Riley had fallen into somewhat of a trance as she spoke of her time with Celia. Wendy and Ellen had been utterly enraptured as they listened to her speak of the bond between Spirit and Hunter. To the side, Lance and the other guards that had also bonded with a Spirit were equally absorbed as they listened to Riley.
She hadn’t been particularly pleased with the fact that she and Ezekiel had been grilled by the various Legendary Spirits that had greeted them upon their reentry into the haven but knew she couldn’t complain.
Instead, she reluctantly allowed Ezekiel to be dragged away to discuss things with the Spirits. Until the point when he was brought back, and they were both escorted with Callrond back to the campsite of the caravan.
At which point, Ezekiel then went off and spoke in depth with his parents regarding the information he had gotten from the Cultists he had killed. It wasn’t much, but she was shocked to learn that it was enough to spook both of the elder Luminances. Warren in particular.
It was something Riley decided she didn’t want to think about right now. She had been doing well with the mind and soul therapy she was given upon joining the Alkena family as a guard. Something she had been keeping secret from Ezekiel and his family.
The fact that the Cult of Light had new means of enforcing their loyalty brought back bad memories. Even now she shuddered at the slightest reminder.
“Riley?” Spina’s voice cut through Riley’s thoughts. Her temporary trance fell away as she was brought back to the present.
She had finished speaking with the twins and the guards a little while ago and had been speaking with Spina regarding different aspects of Flame. No great insights had been made, but Riley expected that she was unlikely to understand the more esoteric aspects of fire before she reached Legendary. She was still dealing with the different colored flames and their effects.
Ezekiel had been a gift from the Ancients with that information. But even he hadn’t fully understood the logic behind the different effects of different colors. But that was a good thing in Riley’s mind. Having Ezekiel have answers to everything would make her feel smaller than she already did.
“Sorry, guardian Spina, I was lost in thought.” Riley’s face turned a bit red as Spina gave her a knowing look. Something that Riley couldn’t describe. But the feeling of embarrassment that she got from the look Spina was giving her couldn’t have been mistaken for anything else.
“Perhaps it would be best for you to try and find your fourth Chakra once more. I don’t think mere words will be enough in this instance.” Spina glanced at Celia, who was sitting nearby, listening in, but also nodding off as Spina’s lecture nearly made her fall asleep.
The little lizard Spirit instantly perked up but avoided eye contact with the Legendary Spirit. She knew that Spina did not approve of her inattention.
Climbing up onto Riley’s lap, the Hunter in question gave her Spirit a small smile. Both closed their eyes, and quickly fell into a meditative trance. Their mana synchronizing once more. Riley’s reserves quickly filled up as Celia shared her mana. At which point Celia’s soul joined Riley’s consciousness and began delving deeper and further into Riley’s Spirit Paths.
Such a thing was usually a long and arduous process. But fortunately, it was easy to recognize the pathways that they had previously checked. It was ultimately less than even a small percentage of the paths that she had not explored. Though it was quite a lot for just a couple days of searching.
However, it was only a few minutes later that Riley nearly reeled back in surprise. They had just begun to slowly reach through the second major pathway when she came upon what was obviously her fourth Chakra.
In that moment, Riley fully understood why so many people proclaimed that luck played a major part in breaking through to higher Tiers.
Immediately, Riley and Celia began channeling mana into the chakra, quickly breaking down the metaphorical gateway, and within a few seconds, with their nearly full mana, the Chakra was opened. Mana flooded through Riley’s body in full, and blue Flames consumed her world.
She immediately felt herself be pulled back into the physical world, but her vision was still filled with blue fire. Even though she didn’t feel like she was burning at that moment.
Riley nearly panicked at the thought of burning Celia and herself with her now much hotter flames. But as she felt her bonded Spirit shifting in her lap, she realized that she could sense and control her flames much more easily now.
In fact, even though she could fully sense the heat that her flames were releasing, nothing was burning except a small circle of charred stone and dirt that surrounded her.
Turning around, Riley realized that she could also sense heat sources from other beings as well. She knew before she saw him that Ezekiel was quickly approaching. So, she released the mana she was still subconsciously channeling. The fire that had been clinging to her faded away and reached forward.
Riley vaguely heard Ezekiel say something to her, but she wasn’t listening. She was just so happy to have broken through. As reliant on luck as the circumstances had been, she was now certain that she would not be left behind.
No longer would her fate be entirely reliant on the aid of others.
----------
----------------------------------------
The rest of the day ended up passing in relative calmness. No additional guards ended up forming a bond with any Spirits. But given the sheer size of the Spirit Haven, Ezekiel had no doubt that it was still highly possible for the rest of the guards to form bonds.
It would be an entirely different story if they weren’t in the haven.
At the current moment, however, Ezekiel and Riley were making their way towards one of the Cultist’s encampments. It had been a day since they had left the haven, with Warren saying he would try to see if there was anything he could find out regarding the Cult’s magic.
But, for the moment, Ezekiel and Riley had a new location to focus on. This wasn’t a proper resupply base like the last one. This was just an area of the forest that had been cleared of foliage for a campsite to be erected.
At one point, this was being used as a staging ground for the Cult’s Hunters. There were, apparently, several cages filled with Spirits at Tier one. Though, those had long since been moved to other, more fortified, locations. The current area had long been cleared, and the Cultists that remained were dregs that appeared to be doing a final survey of the area.
As the sun sat in the middle of the sky, Ezekiel and Riley looked on from a distance. A river not too far from them, where Akland had dropped them off. Unfortunately, the carp Life Spirit wouldn’t be able to provide any more assistance in the Hunter’s endeavors. He had already crossed too many territories and needed to return to his own.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Riley asked with a much more confident voice than before. Breaking through had done wonders for her confidence. Though she was still deferring to Ezekiel for guidance at the moment.
Ezekiel hoped that this would change by the time the mission was over. He didn’t particularly like giving orders. Leading was a chore that he was more than happy to leave to others.
“Currently, we don’t know if they have any patrols in the surrounding area. So, it would be best if we could go about finding them or drawing them back to the campsite.” Ezekiel examined the terrain more closely as he tried to plan something out.
Given that it was midday, it would be much easier to be seen if they tried to attack now. The fact that such a large area had been cleared also meant that they'd have to cross a large stretch of open area before they could get close enough to do any damage.
Ezekiel figured that his best bet would be to wait until nightfall again. But with the fact that this group probably had someone with s Com-Slate, he knew that it was highly likely they had been informed about the timing of the attack.
The cult likely suspected that he was an Obscure Mage or Hunter that was using the night to secretly invade their camps. The previous base didn’t have defenses that would prevent an Obscure Mage’s entry, after all. They also had no reason to believe that it was Ezekiel that attacked. Even if the method were similar to nearly a year ago when he was in Tarquessa.
“... How big of a Flame can you make? As in, how much ground can you cover in one very large explosion?” Ezekiel finally asked after spending some time thinking about it.
I could probably cover an area about a dozen meters wide without straining myself. Bigger if I used most of my mana. Why do you ask?” Riley tilted her head to the side in question.
Ezekiel just smiled. It was not a nice smile. Anyone who saw it might go so far as to call it a comically evil grin. With lips spread wide and a glint in his eyes as he imagined what was to come. But Riley was fine with that. It just meant that bad things were about to happen to the Cultists. Thus, neither of them cared about what Ezekiel was about to suggest.
Especially since an identical evil grin spread on Riley’s face as she listened to Ezekiel explain his plan in detail.
----------
----------------------------------------
Ezekiel forced himself not to fidget as he carried Riley into the middle of the campsite. Shine was going to be almost entirely wiped from this but was holding out well as they maintained a Shroud over both Ezekiel and Riley. Something that they had only been able to do since Ezekiel broke through. But hadn’t had a chance to really make use of it.
The campsite, even with the large area surrounding it, was fairly cramped. Most of the tents were put together in a single area. Though it was not close enough together to get all the tents in one go.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Fortunately, it seemed like there was a sitting area set up, so all the Cultists were gathered around closely enough to be within Riley’s range.
Looking over the Cultists, Ezekiel counted the number of tents and compared them to the number of cloaked figures. There was an obvious difference, but it wasn’t so large as to be a problem. He knew that it was just the patrol team that had yet to return for the day.
Reaching the dead center of the camp, where there were still half a dozen Cultists sitting around, not all of them with Spirits either, Ezekiel checked his and Riley’s position, before he squeezed her leg three times.
Riley immediately burst into flames, and a bright blue, and somewhat clear, flame burst forth. They spread several meters in every direction, and instantly boiled and charred the closest Mage. While the others were blown backward, their skill blistering and boiling as they were burned to death in a quick and painful flash of fire.
Throughout it all, Ezekiel felt nothing as his contact with Riley meant that he wasn’t affected by the heat. But even so, he knew that he was still quite lucky to get through this as easily as he had.
Ezekiel moved to let Riley down, but she tightened her grip and forced him to stop.
“The fires aren’t gone yet. Give me a second.” Riley waved her hands and several clear flames that Ezekiel hadn’t noticed were pulled towards her. They turned blue, then red, then a dull orange yellow before finally snuffing out.
“... Interesting...” Riley looked at her hands as the last of the flames faded away.
“What is it?” Ezekiel looked at Riley in concern.
“I think I just reabsorbed some of the mana in those flames. I’m not as drained as I should’ve been.” Riley explained as Celia licked her neck and nuzzled her. It was apparent that the little Spirit felt just as proud of Riley as she did.
“Good. That means that we can make more preparations to finish things.” Ezekiel put Riley down and began looking around the camp. Flipping over the bodies and investigating anything that might be useful.
Checking one of the bodies, Ezekiel realized that they had a Com-Slate underneath them. Much like the other one, this one had an additional part added to it that seemed to act like a writing tablet. A similar crystalline pen was also next to it. The only problem was that both were partially melted.
Regardless, Ezekiel still stored the broken slate and pen in his pouch. Better to keep several samples for research.
From there, Ezekiel and Riley continued to go through the rest of the camp. They remained aware of their surroundings and kept an eye out for the patrol that had yet to return. Other than some basic survival gear, there was little to nothing that they could use moving forward.
“Alright. I think that’s enough for now. We’ve earned two more days in the haven. Should we wait for the patrol team to return, or move on?” Ezekiel asked as he watched Riley set several tents on fire. The nicer ones were packed away and kept for their own use. But Ezekiel and Riley decided to make things more difficult for the Cult by destroying the rest of their stuff.
“I think we should head out. If we can fulfill our task earlier, then that means that we can return earlier as well.” Riley looked over the kerning camp alongside Ezekiel.
Ezekiel just nodded in agreement. Taking one more look into the sky, he confirmed that there were no Spirits watching them from a distance. Seeing nothing, he then picked Riley up before running off once more.
----------
----------------------------------------
Roughly an hour after Ezekiel and Riley left the campsite, a group of Cultists returned to the burned and charred remains.
“It seems like these Hunters are either very skilled, or very lucky.” One of the Cultists observed the remains of the campsite. Behind her, the other four Cultists were on their knees as they bowed in reverence to their current leader.
Pulling another Com-Slate from her Void Pouch, she wrote a message reporting the situation to the rest of their members.
“There. Hopefully the other groups will be more prepared. It’s already bad enough that our main hunting ground has been lost to us.” The leader of the group muttered to herself. “Let’s head out. There’s nothing left here, and the other groups will deal with the heathens that are interfering. We’ll regroup with the main base and begin transporting the Spirits we’ve captured back to headquarters.”
Silently acquiescing to their leader’s orders, the Cultists all headed out towards the south. Each and every one of them were biting their lips in anger at their lost comrades. All of them wanted to avenge their lost friends. But none of them were willing to disobey their orders. The power of a Legendary was not to be denied, after all.
----------
----------------------------------------
It was the middle of the night when Ezekiel and Riley decided to rest. They had made it a fair distance away from the campsite they had burned. Finding a large tree, Ezekiel climbed to one of the higher branches. Here, he and Riley began setting up a hanging tent for them to rest in for the night.
But just as they had finished setting up, lights started flickering in the distance. Gazing in that direction while using his mana to enhance his already good eyesight, Ezekiel saw that it was several Cultists that seemed to be returning from a patrol.
Due to the great distance, Ezekiel figured they must’ve been a part of a different team, as there was no way a patrol would be this far out from the campsite. But at the same time, they weren’t close enough to their destination for it to be a patrol from that group either.
“They are hunting us.” Ezekiel muttered as he realized what was going on. “The patrol from the campsite must’ve returned and sent word ahead. I’ll bet that there are patrol and hunting teams from all the Cult’s nearby bases and camps.”
“Will that be a problem?” Riley tried to see what Ezekiel had seen but was only able to make out the soft lights in the distance. “Also, the Cult is smarter than this. They wouldn’t have their lights just floating around like that just to see where they’re going.”
Ezekiel thought it over for a moment, but ultimately agreed that Riley was right. This was too obvious. Their location basically marked for them to find without any issues.
“Do you think that this is a trap?” Ezekiel figured his guess was a safe one. “I could see it happening, since they’re aware that there are Hunters that are killing them off. Should we spring it anyway?”
“It’s probably a trap, but the thing is I’m not sure how much they know. If they know that two Legendaries are hunting them then they might be too powerful for us to spring the trap.” Riley was a bit worried. “If there’s a Legendary with them, then we might be able to take them on together. But it would be a risk. Neither of us are proper Legendary Hunters. No offense Celia, Shine.”
The two Spirits didn’t like that they were called out like that but recognized that it wasn’t an insult. They were both well aware of their relative weakness compared to their bonded mages.
“If they have their own Legendary, then it’s likely that they’ll be able to alert another group to come and attack us while we’re preoccupied.” Ezekiel muttered as he kept watch.
Suddenly, Shine started vibrating in their sheath.
“I think it’s too late for that.” Shine said as they continued to rattle. “There’s something above us. Watching.”
Ezekiel was surprised his neck didn’t snap as he craned his head to look upwards. He was barely able to make it out through the tree branches, but there was a small bird shape circling above them.
“Shit.” Ezekiel pushed Riley to the side, and immediately pulled the tent into his Void Pouch. “Sorry about this. But it looks like we’re gonna have to fight.”
Riley just pulled her spear out and got herself prepared. She suppressed her mana as much as possible, to keep her status as a Legendary as much of a surprise as possible.
Shine then covered both Ezekiel and Riley with their Shroud as Ezekiel picked Riley up again. The Spirit flying above them then flew away. Unable to see them anymore.
But it didn’t matter at this point. A separate group from the one Ezekiel had seen had moved in on their position from the other side of the tree, outside of their line of vision. Now visible thanks to their landing on the ground.
A sudden crash and flash of light indicated the arrival of a Legendary Hunter. Clad in golden armor with stylized wolf motifs, a cloak with the emblem of the Cult of Light on their back, the Hunter was the last thing Ezekiel and Riley saw before Shine ‘Jumped’ them away.
----------
----------------------------------------
Beneath the tree that Ezekiel and Riley had vacated, the leader of the Cultists grunted in frustration. He could no longer sense the presence of any other Hunters in the area.
“It seems like the shadows are acting against us.” The Legendary Cultist said. A shuffling from behind him grabbed his attention as the rest of his fellow Followers of Radiance finally caught up.
“My lord, did you manage to catch them?” One of them asked as a bird shaped Spirit landed on their shoulder. “I’m sorry I failed to remain out of their senses. But they can’t have gotten far, can they?”
The Legendary Cultist stared at the Adept speaking to him. Before backhanding the man and knocking him to the ground.
“The moment you reported their location you should’ve had your Spirit retreat. Now, these damned heathens have managed to get away from us. Worse yet, they know we’re looking for them.” The Adept slowly climbed back to their feet as their leader spoke. “You’ll be going through remedial lessons to make sure this doesn’t happen again. If you survive being in the teams that will be hunting these heathens.”
The Adept just nodded their head, the cloak and hood nearly flying off with how fast their head was moving. The Leader then waved a hand to have the Adept move away. The rest of the Followers remained as their leader examined the area.
“Flame and Obscure.” The Legendary muttered, not even imagining any other possibilities that could’ve hidden his targets from his senses. “Let the others know. We will continue moving through this area. But it is likely that they have moved away from here. Let the camps know. They’ll need to increase their watchers.”
He then turned to the east. A slight flicker at the edge of his senses. But not strong enough to make him bother wasting energy checking to see if his targets were over there.
Instead, he and his fellows simply headed out. They would patrol the area a few more times before heading back to their own campsite.
----------
----------------------------------------
The rest of the night consisted of Ezekiel running as fast as he could from the Cultists that had nearly caught them. He and Riley both knew that they stood no chance against an experienced Legendary Hunter. It wasn’t until the sun began to rise that Ezekiel finally slowed down. They were well outside the areas where the Cult had been poaching.
“We’ll stay here for now. Take a day to rest and recover. Then try again tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll have let their guard down by then.” Ezekiel began cutting into the side of a cliff. Shine had stopped using their Shroud a while ago, so they had more than enough mana to help create a large nook for them to rest in.
“That’s probably for the best.” Riley began moving the stones out of the way as Ezekiel continued to cut them out of the cliff. After nearly an hour, they both climbed into the small cave. Covering it with branches and brush that Riley had gathered up.
“It seems like we’ll need to be more careful. Scouting will be an even greater priority than before.” Ezekiel laid his head against the wall where he was leaning back. “All my life, it seems like Legendaries have dictated what I can and can’t do. It sucks that that’s still an issue, even when I myself have reached such a level.”
Riley looked over at Ezekiel, knowing exactly what he felt, but even more so. Ezekiel hadn’t had his soul dominated and shackled to the will of another, after all.
“We’ll get them. This is just a minor setback.” Riley sat next to Ezekiel and grabbed his hand. “Besides, your sister and young master Morse have bonded with Spirits. If we need to leave early, then that won’t be a problem. Our primary goals have been achieved.”
Ezekiel smirked at the reminder of his sisters having bonded. It was something that would bring a smile to his face for years. Their potential had begun to stagnate due to their lives before this. But now, with their own Spirits, it was likely that they would break through again soon. Though they would probably take their time. To allow their partners to catch up.
“We should prepare. I know you’re not going to be able to break through again anytime soon, but you should still try to see just how hot you can make your flames. Or experiment with other colors. There might be some strange effects that I don’t know about.” Ezekiel gently squeezed Riley’s hand before moving to another part of the small cave.
Riley smiled at him before moving to her own corner. The two quickly fell into meditation. Celia and Riley would try to strengthen their bond before they would begin their experiments. While Ezekiel and Shine would work on connecting his Spirit pathways once again.
They had been doing this during every break they had gotten up till this point. Many of the pieces had been successfully rejoined. There was still a way to go, but if they could connect just a few more pieces, then Ezekiel would have enough mana to have a full Step of Adept mana.
This was something that Ezekiel had been prepared to stop for anyways. Not because he was in a rush to fix himself, nor because he thought that they could take a break from hunting the Cult. Simply because he knew that he was on the cusp of something great.
As Ezekiel fell deeper and deeper into his meditation, he could tell that he was close. To the point that he was certain that, within the next day, he’d be able to push Shine to reach the Legendary Tier.