Cecil and the house representatives cut their way through the Raksha in front of them, creating their own path towards the main altar.

Lady Bulwark, long sword and shield in hand, completely dominated the group’s defense. Her coverage allowed Cecil to be even more risky with his combat maneuvers. Cecil understood why Lady Bulwark acted the way she did, she had the skill to back up her opinions of the ninth generation.

It was at this time that Cecil heard the cracks and clanks that the blade of his sword usually started to make around the middle half of a hunt. Cecil fought with no ather and used his strength to compensate for his self imposed fighting style.

His sword handle was custom length, intended to give the blade a wider grip for the user to swing with all of their might and crush their enemies. This caused the weapon to be put under more pressure than it could handle and would, over time, begin to crack until the blade broke.

Cecil was notorious for breaking sword after sword in hunts he would participate in regularly. Come on, keep it together. He gripped the hilt tightly. The battle isn’t over yet, it’s just starting.

All around him he could hear the thunderous movement of Asani, he would appear near Cecil’s group, carve into a Raksha,and then return back to provide cover for the few Jaegers still left alive.

Asani is putting his all into this, Cecil thought, and then stared back at his sword. There was still more he could give, there was still more his sword had left.

Yet even with Asani's grand show of determination and grit, the giant cheetah was starting to look fatigued. He was using his own ather and the limited ather that his lord Oshi had to sustain his power and speed.

Something Oshi was very aware of, as he moved with more haste, cutting and crushing all the Raksha around him. He didn’t even feel the orb attacks launched into his chest, or the slices and blunt hits he took.

Beside him, William Zill and his men were doing the same. He had entered the cavern with six Jaegers; now only two of them were left.

“Lord Will, should we begin now?” One of the jaegers allied with William Zill asked. “No, our plan is only to be used against lady Harriet,” William replied. He held his arm, wrapping a fresh cut wound with a torn piece from the bottom of his jacket.

They had made progress moving forward towards the altar, and it was finally in range for the group to truly see the shrine.

Cecil was the first to see the altar, it was a grand circular plate inserted into the ground and took up most of the back of the cavern. Carved into the plate were strange otherworldly sigils. These sigils went all around the plate until they intersected together.

In the middle of it all was a wooden circular stage with a stone on top of it, this stone was in a rectangular shape, it too was carved with sigils. These sigils were all over the stone in a methodical and meticulous pattern.

Laying on top of the stone was a young elf woman, naked and with her hair shaved. A book was placed on her chest, her hands cradling the tome as she appeared to be sleeping.

Cecil yelled, “ESMERALDA!” He pushed forward with his radiant step, the air around him crushed down, stopping him from dashing ahead. What the hell? It caught him off guard, and he slowly turned around to see the house representatives hunched over. Even the Raksha around them were being pushed by some invisible force.

He moved his head back towards the altar, the force causing his movements to be slowed. There he could see the once mediating Jaeger that knelt near the altar had her eyes open. Gone were the once vast green eyes of the graviton spear. In their place, a sickening bright yellow pierced at Cecil.

She got up, spear in hand, and looked at Cecil\, straight into the different colored eyes he had. “What's a Hathaway doing here? Shouldn’t you all be in heaven, extinct by now?” She had no emotion in her voice. But her eyes screamed out towards Cecil, that she had hatred, that she was going to kill him and everyone else here.

Harriet Feylana

Age: Thirty-six

Inherited Ather: Void and Flame.

Master of the Spear.

Titles: The graviton spear, the heroine of Zhona, slayer of the Juko-beast. The Lady of the Void, the Betrayer.

She pushed out her arm and used her void ability to push Cecil back forty feet, the surprise nature of the push caused him to drop his sword as he flew into a small group of Raksha, one of which held up a small knife that stabbed into Cecil’s lower back as he landed into the group.

They began to bombard and beat on him. So that’s Void ather.Cecil kicked and punched anything and everything around him as he fought for his life, in a desperate struggle.

Because Harriet had pushed Cecil, that attack canceled the void ather around the representatives. They each got up immediately and pushed their attacks forward.

Lady Bulwark was first to reach her, swinging her sword at Harriet’s neck. The blade stopped in the air, trembling as lady Bulwark began to force her arm to complete her attack.

Harriet had placed a void gravity field and focused all of her ather right where Bulwark’s blow wanted to land.

The void field was holding the sword, and by extension, Lady Bulwark, in place.

“Aren’t you too old for all of this? Didn’t you tell me you wanted to retire?” Harriet asked. Bulwark struggled using every inch of her power to break through Harriet’s void field.

“Shut up, you aren’t Harriet! Stop reading her memories.” Lady Bulwark screamed in frustration, face red, her veins exposing themselves on her forehead, bleeding in agony.

Harriet twirled her spear and then lunged it into lady Bulwark. Bulwark moved her shield, and while it wasn’t a clean block, the shield was able to redirect the attack. Harriet had aimed for the heart, but the spear redirected to Bulwark’s shoulder and left arm.

Lady Bulwark screamed in pain, the graviton spear ability activated, and her left arm fell downward. Her stabbed arm became heavy and caused the left side of the body to topple to the ground.

“Die.” Harriet aimed her spear to Lady Bulwarks pained face, only to feel danger approaching. Harriet pulled back her spear and kicked lady Bulwark’s face instead, sending the elder back a few feet. The kick was powered with void ather. Harriet jumped back and felt a sharp blade cut the side of her face.

Oshi’s long blade had reached her, as he stood in his battle stance, taking cautious steps. “So you aren’t invulnerable,” he said, gripping the hilt of his katana tightly in both hands. He flicked his katana, causing the small droplets of Harriet’s blood to drip off his blade.

William appeared at the opposite side that Oshi stood. He would let Oshi lead their double attack. The two men both knew that Harriet could only focus her void field on one section of space at the moment.

To do what she did earlier, affecting the entire area around her, she needed to have charged her void ather and focused intently on the people around her.

The key to beating Harriet was to never give her the chance to store her void ather, like the way she had when she was meditating near the main altar. Keep the momentum going, don’t give her a respite. Oshi shifted his long katana so that the blade was now pointed towards Harriet, William did the same with his trident.

The men gave each other a stern look and then each dash forwarded, attacking simultaneously, Harriet dashed in just as they did and clashed her spear against Oshi’s long katana. Her strength surprised Oshi as she pushed his sword and arm up into the sky, holding them in place with her spear.

It wasn’t that Oshi thought Harriet was weaker than him, if anything he was extremely cautious. He felt his movements and ather focus, the flow of the battle was in his favor.

He would have never gone in for this attack if he knew it was going to be deflected so easily. It was a testament to the graviton spear’s true strength, that even with all their planning, with all the right conditions and with an advantage over her, Harriet Feylana was still stronger… And that worried Oshi.

As Oshi’s arms shot into the sky, William took this opportunity to stab at Harriet’s chest with his trident. Harriet activated her void field, pushing William’s trident towards the ground.

William fought the pressure of the void field with everything he had and slowly began to break through the void field, moving his weapon upwards, back towards Harriet.

Like Lady Bulwark, his face was bright red, and veins had exploded out of his forehead. Stupid fuckin’ void ather. It was his first time facing a void user, and just thinking about the pressure sapped his energy, so he screamed out in frustration.

“What family are you supposed to be in, I don’t recognize you at all.” Harriet lifted her right leg and then slammed the trident into the ground. Rocks and Debris flew out into the air at the disrespectful attack against the House Zill and their legendary treasure.

Harriet then used the trident to leverage her body, pushing herself off the weapon and into the air with a short hop. She then rotated in the air and kicked William in the face with her left leg, sending the young man flying back as well.

At the same time, she used her spear to push Oshi back a few inches as she landed on the ground, lifting her right arm up with her palm open in the air. She brought it down like one would a hammer to a nail.

Willam felt the crushing gravitational force stopping his flying body and pile driving him into the stone ground. The gravitational force formed a giant open palm hand around him.

“Willam!” Oshi turned his head in the air to see William’s unresponsive body, wanting to help the young Jaeger. Oshi instead closed his eyes and looked back at the traitor before him. He knew that he couldn’t leave Harriet without an opponent.The only one that could face her right now was him.

Oshi took this opportunity to regain his footing and attacked, swinging his sword in a methodical manner, trying to break her defense.

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But Harriet wasn’t breaking.

Harriet pressed on, every clash of their weapons pushing Oshi back, away from the altar. “Come on Chief, is this all you can do? Summon the Seven. Or is it true you can only summon one at a time?” Harriet taunted.

It worked, Oshi had a momentary lapse and wasn’t able to parry fast enough as Harriet's spear stabbed him in the right side of his chest.

He felt an intense pressure and weight in the area he was stabbed, a mini gravity field pulling the area of his wound downward towards the ground.

That spear works too well with her damn abilities. Oshi ignored the wound that was pulling his body downward and swung his sword while the graviton spear was still buried into his chest.

He aimed for the neck of his opponent. His long blade should have cut her neck off cleanly, especially with how close the two were to each other.

She focused her void field between her neck and his katana, using her gravitational ather to hold Oshi’s weapon in place.

Harriet pulled her spear out of Oshi’s chest and went for a second attack, only to have her eyes widen in shock as the chieftain in front of her screamed out in rage. He tensed every muscle in his body, burned his ather, and sent it through his katana, cutting through the void.

Harriet jumped backwards and used all of her void ather to push the giant man away. Her throat was cut, but had she not reacted the way she did, her head would have been cut clean off.

The entire battle Harriet was underestimating him, the drama and gossip that Jaegers would bring up about him would usually all lead to the same things. That Oshi was weak, that he didn’t deserve the titles and ear of the Grand Chieftain.

That he was weaker than his mother, the previous head of his clan. That he wasn’t able to fully utilize the Seven with his limited levels of ather.

But they were wrong, not many were ever able to cut through her void field. Oshi felt satisfied.

He was still stronger. Oshi flew back but used his Terra ather to manipulate the earth around him and summoned a pillar of stone out of the ground to stop his body.

He slammed into the created stone pillar, smashing it into pieces as his body landed on the floor.

Harriet looked at Oshi in anger, summoning a flame out of her hand and placing it on the cut flesh of her throat. The fire burned her skin, and then began to heal itself.

Oshi slowly got up, lifted his head, and then smiled a wide grin “You are beatable, Lady Harriet.” It was his turn to taunt her… “and I will be the one that kills you. Maybe I would be the next graviton spear? Sounds nice, no?” And it worked.

“Iizzk zzkt izkzkit!!” Harriet screamed out towards the shaman Raksha with the staff in its’ hands. The shaman nodded, stopping the current creation rituals as it began to move away from the second altar.

It barked out orders to its horde of brethren and then took its place near Harriet, raising the demonic staff into the air.

///

Cecil was getting ganged up, he counted four. No, it's actually six, I got to pay more attention. He wondered how he could even have time to think as the Raksha beat their fists, feet, and clubs into him.

Cecil held his arms in a blocking position over his face, waiting for the right moment to strike back. Another Raksha danced its way towards the group and lifted a rusted great sword into air near Cecil’s head. Oh. Fuck. Cecil quickly reached for anything he could grab, and was able to find the ankle of one of the Raksha stomping on him.

It was mid stomp when Cecil latched on to its meaty grey ankle. The Raksha became confused.

Cecil’s position on the rocky earth was awkward, so he had to use more force and different parts of the muscle in his entire arm to lift the Raksha in the air. He swung the monster into its allies, pushing the group away.

Cecil had given himself a small fraction of time to get off his back into a low crouching position, in order to turn and face the Raksha who held the great sword. It was mid swing and going for the kill.

Cecil intercepted the great sword with the Raksha he held by the ankle.

“AIEPPPPPPEE!!!” It screamed out as the great sword sliced cleanly through. Cecil threw the bottom half of the once alive Raksha weapon directly into the one before him.

He began to plummet the creature's head that had held the greatsword, bashing his fist into it, killing it after ten or fifteen strong punches. The Raksha who were pushed away got back to their feet and returned to face Cecil, continuing where they had left off. It was an all out brawl, as Cecil fist fought roughly five of the damned creatures that had ganged up on him.

“You bastards!” Cecil felt disoriented, swinging punches and kicks wildly as he fought for his life. Whatever grace or technical skill Cecil showed was gone as he savagely beat the Raksha around him, trading blows.

In between the hits Cecil took in the face, he caught glimpses of the battlefield, of William’s unresponsive body pressed into the ground next to Cecil’s sword, Lady Bulwark holding onto her arm trying to get up, and Oshi locked into battle with Harriet.

Cecil gritted his teeth and did his best to reignite his spirit. He pushed himself and fought with more vigor than before, knocking out one of the Raksha that lunged at him and kicking away another.

Got to go help the others. Cecil dodged an attack and then grabbed the head of his attacker with both of his hands. He twisted its head and killed it instantly. “ D-don’t have time to p-play with you guys… Anymore.” Cecil was exhausted, yet he still held his fists up in the air.

///

Harriet was successful. She had pushed the invaders from the altars, giving her faction the time to continue their rituals for a few seconds longer. Now she just needed to keep Oshi busy as the shaman Raksha next to her started the spell and ritual that would wipe out the last few pathetic Jaegers left.

Harriet twirled her spear and got into a battle position, pointing the tip of the spear at the chieftain of the Roland clan.

“Harriet is beatable?” She laughed straight to Oshi's face, then spat at the ground in his direction. “I. AM. NOT,” she growled out.

The graviton spear dashed towards Oshi, unleashing a barrage of spear attacks, every swing or stab producing a trail of flames out of her weapon. Orange and red hues of fire roared all around the area Harriet and Oshi called their battlefield.

A dodge or parry didn’t matter now, Harriet’s ather was vast and radiated strongly from all of her attacks. A graze of the flames would rip and burn Oshi’s skin even with limited contact, Oshi hopped back, needing a small respite, a reset to gather himself and figure out his next move.

He didn’t notice the hordes of Raksha that quickly ran past him towards the main altar, how could he? His opponent was the graviton spear, all of his focus and attention needed to be placed towards her.

Harriet hopped back as well, but used it to gain momentum and lunged forward. Oshi caught a glimpse of William, still unresponsive, of Cecil, fighting bare-handed, bloody and bruised against a group of Raksha.

Cecil and William weren’t the same age as his daughter, William was in his early twenties and Cecil was sixteen, but to Oshi it didn’t matter, he saw the youth of the ninth generation fighting for their life. Cecil and William were capable, more so than most of the eighth generation adults that Oshi knew. None of that mattered! To Oshi, no child, teenager, or young adult should die before their father does.

Oshi had told Cecil not to die, that it wasn’t his time. The Jaegers that died here, that transformed into Raksha, it wasn’t their time to die either. Oshi was the leader here, Oshi was the one with the most experience in battle and in life.

No one else needed to die and if the gods needed one more sacrifice for the Jaegers to win, it would not be Cecil, it would not be William, it would not be the remaining few Jaegers fighting for their lives and the lives of all of the people in Aiolia.

It would be Oshi.

Zuri… I have to do this. Oshi steeled his resolve. I’m the only one that can take Harriet off the battlefield. Oshi knew what he had to do and began to set his battle plan in motion. Oshi lifted his right leg up and slammed it into the ground, summoning a stone slab taller than he was in front of him.

Harriet had no time to change her trajectory of her lunge, so she didn’t deviate. “Is this all you have to defend yourself with?” She stabbed the middle of the stone slab, the destructive power of her spear piercing through the stone.

Her Flame ather shot out to the sides spinning wildly around her and behind her. She screamed with anger to destroy the stone shield, but nothing she did made it disappear, crumble, or able topush her spear through it.

The stone was unbreakable.

Oshi placed his free hand into the ground and summoned more stone slabs in front of Harriet, in a curved position around her. Harriet tried to pull her spear out, but Oshi was using all of his ather abilities to hold it in the stone.

“O Gaia, crush my enemies. Terra crush!” Oshi slammed his hand into the ground, commanding the stone stabs he created with his Terra ather to come together to form a stone dome in an attempt to crush and bury Harriet. Harriet used her void field in a small circle around her to keep the earth around her from crushing her completely.

//

The real Harriet, the one locked inside her own body began to hyperventilate in her prison. She could feel every hit and attack, she was the one that felt the repressed emotions and damage that her physical possessed form received.

To Harriet there was nothing worse than a slow painful death of drowning or suffocating; it was a fear of hers since she was a child. And to her she was feeling the effects tenfold thanks to the self-made one heightening her senses. “Please just die!” She pleaded with herself, her physical prison. “Let chieftain Oshi kill you! No honor better than for a Jaeger such as him to slay you.” She said in between gasps of air.

In the physical plane, Harriet gritted her teeth and widened her stance, pouring everything she had into her void field. “No.” She replied to herself, the one in the spiritual plane. She let out a blood curdling scream and flailed her spear, crushing the stone bit by bit around her, pushing the stone prison with her void field simultaneously. She was rewarded as a piece of her prison broken enough for her to see the light of the torches that lit the cavern peer through.

Harriet grinned slightly as she pointed her spear at the hole that had appeared, then shock took over her expression as the stone wall she was about to target crumbled in front of her.

The next moments of the battle felt like time had slowed to a crawl. As the crumbing stone dissipated, Harriet saw Oshi lunging towards her with great speed, the look of a killer in his eyes.

He held his long katana in his left hand, in a reverse grip, the tip of the katana pointed at Harriet’s neck. He had his right palm on the butt of the hilt of his blade.

This annoying trash! Harriet knew she didn’t have time to move her void field, the other walls of the stone slobs Oshi created were still active, still on their course to crush the enemy.

And Oshi with his long katana, had an ather powered head start. Either Harriet used her void field to stop Oshi sword and get crushed, or she kept the void field where she had placed it, taking the powerful blow that the chieftain of clan Roland was about to give her.

“OSHI, PLEASE KILL ME!” The spiritual Harriet yelled in her soul, trying to reach out, trying to be heard by anyone other than herself, the Raksha or the so-called god that controlled her.

Her mouth disappeared, the self-made one taking it away.

Back on the battlefield Harriet turned off her void field,replacing it with pillars of flames bursting near her feet. The flames formed a shield around her, pushing the stones back.

But even with the flames, the stone walls moved inward, her spear now stuck in between two of the stone walls. She gripped the spear and tried her best to pull it out, but the ather around that area was empowered, stopping any and all resistance from freeing the spear. This subhuman must be sending his ather into this spot.

Oshi and his katana broke through the flames, his arms and face charred with burned skin. Harriet activated her void field,stopping the tip of Oshi blade.

Oshi was now inside the stone tomb he had created. The opening he used to get in instantly closed itself. Harriet’s flames burned both of them, and the stone walls continued to crush into themselves.

They were losing oxygen, getting burned by Flame ather. The smoke from the Flame ather was making it hard to breathe and the stone walls were going to crush their bodies if no one did anything to stop it.

Oshi’s sword hand shook wildly as the stone walls tried to keep pushing him forward. He screamed as he took his right hand, which he still had on the buttend of his hilt, and pushed it.

The katana began to move in small increments through the field. Harriet was calm, but she was starting to feel worried, she reached into her mind for anything she could use against the man. “You… If you stay here, you're going to die with me!” She shouted out, the crushing dome stone prison had started to make the area even smaller than before. Her positioning was awkward,and it was all starting to look grim. She took her right hand and held the blade of the katana, trying to push the sword back.

Blood dripped as she tightened her hand over the blade, just like Oshi her hand was shaking violently. “I’m prepared to die if it means you die with me.” He retorted. She could see the struggle in his face.

Harriet bit her lip, then found what she was looking for in her memories. “What about Zuri?” She asked. Harriet had met the young girl two years ago during her visit to the Rune region. Oshi’s eyes widened “Are you going to leave that little girl alone in this world? She will be the next clan leader if you di–”

“BE QUIET!”

Her psychological attack had the opposite effect on Oshi, it was like he got a sudden surge of strength instead of having a lapse in his power that she could use against him. Damn it, this subhuman trash can– The blade cut through the void, it cut through Harriet’s hand cutting off her index, middle, and ring fingers as it pierced through her neck.

Harriet started laughing, blood gargling and gushing out of her mouth. “You… were too hyper focused on me, heh.” Oshi was closer to his opponent, trying to shift the katana to cut Harriet’s head off, but he couldn’t. She had shifted her void field on to her neck.

“Don’t you feel it?” She asked.

“Feel what?!”

“The energy gathering outside of this dome.”

The stone dome was enveloped in Oshi’s ather and Harriet had also used her own Flame ather defensively. His senses were only picking up those athers and nothing else, to him the outside battle felt millions of miles away.

“This little strategy of yours, wasn’t that bad,”

Harriet smiled, her blood stained her teeth giving her smile an even more eerie, sickening look. “They are all going to die.” She chuckled and laughed wildly. “I already beat you minutes ago.”

Oshi narrowed his eyes and remembered what Harriet had done after he was able to cut through her void field earlier. She had spoken and barked a command at the Raksha who held the staff; he also didn’t notice the hordes of the creatures that ran past him before he set up the Terra crush.

“No,” Oshi whispered, remembering the words from the materials the scholar had brought with them for this hunt. From the book, Prof.Higginbottom cited all his sources from, Of monsters and the Night Vol. 2.

The staff has been recorded to sacrifice Raksha to empower other Raksha and their attacks. I witnessed it myself, a soul beam. At the time they only sacrificed twenty of their own and the soul beam that fired out killed many of the Jaegers that had responded to the hunt. That was one of the few times the Raksha had ever gotten away from us.

//

He tried again to move his katana out of Harriet’s neck but it was useless.

Oshi faltered and had a small lapse in his ather, which gave Harriet every opportunity she needed. She used her right palm, the one missing three fingers, and bashed into the blade that was in her neck. At the moment of contact, she moved her void field into her palm and used it to strengthen her strike tenfold.

The long katana broke in two, the other piece still stuck in Harriet's neck. Oshi was caught off guard. She moved her right hand again this time, using her Flame ather to envelope her entire hand. She grabbed Oshi’s face with her flaming finger attack.

The attack broke all control Oshi had in their battle. Harriet had still held on to her spear the entire confrontation. Waiting for this opportunity, she pulled the spear free as the stone dome around the two began to crumble. She held onto his face,burning her Flame ather brighter and brighter as she then stabbed her graviton spear into Oshi’s right thigh.

The gravitational weight from the spear wound immediately pulled Oshi towards the ground.

Cecil was on the ground getting his face bashed in by the last Raksha a live near him, staring at Oshi and Harriet and their battle “ O..Oshi!” He screamed out as he took another hit to his face, and then pushed himself to grab the Raksha into a headlock.

Harriet let go of Oshis’ face and then stabbed the spear into his other thigh, bringing the burly man to his knees. Then she stabbed him in both of his shoulders, the gravitational pull bringing him to the ground.

Raksha were crowded around the altar, their yellow orb eyes flying out of their heads, their bodies convulsing as their life force willingly left their bodies. Jaegers had tried their best to fire out their range attacks, but the Raksha overwhelmed them.

It was over.

This was it, this was where the vanguard failed. They would alldie by Harriet’s spear and have their souls vanished by the attack, a fate worse than death.

“You did what you could, but you were always going to fail. Subhuman trash like you are destined to fall before me.” Harriet smiled, her face contorting into an evil expression, one that Harriet was never known for.

In the spiritual plane of her soul, the real Harriet wept, she cried out. “Please stop, Please don’t make me kill him!” She knew the kind and great warrior Oshi was, and the great father that he was to his only daughter.

The Harriet of the physical plane held the spear up and swung downward towards Oshi’s neck, the spear shaped in a way that allowed pierce attacks and slicing attacks. Cecil reached out.

“OSHI!” Cecil yelled out, losing his voice in the end, dropping to one knee.

The vanguard had fallen.

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