“My name is Mu, the General of Rea Defense. I am sending a message to every.. out there that survived.. attack. We w.. the Rea Defense headquarter at midnight to evacuate. Please …” The radio got cut off
It’s 9:03PM and I am hiding under a collapsed supermarket. I must get to the headquarter by midnight in order to survive. 2 of the Patroller Reas are consuming human souls in front of me. Patroller Rea looks similar to a humanoid robot. However, It only has one red eye and sharp teeth which are used to attack and consume human. With my soul sword, I sliced their body in half not giving them time to react. My soul sword ate the 2 Reas and I quickly move away from the area.
Reas are categorise into 4 rankings. Patroller has the lowest ranking with a soul power of around 10-50. Patrollers are very commonly seen and pose a low threat to qualified Rea Defenders but it can easily eliminate a small group of normal humans. Zeekers are less common. Zeeker can be distinguish from a Patroller by its larger size and a wing. If I remember correctly from my Reas Structure class, it has a soul power of around 200-500. The rest are called Zephon and Asasta. Very limited data are known on them, only sketches of them can be seen because of their high soul power that can manipulate light. Only Rea Defenders with a high level of eye adjustment techniques can see them.
I reach the main road after running for a kilometer, slaying a couple more of Patrollers. On the middle of the street, I see a girl being surrounded by 5 Patrollers.
“Hey, duck under right now!” I shouted
The girl follow my order as I sprint into the scene in a matter of seconds, activates my soul sword and slashes through 3 of the Patrollers along with a quarter of the girl’s pink hair.
The other 2 Patrollers manage to use their arm to block against my attack and shoots orange balls of soul energy from their mouth at me and at the girl. I try to use my soul sword again but my soul power is depleted so I jump in to block the attack.
“No!” the girl screamed
The energy balls struck at my leg and body like an electric shock, immobilising me, I think that I'm done for as my eyes closes by itself. Suddenly, I heard a loud bang followed by the sound of bodies falling to the ground.
“Are you guys ok?” A middle aged men asked
“I depleted my soul power” I lightly replied
"I am also running low so I cannot share. I think that 5 of these Patrollers will give you enough power to get to the headquarter. My team will guard you while you consume them.” The man said apologetically, commanding his team of 3 to move us and the 5 bodies into a building nearby
I let my soul sword consume the Patrollers as I lie down, exhausted from previous fights. Although consuming Patroller will give me soul power, it does not provide as much as the amount that I spent on the fight. A speed boost consumes a very large amount of soul power, at my level I can only perform 3 speed boosts. The main point of consuming soul is to increase soul number not power. When consuming Reas that was damage or fought by someone else, the soul quality will significantly decrease.
“Thank you for saving me” The girl approaches me and lightly smiled as her sweet vanilla scent falls onto me
“No problem, it.tt..it is my job to safe people from Rea” I replied nervously
“You don’t look like a qualified Rea Defender to me” The girl said cheekily
“I am Alice, a first year undergrads at the Rea Defender Academy of Ardia. What is your name?” Alice asked
“I am Ray, I am also a first year there! How come I have never seen you before?” I replied surprisingly as I recalled not having seen a girl this beautiful at the campus before.
“We’ll talk later, we need to get going” Alice replied
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As we are leaving the building, we spotted a group of Rea marching towards us. It consists of 50 Patrollers and 2 Zeekers. The Zeekers must have detected us. The man told us to escape using the fire exit while they fend off the Reas.
We came out of the building unharmed followed by screams and shouts.
“I hope that they are fine” Alice said
The time is 10:54PM and we are 50 kilometers away from the headquarter. If we run at a normal Soul User speed, we should get there by 11:50PM
We can hear fights occurring everywhere in the city. Smokes are filling the up sky, blocking up the sun. The day turned into night and coldness spreads. Cars completely stopped due to the Reas EMP gun.
“The city is lost to them” I thought in my head
Finally, we reached the headquarter. The Rea Defenders are managing the people that are trying to rush into the planes. There are countless injuries which are to be treated by the Soul Healer. The situation looks chaos.
While we are queueing to get into the ship, a large explosion occurs behind us. A group of around 10 Zeekers fly towards the plane and shoot energy balls at the ship. General Mu quickly knocks the attack off with his extended soul sword, returning them back to the Zeekers. The Zeekers avoid the energy ball but were annihilated by the wind power of the slash. The wind blows his long brown hair up, revealing a scar he had on his head. The determination in his eyes and strength give everybody hope.
"He is soo strongg!” cheered Alice
“One day I will be just like him” I smiled
The time is 12:00AM and the planes immediately took off. I gazed down on the flaming City of Ardia. I remembered the moment that I first stepped into this city and my time at the academy here. This beautiful and peaceful city is far from my hometown but I will never forget any moments that I spent in this place. All of the people and areas that I have been to, they went up in flames in front of my eyes. I can only hope that my friends and teachers also made it on the plane.
“Only if I was stronger, I could have protected all of those people” I involuntarily clenched my fist
“Ray, you tried your best..” Alice said trying to cheer me up
After a 7 hours flight, the plane landed at a city called Veleria. Veleria is one of the largest city in the continent. It is very safe from Rea attacks and it also has one of the four largest Rea Defense headquarters.
“I will be contacting my family and the headquarter. Where are you going?” I asked Alice
“I have a friend here so I might go and visit her to ask for shelter. We will hopefully meet again in the academy here Ray” Alice quickly ran off
She didn’t give me a chance to say good bye. I didn’t even get her number..
I opened my phone and saw messages from my friends and calls from my parents. I immediately called them.
“Ray!, You need to get out of Ardia right now” Dad shouted
“Is Ray safe?!?” Mum shouted from the background
“Yes dad and mum, I’m safe. I’m at Veleria now.” I answered
We talked for around 30 minutes while I walked to the headquarter. My friends, Ike and Sam replied to my message and are also heading to the headquarter. However John is not answering any messages or calls.
At the headquarter, Ike,Sam and I went to report on our situation and ask for a transfer to the academy here.
“The Rea Denfense Academy here are fill with many talented individuals. Entry requirements will be harder than other districts. You will need to pass an extra entry exam in order to enroll here. Once enrolled, you will be able to stay in the student accommodation. The exam will be in a week” said the administrator
“Fair enough” said Ike
“That is because you are the strongest in our class Ike” replied Sam
All of us decided to split up in order to efficiently train and we will meet again next week. Depending on the soul weapon and soul nature, the training methods will be different. Unless it is soul synchronising or team formation training, training alone is ideal.
I estimated that my soul number should be around 400 after the fights in Ardia. With max power, I should be able to defeat up to 8 top level Patrollers or 1 top level Zeeker in a face to face combat. At my current soul level, consuming a Patroller will increase my soul number by an average of around 10% of it's soul number and 5% for Zeeker's soul number. The higher the soul user’s level, the lower the percentage will be. Each 100th souls you consume will result in a major increase in fighting ability and power but it will cost me over a year to reach 500 so I should focus on soul strengthening rather than that.
I asked for permission to use the training room in the headquarter which is filled with soul force. To strengthen the soul, one must circulate the soul force and release it out from the body. This will stretch the soul force capacity inside the body and strengthen them physically. Training in an atmosphere with high soul force will make it harder to release the force which in turn drives higher amount of soul force out of the body each time. It will also produce higher toll on the body.
I continuously circulated the soul force around and out of my body. I trained for 6 days straight and it felt easier and easier to push and absorb soul force until I don’t feel any soul force around me at all.
I took a break on the last day to be fully ready for the exam tomorrow.