Vent exerted his Will and mana to tear the spatial trap he had been placed in. An advanced form of the basic dispel. However, he lamented that he broke out too late when he saw the Aether space user let a bullet loose at Ebony. He recognised the intense space fluctuations, it was a similar bullet to the one that sent the Savant away but vastly different. It was older and made of much life force instead of mana or aether.
Wherever it was supposed to lead to, it wasn’t their homeworld, Cinderash.
To his surprise, the bullet didn’t land on Ebony. Taking the spellshot’s surprise into use, he quickly covered the distance to get to the young man’s side. A friend of the Frost Elf’s aside, Vent could not let a young child, barely a toddler, get kidnapped while he was present. ‘Seriously, what are these race’s parents doing? Letting their children go unsupervised when they’re not even half a century old.’
He wasn’t sure how Ebony blocked the individual portal ammunition. At least, not until he saw the young girl, Scarlet’s bag ended up in Ebony’s hands. Spatial equipment wasn’t so easy to transport away and interfered with lousy modes of transport like a singular intricate spell woven into a tiny piece of metal. It was no surprise it was left behind.
The Nebulian was not an issue to Vent and the Cinderash’s space user didn’t scare him either but space magic made things tricky. The space user’s weakness was obvious to a mage of his calibre. Unlike a mage, this space user had to use bullets and his guns as an intermediary support. They had terrible if not non-existent manipulation and control compared to a mage.
The mana they called aether had distinct differences with mana native to Elcra but was ultimately mana. And the thing about such a specific type of space user was that they did not have a good perception of the elements. Not even those they wielded.
However, Vent was wary of the Grade 6 Hazard. He knew the moment he felt the Nebula Watches’ near-omniscient senses watching the entire planet. It wasn’t obvious till he spotted the spatial node. A sign that this Cinderash native was up to things beyond his contracted presence on Elcra. It meant that this individual was capable of destroying the planet in some manner.
A hazard to nature didn’t directly correlate to individual prowess in battle, which he could tell from how terribly the Nebulian suppressed the Cinderash native.
Scarlet’s ‘rash’ actions were not rash at all. As a hunter, he knew another hunter when he saw one. The ambush on the young Cinderashian was not an attack at all. It was planned. He didn’t know what for until now. It was to give the Emperor the validity to land an attack on both of them. The realisation with his acute sixth sense made him pause.
He was going to give Ebony’s body a prop up but the young man didn’t fall from the sky and his body remained straight like a house’s support beam.
“I’m fine Vent, thank you.”
“You’re not asleep? Good, their arms aren’t enough to override your defences. I won’t let them take you away again.”
“Ebony is asleep. My name is Dusk…I suppose I’m also Ebony since I was constantly updated within my mindspace. Vent, it’s okay. Young birds have to be dropped to learn to take flight.”
“What?”
“I would appreciate it if you dealt with Nebulian. Could you help me pass a message to the Thoya’s?”
“...”
“Tell them I won’t be visiting for a while. Thank you.”
Vent shook his head, ‘Xeng blood…truly barbaric. Ebony, an odd specimen indeed. The only half-offspring of the Rime Tribe. Fantastic. One of the most ferocious bloodlines mixed with the most arrogant, aloof and detached but endlessly grudgeful and petty, he had a hard time growing up. Ah, I can’t mutter those words in my mind. Now I owe my ancestors a visit for protecting us.’
“A word of caution, Cinderash is run by a society with Saints crawling about. Using force would be foolish. An egg would have a better chance against a rock than any of us against a combat Saint, even one of the Cinderash. They are not exactly known for their individual combat powers. Do what you will with that information.”
The Nebulians who lost the use of their arms didn’t lose any combat capabilities. At the same time, it made no difference to Vent. He would no longer give their dying Saint who lived off the world any regard.
The child yearned to take flight and as a kind senior, he would clear the fledgingly’s path of its thorniest brambles.
The three of them were now prey.
❅❅❅
‘This is new, even with the ability to use models and clones I can’t control my frame properly as Dusk? A tree form feels more natural and as a Core of Arsenal of Will Domain, I’m supposed to be immobile. To think it would translate to not being able to move well after taking over my main mind’s control over my body. It might be because I technically have way more Will than my main body. Whatever, using magic is even easier.’
“You. Where did you send her?” Ebony had his mana sling Ning Xin’s bag over his shoulders. He would’ve been worried that she was brought away without her stockpile of food but ‘worry’ was not an ability he planted into Dusk.
“How did you stop…that bag? Where did that come from?” The space user didn't even know that he hit someone.
“I asked you a question. But never mind, wherever it is send me there too. Now.” Ebony allowed Xin’s blood halo to float over with a man within its grasp.
“You can feel the lack of gravity. A bomb is inside this man. Away from me, it will denotate. It can and will kill him. Hurry up.” It wasn’t a lie but the bomb won't detonate immediately after separating from him. But the bomb had a time limit, it was as much mana as it had to keep its contents stable. His imbued Will was the controller.
“I see. I see. Hahahaha. Urgent are we? Nervous are- stop!”
Ebony tossed the arm he froze and cut off towards the talkative man who thought he was up for negotiation. The arm and aether was rather tough and didn’t shatter making a clean cut easy. His light cyan flames already marked half of the young master’s body. The weaker portions of his flesh turned purple and blue.
“You want to kill me, why aren’t you trying? Don’t worry, even asleep our bomb can activate. Even if I was dead, it would still detonate. Scared? Nervous? Hurry up.”
“Let him go and you will have an easier time in our prison.”
Using mana manipulation, the young master’s head flew in front of Ebony. Without its body.
Xin’s blood halo and Dusk did not tolerate threats. Dusk sealed the head and its vitality. A quick scan allowed him to notice that the bomb was on the body and not the head so he carried and sealed the body as well.
The Emperor risked his superior speed and reflexes to take a shot at his young master’s body.
‘Not the head? So their heart or some other organ is more important. Then our bomb is in the right place. As I thought, this man is not a mage. What terrible perception for a space user.’ The bullet that spawned and rippled where the young master’s body was teleported nothing but ice mana away. Light refraction and feints were pretty much one of his specialities now.
It helped that his opponent sensed aether and not mana and it also helped that the mandate users had their mandate partially working on him that hid his presence. He already took note of the spatial bullet. It didn’t have a trajectory and teleported where the middle-aged man wanted it to. But against the Nebulian, he noticed the space mana explosion didn’t require it to land on a physical target but where the rifleman wanted it to detonate.
It was strong but the limitations were its lack of control. To the Nebulian who had the ultimate control, getting hit was a challenge.
“Hurry up.” Ebony made dozens of sculptures of the young master, gave them colour with runes and then refracted them into hundreds of figures. Burning them one by one, they shattered loudly amplified by sound magic.
Dusk did not have time. He had to go back into the seed pit that was his core. The human body wasn’t meant for it and his Will was beginning to slip back to a safer spot. He might not have been programmed to worry, but he knew what worry was and bits and pieces were still in him.
Xin still had Navin’s barrier spell but he didn’t know where she was sent. The barrier only took damage and didn’t activate against the teleportation. More importantly, she lacked the food supply to fight. It was no wonder she seemed unconcerned about packing up, she must have intuitively felt that it didn’t matter.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“It uses gravity, if I bring you through will it explode? There is little to no gravity in space, portal or not. There would be instability.” The space user was more thorough than Dusk as he didn’t even think about that issue. Experience and wisdom come with age.
“If you bring me along, it won’t.”
“You will remove the bomb after I send yo-” The man frowned and continued his negotiations but Dusk wasn’t up for it.
“When I see her. My seal isn’t perfect, I wonder how long your young master can stay alive.”
“Where do you get that arrogance, battery? Enough with the threats. I will come close and link us back to Cinderash with my spatial node, don’t make rash moves.”
The middle-aged man raised his hands and used his right hand to twist the round device on the back of his left gloves. Appearing beside Ebony’s body despite his Domain and magic body. Dusk couldn’t move Ebony’s body, but Ebony could move asleep. It still detected the space user as a threat and punched out due to how close he got in an instant.
The Emperor was not pleased.
Ebony’s arms were crippled, both twisted outwards and his flesh and bones mangled as if they spun a few rounds. He didn’t manage to blow a hair off his target’s head.
“Don’t test me, I might just get overconfident and think your bomb’s a mere ruse.”
Dusk managed to shift Ebony’s eyes to meet the furious but disgusted Emperor’s glare. No sight entered his perception, it was odd since he knew how eyes worked but he didn’t have physical sight even sitting within his own body.
‘Navin’s barrier didn’t activate. It is more intuitive than I expected.’ Dusk praised the fact that the barrier spell knew this was not a big injury to Ebony.
Perhaps that was what unnerved the Emperor slightly as his eyes were blank.
The Emperor huffed and took out a couple of steel rods the size of longswords and they floated around them. In eight directions, horizontally and vertically.
The young master’s body was leaning on Ebony’s body. The body, in its slumber, decided that healing was the right choice and explosively twisted his arms back into position before regenerating the flesh. Since he didn’t lose much flesh, the injury was considerably light and it wouldn’t affect his physical strength after healing.
It took 3 seconds or so, not explosive enough but still good. It wouldn’t have taken that long if the twist didn’t go all the way down his shoulders and back.
‘This better not be a preparation for a skill faster than I can react to…’ Dusk had his guard up but knew it wouldn’t change much if the Emperor still decided to kill him. It all banked on this young master’s worth.
The Emperor mumbled incomprehensibly as if he was chanting at high speeds.
Dusk’s attention turned to Hector and Muse who were on the city walls and somehow found them from a distance. With all the strength he could muster, Dusk nodded in farewell before his sense of gravitational and vibrational waves destabilised.
‘I expected it, but it’s too bad.’ Dusk noticed the lack of Ning Xin’s presence where he was brought and his senses stabilised.
Gravitational strength was intense, almost as if a constant magnification was happening. It was still unstable but he estimated it was no weaker than ten to fifteen times that of his old Earth. It strengthened his bomb’s ability to hold its contents with less effort. Increasing its lifespan before natural detonation even without his manual control. After he completely froze the young master, he reconnected with the bomb that ended up in the man’s liver.
Dusk did not expect ultra-long distance spatial travel to be as disorientating as it was. Even if it was due to him being a tree that perceived through vibrations and gravity. He knew it was a phenomenon but after experiencing it with Kong Jing and noting that Ning Xin was affected he never felt anything, he just thought he was immune to it.
Of course, the main reason was because he wasn’t Dusk. Not all of Dusk.
Dusk was back on Elcra, within Ebony’s bag that made it with him. Even as a seed core, he was too big with the huge power source. Dusk placed just a tiny portion of himself to deal with any immediate threats knowing he couldn’t come here with Ebony. In any case, within their mindspace, he knew that Ebony wouldn’t stay asleep for as long as the Nebulian had hoped.
“You are the legendary battery that dared to take my son hostage.”
Dusk’s senses cleared up as one presence took over his entire perception. The speaker had a presence, unlike any Ebony, had ever imbued into Dusk’s memory bank. He didn’t need any Identification or Appraisal.
“I was half expecting to be teleported into a prison with all my mana sucked up. A Saint right off the bat, cheeky aren’t you.” Dusk tilted his body’s head at the space user who was a distance away, standing beside the speaker with both the younger master’s head and body.
‘I can believe force is pointless, but it would be foolish to allow them to think they can slaughter me like a chicken. Let’s see if my instincts are any good before I dissipate and leave my body alone.’ Dusk didn’t have to dissipate, he could return to where Ebony was but needed to buy himself every second he could.
As for the tiny spheres he had on his robes, he already dispatched his clones. The fact that they could walk away from where they were proved to him that the space mage was blind to ice mana or his invisibility on his activated clones.
He managed to bring 4 clones over. Two of them raced out of this…mansion. The other two remained on him, to offer the minimal levels of protection to Ebony if Dusk were to disappear sooner than he’d like.
First of all, the room he was in was scorching. The air was dry. Water would evaporate in an instant if there was any present. But it was just a normal room where the Cinderash native was not blinking an eye. His Clones slipped out of the mansion rather easily but it was only far hotter outside.
They were on a volcano. “Nope, we are IN a volcano. No wonder they are so heat resistant. It’s just their natural trait.”
Using Will since they were in range, Dusk got the clones to shut up and not test their ‘captor’s’ magical senses or ears.
Secondly, there were two new presences including the overwhelming Saint’s. The last likely another servant of sorts.
“Do you think I don’t dare to end your life?” Dusk was mostly blind but he could tell the man was just like any other human shape, barely any taller than Ebony himself.
“Oh. You will?”
“Remove the explosive and keep your life.”
“We’ve started on a bad foot. I’m not an advocate for violence and I think it’s obvious what I want.”
“I don’t care what you want. My son would not be your ticket to freedom or desires.”
“How about your family?”
“...Creature, where is your confidence knowing I can kill you instantly coming from?”
“Do I have an accent? My name is Ebony. Forgive me, this is my first time speaking Gia. Perhaps you don’t care about your son as much as that space user over there assumed. I presume this is your personal estate. You have a little over eight hundred people roaming about. Within this mansion, four babies. Your children? Your kin? Would you like to test if you can stop me? Would you like to find out what I’m capable of?”
Ebony was not capable of killing innocent babies or even any adults who didn’t even know who he was. Even with how detached he thought about humans a short while ago. But his captor didn’t need to know that and he just asked two separate questions.
‘A small island inside a volcano, I can’t sense outside the volcano. A small estate like this has a dedicated prison…I would probably end up there in time.’ Dusk didn’t just rely on his clones, his range of senses was both wider and more sensitive than a mere clone.
“You dare!” A crushed armrest and floor tiles resulted from the Saint’s charge in his face. Too bad Ebony wasn’t awake to remember any facial features.
“You want your son released. I want to see and be sent where my companion was sent. It’s not very difficult and no one has to be harmed. Not me. Not any of you.”
“Make no mistake. My family would not be harmed and you will not see the light of day.” The Saint who wasn’t up for introductions only got angrier. Dusk had some hope that there was some level of reasoning with the Saint since he said he wasn’t here for violence. But on second thought, he did threaten the man with his family.
“Ah, it's finally cooler here.” Dusk felt the confusion in the three other people present in the room when he commented about the temperature.
“Master, our mansion is floating. I will set a loop so we aren’t sent out of the atmosphere.” The space mage frowned at the realisation that Ebony had reversed and strengthened gravity of the planet on their little rock floating on lava.
Dusk thought that it was a shame that the space user could do something like that to keep the island from testing the limits of his gravity magic.
“Enough flexing, hurry up.”
“Ezekiel. Clean up your mess.” Surprisingly, the Saint decided not to use the hard stick anymore and returned to his seat without even eyeing his servant who steadied his son’s body and head.
“Crea-Ebony is it? Sending you to your woman is not possible.”
“I’m usually patient but I don’t mind losing it right now.”
“Stop! I didn’t want to let the Nebulian take you and that shot was for you. I was going to send you to Teheil where mana is useless so that I could collect you easier later on. She should be sent somewhere safe unless her transfer was affected by her resistance.”
“And? Send me there.” Dusk felt himself slipping away.
“That--I only had one bullet. I can’t get there with conventional space magic either. We have a portal located in another one of our volcanoes.”
“Then send me there.”
“The portal on Teheil is single use. Since I was going to send you there, I was going to hop on the same trip and escort you back with the Savants. Now that the portal on Teheil’s end was used, our portal would no longer be able to connect.”
“That’s your problem. Solve it.”
“Master, I have extracted this.” A new voice echoed throughout the hall. Dusk sensed their mana pinched between the fingers of the unassuming servant. His bomb removed.
‘I guess time is up. Too bad.’ Dusk’s fragment of Will couldn’t even contact the clones anymore, much less exerting any more control over the bomb that had its own Will.
“Think carefully about how you treat me. I will respond in kind.” Dusk didn’t have it in him to sigh before dissipating and leaving his stone-cold body alone. Even if it turned out the worst way possible, he believed they wouldn’t kill him.
The fact that Ning Xin was sent somewhere they couldn’t reach easily made him slightly more at ease. The truth of the matter aside, their words had given him some confidence that she was alive.