Rogue Light

by Brian Nyaude

Several minutes passed after without any signs of trouble. After absorbing a large amount of pure energy, I went and evenly distributed it among my fallen comrades. Not easy as it sounds, I had to touch their chests and force the physical energy into their bodies. I looked up after feeling a small amount of tremors all inside the inn. It seemed I had upset the balance of energy when I stole some out of it. I wouldn’t exactly call it stealing, it was more like taking back what had been taken from us. Tilting my body back, I sat on my knees and took a small break to relax. The worst had yet to come, this was only the beginning. No doubt, our enemies were quite aware of our intrusion into the city. Unexpectedly, I felt off balance as the floor began to cave in on us. The whole inn was falling apart, splitting apart from all sides and falling to the ground. When was this nightmarish situation going to end? It was then I realized it was time to leave. We had certainly overstayed our welcome. There was one slight problem, I was still unsure of Masonku, Glazer, and Showe’s whereabouts. It was possible that they were still in here somewhere, trapped inside some horrible room by those old evil couple. Ignoring the jolting pain, I quickly got up and began looking for a safe way out. In a matter of minutes, this whole place was going collapse on us unless I found some way to get everyone out. Surrounded by fleshy walls outside, our only way up was through the roof. My fist popped and felt stiff, brimming with new found energy. I mean I felt stronger and different at the same time. It was strange indeed, it felt like I was in someone else’s body. Oh well, at the moment that sensation was of no further distress. The most concerning thing right now was this new threat I was beginning to feel around me. It was an enemy, a very powerful one at that. To battle this new foe, I was going to have to step it up to the next level, the third blast. The name of this technique was not great, but do not be mistaken. It was truly fearsome and one of my most deadly attacks. I had avoided using it because it required large amounts of concentration and stamina too difficult to control. Ebi had warned me to never try and use against anyone other than Katarina Fox, but it looked like I was going to break that promise.

  “Why you conniving fool,” the old man bellowed emerging halfway out of one of the walls outside. “How dare you do this to my precious inn?”

  My word, this was truly a disgusting sight to behold. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t due to my curiosity. His body had merged with the flesh of the walls. Watching them come apart only made it even grosser. For a couple of crucial seconds, I gagged out loud, sick to my stomach. This had to the most repulsive thing I had ever seen firsthand, probably would never forget it for the rest of my life. After a few violent empty hurls, I finally managed to block everything out and put my mind into a state of pure focus. It was not easy to merge the first blast and my second blast energy into one powerful attack. The old man took a few steps and got into the room. He kept his eyes on me, his fists clenched tightly above his waist. Not good, mixing my rage and my courage required a lot of time, which was something he was not going to give me. No, the others were depending on me, I wasn’t going to run, not this time. My life was no longer my first priority anymore.

  I smiled thinking back through my past life. It further made me realize how much I had truly changed in such a small time. Hard to believe, I had once been arrogant, prideful, and lazy prince a few years ago. But I now had friends, people who liked me for me and not because they had to or because I was rich. It felt like the world was giving me a second chance to redeem myself again for all the wrong I had done. A chance I was seriously not willing to let slip by. Given what I just said, I wasn’t exactly sure how I would do it. Every part of my body ached terribly, far too painful to ignore. The old man moved a bit, taking an offensive stance to intimidate me. Before he could attack, a large burst of energy flawed out of me, glowing red and yellow. He stopped in his tracks and jumped away from me, his eyes watching me carefully. This was it, the third blast technique. As I expected, it was far too powerful to control in my current novice state. My other gun instantly appeared in my other hand, strapped tightly at the hilts with two large and long sashes. Based on my training with Ebi, I had about a minute or so to use it which was not much. Meaning, I had to finish it quickly before he could attack.

  “I won’t let you do whatever you are planning,” the old man growled and dashed madly into my bullet range.

  Without thinking, I raised both guns at him and followed his movements with my eyes. I saw it all, he swerved left and right aiming to attack my head with a right kick. I ducked out of the way and waited for the right moment to take my shots. The sashes swerved rapidly behind me, absorbing my inner energy to form my bullets. Relentlessly, he began attacking me with a barrage of fists, aiming for my chest and stomach. I ducked away, moving effortlessly out of his reach. At last, I felt my flintlocks grow a bit heavy from the condensed energy. The moment he moved in closer to my face, I pointed my gun into his cheeks. Quickly, he impressively managed to move out of the way and back towards the broken left wall. I looked towards his feet and noticed that his limping had stopped completely.

  Had he been faking it the whole time? Running out of time, I raised one of my flintlocks at his head and fired. To my surprised, I missed at point blank. He moved so fast it felt like he was the wind. I felt him all around me, circling me without a precise direction. He was definitely still in the room, just out of sight. I felt the floor cave in slowly with each step I took. My comrades were still unconscious on the ground, not good. Quickly, I stomped my right foot into the ground and jumped up high a few feet above the ground. The moment I felt traces of his energy, I fired two massive bullets in that direction, destroying everything on that side of the inn. A spoof of strong winds followed as the after effects, instantly jerking my body backwards a few inches towards Dashe’s unconscious body.

  I had destroyed the inn completely, so much for our good night sleep. I floated down and landed softly on the unstable floor. Surprisingly, the floor was still holding even after that much destruction. Fire began to rise up in the air, consuming what was left of the inn into ash. Oh no, Masonku and the others were still inside somewhere. All I could do was hope they had escaped somehow or I had missed them by chance. Just as I was about to wake the others, I felt his presence still linger in the air. It seemed I had failed to defeat him.

  “Show yourself you wretched villain,” I yelled everywhere raising my guns in the air. “I know that you are still alive.”

  He undeniably was still alive. His very physical energy swirled around me, growing vigorously with each second. It was ripping the air and I felt like I was being chocked. Perhaps, I had held back too much power when I fired at him, a mistake I was certainly not going to repeat.

  “Heh heh,” he laughed loudly mocking me for what seemed like a long minute. “I just played along to see what you say or do next.”

  His words struck a nerve, I seriously wanted to pummel him right now.

  “How did you avoid it?” I asked him trying to buy time and prepare myself for another attack. “I know that you couldn’t have survived a direct hit of that massive energy without a scratch or something.”

  I could feel his energy and yet I couldn’t tell exactly where he was. The wind howled greatly from where the ceiling once stood echoing through my ears. It was such a clear night and at the same time a nightmare for all of us. Because the rumbling had stopped, I knew I had destroyed the inn and also something else inside. Most likely, the inn had been a monster in disguise taken from another world by the trident. I fell to one knee fatigued beyond a doubt, side effects of the third blast. A few minutes had passed since I had summoned the technique, making the strain on my body gruesome. To make things worse, my fight was still not over. My enemy was still alive and waiting for me to let my guard down or strike in my blind spot.

  “Tell me one thing old man,” I sighed heavily struggling to stay on my feet. “Why do these walls crawl with the flesh of monsters? In fact, this whole city reeks of monsters and all the build
ings here seem to come to life?”

  In a small instant fraction of a second, I noticed a disturbance in the air. I don’t know how he was doing it, but somehow he had turned his whole body into air. One guess came to mind, the white water mist power. I followed the disturbance in the air trying to see if my assumption was right. I felt small fragments of his energy whenever I followed the sudden air anomalies. Not yet, I couldn’t let him know that I knew where he was as I looked away in a different direction. He didn’t reply my question, all I felt was a chilling wind in the back of my neck.

  “What is going on?” Dashe spoke up completely startling me. “Hey Rid what happened? Is it finally over?”

  On no, Dashe’s habit of waking up at the wrong time was a signal of trouble. I looked at him and shook my head out of disbelief.

  “Be quiet for a second,” I whispered to him moving backwards to guard him, Ogana and Kaya,

  This situation could take a turn for the worse if the old man decided to use them as hostages. With Dashe awake, it was going to be difficult to fight and focus while still looking after him. All I could hope for was that he would keep his rude comments to himself. The inn began to growl just when I thought things couldn’t get any more difficult. All of the energy the inn had been emitting began to disappear without warning. Now I only felt two evil presences, the old man and his wife’s. She was just as powerful as I feared, perhaps even more sinister. I felt a jolt of fear when I felt her energy mixed up with Masonku, Glazer and Showe’s. Certainly great that they were still alive, but unlikely guaranteed to last. The inside the inn had somehow stopped, buying us more time towards our impending doom.

  “Your perceptive abilities are impressive,” the old man’s voice whispered around me. “Not many people have ever noticed this strange phenomenon ever since Katarina took over this country. Since you are about to be destroyed by yours truly there is no harm in telling you a little secret. All the buildings here are an illusion created by the trident’s power and the sun’s rays. In fact they are actually Monga Beasts which revert to their old selves when the sun goes down and devour on the citizens and prisoners of Danyen and turn their inner physical energy into raw power for the castle troops. I am the keeper of this inn alongside my wife and like this creature we were invited here and promised great wealth and power if we served her. So far I’m pleased with the results and awards.”

  How cruel!

  I wish I hadn’t asked, such evil was beyond belief and reason. Why would fellow humans do this to their fellow creatures? I felt a brief moment of intensified anger rising from within me.

  “What awards are you talking about?” I asked furiously with both guns tightly gripped. The pain had receded away only to be replace by intense resentment.

  Danyen was indeed a city where darkness dwelled, far too evil to ignore anymore. And this was only just the beginning of the worst to come.

  “My wife and I are cannibals,” he chuckled as a swift wind rustled by. “What do you think we eat? Haven’t you ever wondered what happened to the people you saw enter our inn and why no one has ever left?”

  Another mystery uncovered, although I wished I didn’t know. Some truths were just too horrible to be revealed and this was one of them. Overtaken by anger, I couldn’t suppress it anymore, this pure raw emotion waiting to erupt out of me. I really hoped he was done speaking, otherwise I was going to lose it physically and emotionally.

  “In this city we can do whatever we want,” he continued and his voice ever calm. “Katarina is such a great master, she lets us do whatever we want and there is no limit to how many humans we eat. Your friends are going to be dinner, but first I have to capture you all quickly and strip you of all your power before we eat your flesh.”

  That’s it, anyone associated with the Rainku was going to feel my wrath. I would not show them any mercy. I looked up and began to search for his exact location by looking at the patterns of disturbance in the air. As long as he kept hiding in the air, it was going to be difficult to defeat him. Nonetheless, it had to be done. I felt a brush of wind to my right and instantly moved away to my left. Another firm brush of wind passed towards my back causing me to roll over to the left.

  “Oh no. Not now.”

  The third blast time limit had passed, the fusion was beginning to separate into the yellow and orange energy. I was so consumed by anger that I had accidently diffused the bonded energy. This furthermore caused an internal collapse of balance between my courage and anger. In other words, I was in trouble unless I could somehow get my anger under control. The last thing I wanted was to have my split personality come back and take over. While struggling to control my anger, I kept myself busy by dodging out of the way in every direction. Every time the air felt disturbed, I moved a few steps in the opposite direction, staying a step ahead of him. Seems, I didn’t need to see him physically to know what he was about to do next.

  Just how many people had been affected by the white water mist vapors? I think it was possible the mists could travel long distances or the Rainku had opened other mist portals all over the world. Truly our world was in trouble if we let these mists spread unchecked. What were those tyrant monsters thinking by unleashing such a disaster upon us? Ebi had warned me of this and he had said I would know what to do when the times comes. Begging me to doubt that even he knew what was going on. The white water mist was an ancient power, not something people should temper with.

  “You rotten child,” the old man yelled pulling me back from my thoughts. “Why don’t you give up already? You are dealing with something beyond your tiny human comprehension.”

  From the way his voice screeched, I could tell he was getting irritated and annoyed. His attacks had been flawless before, now they were wild and uncontrolled as they typically destroyed everything within their range. At this rate, the inn was going to be tattered and trashed. Hovering up into the air, I floated stiffly waiting for the perfect chance to attack him. Now how would we counter such a foe? It was no mere task to fight against opponent who could mimic the wind. Could I really defeat wind with physical blasts of energy? Looking into my book of gauntlet powers and super powerful enchantments, I came up absolutely empty. What am I doing? I wasn’t a thinker, I was a man who did things on the spare of the moment. Somehow, I had a feeling I would find away to conquer this impossible foe.

  Loud and powerful roars ringed into my ear as I felt more monsters approach on our location. These weren’t just ordinary sized ones. The ground shacked every second as they got closer. Their energy was as massive as the old man’s and even more evil. Staying here was putting us all at risk, meaning it was time I ended this. My heart kept beating hard, this nightmarish situation was never going to end. Half a day in this city and I was already wanting to leave. For some reason, I felt out of breath and dizzy.

  “This is my greatest ability,” the old man annoyingly whispered into my ear. “I will suck up the air around you in one swoop.”

  I hunkered down and got on one knee, unable to breathe. It was then a sudden a strong wind picked up from beneath my feet. Swerved up into air, I felt like I was inside a tornado. I guess he hadn’t been bluffing after all, what a remarkable attack technique.

  “Focus, don’t let him out of your gaze” I calmed myself trying not to hurl from the spinning I was doing inside.

  His attack was pushing me up past the ceiling into the outside air. The more I tried to get control the stronger the winds raveled me. I tried closing my eyes to stop myself from getting even dizzier, but it didn’t work. To make things even more unbearable, the air was far too thin to breathe normally. Was this how it ended for me? Nope, tiny shark like objects emerged in the wind and began to attack me without mercy.

  “What now?” I wrestled with turmoil unable to break this despicable bind I was in.

  No matter how many times I shrugged them away, they just kept coming back and biting me everywhere. It had been a fool’s bet to think I could jest the
wind and win, but now I wasn’t so sure of anything anymore. The coat protected most of my body from the tiny sharks while my exposed parts were bitten mercilessly. After finally calming down, I summoned up my courage and activated my first blast technique. Within a second, my body was covered in yellow energy, thus rendering the small tiny sharks harmless. One problem solved; however, I was still spinning out of control without direction. It was somewhat surprising that I had not yet hurled my stomach silly by now. Truth be told, this was by far the worst humiliating way to die. Definitely not how I envisioned it.

  “Now this is the end,” a voice in the wind hissed.

  I winced out feeling awkwardly dizzy and confused. My chances of victory were getting slimmer with each second. There was one other move I had yet to try. It was a risky move, but with such devastating effects that could work to my advantage. One tiny problem remained before I could use it. It was Dashe, Ogana, and Kaya, they were inside my blast range.

  Think! Think! Think!

  I had to find some way to divert the wind up into the sky before counterattacking it.

  “Hey old man,” I shouted out into the wind to draw his attention towards myself. “I have one last request and that is for you to take me into the sky and finish me off there because I don’t want anything to happen to my friends.”

  The wind still howled loudly as I was getting desperate, any second now could become my last. I wasn’t sure if he was buying my acting at all, considering the maddening silence in the air.

  “Very well,” the wind howled in response, “and you are right, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to your precious friends. After all the castle troops will take every ounce of their energy before we eat them.”

  No way, I wasn’t going to let that happen even if I had to risk my life to save them. These were people who had become my friends. I still knew little about them, but it was enough for me call them my companions. With great ease, his mist power pushed me up further into the sky, playing directly into my hands. One the bright side, the wind had stopped spinning me apart. My eyes could not comprehend where I was, all I saw were things in two places at the same time as if I had become cross eyed.

  “Go to your oblivion screaming,” he howled into my ears loudly, sending massive winds all around me.

  This was it, the moment I had waited for. I was way out of range to do any certain harm to any of my companions. Closing my eyes, I positioned my body carefully and focused all of my inner energy into my center. There was no room for mistake, it had to be precise and controlled.

  “Ultimate first blast sphere,” I screamed my lungs out of my body.

  To be frank, the idea of naming your attacks was somewhat arrogant and childish, but it did help you maintain focus. A large amount of yellow energy I had built inside of me burst to the surface, erupting in every direction far and wide. Burning wildly, a sphere of energy formed around me, engulfing anything within five hundred yards from me. Everything within my range was completely incinerated including some of the Monga Beasts that had closed in on us. Large and powerful winds rose from the ground, sweeping everything beneath my gaze. As I had feared, this powerful technique was too destructive.

  Still feeling dizzy, I began to descend down slowly in the direction of the inn. I looked down towards the building, still feeling the after effects of using the blast sphere. Clearly one of these days, my good fortune was going to run out. It had been a miracle that I had been able to stand at all let alone fight. But now I felt weak and fragile. Almost all of the energy I had absorbed from the wall of the other Monga Beast had been used up. Specks of wind began to gather across a falling object. At first, they appeared normal; however, they began to take to come together into some sort of humanoid. I felt it, the old man’s presence from those small specks of air. His whole body became visible again, descending aimlessly through the heavens.

  He was unconscious and falling at an alarming rate. Testing my fate, I proceeded towards him, planning to save him. No matter how bad a person he was, he didn’t deserve to die like that. Why was I feeling sorry for this terrible person? Using all of my remaining strength, I got to him and managed to grab him just in the nick of time. The wind was strong, it was working its way against me, plotting to consume us whole. I fought my way through it while holding him with my left hand. As I got close to the ground, I straightened my legs downwards and hit the ground hard. The wind pushed past me and knocked me down on my face, truly embarassing.

  “Great face landing Riyo,” Dashe commented walking towards me. “Somehow you managed to ruin the whole city by yourself. That last attack, what were you thinking? I mean you just alerted more enemies of our position and now they know how powerful we are and mostly who you are.”

  “Trust me I know that,” I replied gazing towards the dark palace