Percival wanted to scream his head off but he couldn’t.
The primitive but intimidating longbow in the hands of the peasant aside. Every cell in his body was quivering and he felt like a rabbit with the paws of a tiger over his neck.
Native Frost Elves were just slightly higher-class peasants that should not be touching him much less having an arm of steel over his shoulders. Even their Root Lineages were just the losers of the civil war of Yggdrasil that had been kicked onto a small root. Their prestige amongst the Elven race was a thing of the past.
However, as if that wasn’t enough, the peasant had his other arm around Ezekiel. Percival didn’t expect someone on this planet to be able to touch Ezekiel but that was the least of his problems. He had a feeling he wasn’t harmed yet only thanks to Ezekiel.
Ezekiel vehemently insisted on nabbing that light-blue-haired battery but Percival wasn’t convinced of a lower-being’s usefulness. Bringing the Savants, one of the stronger ones, over had been an extreme use of authority even for Ezekiel and he thought the same after the stunning life force and the swift, decapitation without pause. He was certain they got lucky and used a cheap trick to catch the Savant off guard.
He scoffed at the Xeng’s failure to kill the Savant by burning and the battery’s rather interesting use of his elements. With the Savant’s aether and physique, he could survive another half an hour in that condition with the ice sword ripping his internals. Just missing a head and a heart wasn’t enough to kill them. With aether keeping their memories and their evolutionary stage tied to their body, mind and souls much more tightly, life force alone could keep them alive.
That was enough time for the other Savants to get it together and save their fellow Savant. If things were looking bad, Ezekiel could shoot one of his return bullets and send the Savant back home. Those were expensive considering their distance limit but it would be worth using on a Savant. Too bad Ezekiel couldn’t override a Savant’s aether and send them home with a common aetherspell shot.
‘Ezekiel and Savant Harold were already watching the weird close fight. He shouldn’t have been able to get so close!’ With Ezekiel protecting him, Percival let the derision of a peasant touching him overtake his fear of the predator.
“Get your hands off me bumpkin fro-.” The words seethe with his disgust.
“Your mana smells of sulphur and more chaotic…more like aether. I see. Habitants from Cinderash. You’ve come a long way.” The glint in the hunter's eyes as he stared into Percival’s very soul made him swallow the rest of the sentence.
Speaking in the common tongue, Percival easily understood that he wasn’t facing a young native. More than anything, Elcra wasn’t even in contact with or even knew about Cinderash. They were too far apart and Elcra lacked the technology and magical reach. They didn't come here through the World Dungeons or the Spirit Realm. It wasn’t that surprising with the hunter’s show of power.
Percival didn’t need to look down to see the Xeng, battery and his family’s Savants were all frozen in place. The first two standing still and wafting off the same level of uptight readiness to move, the rest had an arrow in their hearts. It shouldn’t have been enough to stop them, but cold and ice were one of the Cinderashians' weak points. Training can only go so far to cover the racial and genetic traits of inhabitants of a volcano-centric planet.
There was something that bothered him, such as the three bundles of mist tied up in blue wooden roots but he couldn’t focus his eyes or mind on the three bundles for whatever reason. The only reason it was picking his brain in his tense situation was because he had been keeping an eye on Ezekiel to ask for help to rid them of this situation but the bodyguard of his was frowning as he looked not at the Frost Elf, but the 3 bundles of mist.
Savant Harold was known to be a soldier who never did anything without orders. He would forget to breathe if an order to stop breathing was ever given and not rescinded. Without an order from Ezekiel, all he did was stand there. An arrow was in his heart but Harold didn’t even summon his aether because he hadn’t been given the signal or proper orders to do anything in this particular situation. Percival was ever so irritated that Savant Harold wasn’t even given the order to make his life a protection priority.
“Is that necessary?” The battery’s voice cut his anxiousness for a moment, Percival was familiar with the overly complicated language of Elcrian.
Then the two barbarians shocked them all by interrupting the Frost Elf’s moment. By swinging a sword at Harold’s neck and two at his heart. Percival didn’t even hear the answer to the question but this answered it. They were crazy.
Harold still had basic self-preservation orders ingrained in his mind but the Frost Elf didn’t allow that. The defensive movement was stopped rather simply. Arrows were found in Harold’s joints before his head was lopped off but he didn’t even see the archer draw the bow. His aether froze, his augmentations were stopped short but not for long. Harold was just a construct, a cube with intelligence planted into his family’s gear construct that these uncivilised people would call a golem.
‘Stupid lower-beings. Harold has the latest Cinderash reactor and circuit. They can’t even find where it is.’
Sulphur and ash puffed from the wounds on Harold’s construct and his aether wiped the surroundings clean, going beyond the surprisingly convenient haunted public space with no one and terrorising the congested crowd far away.
“The kids were right, this one’s a dangerous one. So it’s hidden behind the shoulder blade, good to know.” Percival’s heart received yet another jolt when the sound of metal bending and fracturing beside him, where Harold stood. The hand that once sat on Ezekiel’s shoulder pierced through Harold and pinched a yellow cube between two fingers.
“I can’t have you killing him.” Ezekiel finally looked away from a place he couldn’t focus on and a gunshot rang in his ears long after the actual shot landed on the yellow cube. Unbelievably, his bodyguard sent Harold home with an expensive escape option.
“What brings a Grade 6 hazard over to our quaint world? There is absolutely nothing you can do, so long as I don’t touch this boy. Go home or this boy stays with me, unharmed. And you don’t dare touch me.”
Percival’s gut wretched. This Frost Elf knew too much. As long as his life wasn’t threatened in some form, Ezekiel couldn’t do anything to the Frost Elf or any creature native to the planet. That included being taken, imprisoned and even some obscure forms of torture. ‘Is that why he’s not letting me out of his grasp? And he’s confident Ezekiel can’t teleport me while I’m in his grasp, damn peasant!’
He did not understand, the aether of the Frost Elf wasn’t as potent as Harold’s and the Frost Elves were still Elves a territorial race, and this was by no means a forest to empower a territorial race. A Domain or so they call it. Even if this individual could cast one, it would be far from how powerful a real territory would empower them.
Even then, he had confidence that Ezekiel could get him home whenever he wanted from any territory.
But why isn’t he sending Percival home yet?
He was just here for training, this was a threat that crushed one of their Savants with ease. They had high standards for Savants, up to their Grandmaster evolutionary stage, they were all required to have full sets of 250% fortifications. It was much harder to expect more from there unless they had a good hereditary tree and were a few generations down the line or a ton of monetary investment.
Time was another important factor in getting an Emperor. Cinderash was average in that regard since it took about 3 to 4 hundred years to train a Savant up. And a lot of money.
Ezekiel should be a perfect specimen, no less than a member of the Gearheart. And there was no way this Frost Elf was an Emperor from the aether he sensed. Shooting Percival would break no contract as they were both foreigners and all it took was one bullet for the space mage to send him home.
‘This is all his fault, told him we need no battery. Why is it getting hot?’
Percival’s hand shot to his neck to hold onto a sawing purple liquid around his neck. It was cold. Freezing. And it was digging through his aether relentlessly.
He started to panic when some of the fluid was mixed with his own. Did these stupid peasants not just hear what their protector Frost Elf just said about not touching him?
❅❅❅
Turning back the clock right about when Vent swooped down and froze the battle. Ebony saw the ear nudge from Ning Xin.
“You remember how we thought the Tetramyth was the opportunity to get stronger?”
“Go on.” Asking this way was an obvious way of saying that they were wrong but he was nice.
“I think we’re wrong. This is that opportunity, the Tetramyth were the fuel for quick levels. The times don’t match but I wouldn’t be surprised if Grandma lied to manipulate my or our thoughts in some way.”
“Opportunity…this is where and when we risk our lives isn’t it? To get stronger.”
“Yes. And I will take it. Will you?”
“At this moment, very much so. I see, so we’ll be separated by our own choice. It must have been hard to say. Though I don’t understand what drives you so hard to get stronger, I can’t say I’m new to not understanding.” He didn’t even understand his drive but he only got to where he was so quickly thanks to it.
The mandate users and the guys surrounding him did push his desire to get stronger aggressively. He had enough of the lack of freedom and intense but invisible suppression. However, he felt that he could understand why she was so uncertain despite them holding up relatively well against their opponents for a short period.
“It was-is really hard to say. I really like being with you, no matter how mundane the days get just eating, sitting around. But my heart and very being is pushing me to take this road.” He couldn’t tell if she was speaking while being conscious of her own words in her current state but was acting out of the norm.
“Our mundane days together would have to wait. What do we have to do?” He took a serious tone, despite how fast they were communicating, they did not have time to go down the emotional track.
“We go for the stronger stranger first but he won’t be our target. Take that dirty-eyed one hostage with everything we’ve got. We will plant one of our bombs in him, and you will seal it within his body with Will that makes it explode if anyone tries to take it out. Or make it go off if any other mana touches it so that space magic can’t be easily used.” Maintaining one of their bombs after they were charged was difficult, more so if he was not in range and the bomb was left alone.
The gravitational effort required would suck his mana dry and cause the bomb to collapse early. Hiding the bomb wasn’t possible either, everyone would feel the loss of gravity as the spell took away the surrounding's gravity to maintain the explosives within.
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“Is that necessary?”
A nod told him all he needed and they had the perfect chance now that the steampunk people were all distracted by Vent.
Vent’s strength was completely out of his expectations, the hunter just slid his hand into a metallic body and grabbed a dull yellow cube in an instant.
That had been a sign for them. Ebony made a new sphere and gravity obediently worked for him. To save time, he threw it into Xin’s blood halo to be charged on the way. An idea birthed in his mind and he charged her blood halo with more of his mana. They combined their manas enough that both could make their manas not reject each other and allow each of their best effects to work efficiently even with foreign interference.
Her fire mana was boiling under the thick, black blood and his flames joined hers. It wasn’t a brand new combined spell like their homemade explosive but it was not a new mental workout and ran under the same principles. Their flames were not friendly to each other but they could fight each other less destructively until they had to be destructive.
The young master’s neck and mana were rather easy to tear into. Kudos to the young master for being able to resist for a full second. Their bomb slipped into the open wound but Ebony wasn’t able to manipulate the bomb anymore. Hopefully, the Will he hastily put together would find a way to crawl physically from inside. Not that it mattered.
The man unexpectedly gagged, impressive when he was choking. He coughed out a speeding orange ball that made a dent in the ice scale that blocked Ebony’s eyeball.
“““By the order of the Sovereign Mandates. We shall be the rulers of this space for 22 seconds.”””
‘Uhm, this was not part of the plan was it?’ Ebony felt a smack on his face and his Domain and mana were not responding.
His trained body responded well to the three bundles of mist that escaped their vine entrapment. They didn’t expect it as his body dodged the body slam that was about to hug and carry him like a sack of potatoes. An axe kick landed on what he presumed was a head but the head was surprisingly soft and squishy, though it did no apparent damage.
He failed to slip away from the hand on his face.
By the next moment, he realised he wasn’t floating above the molten roads that had been frozen over. He wasn’t even within Tidal’s barrier anymore because he could see the city right in front of him.
“Nebulian! I knew something was up and it took me a while. So you were the ones who messed with our minds. Haha, I came here looking for a good source of income but I landed a jackpot. There’s nothing on my contract against you people, quietly come with me. Your lives are worth a hefty sum.” Although the lean steampunk man spoke so much, he wielded what Ebony thought was a shotgun and already fired.
“Projectile Immunity.”
Ebony didn’t see any bullets or hear any sounds until they appeared about 3 metres away from his captor’s chest. He was hit by all three of their mandates, “Physical Bind” and he suspected that it worked together with the ‘space ruling’ mandate that held his mana and magic hostage.
Unlike the individual mandates, the ones that the three of them cast together were like an iron wall. No amount of squirming or muscle memory helped him shake them off. He was now falling from the sky and would land in a few seconds but the four Emperors just ignored him.
‘What should I do? This is one of the rare moments even my body isn’t moving, mother would say I lack training. Vent and Xin would need time to get out of the city even assuming they aren’t suppressed by the space ruling or whatever that does. It’s not working well on this guy. But was the Nebulian this strong, or is Vent just unnaturally strong? Their mandates are working very well on this steampunk middle-aged man.’ His Perception had a little trouble keeping up but he had a rough gauge of what was happening.
The Mandates that didn’t work well on Vent or even Ebony were working well on the director of his second group of kidnappers. He just dropped from the highest value target to the second thanks to the Nebulian who seem to have a high bounty on their heads. That should’ve been a good thing but it didn’t make him feel any better as baggage they tossed around.
“Trying to scare us with your puny competence. That frost elf was indeed a paramount anomaly. Spatial Anchor. I’m telling you he’s God’s child.” The moment he mandated, the opponent’s wide area of effect shots no longer tore the mist into pieces to send them apart.
“Shh. Spatial Lockdown.” The only voice among them that sounded feminine didn’t chat. Ebony already noticed that the mandates weren’t transmitted by sound. The voices just spread out and entered his mind.
“I know that aether. Smelly. Clot Ashes. Congeal Aether. Cinderash, Space and Ash. I believe he’s one of the subordinate families of the Gearhart.” No matter how complicated the effects sounded if one were to use mana manipulation, Mandates didn’t have that limitation. They barely had casting time and the effects came into existence right after they finished their speech.
It didn’t take long before the Nebulians calmed their mandating and tossed insults instead.
“They wouldn’t come here for no reason. If it’s space then that kid must have been a Gearhart. He’s not worth anything, let’s just get this one and go. Maybe 8 to 9 centuries are enough to pay us out of debt, he got to a good level. Suppress velocity. oh, weak. Supreme Velocities Suppression. ”
“Good? He’s almost unaffected, we were almost too late!” The lady scolded. Ebony didn’t like the type of attention they were directing at him.
“Relax, didn’t we make it in time? Minor Disintegrate Aether. And look, three of us are enough to get through his ***, we have plenty of leeway. Come on we don’t have time, that abnormal frost elf is going to get here soon.”
‘My what? I don’t know the word. And their Gia is weird, maybe an accent.’
The middle-aged man heard everything they said out loud and took a thin metal stick out which he covered in his black aether to form a dagger. He had not yet taken a single step while he swapped out a few types of guns and bullets. He slashed a couple of times in the air and sliced through the bundles of mist.
The middle-aged man didn’t even let Ebony who was lying face flat on the ground almost a kilometre away from them go. Ebony felt his legs from knees down separate. No pain, no resistance. They just disconnected physically. Space magic was wacky and that had been uncalled for.
“Life Mirror Image.” The middle aged man's upper torso slid off to his shock but the space magic user used his black aether to rejoin his body. When he healed himself, so did the mist silhouettes.
“Subordinate of Gearhart, wielded of space. We’ve been hiding from your greaters for generations. You can’t catch us, not alone. This natural treasure is ours for the taking.”
“Hey! That abnormality is on his way. Together!”
‘Oh this is looking bad. This was not how I thought it would go. I can’t move yet.’ Ebony did not expect to get manhandled so suddenly where all resistance was shredded down and Dusk wasn’t even able to do anything even though their link wasn’t interrupted. Since he left a gap in his bag he thought he had more than enough mana to do anything but this was beyond his expectations.
“““Supreme Existence Perplexion.”””
He wondered if this was how his opponents felt suppressed by his mana, gravity, ice and sound rebound to complete immobility. It was a good experience and Ebony was learning. This was an even greater form of binding than what he could do excluding sealing magic. His mana and life force weren’t kept within the body to accelerate healing they were suppressed and not even allowed to move.
“No you don’t. I see you, and I won’t forget.”
“The anomaly! Gahh!”
Three trails of mist covered the sky. What appeared to be meteors were just arrows and they shrunk in view as they got closer. Hasty mandates were bellowed only to end up with the three figures nailed to the earth and rooted. Vent hadn't arrived but his arrows had.
Ebony saw his hands fading away, ‘woah, am I going to forget I exist or something? This mandate isn’t instant like most. Ah, I stopped fading away. Did Vent cancel the mandate somehow? I need to be able to do the same with my mana.’ The existential crisis didn’t kick in before he realised his mana started to flow again and was released from the lock on his mana chassis.
“Arrogant King! Liberation. Minor Life Quake. Begone!” The bulkiest mass of mist waved and freed all of them from the vines but coughed, the first sign of pain or damage Ebony had seen so far and he had a feeling it was self-inflicted. Similar to the price to pay for curse magic. He couldn’t tell what Life Quake did but it wasn’t a healing mandate as they had no reason to use a ‘minor’ version, it was more likely an attack but Vent was too far away for him to see if the attack worked.
As for Begone, it probably didn’t work at all. Direct commands to move a person were not easy to manifest and Ebony had grown to be able to resist them slightly compared to the time when his body started to walk out of Tidal by itself.
“Speed Ascent. Enshrouded Mist Sleeve.”
“Power Ascent. Empyrean Mist Cloak”
They’ve learnt to use buffs on themselves rather than debuffs that bounced off Vent. Their cloaking was slowly torn by Vent’s mist and ice magic so they had to reinforce their mandates that hid their bodies. All their mandates were cast for each other.
Ebony wasn’t going to sit around now that he could move. The steampunk man might be able to make a move on him now that he went and attacked the younger man and stuffed a bomb into his bloodstream.
“““With the ten years of us, Sovereign Mandates’ lives. We. Shall take this, and no one shall stop us. Every living creature, spirit, undead, mechanical lifeforms Will Forget this matter and our existence.”””
They might not have expected him to be able to move as he managed to Flicker right behind them rather easily, putting one of them into a chokehold, “I’d prefer if you’d stop that.”
He might be weak, like a needle on the side of the road but he knew how to hunt. Sometimes, the simplest methods were enough. No need for amazing spells or complicated techniques.
He caught onto what he thought was a neck and started to imbue his flames and meld the creature known as Nebulian with his flames. It was easier than he imagined but he knew they had questionable physical durability and strength. From the very beginning, all these Nebulians knew to do was to stand there and cast mandates. Mandates were overpowering but their casters clearly didn’t know battle.
Unlike their younger and weaker compatriots, these Nebulians didn’t need vocal chords to cast their mandates. Ebony might have gotten lucky as their latest mandates seemed to take them effort and they underestimated him and were shocked that his freezing flames could hurt them.
“Unhand him, creature.” The feminine voice raised her mist-covered hand to hold her head. Ebony let the mandate pass through him without an issue. He doubled down, and Vent’s interference of mana wasn’t present so his Domain was in full effect. But, their previous defensive strengthening was a nuisance to Ebony.
“We’ve got no choice. Let’s put our stakes down.”
“““With the temporary loss of our arms, you, creature in the form of human will fall into the ocean of slumber.”””
A torrent of icy cold wind fell from the heavens and assaulted the skies and earth alike. Freezing and shattering parts of their mist armour to reveal parts of their furry body but was quickly covered up again.
“Ten years of your life to mess with my mind again? If I can’t have him, no one can!”
The space user and Nebulian had a pure advantage in traversal capabilities. Tidal was large and they were not far from the centre of the Capital before he was brought out. Vent, with all his range of perception, had not been fast enough to escape the city within the short minutes that had passed. Only his arrows and spells had arrived, which felt a lot weaker than they could have been. There was a good chance Vent was dealing with the bullets that the space user was shooting that weren’t appearing near the Nebulian.
Ebony didn’t take the space user’s words to mind. As much of a threat they were taking him to be, he only saw the middle-aged man not being able to do much against the Nebulian. Fighting was no different from rock-paper-scissors, Vent could handle the Nebulian like rabbits but didn’t make a move against this space user. But the same rabbits could suppress the space user easily.
No, he was more distracted by the speeding figure of flames with a body trailing along her. With no notifications, that body was just unconscious and not dead. Her mask was shining brightly, Kong Jing’s mana wafting off of it.
His eyelids grew heavy.
‘No. This isn’t our choice. You tricked me.’ He would’ve said those words if he wasn’t feeling dead sleepy all of a sudden.
“How did you block that?” Unbeknownst to the steampunk space user, his next bullet aimed at Ebony hit Ning Xin who charged in front of him. She was invisible to everyone present but Ebony and her body started to fade even from his sights.
“Please find me.” Her mask faded lightly for a fraction before she disappeared, leaving behind her spatial bag in his arms.
“You could’ve told me, how is this a choice?” Ebony had no idea if his words escaped his throat before he fell into a deep slumber.