Start Anew

Rushing out of the house. Multiple Gems of rider run loose. Beside me is the cleric girl and Razz carrying Naxel. Many of the rebels have their cloaks on, and making their way towards the gates. Kurt comes flying down with his rapier on his hand. His rapier immediately pierces through the enemies instantly killing them. The rebels see this and falter before coming back to their senses. They get into an improvised formation with the close range fighters in the front and their mages behind.

"What's your name Cleric girl?" I ask

"...Maria.. sir" she whimpers a bit

"Maria, alright. You help out the guy with the rapier. His name's Kurt" I say

"Yes sir" she replies

The close range fighters had their swords with them and spotted Maria first. Going for her as she is the weakest, three of them rush towards her. Kurt notices this and closes the distance between him and Maria. He gets in front of her and blocks the incoming attacks, while taking some of the hits for her.

"Razz, you go bring him back to base then meetup with the Ravenna. They should still be roaming around here" I say

"What will you be doing?" Razz asks

"Remember a knight entered where we fought the master of cruelties? I'm going to check on him" I say

Razz nods, and leaves heading towards back to Hollow Arthas base. A gem closed in on me as soon as I turned towards one of their hideouts, and attempted to do a lunging attack. My body had moved on its own again, but I wasn't fast enough to avoid the hit completely. With the rebel's sword, I moved spinning sideways still getting slash on my left arm. As I spun, I kicked behind his head using my left heel. Slamming his face down to the ground. I immediately grabbed my dagger, and planted it behind his chest giving him a fatal blow. I take the sword from him, and immediately went back inside the hideout where I fought the master.

The master sitting down in the middle of the room, his eyes glow red the moment I enter and the door behind me shuts close.

"A rematch, you came for. Escape, not an option" I telepathically hear

"Escape is something you'd want to be doing" I say back

I looked around and saw the corpses of three knights.

"These knights came in after you had left. A challenge they requested, a challenge I had given. All were weak, and you are weaker" he says telepathically

"We'll see about that" I say in an arrogant tone

This must be the perfect time to use the scroll that Edengeld had given to me. There's no way I can beat someone at this level. I reach in to my bag and get a hold of the scroll.

"Did you forget to get a weapon?" the master asks telepathically

"Oh no, I have an offering for you" I reply back

"How interesting, entertain me" he says through telepathy

I take out the scroll and open it. The scroll glows pink and the master's eyes glow very bright red. He immediately grabs the spear and it glows dark red. He throws it at me.

"I won't let you!" he says through telepathy

"I should've used this when I first faced you earlier" I say back

A pink magic circle appears coming out of the scroll and expands into the air. The spear goes through the magic circle, to my direction. I dodge the spear easily and it had stopped glowing. The master moves away from me. Pink light begin to appear around the room, and pink tentacles slowly come out of the magic circle. It immediately extends and reaches to the master trying to grapple it. The master fails to resist the grapple as too many tentacles get a hold of him, and is pulled towards the magic circle.

"Damn you!" he says telepathically

The Blood Lust aura slowly being absorbed by the tentacles grabbing him. Closer and closer he gets to the magic circle until he completely goes inside. The magic circle disappears and the scrolls turns into ashes.

Well I guess that's all to the scroll she had given me. This looks like a really useful spell to use against Cilan though, what a waste to have used it here. If only I had come here sooner, these three knights wouldn't have to die to the master of cruelties.

I grab the spear and it glows dark red. Power surges to the hand I'm using to hold the spear.

Looks like I just got myself a new weapon. No clue of the drawbacks, I think I shouldn't use too much of this.

I exit the building and the royal knights finally started swarming the place. Every survivor of the Gem of Rider were taken into custody. The spear had shrunken into a size small enough to put in my bag.

"Hey Athelstan, looks like mission's a success"

Zaber approaches me, with having a few wounds and some of his armor hanging loose.

"Well, in a way, it is a success" I reply back

"Did something happen?" he asks

"Naxel" I answer vaguely

"He should be roaming around as well overseeing the battles" he replies

"He was KIA" I answer

Zaber takes off his helmet and gives me a serious look. His light blue hair would have electric sparks.

"What do you mean by KIA?" he asked in a serious tone

"A monster was summoned that trapped both Razz and I inside the hideout. We almost died, but Naxel saved us" I answer back

He grabs me by my shirt's collar and pulls me in close, his facial expression having full anger and resentment.

"He should've just left you weaklings to die!" he shouts at me

I look away, and he lets go.

"I'll be taking on as the new commander of the Hollow Arthas. Naxel will be given a proper burial" he says

"I'm sorry"

"He shouldn't have died" Zaber says before he leaves

With him gone, Razz approaches me along with the group.

"How'd you beat the thing?" Razz asks

"I used a scroll that was given to me by Edengeld" I answer

"We heard what had happened, the plan must go on" Ravenna says

I nod to them and we all head back to the base of Hollow Arthas. We reached the base and is outside. The squads of knights had returned and some of them are heavily injured. They all set up tents to tend to the wounded with nurses running around trying to tend to all of them. We enter to the main room of the base, and find Lucas sitting comfortably unscathed.

"Well, sounds like someone either came late or didn't do anything" I say

"Tsk, I did infiltrate them. I got some useful information to share" he responds

"Then you will share them with me. I will be taking over this operation" Zaber says

Zaber coming from the hallway of the briefing room. He joins us in the main room and sits on a sofa.

"Right, well this might cause some of you guys to become uncomfortable. These Gem of Riders guy aren't actually what you think they are. From what we got for the past few hours. They're being run by devils" Lucas shares

"How sure are you that they're devils? Aren't they all supposed to have been banished from this realm?" Zaber says

"These devils are probably survivors from the war or they came here through other means" Lucas responds

"What ways are there to get to the Nine Hells?" Zaber asks

"I only know of one way, which is my master's magic allowing her to travel between the realms. She's able to bring others also, no capacity limit" he answers

Just listening in, I'm getting a suspicious feeling that Edengeld might be behind this. She seemed to have known the things that might happen because she might be the one planning all this. Though I'm sure Lucas thought of this possibility, and highly doubts it because she's his master.

"I don't think Edengeld would be behind this. If she was, she wouldn't have asked me to come and aid you in taking down the Gem of Rider" Lucas immediately says

"I'll trust you on that, but of course you are still suspicious. You'll be kept under observation. Any case, the operation will still go on. The moment the sun rises, we strike their base" Zaber says

"We have around 8 hours before the sun rises, we meet back here by then. The rest of the knights know this already. I shall make my leave now, there's something I must do" Zaber continues on

He leaves and heads towards a hallway. The news of Naxel's death started spreading through the ranks. Must be the doing of that cleric girl Maria. Lucas seems awfully calm with everything that has been going on. Nevertheless, we're going to win this then defeat Cilan afterwards.