บท 69: Getting serious.
It's been a couple months now since the first day of school and everything has proceeded as smoothly as could be hoped for. Arthur, Elijah and Lucas were the 3 finalists in the beginning of the year tournament and each were offered a place on the Disciplinary committee. Surprisingly and I guess thankfully Lucas declined the position and was just grateful to get bumped up to a 3rd stripe with Arthur and Elijah.
Arthur and Elijah however did accept the position and Elijah was absolutely beaming as the disciplinary committee pin was placed on his uniform. They have both integrated nicely into the committee and the school has been running smoothly. Honestly it feels a little too smooth, and I do remember a big event happening at the school, but I can't remember who caused it or when it happened. I'll just have to be prepared.
Also just enjoy the time we have as the Team Fighting Mechanics class is going on a field trip to the Widow's Crypt. I won't lie I was a bit put off by the name as it brought up memories of that spider dungeon I went through. Thankfully though I was informed that was not the case it was inhabited by a different type of mana beast called snarlers, rather weak mana beasts but that's to be expected for a class field trip i suppose.
Only I got an unexpected notice coming from Alea Triscan. The day before our trip and I get a call for help from her and based off what readings I'm getting from it it a well warranted one. Beasts not dropping cores and seeming to be stronger than they should, she said they would proceed on until arrived. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing I put in a notice with Cynthia and I took off, following the tracking capabilities of the amulets I had given the Lances.
It told me their distress levels, how injured they were, how much mana they had and I could even listen in on what was happening through it if I wanted. When I was halfway there her distress levels spiked so I activated the hearing feature to find her talking to someone.
"Hehehehe, you Elf. If you want to leave this place alive then dismember your entire team right now and present them to me. If you do a good enough job I'll think about letting you escape."
I increased my speed as realization dawned on me, she was talking to a Vritra. Alea didn't speak but I could see her distress rising even higher when the Vritra spoke again.
"Or… you can try and fight." The voice oozed disdain and confidence and I finally reached the entrance to a dungeon that would lead me to them in the quickest time possible.
"Never." Was all I heard Alea mutter, before screams began to play through the amulet and I tucked it away. It would do me no good to focus on it anymore as I'm almost there. I charge through to see a scene of utter carnage. Bodies lay skewered by black spike and they coughed sputtered as blood dripped from their lips. Farther forward I see Alea trying to fight against the Vritra, when she was about to get skewered I pulled her away with mana strings.
She collapsed in a heap from the wounds littering her body and she was missing an arm, seconds later and her core would have been destroyed by that last attack. The Vritra's eyes landed on me and smiled.
"You, you're interesting, we've seen the so called Shield of Dicathen. Yet you don't make many appearances, I can't wait to see what the so called strongest mage of Dicathen can do." His slimy voice spoke out and I could see one of the 2 horns atop his head with a chip in it. A smile graced my lips as I felt my blood pumping faster at the thought of fighting this creature, but I had other things to take care of first.
I tapped into my beast will fully and enjoyed the sight of his eyes widening in shock.
"You see Vritra, you really shouldn't have left these people alive as now I have to heal them. My conscience won't let me leave them to suffer and die. Which means that you must die as I can't let word get back to your leaders about what I am, which I'm sure you've figured out now." His face contorted into a snarl and his power pulsed around his body as he shot a black spike at me, only I knew where it was coming from and reduced it to a shredded mess via sound enhanced mana strings.
My smile grew at his shock, from me being able to stop his attack.
"Now now, don't get hasty there. I still have something I need to do."
I spoke with a cocky tone that even slightly surprised me before I began pulling deep from my mana and a dense wave of golden fire washed over the cave. The Vritra flinched back expecting it to hurt only realize he felt no heat, and stared back with a cocky grin. Only this grin began to fall as he saw what the true intent of the flame was.
As it washed over the cave the victims of his brutal attacks began to heal, blood rushed back into their bodies and severed limbs grew back. Anyone that wasn't already dead were healed fully. Not even a single scratch was left from the wounds, the only indication was their shredded clothing.
"Phoenix!" He spat out like a curse as hatred surged in his body and my smirk only grew.
"Lance Alea, with my position as Shield of Dicathen I order you to return to the surface with your troops and flee this place. Alert the council to what's happening, but don't send anyone down her. I can handle him alone, but I can't protect others and still fight him earnestly." I commanded and her body shuddered as she was snapped out of looking at her regrown arm before she nodded.
She lifted her troops with vines and gathered the ones that were already dead and she used her vines to quickly exit the cave.
"You damn, Phoenix bastard! I thought we killed all of you!" The Vritra spat with rage and I just held his venomous gaze with a smirk.
"No, you didn't. But you really should have." A blood thirsty grin filled my face as I felt the anger from all the wills of the Phoenix Asuras that currently resides within me. I drew my katana and held it out front as a blazing white flame covered it before it was replaced by an ultraviolet flame invisible to the average mage. To me and Vritra however it was a dark purple that radiates death from it.
"What is your name, Vritra." I snarled through gritted teeth.
"Uto the Retainer, and the one to finally eradicate the last of your kind." He growled back as he began walking towards me. I walked forward as well and he conjured a serrated black spike into his hand and our weapons clashed. His strike was much heavier than Arthur's and even the S class beasts I had fought and I felt my blood heat up.
Lightning channeled through my body and hair went spiky from the electricity and the flames around my blade began to crackle with a similarly purple lightning that would spark off at random and strike the cave. Uto was right to show fear at this blade as we began to trade blows back and forth. Only I wasn't blinded by my anger to not slip a little something into our fight.
I was using my Uncle's skill of manipulating the mind, it was good for erasing things you didn't want to see. But I saw it for more than just that, battles like these are all about recognizing patterns and lulling your opponent into the comfortableness of those patterns and punishing them for it. What if you could implant false patterns, or change the patterns that your opponent remembers?
A grin hidden behind my mask flared across my face as I slashed one of his arms off, he had overstepped expecting me to do something different. No he knew I was supposed to do something different only it was a false memory.
"Agh! You bastard!" He yelled in anger and pain as he began sending spike after spike from the ground and the air toward me. Mana strings flared out from me and crumpled the spikes and he glared at me as he clutched his bleeding arm.
"It's over Uto, you are powerless against the fury and rage of a Phoenix. You shall be the first of your kind to pay for what Agrona has done."
The mana strings used to destroy his spikes flared forward and began piercing his skin and pulled his arms behind his back with sickening snaps and pops. They were pulled tight to the ground and his legs were bound similarly to the ground of the cavern. Once again he tried to conjure spikes to skewer me, but I had long since figured out his trick.
I leaned away from the spike to allow it to pierce his arm and he growled in pain. I grabbed the end of the spike and surged lightning through it, and his body began convulsing as spittle flew from his mouth and steam rose off him. He shuddered when the lightning stopped and his head hung limply forward and he began laughing.
I drew the kukri from the spot on my lower back and drove it into his right knee before grabbing the other and sending it into the left knee. He howled in pain before devolving into laughter once more.
"Heheheheeeheheee!" He cackled before looking up at me with a cocky smile.
"We endure much worse than this Phoenix, when becoming retainers for Lord Agrona." I kneel down in front of him and remove my mask so that he looks into my gold and blue eyes and see the grin spreading across my face.
"Is that right, Uto? Then this won't hurt you too bad will it?" My right index finger lights up in the purplish flames and I begin to press it against his cheek. The flames heat was to such an extent that there wasn't even burning flesh to smell, it was just charred mess of a hole left below his eye that reached his skull before I pulled back. The eye that the hole was closest to had began to melt from the proximity of the heat and he screeched in an animalistic howl of pain.
You see another thing my uncle didn't know is that you could overlap a previous memory, so I was able to basically loop his pain from that one moment over and over every time I held my finger up.
"You see Uto, physical pain is just one of a few different ways to torture someone. What you are about to experience is a combination of physical and psychological."
A whimpering breath exhaled from his mouth but a smile still found it's way to his face, so stubborn. This time my finger pressed into his stomach near his mana core, then his chest where a heart should be, then his arms. I continued and replayed the memory of the various ministrations in a loop, before I finally stood up.
Uto was left a drilling mess, occasionally yelping in pain even with out me doing anything, I wasn't even manipulating his memory anymore. His body was just in overdrive from the stimulus and it couldn't tell that it was no longer being harmed. I wrapped my hand around the horns atop his head and with a swift motion ripped them from their spots.
He barely showed a reaction because realistically his nerves were destroyed from the torture, he was just still feeling the after effects of my torture. I pointed my finger against his forehead and my purple flames shot out the back of his head encased in lightning. I then incinerated his body with the same purple flames.
The fight between me and him and lasted an hour and the torture probably double that. When I released my beast will I felt the exhaustion of everything come over me in one giant wave and and collapsed on to the floor propped against a rocky outcropping as I went over the fight again in my head. I'll rest here until the class gets here and then participate in the field trip with them.
Can't have Arthur falling down a hole and his parents getting mad at me for not being there after all.
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Author's Note
Alea lives! Rejoice! But Nah we killed Uto. Gotta remember he's only a retainer and he's only a half blooded Vritra. Jaron would have been equal to him had he not been collecting the wills of the other Phoenix Asuras. But he's slowly becoming a full blooded Phoenix so he was much stronger than Uto.
I would say that Jaron is probably Scythe level at the moments if not stronger, not positive on that.
Anyways 2 chapters in one day so I'll see you all next week.
Thanks for reading.
-SocioPhobia
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