Pillar of light

***Two months later***

   Eric was currently taking his breakfast together with Alice in the forest. Since that day Alice would come sometimes to take her breakfast with him and since he said that he could cook for her when he has time, he couldn't complain about it.

    They eat their breakfast in silence this morning and were almost finishing when Eric couldn't bear the silence anymore and tried to find a subject to discuss.

"So... how is Yuki's training going?"

    In the past two months, he didn't asked anything about his sister's training but now he was curious how far she arrived but Alice sighed when she thought about it.

"Not too good... Although she clearly has a lot of mana, her learning time of the spells is just too long..."

"How so?"

     Eric was surprised to hear that and wanted to know more but Alice just raised her shoulders.

"I don't know. We just guessed that she didn't awaken her true powers yet. Although her learning speed is slow, we have enough time until Kratos will be free so we try to not worry too much about it."

    Eric find it weird but didn't say anything more.

    Shortly after, Alice finished eating and left for Yuki's morning training and Eric was left alone. As always he started his training too and several hours later he took a break, laid down on a blanket, and fall asleep.

    When Eric woke up was already dark outside. He looked around and took him some time to fully awake and process where he was.

("Seems like I slept a little bit too much...")

     He wanted to raise his body but he caught something with the corner of his eye and rolled on the ground a little further from where he stood and in the next second purple thorns filled that place.

("I was wondering why they didn't make a move in the past two months but it seems like they were just waiting for their friends...")

    Eric looked at the purple thorns and thought so, then changed his position again and another wave of thorns filled that place. He continued to do that until he figured out the direction from where the thorns come, and then summoned two daggers and threw them into the dark in two different places. The sound of iron clashing with iron filled the forest and Eric knew that his dagger didn't hit the target. Although he missed, he now knew where his enemies were and summoned another 30 daggers that started to float behind him and in the next second, they flew in the dark.

    The past two months spent with Alice weren't for nothing. In their daily conversation, Eric would sometimes ask things about magic and she would answer thinking that he was just curious. Like that he learned how to make his swords fly to a specific location and also how to use magic to enhance his physical abilities. Thanks to this he was able to fight against Kratos's underlings even in that situation.

    The fight continued for some time and meanwhile, Yuki and Alice come back from the training ground and entered the leaving room.

"Good work today! Remember to read the book I gave you when you have time. We will take a break tomorrow since we trained every day in the past week so take care to rest properly."

"Finally a break!"

    Yuki happily exclaimed and laid down on the sofa because of the tiredness she accumulated. Alice looked at her with pitying eyes and then decided to leave but before she could do that she saw through the window a pillar of light that shined strongly above the forest.

   Alice had a bad feeling about it and run towards Eric's room just to find it empty.

"Hey, Alice, what happened?"

"No time to explain! Call the girls with the magic device that I gave you and tell them to come here fast! I'm going out now!"

"Hey, wait! Where are you going?"

"Just do what I told you to do!"

   Alice quickly left the house and ran towards the forest letting Yuki in a confused state.

    She used magic to boost her physical abilities and quickly arrived at the place where she left Eric this morning just to find it in a horrible state. There were many people lying down in pools of blood and many swords filled the place. Some trees were cut down and from place to place some holes that looked like they were left by bombs could be seen.

"What the hell happened here!"