Preparations (1)

PoV Satsui

That night, I had a nightmare. I dreamt of my homeland. It was my fifth birthday. Due to the war, my father was always absent, but that day was an exception. I remember vividly that he had made an exception for my fifth birthday. That was the last joyful day in my life.

I spent the whole day running around the white castle, playing with my father while my mother was taking care of my brother. We played hide, seek, and catch; he invited other kids, and together we played tug of war and other fun games.

I remember going to sleep in my mother's arms, filled with joy. As she caressed me, she would ask me how I spent the day while suppressing her tears, and I would happily respond until I finally fell asleep.

The next day, I was assigned a tutor who would've taught me how to fight, how to use magical arts, and the ways of a ruler. From that day on, things slowly began to look less and less colorful. Every day was the same, if not progressively worse; my father was always absent, and my mother had to use whatever time she had left to reign while my father was gone. Whenever he would return, changes would be made, and people would disappear from the castle.

When my brother reached the age of ten, he was selected to inherit the forbidden arts, a technique of soul manipulation that would have gathered the souls of the deceased warriors and allowed them to fight in our stead even after death. To make sure he wouldn't go berserk, half of our elder counselors also offered themselves as sacrifices to help my brother maintain some level of rationality.

It was then that I saw the world with yellow-tinted glasses. I didn't know what to do; I didn't want my brother to become a vegetable, so I offered myself as a test subject, and after arguing with my father day and night for three consecutive days, I was able to convince him.

Ultimately, I was able to inherit the technique at full power, and from that day on, all I've ever known was the smell of blood. I was sent into the frontlines and quickly managed to gather a large number of corpses. The only thing that's constant in my journey is the presence of a goddess whispering sweet words in my ears as she uses her powers to make the enemy's equipment malfunction.

Their technology was useless against a divinity that loves hand-to-hand combat, and they soon were forced off of our lands, but then things changed; my brother was backstabbed, I was sold out, they tried to take me hostage but they failed, then I infiltrated one of their ships, and there I unleashed all of the souls that were angry for revenge.

Everything from yellow had turned red as I was watching my compatriot do unspeakable things to the citizens of that world as the god was cheering for my victory.

I ultimately ended up losing against the enemy; my race was made a slave, and I was put to rot in a special jail created solely to suppress and study my powers. I was full of wrath and immediately sold my soul to the same goddess in exchange for a chance at wiping those bastards from existence, but that chance never came. She helped me escape from that prison and hide myself until the day I died, cursing that liar of a goddess.

I woke up laying next to my brother. I couldn't believe anything that was happening in front of my eyes—our resurrection, the god's trial, the deal that goddess made with me.

'This is my last opportunity to make everything right. Nothing will stand in my way this time. Nobody knows me here. No one knows what true power is anymore. No one is as powerful as I am.'

At least that's what I thought until I saw them: a group of short, hairless people throwing people from the island left and right. This group then appeared with its leader and managed to accomplish what I had failed to accomplish.

Those bastards who trashed my homeland, enslaved my people, and turned them into weapons instead are still alive; I saw them here, and they were one of the groups that got thrown off the floating island.

They were enjoying their time, cocky as ever. They then proceeded to challenge the wrong guys and got thrown off the island. I wanted to kill them myself. I wanted to be the one throwing them off the island. My souls were boiling with rage, waiting for action and never afraid to show it.

I should have killed them, so even in their final moments, they could only watch as they powerlessly doomed their civilization to its demise.

As I was opening my eyes, I noticed my brother sleeping right next to me. He was facing the wall.

I also noticed that the girl with long horns was sleeping over me, burying her face in my fur.

"Time to wake up!" I said this as I began to shake her body in order for her to wake up.

She made a weird noise in return while also trying to stop me from talking.

"Come on. I really need to get up." I said, shaking her shoulders a bit.

"No." She said, trying to use her hands to shut my mouth, burying her face deeper into my chest.

"I'm sorry, but I really need to get up. I'll leave you in my brother's care. I hope you'll get along well." I said as I gently put her over my brother.

As I got out of the small shelter, I noticed Diego coming back from the forest with his arms full of tree branches full of leaves.

The sun was barely visible in the sky.

"Good morning, Satsui."

Diego sat next to the fire and added branches to stay warm.

"So how was your kingdom?" he suddenly asked me in a serious tone. This question was so unexpected that, for a moment, I remained frozen, unsure if what I heard was correct.

"Well… I don't really know. There were many that praised me for my actions, and some others that hated me, blaming its fall on me." I responded while trying not to bring back unpleasant memories.

"Dumb people are everywhere, so-" he responded while taking out something to drink.

"It was probably my fault. I was young and naive. All I knew was how to use my fist. This probably is what led them to betray me in the end." I never came to know why they had decided to betray; perhaps the enemy had gotten a hold of one of their family members; perhaps it was the constant war; there were many things that could've been factors. 

Diego took a bottle of water from a nearby box and passed it on to me.

"So what are you going to do now?" He asked while looking at the others sleeping.

"I want to restore my kingdom and make it prosper, and I'll avenge all of my fallen comrades." I responded with the first thing that came to mind: returning to the past would've done nothing; what I needed was a far greater empire, one with many more warriors, and one that was technologically superior to any other.

"Seems nice." He spoke in a relaxed voice after finishing his bottle.

"What about you?" I asked, looking him in the eyes.

"I don't really know. There are a lot of things I want to change, but I don't really know how." He replied while looking at the sky.

"Well, I hope you'll find your answer along the way." 

"I hope so as well." He repeated.

He gave me some bread and dried meat, and we had a quick breakfast.

"Do you know what those are?" I asked while pointing at his right hand.

"I heard they're soul weapons." He answered.

"Yep, usually to make one, you have to sacrifice living beings, but those... those, for some reason, are different." I said this while chewing my last piece of bread.

"Soooo-"

"Those were not living beings before turning into weapons." I said.

"How do you know that?" He asked me.

"My kind was hunted down because we were the best material to produce those things. I would recognize a soul weapon, especially artificial ones, since after we almost went extinct, those became really popular." I responded while summoning one of my two soul weapons. It was in the shape of a dark crossbow with silver ornaments in the shape of a bunch of feathers.

"So-"

"Usually the artificial ones are copies of already existing souls, but those are way different in that regard. You should try to communicate with them sometimes, as as of now they don't have a form, meaning they have no real personality of their own." I briefly explained.

"So that's why it was different." He said this while looking at his hand.

"Thanks, I'll remember that." He said this after finishing his meal.

He then got up and started running.

'What an odd man he is.'

I decided to wake up the others and make them breakfast. I noticed that the moose was chewed to the bone, so I didn't prepare anything for Tsuitame.

I used the remaining bread and sausage from the bags to make sandwiches. Since no one was waking up, I simply put the food in their mouths, waiting for their reaction.

Forren immediately started chewing, and shortly after, he woke up. Long horns kept her mouth shut and gave me a death glare before turning her back against me. Instead, little horns started chewing at a snail's pace. Once she finished, she simply kept sleeping.

"Long horns."

"mhh"

"It's breakfast, and it's yummy." I said this while trying to put the sandwich back in her mouth again.

She bit it off aggressively, and after a couple of minutes, she sat up to eat the rest. Her eyes were still closed.

"Time to train." Said Forren, stretching his legs.

"Where's my share?" Asked my brother, who was sleepy.

"You ate that during the night." I responded while helping him get up.

"But I'm hungry." He childishly complained with his eyes still shut.

He suddenly hugged me. I hugged him back; all that pent-up anger and sadness was slowly melting the more time I spent with my brother.

"Ok, ok. Do you want something sweet or something with meat?"

"Something sweet, please," he responded.

I then searched for something sweet and found some cake in our backpack, so I cut off a slice and served it to him with some juice I found in his bag.

After eating up, he started his own training. He was mainly testing the strength of his aura by doing many mid-air jumps.

"Brother, this place-" he said, while expelling most of his aura, only to absorb it immediately after.

"I know, it has so little energy, it's hard to manifest outer techniques." I completed his sentence.

My brother loved controlling the air, so whenever he trained, he mainly focused on giving his aura the attributes of the wind.

When he was at his peak, he was called the "ruler of the skies." He created that nickname, and it fit him.

"What is happening?" Behind me, a female voice inquired.

I was so immersed in my memories that I didn't notice little horn getting out of the shelter. She was rubbing her eyes while yawning.

"They're training: Diego's training his body, while Tsuitame's training his aura." I said this while standing next to the campfire.

"What about you?" She asked while opening her eyes.

"I'm waiting for the right moment to start my training, as it needs special care." I answered.

"How-"

"It's a long story, but to sum it up, I have two unique auras and must train them simultaneously to prevent one from dominating the other." I tried to use the simplest terms that came to mind, but she didn't seem to really understand what I was saying.

"That seems like a pain in the ass." She commented while half asleep.

"That's because it is." I answered her, smiling.

"Can you teach me that?" She asked while pointing at Tsuitame; he was using his aura to create some floating chunks of ice around him.

"No, after dinner yesterday, I checked your body, and it's full of that weird energy. If I teach you aura, it will eat everything and go out of control." I tried to explain it in a way she could understand, especially since almost no one seemed to know much about magic. I was having trouble finding the exact words to use.

'Their race is surely a weird one. The energy they produce is similar to that produced by plants and those weird crystals, except for some slight differences that could make the aura even more unpredictable. Diego, in this case, is even more weird. He has both energies, and one of them behaves in a way I can't fully grasp just yet. It's cold, fast, and compact, mainly concentrated around his heart; it's clearly connected to Forren in some way, but I won't pry any further than that, as that thing scares me. This may also explain his absurd regenerative capabilities.'

Tsuitame began covering his body with an aura. He would then start practicing his aura techniques, which involved mostly using the wind to speed up his attacks or movements.

"What happened to the moose?" Asked Little Horns while playing with the fire with her power. She would increase the flame's intensity and make something float in the air.

"Tsuitame ate it during the night." I answered.

"How can he eat that much and still be hungry for breakfast?"

"I don't know, but I guess it was for the best. I doubt we could finish that before it rotted." I commented.

She nodded in silence. After a few minutes, she went to wake the longhorns, who didn't want to be woken up.

"Tsui, I need your help. Come back right now!" I shouted. He was trying to float, but he didn't seem to control any of his movements.

He immediately fell from the sky and landed in front of me.

"Are you sure, brother, you still want to continue on that path?" He asked, clearly worried.

"You know that I have to."

What I needed to do was force myself to increase my limits so that I could contain more aura. This is why I created that pill of pure aura yesterday.

I mixed my aura with the energy of nature around me and diluted the aura in order to cancel every special property it had, then I let it sit all night in order to absorb the energy and turn into a pure aura.

Since I didn't have much, that process would have needed three hours at best, but I decided to let it rest the entire night just to be safe.

As I swallowed the pill, I started slowly disassembling it, absorbing all the energy and distributing it evenly across my body.

It felt extremely cold, slimy, and hot at the same time. This weird feeling was running through all of my body and was slowly sinking in, deeper and deeper, till it reached my nerves, making shivers run through my body.

After a quarter of the pill was gone, I could feel the energy starting to hurt more and more as the intensity of the aura increased. I felt as if a bunch of hands were crawling inside my guts, and the heat they were emitting increased with each second.

Around half of the pill, cramps appeared all over my body, and the heat started to become too much to bear. Thankfully, my brother helped me by encircling my body with a fresh breeze.

At three-quarters, I could feel those flaming hands all over my neck and body. They were vengeful; they hated me and the pain I caused them. I could feel their energy trying to take over me as it started to invade my head. The moment they managed to wrap their hands around my head, they forced me to relive all of their worst memories.

When I finally managed to absorb it completely, I temporarily lost my vision and felt suffocated. Even while taking deep breaths, it felt as if no air was going to my lungs. My ears could only hear a loud screech. My body was aching and burning, and millions of hands were trying to strangle me.

When everything was over, I found myself being stared at by everyone, while my brother immediately covered me with a blanket.

The pain was still there, and I felt the urge to attack anything in sight.

"Are you crazy? Why would you double it in one sitting?" My brother asked me in tears as he gently laid me down on the ground.

"What the hell was that?" Asked, long horns shocked.

Everyone else was speechless.

"What?" I asked.

"Yo-you were covered in black flames."

"Don't… worry. Fine." I could barely talk. I tried to get up, but my legs were too weak to do so. Thankfully, my brother was quick to catch me before I could fall.

He then proceeded to place me near a tree to rest while he and the others continued their training.

At some point, they began to spar among themselves, all except Diego.

Little horns was overwhelming long horns in power, but she had no real technique behind her moves. She would just use whatever element was close to her and use it against long horns, who had less power but used more refined techniques to cut their way through her attacks.

Little horns would form large hands, using mostly the dirt around her to try to crush long horns. I noticed that her focus was mainly on boosting her physical capabilities and solidifying her power to create various tools to use in battle, from a spinning disc to a blade to a platform used to jump away from incoming attacks.

By watching them spar, I immediately understood that Forren was the weakest of the whole group. His strength matched my brother's, but he had no power, aura, or everything but absurd regeneration.

Diego was the trickiest of them all. His abilities give him a huge advantage when it comes to CQC, but he would probably turn out useless against opponents much bigger than him. I still had to see how he could fight, but from the brief overview I got from the girl, he seemed to be a close combat specialist trained as an assassin. He goes in and kills the target quickly before they'll ever get a chance to figure out the nature of his ability.

My brother then suddenly used his aura to boost himself forward towards Forren. As soon as he got close enough, he immediately threw a left and right hook, but was blocked in both instances. Tsui finished him with an extremely fast spinning high left kick that knocked Forren immediately. He was using his wind techniques to accompany his movements or to outright push his body in a certain direction in order to land the last kick.

'What happened? Why is he going so hard on him suddenly?'

It was challenging to keep my eyes open, and, slowly but surely, I fell asleep.

PoV Folarin

'I always knew that there was a huge disparity in magical abilities between me and Valis, but I never would've thought it was this much.'

I thought while backing away.

The sheer amount of magic she had was enough to power an entire building. No matter how much time passed, she didn't seem to get worn out at all.

She wasn't skilled, so her techniques lacked polish, and she couldn't even use more than one magic spell at a time. Even her patterns of attack were extremely simple, yet their power made them more terrifying than ever.

She recently started manipulating flames, so before she could do anything with it, I launched some strings at her and used them to launch myself towards her.

She decided to let go of the fire and create a wall with the ground.

'To be able to still use elements when there's so much mana in the air now, what kind of monster are you?'

I reinforced my body and kicked a hole through the wall. I then noticed her charging a punch 5 meters away from me, and a hand appeared from the ground mimicking her actions.

'I can't possibly lose to a novice like her! It's absurd!'

I created a small disc and used it as a platform to jump away from the punch. The wall behind me turned into a hand and tried to grab me, so once again I used the strings to pull myself towards Valis and managed to land a flying kick in her face.

"I've won… you're… sloppy." I said this while trying to catch my breath.

'This is humiliating to struggle this much against something...'

I then noticed that she wasn't conscious.

'Oh god, what have I done!'

As soon as I started treating her, the gray wolf pushed me aside and started using his aura to treat her.

"This was only meant to be a light spar. There was no need to fight this seriously." He said. He sounded pissed.

"I'm sorry, I don't know."

"I don't care; just be careful next time." Before leaving her lying on the ground, he said this.

It was then that I noticed that Forren was also knocked out.

'Is he also stronger than... Diego?'

I didn't have to wait long to get an answer. He then challenged Diego, taunting him by asking him if he was afraid of losing his position as pack leader. The results were more than obvious.

Tsuitame was way faster and stronger than Diego, but no matter what combination of blows he tried, nothing would work on him.

He also tried to use his wind to slide around him, hoping to catch him by surprise, but ended up with both of his legs swept away by a low kick.

He was able to shrug it off easily, but the problem was still there. Nothing he used could hurt him. Every punch, kick, or knee would pass through his body as if he weren't there in the first place.

He tried to use some feints, but Diego ignored them and ended the spar by putting his right hand inside his chest.

After the match, Tsuitame and Diego bowed down to each other and went their own ways. Diego called all of his weapons, while Tsuitame woke his brother and went hunting.

"Find a way to get clean water; we can't rely forever on the one we bought." Diego said before heading towards the lake with all of his weapons.

Once he was gone and Valis had regained consciousness, I started searching online for ways of purifying water.

So first of all, I had to empty one of the massive tanks of water we had. I simply redistributed the water in one of the tanks and poured it on every tank, then filled them with moss at the very bottom, charcoal, and sand piled on top of each other, and I made a few holes at the bottom where the water was supposed to come out.

It was the cheapest method available, and it produces clean water that we'll boil later.

'This is the safest method, I think.'

"What is this?" The voice belonged to Valis.

"A filter. I watched a simple guide on how to make one. I hope it'll work."

She stayed silent behind me for a couple more minutes before speaking again.

"You could've gone easy on me; my head still hurts." She complained while sitting beside me.

"I'm sorry, I just... I know I went overboard on that last attack; I apologize."

She remained silent for a bit.

"Will you still help me get stronger?" She then asked me.

"I'll do my best. For starters... mhmm, let's improve your control over the elements." I said that while standing up.

I wanted to use that as an excuse to change the topic, so I put on my non-existing glasses and switched into my teaching mode.

"First off… mhhh… Got it! First off, you need to create a paison."

"A what?"

"It's a small marble of pure, solidified mana, about an inch in diameter. The key thing is that the marble should have a light blue tone and be see-through. Once you're able to create a paison, we'll be able to pass on to the next phase." I said this while creating a couple in my hand to show her.

This should not be too hard. Usually, beginners take about an hour or maybe two to make their first one.

She took the entire morning to make one that was barely passable, as it was too dense and therefore barely see-through.

Forren had already awoken, gone fishing in the lake, and returned with Diego by that time.