Like a leaf, swaying with wind, as it slowly descended on the ground, the vortex twice as large as Cecilia, wobbled on its axis, slowly drifting towards the Heterodox Wanderers. From a distance, it looked as it was just a small gust of wind on the verge of breaking apart, and dispersing into the darkness. When it reached the Heterodox Wanderers though, the storm tore through their defences as if they were made of paper, sweeping them within itself, as it moved towards the white robed man.
Till then, the white robed man still held some hope of defending himself against a Transcendent Arcana. As he saw the defences of the other two Heterodox Wanderers collapse so easily though, and heard their screams of despair, the man finally lost his composure. Crushing the blood red token in his hand, the man summoned a blood red shield in front of himself, before reaching into his robe to take out a few more tokens. And as the man had expected, even the blood red shield was nothing more than a slightly thicker paper in front of the storm.
Pausing for only a moment, the storm tore through the shield, and continued and continued on its way towards the white robed man. But the scum was prepared. He kept crushing the tokens in his hand one after another, as they kept crumbling in front of the terrifying storm, until the vortex of darkness finally slowed down, and dissipated back into the canyon, dropping the tattered bodies of the two Heterodox Wanderers onto the ground.
From their groans of pain, it looked like the scums were still alive. However, from the wounds on their body, and how they were convulsing, unless they were treated almost immediately, they had no choice of rejoining the fight. The only one left relatively unscathed was the white robed Wanderer. Summoning so many blood red shields at once had put a great strain on his Spirit, while the shockwaves from the clash had left him a little worse for the wear, but he was much better than the rest, and enraged to the extreme.
“Eight Oronir stinking Blood Tears,” the white robed man said, panting in rage, as he stared at Cecilia with bloodshot eyes. Cecilia herself was too tired to bother with the scum though.
The moment she had pushed the Storm of Darkness towards the Heterodox Wanderers, Cecilia had felt all her strength drain away from her body. She had become so weak, that even the pull of the ground was too strong for her to resist. Just staying awake, and fighting off her headache was taking all of her will. And she was not the only one suffering from releasing an Arcana far beyond her means.
The cat on her shoulders, having expended most of its energy to help the Storm of Darkness Transcend Perfection, was already swaying on her shoulders long before Cecilia had released the storm. So, the moment that Cecilia stumbled down to ground, and fell on her butt, the cat wobbled, and fell into her lap. Unlike Cecilia though, the cat did not fight its weakness, and allowed itself to fall into the land of dreams. If Oren Beasts even had such things as dreams.
However, the weaker that Cecilia appeared, the more enraged the white robed man became. Stepping over the injured bodies of his companions, ignoring their cries, and pleas for help as if they did not even exist, the Heterodox Wanderer began making his way towards Cecilia, while devolving into hysteria.
“You made me waste eight Blood Tears… Do you know how many contribution points I had to use in order to exchange for these eight Blood Tears? Each one of them can save my life in critical times, and I had to waste eight of them in order to block your one attack… How are you going to compensate me?”
“How about I send you to your Supreme Lord as compensation?” Alnea said, stepping in front of Cecilia. “You won’t need you such worldly possessions when you enter his embrace anyway.”
“Shut up!” the white robed man yelled, and rushed towards him with all his strength, even urging his Aspects to their extreme. He was so fast, that Alnea did not even have the time to blink before he felt himself being hit in his stomach, and found himself flying towards the wall of the canyon once again. In the next moment, while he was still processing what had happened, he felt as if someone smashed a hammer on the back of his head, before crashing face first into the ground. Thankfully, the Glyph Arrays on his robe saved him from breaking his bones once again. But that only made the Heterodox Wanderer even more hysterical.
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“It’s this again. You damn pigs of Orthodoxies…” the white robed man cursed. “Clothes enchanted with True Ranked Glyphs, and such higher Arcanas, and Martial Styles… Why can you have so many precious resources without fighting for them? Why do you get to enjoy your lives, while I have to fight to breathe for every moment that I get to breathe? Why?”
“…It’s because you chose to become a Heterodox Wanderer,” Alnea said, as he pushed himself off the ground. “It is because you chose a shortcut, instead of putting in your effort, and fighting your fate.”
“Fighting fate? Putting in effort?” the white robed man said, laughing hysterically, sending his spit flying in every direction. “I have been a Peak Stage False Wanderer for longer than you have lived, and fought more life and death battles than the days you have seen. I have experienced my limbs being cut off for twenty three times, and have my innards spill out in mid fight forty seven times. What do you even know about putting in effort, little pipsqueak? What do you even know about fighting fate?”
“…Two Intermediate Stage False Wanderer, and one Advanced Stage False Wanderer fighting against three Peak Stage False Wanderers… Isn’t what we are doing right now, kind of like fighting our fate?”
“…That’s where you are wrong, little brat,” the white robed man said, shaking his head. “You are not fighting your fate, you are just courting death.”
Even as he finished the last of his words, the white robed man, shining in the glow of his white, grey, and red Aspects, moved to attack Alnea once again, this time aiming for his head. However, as his fist neared his target, what he struck was not the black robed boy’s head, but a grey wall of fog, that descended at the last moment, absorbing all the impact from his fist, buying enough time for Alnea to back away from the Heterodox Wanderer.
“…Do you take my presence as a decoration?” Yuri said, standing next to Cecilia, with a Glyph Disc, and carving knife in her hand. “Or do you think that the only Advanced Stage False Wanderer in our team is not worth your attention?”
“…Are you also a scholar?”
“Scholar?” Yuri said, while raising the corner of her lips in a mocking grin. “I think you are underestimating me a little.”
In the next moment, thirty six pillars of silvery blue light rose up from the ground. Almost as thick as Yuri’s thighs, and as tall as five times her height, these pillars were all spaced apart around one metres or so from each other, and formed a circle with the Heterodox Wanderer at their centre. It was almost as if they were trapping the Wanderer within their bounds.
And yet, they rose so abruptly, and were so unique in arrangement, that for a moment, all that the white robed man did was stare at them in a daze. By the time he noticed the peculiarity of the lights, he was already surrounded by them from all sides. Hoping that it was not too late, the white robed man tried rushing out of his cage. Unsurprisingly, the moment he tried to break out, a translucent grey barrier manifest in between the pillars, trying to stop his escape. But it did not seem like the barrier was too effective. At the very least, the man was confident that he would be able to break through the barrier.
However, the longer that the Heterodox Wanderer stayed in contact with the barrier, the more he understood the terrifying nature of the barrier, and what its true purpose was. It was never meant to stop him from escaping. Rather, the barrier was made so weak especially in order to encourage him to escape. Because the more he tried to break through the barrier, the more it would be able to corrode his Aspects.
Stepping back from between the pillars, the Heterodox Wanderer tried to escape the cage by jumping above the pillars, but the result was the same. He was forced back to the ground by a giant dome like barrier, trying to corrode his defences, and decompose his body. With no other options left, the Wanderer tried to force his way through the pillars of light, but felt a terrifying coercion descend onto his Spirit the moment he touched those pillars.
“…A compound Arcana? Mysteries of Decay, and Night?”
“…I prefer the path of Arcanists more over the path of Scholars. It allows me much more freedom to play with Mysteries. And it can also give me the strength to deal with scums like you.”