Chapter 7

"If this idea doesn't work, I'll rip out your guts and take out the stone."

Leo blinked twice, too afraid to gulp, he could sense the kid's bloodlust and knew he wasn't just throwing his words around.

"Good, now get in!" Without warning, Kael kicked Leo forward with no added strength, yet that was enough to send the young man landing in the middle of the pentacle, staggering to stand on his feet.

"Watch where you swing that foot, what if I turned into a statue of Ice?" He chided, dusting off the invisible spec from his clothes.

Kael simply ignored him and stood inside the circle as well, again repeating his incantation, his lips moving faster than before.

"Wait!" Leo cried out disrupting the spell, Kael who felt that he was experiencing some discomfort stopped the spell and tossed his gaze to him.

"If this spell works, what are you gonna do about the pirates?" He asked while looking at both halves of the ship, sinking at an alarmingly fast rate.

Kael hissed, "the sea will take care of the bodies, no need to manually get rid of the corpse."

"That's not what I'm talking about, aren't we going to save them too?" Leo sharply interjected, hope lingering in his eyes. From Leo's perspective, he knew nothing about both sides, hence he aimed a making a non-biased decision.

"You seem to misunderstand me." The teen responded, his voice interlaced with genuine stun, though his indifference swallowed it up.

"I did?" Leo asked with newfound hope, perhaps thinking at the back of his mind that maybe this was all just some huge misunderstanding.

However naive that sounded.

"It would take me too much time to detect where exactly in your body the stone is located." He took a pause, the heavy wind returned as the dim white light around the pentacle's exterior brightened.

"Once the rescue is completed, be rest assured that I will make good on my promise to rip the stone out of you," Kael informed him.

Sealing his conviction, ice suddenly crept on Leo's ankles keeping him in place.

"Bastard!" Leo gritted his teeth as the cooling sensation from the ice numbed his toes. Even if by some miracle he happened to break free of the ice, he felt too weak in his legs to run.

'Fuck, I can't even stand straight.' he cursed in his head trying to pull himself together, whilst his company proceeded with the incantation.

The lines that formed the star started to light up a dark red, and strange symbols appeared from nowhere floating over the pentacle, as the teleportation spell finally activated.

"Nnngh!" He grunted, a sharp pain in his lower abdomen springing up to his chest forced him to his knees.

"What is happening?" He asks as the pain starts to concentrate in his chest, it starts off feeling like someone had punched him. But within seconds it heightens and it is like he's being stabbed.

His constrained gaze peers at an unaffected Kael, the kid's eyebrows are both raised and his listless eyes widened. The intensity of the spell is so overwhelming that he had to copy what he did to Leo to keep his feet in place.

"The Mana flowing into the spell is so much purer than any shard. And it's far stronger, I can feel my magic enhancing."

Leo can't tell whether he's in awe or severe pain, his eyes look bloodshot and his skin is bright red, a sharp contrast to his pale skin.

"It's finally open!" Kael announces over the gush of wind that caresses his face, pushing back his white-ish hair and brown cape.

Darting his eyes around, Leo notices a spiral in front of him floating in midair, expanding with each passing second. This carried on until it turned into a fully stretched portal, large enough for a human being to easily walk through.

Despite the pain in his chest, Leo was mesmerized by seeing the fictional concept which went by the name of magic, come to life in front of him.

Not just that, the pain he was feeling started to spread across his arms and legs, taking his heart as the source of the distribution. Only however, in place of pain, Leo felt a surge of energy running through his veins, giving him the added strength to kick free from the ice shackles!

Leo stood to his feet, he would have celebrated this upgrade in his physical strength but had his attention stolen by the formation of another spiral, which grew faster than the last.

Kael darted his eyes to the newly formed portal, "two portals? That's impossible!" He cried out, almost immediately various spirals emerged out of nothing, and turned into full-blown portals.

Leo looked around him, there was a portal at every turn he took, he looked above his head and saw spirals expanding into portals at an alarming rate.

The young man who didn't understand what was happening diverted his attention to Kael, but the cool-headed teen was far more flustered than he was.

"That's impossible..." He insisted, staring at his palms, "I'm no longer in control of the gate, it's almost like he's channeling Mana into the spell while singlehandedly keeping the gate open." A fazed Kael took two steps back, taking a sweep of the ship.

A teleportation portal had opened up at every corner, even on the main deck there were teleportation portals. And standing in the middle of it all was Leo, who was still standing despite this immense release.

"Is this the power of the Philosopher's Stone?"

Kael gasped when he noticed a glowing red seal on Leo's chest, burning through his clothes, yet, its flames didn't scorch through the fabric. It was a circle with a symbol sitting in the middle, the teen gasped when he translated what it meant.

Fighting back the compelling force, Kael stole one more glance at Leo, whose eyes had turned dark red. As an overwhelming power exuded him making it hard for the teen to even glance at him. Kael's lower lip quivered at the bolts of black lightning that encircled him, and the cold gush of him that pushed back clouds and killed birds on contact alone.

With his quivering lower lip, the translation of the symbol that hadn't been drawn for centuries spilled out of his mouth.

"Soren." He said under his breath, captivated by the manifestation of a name akin to Mana itself!

However, his attention on Leo was sharply interrupted by a new problem that sprung up. Kael felt something cold and damp in-between his toes, "don't tell me..."

Just as the teen had guessed, Leo had ended up opening a portal under the sea, thus channeling water from the seabed onto their vessel, weighing the ship down, and flooding the deck!