Amani wasn’t sure when it had become night, she had been too preoccupied with…well everything, to notice. It wasn’t as if working hard was something new to her, years as a Kolo pretty much guaranteed long days, but that was acceptable for work not her free time. All Amani had wanted to do was visit her little sister and see her progress, maybe get on her nerves a bit, and then head back to the Embrace; it’s why she volunteered to deliver the message and to be the overseeing Kolo of the Divination Ceremony. Did she have an inkling as to something being amiss with the Okaris? Sure, but she thought it was just the typical scheming of the Vassal Houses; how was she supposed to know that Jahn would be planning a coup?
“Are you going to kill us?”
“Hm? Oh you’re still here.” It had slipped Amani’s mind that only moments ago she was attacked by a group of assassins. They were all Greater Irons and were ten men strong, but now most of them laid face down, restrained by impossibly strong blades of grass. “Tell me, who sent you after me and why?” Amani had an idea who was behind it, but needed to be certain.
“Didn’t get a name,” the man grunted, “ just a Missive stating to kill anyone in the Red Forest.”
“So he’s playing it like that.” “So you were offered a few talons to just kill anyone. How were you to confirm the kill then?”
The man started breathing more shallowly. “We-we were supposed to leave the forest and…what’s going on? Why do I feel so..tired?”
“Oh, that’s just your vitality being drained,” Amani said, “now focus. Were you going to meet somewhere?” The man’s mouth hung open as his body went limp. “Unconscious already? Well I guess it’s my fault for taking too much too soon.”
Amani had used her Nature Aspect to infect the surrounding area with her spirit and Tera; creating a three-hundred foot field of land completely underneath her control. She then used the natural flora to ensare her would be attackers and won the fight before a single punch was thrown. Her expertise wasn’t in direct combat but rather in area of control and utilizing the space between herself and her opponent. A location like the Red Forest was the perfect battleground for her due to the weaker amount of Tera present, making it easier for her to exert control without wasting too much of her own power, which was unfortunate for these assassins since that meant they lost the moment they stepped foot inside the Red Forest.
“You won’t find me poking around your mind as being too rude, right? You were going to answer my question anyways, and you did try to kill me, so really you were rude to me first.”
Amani placed her palm on the man’s head and cracked through his mental defenses in an instant. She was only able to pull one thought from his mind; Blackhide. Suddenly, the connection severed and she was forced out. The man began to convulse and foam at the mouth, letting out a shriek that was cut off by his sudden loss of life. Amani released her technique and the man dropped to the floor, his body still twitching.
“A failsafe. Looks like an Ethereal Art, but I’m not familiar with the technique,” Amani thought to herself. “I should assume the rest of them also have that failsafe, so I can’t directly break through their minds. Ugh, this sucks, I hate having to be so careful.” Amani had spent a decade training before being given the title of Kolo, training that consisted mostly of learning how to strengthen and control both her mental and spiritual power. It was during that time she learned of Ethereal Arts, techniques that combine Mind and Spirit Tera. These techniques are extremely versatile and often play to the inner strengths of the user, but require an intense amount of Tera and focus to perform.
Things weren’t adding up at all. For starters, sending ten Greater Irons would be overkill if they were sent to kill everyone in the forest, just one or two would have sufficed. Secondly, there’s no way Jahn wouldn’t have informed them of Amani’s technique so the battle being done as quickly as it was made no sense. Lastly, using an Ethereal Art of that caliber would be incredibly dangerous at long distance as you’d run the risk of running out of Tera before engaging the enemy.
“This is boring,” Amani said aloud, “If you’re waiting for an opportunity to strike, then you’ve missed your chance. I’m not falling for the trap.” Amani’s words echoed throughout the dark forest, but were met only by the wind. “I’ll admit,” she continued aloud, “it was a good strategy. Placing ten Greater Irons under your command is no easy feat, you’ve got some skill with Ethereal Arts.” Amani paced around one of the bodies and gave it a light kick. “You made a few mistakes though. I wouldn’t have sent so many in at once, that puts the target on guard. Sure, you might have been banking on the fact that I’d expend all my Tera defending myself, but you should never assume the enemies capabilities.”
Amani moved to the next body and kicked it over, revealing a middle-aged man with a scar on his face and calluses on his hands. “Also, by kicking me out before activating your failsafe, you gave away your biggest secret.” She stared at the man for a moment before walking away towards the next body.
Suddenly, Amani appeared in the air above the scarred man and drove her knee downwards. The man rolled out of the way just as Amani’s attack struck the ground and caused a small crater to form. She looked at the suddenly conscious man and smiled. “You could have waited until I dove further into the mind before activating the failsafe, but you didn’t. That told me two things; you had to be somewhere nearby and you needed my mind fully intact.”
“My, you are a perceptive one aren’t you?” The man reached behind his back and pulled out a golden handle. It had a large, silver, semi-circular ring running from top to bottom. “You’ve figured out my area of expertise in such a short amount of time, no wonder you were made a Kolo.” The man stuck the handle out in front of him and two blades emerged on both ends. “I am-”
Amani pointed at the man and the grass beneath him lunged at him, each blade as sharp as steel. The man swung his mighty weapon, cutting the grass with ease. Amani sent out another salvo, launching the grass at incredible speeds, but the man effortlessly blocked the blades.
“You’re very eager to get this over with,” the man said.
“I’m just not interested in learning whatever your name is,” Amani replied. She readied another salvo, but had to move back as two other men lunged at her with bladed weapons. She landed a few feet away and noticed that her sleeves had been sliced, though there was no blood at the location. “What’s going on here? I’m pretty sure this man is controlling the bodies through his Ethereal Art, but they moved way too fast to just be Greater Irons.”
“That’s because they aren’t just Greater Irons, at least not at the moment,” the man said as the two assassins guarded him. “If you would have let me finish, then you would have known that I am called Nanir, the Compelling Shadow.”
Amani had indeed heard of that name before and, combining it with the thought she pulled earlier, the picture had become clear. Blackhide City was the name of a territory named after the notorious Delver, and home to a legion of mercenaries and assassins. Not much is known of the happenings inside the city itself, due to a powerful barrier that Blackhide erected, but the Kolos were able to get some information from there. A group called the Ten Shadows had been making a name for themselves recently; killing lower ranking members of vassal families, petty nobles and even rival organizations. They were no Silverbloods, but they were deemed to be an emerging threat.
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“Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell,” Amani said, “ but I’ll give you credit for not having a totally idiotic sounding name.”
“Your thoughts betray you, Amani,” Nanir said, “ you seem to be quite aware of my organization too. I admit we are no Silverbloods, but there’s a regime change coming very soon.”
Amani immediately scanned her Mind Kulda and detected a foreign presence. It was a tiny, pink worm that had attached itself to her core and tethered itself to Nanir. It was a trivial matter to crush it with her own Tera, but the fact that she hadn’t noticed until Nanir said something was disconcerting.
“I see, so you planted it when the connection was severed…I’ll admit, that takes some skill,” Amani said, “tell me, are all the Shadows as skilled as you are?”
“You must take me for a fool.” Nanir leapt into the air as the ground opened up beneath him. “Did you think your stalling tactic would be enough to trick me?” He spun his massive twin blade in circles and launched it behind himself towards the ground. It crashed into the dirt, blowing debris and dust in all directions. Inside of the cloud of dust, the outline of Amani could be seen, wielding what appeared to be a short dagger of ivory and violet.
The other men encircled her and attacked and Nanir landed outside of the dust cloud. “I’m well acquainted with the Obscuring Veil, including its setups.” Obscuring Veil is an Ethereal Art that combines Mind, Spirit and Body Tera to shroud the body in invisibility, used primarily for stealth and assassinations. “Though it is impressive to see it used in combination with another Ethereal Art.”
The dust settled and only Amani remained standing. She focused her gaze on Nanir and hardened her expression. “You know, I was going to take it easy on you and let you help train someone, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“Go easy on me?” Nanir let out a crazed laugh before summoning his weapon back to his hand. “You’ve gotten it backwards; I’ve been going easy on you because I don’t want to damage that body or brain, but I suppose I don’t need you in mint condition.” He split the weapon in half and dual wielded it. “As long as your head is intact, I can always replace your limbs!” Nanir covered the thirty-foot distance in an instant and sliced through Amani. He whipped around and blocked an incoming dagger strike from Amani and countered with a vicious attack of his own. Once again, his blades cut directly through her, but he knew something was wrong.
“This cheap imitation of Encroaching Shadow Dance won’t be enough!” Nanir channeled a portion of his Tera to the fallen soldiers and they rose to their feet. With a mental command the warriors created a wall around him. Nanir was a recent addition to the Ten Shadows and studied under the former Shadow, Opac. Opac was an expert in the Living Shadow Arts, which included both Encroaching Shadow Dance and Obscuring Veil. Compared to his former teacher, the techniques performed by Amani were pale imitations.
Amani’s voice appeared to be coming from everywhere at once. “Cheap imitation? Isn’t that a little rude to say? I’ve only had these techniques for a few months.” She appeared in front of Nanir as three mirrored images and struck. Her dagger plunged through the puppetted warriors’ neck and torso.
Nanir appeared behind the copies with incredible speed. “I’ve got you!” He swung the blades down with Tera enhanced strength and they split his warriors from head to toe. “What? I didn’t order you to move.”
“You know,” Amani said as she casually appeared behind Nanir, “maybe I was wrong earlier.” Nanir moved a hundred-feet away as Amani continued. “If this is the strength of one of the Ten Shadows, maybe there really isn’t any cause for concern.” She gave Nanir a smile that radiated untold confidence, “I mean, if I’m too much to handle, you’d make a poor training instrument for my sister.” She raised her empty hand and it was balled up as if she were holding onto something. “ She would have been smart enough to see through it by now.”
Nanir dedicated his Divine Sight towards the hand, mixing both Spirit and Mental Tera in order to see the full spectrum. Long strands of black shadow stretched from Amani’s hand to the bodies of his puppet warriors. That was the Binding Shadow Technique, but Amani had also layered the Obscuring Veil on top of it. No, not just on the technique, but on herself as well…all while using Encroaching Shadow Dance. That would have required an immense amount of both focus and Tera, far in excess of a Greater Iron. In fact, to pull off so many big techniques in succession, including holding more than one simultaneously, would require at minimum a Lesser Gold Soul.
“I’m not so nice that you can just space out like that, you know,” Amani said as she made a series of complex hand movements.
Nanir looked behind him and saw his severed warriors stitch themselves back together and attack. He stilled his reaction to attack and focused back on Amani; there was no way that a couple of Lesser Irons could damage him. He had ascended to Lesser Gold and could only be harmed with weapons if they were infused with Tera, which he knew they weren’t. So, it came as a surprise to him when he felt a searing pain coming from his right hand. Nanir cut the heads of his attack with his left blade and immediately pulled the weapon out of his right hand; a dagger of ivory and violet.
“That can’t be,” he muttered to himself before looking back to Amani, “when did you?” Nanir’s blood ran cold as he saw a smiling Amani holding the dagger in her hand, only for it to disappear into nothingness.
“Like I said, my sister would have noticed.” Amani could sense fear slowly eating away at Nanir. Good, all she needed was to push a bit more and she’d have it. “Your master, Opac, would have noticed too. I tried that same move against him and he saw through it in an instant.”
“How would you have met him? He died-”
“Six months ago. Cale’s Edge. In a raid on one of his hideouts. I believe he was stockpiling Data Pills he got from one of our armories…or was it Tera Locus Pills? I forget which.”
“That can’t..it was you.” Nanir studied Amani’s face and noticed something for the first time. A few months ago, a rumor had spread that Opac’s killer was a woman with black hair that bled into green, and had eyes as yellow as those of a stone viper. He had also heard that the killer could somehow take the techniques of whomever she killed and was known as…”you’re the one. The one called The Plundering Viper.”
Amani removed a pair of contacts from her eyes and air around the two of them chilled. Her eyes blazed yellow and, under the moon lit night, gave her the appearance of a demon from another world. “So I have a name now? Can’t say it wasn’t unexpected but I’d prefer something like..well not that.” Amani stalked towards Nanir as the man tried to ready himself. “Ah, don’t need you doing that.”
Suddenly, Nanir dropped to his knees. “What did you do? My body won’t respond.”
“That’s because I’m telling it not to,” Amani replied in a matter of fact tone, “ I thought that’d be self-evident.”
At that moment, Nanir realized that Amani had infiltrated his mind. “When did-”
“I break through your mental defenses?” Amani was staring down at Nanir and spoke with uncharacteristic dispassion. “When I first attacked. I knew you’d be wary of my Earth Aspect, so I used it as a feint.”
“Feint…I see.” Amani didn’t need to explain it any further. The only opportunity she could have tethered to his mind was when he was in the air. In order to keep him from realizing that fact, she used his master’s techniques and forced him to think solely about countering them. “Before you kill me, tell me one thing: how was I compared to Opac?”
“Sorry, I don’t waste my time on those I’m not interested in.” Amani placed her hand on Nanir’s head and flooded his Mind Kulda with her Mental Tera and Spirit Tera. She commanded his heart to stop beating and removed her hand. Nanir dropped to the ground, clutching his chest in pain as his heart started slowing down. “I was going to take your technique, but it should die with you.”
Amani watched as Nanir’s chest rose and sank for the last time, and placed her contacts back on. “Well, I better go check on Bairy. There was a huge spike in Spiritual Tera near her vicinity.” She took a step and almost lost her balance. “Looks like using so many techniques at once drains my kuldas, I’ll have to go somewhere to cultivate.” Amani knew it was a risk to use a Greater Gold’s techniques, but it was the only way she could have defeated Nanir. She knew from fighting the puppets that he had to be a Lesser Golden Soul at the very least, and if she had to deal with both him and the puppet warriors, she would have been in serious trouble. “It was a good thing Nanir was easy to rattle, otherwise he could have used the other bodies to overwhelm me and force me to use up all my Tera.”
Amani braced herself against a tree and started breathing heavily. Opac’s techniques took a tremendous toll on the body, even one as durable as hers. “Sorry Bairy, you’ll have to handle it on your own.” Amani lurched her way into the forest, vanishing into the darkness of the night.