Obscurati (31.12.9980 AS)
Mala was walking up and down inside of her spacious room, her face an unbreakable mask. She was trying to kill the time before her performance tonight. She had already changed into a long violet one piece dress that showed more of her short legs, then she was comfortable with, but it couldn’t be helped since she would need to be able to move her legs as she pleased tonight.
“What’s with that scary face?” A young man asked her, as he entered her room without knocking. Mala glared at him for a few seconds before finally relaxing a little after verifying who he was.
“Oh, it’s just you.” She sighed in relief. “It’s nothing, it’s just that this evening I’ll be finally assuming some works that only the next clan head can do.” She said with an insecure voice.
“Does that mean that Gramps is finally retiring?” The young man asked not being able to hide his joy.
“Not yet.” Mala gave a short reply. “But still I received a really important task for tonight and I’m not allowed to fail.”
“If that’s all, good luck to you.” The youth, said not hiding his disappointed. “Then I’m off meeting my friends at the party.” He said taking out his Commu out of his pocket.
“Before you go, could you spare mom a hug?” Mala smiled at him, finally losing up her serious face.
“But, mom, I’m already almost 100 years old! I’m no child anymore.” The youth answered in protest.
“Alva.” Mala said with a serious voice. “The way you act says otherwise, also we are not even in public and mom really needs a hug from her big boy.” She said with a childish voice.
“Okay, okay, I got it.” Alva, Mala’s son and 3rd in line of the succession of the Zerstörung clan finally walked over to his mother and hugged her with an annoyed expression in his ridiculously handsome face.
***
Siegfried teleported directly in front of the entrance of Castle of Zerstörung the main residence of the Zerstörung Clan. There he met a woman wearing a maid uniform that for some reason reminded Siegfried of Laura.
“The master said he would love to meet you before the festivities start.” The maid that seemed to have been waiting for him said, showing him the way to the insides of the Castle.
“Sure.” Siegfried said, looking around the ornaments of the stupidly big door. Following the maid they passed a room filled with people dressed up in expensive garments from head to toe. It was pretty obvious that the party had already started when he arrived.
And he would most likely miss more, since the host wanted to talk to him in private before the party even started.
It couldn’t be helped, since everybody would love to meet the genius who had revolutionized the world with one simple invention. But still, Siegfried didn’t like being treated different than others.
After taking three or four different staircases they finally reached what seemed to be the lowest floor of the Castle.
‘I don’t like this.’ Siegfried said to Schattenklinge nervously.
‘Me either, but we can’t turn tail now, don’t you want to know what awaits us here?’
‘Not really.’
‘Stop being such a whiny bitch, that’s why you can never win!’ Schattenklinge said with an annoyed voice.
*Sigh*
“We are here.” The maid said and opened a big heavy looking door with ease.
“Good.” Siegfried walked into spacious room that for some reason felt like a big stage. Siegfried looked upwards and he could see people looking down towards him from small balcony like rooms like one could find in an opera.
“Siegfried, over here!” A silver haired woman waved enthusiastically towards him. It was Nana who had been chatting with several other people, Siegfried had never seen before.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Nana said with a genuine smile on her face. “All of these people here are young and successful entrepreneurs without close ties with any of the three main clans. And the people on the balconies are all high level members of their respective Clans. Over there, for example, is Lamia Schatten chatting with her husband.” She pointed excited upwards.
“Not good.” Siegfried said, grabbing Nana’s hand and walking towards the only exit in the room. But he was too late. The maid had already closed the big door.
‘You feel that? There is a spell that cancels any type of warp magic; teleporting, no, even summoning are impossible in this room.’ Schattenklinge explained with a dry voice.
‘I can’t even open my gates.’ Siegfried said, glaring towards the people in the balconies.
“Siegfried, you are hurting me.” Nana said, trying for free herself from his grab.
“Oh, sorry” Siegfried finally let go.
“Very well, now that everybody who needs to be here is here, let’s start.” A peerless beauty addressed the people in the balconies, while slowly descending to the center of the stage.
“As you all know, I’m Yaru, the founder of the Zerstörung Clan and one of the most trusted Reiter of the Devine one; Fors.” Yaru said with a proud voice.
‘This doesn’t sound good; can you break the spell grounding us here?’ Tristan asked Schattenklinge.
‘Yeah, but you’ll have to hold them of for five minutes by yourself I can lent you some of my magic traits though.’ Schattenklinge answered with a panicking voice.
‘Holding of a Reiter for five minutes without any weapons nor my active, having to protect Nana… Nothing easier than that.’ Siegfried said with a sarcastic tone and started laughing out loud hysterically.
“Who dares to interrupt me?” Yaru cried towards him. “And what’s so funny?”
“Nothing, nothing, I just find delusional fanatics quite amusing. It’s public knowledge that the Gods don’t care about us mortals.” Siegfried said with a defying tone. ‘Kyaaaaaaaa, WHY AM I OFFENDING A REITER?? WHYYYYY?’ He screamed internally.
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The people in the balconies started whispering between each other.
“Is that so?” Yaru said, glaring daggers at him. “What if I told you, that I’m an immortal and only here because Fors himself ordered your deaths?”
“If you say so, but can you proof it?” Siegfried tried to stay as cool as possible as those words left his lips.
“I don’t need to proof anything to a mortal like you.” Yaru appeared in front of Tristan as she said so, causing Siegfried to jump back all scared, falling on his behind.
“Well, you all heard right, Fors himself ordered to dispose of these despicable people!” She once again returned to her boastful voice. “And so, I decided to leave that task to Mala, the daughter of the actual clan head of the Zerstörung and the next heir of the clan!” Yaru paused dramatically and pointed towards the center of the room.
Now there was a petite woman standing next to the maid, that had lead Tristan in this room. Meanwhile, all the other people on the stage ran towards the sealed exit of the room.
“Don’t be shy, darling. This is your time to shine; you just have to dispose of this weaklings.” Yaru said towards Mala who finally waved causing most of the people in the balcony to applaud in approval.
Siegfried crawled backwards towards the other people and stood up in front of them. He was speechless; he just couldn’t believe the people in the balcony. Were they really cheering for their deaths?
Could it be? Could his parents be cheering for his death? Unwillingly, he looked upwards to the balcony, he had seen them earlier. To his relief he could see, how Ray and a woman were restraining Lamia, and trying to get her out of the room without causing a commotion.
Siegfried smiled bitterly. ‘She cared; even it’s just a little.’ He thought. ‘How much time left?’ He asked Schattenklinge.
“Four minutes.” A Rusty voice answered inside of his head.
“Looks like, we will be able to do it.” Before he could finish his thought, Mala answered Yaru’s order.
“With pleasure.” She said with a cold voice, causing Yaru to smile once brighter than the morning sun. “Very well, the stage is all yours.” Yaru answered and disappeared.
Mala smiled towards Siegfried and did cast her first spell. A fireball appeared out of nowhere and flew towards the people trying to flee through the sealed exit.
Siegfried once again grabbed Nana’s arm, putting her behind him and did cast a spell on his own. A wall of shadows appeared in front of the two of them shielding them from the fireball.
“Thought so, this wouldn’t be so easy.” Mal said casting another fireball and throwing it towards them. While doing so, she ran backwards, jumped upwards and did cast her destruction magic.
Siegfried’s wall of shadows withstood the fireball, but was shattered by the invisible wave that followed it.
“Shit.” Siegfried screamed and ran with Nana in his hands by side, closely evading another invisible wave of destruction, causing the people unlucky enough to get hit by it to explode like a balloon. Their innards flew everywhere dying the room in a grotesque red color, leaving behind an almost unbearable stench.
The last survivor besides Siegfried and Nana activated her acceleration magic and ran towards the point he expected Mala to land. “As if I would die without a good fight!” She screamed just to be decapitated by a gush of wind coming from the Maid behind Mala.
Nana covered her mouth in shock, fighting the urge to vomit. Tears fell down her face, her cheerful and excited self, had vanished for good. “Tristan, what about my Tristan?” She whispered ready to die.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here, even if it is the last thing I do.” Siegfried said standing up.
“Is that all you can do? Pretty lame for an upcoming clan head, don’t you think?” Siegfried said as he casually walked towards her, making sure he had her attention.
The reason was simple, only two people were left from the new rich entrepreneurs: Nana and Him. He wanted to protect Nana with all he could, so he had decided to fight this Mala and the maid until he could teleport himself and Nana out of the room to safety.
“Get Him!” he could hear the crowd exclaim, while whispers once again erupted from the balconies.
“Tch.” He could feel Mala’s killing intend.
“Reality Slash!” She screamed and Siegfried could feel an invisible wave of destruction magic come towards him. He countered by creating a wall of shadows in front of him.
Once hit by Mala’s attack the wall of shadows vanished. And Seigfried was send flying by an air bullet, created by the maid behind Mala.
“See, you can’t even fight by yourself, and you want to call yourself an upcoming clan head?” Siegfried said standing up as if nothing had happened.
“Like I care what someone like you says.” Mala answered letting hundreds of small fireballs land on the spot Siegfried had been. But he had already started running towards them with an incredible speed. Not letting them much time to react.
However the maid behind Mala created a wind wall before Siegfried could reach Mala.
“Annoying woman!” Siegfried screamed and tentacles of shadows grabbed the maid on her heels and started slamming her on the ground.
“Ouch.” The crow, the people on the balconies screamed in unison.
“Kila!” Mala cried the maid’s name. “You’ll pay!” She once again sent a wave of destruction towards Siegfried who gracefully dodged it.
“I’ll show you what destruction is.” He answered and cast one of his strongest offensive spells. A storm of razor sharp shadows started moving towards Mala and Kila.
“This is bad!” Mala screamed and tried to avoid the maelstrom by jumping backwards.
“That doesn’t help much.” Siegfried smiled smelling victory.
“Where did he learn such a strong spell?” Yaru exclaimed from the balcony she had retired to, to watch her ten times great grandchild do her job.
“What do you mean?” Laidir asked his eyes glued on the battle.
“That’s one of Dunkler Schatten’s trademark spells! No mortal should be able to cast that spell, since it’s a mix of destruction magic, death magic and shadows magic!” Yaru screamed and adverted her eyes from the spell once Kila was thrown by the tentacles inside of the Maelstrom.
The maelstrom shredded through Kilas body, causing blood and meat to fly everywhere on the stage causing a red mess.
“Kiiilllaaaaa” Mala screamed in panic, wiping Kila’s blood from her face. She was shaking, her eyes in tears. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be the hunter and not the hunted! She knew she wasn’t weak, she her MR rating was over Mid Tier King, this meant only a handful of people were stronger than her in this world, and yet she was losing food to someone with no real affiliation to a clan!
Mala closed her teary eyes as The Maelstrom was finally reaching her. As suddenly the Maelstrom stopped moving.
Mala slowly opened her eyes and could see Yaru standing in front of her. She was holding the Maelstrom as if it was something tangible. “Very well, this ought to be interesting.” Yaru said with a smile, as she ripped the Maelstrom apart.
“Not good. How long until we can get out of here?” He asked Schattenklinge out loud.
‘20 seconds, now leave me alone!’
Siegfried smiled victoriously. “Looks like your successor is no good.” Siegfried tried to win time by talking with Yaru.
“She’s young, and has a bright future ahead of her. That’s something I can’t say about you.” Yaru disappeared from Siegfried’s sight.
Siegfried concentrated his mana onto his eyes and so he managed to see a blur swinging a punch towards him. He barely evaded the first punch, but was send flying by the second one.
Siegfried’s body smashed on the wall, creating cracks on it. Siegfried body slowly slid from the wall.
“Seigfried!” Nana called towards her friend who had fought on her behalf.
“Shut up.” Yaru answered, throwing a small ball of destruction magic towards her.
‘Now, we can get out of here now!’ Schattenklinge’s words woke Siegfried up. He slowly opened his eyes to see the ball pierce through nana’s stomach sending her flying.
Siegfried’s eyes started to fill with a burning liquid. All the pain he had felt from Yaru’s pain seemed to concentrate on his chest area. He felt a burning pain, he felt like he would explode any moment now. He didn’t care anymore. All he wanted that moment was revenge.
He activated his active and summoned a gauntlet out of thin air. “You’ll pay.” He said to Yaru wiping his tears with his left hand, the hand he hadn’t equipped the gauntlet with.
“Come at me with all you!” Yaru tried to provoke Siegfried, who was glaring at her.
“Schatty I’m counting on you!” Siegfried screamed as battle cry and activated his Gate ability to appear in front of Mala, who was totally confused as why he had attacked her and not Yaru. Siegfried used the hand he had the gauntlet equipped on to punch Mala straight into her face, causing the magic in the gauntlets to activate.
“Fat Man” Tristan whispered with a sad smile, as the destructive power of the gauntlet caused everything around erupt in fire and destruction.
Now that the seal of the room had been broken by Schattenklinge, the explosion spread through the Castle destroying everything in its way.
In a hurry Yaru cast a barrier to minimize the damage caused by the explosion.
“What was he thinking ?” She glared at the spot Siegfried had been at. There was nothing left there. “Killing himself after realizing it was all over? He probably thought, he could beat me with such a lousy attack, I guess he underestimated me.”