DALNO: The Beginning

CHAPTER 0: Case File #777

February 27, 3130

In the raging breeze, at a deserted castle within the vastness of fine dust. A silver-haired man and a black-haired woman stood in front of the castle of ruins.

The white-haired man gulps nervously as it slowly knocks on the gigantic gate.

THUG

THUG

THUG

Despite the soft knock, the travel of sound through the gate is enough to make goosebumps arise. However, else is nothing but the soaring sound of the wind, making the enormous door rickety in an uneasy way. The man attempts another knock.

Before its hand made contact with the door, the door blew to smithereens. Revealing eight figures with the eighth being the man’s alchemist. It has come that the figures have known by them as the infamous savage terrorist group “Felentinna”.

With a knocked guard, the man has come unknowingly about a certain event. Being split up, the man’s gaze is in search of the woman while avoiding consecutive attacks by the five figures of the Felentinna.

Tumbling upward, downward, side between the debris from the figure’s chaotic attacks upward to the side of the castle then leaped to the nearest window and ran keeping his distance.

The man lost sight of the figures. With little time, he scanned the environment and revealed that he was at the center of the castle.

From the man’s right palm, multiple hexagon substances appear and materialize into a thick shield as big as the man. With a gasp, the man releases an alarmed look as the room starts to rumble.

In an instant, the room crumbles revealing four figures in all directions, the swift one hops on the debris’, grabs a sword, and attempts to slash the man yet blocked by the impenetrable shield. Having his aim locked, the man materialized a spear from his left hand and swiftly pierce the figure’s neck.

The other three are coming in his direction with destructive energy at their hands. At the moment of the clash, the man flashes itself to a stable ground on a lower floor and flashes again to the right as the figures somehow keep up with his near-godly speed.

The man and the figures continue to exchange fists and kicks as they speed. Suddenly, the figures jump off the ruin’s supposed hallway. The man wonders, then finches his eyes as he notices a black sphere in the distance.

“Void Fist, Godfryx: Voidest Among Voidest”

From the guy that the man had inflicted damage earlier, released a black sphere from the point of his pointer finger. While going unconscious, the sphere speeds in the direction of the man, destroying everything it passed by.

Surprised by the sphere catching up in a second, the man stopped the flash and stomped its feet hard enough to dig his feet through the concrete. He then aimed head-on at the black sphere with full support to the shield.

A blast of impact happened with a whirling and horrible screeching of a sound. The man struggles on holding up, seconds later, the sphere shrinks to nothingness in an instant breaking the man’s shield at the same time. Out of notice, an intense wave aftereffect occurred with enough force to break every concrete and flew away from the man.

While speeding in midair, the man tried to gain balance. But before so, a hard hit has been encountered by his right cheek, he looked towards that direction, saw the alchemist, and got blown away from the castle by the impact.

Now spinning with a disrupted sense of balance, the man looked the alchemist to the face in rage as it desperately materialized the mystical form that only occurred within the legends of Homuran books, a form made out of pure white, capable of an incomprehensible amount of utility mainly out of twelve major energy of Arcanae flows: Bladework, Lightspeed, Hellflame, Waterbend, Gravity Control, Shadowshade, Lightshine, Fortune Gamble, Mimicry, Generate, Holywind, and Corruption. The Amicis Vinculum.

The white hexagons covered the man in the form of a cloak and expanded rapidly with long spikes hovering in every direction. After a meantime of destruction, behind the dusty fog reveals the first man to accomplish the mystic form.

Despite the legends, the alchemist grins, shortly after, he scowled vigorously in tears then grabs a gun, aims it at the man, pulls the trigger, and a small syringe with a mysterious chemical comes out rushing stuck to the man’s neck before the man can even move.

The man thought it was a chemical to store the form, and everyone else thought too, yet it made the man limp while the white cloak dispersed into twelve separate piles of hexagons floating with the man as he fell.

The alchemist rushed down to reach the man, the man noticed it and tried to disrupt its speed. But as he looks down, below him is a 25-meter blood-drawn Caste ritual circle.

A moment to commence an offense is too late for the man as the two of the three missing figures are already in position at the opposite sides of the circle with an open right palm aiming at the circle.

From thy body, endeavors, and heavens,

Thy shall be prohibited,

Till the Devil of Devils cry,

And the God of Gods sly,

I command thee.

“Sever in a downfall, Caste”

The ritual circle glows and releases several strings of pitch darkness, along the palm of the chanters. In a disbelief expression, the man can’t move. Securing a success, the figures and the alchemist grins as the man slowly goes into contact with the circle.

The man’s head made contact, and the darkness from the ritual circle enveloped him. Everyone starts laughing in victory at the death of the man they specified to kill.

Later, the joy got overlapped by fear as it’s been 1 minute since the envelope started, yet the incantation the figures chose traditionally takes effect in 30 seconds.

The darkness suddenly dispersed with the ritual circle with intense sudden air pressure in a short time breaking the rest of the castle to crumble.

After the destruction, everyone returns their gaze to the man’s location, but the corpse is nowhere to be found. Suddenly, a shadow shifted behind the alchemist and right hooked its face. The alchemist flew away from the blow, and the sound of the alchemist’s grunt informed the remaining figures of the man’s direction.

Now the man, in a bloody state, still standing steady with the twelve Arcanae flows floating behind. But the man’s lack of pupils meant that the incantation worked. The incantation done is the strongest for taking one’s life as it separates the spirit from the body, yet the man still survived.

The remaining figures rushed to the man and commenced hand-to-hand combat. Even though in such conditions, the man is in control of the fight.

Later on, the man got one down by a heavy blow to the brain, and another one followed by a blow to the groin in the middle of a 360 crescent. As he’s about to break the third figure’s shoulder, the man heard a familiar cry.

As the man turns his head in the direction of the sound, as familiar it is to him, it’s the woman he went with earlier, getting choked by the last missing figure on big debris. The man slowly got his pupils back and ran in a struggle to save the woman. In such desperation, the woman appeared to be the man’s wife.

Suddenly, the alchemist appears behind the man and strangles him.

“Do it”

The man yells in disagreement vigorously and desperately as the figure grabs the woman’s head.

“Brainwash, Control: Complete Reformance”

Hexagons appear and all aggressively enter the woman’s head. In pain, the woman releases a horrifying shriek. After the technique, she collapsed.

In still shock, the man loses his mental strength as tears stream on his face. Then the effect of the Caste earlier occurred, black light tackled the man in all directions, and fell unconscious.

The Arcanae flows is still connected to the back of the man, yet it is vulnerable to cutting. The alchemist grins and attempts to cut all flows at once. The moment he grabbed it, the man got conscious and rapidly drew the flows in his palm and incants.

Whoever shall get thee,

Somewhere in this vast space,

Afar from that man,

I trust a fated risk within,

“Disperse in a light streak, Caste”

The flows turned into Hexagons and rushed to the air, yet before they dispersed, the alchemist managed to snatch one of the flows and smash it to the ground as the dispersion caused an explosion.

The alchemist stood up and contained the raw Arcanae he got. Even though he failed to get it all, he still smirked. The man he killed, made their nation unleaded.

February 28, 3130

The alchemist summons every villager for an announcement, the moment everyone is present, he smiles as he gets on the stage. He picked up the microphone and announced the founder of the nation’s death.

A man asked for the convict’s identity. The alchemist pauses for a moment, then secretly smiles while crossing his fingers inside his pocket.

He revealed that the cause of the founder’s death is an all-out ambush from an envied clan with the family name of Ashite.

While the said clan tried hard to reason with the thousands of Homuran people, the alchemist dismissed itself, with a mischievous grin.

The argument between Homura and the Ashite clan continues as the alchemist walks through the country’s border. On the edge, he stopped and glimpsed the chaos on the same expression.

There, he saw distressed children Ashites being covered by their mothers with their arms from the mouthy accusations of the people. His grin became bigger yet became hysterical and raised a step to the outside of Homura’s territorial border.

The alchemist’s left foot slowly drops to the ground, he then releases a subtle laugh, and sighs.

“I will… come back”