Chapter Forty: Child of the Shard

  After many years, Laibah finally settled down with a human named Abeodan Frey. Together, they had 7 children. Abeodan was an ancient sailor and trader. He traded mostly materials such as silk and linens, but eventually settled down with Laibah in Egypt. Ishmael and his now expanding family have lived a long time here, but the wars still raged on the other side of the Mediterranean sea. After so long, the wars only spread further and included more and more gods. Until one day, Ishmael and his family was approached by a violent god they haven't seen before. He had the head of a strange animal. His head looked like a dog's head, with squarely pointed ears. However the snout was angled down, like an aardvark. His eyes were deeply slanted and he had an evil aura among himself. "You don't belong here" he growls.

"Who are you?" Ishmael demands as he comes face to face with this deity.

"It's your kind that has brought these wars to our lands, is it not?" He asks. "It is I who should ask who you are? Who are you to do as you please in a land that is not yours? Who are you to rage wars that engulfed those whom should not be involved?" He then points a staff at Gaia and asks "Who are you to do nothing about it?"

"The war?" Inari asks. "They still haven't given up on finding Gaia?"

Suddenly, the deity swings his staff at Ishmael's face. The staff was surrounded with the aura of armament magic. But Ishmael stopped the staff with two fingers. A shockwave came from the staff as it was stopped. When the deity looked, he saw Ishmael, in his human form, holding the staff with only his hand being shapeshifted into thag of a beast's hand. Two fingers punching the staff with claws sticking out of the fingers. However, his fur wasn't black. It was now a brightly glowing white, as his fur was infused with reactive endo. "I asked who you are?" Ishmael growls. "I don't like repeating myself."

"A worthy foe" the deity says. "For your display of your worth, I'll tell you. I am Suetekh, also known as the god Set." Set then grips his staff tighter and says "However, for your impudence-" and he forces the staff through Ishmael's grip and slams it into his face, sending Ishmael flying backwards into a tree. "I will not tolerate your presence."

Set walks up to the laibah family with a disgusted look. However, Inari stands in his way and stretches her arm out to protect her family. "Grandma!" a young girl shouts. This young girl was one of the daughters of Laibah, and had mostly white hair with purple tips of the hair and a purple diamond shaped birthmark on her forehead.

"Hymn!" Her mother, Laibah calls out.

Set raises his hand and prepares to strike Inari with the back of his hand. However, Ishmael sprung high into the sky, his form fully shifted into that of a glowing white fox with his horns sticking out of his forehead. Down from the sky, he came crashing down at the speed of a lightning bolt, right on top of Set. Set, however, blocked with his staff and the ground caved in and formed a shallow crater. "Stay back, all of you!" Ishmael calls out.

"This fight will be over quick" Set says with a stern face.

"You've got that right" Ishmael growls as he stomps his feet down. His feet dig into the earth and his paws grow bigger as he strikes Set in the stomach with a loud crashing blow. Set was sent flying far away, and the laibahs all stood up. "Everyone, get ready" Ishmael says. "We're leaving."

"Where?" Inari asks.

"To finish this war before it grows even more" Ishmael says. "We're going back home."

As the laibah leave, Set found himself laying in the sands far away from the green port. Over him, a green figure was standing above him, looking down. "I thought I told you to not take matters into your own hands" he says.

"Osiris" Set replies. "Stay out of my way."

"And if I refuse?" Osiris asks.

"Then it will mean your death" Set replies.

After several days of voyaging on a large trader ship, they make it back to Greece. A few days later, they found an old man, a familiar face. "This can't be true" the old man says as he looks at Laibah, then at the rest. "I know it's you, for you have not changed, but it can't be true. You haven't aged a day."

"Who are you?" Laibah asks.

"It's me" he replies. "Dorran Remui. The old nomad. I gave you that necklace."

Laibah grabs onto her necklace and holds it tight as she asks "It's really you? It's been so long..."

"I see you have a family" Dorran says with a smile as he looks at Hymn. "There's no mistaking it, they're definitely yours."

Hymn hides behind Laibah nervously as Laibah says "It's good to see you're well. Especially with all the fighting going on. How have you survived?"

"An old man has his tricks" Dorran says. "My, how the laibah have grown. I can't believe I get to meet you again. Your children share the same birthmark as you. You must be a special tribe of men. The Amethyst Tribe."

"As nice as that sounds" Ishmael interrupts, "we have matters to attend to. If you want my advice, run. Run as far as you can."

"In my age" Dorran says, "you're not much good for running. At least, not when you're a human."

"Then, do us a favor" Inari asks. "Stay safe, and try not to be involved. We're here for dangerous business. We can't afford to drag anymore people into this."

"I can't believe there's still dirt down here" Blake says as Holly, Blake, Tanya and Robin begin walking through the bottom of dead crater. "I expected nothing but rock to be in the bottom of a crater. But it feels like you could still grow plants down here... y'know, if the world wasn't dark and the life here wasn't getting choked out by endo."

"That's because it used to be a whole city" Robin says.

"Speaking of endo" Holly says. "Is anyone feeling sick yet?"

"Not quite" Tanya says. "But the air pressure here is killing me. It feels like I'm getting a headache from just being here."

"That's because we're so deep down below sea level" Holly replies. "Air is pushing down on more air, which is pushing down on even more air... the weight of all thag oxygen is building up the deeper down you go."

"I didn't think air had weight." Tanya says.

"That's why I say people should read more..." Holly says in disappointment.

"Can you see anything you're looking for yet?" Blake asks.

"Not yet" Holly replies. "We've only just began searching."

"I'm eager to leave..." Blake complains.

"Bunch of babies..." Holly retorts as she pulls out her laptop and scans the area with it.

"You don't think there's monsters down here, do you?" Tanya asks.

"If there is literally anything else down here that's not us" Holly says, "then it's either dead, dying or extremely dangerous."

"What do we do if we run into something like that?" Tanya asks nervously.

"Guess we'll die" Holly says unenthusiastically.

"Don't say shit like that!" Tanya freaks out.

"Relax" Robin says. "If something like that could even exist, it'd be so strong that not even Siran nor Zia could handle it. We'd surely die."

"You're not helping!" Tanya protests.

"Everyone, shut the hell up!" Holly says. "We're here on business."

Meanwhile, in Pilloa, the kids continued training with Athena, Loki and Thor everyday. Silas eventually came forward to show a new trick he learned. "I used what you mentioned about debuff magic to detect things in a 'field' like you said" Silas says. "But I mixed that with digital magic, clairvoyance magic, plus this kind of concept that came to mind when I thought about what I can detect and control with said field. In some ways, it's similar to distortion magic, elemental magic and armament magic; in a sense that is has magnetic effects on a specific object you focus on, but it only distorts the control and movement of that specific object. But it's similar to armament magic due to its ability to add properties of motion and force to an object as you control it. You see, if you apply energy in motion to an object with potential energy, it gains motion. If you control the variables of how much potential energy it has as well as what force is introducing motion, then you can adjust how much any object can become a weapon. Like when Thor said I can turn my endo stealing thingy into a weapon. If I use that with a debuff field and digital magic, I can sense where it is at all times as well as finely control the force given to it. P-plus! I can use clairvoyance magic while doing it to more easily track people's movements within my digital field, and the digital magic creates the field that also allows me to contain and control damage dealt by said object, such as preventing unnecessary damages to surroundings by acting as a light shield that doesn't stop objects, but rather senses them and- and allows me to act defensively while entirely on offense!"

"That was a lot of words" Carl says. "I was not able to keep track of that."

"I think he's saying he found a way to manipulate objects within a defensive field and use that as a weapon" Dana says.

"That certainly sounds like a lot" Athena says. "More than you can handle."

"But I can do it!" Silas says. "Or... at least, a little bit. It's so hard to do, but I can use it for at least a few long seconds."

"This is interesting" Loki says. "A true genius... I want you to show me."

"Okay, here goes!" Silas says. Silas focuses and closes his eyes. A digital field appears on the ground that looks like flowing waves of digital lines. When Silas opens his eyes again, he had a glow in his eyes from clairvoyance magic. Silas reaches into his pocket and takes out a sharpened rock. The rock was shaped like a wide arrowhead. He drops it, but the arrowhead stops right before it hits the ground, as if it were flowing on the digital waves. The arrowhead had a slight glow to it, and it began to rise into the air. Silas gestures with his hand to move forward, and the now floating rock moves forward suddenly. He pulls back with his arm, and the rock comes back to him. He then gestures slight movements with his arms and the rock starts slowly moving around his body, rapidly picking up speed. Suddenly, Silas stopped moving around and pointed toward a tree, and the now speeding rock flies at an incredible speed and flies into the tree he pointed at. The rock becomes embedded into the tree's trunk, and remains stuck inside the tree.

"No way" Carl says. "That's genius!"

"But it's going to take a long time and a lot of work to turn that into a useful fighting technique" Loki says. "It's a new kind of magic, I'll admit. I've never seen someone control a weapon so accurately with only magic. But it seems a little impractical if you account for setup times and what it takes to give an object enough momentum to be strong enough to fight against the likes of the drones."

"Plus, it didn't last very long" Athena says. "But, don't let that stop you now. You're on the right track. I want to see you master this."

"Man... there goes my rock" Silas complains. "I was totally still gonna use that."

"That really was brilliant though, Silas!" Dana says. "I guess the Mahina clan really is the most adaptive with magic."

"Thanks" Silas says with a red face, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

"I wonder who he gets his abilities from more..." Loki says as he thinks. "His mother is, from what I can see inside of them, stronger than Siran. However, his father is still, even if only human, a reincarnation of Ishmael after all..."

"Mom is stronger than dad?" Silas asks. "I've never seen them fight or compete, so..."

"From a certain perspective" Loki says, "she is stronger. Your father was granted strength by Gaia, twice. We heard about it from Odin."

"You've heard about... what?" Dana asks.

"Well, why do you think we were sent here?" Loki asks. "Odin and Gaia are working together as a last effort to set things right. Odin knows the details of Siran's story through Gaia. Though, we haven't been able to speak with her personally. Gaia saved Siran twice now by adjusting his body to take more endo than any human should ever be capable of twice. Bluntly speaking, he was given power twice when he took Naris's endo inside of himself twice now. Once, long long ago. The other somewhat recent. Your mother, Zia, however... she was born from a family that already had more endo than any other human. Born from a line or humans that descended from a human that fought Naris with Siran during the first time Naris roamed the Earth. This human apparently took him in while she was pregnant. The mother died, but the child had naturally higher capacity for magic because of it. Zia then took even more of Naris's endo herself and was then saved by Gaia also. She's got the better hand at magic capacity than Siran."

"Whoaaa" Carl says. "So Silas's mom is the strongest human?"

"Not necessarily" Thor says.

"Indeed" Loki says. "There is another factor." Loki then looks at Silas and says "You have the highest potential. You just need to learn to use it. Siran and Zia have extremely high capacities for endo, but you don't have any."

"Any?" Silas asks, confused.

"Rather, you don't have a capacity" Loki says. "You can absorb infinite endo without any negative effects. You take after your mother and father a lot... but you have the largest shard of Chronos inside of yourself. It was likely taken when your mother and father left Valhalla after defeating Naris the second time. You inherited that. In a way, you take more after Chronos or Ishmael than anyone else. You are a God Slayer."

Dana and Carl slowly shift their heads to turn and look at Silas nervously, as Ali covers her mouth in shock. "No way." Ali says. "So that's what was with your weird obsession over Silas?"

"Indeed" Loki says. "And with both of your parents down, you're the best shot this planet has at surviving."