Seven
‘Mission complete. Awaiting further instructions.’ The message read but …
He looked to the head analyst, hoping he could figure out what to do. Another one hundred Messengers were already at the site of the battle, ready for action.
The head analyst took the monocle in his hand and held it to his left eye to read the transference paper. The magic device was a convenience that helped them to read the invisible ink on the transference paper.
“Hmm,” he said. “That was quick. Sacred artists don’t go down easily though. This feels like a trap. Alert team two to send a reconnaissance team — a sub-team of no less than three.” The head analyst looked him dead in the eyes. “And alert the Judge of the new development.”
Seven wanted to curse him to an eternity of suffering in Madru’s vile dungeons. Why did it have to be him going up there again? “Of course, captain,” he saluted and walked towards the table with a stack of transference paper.
The alarm at the front of the control room blared again signifying that another gravisar had been taken out. The head analyst cursed out loud.
If you will frustrate me, Vorthe will frustrate you in turn, he thought to himself, enjoying the captain’s frustration.
Heading upstairs felt like heading to his doom. One never knew how a Judge would react so he had to be extra cautious. He knocked and saluted. “A new development has unfolded, Commander!”
“Enter,” came the booming voice of the Judge.
Seven stepped in and handed him the encrypted message he had received moments ago. The Judge grumbled.
“This team, whoever they are, they’re good. But we have been warring with creatures of the nether realms for thousands of years. Any word from the Judges heading towards them?”
“Not a word, Commander.”
“Have the next company attacked?”
“The captain instructed that we send scouts, with not less than three Messengers.”
“Change of instructions… Attack.”
Seven saluted. “Yes, Commander!” He turned around and marched out of the war room immediately. That went way better than he expected.
~~~
“Are they stupid or what?” Nyx asked. “They do know what sacred artists are capable of, right? Especially those who already took down a hundred of them.”
Jerome gave her a look. The hoofbeats of a hundred horses shook the ground around them as the Messengers circled their group.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“Well, you’re not a sacred arti—”
Her tail smacked him in the back of the head. Jerome glared at her but she huffed and looked away triumphantly. The other ladies tittered around them. If they had seen the tail, they made no mention of it. Or did they know what she was? He looked back at Ms. Tara and Sheela but their laughter only intensified.
“It would have been better for them if they had come at us head-on, but circling?” Nyx clicked her tongue and folded her hands under her bust emphasizing their size. Jerome looked away.
“Well, clearly you don’t know much about barbarian scare tactics,” he said. “They hope to create fear and weaken our morale with the hoofbeats that sound like the drums of death, and the neighing and snorting of their horses.”
Nyx glared at him. He got her there. Serves her right. “Well, ‘clearly’ it’s a stupid tactic.”
She was right there though and he acknowledged it with a nod. Against normal humans, this was a great tactic but sacred artists weren’t easily scared. They had literal psychic powers to sense everything going on around them. And they got over things quite easily due to the fact they could literally calm their hearts, nerves, anxiety, you name it… and focus on one thing.
Killing.
But maybe they’d tried this against other sacred artists and had succeeded. Jerome looked around at the ladies in his team. These weren’t normal sacred artists. Nyx was a freaking mythological creature posing as a sacred artist; she even felt like a Sprout now. Csala was a succubus; even without all the artifacts he gave her, she’d still kick ass. He was pretty sure Achilleia improved Ms. Tara’s physiology when he sent her to Sanctum after the chimera swallowed her whole in Terra Praeta. Sheela’s Midnight Panther abilities made her nigh untouchable. To top it off, they all had a fountain of essence to draw from without exhausting themselves.
The Messengers would never stand a chance against them. They were just too overpowered. Jerome told them his thoughts and they agreed.
“They might not know what it’s like to be sacred artists but they can observe,” Ms. Tara said. “And they would use that information to their advantage.”
“Only they are now dealing with a team that’s… what’s the best word to use there?” Csala said.
“Overkill,” Nyx said. Jerome gave her a knowing smirk and she looked away with a scoff. He grinned.
“I wanted to say overpowered but…” Csala shrugged. “That works too.” She eyed the dragoness warily for a moment before looking away.
“Should we start taking heads or…?” Sheela asked, looking between him and Nyx. She was vibrating in place and trying hard to hide it.
“We wait,” they both said together. Nyx glared at him and he made a face at her. Ms. Tara giggled at both their antics.
“They are tightening the circle,” Csala said, readying her twin blades. They shined with Sword Force and sang with every little movement she made with her wrists. Jerome smiled at her. She was really enjoying using essence.
“Attack!” a deep rumbling voice sounded from among the hundred-man company of Messengers. Jerome would recognize the voice of the giant, axe-wielding Messenger anywhere.
The Messengers rushed them but just as before, they were completely brutalized. Jerome recognized what they were trying to achieve. Or what the Judges, who were their superiors, were trying to achieve. This was a battle of attrition — or to be more specific, they were using ‘Fabian Tactics’, named after the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus, who used this strategy against Hannibal during the Second Punic War.
Not that the Messengers would know who Fabius was. But he could bet there was another company of soldiers waiting for these to perish and take their place. And then another, and another.
It would be a chore to just keep dealing with Messengers though. He wouldn’t want them wasting his time like this. But for now, he concentrated on the battle before him.
“Try not to hit their horses,” he said to the ladies. “They are damned good horses. It would be a waste to kill such beautiful beasts.”
“I would like to learn how to ride a horse,” Ms. Tara said as she sliced through Messenger after Messenger with her claw blades. “They truly are beautiful creatures.”
The Messengers didn’t give her the chance to form a fireball to shoot at them and from the look of things, she was trying to create space as she ran around in circles, bursting through walls of steel and bodies like they weren’t there. Her ring was twinkling like a silvery star as she zoomed around the clearing, a sign she had the diamonds active to give her body their hardness and her blades the sharpness of Sword Force.
Sheela snorted. “I hate horses. Tried to ride one once and it ran away from me. It was a wild one though.”
Jerome noticed that Sheela didn’t bother with stealth this time around and just carved a path of death through the Messengers. As fast as Ms. Tara was, Sheela was faster — and more ruthless. Her agility as a Shifter gave her an advantage normal humans lacked and she used it well to her advantage. Csala on the other hand was having the best time among them all. She threw fireballs at everyone she could reach, howling in excitement whenever she took off a head with a shot. What a target to set for oneself.
“Well, you’re a predator. Of course, it was scared of you,” Ms. Tara replied.
Sheela grumbled over the connection. “Did you have to say it like that?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Ladies,” Jerome called out as he broke out of the wall the Messengers who were trying to form around them. “You know we can all hear you, right?”
He’d had to be careful so as not to destroy the horses. Their riders on the other hand were free game. He started picking them off one at a time.
The battle took more time than the previous one as they were trying not to kill the horses. All the ladies, besides Nyx, were just using the battle to train their skills. There were no real stakes as the Messengers became less of a challenge the more they faced them. But they noticed they weren’t harming the horses and started using them as shields instead.
“You barbaric monsters. Leave the horses out of this!” Sheela shouted.
“I thought you said you hated horses,” Jerome teased.
She sputtered. Ms. Tara laughed.
Nyx didn’t bother fighting after showing the Messengers she was not one they wanted to mess with. She had taken a guy, ripped off his helmet, and peeled his face off his skull. It must have been horrible to watch.
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“Remind me not to mess with you in the future,” Jerome said to her when he saw the result of it after the battle. He hadn’t seen it happen. But he’d heard the man’s screams.
Nyx smirked at him. “Don’t mess with me, then. But I’ll mess with you however I like.”
Jerome raised an eyebrow at that. What had gotten into her? He had no come-back though, so he let her be.
They cleared up the battlefield and gathered the horses — including the horses of the previous company they had massacred. Some were injured during the tussle and Jerome had to heal them. For that reason alone, the horses became comfortable around him. Ms. Tara and Csala took advantage of their proximity to him to pet them. Sheela stayed away, glowering at them. With a little coaxing, he got the horses to settle inside his void space. He gathered up as much grass and plants for them — water too. Which reminded him that they needed to wash up. Again.
“How many horses have you put away now?” Sheela asked. “Are you going to sell them? Oh! You’re going to sell them, aren’t you?”
“Calm down. Yes, I am going to sell them — well, not all of them,” he said. Selling them could net in a lot of gains. But their saddles were made using substandard materials. That wouldn’t be much of a problem though. “I think they’re about three hundred now?”
“That’s a lot.” She looked at him with a calculating gaze.
“And I can see the greed in your eyes.” Jerome gave her a pointed look.
She pouted.
“We’ll have to get to a city first to sell them, don’t you think?”
Sheela perked up again. “Now that I think about it, three hundred isn’t a lot. Let’s wait for the next group of Messengers. We can take their the horses and—”
Jerome dropped his hand on her head, causing her to flinch from the weight of it. “Oh! What a brilliant idea,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “We can also send them back to gather as many riders as they can so we can kill them all and take their horses, hmm?”
“If you say it that way…” She looked away with a pout. “Clearly you see that my idea is sound, right?”
Jerome sighed. What is it with everybody saying ‘clearly’ today? “We best not waste our time here, Sheela. And I’m sure that’s what they’re trying to do.”
“Waste our time until help arrives,” Nyx said. At once, the rest of the ladies caught on. “Help that can really take us on.”
“Gather around,” Jerome said. “I’m going to teleport us closer to the mountain.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Xerae?” Achilleia asked.
“Xerae?” Ms. Tara asked, giving him a questioning look.
“I’ll explain later,” he said. “What is that, Achilleia?”
“This group should have transference papers tucked somewhere too.”
~~~
Rihal
Ash pulled her sword at the sight of the two people who appeared out of nowhere. The forest turned quiet all of a sudden in their presence.
“It’s okay, Ash,” Rihal said, standing up from his meditative position on the floor of their little hut. “They’re with us.”
Ash stood in front of the hut ready to guard him if anyone disturbed his meditation. She put her sword away still eyeing the Sage and Spirit Realm artist. He had no pleasure seeing the latter right now as he hated his guts.
He bowed with his fist to his chest. “Father,” he said before rising and nodding to Idrel.
“Father?” Ash muttered in part shock, part unbelief.
His father looked at her with a smile. “You must be Ash? I’m Ivar, Rihal’s father.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it.
Ash looked between the two of them in shock. He understood her dilemma. Anyone seeing both of them together for the first time always had this reaction. They looked so much alike that they didn’t look like father and son.
“Have you never seen identical twins before?” Idrel taunted. He leered at her and she glared at him. She was about to give a retort but Rihal put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“He’s not worth the effort. Leave it,” he said.
“Now, now,” his father said, diffusing the situation. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Crystal came out of their hut, carrying a wooden bowl of water. “Oh! Uncle Ivar. Uh…” she looked around, nonplussed. “Welcome.”
His father greeted her back and excused her. “May we go in? There’s much to discuss.”
They trooped into the small hut and Crystal joined them later. His father looked around, noticing the divide that split the hut into two rooms. Rihal provided a stool for him to sit on. There wasn’t much comfort they could provide on such short notice.
“Does she have to be here?” the viper asked, gesturing toward Ash.
“She’s a part of the team, Idrel,” Crystal defended, voice as cold as steel.
Idrel sneered at her but said nothing. Rihal’s father gave the viper a look that said ‘I’m just about fed up with your nonsense’. That shut him up for good.
“I will get straight to the point. Rihal, your disciple is here and has drawn the attention of the Judges.”
Ash jumped up in excitement. “Jerome’s here!?”
Crystal picked her up and deposited her in her lap. It was almost comical to look at, as Ash was a full head taller than she was. But the strength of a Blank could not be compared to that of a Spirit Realm artist.
His father cleared his throat, smiling. “As I said, he has attracted the attention of the Judges. Three Judges were sent toward him, our Sprouts, the Itakars, and the Feis. Just so you know, Jerome is far more powerful than he was a few years ago” — Rihal smiled at that — “and it seems he has a team of his own now. Two of them are unknown but the remaining two are from the Shifter packs in the west.”
Really? He always took Jerome for someone who went his own way and did his own things alone. A lone wolf so to speak.
His father looked at Ash and smiled again. “One of those from the Shifter packs is someone from your orphanage. Tara, I believe you call her.”
Ash slumped against Crystal who caressed her back as she cried silently. Rihal felt relief wash over him. “He was right…” he said. His voice felt so small and vulnerable to his own ears but he didn’t care. “He’s been right all along.”
His father gave them both a moment to calm down and continued after a few breaths. “Well, there’s more. I said Jerome is far more powerful than he was before and so are a few others. The Feis are usually more powerful when they get back from Terra Praeta. The surprising ones are the Itakars.”
That was a surprise indeed.
“The way their strength shot up in two years was so astonishing that we had to contact them.” He looked them all in the eyes before continuing. “They revealed they were able to go somewhere in Terra Praeta where they found the source of their new strength… with Jerome’s help.”
“What?” Idrel asked — growled, really. “That little thing?”
Rihal glared at him before facing his dad and asking, “So where do we come in father?”
“Whatever gave them their strength, they said Fei knows of it, and has been exploiting it for millennia. But they could never bring it back home, though, only partake of it in Terra Praeta. Not until Jerome.” He held up a hand. “Before you ask, they never revealed it. They said it was up to Jerome to do so.”
Crystal barked a laugh but quickly caught herself and apologized. She cleared her throat before saying, “They are protecting him.”
“In their own way, yes,” the Sage said. “If only we could reach him as easily as we did them.”
Rihal was thankful they couldn’t, but he kept that thought to himself. He had briefly debated handing Jerome a transmission bracelet two years ago but decided against it. It wouldn’t have been useful throughout his time in Terra Praeta.
“You will go south with Idrel, Rihal, and intercept the Judges. We are not to directly interfere in the ongoing battles between the Messengers and the Sprouts but we can stop them from interfering.”
“Shouldn’t they know not to interfere?” Ash asked. Idrel gave her a condescending scoff and she glared at him.
“We blinded them so they will make this exact mistake, Ash,” his father said.
Ruthless, but necessary. If they break another rule in the accords, the transoceanic community will view the Church as untrustworthy. It wouldn’t matter if they were acting blind. Excuses were for the weak.
“Whichever way though, they’ll break the rules.” — he turned to Rihal — “Because you are not going to stop them completely. We just need at least one of them to confront your disciple.”
“Father, Jerome is still Sprout—”
“And he will grow all the more stronger with this encounter.”
Rihal gritted his teeth but kept shut. This was politics all over again… with his disciple’s life on the line. Not that Jerome could die by the hand of mere mortals but still…
“Will Jerome be okay?” Ash asked. Rihal could see the anger and fear simmering beneath the surface. Crystal had to hug her tightly, preventing her from doing something stupid.
“He will be.” His father turned to Idrel. “No funny business. Underestimate the Sprout at your own peril.”
Idrel squirmed under the Sage’s gaze. Rihal frowned at his father’s words. In what world would a Sprout ever be a threat to a Spirit Realm artist? His father stood up and walked outside the tent before vanishing.
“Not even a goodbye,” Ash said. “That’s cold. Reminds me of someone…”
Rihal sighed. He knew who his father reminded her of. Someone he had rescued from Alva but wanted nothing more than to go back into the fighting pits. Moss had ignored Ash when she introduced herself to him and blatantly told him to take him back.
Rihal didn’t even want to begin to understand what was going on in the Sprout’s mind. He was in a very dark place, that was for sure. Be that as it may, he had dropped him off in Farryn. His master would know what to do with him. There was a war going on and he couldn’t babysit a full-grown Sprout.
“My father has his moments. But he’s the Sage here, who amongst us can chastise him?”
Idrel snorted. Rihal chose to ignore him.
“So when do we go?” Ash asked.
“‘We’ are not going anywhere.” Rihal gesture between them. “But you are going to stay here and wait for my arrival.” She pouted.
“Judges are dangerous, Ash. you can’t be around them,” Crystal said to her.
“Let’s get this over with,” Idrel said, standing up himself. Rihal could sense the rage pouring off him from his aura. He felt like a volcano ready to erupt.
“Do not take the Sage’s warning with a grain of salt, Idrel.”
“What? That a Sprout can stand head to head with me?” he snorted. “Clearly, your father just wants to make me scared in front of his son.”
Rihal chose not to be angry at that. “Suit yourself, viper. You shall face the consequences if you try anything stupid.”
Idrel grinned, coming closer to stand toe to toe with him. The tension in the air seemed to climb and Crystal ushered Ash out of the hut. “Is that a threat? Because if it is, it’s game on. I heard you won over five thousand mids against Dunn Itakar a few years ago. That’s a big win. Care to take a bet against me?”
“To what end?” Rihal glared at him. “Do you wish to go up against my disciple? You’ll become the laughingstock of the Royal family whether you win or lose.”
The viper chuckled coldly. “That’s beneath me. He’ll battle Forester again. One on one.”
Rihal already knew this was where he was going. The Royal Sprouts still had the Sovereign’s aura protecting them. Jerome would be at a disadvantage against a force like that. But he remembered his father’s words again. Surely the Sage must have known this would happen. Rihal smiled. He remembered an excerpt from an ancient script written by a previous Sovereign millennia ago.
‘Many are intelligent but few are wise. Intelligence chases aspirations, wisdom flees pitfalls. The fool trusts in his own wisdom, but the wise knows where to find it, for true wisdom is found in the actions of others.’
The script went on to preach about having both wisdom and intelligence, for having one and not the other makes one powerful. But having both makes one nigh invincible. Rihal decided to trust in the wisdom of his father.
“Very well. What are the odds?”
“Seven to one.” Idrel grinned. “Highs only.”
Guess it was time to wipe the fool’s purse clean.