At the end of the forest path stood the hideout, it was a rather large house, with vines growing over the brown bricks that it was made out of, on the vine grew a crimson red flower, with four petals and a center that grew a black fuzzy seed, many of these flowers grew on the vine that was now partially covering the window that Yumi was looking out of, it was peaceful here on this island, beautiful and serene, she heard the clomps on the roof above her, Barak walked out onto the roof, the trunks of tree’s hat had been in the spot where the hideout was built, he stood there quietly for a moment, breathing in the fresh air, he opened his eyes, looking out at the sea of trees that stood before him, he decided to make the best of his free time, taking a seat he crossed his legs placing his hands onto his knees, he began to focus, slowly feeling the lightning coursing through his body, he pushed it gathering it slowly into the pit of his stomach, his skin began to tingle, the first few bolts of lightning surged up his arm, then arcing onto his back, down his spine, through his chest, the lightning haphazardly jumped and danced all over his body, soon visions clouded his mind, smoke and fire, loud screams, the tip of a blade racing towards him, he opened his eyes, off in the distance he heard a feint explosion and a small light from within the forest,

Barak sensed something coming his direction, when he looked up, Polaris came crashing down next to him, his body crashing through the roof and going into the kitchen,

Aster, who was sitting in the kitchen eating, jumped back from where Polaris had landed, summoning his hammer instantly, as he prepared for an enemy to emerge, but when the dust and rubble settled he realized that it was Polaris who had come crashing through the ceiling, Aster relaxed swinging his hammer onto his shoulder, walking forward to Polaris,

"This better not be another squabble between you and Lev", Aster said royally pissed off,

But Polaris didn't answer, he was out cold, and when aster took a closer look at him he was severely battered and bruised, with burn marks all over his body,

‘seriously Lev took it way to far this time, Pol must’ve really pissed him off for it to escalate this bad’, Aster thought, His mind flashed back to the fact that a boat was spotted close to the island,

‘but the two of them never take fighting this far or this serious, so there might actually be an enemy on the island with us’, Aster had thought to himself

he sighed to himself saying,”i really hope I am wrong on this one”, aster looked up through the hole in the roof, at Barak

"Barack we've got a serious problem on our hands, Polaris is out cold and seriously injured and Levant said he was going to look for him", aster said,

"Yeah I know we've got a huge problem on our hands and he's walking right towards us", Barack told aster, reaching to his waste for his sword only to realize it wasn’t there

The stranger walked out of the forest’s path and into the open, he looked straight at Barack, and gestured his hand in barracks direction,

"Now what could he wan....", Barack stopped, something flew right past his face, he turned his head slowly and saw that it was Polaris' sword,

He looked back towards the forest’s direction, but the strange enemy wasn’t there any longer,

“hmm and what might your power be”, Barak heard the strange voice coming from next to him, he swung his arm in the direction the voice was coming from but he hit nothing,

“too slow”, the stranger said, taunting Barak,

barak turned back to, facing forward now, the stranger was now on the roof with him,

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"I'll give the first two this, they knew how to put up a serious fight, the last one even managed to cut me a bit, but before I fight you, my name is Aluric and I'm in search of my friend named yumi", Aluric stated to barack,

Barak jumped off of the roof and landed right in front of the kitchen window, he gestured to Aster, telling him to go and find yumi, a bolt of lightning surged as barak stretched out his hand, his sword appearing in front of him,

Aluric looked down at barak,"sigh, well I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, cause she choose them, but these guys have a lot of growing to do", Aluric stated as he also jumped off the roof,

Barak looked up seeing Aluric descending from the roof, he jumped back and prepared to fight him,

Aster turned and left to go find yumi to tell her what was Happening, as he had overheard the conversation on the roof, he got in the hallway he ran into her,

"Aster what was that loud noise earlier", she asked him, seeming only a bit concerned,

"Well someone sent pol through the roof and they're asking about you", aster stated, hearing loud lightning strikes going off in the background,

"So tell me how do they know that you're here, unless you were being followed by others other than that beast summoner", aster said becoming lost in thought,

“yeah that’s what I was coming to tell you guys, I searched him and found this”, yumi explained, she was holding up a what looked like a square piece of glass, with an insignia that glowed blue,

“and what is that ?”, Aster asked, as yumi tossed it to him,

“that is a tracker, it was designed by what was an enemy kingdom’s military, they had some really handy dwarves working for them, but a while back I helped steal the blueprints for it and now we make our own”, yumi explained,

“okay that explains alot”, Aster said without so much as batting an eye towards yumi, his attention was now completely drawn in by the tracker,

"Aster now is not the time to be distracted", yumi shouted at him,

Aster sighed, "you're right,", he smiled calmly,

"Well doesn't make any sense complaining about it now", aster said getting up,

“oh so you’re going to join the fight also”, Yumi said placing her hand on her hip,

"Yup, aint nothing left to do but fight", aster replied, summoning his hammer he smashed opened the door and headed outside,

As Aster came through the door, he saw barak in the air in the middle of an attack, as the unknown attacker, shot flames out of his palm sending them at barak while he was in the air, pushing barak back to the edge of the clearing,

“great another idiot that shoots fire out their hands”, Aster said, stomping his foot on the ground, and sending a wave of short earth pillars towards the attacker, causing him to jump back,

“ahh so you must be the last of them, lets see how the two of you fair against, because, if I’m being honest, the last two were kind of lackluster”, the attacker said,

“what did you say”, Aster said, launching himself towards the attacker, Aster stepped in close swing his hammer towards his , new opponents face, but to his surprise, the attacker, used the flames to propel himself to the side evading the attack, flames igniting in his other hand, causing his body to spin, as he threw out his leg landing a kick to Asters head, he stomped down onto the ground, causing a pillar of ice to explode out of the ground hitting Aster on his chin knocking his head upwards, the attacker, then spun around once more kicking the middle of the ice pillar, sending Aster flying towards the house,

Soon after , Barak, was launching himself towards the unknown attacker once more

Yumi sat in the hallway, her fingers placed on her lips as she tried to figure out who it was that was sent after her this time ,"I just might've brought death onto these guys unwillingly", she looked back into the kitchen and saw Polaris moving

She moved over to him, he wasn't bleeding but you could tell his wounds weren't to be taken lightly, as she was getting ready to move him away from the battle happening outside, aster came flying through the window, with a large block of ice in his stomach, Yumi's eyes were glued on aster as he got back up to head back to the fight, her eyes then shifted to what aster was looking at, her eyes widened, what she saw standing before her was him, Aluric, the leader of the Artemis guild, and one of the strongest entities on the shadow continent, and even with her Dark ebony complexion her face turned pale, her throat felt dry and coarse, a nervous sweat trickled down her face, all of her thoughts were focused on escape as she knew the terror of his existence,