9. FIRST EVER AWAKENINGS: MYTHICAL AWAKENING

Horneva stood against the gate King, a mighty crimson eagle with red mane and a large beak showing its size, to top it off, it had flames brewing from within its maw and it cooed loudly, sending ripples of heating omnidirectionally around it. The heatwave annoyed Horneva as it left her skin hot.

“Tsk!” She clicked her tongue and reached into her pocket, thus far she had been using only her hands and now that this monstrosity had annoyed her, she was itching to put an end to it. Horneva threw the cards up, and they started to levitate around her.

Ire burned in her eyes as she grabbed the Queen of spades and threw it with direct precision at the eagle. The eagle witnessed this and shifted most of its weight composition to the left wing, twirling its massive body around with incredible speeds creating small air pressurized circles as it evaded the card.

Once evading, the Eagle opened its mouth and from within shot out a ball of searing hot flames atop of Horneva. The girl though wasn't worried as she grabbed the Ace of spades and threw it above her. “Imperial shield” she commanded, giving commands to the card.

A shield in the form of a spade grew out of the card, and enlarged to cover Horneva and the surrounding around five meters away from her. The ball of fire hit the spade shield and it was instantly dismantled to bits and pieces of flames while the shield stood triumphant with a bit of scorched marks here and there.

Acuity eyes narrowed and with a mighty war cry of the avians, the king of all avians, dove right down aiming to crash onto Horneva. Its beak igniting as the conflagration busted all over its body, making the red mane be like a volcanic magma. Behind the Eagle, the air folded itself in and created air pressured cones, five in number showing the speed the Eagle was flying at.

Like a bullet it crashed down, but Horneva had already moved from her initial standing position and relocated east of where she stood allowing the bird to have a free fall. She grabbed the two Jack cards and threw them at the Eagle, while slapping her palms together.

“Raijin, Fujin.”

The two Jack's stepped out of the cards and bound the eagle down while the other put its weapon through the gate king's head, successfully clearing the phase. Recalling her cards and summon's, Horneva passed through the gate and entered the battle arena.

The spectators cheered, dwarfing the announcers voice as he announced that Horneva cleared the stage rather quickly. None however, were intrigued than Evangelist and Min-yin.

“Isn't that interesting.”

Arthur looked up at Evangelist after she said that, he had a confused look not getting what she was talking about.

His look of confusion was quickly taken notice of by Min-yin, who took the opportunity to snake herself on Arthur's lap, she caressed his face with her hand.

“What Eva there means is that, Horneva is a special type.”

“Special type?”

“Yes, Awakened ones are classified in different categories, such as elemental etc. But there are few who are pneuma, a rare kind of people who are able to summon spirits to fight for them.” Min-yin elaborated for Arthur to understand.

Arthur, indeed understood what Min-yin was hinting and nodded then turned back to the screen.

❝ Ladies an Gentlemen watching, it seems our two combatants are about to head off. Ikki vs Horneva. Our second match ❞ the announcer declared, avidity laced in his vocals as he was sure to bare witness another match thrilling as the last.

Ikki stared at Horneva from afar, a scowl prominent on his face. He wanted to fight that loser Arthur and show him who's boss but ended up getting stuck with this girl. It irritated him to no extent but he consoled himself by assuring that Arthur failed.

With that thought, Ikki turned to Horneva, looking at her in the eyes. He grinned as he was going to use the classic tactic, psychologically abuse your opponent.

“Why don't you give up? Women aren't suited to be hunters.”

“Your job is to...”

He couldn't finish as a five diamond card flew right besides his ear, nicking his cheek a bit making blood drip. Ikki stared at Horneva with hate burning in his eyes, but that was all it took for something to go wrong within him.

Markings traveled across his body as his fists ignited in a pure purple color emitting intense heat, so much heat it was felt by the spectators. His eye turned gold and the pupil turned to a slit, this bastardized woman had injured him.

Without warning, a sea of turret of flames were hurled forward occupying the whole of the arena before Ikki's outstretched right hand. ❝ Dodge that bitch ❞ he said in a double tone.

Horneva witnessed the incoming flames, she threw her cards up letting them levitate around her and she picked several cards out of the 52 stacks. With the cards in her hands, Horneva hurled two of them up, two of them in front of her and one in the middle. The cards moved sporadically in those directions, and were instantly joined by an invisible force which conjured up a barrier that reflected light.

The flames hit the barrier and the building shook at the intensity of the collision, kicking up a large dust cloud. When it cleared, both parties were heavily breathing but not yet at their limit.

“What do you see in Arthur?” Ikki asked, his face expressionless.

This question caught Horneva off-guard, she never expected her adversary would ask such question, her eyes narrowed greatly, as she felt a sinking feeling that she wasn't going to like what comes next after.

Ikki took her silence as an indication to go on, even if he was never answered in the process. “Arthur is nothing but a failure, he dreams of making it but we all know that failures to get too far in life... Try as you may, if you are destined to be a failure you will always be a failure, no matter how much you try.”

Ikki's words hit home, Horneva stood there as flashbacks of her past rushed into her mind, the pain she had endured all because of that word “ Failure”. She started to see red, and in her moment of anger triggered something extraordinary.

A large blood red scythe emerged from the ground tearing apart the concrete foothold, followed by the scythe were a pair of hands clutching on the weapon and slowly the giant hands and weapon were followed by arms and body.

HAHAHAHA!

The entity now revealed laughed in a clownish Jester laugh. It was a Jester spotting blood red clothing and eyes, its face pale, while it had a tattoo of an ouroboros on its face. The towering Jester, resonated with Horneva's negative emotions and summoned itself through the Jester card, revealing its mischievous yet devious side to the world watching.

.

“Well that's interesting.” Lieh commented after witnessing the manifestation of the Jester. He knew that this year's batch was different but this was way beyond what he was expecting.

“What's interesting?”

Lieh raised his eyebrow as one of the guild representatives asked, clearly confused by the comment.

Sighing, Lieh got to explaining. “Those Awakenings are known as mythical awakening, they are one of the rarest Awakenings ever to appear, that Jester from what I know is a harbinger of death, as everywhere it goes souls follow behind.”