Oidche (5.11.9978 AS)
‘My arms are all sore, my legs hurt and my time is almost up! It’s been almost two weeks since I entered this damn forest and it still doesn’t feel there will be an end to this! How many monsters have I killed in the past weeks? I don’t know, I stopped counting at 420! Anyways, who would have thought there were so many monsters hiding in this forest?’
Tristan jumped to the side, evading the giant tail of a dragon. He activated his flight ability to launch a counterattack even before the landing. The black bastard sword in his right hand easily sliced through the thick black scales of the shadow dragon.
***ROAR***
The beast roared in pain. Its massive body marked with dozens of cuts from the fight against Tristan. Tristan showed it a fearless smile as he knew the dragon was about to collapse every next moment. The Dragon used its remaining strength for a final attack. Its sharp claws landed on the place were Tristan had been standing just a few moments earlier.
Tristan had evaded the attack of the dragon by flying to the side. In the air he positioned himself on top of the dragon. Then he poured mana into his sword. The sword started glowing and six magic circles surrounded the Dragon. The magic circles started glowing in an ominous black color and a maelstrom of shadows started devouring the Dragon’s body.
‘Shadow’s magic is pretty awesome’ Tristan who was watching the scene from above thought. ‘No matter how often I see this spell I just can’t help but feel impressed of its cruelty. To think that I would have been denied this kind of magic if I hadn’t met Dunkler. I can’t even think of all the possibilities this new power gives me. So many new spells, so many possibilities to create new spells! Now I just have to clear up the reminding monsters from this forest and I will be able to go home on time.’
An evil smile appeared on Tristan’s face. As he once again poured energy into the short sword.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!” Schattenklinge screamed as he saw Tristan editing the magic circles he had taught him.
“I’m running out of time, you know. Tomorrow I’ll have to go back to school. My clone at home wasn’t programmed for that. And you said I can’t leave this valley without killing every last monster. And there are quite a lot of strong monsters that will take a little time in a 1v1. So I figured out I could speed up the process a little bit by modifying the ‘shadowstorm’ spell.”
“I knew you were an interesting fellow, but I didn’t expect you to be able to rewrite a spell I thought you in a few days! Especially not creating something so devastating as you are right now. Are you sure you’ll be able to control the spell once you activate it?”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “Of course I’ll be! I see: You noticed I removed the space limiters. But you see I added some other kind limiters to it. Now the spell doesn’t just destroy everything in a set area, but destroys everything I point towards which means the maelstrom will be able to move where I want it to, but it also stops at will. It’s a little more difficult to cast than the original spell, but more effective.” Tristan put on a mocking grin towards the monsters under him.
“It’s time to say this world goodbye.” He poured his mana into the magic circle he had rewritten. And a maelstrom of shadows appeared out of nowhere to where he was pointing towards with his sword. The maelstrom shredded through everything it came in contact with. Even the hard scales of the majestic Black Dragons, didn’t stand a chance to the shadows shredding through everything they touched.
“HAAHHAH” Tristan laughed in disbelief as he saw this devastation caused by one of his spells. ‘Better! This is way better to the fighting means I had till now. But I still have ways to go to reach the level of someone like Dunkler. I can’t even think of how much stronger then Dunkler someone like Fors is!’
“You’re right, you can’t even start comparing to someone like Dunkler yet. But that spell of yours is a good point of starting. To be honest, I’ve never ever seen someone create a new spell just one week after learning to use ‘shadows magic’. I’m happy I made the right decision in making you my new partner.” Schattenklinge said with a praising tone.
“Well to be hones thanks to my passive, creating new magic is one of my specialties.” Tristan said with modesty in his voice, turning slightly red. “So can I go back now? I cleared the forest from all the monsters with that spell.”
“Still... I kinda feel like you cheated me by using that spell. I hoped to see you swing that sword a little, it would have been a good training, you know.”
“I don’t see how that is supposed to be a good training. It’s not like those monsters are trouble for me anymore. In the past weeks I’m sure I’ve reached a whole new level of power.”
“You’re right; when you entered this forest you just had reached Super Devil level. And now you’re about to reach Demon Lord Level! I’m impressed with your growth. But keep in mind, that this power doesn’t make you undefeatable. There are other being strong enough to beat you. Thus, you’ll have to train a lot.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Yeah, I have already experienced complete defenselessness and you’re gonna help me that that never ever happens to me again.”
“Good to know that, I’ll gladly to help you by teaching you everything I know and lending you my powers as much as I can. After all, I’m living in your body from now on” Two creepy red eyes grinned happily towards Tristan and fused itself with Tristan’s shadow.
The bastard sword in Tristan’s hand dissolved into thin air. ‘So let’s go to your place.’ Schattenklinge spoke into Tristan’s mind, causing him to cringe a little. ‘Can you stop speaking when you’re inside of me? It’s awkward!’ Schattenklinge laughed wholeheartedly. ‘You’ll get used to it soon. And it’s not like you want to be seen talking to your shadow, do you?’
Tristan tilted his head. If he thought about it, this was the easiest way to communicate with his new partner. ‘Now get ready for the jump, I’ll open the barrier for a few seconds.’ Schattenklinge said. ‘Ok, boss!’ Tristan saluted.
A few seconds later Tristan appeared in his laboratory. There he found a familiar face, better said a familiar looking pair of glasses. “Tristan!” Abigail happily ran towards her friend. As she was about to hug him she stopped. “Ewww, you stink!” She said gagging. She started holding her nose with her right hand. And retreated as far as she could from Tristan.
Tristan laughed awkwardly at her reaction. “Oh yeah, I trained day and night without caring for stuff like taking a bath. I only took breaks to eat the flesh of the monster I hunted down and to sleep for a few hours.”
“That explains why you look like a caveman!” Abigail pointed towards the mirror. Tristan took a look at how he looked like and almost couldn’t recognize himself. He was still wearing the same black pants and white, woolen roll neck he had taken with him as he started his journey to Oidche two weeks ago. From the long brown coat he had taken with him there wasn’t much left. And the rest of his clothes were smeared in blood of the different types of monster he had killed in hand to hand combat.
His long black hair that usually was all over the place on his head, was so greasy it looked like he was sweating like mad although he wasn’t sweating at all.
“Looks like I’ll need a shower.” Tristan laughed, embarrassed once more trying to play it off. “Well, see you tomorrow.” He waved towards Abigail and opened a gate directly to his bathroom.
‘Your girlfriend is quite a cutie you know. But I didn’t expect you to be into the nerdy type.’ Schattenklinge said with a teasing tone.
‘She isn’t my girlfriend. She’s just a dear friend of mine, nothing less, nothing more.’
‘Boooo, booo! You spoil sport. I was looking forward for a little romance story between the two of you! If you don’t have a main love interest, then it’s not fun at all. Who are you gonna fight for?’ Schattenkling continued with the teasing tone.
‘For myself.’ Tristan said with a robotic voice without even giving it a second thought. ‘Yeah, I’ll fight for the right of being reunited with my parents.’
Nocturnio (6.11.9978 AS)
“It’s been a while.” Ares smiled wryly as he saw a youth sitting in his office. “What do you want this time?” He asked as he walked towards his own chair. The black haired youth answered with a wide grin on his long bony face. “Why did you assume I came here to ask something of you?”
“Oh, come on Meliodas, we both know you just come and visit this old teacher of yours once you’re in a pinch and seek for advice from this old man.”
Meliodas laughed happily as he heard Ares words. “You know me just too good teacher.” He ran his hand over his slicked back black hair. His black eyes were glued on Ares observing every movement, he did.
“So what do you wish to ask this time?”
Meliodas cleared his throat. “I heard those bards caused your elite students quite some trouble. Even got your best two students suspended.”
“What does that have to do with you.” Ares stopped Meliodas before he could finish .
“Well, we also had our fair bit of trouble with the bards. While we were hunting them through Terra we ran into the Horde. And you know what happens when we happen to encounter those birdbrains. Yeah, they attack us without remorse. Over the past few centuries we didn’t interfere with each other. But now, thanks to our eagerness in wanting to hunt down the bards we got into a little conflict with them.”
“So you want me to help you end the conflict before more blood is spilled?” Ares said with an alarmed tone. This news was indeed troubling for him, since most his students would end up joining the army.
“No, actually we ended the conflict last week. The commander of them was reasonable enough to talk it out with us... But still... After the meeting he issued the order to double his efforts in disposing of wild elders, or that’s at least what our spies reported.”
“And now you want my wisdom to find ways to detect Elders before they find them? If it’s that I know quite a few spells that might work with Elders of our kin.”
“Actually, we already switched to those spells. To be honest, what I came to ask you for is a bunch of your students. To be precise I would like to have your newbies. I heard they are all prodigies not older than 12”
“So you found a real young wild elder? That’s rare, usually they’re about 20 when we’re able to localize them and get them to be our allies.”
“Yeah, it’s actually the first time I see a wild Elder this young. This means we’ll have to approach her with the biggest of care. My strategists came up with the plan of using the young prodigies to befriend her and so easily pull her to our side.”
“Isn’t that a little too dangerous to send our biggest jewels out there? You yourself just said how crazy those guys from the horde are acting.”
“I wouldn’t ask if we couldn’t provide for their security. Also, we kinda have to hurry. Since our means to localize elders just give us one to two months more time than their spells.”
‘Sabrina is probably not gonna speak with me after this one. But I’m sure that Tristan will grow quite a bit if I agree to this. It might be a unique chance for him to grow in real life combats.’ Ares looked at Meliodias who was nervously looking towards him.
“Ok, I’ll lend you three of our students, but be warned. They’re not the type of students that listen to commands. Maybe you’ll manage to teach them to respect their superiors.”
Meliodas face lit up. “Thank you. Then I’ll be on my way making the preparations for their arrival.
Meliodas stood up and bowed slightly towards Ares. And left the room.
‘I still can’t believe that he made it to Commander of our army in Terra so fast. It felt like yesterday that he was pranking people around the campus.’ Ares thought as he saw the broad back of Meliodas leave the room.