“What is the way of the world” May asks with a puzzled expression, “Teseji never told you the name of the principles I made, well it's a set of principles with the purpose of interacting with spirits, the six foundations are communication, summoning, creation, syphoning, object imbution, life creation, and pact act, all things that have to do with spirits” Rose notes with a devious smirk.
“No way, yes, Teseji couldn’t really teach that stuff all that well” May jumps up her eyes sparkling, “hm hm, as expected of sweet Teseji, she truly is a prodigy though she doesn’t fully understand or control her power, like a wild beast, they hunt without know their full capabilities or can fully control itself, yet it's efficient” Rose says feeling the left side of his face feeling the scared skin.
‘Give me control again, or I’ll force it’ Rose says to his own temple, “fine” Rose mumbles with a pleasured smirk, “well I can give you the mask right now, but the monster corpse will have to wait a few days” May says with a bit more pep in her step.
Rose lets out a drained sigh, “yes that's fine” he says in a beaten deadpan voice, “alright follow me” May says excitedly, “so when can you teach us the six foundations”, “oh that, I can start in a few days” Rose says weakly just wanting to be alone to go through what he just went through.
The two walk down the grand halls of the noble palace statues of ancient ancestors lining the halls, they arrive at a reinforced door that seems to be strong enough to stop most wild beasts.
“You way be wondering why this door is so different and strong, well it's to stop the heat from boiling the whole place” May says as she and March struggle to push the door open, and when it does a huge gust of hot air blasts Rose in the face making him sweat in seconds without ever stepping through the door, “and theres another reason why the door is like that, to keep the sound from making us all crazy” May chuckles bending on her knees catching her breath.
Rose hears the loud clanking, shouting, and the heavy footsteps of 20 or so people all moving and working all drenching in sweat because of the scorching blast furnaces as tall as the roof lining all along the walls.
The trio walk past all the blacksmith's and metal workers all bumbling around, they walk to one certain black blacksmith with a shiny bald head and a greying beard sitting on a metal stool drinking a goat leather water skin that dwarfed in comparison to his hand.
“Hey Alabaster” May waves energetically to the large man, he quickly drops his water skin, “hey little princess ready to let me retire” he retorts in a deadbeat voice, “grumpy as usual, anyway remember those changing masks that also change the wearers voice you made a bit ago” May asks with a cheerful smile.
“Yeah what about em” Alabaster says impatiently, “whats with the rush? Anyways you have extras right” May asks confidently, “yeah, but why do ye want em?” Alabaster raises his eyebrow, “it isn’t in your job title to know, so give me one” May demands confidently.
“Oh but little missy I can’t just give you my products since I ain’t working for ya” Alabaster says a grin crawling over his face, “but perhaps ya could give me a little something for my product” Alabaster continues the grin growing to it's full extent.
“Fine, you like sculpting right” May asks scrunching her face, “you know it pipsqueak” Alabaster chuckles, “then how about a huge chunk of the finest alabaster stone to add to your carving collection” May smugly smiles, at this point Rose is getting impatient just wanting to leave,
“I’d say ye got yourself a deal, though I must ask who’s the kid with the gnarled face” Alabaster says looking past May studying Rose, “him? that isn’t in your job description now is it” May mocks, “alright yes missy” Alabaster scoffs.
Alabaster goes to another door though this one is nowhere nearly as barred as the other one, he leaves the group in the deafening noise of the workplace.
Alabaster finally comes out with a full metal mask with large circular eyeholes and solid lips, the mask was a curved oval shape with no nose,with leather buckles dangling, Alabaster puts the mask out to May but before she could take it Rose swipes it from his hand.
Rose walks away toward the reinforced door without even waiting for May or March.
Rose walks through the the grande palace giving him a familiar sick feeling, the average person in this kingdom can’t even dream of this place let alone ever see it, this made Rose’s skin crawl wanting to do something.
Rose rushes out of the palace gates Rose glances back at the palace noticing a massive chimney releasing ungulating clouds of black smoke, ‘damn wierd place’ Rose thinks to himself.
Rose wears the metal mask the cool metal ataching to his face, as Rose buckles the mask on he could feel the power coming from it, it has a really small and weak aura but it is very distinct and pungent.
Rose adjusts the mask to fit snugly, after a few moments of waiting the mask begins to transform and shift into a mostly vibrant bule mask the eye holes slimed and shrped with a very light blue colour lining it's eyeholes with large feathers growing out from the edge of the mask lining the whole thing in vibrant light blue feathers with black dots cloed to the end of every feather making an illusion of an armada of eyes.
Rose could feel the feathers caressing his head though he could not see the transformation, Rose quickly unbuckles the mask and holds it in his palm looking at it's extravagant design, “what the hell is this, some kind of rich person decoration” Rose shouts barley holding in the urge to break the mask.
Rose hears hurried footsteps going toward him, he turns to see May running after him with March lagging behind her, “hey why did you run off like that” May says coming to a halt in front of him, “I just want to get this overwith” Rose say dryly griping the mask tighter.
May’s eyes strayed further down to the mask, seeing it made her eyes sparkle with wonder, “oh my, I didn’t take you for someone who fancied such a majestic and elegant design, and looking at it it looks like a peacock” May says marveling at the mask.
“You’re right I hate this peice of crap, it looks like some expencive ornament” Rose rambles, “can’t you change the design to your will though?” May asks, “yeah well I need it like this even though it's stupid” Rose says deadpan.
May gives a confused expression before just shrugging it off, “well I’ll be off now, and for your sake keep your promise” Rose says as he puts the mask back on and walks away.
Rose pulls the hood of his tattered cloak over his head making sure that all the feathers are tucked under the hood, Rose strides away from the sickening palace finally happy to be out of there.
Rose strolls through the hustling city yet no one ever even glance at Rose’s mask, ‘what were those visions earlier and why have strange things been happening recently, like those strange gaps in my memory’ Rose ponders as he walks to his inn.
“I guess I can’t tell anyone about this, they’d think I’m crazy” Rose mumbles, “at least not that crazy”. Rose walks into the inn, it felt jarring to go from the populated crowds of the road, to an empty lobby, the only sound is a sloppy rag tracking against a table.
Only two people were in the lobby yet the only one who was noticed the innkeeper, never noticing Rose, just continuing on their duties.
Rose continues past the inn keeper to the stairs, he climbs up the creaky wood stairs and arrives at his and Teseji’s room when he opens the door he finds that it's barran though he noticies that Teseji’s drawer is wide open.
“I’ts late noon so it should get dark in a few hours, I think I should hit the hey” Rose mutters dropping into the thin mattress.
It was a special day, one day with one special event only once a century, a truly joyous occasion for the unknowing world. But somewhere where nowhere is, the ruins of an old forgotten land devoured by black inky liquid, the remnents of humans of old lore.
A battle of beleifs circling the already dead, one side seeks to preserve the eternal darkness, and their enemies seek to eradicate the darkness and achieve true immortality.
A monster ravaging the enemy, a human looking thing with brown fured goat legs and three pairs of black and white wings, but the true horror was it's face, it's one green eye and the one red one, showed an excttic expression, like eclectic it's eye darted around never stopping, it had an almost human smile, but there was no emotion behind it but an empty excited tension, an intense tension.
All beings gazing upon this monster, felt an intimate tension intruding upon their mind, the intimacy was a like a maddening minute sound that could only be compared to lightning striking their temple, but it's not loud, not shocking, no it's more dreadful and slow, like the intimate touch of death.
All this tension from an almost human expression. This monster hunches forward with a hunch, with each unsteady step it's arms sway and the leaves crunch under it's hooves, it clumsily moves forward to a group of almost human beings, distorted into fusions of monster and human, yet they too feared what they saw.
They seem to be of the same race yet even the group of similar people feard the monster, the fear could seen and felt, but they didnt move.
They couldn’t.
No they could only watch their fates unfold as their bodies crumble like the ruined towers of this cursed garden, or perhaps the planets that fell to dust long before.
Yet the monster never even noticed the feeble creatures, it walked past staggering with each step, then through the madness in it's eyes a single minded motivation could be seen, it began running, it's speed seemed impossible for it's anatomy, it ran clumsily as if it wasn’t used to it's own body.
Yet it ran with every sign of life that got near disintagrding into dust and ruble, it ran, for a moment one could almost see a human expression.
Almost, but not quite.
It ran after a lance, like a blinding shining star, one light higher than the sun invisible to some, until it's time.
The monsters body began to shift as if maggots were writhing just beneath it's thick skin, but there were no bugs, the shifting became larger and more vigorous, it was now undulating uncontrollably, like bulges of fluids expanding, decompressing, and moving.
Yet even this this transformation didn’t catch the monsters attention, it only impeded it's movement, as it staggered slower and slower until it tripped on it's own appendage.
Pop.
That was the sound that could not a thud, no a pop, that was the sound of it's leg that silently burst a black inky liquid, it was not a large pop, it was more of a whimper as it dispered from the limb.
It used it's monstrous claws to drag it's body across the damp dirt, leaving a trail of the black inky lliquid leaking from the spaerce skin of his leg now loosly holding together.
The lance grew closer to the monster, closer, and closer, until just within reach, the monster stretched out to the lance, and gripped it, a burst of light came rushing out from the lance for all to see, the monsters claw becomes blessed with the weapon of great feats, it's claw transformed into a human hand, though rough and dirtied.
It's body stopped undulating, the bulging fluid just beneath it's skin decompressed and never arose again, the once monstrous creature turned to a small child, their black hair draped down to the ground, her simple plain gown.
The light dissapears and the child pulls the spear from the ground, in her other hand an identical spear emerges from her palm, “finally, after using the mind electric so many times I thought I might’ve pushed too far, but I’m not sure why I turned into some kid” it said with a grin, no doubt this child shared that same intimate madness to the monster just less intense.
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With a large grin the child warps it's flesh and bones into fluid, itsarms spiraling into a vortex liquifying the spears into it's body, now there are no parts of it that resemble human, nor anything else, it is now a float mass of liquid barley strung together.
What little light touches the mass of liqid it refracts and creates waves of unique color like the aurora borialis combined with a magnus opal.
To think it was once human, but now it's no monster, and not broken, it's not like anything here in this iteration, it had an aura distinct from any other aura, it's like an alien.
The ones who seeked to keep the natural order of eternal darkness had won long before the battle was over, with the appearance og this one organism, now it was a race to see how many people would live.
This war was not the first black sea event, and it was not the last, the first one killed most of humanity to achieve this battle and to win, that was the profecy the selfish boy had seen. A beautiful tree of warped flesh and skin, with each puls it shook the earth below it, it's eyes always watching for all prey it can eat, though it's hunger would persist until it's purpose is fulfilled.
The trees branches warped up to the sky with the familiar longing of what it once was, and on these branches golden glistening fruit with a bulbus shape, like bubbles of golden liquor, these fruits lay plentiful, yet meaningless. The tree could never make seeds, nor sustain life, for it is the great devourer.
Thud!
Rose slammed into the ground, he gets up with a pained groan. Rose sat at the edg of his bed squeezing his temple trying to relieve the throbbing discomfort, small but consistent.
Rose felt as if he forgot something important, but thinking about it mad his head hurt more so he brushed it aside. Ross draggs his body downstairs past the lobby wanting to go outside, “can I go back to school like this” Rose grumbles knowing he’ll have to go back soon.
Though there were a lot of people packing their belongings on steeds and wagons, some carry bags and sacks with only necessities, and there was much less shouting and talking but instead whispers and murmuring, though the shouts of a deranged man cuts through the streets, his voice was an incoherent ramble.
Rose didn’t just feel a grumble in his stomach he heard it. Rose wonderd the city for a decent place to eat, until he found a nice looking tavern that didn’t seem to have any elitists.
Rose walked in to see a smaller crowd and the patrions were drinking and eating with a sour expression, one of them had scowl smeared on his face, his head is down as if having a weight on his head.
Rose walks to the front, though no one is there “Pardon” He says raising his voice a bit trying to reach the back where the kitchen door is open, “don’t bother, haven’t you heard the news” Said a rough voice dryley, Rose turns to see who said it, an older man on the bulky side with a rough exterior.
“What happened” Rose said hurriedly, “so you really don’t know huh, thers an A+ monster in the western thymia forest, most people on the other side of the city have probably started pouring to this part to get to the exit” the man scoffs taking a chug of his beer.
“How long has it been there? Is it really A+ class? What kind of-'' Rose rushes his words out but the man raises his finger, “It's been three hours since it's been seen, and from the news I’ve heard it really is A+ class, and it's been debated whether it was an elemental monster or a flier”.
“No, damnit” Rose said loudly, his mind pacing back and forth between thoughts. Rose rushes out of the tavern, ‘good the crowds are still small’, Rose sneaks past all the people and animals often bumping into them.
Rose tries to rush even faster wanting to get to the forest faster but bumps hard into a rich noble, a large man with a well groomed beard, “you street urchin” The man says with a false indignant anger, but Rose ignores the man.
Rose quickly gets up and runs past him, ‘if I go too fast I’d just bump into someone’ Rose clenches his teeth, ‘up’ Rose thinks as he nimbly climbs a building leaving a few scrapes on his hand.
He leaps building to building at a fast rate, but not fast enough, Rose activates his stigma and spirals air around him in a way that gives him optimal aerodynamics and propels him forward, now Rose nearly tripled in speed.
After running for a few minutes straight like a mad hound he found himself bordering the forest and city with a large stone wall, but what really keeps the monsters out is the dried aged blood and flesh of monsters crushed into a powder and dissolved into a moat of water making a deep orange liquid with a putrid smell.
Rose climbed the wall quickly and jumping over the moat of monster repellent liquid, Rose senses the aura of the monster nearly immediately, its aura is pungent and distinct, Rose ran as fast as his legs would relent swerving between the trees right to the monster.
When Rose got to a small clearance in the forest, there he sees a group of people, some stand out as to others like a redhead girl from his class, as well as Henry and Seok-ji, then Rose saw a winged wolf as tall as the trees outside the clearance fighting against the group of monster hunters.
Rose quickly makes his choice, Rose reaches his hands out to toward the wolf, a spiraling warp of air condensing into a point, the winds howling from the small orb of air.
The air bursts from his hand piercing into the monsters skin like a spear, the monster then turned to Rose, it charges up and lunges for Rose, but Rose swiftly dodges as the wolf lands
Seok-ji takes the opportunity to use his tong sword to plunge it into the wolfs large claw, the wolf roared in pain switching its focus to Geo Seok-ji, though the wound Rose left on the wolf was completely healed.
“Hey can you catch me up on what we’re fighting” Rose shouts over the wolf roar, “this is an Emperor Wolf, and they have s+ class regeneration, but can’t use stigma” Seok-ji shouts jumping back from the wolfs claw.
“Well crap, what are the odds of us winning” Rose shouts as he charges another blast, “we arent fighting to defeat it, we’re just bidding time for an evacuation, atleast until the kings crowns arrive” Seok-ji says calmly paused in movement, his eyes darting around reassessing the situation.
The only person within Rose’s view was Seok-ji while other monster hunters were on the other side of the wolf, “Rose I need you to run passed the wolf and the others, theres a wide tree passed this clearance thats where the injured are” Seok-ji says with a calculated cool.
“I need you to help them, dont worry about the wolf”, “how am I supposed to get pased the wolf without it noticing me” Rose says firing another blast of air, this time hitting its hind leg, it let out shrieking roar though it couldn’t turn to Rose as it was busy.
“Just trust me” Seok-ji barcked as he drops to the ground into a lunge position, arms extended to the ground, “fine, for the injured” Rose relented.
Rose lunges forward around the wolf, the wolf noticing Rose goes it for a bite but Seok-ji’s voice interjected with a shout that rivaled the wolf’s roar “Julius Sword Rain”.
A cloud of darkness like dipping ink formed above the wolf obscuring the wolf, Rose’s eyes darted back and forth from the cloud and the path he would take without ever noticing most of the movement.
Then from the clouds blades appeared suspended in the air, just for a short momment before all of the blades came crashing down on the wolf blade first, ‘there are at least 50 no maybe hundreds of blades’ Rose thinks as time seemed to slow.
Time felt distorted as Rose ran, the cries of the pained wolf didn’t register in Rose’s mind until he was passed the wolf.
Rose quickly looked back to see the many blades stabbed into the beast like a pincushion, it's dark red blood rushing out of it's body and blinding it.
Rose looked forward again to see Henry, May, March, some other students and teachers and other monster hunters.
Rose continues running never stopping or slowing down, when Rose gets to a large tree with an especially wide trunk, he stops running catching his breath.
“Teseji” Rose qucked apprehensive to say the words, Rose saw 5 people in a line, two without whole limbs with choppy bandage work, the others not severely injured, as well as a boy from Rose’s class teding to their wounds.
“Sorry I don’t know a Teseji but there were some monster hunters who left to get supplies” the soft spoken boy noted, “oh good, Seok-ji asked me to asist you” Rose mentioned in a calmer voice though he still sounded a bit shaky.
“Great, do you know how to stop bleeding” the boy blurted rumaging through his bag, “yes I can stop bleeding though it's a painful process” Rose denoted.
“Good clean the wounds with water and use some cloths to dab it then seel the wound” the boy says tossing a water skin to Rose.
Rose quickly gets to work, removing the bandages from one the ones in bad condition, they were awake their eyes looked like those of the dead yet they breathed small breaths, it was clear to Rose they were in pain.
“Help me” one muttered so weak from the pain that they likely didn’t have the energy to shout, “don’t worry, I’ll help you just try to stay awake”.
Rose quickly goes through the process of cleaning out the wounds, “this will be very painful” Rose warns before using his stigma to warp the skin of the patient into a twisted tie, the peocess was painful for both patients.
The soft-spoken boy assists him, handing him bandages and providing support. Each moment dragged on in a crawl, slowly inching to the next momment.
“Now that the onse in critical condition are healed I should help the others” Rose said hurying back to the battle field, the boy nodded in agreement.
Rose rushed back to the clearance joining the group of monster hunters, March was teleporting around the wolf distracting it while Henry was using a metal hand fan flailing the fan wildly with a calm steady stance,
With each swing the air around the fan shot out like a projectile, each projectile lands with stunning accuracy, though the wolf quickly healed from the barrage nearly instantly, Rose chips in as well.
The fight drags on with people switching from acting as bait to distract it and offence, this ensured no one else would get hurt, and could buy time effectively, and didn’t require everyone so they could carry the injured out.
Still the situation wasn’t optimal and the fight went on until it was nearly sunset, “we won't be able to keep this up for much longer,” Henry barks, “well we havn’t gotten word from the guild, the guards or the hunters that left a while ago” Geo Seok-ji responded.
Rose observed the rift forming between the monster hunters as they fought the wolf, Geo seok-ji and other hunter want to stay for as long as needed while Henry and his possy wanted to retreat and regroup.
Each moment that passed the two sides became more distinct, “shut up” Rose snapped under his breath, though no one heard him over the noise, Rose took a step back from the moment to asses his situation.
‘Why haven’t reinforcement or the monster hunters that left came yet’ Rose questioned, “how did a monster like this appear so suddenly, why hasn’t it retreated or dragged the fight to a different spot”.
To Rose the entire situation wasn’t right, though his mind was at its wits ends, his head felt far too light from the battle to think straight, yet even with this state of mind he couldn’t stop thinking of the situation suspiciously.
The wolf kept shrieking in pain, attack after attack, yet it persisted in the pain, never backing down, never slowing down in its relentless attacks.
It was nearing the end of golden hour when the sky was a blend between dark gold and light red, when Rose shouted “Hey I think I see a flag in the distance, it isn’t clear but it seems to be approaching us in the woods”.
Geo seok-ji quickly glanced in the direction that Rose indicated, “yeah I can see it, it looks like one of the royal flags” Seok-ji confirmed, everyone had a relieved expression at the news.
The hunters still fought hard struggling, ”we still need to buy time, from the looks of it they’ll be here in 10 to 15 minutes I’d say” Henry says peering in the distance.
With the same baiting strategy continued with everyone else on the offense crippling the single minded wolf, again and again, without depleting their energy out of fear of collapsing on the battle ground.
After what felt like far too long a group of soldiers in shining chain mail armour with the the symbol of the kings hand, a simple red symbol of a hand with a white background.
“No way, how did the kings crowns get here already” Henry smphasised watching the group of 12 - 15 knights walk toward them, they marched forward emanating an oppressive presens so powerful that Rose felt as if he was being stomped by goliaths.
‘What are they, even the weakest of them seem strong enough to take Henry and Geo Seok-ji solo’ Rose thought to himsel staring blankly at them too fearful to move ever so slightly.
The combat stopped, not the other hunters nor the monster moved, “who here is the leader of this ragtag group” one guard commanded in a deep cold voice looking around.
“I am” Seok-ji said calmly looking at the guard at eye level, “well who are you supposed to be, some sort of low ranker” he said mockingly, “I do not see why you’re here other than to kill the beast” Seok-ji retorted.
The guard cracked a smile and removed his helmet, a full head of light blonde hair with piercings red eyes, “I’m Cromwell Steel Pendleton, and you” he was about to put his hand out to Seok-ji but his head quickly jerked to Rose.
“Whats this little brat you got a problem with me” Cromwell said aprouching Rose, “no sir” Rose said trying to fake calmness not even looking Cromwell in the eyes, Rose tried to hide his hatred toward the man right infront of him.
“Knock it of Chrome” a woman said going forward, “c’mon Dawn I know you felt his hate filled aura” Cromwell chuckled crouching down to meet Rose at eye level.
“Listen here brat, I am one of the most powerful people you could posibly meet, so if you got an issue with me, then you may force my hand” Cromwell hissed intimidating.
Rose’s whole body felt numb except his chest, it felt like fire engulfed his chest as his breaths felt harder to take, Rose stood there in silence trying his best to quench this feeling that he could only describe as an eternal discomfort.
Cromwell stood back up and turned back to Seok-ji “I never got your name,” he chuckled, “Geo Seok-ji of the Geo clan” Seok-ji responded.
Sinse their arrival the wolf didn’t move nor make a single peep, “let me handle this burger” the woman from earlier said, “you sure Dawn I thought you wouldn’t be in a fighting mood, after Hendrickson was killed” Cromwell remarked disdainfuly.
The momment the words left his mouth a powerful gushing of aura released from Dawn as she activated he stigma, Rose as well as the other monster hunters instinctively activated their stigma.
Rose wnt into a defensive position, ‘damnit, did he just say Hendrickson, so she must be his sister, Dawn Levi, why did these two bastards have to come, and they’ve got the might of the king’ Rose thinks, as he looks for any routs out in case things get worse.
“Keep your pagan mouth shut” Dawn growled looking disgusted, “You called me a pagan huh, you wanna go” Cromwell scoffed walking up to Dawn activating his stigma unleashing a massive burst of aura.
Though the other crown guards just stood there whispering among themselves delight smeared on their faces, though the other monster hunters were anxious just like Rose.
“They’re crazy the collateral would kill us, plus theres also the wolf, if it starts moving again it would mean even more trouble” Rose muttered under his breath.
Though while Rose was panicking Geo Seok-ji had already activated his stigma “on my count run, I’ll try to stop them” Seok-ji said with a determined gleam in his eyes, this was the most emotion Rose had seen in him.