“Back!” Alnea shouted, jolting everyone out of their daze, prompting them to hurriedly retreat away from the floating lotus, if it could even be called as a lotus. The only thing remotely linking the platform to a lotus was the dangling fence around the platform’s edge, that looked somewhat like the petals of a lotus. And yet, Alnea knew that the platform must be a lotus platform. Because the men on the platform, all thirteen of them, were wearing the emblem of a lotus on their chest.
“Alnea—
“Take her with you, Yuri.”
“But—
“Now!” Alnea said. “There are too many of them… We might need to use my backup plan. And if I use the Glyph Token, I cannot guarantee that I can control its power.”
“…Be careful,” Yuri said, pulling Cecilia away with her.
“But Alnea—
“He might use that…”
“…That?” Cecilia looked at Yuri with wide eyes. “You mean…”
“…There are too many of them.”
“These bastards… Hey, idiot! If you hurt yourself, I will kill you!” Cecilia yelled towards Alnea, as she retreated with the rest of the team. The group of Wanderers who had just appeared did not care much about her though, or anyone else in his team for that matter, keeping their eyes fixed only on Alnea.
“Lotus clan,” Alnea said, narrowing his eyes to a slit. As he had thought… Only if he stayed where he was, would the rest of his team have time to retreat to a safe distance. “Finally. Cannot sit still anymore?”
“We should be the ones asking that question,” said a white robed man, as he jumped down from the lotus platform, with the rest of the Wanderers soon following behind him. “Do you know how many days we have been waiting for you to come to the Black Desert?”
“…If you were missing me so much, you should have just given me an invitation,” Alnea said, grinning back at the white robed man. He looked a little more mature than the last Whitebud heir he had met. Still, he did not look too old. Probably around twenty, twenty two years old.
“How else would I know you were waiting for me?”
“How about I give you an invitation now then?” the white robed man said. “Come with us, and we will spare your teammates.”
“…Do you think I am a three year old kid?”
“…This may be your last chance,” the white robed man said, glancing towards the retreating Star Seekers. “Or do you not cherish the life of your companions?”
“…I think I am capable enough of saving their lives.”
“…Think about it once again.”
“Enough nonsense, Rhaeghar,” a red robed man said. “Why are you negotiating with an Unfavoured?”
“He is not worthy of negotiating with us,” another red robed man said.
“I say we just knock the boy down, and kill the rest,” added a white robed man.
“It would be a waste for the girls though…” a yellow robed man lamented.
“That Weina…”
“The white haired one is not bad either…”
“Maybe…”
“Do not be careless,” a pink robed man scolded his fellow clan members. “Or have you forgotten what happened to Raython?”
“…Raython’s case was special.”
“And is that not exactly why we designed this situation?”
“Just look at them.”
“They probably cannot even lift their weapons anymore.”
“If we just…”
“Shut up,” the pink robed man scolded once again. “Focus on the task.”
“…Stop acting like you are our leader, Rana.”
“Elder—
“All of you, shut up for Quona’s sake,” Rhaeghar said, glaring at the Wanderers following behind him, before turning back to Alnea. “As you can see, my companions are not very friendly. And they do not have a good impression of your friends. If you do not come with me quietly, even I am not sure what thy might do to your companions.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“…Are you done with your play?” Alnea said, while glancing towards the rest of his team. More than hundred metres… That should be a safe enough distance. Probably. “Can we begin our real conversation then?”
“…What do you want talk about?”
“…It is not what I want to talk about, but how I want to talk,” Alnea said, replying with a grin, before letting his Aspects surge out of his body with all their force, splashing black sand everywhere around him, creating a hazy black cloud of sorts, obscuring him from everyone’s vision.
“Bastard!”
“Filthy scum!”
“Quick, catch him!”
The Wanderers of the Lotus clan all unfurled their Spirits, trying to catch the figure of the boy they had been ordered to capture. And maybe, if it had been just their sights which the cloud of sand had blocked, then they might even have succeeded. Unfortunately for them, the cloud of sand was not some incorporeal existence like light, or shadows. It had a solid form, and was in a very agitated state, blocking all their probing senses.
“Spread out!”
“Do not let him escape!”
“I will catch the white haired—
With a flash of a golden light, Alnea tore through the cloud of black sand, and appeared next to the yellow robed man. The same yellow robed man who had dared to eye Yuri with ill intentions. The same yellow robed man who was pointing fingers at Yuri once again, threatening to capture her. For a person like him, for an enemy, there was no need to hold back.
Before the yellow robed man could finish his words, or even have a chance to react, Alnea stabbed his dagger, shining in a ‘Golden’ light, ‘Yearning’ for his blood, towards the man’s throat, while the man could only stare at his death creeping closer with wide eyes. And it was not just the yellow robed man. The other Wanderers were just as shocked. The seemingly exhausted Wanderer, exhausted enough to not even be able to lift his sword properly, rendered to being nothing more than the boy he was, was somehow moving faster than ever.
“Erin!”
Just as the golden blade was about to meet the man’s neck though, a curtain of yellowish black light materialised right in front of the man’s neck, blocking the dagger. After all, no matter how distracted or clumsy he was, the yellow robed man was still a Peak Stage False Wanderer. However, it was also exactly because he was a Peak Stage False Wanderer, that he completely lost his bearing when he understood what had just happened.
A moment’s hesitation and carelessness had made him almost lose his life. And that too, at the hands of a Wanderer two entire Stages lower than him. A Wanderer, who had been fighting Oren Beasts for hours, and by all logic, should have been exhausted to the brink of fainting due to the drain of his Spirit Power. A Wanderer, he had assumed, was at the mercy of his thoughts…
Scared, embarrassed, ashamed, and angry about what had just happened, the man urged his—
Alnea raised his free hand, and pointed it towards the yellow robed man’s head from an angle which was not blocked by the man’s shield, before releasing a flash of orangish light from his hand, that plunged into the man’s head the very next moment, right before he could urge his Aspects.
Consequently, the man’s face soon contorted in pain, making him lose his concentration. Only for a fraction of a moment, of course, but that was enough. Pumping more blood into his hand, momentarily increasing his strength, Alnea shattered the fragile barrier in an instant, and plunged his dagger into the man’s throat. Just to be sure, he even twisted his blade before quickly withdrawing, leaving behind a gaping hole in the man’s neck, that kept sprouting blood like a miniature fountain.
Even so, the yellow robed man did not die immediately. He clasped his neck with both hands, trying to stop his blood from flowing out, while staring at Alnea with all sorts of emotions crossing his eyes. Fear, hate, shame, jealousy, and most of all, unwillingness. An unwillingness to die. He kept struggling, stepping back to create a distance from the boy in front of him, only to stumble on his own legs, and fall—
“Erin!” another yellow robed man yelled, as he appeared next to the bloodied man, catching him before he could fall, just as Alnea retreated back into the cloud of black sands, stomping on the ground to reinforce the fading cloud.
“Bastard!” the yellow robed said, growling at Alnea, while gently lowering the man in his arms to the ground. “Erin!”
“His neck…” a blue robed man said, appearing next to the two yellow robed men. “Cretes’ beard!”
“Parthal, quick! Heal him!”
“No,” Rhaeghar said, placing his hand on the blue robed man’s shoulder, while staring at the black cloud with cold emotionless eyes. “We have our orders. Before doing anything else, we must capture our target.”
“But Erin would not be able to hold on till then!”
“…Then let us capture him as quickly as we can. That is the only way we can save Erin.”
“He is just Intermediate Stage brat, for Quona’s sake! Not to mention that he is already exhausted.”
“…Is he?” Rhaeghar said, glancing between the cloud of black sand, which showed no sign of dissipating, and Erin, lying on the ground, struggling to keep himself from loosing too much blood. He did not say anything else, but his meaning was clear.
“…We have been behind them the whole time. Do not tell me that you have not seen how he always rushed forward in each battle. He is just an Intermediate Stage brat. How much Spirit Power could he have left?”
“We have already lost one of us,” Rhaeghar said, glancing at the yellow robed man looking at him with despair, before pointing with his chin towards the group of Wanderers in the distance, who had used the time bought by Alnea to regroup together, and form a basic defensive formation. “We cannot afford to thin our numbers even more before we have captured our target.”
“…For Quona’s sake, they are just some exhausted Wanderers. I am sure that ten of us will be enough—
“An exhausted Wanderer two Stages below us killed—
“Erin is not dead yet!”
“…almost killed one of us in the blink of an eye. What do you think ten of them could do?”
“…Are you going to let Erin die just like this?”
“Our orders,” Rhaeghra said. “Capture him at all costs. At all costs.”
“…Erin is our brother!”
“…Then let us capture him as soon as possible, so that we can save our brother.”
“…Quona’s jewels! I swear, Rhaeghar, if something happens—
“If you do not stop wasting time, then something might really happen,” Rhaeghar said, tearing his eyes away from Eren, desperately covering his neck. “Let us get this over with quickly, and save our brother.”