At the Break of Dawn

Luke stared into the mother Gleem's deep red eyes, and pondered about his next moves. He had protection in the form of Lala's water shield, but he would also need to plan what sort of an attack he should go with.

Luke wasn't unfamiliar with this monster at all, and was fully aware of what it's capable of.

'First, I should take it's sight away. Then, I will aim for the legs.'

Wind gathered around Luke's hands and started taking the form of two wind spikes. Unlike the last time they fought, Luke's wind elemental was much stronger.

This was reflected in both the size and the sharpness of the wind spikes he could now form.

But that wasn't all.

Wisps of flame found their way to the top of the sharp ends of the two wind spikes, and merged with them.

Lala was observing Luke from a nearby tree. The Gleems have been trying to climb up to her and kill her with no success.

She was drained of mana and was barely able to keep her eyes open, but there was no mistaking what she just saw.

"He used two different elementals at the same time, and not only that, but he merged them into one single attack without any backlash!"

The only time that Lala had heard of such a thing happening was from her grandmother, and that was a story from centuries ago, which could've been no more than a myth.

Using multiple elementals for a single attack was possible, but only with a major backlash, and at the risk of your soul shattering.

The risks far outweighed the benefits.

"…I must talk to him about this later."

Lala could no longer handle the fatigue, and closed her eyes, losing her consciousness.

Luke finished preparing his attack and was about to unleash it upon the giant monster.

"Huuuu…"

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

And, as he opened his eyes and exhaled, the two wind spikes were released at the mother Gleem's eyes.

The wind spikes tore through the air as fast as a pair of bullets, and pierced into their target.

"What the hell?!"

Luke was hoping that the pair of wind spikes would at least somewhat damage the mother Gleem's eyes, but something outside of his expectations happened instead.

There were two gaping holes where the pair of eyes used to be.

The monster couldn't even have been aware that it had breathed its last.

The giant corpse swayed backwards from the leftover momentum of Luke's attack and crashed into the ground, destroying dozens of trees below it, and kicking up a storm of dust.

There was also a third gaping hole, that being Luke's wide-open mouth.

"How…"

He looked at the hands which he used just moments ago to sentence the giant monster to death.

He was both overjoyed and scared.

'If even I'm this strong now, how strong must the people who strengthened themselves for their whole lives be?!'

He thought of the woman which used to haunt him not that long ago, Alissia.

'She was able to destroy the mother Gleem's head with just a flick of her finger. Does that mean that this monster is just that weak, or that she's just that strong?'

A small orb of light no bigger than a child's fist floated out above the mother Gleem's corpse, dispersing Luke's thoughts.

He jumped off of the tree he was standing on, and onto the ground below.

Luke climbed onto the mother Gleem's giant corpse and quickly made his way to the orb of light, extending his arm towards it.

The orb greeted Luke by floating along his arm as if it was waiting for him to come.

It floated towards his chest, before slowly entering inside of it, and merging with Luke's soul.

This time around, Luke was undisturbed while absorbing the mother Gleem's elemental.

As soon as the elemental fully merged with Luke's soul, he felt a stinging pain on his chest.

'Yes!'

He knew what this meant.

Luke unbuttoned his shirt, to be greeted by a new tattoo.

But something was odd.

'The whirlwinds are gone!'

There used to be a whirlwind tattoo just below his silver hourglass tattoo, along with two smaller whirlwind tattoos around the hourglass, but all three of those tattoos were now gone.

Instead, a pair of pure white wings now surrounded the silver hourglass on both sides.

The tattoo of an asleep baby phoenix was still on top of the silver hourglass tattoo, and remained unchanged.

'I got scared for a second there…'

Luke was satisfied and buttoned his shirt back up.

'Where's Lala?'

He looked around and noticed something right away.

'My field of vision has noticeably expanded!'

This increase was the same as the difference before and after Luke first acquired a wind elemental.

He easily spotted Lala atop a tree and unconscious.

The Gleems were still trying to get to her with no progress.

"Let's test it out."

Luke remembered how Mark used his wind elemental.

A blade of wind extended from Luke's palm, along with a handguard and a handle.

It wasn't nearly as pretty or as strong as Mark's blade, but it was much better than what he could've ever hoped to do before.

Luke gripped the handle of the wind blade, and rushed at the group of Gleems numbering in dozens.

"Woaaah!"

He was three times as fast as before.

Luke was now close enough for the Gleems to shift their gazes onto him.

They started salivating and screeching at Luke.

The monsters could not know that they were running into death itself.

Luke slashed at the oncoming onslaught of monsters, killing multiple Gleems with each swing of his blade, staining his shirt more and more during the process.

For every five Gleems he killed, ten more came to replace them.

Luke could hear even more Gleems coming from behind him, as they were screeching in rage at their mother's death.

When the wind blade proved not to be enough, Luke infused a bit of flame around it, giving it much bigger, and much more explosive, power.

Throughout this fight, Luke also noticed that his stamina had massively improved once again.

He was trying to absorb as many wind elementals as he could, but the majority of them dispersed before he could get to them, resulting in the absorption of a very little number of elementals.

Luke continued swinging the ablaze wind blade, and quite literally mowing down the Gleems.

And as the sun rose over the bloody forest, no more Gleems were left standing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Ah!"

Lala sat up on her bed and looked around the unfamiliar room she was currently in.

"Where am I?"

The room wasn't that big. It had a small fireplace, a table and a couple of chairs, along with some firewood.

The door of the room slowly opened.

Lala prepared an attack using her water elemental, but soon realized it wouldn't be necessary.

"Oh, you're awake?"

Luke smiled as he entered the room.

Lala smiled back at him and nodded.

"Yes… Where are we? What happened?"

Her cheeks also reddened.

"And, umm, where's your shirt?"

Luke's now-lean body was on full display.

"The shirt… Well, it got stained with too much blood. I was hoping you could help with that…"

He walked over to one of the chairs and picked up the scarlet red shirt.

Lala quickly used her water elemental to rid the shirt of all and any stains.

The shirt was left spotless, and Luke then proceeded to use the wind elemental to dry it and put it back on him.

"That's better. Now, for your questions. We're still in the forest of N'Gool. You lost your consciousness so I brought you here to recover after the fight was over."

Luke sat down on one of the chairs at the table as he explained.

"I remember now, I exhausted my mana so that's why I lost my consciousness."

She also remembered something else from before that.

"Say Luke, did you happen to use two elementals at the same time to attack the mother Gleem?"

Luke scratched the back of his head and nodded.

"Yeah, why?"

"…How come you're fine then?"

"Huh?"

Luke raised an eyebrow.

"Is it supposed to be difficult to do?"

Lala was left mumbling to herself.

"… a genius, that's what he is…"

"What was that?"

Lala snapped out of it and answered.

"Oh! Haha, nothing…"

"Well, if that's out of the way, we should move. We need to check the village to see what happened to it after we left. Are you good to go?"

Lala nodded and got out of the bed.

"Yes, I'm fine now. Let's go."

Luke left the room and Lala followed.

…And they were outside.

Lala then realized that it wasn't a room, but a very small house in the middle of the forest instead.

The very same small house that Luke was staying in after killing old man Wilfred.

Luke completely enveloped his legs in wind that was as condensed as ever, and started running east.

Lala followed right after.

"Hey Luke, how much time has passed since I've fallen unconscious?"

She was still able to keep up with Luke's speed without any problems.

"Around five or six hours, I believe."

"Hmm… Then how did you get this much faster in that short amount of time?"

"Oh, umm, I absorbed the mother Gleem's wind elemental."

Lala smiled at that.

"I didn't know that you had such useful artifacts with you! Although using a capturing and a transfusion artifact on a mother Gleem's wind elemental may be a bit wasteful…"

Luke feigned ignorance and shrugged his shoulders while smiling back at Lala.

'Wait… I heard of those artifacts from those nasty Wind Temple priests before. It was also in the context of absorbing an elemental…'

Luke was close to figuring out another one of the time elemental's powers, but was interrupted by someone's voice.

"You there! Stop!"

There was a soldier in front of them, armed with a spear and clad in steel plate armor.

They were almost at the village, so it wasn't weird for a soldier to be nearby the morning after a massacre occurred.

'There weren't any soldiers in the previous loop though… No one was even aware of a massacre occurring here.'

Luke and Lala made eye contact and nodded.

They stopped in front of the solider.

Lala spoke up.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?"

The soldier nervously looked away.

Luke chuckled at the sight of this, and the soldier cleared his throat.

"Khm… There was an incident in a village nearby, and we are looking for anyone who may have heard or seen something."

The soldier then shifted his gaze to Luke.

"We are also keeping an eye out for any suspicious individuals or groups."

'Why did he look at me as he said that…'

"We will inform you if we run into such individuals or groups. Sir."

As Lala said that, the soldier's gaze turned to her.

He nodded and motioned with his head that they could continue.

Luke and Lala also nodded back at the solider, and continued running.

They couldn't go through the village as the road was blocked, but they could go around it.

That was enough for them to be able to roughly see the aftermath of yesterday's events.

Destroyed buildings, a pile of burning corpses, both human and animal alike, upturned soil and hectares of destroyed farmlands.

Luke frowned.

He didn't care too much about the people he didn't really know, but it was still sad and sickening to see such a sight.

"…Joseph."

Luke saying that name was enough to send shivers down Lala's spine.

What she had seen yesterday is something that is best forgotten.

Dead children, burning homes and people screaming and begging for help…

Lala was originally supposed to help Joseph to repay her family's favor to the man. But now, she wished to punish him out of the depths of her heart.

"Luke. We must put a stop to that man."

"That's the last thing I expected you to say… It will be very hard. Even so, you want to do it?"

"Yes."

"You may even have to sully your hands."

"As long as it's not innocent people, I'll endure."

"You won't be able to peacefully sleep at night."

"I was never able to in the first place."

Lala smiled and looked at Luke.

He sighed.

"Fine. Let's do it. Let's stop Joseph."