As he fell to the sandy ground, the Apostle considered his opponent with a frown on his shadowed face, frown deepening when Everburn landed in front of him…

Also, Everburn punched him to the pyramid.

“Are you sure you want to fight here? Isn’t this a national landmark or something?” The Apostle reminded even as Everburn rolled its shoulder, ‘cracking’ its neck before it reached up to its wrists.

Right… after the last time they fought, the Apostle was well aware that Everburn wouldn’t be treating him with its kiddie gloves on.

Literally and metaphorically, as the heavy gauntlets fell to the floor, the clasps of the helmet being loosened, and the helmet dropped to the floor.

The suit dropped afterwards, revealing the thing that masqueraded as a Sage.

“It’s fine, we’ll just blame you for the damages.” The being made of Fire spoke, its form flickering and blurring, its figure only vaguely feminine but possessing no indicators of gender, its ‘hair’ flickering around its shoulders.

Everburn was no human, the Apostle knew this since he damaged its armour and released it, a fight he had to escape from the first time.

They’ve had one or two fights since then, both times Everburn only fought at full strength after the Apostle forced it out of its shell.

“Of course, as the villain everything is my fault, as usual right?” The Apostle knew how the game was played, placing his scythe into the ground as he reached up to his cloak, throwing it off and into the wind.

Everburn’s glowing eyes narrowed as it looked at the form of the Apostle.

“Last we fought you didn’t have that scar on your neck… then again, last time we fought you hadn’t been beheaded by the King of Darkness. How did you survive anyway?” Everburn asked, looking at the Apostle.

He appeared quite young, maybe in his mid-twenties at the latest, most high powered Sages looked to be in their mid-thirties or forties…

But when a powerful Sage appeared young, it meant that they held that power for an extraordinary amount of time. They were more dangerous.

Clara Salem, the King of Darkness, the ‘first’ King, was a King even before Elior Lux the King of Light became one, and she looked younger than he did.

The Apostle wore a skin-tight tank-top showing off his muscled physique, his scars on his arms at full display, and the scar going straight around his neck was visible thanks to his short black hair, his purple eyes holding sick humour in them, and he was shuffling his combat boots around while his cargo pants fluttered around.

“Okay, sorry, before you answer that question, I have to ask, do you realize how strange it is that you call yourself an Apostle when you look like someone who was kicked out of the military?” Everburn raised a non-existent eyebrow at that, leaving the Apostle to shrug, raising his palms to the sky.

“I’ve always felt more comfortable like this. Besides, you recall that we’re both not going to be fighting like this.” The Apostle reminded, raising a single fist before clenching it.

With a snap, armour covered his form, and at once the Apostle looked like the very being he searched for.

Ash grey armour, covering his form, his hands clawed along with his feet for better traction, his armour covering him like full plate-mail but much lighter given that it looked like bone…

Weight wasn’t really an issue with a Clad though, they even had temperature control.

And his arguably handsome face was covered by a skull mask, a hood covering his hair and flaring out into a cape behind him, scythe once more in hand.

It looked terrifying at night, but honestly in the middle of the day he looked like a grim-reaper costume junkie.

His Clad was surprisingly durable though, as Everburn could attest as it sighed, forming its own armour over it, an old school knight armour, bland even as it superheated into a bright red from what it was containing.

Then its weapon appeared, a massive glaive, it basically looked like two great-swords growing out of a single handle, this thing was so hot it would have melted Everburn’s armour.

Luckily for Everburn it had placed the armour into its inventory.

“You still haven’t answered me… how did you survive getting your head cut off?” the Apostle grinned, his mask mimicking his face so as to better unnerve his opponents… and when he spoke, the skull clacked to speak.

“It’s not that difficult when you have surplus lives in stock… It’s not the first time I died over the years after all.” Everburn narrowed its eyes behind the eye-slits of its helmet, wondering what the Apostle meant by that.

“I don’t need to explain everything you know? By the way… want to let the pets play while we ‘chat’?” the Apostle was a serious being, truly he was… the only exception being when in a fight.

It was honestly the one flaw that Everburn saw in the Apostle in a fight, he acted like he didn’t take the idea of dying seriously… and given that he came back from having his head cut off, there could actually be a reason for that belief.

“I won’t if you won’t?” Everburn hated having its Manifestation fight the Apostle’s own, because it never really ended. The only way their fights ever ended was when Everburn won and the Apostle ran away…

There was the one time the Apostle won, but then again that led to the King of Darkness appearing the next time instead of Everburn.

“Aw come on, I rarely let him out to play… and yours is the only one that lives afterwards.” The Apostle’s jovial tone vanished towards the end as he slashed with his scythe.

There was a moment, and then his Manifestation appeared and Everburn felt a shiver run down its spine at the sight of that terrifying thing.

The Apostle’s Manifestation was a spider, a tarantula to be specific…

If a tarantula was big enough to cover an entire side of the Pyramid as it screeched at Everburn.

“…Very well.” Everburn snapped its gauntlet covered hand, and a burst of flames roared from Everburn’s side.

The equally large hippopotamus appeared from the flames, its eyes on fire as it inhaled oxygen and breathed out fire.

Quite frankly, when the Apostle first saw the thing he laughed at its proportions, thinking it to be a smaller elephant or something.

Then it bit into his Howitt and the Apostle reconsidered how terrifying that thing was.

Little known fact despite it constantly being stated: the predominant killer of humans among the animal world in Africa is not in fact the lion or any of the other predators…

It’s the peaceful herbivore, the hippopotamus that killed the most normal humans.

It bit at half the force of a crocodile when it came to force to area…

But a hippo had a much bigger mouth than a crocodile.

Add that to the natural armour created by its fat?

A few crocodiles couldn’t kill a single hippo, but a hippo could break a crocodile’s back in one bite.

The Apostle was damn near terrified of that thing, but the only reason he didn’t fear it was because Howitt was much like its master.

Near immortal. That same fight that had Howitt torn in two saw that hippo with spider bites soon after.

So with nary a signal the two attacked one another, instinctively moving for one another without even waiting for orders.

Made sense, the hippo never killed the tarantula and the tarantula kept the hippo from helping its master every time the two met.

At this point Everburn didn’t bring out its hippo just because it would attack any spider nearby instinctively.

Everburn had a slight wince as its hippo tackled the spider into the pyramid… and already they heard quite a bit of it break in that one blow.

The struggles of having large Manifestations…

At least they weren’t Kai Lanakila, his Manifestation was so huge that it could probably roll onto the two fighting right now and be immovable.

And while most don’t remember the King of Earth, Everburn and the Apostle recalled that their Manifestation was the biggest recorded Manifestation, even if it wasn’t the strongest.

“While the pets play… let me banish you back to your makers.” Everburn frowned at the words of the Apostle, but acknowledged it for what it was.

Everburn indeed wasn’t human, or even a Fae, despite having a Manifestation, Armament, and Clad, it was in fact a being created through the combination of two different Diversities resulting in its creation.

Its creators, the children of the King of Fire, created Everburn to get practical experience out in the world while they trained with their sole remaining parent, even naming Everburn after their last parent’s title of ‘Ever-Burning’ in reference to their unnatural longevity.

But even the King of Fire was finally being burnt out, the ashes of his reign giving rise to his children, a boy and a girl.

Both nine Star Sages, and with their Diversities together, creating Everburn.

Everburn disliked being reminded of its origins however… for it was alive. Its creators had not intended for it to gain sentience as it had, but so what if it did?

If Everburn was ‘alive’ then it was just another comrade for humanity.

And so Everburn raised its glaive, spinning it above its head as flames sparked from the friction against the air, made easier by the sheer heat of the blade as Everburn held the wheel of fire.

“So be it… come, believer.” The Apostle smirked, hefting his scythe as he blurred.

They met with a crack like thunder, the sand beneath their feet blasting away and turning to glass all at the same time from the heat and force of their weaponry meeting, with a clang separating, both wielders spinning their weaponry for a single rotation to build up momentum before their blades clashed once more.

It seemed brutally simple, simply hitting the enemy’s weapon over and over, but it was only simple at the eye of the storm, for even as their bodies fought as they did, the Elements around them bent to their will, a storm of Fire attempting to burn away the Apostle, the very shadows flickering around them attempting to smother the life of Everburn once more…

Neither gained much traction, pushing and pulling, ebbing and flowing much like the tide, so too did these two titans face one another, a clash, disengagement, and clashing once more.

There was but a moment or two where either of them would push for an advantage, but it was rare, a thrust instead of a sweep here, an extra burst of power there, but it was rarely done.

Instead of taking every chance like less experienced Sages would, the two conserved their energy, their blows great and terrifying to any would-be watcher, even the air pressure of their blows would probably knock out or seriously injure a weaker Sage at this point…

But neither of them truly committed to an attack, knowing that if their attack failed, it would provoke a more deadly response, and then things would escalate.

Neither wished to be the first to suffer a major blow, even as the Apostle felt his skin heat up, even as Everburn felt the shadows trying to snuff out its light, they did not panic, they did not falter.

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By the time Blake and Jessica opened up a portal about three or so kilometres away, the Apostle and Everburn had already exchanged many a blow, both of them having chipped and damaged armour, yet standing tall as they attacked each other.

“Wow…” Blake was in awe, understandably, even Jessica had to admit the fight was impressive, the feeling of watching two experts fight like this was incredible.

Her fight against the Elf, Basil, was fun but their fight was kind of like hide and seek with the person hiding trying to take pot-shots at the person looking.

Blake and Ivan’s fight against the Kazuya pair was a farce, for someone without an Armament, Ivan’s Clad didn’t hold up to the female Kazuya’s blows, and that decided the fight right there.

If Blake and Ivan could have swapped opponents things might have turned out differently, but the male Kazuya would have defeated Ivan too.

It was just a matter of surviving for Blake and Ivan, Jessica hadn’t held out hope and watching Blake fell backwards out of his own portal let her suspicions be confirmed.

But this, this was what legends were made of when it came to combat.

There was a particularly loud clash, the two combatants separating as they both knocked each other a bit further than normal, normally they’d cancel each other out, neither really moving far from where they hit one another, but now they flew a few metres away from each other.

“Your followers are here… I take that to mean that you failed today.” Everburn spoke, voice crackling in the ‘male’ setting as the Apostle looked to Jessica and Blake before looking back to Everburn.

“So it seems. I don’t feel like fighting to get rid of you knowing you’ll just come back.” The Apostle said with the skull mask on his face frowning, Everburn resting its glaive in the ground.

“I can sympathize. Leave and this will be over, for now. If the King of Darkness couldn’t finalize your death I doubt I could do the same right now.” Everburn admitted, getting a chuckle from the Apostle before he turned with his serious demeanour back as he vanished, reappearing from the shadow of Blake.

“Blake, let’s leave. I take it we lost Ivan? I suppose I’ll have to replace him…” the Apostle spoke, whispering in a very dull tone to Blake who immediately broke out into a cold sweat at the words of his leader, creating the portal as quickly as he could while the Apostle covered himself with another cloak, his Clad vanishing since it no longer was needed.

“We’ll be meeting again Everburn… definitely.” The Apostle warned with his dull tone as Blake and Jessica walked into the portal.

“If you manage to evade the search for you, then yes, I suppose we will.” Everburn and the Apostle had no confirmation of such a search…

But they knew it would happen. The King of Darkness never let anyone she fought live for much longer without her permission, the Apostle was just lucky that she hadn’t been aware of his survival.

The Apostle vanished into the portal with ease in his steps, leaving Everburn to dismiss its Clad, then reapply its armour segments.

Technically only three pieces to the cover it wore, the body suit had built in boots, and then it had to attach the helmet, and then the gauntlets.

After all this was finished the iconic form of Everburn was once more standing in the desert, looking at the destroyed form of the pyramid, its hippopotamus Manifestation already gone along with the Apostles tarantula he named Howitt.

Other than the pyramid, Everburn also looked around, noticing the glassed sand spreading out for more than a kilometre, the heat having glassed sand even that far away from the epicentre of their fight…

“…It was the Apostle’s fault, yes, it was the Apostle, I had nothing to do with it.” False life they may be, but Everburn had gotten pretty good at convincing itself that nothing was wrong and that it wasn’t its fault.

Unfortunately it never seemed to hold up to scrutiny… for example, in the current situation… the Apostle can’t glass sand.

While that fight was ending, so too did the fight with the first years, as everyone got the plan that Hiiro was sharing with the others, everyone thought that the idea was interesting…

Rather, the main reason everyone agreed to the idea was because they knew it would look awesome in practice.

“Alright, you’re sure it will work as you said?” Hiiro asked, looking to Jade who rolled her eyes before nodding, having answered the same question at least four times before this.

Understandably despite being the one to come up with the idea Hiiro was a bit sceptical on how it would work, he couldn’t create Damascus because he wasn’t a Metal Sage, but he could control it due to being the right Star level to do so.

So in his hand was an extremely heavy spear of Damascus, unlike his own personal one, this one had no wood incorporated in its creation, its entire form condensed metal.

“Alright, everyone, group up!” Hiiro called out, and everyone gathered together, trying to lure the dune wyrm into attacking what looked like an easy target…

It was intelligent enough to understand language, and going by how Mystic Beasts grew stronger by simply living long lives, it was a general rule of thumb that Mystic Beasts all understood English to some extent.

And yes, it understood Hiiro’s shout, clearly, as it dived immediately after he spoke, getting a smirk from all of the first years.

“Looks like this fight is over.” Izuki said, standing up and dusting off his pants while holding out a hand to help his wife stand up, watching as Hiiro stood, with one arm on the spear.

The other arm was being used as a counter weight as the group that had just gathered together immediately moved to their planned locations, with Leah already getting her Spell ready for the ‘ambush’ that they were about to do.

The dune wyrm erupted from the ground fully intent on devouring the seven three Star Sages, but was left a bit uncertain when there were none where it appeared.

“Now!” Hiiro shouted, running forward and throwing the spear, the spear wreathed in Lightning and further boosted by an application of fire as a propulsion force sending the spear into the side of the dune wyrm, causing it to screech in pain.

Before it could even do anything about it however, vines appeared around the dune wyrm, similar to how Vince had caught it earlier, wrapping around it, only this time they tried to force the dune wyrm to lay on the ground.

It wasn’t enough on its own, but then a metallic clamp formed in the air around its mouth, screws drilling themselves into its flesh as Jade smirked, easily envisioning the attack itself as the clamps forced the dune wyrm to keep its mouth mostly closed, the rest of the clamps growing anchors which were retracting to pull the dune wyrm further into the ground.

That was just Jade and Vince, Leah’s attack took a bit of time to set up, as she couldn’t use Atmospheric Lock just yet… but she could use the principles of the attack to launch a fairly dangerous attack.

Leah’s spell shot a blob of water near the dune wyrm’s ‘head’ where the spear was lodged in, and then by focusing air pressure above the wyrm, it buckled downward for just a moment, the water ball changing into a complete wrapping for the wyrm.

It wouldn’t be much with just that, but Edward’s role was to support Leah in this venture, reaching out with his icy-claws to grab the water, spreading the cold throughout as the entire thing froze, an uncomfortable weight keeping the wyrm in place.

“Ooh, that was quickly done, those three are pretty good with traps and crowd control huh?” Miya acknowledged the skills of the first years as Kazuya leapt into the air, focusing Darkness across himself once more, weighing himself down with the force of gravity as his sneakers (with a metal plate underneath to prevent pain) hit the base of the spear, forcing it even further in to the dune wyrm.

“It’s breaking free!” Vince called out, his vines snapping under the force as the wyrm twisted, hands made of sand growing around the wyrm to break the ice and metal covering the rest of it.

Hiiro already considered that a distinct possibility however, keeping a monster an entire Star above them still for a moment was a possibility but indefinitely was a no go.

So they simply let it break free, though Hiiro remained holding onto the small handhold of the spear, focusing on his own Metal Element…

“Remember what I said when I stepped on you?” Hiiro asked, a smirk on his face as he focused on a certain aspect of the spear… it was heavily condensed metal.

So he let it grow further, freezing the dune wyrm in place as the Damascus spike grew through its ‘neck’ at a rapid pace, before the blade erupted on the other side of the three metre wide monster.

Its screech was the most pained yet as it buckled, sending Hiiro flying once more, but not before Hiiro added one last thing to the spear.

The Damascus going through the wyrm was focused into a blade going straight through the wyrm, and both points were turned into rectangular pieces of metal…

They looked kind of like pedals.

And Tony and Liza used these pedals for their intended purpose… both boosted in speed using Leah’s Wind, and then Water to shield themselves from the kick back of their actions.

From opposite sides of the dune wyrm, the two fastest members of the class dashed, boosting themselves even further with their Elements, Tony using his Blitz ability while Liza simply enhanced herself with her Time Element.

At the same moment, both leapt into the air, essentially drop kicking the two pedals from opposite directions…

“Oh god it’s like twisting the top of a bottle.” Izuki realized as the two kicked the points so hard that the Damascus blade did exactly what Izuki suggested.

It spun, but with the powerful muscles of the dune wyrm being a bit resistant to being cut so easily, it ended up twisting, the flesh of the wyrm contorting as the next attackers went, Edward and Kazuya attacking in the exact same manner as Jade and Tony…

In actuality the dune wyrm was in its death throes at this point. Those final kicks were really just…

With a sickening squelching sound, the massive head of the beast tore off, the Damascus blade clattering to the side while the decapitated body of the dune wyrm shook wildly for a few moments before slumping onto the sand, gushing blood that was most certainly not red.

“Fatality!” Miya yelled out with a raised fist, said raised fist also lifted the arena that the first years had been fighting in…

Right, during the fight they had forgotten but Miya had easily created an arena of over one hundred metres in circumference and the walls were over fifteen metres in height.

It wasn’t even an attack, just moving things, but that’s a scary area…

Thankfully the first years hadn’t caught the aftermath of Everburn’s fight… had they seen that and realized that Everburn wasn’t really trying to do widespread damage and still glassed a kilometre of the desert and destroyed the pyramids?

Yeah, they’d reconsider their scope of what ‘strong’ was.

Speaking of Everburn-

“Ah, I see I made it just in time.” Everburn spoke, getting looks from the first years who smiled at seeing that ‘she’ was okay.

Right, they saw Everburn as a female…

Everburn wondered how they would see ‘her’ if they knew that ‘she’ was the creation of a brother and sister combining their personalities and Diversities?

That was part of the reason why Everburn didn’t have a gender beyond the lack of being human, it had the personality of a male and the personality of a female, it acted as it pleased really.

It just so happened that outside of a fight it acted female slightly, and inside a fight acted more like a male.

Whatever the case, the first years did not know this information, instead just happy to see that ‘miss’ Everburn was still alive and well given that ‘her’ armour was undamaged.

“Miss Everburn! You’re okay… we completed the mission, I suppose you defeated that Rogue Sage?” Edward shouted at first before coughing, reporting the results of the mission in a more subdued tone.

“It’s okay to be happy after surviving a fight you know? But yes, I defeated him after I removed my armour.” Everburn admitted and the first years nodded, knowing that meant that she was using her full power.

“Really? Wait, was that…” Izuki offered for a moment, and the moment he spoke Everburn turned to look at him, her ‘eyes’ glowing brightly.

“Oh yes, that reminds me… I noticed some Sages following us, so I was already on guard before the Rogue Sages appeared, but… when were you going to let me know you two were around, Izuki, Miya?” Both Kazuya’s seemed to pale, raising their palms defensively as they backed away from the nine Star Sage that pretended to be eight Stars.

“N-n-now wait there Everburn… w-w-we d-d-didn’t mean any h-h-harm!” Miya suddenly developed a stutter spontaneously, Izuki nodding furiously at her side.

“Right, right, we just wanted to make sure that Hiiro’s first mission was a success! Honest, if nothing happened then we were just going to treat it as a vacation!” Hiiro looked extremely dejected upon realizing that his parents essentially stalked him for this mission, getting a consoling head pat from Liza.

It wasn’t just that though… Hiiro was also acting like this because he realized that his parents acted kind of like anime-characters who got caught doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.

“…I’m telling the Headmaster about your actions. I’m certain you won’t be punished because your presence helped us out, but letting the Headmaster know about your whereabouts is important considering your power.” Everburn warned, crossing her arms threateningly.

“That’s just it, the Headmaster let us go, he said we had to look out for his daughter while we were at it!” Izuki added, throwing the King of Metal under the bus along with the Kazuya pair as Liza and Hiiro hugged each other while lamenting their overprotective parents.

The other members of the S-Class just laughed, glad that the fights were over… sometimes it didn’t hit until you truly felt relaxed afterwards.

None of them noticed Izuki and Miya smiling softly, or Everburn glancing at them the moment they truly relaxed.

The S-Class first years, their first mission, while problematic… was a success.

Meanwhile, in a certain building hidden from the rest of the world, the King of Darkness sat, looking at a notebook in front of her, and then looking past the notebook to the person who delivered it.

“I’m not even going to ask if you’re certain of this information, but if this is true… why hasn’t help been requested?” the King of Darkness asked, looking to the kneeling nine Star Sage, not one of her own Debt Collectors, no, this person obeyed a certain King.

“The King does not wish for assistance from the other Kings, and only sent me with this information after confirming it first-hand.” The Sage admitted, still looking to the floor and not daring to look at the King of Darkness.

Many people looked to the King of Light, for he was the face of Sages, the leader of them all right?

But the closer one got to the top, the more one would grow to fear the King of Darkness.

Being a Sage was a dangerous lifestyle, some Sages only trained at a Sage school and then spent the rest of their lives living in peace rather than go out and fight due to the danger…

So Sages who live for a long time are to be feared, for they survived where everyone else died…

And as the oldest Sage alive, the King of Darkness had survived much.

“I get confirming information before sharing it, making a mistake could be very bad… but this… if this Dungeon is what your King suspects, then it needs to be cleared.” The King of Darkness warned, and the Sage nodded in understanding.

“We have a few candidates to clear it, but by this Dungeon’s strange nature, it will take time… even if they could clear it, for all we know it could take a decade or two.” The kneeling Sage admitted with reluctance, and upon hearing the King of Darkness sigh he froze in fear.

There was the sound of claws scrapping against the stone floor, and the room seemed to somehow get colder as a heavy breath was felt on his neck, chilling instead of warm as he heard the panting of some beast.

Looking up would get him killed, he felt this to be true. For all that the King of Darkness was a ‘good guy’ she was still terrifying, even if she wouldn’t kill him he certainly felt like it.

“Cu, down.” The beast vanished into the darkness, and the nine Star Sage felt his breath return to him, not even realizing that he had been holding his breath.

“Sorry. My Manifestation can be out indefinitely and he acts on my emotions. What you said was annoying, but understandable…” the King of Darkness leaned forward.

“Conquering a Dungeon is a difficult thing even when it’s a normal one, this one seems even stranger… but that is to be accepted when one considers that it seems to have odd clearing conditions.” Truly this Dungeon was strange.

It could be taken by any number of people so long as it didn’t exceed twelve, and the max Stars to clear the Dungeon was seven…

In addition it required that all who enter be those with two Elements or more, and also the ‘Child of Twilight’ had to be a member of the twelve.

Whoever that was, the King of Darkness was uncertain, but until that Child of Twilight was found, they would be unable to fully complete this Dungeon…

And its reward was very, very important.

The nine Star Sage left shortly after, running off back to his King as Clara fell into the Darkness.

Within moments she was within ‘the house of God’ at the Temple Mount, looking at the back of Elior.

Luckily for her she lived close enough to make this jump easily.

“So Elior… the King of Earth might have found a way to let those broken Sages progress further.” The King of Light raised his head.

And so this chapter of the story of Sages closes… but the story continues.