(chapter 8) Trio

Lazuli slapped me, well more like tried to because of Barrier, across the face.

Did she just… try to slap me..? But I told her what she wanted to know.

I looked at Lazuli in shock at what I was seeing.

Lazuli had a few, very small, tears trickling down her face.

"Why?" She whispered.

"Why have you been lying!? She shouted in my face.

I stood there, stunned not knowing how to react.

"You're definitely not a Lion Rank and there's no point in hiding that anymore. And you clearly have more abilities than your letting considering how much you seem to know about Ethos. I'm willing to best most of not all the teachers in the school don't know anything about what you said!" Lazuli vented wiping the tears from her eyes.

"You also show up out of nowhere, claiming your from Valhalla, with no background." She said.

"Who are you really Nova?"

I looked down at my feet.

"That's something I cannot say."

"What's your Rank then?"

"I also cannot say that as well."

"GOD DAMN IT!!" Lazuli screamed.

Maybe I imagined it but her voice seemed to split into two different voices.

I looked up and saw Lazuli heaving heavy breathes, her eyes completely filled with blue like glowing fire.

"There's no way." I murmured.

"What can you tell me then!? Huh!? Maybe it was my imagination but I thought we were friends Nova."

Tell her.

"I cannot answer those previous questions but I can tell you something." I suddenly blurted out.

Lazuli slowly but surely calmed down after that, the blue fire in her eyes dissipating.

"What is it then?" She said through ragged breaths.

I'll do the talking Nova. I'm taking over for now.

I felt my body tighten, my arms frozen to my side as I suddenly had no control over what I said.

"It's about Ethos and Ethereals and although I cannot explain all of it I can explain this. Listen up, I won't say it again."

Lazuli and I sat down and I began to talk.

"Ethos isn't just a kind of energy. Its it's own sentient being that is separate to Ethereals with it's own personality with unimaginable power. Every Ethereal has their own Ethos which permanently attached and infused with their body at birth and we use their power to fuel and control our Skills among our other abilities."

"What are you saying? I've been drawing

power from a sentient being infused within me?" Lazuli said clearly not believing me.

"Yes, exactly that." I said not skipping a beat.

"Then why haven't I had, I don't know, voices in my head then?" She crossed her arms.

"The Ethos is in a dormant, sleep like state and stays like that usually till the very day the Ethereal dies. However there are times when they awaken. As you know Ethos has levels of purity and corruption. If the Ethos is corrupt or pure enough past a certain degree, they awaken from their dormant state and evolve their Ethereal into an Awakened Ethereals. This does a few things.

As I previously said Awakened Ethereals are Ethereals who's Ethos was either pure enough or corrupt enough to be awoken. What I also previously said is that this makes it so their Ethos is awake and sentient with it's own personality. What I failed to mention is that this means the Ethos also has a degree of control over the actions and mindset the of Awakened Ethereal.

The Ethos will also manifest themselves as either one or two Unique Skills that have some tie in/link with the personality of said Ethos.

When we draw power from our Ethos when it's asleep, the Ethos is filtered through the Skills, losing most of it's power but Awakened Ethereals can wield and manipulate Ethos in its true unfiltered form as a separate ability that does not relate to Skills."

"Just like the Cosmos children." Lazuli breathed beginning to realise I what I was saying is true.

I nodded.

"Not only this but Awakened Ethereals also have a transformation which lends most of, if not, all over control their body and mindset/thought process to the Ethos. This transformation is called a Capere and could be a part of the Unique Skill they manifest as or something completely unrelated to Skills. While in the Capere state only unfiltered Ethos in it's true form can harm/affect them in any shape or form, meaning only an Awakened Ethereal can defeat an Awakened Ethereal while in this state."

"I'm guessing Viro Cosmos also has this along with his kids."

I nodded.

"It seems like that Ethereals with human blood have a far higher chance of their Ethos awakening considering The Cosmos children are the product of an Ethereal and a Human. As far as am I aware, the Cosmos's and I are the only Awakened Ethereals."

"So… you can manipulate Ethos as a separate ability." Lazuli said cautiously.

I nodded and to demonstrate, a red tendril made from a red looking energy shot out of my back and slammed into the trees around us, reducing all the trees surrounding, within a mile radius, to splinters in a blink of an eye causing Lazuli to jump.

"You can manipulate Unfiltered Ethos into almost anything. While also being able to wield the other separate abilities your Ethosmay have."

"And your Ethos, they're sentient right?"

I nodded.

"Do they have a name?"

I felt myself sniggering a little before answering.

""They", is the correct word. My Ethos has three personalities with two of them being more like the opposite sides of the main personality's mindset. The main one is called Trio with the other two named Unus and Duo."

"How much control do they have over you?"

"Around 5% at all times it's why I'm incapable of purposely losing. They kinda hate losing and prioritise winning above everything else."

"Ahh, so that's why you've completely failed at keeping a low profile." Lazuli said making sense of everything.

She then looked at me with a slightly suspicious look on her face.

"I am talking to you, aren't I Nova?"

She suddenly looked a little nervous.

I felt myself sighing and closed my eyes for a moment before opening them up again.

"I think I've said enough." I muttered before quickly, but gently, grabbing Lazuli's head faster than her eyes could even process.

Red energy (Ethos) began to emerge from the hand that was holding her before feeding it's way into Lazuli's mind as I felt my eyes heat up, turning the same crimson colour.

"You will not remember anything after I explained the training required for Barrier. You said you were going to do the training under the condition you could spar me one more time. You dodged my first attack but was knocked out by the second."

After I finished speaking, the red Ethos disappeared and I let go of my hand, watching Lazuli close her eyes and fall back unconscious.

I then felt my body loosen up as I regained control over it leading me to open and close my fists a few times to be sure. I then looked at Lazuli who lay, peacefully but unconscious on the ground.

Why'd you do that?

It wouldn't be the same if she always knew Nova.

Wouldn't be surprised if the girl rat us out especially after seeing the colour of our power.

Unus, Duo I was talking to Trio as he was the one who took over my voice.

I felt what could only be the grumblings of Unus and Duo before the ring leader spoke.

Unus and Duo aren't entirely wrong Nova, they are extensions of myself after all but it was a very big risk for her to know. Both for you and her. The others might use some…

I felt Trio pause as if they were trying to choose the right words.

Use some unorthodox methods of getting information out of her. You know she would most likely break and then they'll know where we are. Ariel's keeping quiet because of our threat but if all the others found out as well she might gain some confidence and come back with some help.

Trio wasn't wrong. Plus I did technically keep my promise about explaining some stuff to her, it's just she won't remember the promise in the first place.

"Well let's get out of here." I murmured to myself as I picked up Lazuli. "lets drop you over to the nurse's office."

That power that Lazuli displayed when she got angry. It couldn't be what I thought it was could it?

I shook my head dismissing the thought.

No it's not possible.

"Your late." Said Shion sitting on the sofa looking very relaxed.

I looked at the clock in our room and saw it read 6pm.

"Your early." I pointed out. "Training get a little tough."

I went over to the fridge to get a fizzy drink.

"You could say that." She responded as I sat down. "I've been going pretty hard at it for while so I'm just gonna take a three day break."

Makes sense. Ethos training is a lot like regular workouts were you'll loose progress, instead of gaining, if you overwork yourself.

There was a long moment of silence as we just sat there not talking. It wasn't awkward. It was quite relaxing in a way. Shion and I found out we're quite similar over the past month or so. We tend to use logic first over emotion when it comes to our problems although that's not to say we can't get angry. We are both quite secretive and prefer to keep our cards close along with being able to read people quite well and sniff out lies. We also both enjoyed peace and quite, the type that was happening right now for example.

I sat there looking at the orange evening sky.

"Have you thought of a strategy for the Tournament yet?" Shion asked breaking the silence.

It was good question. What was I going to do? I'd rather not fight whenever possible, still trying to keep as low a profile as possible (which isn't that low any more) within this situation I'm currently in. I can't pretend to lose or get beaten up on purpose because of Unus, Duo and Trio. If I could have, I would've let Byron beat me as well as Kuni.

"Probably just hide and keep my distance." I said after some thought. "I don't know much about this year's Divine Tournament except for the fact the battle dimension is going to be the size of a few Multiverses or possibly even bigger considering Kara Cosmos will be constructing it herself."

Shion nodded slowly.

"I have some information about some of the contestants of the Tournament if you would like to know." She offered.

"It's a battle royal at the end of the day." I said raising an eyebrow. "We'll be competing against each other and eventually fight each other if we haven't been knocked out or killed."

Shion shrugged her shoulders.

"People will form alliances during the beginning and middle stages of the Tournament. Plus I might as well help you out a little bit as you have helped a little."

What Shion was referring to was me giving her a few tips over the past month. Shion, being a Mage Class, is used to performing minimal movements when fighting, relying on her Skill's abilities to overwhelm and destroy her opponents. At the beginning, that's the best thing you can do as a Mage but as you tackle increasingly stronger non-Mage Class opponents you can't rely just on your Skills anymore and will have to start using hand to hand combat as your primary fighting style which is then boosted by your Mage Skills. Shion was good with the basics of hand to hand combat and has adapted to using her Mage Skills to support/boost her hand to hand combat well. But that was just it. Basics was all she really knew and being an Assassin Class, a Class that specialises in a form of hand to hand combat that tries to defeat opponents in the most brutal and quickest way possible, I gave Shion some tips.

"I guess that makes sense." I said accepting Shion's offer. "So what do you know."

"I know two opponents who are entering and they're the reason why I've been training so hard."

That peeked my interest a little.

The only two people got Shion this fired up huh. This should be interesting indeed.

"Continue." I said.

"Their names are Amber Flare and Goren Jacobs."

"They sound familiar, should I know them?" I asked quickly.

Shion raised an eyebrow.

"At least they sound familiar, you might recognise their nicknames: The Atomic Phoenix and The Dark Sword."

"Yep, I recognise those names. The two strongest Dragon Ranked Ethereals with Amber being the number one and Goren not far behind her at second place."

Shion nodded.

"Amber's Unique Skill, Atomic Core, allows her to make her Ethos undergo Nuclear fusion and I don't think I need to explain the destruction she can cause with that."

I sighed taking a big swig from my drink.

I saw some footage of Amber a few years back where she effortlessly annihilated hundreds of Solar Systems and there's no doubt she's gotten stronger since then."

"That combined with her mastery over the Skills Hellfire and Fire Magic, she's gonna be tough." I added.

"Mhm." Shion nodded in response. "Then we have Goren who's mastery over LunarMagic is unparalleled, plus his Unique Skill, Sword Emperor, restricts his attacks by performing them only via bladed weapons with a reward however as the power output of said attacks are doubled compared to if they were executed normally. I don't know if this is 100% true but apparently his Lunar Magic is somewhere around 7th to 9th Tier in strength."

"That is going to be trouble." I said stroking my chin in thought.

Lunar Magic and Solar Magic are incredibly difficult to learn and don't become strong Skills till they reach 6th Tier and since they start at 4th Tier most people drop trying to master them. However, once you do have mastery over the Skills and get it to 6th Tier or higher, they become some of the strongest Skills out there. The only true counter for the two Skills are each other. Solar Magic counters Lunar Magic and vice versa so if you do not possess one of the two Skills, fighting an Ethereal who has mastery over one of them is unimaginably difficult.

"I'm guessing he's your main target then." I said causing Shion to smile ever so slightly.

"You catch on quick." She said pushing some of her dark blue hair behind her ear. "Considering my Solar Magic just reached 7th Tier recently, he and Amber are going to be my main targets. My end goal is to eventually become a Demon Rank so I should probably get some recognition from specific watchers of the Tournament."

"Specific watchers?" I said slightly confused.

"You don't know? Apparently, some of the 6 Demon Ranks will be watching the Tournament."

That isn't good.

Eh, fine by me at least we can have a go at that Ariel chick again.

Unus, Duo, shut up this could pose a massive issue for our plans.

I ignored the bickering of Trio and it's extensions and focused back onto the conversation at hand.

"Do you know which ones are coming?" I asked trying to remain casual. Apparently, it worked as Shion didn't notice anything.

"No idea but I hope The Yin-Yang King arrives." She said with a twinkle of possible excitement in her eyes.

"You a fan of him?"

"Yes, I'm a fan of all three of the Cosmos siblings but The Yin-Yang King is just on another level. To be able to wield not just one but both Lunar and Solar Magic at 10th Tier. AT THE SAME TIME!! It's incredible. And we're not even talking about his other abilities as well. His Unique Skill causes his power to rise and fall throughout the day reaching its peak at Midday and Midnight, right?"

I pulled out my phone to fact check what Shion was saying.

"Yep, his Unique Skill does exactly that." I confirmed.

"It's so cool because for that one minute of Midnight or Midday he transforms into a form that embodies either Lunar Magic or the Solar Magic, depending if it's midnight or midday of course. Then he has that 10th Tier Skill: Undead which makes him able to heal from anything in the blink of an eye as long as one atom remains. And while Nova Cosmos is stronger than his siblings, they can't be counted out either. They're my inspiration, they're the cause for my goal to be known as the strongest and carry a legacy."

"You do know they're not much older than, if not, the exact same age as us?" I pointed out.

The Cosmos siblings (Nova Cosmos, Kara Cosmos, Diablo Cosmos) are actually quite young and although no one knows how old they really are, it's clear they're either at the youngest: 15 or at oldest: 19 or maybe somewhere in the middle.

"It's precisely why they're close to our age that I'm a fan of them." Shion said acting like a fan girl which was very unlike her. It took me kinda by surprise.

"The other three Demon Ranks are in their 20s and very early 30s while the Cosmos siblings are in their teens and are the three strongest Ethereals out there, minus Viro of course."

She wasn't wrong. In all the 300+ years Ethereals have been around, none have come even close to the level of power that the Cosmos children have at their age.

"I can't disagree with you there." I said taking another swig from my drink. "There is that unofficial rule, which everyone uses, where for an Ethereal to be considered Demon Rank, they must be capable of destroying a Universe at least 2x over if I remember that number correctly."

Shion nodded in agreement as she brushed her hair back.

"Yep, and Amber, the strongest Dragon Rank, is a far cry from that sort of power currently."

"To be honest, when you put it into perspective, I can understand why you idolise them so much."

Man, she really likes the Cosmos's a lot huh.

I wonder what her reaction would be if she met one, face to face.

Ah yes, that would be most intriguing.

I think you two are expecting too much. More than likely she'll just faint or something although, it would be interesting to see.

I ignored the annoying voices of my Ethos again as I tried to focus on the conversation at hand.

"Well, it ain't long till the big day finally arrives." I said bluntly. "So, you might be able to show them what your made of."

"Actually Nova, wait right there." Shion said and jumped up, walking to the kitchen area at a brisk pace.

"I feel like we should use this on this sorta occasion." I heard her call from the kitchen.

Hang on a minute. Use what?

Shion quickly returned with two glassesin hand that were slightly filled with my prized drink that I smuggled in.

"Isn't that my-"

"That amazing drink of yours? Yes! And I'm in the mood for a toast." Shion said with grin that I never thought I'd see on her face. She gave me a glass as she sat down.

"Alright then." I said after I brief pause, it was clear she wanted me to lead the toast. "Here's to us, Lazuli and yes, even Kuni. Here's to climbing greater heights."

I couldn't really think of anything else but Shion finished it off.

"Here's to the future and a battle like the world has never seen."

I would never say it aloud, but I do enjoy fighting, always have and always will.

"Here's to victory. May the best Ethereal win." Shion finished with her gradient red eyes glowing with competitiveness.

I felt myself smiling ever so slightly. Just enough so that you couldn't say I was wearing a straight face.

"To victory." I said, and actually meant it for some reason, although I couldn't figure out why.

We clinked glasses and drank.