"… Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen… twenty."Konan's hand dropped and the water force he created dropped as well. It was the third time he counted to twenty whilst holding a water force around his prey's head with his face completely submerged in the water__ water he had drawn from the sewage close to them, which he hadn't been bothered to clean out first."Weak bodies can't handle great powers. You still have a weak body."Konan had a low, rough voice that matched his rough exterior. He was a level two mage, a Summoner. One that was feared by other level two and one mages and even some level three. Summoners could draw water from any source, even the tiniest drop of water. He had been the first in their ranks to attain a level two badge and, irrespective of his inability to advance for years, he was still feared because of his intimidating exterior.Games like the one he played now with his prey were fun for him. It gave him the opportunity to exert fear into the minds of mages he cons
Namyrs was a world of many mysteries and possibilities. Many believed it was one giant bubble of water housing everyone and everything, whilst some believed it was a world made of water but Namyrs was really a world held together by a strong energy torrent, energy derived from water.Namyrs was a world for humans and mages. No one knew which existed first or the true origin of both, but they existed and cohabited together, thanks to The Council. The Council was a unit that consisted of the strongest mages and humans, who ensured that both parties did their duties to maintain balance.Humans lived simple lives whilst mages were specially trained, they had to be. Although they were all born with natural energies, they needed to constantly train to develop their abilities. The Halls of Ivy was Namyrs' academy for mages. The academy housed and trained mages till they were ready to be active parts of the system.To get in, everyone born of mage parents or at least one mage parent was teste
His face was his second biggest insecurity. With three dot-sized moles on his right cheek, two underneath his left ear, and one over his left eye, he looked like the gods or whatever powers was in charge of creation has used him for creative experiments, botched the job but still went ahead to present him as a masterpiece with "hidden interpretations meant only for the most genius minds."Half dressed, he ran his hands over his body. He stood at 5 ft 10 with a lanky build and without a shirt on, Sora could see every muscle and loose-joint in his torso. He was the opposite of everything he imagined he would be, but he was done wallowing in self-pity. People already did enough of it to last him a lifetime.He immediately threw on a shirt and ran his hands through his hair.Sora got out of his dorm with his cloak on and his up. His plan was to visit the infirmary to get his cut checked out, grab something to eat, then visit the library. The walk from the dorm to the infirmary was a short
"There was no one with him when they found him lying unconscious in the field.""Who found him?""Newbies. They were on their way to training. They brought him in."Two healers stood over Sora's unconscious body on the infirmary bed. They both had blue badges attached to their uniforms displaying their ranks."And he had all these cuts when they brought him in?" She asked with her eyes roaming over his body"Yes. They were more than this, but some have closed up. Thankfully they weren't deep cuts. He has been unconscious since the incident but he will be fine.""How about his healing?""I healed him when they brought him in. Thankfully his mage blood works okay for his healing and I have done every other thing necessary, he should be much better by tomorrow."Sora could feel himself waking up. The voices around him went on and on in his ears, he wanted it to stop. He felt the softness of the frame he was laying on, it was not the hard ground he remembered hitting before darkness took
"Let's go" Head nurse moved toward the foot nurse and guided her towards the door. She took one more look at him before walking out of the room but he avoided her eyes.When he was finally alone. Sora took in the room. There wasn't much to it but it was functional. There were also bowls of water at every corner in the room. They were healing bowls, each water bowl would have been infused with mage energy and several other things only Healers knew about to aid his healing process just from breathing them in. That also let him know he would not be able to leave soon.Healers had the ability to heal themselves and others at an incredibly fast rate. The Ivy mages attended to everyone, both humans and mages. Although there was a level to which humans could be healed. Usually, they placed their hands with concentrated healing energy on the other person's injuries, quickly healing the victim's wounds but for patients they wanted to keep for extended periods, they would infuse their healing e
"Get out of bed dummy."Sora felt a slight push on his body, his eyes opened slightly but he shut them back. He had to still be dreaming.Next, he felt the sheets pulled out from underneath him and thrown over his head."Wake up!"Sora was immediately jolted out sleep. He pulled the sheets off his head only to see someone standing over him blocking his view.Sora had a puzzled look on his face as he began looking to his door then back at the person in front of him then at his door again."What?" Ryo asked"I locked that door." Sora said to himself with an uncertain tone, but he repeated it to the person in front of him in a more assertive tone. "I locked my door Ryo.""Yeah, and I pick locks." Ryo shrugged as a matter of factly.Sora shook his head and ran his hand over his face."You're going to give me a heartache one of these days.""We have great healers at the infirmary. You'll be good in no time." He replied, stepping backwards to give Sora space to get out of bed.Sora got out
"I can't do that." Sora's feet failed him and he fell into his seat and buried his face in his hands."I would love to do it for you but I won't always be here to help out. Remind me, why can't you do it yourself?""I would get expelled.""Attacking another mage is against the rules. Defending yourself during an attack initiated by someone else isn't.""I can't Ryo, I can't afford to get kicked out of the Academy." Sora raised his head "I have nowhere to go."When people had worried about Sora's condition being contagious, his father had abandoned him the moment he was told Sora couldn't harness his powers. The son of a level three Hunter, with a useless energy. The smear wasn't something he had wanted to be associated with.Besides being fascinated by the Masters, his father was one of the reasons he didn't want to be a Hunter but it didn't matter anyway, he would never get to be anything.Ryo's tone became soft from seeing the fear in Sora's eyes. "He can't keep doing this to you."
Sora and Ryo sat at the table and ate in silence. Ryo must have been really hungry. Sora watched him gobble down good like he was being rushed but in between his eating and breathing, Sora could see him scrunching his palm once in a while. It had to hurt. He had punched Konan without his mage energy and busted his lip.Konan and his friends had left shortly afterward because their once-occupied seats were now empty.It wasn't the first time Ryo defended him. Although it had never gotten as intense as it did today, Sora knew Ryo would always defend him.Ryo was more handsome than he was—if he was at all. He had the fit Sora had only ever dreamed about and he had developed a few muscles since training with the Hunters. He stood an inch shorter than Sora, but his body made him seem taller.Ryo always had a buzzed cut that gave a full view of his oval face that ended with a stubble beard.Ryo has a face you could describe as happy and approachable, and whenever he smiled or laughed, his e
The stren baritone voice Sora had heard the last time he was in Warrick’s house was a complete contrast to the person before him. He had expected an equally stern man with an intimidating build and sharp exterior but Warrick was a plum and short man with a hairline that began to recede ages ago and a huge mustache he obviously was in denial about...All qualities he knew he had seen somewhere before.“Who are you?” Warrick demanded as he moved even closer to them.“Messengers—Visitors ” Sora and Aridah replied respectively.They exchanged questioning looks and looked back at Warrick with awkward smiles“Visitors—Messengers” Once again their eyes met.Warrick raised his gun an inch higher and closer to their faces. “I will not ask again, who are you?”This time Sora looked to Aridah as if to give her the floor. “Please tell him who we are.”Aridah cleared her throat and stepped forward from behind Sora, but not close enough to be in Warrick’s line of sight. “We are messengers who are vi
“Are you sure about this?” Aridah asked Farah whilst rubbing the little boy’s head gently. “There might be nothing there.”“I’m sure. There’s nothing else for us to do here, at least there’s something to look forward to now.”“You can come with us, you know. We’re not sure where we’re going yet but at least we’d be together.”“Ari, I’m sure. We will go to the Capital to find my brother.” “And there’s no way to change your mind?”Farah moved closer to Aridah placing a reassuring arm on hers. “I know you’re worried about our safety but we’ll be fine. We will travel by day and hide by night, we’ll be fine.”Aridah sighed, accepting defeat. “Alright, but you don’t have to leave yet, you can stay here till you’re ready. ”“We’ll leave in two days. I want Niko well rested before we begin the journey.” “How are you even going to get there? You can’t possibly walk all the way.”“We’ll need a carriage, or at least something that moves but I have no idea how to get one.”Aridah “There should be
The Academy was in chaos. They had barely survived the first attack and irrespective of how hard they had prepared for another attack, nothing prepared them enough for the army of soul eaters that befell them. It was another surprise attack, but this time they had taken the capital first.The Hunters rushed into the capital leaving the Academy vulnerable and the soul eaters, led by Two, seized the opportunity to attack the Academy. The number of soul eaters were outrageous compared to how little Hunters were left guarding the Academy, but they fought nevertheless and they fought hard.Z and Kain fought together, bringing down soul eaters, but her eyes always found Tydinn in the crowd and that was when she saw him outnumbered by soul eaters, his blades still went up and down slicing through the mammoth crowd but she was only a matter of time before they would close in on him and take him down.Z's eyes went wide with rage at the sight of Tydinn struggling and without thinking, she jump
Kresha’s hunters division was large, several separate buildings made up the division and most of them were already engulfed in flames. Everything was happening too fast, and within a minute or less, fire had spread across the entire landing. The hunters that had run back into the division stood at several locations trying to put out the fire with water they drew from the earth, the air, the plants and the fountain in the middle of the division but none of their efforts seemed to work.The building in front of Sora had just started to smolder in the fire and the first thing that crossed his mind was whether or not there were people inside. He thought of going inside the building and looking for some people, but the extreme heat that was coming out of the house thwarted him instantly.Sora channeled all the energy he could and raised a shield to protect himself before dashing into the building. His shield did well to prevent the flames from burning him but it did not stop the smell of f
Sweat dripped down Sora’s body as he made his way from the woods into Kresha. Running to Kresha late at night and in the middle of training hadn’t been in his plans for the night but he felt a sudden urge to find Warrick again and possibly the Hunters division too. The urge had been too strong to ignore so he dropped everything and ran without second guessing himself.As he ran, he felt the cold hit his face but in spite of the cold, his insides kept burning. It burned so much and his head ached as well, he felt the floor rise up to his face and back down as nausea hit him but most of all, his craving for souls drove him insane, however he didn’t stop running. Although he craved for souls, he felt stronger than before, his training was working but it also made his frenzy come quicker and for some reason, this felt stronger than any frenzy he had ever had. He knew it was only a matter of time before he lost complete control and gave in to his frenzy, finally becoming the beast he alway
Aridah walked quietly in front of Sora as they weaved through the streets and Sora waited patiently for a response but nothing came.He finally broke the silence. “You can’t avoid this forever.”Aridah faced him with her tongue stuck out. “I can try, can’t I?”“Aridah, why are you stalling?”“There’s a lot of people around, can we at least get home first?”Sora knew it was another excuse to get out of talking and she probably would find another reason when they got to the house but he wasn’t going to push. He would have to wait and see how things played out when they got to the ho
“Err…where are you going?” Aridah called out to Sora.He stopped in his tracks and faced her. “Home.”The word was out his mouth before he realized he had just described her house as his home but he didn’t take it back either.“We’re not going home yet.”“Why not?” Quite frankly, he had had enough of Kresha for one day and was ready to get out.“Because I’m going to work.”“Work?”“Yes, work. What people do to earn a living.”
Kresha was a mess! A total mess, and Sora’s eyes went wide with shock as he took in Kresha. The streets were filled with people moving in different directions, never stopping for the human obstacles that bumped into them occasionally, but swirling around them. Sora had never been claustrophobic before, but from where they stood, the view of the almighty swell of people made panic rise in his chest but he did his best to remain calm.He could smell them too, the people and the thick fowl air, a jumble of fresh herbs and spices from the stand next to them, body odor from passersby and fermented alcohol. That was when the heat hit him and he suddenly didn’t seem to mind replacing his shirt with a more revealing one not minding the ramifications.It was as though his senses had been amplified to the highest frequency and everything sucked.
It had been three days since he regained consciousness, since he woke up on Aridah’s floor and two days of trying relentlessly to get words out of her about Varnek, but every single time he asked, she avoided his questions by changing the topic. Her constant efforts to dismiss him only confirmed that she knew more than she was letting on which made him persist even though he was growing impatient.He grew frustrated when he tried training the next morning and realized how weak he had become. He was completely drained and could hardly lift a pin, but it got even worse when he realized he couldn’t jump either. Jumping was the only way he knew to move long distance which would make returning back to the Academy a little more difficult for him.When he asked Aridah how she moved to places, she told him she walked everyw