Chapter 2 - Wyvern

A man who looked like he was in his early 20's stood before me. His hair was blonde, and his eyes were a deep emerald green. His alabaster skin was covered by light chainmail, displaying an insignia you'll expect from an enforcer.

His face was impassive, with not a single expression on it. He didn't speak but only points towards where the other prisoners had run, gesturing for me to follow suit. 

I looked at his uniform, clearly displaying the mark of the oligarchy on it. His enforcer's uniform proves that he has the capabilities of an acolyte, but he clearly is no servant to the oligarchy. Had the insurgency dug all the way into Volartan, or was this something else entirely? 

A quick finger snap brings me back to reality. The man once again points towards where the other prisoners had ran. His face this time, however, shows blatant impatience. He looks down at my cuffs and grasps them. They break as if they were made of paper instead of ancient steel.

"Alright, alright, I'll get moving, thanks, uh, friend."

What exactly is this man doing here—committing a prison break on a cargo ship?

As I exited the cell, I saw the hanging lanterns covering the hall shining and showing me all the dead bodies of both prisoners and guards. It's a gruesome sight; some of the bodies had vicious scars or burn marks, and some had entire limbs missing. I guess the aspirants were able to access their spark of divinity again. That's not good—certainly not good for me.

Trudging my way through the blood and bodies, I eventually find my way to the stairs leading to the upper hull. I heard a loud cacophony of yells and wild screams as I watched the remaining guards try to fight off the prisoners. It's clearly of no use; they're heavily outnumbered.

A grisly man, looking like he was in his 30s, ran towards a young guard who was still preoccupied with another prisoner and slammed his fist at full force towards the guard. In an instant, the guard's head was blown clean off, and his lifeless body dropped to the ground a second later. 

Another prisoner, whose entire body was glowing with an aura of slight orange, was in the middle of unleashing catastrophic flames against a guard who could barely defend himself by summoning shards of ice. However, without any warning, the ship began to shake, the prisoner was flung to the side of the hull, and the guard was able to get away.

The ship began to vibrate, and then it started to accelerate and then stop...? No, it started to fall. It took a moment, but visible panic spread across the crowd. Both parties began to fall into chaos as they all scrambled to the deck. The line of guards that were fiercely trying to hold back the prisoners was instantly dissolved.

"The levitation runes should have been activated. Someone go check the captain's quarters immediately!"

"You morons, we're all going to die because of you!"

"Us? You're the one at fault here! We were all already given a death sentence if we boarded a Wyvern built so poorly that such low-level runes malfunctioned."

The wyvern was crashing. My heart started racing, and I could sense the fear within the other prisoners. This certainly had something to do with that enforcer.

As the chaos ensued, I realized that I had no right to be here without divinity. I quickly scanned the room and decided to head back down to the lower hull. I'll die from the aftershock of such a fight before I die from the wyvern crashing. 

Rushing back down, I once again saw the halls filled with dead bodies and the opened cell doors. The enforcer that was here before had disappeared; he, however, was not my primary concern right now. At this current moment, I need to find a way to survive the inevitable crashing of the wyvern. 

The wyvern I'm on is bound to have some artifacts; if it wasn't built for cargo, then there should have been enough acolytes protecting it from a jail break. There must be at least one artifact I can use. Just one...

I moved through the lower hull, trying to avoid the blood and bodies that acted as a natural barricade to the stairway to the cargo room at the very bottom of the wyvern. The pungent smell the dead emitted was awful, but I pressed on.

Eventually I found the stairway; the doors that locked it were broken open.

This wasn't good. This means someone has already gone down there. As much as I would rather not go down a staircase that was guarded by broken doors that were supposed to stop literal acolytes, I don't have much of a choice if I want to live. 

Step by step, I went down, the light from the lanterns on the walls still illuminating my sight. Then I saw the bottom of the stairs leading directly to the cargo hold.

When I saw what was in there, I was left bewildered. All the chests and crates had already been broken into. The artifacts, however, remained in there. As I investigated the scene, I saw a trace of sludge.? No, it was blood, but it was jet black.

"What in the world..."

Following the trail, I found myself looking at the enforcer that freed me—or rather, the dead body of the enforcer that freed me. He had collapsed onto the ground with the same black blood that I found before flowing from his seven orifices. 

In his hands, he held a weird-looking green necklace and a silver goblet. I quickly looked over his body and found no outer injuries or shredded equipment. He died due to internal causes somehow.

At least that means there's no one who could have killed him remaining here.

I looked once again at the two items his hands were clenching, and then I noticed something strange: there was a red liquid within the goblet. I carefully removed the item from the man's hands to observe it.

Then, without any warning, it started to glow a bright crimson hue.