Captain Almun was speeding through the woods in purchase of some shadow-like being.
If one had to describe, it behaved like a monkey, swinging from tree to tree. However once so often, it pulled out the tree it was jumping from and tore it down so that it crashed in front of the soldier.
Criuck!
However Almun wasn't naive enough to underestimate it, although he had sensed it earlier before it's sneak-attack, if he hadn't a near perfect mastery in the Wind Attribute, then he may have not gone out of that exchange unscathed.
Knowing this, he didn't let down from hunting the being till they reached a clearing inside the forest. The shadow rushed into the middle and as it had reached the center, multiple black spheres formed around it.
Almun instantly deployed a magical circle which shot several cuts through the air towards the shadow.
However contrary to the spheres from the other shadow, these expanded into flat circles upon connecting with the wind-sabers. Like an elastic piece of plastic they extended a bit to the back and then bounced back, making the cuts fly back onto Almun.
However through a simple wave of his wand all spells that he had cast dissipated and only left a soft breeze.
"What are you?"
"..."
The mysterious being tilted it's head by 90 degrees and reached it's hand forward. From it erupted a black spike that kept elongating towards Almun. He quickly began running across the boarder of the woods and the clearing as the spike began following behind him.
During which he drew several circles that kept floating in the air but didn't cast anything. However after some distance the spike stopped extending itself. Then only after few seconds all circles started rotating faster and faster and thew shadow deployed several more black spheres around it which then shot forwards and again extended into rubber-like nets.
Almun however seemed to have anticipated that already as the magical circles suddenly dodged the flying attack by floating far higher into the air as if an updraft caused it.
"Bombardo!"
In an instant, the entire area around the shadow and where it stood exploded as the circles shot forward multiple giant concentrated wind gusts.
Before even thinking about anything else, the trained soldier deployed several other magical circles around his entire body which latched onto him like larva.
An enormous dust cloud erupted from the center, but out of it flew tons of spikes with the intention to pierce through the captain.
However even before touching him, several of Almun's magical circles lighted up pushing him into different directions, getting him to dodge.
'What the hell is that thing....'
Even for him a continuous battle would be fatal, especially when he knew that the longer they fought, his Mana Vault could deplete. It took a lot of time but it seemed that these beings also had enough to spent for now.
Without any prior knowledge of a fight, it would be really not intelligent to keep fighting.
As if knowing this fact, the shadow erupted out of the slowly settling smokescreen, instead from before however it had a long black spear in it's hand.
Dashing forward towards the mage, the quickly drew again several magical circles which created a gust, that shot him into the air which followed with several wind scythes raining down onto the 'spirit'.
In response, it spun several times the spear over it's head, deflecting again all the attacks.
They were evenly matched however, the spirit had one advantage.
It could seemingly swap fluently between close combat and sorcery.
"Tsk, try this then! Ballast!"
As the shadow tried to jump, a huge magical circle had formed below it. From it came a pressure as a unusually wind came down upon the figure which went down onto it's knees.
Almun landed 20 meters away from the spot and smirked as he had created the following circle earlier while the spirit had no vision on him.
Splat!
Then as if out of nothing, black spikes flew out of the ground right in front of Almun, making him jump backwards, but he wasn't fast enough as they scraped him on his left leg and through the right shoulder.
"URGH!"
Like tentacles, they flung around after hitting their target and threw him to the other side of the clearing.
The captain rolled over the ground and stabled himself, breathing heavily while clutching his right arm. At the same time, the giant circle below the spirit shattered like glass and it sat itself upright.
The spikes also retracted back into the ground and then it could be seen, the thing had used the fact that it's palms touched the ground to send the spikes through the ground to Almun.
"Fuck..."
As the being tilted again it's head, several shrill sounds erupted and the eyes of Almun began to widen, as he saw how several giant beasts rushed from different directions of the forest towards the clearing.
Then the shadow showed the captain the reason for this sudden change, it pointed into the middle of the clearing. Out of nothing, the body of a Disaster ranked Monster was lying in the middle of the ground crushed and pushed into the dirt.
The blood that seeped out of it was like a pheromone for other Monster, so it naturally attracted the remaining Monster of the surroundings.
"You bastard!"
Before even thinking how to escape, the military officer created a dozen of magical circles that shot forward huge wind sabers. That being somehow made that body appear and used it as a shield from his prior 'Bombardo'.
The thought of being tricked by a being which couldn't even speak infuriated the decorated soldier.
The shadow however sunk back into the ground disappearing like it never existed while the man was left to fend off several Monsters.
-----
'Oh fuck!'
Arrows rained down from the sky upon us which were constantly shot by the archer. On top of that the 2 close combat soldiers weren't too close but remained on our tail.
"Run into that rock maze over there!"
Commanding the shadow, which carried me, it turned towards an area in the forest where tons of rocks of different sizes lied around.
This had been the lair of a snake-like Monster however, I knew that space pretty well.
Why?
Well in one of Damascus training sessions, he threw me into this maze and told me that the snake beast was always roaming through it. Luckily I had escaped it the first few times until Damascus thought that it was boring and killed the Monster as if it were a bug.
We then ran into the rock maze as I guided the shadow to a good place.
'Okay.. we have some time until they found us, I only found this spot after some hours in here. And that archer won't even be able to enter here because it will render him useless.'
I looked at the shadow which stood rigidly around waiting for my next commando.
"Call the other guy and get him to make their leader busy for some minutes. then make him take care of that archer outside while we take care of the 2 inside here."
After 5 seconds, it nodded as if saying that the message had been delivered.
"Good, now what we will do is..."
-----
"Stop!"
The 2 soldiers stopped as Sergeant Diedlem cried out his order as he slowly reached the entry to the rock maze after his subordinates.
Private Marsh went through his bright blonde hair with his hand while yawning loudly.
"I can't enter so you guys have to carry these, with that I know where you are going and where enemies in your surroundings are. I can give you support even from out here."
Diedlem took out 2 small gems that glowed a slight green hint. They were gems that Captain Almun had prepared for him in case that a situation like this came up.
"As said, retrieving the child is our mission for now. We know nothing of the enemies capabilities. One of you has to distract that thing while the other steals the boy..."
"Okay okay Diedlem... We are going inside."
Marsh acknowledged the commands halfhearted as he never really liked Diedlem and his attitude. It was understandable for the Captain to act like he did but for Diedlem who only became Sergeant due to luck as every other member was as strong as him, it seemed absurd to behave serious around him alone.
"Take care."
Private Anes waved for a short moment and then followed Marsh into the maze.
-----
The 2 soldiers were rushing through the labyrinth and after only 18 minutes they had covered most of the maze besides one spot: the center. Coincidentally this were the sleeping grounds of the Monster that had lived there before being annihilated by Damascus.
Reaching the middle both Marsh and Anes went into a fighting stance as their enemy stood in front of them. The boy they were supposed to rescue lied down behind it in an open maw of the skeleton of a giant monster.
Anes was a vampire-human hybrid which made her perfect for the current situation as the nigth had set in in which her power had a considerable boost.
"Haaaah"
Slowly her canine teeth grew at an alarming rate, becoming sharper and her eyes started glowing a bright red.
Marsh then also walked forward slowly as he had the job of getting the boy. In these narrow corridors, it was difficult for him to fully use his chain katars.
As they got closer and closer to the spirit, an arrow flew down from the air like an artillery strike, beginning the battle.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH"
Anes jumped towards the shadow which in response attacked also the vampire in a full on assault. Normally, it would have been easily able to annihilate her in a few attacks alone. But due to her empowerment, it became clear that it wasn't going to be as easy.
They exchanged multiple strikes with their fists, creating shockwave after shockwave.
Marsh then proceeded to dash forward as well, using the momentum to get past the shadow. And even though it tried to block him, several arrows prevented any intervention.
BRCKSH!
Anes then kept pushing , crashing into a wall with the spirit, bringing their fight into another corridor.
Standing in front of the boy, he scornfully looked down upon him.
"Disgusting..."
In the world, there weren't many things that brought up the dispute of discrimination. As there existed thousands of different races, there was a common acceptance of many things.
Besides being born without a Mana Vault. They were most often killed at birth and when not, they would live in slums outside of major cities. In some countries, it was even seen as a crime to have no Mana.
The Luxrion Empire wasn't different from most, people with no Mana Vault or any other deficiency like that were shunned. So the fact that he had to touch and rescue such a being, made Marsh disgusted.
"Fucking hell, couldn't we just have tried killing those things. This thing doesn't even have a life anyway..."
Marsh then bowed forward, although something happened he didn't expect.
XIU!
"A-"
Feeling a burning sensation for a moment, Marsh stopped midtrack.
If one looked at him, one could see how a cleanly cut, medium-sized hole was going from one end of his stomach to the other.
Slowly blood gathered in his face which he couldn't hold long in as it spewed out spraying the boy in front of him red. He then broke then and coughed several times.
"Urghh!"
"Now I have to clean myself...."
The soldiers eyes widened as he looked forward only to see how the boy in front of him sat there, emotionlessly with a mysterious looking magical circle slowly dissipating from his right hand.
Blood covered his face and slowly dripped down, dying his white clothes in a dark red. His eyes glowed golden but didn't hint at anything as there was nothing.
In shock, Marsh crawled back several feet.
"H-- How?!"
He had never heard of somebody with no Mana being able to cast spells. Even through runes it should have been impossible, especially a magical circle that seemed as intricate as the one of the boy.
"You can ask that your god."
Emotionlessly, the boy spoke in a cold manner as he stretched his hand out, slowly creating again an intricate magical circle with runic letters Marsh had never seen before.
"Urgh.... DIEDLEM cough! HELP!"
However even when he pled for help, no arrow came for his help. The last thing the tall man saw was only a golden flicker which then proceeded to engulf his view.
"I decide of your fate..."
As his head disintegrated , the rest of his body fell backward.
-----
"Grrraaaaaaaaahhhhh!"
Anes kept slashing with her claw-like hands at the shadow who continued to dodge more effortlessly with each swing.
Although being part vampire which were known for a huge Mana Reserve, Anes wasn't too lucky and had only a short amount of Mana. This lead to her reaching a limit in recent years in terms of strength.
This could also be seen during the fight because the longer she fought the ghost, it became evident that it was toying with her.
As an anger appeared unlike her usual calm and silent demeanor, she jumped forward.
Sadly, this wasn't the best decision because as she jumped onto the being, it simply embraced her. It's hold was tight and it didn't stop even with her starting to bite into it.
Frustrated it thought of DIedlem's support but nothing came.
No arrow
No message.
Nothing
Then as if it were nothing, the shadows head slowly expanding and engulfed the young vampire, the last thing coming from her was a shrill scream.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
-----
I slowly walked out of the maze as I was till drenched in blood from that soldier of earlier.
Honestly, I was quite angry the moment I killed him. I had never understood why some people thought they were better than others. And from what I had seen or heard, he was the perfect exemplar for such people.
My hair was now slightly pinkish as the rest of the blood had slowly dripped onto my face and clothing.
As I walked out I heard a gurgling sound and I saw how the spirit that had distracted the leader had put spikes through the body of the archer.
He was already dead but blood kept leaking out his body...
"I thought I would feel more..."
I was pretty confused as I had thought that killing somebody would be painfully difficult but the more I thought of it, the less I cared about it.
In a way, it even felt relieving, because the moment I dealt with that soldier from earlier, even if only for a short moment, I felt free. I quickly shook these thoughts off my mind because there were more alarming matters to attend to.
'No, I am not some sicko who enjoys those things!'
I had to somehow alarm Damascus and get his help, else it would not be long till other groups found me...
As I thought of a way to get help, the other shadow also came out of the floor as he seemingly had dealt with the female soldier.
The wind gave a slight breeze around us and I thought I could finally order my thoughts and get a few deep breaths.
But as fate had it, I never had the option to gather myself.
I only saw for a moment how the 2 shadows started moving towards me as I felt wind pushing me into my back and it pushed me onto both of them and we crashed into the rocks behind me.
BRKSHHH!
CHRKSHH!
BROOM!
Rocks were flying through the air and shattered against trees which broke down. I led on the floor as I coughed heavily and feeling a sharp pain over my entire body.
Thanks to the spirits, I had been cushioned. They however didn't seem to be in the most perfect shape.
Both didn't have enough energy to move, it was as if they sacrificed it to keep me safe...
Looking forward I then saw it.
One bright green eye, a ripped uniform as well as a missing left arm and a torn apart face. The leader of the troop had survived although injured but the intensity of his energy was far stronger than earlier.
'Oh no....'
He had ascended a rank....
"So it was you..."