The prince, his personal knights, and I were all teleported to this weird place, and the weirdest thing is the abundance of mana here. Not even the king’s castle compares to this.

“I have summoned powerful adventurers, Mages, and knowledgeable figures around the continent, in preparation of an entity that would raze the continent to the ground. I have gathered you…”

“Where are we?!”

“What are you planning?!?”

“Let us go!!!”

“I’m scared”

I didn’t even pay attention to the others here, I have to put up my guard in case one of them is after the prince.

Unsheathing a long sword, a young male who just turned eighteen, with white hair and blue eyes, stood in front of the prince, in a stance where he pointed the sword forward and he free arm shielded the prince. No one even paid attention to his actions, as there were several people who were killed on the spot. The young male immediately turned around and pulled the prince, towards his abdomen to shield his eyes from this scene. He patted the prince on the head to calm him down. The royal knights was shaking, as they lost one, because he shouted at the giant eye.

After watching the eye take a human shape and blow away the two adventurers, the young male signaled the other knights to evacuate to an isolated area.

“Thank god Luke was here, the prince would’ve cried harder than the baby”

“That’s the crybaby prince for you”

“Luke was pretty calm. Like a royal knight”

“He’s from a noble family, so of course…ouch…oh my bad, I forgot Luke”

“Its no big deal, the Stride family has disown me, and as soon as I became his royal guardian, they wanted me back. So I don’t care any more”

“Th-thank you”

“its my job Kyle.”

Luke proceeded to pay Kyle’s head then started observing his surroundings, then came up with a plan for the knights.

“We’re gonna need shelter, fresh water, and food. So we will split up into groups. Hector, Kit, and Lance will make a wooden cabin, since they have experience in carpentry or wood work. Robin, Noel, and Mirabelle will be in charge of fresh water and purification. Crystle, Ansem, and cliff will follow me and the prince, and we will be the hunting team.”

“Shouldn’t the construction crew have more workers?”

“Yeah, we don’t have any females either. Why does Robin get two to himself. It’s only Three girls and only the construction crew is all males”

“If you think about it logically, your groups should be the safest. We don’t know what lies out there. The water collecting group needs a water and a light mage, and Robin is the second best combatant, after me. So he has to protect them, since neither of them are good in combat. The hunting group is the largest, because we don’t how strong anything here is. Abyss admitted she summoned strong beings here, so if she wants us to grow, we might have to fight strong animals or monsters. It has to be something to eat, since we’re expected to survive here and she’s doesn’t seem like the type to provide a meal for us everyday. So if possible, we’ll kill as much as we can and preserve all we can. We also need to make sure we can protect the prince. What’s the point of us without the prince?”

This shut up the construction crew, Hector, the main instigator in it, started scratching his head. Everyone split into the groups, and went their separate ways.

Lance led the construction crew, he had the most experience in building houses, and having earth element made is easier to start the foundation. Lance focused on the foundations, Hector cut the wood, and Kit helped transport the wood.

Mirabelle led the water collecting group as the water mage.

Water created from mana, wasn’t a reliable source, it had a weird taste and it could cause mana poisoning if someone drank too much. It would be fine in an emergency situation, but to rely on it for several years, would be just as bad as not having any water, as mana poisoning could have permanent consequences depending on the severity and the difference in mana level between the caster and the drinker. So the water collecting group focused on finding fresh water and detoxifying it if necessary.

Luke led the hunting group and prince Kyle.

Luke hoped to find a herbivore rather than a carnivore, not because of taste but rather safety. Most herbivore monsters no matter how strong, were passive and only attacked when provoked or you came into their territory. But the more hope the greater the disappointment when you fail. Luke couldn’t believe his luck, they ran into a pack of Dire wolves. They were c rank monsters individually, but in a pack they were stronger than some A rank monsters, because of their intelligence and teamwork. The wolves only showed themselves after they had surrounded the group, yet it seemed Like was the only one who noticed.

“Prepare for battle! Ansem protect Kyle. Triangle formation.”

As everyone got into formation and pulled out their weapons, the wolves began circling them, when a mighty howl echoed through the woods. The wolves immediately attacked. Of the pack of thirty wolves, three sets of wolves had attacked everyone forming the triangle formation, while several wolves ran to the gap between the formation. Luke surrounded himself in wind aura, and in a single motion sliced three wolves attacking him in half, then with a single step he appeared in front of Kyle, and decapitated the three wolves that went through the gaps. Ansem could’ve handled them, but since they came from different directions, there was a chance they could’ve harmed the prince. By the time Luke returned to his spot, Crystle and Cliff were just now defeating their wolves.

As soon as they finished, a second howl came, and the wolves started making a path from the middle. A huge dire wolf came from the path they open. This dire wolf was twice the size of the other dire wolves and had black fur instead of brown. It rank had to be at least B, if not A rank.

A third howl came from the huge dire wolf, and the eighteen wolves immediately started attacking Crystle and Cliff. Luke attempted to help them, but the huge wolf swatted it’s paw at him, forcing him to block it. Meanwhile whenever Ansem prepared to help them, two wolves would attack him from both sides and run away before they got injured. Luke focused his wind aura around his sword, and slashed the giant dire wolf’s legs several times, but it only snarled, but would completely unhurt. It’s fur was much thicker than the others wolves. The giant dire wolf smashed it’s paw into the ground, scattering dust everywhere, Luke attempted to help to run to help the two, but the moment he took his eyes off the giant dire wolf, a fireball came hurling at him, and he deflected it with his sword aura. The situation was worse than he thought. This dire wolf was a mutation, it’s strength and defense alone would make it an A rank, but being able to use magic would make it stronger than normal. Luke formed a second layer of aura around him, this time the aura was fire. Luke stomped his foot off the ground, propelling himself towards Crystle and Cliff. Several fireball flew towards his back, and Luke focused his aura unto his back and strengthen it, at the same time letting it propel him faster. Luke slashed through several wolves as he arrived in the middle of the pack, disrupt their attack. The fire from Luke’s aura caught one wolf’s fur on fire, and he decapitated it. Being used like that angered the giant dire wolf, and it fired several fireballs at Ansem and Kyle. Ansem used giant battle axe, and blocked them all, but as soon as he did, he was swatted away by the giant dire wolf. The giant wolf then smashed it’s paw down onto Kyle, but before it landed on him, a flaming sword pierced through it’s paw. The giant wolf let out a painful how, and Luke grabbed Kyle with arm and threw him to Ansem. Luke began swirling his two auras around him, as they began to fuse into one. When Luke got into a battle stance the giant wolf howled once more and all the wolves retreated. Luke waited until the wolves were out of sight before dispersing his aura, and went to check on Crystle and Cliff. They had numerous bite marks and scratches but nothing serious, but Ansem has trouble walking, and Kyle looked extremely apologetic.

Luke began moving all the dead dire wolves into a pile next to Ansem.

“We survived, and we have food to last a while, but this is a humbling experience. We now know that the monsters would be a problem if anyone travels alone, but we all survived. Cliff, I need you to transport this area back, with your magic.”

Luke pointed to the dead wolves, Ansem, and Kyle. Cliff was a magic swordsman with an earth mana. A magic swordsman neither had the range of a mage, nor the aura to compare to other swordsmen, but they were an all rounder, with middle range capabilities, but it still required time to cast. Cliff elevated the ground underneath the corpses, Ansem, and Kyle, then he jumped onto the platform, and moved it back to the base. Luke and the Crystle didn’t get on because it would expend more mana to move more weight.

Everyone met back up in front of the cabins. There were ten cabins when they arrived. The extra cabin was made with the intention to smoke food and store it. They also made a well to store the water. The first day in the Abyss for them was kind of a success, they had food, water, and shelter to last for months, but one member was killed by lady Abyss, one had serious injuries, and everyone was exhausted mentally.

Its been seventeen months, since living like this, everyone noticed they mana or aura grew stronger from being here and eating it’s inhabitants. The royal knights had made turned their base into a mini fortress. They made several walls out of earth magic surrounding it, made barricades out of wood and dire wolves’ bones, pit traps outside the base, and they even taken in a few dozen adventurers who had trouble surviving on their own, either because they were noncombatants, injured, and one was even mentally crippled by a swarm of mind legion. They’re a weak A rank monsters, that could use surprise attacks and swarming their goes to eat devour their brains. This man was lucky that Luke saved him, but unfortunately the damage was done. But the non combatants were mostly healers, two were scholars. Everyone had a part, after taken in so many people, the food ran out quickly, so they had to hunt very often, the healers did their part, the scholars helped make blue prints for the walls, traps, and they even tutored Prince Kyle.

Luke designated himself a the watchman. He didn’t want to lead, as he discovered the monsters were getting stronger as well, and not many of the others were as strong as him, and staying on the wall saved time. Even though it had four walls surrounding it, it was only possible to land a frontal attack, as the most deadly trap, a huge ravine was created around other walls, and it was filled with a combination of poisons from different monsters, plants, and their blood and corpses to spread the poison without diluting it.

Thud. Thud. THUD. THUD.

Vibrations reverberated through the whole fortress. Everyone became alert, those capable of battle ran to the front wall. Luke seemed to be shaking, as he faced the group who were heading towards the wall.

“There’s seven armed cyclops, heading this way, if I could handle one, Robin and Crystle handle another one, and everyone split into five groups of five, we can definitely win this”

Almost everyone excited for this battle, as they had defeated several cyclops before, even though they were unarmed and attacked one at a time. The members of the royal knights all had somber expressions. Cyclops are a giant species, that have tough skin, immense strength, and a high resistance to magic. Even though they an A rank species, they could use weapons, work in groups, and plot against adventurers, that wasn’t included in their evaluation, as those were variables, and they had a poor depth perception and their eye was a clear weakness.

The footsteps grew closer, and everyone left the walls of the fortress and started to form groups. Cyclops could decimate the walls of the fortress quickly, so it was best to stop them before they reached the fortress. All the royal knights except Mirabelle and Noel led a group to stop a cyclops.

Luke surrounded himself with both auras, and was the first to reach a cyclops. The cyclops seeing him approach, prepared to swing the tree it was holding into him. Luke engulfed himself in fire as he blocked the tree, to burn the tree in it’s hands. Luke was hurled away with that collision and the tree was only slightly scorched. The only benefit that came from that is no one else attempted to clash head on with a cyclops. Robin was the next to reach a cyclops, and as it smashed the tree it was holding into Robin, Robin appeared behind the cyclops as if he came out it’s shadow, and he sliced the right Achilles heel of the cyclops. The cyclops flinched and turned around only to have it’s other Achilles heel sliced. Robin dual wielded two short swords. Robin kept attacking the cyclops Achilles heels and whenever he couldn’t dodge, Crystle would toss a fireball at the cyclops.

The other groups had surrounded the cyclops and it seemed evenly matched, the cyclops couldn’t catch anyone and the adventurers couldn’t damage the cyclops. Luke staggered as he regained his balance, but the cyclops was already swinging the tree in it’s hand at him. Luke wasn’t in a position to dodge or block it, so he focused his wind aura around his body and his fire aura around his sword. He used the wind to lift up his body, and swung his sword at the tree, but before the sword collided with the tree, he exploded the aura around the sword. With Luke being in the air, the explosion sent him flying, and he used the wind to slow his momentum before he the ground, and caught his balance.

Luke focused his aura completely on wind, and charged at the cyclops. Whenever the cyclops swung it’s tree at him, he would used the draft that came from the Cyclops’s swings to dodge the attack. Luke couldn’t damage it or block its attack, so he decided to wear down it’s stamina. The cyclops swung it’s tree down at ground, and created a smokescreen out of sand. The bottom of the tree went charging at Luke through the sand, as if the cyclops was trying to stab him. Luke dodged the tree, but as soon as he did a hand came from the smoke in a different direction from the tree, and grabbed him. Luke just noticed the tree wasn’t held by anything, but it was too late to do anything about it. The cyclops started squeezing him as tightly as it could, but the wind aura, was preventing it from crushing Luke, but he still felt pressure caving in on him. Luke groaned in pain, as he struggled to break free. The cyclops wrapped his other hand around the hand that had Luke, and started squeezing harder. Luke screamed in pain and started wrapping the fire aura around the wind aura. The cyclops winced in pain and Luke screamed. The cyclops kept squeezing as hard as it could but the heat was starting to get to it. The cyclops slowly opened it’s hands, but just as Luke attempted to break free, it grabbed him with it’s other hand, then it immediately slammed him into the ground. The cyclops started fanning it’s hands as it walked towards the tree it threw. Luke struggled to get up, but his body wouldn’t listen, he felt like a turtle stuck on it’s back, all he only had enough strength to lift up his arm. He raised his arm and reached towards the cyclops, hoping to stop it before it recovered it’s weapon. He was in excruciating pain and desperate to stop it from moving. As it listening to his hopes, a miracle happened. His aura left his body. The fire aura surrounded the Cyclops’s head, and wind formed a sphere around the fire. The cyclops tried its best to break free, but it couldn’t. It’s head was burning and smoke was filling the sphere. Luke’s arm was tormenting him, just by keeping it up in the air, and his mind wondered if it was possible to finish this in a quicker fashion. His strength was starting to fail him, he receded his fire aura, as the wind aura was the one holding it back, the smoke would escape without the bubble and it could find ways to put out the fire, but it couldn’t break the sphere of wind. A thought hit Luke, and he clutched his palm tightly, and as following his actions, all the air in the sphere escaped as once. The results shocked even Luke, the cyclops collapsed to the ground. With that Luke lost consciousness.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Luke!”

Luke woken up to hearing his name, he groaned and scrambled to sit up. What he seen, looked like a scene from a nightmare. There were several cyclopes corpses, but eleven deaths on the human side. Even more, the survivors were injured to, some missing limbs. Cliff and Hector died, while Kit and Crystle were down limbs. While Luke was paying attention, it seemed pretty balanced, but while Luke was struggling, the cyclopes outsmarted them, they would pretend to run away, and would sneak attack members surroundings a different cyclops, they would back the adventurers attacking them into another group and sandwich them then attack them from both sides so even if some escape they would hit something, and they even used the adventurers as shields. There would’ve been more casualties, if Noel, Mirabelle, and Kyle didn’t come.

Kyle was only 14, but he was brought to the abyss as well because he had enormous magical powers from birth, and would be comparable to an A rank adventurers or even it surpass that, but he lacked the experience and anything else required to fight. He was a pure mage, and might’ve not even been able to help if it wasn’t for his comprehension skills, as he was able to mimic Noel’s light magic.

As for Crystle, she lost an arm, it was still there but it was so mangled, healing magic wouldn’t be able to save it. When Robin figured he couldn’t kill it with normal mean, he climbed up a tree, and used his shadow magic to cut all the limbs simultaneously when the cyclops went under it, but at the same time the cyclops targeted Crystle because it had failed to even touch Robin, and when it thought it had a chance, Crystle would hit it with a fireball. The cyclops managed to land a powerful hit onto Crystle’s arm but at the same time it was both trapped by the branches that fell down as well as was pinned down by the branches that came from the top. Robin used the shadows as thread, to control how the branches fell, with the lower branches piled up to the cyclops, while the upper branches were covered in shadow magic and used to pierce it’s arms, and hold them in place as Robin came crashing down with his two swords, piercing it’s eye.

Kyle was crying and hugging Luke warmly. This was a horrible battle, they lost almost half of their battle power, but at least the fortress wasn’t damage. Even they won, no one felt like celebrating. Some of those who were able to, left to bring the healers, while the rest stayed to guard the injured. They would still have to go hunting soon, as no one wanted to eat a cyclops because it was too humanoid.

Luke saw something that made him shiver, it was the giant black dire wolf from before, it was pretty distant but he could tell it seemed to be smirking. It didn’t attack, it just left as always. This wasn’t the first time they were pushed back, never this badly, but every time they were, Luke saw the black wolf. Luke eventually realized the wolf was responsible for those attacks, but it never jumped in, it only led powerful monsters towards the fortress, let Luke see it, then left.

Over the next two years, the fortress expanded and the amount of adventurers staying there, there was two hundred and seventy six adventurers living here. It became a large community, and the royal knights were still in charge. Everyone who stayed respected them, and even though it was many mouths to fill, they managed to keep a surplus and never abandoned the weak, injured, or sick. There was thirty two sick and injured and fifty non combatants. So the fortress had more than a third, incapable of combat. This was one of the biggest communities but it wasn’t the biggest. The communities would work together in case of an emergency, but no such emergency has emerged.

An ominous screech shook the whole fortress. Everyone began to panic as no one knew what could make such a sound. Before they could calm down, they heard the sound of flapping wings, by the thousands. An enormous bird, more than twice the size of the fortress flew overhead, and it was encircled by numerous birds. The enormous bird looked around the fortress, and signaled for one of the birds to get something. Everyone was frozen from fear of the huge monster, and Luke was watching where the bird was heading, and he began shaking with anger, because he saw the giant black dire wolf, was inside the fortress, and it looked to be smirking at him. He knew they were screwed, he didn’t know what the wolf did, but he knew it was responsible for what was going to happen.

The bird swooped in and grabbed the giant wolf and brought it to the enormous bird. There was a long period of silence, then there was a brief rain that fell upon the fortress, afterwards the mangled corpse of the Wolf fell into the fortress. A lot of people were covered in it’s blood.

“You pathetic insects dare order that wolf to destroy my only heir! You dare disregard the existence of Ziz! It eluded me for months, but it let down it’s guard once it felt safe.”

This was one of the four existences that Abyss created that surpassed S rank, the king of the sky. A few of the adventurers had heard the name Ziz before. There was clamoring in the fortress. Several people tried to appease the bird, but it refused to listen.

“Silence! I only had a single offspring, and you took it from before it could hatch. I want this village destroyed by the end of the day and no survivors!”

The Ziz left these words as it flew into the clouds and it’s presence vanished the moment it did. The birds went into a frenzy. There were thunderbirds, firebirds, Griffins, roc, and two cockatrices. All powerful A rank monsters, while the cockatrice was almost considered S rank. But the majority were deviled hawks, they were weaker than the others but they had numbers for advantage and they were around the size of a human. Of the three thousand birds, they made up more than two thousand. The more powerful birds just watched as the deviled hawks attacked the fortress. Only around a hundred of the deviled hawks attacked.

Mages fired all types of spells into the sky, and the magic swordsman and archers waited until the birds got into range. During the first wave, no one was hurt, and the biggest threat was avoiding the falling birds. The second wave came, and the same outcome. The only difference was the mages seemed exhausted and the deviled hawk were closer to the fortress, slightly outside the mages range, and they circled the fortress overhead. The third wave was different, twice as many devilled hawks attacked, but this time they were split into four groups and attack from four different directions instead of attacking from directly below.

The third wave grew closer and some mages could hit some but some were hidden by the walls of the fortress or even the buildings that were nearby the mages, and more than half of the birds managed to get inside the fortress, and attacked the buildings on the edge of fortress. They were commanded to destroy the fortress not just kill everyone.

The mages stayed in the center of the fortress, while the other combatants spread out to eliminate the birds that got inside. Luke and Robin stayed near the mages. While they spread out to hunt the birds, a fourth wave and a fifth wave came, using the same strategy. Some adventurers were caught by surprise from the two new waves. The mages provided support, there were injuries but no fatalities.

While the mages were providing support, the remaining thousand plus deviled hawks came swooping down. The safest group were the mages, as not only did they have the longest range, but Luke would use his wind aura to create a vacuum, to kill the birds that got too close or Robin used his shadow magic to obscure or kill the birds. The difference in numbers and how the adventurers were so spread out, casualties started appearing. Some were unluckily crushed by deviled hawks that were killed by an ally in the air, some were ambushed around buildings, some were brought into the air and dropped. The casualties reached twenty two, and none of the stronger birds have attacked yet. The healers did their best to keep the numbers from increasing.

Everyone regroup back into the center of the fortress, and healer began emergency treatment before the next wave came. They didn’t have much time to work, as the Rocs were the next to attack. Those with earth and metal affinities, started to construct and create walls and barriers. That was because the rocs we’re extremely fast, and sometimes when they attacked in great numbers, some would crash into enemies in a suicidal fashion, no one knew whether it was intentional or there were young Rocs that couldn’t control their speed, but everyone prepared for the worst. The Rocs all crashed down in a suicidal fashion, not all at once, but this was doing enormous damage. The walls of the fortress were destroyed, most of the houses were destroyed, most of the walls and barriers were destroyed and remade several times and the casualties were increasing. Either being too close to the wall when the Rocs crashed into them or not being hit by a second round of Rocs before a new barrier was form. They were down another thirty or so people already.

Fire and thunder started to reign down onto the fortress as the firebirds and Thunderbirds started to descend down. The walls and barriers were decimated on contact with the fire and thunder.

“fireworks go boom! Wow! Hahaha”

“that’s right Seth, but shouldn’t you take cover?”

“But aunt told me to watch and and and run?”

“She told you to watch and learn. But you can still get hurt.”

“Let your old man take care of these birds, while you hide behind your uncle.”

“Okay…”

The adventurers and royal knights, all saw such a miraculous sight. In the midst of the fire and thunder crashing down, a slightly dark young child that looked around three to four years old, with silver hair and a blue streak down the middle, with blue eyes, was skipping and dancing around. He was so close to the fire or thunder when it fell but it never touched him. What seemed like a battlefield to them, was like fireworks to this little kid. Two people followed the kid, one stayed near him while the second one began protecting the adventurers.

“Seth watch out!”

While the young kid was skipping towards his uncle, he leaped onto some rubble and fell into his back, and a fireball was heading towards him. Luke surrounded himself in wind aura and ran to protect the kid, but he was too late. The fireball engulfed the kid.

“darn it! I was too slow. “

Unexpectedly, the next sound Luke heard was giggling. As the fireball started to float up and start rock back and forth. Luke soon saw that the kid, was not only okay, but he seemed to be dancing underneath the fireball, while still on his back. The kid was waving his hands up and down and the fireball seemed to follow suit.

“So that’s how you do it.”

After speaking those words, a second fireball was created and it was am exact replica of the first. Luke was amazed but he was happy that the kid was unharmed. Luke surrounded himself in fire aura, and lifted the kid onto his feet.

“Are you okay?”

“Wow! You have pretty white hair! So cool!”

“…!”

Luke was dumbfounded, as his hair color was a source of self-resentment, because it was what caused him to be disowned. He was the oldest, but he was the only one not to inherit the Stride’s family Raven black hair. His father tolerated him at first, he had neither parents hair color, eye color, and his skin was even paler compared to them, and after having a second heir that seemed competent, and the constant chatter of his wife must’ve bad an affair, his father fell into disbelief that the child was even his. Even though he had the Stride’s family element, wind, he also had another, fire, which neither parent had. He was disowned at fourteen and it’s been four years and his current position surpasses theirs.

“Big brother, are you okay?”

“…oh, yeah. I’m okay”

Luke patted Seth on the head, and he was choked with emotions because of this young kid. Not even his younger sibling called him brother. It was as this precious little child was expelling some of repressed feelings he gained from his family. Acknowledging him as a brother even though he didn’t really mean it, and complimenting his hair which caused so much trouble for him with his family. Seth grabbed Luke’s hand before he stopped parting his head, and tugged on it.

“Lets go! Uncle is waiting for us!”

“Let’s go little brother!”

“Teheheh. I’m your little brother now. No take backsies”

Luke was a little uncomfortable, being pulled by the hand by Seth because of the height difference, and so Luke picked up Seth and placed him on his shoulders. Luke finally remembered something, why hasn’t any of the fire or thunder came near them, but he saw that the two fire balls the kid controlled were spinning around over head, and it absorbed or clashed with any fire or thunder that was close enough. Seth busted out into a huge grin, when he placed on to Luke’s shoulders.

“Wow! Big brother is taller than dad! Cool! Uncle is taller than dad and he’s stronger too. Are you strong as well?”

“well…”

That question reminded Luke that this kid’s father volunteered to fight alone, so he started to search for him. He saw the silver haired man, had a domain of darkness spread into the sky like net, that constantly expanded towards the birds. The birds wanted to flee, but the Ziz was above them, so they could only fight. There were many gaps in this domain, the thunderbirds and the firebirds flew through them. As they grew closer to the fortress, they continuously dropped fireballs and thunder. As they descended the darkness domain started to close in on the birds from above. Whenever the darkness touched a bird, it would start to encroach them. The birds that were completely encroached were devoured by the darkness, the rest fell lifelessly on to the ground.

The griffins and the cockatrice were terrified but they still feared the Ziz even more. They refused to fly down, but as they were having trouble launching an attack, darkness was oozing down from the domain, and it landed on Sean, than the darkness lifted him up. Before they knew, a man stood on top of the darkness domain. The birds didn’t even chance to flee, when a coldness surrounded them, an ice domain had trapped the birds. Sean wanted to show off his swordsmanship skills, but now wasn’t the time as the cockatrice could be threat if it made direct eye contact when anyone.

The birds were assaulted by an array of ice spears from every direction. The cockatrice was soon the only survivor, as it’s scales seemed resistant to ice. Sean controlled the ice domain and slammed it to the ground outside the fortress. The cockatrice seemed stunned and disoriented, and it showed the ice fragments off it’s body. Sean jumped off the top of the darkness domain, holding a halberd, and decapitated the cockatrice.

Noticing all of it’s subordinates had the Ziz showed it presence once again.

“You darn insects dare to fight back. I guess you want a painful death”

“no no no, uncle protect me. I no die”

“what insolents! You dare talk back to me?”

“whats insolents? You talk to me I talk back. I have manners.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“mocking? Are you a mockingbird?”

“I’ll squash you darn insects”

“I no insect! You an insect. Insects have wings and you have wings! Mocking insect!”

“ARGGGHHHH! You…”

“Rawr!!!!”

Darren burst out laughing, from the conversation between the Ziz and Seth. The other adventurers, seem to be frozen with fear, as none could react, but this child was disrespecting it and conversing with it. The Ziz was seething with anger. Lightning started filling the clouds and wind was howling. Darren finally decided to act.

“Seth you stay here, and uncle will fetch you a giant chicken. Okay?”

“Ew. No! That’s nasty, I don’t wanna eat an insect”

“Just be good, okay?”

“Okay. Big brother will teach me a game!”

“I never agreed to that though”

“Big brother no play with me?”

Darren left while Seth was distracted. Darren summoned his spear, and began walking into the sky. This was an advanced technique, air walk, solidifying the air mana underneath his feet, as he stepped higher. Eventually Darren was above the darkness domain, and he created a air domain underneath his feet. It was in the shape of a cube, and it surrounded the fortress. Yet before he could reach the Ziz, it left as it was summoned away.

“That was anticlimactic.”

Darren was disappointed he didn’t get to show off. Well at least there wasn’t further damage from the fight. The fortress was mostly ruins, and there was dozens of dead bodies scattered about. Darren and Sean met up, before they returned to Seth.

“Its time to go now, Seth”

“but I have a big brother now. What if he gets bullied again?”

“We have to keep hunting those beasts. And you have to watch and learn, like Abyss told you”

“but the mocking insect is after big brother.”

“what does that have to do…wait, you think waiting here, would give us another chance to face it?”

When Sean was thinking over the possibility that the Ziz would come back, Seth left to find a hiding spot. Darren decided to take Seth’s side.

“Sean what does it hurt to settle down? Seth hasn’t had much interaction with people except us and Abyss, and he’s finally grown attached to someone. They’ll need a lot of help rebuilding this place, and they lost a lot.”

“Do you think they would accept a couple of strangers?”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask, and if they refuse, Seth will accept the outcome more easily.”

“Well, would you accept us?”

“Of…of course.”

Luke agreed almost immediately, they had strength that surpassed the whole community, even if they didn’t help in the construction, they were powerful backers. They lost a lost of manpower, and he feared the Ziz coming back, as he don’t know what made it retreat, but they were confident against it, when he couldn’t even move.

Time flew by as it was time to finally to leave. Abyss summoned everyone to her. Eighty percent of those summoned to the abyss survived, and close to twelve percent were injured, yet the strength of the group was stronger than the initial group. A lot of people was on the verge of being comparable to S rank, some have made the breakthrough, some gained a better understanding of their abilities, and some gained new elements. An iridescent light surrounded everyone, and they became healing at a visible rate. Those that lost limbs gained new ones, those who were missing patches of flesh were whole again, those who were crippled by mind legions regained their clarity, one by one people returned to their peak state.

“This will be my final gift to you all. You will forget what happened here, but you will recall the strength you gained here. You might have to relearn it, but the foundation is already there. The threat that you all face, will require that strength and even more.”

“Aunty, will I forget everything.”

“No, you won’t forget a thing. You’re an exception, you were born here, I guess I would go as far as saying you’re a rebel in the abyss. The laws I made to affect everyone else, you will be immune to. You have a deeper connection here than to Estallius.”

“uhhh…wow? So will I be able to marry you in the future?”

“If you want to, I guess. But I don’t have a gender. This appearance, is just your mother’s appearance, but with black hair, and human ears. I wanted you to grow up, knowing what your mother looks like, so when you grow up, you’ll be able to recognize her, she left pretty early, so she will have an ideal of how old you are, and I’m sure she’ll have a gap in her heart until you reunite. So you have to find her.”

“Yes! I will find her and heal her. Thank you aunty”

As Abyss was talking to Seth, her appearance changed, into an androgynous person without a face. Abyss lowered herself so she didn’t tower over Seth and gently rubbed his head, hoping it didn’t scare him. Yet to it’s surprise, Seth smiled brightly and kissed it on the cheek.

“Thank you Seth.”

“I love you auntie!”

“I love you too Seth, but I’m not a female.”

“I love you aunt uncle”

“that’s fine. And this is goodbye”

Everyone was covered in a purple light, and they were teleported back to the spots they were summoned from originally, except Sean, Seth, Darren, and the assassins. The town of Boboan had been wiped out, they left when the first monster stampede happened, but there were several that happened after that, with no one close to their strength, the town was wiped out by the second wave.