[Letty Wunter POV]
We had just separated from the basic group, walking inside the Wind's Barrier that our master had created. Looking around, there was that landscape of the underwater cave, with the only lights coming from the crystals nearby, there were no mana beasts around as we went along the underwater corridor ahead.
Carefully, I just put my right hand outside the barrier, feeling the water. It was very cold water, to the point that I would have thought it would cause flakes of ice on my skin, but that was just my impression. However, I put my hand inside the barrier again when I heard my master chuckling softly.
"Hehe... Enjoying the ride, Miss Wunter?" he said in a soft voice, not looking my way.
"It's not that, master. I was just interested..." I said with my voice getting low at the end, everyone looked at me with slight disgust, after all we were here for a serious mission.
All but our leader, who even with his face hidden from my eyes, I could see a simple smile. "Don't worry. It's good to know you're enjoying this 'ride' I've prepared for us. Knowing that you are not just machines that obey me... It makes my responsibility lighter."
"But I recommend you put your uniforms on...." He said as we walked out of the water, deactivating the wind's barrier.
With the order he gave, at the exact moment we have more space, we start to get ready. We take off our Xyrus Academy branded clothes, putting them inside our respective dimensional rings. To then dress in our real uniforms.
We all had long black pants, beige long-sleeved tops, a long-sleeved black shirt on top. In addition, we had a kind of green cloak with a hood and a symbol on the back, it was a diamond with a snake and a flame, both dark colors.
"Woah. This is an awesome crest!" Battione said.
"I'm glad you liked it, that's the symbol of our cult now." Our lord said as he took his blue and green mask and set it aside over his face, so he would always be ready to put it on when he needed it. "I recommend putting the cloaks on because of how cold it is in here."
We all wore our full uniform, having well-padded boots with us, as well as our masks, which seemed to be custom made, even though they were all based on his mask design. We started walking along the corridors covered in puddles, stalactites and stalagmites.
After a few minutes walking, we saw species of mana beasts, they were very small, they walked along the walls and ceiling, in addition to being covered by numerous black spikes. I couldn't see the rest of those creatures' bodies, only the red and glowing eyes that stood out, especially in the area of the ceiling.
"Spikes Crawlers!" Kai said, making the rest of the team also notice those mana beasts.
The mana beasts started shooting thin and dark spikes towards us, I protected myself using an Earth Dome. Kai and Denver also entered my dome to protect themselves as well. I could see Alexyo using her spellrune, Fire Shield, to protect herself; Burkit used a Golem Stomp, to create a kind of hole where he entered to get out of the aim of the mana beasts; Battione used his spellrune, Ice Spikes, very creatively, using the spikes as walls.
Finally, our leader seemed to conjure an item from within a gem. "MW Shield!!" with him saying that, a shield appeared on his right arm, it wasn't that big, but it looked like it was enough from the position he was in.
When the mana beasts stopped shooting spikes at us, that's when we started to counterattack. I could see several of the ones on the ceiling falling to the floor, as if they wanted to attack us closer, but there were still a few above us, just reloading their attacks.
"Omega Flame!"
"FireBall!"
Alexyo and our leader were ahead of us, both with a shield on one arm, and synchronously, they were also shooting projectiles towards the nearest walls. My leader's Omega Flame ended up hitting the Spikes Crawlers on our right, while Alexyo's Fireball hit the ones on our left.
Denver quickly ran out of the Earth Dome I created, heading towards Battione. He soon used the Ice Spikes that were there as platforms, while using his spellrune.
"Ice Spear!" The alacryan mage with water element abilities launched several spears towards the mana beasts that were still on the ceiling. When these spears hit the ceiling itself, they froze some spike crawlers that were 20 centimeters close to the impact area.
Battione didn't wait a moment, while his water mage friend was casting those spells, he stomped on the ground, creating more Ice Spikes that attacked several mana beasts on the ground, in addition to augmenting his gloves with water mana.
Burkit came out of the hole he had created, already jumping and swinging his big hammer. The dwarf soon slammed into his ground, creating Earth Spikes that aided Battione's Ice Spikes to kill the mana beasts closest to us.
Kai, on the other hand, didn't leave the Earth Dome, just like me, he seemed to think he wasn't necessary in that fight, at least at the moment. Also, it wasn't like the two of us couldn't help from where we were, we have access to ranged attacks, it's not that big of a problem.
The spike crawlers soon tried to attack again, the ones left on the ground tried to bite my leader, alexyo and denver's feet. While those left on the walls threw spikes at us again, and the rest that were still on the ceiling, tried to throw themselves to the ground, with their backs still aimed at us.
Me and Kai didn't get hit, because of our protection. Our lord and Alexyo both used their shields again to protect themselves from the thorns and kamikaze mana beasts, while shooting fire projectiles at those on the ground. Battione and Burkit hid behind their spells to protect themselves from the thorns.
Denver, on the other hand, couldn't find a place to hide from the spikes and kamikaze mana beasts, having to use the sword to counter the kamikazes while also using the cloak to protect himself from the spikes. He gave a few groans of pain, seeming to have been hit in places on his body that the cloak didn't protect.
Against the ones coming across the floor, he simply did something that made me give a weak, low laugh. He simply kicked each of them hard, knocking them against walls, after all, we were all wearing cold boots, which were pretty thick.
"Take that, you spiky ones! Aag!" Denver was still groaning a little in pain, as one of the points the spikes hit was on one of his legs.
"Good, Denver! Kick 'em!!!" Burkit and Battione seemed to encourage our friend's fighting method more.
"Argh.. Dicathens.." Kai muttered.
I even felt a slight racism in his comment, but on second thought, my fellow Dicathen encouraging such idiotic attitudes was unfortunate, to the point that I also sighed along with Kai. Looking ahead, I saw Alexyo make a disappointed movement of her head, as if she had said the same thing as Kai, but obviously it was impossible for me to hear her whisper, given the distance we were at the moment.
"That's not how you do Denver... THAT'S HOW!"
I heard this phrase coming from the person I least expected, our leader was running towards one of the Spikes Crawlers, with his right leg being surrounded by wind mana.
"Airborn! STRIKER!!!" Casting that spell, our lord kicked one of the mana beasts hard, which ended up exploding in midair, hitting all the other mana beasts that seemed to die right there.
"H-high Sovereign... Why did you do that?" Said Kai, very confused, as everyone was walking towards him.
"Oooh. I already told you I won't be like the useless one you guys idolized before, I'll be friendly to all my followers. And that includes doing some silly things, which clearly don't lead to harmful consequences." He answered us and soon he started walking again, we followed him, as usual.
We're walking in pairs from now on. Kai and I walked in the middle of the group; Den and Burr walked behind us; Alex and Batt stood in front of us, side by side with our great leader. Strangely, by the time we reached a new water path, we didn't see any more mana beasts.
"Wind's Sphere..." Our leader created a big sphere that allowed us to walk underwater, all together. I was amazed, how I could still feel the cold, as if I were underwater, but the ground I was standing on seemed to be completely dry, there was still moisture in the air, of course, but that was something else.
"High Sovereign... As for the mana beasts we found... Do you think the alacryan camp we're after is still here, or has it been relocated?" Kai asked something that even I hadn't stopped to think about to myself.
"The way they've been working here, Beast Gladers.... I feel like.... No... It would be stupid for them not to stay here... After all, they want powerful mana beasts, and to do that, they need stay close to the test subjects until they demonstrate a high level of power..." He replied, with a complete air of superiority, but I knew he was just speaking facts that would be easy to understand.
He kept walking, but with his face slightly turned away, the left side of his eye was glowing a vibrant yellow, while the right one remained as if it were a navy blue, I could only see the left side as he spoke. "And as you've seen, the Spikes Crawlers and Lizard-O-Sands... are still at intermediate or experimental levels. Note that I didn't even need to order you guys or use much of my magic both times we've been faced so far...Only the first one, but that was just because I wanted to show everyone there... that it wasn't dangerous for you to just be with me."
Kai nodded and I returned to look at the surroundings, saying that the underwater landscape we were in was a mix of beauty and mystery, it would be obvious to see. The various bright blue crystals around us, stalactites and stalagmites arranged, as if forming a path under water. This was another factor that made it clear that at least one alacryan camp had been here. For there to be such well-defined paths, even under water, something must have passed through there.
"Woah... a lot of fish." Denver said, making me look in the direction next to him.
There were a lot of fish of average size by culinary standards, they swam together and had crimson scales that reflected the light from the crystals well. I heard that in Alacrya, there are artifacts to capture images in an almost perfect way and that they are very cheap, I would love to have something like this to keep that beautiful landscape eternally close to me. But that was soon over, when we reached the next floor.
From that point on, every floor we passed seemed to be strangely empty, no mana beasts, no traces of encampments, just a few runes on the walls, left by the ancient mages. And to go from one floor to another, we always used underwater passages. That was until we reached the 6th floor....
"Hm? A door?" I said as I walked forward a little, curious.
There was a grayish brown door, it looked like it was made of stone, but it was very well carved. What made that door stand out the most to me were the glowing runes on it, but unlike the other runes we'd seen before, these were purple. I looked at my companions shortly thereafter, and noticed a look of confusion.
"What door?" Alexyo asked.
"What do you mean 'what door'? There's one right here." I said pointing and tapping the door without opening it.
"Uh... You're touching the wall, Letty." Burkit said.
"B-but.. There's something here!" I exclaimed and looked at my leader as I tried to open the door.
The door strangely didn't want to open and my leader's gaze was confused too, but soon he seemed to have an air of wisdom and astonishment. His eyes became colored, a mixture of 3 colors: green, red and blue. His hair got a little longer, gaining the same three colors at the ends of each strand.
"....." He stared at the door I was trying to open.
"I know this dungeon doesn't have much fresh air, but even I'm not hallucinating, Letty." Batt commented, chuckling.
"Want help opening this door?" Our leader said, making the others look at him strangely and I smiled proudly and nodded, wanting his help.
He approached me and tried to push open the door, but it didn't seem to succeed either. Soon he and I tried to push together, and so we did. My hands stayed on the stone and he placed his hands on top of mine, sending mana straight into my body. With this combined mana, we were able to open the door, which released purple dust after achieving this feat.
"Woah!? It did have a door!" Burkit exclaimed, apparently that dust meant the cloaking spell had been destroyed.
Looking closely at what was behind the door, I saw a not so pleasant environment. It appeared to be a large room, everything was made of stone, with some wooden furniture that looked so old that I could touch it and it would turn to ash. The air there was quite dry, unlike the rest of the dungeon which was incredibly humid.
Alexyo walked and sat on a stone sofa that existed there, then stretched her arms up. "What a bizarre place for a camp..." she said.
"I don't think this was done by alacryans..." Denver commented, analyzing bizarre symbols that were on the walls.
"Hm...Wait...This looks familiar..." Kai said, noticing a large arched doorway, but the other side was just a wall.
Getting closer to get a better look, some runes appeared in that "door frame"... Some were purple and some were orange-brown. I was going to touch them, but I felt a hand gripping my wrist, preventing me from analyzing it with my touch. Looking beside me, I saw my great leader, his eyes were still colored in a trinity.
"Don't touch something unknown..." He said, his voice serious, but also showing concern.
"But... It's like it's calling me..." I replied, causing him to raise an eyebrow.
Then he let me touch it, and it seemed to be all lit up for a few seconds, but then it went out again. I was upset, thinking that I possibly ended up breaking it by accident.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Wait!... This thing... What the fuck is an ascension gate doing here?!" Kai exclaimed, externalizing his thoughts.
"Ascension Gate?" I asked, confused.
"It's something we have in Alacrya. Let's say they are entrances to 'our dungeons'." Alexyo answered me.
"The name used there is Relictombs, to be exact." My leader revealed that information, but his eyes widened with yellow color now.
"We'd better leave that for later... Lots of mana beasts nearby... And there seem to be alacryans next to them as well." He said as he ran out of that secret room we found.
Everyone followed him, but I took a while, I was watching that portal that I possibly ended up breaking. Relictombs....? By the name it must be an interesting place.... But anyway I ran towards our group and we started to go down the long and narrow corridor of the dungeon.
"They are a few dozen meters away from us. Possibly...." He was saying, but then stopped pointing to one of the several water holes that were in the ground. "Beneath us..."
We all went around that well that our leader pointed out and he handed us a green stone. "This will create Wind's Spheres around you. I didn't deliver it before because it's just for emergencies and because I was always close to everyone anyway. But the way this well is. We'll have to swim vertically. Use Wind's sphere of a size that fits everyone would cause more problems than anything in these circumstances."
"Gee... You really think of everything, don't you?" When Alexyo made the comment, Luz seemed to ignore her and pick up a communication scroll.
"Number 2." He said, soon emerging the image of one of the adventurers we left behind, but specifically the one left outside the dungeon.
"Ayo! What's the matter?" Alexander Lovefall was on the other end of the communication, his expression was super confident, but after a measly 2 seconds, his gaze turned to bewilderment.
"I'd like to let you know. If there's a problem like mana beasts wanting to escape the dungeon through the entrance or something... First, save the other adventurers and my basicclass. Second, destroy the entrance."
"Wait!? What the fuck?! Are you Diamond by any chance?" was the only thing he said, apparently because our leader's mask was next to his face, but soon he put it on completely.
"Yes, any problem?"
"Hm... Kay kay... But... How about you? How are you going to get out?" Alexander asked, still amazed.
"We found a way out of the back. So relax. See you later." Our leader said closing the scroll.
"Leader... You're lying, aren't you?" I ended up talking, since we didn't find any exit from the back, unless... Does that portal count?....
"Yeah. Unfortunately, a few lies will help us." He said, adjusting the collar of his shirt. "Although that portal to the relictombs appears to be broken, I have one of my active teleport spells with me. When we use it, we will exit near the dungeon entrance."
He seemed to give us a slight smile and back away from the hole. "Follow me!" After saying that, he activated Wind's sphere for himself and ran, diving into the hole in the ground, it seemed to be quite deep, and as he said, it should lead to some floor below.
I saw my colleagues injecting mana into the stones, forming a thin layer of wind mana around them, one by one following our leader. I activated my stone, being the last to dive.
The feeling of claustrophobia I felt, on that vertical path of water, was nothing compared to the training we received from our leader. The diameter of that was perfect so that two Burkits could swim side by side, taking into account that he is the one with the most "width" between us, it was a good way to make a comparison.
Before I could get to the end of our path, I started hearing sounds of combat.
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[3rd person POV]
There was an alacryan camp on one of the most submerged floors of the dungeon, Drowned Refuge. It was neither large nor average, but it functioned as if it were one of the alacryan information centers at Beast Gladers.
"Ayo! Does anyone know where Retainer Uto went? He told me he wanted some of the reports we did in the last week." an alacryan woman said, looking around at her allies.
"I think he went to solve something involving invaders." Another alacryan exclaimed, sitting on top of crates filled with potions that would force evolution into mana beasts.
"Invaders? Here? I'm sorry. But honestly, I find it hard for any Dicathen to get here, I mean... They're stupid and only use archaic syste—" said another alacryan next to the previous one, but before he could complete his argument, he ended up falling to the ground, dead, his head pierced by an arrow and on fire, a dark-colored fire.
Everyone who saw that was shocked, not by the sudden death of their colleague, but by that dark flame. And soon, the other who was sitting on top of the boxes, received the same fate, but he managed to at least scream before he died, because the arrow hit him in the back, and seemed to go through his heart.
"W-what the fuck?!?!" the alacryan woman exclaimed and looked in the direction the two attacks had come from.
All the other alacryans there looked in that same direction, seeing 7 masked figures with dark green robes covering their bodies. One of them had a black flame in one hand, and in the other, there was a kind of dazzling red and purple bow. That one in particular, raised his flame-filled hand forward, and began to speak, his eyes glowing a pure yellow.
"I am here, to take this camp!... For those who accept surrender and submission, kneel down, you will not be killed or mistreated!... For those who only accept surrender and not submission, just stand still, the I will allow you to leave the realm of the living in the most merciful and painless way.... For those who don't accept either thing.... Their bodies will be unrecognizable after their deaths..."
For 10 seconds, everyone remained still, trying to reason what was happening, but soon that silence disappeared, with one of them screaming, at the top of his lungs.
"ATTACK!!"
All the alacryans started taking their equipment. Meanwhile, the masked group pulled their weapons out of their dimensional rings.
"Oh boy... They're so stupid..." Alexyo sighed and started to turn her sickles connected by a chain.
"Remember, just give me cover. I'm the one who dictated their three possibilities of fate... I'm the one who must carry out my promises." The leader said as his fire stopped being black, becoming green, and his eyes changed color.
"Okay, High Sovereign!" the 6 masked men said together and it looked like they were all preparing defensive spells.
"High Sovereign?!?! THEY ARE STUPID?!? WHO ARE THEY CALLING THIS!?" shouted one of the alacryans, firing what appeared to be an earth elemental projectile at the group.
The leader was protected by that shot, with an Ice Spike appearing in front of him. The one with the light blue mask was looking intensely at the alacryan who had just tried to attack his leader, causing him to growl.
With the green flame intensified all over his left arm, the masked man, aka the adventurer Diamond, pulled the purple string from his bow. The flames were being absorbed by the rope, forming a thick arrow that glowed green moss.
"Bow's Weapon Art... Elemental Arrow." He said softly under the mask as he shot the arrow that ended up sticking to the roof of the camp.
"Flamebomb!"
"Crystal Layer!"
"Wind Bullet!"
Other alacryans could be heard casting their spells in the direction of the masked group. As with the previous earth projectile, the attacks were defended by defensive spells created by Diamond's minions.
A large round shield of fire was made to ricochet the Flame Bomb, which ended up exploding halfway back to the sender. A sudden geyser of magma was created to defend against the blast of ice, and soon after that it disappeared. As a rigid rectangular stone wall appeared in front of the leader, protecting him from the Wind Bullets.
"Flower Domain..."
From the arrow that is glued to the ceiling, a strong explosion occurs, not collapsing the place, but scattering countless mini green arrows around the surroundings, hitting some alacryans, the walls and the floor. Flowers with blue, red, white and black petals began to emerge from where the arrows fell, in the case of the alacryans, flowers appeared where they had been hit.
"..Photosynthesis."
Completing the spell, several of the alacryans screamed, as if the flowers were sucking not just the mana within them, but all of their vital essence. The flowers on the walls and floor began to suck some of the light emitted by the cave's crystals and emit a lot of oxygen.
"Fine—" before the leader could say anything, a stalactite fell on top of him, hitting him on the head, he didn't look that hurt, but he started to bleed a little from his head, in addition to cracking the top of his mask. "Wha ta fuck....?"
In the distance, one of the alacryans that was not hit by the flowers had just thrown an ordinary stone, which would have caused that stalactite to fall. Noticing this, the leader began to laugh, while his servants looked horrified, both at his laughter and at having failed to protect him from any enemy attack.
"Haha!... Incredible! They're using tricks that don't involve mana, but the use of the environment itself! Impressive! And on top of that in a sudden situation like this??? EXPLENDED!!!" he said, as if impressed, but in reality, it was just mocking the face of whoever attacked him.
"You know what.. Forget it! Guys, you can attack them! I have better things to do. Ah! And don't attack with fire or breathe too fast!" He said, and so all his servants were advancing against the alacryans who were not infected by the flowers. Due to the last order made, now Alexyo was the only one who was restricted, now she would use only her weapon and not her speelrunes.
"...Number 3." He soon used the communication scroll again, this time calling out to the other group, while removing the mask.
Emily Wattsken appeared on the other side of the communication spell, she was panting as if she had just started running, her eyes widened, and so did several other students. It was time to let them know it was good for them to get out of there.
"Emilly! It's an order! You'd better get out of the dungeon now! Things are bad down here. Apparently there were mana beast invasions from a dungeon that was secretly connected to this one!" It wasn't a half-lie, because of the times he tracked the place using essence vision, he realized that there were other dungeons connected to this one, but it was better to say that, than talk about the probability of alacryans escaping the attack and going to the floors above.
"W-wait, so that was the tremors?!" when she asked this he was wide eyed, he was 5-6 floors below where Emily was, if she felt the explosions it meant the dungeon structure was more compromised than expected.
"Wait, did the tremors get that far?!? My god, that shit apparently had more power than I imagined! I thought you didn't feel it, so I thought I'd let you know!" He said in a tone of voice that normally didn't do, referring to the plant arrow he had used a few moments ago, but clearly Emily could interpret it as an enemy mana beast.
"My god! Is that blood?!?" a girl behind Emily exclaimed, Diamond gently touched his forehead, still smeared with the surprise attack they'd tried to use.
While this was happening, the other masked men were fighting the Alacryans. Burkit and Battione were always using Ice and Earth Spikes, thus narrowing the enemy's position more and thus attacking them with force using the greatsword and greathammer. Kai and Letty remained together, with Kai defending his friend using metal darts to prevent physical attacks from enemies, while Letty was repeatedly throwing rocks at enemies, using a spell at almost machine gun speed.
Finally Alexyo and Denver were together, with the alacryan girl killing her old continent mages, using the chained sickles, which helped for short and medium range, while Denver was always invoking more Ice Spears and launching against other enemies that tried to go after her. But that's when one of the enemy alacryan next to her seemed to scream.
"FIRE TORNADO!"
"Relax, don't worry, I've had worse things, for example, I've already ripped out my ow—." Diamond stopped talking when he heard the spell that was about to be released.
"ALEXYO!! LOOK OUT!" He screamed and soon the sparks of the enemy's attack seemed to activate the Flower Domain's surprise attack.
"SPEED FORCE!!!" Diamond screamed, everything around him slowing down as he activated his second phase. The area where the alacryan mage was, was already covered in flames from the explosion, and it seemed to have sent Alexyo and Denver flying.
With a lot of willpower, he used the purple and black mana particles to create, in the midst of stopped time, a black spike, which ended up hitting the two servants, changing their trajectory to where the other four were. During the process, time seemed to slowly return to normal, but he pushed even further into that super speed using two other spells.
"GRAVITY HOLLOW! SOUL SPEED!" With the first spell, the idea was to use the physical logic that Time and Space are very tightly connected, so affecting gravity in a way that makes it weaker would also affect time, slowing it down, not in a way absurd, but enough for what he needed to do. The second spell was a classic of his, using the surrounding mana to force his legs to move, that muscle exhaustion created smoke behind him. He couldn't use Hero's Thunder or any other fire spell as it would only make that situation worse.
With this additional but minuscule gain in time. He managed to reach out and pull two of the other servants down to the last two who were in a more favorable position, Kai and Letty. Everyone was already together, or at least arriving, by the trajectory they were taking, and soon Diamond took a deep breath, with blood pouring from his mouth and clapped his hands firmly, deactivating all the spells of the moment, while at the same time activating an Ice Dome.
The six servants managed to fall inside the protected area while the outside area began to explode with force, to the point of almost evaporating parts of the camp and causing half of the area in which it was to collapse.
"Wh-what the...?!..H-high sovereign!?!" Kai exclaimed when he saw his leader standing next to everyone, bleeding and apparently keeping the Ice Dome still standing after those explosions.
"Don't worry... It was a miscalculation..." He said, quickly looking at them.
The dark green robes of their uniforms had come out with several burns, Alexyo seemed to have suffered third degree burns on her left arm, it didn't seem to have reached her bones, but it gave off a horrible burning smell. Other than that situation, it didn't look like the others suffered casualties.
"Okay! Guys, I need you to teleport out using this!" He said, throwing them a round grey stone with a purple rune symbol. "As I said before, this will take you near the entrance of the Dungeon, outside. During the setup of the camp there, I saw that there was a river nearby with a strong current, Alexyo, I want you or someone to take you there and dip your arm in the river, it's great for your burns. Understand?"
"W-wait... B-but what about you? You said before that you only had one of these with you." Alexyo tried to speak while biting the fabric of her robe to hold back the pain.
"Don't worry about me. You know very well how I can survive various problems. Anyway... I'm feeling something here... Something I need to take care of myself..." He said with a serious look and soon his servants accepted.
Using that white stone, all the servants held hands with each other and squeezed it tight, a light appeared around them and when it disappeared, there was a stone somewhere in their place, revealing that the switch place magic was a success.
The thing the lessurian felt was related to something too serious to pass up. While he was with the first and second phases active, he felt two powerful energy points, just below where they were.
Both were mana signatures, one appeared to be from a white stage mage, clearly a Lance, and the other seemed to be something much more aggressive and completely wrapped in decay mana arts. No... It wasn't just that... It was something much more familiar than decay mana itself...
"You..." he said, his eyes turning completely yellow as he walked out of the rubble, arriving at a still intact hallway that seemed to head towards where the two power points were.
"You...." He said again, his voice getting heavier, and the tiredness seeming to fade.
That body controlled by two souls most of the time, was now be being pushed to its limit. One of the souls seemed to pass out, so his energy was used to replenish the body's mana core a little, while the vessel's soul remained awake, he would pass out too, but what kept him awake was more powerful than fatigue... It was a magical and incredible feeling that can make people irrational....
That feeling... It's called hate.
"Damn it..." Sirius said, his eyes blazing with tremendous fury as he put the mask back on his face, starting to run in that direction.
Getting very close, he realized that there was a kind of internal cliff there, a completely vertical drop, but that was the way to where he wanted to go. Without even thinking, he threw himself with all force into that hole. With his body approaching one of the walls, he managed to touch his feet on it, he began to run along the wall, with soulfire emerging from his hands, making him propel himself completely down, wanting with all his will to get to that point.
That specific signature mana was making him have horrible flashbacks of his life in Alacrya, that signature mana was from someone he hated with all his strength.
It wasn't the same hate he had for his father, for having abandoned him and seen him as nothing. No, it was a different hate.
In Sirius' mind, the sound of his own high-pitched screams echoed over and over. The sound of razors, of flames close to his body, of insane laughter. All this kept repeating itself over and over again. And all this was caused by the owner of that signature mana.
Reaching the bottom of that place, he used the wall to propel himself forward. The surroundings in his vision were blurred by the level of the hate and speed he was at. Dark horns with red and purple stripes suddenly grew on his skull, along with purple wings that appeared on his back, tearing part of his uniform.
He jerked his body around, kicking the first thing in front of him. He could hear that there seemed to be more people there, all screaming in fear, surprise and awe, but he wasn't afraid to reveal himself at that moment.
He had kicked, the owner of that signature mana, hard right in the area of that being's most precious thing, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"UTOOOO! YOU BASTARD!!!"