Luthando

Flying up above the clouds with the Faceless formation around me I catalogue everything I see and sense of this new land we have gained access to. The mountain range is vast with white peaks that pierce the sky creating clouds of mist as the wind breaks upon them. The animals I notice are good for eating and cultivating for ingredients or making cloth material, nothing too extravagant as many are around the 4th tier or lower with the young dragon Luvuyo is facing the only 5th tier being I have witnessed as of yet.

The mountain rocks are sturdy with generous mineral deposits one of the Faceless silently conveys to me, I could have a stronghold build here with the only vulnerability from above.

The creatures that share the sky with me are smart, avoiding us though some following for a while at a ‘discreet’ distance. Sky eagles, mountain raptors, wind elements I even spot an Aquila eagle. An auspicious sighting if ever there was one, recently rejuvenated too if my guess is correct.

There is very little chi in the air I'm told but the little that is here is pure, unblemished and maybe even beneficial to me with my ...disadvantages. There is little ether as well, thin which explains why the few creatures I’ve seen are so low in power being at 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier mana evolutions even when I sense great age from them.

Even as that thought comes to mind I feel a great mental weight as a powerful creature challenges my right to fly through its territory. We stop our leisurely flight midair as I concentrate, dividing my mind trice so that whilst one part is assaulted another working a defence the last is searching for my foe to attack. I spot it, a humanoid creature standing in a grassy valley; a plateau between mountains with large mountain deer of the 4th tier standing around it like sentries. Cataloguing it quickly and keeping the image of it in my mind I am able to break myself from the weight of its ability and I float down towards it.

Finally, someone to tell me about this new world I’ve come to claim.

It watches my descent without making any further moves, allowing me to land smoothly on a rock only a kilometre away from the ageless creature.

‘’You are the most powerful of all the denizen of the world I have come across, tell me creature, what are you and how is this world called?’’ I send in Universal even as the Faceless land in a semi circle with me in the centre.

The creature watches me with a corked head. It stands at close to 3m in height and must weigh close to a ton in bone and muscle alone. Hoofed feet paw the ground it stands on like a skittish horse being standoffish, antlers on its head sharp and twisted like the uncombed hair of a madmen living in the woods yet its ethereal beauty is a testament that its current form is self-chosen or created. So a shape changer of the 6th tier that likens itself a protector of these parts judging by its posture, aura and the challenge I received.

‘’I have never before come across a human of your power nor one coming from the Gate rather than going towards it,’’ it says with eyes glowing for a split second. ‘’But I see now that you aren’t human at all, tell me creature from beyond the Gate. What are you and what is it that brings you to Gaia and specifically my mountains?’’

A grin stretches across my face, is this to be my first true challenge on this world? In terms of mana awakening we are on the same tier but I can feel that its power and aura are much more solid than my own, this creature is much... older. I clench my right fist feeling power pulling around it in a vacuum of air.

‘’Your insolence can only be forgiven once,’’ I say whilst looking at my fist gathering pure energy and force from my surrounds.

‘’Now I will not ask again until you have learnt your place of submission at my feet but do not worry, unlike my siblings I am gentle and I am merciful.’’

It snorts but takes a defensive stance as the deer creatures around it scatter to face my Faceless, I grin releasing a wave of energy Nature’s Call. The cylindrical bean shoots from my upraised fist even as the stone of the mountain itself rises up like malleable clay to defend the large creature. Wave after wave of rock barriers sparkling with hardening minerals are as paper trying to impeded fire until a split second later half the valley it destroyed as the creature takes the attack in a personal shield around itself.

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[Bovooo] the grounds scatters around the creature now standing on an untouched isle in a destroyed landscape.

I keep Nature’s Call beaming at it directly for a further 2 seconds channelling it through me just to see if I can’t break through the personal shielding.

With a wave of my hand the dust and debris are blown away and there my opponent stands with arms crossed and not a hair out of place with the cone of destruction widening behind it. Tough fucker, I grin lowering my arm surveying the damage I have caused some of the 4th tier creatures around it with previously majestic hides now charred in places. Some struggling to stand after being in the periphery of a 6th Tier energy beam, a shame, those could have made excellent coats.

Something cackles and raising my left arm a dome is around me catching the first, the second the third clap of power that falls directly above me in the form of green lightning strikes. I signal the Faceless to stand down as the creature’s glow causes even me to look away and before me stands a wondrous rain-deer that demands awe with its very presence.

Six more lightning strikes fall on my Absolute Cocoon even stronger than the previous 3, bowing me at the knees slightly as I take then and dissipate them around me though they dig me deeper and deeper into the ground with every strike.

Dissipating my Cocoon, with waves of my hands I send Blades of Air shooting at my opponent one after another, jumping up and levitating above the rock spikes suddenly shooting up at my feet. My blades are smashed aside by the suddenly very mobile antlers deflecting them around and away from itself. They cut deep razor fine furrows into the ground, slicing through trees, chipping off pieces of mountains far in the distance wherever they are deflected before they dissipate again joining the natural winds of the world.

The creature howls, the air visibly undulating towards me bringing my hands together and pushing them forward I cut through the wind and sound attack with Harmony grinning as my ear-drums regrow themselves and I again find my balance. ‘’You made me bleed,’’ I say cheerfully as blood trickles from my ears after the first seconds of the fight.

There are stalactite like spikes glistering from the rock bellow me, the grass and trees around my opponent is charred and upheavaled by the air blades that dug into it, trees have been felled the air around us shimmers with violent intent as we survey each other.

‘’Now, how about we get serious!’’ I say shooting towards my foe with Killing Intent aura buffeting me.

*

Ambassedor Hara

The ground undulates in a wave like the ocean does with the coming and going of the tides. I’m on the second floor of the Conclave Embassy built within the walls of the city proper only by virtue of how early in their rise we got ourselves involved with the Barbarian Tribes and Paradisum as a whole. Something I’m suddenly very grateful for as from my window I witness one of the tall ‘apartment’ blocks built outside the wall crumbling in a cloud of dust from my vantage point.

I hold tightly onto my heavy desk as the embassy building rides out the earth quaking waves, shifting with the shifting soil, adjusting to the movement of Gaia. There is rumbling and squeaking as the wards laid deep into the foundation do their work, the building adjusts while staying firmly founded at its exact spot without falling apart even as the intensity of the quake increases. Everything is groaning until the sound is as though coming from an impossibly large creature growling in protest.

There is smoke rising from outside the walls as the quake continues through one minute, then another minute to my surprise and rising alarm. Block after block falls in the distance from the continued shaking of Gaia, everything shaking within the walls as well but as of yet not a single building falling as far as I can tell. The groaning becomes impossibly loud as the quake becomes more pronounced, the furniture within my chambers tossed and turned to and fro, up and down. Bookshelves capsize; glass shatters my utensils spill all over the place.

I clad myself in aura as dust crumbles from the ceiling onto my heavy desk still rattling before the anger of the world, then suddenly it all ends. There is a silence for a moment as though everything is holding its breath, then everything is chaos outside my chamber doors and out the window from the streets.

There are screams from the streets I assume because of the injured and possible deaths that may have resulted. Groaning and shouting from immediately outside my office chambers before the door opens roughly with an ever immaculate Sergei walking in surveying my office.

‘’I was on my way to see you,’’ he says as I feel some of his skills assessing me for damage.

‘’I’m fine,’’ I say waving my hand away even as my assistant ducks into the room to make himself available.

‘’Send an envoy to the Council of Chiefs; offer our assistance in any way we can. Get me a damage report, both of the city and any of our personal not in the building. Send me Flightflie, I want to report this to the Conclave with haste.’’

‘’Yes ambassador,’’ he says with a bow and disappears in a buff of smoke.

‘’Its starting,’’ Sergei says looking into my eyes.

I shrug, ‘’maybe it was just an quake.’’

Shaking his head he moves around my desk and holds me in his arms. ‘’’Maybe I should go home,’’ I whisper as worry gnaws at my stomach.

‘’Your home is with me,’’ he says and I lean into his solid body with a sigh. I really can’t imagine that people that just died right now, especially is that quake was far-reaching. If the seams of the world are fading as it was foretold then the time The Ancient has bought us is coming to an end, who knows what will happen next.