Game of Survival (Part 2)

Serve... justice? What does she mean by that?

Kael thought while looking around. He was caught in a stall between the dragon Queen, Efimorij and himself.

The words spoken by that breathtaking woman remained suspended for what seemed like an eternity. That phrase colored a slight expression of surprise even on the Bishop's face, replaced immediately by a solemn smile.

“Sharp words, as ever... you've never spoke so much, Queen. Yet those few times are always entertaining. And I hope you'll put up a good show for our human guest here!”, he chuckled and pointed at Kael.

The Queen looked at him back, offering the same menacing glare. Her disdain was evident and sharp as her gaze which could even penetrate rocks. She sighed heavily and turned to the Bishop once again. “You know you can't win against me.”

“I know that! But who said only the two of us would be fighting?”

He opened his hand in the direction of Kael, shooting a slim ray of dark energy at a high speed.

“Waaah!!!”, he nearly dodge the deadly attack, “That's unfair!”

“Unfair???”, Efimorij repeated with an amused tone, “There's no fairness here! The strongest wins, always!”

As he attacked another time, Kael prepared by forming his spear in his hand in a fraction of a second.

Different black rock spikes came out of the ground, tracing a path towards him.

He moved quickly to the side, before leaping forwards. He stuck his weapon in the ground, dragging it along his side. As soon as he got near Efimorij, he took it out, revealing an extension made from an irregular slab of rock.

“... ???”, the Bishop didn't expect that and jumped away.

Where did that come from???

Kael didn't stop his assault and pointed at the men behind Efimorij. He swung his spear, hitting all of them as they fell on the ash floor and disappeared in a dark mist.

Efimorij looked baffled at the move, incapable of understanding how a simple men had the ability of doing such things.

“Go to hell!”, the Queen of dragons interrupted abruptly his thoughts.

He parried a lightning bolt by wrapping his crossed forearms in a transparent violet substance. He used them to block the subsequent punches from her. He was sent back by a rotating kick before the Queen turned and shot a small bolt at Kael.

He absorbed it with his spear and redirected it towards Efimorij before blocking the rush of punches and agile kicks of the Queen.

“Now that's clever!”

Efimorij jumped and tried to hit them from above. As they dodged in opposite directions, he pivoted completely on the left foot – on which he landed – and made a circular strike with a chained blade of that same substance he used before.

Kael deflected and was sent a few meters behind, the Queen replicated by forming a great bolt in her hands – just like the one used by Gendir previously.

“Ehehehe...”

The chain wrapped itself around the weapon tightly and pulled her towards Efimorij, who hit her in the chest with a strong punch.

“Gah!!!”, she managed to stay on her feet. She hid a grimace of pain before rubbing a little sprout of blood from her mouth.

Kael, who was looking, was amazed by that move.

That solid substance... it can wrap around non-solid objects like electricity!

He swung his spear toward the Bishop, producing a quick charge of wind on the ground. Efimorij launched a blade in the attack. It stabbed it as if it was flesh. He yanked the chain and jumped over the charge.

“It was just as I thought!”, Kael shouted with enthusiasm, smirking with absolute confidence. “Now it's my turn!”

He lifted his spear, letting Efimorij wrap the chained blade to its handle. Kael immediately threw the weapon on his side, suddenly accelerating Efimorij's descent.

“Ugh?!”

The Bishop let out a groan of surprise. His face connected with Kael's punch as soon as he landed. He was hit by another left uppercut, then Kael took his head, crashing it against his kneecap and making blood gush out of his nose.

“... !!!”

Kael glanced briefly at the figure of the Queen rushing over him from his right. He waited the right moment to push Efimorij back and create a hollow space in front of her. He cleverly tripped her with his foot before knocking her to the floor with a hit on the nape from his elbow.

The Bishop was already on the counterattack, hurling the chained blade once again with much more strength. Kael stepped up and waited for the blade to get closer. As soon as it was at striking distance, his body flickered like a dying light and he appeared on the other side.

“What???”

Efimorij couldn't do anything to avoid his powerful sidekick, which sent him crashing into a dune violently.

Kael made a sudden 180° turn and stroke the Queen of dragons with an equally powerful lateral kick in the abdomen.

Both his adversaries coughed while on the ashen floor, clutching at their injured parts.

“Ehehehe... just what are you?”, Efimorij chuckled almost incredulous of how easily he was being outmaneuvered. “You are not a normal human, are you?”

Kael showed a cocky smirk, “Bingo! You are the clever one, after all.”

The Queen got on one knee, struggling to get up on her feet. The image of a black human silhouette flashing in her mind, like a distant and horrible memory.

That power... is it him? That man can't be still alive! That power should've been buried long ago...

“You... are a threat to everything in this place. You are... dangerous, too much!”

“Ohhh! The predator of the predator, am I not?”, he opened his hands, ruffling his hairs back to place, still with his smirk sticking on his lips, “But if you're that curious about what I am...”

Dooom

A sense of weight came down both of them. Reality trembled under his feet, the world recognized the Balance, the forbidden power. The Cubes, which controlled the principles of magic and reality itself, they felt it all, every element, all in equal measure, perfect stability and harmony.

Mana blue flames began rising again from under his feet, looking as if hell was leaking out. They rose up to his sides, where they started to fade into little sparkles until they disappeared in the frizzling air.

“I-it can't be!”

The Queen's eyes widened both in fear and shock, while Efimorij didn't even manage to speak, such was the surprise.

“I will ask you nicely, one time... leave and go back to where you came from.”, Kael ordered menacingly, never stopping the flow of pure mana coming from his body.

They both wanted to refuse, but something inside them refused to obey. Their subconscious was terrified of him, leaving no choice but to do so.

They left quietly in the obscure midnight, to their lairs.

They left him there, the descendant of whom refused Death.

Many kilometers away

“Are you alright?”, Ascarin turned back to look at Olivia and Mala. He was tired as much as them, after escaping for hours from the dragons.

“Yes, we are... just my legs, they're killing me!”, Olivia lamented while helping Mala getting up on the dunes they stopped on. “Are we sure they're gone, those dragons?”

“Yes. I don't feel their presence nor I can see them. We're clear...”

She dropped with a sigh on the ash, “I hope Kael's alright. That guy looked absolutely menacing!”

Ascarin let himself escape a little smile, “He'll be alright. He said he would catch us up, so as soon as the day begin, let's keep walking East.”

“Are you sure?”, Mala questioned him with a tone of preoccupation, “Can't we set up a little camp here and wait him?”

“Nah... I get why both of you are worried, but I have a feeling that staying still too much in this place could be very dangerous.”, he dismissively shook his head. “And between... he can still use that mana communication system he created.”

Well, I have to hope he hasn't already used it during this year... Ah! What am I getting worried for? He obviously wouldn't use it this lightly!

“Mpfh... I agree then! But I say to keep a slow pace too.”, Olivia suggested getting back up.

Ascarin just smiled and nodded, helping his wife getting back up. “Sure...”

Far East, the next morning, base of the Crest Mountains

“Fuh!”, Selivan huffed with fatigue after throwing a corpse wrapped in a single thin layer of cloth, sullied heavily with now dried blood. “This was the last one!”

He turned towards his tall companion, Von, who was talking with the mysterious man, beckoning him to the now filled pit.

“Your turn now, big boy!”, he smirked towards him with sarcasm, taking his place near that same old person. “We are doing a good job, aren't we?”

His head shifted a little towards him, then back at the fire that was covering the whole pit. “Yes, you are...”, the raspy voice repeated, “South of us... is Rmune. We're going there in five days.”

“You think the catacombs are there?”

“They have to be. I can feel it... I can feel we didn't destroy all the cities behind the Crest Mountains in vain.”, his tone was low and punctuated by various pauses.

Selivan chuckled amused, “Yeah, yeah! I feel it too. But I bet navigating through the city won't be that easy.”

“We can hide easily.”, Von plain voice interrupted.

“Oh?”, Selivan looked curious behind his shoulders, “You're finished, good! I'll begin to pack things up.”

As he walked away, Von turned to the old man. “You know that searching for that entrance will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“You got doubts on your mind?”, he quickly said with severity.

“... No, I don't.”

Selivan came back. He was holding a long object wrapped in a strange gray textile and a backpack on his shoulders. He began walking South, the old man following immediately.

Von looked back, the fire had died down. The ashes mixing.

He glanced on the horizon. A big gray falcon on top of a dune turned towards him.

He narrowed his eyes, knowing who was looking at them.

“Von.”, Selivan voice made him loose focus, “Are you coming?”

“Yes... I am.”

The falcon flew away with silence. Von turned around. He took a little smooth and black rock from his tunic. He kissed it and go.

North-East of the Great Void

Mhhh... I have walked for soooo long...

Kael sighed as he was walking up and down the ash hills. The sun rose to his right, rendering long shadows on the ground.

Now that I think about it, did they go East or North-East? Ufh... I'm overthinking it. Ah! Wait, right.

He snapped his finger in satisfaction, “How didn't I think about this before!”

And in a matter of seconds, he was on the back of his spectral horse once again.

“As useful as ever...”, he patted its side and began going in the same direction as before.

The view that was presented to him wasn't different at all from what part of that place he saw the night before. The wind was the only one to speak there, leaving sovereign the silence of Death that loomed over everything and everyone who ended up in the Great Void.

The ash accumulated over the eons made it so that not even young roots could emerge from the underground.

In the midst of that observation, he came to a conclusion.

No vegetation here... Mala is weakened then. She's still strong though, so no worries!

But he kept peeping around every few hundred meters he traversed. He could never knew if there was something out there. He could've easily missed something in a desert this big.

“... ???”

A sudden surge of heat attracted his attention. It was as if a strong hot wind had hit him, but it couldn't be. The Nasimgramm was still in its period and the change was too sudden.

He glanced up in the sky, but only saw the refraction of the rays of light from the sun in the bluest sky he had ever seen.

He turned back and forth but still noticed nothing. He decided to just go ahead.

“Huh... What is this???”

In front of his eyes, after climbing a high dune, a plain expanse of ash presented itself. Its monochromatic palette was broken by various carbonized bodies of giant creatures, which torsos were all impaled by thick and sharp bedrock formations.

Kael recognized the usual body forms of different demons: some were as tall as 3 and a half meters and muscular while others had shorter and stubbier shapes, but the one thing they had in common was the absence of any facial feature apart from the eyes.

They're carbonized... which means their heart was completely destroyed. In other cases they would've just turned into ash. But who made these pillars anyway?

He got closer and touched the formations, recognizing the cold and irregular feeling of bedrock.

“... This is something few can do.”, he suddenly sulked, grimacing with annoyance, “I swear, if I get into another of those stall situation I'm gonna loose it...”

He passed through the lifeless monsters, glancing around in awe. He had never seen such a big graveyard and he knew that, whoever did it, could not be anything but strong.

“Earth... magic. I wonder what these demons are here for?”

“Grahhh!!!”

“Ngh?!”, he quickly turned around, dodging by an inch the clawed hand of a monster. “And who are you?”

From the ash, two enormous black arms came out. They grappled on the ground with their claws, pulling up the whole body of the creature.

It missed its legs, but compensated with immense body length and width. Its skin robust at sight and black as obsidian, while two red dot lit up his eyes.

He opened his wide mouth to let out another bloodcurdling growl, but something caught Kael's attention.

Sudden mana surge!

He waited a second and then shifted left. Right where he was staying, a long light lilac beam vaporized everything in its path. The monster moved forward, crawling with its jaws wide open to show big and sharp teeth. Kael back-stepped and formed his spear in no time, ready to tackle it.

“You're new to me!”, he jumped over it, turning in mid-air and hitting it with the blade. “Tch...”

The sharp edges of the weapon scratched the monster skin but left no wound. It swung its arms erratically with the intent of sweeping Kael away.

It's more robust than I hoped for...

With the creature not giving any sign of stopping, Kael began loosing his temper.

Ach... I'm fed up!

The spear lit up with boiling flames without any warning. The air shook with force, recoiling across that horrid plain, producing high pitched whistles. These staggered the monster, making it fall on its elbows with a low groan.

Kael dashed forward, slashing its arms with a wide flaming slash. He didn't stop and stabbed it in the torso, turning the blade in its flesh to lock it in.

“Pwah!!!”

With an effort that would make any human alive turn pale, Kael hurled the monster in the air.

Before it landed, he pointed at the ground near him, from which a pointy monolith of rock stabbed it right under the ribs.

To finish it, he ran towards him, dodged a last effort arm sweep and slashed it once again on the nape.

“Mhh... maybe I've overdone it.”

The monster let out a last growl of pain before an ice cap began forming around its whole body, before exploding in thousands of little icicles.

Kael smirked and made the spear disappear. He called his spectral steed back and resumed his journey.

Those demons, akin between them, now continue their millennia death slumber with their killer, the demon from Deep.

Strait of the Snakes, a day before

Everyone knows that magic and reality itself is governed by the Cubes, powerful objects representing a world element or force each. There's fire, water, air, earth, lightning, plasma and many others we still don't know the location. Thanks to them we can measure the strength of a mage (even the one of a simple person who isn't a mage); we know for sure that any mage can do and execute, after a certain amount of training, any type of magic he wants. Still, the grade of difficulty is raised by the affinity for a certain Cube or not.

Let me explain: doctors, mages and scientists have all studied the human body and discovered (some hundreds of years ago) that it is affected by every Cube that exists – which number we still don't know exactly and as of today we know ten of them – and each does so in a certain percentage.

We can calculate these percentages from just a sample of blood, which is then examined by a mage that is part of a 200 members team adept to this job.

The Cube with the highest percentage, then, determines to what kind of magic you're predisposed to.

Unfortunately we can't discover new possible Cubes with this procedure, since we can only detect influence by Cubes we know of or we have came in contact with.

Still, the guy and archmage we are following is special. Kael of Nara has something unprecedented. His Cubes percentage is perfectly balanced; everyone in Uberdia knows him and many believe this is the reason he is... considered the strongest.

And now we're following him to the extremes of the world while he searches for the object that might have given life to the Cubes themselves.

I get a headache only thinking about it...

“Olsted!”, Tena's voice made him lift his eyes from the notepad he was holding.

“Yeah?”, he asked seeing her walking closer to him. “What is it?”

She stopped right in front of him.

“...”

Without saying anything, she leaned incredibly close to his face. Her clear eyes boring into his and studying his face with attention.

“Wha-what are you doing???”, Olsted exclaimed, visibly embarrassed by the vicinity.

Tena smiled and retracted her visage from his, “You are less tense respect to when we started navigating!”

What is her deal???

“Y-yeah... I am.”, he responded, covering his slightly red face. “Anyway, what do you need?”

“Mhh, what were you writing? Something for your students?”, she talked with the enthusiasm of a little girl. “Such a meticulous professor...”

“Don't avoid the question! And what's with that childish enthusiasm?”

“Ufh, booooring!”, she chuckled and tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear, “I needed to ask you where is the map of the Strait of the Snakes.”

“... in my room. On the desk on the left.”

“Thanks!”, she thanked cheerfully, disappearing below deck with a quick pace.

She made all that scene for such a simple question... is she a kid?

He sighed and relaxed his legs and arms. He put the notepad on the bench to his right.

“...”

“Aren't you gonna go back to writing?”, Tanaka voice – coming from the high part of the ship behind him where there was the helm – made Olsted jump internally.

“...”

“...”

Olsted didn't move at all and just lowered his head and closed his eyes, “Were you there the whole time?”

“... nope.”

“You're bad at lying, commander.”

“Crap!”, he shouted, stomping his way back to the helm, leaving Olsted alone and dumbfounded.

Can I... actually survive in the Great Void with these two?