Kizer sighed. To think they have become so despicably weak... He removed two of the five remaining blue pieces from the continent ICELAND. He placed the pieces on the edge of the map amongst the many red, blue and purple pieces. He cracked a slight smile of intrigue as he glanced at another of the orbs for a moment. Finally. Another colour on the board. He stretched his hand downward to the floor where thousands of scattered pieces were, grabbed up a few greens and carefully placed them at MAGMA TOWN, where several black and a few red and one white piece were.
“Oga, extract a fortieth of the force at Notherland and sent it to Magma Town – Libson,” Kizer instructed, already grabbing two dozen of the roughly one-thousand black pieces at NOTHERLAND, placing them at Magma Town to join the few pieces there.
“Right,” Oga responded, his eyes still closed. Kizer looked at Magma Town intently. Black, green and red pieces were there. Also, there was one blue piece and one white piece.
This little place is quite interesting. Kizer noticed that this little dot in the map held one of the few blue pieces on the entire map, which uniquely sat on a bigger-than-usual black piece, and this one place also boasted one of the two white pieces. They’re quite weak, though… They won’t endure as much as I would like. He looked over to another of the magical spheres, carefully removing one black and two reds from NOTHERLAND.
***
“Anam Resal!” Star commanded, her mana almost completely depleted. Two of the still many black-eyed enemies fell victim to the huge bright beam of magical energy that quickly wiped them out.
Kyle dodged another swift and powerful punch from a possessed boy around his age. With movements he had learnt from Blade, he got himself behind the black-eyed youngster, holding him firmly, his sword at the kid’s throat. Kyle glanced down at a puddle of water before him, seeing that the one he was about to kill was a boy like him that was just unlucky to have one of the dark spirits fall upon him. There must be another way. Suddenly, two shadowballs appeared in the boy’s hands.
SLASH!
The frightened Kyle killed boy and watched his blood fall and make a splash. He flashed his attention to his right as a little girl came at him with great speed, splashing up water from the rain-made puddles as she sped toward him with a growing shadowball in her hand.
“Abingush!” There was a nasty splatter. Kyle watched the dreadful sight as blood, flesh and dark matter and blue mana flew in every direction. He looked across to his panting sister, blue mana glowing about her hands.
The three slashed and blasted and dodged and sweat and bled, but the enemies were still endless. Soon, they found themselves huddling together again, their weapons at their defence.
“Clover, how’s your mana?” Star asked, catching her breath.
“Been better.”
“I’m fine too, thanks for asking,” Kyle came in.
“They’re coming!” Clover alerted, panic in her voice, as around ten of the monstrous hosts rushed at them from the ground and from treetops. With a frantic roar, Kyle made a heavy swing at one of the fast approaching men.
“What the--” With wide eyes, the three turned slowly, observing the awful, horrid, miraculous sight. All of the enemies that had rushed at them were suspended in the air. Thick vines, at least four to each enemy, ran through them, creating deadly holes from which blood flowed freely. Kyle’s expression of confusion soon became a glad grin as his eyes followed the complex network of vines that had killed the enemies in a jiffy.
“Clover… did you by any slight chance—”
“Wasn’t me, Star.” Suddenly, Clover’s face lit up in recollection. “Vinebenders!” As she spoke, Star just noticed the scores of Vinebenders standing in and amongst the trees. They wore leaves and thin vines, their hair thoroughly painted green. They blended in with the forest almost perfectly.
“Who are these people?” Star asked in awe.
“As the lady said, we’re Vinebenders,” a young-looking boy introduced, jumping down from a high tree, landing with a crouch, his long green hair neatly landing on his back.
“Karukia, was it?” Clover greeted gladly.
“You know these people?!” Star asked, “What the heck?!”
“So you people have decided to appear,” Kyle said in realization, getting a more serious picture of how wide the scale of this war really was.
“Our great sage had a vision and commanded us to surface and protect the earth with all our might. It’s rare luck that I ran into you guys!” the boy said with a beam. “Anyway, where’s that boy with the dark spirit and that kid with the iron fist?”
“Hm… We’ve lost touch with the iron fisted boy,” Kyle said. “As for Lex, he’s in a safe-house, probably in Magma Town, being guarded by soldiers.”
“I see… Well the sage told us that guarding him is our main objective.” Kyle just realized that there were Vinebenders scattered throughout the forest for probably many miles. “All my people are scattered widely throughout the land and are fighting off the spirits. Right now the sage is leading a special team in search of Lex. He says he can sense his power of darkness, but still, finding him might not be easy!”
“As there’re dark energies everywhere,” Kyle understood.
“Right. I’ll leave that to him anyway. Right now I just wanna kick some butt!” They flashed their eyes to the skies, seeing one of the black winged enemies flying across. He threw his left hand up at it briskly, his middle and index fingers pointing at the target. Instantly, a thick vine burst forth from the ground and hurried toward the flying woman at high speed. Another vine from another direction moved up even more quickly, boring through the woman, killing her instantly. The young Vinebender hissed. “Anyway, you’re a witch, right?” he asked Clover. “Take me to where the enemies are many! I won’t get too many kills surrounded by other Vinebenders.” Kyle smirked, trying not to laugh.
“Remember, they’re people, you know!” Star reminded, sounding disgusted.
“Not anymore,” Kyle said.
***
“Private!” Marco shouted as he watched two of the winged beasts hold his man down and a third ram a shadowball into him, destroying his heart. The USG stepped back toward Zen, who was by far doing the most damage on the battlefield. She had already slain about a hundred enemies. Another of the hosts ran up to Marco and grabbed at him. The army man jumped back. He noticed an invisible force push the enemy back quickly. He soon realized that a circle had been formed by the possessed people, a massive one forged by enemies in the air and on the ground.
“Come closer!” Zen’s voice reached him, “The smaller my force field, the longer I can hold it up!” Marco, along with the last remaining man he had on the battleground, one of the four who were guarding Lex, ran close to Zen, who then minimized her force field. The guard dropped his sword and shook wildly as he saw the screaming monsters bang against a wall he couldn’t see, some of them with nasty shadowballs. “I can’t defend and attack at the same time!” Zen told them, her index and middle fingers pressing against her head firmly. “I can’t tell what’d happen the second I release the shield. Monsters are piling up!” More were still flying down, landing forcefully and further wrecking the place. “I think we might be stuck here waiting for help!” Zen said nervously. Marco hissed. “But Lex…” She tried to get her eyes to the metal room. “Dammit! I can’t see! You two follow my lead!” Zen commanded, then expanded the force field suddenly by many times, pushing the enemies off. She grabbed on to the hands of the two men and quickly ran up to the metal door. As the bloodthirsty beasts blasted toward them again, an invisible shield covered them and the nearby safe house. Zen sighed, though she knew she couldn’t possibly maintain a shield that size for very long.
***
“Oga, send more forces to the mindbender. Use those from Yakima Village nearby. The entire village is wiped out, also all nearby settlements. Remember, though, do not touch the boy or interfere with the Magmalian’s plans. I want to keep this as interesting as pos
sible.”
“Right.”
“The prince is an overpowered genius,” Kizer said, “for his era at least. He controls several fronts at once, constantly balancing his troops in response to our allocation and redistribution of forces. I hope he doesn’t give way too quickly… He is quite interesting.”
***
Three or four hosts went down for every Icemaker that was killed at the battle on the Snow Village, but according to the apparently limitlessness of the black-eyed enemies, this ratio was far from good news. Asuri looked around at his dying people. His eyes dilated at the rate at which even the highly skilled Icemakers were being cut down. There were already hundreds of frozen enemies, but there were too many bleeding, unmoving, and dead Icemakers.
Icilda forcefully kicked Artaco out of the way of a fast moving shadowball, returning at the winged enemy a well-dense iceball. A woman screamed out her last breath as the shadowball ripped through her. The winged creature leapt into the air quickly, evading the iceball Icilda had flung. Asuri sprinted toward the just-landing enemy with tightly clenched teeth and a spirit of fury. He clenched his fists tightly and the ice energy in his hands brought forth three long, deadly icicles in each fist, spread amongst his knuckles. The demon drew its right hand back, a shadowball appearing, and turned to kill Asuri. With no thought of pulling back, the leader of the Village of Ice ran up to the enemy with a vengeful heart, ramming the spikes in his left fist into its chest. The man and the darkness in him made a hellish cry as blood gushed out. Without hesitation or indecision, Asuri ruggedly ran his spikes across the enemy’s chest, ripping it gorily apart. He then turned rapidly, hurling the six spikes he gripped. The spikes of splendid ice narrowly flew past the frightened Icilda on her left and right, killing two enemies behind her.
“Ice! Fight for your life!” her father belted, a crazy look on his face, one that frightened the girl even more than the enemies did.
Only tens of Icemakers remained, and they were grossly outnumbered. But desperation to survive granted the few who remained even more power and dexterity than they had before. Icilda formed the hollow sphere, summoning up a huge, rich iceball. Crank and Artaco, who were close by, each formed two iceballs and continued to attack the black-eyed enemies. The village of Ice was black and blue and red, but more red than anything else. Though the villagers fought desperately and killed and froze without thinking twice, hope was invisible. As Asuri fought the many demons around, he was also constantly sending spheres and spikes at the ones that were flying in to replace the defeated monsters. The enemies appeared numberless, but their spirits were not broken yet— certainly not Asuri’s. Their will to survive was innate, their will to preserve their kind.
Artaco ran up to a possessed woman, jumping to his right to avoid a streak of darkness that suddenly sprung out from her. He grabbed her neck firmly, releasing as much ice energy as he could, trapping the black-eyed monster in a thick prison. The boy felt a forceful kick in his side. He flew over meters of snow, landing and rolling in cold pain. Icilda glanced over to the floored boy, then looked over at the spiky-haired Crank who was out cold, but there was nothing she could do. She was fighting several of the demons, who seemed to be just as deadly at close combat as they were at distanced fighting. The speed and force that powered their attacks were unparalleled to anything they’d ever seen.
Suddenly, there was a shriek of power and desperation. The earth quaked beneath Asuri’s feet. The bloody snow around him rose and orbited him with great speed. The battle paused for a moment and everyone stared at the raging Icemaker. His eyes glowed an eerie, beautiful blue, the colour of the power of ice. Icilda stared at her father with wide eyes and intense shivering.
***
“My my…” Kizer said to himself in an ambiguous tone, looking at Asuri intently. “One of them finally obtains the power of the Epic State of ice… It took this much for the leader to activate what was everyday power back in my day… I’m afraid it’s too late, though, my child.”
***
Tens more demons were descending still from the skies above the Village of Ice. Possessed by rage and by a new power, the spectacular Asuri flung his arms out toward the enemies near Icilda and Artaco. Without making any ice energy, at his command, masses of snow quickly arose and rushed toward the demonic enemies, quickly transforming into sharp, deadly, spiky, rugged ice, blasting the enemies, boring huge, cold holes into them. Icilda shivered in fear and confusion as she saw masses of spiky ice kill the enemies before her, almost grazing her. The stunned villagers watched as a tower of snow quickly extended from the ground under their leader, bringing him meters upward in under a second.
With his fiercely glowing eyes, Asuri brought his hands upward and hundreds of sword-sharp icicles shot up from out of the snowy ground. The descending enemies tried to evade, but the Reverse Hail was just too much. Spikes of ice ripped through the enemies ruthlessly, so by the time any of them hit the ground, they were already dead. Wings and flesh and bones were bored by the sharp ice.
“Ice! Get a hold of yourself!” Artaco blasted, “Let’s deal with the rest of the enemies on the ground!”
***
“Oga, too many of the Vinebenders are getting bored,” Kizer said, sounding a little concerned. “Treat them well. They have somehow preserved the purity of their blood. Their power is almost as it was back in the day, and don’t make Trium look like a fool; fuse the spirits that are keeping the mindbender busy so they can penetrate the shield.”
“Very well,” the man answered, acting immediately on his command.
***
“It seems they’re finally giving up,” Marco said, still shaky and sweating a river. Zen watched as the enemies grew quiet and stepped back from the shield. She relaxed a bit, but didn’t dare to lose the force field entirely. She fell to her knees, her hands and fingers still in place.
“Little girl!” the last of Marco’s men called out, stooping beside her. “Hey, you’re pretty amazing,” he praised, trying to encourage and hearten her. “You alright?” he gently rested his hand on her back.
“I’ll be fine,” the girl answered somewhat faintly. The man got up, observing the movements of the black-eyed enemies.
“What the hell’s going on, General?” the man enquired, seeing the strange sight of the enemies falling to the ground as dead one by one. Marco looked on with narrowed eyes and wonder.
“Hmm… This is not good,” he finally said, noticing the quick movements of the black spirits flash from the eyes of the hosts and enter one in particular, a little boy looking to be around nine or ten with short, spiky silver hair.
“They’re dying!” the naïve soldier rejoiced, “It seems the spirits are retreating, sir!”
“I’m afraid not,” his commander replied, gripping his sword even more tightly.
“They are all going into that boy,” Zen said, confirming the general’s supposition. They stared at the deathly black eyes that the boy wore. Somehow, the aura of power that came from him could be felt even from within the shield.
“A fusion… Oh no… This can’t be good,” the solder fretted. “This one might be able to form an attack powerful enough to break the shield!” the man panicked.
“That’s the idea,” Marco came in. “Little girl, can you make the shield any stronger?” Zen was still panting heavily, and really looked unable to do anything more. Finally, she fainted in total exhaustion.
“Damn it! Girl! Get up!” the high general blasted, shaking her, keeping his eyes on the lone boy up ahead. A translucent black aura enveloped him, as his soul could not contain all the power that was being forced into it. His eyes seemed to be of a more severe, a scarier black than all the other enemies they’d seen.
Two massive black and silver wings extended from the boy’s shoulder blades. He crouched slightly, glaring at the three with murderous intent. Tiny pebbles and masses of dirt rose from the ground around him and remained suspended in the tense aura of power. Zen finally responded
to the young soldier’s shaking and stood faintly. Marco caught her quickly as she dizzily fell again.
“Damn it. She’s hopeless,” Marco hissed, still staring at the ghastly boy up ahead, a fusion of tens of already powerful spirits. “Hold the girl!” Marco commanded, tossing the girl to the shaking solider. The frightened man caught her carefully. Marco held his sword out towards the dreadful enemy. The one who held Zen stepped back in slow retreat, still staring at the enemy he knew his commander could pose no challenge to.
The black-eyed boy bolted toward Marco at an incredible speed and force that havocked the ground. Marco covered his face from a sudden heat, stepping back quickly. The guard behind him beamed in hope and gladness, realizing that a wave of fire had blasted the boy away with flaming force, burning him badly – at least so the onlookers would have expected. The black eyed boy landed meters away on his feet as the attack ended. His wings, which had covered him ably, were just returning to their normal place behind him.
The prince lowered his flaming hand. “Marco, how are Lex and my sorcerers?”
“They are alright, my prince! The situation is under control!” the sweating man reported with a salute.
“Well, isn’t that clear…” Azar examined quickly the dismal scene. “Get these two in the cabin and seal the door,” he ordered, realizing that Zen was unconscious, probably dead. “Seems I came along just in time.” He looked out at the undamaged enemy. “This one seems a notch above the rest.”
***
Kizer snickered. “Listen well, Oga. Gather all the spirits in Libson that are not in direct combat at the moment and send them into the silver-haired boy in Magma Town. I will test just how strong this prince is.”
***
Azar hissed. I’ll have to deal with this quickly should I be able to return to the other fields before things get out of hand. “What?!” Azar watched with wide eyes as black shadows zoomed through the air from all directions, flowing into the silver-haired boy through his eyes, the windows of his soul. The boy uttered a deafening cry as the cloak of darkness around him thickened with rich power. An evil, villainous grin serpented unto the child’s face. Power, darkness had fully consumed him. Mana and fire roared about Azar’s ready hands. Without ado, the prince thrust his hands forward, releasing another beam of fire. The black-eyed boy jumped quickly, flying over the beam toward Azar. “Anam Resal!” the wizard commanded, bringing up his left hand, projecting from it a deadly ray of bright mana. The black winged boy lowered himself a bit in flight, swiftly flying just above the beam of fire and just below the beam of mana, being but slightly bothered by them both. A trail of dark matter tailed him. He blasted Azar with a solid black fist. Reflexive shields tried their best, but the force of the impact was still damaging. Azar zoomed back past the metal cabin. A swift shadowball volleyed him as his back roughly hit the ground. There was a black explosion where Azar was, and the place darkened as residual dark matter was scattered.
The Seventh Spirit Page 60