You reap what you sow

"You! Devil!" the woman screamed as she caught sight of me and began backpedaling away.

She froze in her tracks when I unleashed my pressure, and the walls of the cell groaned from it.

"St-Stay away!"

"No."

I walked closer to her, my hand held out. Unable to move, she stood there shaking in her boots. As I reached grabbing distance, I clasped her hand in both of mine.

Mana flowed out of my core, heading towards my arms and taking the affinity of earth. As it reached my fingers, a brown glow surrounded them. And as my mana entered her hand, she cried out in pain as the bones in her hand were shattered to millions of pieces.

But that wasn't even the beginning. This time I sent wind mana in her body, as it swirled around in her arm. Her own bone fragments shredded through her flesh, yet none of them punctured the skin.

She let out an ear-splitting scream, trying to pull her arm away from me. I released her arm and she tumbled down to the floor. I squatted down, playing two fingers on either side of her temple as she whimpered from the pain.

I smiled mercilessly, sending thousands of volts of electricity through her brain.

"AAAAHHHH IT BURNSSSS!" she cried out in agony.

My smile never faltered, not even when her eyes rolled up her head.

"Oh no, I can't have you fall unconscious yet." I spoke as I slapped her across her face with a mana enhanced arm, waking her up.

She awoke with a gasp and immediately tried to crawl away from me. I entered my acquire phase, molding nacht over my hand in the shape of a wolf's snout. As I grabbed her hand, the good one, the wolf's fangs bit down into her skin and the first drops of blood were shed.

With a yank I ripped off her arm from her socket, spraying the room in red as she screamed out in such intensity that she ruptured her throat, visible from the blood trailing down her mouth. Grabbing her blond hair with my other hand I stared into her trembling eyes, smirking at the primal fear etched into them.

The nacht wolf on my arm dissolved into a gauntlet of nacht when I closed my fist, pulling my hand backward. My hand blurred — going at lightning-fast speed — and struck right at her solar plexus, shattering her ribcage and sending tendrils of nacht towards her core.

The tendrils wrapped around her core, constricting. Her eyes widened at what I was about to do, and she tried to speak. No sound came out, but I could make out the words as she begged and pleaded me to spare her.

"You should have thought of that before attacking my parents." I spat with a surprising amount of venom in my voice and tightened my fist even further.

And the tendrils crushed her core to hundreds of shards.

'That was a bit too brutal father…' Zeke said as we left the cell.

[Compared to what you did to the Wykes boy, this was mild.]

I ignored them, walking past a pale-faced Virion.

"Brat, remind me to never get on your bad side."

My lips twitched upward in a slight smile at that.

________________________

After that I spent the next few hours in my room meditating, some of the rage had remained and I needed time to calm down. Before coming here I asked Virion to have her patched up enough to keep her from dying and to release her.

'She's going to spread rumors about you, you know?'

'I know, I'm counting on it.'

'What?'

'The more rumors she spreads, the more people would be afraid of crossing me.'

'...And they wouldn't even think of attacking your family again!' Zeke exclaimed as he figured out my intention.

'Exactly.'

I headed out of my room, moving to the general training room.

"Was that you?" Owen asked immediately after I entered the room.

I nodded, "Yeah, I was trying out a new spell."

"Trying out a new spell caused that much damage to the very planet itself?" Kara asked skeptically.

I smiled sheepishly, "Yeah, I used more strength than I was supposed to."

Zach shook his head, "Your power baffles me sometimes."

"... What stage are you at?" Brandon finally spoke.

"White." I answered simply.

He sighed, "You only seem to get farther and farther to catch up to."

"Hey, don't be discouraged. You've managed to get this far at such a young age, that's nothing to scoff at. Don't compare yourself to me. I was lucky enough to acquire the beast will of a deity and be trained by them." I patted his shoulder trying to reassure him.

Sorry bud, but the only one who can surpass me is Arthur, and even that is not a guarantee.

"Anyways, I bet I can take on all of you now without even using my acquire phase." I boasted.

"Are you sure about that?" Claire asked, flaring her core level.

I raised an eyebrow, "High silver? Not bad. Yeah I might need to reconsider my claim."

Speaking of core levels, 'Zeke what happened to the horn?'

'It returned to your shadow storage after you blacked out the first time."

Hmm

I waved my hand, materializing the horn in my hand. It has a surprising amount of mana left.

I threw it towards Brandon, "Use that to break through into mid or high silver, all of you. That horn helped me reach white core stage, it has enough mana left for a few more uses."

Brandon nodded and walked away to meditate.

"While he meditates, why don't we have duels with each other?" I suggested.

______________________

In the end, it was decided that Kathyln would fight Owen, Zach would fight Kara, and I would be sparring against Claire.

The match between Owen and Kathyln ended in a tie, with Kathyln freezing Owens lower torso to the floor and Owen stopping his scythe just before it could behead her. Kara won the second round, using her nature magic to trip Zach towards the end and knocking three arrows on her bow at point-blank range.

"I suppose it's our turn now." I said as Claire and I walked to the center of the field. Brandon had switched with Owen in the meanwhile.

"Yeah. Don't hold back on me." she said, grinning.

"I won't use my will but," I returned her grin, "You can bet I'll give it my all."

Claire got into her stance, her rapier and dagger equipped. I summoned Shroud and a pure mana sword, although not as dense as before.

Man, I miss Solaris.

"Begin!" Brandon called out.

My instincts screamed at me to duck, and I did, dodging the wind/lightning bullet by a hair's breadth. That was close. I can't slack off against her. With Shroud I stabbed the ground, sending waves of wind and earth mana through it.

The earth cracked up and massive boulders flew towards her. But with a combination of wind and lightning mana, she dashed away from it, and towards me. I raised Shroud up just in time to block her rapier from skewering me and used the construct to keep her dagger occupied. I smirked as the construct changed nature to lightning and shocked her arm.

Trying to salvage the situation, she lit her rapier with blue fire and used wind magic to enhance it even further. Sensing the danger it posed, I jumped back just as the flames exploded where I was standing a moment ago. I dispelled my sword, remembering part of my training with Noctis.

With my right hand now free, I conjured up dozens of constructs, ranging from ice daggers to lightning spears and even flaming swords. Focusing on Claire, I willed the constructs to shoot forward. Claire was a capable mage, strong enough to potentially be a Lance one day and achieve her dream.

It was proved even further when she dodged most of the flying constructs I sent, but she could not dodge all of them and resorted to her dagger to parry them away. Still, a few of them pierced through her defenses and grazed her skin.

As the barrage of constructs stop, she focuses on me, her sword and dagger cloaked in fire and lightning respectively. I wasn't worried about that, probably because most of my concentration was spent on making the constructs rebound back towards her.

She didn't notice this, and charged at me, blue flames and yellow lightning covering her weapons. Using Thunderbolt Impulse, I blitzed towards her, the ground where I was standing left cracked, and held the blade of Shroud against her neck as the constructs floated an inch behind her.

"Yield?" I asked.

She sighed, "I yield."

With a satisfied smirk, I dropped the constructs and moved away.

"Alright, who's next?" I asked, glancing around at the others in the room.

________________________

That's how our days passed, a similar routine of waking up, training, and spending time with Ellie and Kathyln. For the first month, nothing bad happened. It was like the calm before a terrible storm…

But peace didn't last forever, and larger-scale battles started breaking out. My team was rarely seen together as I sent out most of them to different areas in Dicathen to try and help in the fights.

Every once in a while I would go down to visit Arthur in his training. During my visits, I learned of the four elders who were mentoring him.

First off was Buhndemog Lounid, perhaps the tallest dwarf I have ever seen, and the most ripped. Seriously, the guy looked like he ate steroids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Next was Hester Flamesworth, an elderly woman of the Flamesworth family, apparently, she was supposed to be Kathyln's bodyguard, but the queen declined.

Then there was the blind elf, Camus Selaridon. He didn't say much about himself, claiming I, or Arthur, didn't need to know anything past his name.

And lastly, there was Leofric Frostwalker, a white-haired man in his twenties and latest in a long line of ice mages from his family.

Arthur was advancing fairly fast in his mana manipulation, and that made me think that perhaps I need to use my earth and wind magic more…

Shaking my head clear of these thoughts I advanced up the stairs, planning to go through my usual routine when a suffocating presence made me fall to my knees.

What the hell?

I glanced around, but no one else seemed to have sensed this.

Is it because of my partial ascendance? But who would have such a presence?

[A scythe.]

Shit!

I can't possibly take on a scythe by myself.

'Is anyone from my team available?'

'Owen and Brandon are available. You can take Arthur with you too.' Zeke suggested.

'No,' I shook my head, 'The three of us will do.'

'You need all the help you can get.'

'I know! But knowing Arthur, he would likely use spells that can cripple him, or hell he could enter a pseudo berserk form like I did all those years ago!' I snapped.

'... Fine, but don't expect to come back from this unscathed.'

'I know I won't.'

________________________

Owen and Brandon wanted to wait for the rest of the team before leaving, but I coaxed them into coming with me. We don't know how long they will take. And if worse comes to pass, we could retreat. Or well, they could retreat while I hold the scythe off.

Little did I know what was coming.

What happens after this… will make me familiar with the sick feeling of despair yet once again…