The Power of Two

The aroma of incense can be smelled while walking down the hallway of the castle. In fact, Rica really liked the smell of it, so she tried to get one stick of scented incense from one of the statues that was holding a bunch of those.

While she was on it, a girl wearing an elegant white dress saw her attempt to steal an incense, so she shouted at her. "Don't touch the statues; those are cursed!"

Hearing this, Rica pulled her hands away and kept it to herself. "Seriously? But I already touched it? What will I do to remove the curse? C'mon, please tell me, please."

Seeing the lady's face filled with worry, the girl suddenly smiled and said, "I was just kidding; you can actually touch one of those, but be careful with it so you don't break any of it."

Upon hearing the joke from the lady, Rica heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh my! I thought I was cursed again!"

"The first one was being barren, the girl commented.

"Wow, how did you know that?" Rica said, shock evident in her voice.

"That's just level one of our skill, seeing your past. Level two would have to be seeing your future, and currently, I am still on level one," the girl replied.

"Speaking of that, may you please join us in meeting your elder? I just want to ask something," Jon Bane assertively said to the girl.

"All right, follow me." The three of them started to walk.

"By the way, my name is Ella. And you guys?" Ella asked.

"My name is Rica, and this weird guy I'm with is Jon Bane." Ella nodded at Rica upon hearing their names.

"Which clan are you from?" Ella asked again.

"We belong to the Bolo Clan," Rica responded.

Ella was astonished and said, "Oh, you guys are from the same clan as Joshua and Michael."

Ella got to know the two of them while escorting them through the hallways and stairs. They kept chitchatting on the way to the throne of the elder, which is located in the upper part of the castle.

Finally, they arrived at the elder's throne, but the elder is not around. Ella asked one of the seers beside the throne. "Ms. Jayzel, where did our elder go? We have visitors from the Bolo Clan, and they want to have a moment with our elder."

"She's inside the chamber of Spirit and Time. She said she's planning to stay there for a year," Jayzel answered.

"What?! For a year? We can't wait for that long," Rica said, looking downcast at the surprising news.

Jayzel comforted her. "If you want to know about your future, we can do that for you because there are a lot of seers around you. However, if you really want the elder to look at it, then don't worry, all you need to do is wait for a day. We have plenty of rooms here in our castle for you to lodge in."

"A day? But you said she's going to be there for a year?" Rica seemed confused at what she heard.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mention earlier that a year inside the chamber is equivalent to a single day outside the chamber," Jayzel explained.

"Okay then, we'll just wait until tomorrow," Rica excitedly said.

Since it's still 3 in the afternoon, it is too early for them to go to sleep, so they decided to roam around the castle with Ella.

Suddenly, they heard a strong sound outside the castle. The three of them rushed their way to take a look at what had happened.

They were heading towards the castle gate when Michael was thrown back inside the castle when a seemingly strong force pushed him back.

Ella rushed to his side and asked him what happened.

"Those gangsters fired a bazooka on me." Michael got up and rushed out to the gate.

Rica was confused by the situation.

"He said that it was a bazooka, right? Then why doesn't he have bruises all over his body?" Rica commented.

"His tokugi is durability; his body is capable of absorbing any kind of attack," Ella explained.

Rica looked at Jon Bane. "Wow, it's almost the same as your ability. The only difference is that you're dodging it while Michael is taking it."

"He's still getting hit; I'm pretty sure that there's a maximum damage that his body can take, which is the same with mine. Mine's skill is to dodge any attacks with a radius of at most three meters; any attacks that have more than three meters in radius, there's a possibility that I might get hit," Jon Bane commented, to which Rica nodded. "Yeah, as for mine, I can only use my invisibility for three hours, and after that, I should rest and recharge for 30 minutes in order to use it again."

"Why do you guys keep on talking? Let's go and help them," Ella said anxiously.

They rushed to the gate and saw that some of the gangsters had fired their guns at them, but the bullets stopped midway as they were bound to go through Joshua's body.

"What just happened?" Rica looked amazed.

"That is his tokugi; he can make anything stop moving within a meter of his place," Ella explained.

"Why are you not letting us go inside? Are you hiding something?" The leader of the gangsters thinks that the castle is filled with lots of gold and diamonds.

"If you really want to enter, then you must get through us first," Joshua bravely said, as his face was more ready to kill anyone who was attempting to enter the castle. Seeing the aura he was exuding, no one dared go near him.

Since not a single man was trying to go near the gate, Joshua told his brother to guard the gate as he attacked the gangsters.

Seeing that Joshua was walking towards them, they fired their guns at him, which Joshua stopped before it even hit his skin. When Joshua reached their place, a series of sounds were heard.

Tack!

Pack!

Whoosh!

A dozen gangsters are on their knees.

The leader targeted the top of the castle to fire his bazooka at, but it was interfered with by Rica. She used her invisibility skill to go to the gangster leader and steal the bazooka. She also hit the back of his head, which made the leader unconscious.

Seeing that their leader was lying on the ground, the rest of the men decided to retreat as they carried their unconscious leader with them.

Joshua then thanked Rica for what she had done.