Lassim felt a sudden, wrenching pull in his gut, a sensation far too familiar yet entirely unexpected.
Before he could comprehend what was happening, his surroundings blurred, and he found himself whisked away from the academy’s chaotic battlefield.
In mere seconds, he was transported by the Headmaster to the tranquil yet imposing Rohese Estate, nestled in the heart of the inner city.
His body, drained and weak, gave out upon arrival. But he was caught in the strong, steady arms of his grandfather. His grandmother, with quick and precise movements, began to channel her healing energy into him.
She tsked disapprovingly at the sight of his tattered martial robes, remnants of the Iktomi’s corrosive attack, and with a flick of her wrist, provided him with a fresh set of attire. The new clothes were richly embroidered in the Rohese clans gold and green color scheme and suffused with protective charms that enveloped Lassim in a comforting warmth, and restored his dignity.
While his physical wounds were tended, the overuse of his mana pathways from his prolonged battle were not so easily mended. His grandparents, sensing the depth of his fatigue and the new level of strength that pulsed weakly within him, exchanged a look of both shock. They recognized the monumental growth in his power but understood that the time for celebration and inquiry was not now.
Lassim, his voice barely a whisper, implored, "Please, you must save Lustria, Sirium, and the others. I—I can’t do anything more right now." The desperation and guilt in his eyes were palpable, reflecting his feeling of helplessness and the burden of protecting others he had been asked to shoulder.
He realized that not slaying the eye-monster he saw had led to this situation, letting the enemy of Nexaria through the portal of their trial.
His grandparents, without a second thought, reassured him, "Leave it to us. Rest now dear." They understood the gravity of the situation and the responsibility they bore towards their grandson and his friends.
They quickly departed, their figures blurring into motion as they entered the fray with their much-needed expertise and power dire in the reinforcement of the escalating conflict.
Meanwhile, the Rohese Estate became a sanctuary amidst the turmoil. As Lassim rested, recuperating under the estate’s guards and sudden appear of a medical team’s vigilant care, the estate’s protective barriers held strong against the chaos outside.
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Every few moments, students rescued by the concerted efforts of the Rohese family, began to fill the estate’s ground. Each bearing the marks of the harrowing experiences they had endured and the medical team quickly went to work to help the new arrivals.
The estate turned into a bastion of safety and center for triage healing. It buzzed with activity as the Rohese family and their aides tended all that appeared. The sound of soft spells and the glow of healing green lights illuminated the estate’s courtyard, casting a serene halo amidst the extending darkness of the invasion.
Lassim, lying standing there in the open, watching as more arrived, felt a myriad of emotions. Relief that he was safe and that his friends would be too, guilt for not being able to do more, and a burning desire to grow stronger so he would never feel this helpless again.
His heart ached for the students still out there, for the academy under siege, and for the peaceful life he had all taken for granted until now. He thought his scare of losing Lustria had shaken that belief out of his, encouraging him to be more careful. Yet, this was the real enemy. This was the terror that even a random single Lieutenant could bring to their entire continent.
It was at this moment, the realization of how terrifying a foe these enemies were, that he felt the mana in the atmosphere stir again. Like a message from the gods, he felt their presence again. He knew now what he had felt before had been a warning for this exact situation. They saw what would happen in the dimension and tried to intervene, but he hadn’t understood.
How could he? The messages of the gods felt more like random emotions of anxiety. How could he know what they wanted to say? His anger was starting to bubble as he felt like they should have done more to warn him and help protect Nexarians. This was their world, why couldn’t they protect everyone better? Couldn’t they just do something, literally anything to help?
A flash of lightning suddenly broke through the mana in the air, giving him the equivalent of a static shock against his forehead. With a power similar to someone flicking it with their finger. A word rang out, clear and heavy in his head, "YOU."
~~~~
Outside, the battle for the city and the academy raged on.
The once peaceful streets of the city were now a battlefield, scarred by the violent clashes between the defenders of the Veridian Continent and the invading abyssal legion.
The city’s defenses were being bolstered by the arrival of powerful cultivators from distant regions as things unfolded. They began a counter-offensive against the overwhelming tide of demonic entities that constantly poured out from the portal. The air vibrated with the clash of different elemental battle arts and the roar of combatants locked in deadly battle.
Buildings that had stood for centuries, shops and homes, crumbled under the effects of the battle.
The statues that lined the pathways through the forest of the academy, symbols of its storied history and achievements, were upended or shattered. Victims of the collateral damage inflicted by the ferocious fighting, elders, students and demons’ bodies alike, lay dead next to each other.
Amidst this chaos, Master Kale, the renowned figure of the battle mastery class at the academy, engaged in a fierce confrontation with a creature that seemed to embody nightmares. This Spirit Ascension beast, was a skin walker. A troll-shaped entity that bore no skin, its form an amalgamation of bulging, grotesque muscles and sinews.
Its skull-faced head, devoid of any flesh, stared with empty eye sockets that seemed to rip any viewer’s spirit sense into shreds if they wished to peer inside.
The creature, relying on brute physical prowess, launched relentless attacks. Its fists, like battering rams, and its kicks, like the strikes of a siege engine, aimed to crush Master Kale under its might.
Master Kale, however, was a veteran of countless battles and possessed a deep reservoir of strength and skill; enough to be a master teacher at the academy.
His form flickered like a shadow, evading the heavy blows with a dancer’s grace and a warrior’s precision. The monstrous blows from the skinless troll, each capable of leveling mountains, were artfully dodged, as if Master Kale could predict the trajectory of each savage strike before it was even fully executed.
His hawk-like eyes sharp and evaluating every muscle fiber twitch and movement from the skin walker.
Then he responded in kind as he launched his own counter attacks with his own power.
He too, a Spirit Ascension stage warrior, fought back with his metal elemental spirit weapon— a spear. This spear bore at its tip the likeness of a hawk with outstretched wings, the metallic gleam of its surface seemed to capture the creature’s full assault mid-dive.
It’s shape contributed to a deadly puncturing force that would rip and tear any object it pierced. And, pierce it did against the skin walker.
Each thrust and piercing of his hawk-beaked spear cut through the air with a sound like a hawk’s screech, targeting the vital points of the monstrous entity before him. The wings of the spear’s design were not mere adornments; they sliced through the demonic flesh and sinews, leaving trails of abyssal ichor and ooze in its wake.
The duel was a spectacle of primal force of the skin walker against the refined martial prowess of Master Kale.
The troll’s savage attacks tore through the air, leaving trails of disrupted mana in their wake, while Kale’s counterattacks stabbed and pierced into the creature with the precision of a master sculptor, cutting away at the ligaments and connective tissues that held together the monstrous form of his adversary.
As Master Kale raised his spear for the decisive strike against the battered and weakened skin walker, whose body was now falling apart and the ligaments barely holding it’s figure together, the battlefield’s treacherous unpredictability manifested.
Unseen from behind, he caught a warning to look behind from his elemental spirit in his inner heart world.
As he abruptly turned, in the corner of his eye, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a new threat—a bizarre, tall, and slender creature with mace-like hands, its form a stark contrast to the brute he was fighting. This aberration, an abyssal sniper known for its lethal precision, extended its mace-like appendages, transforming them into a gruesome array of spines.
With a horrifying swiftness, the spines had already launched towards Master Kale, their trajectory so swift and silent that even his battle-honed senses barely registered the attack. The spines impaled him from behind, their barbed tips designed to inflict maximum damage and pain. However, Master Kale, refused to falter.
As his situation grew dire, the air around him shimmered, and a majestic constellation in the shape of a hawk materialized over his head. This astral manifestation signified the awakening of his profound cultivation essence at the Spirit Ascension stage, heralding a display of power that those who knew him had rarely witnessed.
Radiating a brilliant silver light, Master Kale’s body rejected the foreign intrusion with a force that canceled out the abyssal magic binding the spines. The spectral hawk above him screeched. Its cry resonated with the metallic timbre of his spear, and in that moment, his body surged with a luminescent, silver energy.
He was enveloped in this silver aura that acted as a catalyst, invoking the essence of his cultivation base. With a powerful, ethereal force, it expelled the spines from his flesh.
The expelled spines clattered harmlessly to the ground, nullified by the sheer will and power of Master Kale’s cultivation and mind. He stood tall ready to continue the battle with renewed vigor and a clear message to the abyssal invaders: the guardians of the Veridian Continent would not yield so easily.