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[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]
As it turned out, whatever Renault had done to transport me across the city didn’t actually have much impact.
My communirune was still fully functional—I called Hanna immediately after I finished throwing an unsightly temper tantrum that resulted in the property damage of a nearby building.
The runic inscription on my insignia wasn’t impacted, so my comrades were already on their way to my position with the aid of Rias’ JPS system.
I called Julius to have him keep Akari from panicking and jumping to my location—we didn’t know if her plane-hopping magick would have lasting effects. Use in the case of emergencies only, I told her.
Really, the only problem with that bastard warping me around town was the fact he could do that, and we didn’t know how to counter it.
What if he teleports me while I’m sleeping? Oh no… does this mean I can’t sleep until we kill him?
I was currently following Hanna’s vague directions of “Go west until you can’t. Then wait.” because there was no alternative; sitting around acting helpless wasn’t really my style.
Outside of a general idea of where I’d been whisked away, I was pretty much lost. I knew I was somewhere in the southeastern recesses of the Maarin district which our forces hadn’t yet fully cleared.
The outer walls were close by. It was only a matter of time until one of the Specter teams doubled back to spot me wandering the streets and give me better directions.
I approached the remains of a small market and froze.
In the center of my mind, there was something like an alarm sounding. It was as if little pulses of static were racing down my neck.
My new passive ability, DANGER SENSE, was being set off like crazy. It was way more sensitive than the way I had been manually doing and didn’t seem to require me to focus on maintaining it.
“Oh-ho. She’s got good instincts, huh?”
A man’s voice echoed through the plaza. I couldn’t pin exactly where it came from but I knew he was closer than it seemed.
A second and third voice responded.
“Come on, you know the boss wouldn’t waste his power on some weakling.”
“Awh, come on! You ruined the surprise. She just stopped, you don’t know if she actually made us or not.”
Wrong.
I knew the general locations of all four parties lying in wait around the market plaza. MAGICKA SENSE had picked them up a moment after I detected something was off.
The two who had just spoken were close together on the northern end of the plaza and the first guy was pretty close to me, up on a roof, on the eastern end.
The last person was alone on the far west side, hidden inside a building. I couldn’t be sure if they were an enemy as well or just an uninvolved party that happened to be nearby.
I really needed to learn more spells.
Dropping a ball of fire on the guy closest to me would be a perfect way to prove them wrong and start this encounter in my favor.
Judging by their statements, it was obvious they were Renault’s henchmen in some form and were aware I’d been whisked away to this corner of the city.
Instead, I willed my communirune channel to Julius and when the staticky feeling subsided I began speaking.
“If you think just the three of you are enough to take me on, you’ve severely underestimated me. I could just call in a runestrike on this whole plaza and watch you melt away from the safety of a barrier. Surely you’ve heard the reports about me if you’re so trusted by your boss.”
I felt the first guy shifting his position, wrapping around the rooftops to get behind me. His voice though, continued to project from the square ahead.
“Sure. Sure. We’ve heard the report the kids brought back. But if you think two prepubescent wannabes are at the same level as the rest of the Great King’s Roses you’re wrong.”
“Oh good,” I sighed in relief, “You’re just Roses. I’ve already killed two of those today. I was worried you’d be heroes of some sort and I’d have to try hard. At least Doland… Donald? Whatever his name was—at least he made me work for it.”
The man skulking behind me paused.
Henchmen two and three at the north began to wrap around to either end.
And the fourth person remained still.
Julius simply replied, “We’re almost there.”
If these guys were as tough as the twins, all I needed to do was stall. If they weren’t—well, then it didn’t matter. But without a clear sight line on them, I couldn’t inspect their statuses.
I taunted the guy behind me once more, “I’ll take your silence as fear, I guess. Was Dolain actually that tough? He went down like a sack of bricks—felt like one too when I knocked his ass to the dirt.”
My knuckle was still sore, even after the tissues healed and the bones were set. I probably needed rest for it to fully take.
I was idly massaging my hand in a way that looked like I was trying to intimidate the empty space I knew no people were standing in.
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“Well?” I said, turning around and readying a CHAOS BOLT, “Think you’re tougher than that guy or do you wanna retreat?”
My CHAOS BOLT struck the alleyway the man was hiding in, splintering into pieces. He yelped in surprise and dived backward.
Henchman two was almost to my position and henchman three was—
Hmmm. Oh, henchman three is dead. It would seem mysterious stranger number four isn’t on their side.
I desperately hoped whoever they were, they weren’t another Maarin weirdo.
“Now, Teronore!” the second man yelled, emerging out of a lowly lit storefront.
As he leapt at me, a multi-faceted barrier of fiery magick shimmered into existence around me. A burst of flame and an arc of lightning struck the man as he smashed into the barrier.
“Don’t touch my mom!” a high-pitched scream echoed through the marketplace.
The man straightened himself, taking a defensive stance. He held a long spear close to his body, ready to strike out at anything that approached him.
I laughed at him.
“You think this is amusing?” he sneered.
“Not really, but lemme tell you something that you won’t find amusing.”
“Ehhh? And what’s that stupid girl?”
“In about thirty seconds, you’ll meet someone who is quite pissed off. You see, his commander got teleported away and he was made to waste another hour of his time when he could’ve been resting by now—”
Black armor and a shield covered with a silvery aura slammed into the man. Both he and Julius disappeared into a cloud of dust.
“—and I’m afraid he’s not as merciful as I am.”
I reunited with Akari, Flik, and the other guard knights. We started heading north to the forward base with the sounds of Julius capturing my attackers fading away behind us.
He’ll be fine.
I inspected both men and they weren’t anything special. Julius needed to vent some frustration out.
We never did get to meet the fourth person. After Julius shield slammed the guy trying to attack me they ran off.
----------------------------------------
An endless sea of scintillating stars illuminated the blackness of my dreams. Brilliant gemstones hung in space all around me, suspended in a radial pattern.
“Yes! Finally!”
My thoughts echoed freely in the bizarre subspace my Iteria manifested in.
“I’ve tried so hard to get here and all I had to do was fall asleep after exhausting myself completely, huh?”
I glanced over the eight Iteria powers I’d already unlocked, now glowing brightly with the trademark orange of chaotic magick—no, it was brighter. It was a sweet and pretty orange. Not the sickly blood-tinged color of Capricorn’s magick.
It had an almost silver tint to it.
[https://i.imgur.com/ZSPQW17.png]
One of the unlit gemstones sparkled as if calling to me. It was the next in line after the large keystone power that had been labeled with ‘Divine’ in its description, EMPYREAN HEART.
I reached out my hand and touched the medium-sized node.
An inspection window appeared on its own or was probably activated by my subconscious.
ITERIA NODE
DESCRIPTION
GLORIA
Your connection to the Divine expands. You gain authority over your own Divinity and the ability to cast GLORIA VAN’IXIA.
Positive alignment.
Divine.
“What in the Aether is Gloria Van’Ixia?”
My thought echoed back and a new window appeared just below the first.
SPELL
SCHOOL
CLASS
DETAILS
ᚨᛟ—ᛏᚾ’ᚴᛋᚪ
GLORIA VAN’IXIA
Divine
National
Calls down the light of Aevum to obliterate anything that a Goddess deems unnecessary.
“A… Goddess?”
The words hung in the air. My heart raced and a tightness in my chest made it hard to breathe.
A strange light appeared between me and the inspection screens. I flinched back.
Words came into my mind, both a memory and physically scrawled out by the strange light in the air.
YOU’RE A SEED THE CREATOR LEFT BEHIND.
They were Tamirayth’s words.
THE CELESTIAL ‘GODS’ CANNOT CREATE NEW SOURCES OF DIVINITY.
Her words continued. An emphasis was applied to the word Gods. I recalled the conversation as best I could. Tamirayth had implied I was no longer human, or never was.
“Is that the secret behind the Altaerians…? Were we never human to begin with?”
In this little space I had all to myself—my own aetherial plane carved out from the Aether—I suffered from a crisis of identity.
I wasn’t really sure how long it took before I finally managed to calm down but when I did, I willed the power into the node I knew I needed.
A light pressure trickled down me. My body shuddered and my toes curled.
» YOU HAVE GAINED NEW AFFINITIES:
» GLORIA
» YOU HAVE GAINED IN POWER, YOU HAVE LEARNED NEW SPELLS:
» NEW NATIONAL CLASS SPELL, GLORIA VAN’IXIA
» YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED A NEW TITLE:
» FLEDGLING GODDESS
“Haaah, I think Hailey and I are gonna need to have another talk when I wake up…”