Saber Tiers

I woke up the next morning to the sound of shifting footsteps, moving above me in a large quantity. They must've been migrating somewhere.

I peeked my head out of cover to analyze my surroundings, looking over to the Rubeki who were moving north. It was the opposite direction from where I first came in. It's been a day now since I first arrived here. I was trying to analyze the pattern of the Rubeki, but they truly were unpredictable creatures.

I sunk back into my shelter and thought about what to do next. There was plenty possible, but what should I focus on?

I wish I had a friend here... I feel like I was going insane talking to myself, and it's only been two days. Maybe I'll get a volleyball and talk to it or something.

I pushed myself up out of my shelter and continued walking forward, searching for any kind of proper shelters or checkpoints I could use in case of another migration like that.

Two Rubeki shot out from behind rocks and I made quick work of them, slashing through them once and flipping my saber around my hand again. I dropped it and it faded away, but I was getting better at it. I wanted a cool, signature saber-flip that would be something a Deity would do. Maybe that's just my fantasy, but I almost got it already.

More Rubeki started to spill out into the field and want to try and fight me. I was cocky and itching for a fight, so I had some style in my next kills.

I learned slight acrobatics and gymnastics from Cynthia and Mom, so flipping while using a saber was the bare minimum I had to learn while using strands. I flipped over one and slashed through its stomach, turning to another with ram horns and grabbing onto one of them while splitting the Rubeki in half, then flipped my body around to look at the others.

My Saber, clad in white color, cut cleanly through the Rubeki without any problem at all.

The color of the saber itself never mattered unless I was going for maximum output. My Mom theorized at this point, I could probably make one swing with the 'Purple Saber', but I shouldn't resort to using it yet.

Mom classified the sabers into four sections. White, Purple, Golden, and Iridescent. I have never seen or been able to conceive the idea of an 'Iridescent' saber, as I have no idea what color that is, but Mom said not even she has been able to pull that one-off. That was when I made it my goal to learn to wield an Iridescent Saber, whatever that may be.

I flipped my body again and cut another Rubeki's head off. I didn't take note of their formations, as I figured it didn't matter, but I was able to grab onto the horns of the Ram Rubeki that revealed itself to me earlier, so now I had to worry about them. Rubeki with horns or claws or anything most predators have could be fatal.

The Moose Rubeki charged at me with his head tilted down, so I retaliated by sliding underneath his horns and cutting him upward from his face to the sky. The saber left my hands after it slipped and it shot into the sky before returning to the palm of my left hand as strands.

I turned around and caught a Rubeki throwing a rock at me before it left my hand. It looked to be a Monkey Rubeki... this one was agile, as it knew how to dodge.

This wasn't like other Rubeki. It could move fluidly and knew when to attack. This one was a challenge, but it couldn't beat me. Not even close.

As the Rubeki threw a punch at my face, I caught him by the wrist and planted my foot into its stomach, pulling the entire creature forward and splitting it in half three times before letting it fall to the ground into a cloud of smoke.

At this point, I knew I had to leave the area. I killed over eleven Rubeki in total so far and they were getting smarter. I didn't want to run into one with the same level of intelligence as me, I wanted to pick the little ones off. I needed to stay vigilant.

Just as I started to run away, I dodged at the absolute last second from another Rubeki who slashed at me with vicious claws.

My eyes forcibly focused on the sharp talons of some sort of Lion Rubeki. He sat behind a group of four other Rubeki. They had formations... were they all intelligent?!

Mom told me not to do this, but I didn't have a choice!

Mom commonly used two sabers as her main weapons, one in each hand of differing colors so she could control the power output. I summoned the second saber in my right hand and focused my vision. My head pulsed in pain.

I flipped over two of the Rubeki and sent the blades into their chests, killing them with no effort. Upon hitting the ground, I moved my foot around my body and charged in forward.

Just as I worried about it, the Rubeki blocked my saber with its claws and deterred the saber blade away from its head, using a different part of its body to attack me. It kicked me in the side of the head, but I was able to reinforce it to prevent fatal damage.

I tried to attack again, but the Rubeki blocked it yet again. I would lose a battle of attrition, so I threw a saber at his head and ran away with another saber in my left hand. I had a plan, but it's a matter of how intelligent this Rubeki was.

Using a strand I connected at the absolute last second, I pulled against it to recall the saber to my right hand. As it came back, the Rubeki dodged again. He had eyes in the back of his head, but how well did the ones in the front of his head work?

I threw the saber in my left hand at the connecting right saber and it bounced off of each other and pinned the Rubeki down in confused suppression.

With that, I jumped up in the air and slammed the white saber down into his chest. He blocked it?!

I ignored my Mom's wishes once more and surged the strands all into one saber and broke the claws of the Rubeki as the purple color flourished wildly under the blocked-out sunlight. My head pulsed with even more pain than before, but the Rubeki died and nothing was left of its adversaries.

"One... Two... Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine... Ten..." I counted while taking deep breaths. I repeatedly counted over and over again until the pulsing pain in the side of my head disappeared.

"Shit..." I said, falling to the ground.

"Don't fall now. You have a lot more friends." Illya told me.

"ILLYA?!" I screamed out in surprise and she smiled, stained in blood.

"What happened?! Why are you here?!" I asked her.