Inside Arath's body magic energy raged like the sea in the middle of a storm, his inital gate organ - eyes burned as if someone threw them inside a pool of lava. He could feel how something grew beneath his skin right in the middle of his forehead yet when he reached there with his hand nothing seemed to be different from before. After a few seconds the feeling was gone and something new started to take place, now all of his muscles kept repeatedly shrinking and expanding. With each series of this process Arath could feel how energy in his body flowed much more freely. Few moments later that felt like ages all his bones broke into hunrdreds of pieces and in the next milisecond they reconnected to their original form. After that suddenly all the pain stopped abruptly leaving the man flabbergasted. The unknown process seemed to be over.
Arath opened his eyes to try to understand what had just happened and what he saw made him even more surprised. On his chest there was a faint glowing shape which heavily resembled the one surrounding the Awakening Hall. He blinked not knowing if it was a dream but when he opened his eyes again there was nothing to be seen. The light had dissapearead leaving no trace of what had happened. Arath looked around to see if any witness could describe the incident but soon found out that nobody paid any attention to him, even Clara didn't notice that a few seconds ago her companion was lying on the ground convulsing. 'Dissapointing, how little do people care. I could be lying in a pool of blood dying and the first person to notice would be the janitor, but that's life I guess.' He raised his gaze to look what event outshined his suffering only to see that the Heroes were also sitting on the ground crying from pain with the seals on their chests slowly dissapearing.
"Now that you have awakaned both your seals and blessings you will slowly unravel and get used to them. Besides normal powers some extraordinarily talented among you may discover some even more special abilities and traits. For example people granted Earth Element might be able to create golems and such. It's an additional bonus for having Seals inside you." The middle-aged lady spoke again. "All of you shall receive special trainings and in one weeks time you will be expected to enter The Tower. For now go to the dormitory and get some rest." She turned to the crowd behind, which slowly got back to their seats. "You have witnessed their awakening and if you were apprehensive enough you have probably noticed whose powers are most compatibile with yours and who you want to work with. Prepare yourselves because in three days we will allow you to enter the dungeon. Thank you..." She didn't have the time to finish the sentence as a huge explosion interrupted her.
Everyone present was thrown away by the blast and over a dozen men literally obliterated on site. Luckily the guards standing next to the heroes reacted just in time and conjured different barriers that barely managed to protect everyone behind them. The doors to the hall were blasted open and lots of armored man barged in.
"Dear Heroes please, quickly follow us. We are your only choice if you don't want to die a pointless death! We will stop the guards for as long as we can so hurry up!"
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Everyone who saw this scene looked at each other in surprise not knowing how to react. Philip was the first one to act, he run towards the intruders and started to freeze them one by one. All Heroes were completely dumfounded, some started to run to a corner screaming while others run towards the man that just gave them hope.
'Now this is what I call a swamp of shit. Total chaos and anarchy. Tsk, tsk I guess I will need to help them if I want to achieve something in The Tower. We can only reach the top if all this babies stick together and do their best. What to do, how can I stop all of this?' Arath pondered when suddenly an image came to his mind. A carriage was standing just outside the hall with an older man inside.
"Hurry up, it won't take them long to reach here. Once the Council's guard sees us we are all dead. Get as many of this crybabies as you can and get out of here." A rough voice said.
"Yes, sir!" Another voice answered.
'That's weird.' Arath looked around trying to spot the owners of voices but to no avail. All of a sudden he felt ticklish sensation on his forehead and in the same moment he could barely see outlines of few men and a carriage just outside the building. This image overlapsed with the wall standing in between so they were hard to notice yet visible. 'Maybe it's the result of what happened to me just now. Whatever is happening to me, it might prove to be useful. If what this guy said is true all I need to do is slow them down.'
"Clara, cover for me, make some distraction."
"Whaaaat?" She was clearly confused but it didn't take her long to understand Arath's intentions.
"Ok, understood."
He very much regretted not taking any weapon, sure it was prohibited to bring any inside, but certainly he could hide a dagger in his boot or something. 'Fists will have to do.' Wasting no more time he jumped out of his row and run towards the intruders. One of them noticed the arriving boy and thrusted towards him with a long spear. Arath stepped to the side and catched the weapon and used it's momentum to pull his enemy forward. In the same moment an alarm rung loudly inside his head. He intinctively lowered his head only to hear a loud swoosh right next to his ear. It was an arrow targeted at his head. 'Wow, that was close.' He kicked the guard who was falling forward right between his legs and threw him towards the wall. The enemy crushed into the wall with a loud bang and fell unconcious to the ground.
Meanwhile Clara focused all her attention on her knees trying to summon her powers. After few tries when she finally felt energy gathering in the joints she run toward the armored troops. All of them focused either on escorting heroes or fighting both Arath and normal guards didn't notice a blurr passing them. Next second a body covered in armor flew towards the roof with a cracks all over his chestplate. With that all guards turned to face this new enemy and Clara succeeded in her mission.
Arath with no care in the world dogded one arrow after another and passed all oponents. Not a single attack could land on him as his body moved like a leaf on a breeze. The ground around him was completely destroyed by continous slashes but somehow he either sidestepped or just disregarded them. After passing five enemies a first challenge appeared. A tall women in her late thirties was standing before him. The unusual thing was that instead of armor a thick layer of raging flame covered her entire body.
'So they came at least a little bit prepared. They brought a strong fire elementalist, that's going to be tricky.'