make me lose consciousness.” I used all the mana my body could to push this message as far as I could, realizing now that Selene couldn’t hear me earlier due to the anti-magic of this Fae…

“I AM COMING, LUCIAN!” I heard Selene do in hazy vision, as Lord Wrath and his guards ran into the room and saw the dead Fae and me on my back. The anger on Lord Wrath’s face when he saw the dagger had poison and the black veins on my neck would make a Divine’s hatred look like a temper tantrum of a child.

“Luce, you need to stay strong! We can get the cure for this, you just need to stay with us!” Lord Wrath picked me up and was trying to keep me awake.

Selene’s portal had appeared in the room, much larger than normal. What came through was not the Selene I had known however, but a large black and purple lion like creature, with large leathery wings, and a scorpion’s tail.

The creature I could only assume was another form of Selene saw me in Lord Wrath’s arms and the black veins on my neck, and unleashed an aura that covered the room in power. It reminded me of the pressure Selene had used on me as a warning on our first meeting, but many, many times stronger.

This time, however, the pressure did not affect me, as if Selene was protecting me. The last thing I heard before blacking out was a voice so cold and angry that was nothing close to the kind and gentle Selene I had spoken to before.

“WHO DARED TO LAY A HAND ON MY PARTNER?!”