Apocalyptic Life (Era Series Book 2)

by Patrik Mielonen

  Attuning Fire, right off the bat, she’s incinerating the closest members of the Order before they even realize that they’re under attack. She uses the most brutal Fire spell, named ‘combustion’ by the Elementalists. It causes the innards to catch fire, causing a slow and painful death.

  Even Lou can’t tell why she’s acting so violently. Am I a sadist? At least I wasn’t until recently. Jeez, I feel like I’m turning into a whole new person.

  True to their name, the well-trained Elementalists of the Order react, executing the common combo of removing air to burn the lungs. Too bad Lou’s prepared for that beforehand. She inhaled as much air as she could before her entrance, and exhaled it early. Thus no air is removed from her lungs, and she creates a wall of stone between them, using the ceiling, the walls, and the floor as the material. With that, she breathes safely.

  “Ion, do your part.”

  The unseen Ion nods, knowing she doesn’t see him doing it. He casts Arcane Whip, a spell weapon that’s effective in the open against multiple opponents.

  It’s a chamber, the place they’ve invaded. There is a staircase in one corner, and there are doors to other hallways all around.

  “Blow the wall! It’s Louir! We must finish her here and now!” One of the Elementalists in the room shouts. Following his orders, several others use Molten Elementi to make the wall disappear and succeed at it.

  However, their bodies are halved from their waists. The invisible whip cuts them in two. Blood sprays all over the place, some on Ion, revealing him. He can Cloak the blood, but before that, he’ll need to remove the Cloaking and wait a moment. Therefore, he’s exposed for a while.

  Lou takes over. There are no living members of the Order in that room anymore. She dashes over to the next door, attuning Life, her hair and eyes dyed pink. Her bones are much tougher, her muscles are subtly manyfold stronger, and her determination is just that much worse.

  Instead of stopping to open the door, she crashes through the door, charging at the closest Elementalist trying to check what’s going on in the other room. The poor attuner finds his skull smashed by Lou’s enhanced fist.

  There are eight Elementalists in the corridor, and to overcome the disadvantage, Lou will have to eliminate them before they can kill her. In short, she attunes the Force Elementi, casting a shockwave to stun them in the blink of an eye, followed by a massacre with the Fire Elementi.

  She is, after all, a high-functioning killer.

  Leaving behind a pile of burned corpses, Lou heads to the stairs that lead down to where the Order’s elite guards and leaders usually are. Ion is following her right behind, turning invisible again. He can see the shadow of the raven appear over Lou again, this time with less transparency. It’s as if the raven were gradually becoming corporeal.

  Let’s hope it’s not a big deal. With that in mind, Ion quickly slices a woman, who happens to follow Lou with an intent to kill, ending her life with the Arcane Cutter. Her throat is severed. Ion won’t stop to watch her death. His job is babysitting Lou, whose job is to purge the Order.

  True, the Order is a threat to Lou, but that isn’t a reason good enough for them to go around killing Elementalists. She must have a deeper meaning to it, though they don’t know what it is. Ion, who is reluctant to kill, has the feeling as if an external party were manipulating his actions, which is why he can kill without restraint.

  Once on the floor below, Lou runs into two Elementalists. She stops, knowing the Elementalists by their names: Ternol and Olifia. Together, they overpower all. That is their reputation.

  “Louir, surrender and accept the punishment, or suffer the punishment by force!” Ternol yells.

  “Even with the power of the Void, a child like you won’t stand a chance,” Olifia fills in.

  “Yeah,” Lou agrees. “But did you know that there’s this Elementalist out there who can dual-attune?”

  They nod. “Everyone got to know about it a year ago when Ickoy was executed.”

  Lou smiles wryly. “Good.”

  Up against the elites of the Order, Lou has little chance. She is still young, so her actual experience is based on assassinating and killing opponents before they can react to her. In fact, Lou is one of the few Elementalists who can execute attunement and spell casting in half a second, but that doesn’t make her invincible. She merely has the advantage of speed on her side.

  “But I’m no child. I grew up yesterday.”

  Saying no more, Lou calls forth the Fire Elementi. Her colors turn golden, making her look beautiful, even unattainable. But then, as she holds a living shield of Fire in her left hand, she summons a Lightning whip in the other hand, her right eye and her right side of her hair red.

  Ion, who is behind Lou, Cloaked and hiding, is amazed of his own clueless self. She said the dual attuning Elementalist is the most dangerous one? So you were just bragging about your own powers!? That’s pompous!!

  Lou dual attunes Fire and Lightning, flaming shield in left hand, a crackling whip in the right. The elites aren’t amazed, but they prepare for combat in the narrow hallway. Olifia, the female elite, attunes Lightning, forming an aura around the two of them.

  The researchers haven’t discovered the reason yet, but lightning disrupts the Elementi powers, meaning that the Lightning Elementi is the most effective way of defending from spells, or the deadliest offensive power. From the looks of it, Lou is going to tear through Olifia’s shield with the whip.

  Ternol attunes Water, the worst combination with Lightning. Lou knows what they’re up to. Olifia has summoned the vast shield of Lightning to serve as a cover, but it has an offensive purpose as well. Ternol will launch torrents of Water at Lou, right through the Lightning wall. And even a little child can tell what happens when lightning meets water; the liquid will no longer be something you want to swim in.

  As Ternol’s about to shoot, Lou slams her shield against the floor, a powerful wave of Fire engulfs the hallway. Ternol’s torrent of Water meets the Fire, and a clash of the Elementi is thus taking place. However, Lou’s Fire is losing, for flames are inferior to Water, and with Lightning supporting the Water, her Fire dies out soon.

  Ion is fighting behind Lou, holding off groups of Elementalists coming down the stairs. He is bloodied. Therefore, he can’t turn invisible, but he’s found a new strategy to fight the Elementi powers, and that is to dispel the attunement of the caster. No attunement means that their spells die out instantly. Using that advantage, he is firing Arcane Arrows to skewer the threats.

  Ion doesn’t have any metal on him, so Molten cannot be used against him, and those who try to remove his gravity die before anyone can make use of it, or their attunement is dispelled.

  Two elites versus Lou, one might say that she is outnumbered, but in truth, they are evenly matched. Dual attuning Elementalist is as good as having an ally.

  Ternol and Olifia are taken by surprise when they see that their Lightning-enhanced Water freezes in the blink of an eye. Never before have they seen their combination spell be overpowered. No matter what Elementi, lightning nulls it. But yet...?

  It’s because Lou is freezing the air around the Water to such degree the Water freezes, regardless of the Lightning. After all, the Cold doesn’t touch the Lightning directly. Furthermore, Lou is boosting the process with the Air Elementi’s aid, blowing the Cold at the Water.

  The frozen Water is erased by a blinding light soon after, the bright spell closing in on the elites. It’s the Fire Elementi. The flame is so bright that their eyes hurt. Hearts racing, the elite duo executes a retreat tactic, even though they can’t see anything. They’ve trained it for decades. Therefore, they can make it.

  The bright fire is thanks to Lou’s dual attunement, using Air to boost the Fire enough so that it turns white because of all the oxygen. The intensity of the flame causes a blinding effect. Lou’s rendered the elites’ eyes useless with a combo that usually takes two Elementalists to execute.

  They change their attunement
s. Ternol causes a blast with Fire, knocking Lou away and burning her face, sending the duo safely backward, thanks to Olifia’s Force attunement. Their gravitation is lowered, so the blast of Fire is strong enough to send them flying. Once far enough, she restores the gravitation and Ternol attunes Air, removing all the air from the hallway between them and Lou. That way, no Fire can come through.

  However, once they recover from the blindness, the first thing that greets Olifia is the sight of pink-haired Lou’s fist coming at her face.

  Dozens of yards they’ve retreated, but the distance is covered in two seconds. Lou lands her blow, and Olifia’s thoughts are splattered onto the stone surfaces of the hallway. Ternol can barely see, but he has registered one thing: his mate is gone. As he tries to attune Force to erase Lou’s gravitation and make her slam against the ceiling so that she may die because of the bone-breaking crash, he can feel his innards heat up.

  “You... monster!”

  The last thing Ternol can see is a dark raven with violet eyes shadowing Lou.

  “Ion!”

  At once, he Teleports next to her. “What!?”

  “I bet the staircase leading to the final floor is crowded with elites, so I’m kinda thinking of crashing through this floor into the one below us.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s go!”

  Before Ion can prepare his heart, the floor beneath them crumbles. Lou is removing the earth between the floor and the ceiling below, so the place is quaking. Once there’s a hollow, Lou speaks up.

  “Blow it up. There’s a hollow between the final floor and us.”

  Ion nods. He casts Arcane Explosion while hugging Lou, preventing any damage to her. They fall with reduced gravitation, gliding down fast but gently.

  They land in a room Lou knows well. All the leaders of the Order have gathered around a huge table. There are two exits, and Lou seals them both at once. No one is coming, much less leaving. As for the hole above them, Lou fills it with Lightning.

  Ion turns invisible again.

  All of the elite guards were apparently sent to the staircase, for there is no one protecting the old men.

  “Finally! Oi, you old men! I heard you had a plan to kill me. Well, are those rumors true?” Lou speaks arrogantly.

  “As foolish as ever...” An elder utters.

  “Me? Foolish? Hey, isn’t it you who provoked me last time I was here? Should I make you suffer first? You old farts don’t even know what’s going on.”

  At the other end of the table, the true leader of the Order slams the table. Everyone turns to look at him. “Louir, the rogue assassin of the Order, do you really think that we are clueless about the events of the world? There are veteran Elementalists in this room, a dozen of them. Do you think you can beat our knowledge and our combined powers?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I see. You probably think that your invisible friend can help you with that. You are wrong. You are a criminal who has killed your own. You even abused the real Void Elementalist to come here.”

  “You’re wrong, old fart. The search parties were wiped out by the Void, yes, but this infiltration has nothing to do with the Void.”

  The old man smiles wryly. “You think so? Then why is there a Void Elementalist slaughtering my men outside? Did you really think that it’d be this easy to get here? We’ve sent almost every elite to vanquish the sinister Elementalist.”

  Lou didn’t know that. “What?”

  “Hah! And you said that we have no idea. Stop this madness. Fight the Void Elementalist with us, and I will make sure that your punishment is merely jail and not execution.”

  “Really? Only jail? Oh, that’s so tempting!”

  Then, between the leaders and Lou, a little girl appears out of nowhere. Her hair is black as coal, her figure has mature air, and her oval face is truly beautiful. The bleeding hasn’t stopped, however. Drops of blood stream down her face even now.

  She climbs onto the table, standing above the old men. “My, my! Isn’t this a nice little meeting! Your most cherished assassin has returned, hands bloodied.” She walks on the table with graceful steps. “The world is about to end. The inner layer of this dimension is falling apart. There’s no way to stop it. We’ll all die. Our brains will spill out. Guts will garnish the land, and our blood will form the lakes of the future! Bones will be used for refugee homes, and skins make for good clothes! Now, how shall we embrace such a future?”

  The elders are enchanted by the devil girl. Only the leader manages to speak up. “What are you? A Demoni!?”

  “That, I will not answer. I’m a thing that defies all logic, I’m a thing that shouldn’t exist, I’m a fucking problem child! Pleased to meet you!”

  “Do not be—”

  “Shut up, old man!” Ion holds an Arcane Cutter at the leader’s throat.

  “Listen to this devil girl, will you?” Lou adds.

  “Thanks,” She begins her speech. “Like I said, the world is going to end, though not in the way you think. The apocalypse is knocking your front door. If you think the Void is the only threat, then you’re wrong. The Dragoni of the Heaven is almost as good as free, the Titan is marching this way, and then there is the Void. The three powers that seek to either destroy the land or conquer it for their own ends, yes, those three are free. One of them is above you even now, butchering your Elementalists.”

  “I know, I know, you’re confused, aren’t you? Some of you don’t even know what’s Dragoni. Some of you may not even believe me. But trust me, you’ve got three days, and then, the Titan is within your range of sight. Nay, it’ll be stomping this city by then. Ah, all that death! It’s going to be a gorgeous day!”

  “You’re a psychopath!” The leader shouts.

  “Wait, what was your name, old man?” The devil girl walks over to him, standing in front of him, looking down. “Even after seeing your face this close for thousands of times, I can’t recall your name. You’re so meaningless in this cycle even he can’t remember you, I bet.”

  His brow twitches. “You...! I’m Ronard! And I have never seen a monster like you!”

  The devil girl giggles. “Don’t fret about it. It’s just your role in this accursed Third World. You’ll live as a nobody, you’ll die as a nobody. You’ll be forgotten as nobody. Lou, Ion, this is why I want him to suffer. He makes people like this old man suffer for being insignificant! He has done it to people I’ve loved, people I’ve liked. And not just that, he is the one who created the Titan.”

  “I’m with you,” Lou states.

  “Even though I may bring apocalypse?”

  “If the apocalypse brings salvation, I will help you bring it,” Ion declares.

  “Good, so you see my point. I’m not trying to save this world, I’m trying to save what’s going to be the next world. After all, this world is doomed, no matter what we do. Even I can’t help it. He has made it so, and it will be so. I can only wait and see when he makes an error.” The devil girl’s presence cannot be ignored.

  “None of you may know this, but there are two dimensions in this world, and only the other is safe from obliteration, and it is not this dimension. If the other is destroyed, however, this dimension will fall. And even now, the one that’s parallel to your dimension is threatened. It’s a fragile world where humans shouldn’t be, yet they are about to find it and inhabit it. And thus, there’s only one option; the humans on the other side must be expunged, no matter the cost. That way, humanity on this side can survive, even if it’s going to be a post-apocalyptic world. The parallel isn’t meant for human life anyway. It’s the home of the Elementi.”

  All of it makes zero sense to Lou and Ion, but they understand the basic concept. To save one world, another must be destroyed, though in this case, only the humanity will be wiped out, nothing more, nothing less.

  “Finally, some real information. Count me in,” Ion says.

  “This is heresy!” One of the elders yells.

  Another roars, “T
his is madness!”

  The devil girl nods. “Maybe so, but do you idiots prefer to cease existing for no reason? Aren’t you fools greedy? Aren’t you hungry for power? Even if you are not, none of you dislikes life, now do you? There’s a chance that your meaningless existences may become meaningful in one way or another, if you follow me! I might be a monster, but even so, I’m trying to save your arses, for fuck sake! All I ask is that you imbeciles stop being the Order, and start becoming part of this world! Wake up! He is controlling you all!”

  “Who is this ‘he?’”

  “It’s the asshole behind everything, this world, this everything! The bastard I want to punch in the face in a plane where he can feel true pain! No matter what, I want to see his downfall.”

  The leader, Ronard, asks. “What would you ask of us, assuming that we ‘became part of the world’ like you said? And how do you prove that there are two dimensions?”

  “Tch, these senile old men...” Lou is losing her patience. “Can’t we just kill them?”

  “I got your best and most loyal assassin to betray you. Yeah, she doesn’t care about anything other than her life, or at least hasn’t until now. But she wanted to be part of this Order because it has value. Although she was determined to remain loyal, I converted her by telling the truth. I can kick you into the other dimension right this instant if you want to have a peek, but I don’t recommend it, as you can’t come back. Also, Ion is a Shadow. He himself saw the Titan rise from the damn Prison! And the Dragoni? They’re on their way here. By the time the Titan is in Poer Haem, they’ll be in Hantor.”

  Ion fills in. “I am Ion, a Shadow of the Titan! I have watched and studied the Titan for a long time. I’m far older than any of you, for my lifespan is centuries long.”

  Lou is confused. She didn’t think she would try converting those senile men to join the fray. She actually wanted to kill them for some reason. It’s as if a new will was trying to take over the old one. But then again, the raven above her hasn’t left her, and it’s becoming more real, its violet eyes hungry for destruction.