POV - ???

“Are the men ready to go?” I asked

“Yes Captain” replied one of the Knights under my command for this mission.

“Let’s move out then”

“Yes Captain!” the 15 Knights responded and we headed off.

In this small but well trained unit, alongside the knights are five Rank 7 Mages led by Clara Wharnock a prodigy in Magic, she herself being a Rank 7 mage at the age of 25. Her father is a Commander General of the Empire, the highest military rank that is attainable.

She jumped at the chance of going on this mission as she was told by her father that she lacked real experience in the field. Along with being a prodigy in magic she is also extremely beautiful, someone like her you would expect to see with other noble women doing whatever they are supposed do, yet she is here out in the field where danger is ever so prevalent.

I observed her as she rode alongside me, she had raven black hair that is currently tied up in a ponytail for lack of restriction, she has deep blue eyes and is wearing blue high quality robes designed for Mages. Although she is better than most there is still a degree of arrogance to her which was to be expected as she has been hailed a prodigy ever since she was young.

“Captain Pearson, do we know the exact location of the criminal?” Clara asked. This small units mission is to capture a criminal named Hagon, dead or alive. Hagon has been a wanted criminal for a while, he’s a Mage who uses the darkness element and is reported to be of Rank 7 himself. He has been reported for a list of vile crimes and the recent one is the worst of them yet. Reports have said that he has kidnapped young children and has been conducting all sorts of sickening tests on them.

“Yes, a lucky witness has reported to have seen him entering a hidden cave on a small mountain within the Elderwood Forest”

“The Elderwood Forest, that place is dense with Magical Beasts. Also, isn’t that the territory of the Lormal the Lesser Frost Dragon?”

“Yes, it is, but don’t worry Lormal won’t attack us since I have the badge that signifies we are from the Empire, since it releases mana that Lormal is familiar with. Also, the other Magical Beasts that you talked about are not that strong where we are heading too”

My answer seemed to be satisfactory as she stopped talking and we continued to the Forest.

After a few hours of riding we arrived at the entrance to the forest, we had left the capital city of the Empire early to finish this on the same day so currently there was still a couple of hours till sun down and our destination was only an hour away by riding, as we were about to head inside the forest something stopped us.

Two individuals stepped out from the forest, one was a young man who looked to be in his late teens while the other was a young girl who was in her early teens. They were talking and laughing as they exited the forest, once they noticed us they stopped talking and gave us a short glance but otherwise kept walking towards the capital city of the Empire. We stopped for a while before I decided to ignore them and keep moving as I wanted to finish this quickly.

As we entered the forest I turned to look at Clara who had a confused look on her face.

“What’s wrong Miss Clara”

“Hmmm, the two from earlier were interesting”

This perked my interest “Oh? How so?”

“Earlier when I sent my own mana to investigate the two I could feel my mana simply disappear as it came in contact with them”

Although I am not a Mage myself I am not ignorant to mana, most warriors such as myself can sense and use mana to a certain extent, mostly to strength our body and weapons. You would need at least one elemental affinity to become a Mage though. If she can’t find out about a person’s mana by using her own to sense it, it would simply mean that person is a higher rank than her but in this case, she said that it disappeared altogether.

“Disappear?” I asked once more to confirm.

“Yes, it never happened to me before, it was a weird feeling. I kept on feeding mana yet it continued to disappear”

This would usually be investigated further but I did not sense any ill intent from the duo and since we must capture this Hagon, I thought it would be best to leave it for now.

“Captain we have arrived” a Knight stopped me and pointed towards an open cave on a mountain side.

“This isn’t hidden at all, where are the vines, boulder or at least something that gives it some semblance to being hidden? Also, Captain didn’t you say that Hagon keeps Magical Beasts as guards, this place seems deserted” Clara commented seemingly annoyed.

It was indeed deserted and the place was roughened up and some parts also seemed scorched. This was weird, either Hagon had escaped or something else had taken place here.

“Five of you come with me, Miss Clara you come as well. The rest stay alert and guard the area” I ordered and quickly my men arranged themselves.

I commanded the five to follow while Clara joined me up ahead. It was eerily quiet as we entered the cave.

“Did you not sense anything with your mana” I questioned Clara

“No, actually there seems to be no external mana, only the one normally present in the atmosphere”

That’s discouraging, if Hagon was here Clara should have been able to sense him unless he had an artefact which blocked her out or was a much higher rank. We continued onward and the scene worsened, now all around the cave walls were burnt, however when I asked Clara she told me that it was not done with mana.  Hurrying forwards, we turned the last bend but immediately stopped.

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The Knights, Clara and I were all wide eyed, instead of the cave opening to a large room, all we saw were rocks stacked upon each other filling up the entire room.

“What the heck is this? It seems like the mountain collapsed but only on this on room, even though things like this happens, it still doesn’t seem natural, does it?” Clara asked

“No its suspicious, although there was no mana used therefore indicating that it was a natural event, there still seems something wrong about this whole thing. Also can’t you all smell it? It’s lessened most likely due to the burnt smell masking it a bit but it smells like death”

As I finished talking the others fell quiet, my mind was racing, trying to figure out what or more like who could have caused this. This whole thing would be easy for a mage to do, however Clara says that there is no external mana present here therefore ruling out the possibility of a mage.

As we walked back out of the cave I kept on pondering, no mana, who could do this besides a Mage. A strong warrior whose body strength is enough to collapse a mountain? When I finally got back to my horse I stopped………… No mana?

“Miss Clara, do you happened to remember what that man looked like?” I asked hinting at something, from all my life experience I could tell something was not right about that man and how they came out of the forest without any injuries is suspicious in its own right.

She seemed confused at first but she seemed to have understood the meaning behind my sudden question.

“Yes, Mages have an extremely good memory, I won’t be able to forget him”

“Alright, men hurry up we are leaving for the capital”

POV – Matzal

As Nissa and I were walking to the city I was thinking about what happened back when we first exited the forest.

I had sensed the Mages and Knights before we reached near as my power is always present however I simply didn’t make anything of it. Once we exited, I only acknowledged them with a glance and Nissa also kept quiet, the one thing that slightly bothered me was the mage who had decided to send her mana over to investigate me however as soon as it touched the lair of my power covering me, it was obviously negated. This only encouraged her curiosity therefore I walked away and thankfully they didn’t follow, however I feel like she might come back for me and at least at the early stages of my journey I didn’t want to make myself known if I could help it.

We still had around 8 hours of walking till we reached the city, not wanting to get caught I decided to speed up our journey. I picked up an unaware Nissa into my arms which caused her to be confused then she started to blush profusely.

“Big brother Matzal! What are you doing?! Put me down! Put me down now!” she had started calling me big brother after we left this morning as she didn’t feel calling me by my name was appropriate. I of course didn’t mind, I never had any siblings so it would be fun to enjoy this foreign feeling.

“It will get dark by the time we get to the city so I am going to speed it up a bit, hold on tight”. Nissa, although red and confused still snuggled up to my chest and grabbed me tightly.

“Alright here we go” with that said, I sped off into the distance

I had to slow down my speed dramatically because if I went too fast Nissa wouldn’t be able to cope with it. We still managed to arrive in half an hour rather than the 8, Nissa had managed to open her eyes and look for a moment and was obviously shocked at the speed were going at. We stopped a bit before the city gates so that we don’t draw too much attention and I put Nissa down.

“Big brother Matzal next time tell me when you are going to do something like that before picking me up!” Nissa tried glaring at me but her smile said she enjoyed the ride. I just laughed it off as we continued towards the city gates.

When we reached the city gates which were accompanied by towering 20 meter tall walls making them look quite imposing, there was quite a large line. Even though I could enter the city easily without the guards knowing, I still decided against it.

I have seen Mortals worlds before however due to my ‘job’ I had to view them from outside, so I have not stepped foot on any planets before this. Although the Realm of Gods is called as such it is still home to a lot of different beings and not simply Gods. Therefore, it has similarities to Mortal worlds only they are much grander. My visits to the cities of the Realm of Gods have been short lived as I couldn’t fool the Overseer for a long period of time.  

As I was daydreaming I felt a tugging on the sleeve of my robe, looking down Nissa was glaring at me. “What is it?”

“I have been calling you for so long yet you haven’t even noticed” she pouted.

“Sorry, I was thinking about something, what did you want” I smiled at her which in turn caused her to smile too. I don’t know why I am being the way I am when it comes to her. Maybe it’s due to what had happened to her before.

I keep feeling my rage and dislike of the Gods increase every time I am awakened, they are given incredible powers, are immortal and aside from myself who would dare defy them, yet they continue to neglect their jobs. The continent taken over by the corrupt mana has already killed many mortals and would kill more if I was not to intervene. Maybe I should teach the Lesser God responsible for this planet a lesson, I was told they reside in this continent by the Overseer.

“Big brother Matzal, what are we going to be doing in this city?”. Nissa looked up at me, with curious eyes. She is weird, sometimes she seems like a perfectly normal girl while other times she completely changes.

 I don’t know, maybe I just can’t understand people well enough yet.

“I am not completely sure, maybe eat from all the restaurants, visit all the famous places and see what other fun things this place has to offer” I didn’t have to continue as she was already drooling and gazing absentmindedly when I talked about eating. With a sigh, I nudge her shoulder to bring her out of her dream like state, and like always she starts going red and looks away.

Sigh, I will never be able to understand others.

While we were in the line I was investigating everyone else, however none of these people were more powerful than the Knights and those mages I had seen earlier. Most of them were in carriages while some were on foot, some of the higher quality carriages were guarded by mercenaries and most of the travellers on foot had weapons on them. I only happened to find a few with elemental affinities.

We had arrived to the front rather quickly and as it was our turn we walked towards the guard who inspected us.

“What’s your names and what business do you have in the city of Skyfallow?” the guard asked while another held a pen and book waiting to record my answers.

“My name is Matzal and hers is Nissa” I decided to give my real name because it will most likely be lost in the records regardless “We are here just to visit”.

The guard looked me up and down stopping on the katana that hung on my waist, “Visit huh? Alright, let me warn you that there are sever penalties if you kill within the city or cause any other trouble, this is the Capital of the Empire of Cindrelth, nothing will be tolerated here. Do you understand?” he asked while attempting to look threatening.

Holding back a laugh I replied “Yes, I understand”, I have gotten threats from arrogant Gods before and many have cursed me but I have never been threatened by a Mortal. Ah… the Mortal World will indeed be quite fun.

“Alright, what’s in that bag of yours?” he asked while looking at my bag of holding.

“Just a few coins for my travels” I replied

The guard looked at me for a moment then asked to see it. As i was about to give it i realized something, crap I forgot that anyone can use the bag of holding. I need to find an escape route, I can’t let anyone go through my bag. Looking around at other travellers trying to find a way out, my eyes fell upon a fat man sitting on a decent sized caravan with a bag similar in size and colour to mine. I slowly had a smile creeping up on my face, what luck!

“Sure, here you go” I took my bag and handed it to him.

He looked inside and brought out some copper, silver and a couple of gold coins, he looked back at me for a few seconds then returned my bag.

“You’re free to go. Next!”

I took my bag and started walking towards the gate. As we were walking Nissa was pulling on my sleeve again, I looked at her with a questioning gaze to which she replied.

“I have seen you pull out more than just coins from that bag before, why was the guard not able to”

“Hehe, that’s a secret”