《The Hidden Seed (in Hiatus for a Rewrite)》


 01-Running

    Why?


    The only word that found its way into Susan''s mind at that moment.


    Why?


    The word that never left her mind ever since this madness began.


    Why those she trusted, those she admired, those she respected more than her family and any other person, were now burning her village after making sure that everyone was dead, everyone except her.


    She who her father woke up after a soldier he knew told him about the orders they got, to destroy the village and kill everyone in it.


    That soldier tried to help but he was the first to fall after his comrades saw him helping them.


    Then her dad, her mom and her little sister all died while trying to reach the forest.


    The forest was a dangerous place at night because of all the monsters that inhabited it. Even soldiers wouldn''t dare approach it at that time.


    And so, the villagers were trapped between it and the soldiers.


    And there she was, stumbling through a place she never dared to get close to.


    ...


    From a distance, a stranger was trying to reach Forest''s Edge village, his destination after a few long months of travelling, yet he knew nothing about what was happening there.


    Suddenly, he heard the sound of light footsteps.


    Due to his origin, his senses were sharper than most races.


    He always admired the moments he reached those secluded villages and the looks of admiration and wonder on the faces of children, and sometimes even adults.


    Those stares filled with respect, anticipation and even a bit of fear. After all, for most of them, seeing a member of one of the world''s strongest races wasn''t something that would happen every day, even with the problems his different appearance would give him sometimes...


    He also knew that the village he was heading towards was one of the Alpha''s protected villages, where most inhabitants were humans, except a few soldiers who were from some minor races working there as guards.


    Because of his advanced sense of hearing, he concluded that the one heading towards him wasn''t a beast or a monster, but from the rhythm of the footsteps and the intermittent crying, he was able to determine that it was a person, and most likely a human.


    "What would lead a human to the forest at this time of night?" He wondered and headed to where the owner of the voice was heading...


    ***


    Running forward!


    That was all she thought about, she forgot being barefoot, forgot that she was inside the forest and forgot her childhood''s fears, those fears that followed her even to her dreams, and that deep-rooted horror of the forest, all of that disappeared.


    Seeing her mom, dad and little sister whom she had always loved getting killed at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them, made her lose all her senses.


    And there she was, running forward, without stopping to see what was left behind, surviving, that was what she wanted and that was what pushed her.


    It was a moonless night, and the night sky was barely seen through the intertwined canopy, making things even darker, yet, she just ran forward avoiding the towering trees and dense bushes.


    Suddenly, to her horror, she caught a sound from behind her.


    It was the sound of light, but fast footsteps. Bleaching, she tried to move faster but that sound just kept on getting closer and closer.


    ''What''s happening?'' She thought.


    The soldiers would usually never dare enter the forest at night, and they for sure would never do that because of her, and why would they? She was but a girl that had a zero chance of surviving alone in there, even she understood that deep down.


    So, what would push the soldiers to go after her?


    Or, could it be that it was a beast?


    That thought, even though she was at her limit, that thought made her explode with a new sense of vigour as she increased her speed.


    Even though what awaited her if that that was pursuing her was a soldier or a beast were the same, the idea that she was going to die at the hand of a beast brought back her childhood''s nightmares and gave her a boost in speed.


    But even with that, those footsteps kept on getting closer to her, as if no matter how much she accelerated, those footsteps would accelerate many times that.


    Just as she was about to lose herself in her fears and horrors, those footsteps disappeared, which didn''t make her feel any better, because it was just as weird as them appearing at first.


    While she was still thinking about that, and with her heart drumming in her ears, someone tackled her from the side.


    ''So it was a soldier... At least I won''t be ripped to pieces by beasts...'' That was the last thought that went through her mind before everything went dark and she lost consciousness...


    ***


    On his way to the village after catching the human, the stranger tried to conclude what might have happened there, the closer he got, the stronger and clearer the scent of blood and smoke got.


    ''Could it be an attack from some bandits? Or maybe a monster that all the runic glyphs weren''t able to stop?''


    In the end, he decided that he had to stop heading towards the village and wait for the human to wake up, she probably was going to give him more detailed information about what was happening there.


    Besides... There was something weird about her herself, he decided to look into it.


    ***


    Opening her eyes, the first thing Susan noticed was that she was sleeping on a simple bed made of some thick clothes, and covered by what appeared to be the processed hide of some type of animal, it was radiating some heat and she didn''t feel cold at all, even though it was so thin it gave the impression that it wouldn''t even be able to help her preserve her own warmth, let alone warm her.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    She tried to sit up and look around in panic, but feeling a stinging pain in her left arm stopped her, reminding her of what had happened to her and that she was tacked while she was running away.


    It seemed that her trying to move alarmed whoever it was that caught her because she heard a voice shortly after that:


    "Your hand''s wound hadn''t recovered yet, it''s also a bit deep, sorry for that by the way, you were heading toward a cliff, I had to stop you," The voice was calm and gentle.


    She put her hand on the wound and tried to look at the source of the voice, but she wasn''t able to see anything, everything was dark and she could barely make out a blurry shape in front of her.


    "Can I ask you something?" He continued hesitatingly after a bit of silence, "What happened in that close by village? You''re from there, aren''t you?"


    After hearing those words, different memories came rushing in again, the moments her mom, dad and little sister died, the scared, unbelieving screams of her friends and acquaintances as they were cut down one by one in cold blood.


    That was more than she could handle and she soon fell into a crying mess as shrunk up and covered her face.


    "Did the soldiers guarding you attack you?" after she had cried for a while and calmed down a bit, she heard the stranger ask.


    His question hit her at the core, even though she didn''t want to speak, she found herself opening her mouth and pushing three words in a crispy cracking voice:


    "Wh... Who are you?"


    He was asking her about what was happening in the village, so he wasn''t for sure a soldier from there. But what was a lone man doing in the forest at night?


    "Who am I?" The voice next to her said, "You can call me Adam, I''m... Hmm, a wandering adventurer you can say? Yeah, that would work I guess."


    The carefree way in which he held himself and spoke even though they were inside the forest at night gave her a weird feeling, no one she knew ever was this relaxed for even getting closer to it at night, not to mention being in it.


    She started feeling a bit of suspicion about him after she calmed down a bit more, so she narrowed her eyes and tried to look in the general direction where his voice was coming from, but as expected she still couldn''t see anything.


    "Sorry about not setting a fire, we''re too close to the village and I didn''t want to risk making ourselves a screaming target amidst the dark for no reason whatsoever, and without understanding what''s happening there," While she was still trying her best to see him clearly, she heard his calm words again.


    ''Exactly!'' She felt something from how he spoke just as she tried to take a better look at him, so she asked with some guesses already in her mind:


    "Are... Are you a human?"


    "An origin? No, of course not, I''m a livitus," The stranger, Adam, answered with a hint of amusement in his voice, then he added after a small pause, and with a bit of hesitation, "you''re... A human, right?"


    "A... A livitus?" She asked with a dry mouth, "one... One of the members of the Pact of Ten?"


    Hugging herself tighter as a shiver went down her spine, she tried again to get a better look at Adam as what she knew about the livitus from her grandfather went through her mind.


    They were one of the races that stood against the queen of the phas in the Great War, a race well known for their magical and physical strength, perfect war machines with their huge muscular bodies and their silky white hair.


    "You know quite a bit," he said with the same carefree tone as the one from before.


    Susan though was thinking about another thing, the second part of what he said finally registered to her, she found it quite baffling, she knew that humans weren''t that common in Tellor, but for it to reach the point where someone wasn''t even able to recognise her as a human, that was a bit absurd.


    "Yes... I''m a human," She said after holding back her thoughts, then she added after a bit, "My name... is Susan."


    Unseen by Susan, Adam tried to hide the surprised expression on his face at her answer.


    "...Okay, listen, Susan, it seems that tonight was quite hard for you, so why don''t we leave the rest of our conversation for tomorrow? why don''t you take some rest for now?" He suggested after a period of silence.


    "Hmm..." She acknowledged as she covered herself in that animal hide cover.


    She wasn''t comfortable with the idea of sleeping in the woods, not to mention the stranger next to her, but she couldn''t control herself, and after a very short period of silence, she fell asleep, as if every single part of her body was tired from what happened to her and couldn''t go on any longer¡­


    ***


    Adam lifted his head and looked at the human laying a distance away from him, her breathing had become smoother after only a short time, showing that she had fallen asleep, it seemed that she was really tired, something to be expected with her running through the forest as she had done...


    Remembering that? he couldn''t help but shake his head, he had enough time to ask her about all his doubts after she woke up, and after she had taken enough rest. But even with that, he was already sure...


    She wasn''t a normal human at all.

 02-Lupri

    Lupri: the First''s Castle:


    Lexand entered the throne room for the first time in quite a while, something weird considering how much he was needed there because of his occupation and status.


    Once his right foot took the first step to the hall, his blood froze as he felt a glance fall on him, a glance that made his already small and fragile body contract on itself even more, before ignoring him and letting him take a deep breath and feel life return to him again.


    Lexand was wearing a luxurious blue robe embodied with some golden threads that covered his whole body. He was small, way too small, around the size of a child at the age of ten or eleven, but his bald head was big and the back of it was elongated to the point where it seemed as if it arched back a bit, along his head was what appeared to be black tattoos covering all of it.


    Lexand was a vodico, who were also known as connectors, his obvious traits were because of his race.


    Connectors were, even though they weren''t a part of The Pact of Ten, some of the most sought after people in Tellor, they were so valuable and important to the point where most kingdoms and important figures were ready to forgive them for most crimes, being lenient with them to an absurd degree, having them do work as punishment for most of the time.


    Not everything could be forgiven though, there were some things that no vodico could be forgiven for, and if it was proven that they did them, their fate was nothing but death.


    All those, along with their physical and magical weakness, gave them some very unique personality traits; most of them were cowards, ready to change their allegiance at the moment their masters'' change and their lives become at the risk of a new one.


    The reason for this type of appreciation to the vodico was because of their unique racial skill. Which was their ability to connect with fellow vodico through long distances, the length of which depended on their individual talents, skills and levels, it was particularly impossible to cut the connection between two connectors using external methods, as soon as a vodico meets another vodico face to face, they would get the ability to speak with one another mentally with no other tools as long as their magic was enough.


    The throne never failed to amaze Lexand, and it was the same this time, entering it wasn''t rare for him considering his position and job, and not a lot of changes happened since the last time he had been there, the most obvious of which was how the person sitting in the throne had changed and the disappearance of the queen from her seat, changes no matter how small they appeared would cause the biggest shock the world had seen in centuries.


    The hall had light shining green tiles covering the floor and many engraved gigantic pillars holding the shockingly high ceiling, There were also many murals covering the walls that depicted many scenes:


    Some showed great wars with people from different races, others showed a group of ten men and women who all had different bodily features, making it clear that they were from different races, sitting around a round table with solemn air around them, then another showed a war even greater than the one before it, with fires, ashes and blood filling the whole mural expressing just how grim and dark the situation was, and the last few all depicted a well-built man with a glowing gem on his forehead, painting him as a saviour of some kind.


    Another strange thing about the hall was that there was no source of light in it at all, yet it wasn''t dark or gloomy and had its own warm natural light.


    What always amazed Lexand the most though, were those eleven great statues inside the hall, they were enormous, but that didn''t mean that they didn''t have a lot of intricate details, and even now after thousands of years have passed since the day they were first made, they were still as solemn and majestic as they were then.


    Five of them were on each side of the hall, one facing the other, while the last statue was in a different position from the other, it was behind the throne, it seemed as if it had the biggest status among all the other statues.


    The ten statues that were facing each other represented the members of The Pact of Ten, ten of the strongest races in the world and the races that rose to save it from the cruelty of the wicked queen of the phas that almost took control of the world back then. While the last one, the statue which seemed to have the biggest status among them was a statue of an origin, a human.


    That always made Lexand question just what was the first Alpha thinking when he asked for this castle to be built, and especially this room.


    After Lexand moved for a bit, he finally stopped before the first step leading to the platform that lifted the throne.


    Only then did that glance return to him again, it didn''t have any emotions or coldness, just heaviness that Lexand couldn''t handle at all, he found himself falling to his knees and lowering his head, which he never lifted, even more.


    That pressure was different from what the Alpha often radiated, the Alpha''s suppression came from deep inside of him, from his soul, as if he was under a curse or a seal he would never be able to fight against no matter how much he struggled or tried, this, on the other hand, wasn''t like that, it was pure terror, the sheer fear of a predator that would rip him to pieces at any given moment.


    "Something wrong happened?" A voice he had never heard before sounded in his ears, it was calm, gentle, but emotionless, not at all what Lexand expected from the owner of that freezing gaze that swept him.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    "Ye... Yes, your Highness... Your lowly followers have failed their task, things didn''t go as you ordered... A.. Al..." He took a deep breath, repressing the rising terror inside of his heart while he fought hard to make his voice heard, "All the members of that family have... Have been kil-... Emm!"


    Before Lexand could complete his sentence he felt a crushing pressure from the eyes that were on him. As if the air around him froze, he couldn''t speak under that pressure and oppression, but that didn''t last long, soon the glance returned to its bearable state from before, as if its owner controlled himself again.


    "What happened? Speak," The owner of the voice still had the same manner of speaking, but Lexand felt as if he was walking on the edge of an abyss, one wrong step would mean death.


    He took a deep breath and continued with cold sweat covering his forehead, "when... When the leader of the soldiers gathered them to tell them about the orders they got, one... One soldier slipped away and went to the family''s house to warn them so they can run away... He did that before their captain explained all of your orders... So he didn''t hear the last part..." Lexand was trembling as he recounted what happened. Those eyes concentrating on him made all of that tremendously hard, yet he knew that he had to do his job.


    "After that..." He continued as he gulped, "while they were running, the soldiers saw what was happening and... They attacked them... That led to the death of every member of that family, the soldier included, except their oldest daughter who fled to the Beasts'' Forest..."


    A deafening silence fell on the great hall, the mental pressure was getting heavier on Lexand. Being in the presence of the person in front of him was already a hard thing to handle, without him being under this weird pressure that rose from inside him and the possibility of the other party exploding with anger on him.


    "That soldier," the owner of the voice finally said, "Did he have this much of a good relationship with this family? To the point of him sacrificing everything, his life, to save them?" There was a hint of clear doubt in his calm and gentle voice.


    "I... I don''t know... That hadn''t been mentioned, your Highness." Lexand was sweating as he answered.


    "... Sigh," after a while, the owner of the voice released a long sigh before continuing, "Ok, ask of the soldiers in that village to go and search for her."


    Lexand was shocked, he wanted to speak up about how hard it would be for a squad of normal soldiers to enter the Beasts'' Forest to search for one person, but he decided against it in the end, he was still afraid of his new master and didn''t want to anger him for the sake of some soldiers he neither knew nor cared about.


    "Doyle," Said the owner of the voice while Lexand was still lost in his thoughts, without directing his word to anyone.


    Suddenly, Lexand felt a chill go down his back and all his hair stood on end, turning around fast, he saw his shadow ripple a bit before what appeared as a man totally covered in a black robe came out of it, not even an inch of his body was seen, all of him was hidden under that black robe, there wasn''t even a slit for where his eyes were supposed to be.


    "A skugg?" Blurted Lexand when he saw the person appear from behind him, but even when he was truly surprised, he remembered to control his voice and keep it from going above the appropriate limits unconsciously.


    "Send him to them," Ordered the owner of the voice in the same calm tone.


    "Will do, Your Highness," Answered Lexand.


    "Remember, the girl''s safety is before all," The owner of the voice reminded the man covered in black, before adding while he turned to Lexand, "Also, call the connectors of the members of Pact of Ten, tell them that the Alpha... Is asking for a meeting in four days, their presence is mandatory," There was an unconcealed sense of mockery in his voice when he said the word ''Alpha''.


    "Will do, Your Highness," Lexand didn''t argue even though he found the owner of the voice''s use of the Alpha''s name a bit weird, he was sure that by then, the news had already reached every and any individual with a bit of authority in Tellor, it was impossible to keep the news about something like this hidden no matter how hard someone tried, not to mention that the person sitting in front of him hadn''t tried to conceal or stop the news from spreading.


    "Start the connection," The voice sounded again.


    "I will, your Highness," Lexand bowed to the owner of the voice before closing his eyes and starting to send the message.


    The tattoo-like patterns on his head gradually shone with a light green light from his forehead to the back of his head, after a few seconds, when all the patterns had lit up, he opened his eyes and they too shone with the same green light, albeit stronger.


    This continued for a few short seconds before everything eventually disappeared and went back to normal after Lexand closed his eyes. A second after, he opened them again before bowing his head to the owner of the voice and saying:


    "It''s done, Your Highness."


    The owner of the voice nodded as he ordered:


    "Go then, send Doyle to his mission."


    ***


    ''What''s so special about this human?'' Adam thought while he looked at the human, Susan, while she slept.


    She appeared ordinary, he couldn''t find any clear difference between her and any other human he met before, she was a young woman with normal features, maybe 23 or 24 of age, with golden hair that reached her shoulders.


    ''Everything about her is normal, so how...''


    While he was still lost in his musings, Adam lifted his head abruptly and moved his eyes from the sleeping Susan, turning his head towards the village with a deep frown on his face.


    "A movement in mana? A reception ritual...?" He murmured.


    After a bit of thinking, a look of doubt and hesitation appeared on Adam''s face as he looked at the sleeping Susan then shook his head.


    He didn''t really know what he was getting himself into, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that it wasn''t simple.


    The night before, after he made sure that Susan had fallen asleep and that she was safe, he left her and headed to Forest''s Edge. He wanted to know if he could obtain some answers or clues about what happened.


    Even before reaching there, he had already noticed a lot of problematic little details about the village itself; the number of soldiers was more than what he usually met in other similar human villages, and they were from far stronger races than the average, that could be attributed to this being the Beasts'' Forest and it being way more dangerous than any of the other locations of similar villages, but it still wouldn''t explain it all.


    When he reached there, as he expected, he found the village closer to a living hell than a village, corpses were thrown everywhere and soldiers were moving around in groups.


    He observed for a while and all he came with was that the soldiers were under orders from above to kill everyone in the village except Susan and her family, but a mistake happened and in the end, even her family members were killed, and only she was able to run away.


    And even that he was only able to get because there seemed to be some kind of conflict between the soldiers, with them splitting up into two groups and the clash that happened between the leaders of each group.


    That was all he had and those pieces of information only gave him more questions that needed answers.


    With one last look at Susan, Adam turned around and headed to the village again, he wanted to see how much time they had left, and to see if getting himself in all this chaos for a stranger was worth it.

 03-Moving

    "Around ten minutes..." Adam murmured to himself as he looked at a certain group of soldiers in the village


    At that moment they were injecting their mana into long runic glyphs engraved rectangular pillars that stood at different locations in the magic circle made of runic glyphs under the command of a man wearing a green embroidered robe and holding a long staff.


    The man had the height and built of a normal human being, he could be mistaken as one if not for his way bigger head and the third eye between his eyebrows, if one was careful enough, they would be able to notice that the man''s hands too were a lot bigger than normal, and they had longer and thinner fingers, yet, they gave the impression that they would be able to generate a huge amount of force.


    Adam recognised the man''s race straight away, he was an encolian, a race well known for their well-made tools and their demanding magic in terms of control, there were also a lot of legends about them being the race that used forbidden spells and magic the most, but as was clear from the name, that type of magic was forbidden by the Alpha, so they couldn''t just use it so willy-nilly at those times.


    Not all the soldiers were working on injecting their mana in those different pillars though, some of them were guarding around the borders of the village while others were digging some graves to bury the dead villagers.


    At that moment, the dead villagers were being put in one corner of the village, close to what seemed to be a cemetery.


    As he looked at the operation that was almost ending, Adam thought for a bit before sighing and shaking his head.


    "And it''s still a new bow..." He murmured sadly as he removed his bow from his back. The bow was just a normal wooden bow without anything special about it, a bow Adam bought from a random village while journeying.


    He took an arrow from his quiver and nocked it, after that, his expression became serious while he aimed at the magic circle, the encolians had a strong sensitivity to mana, and he was sure that soon after starting to prepare for his attack, he would get found out, so there was no room for error and he had to succeed in one try, not that that was a problem for him though.


    With that thought, a light smile appeared on Adam''s face and with that, a milky white light enveloped the bow and arrow, and in the next second, two different things happened at the same time.


    The encolian, who was busy giving orders to the soldiers, turned around as fast as lightning and, without having the luxury of time to warn those around him of what was coming or to ask for help, he lifted his hands towards where Adam was, making a shining blue barrier appear between them.


    The second thing was the appearance of a small tunnel enough for an arrow to pass through between where Adam was and the magic circle, the small tunnel was made of the same milky white light that enveloped his bow and arrow, and it manifested in the blink of an eye.


    As soon as the tunnel appeared, Adam released his arrow, the arrow went through the milky white tunnel at an increasing speed, and as soon as it passed a part of the milky white tunnel, the latter would crumble and enter the arrow, making it shine even brighter and increase its speed.


    The arrow reached the barrier that the encolian raised in the blink of an eye and passed through it without any resistance and headed straight to the magic circle, at the time the arrow reached its target, its brightness was blinding and it wasn''t possible to look straight at it.


    Soon, the arrow hit the centre of the circle, and a huge explosion that shook the ground and threw the soldiers who were around it away, happened, the lucky among them had serious injuries, while the unlucky were already dead by the time they hit the ground.


    That huge explosion wasn''t only because of the arrow, the majority of its strength was because of the reaction of the mana already in the magic circle with the exploding arrow.


    Adam, on the other hand, was already gone, there was no reason for him to remain there, after all, the reception ritual''s magic circle was already destroyed and it wouldn''t be rebuilt any time soon, so his work was already done.


    At the village, hardly a few seconds after the explosion, two figures appeared next to its centre, they were extremely different from one another, to the point that they only had a few things in common between them, like their height, as both of them were more than two meters and half, or how both of them were covered in dirt.


    One of them was a man who appeared to be in his late thirties, he had a thin but strong and flexible body that held no hair at all, he also had a dark purple skin colour and every one of his facial features was absurdly big; his ears, eyes, and even his mouth, every one of them was attention-grabbing and ever moving.


    The other, on the other hand, was a muscular man, he appeared as if he would be able to lift a tree and wave it easily.


    His body had light brown fur covering it all over, his head was round and his ears were small half-circles on top of it, he also had long sharp teeth that gave the impression that they would be able to cut through anything.


    They were respectively, an amaryn and a semigin, two of the most common and strongest races in Tellor.


    "Fiden, what happened?" The muscular semigin asked in a loud voice while he looked around him carefully with a half crouching stance keeping his attention on their surroundings.


    "We were attacked, I only felt it after it was already too late, damn it, the circle itself is useless now," A voice sounded from the smoke and dust, following it was the unique shape of the encolian, his green robe was shining with complex runic glyphs, manifesting an oval barrier around him.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "Can you find the attacker?" The semigin turned his head to the thin man next to him who only shook his head and answered:


    "I felt something when we had just arrived, but it''s already gone right now."


    "Damn it, you! Go to the connector and get him to send this to the higher up, we will see what we will have to do after that," The semigin, who seemed to be their leader, ordered a closeby soldier before turning to the other soldiers around and shouting:


    "Stay vigilant, the attacker might return at any moment, don''t let your guard down."


    ***


    Susan woke up surprised and panicked as she looked around in shock.


    She was confused and her heart was beating fast as her head looked from one place to the other with a pale face and wide eyes.


    Then the sight of the trees all around her and the leak of any familiar sights or buildings made her remember what she had been through the night before.


    The fires, the screaming and the blood, the bodies of her mom and dad and little sister all dead in front of her, all those were real it wasn''t just some hellish realistic nightmare.


    Her eyes filled with tears and she felt shortness of breath, she curled up and started crying as she hugged her feet.


    While she was still in that state, she suddenly heard the sound of a branch breaking from behind her. turning around in panic, she froze for a second before jumping from where she was and holding a little knife she had seen before, pointing it in the direction of the sound, and by so the man standing there.


    "Hey, calm down, it''s me, have you already forgotten me?" The man said in a joking tone she found a bit familiar.


    "A... Adam?" Asked Susan with not just a bit of doubt and without putting down her knife.


    "And who else could it be, then?" Adam said as he shook his head.


    "But... But..." Susan didn''t know what to say.


    Maybe she had never seen a livitus herself, but her grandfather told her about them and how they looked.


    The livitus were a part of the Pact of Ten, they were some of the strongest when it came to face to face fights, they were simply perfect warriors.


    They were supposed to be half-giants, people that could reach three meters in height with bulging muscles covering each and every part of their bodies, they also had silky white hair that they liked letting flow freely and silver lines covering their bodies like twisting snakes.


    The person in front of her, though, was the exact opposite of that, he appeared to be a normal human, not to mention someone from another race, she had even seen some humans who had bigger and better builts than him.


    He had short black hair and there were absolutely no silver lines across his body. The only things that could be considered a bit different about him than the other humans she knew would be his long brown coat, the blue embroidered gloves on his hands, and the short sword on his waist.


    "From your reaction, I take it that you know a bit about us, but don''t worry, I''m a pure-blooded livitus, the best of the best, it''s just that I''m a bit unique, that''s all," Adam said in the same easygoing playful tone, before adding with an expression that was way more serious, "I would love to explain to you, but unfortunately, we can''t have that type of conversation right now, we have to get moving, for some reason, those soldiers really want you, I wouldn''t even be surprised if they decide to enter the forest after you."


    "Im... Impossible! They fear the forest, they would never enter it," exclaimed Susan in disbelief.


    "Well, believe what you want, I''ll be leaving soon anyway, you can choose to stay here if you want," said Adam as he shrugged his shoulders and started collecting his things.


    Susan felt overwhelmed, with a weird sensation filling her body, like a wave of heat that left behind it a tingling feeling on her skin as panic started setting in, she wasn''t ready for something like this, she never would have imagined that she would find her in such a situation with chooses like these thrown at her.


    Susan also knew that she actually had no real choice. Adam was, no matter how suspicious and untrustworthy he seemed, her only chance at leaving there alive, she couldn''t possibly survive on her own in the forest.


    And even if he had lied about his race, he was still travelling through the forest calmly, so he was probably able to protect himself at the very least.


    After thinking things through, she took a deep breath, steadying her heart and took small deliberate steps toward him as she asked:


    "Anything I can help you with?"


    She knew Adam had no reason to take her with him, and that she was practically a dead weight, so she tried to make herself useful as much as she could.


    "Hmm? Ah, no there''s nothing," answered Adam as he folded the cover and clothes that Susan was using.


    After he was done, he glanced at Susan casually and his eyes fell on her feet, the young woman wasn''t wearing any shoes or the like, and she had run barefoot across the forest the night before, so, there was still a lot of wounds on her feet, the sun had also just risen and there were a lot of cold drops of dew on the short blades of grass, so, walking through the forest in the state was going to be a big problem for her.


    He thought for a bit before removing his shoes and giving them to her:


    "Here, you will need them more than me," he said as he handed them over.


    "... What about you?" She asked hesitantly.


    "Oh, it''s alright, I''m used to walking barefoot, after all, you can''t always reach a new village at the right time to replace your shoes," Said Adam as he weaved his hands dismissively.


    He truly seemed as if he didn''t mind, but she still hesitated, noticing that, he added:


    "There really isn''t that much of a difference between wearing shoes or not for me, only a small feeling of weirdness but nothing serious."


    With that, Susan finally took the shoes with a small ''thank you'' and wore them.


    "Alrighty then, let''s go!" Shouted Adam lively.


    They walked for around half an hour before Adam suddenly stopped, turned to Susan and sighed.


    "Let''s stop for a bit, you can rest," he said.


    Susan felt some guilt when he said that, even though they had been moving for around half an hour or so, Susan knew that they hadn''t gotten far, and that she was the main reason for that.


    Her feet were wounded and walking on them wasn''t easy, not to mention that it was her first time travelling through the forest and she was still tired from the night before, so even though Adam was the person with no shoes, she was the one tailing slowly behind him, and that made them walk a lot slower.


    While she was still drowning in her feelings of guilt, she suddenly remembered something and turned to Adam:


    "You know, grandpa told me that most of the strong races, the livitus too, can use magic, including healing magic, isn''t that right?"


    Hearing her question, Adam showed no external reaction, he just kept on looking at her.


    "He''s a knowledgeable person, yeah, most of them can use healing magic," answered Adam as he nodded.


    "So, can''t you help me with my wounds? That would make us go faster than we are doing now, don''t you think?" She asked with some expectation.


    "Well, I can do that, but we might be chased and I don''t want to waste my mana on something like this, who knows what we might face next," he shrugged his shoulders.


    Susan didn''t know what to say, she just felt that that was just an absurd excuse, yet, she had no right to say or do anything against that, she was nothing but dead weight, she could only lower her head and continue walking while trying to move as fast as she could.


    Seeing that, Adam could only shake his head and start moving again too.

 04-Krusk

    Most of their journey went in silence, Adam didn''t say anything and neither did Susan, all that she seemed to try and concentrate on was walking faster and trying to ignore the pain she felt by looking around her and keeping herself busy by glancing at the scenery around them.


    It was a bit cold at that moment because it was still the first few hours of the morning, dew was covering the grass and a light fog was cast over everything in front of them. It was clear to Adam that everything was new to Susan, she probably never had the chance to enter the forest at this time of day. Adam knew a bit about how villages in locations like this dealt with the places they lived in, they usually only entered the forest at midday, and even then they would never go too deep.


    After another hour like that, Adam said when the road opened up into a clearing:


    "We truly have to stop now, rest for a bit, we have to eat something too."


    Susan seemed as if she wanted to say something, but she changed her mind in the end and just sat.


    Putting down the bag he was holding, Adam took a bit of jerky and some fruits he collected while they moved.


    "... What are you planning on doing next?" Finally, after they had their fill and after sitting in silence for a while, Susan couldn''t help but ask.


    "Hmm? Oh, next, I will try to send you to the closest village and leave you there, I mean that''s what I want to do, but there''s somewhere I wanna go to, and it''s a bit close, well, closer than any village, so we will be heading there first." Said Adam after a bit of musing.


    "... And when will we reach this place?" She asked again after a bit of silence.


    "Around two days I think? Or two and a half with our current pace." Answered Adam.


    "Oh..." Said Susan, and fell into her thoughts again.


    "No need to think about any of that now, here, take," said Adam as he threw his water bottle to Susan, who was caught unprepared and tried to catch it on a fluster.


    Seeing that, a small smile appeared on Adam''s face as he shook his head, he knew what Susan was going through, and that he didn''t really give a good first impression, so he didn''t push her too much.


    Throwing that aside, he laid his hand on the ground next to him, before closing his eyes gently.


    A minute or so after that, he opened his eyes and looked in surprise at Susan who was facing him, as if he was looking at a ghost.


    ''What was that? How could something like that happen?'' He thought to himself, and then, throwing that out of his mind, he turned his head towards the direction of the village with a frown, a bigger problem was getting closer.


    Noticing his weird behaviour, Susan put the water bottle aside as she asked hesitantly:


    "What''s wrong?"


    "The soldiers have entered the forest, there''s a group of them close, way too close..." Answered Adam as he stood up, "We have to move."


    He was truly surprised, he would have never expected the soldiers to enter the forest after her, he had teased Susan that he wouldn''t be surprised if they did just that, but it was just that, a joke, he never expected it to truly happen.


    As Adam was collecting his things, Susan stood there with a pale face, widened eyes and trembling lips, it was clear that she was in shock and didn''t know what to do, all she did was stand there and stare blankly at Adam.


    "Come on!" After he was done, Adam lifted his head and saw Susan just standing there in a daze. With a small shout, he went and held her hand before starting to drag her towards a certain direction.


    The soldiers were way too close, there basically was no chance that they would be able to get rid of them, especially with how he felt the existence of an amaryn with them, Adam only had the sole option of choosing their battleground.


    The amaryn were some of, if not the best, trackers in Tellor, they were practically designed for that purpose, few races were close to their efficiency regarding pure tracking.


    Adam wasn''t that worried about the soldiers who were following them, the most he was worried about was them using Susan against him, so what he thought about then, was searching for someplace that would give him the advantage in that, and he knew just the place.


    When he did the scan before, he had felt a cliff face close to where they were, the cliff was high and in front of it was a clearing without any trees or thick shrubs, which made it a perfect place for what he needed.


    After a not so long journey, they made it there, he had Susan stand behind him and said:


    "Just stay behind me and don''t worry, this will be over soon."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Then standing calmly as he closed and opened his hand, he turned to the soldiers and waited for what was coming.


    ***


    "It''s him, he sensed us," the thin man with the purple skin, the amaryn, said to the people around him who were looking at each other in fear after sensing that huge wave of mana going below their feet just seconds before. At that moment, he was wearing brown leather armour and holding a bow in his hand with a quiver strapped on his back.


    "I felt that, that''s quite a bit of mana, what a waste," the semigin shook his head before asking, "he''s the attacker from before, right?"


    For him, the semigin was wearing an iron armour that covered most of his body, he seemed like an impenetrable moving fortress, the earth shook with each step he took.


    "Yes, it''s the same mana that I felt from where the arrow fell," the amaryn nodded, but there was a bit of hesitation on his face.


    "You still can''t identify his race?" the semigin asked after noticing that.


    "Yes... It''s so weird, his mana has some sort of similarities with the livitus'' mana, but it''s just a hint, it''s still different from what I''m used to sensing from them," The amaryn said with clear confusion as he shook his head.


    "A hybrid?" The semigin lifted an eyebrow.


    "No, it''s still different from that, a hybrid would never have such a weird mana," Answered the amaryn.


    "Not important, we only have to catch them, damn! Who would have thought that after the destruction of the reception magic''s circle, we would be asked to enter the forest to search for... That girl, why do things keep on turning for the worst," the semigin murmured the last part of his words as he massaged his temples.


    "No need to worry, we''re still in the relatively safe parts of the forest, we will reach them before we make it to the truly dangerous parts of the area," the amaryn consulted him as he patted his shoulder before adding:


    "Come on, we have to move, they are on the move again, they changed their direction."


    The semigin nodded before giving the soldiers around him the order to start moving again.


    ***


    Susan was nervous, her heart was beating fast and she was in a horrible state.


    That wasn''t because she was afraid of what was coming, of what was going to happen to her if Adam wasn''t able to defeat the soldiers and stop them from taking her.


    No, she was nervous and her heart was beating fast because she was thinking about the faces she was going to see, about the people she was going to face, the soldiers she considered once heroes and protectors. Them standing in front of her after killing her mom, dad, little sister and the rest of her village in cold blood.


    She didn''t know what kind of expression they would show when they would finally lay their eyes on her, would there be any pain? Guilt? Maybe even an apology? Or would they look at her coldly and remorselessly?


    She didn''t know, and the wait made her anxious.


    She didn''t have to wait long, because soon, a group of around 15 soldiers appeared in front of her from where Adam had been looking since the beginning.


    As soon as the group appeared and they got close enough for her to see them clearly, her tears started falling uncontrollably and her heart contracted.


    She didn''t know why, but the group had most of the soldiers with whom she had a good relationship, the soldiers she had laughed, joked and played with the most.


    Seeing them there, holding their weapons and heading towards her, she couldn''t control herself and started crying as she fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands.


    By then, the soldiers were already close enough to see the two before them, and noticing Susan''s reaction to seeing them, a heavy feeling filled the group.


    No one spoke for a long time, the only sound which was heard was the sound of Susan wailing there on her knees.


    The soldiers watched her in silence, some of them averted their eyes, others lowered their faces with red eyes, and others showed expressionless frozen faces, hiding what was going through their minds.


    The semigin, one of the last bunch, took a step forward and said expressionlessly and with a cold deep voice.


    "Boy, you better leave, we will let you go, we only want the girl, just leave."


    Even before Adam had the chance to say anything, Susan who had been crying just a second ago, lifted her head and looked at the semigin as she shouted shrilly:


    "Krusk?! Why did you do that? Why did you kill them? You used to tell us that you would die before letting anything happen to us? That we had no reason to fear any bandit or beasts with you there? Then why? Why did you do that? Why did you kill them? Why? Why? Why..."


    The semigin''s, krusk, expression finally changed, a hint of guilt and saddens appeared on his face for a split second before he hid it fast and opened his mouth, but one look at Susan''s face made him close his mouth and turn his face, he turned his eyes to Adam and asked, ignoring Susan and her stabbing gaze:


    "So what''s your ch..."


    "Krusk!" Shouted Susan, cutting him off, "Tell me, look at me and tell me, why? You were one of us, you lived with us for years, you played with me while I was little, so why?... Not just you, all of you, Zerto? Jin? Ikrey? All of you... Why? Why? Just why..."


    With each word she said, Susan felt as if her heart was being cut open, her mind was a mess of confusion, pain and denial, as if all this was nothing but a horrible surreal nightmare she would wake up of at any moment, but unfortunately, she never did.


    Her voice was shrill, to the point where it seemed as if she hurt herself as she shouted those words, as if she had thrown all the pain and heartache she felt into them.


    This time, even Krusk couldn''t keep the expressionless front he had, he lowered his face and the grip on his greatsword tightened.


    Then, most soldiers showed bitter expressions and a few of them even wanted to walk up to say something.


    Zerto, the amaryn who was standing next to Krusk, looked at the latter and took a step forward as if trying to say something, but, before he had the chance to even open his mouth, Krusk extended his hand and stopped him. Seeing that, Zerto sighed and fell back, giving some of the soldiers behind him, who had the same idea as him a glance, making them do the same too.


    Krusk then lifted his head and looked at Susan and said:


    "I''m sorry Susan... I know words mean nothing, but they are all we can give... We couldn''t do anything... We had no choice..."


    After saying that, he sighed and ignored Susan entirely, turning to Adam he asked seriously:


    "Boy, tell me what''s your answer, I don''t have the whole day to waste here."


    Adam who hadn''t spoken till that moment, and who was just watching what was happening silently, threw a glance at Susan who was but a shell right then, before looking again at Krusk:


    "Do you know who wants her? And why?" He knew that the chances of him knowing that was small, and the chances of him telling him anything even if he knew something was even smaller


    "I don''t know, we were asked to catch her, that''s all. What I can say is that her safety is very important to whoever wants her, originally, none of her family members was meant to die, what happened was just an unfortunate event," answered Krusk, his answer seemed as if it was to Susan more than it was for Adam.

 05-Fight

    Kursk didn''t let their numerical advantage make him underestimate Adam or be overconfident about their chances. Even though the young man in front of him didn''t appear impressive in any way, the small details he noticed about him were enough for him to be careful.


    That wave of mana he released to scan the whole area around them wasn''t something anyone would be able to do. Also, assuming he was the same person who attacked the reception ritual''s magic circle, that was an astonishing move in terms of mana used, and when they went to check the place where the attacker was, they found the broken remains of a bow. based on what Fiden said, the reason that happened was that a great amount of mana passed through it in a short amount of time, an amount the materials it was made of couldn''t handle.


    You should have an astonishing reserve of mana to use it in such a wasteful manner, and just that would make any fighter worth anything careful. Krusk, trying to leave the face-off without any casualties from his side, made it his goal to get Adam to retreat without a fight.


    "Listen, boy, the girl will probably be safe, and there is no relationship between you and her as far as I can see, so why would you make things hard for you?" Said the amaryn next to the semigin.


    "Well, it''s quite hard to believe that she''s going to be safe from how the village was, and also, helping her is trivial for me, there''s no problem at all," said Adam in his usual calm yet playful tone.


    "There''s no need for anything else to be said, it seems,'' the semigin said as he nodded his head towards his soldiers.


    They advanced towards Adam and Susan as one, trying to trap them at the centre of a half-circle. Adam''s choice of the battleground made it so he only needed to care about what''s in front of him, and not what''s behind him, therefore Susan. But it also made his movement restricted and stopped him from retreating.


    Seeing the soldiers start moving towards him, Adam too took a step forward, opened his clenched palms while murmuring something. As he did, his hands which were wearing the blue embroidered gloves, shone with a milky white light and the phantom of two gigantic hands manifested above too random soldiers.


    Not giving the soldiers any chance to struggle, Adam moved his hands as if to catch something in front of him, the phantom hands imitating his movements without any delay. Each hand caught a soldier and threw him away in the air, mimicking Adam''s hands'' movement.


    After he had done that, and even before the two thrown soldiers hit the ground, Adam had already moved his attention to another two soldiers. But by then, the other soldiers were already prepared for that, and while those two avoided the two gigantic hands, the rest sent magical projectiles with different appearances and colours at him, as the amaryn threw dark brown mana-strengthened arrows.


    Krusk, on the other hand, was charging at Adam like a wild boar, his speed was unbelievable and shocking with that huge built of his, and his appearance as he ran with the earth shaking after each step he took was enough to freeze the heart of the bravest soldier.


    He was holding his greatsword with both hands and his whole body was glowing with a faint bloody red glow.


    Adam, seeing the different magical projectile getting closer, manifested a translucent milky white barrier around him and Susan with no sign of any hand movement or any murmuring at all, he manifested it casually and in a second.


    But when the projectile hit the barrier, Krusk was already standing in front of him, he lifted his greatsword, and with that, his already big arm muscles bulged and the same bloody red glow covered the greatsword as he swung it at Adam.


    Despite his big size and strong body, Krusk wasn''t a muscle head, on the contrary, he was a meticulous man, and someone who had great battle instincts. He knew that to fight someone like Adam, someone with a possibly astonishing mana reserve, the best course of action would be to get close to him and stop him from using his magical advantages to rain them with destructive magical spells. So while Adam was kept busy by the other soldiers, he ran as fast as he could towards him, trying to engage him in close combat.


    No hint of fear or worry from the approaching greatsword was shown on Adam''s face, all he did was whisper something to himself, making one of the gigantic hands disappear, and just as it did, Krusk''s greatsword connected with Adam''s defensive barrier, the barrier stopped the sword for half a second only, but that was enough for Adam who clenched his hand into a fist and punched in the direction of the attacking Krusk while murmuring the same spell again.


    Just like the first time, the gigantic hand manifested before Adam, and mimicking his hand movement, it punched at Krusk.


    Boom!


    The gigantic hand met the greatsword and in where they connected, an explosion of white and red lights happened, the settlement continued for less than a second, but after that, the red light was swallowed, and with that Krusk was thrown flying away back to where he came from.


    While in the air, Krusk straightened himself and fell on his feet, stabbing his greatsword in the ground, using it to keep himself standing and to stop his movement.


    Everyone stopped for a second, all the soldiers looked at Adam who was still standing there nonchalantly while he shook the hand he punched Krusk with up and down as the gigantic hand above him did the same.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Krusk stood up and looked at Adam hesitatingly, there was a depression in his iron armour at the chest area, but he himself wasn''t truly hurt.


    He knew that that wasn''t because of the quality of his armour, nor was it because his opponent''s attack was weak, no, it was because his opponent had shown mercy, he clearly felt his opponent hold himself back as he attacked him, if he hadn''t, he would have been critically injured for sure.


    Thinking about that, he threw a glance at the two soldiers Adam threw into the air, he noticed that they weren''t in a critical condition and that they would be back to their optimal state after a bit of rest and light treatment.


    None of the two parties made any move, Adam was looking at them interestingly as if waiting for what Krusk was going to do, while Krusk looked at him in silence, no one knew what he was thinking.


    "We aren''t your match, are we?" Krusk vainly said with a long sigh.


    "Exactly," answered Adam casually.


    "So why didn''t you just kill us? I don''t think that would have been an issue for you, and as you have already shown in the village before, you have nothing against killing us, so why didn''t you?" Continued Krusk, it was clear he wasn''t just a bit confused about that.


    "Hmm... Do you know? I went to the village last night, and when I was there, I heard a lot of things, and you can say that maybe what you all have done wasn''t enough for you to be treated as heroes, but it was enough for me to let you live," said Adam as he shrugged his shoulders.


    Krusk showed a look of realization and threw Susan a complicated gaze before turning to his soldiers and shouting:


    "Come on, we have to go back, we can''t deal with him."


    Susan expected that some of the soldiers would show unwilling expressions but to her surprise, they all just gave relieved sighed and started getting ready to leave.


    While they were doing that and checked on those two soldiers who were thrown away by Adam, Krusk looked at him and said:


    "Don''t worry, we won''t tell them that we have met you, but still, you have to be careful, from the amount of mana that reception ritual''s circle needed, the person they were sending after you wasn''t weak at all."


    After that, he looked at Susan and said, "... I''m sorry Susan... We couldn''t help you... Also..." He appeared hesitant with the last part of his sentence before shaking his head and continuing, "Never mind, it''s not that important. You should take care of yourself, what''s coming won''t be easy for you," with that he turned around and headed to his waiting soldiers.


    Watching them leave in silence, Susan didn''t say a thing, she didn''t shout at them and she didn''t demand any answers, she just sat there and gazed blankly at where they disappeared.


    "Come on, we have to move," after a while of her staying just like that, Adam couldn''t stop himself and stepped close to her as he patted her shoulder lightly.


    "...Why did you let them go...?" Susan didn''t move, instead, she asked with a barely heard deep hoarse voice.


    "Because they did nothing wrong," said Adam as he looked at where the soldiers disappeared.


    Susan clearly didn''t expect such an answer and lifted her head and looked at him in shock.


    "What I meant is that ''they'' did nothing wrong, this group of soldiers," explained Adam when he saw her face, "last night after you fell asleep I went to the village to see what happened, and I saw an argument happening between this group and the rest of the soldiers, and from what I understood, when the orders to destroy the village and kill everyone in it came, their leader, that man you called Krusk, gave them the liberty to choose if they wanted to participate or not.


    "Everyone in this group had refused, and they weren''t a part of last night''s attack, also it was them who gave the villagers a proper burial, this might seem insignificant to you because they did nothing to help, but that was the limit of what they could have done.


    "Even with them doing just that, disobeying orders, they will face prison and possibly even death if the higher-ups in the army wanted to make an example of them. But, if they had tried to help or fight against the other soldiers, they would have been facing the penalty of treason, and they would have been killed for sure, while their family members might have been killed too."


    Saying that Adam lifted his head and looked to the bright blue sky:


    "Even though there have been no real wars for a long, long period of time because of the Alpha and his Royal Commandments, that doesn''t mean that all races are in harmony and that they all are working to improve the state of their people. no, in the shadows of this peace and harmony, there are a lot of things happening away from the eyes of their citizens, all races are working on keeping a strong front, and that would usually mean being the cruellest to their own kind."


    For the first time since she met him, Susan saw an expression other than his nonchalant, casual, playful one, he had a deep look that wasn''t in character with his usual self.


    "Come on, get up and stop lazying around, we have to move," While she was still stuck in Adam''s words and the weird expression he showed, she tilted to the side while hearing Adam''s playful words in his usual tone.


    He kicked her.

 06-The Luminous Rivers

    Ancilia, the Phas''s capital:


    The Phas, a race that left its signs in the history of Tellor in more ways than one, a race that against all odds continued to fight and struggle for its position in the world.


    After the great war against the phas''s queen and how the Pact of Ten defeated this enemy that was almost able to control the entirety of Tellor, everyone thought that it won''t be long before this race faced extinction, joining the many other forgotten races in the river of time, but, to everyone''s surprise, that didn''t happen.


    This race remained at the edge of the big stage, being a part of many important events and refusing to disappear.


    Many historians link the reason for their survival after the great war against the phas queen to the first Alpha, who took the phas''s next queen as his wife, and how for years after that, he continued to protect the race as a whole.


    The phas''s castle was an enormous one with an appearance that would generate fear and astonishment in the hearts of whoever laid eyes on it. But in one corner of this great castle, there was a small unassuming plain garden in contrast to the rest of it.


    At that moment, in that small garden, there were two young women, one of them was clearly a maid, she was standing next to the other girl and she had a complicated expression as she glanced at her from time to time.


    Her features were pretty and gentle, she also had weird coloured hair, it was light green and it gave the feeling as if it was shining a bit. On her forehead, there were what seemed to be five gems, forming the shape of a spread up and upside down V.


    The other girl was sitting on a simple wooden bench while she gazed at the flowers and roses and different plants in the garden. She seemed a bit similar to the maid standing next to her, but she was clearly prettier, and not by just a bit.


    But different from the maid next to her, there were no gems on her forehead and the colour of her hair was a normal black and it had no radiance, she was like a normal human, but she had this strange air around her, as if she would never be mistaken as one, it was a feeling that would sprout from the heart of whoever laid eyes on her.


    "Miss... Don''t worry, I''m sure that nothing bad will happen to you, don''t worry, don''t worry..." Finally, and after a long period of silence, the maid couldn''t hold herself anymore and said.


    "Simlith, you seem to be the one who''s worried here," the young girl said with a smile on her face as she looked at the maid next to her, before turning her head to look at the garden again, "We''ve always known that this would happen, you can''t run from somethings, no matter what..."


    "But..." The maid started.


    "Simlith," interrupted the sitting girl, "believe me, I''ve since accepted that this is going to be my fate, and also, I''ve heard that this will help Lura, that''s already better than me getting thrown away for some absurd deal."


    The maid tried to speak again but her eyes fell on the sitting young woman''s hands and she noticed how they were clenched into fists till her knuckles whitened, Simlith couldn''t say what she wanted to and all she did was move her eyes away and murmur in a voice the sitting young woman was able to hear:


    "I''ll always be with you, miss..."


    All the sitting girl did was smile and nod her head faintly. After that, she lifted her head and looked at the sky.


    Above in the blue sky, there were forks of bright multicoloured light which appeared like heavenly rivers, they had different mixed colours but the brightest and the most obvious was the glowing green.


    ***


    In another place in the castle, Amathira Eytherdlues, the phas''s current queen, was inside the meeting room with the higher-ups of the phas while they studied what they had to do and how to react in the coming meeting in Lupri


    Amathira appeared as a woman in her late twenties, she, like all phas, had a breathtaking beauty and had a calming, scholarly, collected air around her, she wore a tall green dress and a big headpiece on her head.


    Dong! Dong! Dong!


    While she was still amidst an argument with the other members, a loud knocking was heard, hearing that, Amathira frowned lightly as she glanced at the door. She had especially asked to not be disturbed if nothing too important happened because of the nature of the meeting.


    She sighed as she looked at the female guard beside the door and nodded lightly.


    The female guard bowed and turned to open the door, standing there was a phas wearing a long robe with gentle facial features, it was clear that he had ran to the hall from his fast breaths and red face, but he was trying to control his breathing and to appear calm as much as possible.


    "I... Sorry for the interruption your Highness, but... But you have to know this," After he advanced till he was standing in front of the queen and the others, he bowed and said.


    "It''s alright, speak, what happened?" Amathira waved her hand as she ordered.


    Hearing Amathira''s words, the phas lifted his head, took a deep breath and said:


    "The... The Luminous Rivers above the beasts'' forest have... Have appeared," His voice as he said that was stuttering and trembling, showing how nervous and unbelieving he was of what he was saying.


    The reactions of the people in the hall to what he said were different, some of them showed mild surprise, others just frowned as if they thought that something like that wasn''t important enough and didn''t need him to react how he did, while the last group, the one which Amathira was part of, showed serious expressions as they looked at each other.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "But isn''t there still around half a year before their next appearance in that area...?" A female phas wearing a battle armour asked.


    "Yes, and- and that''s the problem, they appeared before their time, that''s..." The phas started in a fluster before he was interrupted by Amathira:


    "Lars!" She called in a calm but authoritative voice, "thank you for what you have shared, you can come to me and we will talk about this later, you can leave now."


    Realising what he was just about to say, Lars apologised hurriedly before bowing and turning around to leave.


    It was at that moment that everyone present realised that the appearance of the Luminous Rivers before their time had a higher importance than what was seen, with that, the already heavy atmosphere inside the hall became even heavier.


    Changes were happening everywhere.


    ***


    Lupri, the First''s Castle:


    In one of the castle''s many gardens, one that held trees, flowers and plants from all over Tellor, and also plants and flowers that weren''t supposed to be flowering at that time of the year at all, an ordinary-looking man was sitting.


    He had the appearance and features of an ordinary man, short black hair with black coloured eyes that seemed to be the only thing special and different about him, they were deep and serene, as if nothing would be able to make him change his expression. He had the exact appearance of an average human being, if not for the oppressive and fearsome feeling that radiated from him from time to time.


    At that moment, the man was looking at a little butterfly that had landed on a pure white flower, he had all his attention on that small butterfly as he watched it flap its wings.


    Suddenly, as if he got shocked, he lifted his head and looked at the sky, high up in the sky, there was a scene all people in Lupri were familiar with, numerous forks of what appeared as heavenly rivers of bright multicoloured light filled the sky and extended to beyonde the horizon, those forks had different twisting colours, yet, the brightest colour was a white almost transparent one.


    After the man looked at the sky for a while, he finally released a light sigh before lowering and shaking his head.


    After quite a bit of time passed, he heard the sound of footsteps coming from afar, after the steps reached the door that led to the garden, they stopped there before the door was opened and a guard entered:


    "Your Highness, the vodico Lexand is here, he said that he has important news for you."


    The guard was weird and different from the castle''s usual guards, he wasn''t wearing the fancy armour or holding the long spear seen on the other guards, instead, he was wearing a dark cloak that covered most of his body, the majority of his face included, leaving only a bit of space for his eyes, and from that, two shining yellow pupils were seen.


    Without turning his head or giving it much attention, the man nodded lightly and said in a calm tone:


    "Let him enter."


    After bowing, the guard went out, and Lexand entered while bowing his head and trying as much as he could to keep his trembling under control:


    "Your Highness," he bowed.


    "What are the news you have? What happened?" Asked the man.


    Lexand stood up and said in a trembling voice as if he didn''t know if he should say what he was going to say or not, actually, he really didn''t know, the news he got, if it was a bit weird, didn''t seem too important to him, but, when he told Ethren, that damned old fart, he insisted that it was something their new king should know.


    "Your highness, I just got a piece of information and... And Ethren, our highest scholar, said that I should come and tell you straight away," the first thing Lexand did was putting Ethren''s name on the table, to save himself in the case of any problems happening later, after he had dealt with that, he continued, "The Luminous Rivers have appeared in several places they weren''t supposed to be appearing in yet, that started with the Beasts'' Forest and then in the Forgotten Desert, and for some reason, Ethren thinks that they are going to appear on other different places, also they are showing no signs of disappearing again."


    The ordinary-looking man remains silent for a bit after hearing Lexand''s words before sighing as he murmured to himself:


    "This is not supposed to be happening yet..."


    ***


    The Beasts'' Forest:


    The sun had already set, Adam and Susan had stopped moving for a while, and they were preparing simple tents Adam had on him in a small clearing amidst the forest.


    Suddenly, while he was busy lighting the fire, Adam lifted his head and looked at the sky with an obvious frown on his face.


    Seeing that, Susan followed his eyes as she lifted her head and looked at the sky, but she didn''t see anything there, just the stars and some scattered clouds.


    When she wanted to turn to Adam and ask him about what was it that he was looking at, she saw from the east a scene that she was familiar with.


    Far from the east, glowing multicoloured spots were moving closer, and the closer they got, the clearer it was that they weren''t just some spots, they were more like advancing rivers heading to the west, branching from time to time to forks with the same size as the main body without affecting the latter''s size.


    "The Luminous Rivers...? But how? There''s still around half a year before their next appearance..." Said Susan in disbelief.


    "I don''t know..." Murmured Adam in confusion, it was clear that this kind of thing was out of the limits of his knowledge.

 07-The Coneith

    "Come on, hurry up, hurry up," Demanded her father in front of her, his voice had a tone she never heard him use, it was full of worry, fear and confusion.but still, even with all that, hearing it still helped a lot considering what was happening around them.


    Wherever she looked, and wherever she concentrated, she saw somethings her mind couldn''t process or understand as what they were.


    "Just keep on running, we have to reach the forest, that''s our only hope," the soldier, Alber, said in a voice barely heard amidst all the chaos around them.


    He and her dad, who was holding her little sister, were running in front of her, with her and her mom behind them.


    Throwing a glance at her mom, Susan noticed that she was pale and sweating heavily, with wide fearful eyes. She instinctly knew that she probably wasn''t any better.


    She had no idea about what was happening, everything around her seemed foggy and her thoughts were a mess, all she knew was that they had to make it to the forest or something horrible was going to happen.


    "Dad-"


    Suddenly, a forbidden feeling came open her and her heart clenched as if she knew what was coming, she lifted her hand to her dad and the soldier as if to warn them, but before she could say anything, she saw several cut it''s way through the darkness and hit the soldier, and soon after her dad.


    "No!" She screamed.


    Her body moved forward without her control, everything around her turned dark and silent, only her father''s fallen body and her little sister in his arms remained.


    With each step she took, the dread and worry grew stronger, Deep down, she knew what she was going to see, but even so, she had no control over herself and she soon was standing in front of her father''s unmoving body.


    With shaking hands, she turned her father''s cold body and saw that the arrow had hit her sister, and that she too was unresponsive.


    "Ahhh!" Seeing that, she fell down as she shouted as loud as she could, And as she did, she noticed that she was inside A forest with a stranger looking down at her.


    "Susan, Susan, calm down, everything is alright, it''s over now, everything is alright," Said Adam trying to calm her down.


    Only after he said that for a few more times that she remembered what really happened, with that going through her mind, she covered her face under the cover and started to cry silently.


    Looking at her while she was like this, Adam sighed in pity as he shook his head. He decided to leave her on her own to calm down because that''s what she needed the most.


    ***


    "Okay everyone, let''s get moving," the semigin, Krusk, said as he took one last glance at the village behind him, beside him, the amaryn sighed as he too looked at the ruined village.


    The other groups of soldiers who left the village the previous day were in a much worst state than Krusk''s group. Many of them died and many others got injured during their journey through the forest. After returning and making their vodico send these results, they were asked to return and leave the village.


    Travelling between villages in the Beasts'' Forest was a dangerous thing, they would have to calculate their travelling time accurately so they don''t get caught in the forest at night. They also had to travel on a specific protected path, and even with that, there was still a chance, no matter how small, of them meeting a beast or monster they won''t be able to deal with.


    There was a clear division between the soldiers, separating them into two groups, one under the leadership of Krusk, and this one had all the soldiers who were with Krusk when he met Adam and Susan, while the other group was led by Fiden, the encolian who was heading the reception ritual that Adam interrupted.


    There was only one road leaving the village so they couldn''t really separate, but there was still a clear repulsion between the two groups.


    Fiden threw a glance at Krusk and the huge basket he was carrying as he frowned, he couldn''t tell what was in that basket, a few basic runic glyphs were inscribed on it, he would have no real problem bypassing them if he wanted, but doing that would be too obvious and Krusk would respond with violence for sure, so he had no other choice but to ignore that for now and act as if he didn''t care.


    After all, what Krusk did this time was simply stupid, and he for sure would be removed from his position as a captain when they get back, and the person with the best chance to take his position was him. So he decided to start acting like one already with the soldiers following him.


    "Let''s get going," he said as he nodded to the soldiers around him.


    After the two groups left, the town fell into a heavy silence with nothing indicating that it was an inhabited town just a couple of days ago.


    The village had two major roads with the cross that they made being the exact centre of the village. Three hours or so after the two groups of soldiers left, the ground at the centre of that crossroad started cracking before the hard rock broke in a deep explosion, leaving a deep hole there.


    A few seconds after that, a pale hand reached out from under the hole...


    ***


    Adam and Susan continued their journey in silence after having a bit of an awkward breakfast.


    Susan felt like shit, even without mentioning the wounds on her feet, though they were a bit better already. She was feeling tired, both mentally and physically, she hadn''t gotten much rest or good sleep in two days and most of that time was spent walking through a forest.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "We have to be a bit more careful from this point on, we will be entering the more dangerous parts of the forest now," Adam suddenly declared after they had walked for a while.


    All Susan did was give a reluctant nod to that.


    Adam shook his head and continued moving, he knew that the thing Susan needed the most right then was time, there wasn''t much that he could do for her, yet he couldn''t just let her be, falling a victim to her own thoughts.


    Adam was more careful with his movement through the forest than he would have usually been because of Susan being with him.


    Usually, even with how dangerous the Beasts'' Forest was, there was no being strong enough to be much of a threat to him in this part of it, so he wouldn''t be that worried, but there was a lot of things that can be the end of a human like Susan.


    He saw a lot of people die due to some insignificant circumstances that would have been easily avoided with a bit of attention during his many travels, and he didn''t want that to happen now.


    So, trying to get Susan to get out of her self destroying thoughts, he started talking about the environment around them and some of the plants and trees.


    It wasn''t anything great, just which plants were edible, how to find them, how to survive on her own if she found herself alone in the forest, and the like.


    At first, Susan wasn''t that interested, but as time passed, she started getting more and more interested and started asking some questions now and then, seeing that, Adam smiled and continued his lecture.


    After Adam was done speaking about a certain edible mushroom and how to differentiate it from another similar but poisonous mushroom, Susan took her chance and asked a question that have been in her mind for a while now:


    "What''s that place you said we''re heading to again? I don''t really think that you''ve told me about it?"


    "Hmm? Oh that, it''s the ruins of what seems to be an ancient village," Adam was a bit confused at first, not expecting her to bring that up, but he answered in a bit and continued:


    "You know? A long time ago, this part of the Beasts'' Forest was way too dangerous, too dangerous in fact to the point that it was as dangerous as the centre of the forest right now, but, even with all that, there was still a village in a place like this, there are many theories and guesses about who used to live in that village, some say that it was the home of a long-extinct and forgotten race, other say that it was the headquarter of some secret cult... While a small group of them say that it was where the coneith lived back then."


    "The coneith?" Susan asked in confusion, that was a name she had never heard before, her grandpa didn''t tell her about a race like that.


    "Yeah, the coneith, or as some people like to call them, the eleventh race," started Adam, it was clear that this was a subject that he was quite passionate about, he stopped moving, turned towards Susan before continuing:


    "You know how the evil queen of the phas and her allies were on the verge of putting all the other races under their ruling, and that when everyone thought that none will be able to stop them, the alpha appeared and united the other nine races and led them to victory.


    "Those ten races were, the livitus, the skugge, the semigin, the encolian, the amaryn, the ajahit, the minmos, the joroth, the ammonil and finally, the tenth which was the Alpha himself, I think you know that, right?"


    "Yes, my grandpa told me about all of that," Susan nodded lightly as her interest piqued.


    "As expected, but what you don''t know is that a lot of people think- no not think, believe that there is another race among those, an eleventh race and that this race was the main reason for the losses that the phas kingdom faced," he said excitedly.


    "Why would they be so sure?" Susan asked in hesitation and confusion.


    "That''s because of some of the records left by some of the participants in the last Great War, in those records, there are a lot of contradictions and a lot of the participants in this war referred to some individuals with weird and unique features, ones that were different from all the known races right now, and many people take that as a solid proof of the existence of some widely unknown race, a race that watches from the shadows and controls the world in silence."


    "... And you''re searching for clues about this race?" Susan was speechless, she felt that something like that was a bit absurd, but she didn''t know much about the outside world except what her grandpa told her, so she had no right to deny him too.


    "Yes, I''ve spent years searching for them and any similar clue and trail hidden in history, I''ve visited a lot of ruins and libraries looking for any bit of information about them, and believe me when I say that this race is somewhere out there, but the thing is it won''t be easy to find a race that remained out of sight for all these years," Adam said confidentially.


    "We will get there tomorrow, and we will see how things will go on there," he concluded with a smile.


    "Why are you searching for them?" Asked Susan.


    "My passion for history of course," he answered with a big smile on his face.


    Susan rolled her eyes at him but she said nothing at the end.


    "Come on, let''s move, we will continue with this some other time if we ever get the chance," Adam added.


    Susan just nodded and they resumed their journey with Adam continuing his ''lessons''.

 08-Ruins

    08-Ruins


    Susan looked at the scenery in front of her, this part of the forest didn''t appear to be much different from the others she had seen, if there was one difference then it was that the plant life wasn''t as dense, and it was possible to see a few piles of rocks that could have been once a wall.


    "Well, it seems... Ruined..." She said as she glanced at the sprawling remains of what might have been a village or a town one day.


    "Yup," Adam said joyfully.


    "I don''t really think that you will be able to find anything interesting or useful at all," she continued.


    "Who knows, you would be surprised of what can be found in places like this," answered Adam as he looked around him with clear interest.


    "Let''s rest and eat something for now, we will enter and take a look after that," Adam said to Susan.


    They had walked for most of the day, the day before and started their journey again in the morning without stopping till that moment when they reached the ruins at midday, so it was a good time to rest for sure.


    As they had lunch, a bit of jerky and some wild fruit and vegetables Adam had gathered on their journey, Susan couldn''t stop her mind from wandering towards what happened to her these last few days, the things she had been through and all that she lost.


    As she thought of that she felt a lump in her throat and found it hard to swallow the already hard jerky, yet she couldn''t let herself cry again, she didn''t want to keep on crying time and time again with no moving forward.


    She already felt a bit better, as long as she didn''t think much about what happened, that''s true, but it was still an improvement nonetheless.


    Adam''s ''lessons'', as he called them, did help her keep her mind of places it didn''t need to be in right then, and she gladly used those lessons for what they were, a distraction.


    As her thoughts wandered to Adam, she threw the self-proclaimed livitus a glance and noticed that he was looking at her, her feet exactly.


    Feeling her looking at him he lifted his eyes and gave her a small smile.


    Susan lowered her head and looked at her feet herself, remembering her injuries and how they appeared much better that morning, she guessed that she only needed a few days more for them to heal completely.


    After that, they fell into a bit of awkward silence as they ate what was left of their simple meal.


    That done, Susan lifted her head and looked at the sky.


    "They are still there..." She murmured to no one in particular.


    The branching lights were still there in all their glory, still dominating the sky even at day and they showed no sign of disappearing at all.


    Adam didn''t have to ask her about what she meant, all he did was look up and study those gigantic branching rivers of multicoloured lights.


    Ever since the Luminous Rivers reappeared two days ago, they never disappeared again, and Adam had a feeling that they were never going to, with the Beasts'' Forest becoming just one of those areas where the Luminous Rivers covered the sky in everlasting multicoloured branches.


    "... Usually, they would remain for around a day before disappearing again... Their appearance marked the beginning of the light''s festival in the village... I... I used to look forward to it each year..." Susan continued her murmuring in a sad dreamy sort of way.


    Seeming unsure of what he should say, all Adam did was keep looking at the sky in silence, giving the young woman the time she needed.


    A while after they had their rest and with their lunch done, Adam stood up and said to Susan:


    "Usually, depending on what the ruins were before, there might be deadly traps in places like these, but I don''t think that we have any need to worry about that here, some explorers were already here and there are no records about any real danger, so there''s no reason to worry, we still have to be careful anyway though, who knows what would happen, and it''s never bad to be so."


    Seeing Susan nod, he continued:


    "Okay, let''s get started," saying that, he had Susan stand behind him, unsheathed the sword at his waist and stabbed it at the ground.


    Susan couldn''t help herself from throwing the sword that had been unsheathed for the first time since she met Adam, a glance and she was surprised by how it looked.


    The sword wasn''t anything like how she thought it would be, first, it wasn''t silvery grey as most swords she saw were, but it had a bright golden colour as if it was made of pure gold. It also didn''t have an edge. Another thing that piqued her interest was the many densely engraved runes running all over the sword.


    She opened her mouth wanting to ask Adam about it, but before she could say anything, she felt some kind of a quake under her feet, as if something just passed under her.


    Lifting her head in shock from looking under her feet to stare at Adam, she noticed that his eyes were closed and that he had a small frown on his face.


    Susan felt the wave-like quake passing under her four more times before Adam stopped whatever he was doing and looked at her with the small frown still there on his face.


    "Did you feel anything?" He asked.


    "Yes... As if something moved under me.." She answered hesitatingly.


    "Hmm..." Adam continued to frown as he looked at her, it wasn''t clear what he was thinking of, finally, he shook his head and said:


    "It really seems as if there''s nothing here, but... Here follow me, let''s go check somewhere."


    Susan just followed after him while looking at what was left of the village around her, she could almost imagine how these ruins were a long time ago, but now there was nothing left but piles of rocks and barely standing walls reclaimed by the forest.


    As she took in all of that, she suddenly felt a pang of pain stab her heart as it clenched, she knew that probably, her village was going to become a ruin like this, covered in weeds and forgotten by the world.


    She felt like crying as tears filled her eyes and her vision became blurry, but she held herself and took a deep breath, she wasn''t going to cry there.


    "It''s there," suddenly, as she was still drowning in her thoughts, she heard Adam''s voice.


    Following his eyes, she saw the half-standing remains of what seemed to have been a great tower at one point, only a small part of the outer wall of the tower was left, but that, along with the area around it, was enough to show how big it must have been at one point in time.


    "What''s weird about this place..." She started asking before it hit her.


    "Wa... Wait, how come we didn''t notice this place before? It''s as if it wasn''t here before you led me to it."


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.        She looked around her as she started to panic a bit, something wasn''t normal about this place, she should have noticed this wall standing here, it was the biggest one in this area and quite clear from where they were standing before, but before Adam led her there, she didn''t notice it at all.


    "Exactly," nodded Adam with a thoughtful look on his face, "when I was scanning the area earlier, I neglected this part here, as if something wasn''t allowing me to notice it, and I would have just disregarded it if the influence wasn''t a bit crude as if..."


    Adam fell into deep thoughts for a bit before returning to himself and starting to laugh lightly.


    "There really seems to be something here," there was an unconcealed excitement in his voice and eyes as he looked at the ruins of the tower in front of them.


    Done speaking, Adam lifted his hands and murmured something under his breath, his two blue embroidered gloves shone with a milky white light before the two gigantic hands appeared above him.


    "Stay behind me," he said while the two gigantic hands moved forward and started removing the big rocks that filled what was one day the centre of the tower.


    Susan watched as Adam moved the huge rocks with ease using those two hands, seeing that was shocking and made her remember that the person she has been with wasn''t a normal human at all, but someone who was able to make a group of the best soldiers in her village retreat easily.


    After removing all rocks and similar obstacles that were easy to move, Adam lifted what he could of the soil and dirt using the gigantic hands before dismissing them in a puff of milky white light and summoning a strong gust of wind to deal with what was left.


    Finally, after what appeared to be the old floor of the tower was uncovered, Adam turned toward Susan and said:


    "Let''s get closer," Susan nodded lightly before following him to the floor.


    With her following behind him, Adam advanced till he made it to the centre of the floor, then he again stabbed his sword in the ground, and again, Susan felt the same waves pass under her for a few more times before Adam opened his eyes.


    "There really is something here... But it''s somehow hidden just like how this place was hidden from us, again I wouldn''t have felt it if not for that elementary mistake..."


    At first, it seemed as if Adam was trying to give Susan some kind of explanation about how he was able to notice whatever was affecting them, but then it appeared as if he had noticed something and the frown on his face grew as he started looking around him seriously.


    The way he was acting made Susan worried for a bit and she couldn''t stop herself from looking around with a bit of fear as she asked:


    "Wh... What''s wrong?"


    "Hmm? Oh, no nothing, I just thought of something for a minute there," Adam came back from whatever got into him and waved his hand dismissively.


    After that, he returned his attention to the ground under them and continued:


    "I''m not good at runic glyphs, but not being able to notice any magic circle or engravings at all is still pretty weird... Hmm... Susan?"


    Susan was listening to what Adam was saying with interest, so she didn''t expect to be called, and when Adam did that, she almost jumped out of surprise.


    "Oh! Yes?" She asked.


    "Can you touch the floor with your hand?" Asked Adam with a bit of hesitation.


    "!?" Susan didn''t know what to say, all she did was look at him in confusion while dozens of thoughts passed through her head


    She didn''t know if there was any danger and he decided to use her to test it, or if she was going to be sacrificed somehow if she did that, or what other thing he might have in mind, but what she did know was that she had a choice to make.


    Seeming as if he saw through what she was thinking, Adam tried to calm her down and console her:


    "Don''t worry, nothing bad will happen to you, hell, nothing will probably happen at all."


    "... Okay," Susan thought about things for a bit before answering him.


    She then took a deep breath, crouched down and extended her hand slowly to the ground towards the floor below her.


    As her hand moved closer and closer to the ground, her heart started beating faster and faster and the sound of it drumming in her chest was the only thing she could hear. When she could finally feel the cold ground from the tips of her fingers, she held her breaths as she waited.


    But except for a bit of cold moving up her fingers, she felt nothing else at all and nothing else happened either.


    She turned her head towards Adam and seeing him looking at her hand that touched the ground with a frown, she asked:


    "Is that enough for now?"


    "Yes of course," he answered with a smile, before adding, "come now, stand behind me."


    Susan stood up and moved to stand behind him. After she did, she noticed that Adam had at some point summoned the two gigantic hands and the semitransparent barrier around them, and after that, he pulled his sword and stabbed its point to the ground.


    As expected, Susan felt those weird waves again, except that they were a bit clearer this time.


    After those waves passed, Adam moved those hands to a far side of the floor from where they were, and lifted his own gloved hands, before bringing them down fast, and by extension, the two gigantic hands did the same.


    Bang!


    It only took one hit for cracks to start appearing all over the old floor, including the part where they were standing.


    "Adam!" Susan saw Adam''s gloved hands move up again and shouted.


    She felt that the floor won''t be able to take another hit, and him destroying the floor while they were still on it was an idiotic thing to do.


    But Adam wasn''t listening to her, the gigantic hands continued on their path before coming down again.


    As she expected, the floor under them couldn''t take another hit and it started caving-in starting from the place where the two hands hit and heading towards where they were.


    "Adam!!" Susan shouted as she held Adam''s upper arm as the ground broke under them.


    But to her surprise, neither she nor Adam fell with the destroyed floor, but they remained floating in place. Looking under her, she saw that the barrier that was around them extended to the space under their feet and that they were standing on it right then.


    "Why worry?" Adam asked in an innocent joking tone of voice.


    "Bastard..." She whispered under her breath as she released his arm.


    Adam laughed for a bit before creating two shining balls and sending them to see what was down below.


    Below them, where the floor fell, they were able to see what seemed like a big hall, and a door.

 09-Concealment

    After making sure that there was no clear danger, Adam made the two gigantic hands remove all the debris and rocks that fell from him destroying the upper floor, before generating a strong wind to deal with the dust and dirt, and also to make the air below much more breathable.


    He was excited and wanted nothing more than just going down there and exploring that place as much as he could, but he knew better than to do that, he still had to be careful.


    Finally at ease, he made the half-spherical barrier that was around them hover down slowly towards the big empty hall.


    While Adam was working, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Susan didn''t seem to be doing that well, she was a bit pale and was doing her best trying not to look under them, he saw her trying to stabilize herself by holding into the side of the barrier, but then she looked at where her hand was and she became even paler. He guessed that the almost transparent barrier wasn''t doing well for her while they were floating in the air.


    They were going to get down soon, so he just decided to deal with that later as he scanned the hall under them with keen eyes.


    The hall was empty, there was nothing in it, even after giving it a deep scan nothing new appeared, Adam was a bit disappointed at that, but he soon controlled himself, not letting it get into him, he turned his head and looked at the big door.


    He frowned a bit, the door itself was under the protection of the same type of runic glyphs that covered the floor above, one made and improved especially for one single purpose, concealment.


    But unlike the one above, this one was still somehow whole, even though he noticed after concentrating his senses on it that it too was getting cruder, at a barely noticeable rate.


    What this one had in common with the one above though was that it was powered by a type of mana he was feeling for the first time, a type of mana that didn''t belong to any of the known races,


    ''Could it be that it''s really them,'' his heart began beating fast.


    With a barely contained smile and a fast-beating heart, he had the barrier enclosing them touch the ground fast as he almost made the gigantic hands rip the door from its hinges, but he managed to take a deep breath, close his eyes and hold it for a few seconds before releasing it again slowly.


    That done, he took a better look at the door.


    He had travelled through Tellor for many years, tracking down forgotten myths and legends discussed by different people from different races, but then and finally, it seemed as if he had found a clue that might put him on the right path, and he wasn''t going to waste or destroy this chance because of his haste and his inability to control himself.


    He calmly dispelled the barrier around him, living only Susan under its protection and had her wait in that place while he moved towards the door.


    There were no carvings or decorations on the door, not even some noticeable runic glyphs, it seemed as normal as could be.


    Studying the door for a while, Adam found himself in somehow of a dilemma, he was able to feel the runic glyphs there, but that was it, he could not see or affect them. Finally, he had to give up.


    Runic glyphs were never his strongest point, he wasn''t truly blank when it came to them, but the higher tiers of that discipline were way above his limits.


    He could try to just destroy the door along with whatever runic glyphs were keeping it in place, but that also had the problem of the possibility of there being some countermeasures that would also destroy whatever was kept behind it, and he couldn''t take his chances with that.


    He tried touching the door itself, or the area around it, searching for some hidden mechanism, but he still found nothing.


    Finally, after thinking about it for a while longer and after no small amount of hesitation, he turned to Susan as he said:


    "Susan... Can you touch this door for a second?" He didn''t let too much of the hesitation he was feeling deep down reach the surface.


    "What door?" Asked Susan as she blinked a few times.


    Adam frowned as he took a closer look at her, she genuinely seemed as if she had no idea what he was talking about, as if the door in front of him wasn''t really there.


    "You can''t see it?.." He murmured to himself as he turned to the door, And as he did, it hit him.


    After thinking about it, there was no reason at all for him to be surprised, the door was protected by runic glyphs with the sole purpose of concealing it, yes that effect was fading away, but he still shouldn''t have expected a human to see through it.


    Then again, Susan was too weird of a human to the point that he found it hard to think of her as one at all, so him forgetting that wasn''t that unbelievable.


    He shook his head to clear his mind of all those unimportant things and turned to her:


    "Come here for a second."


    After a split second of hesitation, Susan moved and stood in front of the door alongside him, she looked at what Adam guessed was a wall to her with eyebrows frowned in concentration, yet it seemed that she still saw nothing.


    "Can you touch this wall please?" Requested Adam as his eyes seemed to glow in anticipation.


    Susan looked at him in a mix of hesitation and confusion, and as their eyes met he saw that deep down, there was a clear sign of fear. She then took a deep breath, and before he had the chance to understand what she was afraid of, she reached out to the wall and touched it.


    As soon as her hand touched the wall, Adam felt a few changes happening, the first one was the mana moving up Susan''s arm, it wasn''t the first time he felt that, as it was the same thing that happened when she touched the floor before or even before that.


    "Click!"


    And the second was him feeling the runic glyphs on the door disappearing, and with that, a click was heard as the door was pushed open for a sliver.


    With that happening all his attention was pulled away from her and thrown at the door and what lay behind it.


    "Wh... What just happened?" He was still drunk at his plan''s success and what might be behind that door when the frightened and trembling voice of Susan sounded from next to him.


    Looking at her in confusion, he noticed her holding the hand that touched the wall close to her chest, and how it seemed paler than the rest of her body.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    When his eyes fell on her, she took a few steps back and the colour drained from her face, and again he saw fear in her eyes.


    Her eyes were wide, her face was pale and she was trembling a bit, seeing her like that, he froze and forgot his happiness for a second.


    "I... I did that, didn''t I? That..." She pointed at the door, "was because of me, wasn''t it? I felt something going up my arm, was... Was there a problem with that? Was that why you made me do it? Why you made me touch it first?"


    It was clear that Susan was afraid and that she was losing her cool as she shouted those words while taking shaky steps backwards and away from him.


    Seeing her in that state, Adam knew that he messed up, and he knew that he had to fix it fast.


    He totally forgot, or didn''t even consider, what Susan might think if the door appeared in front of her suddenly, how she would react to that and how it would seem from her point of view, and the shell shocked expression she had told him how much she left her imagination roam.


    "Calm down, nothing bad is going to happen to you, what you felt is normal, no need to worry about it," he said.


    Looking at her expression, he knew that his words didn''t work and she was still hesitant about trusting him.


    He sighed and studied the different possibilities that he had, he wasn''t going to lose much by telling her the truth, or at least what he thought the truth was, the only reason he hadn''t done that till then was that he didn''t see a need to and he himself didn''t know what was wrong with her, he had a few clues and observations, but that was it, nothing too profound about it.


    "Okay, I swear that I will tell you about all of this later, everything I''ve noticed and everything you need to know, but not now, we have to deal with this first, I promise you that nothing bad will happen to you," he tried with the most sincere voice he could muster.


    Adam looked on as Susan tightened her hand into fists and looked at him right back with fear and hesitation, many thoughts seemed to pass through her mind and she seemed to be having a hard time making her choice, Adam tried his best to appear as honest as he was feeling, and it seemed that it somehow worked because after a while, she gave him a small nod, he decided to ignore how forced it felt for now.


    "Good, don''t worry, I really mean you no harm," Adam comforted her for one last time before bringing his attention back to the door.


    The protective veil on it was already gone, so he only had to pull a bit and it would open up. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and made one of his gigantic hands pull the door open.


    Grey, that''s all that Adam saw inside, whatever was behind the door was covered by the grey fog that covered every single part of it.


    It didn''t take long for him to realise that it wasn''t truly fog, but the same mana that he felt before, a type that he never met in his life before.


    "It seems as if one of the primary attributes of this mana is concealment..." He murmured.


    Adam manifested two shining spheres of milky white light and made them pass through the twisting grey mana.


    Even though he was keeping a close eye on them, he still lost contact with them after they went past the door for a bit, he couldn''t even feel them through his connection to them as their caster, as if they have disappeared entirely.


    He kind of expected that, but he still felt a tinge of annoyance at it, he knew that he met another problem and he wasn''t sure how to move forward from there, of course, if he wanted to throw everything to the wind, he would be able to destroy whatever was emitting this effect, but what''s the point of that? What he needed was new information and clues, using violence might lead to the distraction of important leads by mistake.


    Yet, even with that, entering a place like that grey mana filled space in front of him with no plans or any preparations was a stupid idea, who knew what might happen to him inside that weird mana. So he had to think of a solution.


    His biggest problem then was how it was his first face-off with that weird mana, and how should he deal with it and what should he expect.


    After a lot of thinking and experimentation, among of which was using different types of scrying spells to try and see what was inside -he got nothing out of it- and throwing small animals and creatures to it -they never reappeared, and he couldn''t even hear them after a certain point- he had to admit that he was only left with one last thing he could think of -except destroying the whole place of course- one that sprung to him the moment he knew what the grey fog was.


    He turned his head and looked at Susan with an awkward and embarrassed smile.


    It seemed as if Susan''s heart stopped for a moment when she saw him look at her with that expression and her breath got caught in her throat as her face paled even further.


    "Don''t worry, don''t worry, I won''t ask of you to go inside," Adam explained hurriedly when he saw the clear changes in her expression.


    She appeared to relax at that. Adam had noticed how her expression turned from bad to worst with each animal he threw inside that endlessly twisting fog.


    "So... So what do you want?" She asked.


    It was clear from the way he looked at her that he had a plan for her.


    "Come and stand here beside me," he said.


    Taking her place next to him, after not a short while of contemplating, he continued with some hesitation:


    "All you need to do is reach your hand through the door to touch the fog."


    Even though whatever Adam threw inside only disappeared entirely after crossing a certain distance away from the door, the grey mana filled the whole space behind it, it just couldn''t pass through it, as if there was some kind of invisible barrier there.


    "Don''t worry, here look," Seeing that she was still hesitating, Adam reached out his arm through the door and touched the grey mana, he kept it there for a while and nothing happened at all, "see? Don''t worry nothing will happen to you, and even if something does happen, I''ll be right next to you, I''ll make sure that no harm shall befall you,"


    Those words and the demonstration seemed to calm her down a bit, and after taking a few deep breaths, she pushed her hand in.

 10-Final Preparations

    Nerezza, the Skugg''s Capital: the Royal Castle:


    If you had to name the most secure places in Tellor, then the Royal Castle in Nerezza must be mentioned.


    Because of the skugg''s old traditions, the castle being sufficiently protected meant the life or death of the current ruler. All that and more meant that the security in the Royal Castle had to be as good as it could be.


    The skugg''s current king, Randall Revenmar, was a living legend to every skugg in Tellor, he was able to keep his position as the king for 16 years and survived the assassination attempts for 8 years, even those that did not follow the established rules. Making him one of the most well known and unique rulers through the history of the skugg.


    At that moment, Randall was in a meeting with some of his advisers and the upper echelons of the kingdom, they all were there for the last discussion before heading to Lurpi the next day to participate in the meeting that would probably change the current state of the whole world.


    Randall was wearing a long black robe and a crown that had a veil extending down from it, covering most of his face, only showing his eyes; they were cold, and just one glance from him would make you freeze in terror.


    "How are the encolian''s movements?" Asked Randall without moving his eyes away from the big map that was in front of him, the map showed all the kingdoms that encircled the skugg.


    "It''s as expected your Highness," said a skugg in a light, easy to move in, leather armour; he was one of the leaders of the army.


    The skugg wasn''t wearing anything that would cover his head, which left his features there for all to see, his skin was dark and had black lines in random patterns covering it.


    "Their first reaction to the news was similar to all the others," he continued, "they started working on a gigantic mana consuming ritual, and also mobilized their armies and strengthened their borders, especially those they shared with us, it seems that they fear us making a move against them if we get the chance."


    The relationship between the skugg and the encolian was never that good, even with the Alpha''s pressure and his Royal Commandments, there was still some skirmish between the two parties.


    It got especially bad in the last few years when it was found that the skugg had some involvement in the revolution that happened in the encolian''s kingdom and the assassination of their previous king.


    "Just strengthen the borders, dont pay much attention to them," Randall ordered.


    "Your highness," a skugg said, he had a weak body and seemed to be the oldest among all the skuggs there, "aren''t... Aren''t you going to call the Shades? The situation is a bit weird right now and who knows what will happen... I think that them being here would be of great help to us whatever happens next..."


    The room fell into complete silence, the old skugg wasn''t the only one who thought about that, it was something a lot of them thought about but none dared to say.


    The Shades was the name of the strongest legion the skugg had, it had the elites who cared about nothing but protecting their race and working towards its betterment.


    But for some reason, Randall didn''t share a good relationship with the members of this legion, a short while after he took the seat, he quickly had the legion move to the depths of the Beasts'' Forest, under the pretext that they had to work on stopping any strong monsters from leaving it and deal with those they were able to deal with, and with that, they remained there for 16 years, a much longer time than anyone expected.


    Randall turned his head and focused his eyes on the old skugg who froze under that harrowing gaze, things remained like this for a while with no one daring to even breathe before Randall finally said:


    "There''s no need for that, the situation is still acceptable, I don''t think that everything would come falling in seconds, we have no reason to distract them from their honourable mission for something as insignificant as this, don''t you think?"


    "Ye... Yes," the old skugg said with difficulty as he bowed.


    After giving the old man a satisfied nod for his response, Randall closed his eyes before reopening them, with that done, the sense of pressure and cold had decreased a bit and the old skugg had calmed down further, Randall looked at him as he asked:


    "How is the ritual doing? When can we expect it to start?"


    "Tomorrow night..." Answered the old skugg while trying to keep the trembling off his voice, "that... That''s the best we can do..."


    Randall''s eyebrows seemed to frown as he fell into deep silence after hearing that, then he asked again:


    "What other races would complete their rituals before us?"


    "The... The encolian? Probably..." Replied the old skugg with a clear awareness that his answer would irritate the king, but he had to, "the appearance of the Luminous Rivers was an unexpected occurrence for all the races, so it''s believed that all our preparations will move forward at the same pace, except for the encolian... Their proficiency with runic glyphs will give them a valuable advantage over the rest of us... They are probably going to complete their ritual ahead of all the rest..."


    The room fell into a deafening silence as everyone inside considered what that meant. Their reaction in these important next few hours will determine their future, these few hours could either be the reason for a race''s ascension to power, or the fell to their doom.


    "Make everyone work as fast as they could, make sure that the preparations are ready and that the ritual will continue till the end without any problems, or what''s waiting for you would be worst than death," Randall commanded with a frosty voice before adding:


    "Do we know the location of the encolian''s ritual?"


    "Yes your highness, they tried to hide it using many plots but we were able to locate the real one eventually," a leather armour wearing skugg answered that time.


    "Send a few groups to try and delay them as much as possible," commanded Randall.


    "It will be done, your highness," the man answered.


    Everyone there knew that the fates of those groups were set in stone at that moment, probably, none of them was going to survive, but none of the people there dared to go against Randall''s command, and none of them saw a need too, some sacrifices were to be expected.


    "Alright then, let''s end this here, make sure that the rituals are ready and be ready for tomorrow''s journey," said Randall as he waved his hands at the skugg in the room.


    "Your highness," they all bowed before leaving one by one.


    ***


    Ancilia, The Phas''s Capital:


    Nulara walked through the long hallways of the castle following behind the female soldier ahead of her, her thoughts wondering without control to what was going to happen soon.


    "Wait here your highness," the female soldier suddenly said as they stopped in front of a big engraved door.


    After she stopped, the soldier stepped forward and knocked on the door lightly and solemnly, a few moments after that the door opened and another female soldier stood on the other side, seeing Nulara and the female soldier before her, she turned around and announced respectfully:


    "Your highness, she''s here.''


    "Good, everyone, get out, and Nulara? Enter on your own," a strong commanding voice came from inside, and after it disappeared, the rest of the soldiers and servants left the room.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Taking a deep breath, Nulara turned to give her personal maid Simlith a forced smile before moving to enter the room.


    Entering the room, the door closed behind Nulara making her flinch a bit.


    Nulara moved till she stood at the centre of the room before stopping. She felt a pair of familiar eyes fell open her, a judging gaze scanning her for any flaws, a cold, emotionless stare.


    "Your Highness," she said as she bowed towards the source of that gaze.


    Step! Step! Step!


    Amathira strode towards her with strong, sturdy steps before stopping and scanning her with dull eyes.


    Nulara kept her head lowered lest she met those eyes that occupied her nightmares as a child, she waited for this part to end and for the queen to shift her attention away from her as would usually happen, but this time, she didn''t get that privilege. She suddenly felt a hand fell under her chin, forcing her to lift her head.


    Nulara froze as her eyes met those beautiful cold eyes, she held her breaths and didn''t even dare move an inch.


    "Sigh..." Finally, Amathira sighed as she released her chin, "you have some of his features, you know?"


    Nulara didn''t try replying, she was still looking at those eyes like a frozen prey.


    Seeing her like that, Amathira continue:


    "I hated that about you a lot at first, you know? My brother was an idiot, to marry someone from another race? And an omega at that? That was the biggest shame our royal family faced. Fortunately, you weren''t born as an omega or we would have been a laughingstock for the people."


    Amathira''s voice was as cold and emotionless as it always was, but there was a trace of something else in it this time.


    "But now, looking at you, I see his features and also see the same strong will that hides behind those soft gentle eyes that hold inside of them an unextinguishable fire..."


    Having said that, she fell silent for what seemed like a long period of time to Nulara before continuing with a much softer voice:


    "I''m sorry Nulara..." Nulara shook after hearing these words and her eyes opened even wider, she never, even in her wildest dreams, thought that she would hear those words from her.


    "I really do, but some things must be done, and we must put our race before all," she continued forcefully, "from what we heard, this new ruler seems close in shape to the Origins, and it seems that he holds no hate towards hybrids."


    Amathira reached her hand again and touched Nulara''s cheek lightly:


    "Darling, despite your dishonourable origins, you have a charm that few, if any, can resist, and you should know how to use it... You should make sure to do all you can for your race, understood?"


    Nulara didn''t speak directly, she just looked at the blank face in front of her, she had always known that this would be her end, thrown away as a pawn for a plan far greater than anything she could hope to understand, but even with all that, when the moment came, she felt fear, apprehension and confusion.


    Unfortunately, even with all those emotions filling her heart, she could do nothing but lower her head under the weight of those eyes as she murmured:


    "Yes your highness, I understand, I will do my best."


    ***


    Boreas, livitus'' Capital:


    Midlus Talavir, the current king of the livitus, was standing inside a secret room hidden using an intricate formation of runic glyphs that would leave even the masters of this craft scratching their heads in confusion.


    Midlus was a giant-like man, standing at a height of three meters and sporting a mass of big sculpted muscles on his body with silver lines twisting and winding all over it, he also had a head full of long silvery hair.


    In the room with him, there was a lot of different livitus, some of them were wearing battle armours, others were wearing light robes and had gentler features than the others.


    "We need to find them, and fast," Midlus finally said as he looked at a map hanging on the wall, his voice was low and hoarse, "the Luminous Rivers are appearing all over the places they didn''t appear over before, and they are showing no signs of disappearing again, so... If this is really happening, we are going to be in a real problem..."


    The room was dominated by heavy thick air, everyone there knew what the manifestation of the Luminous Rivers above those last few places they didn''t appear over before meant, and the disaster that that signified, especially for them.


    "But your highness... We weren''t able to find them all over these years... And the happenings would only make our chances worst now..." One of the livitus inside the room said hesitatingly.


    "WE HAVE TOO," shouted Midlus, while glaring at the speaker, "or, after a few hundred years from now, there might be no livitus on Tellor, hell, it might not even take that long if this new king decided to mess things up more."


    The few present livitus blanched and shook at the thought, the most frightening thing about what Midlus said was that it was the truth, if the situation continued as it was, the livitus would completely disappear from the face of Tellor.


    "Let''s concentrate our efforts and forces on the Berserker Sea," Midlus added after seeing their expressions, "at least she can''t move, all we have to do is find her and understand what''s wrong with her, why even though all this time has passed there''s still... Sigh..."


    "Concentrate on that and also on preparing the armies in case we needed them," ordered Midlus, "as for the rest, we will speak about it after seeing how things will turn out in tomorrow''s meeting and after seeing what would be discussed in it."


    ***


    Somewhere in Tellor:


    In a field full of the sounds of laughter and screams of little children, an old lady sat on a simple wooden seat on the side as she looked at them with a gentle smile on her face.


    The children were of different races, there were some Amaryn, skugg, livitus, and many others among them, but at that moment, they all were playing together with no worry or care.


    The old woman had silvery grey long hair, was hunched a little and had deep wrinkles that bore witness to how many years she had seen, her facial features were gentle and made one feel at ease around her.


    If there was something special about her, something setting her aside from the other races, then that was her short height, as she was only around 1.40 meters, and also the weird ever-shifting tattoo-like patterns on her hands.


    Looking at the children from all the different races playing around, the old lady would frown unconsciously from time to time before catching herself and trying to stop thinking about whatever was bothering her.


    Suddenly, the old lady turned her head and looked to a specific spot of the field, a young man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, was standing there, he had a bit of a weak built, gentle features and a human appearance.


    The one eye-catching thing about him was the headband he was wearing, it was clear how old it was, but even with that, the young man didn''t try replacing or throwing it away, showing just how much he cared about it.


    Not long after, the young man seemed as if he noticed the old lady''s gaze on him, he lifted his head and waved at her energetically with a bright smile.


    The old lady nodded with a smile in return before lifting her head and looking to the sky.


    "Really... The older one gets the stupider they become..." She finally murmured with a bitter smile.

 11-Atalya the Danupira

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    With short breaths and a fast-beating heart, she watched as her hand went past the door and became blurry behind the grey fog.


    Exactly as she had expected, she felt something when her hand ''touched'' the grey fog, it was the same cold feeling she felt when her hand touched the floor and the door before, if a bit stronger this time and continued till the centre of her hand, instead of it being a feeling that disappeared at her fingers.


    Unlike the last two times too, the feeling wasn''t momentarily, but continuous, giving the sense that an unending river was flowing into her.


    A bit afraid about what was happening, she turned her head towards Adam wanting to tell him about this, just to get shocked at what she saw.


    Next to her, Adam was looking intensely at the grey fog and all around him, there were wisps of that milky white energy, and his eyes too were shining with the same white light.


    He appeared highly concentrated and she shrank back and couldn''t bring herself to speak to him.


    Again, a small voice in her heart made itself known, she had no idea about what was happening, she didn''t know if she was in any danger, even though if everything around her was taken into account, then she was almost sure that she was in some kind of danger. She didn''t know if she could trust Adam, that small voice was particularly shouting at her to turn around and try to run as fast and far as she could, or her end was near.


    Taking a deep breath, Susan tried to ignore all of that as she looked at the grey fog in front of her. That wasn''t because she had that much trust in Adam, or she trusted that nothing bad was going to happen to her, no, it was just that she had no real choice.


    Even if Adam meant her bad, it wasn''t like she had a lot of choices, she was but a normal weak human, and he was someone that made some of the strongest guards in her village retreat easily, the only choice she had was going on with Adam and hoping that he meant nothing bad towards her.


    For the who knows what time in these last few days, Susan felt anger, sadness and bitterness of being a weak human with no means to protect herself.


    Things continued like this for a while, Susan just kept her hand lifted while she felt that never-ending feeling of something passing through it. What made her more nervous as time passed was how she felt that coldness move higher on her arm.


    The first time, when she touched the floor above, it seemed that it hardly passed her fingers, actually, she treated it as nothing more than the coldness from the floor that she felt on her fingers.


    The second time, at the door, it reached the lower end of her fingers, and it was only then that she started thinking that this coldness might be something else and not just a normal chill.


    And at the beginning of this, when she lifted her hand to the door for the first time, the coldness had reached the centre of her palm before disappearing entirely, but after that, as time passed, she felt that coldness move up her arm slowly, from the centre of her palm, to her wrist and till the halfway point up her lower arm.


    Just as she felt the chill reach the halfway point of her lower arm, she couldn''t take it anymore and decided to ask Adam about what was happening to her.


    Yet, just as she turned her head towards him, she felt as if she saw a blurry figure from the corner of her eye, and her heart dropped because it was coming from the grey fog.


    She didn''t even have the time to turn her head around, she could only freeze as she watched that figure get closer and closer to her.


    Suddenly, just as she thought that she was done for for sure, she saw a bright shining milky white flame head to that figure and collide with it


    Boom!


    "Ahhh!"


    A big boom was heard first, followed by a loud, shrill scream.


    Susan turned her head hurriedly towards the door again and saw a blurry humanoid figure engulfed in burning white flames.


    While that figure was still struggling amidst the white flame, a milky white pyramid started manifesting itself around it.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    When the pyramid was done, the figure had finally extinguished the fire and tried to retreat to the safety of the grey fog, unfortunately for it, it found that it wasn''t able to pass through the pyramid-shaped barrier.


    It clawed, smashed, and eventually shouted at the barrier, but none of that worked.


    Susan turned to Adam who was clearly the person responsible for what had happened.


    At that moment, Adam was looking intensely at the figure with his eyes shining brightly.


    "Wh... What is that?" She asked stutteringly.


    "An evil spirit... A low levelled one... I think?" He answered hesitantly while still keeping his eyes on it.


    Susan looked at the figure, the evil spirit, again and saw that it had calmed down a lot more than before. The evil spirit had a feminine shape, her features and built were a bit blurry, but even with that, you could still differentiate its sex.


    Her scanning complete, Susan noticed that the evil spirit had turned its head and was looking towards them, studying them closely with its cold unfeeling eyes.


    When those eyes fell on her, they made her take a few involuntary steps back. They were beastly bloodthirsty eyes, but even with all that, Susan could almost swear that she felt a hint of sentience under all that madness.


    "You''re... Weird?" Adam said to the evil spirit inside the pyramid-shaped barrier.


    As Adam spoke, the evil spirit turned her head towards him.


    "Rel....ease... Me... Yo...u low...ley... Li...vi...tus..." A broken voice came of the evil spirit, it was extremely unstable, high at times and low at others, it sounded sinister and harsh before it started shouting.


    "It... It spoke..." Susan''s heart clenched.


    "Yes, uncommon, but not unheard of," Adam''s eyes were full of interest as he concentrated his attention at the evil spirit, "usually, if someone had a high enough level before their death, after turning into an evil spirit-"


    Before he could finish his words, another shrill scream was heard from inside the pyramid-shaped barrier as the evil spirit started attacking it with renewed vigour.


    "Barely holding to an ounce of sentience, but that''s to be expected really, few evil spirits would have any strong sense of self," murmured Adam.


    Even at that moment, he was still in the same state as before, with wisps of milky white light floating around him and his shining eyes never leaving the evil spirit even for a second.


    "What should we do now?" She asked.


    "Hmm..." Adam appeared to be in deep thoughts, "evil spirits in this state are highly unstable, I don''t think that we are going to get much out of it... Asking her about small easily remembered things about herself might help though..."


    Done speaking, Adam took a closer step to the evil spirit as he said in a loud but clear and calm voice:


    "My name is Adam, and I am a livitus, what are you and what''s your name?"


    All he got as an answer was a monstrous shout as the evil spirit continued hitting the barrier, Adam didn''t appear discouraged, he waited till it calmed down a bit again and repeated his question. This time, the spirit''s reaction was calmer, even though it still shouted and attacked.


    After repeating the question for a few more times without tiring, the spirit calmed down at last, enough to listen to him without lashing out.


    "What''s your name and from what race are you?" Asked Adam again.


    "Ata...lya... I... am... a danu...pi..ra..." Finally, and after who knows how many tries, the evil spirit answered with something other than screaming in enmity.


    Susan didn''t recognise the race that the evil spirit mentioned, and looking at Adam, from the deep frown on his face, it seemed that he too didn''t recognise it.


    "Danupira..." Murmured Adam, it was clear that he was a bit disappointed, but he soon controlled himself as he added:


    "Do you know anything about the coneith?"


    Susan too looked in interest to the evil spirit, she wanted to know if this race that Adam was searching for was real or not.


    "Th...ose... Trait...ors... Tho...se dec...eivers..." To their surprise, as soon as the evil spirit heard the name, it froze before starting to scream louder than ever before and restarting its attacks against the barrier.


    None of them expected that. Adam stood shell-shocked as he looked at this reaction, while Susan took a few steps away unconsciously.


    "It seems that it has a deep hatred towards the coneith..." Adam returned to his senses fast, "they could have had a hand in its death to get this reaction out of it."


    "What now?" Susan tried to calm herself down, "I don''t think that it''s going to calm down anytime soon this time..."


    "Yes, you''re righ-" started Adam as he took his eyes of the evil spirit to look at Susan for the first time since it appeared, but he couldn''t complete his words.


    As soon as his eyes fell on Susan, he froze as they moved slowly to the space under her.


    Susan followed his gaze after noticing the change in his expression with a growing sense of fear and unease inside of her.


    She didn''t even need to lower her head entirely, as she took her eyes off the evil spirit, she noticed what she should have noticed a long time ago, the floor all around them was covered in the same grey fog that had covered the other side of the door before.


    After looking even closer, Susan noticed that some of grey fog was circling her feet before disappearing into thin air like smoke at the end.


    As her face paled and the colour disappeared of it, she suddenly heard a scream louder than any of those she heard from the evil spirit till then, followed by the sound of something cracking.


    Susan turned her head just in time to see Adam wave his hand horizontally towards where the evil spirit had been before, and with that, a big wave of milky white flames advanced forward.


    But unfortunately, the wave hit nothing at all, the place where the evil spirit had been before was completely empty.


    "Behind you!" Shouted Adam at her who was still looking at the big wave of fire blankly.


    Susan froze. Even though she knew that an attack was probably coming towards her, and understanding that completely, her body just refused to move, she just continued to look at Adam''s face with widening unblinking eyes as he shouted at her.

 12-What are You?

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    Adam moved as fast as he could on that short notice, pushing himself past the limits he would usually be comfortable with passing, but it was either that or watching Susan die, there was no other choice really.


    He also hadn''t moved past the fifth gate yet, no big problems would start appearing, he still had room to push himself more.


    Even as he moved, his mana had already reached Susan, manifesting in a wall of Cleansing Fire behind her. Defending her against the evil spirit that appeared there at an astonishing speed; though he guessed that that could be associated with it being an evil spirit inside an environment rich with its race''s mana to the point where it manifested as thick fog.


    Foosh!


    Flames rose up behind Susan, in a white blinding wall. Adam was a bit surprised to see the evil spirit retreat after seeing the flaming wall, he guessed that it still had enough awareness to recognise a particularly harmful spell for it.


    But that wasn''t important, what was, is that the evil spirit had retreated, giving him the chance to get better defences up for Susan.


    With a thought, Adam made the flaming wall expand and encircle Susan in a burning half-sphere. The spell he used was extremely effective against evil spirits and other similar entities, he had no worries about Susan then.


    Just as that thought went through his mind, as if mocking him, a few grey spears with heads shining in deep blue bright lights appeared and headed towards the burning barrier that he created, he only sensed them when they were a few meters away from it.


    Adam felt unease at those spears and how they seemed, so he hurriedly made the barrier around Susan stronger than it already was.


    The white flames became intenser till its brightness turned blinding. Adam would have considered that overkill if not for his complete trust in his battle instincts, they never failed him during a fight before.


    As expected, when the blue-headed spears collided with the barrier made of Cleansing Fire, the barrier lost some of its brightness, from the amount of mana that was lost, Adam knew that the barrier wouldn''t have held on if he hadn''t strengthened it.


    Pushing more mana into the barrier, Adam decided that he had seen enough. Using all his body as a conductor, he sent huge amounts of mana through both halls as barely seen thin threads of mana.


    The evil spirit didn''t have a physical form, but its movement would generate waves through the mana around it, the mana threads he sent were enough for him to feel it.


    Suddenly, without turning his face and without any indications at all, a ball of white fire appeared on a random spot followed by a loud shrill scream.


    The ball hit the evil spirit that appeared there as if it threw itself at it and set it aflame. Adam noticed from where he was that the evil spirit was again heading towards Susan, he wondered why it was that determined to finish her.


    He threw that aside when the evil spirit started retreating while trying to extinguish the white flames burning all over its body, he wasn''t going to let something like that happen. As fast as he could, he made a few burning chains appear and wound themselves around the retreating spirit like hungry snakes.


    As much as the evil spirit tried to struggle and fight, it couldn''t wriggle itself off those chains that chained it, which was to be expected, Cleansing Fire was a strong spell against evil spirits, if quite demanding for its level.


    After making sure that it won''t be able to get rid of those burning chains, Adam turned to the burning barrier that encircled Susan, and when his eyes fell on it, he got an idea about why the evil spirit was that determined on dealing with her.


    The grey fog was circling Susan in a slow vortex before disappearing entirely. Even with the burning barrier, this weird phenomenon wasn''t hindered and the grey fog was still condensing around her.


    Looking on for a while, Adam finally made the burning barrier open up a bit, he didn''t remove it completely, he only made the upper part disappear, making it reach around Susan''s knees as it kept on protecting her, ready to close up in a momentary notice.


    Susan jumped and looked around her as the barrier disappeared, when her eyes fell on him, she sighed in relief before looking behind him to the chained spirit. At that moment, the spirit had stopped screaming and its struggling wasn''t as intense.


    "How are you?" He asked


    "I... I''m alright..." She answered with her face still pale, and then she asked back after a bit:


    "... And you?"


    Adam smiled in amusement at the question as he said jokingly:


    "Of course I''m alright, I''m not you."


    Susan didn''t really react to his try at humour, she only looked at the evil spirit behind him as she murmured:


    "She doesn''t seem alright..."


    Adam turned around towards the evil spirit and saw that it seemed to be in a much worst state than it should have been with how much power he used for the burning chains. The Cleansing Fire shaped as chains was supposed to make it just weak, not like it was, seeming as if it was going to disperse at any moment.


    After Adam noticed that, he turned his head around hurriedly as he looked around him. The first thing he noticed was that the grey fog was much less than the first time they entered there, seeing that, he looked directly at Susan, who was still shrouded in grey fog.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    After studying that for a while, it became clear that not all the grey fog was disappearing because of that, on the contrary, the majority of it was moving towards the hole he made in the ceiling before disappearing like scattered smoke.


    The grey mana in the room was getting less and less by time.


    as that understanding set in, Adam brought his attention back to the evil spirit and noticed that it was getting dimmer and dimmer as time went on and as the amount of the grey mana going through the hole in the ceiling got more.


    Adam tried moving fast and hit both hands on the floor below. His palms were shining with milky white bright light and when they touched the ground, that light moved on like waves, making the floor itself shine under the grey mana.


    After reaching the sides of both halls, the light started climbing the walls and fast, before moving to the ceiling, closing even the hole he made in the process.


    Not long after, it had covered the whole space in a milky white barrier, but even with that, the seal was only partial, the fog was still passing through it in a way Adam wasn''t able to determine.


    Weirdly enough, the grey mana gave Adam the impression that it was getting more aggressive as time went on as if it was being pulled or drowned by something or someone.


    "You won''t be able to hold it... It''s being called..." Suddenly, while he was still thinking about that, he heard a somehow familiar voice from where the spirit was chained.


    "Ahhh!" Susan gave a small shout at the unexpected sound as she jumped in her place inside her barrier


    Adam turned his head around and saw that the evil spirit was looking at him calmly. It wasn''t giving any of that air of craziness and brutality like before, it was calm and dignified with a serious expression on its face.


    Adam didn''t know why it suddenly became like this, if it was because of its last moments of clarity or something else, yet, what he did know was that at that moment, he was in front of Atalya the danupira, and not an evil spirit.


    But he didn''t care much about that, what he cared about was that he had in front of him someone who knew about the coneith, and someone who could answer his questions and put him in the right direction.


    "What do you know about the coneith? Where can I find them?" He asked hurriedly, knowing that he didn''t have a lot of time left and was afraid that he was going to miss this chance.


    Atalya didn''t answer straight away, despite how she appeared, it was clear that she wasn''t in the best shape, it took her quite a bit of time before saying:


    "They rarely remain in one place for long... They keep on moving all around Tellor... And their only fixed location isn''t known to anyone else..." Adam found it a bit weird that she choose to answer him at all.


    He also was quite disappointed, for his hopes to be lifted that high and then be brought down just like that was extremely unpleasant, he barely could hold himself before taking a deep breath and asking again:


    "Do you have any clues that could help me locate them?"


    "... You can try the Foggy Mountains... That was one of the locations most suspected to have their fixed base..." Atalya answered after a while and in a rigid manner.


    Adam''s expression changed at her words as he paled a bit at the name she mentioned, but he soon controlled it again before a hesitant looked covered his face.


    Still hesitating, Adam looked behind him at Susan, before taking a few other steps forward, grabbing his collar and exposing the right part of his chest as he asked:


    "Do you know if they have a way to deal with this? And if it can be dealt with at all?"


    For the first time since she returned to her senses, Atalya seemed truly surprised as she threw another glance at Adam, as if seeing him in a new light.


    "... I think they do..." She finally answered, then she added, "Depending on what you have there..."


    Adam wanted to speak more but before he could, he saw Atalya lift her hand, interrupting him before adding:


    "I don''t have much time left... It''s getting stronger..."


    Just as she finished her words, Adams expression changed, he turned his head towards the grey fog that had gotten a bit calmer since he put the barrier and noticed that it was showing signs of going berserk. He knew that the barrier won''t be able to hold on for long.


    "The danupira are already extinct, aren''t they?" Asked Atalya, uninterested in Adam''s reaction.


    "Yes..." He answered after a bit of hesitation, "I haven''t even heard of them before."


    "... It had already happened then... Yet I don''t know what to think... How much of what they said was true?..." Atalya had a complicated expression on her face as she looked beyond the barrier, as if her eyes were able to see another time, one only she was able to remember.


    Adam tried to ask her about what she meant, yet, before he could say anything, he heard the sound of breaking from behind him.


    The barrier broke apart.


    Adam tried as much as he could to stop the grey mana that started gushing out like a wild river with no use.


    The speed at which the mana moved in this time was astonishing.


    Atalya only had a few last seconds, using them, this spirit from an impossibly ancient era turned to Susan and asked in earnest confusion:


    "Just what are you?"

 13-A Roar

    13-A Roar


    The Beasts'' Forest:


    With the grey fog''s disappearance, the evil spirit too dispersed with her last words directed towards Susan, leaving the place as empty as it could be.


    Susan and Adam toured the two halls that just a few moments ago were full of grey fog, and they found nothing important inside except the highly decayed corpse of Atalya, nothing was left of it, just bones. She also had nothing on her, just her clothes.


    Other than that, they found nothing, no murals, no relics, nothing at all.


    Susan was able to see that Adam was more than just a bit disappointed about that.


    she watched as Adam lifted the remains of Atalya using the gigantic hands before dropping them in a grave he built at the centre of the second hall, on the Tombstone he simply wrote, Atalya, A Danupira.


    After that, they left the ruins in silence, but not before Adam gave them one last scan. On the way, Adam said nothing, and neither did Susan, each of them was thinking about something, lost in their thoughts.


    A considerable period after they left the ruins, Adam turned to Susan and said:


    "We will be setting our camp here for the night."


    Susan just nodded lightly and started getting the space around them in order while Adam busied himself with setting the fire up and collecting some woods and twigs.


    After they were done with that, as Susan was getting ready to see what to do for dinner, she suddenly felt those waves she felt so many times today again, if they were a bit clearer this time.


    Turning to Adam, she saw that he was just standing there with his eyes closed, he didn''t have his sword in his hand too.


    "Good, there''s nothing dangerous close by," he nodded as he opened his eyes, before adding as he met Susan''s eyes, "I''ll have to go and scout ahead a bit, we are getting closer to the more dangerous areas of the forest, we should be more careful."


    Susan''s felt as if her heart stopped for a second, and as the blood left her face.


    "Don''t worry, it won''t take long," it seemed that her reaction was as clear as she guessed it was as Adam tried to console her hurriedly, "and I will be leaving a barrier around here, it should keep you safe... Just dont touch it..."


    Feeling that no matter what she said she won''t be able to change his mind, Susan could do nothing but nod at him reluctantly.


    Adam then murmured something softly with his arms spread, Susan felt something move around them but wasn''t able to put her finger on what it exactly was.


    When she returned to her senses again, she saw that Adam had dropped his hands already, and around their camp, there was a barely seen transparent barrier.


    Nodding to himself, Adam brought his attention to Susan again as he said:


    "This barrier is enough to handle most the beasts and monsters around here, and it''s going to hide you from them too, as long as you don''t touch it, so be careful about that."


    Done speaking, he turned around and left in a random direction.


    Susan felt a bit of fear that what he said was nothing but an excuse to abandon her there and leave on his own, but one worried glance around her made her calm down a bit, Adam seemed to have left most of his stuff in the camp, the only thing he seemed to have taken was the sword on his waist.


    ''Adam for sure wouldn''t have gone through all those problems just to leave me here...'' She forced herself to calm down and threw those dark thoughts away.


    Trying to find something to do to keep herself busy, she turned to the bag that Adam used for the ingredients he collected and had on him, deciding to start working on dinner.


    Her thoughts though, were still outside her control, hopping from what happened to her and what the evil spirit, Atalya, said. And how it seemed that there were things she didn''t know about herself.


    Trying to bury herself in work worked somehow, but, around half an hour after Adam left, something weird happened, the atmosphere around her suddenly turned awfully oppressive, she noticed that something was off.


    It took her a bit of thinking, but she soon knew what was happening, the forest was quiet, too quiet, there was no sound around her except the rustling of the leaves.


    The more time passed while the forest was in this state, the bigger her fear became, that was the first time she felt anything like this since she set foot into the forest, she felt as if she was the only living being there, as if everything else had disappeared.


    Her heart started beating fast and deafening silence all around her only made the sound it made that more enhanced in her ears.


    Her beating heart, her heavy breaths and her irritated movements as she looked around her whenever she thought she heard something all filled her senses and made her start losing her cool and react even stronger.


    Just as she was about to lose her cool and start screaming if anyone was there, because that''s the only thing she could think of, another thing happened.


    Roarrrr!


    A deafening roar was heard from the depth of the forest, and as soon as it did, the forest came back to life again, birds flew from the trees and the sounds of animals running and roaring sounded out as if they were running from where the sound came from


    The roar petrified Susan, the horror she felt couldn''t be compared to anything she experienced in her life, as if whatever made that roar was something even her deepest nightmares won''t be able to come up with, something made her experience fear from the depths of her soul.


    Fortunately, that roar only sounded once, and a bit after that, the forest returned to its normal state, with that oppressive feeling covering it disappearing just like how it appeared at first, without a trace.


    Susan didn''t have to wait for long, soon after that roar rang out, Adam returned, making her release a breath she didn''t even know she have been holding.


    "Wha... What happened? What was that sound?" She asked with a bit of lingering fear.


    Adam first gave Susan a scanning gaze, as if making sure that she was alright before answering:


    "It was probably a monster from the depths of the forest, fortunately, it was just passing by, it should have returned from whence it came from already, you don''t have to worry."


    "Good... Good..." She murmured as she felt her heart settling down at last.


    She also didn''t know if she was only imagining it or not, but she somehow noticed that something was off about Adam, as if he was a bit tired.


    She didn''t push that or try to question him, all she did was nod lightly before returning to dinner with her heart a bit more at rest.


    The more time passes that night, the more Susan felt as if something really wasn''t alright with Adam, he was quieter than usual and he also was less lively than what she got used to these last few days.


    Even though she really wanted to ask Adam about what was wrong with her and what he promised to tell her, she decided to wait a bit more when she saw him like that.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    They had a simple dinner before they both headed to bed to try and get some sleep, a lot was going through their minds though, so sleep was going to be hard.


    ***


    "Just what are you?"


    After a mess of weird, bloody and painful scenes, those words were the ones to wake her up from her sleep at the end.


    She opened her eyes, jumping into a sitting position as she looked around her. She saw what she had gotten used to these last few days, the refreshing sight of swaying trees and different grasses all around her.


    She fell again into her bed and closed her eyes, remembering that sentence that got stuck in her mind ever since that weird evil spirit that she and Adam met said it, they were four words only, but they affected her a lot and hit her at her core


    It wasn''t a surprise that she dreamt of that really, she stayed up till late the night before as she thought about what that weird spirit meant.


    She remained in her bad unwilling to move for a long time, feeling tired and sluggish, as she thought of her life these last few days. her life changed in its entirety, and everything was flipped over its head.


    "Come on, we have a long day ahead of us, no time for being lazy," still stuck in her thoughts, she heard the lively voice of Adam.


    She hadn''t even seen his face, but just from his voice alone, she knew that he was back to normal.


    With a small sigh, she gave up and stood up to start a new day.


    ***


    Lupri, City Centre, Arrival Square:


    The arrival Square got its name from the biggest Reception Tower in Lupri, possibly the whole world, being there. This tower itself wasn''t open for public use but was especially there to receive the Alpha''s important guests, in other words, either the Royalty from different races or their representatives.


    Nilus loved it at the Arrival Square, the square was one of the most famous and beautiful places in the capital, and it was a place he liked sitting and relaxing in, leaving his worries and problems aside, things he had a lot of these last few days.


    The situation in Lupri wasn''t that good these last few days, everyone felt the oppressive atmosphere that covered the whole Royal Capital in a while now as if something big had happened, or was going to happen.


    Everything started with the heads of the strongest families in Lupri heading to the First''s Castle five days ago, that on its own wasn''t anything weird because they would go to the castle from time to time to hold meetings, but that time, something weird happened.


    It didn''t take them a lot of time to return, and it was clear to the many people who always kept their eyes on them that not all those that entered the castle had left it, many soldiers had disappeared, and there were even some rumours that Afokash lanik was heavily injured or even dead.


    After that, things in Lupri changed a lot, the number of soldiers patrolling the streets increased and with that the number of patrols and their vigilance. That made things quite hard for Nilus and people like him.


    Nilus hurried to stop himself from thinking of that, he had decided to come there to relax a bit, and not to think about all those things, even though even relaxing at his favourite bench in Arrival Square seemed like an impossibility after what he had noticed.


    Since he got there, he noticed the arrival of four caravans of carriages followed by their escorting knights, and them passing the gates that led through the walls and into the tower''s lands.


    All the caravans were under the lead of unique carriages, they were uniquely designed, decorated and were bigger than normal, he was sure that even Lupri''s noble families would face problems acquiring ones like them, but that wasn''t what worried him, no, that was because of the emblems on the side of each carriage.


    No one in Lupri would have found it hard to recognize those emblems, not to mention Nilus who knew the emblems of most prominent families in Tellor.


    No matter how he tried to get himself to calm down, he couldn''t, he already knew that some guests were coming to the kingdom today, but he wasn''t expecting them to be these.


    After a short while of him being in that state, Nilus sighed in resignation, he stood up and looked around him before his eyes fell on a homeless man who was sleeping in a hidden corner not far away from him.


    "Get up, how many carriages went through those gates today?" Asked Nilus as he kicked the sleeping homeless man.


    The homeless frowned with annoyance he lifted his head to look at Nilus, when his eyes fell on the man standing in front of him his expression changed drastically before trying to bring it back to normal and speak normally.


    "Ten caravans, they were ten, nine of them held the emblems of the nine races of the Pact of Ten and the tenth was the phas''."


    Nilus nodded lightly, things were as he suspected, a meeting was asked for the Pact of Ten, and with how things were those last few days, something big was probably going to happen.


    With those thoughts still swirling around inside his mind, Nilus returned to his seat, leaving the homeless man wiping his sweat after he left.


    Not long after Nilus sat down again, he heard a noise from behind the gates leading to the Reception Tower, that made him sit up straight as he threw his eyes at the gates.


    He hadn''t felt any movement in the mana; there were protection and concealment runic glyphs on the whole ground of the tower, so that was to be expected, but he knew that one of the caravans was probably leaving.


    As expected, the big luxurious gates opened up and soon after, a group of knights followed by a fleet of well-made carriages under the lead of a big modestly decorated carriage giving a sense of graceful dignity got out.


    The colour of the carriage was light green and on its side, there was a coat of arms, it showed a big green shield with five gems set in it in an inverted V shape surrounded by a faint radiance.


    Nilus recognised the emblem at a glance, it was the phas''.


    Nilus kept his eyes on the carriage as it left the gates, and then he noticed something a bit weird, one of the windows was open, and from inside of it he was able to see the gentle face of a young woman looking outside in wonder and awe, the girl had long black hair and gentle and fair facial features.


    Just as his eyes fell on her, she turned around and their eyes met for a second before the window was shut by a light green radiance.


    Even after that carriage had departed for many minutes, Nilus couldn''t return to his normal state, for some reason, the expression and the eyes of that young woman when their eyes met refused to leave his mind, and the longer he thought of her, the harder and faster his heart beat.


    "How can anyone be that beautiful..." There and then, Nilus forgot all his worries and problems as he thought of that black-haired young woman.

 14-Bristlecone

    Lupri, Reception Tower:


    Nulara looked around her in open interest and awe. She, her personal maid Simlith, the queen and the other followers had just arrived at the Reception Tower in Lupri.


    Nulara never got many chances to leave the castle in her life, so even with the true nature of this visit and what it meant for her and her deep worries about what the future held, she couldn''t stop the excitement she felt from this new experience from affecting her.


    As expected of the biggest Reception Tower in Lupri, and one used exclusively by royal families and their representatives, it was flawlessly and expertly decorated.


    Nulara didn''t get the chance to give the big, runic glyphs covered hall a closer look before Amathira started moving.


    What met them when they left the hall was a small crowd, seeing the group of people made Nulara move subtly to the side, hiding behind the one before her, she also tried keeping her eyes on the ground, trying not to stand out, her not wearing her veil didn''t help too.


    "Your highness, I welcome you and those with you to Lupri," Nulara heard a gentle, welcoming voice sound out from the crowd in front of them.


    Lifting her head a bit, she saw an old man with long white hair, the man wasn''t a phas, she recognised him as an omega from the big red gem on his forehead, and also what appeared to be transparent crystals on both sides of his neck.


    That old man wasn''t the only omega there, the crowd was particularly split into two groups, one mostly made of phas, and another made of omega mostly, even though both groups had members of other races too.


    "Thank you Eilif for giving a bit of your time to receiving us," Amathira nodded gently.


    After some greetings from the second group, and some exchanges of pleasantries between Eilif, Amathira and her group, Eilif excused himself and left with most of his followers to prepare for the arrival of the other important guests, while the others of his group remained with Amathira and those with her.


    Then, while Nulara was still looking at the departing group and trying her best to ignore the shocked expressions of those who noticed her, she heard the familiar voice of Amathira saying:


    "Are the others here yet?"


    "No, your highness," a gentle male voice answered, it belonged to a phas of the group that came to welcome Amathira, "your highness is the first here."


    Amathira nodded lightly before ordering:


    "Alright, let''s move out then."


    The others followed behind her without objections and headed to the exit, there their carriages were already waiting for them, the one next to the door was the biggest and the most decorated.


    Reaching the carriage, all the knights waiting there bowed as Amathira nodded their way before moving to enter it.


    Only after the queen entered did the knights lift their heads again, Nulara felt the eyes of many of them fall on her, but she didn''t care about them, she cared more about what was standing next to them.


    Nulara recognised them instantly, it wasn''t the first time she saw them after all, they were Purple Horses, a type of tamed beasts.


    They were similar to normal horses, but, as was obvious from their names, they had purple fur, and were much bigger, the biggest of them was twice the size of a normal horse while the smallest would be as big as the biggest normal horse.


    Purple Horses were faster, stronger and had higher endurance than normal horses, and the prices of the purebred of them were something commoners had no way to understand.


    Nulara soon removed her eyes from them and went in behind the queen.


    Inside the carriage, there was only the queen, Nulara and Tana, the phas'' youngest princess, but even though she was the youngest, she was still in her twenties and had the best magical talent among her three sisters.


    Her personal maid and those of the queen were in another carriage behind them.


    Nulara sat by the window and kept her eyes on the outside, her fingers dug into her palms as her knuckles turned white, thinking of what was coming.


    She didn''t know what the future had in store for her, all she knew was that in a very short time, her whole life was going to change, and nothing was going to be as was before.


    So, not wanting to think about all the uncertainties and possibilities, she decided to keep herself busy by looking outside.


    Not long after, the carriage accelerated as the scenery outside moved backwards, followed by a fleet of carriages and knights.


    Just like she wanted, Nulara soon found herself forgetting her anxiety and worry as the carriage passed the gates of the Reception Tower and her eyes fell on the outside world, she couldn''t stop herself from being amazed at the scenery she saw.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    The gates opened on what seemed to be a garden of some kind, it was full of strolling, or just sitting people, they all seemed carefree and happy as they went with their day, making her feel a weird sense of jealousy.


    The garden itself rivalled her home''s great gardens, with rare plants and flowers in ever-bloom, great fountains with high and mighty life-like statues of people from different races in each junction.


    Just as she was still in her world while looking at these different sights, she felt a gaze lock into her.


    Turning around instinctively, she saw a middle-aged man looking her way, from his unique features, she recognised him as an omega.


    She didn''t get much of a chance to look at him though, the queen soon waved her hand and the window was closed by a green brilliance.


    Amathira didn''t say anything at all, yet Nulara knew that she disapproved of what she did, maybe she wanted her kept as a secret, or maybe she just saw that that kind of behaviour was unacceptable.


    The three of them spent the rest of the journey in silence, fortunately, the carriage was fast enough and it didn''t take them long to reach the First''s Castle.


    "Welcome, your highness Amathira, you and your followers, it''s our pleasure to have you join us today," as soon as Amathira set foot from the carriage, a man stepped forward and greeted them


    Nulara soon noticed that he wasn''t Hagar Gudrun, the Alpha''s old butler, as she expected him to be, but someone she didn''t know. Though it only took Nulara a glance to realise that he was a hybrid too, she wasn''t able to determine what races his parents were, though she suspected that one of them was a livitus from some of his bodily features.


    "My name is Mosi, and I''m this castle''s new butler, if you need anything while you''re here, just tell me, I''ll do my best to help," he continued.


    Nulara saw that not everyone there showed surprise at what he said, she didn''t know if that was because they already knew that it was going to be another person greeting them, or they were just that good at hiding their true feelings.


    Mosi was somehow tall, around 1.9 meters, with grey silvery hair, silver eyes and a body on the muscular side.


    Nulara noticed that he kept his eyes on her longer than he did with those in her group, that was to be expected, but then she noticed that his eyes soon changed from the usual shock and surprise people had when they saw her to confusion, it must be that he hadn''t expected to see a hybrid among them, but the same thing could be said about her, she didn''t expect to see a hybrid acting as a butler to the new king, even with all the queen''s reassuring words that he was quite accepting of them.


    Amathira replied to Mosi''s greeting in kind as she nodded lightly.


    "Your highness is the first here, so if you can follow me to the waiting hall, please."


    The pleasantries out of the way, Mosi led them to a big hall Nulara already knew about in the lessons she had before the journey there, five people went in with Amathira, not including her while the others remained outside.


    Nulara only knew two of them, the first was Tana of course, while the other was the queen''s personal guard, her name was Taloora and her age wasn''t known, the other two were some personal guards too, but she didn''t know them.


    Usually, the Alpha would be already waiting for them at the waiting hall when they enter, and after some greetings and necessary formalities, he would make someone lead them to the meeting room and repeat that again and again with all the other guests till the last of them, and after that, he would join them at last.


    But this time, things were different, when Mosi led them to the waiting hall, no one was there except some servants and guards.


    "I''ll be leaving for now, we are going to wait for the others to come before heading to the meeting room, you can get the servants here to help you if you need anything at all, that''s it for me, if you can excuse me," Mosi said before bowing and leaving the waiting hall from whence he came.


    The hall was properly prepared and nothing was missing or unfit for receiving people of their status, but even so, Nulara still saw a small frown appear on Amathira''s face before she controlled her expression as she returned to her usual front, yet Tana, the youngest princess showed her displeasure further with her frown and the annoyed glances she kept on throwing the guards and servants standing around them.


    Nulara herself didn''t care about this difference in treatment, all she did was try and remain as close as possible to Amathira.


    Not long after, the door they entered through opened up again, yet, this time, Mosi had someone walking behind him.


    Wearing a dirty old robe covering his whole body, a crooked and clearly hunched back and slow footsteps that made him appear as if a light breeze would send him flying away, all those and more made Nulara question for a second if there was something wrong with making such a person come and meet them, but that soon passed and she remembered who that person was.


    He was Bristlecone, the ajahit''s representative, a member of the Pact of Ten. Even among all the representatives of the other races, Bristlecone held a special and unique position, he was the ajahit''s only representative during the full period of them being a part of the Pact of Ten, he was impossibly ancient, and considered to be one of the oldest beings in Tellor.


    The ajahit themselves held a unique position among all the different races in Tellor, and that was for many reasons, from their sought after and requested skills, the state they found themselves in, and why they were like that from the beginning, many individuals in Tellor had a deep appreciation for the ajahit.


    "Elder Bristlecone," Amathira stood up to greet him politely, "I haven''t seen you in a long time, how are you doing."


    "Ah, little Amathira," Bristlecone turned his face that was covered under the hood of his cloak slowly before answering. His voice was slow, weird and had a special quality as if different branches were scratching each other to release that extraordinary sound, "you have grown a lot, I remember when your mother brought you here for the first time, how time passes..."


    Only after Bristlecone said all of that did he come back to the question that Amathira asked:


    "I''m as usual, there are limits to what a person can reach due to the effects of time, and I''ve reached them a long time ago," There was a hint of laughter in his weird voice, making it clear that he was joking.


    Even as he spoke, Bristlecone continued moving towards them, when he was four meters away, Nulara smelt something she never thought that she would smell there. It was the smell of trees, dirt and refreshing breeze. All those smells made her feel comfortable and calmed her heart and worry that continued to rise the more time moved forward.


    Amathira smiled at him before asking:


    "What do you think about all of this?" Nulara didn''t know if she meant the meeting, the disappearance of the Alpha or the thing with the Luminous Rivers. Maybe it was all of those as much as she knew.


    Bristlecone remained silent for a long time before saying in a grave tone of voice:


    "A big change, wars, chaos, destruction and death... Or nothing, who am I to say," He ended his sentence as if all that he said was nothing but a joke.

 15-The Truth

    Lupri, the First''s Castle:


    No one laughed at Bristlecone''s joke, but he didn''t seem to care, all he did was head to a random seat and sit down, he showed no care for how he was treated.


    Nulara didn''t know if it was on purpose or not, but the seat Bristlecone took was right next to the one she had been sitting on before he entered, she didn''t know if it would be better if she changed her seat or not, but in the end, she decided against that when she saw that Amathira said nothing.


    And so, inside that big, luxurious hall, they all sat in silence waiting for the arrival of the other members of the Pact of Ten.


    ***


    The Beasts'' Forest:


    Next to a small stream going through the forest, Adam and Susan, who had just finished their lunch, were sitting face to face.


    The place they chose was quite beautiful, with the bubbling sound of water, the gentle warmth of the sun that passed through the leaves, and the comforting breeze going through the land, Susan felt relaxed and drowsy, and her heartbeats started slowing down as she lost herself in the moment, she knew that if she laid on the short grass she was sitting on, she would fall asleep in no time at all.


    "Okay then, it''s time to talk about some important things I guess..." Just as she was studying the viability of turning those ideas into reality, she heard Adam''s lively voice as he clapped his hands, "... I have given you a promise after all," he continued.


    Susan practically jumped in her place as her wide eyes flew towards Adam, studying his face closely. Her heart beat faster and she felt her muscles contract as if she was facing a horrible adversary.


    "Calm down, there''s no need for you to be so flustered, take deep breaths," Adam tried to console her in a gentle tone of voice.


    ''It''s easy for you to say that!'' She shouted internally, she had been waiting for this moment ever since Adam told her that he was going to explain to her what had happened before.


    She had enough time to think about what happened on her own, and with that, she concluded that what occurred the day before wasn''t because there was a special element that refused to react to adam and for some reason reacted to her, no, from how Adam put things that day, it was somehow clear that she had the unique element that made the wall and the floor react when she touched them, something was wrong with her.


    Susan took a few deep breaths as she tried to calm herself down, she understood that Adam was right and that overreacting won''t help in any way, a while after, her breaths calmed down and she could control her nerves again.


    "That''s good," Adam nodded with a chuckle after Susan finally calmed down before saying seriously, "what I''m going to say right now is all I''ve noticed about you till now, you must have noticed it yourself, but there are quite a bit of weird things about you."


    Saying that Adam stopped and looked at Susan, he appeared as if he was waiting for a reaction from her. Susan from her side, just took more deep breaths as she nodded at him, telling him to continue.


    "...hmm, where to start then," he laughed as he scratched at his chin, "I know that you want to know what happened yesterday, but there are many other things I think deserve to be mentioned... Well, let''s start with the first thing I''ve noticed.


    "Actually, the first weird thing I have noticed about you I noticed even before meeting you."


    Susan couldn''t help but show a weird expression as she tried to understand what Adam was meaning with those words, but she remained silent, knowing very well that he was going to explain anyway.


    And just as expected, he continued, "You remember how that night was, right?"


    She nodded slowly, she actually didn''t think that she would be able to forget that night even if she wanted, it was engraved in her memory forever.


    "That night was moonless and the forest was extremely dark, running through the forest, under those circumstances, isn''t easy, even for individuals of some other races, not to mention a human..." Here Adam stopped shortly as if to give Susan the chance to realize what he was implying.


    With the push from Adam''s words, Susan started realizing something she had ignored till then, something she hadn''t noticed till that point. That night, as Adam said, even though it was supposed to be as dark as possible, and with no real sources of light, she didn''t trip at all and continued her escape without any similar problems, as if she wasn''t running through a forest in a dark moonless night, but through an open meadow in a sunny day.


    She never noticed before because she was strongly fighting the memories of that night, stopping herself from remembering what happened to her and what she went through, that was a night she would wipe of her memories gladly if she got the chance.


    "... But not only you didn''t trip at all," he continued, "you also avoided all the trees and obstacles in your way as if you were able to see them... Were you able to?"


    "I... I think so..." With trembling lips, she answered Adam''s question with some hesitation and confusion.


    Adam nodded lightly as if he already guessed that that was the case before continuing:


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Were your senses always this sharp?"


    She knew that that was quite important because it would show if that was her normal or something that only happened when she was running from the village that night.


    "No... No, I don''t think so, my senses were always normal, none of them was even above no..." She answered truthfully before realizing what he had said:


    "Wait, you said senses? Do you mean...?"


    "Oh, look at me, how hasty I am," he laughed lightly, "yes, your vision wasn''t the only sense that was unusual that night, your sense of hearing too was quite sharp."


    "I don''t want to boast, but I''m quite good at sneaking, and even though I didn''t put many thoughts into following you that night because I saw that you were but a human, there was still no chance that you should have been able to hear me at all... Yet you did..."


    Again, Adam''s words reminded Susan of what happened back then, she could remember hearing Adam''s advancing footsteps quite clearly too.


    Adam didn''t continue, he stopped for a bit, as if giving her the chance to calm down, seeing her in a better state and that she was with him again, he went on:


    "Those are not the only things I discovered that first night we met, your speed then was another such a thing, you were moving fast, faster than a normal human would have been able to, and even some of the weaker races would have trouble keeping up with that speed, especially for how long you kept it going."


    Adam didn''t see any reaction from Susan to this, that wasn''t because this didn''t affect her, no, it was because she was turning numb after taking hit after hit and her mind was still trying to process all that she heard and was feeling.


    "The next thing I''m going to talk about is something I discovered just as I caught you," added Adam, taking Susan''s lack of reaction as a sign for him to continue, "back then, when I caught you, your hand got injured, and your feet were wounded from you running around barefoot and all, so I tried to heal you, healing magic isn''t something I''m skilled in, but I know more than enough to heal the kind of wounds you had."


    "But... It didn''t work...?" She asked as she gulped audibly.


    Adam not healing her and the way he used to avoid the subject when she brought it up was something that made her warier of him than she was at first, that made her feel as if he had a hidden agenda, or was hiding something from her, so getting an explanation out of him then was quite relieving, but then the truth that magic didn''t work on her settled in and fear of the unknown came with that.


    "Exactly," he continued as his expression turned graver, "at first I assessed that your wounds weren''t that serious, so I didn''t use much mana and only cast a simple healing spell, but then I noticed that I didn''t succeed, your wounds showed no signs of improvement, thinking that that was because I didn''t use enough mana and that your wounds might have been worst than expected, I used another healing spell on you, one much stronger and using way more mana, but, even that didn''t work..."


    All Adam''s attention was on Susan as he concluded:


    "That finally made me stop and reevaluate the situation, the problem wasn''t from the spell, the mana or any of that... The problem was you."


    It appeared as if he wanted to see if Susan was going to show any indication that she knew what he was referring to, but whatever it was that he wanted, Susan didn''t have the luxury to care about any of that, she just looked at him blankly, as if in a deep shock.


    Seeing her in that state for a long time, Adam sighed, took his bottle of water and handed it to her.


    "Here, drink a bit of water and try calming yourself down," he said as he patted her shoulder.


    Susan took the bottle with shaking hands before lifting it to her lips, taking a tiny sip, even as she did, she was still lost in her thoughts and what she had just heard.


    She didn''t understand what all that meant, she didn''t know a lot about magic and she didn''t know if magic not working on her had any other implication for those who did, and most importantly, she didn''t know if that was of any danger on her.


    Everything about the situation was outside the limits of her understanding, after all, just a few days ago, she was but the daughter of a farmer, a human who had no link nor understanding for magic.


    "Should I continue? We can stop here, we''re still going to be together for a while, we can come back to this any other time," noticing that she wasn''t taking the news that well, Adam suggested with a small frown on his face.


    "N... No, I''m alright, I''m just trying to understand what this might mean... I''ll be alright in a bit..." She answered as she returned to herself.


    "Okay..." He proceeded again, "back then even I didn''t know what that meant, but in the last few days, after spending more time with you and after many things happened, I noticed some things, and I... I have a few suspicions about what this might be."


    Susan sat straighter as she heard that, her heart calming down a bit, at least, there might be an explanation for this, and things might not be as bad as she thought.


    "What I imagine is happening to you," he started, "...is that somehow, and for some reason... You can absorb mana."

 16-Grand Array

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    "What... What does that mean?" Susan asked him in a bit of hesitation and confusion, which was to be expected.


    "Precisely what I''ve said," he answered as he scratched at his chin, "as I said, what I''ve experienced and what happened in the last few days led me to this conclusion.


    "First, I wasn''t able to heal you, and the mana I used back then felt as if it disappeared without a trace, then a bit after that, while using my scanning spell, I felt the mana that passed by you got absorbed and disappear from under my control, it was then that I started suspecting that you somehow could absorb mana.


    "Later, when I faced the floor hidden by a runic glyph I didn''t recognise, I had the sudden idea of using this special trait of yours to absorb the mana powering it directly, and to my surprise, that did work, and that only strengthened my suspicions."


    When he talked about having her try and see if she could affect the runic glyphs, Adam noticed that Susan had a weird look on her face, one she tried to hide, it was a mix of fear and hurt.


    He couldn''t come to understand why she would have that reaction and she didn''t seem to want to talk about it so he let it be for then.


    "I didn''t tell you about all of this straight away because you weren''t in the best state of mind these past few days, and even I don''t have an actual answer, all I have are but educated guesses."


    "It''s like that...?" She murmured after he was done speaking.


    He was able to see that she was still confused and had no idea about how to deal with this news, and even seemed as if she didn''t understand what was really happening.


    Thinking about it for a bit, he waved his hand, just for the sake of appearance, and called a bright sphere of milky white light with a thought.


    Susan''s eyes moved towards it instinctively, it wasn''t the first time she saw him using this spell, he sometimes used it at night, and he also used it when they were exploring the ruins so she wasn''t that surprised, but she seemed confused at what it was for.


    "Here, I think this is going to give you a better idea about what I meant," he explained as he had the milky white sphere move towards her, "touch it when you feel like it."


    She looked at the milky white sphere suspiciously and then at him again before lifting her hand and touching it.


    As he expected, as soon as she touched the sphere, the spell appeared like a sphere of smoke getting sucked into Susan''s finger.


    She acted as if she got burned by a fire as she retracted her hand back as fast as she could, but if her expression was any indication, then she was just surprised and that didn''t hurt her at all.


    "Did that hurt?" He still asked her to make sure.


    "N... No, it didn''t, I just got surprised..." She answered as he predicted But then she continued in hesitation, "I still felt a chill going up my arm though..."


    Adam frowned at that, he was able to remember that she did mention something like this before, how she felt something moving up her arm.


    "The best explanation for this is that you''re feeling the mana going up your arm as coldness, that still can''t explain how you can feel it at all though, or why you can absorb mana..." He said.


    Adam was a bit surprised about how good Susan was taking the news in, she wasn''t as shocked as he thought that she would be, then again, he didn''t know how much of that was because she really wasn''t affected, and how much of it was because she simply didn''t understand what those few words meant. Though he guessed that the second part had more of an impact, it didn''t appear as if Susan had any real understanding about mana, magic and how all of that worked.


    To someone like that, what he said won''t be as shocking as it would be if the listeners were someone with a deeper understanding of magic.


    Shaking his head of those thoughts he turned his attention back to Susan who seemed to have calmed down a bit and fell into some deep thoughts, he didn''t bother her and let her be with them for the time being.


    A while later, Susan finally got out of her thoughts, she lifted her head as she asked him:


    "Do you have any idea about why something like this would happen?" Her voice was sturdier and she herself was calmer.


    "No, not even an idea," answered Adam humorously as he shrugged before continuing in a graver tone of voice, "especially with you being a human, origins can''t react with mana at all, that''s one of the things that define a human, after all, someone can''t be a human if they can use mana or affect it in any way... Being able to absorb mana somehow is making me doubtful of the fact that you''re a human."


    Seeing her turn as pale as a human can go when she heard the last part of his words, he hurried to add:


    "Don''t get me wrong, I''m almost sure that you''re a human, you don''t have any traces of mana on you, and your features are that of a human, you don''t have any features of any other race in Tellor. The chances of you being anything other than a human are so minimum they can be considered null, I can''t explain why you can absorb mana, or why you are so different from other humans, but there are uncountable unexplainable things happening in this world each and every day, and this is but one of them."


    After calming down again, she asked the second question that was in her mind:


    "How... How would this affect me?" From her tone, it was apparent that she was quite worried about this point, something Adam was able to understand.


    "I don''t really know, I didn''t notice anything that bad about this, the closest thing that can be considered a bad effect of this is the fact that healing magic doesn''t work on you, that would for sure make healing you a pain, making the danger you face a lot worst. Of course, that''s just what I''ve noticed these last few days, there can still be some hidden dangers there, I can''t give a final judgment," answered Adam before he suddenly thought of something as he added in a serious expression and tone of voice:


    "You also have to make sure to let no one know about this trait of yours, there are a lot of people who would take great interest in your condition and try to understand it, and most of them would take drastic measures in their experiments to do so, your well being won''t be high on their priorities then, you should be careful and try to hide it."


    Susan nodded hurriedly, showing her understanding, she was already being followed by soldiers and whoever sent them, she for sure wouldn''t want to make herself a target to more people, her chances were already low.


    "It''s good that you understand, now that we have dealt with that, let''s start moving again, we still have a long way to go before reaching the next village, the journey is only going to get harder from here," done talking, he stood up and started collecting his stuff in preparation for moving.


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Susan stood up too and started helping him before they continued again.


    ***


    A Forest to the Far East of Aldiri, the Encolian''s Capital:


    Despite his aged features and old age, the encolian''s current king, Tilton Ranly wasn''t the king for long, he only took the seat a few years back after his big brother and the previous king, Arromar Ranly was assassinated.


    Tilton himself wasn''t interested in the position, but Arromar didn''t leave any heirs and Tilton''s eldest son, Mathias, wasn''t old, or wise enough to rule in place of his uncle, so he took the position reluctantly as his son was being grown to fill the shoes of the encolian''s next ruler.


    At that moment, Tilton was looking at the multicoloured branches high above, and as expected and as it always was, the colour most prominent among them was blue, Tilton smiled lightly as he thought about how he was going to change that for the first time in the history of Aldiri.


    Thinking of that, Tilton felt that he was truly alive for the first time in years, throwing his eyes ahead, the space in front of him was full of a half-finished grand array, with runic glyphs being left half-completed on purpose in many corners of the grand array.


    Complicated runic glyphs spread as far as the eye could see, in a design so compact and complicated that it seemed impossible to understand.


    Alongside the engraved runic glyphs on the floor, there was also gigantic rectangular pillars engraved with runic glyphs of their own, with big shining crystals spread around their faces equally. The crystals had different colours, but each pillar only had one type of crystals.


    Tilton felt his heart beat as it hadn''t in a long long time, the closer the time for him to move got, the more excited he felt, all that had been put in the ground till that point was only the work of some talented runic glyphs masters among the encolian, all he himself did was give some orders and instructions, his turn to step into the floor wasn''t there yet, there was still some last-minute preparations to deal with as different runic glyphs masters ran amidst the array in front of him.


    "How are things going right now?" Tilton asked the head of the guards next to him.


    "Everything is alright, all the guards are in place already, and we have caught some skugg who came to stir up trouble, the most they were able to do was delay the ritual a bit, they weren''t able to achieve any long-lasting damage," the head of the guards answered as he bowed.


    Tilton nodded before bringing his attention back to the array under him, the people below were about to complete their part of the work, leaving the floor for him to complete the other half.


    After the last glyph master left the floor below, Tilton turned to the head of the guards in front of him, gave him some final instructions before taking sturdy confident steps to the centre of the half-completed grand array, taking his place in the empty circle left there for him, surrounded by intricate runic glyphs


    Standing there, he took a deep breath, calmed his burning heart, closed his three eyes and fell into deep silence. A short while after, blue shining runic glyphs started spreading from under his feet, filling the circle he was in slowly.


    The runic glyphs continued manifesting all around Tilton, filling the empty circle he was inside, with all the runic glyphs spreading from him touching its borders at the exact same time.


    When that happened, the third eye on Tilton''s forehead opened and shone with a blinding blue light as a blue shockwave like light expended from where he was, filling the whole grand array and lighting the existing runic glyphs in the same blue colour.


    When all the runic glyphs lit up, new ones started manifesting, filling the different and spread out empty spaces of the grand array, completing it as they went.


    When the blue light from the runic glyphs passed by the places where the gigantic pillars were, the colour would change to the colour of the crystals on it, and after that, the new colour would move on to light up the few runic glyphs around the pillars. Still, the strongest colour was the shining blue, after all, the whole point of the ritual was consuming as much of the encolian''s mana as possible.


    Not long after, and as the array was moving closer and closer towards completion, Tilton whole body started shining in bright blue light as he floated slowly of the ground.


    Tilton''s whole attention was on the array he was working on at that moment, he didn''t care about what was happening around him, he didn''t care about the people who suddenly appeared around the border of the land prepared for the ritual, neither did he care for the people who appeared closer to the array than they ever expected and nor all the soldiers who moved to stop all those new arrivals and the battles that ensued because of that. All his attention was solely on leading the ritual towards its final form and controlling the astronomical amount of mana that it produced.


    The more runic glyphs shone and the more empty spaces were filled, the greater the amount of mana the grand array brought in.


    That was the first time that much mana was under his control, even for someone like him, he never had the chance to do something like this, and he doubted anyone else in Tellor had such a chance.


    Throwing those unimportant thoughts out of his mind, Tilton concentrated on completing the last part of the array and controlling the flood of blue mana that was still being collected.


    After what seemed like ages passed while he was in this state, even though he knew that not even a few minutes had passed, the array was finally complete.


    As soon as that happened, the whole array pulsed with a blinding blue light for a second before the blue light disappeared entirely out of it.


    That didn''t last for long though, a short while after it happened, an oppressive sense of unease fell on everyone close to the array, they all stopped what they were doing and lifted their heads in unison as if practised on, to look at the branching Luminous Rivers on the sky.


    What they saw then was something they would never forget for their whole lives.


    From those gigantic shining branches in the sky, bolts and wisps of what appeared to be blue shining smoke twisted downwards towards the grand array on the ground before starting to circle Tilton.


    At first, those bolts and wisps were small and solitary, but with time, those bolts grew in number and size, till it seemed as if shining gigantic blue tornados were landing on the area, linking the sky and the ground.


    With that, for the first time in the history of Aldiri, for a short few seconds, the blue colour disappeared from the Luminous Rivers in the sky above.

 17-The Pact of Ten

    17-The Pact of Ten


    Lupri, the First''s Castle:


    Nulara was still feeling a bit weird from how Bristlecone sat next to her, but soon enough, she didn''t have the luxury of caring about that, her thoughts started getting out of her control again, heading to what the future held for her.


    With each second passing her anxiety mounted. The worst part of all that was that even with all the torment she was dealing with inside, she couldn''t show any of that, she still had to take her appearance, manners and image into consideration. She had to stand straight and act all proper, the most she could do was ball her hands into fists as she sat there.


    Fortunately, and weirdly enough, whenever she felt as if she won''t be able to hold on anymore, and that the mask she had on was going to fall, she would catch a whiff of a calming scent.


    The scent of calming and refreshing forest, blooming flowers and humid dirt would subdue her anxiety and worries, helping her not lose control.


    After calming down, she would instinctively look to Bristlecone sitting next to her, the old ajahit never showed any sign that he cared about anything at all, the most he did was nod at her lightly or give a small gentle chuckle.


    Nulara wasn''t stupid enough to think that the ancient ajahit didn''t have anything to do with that, she would nod at him in return in silent appreciation.


    Even after waiting for more than an hour in that hall, they still didn''t get led to the meeting room. The other representatives of the Pact arrived one after the other though.


    The first to arrive after Bristlecone was a long thin yet well-built man with deep purple skin and red long braided hair that appeared to be somehow dyed, he also had a well kept black stubble.


    He was wearing a long embodied golden robe that reached just a bit above his ankles. In his right hand, he held a long silver spear with a golden head. The spear was extremely long, being just a bit below three meters and engraved with dense and complicated runic glyphs.


    Like with Bristlecone, Nulara recognized the new arrival fast, he was the emperor Fenton Veverell, the designated leader of the amaryn tribes spread all around the wastelands that lead to the forgotten desert.


    After Fenton, a man Nulara recognized by his race came in, he was clearly a livitus, he was tall, taller than anyone she ever met and than everyone else in the room till then, he was around three meters, muscular and had a blood-freezing expression. His long lush white hair was let loose to cascade down his back freely while winding silver lines covered his whole body, they gave the impression that they were pulsing from time to time.


    Midlus Talavir, the livitus'' current king was a merciless man, that was something Nulara and almost everyone in Tellor knew, what he had done to keep his race''s power at its peak was known and condemned by most.


    Heartlessness,  cruelty and mercilessness were things that would spring up into everyone''s mind''s whenever they remember what the livitus'' king did.


    Thinking about that, Nulara remembered something as she threw a glance at Mosi, this new butler was standing there with a straight back as if he wasn''t worried at all about that who he was standing next to, and what the livitus had done to people like him and how many massacres he had caused. Midlus himself had good control over himself and emotions, nothing seemed to be off about him.


    After Midlus came in, the atmosphere in the hall changed a lot, becoming colder and more oppressive.


    His expression changed when his eyes fell on Amathira, who didn''t stand up to greet him when she saw that it was actually him who came in. He seemed irritated that she was there, still, all he did was frown a bit before moving to the other side of the room.


    Nulara knew that Midlus didn''t like how the phas took part in the Pact of Ten''s meetings, after all, the reason the Pact of Ten started up was so they could stand against the phas and their partners. Midlus saw that the phas being a part of these meetings was illogical, but his irritation never changed the Alpha''s opinion on the matter, which only made him hate the phas more.


    Nulara tried as best as she could to make herself as inconspicuous as possible and to stop herself from looking at Midlus and his group, she didn''t want to pull unwanted attention to herself.


    Unfortunately, that wasn''t something she had much control over, and she soon noticed Midlus throwing glances her way from time to time.


    After Midlus, it was Randall Revenmar, the skugg''s current king. The moment his eyes passed over her, she felt a chill travel all over her body, making her want to find a place to hide in, he gave the impression that he was a poisonous snake waiting for its chance to strike.


    Randall didn''t say much after his entrance, giving a small nod to everyone in the room, he and those with him took an empty corner of it and sat down. But Nulara was still able to feel their eyes scanning everyone there without rest, as if they were ready to jump up at a momentary notice.


    With each new arrival, the oppressive atmosphere in the room got stronger, they didn''t try making any small talks, didn''t try getting close to each other, each of them took a part of the room with their followers and sat in freezing silence, waiting for all the others to gather so they can go and meet this new king.


    Amidst this charged scene, the others arrived one after the other in quick succession, the first among them was a tall well-built man, the only person who was taller than him in that room was Midlus, and that was the case only because he walked with a bit of a hunch.


    The man had short black fur with some silver on his body, his arms were long, reaching till his knees, and thick, giving a solid feel. His bat-like features were sharp, black and emotionless.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    After he entered, Nulara noticed that there was no reaction from him at all when his eyes fell on her, all the others gave the feeling as if their eyes remained on her for a bit longer than normal, or their expressions changed, but this man showed none of that, all he did was scan everyone in the room automatically before heading to a random side with those behind him and sitting there like a lifeless statue.


    That man was Rillin Wigan, the current leader of the united tribes of the semigins, a race known for their wide diversity, he was a man who sacrificed everything he had and all that represented him for the greater good of his race, because of his sacrifice, he was considered one of the strongest individuals in all of Tellor behind the Alpha himself, no one envied him for that though.


    After him, it was a woman, or someone Nulara recognized as a woman from knowing those who were going to come to the meeting, nothing showed her sex really, she was wearing a long hooded robe that was dropped over her lightly, covering every inch of her, and a featureless mask covering her face, it was also well known that she had no hair under the hood that covered her head.


    That was the current queen of the ammonil, Aconi Charnin, the last survivor of the Hatching and by so, the chosen queen of her race.


    Nulara didn''t look at her for long, for she knew how much Aconi hated people staring at her because even though she was the Hatching''s last survivor, she didn''t fulfil the ritual fast enough and what she lost during it was too big for her to appear normally in public.


    Like Randall, Aconi nodded lightly to the people present there before taking her place of the room and sitting down.


    A short while after that, Nulara felt some coldness from her direction, turning her head and throwing her a quick glance, she saw that the latter''s eyes were scanning her behind that featureless mask. The completely black eyes gave Nulara a strong sense of fear and terror, after holding her gaze for a bit, Aconi turned her head as if nothing happened.


    Cynor Rydross was the next to come, he was the minmos'' king and someone who had a special status among the people there.


    Nulara noticed that even though he tried his best to hide it, Cynor was under tremendous pressure and had a lot of worry on his mind about how this meeting was going to go, which was honestly to be expected taking the relationship between the minmos, the Alpha and Lupri in general into account.


    The minmos'' relationship with the Alpha and Lupri was strong, that was something everyone there, and even normal people in Tellor, knew. Some would even go as far as to say that the minmos were but a subsidiary race under the Alpha, and that their freedom was nothing but an illusion.


    Cynor himself was a short but strong man, he was muscular yet he still had a weak feeling about him, as if there was something different about him from the other leaders in the room.


    His skin was pale blue with blue glossy scales on his hands, his body also didn''t have any hair. The most eye-catching thing about him though was what appeared to be closed up gills on both sides of his neck, extending from under his jaw along his neck.


    Scanning the hall and those in it, giving a nod to each person he locked eyes with, Cynor froze when his gaze fell on Nulara, and he could only move his eyes away after what appeared to be a long battle with himself, then he took a random part of the hall and sat silently like the other, but even with all of that, Nulara still felt his eyes fell open her from time to time.


    A man way younger than most people in the room, closer to Nulara in age than the others, came next. He had a big head and had a third eye on his forehead, his hands were bigger than normal and his fingers longer and thinner, he was the oldest prince of the encolian, and the one chosen to take his father''s role as king, Mathias Ranly.


    The people in the hall showed some mild surprise and wonder at seeing Mathias there instead of his father, Tilton Ranly, the current king of the encolian, but that was brief, it wasn''t something that unexpected, Tilton wasn''t only known as the king of the encolian, but also by the fact that he was one of the most talented and knowledgeable people, if he wasn''t the most, when it came to runic glyphs and grand arrays in all of Tellor. With what was happening right then, it wasn''t hard to conclude what Tilton must be doing right then.


    Mathias was more respectful to the people in the hall than the others were as he greeted them, he also faced some problems in keeping his eyes to himself when he noticed Nulara, it took someone from his group coughing at him to bring him back to himself as he lowered his head with what appeared to be a light blush on his face.


    The last arrival was Manava Rahiti, the joroth''s queen, she was wearing a well-decorated and well-made leather armour. She had long braided black hair, a neck that was longer than usual and a single horn on her forehead, the horn was black with the tip being a crystalline red.


    This time, after Manava entered Mosi didn''t leave, instead, he looked at everyone in the room and said in respect as he bowed towards them, "sorry for making you wait everyone."


    Despite his apparent respect and apology, there was an unmistakable halo of superiority radiating from him, something that didn''t escape the eyes of the people there, Midlus was the one with the most extreme reaction, he snorted at Mosi before rolling his eyes at him.


    Again, Nulara found herself surprised by how Mosi held himself, he had confidence she never saw in any other hybrid before, even she wasn''t like that.


    "Seeing that everyone is here, let''s head in then," continued Mosi ignoring Midlus'' reaction as he moved to and opened a side door before leading them through it.

 18-Malonal

    Lupri, The First''s Castle


    Mosi led them down a decorated path filled with art pieces and valuable paintings and treasures, none of the people there cared about that, they continued going down the hallway in complete silence, as if they were soldiers moving with only the sound of their footsteps sounding under them.


    Nulara was particularly able to feel the pressure mounting up with each step they took, her heart was beating fast and she faced problems keeping her outward calm facade, if not for the fact that Bristlecone was not that far away from her and that that calming and refreshing scent would find its way to her nose from time to time, she would have lost her cool just after taking few steps after.


    After a not so long period of walking in this kind of situation, Nulara was finally able to see a big intimidating gate at the end of the hallway, it was a big and well-decorated gate, with many of the engravings on its surface showing the emblem of the Pact of Ten, which was a combination of the emblems of the different ten races in a circle.


    Before that big gate, on the right side wall, there was another door leading to what appeared to be a waiting room of some kind, Nulara knew that only the ten leaders had the privilege of entering the meeting room, while the side room was for their followers to wait in for them.


    After reaching the side room, Mosi turned to the people behind him and with a slight bow, he directed his words to the followers who were with them as he said:


    "You can wait here till the meeting is over, if you need anything you can ask the servants inside for it."


    As Nulara expected, no one moved a muscle, they all remained in their places next to their leaders, not showing any indication of leaving their sides at all.


    That was to be expected and logical, the people there had heavy trust in the Alpha, and even if they didn''t, it wasn''t like they could go against him and his wishes anyway, so them leaving their guards and followers in the waiting room wasn''t that hard to accept.


    But this? This was different, they had no idea what was waiting for them inside, neither did they know anything about this new king.


    None of them was ready to take the risk and enter there alone, except Bristlecone of course, the ancient ajahit had come there all alone from the start and didn''t seem to care a lot about his safety.


    Even though they went against the norm with this reaction of theirs, Mosi didn''t show any hint of confusion or irritation, all he did was stand straighter again and say in the same polite yet internally haughty tone:


    "My master foresaw that things might turn out like this, and ordered me to tell you that each of you is allowed to lead two followers at most with them inside, the others would still have to wait in the outside, I hope you comply."


    No one spoke for a while as everyone seemed to be in deep thoughts, even Nulara drowned in her own thoughts as she considered if the people there were going to accept this suggestion or not.


    "I find this proposal to be fair enough, don''t you think? So why don''t we hurry up and head in, I don''t think that anything bad is going to happen," in the end, the ancient ajahit, Bristlecone was the first to speak as he headed towards the big gates leading to the meetings room.


    The others froze for a bit before looking at each other shortly and start giving their followers different instructions as they chose who should stay and who should go inside with them.


    "Taloora, Nulara, you''re going in with me, everyone else, wait outside," with her thought still roaming around, Nulara was given a fright by Amathira''s words as she almost jumped in her place, she had some deep fears that this was going to happen, but she had tried to calm herself down with how Tana was there and how she was probably going to be the one going in with the queen.


    It seemed that Nulara wasn''t the only one who got surprised because of this declaration, even Tana turned her head towards her mother and seemed as if she wanted to argue with her, but one single glance from Amathira made her freeze and lower her head.


    Taloora didn''t react at all to what happened, she just remained standing guard next to Amathira expressionlessly.


    After everyone chose their guards and escorts, the ones who weren''t chosen watched the others head to the gates and waited for them to enter, not heading to the waiting room themselves yet.


    After everyone was ready and they stood in front of the big gates, Mosi nodded towards them before turning around and knocking on the gates gently.


    Knock! Knock! Knock!


    "Come in," The echo of the knocks hadn''t even disappeared yet when a gentle calm yet emotionless voice sounded from within, only two words were spoken, yet they were able to make the hearts of most people there quiver.


    That feeling made most of the kings and leaders frown lightly, the sound had a tinge of authoritative quality that they have always felt from the Alpha, but there were some differences, something weird was there too.


    Throwing the people around her a sneak peek, Nulara noticed that other than the ajahit Bristlecone, the semigin Rillin and Mosi, all the others seemed a shade paler, she knew for sure that she probably was one of those who had it the worst.


    Mosi bowed gracefully to the door before moving forward and pushing the big gate, despite how big it was and how it seemed as if it won''t budge no matter what would hit it, the gate moved smoothly under Mosi''s push without making any noise at all.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "Please," with the gate open, Mosi stood to the side and bowed to them as he invited them to enter.


    Whatever it was that was going through the minds of the people there at that moment, they all put on hard to read neutral expressions as they nodded to Mosi before heading inside confidently, none of them showing any weakness.


    The first thing to catch Nulara''s attention when she set foot into the meeting room was the big round table at the centre of the hall, and the different shaped and sized chairs around it, they were hard to miss considering their size and where they were in the room.


    Of course just after that, what caught her full attention, and the full attention of everyone there, was the person sitting on the seat of honour, the biggest seat in the room, and which directly faced the big gate they were standing at.


    After they entered, the sitting man stood up gracefully and nodded at them lightly before pointing to the chairs around the table and saying in the same calm tone of voice:


    "Sit down please, let us start this meeting."


    The ten leaders and their twenty followers stopped for only a second before nodding lightly as they headed to their designated seats.


    Only then did Nulara notice that the prepared seats around the table weren''t only for the leaders, but behind every main seat, there were another two or three ones.


    ''Nulara, you sit,'' while Nulara was following behind Amathira, she suddenly heard the queen''s voice inside her head, making her freeze for a second, but soon her training kicked in as she went on as if nothing happened


    She found it weird how the queen went through the trouble to mention that, after all, she was already meaning to sit down. But then, she realized how after reaching their seats, and after the other leaders sat down, their followers didn''t take the seats behind them, instead, they stood on both sides of their leaders, like guards ready to stop whatever was coming, none of them used the provided chairs.


    Throwing one fast sneaky glance at Taloora, she found that the cold phas had already taken her place beside Amathira as she always did.


    Even with the queen''s reminder, it still took her half a second to start moving with heavy steps to the seat behind Amathira.


    She found it weird how she was the only one sitting down, beside the leaders, and feared that that would bring her some unwanted attention, and to her misfortune, it did


    As soon as she took her place on the seat, she felt a cold oppressive stare fall on her, the gaze gave her a feeling as if she was in the presence of a predator sitting at the top of the food chain.


    Her breath got stuck in her lungs as she felt as if her heart had stopped and everything around her disappeared leaving only a dark blur, she only had that cold gaze in her mind.


    After what felt like hours, even though she was sure that not even a few seconds had passed, she eventually felt that gaze move away from her as she was finally able to breathe again, she took discreet deep breathes as she tried unconsciously not to make a fool out of herself and act gracefully, something that was rooted deep in her core to the point that it became impossible for her to forget.


    While she was still trying to control herself, she suddenly heard a cold sneer from the other side of the table, lifting her head instinctively, she saw Midlus looking at her with a disgusted expression on his face, when their eyes met he released another sneer and turned his head with a deep frown on his face.


    After that, and with a fast-beating heart, she slowly turned her head around to look at the place she felt the glance that froze her from, when her eyes fell on the seat of honour, the man had already sat down again and he didn''t seem to be showing her any interest.


    The man appeared too normal to Nulara, he had black hair and eyes, with human features and built, even the clothes he wore seemed normal, he was basically a human from how he looked, from both his features and his built, if not for the feeling he radiated, Nulara would have mistaken him as one.


    After getting a clearer look at him, Nulara turned her eyes hurriedly and with boiling fear in her beating heart, she didn''t want to face that oppressive feeling anytime soon, but as that thought passed her mind, she remembered why she was there and her inevitable fate, making her turned even paler.


    With everyone taking their positions, the man on the seat of honour nodded at Mosi who closed the gates before moving to take his place a few meters away behind the sitting man, with a final scan of the room he opened his mouth and said in the same tone he had been using till then:


    "Let me welcome you once again everyone, we''re supposed to introduce ourselves to each other, but since I know most of you already then there''s no need to bother you with that, why don''t I just introduce myself so we can continue," seeing them nod at him, the man went on:


    "Again, I welcome all of you, my name is Malonal, and I''m the new king of this kingdom and the rightful heir to the Alpha, I called you here because I mean to make some changes to some of the laws the Alpha established. Now, with that out of the way, let''s start this meeting."


    With those words, one of the most important meetings in the history of Tellor began, one that would decide the fates of millions of people of different races.

 19-New Ruler

    Somewhere in Tellor:


    "Nana De, are you sure?... You know that you don''t have to do this, I or any other member of the council can do it..." A short old man with black lines moving randomly on his hands, asked the old woman in front of him with a hesitant voice and expression.


    "It''s alright, I can do this, stop annoying me about that already," answered the old woman, Nana De, as she waved her hands in irritation.


    After that and even without giving the old man the chance to speak again, Nana De turned around and left the room they were in and continued moving till she left the entire house itself.


    Leaving the house, Nana De threw a glance to the right side of the door where a young woman that appeared to be in her early twenties was standing. It was clear that the young woman was an omega from the big red gem on her forehead and the glossy crystalline scales extending down the sides of her neck


    The young omega was looking at Nana De too, but her eyes seemed dead and lifeless, Nana De nodded towards her and started talking as she moved to the biggest building in the small village.


    "Go and call Helaim, I will be waiting for you in the sleeping quarters," the young woman didn''t say anything, she just nodded lightly before heading to the other side of the village


    After the young woman had moved a bit further, Nana De turned around and looked towards her with a complicated expression before shaking her head and continuing to move towards the big building, a short while later, she finally made it.


    She hadn''t even taken a full step through the door when a childish shout sounded out from within:


    "Nana De!"


    Paa! Paa! Paa!


    After that shout, many others like it sounded out, accompanied by the sound of light footsteps heading her way.


    Nana De lifted her head just in time to see a group of children from different races and of various ages approaching her with big smiles on their faces.


    Even with all what was happening, Nana De couldn''t help but smile as she saw the flood of running children. She fell to her knees and opened her arms wide, taking them in a big hug.


    The children threw themselves at her in excitement as they laughed. After each one of them got a hug and some head pats from her, Nana De asked the kids in front of her with a happy smile:


    "How was lunch today?"


    Scattered childish voices sounded out with different answers like "Yummy," "Delicious,"  And others.


    "So..." She added with a darker smile, "It''s time for you to take a nap, no?"


    As those words left her mouth, the hall fell into a deep silence for a second before exploding in a mess of movement and noise as all the kids run away from Nana De with a single united shout, "NO!"


    The children dispersed fast with each of them using a different unique method to get as far as possible away from her.


    A small amaryn used the most direct method to do so, running, she was extremely fast and nimble, choosing the best available path to get her to her destination while also avoiding all the children around her expertly.


    A small skugg jumped to a shadowy spot next to him just to disappear and reappear again in a not so far away shadow as he continued running before jumping again to another shadow.


    A small ammonil waved her hands towards Nana De, making a swarm of flying insects throw itself at her and start circling her, obstructing her vision as the small ammonil made her escape.


    Each of the children used their own talents and special racial abilities to try and run from Nana De as fast as they could, but all the grandma did was shake her head as she said in a gentle yet firm voice:


    "Come on, stop messing around, you should go to sleep or I will get mad for real."


    Nana De''s words only made the kids move fast as they laughed and shouted at each other. Seeing that, Nana De release a small chuckle and tapped her walking stick at the ground, making a sound that reverberated throughout the whole room.


    Bang!


    With the sound, all the children jumped aside, changing their course in a last-second ditch, as if to avoid something. Yet, even with that, they couldn''t succeed.


    All kids were caught midway through their jumps and rolls and dragged fast to where they started from, exactly in front of Nana De, as they shouted and screamed shrilly amidst half laughs.


    Hanging in front of her, Nana De shook her head with a small smile as she said:


    "Come on everyone, it''s time to sleep, I''ll even tell you a story."


    "Story!" Shouted the kids in clear happiness, Nana De''s stories were always fun and made going to sleep less boring than it usually was.


    With that, and with the children still hanging around her as they screamed and laughed, Nana De started moving up the stairs, and a short while later, she was inside a big hall with beds on both sides and a clear path in the middle, and a wooden chair in the other side of the hall.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Nana De moved through the path in the middle of the room, and whenever she passed a pair of beds, two of the children would float away from her and into them, with the sheets getting peeled back before returning to their place to cover the kids after they are laid down to sleep.


    After a while, Nana De finally made it to the other side of the room, and after getting the last pair to their beds, she turned around to face the door.


    By then, two people were standing at the door, one of them was the expressionless young woman Nana De had go call someone, while the other one was a young man with a weak built and human features, with nothing setting him aside as a person from another race, the young man was wearing an old brownish red headband that appeared to be made of some kind of leather.


    "Helaim, Natalia," Nana De nodded at the two with a small gentle smile before going on, "bring on some chairs and sit down, I will be telling the kids here a story, and I thought why wouldn''t you listen to it too, a long time has passed since the last time you listened to a story from me, don''t you think?"


    "I told you that she was going to do this," the young man said in a barely audible voice, the young woman next to him didn''t seem to care about what he said, yet he still smiled and tried to hold his laugh as if he got an answer already anyway.


    "Hey, Helaim!" As he was trying to hold his laugh, the young man, Helaim, looked at the children on the beds who returned his stare with enthusiastic waves and greetings.


    Returning in kind, he seemed as if he was remembering the days when he was one of them.


    The omega, Natalia, on the other side just waved her hands lightly to the door, and a second after two chairs floated through it before stopping in front of her and Helaim.


    "Okay, since everyone is here, let''s start," after Helaim and Natalia sat down, Nana De clapped her hands as she herself took a seat on the other side of the room before continuing, "about what should I talk about today? Let''s see... Ah, I think I found something..."


    "Yyaaaay!" The children shouted, interrupting her.


    "Hush now, let me start," she said, shaking her head as she added, "a long time ago... So long that none of the races that existed then is still here... Or even remembered, the world was on the verge of destruction... As it had already reached its limits and there was no way forward but death..."


    Nana De''s voice was soft and gentle as she recounted her tale, it had a weird quality, making everyone hearing it want to lay down and fall asleep peacefully.


    A small while after she started her story, most people in this small secluded village fell into a deep slumber, and for a few minutes, a deafening silence dominated the village... Before disappearing as fast as it came, replaced by the sound of a raging battle.


    ***


    Lupri, the First''s castle, Meetings Room:


    "You are calling yourself the rightful heir to the Alpha, but I can easily see that you yourself aren''t an Alpha, and as far as I know, no Coronation happened in the last few days, so, just with what right would you call yourself that in front of us."


    The first to speak, unsurprising to Nulara, was Midlus, and as usual, midlus showed no hint of respect in his voice.


    Unlike what she expected though, Malonal didn''t show any anger or irritation from Midlus'' open disrespect, all he did was lift an eyebrow as he lazily turned his head to the livitus.


    "I said I''m the rightful heir not because I''m an Alpha or because I''ve inherited his powers," said Malonal in the same calm gentle tone, "I simply said that because It was me who killed him."


    With the last word leaving Malonal''s lips, everyone and thing in the room seemed to have frozen, as if falling under the effect of some weird spell. Nulara unconsciously found herself throwing her eyes at the shape sitting on the seat of honour.


    All people in the room had a similar reaction, they all looked at Malonal with dull blank expressions, what he said was something they already had in mind as a possibility from the information they got, but even with all of that, guessing so and hearing it from him were different things entirely, the shock was too big for them to accept easily.


    "Impossible..." Murmured Mathias, the encolian''s prince, to himself with disbelief, before someone Nulara recognised as the person who stopped him from looking at her before, extended his hand and patted him on the shoulder, with that Mathias took control of himself again.


    Mathias'' muttering seemed to have broken the silence that fell on the room, again, Midlus was the one who spoke, he looked at Malonal in defiance:


    "You''re saying that... You have killed the Alpha, but those are just your words, as much as we know, the Alpha might just be busy or stuck with something and not really dead, all we have are your words to go by, why should we believe you?..."


    Midlus'' words were biting and challenging, but they also had a hint of logic, most of the people there had similar points to bring up.


    Malonal didn''t answer straight away, he first scanned all different leaders before bringing his attention to Midlus again as he narrowed his eyes and slowly said:


    "Does that even matter?"


    Again, the room fell into silence, except that it didn''t last long this time, because Cynor, the minmos'' king, opened his mouth and asked in a stuttering fluster:


    "What... What do you mean by ''does that even matter'' of course it does, do you expect us to sit here and accept you as some kind of supreme king just because you said so and because the Alpha has disappeared somehow? Are you serious? Do you even know what you''re saying? Who you''re talking to?"


    It was clear that Cynor was irritated and that he wasn''t acting in a manner befitting his status, yet none of the others tried to stop him or take his side because they weren''t as agitated as Cynor and they were able to notice what happened to Midlus when Malonal concentrated on him, the livitus was pale and shaking, seeming as if he was barely able to keep himself sitting straight.


    "And... And even if what you said is true, even if... Even if you have killed the Alpha, why would we let you take his place? Why would we listen to you without any resistance? Do you think that you''re the Alpha just because you''re sitting in his place? Do you think that anyone can come and take his position?"


    After another flustered outbreak in which the minmos'' king let out all his repressed emotions, he seemed to have finally calmed down as he fell back into his seat limply as if all his strength have left him.


    "Of course, king Cynor," after seeing that Cynor finally seemed to have calmed down, Malonal started, "as I''ve said, does it matter if I''ve killed the Alpha? Or if he''s alive or dead? The answer is no..."


    With those words, Malonal moved his eyes from the minmos'' king who started turning paler and seemed to be having problems breathing as he scanned all the others in the room with the same calm cold emotionless stare, continuing without caring much about their reactions that were similar to the minmos'' king.


    "... After all, you''ve followed him because you had no other choice... Because the Alpha was a King, a king to everything on Tellor, because he was born to rule, and... It''s the same for me."


    As the last of his words fell into the ears of the listeners, every single one of them had their heads lowered involuntarily, acknowledging and recognising what they were feeling deep down, they were in the presence of a ruler...


    Right then and there, everyone inside that room understood something, Tellor had a new king.

 20-The Royal Commandments

    It is said that after the death of the evil queen of the phas and the end of the Great War, everyone was glad that they got their freedom back from the oppressive queen and her allies and that the war was finally over.


    Unfortunately, that didn''t last long, soon after the queen of the phas was dealt with, greed reared its head and the alliances forced by the queen and her allies were disassembled as everyone started stabbing each other in the back.


    As the world was still dealing with the aftermath of the previous war and trying to heal, and even before all the key individuals behind the Great War were dealt with, another one began.


    The winning races stood up against each other in a matter of months, each of them trying to destroy the other and take the position as the strongest race for themselves; another world war soon began.


    As the war was leading the world towards its end, making it seem as if all the races preferred mutual destruction than to lose, a change finally happened in the world, a ruler was born.


    The first Alpha, one of the key figures for the fell of the queen of the phas, and one of the most well known and well-received individuals by all the races had disappeared as soon as the war against her was over.


    Many people thought that he had been dealt with because of his popularity and his personal power. Actually, many races used that fact as a pretext for starting a war with some other race,


    This man that everyone thought was dead, reappeared again when the war was reaching its peak, and his reappearance ended the war as it was, and opened a new era for Tellor.


    The Supreme Ruler, the name given by the masses to the power that the Alpha exhibited after returning.


    This power seemed to be tailor-made for the Alpha to deal with the situation the world found itself in after the defeat of the queen of the phas, a power to end the war once and for all.


    As was recognised from its name, this power made the Alpha the supreme ruler of Tellor, whoever it was, and no matter how many gates they had opened, as soon as they faced the Alpha they would lose their whole power, not being able to resist at all as if they were a loyal servant in front of their master.


    The power wasn''t single target too either, or had a small range, it had a huge range, and against weak individuals; either weak as in how many gates they had opened, or weak in terms of their will; this power would make them treat the Alpha''s words as if they were unignorable divine decrees.


    That, along with the Alpha''s personal power that increased by an unfathomable degree after his reappearance, to the point that even the combined effort of some of the strongest in Tellor at that time wasn''t much of a threat to him, were the elements that made the Alpha a ruler that no one could go against, a perfect king to stop the war and put an end to it.


    The Supreme Ruler and a personal power that few if any could match, those two were what made the Alpha who he was, and made people follow him.


    And right then, Malonal had shown one of them, and his words implied that he had the other, which put him in the same league as the Alpha, a supreme ruler of Tellor.


    With that point sinking in, everyone in the room suddenly remembered what Malonal had said just a few minutes ago, ''does it even matter?'' And they understood that the answer to that was no it didn''t.


    He probably wasn''t any rightful heir to the Alpha, and he probably had no right to be in that room with them, but which of them was going to stand up against him, which of them even had the power or ability to do so, as much as they cared, the old Alpha just got replaced by a new one, a weird Coronation of some kind.


    the weird pressure coming from deep within their souls disappeared as fast as it came, leaving the people in the meeting room looking at each other in silence.


    "Listen," said Malonal, breaking the silence he had made, "the previous Alpha was already old, the Coronation would have happened anytime now anyway, and I''m sure that you all would have accepted it easily and with no problems, what''s happening now isn''t any different than that. So why don''t you just accept things as they are, to deal with this as fast as possible so you can return to your kingdoms soon enough... Believe me, you would want to be there in the shortest time when we are done here."


    The people there looked at each other as a forbidding feeling bloomed in their hearts from Malonal''s last words.


    No one spoke for a while, then just as Nulara thought that no one was going to at all, Amathira suddenly moved forward a bit in her seat, it was a tiny move, barely noticeable, yet it still caught the attention of everyone there and had them concentrate on her:


    "King Malonal, what you have shown till now is for sure more than enough for you to be sitting at this table, so I think I''m not overstepping my limits when I say that none of us here have any objections to that, but you should understand that with something like this happening, we would have to deal with a lot of things, and take the bigger picture into consideration..."


    Amathira''s tone surprised Nulara, even though it still carried the same power and haughtiness that was expected of someone of her status, it wasn''t as clear as usual, she gave the feeling as if she was trying to control it, not letting it radiate out of her as it usually would.


    Glancing at the other leaders to make sure none of them was going to refute her, Amathira added as she brought her attention again to Malonal with a serious expression and tone:


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "... For example, one of the most important things that we should be careful about is how to deal with how you are going to introduce yourself to the public, would you use your race and name or would you say that you are an Alpha..."


    Nulara noticed that Amathira''s eyes turned sharp when she finished her words as she looked at Malonal, a short while later after nothing seemed to have happened and Malonal just kept on looking at her with his expression not changing at all, a small frown appeared on Amathira''s face before she whipped at away as she continued:


    "Don''t get me wrong, I didn''t mean that as a detection to you in any way or form, it''s just that the reaction of most people to the death of the Alpha and someone, who''s not an Alpha, taking his place is unpredictable and can be of great risk in many ways, and I think that you should take all of that into consideration."


    Stares gathered on Malonal when Amathira finished speaking, awaiting his answer.


    "There''s no need to worry about that, the first Alpha too was in a similar situation, one that was even worst in some ways, back then, no one like him had ever existed and he had to rely on his capabilities to prove himself, I don''t see how things are any different for me right now?" Answered Malonal as he lifted his eyebrow at Amathira.


    It was only then and after Malonal put it like that that Nulara understood the hidden aspect of Amathira''s seemingly innocent question.


    If Malonal chose to use the Alpha''s name, that would have meant that he might have had something to hide and that he preferred keeping his identity a secret, making the chance that he didn''t have the real Supreme Ruler ability, but just something that seemed and acted like it, higher. yet Malonal didn''t fall for that, he saw through Amathira''s ploy and put things as they were.


    While Nulara was still trying to wrap her head around what just happened, Amathira finally responded:


    "You are right," she answered in the same tone and with no change in her facial expression, as if she had gotten herself an answer, either way if that answer was good or bad for her, she didn''t show, "it seems that I''m still thinking of all of this as something that we should control, hide and be careful of..."


    "Humph!"


    She was still talking when Midlus humphed audibly, interrupting her, before continuing as he locked stares with her:


    "Amathira, I think that you have said enough and that you have already put your point of view on the table, you can now let us, the worthy of being here, speak and lead this discussion to where it should go."


    Despite the tone of voice that only held contempt and derision, and the hidden meaning of his words, Amathira didn''t react as one would expect, Nulara knew that she was someone who rarely left her emotions control her, lifting her eyebrows at Midlus, she turned to Malonal and said:


    "I have said what I wanted, I''ll leave my fellow representatives speak for now. though I have a few things to discuss with you in private later, if possible."


    At her words, Midlus showed a disgusted expression as he frowned strongly before turning his head away from her. Malonal on his side only nodded at her lightly before answering as he looked at all the others in the room:


    "Of course, and that''s not just for you alone, if any of you have something they want to talk about after this is done, then you''re more than welcomed to meet me then."


    After he finished he turned to Midlus who seemed to have been waiting for that as he said hurriedly in what appeared to be a try at showing respect.


    "King Malonal, I''m sure that you have other important things for calling us here, and I''m sure that with the recent things happening all around Tellor, most of us have a lot of different and similarly important things to deal with, so why don''t we stop playing around the subject and tell us what you mean to do directly, I''m sure that that would be better for most."


    "Of course," Answered Malonal in the same previous tone as he nodded lightly, "I have called you here today for two main reasons, the first is of course the matter of me taking the throne, and introducing myself to you, and that''s out of the way already... Leaving the second, that''s actually linked to the first somehow... As you all know, after each Coronation some small changes are made each time an Alpha takes the throne, like changing the laws and the Royal Commandments..."


    From his tone as he said the last part of his words, it was clear that that was the real reason he called them there, but that only made the people there frown in confusion.


    The renewal of the Royal Commandments was something insignificant, just a basic and small part of the Coronation, after all, the last time any major changes were made to the Royal Commandments was so long ago that probably only Bristlecone remembered it.


    As they were thinking about that, Malonal was still speaking and with each other word he said, the people there showed more shocked expressions, till at the end when he was done speaking when most of them had stood up and were looking at him in disbelief and shock:


    "As you know, a long time has passed since the last time the Royal Commandments were changed, and I think that it''s time to do just that. As you would realise in the future, I do things quite a little bit differently than the previous Alphas. So, without further ado, I would like to announce that the First Commandment is abolished..."


    There and then, a decision that would lead to the death of millions of people and change the lives of even more was made.

 21-Dangers of the Forest

    The beasts'' Forest:


    Susan looked around her in annoyance and confusion as she tried to find what was wrong with the place they were in, Adam was sitting with his back against a tree a few steps away from her, with an interested expression on his face as he looked her way, he had a relaxed and calm air about him.


    Repressing the annoyance and irritation she was feeling, Susan, took a deep breath before turning to look ahead once again


    She had no idea what she was searching for, or why, what happened was that as they moved through the forest, and as she was still somehow lost because of what Adam had just told her and what she found out about herself, Adam suddenly stopped moving and had her stop too as he asked while gesturing with his head to where they had been heading:


    "So, do you notice anything weird about the place in front of us?" He had a haughty and provoking smile on his face as he said that.


    She looked to where he pointed with confusion and how she wasn''t able to notice anything weird at all, that place was like any other part of the forest they passed through, it had trees, some bushes and some grass, the only thing that was a bit unusual about it was how there was a small clearing in the middle of their path.


    However, even the clearing was normal, it had a calming and refreshing feel to it, the grass around it was strong and green and the trees on its sides were tall and healthy, she noticed nothing unusual.


    "I... Can''t see anything?" She answered truthfully and not without a great deal of confusion


    Adam just gave a small smile and said as he turned around to sit under a nearby tree while taking a piece of grass and putting it in his mouth, he was the image of comfort and relaxation:


    "Take your time then, we will be staying here till you figure out what''s wrong with the place, just make sure not to go any further," his expression as he said that was still clear in her mind, and even then, after who knows how much time has passed, she still felt a bit of annoyance and anger just from thinking about it.


    She almost just wanted to sit down and not care at all about what he asked her to do, but her pride wouldn''t let her, so she just gritted her teeth and looked on again


    Suddenly, just as she threw a resentment filled gaze at the clearing ahead as if it was the source of all her suffering, Susan finally noticed something.


    She felt as if she had caught sight of a hint of bright red colour. Thinking that she must have misseen, she looked again.


    In a somehow hidden space around the centre of the clearing, she again saw that same red colour, it was hidden under a few leaves and she wasn''t able to see what it really was.


    Moving a bit to the side while trying to get a clearer look at it, she finally saw the object in its entirety.


    It was an almost perfectly spherical blood-red ball, it had a smooth shiny surface and after laying her eyes on it stood out quite a bit.


    As soon as she saw the blood-red sphere, a thought flashed through her mind, a recent memory from one of her lessons with Adam, as he liked to call them.


    Remembering that, cold sweat broke out all over her body and her face paled as she retreated back unconsciously.


    "Oh, it seems that you''ve finally noticed it, but it took you way too long, that was unfortunate," she suddenly heard Adam''s voice from behind her as she trembled from what could have possibly been her end.


    "It''s... It''s an Exploding Fungus," she said in a mix of fear and shock as the idea that death was just a few steps away from her sunk in.


    Exploding Fungus was one of the many things that Adam spoke about along their journey in the last couple of days, it was considered to be one of the most lethal silent killers in the forest.


    It was possible to find this fungus in small clearings all over the Beasts'' Forest, this fungus had many sensors that manifested in a mess of entangling root-like growths that covered the ground under the cleaning, these roots were relatively weak and broke easily.


    The fungus'' main body, that usually hid at the centre of the clearing under the ground, used these roots to make out where its prey was. As soon as the prey steps into the clearing, those roots snap, sending feedback to the main body which uses that as a mean to pinpoint where the prey exactly is.


    When the main body decides that the prey was close enough and that it would be able to take it down, the blood-red sphere, which was the only part of the fungus that was above the ground, would explode, sending lethal red fog all around it at shocking speed, most people and animals that triggered that wouldn''t have the ability to avoid this fog after it is sent all around.


    The fog itself was poisonous, but that wasn''t the worst part, that was that it also had a strong fast-working tranquilising effect, which meant that one won''t be able to run from the radius of the explosion if they happened to inhale even a small bit of it.


    A while after the prey that was down because of the poison falls, long and flexible suction tubes leaves the main body under the ground and start pumping in digestive fluids to the fallen body, before the main body starts consuming it slowly.


    Even most bones would get dissolved, and the rest would be dragged underground by the main body.


    With all those thoughts going through her mind, Susan shuddered as she took another step back.


    "Yep, and as I said, you took your sweet time recognizing what it was. Anyway, what''s important is that you did at the end," said Adam as he glanced to where the blood-red sphere was hidden.


    "What now?" She asked as she too frowned in hesitation, "should we change our trail or what?"


    "Hmm? Oh, no, there''s no need for that, we will just deal with it," answered Adam as he shrugged his shoulders in an unconcerned manner.


    She didn''t get the chance to say anything before Adam waved his hand lightly, getting a semi-transparent milky white barrier to enclose the whole clearing. Then he had one of the gigantic hands appear inside the barrier and at the centre of the clearing, exactly above the exploding blood-red sphere before bringing his hand, and by so the gigantic hand, downwards.


    Everything happened so fast, it didn''t even take a fraction of a second for the hand to reach the ground below, and even less than that for the whole space inside the barrier to be filled with red.


    In a delayed reaction, Susan jumped in her place in shock and a curse on the tip of her tongue, only then did she understand what Adam meant by saying that the red fog from the blood-red sphere had a crazy momentum, she couldn''t even see how it moved, one second it wasn''t there and the other it filled the whole barrier.


    "Wow..." She couldn''t help but say as her wide eyes looked at the bloody barrier then at Adam on her side who his hand was still lowered and seemed to have caught something, then he lifted it and clenched hard.


    "What are you going to do now?" She asked after calming down a bit


    "Now we burn it," he said in an easy-going tone as he snapped his fingers? and as he did, orange dancing fire filled the whole barrier.


    "That blood-red fog is some kind of spores from the fungus, a strong enough fire should be able to deal with them," He continued as he watched the burning flames inside the barrier.


    Susan too watched the swirling fire inside the half sphere and the feeling she had since Adam told her about what was wrong with her got even stronger.


    After the flames disappeared completely and the clearing was left as nothing more than a patch of black wasteland, Adam finally had the barrier disappear.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Only then did Susan notice the huge shape at the centre of the burned up clearing, the shape itself was burned up to the point that almost nothing could be made about its normal shape, but she could somehow guess how it looked from what Adam told her and a bit of what she saw, a blob of intertwined roots and tubes around two meters in height.


    Susan wasn''t able to stop herself from imagining those tubes as they wrapped around her and pumped her with digestive fluids, consuming her from the inside.


    She felt a shiver going down her spine as she looked away, the image was hard for her to handle, "that''s disgusting..."


    Suddenly a hand fell on her shoulder and she jumped a bit from surprise before giving Adam an annoyed look.


    "Sorry, sorry, I didn''t mean that," he said with a barely held chuckle, but before she could make her irritation known, he continued with a serious expression.


    "I did all of this just so you know that the forest isn''t safe, we were extremely lucky these past few days and we didn''t face any strong monsters, and those that we did pass by simply didn''t notice us, but you have to know, inside a place like this, beasts and monsters aren''t the only thing to worry about, there are a lot of things that can kill you in a matter of seconds and without you even realizing it.


    "Actually, this Exploding Fungus wasn''t even the first entity like this we have met, it was only the one I decided to tell you about, Beasts'' Forest is one of the most dangerous places in the world and just because we haven''t met anything bad doesn''t mean that we won''t at all, you have to be more careful from now on."


    Susan patiently listened to what Adam said, knowing well that he was only saying that for her betterment. Even before entering the forest, she knew how scary it was, and though they were few, there still were times when some strong monsters from the depths of the forest passed by her village, and in those moments she lived some of her life''s scariest instants.


    "Don''t worry, I''m still here right now, so for now you don''t have to worry about all of that, but who knows when that is going to change, you might find yourself alone in the forest again, and you would have to rely on yourself then."


    The idea of being alone in the forest made her blood turn cold as a part of her wondered how long she would survive before some kind of monster would have her as a meal. But she repressed those thoughts and nodded to him resolutely, she was going to live and if she was lucky, she might even...


    "Come on now, we have to start moving again, we still have a few more hours of sunlight, let''s move for a bit more till we find a place where we''re going to spend the night," said Adam as he saw her nodding to him.


    For the rest of their journey that day, Susan tried her best not to let her thoughts stray and to concentrate on what was around her and for any danger.


    Adam on his side tried to help her as much as he could, by speaking about different dangers they might face and how she should react to them to survive.


    Finally, after a few more hours, and after many similar scans, Adam stopped and crouched down as he slowly put his palm against the floor, soon after, Susan felt those waves she came to expect as they passed below her.


    When that happened, as she did many times that day, she closed her eyes and tried to feel it more, but unfortunately, just like how it went all the previous times, no matter how she tried and how she concentrated, nothing worked, all she felt was those waves, that she then knew where pulses of mana, as they passed below her, and as soon as they went by her she could feel nothing else at all.


    With some disappointment, Susan lifted her head to look at Adam who had opened his eyes and was standing up, this time it seemed that he found something because he looked to the side and said:


    "Come on, I found a good place for us to camp tonight, and it''s quite close by," with that he started moving again.


    With the promise of finally stopping down for rest, Susan found her mind wandering again, with a thought that never left her mind ever since she had that talk with Adam making itself known again.


    She was so into her thoughts that she didn''t notice when Adam, who was walking ahead of her, stopped. If not for him taking a step to the side, she would have bumped into him.


    "Tsk, and I had talked to you about paying attention and being always focused just a few hours ago," he said as he shook his head.


    Susan felt some embarrassment but she tried her best not to show it as she looked ahead at where they were going to spend the night:


    "This is it?" She asked with not a small bit of scepticism.


    "Right, isn''t it great," he answered joyfully.


    Right in front of them, behind a small clearing, there stood a high cliff face and in that cliff face there was a small cave, the cave seemed a bit deep and dark, giving a scary feeling, Susan didn''t know if sleeping outside would be better.


    "Could something be living in it already?" She asked hesitatingly.


    "No, don''t worry, my scan didn''t show anything like that, and I''m still going to give it a closer look after we''re there, I''ll be able to tell for sure then," he said before adding as he moved, "come on, let''s take a look inside."


    Susan followed reluctantly while grumbling.


    From a first glance, it seemed to Susan that the cave wasn''t inhabited by anything, and Adam''s thorough scan gave the same result, so it seems that they had found their camp for the night.


    Adam took his time cleaning the cave from all insects, reptiles and other creatures that lived in such places as she headed to close by trees to collect some firewood, it didn''t take her that long because they were inside a forest, so she soon was back with the first bundle and found that Adam had cast a few shining milky white spheres in the cave, which lit it in its entirety, making it seem much more habitable.


    The cave was around 3 meters in height, 2 to 3 meters in width and 4 meters deep, and after being cleaned, it actually didn''t seem that bad


    "So, how are you doing? I noticed that you were out of it for most of the day, I know that what you have found out about yourself must have been alarming, if you want to talk about it I''m here, and I have nothing better to do," After having their dinner, and as they were getting ready for sleep, Adam suddenly said


    At his words, a pang of panic hit her, then she calmed herself forcefully, she had no reason to panic after all.


    With the first instinctive reaction out of the way, she didn''t know what to say for a while.


    "No... I''m alright," she finally started, "I''m dealing with it well, I think... It''s just..".


    She couldn''t bring herself to say it out loud, it felt like an idiotic childish thought, one that refused to let her be since their talk that morning, and no matter how she tried to get herself to understand that, and that she shouldn''t waste her time on it, that didn''t succeed and saying it was easier than doing.


    Looking at Adam, she noticed the honest expression on his face, as if he really wanted to help her, she didn''t know what to say.


    Even though Adam did a lot of questionable things around her that made her more than a little bit worried around him, she at least knew that he was probably a good person, he would probably try helping her as much as he could, or at least tell her straight away if what she was thinking of was impossible.


    Thinking of that, Susan made her mind, she turned to him and asked with a small but resolute voice:


    "Do... Do you think that I''ll ever be able to use magic?..."

 22-Guest

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    Adam would be lying if he said that he hadn''t seen that coming, Susan had all the qualities of someone who would be thirsty for more power, she went through a disaster that took everyone she cared about, and everything she had from her, while all she was able to do was run away without turning back, even revenge seemed like an impossibility, something she had no way of achieving: with her being a human and whatnot.


    He had faced many individuals like that on his long travels, individuals who lost all they had because of people who were stronger and had a higher status than them, they basically had no way to achieve their revenge; people like that would do anything if there was even the smallest chance that they would get what they wanted.


    And they usually died trying to accomplish their goals, leaving nothing behind and disappearing without accomplishing anything.


    Other than that, Susan also had a look in her eyes he was quite familiar with, one he saw in the faces of human children he met while journeying, those who didn''t understand how the world was like yet and still had hope that they were unique and that they would be able to use magic, he would always find one person like this at the very least in every human community he went too.


    He didn''t like it, but he knew that no good would come from giving them false hope, so he would put things as they were for them, telling them that they would never be able to use magic and watch as that fire got extinguished from their eyes slowly.


    Looking at Susan''s anticipating and fear-filled eyes, Adam hesitated for a bit before finally deciding on what he thought was the best choice as he said:


    "Honestly, I dont know... I have never met or heard about anything like this before, not about a human or any individual from any other race, I never would have believed it if someone told me that an Origin was able to absorb mana the way you do, as soon as mana come into contact with you, it gets absorbed by who knows what."


    That was the truth of the matter, Adam was facing trouble wrapping his head around what Susan truly was and what was wrong with her.


    The craziest part was that she was able to absorb the mana of different races, after all, she was able to absorb both his mana and that of the evil spirit they met in those ruins, all in a short period of time, the only other race that was able to do anything like that was the omega, and even them had to wait for a week to change the Castles they followed, and they only had access to the Castles of their ancestors'' races.


    Adam watched as frustration and disappointment slowly spread on Susan''s face and radiated out from her, it was exactly as he expected it to be and he knew that he should just stop there and let things be, but he felt sorry for her and couldn''t bring himself to let things end like that, so he added before he could control this impulse he felt:


    "As I said, I don''t know what''s going on with you... But that doesn''t mean that it''s a bad thing entirely and that you won''t be able to use magic for sure, it just means that I don''t know anything about this, there might be a way for you to use magic and there might not be... You just need to find out on your own..."


    Seeing as life seemed to be returning to her at his words, like a drowning person clutching at anything he could get his hands on, Adam wondered if what he did was the right thing, he didn''t like giving false hopes, but he wondered if this could even be called a false hope, after all, even he didn''t know if there was a chance that she was going to succeed, so she might really do it, and sometimes, having a goal to work towards was better than having nothing at all.


    Shaking his head lightly to get rid of those thoughts from his mind, Adam continued:


    "I don''t know how I could possibly be of help to you in this, but I''ll try coming up with something, and I might be able to help you."


    After his last words, Susan didn''t respond for a while, keeping her head low as if she was thinking deeply about something, then she finally looked at him again as she said in a crisp small voice:


    "Thank you... For everything..."


    Adam smiled at that and said with a joking tone:


    "There''s no need for that, the lucky and strong among us have to help the hopeless after all."


    Unlike before, Susan gave a bit of a smile at this joke of his.


    Smiling widely too, Adam stood up as he said:


    "Come on, let''s get our beds ready and sleep, the next village is still around two weeks away from here, we still have quite a long journey ahead of us."


    Susan nodded lightly and went to get her bed ready with a spirit she didn''t have just a few moments ago.


    ***


    Lupri, the First''s Castle:


    Nulara moved behind Amathira, Taloora and Mosi in silence almost instinctively, each step she took was heavier than the last, as if her feet were shackled, and the weights were only increasing.


    What happened in the meeting room was way bigger than what someone like her was meant to go through, but Amathira''s insistence that she should be there made her witness an event that was going to change the whole course of history.


    She intuitively knew without any doubt that as soon as what she heard inside gets announced to the public, great chaos and unprecedented panic would fill all of Tellor.


    Abolishing the first commandment, the commandment that shaped the world into what it was at that moment, was something no one would have ever considered as a possibility.


    Nulara trembled as she thought about how things were in the meeting room before they all dispersed after the meeting was done.


    At first, when Malonal said that he was going to abolish the first commandment, almost all of them showed the same feelings, disbelief, shock and anger, then they tried to get him to withdraw and reconsider this choice of his, trying to get him to understand what that kind of choice was going to do for the world.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    After another use of the Supreme Ruler to get everyone to keep quiet again and make them succumb, Malonal made it clear then that there was no room for arguing, his choices were ultimate and they could do nothing but obey.


    Right then, Nulara saw the most fundamental change that happened in the whole event. After a period of silence where no one said or did anything, she clearly felt a change in the atmosphere of the hall, as people in the room started looking at each other with weird emotionless gazes, as if they were already studying each other, searching for any hint of weakness or danger.


    Before that moment, and before Malonal used his ability for the second time, Nulara still had a tiny bit of hope in her heart that even if he did abolish the first commandment, nothing was going to change. From how the leaders went against him and argued against that decision, she thought that there would be no reason to worry, after all, abolishing the first commandment didn''t mean that the world had to go to hell, the choice was still in the hands of the leaders, the individuals there, there was still hope.


    However, soon after that, things changed in the hall as most of the leaders there started looking at each other with hidden and open enmity, demolishing those rosy thoughts she had in a second, making her realise how childish she was thinking.


    Through the period from the first Alpha''s ruling till then, the first commandment had always been like a barrier that kept all the different races at bay with force, but now that that barrier was removed, there was of course more than a single race that was looking forward to that happening.


    Suddenly, the footsteps in front of her stopped, which brought her back from her wild thoughts, to her own pressing problems.


    Remembering that fact, her heart seemed to have stopped for a second before it started beating even faster again, the time to meet Malonal, the person who was going to decide her fate and future has come.


    Earlier, after the meeting ended, and before the others got the chance to say anything, Amathira beat them to it as she told Malonal that she wanted a private meeting with him. Malonal accepted and said that Mosi would lead them to another room where private meetings were to be had, before leaving through a side door.


    And that got them there, she, Amathira, Taloora and Mosi standing before a highly decorated door being guarded by a man cloaked in black, only his eyes had slits to see from, and from them, people were able to see two shining yellow pupils.


    "Queen Amathira is here to meet his Highness," said Mosi as he nodded to the guard.


    The guard''s eyes scanned them, lingering on her longer than her companions, before he turned, opened the door and said after taking a step inside:


    "Your Highness, Amathira and those with her are here."


    "Let them in," Malonal''s familiar and unique voice sounded from within.


    The guard bowed before turning towards them and bowing as he moved aside:


    "You can go in."


    Nulara felt the panic starting to creep into her heart, if not for the courtesy training she had all those years that had her keep a calm facade all the time, she would have frozen in place, and even at that moment, that wasn''t out of the question considering how much pressure she was under.


    Following behind Amathira with her heart skipping a beat with each step she took, Nulara tried her best to keep all that internally and to herself; she knew she wasn''t doing that well.


    The room was big and well decorated, from the patterned and gold inlaid walls to the many artefacts and art pieces hanging from the walls, it was a room fit for a king. At the centre of the room, there stood a big desk made of some kind of redwood, and at that moment Malonal was sitting behind it.


    But unlike what Nulara expected, Malonal wasn''t the only one inside the room though, and from the small pause that she showed, even Amathira didn''t expect what they saw.


    On a well made and elegant couch to the right side of the room, a beautiful phas was sitting, she had short hair and a beautiful face that had some similarities with Amathira.


    She was Lura, Amathira''s oldest daughter, the previous Alpha''s wife, a person with a great talent in magic and also the person Nulara was basically being exchanged for.


    Amathira soon returned to her senses and said as she bowed her head a bit to Malonal:


    "King Malonal," after greeting him and him replying in kind, Amathira finally turned to Lura and said in her usual tone as she nodded at her:


    "Lura."


    "Mother," Lura bowed to Amathira then looked behind her to Nulara who was just standing there, Nulara noticed how her expression changed a bit when her eyes fell on her but at the end she said nothing.


    "King Malonal, it seems that you already know why I wanted to have this meeting," said Amathira after the formalities were dealt with.


    "I thought I did," answered Malonal as he threw a sideway glance at Nulara, "but it seems as if you have something else on your mind, right?"


    Although there was none of the instinctive heart-stopping pressure and fear she felt the first time when his eyes fell on her, she still shrunk on herself unconsciously as if to make herself seem smaller, but she soon realized what she had done and tried her best to stand straight again, wishing that Amathira didn''t notice what she had done.


    "Your Majesty wasn''t mistaken," started Amathira, "I''m truly here to try and get Lura to come back with me, and I wish that your Majesty is going to allow that, after all, she won''t be the source of any danger to you and keeping her here won''t look too good on you."


    Malonal didn''t replay or interrupt Amathira, but he still sent his eyes towards Nulara again when she was done speaking, as if implying what was her role in all of this and why was she there.


    Understanding the meaning of that fine gesture, Amathira too looked back at her before saying:


    "Even though we want to take Lura with us, we still want to maintain a good relationship with your Majesty and Lupri, so if you accept, then we hope that you would let Nulara here stay as a guest in the castle, acting as a proof of our relationship, Nulara on her side, would do all she could to live up to your expectations and do all you want of her."


    Hearing the last part of Amathira''s words, Nulara felt as if a knife was stabbing at her with each word she said as her heart clenched and she felt her eyes tear up a little, but again, she had to control it and not make a fool out of herself.


    Malonal brought his gaze back to Amathira and didn''t move it or blink for a while, with each passing second, Nulara felt more pressure mounting in the room, it wasn''t the Supreme Ruler''s pressure, but one that came from the two giants looking at each other.


    Nulara also held a bit of hope that Malonal was going to refuse Amathira''s offer, after all, she won''t be able to force him to accept if he decided not to, but she also knew that that wasn''t possible, she understood how strong her charm''s effect was on people around her, and how no man would let the chance to get her go by.


    "You..." Malonal finally spoke, and it took her a second to recognise that he was talking to her, making her almost jump in her place, but her self control and her training that was engraved into her heart since young only allowed her to stand straighter. Still, she barely could hear what he said amidst her heart''s roaring beats, "...Nulara, right? You agree to this?"


    Thinking that she must have misheard, Nulara just look at him straight in the eyes, not able to answer, still in shock that she was called like that, and especially to ask for her opinion on the matter.


    Malonal''s eyes were deep, black and emotionless as he stared at her, he didn''t urge or press her, he just look at her in interest, awaiting her answer.


    For a moment, in a small, isolated corner of her mind, Nulara considered saying no, putting her loud disapproval for all the people there to see, but the rational part of her knew that she would never be able to do that, she had always known that her end would be something like this, after all, that was the only thing she could do, her whole worth.


    The idea of what Amathira would do to her also weighed heavily on her mind, and she wasn''t sure that she would be able to look at her after hearing her throwing her away like that to a man they barely knew anything about.


    So with a breaking heart and tears threatening to fall down her face, she gripped tightly at the sides of her dress as she looked at Malonal straight to the eyes and said:


    "Yes, I accept, I... I hope that you would accept me as a guest in your castle..."


    Malonal stood there looking at her in silence before turning to Amathira and saying:


    "So be it."

 23-Visit

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    Susan would not usually show her happiness outwardly a lot, but at that moment she could barely keep herself from grinning widely as a strong sense of anticipation filled her heart while working on setting her bed.


    She tried her best not to let this false happiness affect her, and to stop herself from thinking of this as nothing more than a small, baseless hope, she still failed though, and miserably at that.


    Adam''s words gave her something she never thought that she would have, they gave her hope, rekindling some thoughts she didn''t even dare to think about before.


    Of course, there was still the possibility that she won''t be able to use magic after all, that things were as Adam said, that she only had a weird condition and magic was still out of her reach, she did understand that, but even with that, she couldn''t stop herself from getting excited, her chances weren''t zero like they were before.


    A few minutes later, she couldn''t even remember how she found herself inside her bed, she couldn''t remember how she got it ready and how she entered it, her body was basically working on its own as her thoughts wandered all around.


    "Good night," Adam''s voice sounded from a place not far away from her.


    "Good night," she answered.


    Despite her excitement and anticipation making it hard for her brain to just fell down into the waiting embrace of sleep, she still understood that she had to sleep, as Adam said, the journey ahead of them was still long and she had to get enough rest.


    After a long and arduous struggle with her raging thoughts to keep them under control, Susan was finally able to chain them long enough for her to fall asleep.


    Susan slept deeply and dreamlessly for a while, but unfortunately, that didn''t last for long.


    Her eyes suddenly opened up wide as her shocked mind tried to understand what was happening; a hand was covering her mouth.


    Unconsciously, she started struggling as one of her hands went to her mouth and the other to claw at the face of whoever was assaulting her.


    However, she soon froze as she laid her eyes on who it was that was covering her mouth.


    It was Adam.


    The alleged livitus was looking at her with one hand on her mouth and the other beside his, lifting his finger to his lip, gesturing for her to calm down.


    The look on his face was serious and made her stop her struggling right away and without even thinking much about it.


    His expression made her feel that things weren''t alright, she barely saw Adam with that kind of expression on his face and seeing it then made her worry.


    Seeing how she had finally calmed down, Adam slowly retracted his hand back while keeping his finger on his lips, warning her not to make any sounds.


    Susan, who had no idea what was happening, obliged as she got up slowly and carefully, the first thing she noticed was that the cave was totally dark, the spherical lights Adam cast before weren''t seen anywhere, she guessed that he must have dispersed them after they fell asleep, she couldn''t understand why wouldn''t he just cast them again though.


    As soon as she had sat down in her bed, she turned to the entrance of the cave, where Adam had kept an intense and serious gaze locked since he had made sure that she had woken up.


    The place in front of the cliff face where the cave was, had a small clearing, so the gentle silver light coming from the incomplete moon in the sky was able to lit up the small area, while what laid behind that, the place where the forest started, appeared as if it was a dark wall with only blurry shapes representing the many tall trees out there.


    In a far corner of her mind, Susan remembered the night she ran from her village and to the forest, and how she was able to see where she was going even though the night then was a lot darker than it was at that moment, with no source of light at all, that made her got a new understanding for just how weird her state was at that night.


    Susan couldn''t see a thing as she examined the area ahead, yet she didn''t try asking Adam about what was happening.


    He himself was looking outside with a small frown on his face


    The longer time passed while things were in such a state, the faster Susan''s heart beat, and the more fear and anxiety she felt.


    Her mind also kept on messing with her senses, making her see things that weren''t there amidst the pitch-black forest, putting scary beasts and bloodthirsty monsters just at the corner of her eyes, things that would disappear when her eyes would fall on them


    "It already knows that we''re here..." Adam suddenly said without any warning.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Susan jumped in her place and almost shouted from the sudden voice next to her, she wasn''t expecting him to speak after that whole period of silence, then what he said finally registered in her mind and she was able to process it.


    "Wha... What is it?" She asked with a dry throat.


    "I don''t know..." Adam answered without taking his eyes from outside for even a second, "something is weird about all of this... I wasn''t able to feel anything at first, what woke me up was closer to a hunch from being anything else, and since then I''ve been trying to locate this danger and what it was, but I wasn''t able to come up with anything about it, all I was able to confirm is that there is something outside..."


    Adam''s voice as he spoke was light, dripping with doubt and confusion but also seriousness, it seemed as if this weird situation had made him extremely careful.


    Susan glanced outside and saw the blurry figures of the trees as they swayed in the darkness just out of the borders of her clear vision.


    The forest was silent, except for some occasional sounds that would sound out from one second to the next: the rustling of the leaves, the crackling of the trees as they swayed, the occasional call of night birds, all those brought some much-needed life to the silence of the forest that made her heartbeats sound up like drums in her ears.


    Just a few seconds before, she had the idea that anything would be better than to remain in that oppressive silence, but now after hearing what Adam said, something that sounded as if it came right out of her mom''s scary bedtime tales, and how what he said gave no real explanation to what was happening, she wasn''t really able to decide which was worst.


    "Could it be some kind of monster? One with abilities that are well-toned towards hiding and hunting?" She wracked her brain as she tried her best to use the small amount of knowledge she had, to come up with an explanation as she looked at Adam again.


    "Could be..." He answered, but from his tone, it seemed as if he was thinking about something else entirely, "though as I said... There''s something weird going on here..."


    "Did you try doing a scan to find out what and where is this thing?" She asked again, offering the best idea she could think of. The spell Adam used to scan for things gave her the impression that it was extremely accurate, and that it should be able to help in a situation like the one they found themselves in.


    "I didn''t," Adam shook his head, before explaining as if he could feel her confusion even without looking at her, "as I said, at first, all this was nothing but a hunch, and I didn''t know if what set it off was some beast or entity that was just passing by, or that we were already targeted, and as I''m sure that you have noticed, that technique isn''t made to be subtle by any means, if I had used it then, I would have been felt by whomever it was that I felt weird about."


    "But know we already know that we''re probably being targeted..." Susan continued with what Adam left unsaid.


    "Exactly," he nodded then added, "stand behind me and don''t move," before he crouched down and laid his right hand on the ground after seeing Susan take her place behind him silently and nod at him.


    A short while after, Susan felt the expected waves pass under her, this time she didn''t have the heart to try and sense them better, she just kept on looking between Adam and the outside of the case, fearing that something would jump at them when he was distracted.


    A few seconds after, those waves disappeared and Adam stood up with the frown on his face deepening.


    "Did you find anything out?" She questioned as she hugged herself tightly.


    "Yes and no... It''s quite weird, what I got was a bit weird and concerning, there''s nothing outside, or at least, my scan wasn''t able to find anything outside, that isn''t unexpected really, because there is more than one explanation to that and more than one way to avoid my scan, the easiest of which is hovering in the sky or standing atop a high object, which can somehow explain what we might be dealing with considering the other thing I felt.


    "You see, I was able to notice some weird foot trails in the forest and circling the borders between it and the clearing, from their shape and how they seemed, I think that we are dealing with some kind of gigantic insect...


    "And what''s weird about that then?" Susan tried to put her fear of this gigantic insect aside and try to understand what was going on, "Doesn''t it mean that there''s some kind of insect that''s good at hiding and sneaking outside? That seems like a logical explanation to what''s happening."


    "What''s weird is that the trails had a hint of mana that was different than a mana that a monster would release, it was way purer than that..." He replied as he shook his head.


    "What does that mean?" Susan knew when things went past her limits and asked.


    "What that means is that there is a monster outside, and this monster is under the effects of some kind of spell, and from the situation we''re in right now, I''m willing to bet that it''s an invisibility or concealment spell," answered Adam.


    "Wait, do you mean that someone cast a spell on a beast?" The thought was so out of her imagination that she didn''t know how to react and her voice rose up a little.


    "That''s what I think at least," Adam shrugged.


    Susan wanted to ask more, but before she could get the chance to do so, Adam waved his hand at her lightly, meaning for her to wait for a bit.


    "Since we know that we''re being watched... Then there is no need for us to lay down and play dead anymore," she heard him murmur.


    Right after, ten big shining spheres like those that lit the cave before that night manifested.


    After they appeared, and with the darkness retreating back, leaving the place to the light, Susan felt her body relax, as if a big weight was lifted from her shoulders, even she didn''t notice how much the darkness was affecting her.


    Adam waved his hand again, making one id the spheres move back to the back of the cave fast, while he had one hover right above their heads, showering every part of it with their light, as he sent the other eight outside, making a half-circle formation around the cave they were in.


    That made the place outside as bright as it was at day, that was the first time that Susan saw that much light at night, to the point that that made her forget the situation they were in for a second.


    With the lights, Adam gave the clearing a brief glance before closing his eyes tightly as he murmured something, a while after he reopened them again and his pupils were shining in a milky white light, they were extremely eye-catching, seeming as if they were two bright stars in the night sky.


    Adam then looked outside as if he was searching for something, but soon Susan noticed a change in his expression, his eyebrows met as he narrowed his eyes as if to see clearly.


    "That''s supposed to be enough to find whatever it is..." She heard him murmur to himself before turning to her, "stay here."


    Susan nodded, it wasn''t like she was going to head outside where an invisible monstrous insect was waiting for any chance to lunge at her.


    seeing that, Adam finally took a cautious step outside.

 24-Chase

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    Grinding his teeth hard, Adam flew through the dark forest with the long dense trees, destroying branches and sometimes entire trees when they stood in his way.


    He couldn''t believe that he had fallen for a simple trap like that, after all that he had been and lived through, this was what managed to take someone from under his noes, to be outsmarted by stupid beats, unacceptable!


    Adam felt as if a fire was burning in his heart as he used dozens of milky white arms to pull himself through the forest, he would make sure that he would finish them as soon as he gets to them.


    Adam understood that he had to go faster, but he was already at the limits of what the sixth gate could achieve, even for him.


    The only way that he would be able to go any faster would be to loosen the seal and step onto the fifth gate, but that was out of the question, he had reapplied and strengthened the seal just a while back, him loosening it anytime soon would be a huge disaster for him.


    The sixth gate was already the lowest he could push the seal towards, if he continued using his powers willy-nilly, then the seal''s power would get even lower, and the lowest level he would be able to return to would be the fifth gate.


    Remembering that only made him feel the need to destroy those things even more, he hated being pushed to his limits like that, especially because of small errors that he would have been able to deal with easily if he was just a bit more attentive


    The arms Adam was using right then were different from the hands he usually used, the first difference was of course their numbers and their sizes, there were thirty arms and they were the size of normal ones, the second was that unlike the two gigantic hands he used before, that floated freely and mimicked the movements of his real hands, these were connected to his back and he could control them as if they were a normal part of him.


    With the thirty milky white arms extending from his back, Adam moved through the forest as if he was flying, with the hands pulling, dragging and pushing him along the way, using the ground as a foothold.


    He did not doubt that if anyone saw how he looked at that moment in the pitch-black forest, then he would be mistaken as some kind of monster for sure.


    The trail ahead of him was vague, but he was still able to feel it, he was still able to follow after those damned spiders, each time the milky white palms hit the ground a scan would spread all over the ground, revealing the trail and sending Adam in the right direction.


    The spiders were still under the same spell they were under when he met them for the first time in the cave, they were still hidden from most of his senses, if not for their footprints in the ground, he wouldn''t have been able to follow them all this while, that spell and his carelessness were the sources of all his problems then.


    Remembering what happened again, he couldn''t help but release another repressed shout fueled by anger and irritation.


    ***


    As he took the first step outside, Adam gave the place in front of him a glance again, the cave was facing a medium-sized clearing with the forest being just around ten meters from him.


    He was trying to see if he could notice anything new, but like what happened before, he couldn''t find anything at all, either the space in front of him was really as it seemed, empty, or the spell that kept whatever it was that was outside hidden was better than he expected.


    Thinking about it for a bit, he decided to change the way he was going through that with, getting back to something that worked a bit, half crouching, Adam touched the ground with his palm before sending continuous pulses of mana all around the place, using a bigger amount of mana this time so he can get better feedback.


    Soon, he was able to find the footprints that he guessed were from some kind of insect, following those trails, he noticed from the patterns that it was walking all around the borders of the forest, moving along its edge without setting foot inside the clearing.


    Suddenly, Adam felt as if his scan had met something, at the exact place where the trail ended, his mana felt some resistance from the other side of the clearing, as if something was still on the trail there.


    "Found you," he murmured with a faint smile on his face.


    He was able to sense the other party freezing for a second when his mana touched it, and he wasn''t going to waste that chance, he was confident that he would be able to finish it before it can run away.


    Adam was already moving as soon as he felt the difference and the resistance from his scan, shooting up like an arrow where he felt it at.


    He soon made it there, with him already knowing that the insect was already there, Adam was able to determine where the trail was leading, and being that close, he was able to catch a glimpse of the blurry figure of a huge spider.


    Just as he lifted his hand to send a fireball to the figure, his heart missed a beat as he sensed something from behind him.


    Turning around with his face paling a bit, Adam was just in time to see something that made his blood freeze; Susan was standing at the mouth of the cave, looking at him with wide confused and fearful eyes as she hugged her shoulders tightly.


    And above her, he noticed a thin silver line hanging from nowhere under one of the trees at the cliff.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Adam opened his mouth to shout at her, but unfortunately, he never got the chance to, the line fell down fast, and as soon as it touched her shoulder, it appeared as if it was an elastic robe that was pulled to its limit before being released, pulling her up with it wrapping her as it retracted.


    Susan disappeared from behind the edge of the cliff in a second, leaving behind her a half-muffled scream.


    For a fraction of a second, a shocked expression covered Adam''s face, but his body didn''t wait for his mind to understand what was happening.


    The first thing he did wasn''t go after Susan and what took her, instead he turned to look behind him as milky white wisps swirled around him before gradually condensing into thirty arms extending from his back, that shot towards where he thought the beast was.


    The beast was trying to run away, as was clear from the blurry shape and the fast retreating footprints, but he for sure wasn''t going to give it that chance, he followed its movements with cold eyes and a dark expression.


    The monster seemed to have noticed the arms and tried to evade by making a sharp jump to the side, but while it was still in the air, it froze as those arms were still a distance away from it as the spell keeping it invisible disappeared, revealing the beast''s real appearance and also the big wound that caused its death: its head had exploded.


    As soon as that had been dealt with, and with the corpse of the monster still in the grasp of the milky white arms that reached it a second after, Adam turned around and headed after what had kidnapped Susan as fast as he could.


    The long flexible arms dug into the cliff face as they lifted him up fast.


    As he moved, Adam turned some of his attention to the corpse of the monster that he was still holding on to. He studied it for less than five seconds before finally throwing it aside concentrating on following the other beasts as different pieces of information about what he had noticed from the huge spider got filtered through his mind till he found a match.


    The spider was a jumping spider, it was around three meters long and had a black unreflective fur covering its whole body, on its face, it had six eyes, with two big central ones and another four with each two on a side, those two big eyes gave it somehow of an expressive face and it also had big jaws-like fangs on the front of its head. On both sides of its head, it had two long nimble limbs.


    Adam soon recognized it as a Hunting Weaver, a type of jumping spider that were extremely active in their search for food, they lived in burrows under the ground that they would dig themselves or they would just find a cave or a hole to use. They were nocturnal hunters and depended on surprise and their nets to hunt, it also wasn''t unheard of for them to hunt in groups.


    The Hunting Weaver''s use for their net in their hunts was diverse, fine and smart, With them using different techniques for each prey and each hunt, and also coming up with new ones for the situation they find themselves in, using the long nimble arm-like limbs on both sides of their faces to control their nets. They were some of the smartest and most cunning low levelled creatures in the Beasts'' Forest, they were usually around the fifth gate.


    Adam''s expression lightened up a bit when he remembered that for most of the time, Hunting Weavers wouldn''t inject their prey with poison immediately after catching it and warping it in their silk, their first priority then would be to return to their burrows to hide.


    But even with that, he still had a strong urge to kill, he never was someone who would accept that he had been upped.


    With the gigantic jumping spiders running up ahead, disappearing from one moment to the second with each jump they did, and Adam chasing behind them with his ghostly arms that destroyed everything in their path as he tried to reach them, this settlement remained for a few minutes.


    As time went on, the frown on Adam''s face only grew as the burning fire inside him lit up higher and burned brighter, for many times he seriously considered loosening the seal a bit, only the consequences of him doing that while he was in such a mental state stopped him from entertaining that idea, he didn''t want to cause another disaster.


    Adam suddenly lifted his hand as milky white wisps of energy swirled around it, but he soon lowered it as he let out an annoyed growl from deep down his throat.


    Susan was under the same spell that affected the spiders after being wrapped by their silk, he wasn''t able to tell which one of the three blurry figures in front of him had her, and sending an attack their way, under those circumstances, would be extremely dangerous on her.


    Just as he was repressing for the who knows what time the idea that loosening the seal for just this once won''t be much of a problem, his shining pupils contracted as his expression changed.


    His eyes then focused on a certain spot where weak milky white lights started appearing as if light entering a dark closed up place from small cracks.


    From nowhere, the white light started flowing into the world, slowly and weakly at first then strongly, till the light turned blinding.


    The light lit up what the thing it was inside was, it was what seemed to be a cocoon that was carried by one of the blurry figures, the one in the middle.


    The light seemed to have spooked the Hunting Weavers, as the ones on the sides of the one holding the cocoon jumped aside as the one holding it seemed to be in shock, not knowing what to do with the cocoon it was holding between its front long limbs.


    Adam saw his chance, he lifted both hands, manifesting a white spear in a fraction of a second in each hand before sending them flying towards the spiders on the side.


    The spears travelled in a white blur and reached their targets in a second. Of the spiders didn''t even get the chance to avoid, as it had just landed from a jump and wasn''t able to do anything before the spear hit it straight to the head.


    The other, though, was able to jump to the side before the spear reached it, but that didn''t matter much as the spear changed its path halfway through its journey, heading to where the spider landed and hitting it in the centre of its body.


    Adam didn''t care much about that, most of his attention was on the spider that had Susan.


    As the light from the cocoon continued to shine brighter, the spider holding it got more flustered and stopped in its place, half-blinded before finally dropping it.


    With it being flustered because of the light from the cocoon, the spider slowed down before stopping entirely at the end, while Adam didn''t have to slow down at all, heading towards it at once.


    With cold eyes and hidden anger, Adam stepped towards the blinded spider, even before reaching it, his white hands had already landed open it, with each two or three of them catching hold of one or two of its feet before starting to pull


    The spider released a high pitched screech as its limbs were ripped off by force. After only a body was left of the spider, the arms moved to the head and other body sections and started pulling them apart too.


    Even as the arms were killing the spider in cold blood, Adam made some of them go and deal with the cocoon that warped Susan.


    As the spider finally died and with Susan free, Adam turned towards her to make sure that she was alright.


    At that moment Susan was unconscious, she had no wounds or bite marks on her and neither did she seem to be poisoned, so he finally calmed down a bit, then he turned to the most eye-catching and interesting thing at all about her at that moment.


    In front of Susan, a sphere that was a bit familiar and extremely bright was floating, Adam studied it for a while till it started dispersing on its own at the end.


    "Huh..." He finally said with a hint of his usual light-hearted and light tone.

 25-Sick

    The Beasts'' Forest:


    The sun had just risen on the ruins of the village where Adam and Susan found the evil spirit, Atalia the danupira, a light fog was still hovering over the scene and dew covered the short grass.


    Suddenly, from the shade of a long tree, a figure stepped out, as if it was stepping out from water, leaving behind weird ripples from the shade he had just stepped out of.


    The figure was a young man that appeared to be in his mid-twenties, he had black skin with dark purple lines covering it in random patterns, he was around 1.7 meters and had a normal but healthy built.


    He was wearing a long black coat that reached down to just below his knees, a dark brown shirt underneath it and black pants too, he carried on his back a bow and a quiver full of arrows, while on his waist, there was a wide belt that had many different things, with a small pouch on the right side of his hip and he also had a normal bag strapped over his back.


    At first, the man that was clearly a skugg gave the place a normal glance only, but then he froze as his eyebrows rose and his expression became serious: there was something different about the place he came to for hundreds of times in the last eight years, something was off about it.


    The skugg looked around before he finally moved after a while, he took a step forward and fell into a shadow, disappearing again before he reappeared in a totally different location of the ruins, stepping out of another shadow.


    Out of the shadow, the skugg looked around the place he was standing in as his black pupiled eyes turned completely black, they were like two black holes inside his head, then he studied the location carefully.


    "Two people... They stopped here for a bit... Then headed to..." The skugg murmured to himself as he looked and moved around, but he didn''t finish his words as he lifted his head and looked away to where the single wall of what was once a tower was standing.


    Pooof!


    The skugg scattered into a mess of pitch-black smoke that headed fast towards the location of the lone standing wall.


    The smoke stopped a few meters away from the wall and reformed into the skugg who stood frozen with his unbelieving eyes wide open as he took in the scene in front of him.


    "It... Disappeared..." He murmured to himself in shock.


    After making sure that there was no traps or any of the like, the skugg moved slowly towards the tallest wall in the ruins, one that was just a little while back hidden by a runic glyphs array he couldn''t recognize.


    As he was studying the big wall in front of him, he noticed another thing, in what must have been one day the main hall of the tower, a big hole, that was clearly recent appeared.


    The skugg slowly and carefully moved to the edge of the hole, till he finally got a better look at what was below, it was a big but empty hall, with a door that led to elsewhere.


    Looking from one place to another in the hall, the skugg then closed his eyes, a bit later, it seemed as if the shadows in the hall got darker and blacker as if they were drawn by rich oil paint.


    Things continued like that for a while before the skugg finally opened his eyes again and with that, the shadows below returned to their usual state. He then jumped down with not as much caution as he showed before.


    As soon as his feet touched the ground, he looked right away at the door that led to the other hall, as if he knew that nothing important was in the first one.


    Step! Step! Step!


    The sound of his footsteps echoed down the empty hall as he moved slowly to the door, stopping in front of it for a while as he peered carefully inside with his fully black eyes. His sight fell on many different locations in the hall, noticing the small signs of battle that covered the floor before taking his eyes to the things that caught his attention the most, the recently made grave and its headstone.


    "Danupira...?" He frowned.


    ***


    "Argh..." Susan let out a low groan as she slowly woke up from her deep sleep with strong pain all over her body.


    She tried to remember what had happened but her mind was suffering from a head-splitting headache, making her thoughts process slow and messy.


    Opening her eyes slowly, the first thing that met her was the sunlight coming in from the opening of the cave, making her close her eyes again with another groan.


    "What in the hell happened..." She murmured to herself in a tongue she was sure only she would understand as she laid down again, pulling the covers over her head, using every ounce of her seemingly missing power to do so.


    Just as she was still trying to understand what happened from the messy soup of mixed memories in her mind, a sound echoed from the mouth of the cave.


    "Oh, you''ve woke up," despite all the chaos her mind was in, she was still able to make out Adam''s voice, "but... Hmm, it seems that you''re not exactly alright, how do you feel?"


    "Emmmghhh..." A long-suffering groan was all she could get out, not that he was going to misinterpret it anyway, she thought in a hazy part of her mind.


    "Okay, okay, I get you," he answered with a hint of laughter, "it seems that my bet was on point, I was kind of worried that I''d wasted my time making this, but it seems that it''s going to see some use after all."


    His joking and bright tone made the already annoyed Susan even more irritated and she wished that she could at least frown at him.


    "Calm down, calm down," Adam must have felt her annoyance because he hurried to say as he moved closer towards her, she also heard him sit down and put something next to her.


    "Come on, try sitting up," he said as he removed the cover aside, exposing her head.


    This time, even with all the pain, the headache and the sickness she was feeling, she still opened her eyes and endearing the stinging she felt from them, she gave him the strongest glare she could muster.


    "I know, I know, but you have to drink this, it would help you a lot," seeing her glare, which she was sure was more pitiful than anything, Adam said as he helped her sit up, before adding in a tone that was much less sure, "or... At least I hope it would."


    She gave him another groan that she was sure he wouldn''t be able to misinterpret its meaning before letting him pull her up.


    Adam pulled her and had her sit with her back against the wall, using the big bag he had as a pillow of some kind.


    With her against the wall and her eyes tightly shut, Susan tried her best not to puke, not that she had much in her stomach anyway, a part of her suspected that the only reason she wasn''t puking all over was that her stomach was empty.


    From the sound she heard from her side, she knew that Adam had lifted the thing he had put next to her when he set down, opening her eye a slit, she saw one of the small iron pots they used for cooking and their daily meals


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    In it was what seemed to be some greenish soup with a few leaves and bits of plants floating on its surface, it wasn''t really that appetizing and made her stomach that had calmed down a bit makes itself known as it tried to find something to throw out.


    "I... Argh..." She started speaking but the pain and nausea caught up to her, but she still forced herself to speak, she wasn''t going to let herself puke in front of him then and there because of this, "I don''t think that... Argh. That I''ll be able to eat anything..."


    Even saying just that made her want nothing more than to lay down and fall to the embrace of sleep, she was in a horrible state and started wondering again just what had happened to put her in such a state, she felt as she did when she was a kid and would get a bad cold, and how her mom would take care of her.


    "You have to, and don''t worry, this will really help you, it''s an old and known recipe in all of Tellor and people from most races tried it, even I did, you truly are going to improve when you drink it," answered Adam as he lifted the pot for her to drink of it.


    He sounded honest enough so she decided to trust him, her giving up and wanting just to be done with this quickly so she could get back to sleep as fast as possible had nothing to do with that for sure.


    The soup or whatever it was, didn''t have any special smell at all, or that was at least what she felt, she didn''t know if that was because it really didn''t have any, or because she was simply ill.


    "Come on now, just drink it," Adam urged her after waiting with the small pot in his hand for a while.


    If she could, Susan would have sighed, but she couldn''t so she imagined she did before opening her mouth a bit.


    Adam lifted the small pot and tilted it a bit to her mouth, sensing the pot at her lips, then it moving and the soup entering her mouth, Susan felt, even before it reached her stomach the desire to puke getting stronger.


    The soup was thick and had a weird taste she wasn''t able to comprehend, it was a mix of bitterness, saltiness and some light sweetness and tens of other flavours she wasn''t able to decipher, it was a chaotic mix of flavours.


    Adam seemed to have expected this because he soon said in a gentle kind voice:


    "You have to hold on, believe me, it will get much better after it reaches your stomach, you just have to hold on for now."


    His voice made her trust him for some reason. So fighting the urge to puke with all her strength, she tried to force herself to swallow the thick gooey disgusting soup as she thought about how if this was a joke of some kind by Adam, she would make sure that she would throw up all over him by mistake.


    She was essentially able to feel the soup as it went down her throat and to her stomach, and the more it went down, the stronger the notion to puke was. She had no idea how she managed to swallow it at the end, but she did.


    The disgusting thick greenish soup finally made it down to her stomach and sat there calmly, calming down her stomach that just a moment ago wasn''t shy on showing its refusal and trying to leave her body, but that was just the beginning of the improvements.


    After her stomach calmed down, she felt some warmth move around and fill each and every part of her body. Starting from her stomach.


    It was the comfortable kind of warmth you would feel when it''s cold outside and you finally enter your warm bed and fall into a deep slumber.


    As the warmth moved all around her body, Susan heard Adam say:


    "Come on, there''s still much more, you have to finish it for you to get better sooner."


    This time, and knowing what was coming, Susan braced herself well for what was coming before taking another sip, and just as she expected, the taste was still just as horrible, and even with the first sip calming down her stomach, it still showed how annoyed it was again and tried to shower Adam with its new content, but she was able to control herself fast and stop the unfortunate accident from happening.


    Finally, after numerous sips and a lot of struggling on her part and a lot of counselling from Adam, she was able to drink the whole pot, with the comforting warmth filling every part of her, she started feeling sleepy again and wanted nothing more than just to fall asleep.


    With her thoughts getting blurry, Susan suddenly felt Adam as he moved her back down to her bed.


    "You can sleep now, we will speak about the rest later," his voice was kind and gentle.


    She felt relaxed as he covered her, that was the last memory going through her mind before she gave herself to sleep.


    After who knows how much time had passed, Susan opened her eyes again, but this time she was much better, her stomach wasn''t trying to relocate and the pain wasn''t filling all her senses whenever she tried to move, and she felt as if some strength had returned to her.


    With a little groan, Susan sat up in her bad and looked around her, not far from her, Adam was sitting with his back towards her, when she sat up, he finally turned her way:


    "Welcome to the world of the living again," he said jokingly before adding, "how are you feeling."


    "Mu... Much better," she answered, less grumpy now that she was not suffering, her voice was still hoarse from sleep and exhaustion though, "your soup helped a lot, thank you."


    "No need for that," he waved his hand dismissively, "I know how that feels, it''s horrible, and also, making that soup wasn''t that troublesome."


    "What was that anyway? What happened for me to end in that kind of state? Was... Was it the spiders? Did I get bitten?" She asked in confusion and fear.


    Now that pain and exhaustion weren''t taking up all her attention, her mind was able to do some of its simpler functions, and she was able to somehow remember some of what had happened. And then the first thing she remembered was a thread falling down from the sky before wrapping her and a monstrous face looking at her.


    She probably was going to remember much more after a while, but at that moment her head was still foggy and slow.


    "No, it wasn''t any of that, those spiders weren''t able to hurt you at all before going down," answered Adam, then he seemed to be studying if he should say the next part as he scratched his head:


    "And as for what was wrong with you... Then that is a much more complicated matter somehow... What you suffered from is called mana poisoning, the one you suffered from was a minor one... It usually happens for many reasons and..."


    Adam stopped at this point and gave her a complex gaze that made her throw what happened yesterday aside as a sense of anticipation filled her heart:


    "...And in your case," he continued, "...That was because you cast a relatively strong spell for the first time..."

 26-Mana and Magic

    Beast''s Forest:


    Adam found the situation he was in quite surreal and made him look back at all he went through the last few days, wondering how did he find himself at that moment sitting in front of a human while trying to teach her the basics of magic.


    If anyone else told him that they had tried to do that before, Adam would have laughed right in their face, treating them as someone delusional or someone with a lot of time in their hands, how would you even start teaching a human how to use magic? With them not having mana and therefore a Source to get back to.


    But there he was, facing a human with the end goal of getting her to cast an elementary spell.


    But if he had to say, it wasn''t that bad really, it was actually fun and quite interesting.


    Adam thought about what led to that moment and what happened in the last three days as he looked at the anticipating Susan who could barely sit down calmly.


    ***


    Looking at Susan''s face, which went through so many changes in the last few seconds, Adam started reconsidering if she was just shocked or if he had to start worrying.


    Susan was then sitting on her bed, having just woken up after taking the mana poisoning remedy. It was clear from her expression and ragged appearance that she hadn''t returned to her usual state, not that he had ever seen her in her usual state he guessed, but she was much better than she was when she first woke up before.


    "I... I used magic?.." Disbelief and anticipation were dripping from her words as she looked at him with wide eyes.


    For a second, and in a deep dark part of his mind, Adam considered the possibility of saying ''no'' to see how she would react, but he soon silenced that desire, that was too overboard even for him.


    "Yes, that what seems to have happened," he answered as he scratched his chin, "while you were wrapped in that spider''s cocoon, you somehow cast an Illuminating Sphere. You can''t remember anything about that?"


    "No... I... I can''t remember, the last thing I can remember is being pulled by that thin thread and wrapped... Everything after that is so foggy..." Answered Susan as she balled her hands and her eyes moved around in confusion.


    She seemed honest and he himself didn''t see a reason that would make her lie, so he left that train of thoughts aside and tried looking into another reason.


    "Hmm..." He thought for a bit before starting, "casting spells you never learned in a dangerous situation isn''t unheard of, and it has happened more times than once in the long history of Tellor, but there are clear differences between those cases and what happened with you last night."


    "The biggest difference is, of course, you being a human, I know it sounds somehow obvious but hear me out, each race has a type of spells that can only be used by that specific race, purely racial spells. And it''s mostly this type of spells that gets cast in dangerous situations because they are the easiest to grasp for individuals from that race and it would usually only take a bit of training and reaching a certain level to be able to cast them..."


    "Are you with me till now?" Adam stopped to make sure that she got what he said, he was trying to make his explanation as simple as possible.


    Susan gave a slight nod and from the expression on her face, Adam got the impression that she truly understood what he had said.


    "Good, in that case, you can for sure understand what I meant with all of this," he continued, "humans, being a none magical race, obviously don''t have such spells, and even if they had them, I doubt Illuminating Sphere would be one of them."


    "So how did I do that?" Asked Susan with a small frown, "and what does that mean?... Does it mean that I can use magic..."


    And there it was, faced again with that same question, Adam studied his options for the second time in a day, but this time he had more clues to go with and many more guesses, so he didn''t give the same answer this time.


    "For how you did that, I don''t really know," he answered truthfully, "but I do have some guesses, the first thing that caught my eyes was the spell you used, the spell itself is as simple and elementary as spells can get, so there are no problems there, but it still gave me a clue about how you were able to cast it, here look."


    Finishing his words, Adam waved his hand dramatically, because he liked setting up an atmosphere, and made a bright milky white sphere appear in front of him, it was the same as the one Susan cast the night before, if a lot weaker.


    "Does this seem familiar to you in any way?" He asked as he let the sphere float towards her lightly.


    "Yes, it''s the same as the ones you used yesterday to light the cave, no?" She answered with a thoughtful expression.


    "That and what else, something from even before last night, one that is exactly like this one here, try again," pushed Adam, he had gone through the trouble of making that sphere look the same as the one he used that time, so he believed that she would recognise it and realize what he meant eventually.


    "Even before that... Wait, it''s the one you used as an example..." Susan was confused at first before seeming as if she remembered something and recognized what he had meant.


    "Exactly," he smiled, "it''s the same spell I used yesterday to show you how you were able to absorb mana."


    Adam watched in amusement as Susan''s face went through another round of fast changes as the realization dawned on her. He liked putting things like that and watching as the pieces fall in their exact spots.


    "The spell I''ve cast... Was a spell I had absorbed before...?" Murmured Susan as if she was asking herself more than asking him.


    "Exactly, well kind of," he answered as he shrugged, before explaining as he saw the confused look she gave him, "well, you actually only absorb a part of the spell, a small part but  it''s enough for the spell''s structure to become unbalanced and disperse."


    "Wait, does that mean that I''ll be able to cast all the spells that I''ve absorbed?" Asked Susan with burning excitement.


    It seems as if he had pushed it a bit further than he should have, Adam thought to himself with some worry as he saw Susan''s big reaction to the realization. Even though that seemed to be the right and proper conclusion to reach with all they had and knew, there was still a lot of other things to take into consideration before labelling this as the final conclusion, especially with how if this was true, that would be quite something to take in.


    "Hmm, it seems so..." He tried to get her to understand that that was only one of the possibilities without discouraging her completely, "but that''s still only one of the possibilities, who knows what really happened, and who knows what other conditions are in effect here..."


    As he was still talking and trying to come up with a good enough explanation, Susan suddenly interrupted him:


    "So... So help me know for sure how I cast that spell and what really happened..." She had a serious expression on her face as she looked at him with strong determination.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    "That..." Adam froze for a second before a certain feeling started blooming inside his heart.


    He soon chuckled and said with anticipation that he was sure rivalled that of Susan''s:


    "Sure, why don''t we work on that. I was already thinking about how to get you to use magic last night, I came up with nothing back then though, but now, now I think that we are going to be able to work with some things and try them out."


    Seeing happiness and excitement filling Susan''s face, Adam felt the need to mess with her rise up again, so he hurriedly added:


    "But not now, and not anytime soon for that, you''re still ill and you have just gone through a minor mana poisoning just last night, you have to rest for a couple of days."


    "Seriously? Argh, damn it," groaned Susan as she fall back down to her bed.


    Adam couldn''t help but laugh, winning himself an annoyed glance from her, one he decided not to care about as he added:


    "Anyway, you have to rest for a few days so we will be stopping our journey to the next town for now. This will be our home till then, get used to it."


    "That''s good I guess, I needed a rest anyway, and the place here isn''t as bad as I thought it would be at first... Giant spiders aside, of course, I can do without those," she said as she looked up at him.


    "Good," he stood up, "I''ll try to make you something to eat, I''m sure that now that your stomach isn''t actively trying to leave your body, you''re feeling hungry, right?"


    "Now that you mention it..." She said as she touched her stomach.


    "Lay down for a bit then," leaving that behind, he first went to the side where their things were before getting the water bottle and giving it to her.


    That done, he started making something to eat for the both of them.


    Two days passed without any other strange thing happening, Susan was getting better fast and she was already well enough to move around without any problems


    Adam was also able to notice all the sideway glances she had been throwing him at the end of the second day and all the hinting that she was already well and ready to start learning.


    But Adam didn''t bring anything about that up, it wasn''t because he wanted to mess with her, at least not entirely, but it was because he was trying to understand what happened with those spiders.


    The arrival of those spiders and them being under a concealment spell was odd. That night, when Susan was kidnapped, Adam already had the possibility that the spiders were under someone''s control in mind, maybe even the one who wanted Susan, and after getting her back, he was extremely alert that night, fortunately, nothing else happened and no one showed themselves.


    Even still, Adam didn''t let his guard down, he still cast many protections on the cave and the area around it, he also went in patrols and scanned the area looking for anything unusual, he was making sure that nothing like what happened before would happen ever again.


    Finally, in the morning of the third day and after having breakfast, Adam looked at Susan, whose mood was getting a bit irritated and said:


    "Okay, I think that we can start working on getting you familiar with magic and mana."


    "Finally," half shouted Susan before adding in a relieved grumbling voice, "these days were some of the longest in my life."


    Adam smiled, he was happy and relieved to see that Susan was showing more and more emotions these days. He wasn''t naive enough to think that she had dealt with the shock and pain that she had been through from losing her family and neighbours, but he knew that she was at least slowly improving, learning to put the sadness and pain behind her for the moment.


    He was also sure that what had happened those days and her getting a chance to use magic had a big part in that, that gave her new hope, one that opened many doors for her.


    "Okay, okay, calm down a bit," he answered as he chuckled, "the first thing we will go through is the system all the races use."


    Susan sat up straight with attentive and bright focused eyes.


    "Hmm, where to start..." Murmured Adam as he tried to organise his thoughts, "the first thing you need to know is that each race has their own mana, no one from another race can ever use the mana of the other races, well, except for the omegas, but they are a special case and even they can''t go from a Source to Source whenever they want, as depending on their levels they have a certain period after each switch when they can''t change the Source they are following. Also, only their ancestors'' Sources are available for them."


    "I haven''t even started and here I stray from the main subject," joked Adam, "and it won''t be the last time that happens, this subject is linked with many other things that have to be mentioned, even just so we acknowledge them before moving on.


    "Anyway, as I was saying, each race has its own mana, meaning a somehow isolated magic system for each race, again I have to add that there are links between the different magical systems of different races, but let''s leave that for another time, we will be looking at thing on a surface level for now.


    "Now, let''s get back to a term I''ve mentioned just now, Sources, as I said each race has its own mana and each mana has what we call a Source, we don''t know if they are really the sources of mana, but we give them that name because they appear to be so and they give that impression when you''re inside them.


    "Everyone from every race, except humans, of course, is already linked to a Source but most of the time they can''t sense it, to sense them for the first time they have to find them, doing that is somehow easy and most don''t face any problems with it.


    "What must be done is emptying your mind and concentrating inside you, trying to feel the mana move through you and finding the point where the mana is connected to the Source. After emptying your mind and getting this step done, you have to push your awareness through that point you found, which will lead you to the Source.


    "The Source would usually be a vast expense filled with your race''s mana, the you inside it would be a projection of sorts, you would be able to move and interact with the place around you as if your real body was there. The next point would be building your Castle there, which is also one of the easiest steps, you would only need to imagine a castle and will it there, and it would appear in the empty void of the Source.


    "And again, a new term, Castles," he announced as he smiled and waved his hands.


    "You are enjoying this way too much, aren''t you?" Susan rolled her eyes at him while massaging her temples.


    "Of course," he replied, and he really was, "anyway, the Castle would represent an individual''s level, each Castle would have ten floors and each floor would have a Gate that would lead to the next level, an individual''s level is referred to as Gate, with the tenth Gate, that is at the ground floor, being the weakest and the first Gate, that is at the top of the castle, being the strongest."

 27-The First Step

    Beast''s Forest:


    Susan sat facing Adam who, for some reason, seemed even more excited than her, listening with rapt attention as he continued his explanation about the magical system that all the races used.


    She gave it her all to follow what he was saying, while also trying to remember if she went through anything like that during the night when she got abducted by those spiders. Unfortunately, she wasn''t able to remember anything about that.


    "Each gate gives access to more and more spells," continued Adam as she tried to pull herself back from those thoughts and concentrate on him again, it would be annoying for both of them if he had to repeat all that he said because her thoughts wandered away as he was explaining, "each gate holds all the spells that an individual can learn and use while they are at that gate, they all would be floating there, manifesting as shining spheres."


    Done speaking, he waved his hands theatrically with a big smile on his face, making a blinding white light flash out, surprising Susan who closed her eyes in shock.


    "Ahh!" Without her control, a weak scream left her mouth, as she shrunk back with her heartbeats increasing.


    She felt her heart contract as the blood left her face, leaving behind it a chill that travelled through all her body. The first reaction she had to Adam''s casting of that spell was shrinking back in fear, but straight away she felt a weird and confusing sense of ease and security.


    It felt as if the bright light from the spell woke a part of her memory that she had forgotten, the fear and horror she felt weren''t from the light itself, they were just linked to it, as if seeing the light opened the way for her feelings to make themselves apparent.


    "Are you alright? What happened?" Adam asked seriously as he walked towards her.


    "I''m... I''m alright," she answered with short breaths, "I just got surprised because of the bright light... I simply wasn''t expecting it..."


    Not wanting to be more of a nuisance again, she said that with the calmest voice she could muster.


    Adam gave her a deep look for a few seconds and she returned it with a determined and strong expression of her own. Finally, Adam looked away, shaking his head as he apologised:


    "Sorry for that, I should have taken your reaction and what you have just been through into account, should we stop for a bit? Do you need a minute?"


    "I said I''m fine," she grumbled, a bit irritated, "let''s just continue, there are no problems at all."


    Scratching his head, Adam sighed as he lifted his hand in resignation:


    "If you say so," with that said he turned around and spread his arms apart, "tsk, the dramatic flare for this has passed but whatever, here look, this is what the space behind the gates and inside each floor seems like."


    With his words guiding her, Susan finally had the chance to notice that the space around them was much different than it was before, flinching a bit in shock at how she didn''t notice it, and how maybe Adam''s suggestion for rest wasn''t so bad after all, alas, it was already too late. She just gritted her teeth and went with it, she won''t be getting back on her words so soon.


    Right then, it was almost impossible to recognise the cave''s original appearance. Rolling and flowing milky white mist covered everything in sight, limiting visibility and making the cave seem bigger than it should have been, even under her feet there was nothing but fog. In this fog, different sized and coloured spheres were floating peacefully.


    The sight in front of her made Susan feel as if she was inside an endless space, with her mouth opening up unconsciously in shock.


    "Well, at least this was a reaction I anticipated," she heard Adam murmur from the side.


    She turned towards him with a light glare, Adam could be quite irritating sometimes. Adam on the other hand just chuckled at her glare and shrugged as he continued:


    "As you must have noticed, the dominant colour here in this space is milky white, that''s because it''s the colour of my mana, and all the livitus'', and if I''m not mistaken it will be the most prominent colour in your space too, even though that''s just a guess.


    "Anyway, back to what I was talking about, as I said spells that an individual can learn would appear as floating spheres inside the space of the gate that they are in right then. As you can see the spheres here are of different colours and sizes, they can be divided into three categories, The ones with the fewest number ones are the biggest and brightest milky white spheres," he said as he waved his arms to a big eye-catching white sphere, that was a distance away from them, "these represent the spells that only livitus or hybrids with the blood of livitus flowing through them can use, people with no links to the livitus at all won''t be able to use them no matter what, you can say that they are purely racial spells."


    "The second category is made of these..." Continued Adam as he made the big sphere disperse into milky white wisps that floated towards her. Before having a smaller sphere that had the same colour, just not as bright, float towards him, "they are smaller spheres that still have the same colour yet smaller sizes and dimmer brightness, they don''t have specific sizes but they would never be as big or as bright as the ones from the first category. These represent the spells that are the livitus'', yet individuals from the other races can still learn them."


    like before, done speaking, Adam waved his hand lightly and had the smaller sphere disperse into wisps of energy that also went and started circling Susan, joining the wisps from before as a small cyclone started revolving around her.


    Susan swapped at it with a bit of annoyance as she tried to concentrate on what Adam was saying.


    "And last but not least, the third type," ten different coloured and sized spheres or so came and started circling Adam as he was speaking, "these spheres represent the different spells from other races that have no link to yours, they are basically the other races'' second category of spells."


    With a clap, Adam had the different spheres circling him disperse into the same wisps of energy as before and head towards Susan again.


    The amount was so big this time that she closed her eyes in surprise, opening them again, she noticed that everything around her returned to normal, she was still sitting in the cave and Adam was still standing in front of her as he regarded her with a light smile.


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Rolling her eyes at him, she stood up before saying:


    "So those are all the types of existing spells?"


    "Somehow yes," he answered as he shrugged, "there is another part but it doesn''t interest us much here, I only told you about those you will face inside the castle and source, the fourth type is the spells that don''t have any link to any race, and they are usually just some extremely simple spells, so I didn''t mention them."


    "Oh," she nodded as her eyes moved all over the cave without focusing on anything, "so that''s how all of this works... But what about me? How do you think that I''ll be able to use magic?"


    "Well, we will try the usual method first of course," Adam scratched his chin as he thought loudly, "we will try having you locate your source..."


    She frowned slightly as she heard what he said, from his explanation she was able to find out that Sources were things all the races that could use magic had, but humans didn''t have such an ability which meant that that experiment won''t probably work.


    "Hey! What''s with that look?" Noticing her expression, Adam added, "I know that this seems like something that won''t work for sure, but you''re a human that was able to cast a spell, we''ve left the realm of common sense a while ago, so let''s just try this and see how it goes from there."


    "I... Sigh, okay," she answered as she massaged her forehead with a heavy sigh, she had nothing to say to that.


    "Great, first sit down with your legs crossed and back straight," He clapped his hands as he sat facing her, demonstrating the right way to do so, "sources have a reaction of some kind with the mana inside an individual''s body, and that is, as I already said, what people from other races search for when they try to enter their source for the first time. I doubt you will find something like that but we will try anyway. And don''t worry, even if it won''t, I have something in mind that has a higher chance of working."


    Susan took his words in and breathed deeply as she sat straighter with her legs crossed. She found the position a bit uncomfortable but she didn''t complain about that and just released the breath she had been holding, before nodding to Adam with a determined gaze, she was ready for this experiment.


    "Due to your ability to absorb mana, I don''t know if you have any coursing through your body, which means that this might not work, but let''s give this a try first, and don''t worry if it doesn''t work," Adam said as if to comfort her.


    "What you have to do is try and concentrate your senses inside you, searching for mana. Take deep breaths and try to empty your mind, just focus on my voice and your inner self, let everything else fall away..."


    Adam''s voice was soft and gentle. It made her body relax. Loosening up muscles she hadn''t even noticed how tight they were. She tried not to think about that too much and to empty her mind of all distractions.  Surprisingly, she found doing so easy to an astonishing degree, and soon enough, she found herself in a state she never had been in before.


    Everything around her fell away as if she fell into a deep lukewarm lake, with everything around her becoming silent and still, as if all had disappeared.


    Susan felt a sense of excitement start to blossom as she entered such a state and hurried to calm herself down before starting to search for the Source.


    She searched and searched and searched, yet, she wasn''t able to find anything. No source, no mana reacting with it, nothing, just an empty still void.


    The longer time passed while she was in such a state, the harder she found keeping her emotions in check, the idea of failing and not finding anything, the impatience and fear, all those started sanding waves through the still void, and finally, the small island she was wasn''t able to hold on any longer and she was thrown out.


    As if a newborn taking their first breath, she gasped for air as her eyes opened wide and her back met the wall as she tilted back.


    She felt weak and tired as if she had been running for hours and not trying to meditate. She had no idea why she felt like that and so she looked at Adam searching for an answer.


    "So? How did it go?" Adam instead seemed to be more interested in what she had been through and he asked in confused excitement.


    "I... Phew, I didn''t succeed," she said while panting.


    Adam frowned at her words before starting with a somehow hesitant voice:


    "For a short while there it seemed as if you got it, as if you had got into the state that would have led you to interact with your Source, but that didn''t last long and you soon left that..."


    "I couldn''t find it," she interrupted as she tried to sit straight again, "I felt this special state that you''re talking about but other than that, nothing, I felt nothing. I lost my cool and control over my emotions and thoughts..."


    Her grumbling and annoyance soon turned to a big smile as she looked at Adam, it was true that she didn''t succeed, but it was a start, she was sure that it was only a matter of time before she saw results.


    "Huh, that''s interesting..." Murmured Adam before shaking his head and continuing, "don''t worry, your success is already more than enough and more than what I had expected. Now, all we have to do is find your source... Or what corresponds to it for you. And I have an idea about how to do that fo..."


    Susan listened with interest to what Adam was saying, while she considered what was going to happen next, but suddenly, and without any warnings, Adam disappeared from in front of her without leaving any traces behind.


    She froze for a bit then looked all around as a bad feeling bloomed inside of her, as expected Adam wasn''t inside the cave.


    She staggered to the mouth of the cave fighting her tiredness and weakness just to realize that a semi-transparent barrier had covered it.


    Straining her eyes, she was able to make out the far-away shape of Adam who was being pulled through the forest by several long white arms.


    He was chasing something.


    ~~~~~~~~~~


    Please read the note below

 28-Gideon

    Beast''s Forest:


    Gideon was running for his life, something he was quite familiar with and did a lot in the course of the last eight years. The only difference was that he was running from a man, not some beast or monster he meddled with. Another difference was that the man was gaining on him.


    Sidestepping into a close shadow, he dipped into it, disappearing from there just as a huge log came falling down.


    The next time he reappeared he was a hundred or so meters away, stepping out from another shadow. He threw a glance behind him as soon as he did, giving the man chasing him a look, the sight of him still gaining on him made him frown. The man was around 140 to 150 meters away and was closing the distance between them fast, the many sickly white arms dragged him along as he opened a way for himself through the packed forest.


    He still wasn''t that worried that the man was going to catch him, if there was one thing he was confident in, it was his speed and ability to avoid being caught. He was confused though, and a lot at that.


    He wasn''t sure why the man was so hell-bent on catching him nor why he reacted the way he did, but he could guess; the remains of the Hunting Weavers, and the man being able to find him out even while under his self-made cloaking technique were enough clues for him to guess why he had such a hostile reaction.


    Knowing that only made his frown grow, he somehow understood that there should be a misunderstanding leading to all of this, one that might get resolved if he stopped to explain himself. Unfortunately, that would mean him putting himself at the mercy and whims of another, and he wasn''t a fan of that.


    Alas, he also knew deep down that he didn''t have much of a say in the matter, the man and woman probably had what he wanted, they were the ones who opened those ruins, and he had to know what they found, even if by force.


    Resolving his heart to what was coming, he closed his eyes and activated One with Shadows, staggering a bit as his mind got filled with information, with all the nearby shadows deepening and starting to feed them to him. Keeping One with Shadows on while concentrating on other demanding things wasn''t that easy for him.


    After doing all of that, Gideon turned his head back and said, projecting his voice through all the shades and shadows around with the help of One with Shadows, making sure that the man would be able to hear him:


    "I''m sure that there''s some misunderstanding at work here, if you would stop and let me explain myself I would be glad to do so."


    His voice came out hollow, airy and echoey as if it sounded out from many places all at once, which it did.


    With the help from One with Shadows, he was also able to see that the man behind him didn''t have any change of expression, as if he hadn''t even heard him. He frowned at that and continued:


    "You should know that you won''t be able to stop me from running away if I want to, the only reason that you''re still able to keep up with me is that I''m still letting you," His voice was even and confident, not showing any hint of uncertainty, because for him what he had said was the truth, he couldn''t see how the man might be able to stop him if he wanted to run.


    The scowl the man showed as soon as he finished speaking told Gideon that that probably wasn''t the right thing to say, the increased speed at which his arms dragged him only affirming that more.


    "I meant it, I only want to talk," he add in a voice that had a hint of annoyance, "if you continue this then both of us won''t get what we want, you''re just wasting time and making this worst than it should be."


    Words were never Gideon''s strong suit, and he felt that that only got worst with the eight years he spent alone, but he still tried to get the other man to understand him and see the right way to deal with this.


    Noting a leak of reaction from the man, Gideon clicked his tongue, the sound of it getting projected through the link that he still had with the shades around through One with Shadows.


    With the annoyance building up inside of him, Gideon decided to show the man how pointless this chase he was partaking in was.


    He first stopped One with Shadows as it was quite demanding and he wouldn''t be able to keep it on with what he had in mind, he then activated another one of the skugg''s racial spells, the Dark Clone, splitting up into two identical copies that kept on running alongside each other. Gideon knew that even though the copies were identical, if one was looking when the split happened, the observer would be able to distinguish between the two, and what he had in mind wouldn''t work in that case, so he had to fix that.


    He had his copy get closer to him and activated Skugg''s Blink, stepping into a nearby tree''s shade alongside his Dark Clone. When they reappeared again from another shade a few tens of meters ahead, it was almost impossible to detect which was the original and which was the copy.


    With that done, Gideon started the last part of his plan. With his Dark Clone still close to him they both used another one of his racial spells, Scatter, at the exact same time.


    Pooof!


    They crumbled into a mess of black shadowy smoke; Because of their proximity, the black smoke they dissolved into appeared as if it got mixed together for a second before six black spheres scattered all around them at an astonishing speed, each of them flying into a different direction.


    After they put a long enough distance between them and the man, who Gideon noticed stopped in confusion as soon as the six spheres appeared, the six spheres plunged into shades that were close-by and activated Skugg''s Blink, diving straight through them.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    They only appeared a hundred or so meters away and continued on their way trying to hide behind trees and bushes. Finally, a few hundred meters later, and after almost all of them were outside the man''s line of sight, four of the spheres dispersed while the remaining two reverted to Gideon and his Dark Clone, each of them running in totally opposite directions.


    Gideon didn''t run for long, he soon stopped and jumped into a close-by shade. The series of manoeuvres he just went through had an almost guaranteed chance of working, but it wasn''t that easy for him, he was left tired and his body was under a lot of pressure.


    He needed a bit of rest, some time to get some of his mana back and for his body to relax. Feeling the ever-present darkness around him, Gideon sighed as he lay there and for the nth time in the last eight years, he was glad for Skugg''s Blink. He wouldn''t be able to remain there for long, just a few seconds but even that would replenish some of his mana, which would also help relax and soothe his aching body.


    Whenever he was there, he felt as if he was in front of something enormous, as if the darkness around him was hiding things he would never be able to comprehend no matter what. A short while later, the pull on him became too strong to resist and he knew that he had to return. Sighing, he let the pull drag him out of the darkness''s embrace.


    Stepping out from a different shade than the one he went into, he first had his Dark Clone disappear, stopping the mana sink that it was, then turned back towards where the man who was chasing him was. He hoped that the man would be more willing to listen right now, if not he didn''t know what would get him to do so except a fight, which was something he didn''t want to let things advance towards.


    A few hundred meters away from where he last saw the man, Gideon stopped and reactivated One with Shadows, he saw that the man was still standing in the same place he left him at, he didn''t know if that was because he didn''t know what to do or if it was because he knew that he was going to return, and he didn''t care to anyway.


    The man became guarded, probably from noticing the shadows around him darken.


    "So, I hope you''re ready to speak right now," said Gideon, "I meant it when I said that this all is probably nothing but a misunderstanding, and also when I said if I wanted to run I would be able to. Hopefully, you can see that now."


    Again, the man''s face twitched for a bit, as he looked all around him as if searching for Gideon, after a few seconds of doing that, he finally stopped and a mixed and conflicted expression appeared on his face. The fact that he still didn''t give him an answer and how he was acting, gave Gideon the impression that the man was still sure that he would be able to catch him, just not sure if it would be worth it.


    Finally, through One with Shadows, Gideon saw the man sigh before turning around to where he was hiding and saying:


    "Okay, I''ll listen to what you have to say."


    Gideon froze for a bit when the man turned towards him before he took a deep breath, stood up and headed towards him slowly and cautiously.


    ***


    "So... Can you tell me why you have been spying on us?" Adam asked the skugg standing in front of him.


    He was finding it quite hard to control himself at that moment, especially with how he would have almost lost the man if he hadn''t returned to him voluntarily. The feeling as if he lost to the man in some way also had a say in that, it was the second time he almost messed everything up in less than a week, and that didn''t sit well with him.


    Knowing that it wasn''t the time to let his emotions take a hold of him, he took deep breaths and decided to study the man in front of him instead of thinking about such useless things.


    The man was obviously a skugg, as seen from the spells he used, along with his wear. He was wearing a long black robe that covered every inch of his body, with a black featureless mask on his face and a pair of black gloves on his hands. There wasn''t even a speck of dirt or dust on any of his wear, probably the result of some runic glyphs inscribed on them.


    Adam was quite familiar with such get-ups from the skugg, they usually wore those when in missions or the like, as some of their racial spells would work better if they were wearing black, for example, the Dark Clone the man used before. As the name indicated, the spell gives the caster an identical clone except that the clone would be as black as night with no other colour, so the skugg tended to wear black clothes to confuse their enemies even more when using their clones.


    "Believe it or not, I really just wanted to talk and ask you about some things," the man said with a sigh as if expecting what Adam was going to say.


    Adam sure wasn''t going to disappoint him, so he said with a raised eyebrow, not hiding his skepticism at all:


    "And that''s why you sent your Hunting Weavers after us?" A bit of his hostility leaked through but he didn''t care to hide it, depending on the man''s answer they were probably going to end up fighting anyway, "and before you say you didn''t, just know that I recognized the spell you were using to hide yourself before, it''s the same one that those Hunting Weavers had on them."


    "Sigh... It really is just a misunderstanding, I didn''t mean for any of this to happen," The man sighed again, and this time Adam sensed a guilty and apologetic undertone to his words.

 29- Stranded Souls

    Lupri, the First''s Castle:


    Nulara, with her head bowed and with her eyes stuck on the floor, walked into one of the castle''s best and many gardens. As soon as the door, along with the soldiers on each side of it, were behind her, she straightened up and released a deep breath. Even though the soldiers didn''t stare, not that she was unfamiliar with people staring, and they were just standing there like statues, she somehow was able to sense that a lot of them didn''t like her, and she had no idea why that was so.


    At that moment Nulara was alone, even Simlith, her personal maid, wasn''t with her. Not that she was mad about that, it was true that Simlith had always been there for her and that she would have appreciated it if her personal maid was with her right then, unfortunately, that couldn''t be, because Simlith was doing her best trying to win her some time for herself...


    She sighed and shook her head lightly. Finding this small opening to sit alone and relax wasn''t easy and she didn''t want to spend it thinking about things that would only sour her mode.


    She threw her eyes around and couldn''t help keeping a smile from hanging on her lips. The garden was simply breathtaking, it was full of trees, flowers and other plants that she had never seen in her life. And even some others she was sure that shouldn''t be growing nor flowering at that time of the year and in that part of the world. All that while she hasn''t even seen all the garden, and how could she, it was huge and would take her hours just to walk through it from one end to the other, without giving the plants in it the appreciation they needed.


    So she just walked through the garden slowly, enjoying the beautiful plants, the nice different scents and aromas drifting from them and the roses and flowers all around. Stopping from time to time to read what was written on the signs under the more exotic plants.


    As she walked from one plant to the other, she felt the tightness on her muscles leaving her as if a weight just lifted off her shoulders, for the first time in quite a while she felt true peace.


    The last few days weren''t that easy, and surprisingly that wasn''t due to the new king she was basically given to, Malonal, at least not entirely, but it was due to one of her people. Malonal himself never asked for, nor did he ever come to find her, after accepting her, she was shown to her room by a servant and left to herself. She guessed that that might have been because of what he had announced in the meeting. After all, abolishing the First Commandment would for sure lead to some great changes all over the world. So, except for some of the guards holding some distaste and contempt for her, she found that things weren''t as bad as she thought they would be; well, if not for Calista.


    That woman made her feel as if she hadn''t even left Ancilia, as if no matter where she went, she would always be a prisoner to her origins and fate. If not for Simlith being by her side, she would have probably lost her mind, knowing that no matter where she went, she would always be alone, neither having somewhere to call home nor someone to call family.


    Just as the unpleasant thoughts started making themselves known again, Nulara suddenly froze when she felt the air around her change. It was like she had just went through a barrier of some kind, as if she had just passed through a thick curtain of air, and into a room with a substantial difference in temperature and humidity. A feeling she wasn''t unfamiliar with as the castle in Ancilia wasn''t leaking in barriers and wards.


    Fear and apprehension filled her heart as she slowly looked around, searching for what was wrong, not sure if she had entered somewhere she shouldn''t have.


    All that apprehension changed to shock as her eyes fell on something she never thought she would be able to see in her whole life, a Stranded Soul.


    A long twisted leafless tree was in front of her, the tree was around 10 to 15 meters long, and seemed to be dead with nothing but some moss covering the lower part of it. The tree gave a sense of ancientness and solitude as if it had stood there for a long long time.


    Knowing the story behind the tree in front of her, she knew that that was right, the seemingly dead tree predated even the castle she was in and was probably one of the oldest beings in the world.


    As she moved slowly towards the huge tree, she couldn''t help but remember all that she knew about Stranded Souls.


    Bristlecone, the ajahit''s representative, was known as the last ajahit that could move around and communicate, that was the case because during the Great War against the Queen of the Phas, when her armies finally reached the ajahits, and with them knowing that they wouldn''t be able to last against the armies of the evil queen and her allies, they chose to make a great sacrifice for the greater good.


    The ajahits were known for ages to be people of nature and had a strong affinity with the woods and forest, they were also great healers, possibly the best in Tellor, which was the main reason the Queen of the Phas had her eyes on them, she wanted to take control of this valuable asset.


    The ajahits themselves were a fairly reclusive race and rarely left their little corner of the world, they also were fewer in numbers compared to other races. Most of the ajahits lived in a city called Sarahila, that was in itself at the centre of a huge forest known as Mahere, it was located far away from most other races and their major cities. So when tragedy hit them and war came to their doorsteps, they didn''t have much hope of winning, and they did the second best thing they could do, hide.


    Their leader from that time, Bristlecone, headed a ritual that till then and after thousands of years, few, if any, people know how it was done. All that is known to the masses is that as the armies were moving towards the ajahits, and as they were halfway through Mahere on their march to Sarahila, a weird fog started covering the forest all around them.


    Little was known about what happened to them back then. After all none of them was able to leave the forest, they just disappeared into the fog that covered Mahere, never to be seen again.


    With every and all contact with the army cut off, the side of the Queen didn''t know what to do, they tried sending some scouts inside the fog-covered forest but none of them ever returned. Finally, a few weeks after the armies disappeared and after the Queen and her allies stopped trying to get into the forest, Bristlecone appeared from inside the fog and only said a few sentences that got written into the records of history for ages to come:


    "From today onward, Mahere is closed off to her enemies, all allies are welcomed and will be protected," and so the Last Sanctuary as it was called by many later, was made.


    Only later on, after some of the people running from the Queen and her allies entered Mahere and reached Sarahila talked to Bristlecone, that it was known what happened to the ajahits inside the forest, and what the source of the fog was.


    The ajahits pooled all their magical power and enveloped the whole of Mahere in a seal of huge magnitude. The seal presumably had many functions, yet few of them were known. The first and easiest to notice was of course the confusion those who entered its boundaries found themselves under. No one was able to find Mahere''s centre by force, the most anyone was able to do was find their way out by themselves, after spending a long time wandering inside the seal.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Another function that people noticed about the seal was how those inside would find themselves teleported from one corner of the sealed foggy forest to the other, something astonishing considering how the ajahits had no control over space.


    Unfortunately, all these benefits and more, came at a price few would choose to pay. All the ajahits, except Bristlecone, lost their humanoid bodies, turning into huge leafless lifeless trees that were referred to as Grounded, those trees were long, sometimes reaching over hundreds of meters in height. The ajahits inside Mahere weren''t scattered all over its huge ground, instead they were gathered inside their old city Sarahila.


    If the Grounded were able to interact with the world and speak in one way or another was uncertain, though many individuals said that they were able to communicate with the Grounded ajahits, through the long history from the Great War till then, but unfortunately none of that was ever proven.


    Later on during the war, Mahere and Sarahila became the heart of the resistance against the Queen of the phas and her allies, a safe haven where they were able to plan, gather and grow in a safe environment.


    On the other hand, even though the ajahits were known to be a secluded race, there were still a few among them that like to travel and roam around. And unfortunately for those, the sacrificial ritual reached them even though they weren''t in any way close to Mahere or Sarahila, turning them into trees where they stood, those trees were what was later called Stranded Souls.


    Stranded Souls were a bit different from their kin in Sarahila, they were usually way smaller, some say that was due to them being separated from their kin, and that the ritual had them strengthen each other, making them much stronger than the sum of their magic power put together.


    But even though Stranded Souls were different from other Grounded ajahits, they still retained most of their abilities, including their ability to hide and only let themselves be found when they wanted to.


    Nulara finally broke out of her shock as she remembered that, and lowered her head in a fluster as she bowed:


    "Th- thank you for giving me the chance to see you..."


    She didn''t know what the right courtesy was when meeting a Stranded Soul, or even if there was one, but she thought that showing respect was a must when meeting these ancient beings who were tightly bound to the win of the resistance...


    When her thoughts wandered to that, she found her emotions subduing a bit as she lifted her head and looked at the seemingly lifeless tree. she thought about how probably, on the day it became like this, it had no idea about what was going to happen, how it was just someone going about their day when suddenly, they got sacrificed for the ''greater good'', without even knowing about it.


    Lifting her hand, she moved it slowly and hesitantly towards the cracked bark. Just as her hand was about to touch it, a conflicting expression appeared on her face as she thought about what she was doing, but then she pushed those thoughts aside as her hand touched the bark.


    A strong sense of serenity and calm descended on her as soon as her hand fell on the lifeless tree, along with a sense of relaxation as she felt her muscles loosen up. Her mind started easing as she entered a special state with nothing affecting her.


    She had no idea for how long she remained in this state, but she finally left it as she took a step back with her heart beating fast as if she had just woken up startled. Calming down, she lifted her head and looked at the tree in front of her and bowed deeply, showing her respect and appreciation for what had just happened.


    At that moment, she felt better than she had ever felt before, her body was light and energetic, and her mind was sharp and clear.


    "I have to go," she said after straightening up, "I''ll try to be back whenever I can, I hope you won''t mind that."


    She waited with her eyes on the Stranded Soul, but nothing changed. She took that as a good sign because if it had a problem with it, something would have probably happened.


    Giving the tree a last small nod, Nulara turned around and headed back on the way she came from, a few steps after, she felt the same sensation she felt before as she stepped through the barrier into the garden outside.


    She turned back and looked behind her at where the Stranded Soul was, but as expected, she saw nothing. She didn''t let it get to her mind that she could just return from where she came from and enter the Stranded Soul''s space again, if it didn''t want to, she would never be able to find it.


    While still lost in her thoughts, she turned around and walked down the path she came from, feeling that she probably spent more time inside the secluded space than she should have, and that Simlith and Calista were probably searching for her; well Calista probably was, while Simlith was trying her best to waste her time and hold her back.


    "Nulara! There you are!" A voice that wasn''t that loud but still had an undercurrent of anger and annoyance, sounded from in front of Nulara. The voice made her freeze mid-step before continuing as if nothing was wrong.


    What she saw when she lifted her head was possibly the last person Nulara wanted to see. An old stern-faced phas was heading towards her with a frantic Simlith tagging behind.


    "Where have you been? my lady," The phas continued in a more controlled tone of voice, "I''ve been worried sick for you."


    Nulara studied the old phas and her expression. She was wearing a black and white headmaid''s dress with a stern expression, a straight back and a measured pace.


    "I''m alright Calista, I just needed some time for myself," Nulara answered calmly, Calista might have been intimidating, but she was still miles away from Amathira.


    "Still, You shouldn''t have run on your own like that my lady," Calista continued, "we don''t want our representative here to be running around with no control, imagine what her Majesty Amathira would think if she hears about this."


    The mention of Amathira made Nulara stiffen up a little but she soon loosened up, she had no delusions about the real reason why Calista, one of the best and oldest maids in Ancilia, was there with her, and under whose orders she was there.


    "I''m aware," she answered as she held the old phas''s gaze.


    "That''s great, then I would appreciate it if you don''t run off like that again."


    "I''ll keep it in mind," Nulara said as she started moving again.


    As she moved she held down a sigh, Calista was there to keep her in check and make sure that she still kept her acts together and did what was expected of her; to try and get closer to Malonal.


    With a bitter taste in her mouth, and an oppressive feeling as if she never left Ancilia, Nulara went on with her day.