Apocalyptic Life (Era Series Book 2)

by Patrik Mielonen

  “Something about those wails is unsettling. My hairs stand on the edge,” Ion shares his mind.

  “Yeah, it’s as if the dogs were genuinely terrified, and especially the men.”

  “By the way, may I have another?” Ion begs for more food.

  “Sheesh, you eat more than a wolf.”

  “Well, the amount of Arcana I’ve spent recently is vast compared to what it was before the Titan arouse. Casting Arcane magic is like doing heavy workout with brains, you see. Also, you promised to do anything for me, didn’t you?”

  Lou’s peeking outside from a window as she replies. “Yeah, yeah. However, I expected you to ask something else. Anyway, it’s not like magic strains you physically.”

  “Nope. But I’ve spent Arcana to the point that I may not be able to cast more than a few spells for the next ten hours. I mean, my mind is muddled by the Arcana.”

  “Hmm.” Lou keeps watching the woods. “We’ve got a week or so before the Titan gets wherever it’s going, right?”

  “I think so, yeah. What about it?”

  “We kinda need to purge the Order and then assassinate the King before that can happen. She has a plan to save this world, after all, though I fail to see why I’m following her ideas. It’s like I was being controlled.”

  “Me too, to be honest.”

  “Let’s just hope the Titan won’t find its way here.”

  “I’ll seriously lose my mind if the Titan comes here. I mean, of all the places in the world, why would it come to Poer Haem?”

  “Dunno.” Then, Lou spots something moving among the trees. “Oh no...”

  “What is it?”

  Lou waits for the object to appear again. She is certain she has seen something gray over there. “I saw something moving out there, about a hundred yards away.”

  To their horror, they hear wailing of a dying hound nearby, so close that they, too, might be in danger. Whatever the killer is, it’s very efficient at taking lives, from the sounds of it.

  “Get away from the window!” Ion tells her quietly.

  “Wait.”

  Lou eyes for the thing, but the terrain is rough. Small hills rise all around the old cabin, hindering her line of sight. She waits patiently, barely blinking at all. And finally, after a while, a huge Wolf treads towards the house, its face bloodied, gore drooping from its mouth.

  That same Poer Haem Wolf! What the hell is it doing here?

  Then, Lou can see a woman with dark hair walking alongside with the Wolf. Her face is covered with a bandana, and her robes are dark. Overall, she looks malevolent, deadly.

  The Void attuner!?

  The Void Elementalist climbs onto the Wolf’s back, riding away. Seemingly, it hasn’t seen Lou, or if not that, then she isn’t interested in Lou and Ion.

  “No way...”

  “What is it? Can you see it?”

  “It’s a Poer Haem Wolf, the one killing the hounds and humans. On top of that, its master is the real Void Elementalist.”

  “Poer Haem Wolf? And could you brief me about the Void again? I’ve got a general idea, but...”

  “Poer Haem Wolves are huge, bigger than bears, and they can shapeshift into humans. As for the Void, it’s the same thing as the Titan. It’s the ruler of all Demoni and gruesome powers of the Void. Just like all the Elementi, it’s an entity that grants its powers to its servants. An Elementalist, however, is metaphorically a king, whereas the Void itself is the god. So, basically, that Void attuner is powerful enough to conquer the whole world on her own.”

  “Great.”

  “As long as we hide from her, I think we’ll be fine. Anyway, that Elementalist spared my life earlier, so she may or may not be our enemy. Also, She has a plan to fight the Void too, I think.”

  “I’d like to know what the hell she is.”

  “For ease of mind, I’ve stopped thinking about that.”

  “A good idea. Besides, even if she told us what she is, I don’t think we’d completely understand. I mean, she isn’t a living person, is she?”

  “Yeah, the stalagmite crystal thingy stuck to her head makes her look like a living corpse with healthy skin.”

  “That aside,” Ion reminds, “can I have the second serving or not? I’m hungry.”

  With a sigh, Lou nods.

  ***

  Within Hantor’s walls, there is the headquarters of the Order, a small stone building with underground floors. Also, there is the Brigade of Hantor in one corner of the city. Thirdly, there is the King’s castle. A portion of the army is always stationed there, protecting the ruler from assassins and alike.

  The Order is purely based on Elementalists, numbering two hundred. Of course, it doesn’t mean the Brigades of Poer Haem don’t have Elementalists. The Order maintains peace, and the Army maintains the safety of the nation.

  There are three brigades in Poer Haem with an overall reserve of a hundred thousand soldiers. The Eastern is in Hantor. The Northwestern is fifty miles from the border of Orloss, and the last one is in South, sixty miles from the border of Rajash.

  The three regiments of Hantor are the cavalry, the footmen, and the King’s guard. The cavalry is commanded by a colonel, whereas the footmen have a general. The guards, in turn, have a major leading them. Above all, there is a marshal, the superior commander of the army.

  The major is tasked with protecting the King like he always is, and with capturing the Void attuner Louir. Of course, they don’t know the Void attuner and Lou are two different persons, so it’s a false accusation. The colonel, on the other hand, is leading the counter-attack on the invading enemy.

  The general is preparing for a long march, for they’ll have to reinforce the borders. That’s where the war will be fought ideally. Once the colonel is done wiping out the Rajash in the woods, his men will be ordered to serve as a roaming force, which targets the enemy guerilla corps that have managed to cross the border in advance. Elementi magic will be used to track those parties.

  While the high ranking officers are busy with real action, a captain of the King’s guard is tearing his hair in his office. There have been countless reports of his men getting killed, along with the hounds. According to the papers, a Wolf is the culprit.

  A Poer Haem Wolf.

  “Tell all of our search parties to retreat! Form a single force to get rid of the beast! We can’t afford to lose more men! The King’s castle is already undermanned! Dismissed!” The captain is going ballistic.

  “Sir, orders from the King!”

  “Oh, great! Show me!”

  The captain takes the scroll from the messenger, reading it in haste. The new orders aren’t making his day any better.

  “Catch up with the messenger I ordered to relay my orders! Tell him that we will withdraw all of our men to the castle and the walls. We are to reinforce the city. Colonel Khartoh will take over the hunt. Dismissed!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  This damned animal, isn’t it half human!? Curse that monster. I’ll make sure it’ll wail like the dogs it killed. Damn it! The captain seethes, he always believed the Wolves are their allies, but now he’s been proven wrong.

  ***

  When the evening is still young, Lou and Ion are still hiding inside the old cabin. They want to make sure they won’t be seen, so they’ll wait for the climax of dusk. Since Lou’s been sleeping less than Ion recently, she’s been sleeping ever since the violet Elementalist left the area.

  Her pillow is Ion’s lap.

  I think it’s dark enough, so I should wake her up. My legs feel numb anyway. Ion shakes her somewhat gently. Lou reacts to him by changing her side, reluctant to wake up. He tries harder, and Lou fights back by curling up.

  “Lou!”

  She sits up. Eyes still in a different dimension, she replies, “What is it?”

  “It’s dark. Let’s get moving.”

  Lou shakes her head to fight the drowsiness. She stands up, looking outside. “You’re damn right.”

  “
Did you doubt my eyes?”

  They haven’t taken out anything from their backpacks other than food. Therefore, they’re ready to go at once. The night is bringing cold wind with it, and Lou and Ion are welcomed by the breeze upon exiting the cabin. Winter is only a month away, which means the nights are gradually getting colder.

  “We’ll have to get there fast. An hour out here is an hour less for the infiltration,” Lou reminds.

  Ion is aware of that. The whole idea makes him feel anxious. He’s been a researcher for as long as he can remember. He can’t tell whether he can pull it off or not. Even the slightest of mistakes can lead to a really catastrophic end. Ion negates his feelings as much as he can while heading to the city with Lou.

  His companion isn’t troubled by the plan, though. Lou is an assassin, a high-functioning assassin. The only worry she has is that they might run into an ambush out in the woods, especially now that there are Elementalists assigned to do it. Their death can come faster than they can realize it.

  While she thinks of herself as an assassin, and even though her profession is just that, she’s more of a mercenary than a subtle and silent killer. She prefers mayhem over stealth, but nevertheless, she’s accomplished many missions without causing any alarm.

  Ion has somewhat grasped her character. He can tell Lou might cause a real carnage, even if stealth were an option. But then again, she gave them just one task; purge the Order, then raid the throne. If they can flat out annihilate the Order, they should do it.

  As Ion measures their chances of success in a toe-to-toe fight versus the whole military force, Lou measures their likelihood of dying. Both think of the same thing, but from a different perspective. While Lou always tends to look at the negative side, Ion looks at the positive.

  Chapter Eight

  Havoc

  The grass is tall on the field around the capital. Trees were mowed down long ago to make the city easier to defend, and also because the wood was used as construction material. Lou and Ion are using the grass to get closer without getting spotted.

  Though there are guards on the wall, they can’t see the two, thanks to the darkness and the weed. Once they get to the edge of the moat, Lou and Ion do as they’ve planned beforehand.

  Ion casts Cloaking to hide himself. Lou, in turn, attunes the Force Elementi, her colors green. She reduces Ion’s gravitation slightly, which enables him to jump over the wide moat like it was nothing. Upon landing to the other side, Lou further reduces his shackles, making him so light he floats upward while remaining invisible.

  Once on the wall, he waits until a patrolling group of knights passes by, then he casts the Arcane Cutter, but not to kill. Though the spell blade is invisible, along with Ion, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be seen. Cloaking is based on hallucination, meaning that if there’s a Cloaked object in front of one’s eyes, they do see it, but their brain doesn’t register it. After all, seeing is all about eyes sending signals to one’s brain where the sighted view is processed as an image. Cloaking merely disrupts the signal, thus ‘unseen by the brain.’ Due to its nature, invisibility often causes a headache or nausea to those who ‘see’ a Cloaked thing.

  As for the reason behind the Arcane Cutter, he holds it right in front of a guard’s eyes, which causes severe nausea and blindness, as the spell blade is like a flash of bright light that keeps burning.

  The guard collapses while holding his head, moaning in pain. Another guard hurries over.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know... I can’t see, and I feel horrible.”

  Ion does the same to the other guard as well. Soon after, he, too, is moaning, also puking, unlike the other guard. Lou uses the chance to jump over the moat while no one can see her. The guards are recovering when Lou’s on the other side.

  Ion torments the guards further by blinding them again, and this time, both of them throw up. Ugh, I can only imagine the nausea. Ion’s glad he is a Shadow. His eyes are resistant towards magical lights, though even he can be blinded in the same manner. It’s all thanks to his Arcana practice.

  Those poor men won’t stand in a while, much less sound the alarm. Of course, it’s possible that someone else might, but for now, Lou and Ion are clear. Still below, Lou reduces her gravitation to get up there.

  Immediately after landing up on the wall, she jumps down into the city. She lands softly with the aid of the Elementi, and Ion does the same, except he is using the Glide spell. The guards aren’t paying any attention to them, stunned as they are.

  “Next, we’ll enter the sewer. Although there is no entrance to the headquarters of the Order in the sewer, I’m thinking of making a way inside.”

  “Just how well do you know the city?”

  “I was an assassin of the Order, remember? I’ve been to this city far too often.”

  Moving swiftly in the shadows of the city, Lou and Ion keep talking, trying to remain as quiet as possible.

  “Didn’t you say the elite Elementalists are stationed in the headquarters? And what if the dual Elementi attuner is in there? I don’t think we can just blow our way inside. You even said it yourself that three elites are enough to apprehend you.”

  “That’s why I’ve got a Mage by my side. I never thought I’d stand a chance alone, but with your aid, I think we can cause one hell of a mess.”

  “But what about the war? Destroying the military power is like inviting the next enemy. I doubt we can take head on the Rajash. Sorry, I just happened to realize it now.”

  “Do you really think the army can’t hold back Rajash for a week? That’s all we need. Besides, Rajash has invaded Poer Haem several times in the past millennium, and only once we lost land. Anyway, a century later, we claimed it back. You see, Rajash is an exotic country, so they aren’t used to the cold winters. Of course, their Northernmost land is chilly, but it’s not like their whole military power is stationed there. Now that I think about it, I don’t see why they’re invading only now. They should have attacked sooner, like two months ago. Or could it be that they’re trying to use their newfound military strength of Mages to wipe us out in a matter of weeks?”

  “I bet they do. Even you were awed by the potential of Arcana when we met.”

  “Yeah.”

  A little later, they get to an entrance that leads into the sewers of Hantor, guarded by two knights. The pair of guards rotates with a new pair at a predetermined interval, which should be half an hour. Lou nor Ion has a watch, so they’ll have to rely on estimates. They wait for the next pair to come in a dark spot where they won’t be seen.

  And there they wait for eleven minutes, until the next pair of guards shows up finally. As soon as the previous guards are gone, Ion uses Cloaking again to take out the guards, this time eliminating them. He slices their napes with the Arcane Cutter, nicely and quietly. The spell blade cuts flesh and bone with ease.

  Ion turns visible, motioning Lou to come. They drag the two dead men into the sewers—or at least they try.

  Lou’s sweating after two yards.

  Ion’s sweating after less than a yard.

  “No way, these armors are too heavy.”

  “Agreed. Can’t you make them lighter?”

  “Oh, right.”

  With the aid of the Elementi, the bodies weigh nothing. They drag them as far in as they see fit, then they leave them lying on the floor of the drain. There’s barely enough room to stand, and the further they go, the worse it gets.

  Also, the floor isn’t dry.

  “Ugh.”

  “All this shit makes me throw up—!” Upon finishing her sentence, Lou retches, but manages to hold it.

  “Do me a favor and do not vomit. I can’t hold it back if you do.”

  “Shut up.”

  ***

  Half an hour later, they get to a spot Lou’s been looking for. They’ve been resisting the urge to puke for all that time. As for the place, it’s a T-junction in the drain. There is a crack in the wall, light coming throug
h it. Not only that, various sounds can be heard from the other side as well.

  Of course, the hole is tiny, and the wall is approximately twenty inches thick. Lou nor Ion dares to utter a word, lest they’ll be heard. Because of that reason, Lou explained the details beforehand. Also, they need to be fast, as the guards at the entrance have been found by now.

  Truth to be told, Lou didn’t know where that wall with the tiny hole is located in the sewer, but she knew it is there. After all, the room on the other side is one of the many storages of the Order. Lou has complained about the stench coming through the crack. Her request of repairing it was answered, but as the underground base of the Order is furtive, there are only two workers whom the officials let inside, and neither of them has been available recently.

  Lou is thankful that they haven’t had the time to repair it yet, for they wouldn’t have found the right spot without the hole.

  Finally! Time for some havoc! With that though, the hell is set loose, namely Lou.

  The wall melts with the powers of the Molten attunement. The Order has reinforced the external building with some Elementi enhancements, but the underground base has never been enhanced as it ‘doesn’t exist.’ It’s been kept a secret from the public for as long as the Order’s headquarters has stood.

  Giggling, Lou speaks up. “Now, let’s make them cry!”

  Ion rolls his eyes. “So much for stealth...”

  Lou uses another Elementi to cool the molten substance. As she does it, Ion’s horrified by an ominous shadow over Lou. A dark raven with evil eyes is gazing down upon her. It’s a transparent figure, and it disappears when she turns around, leaving her oblivious of it.

  Ion has no idea what’s going on, but if Lou saw it, she’d immediately name the shadow as the Void itself. A huge dark raven, eyes of an evil being, the Void Elementi has been described as such.

  “Let’s go!” Lou tells the frozen Ion.

  He nods.

  Since the storage room they’ve broken into has a door that’s been left shut, they haven’t been spotted just yet, that is, until Lou blows the door to make a grand entrance.