Along for the Ride (1)

"Huff, huff…"

A man in a black robe ran across an open field, with wind surrounding his lower body. Struggling to catch his breath, he turned around and clicked his tongue.

"No more running…"

As the man began regaining his stamina, a creature of around three meters in height slowly closed the distance between them.

The field was actually at the top of a hill, meaning the ground was very uneven; even a slight error in footwork would prove fatal in a fight, so running while exhausted wasn't a good idea.

"Disciple! Remember what I've told you!" echoed a voice across the field, the direction it came from staying unknown.

With a hint of annoyance on his face, the man, Luke, stretched his arms and neck as he regulated his breathing back to normal.

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

Just as he finished stretching, two brown hands full of bulging veins lunged at him.

The instant the creature realized it had grabbed nothing but a handful of air, its bright red eyes turned a shade darker.

"ROOOOOAAAAR!!!!"

The creature unleashed its rage the only way it knew how, causing the ground beneath it to cry out in tremors.

Standing behind the creature, Luke endured the ferocious roar with a grimace and swung at its back with a newly-formed wind sword.

The uncomfortable, loud noise of metal getting struck resounded in Luke's ears. The wind sword was stopped by a heavy battle axe; both the handle and the blade of the axe were made out of the same grayish metal.

Despite its size, the creature proved to be nimbler than Luke had given it credit for.

Face-to-face with the creature, Luke gritted his teeth as the wind sword grinded against the battle axe, producing sparks. At this distance, he could even smell the hot breath of the creature, making Luke's face contort in disgust.

Barely holding himself back from vomiting, Luke was forced to retreat a few steps backward. He started conjuring wind blades, launching them at the creature one after another, aiming for the long pair of horns on its bull-like head.

The creature rapidly cut down the wind blades and slowly advanced towards Luke, stamping hoof marks into the ground using its two thick, overly muscular legs.

Beads of sweat flowed down Luke's smirking face as the unrelenting barrage of wind blades continued.

'I knew fighting a minotaur would be tough, but I'm honestly surprised…'

The more wind blades the minotaur shattered, the faster it moved. Luke wasn't the only one who was using this fight to improve his abilities.

After closing some distance, the minotaur started picking up the pace as it went from walking to jogging to straight-up charging at Luke with its horns.

Luke was forced to pick up the pace with his wind blades, but the faster he went, the lower the accuracy and power were.

As the minotaur charged, it only focused on protecting its horns, so a couple of wind blades managed to barely hit it, causing very minor damage.

"Shit!"

Trying to dash out of the way was futile as the creature was locked onto him, but Luke still tried, with little success.

One of the horns penetrated into his stomach and tore a part of it out, with the minotaur's hard head hitting Luke and blowing him tens of meters away.

"Cough!"

The taste of iron filled Luke's mouth. He wiped his mouth, only to feel wetness on his hand.

In contrast to the bright blue sky expanding endlessly above him, his hand was colored dark red.

"Haha, it's been a whi- Cough, cough!"

The lower half of his body felt numb. He couldn't move his legs.

"Ugh, my spine is definitely toast…"

A couple of shadows flew over him. His vision grew blurry, so it may've been just an illusion.

"Hmm?"

"ROOOOAAA-"

He heard the minotaur's fierce roar extinguish at its peak.

Next, he could hear a pair of voices arguing, getting closer and closer to where he lay.

"…too much at this stage!"

"My disciple will be fine."

"Does he look fine to you?"

The faces of two people stained the field of infinite, bright blue.

"Hang in there, Luke. We'll fix you up in a jiffy," the man in the orange robe said. His face tensed up as he saw the true state Luke was in, but he still forced a bright smile onto it.

The hag-like woman glared daggers at the man in response, but said nothing. Her thoughts were more than clear to the man.

"Cough, hey… Ellios. It's fine."

Ellios replied with a bitter smile, "I told you to call me Ma-" but stopped talking as the hag-like woman's glare deepened by a large multitude.

"Relax, Anastasia… You… can't, cough, blame him for… trying to give me, cough, hope…"

Anastasia lowered her head to look at Luke.

"I'm sorry. I hoped it wouldn't end like this again," Anastasia said as she looked away, as if she couldn't bear to see Luke in this state.

"Again? Could you, cough, explain?"

They didn't know it, but dying didn't signify the end for Luke. Anything he learned now would prove to be valuable.

Looking at Ellios, Anastasia shrugged her shoulders.

"Hah… Fine," Ellios said as he crouched next to Luke.

Looking at the pool of blood that steadily expanded around Luke, Ellios continued.

"I'll keep it short, seeing as we have little time. You are not my first disciple. Far from it. You are my 84th disciple. Out of them, only three people managed to live through my tutelage," Ellios said with his usual smile.

"My tutelage is brutal, but in exchange, it brings forth massive growth. Disciples who have lived through it have all become figures of great importance and power. One of my greatest disciples is the current emperor of the Exul Empire, my grandson."

When he mentioned his grandson, his lips didn't move at all, yet his smile revealed a completely different emotion than before. The look in his eyes turned sinister.

"It's regretful how it turned out, as his brothers all had greater potential than him. But see, they died, and he lived. Potential isn't everything. You are another example to add to the list."

Luke doubted his hearing at first. Sure, he had his doubts about his mysterious master, but what he just heard made him feel creeped out.

"You're… cough, fucked in the head… geezer."

Ellios stood up, his gaze still fixed on Luke.

"It's always a shame. I fondly remember all of my disciples… Emma, John, Leedlaw, Miha, Nina… This is not easy for me either, Luke. You could've very well been my greatest success."

Pointing a single finger at Luke, Ellios' smile didn't budge, accompanied by a gentle gaze. His smile would never again look the same to Luke.

"This is your last lesson, Luke. It was taught to me by one of my disciples: 'If you must die, make it as painless as possible.'"

"Fuck, cough, you…" Luke said with a frown. He knew exactly what those twisted words implied.

"I grant you your last mercy."

"I don-"

An invisible and inaudible force launched from Ellios' finger.

It penetrated through Luke's skull and into the ground below like a 9mm bullet.

His mouth hung slightly agape as he was trying to say something before Ellios finished him.

Anastasia stood with her back turned to them this whole while. It wasn't the first time she had to witness such a scene.

The silver hourglass, as if glad that it could activate after a long time, shone in a brighter blue light than it ever did.

Ellios' interest was piqued as he noticed a dim blue light beneath the black robe.

Exposing Luke's chest, he immediately realized what was going on.

"A unique elemental! Was he keeping it a secret?"

He touched the silver hourglass on Luke's chest in surprise.

And just as Anastasia curiously approached Luke's corpse, the curtains of this timeline closed as the hourglass rotated upside down.

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

"…taur this time. Disciple, is that… clear… Huh?"

Luke's pupils dilated as he stared at nothing in particular with a blank face.

Blinking, his eyes returned to normal as he looked around.

Ellios didn't fare much better, as he also confusedly looked around the room.

Luke felt something rushing up from his stomach, so he quickly left the room and went to the small terrace, proceeding to vomit from the top of it and onto the street without restraint.

The passersby looked at Luke in shame and disgust as they increased the gait in their steps and stayed far away from the embassy building.

"…"

Lala followed him to the terrace and patted his shoulders, while Ellios remained sitting at the table in silence and with a creased brow, with Anastasia right next to him.

"Are you okay?" Lala worriedly asked.

"Cough, khm… I'm fine, thanks…"

He wiped his mouth and went back into the room.

'I've returned to this morning, while we were still in Naiccos… Hmm?'

Luke stopped moving as soon as he looked toward the table.

'Why is he looking at me like that?'

"You… Just what are you?" Ellios asked with a frown and a trace of fear in his eyes.