Wind & Cloud

Within the inner complex of Palace Museum, 5th Day of Last Seed, year 6.111 of the Fourth Era.

Tellrog's huge body hunched over a small whetstone, his hands repeatedly moved back and forth as he carefully sharpened a piece of curved blade. After several laps of this consistent movement, he splashed some water onto the blade and carefully inspected it. He then proceeded to rub the blade against a thick strap of leather.

After a while, Tellrog gave the blade a final inspection and a satisfied smile bloomed on his face. He had worked on this blade and another one for several days already, and was finally able to finish it. Just in time before Satoshi left for Asira.

Tellrog put the blade he just finished sharpening into a specially made sheath, and together with its pair, carefully wrapped it with a piece of fabric. He then went to his desk and directed his attention toward a pair of gloves.

These gloves were made by Unsui for Satoshi and were an upgraded version of the handwraps. Tellrog was asked to give it a final look as a safety measure against the same accidents from before.

Just when Tellrog started to concentrate on the gloves, he was jolted by the sudden opening of his door.

"Old Rog!!"

It was Unsui. He kicked the door to Tellrog's study and hurriedly barged in.

"Take a look at this!" said Unsui as he handed an assessment crystal to Tellrog.

Tellrog took the assessment crystal and began inspecting it. He didn't even bother with Unsui's rude entrance.

After he gave it a look, Tellrog confusingly asked, "What about it?"

"It's black, right?"

"Yes, it is. Isn't this Satoshi's assessment crystal?" Tellrog asked as he still remembered the shape of this crystal.

"It was, but I already used it and it's still black."

Tellrog was surprised, "You used it?"

"I did. It changed color before, but now it turned black again." Unsui confirmed.

Tellrog was even more surprised by this additional piece of information. He had never heard of such a thing before.

An assessment crystal was indeed not a one-time-off type of thing. More accurately speaking, it could be used several times before it became inaccurate. Due to its astronomical price, a single piece of assessment crystal would be used several times to be economical.

After each use, the crystal would expel the stored mental essence within it and change its color to the newest user's mental essence's hue. It would stay that way until its next use.

Unsui had just used this particular crystal, thus it should be giving off a bluish glow right now following his affinity. But now it was completely black, which signified zero affinity toward any particular kind of element.

"I was just studying it before and accidently let out some mental essence out of frustration…It turned blue for a bit, before rapidly turning black again…"

Tellrog was beyond curious by now and unhesitantly send out his mental essence into the crystal. The black hues within quickly dissipated and in its place hues of orange and gray appeared. They shone with increasing brilliance as Tellrog sent out more and more mental essence.

After some time the light stopped increasing in intensity and settled down. The crystal was now dotted with orange and gray nebulas. Tellrog and Unsui both intently watched the lights within the crystal.

Tens of seconds went by and nothing happened as they patiently waited.

Suddenly, out of the blue, specks of blacks appeared within the crystal. Tellrog was surprised despite knowing what had happened, luckily Unsui was more prepared this time around as he quickly casted an observation spell upon the crystal.

The spell shrouded the crystal in layers of light that magnified the crystal by several fold. It made it several times easier to observe what went on within the crystal, and the two of them were equally shocked by what they saw.

"What in the world…"

More and more specks of black continued to appear within the crystal, and as they became bigger in number, so did the rate of their appearance. Observed from outside, it looked like it was rapidly consuming the existing orange and gray colored nebulas.

In almost an instant, no trace of orange and gray hues were left. The whole crystal had again turned completely black just like how it was. There was no pretty color, or elegant swirls, just a simple and plain black.

"It's like nothing changed…" Tellrog was almost speechless.

"No, there is indeed change, now that I have seen it twice I definitely can see the change." Unsui retorted.

"Look!" Unsui took out another crystal. It was the other one that Satoshi had used.

"See? Isn't the one that we use look several times darker?"

Tellrog carefully compared the two crystals. There was indeed a difference and it was a rather stark one. The one that Unsui and Tellrog had used had a deeper shade of black. It was also several times denser, at least four times denser.

A thought suddenly went off inside Tellrog's mind "No way…did we just encounter a universal treasure?"

"What is this…a converger? The way it flared definitely looked like it was thinking or conceptualizing…" Tellrog gave the crystal an even closer look as he recalled how the black specks of light "swallowed" the other colors.

"But didn't it also seem like it moved almost instinctually? So…an accommodator?" Unsui chimed.

"More than that, wasn't there an eerie sensation going on when it happened…almost like…being savagely swallowed." Unsui couldn't help but gulp as he finished his word.

Tellrog understood what Unsui meant, he also felt that way as he watched his mental essence being consumed, but he was too speechless to comment.

A color of admiration appeared on Unsui's face. Even though he had not really understood what was going on, he really felt fortunate to witness this.

"Anyway…that Sandoshi, to think that we thought he really had no talent whatsoever…

To only turn out to be this amazing…as expected of a young master from Dai, ey?"

___

While Unsui and Tellrog was reeling in confusion, a shocking event was underway in the outside world.

Far-far away from Terra-Esterna Supercontinent, on the other side of the Boundless Sea, an endless dark cloud was roiling above the broken continents of Nevas Cluster. Outside the range of the roiling cloud, the starry night could be seen for miles upon the clear skies.

It was almost like all the surrounding clouds were forcefully gathered here, leaving an empty sky behind in its wake.

Those that witnessed what was going on thought that a storm was coming at first. But as they continued to watch what unfold, they began to tremble in fear. In fact, not just those that witnessed it, everything below the sky now trembled in a state of instinctual fear.

Even the wind itself seemed to wail in desperation.

At the center where the cloud gathered, right above the province of Clovas, a figure of a man could be seen 'standing' in the sky. The wind fiercely battered against his robe, but the man stood still on top of nothingness, absolutely unperturbed.

Down below, countless ferocious lights shone from the eyes of various creatures,fiercely glinting an aura of hostility. They were eagerly waiting to tear apart the man that floated in the sky above them.

"HUMAN KING, GET THE HELL OUT HERE YOU BASTARD!!"

A mighty roar thundered from the sky shocking everyone. It was directed toward the sovereign of this territory and was provocative beyond measure. But the most shocking thing was the fact that the voice didn't come from the mysterious man, instead it came from a woman.

A woman with a small and lithe build came from the distance and quickly arrived where the man stood. She was considerably smaller compared to the man but as she stood there she radiated an even fiercer aura.

An angry response came from the depths of a sprawling castle, it was equally loud and ferocious.

"Immortal Outreach, you dare to act so presumptuous toward His Humanity! And this arrogant bitch, what audacity!!"

The voice that came pushed against the howling wind and echoed for quite some time. It lit up the murderous intent within the creatures on the ground even more.

The man that was referred to as Immortal Outreach kept his silence and did not respond. It was the fierce woman that answered.

"Fuck off you flat-faced lackey! The Cloud-Wind Couple is here to take that shitty king's head! We have no time for your basic ass!!"

There was no further response that came after that, but almost a hundred creatures on the ground had jumped to the sky. There were no longer eyes on their face, or any other facial features for that matter, as they had all become flat-faced.

Those creatures were not flying but instead streaked to the sky by contorting their bodies in impossible ways, utilizing each momentum to climb higher. As they got closer to the Wind-Cloud Couple flashes of spells shined from each of them.

At that moment, Immortal Outreach's eyes turned fierce as the cloud above him raged.

Down came thunder!!

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