The orange tinted sunset was covered in a shade of dark smoke that came out of the many chimneys spread around Arcadia's new district.
"Ah… the soot, the sound of machinery." Alexander took a deep breath and smiled as he strolled alongside a group of royal knights that served as the escort for the newly appointed king. "Those three months working hard to make deals with Londria and Akrapocalis sure paid off. Look! Even children have a place to stay warm during the winter!"
He grabbed one ragged looking man and pointed at the people coming and going from the workshops. Most of them were demi-humans and were equally as badly clothed as the prisoner beside Alexander.
"You disgust me." The prisoner in question was a badly beaten Luke. His left eye was darkened and swollen. A dried streak of blood stained his rags around his stomach. "You would make them your slaves for the sake of 'betterment' of mankind."
"Hahaha! Says the man who tried to stab your own cousin during a public parade!"
"Don't you call yourself of my blood you psycho!"
His rebuttal was met with a pommel to the side of the face by one of the knights.
"Shut your trap! Traitor!"
"Ugh!"
Luke fell on the muddied ground right at Alexander's feet.
"Well… do you understand what your countrymen see in you? A maggot crawling through the carcass of revolution. Demons were made to be our pawns, why else would we wage war against them for a hundred years?"
Luke weakly lifted himself up, looking the king in his eyes.
"You… you're not worth being called a king…! How many lives were lost after you took the throne?! How many are still suffering because of you?!"
"None that matters." There was not a single hint of regret in the king's eyes. "Those demons work to atone for their past sins against humanity. They'll become our stepping stone towards the industrial revolution." He smiled sadistically. "And once their duty has been fulfilled, I'll grant them the blessing of a painless death."
"You're no ruler… but a tyrant!"
"Hahaha!" He forcibly grabbed Luke by the collar of his rags and effortlessly lifted him as they locked eyes. "A tyrant would have not afforded you a second chance. Kneel to me, or die alongside them."
"I'd rather… die by the sword… than to kneel to you!"
The sound of unsheathing steel made the slum inhabitants that gathered around scatter in fear. Aside from one.
A hood cloaked figure suddenly darted in while pulling out a mace from their belt and hitting the knight pulling the sword out in the head. As the bludgeoned knight fell, the assailant let go of their weapon. Upon grabbing the sword from the knight, they slashed Alexander's wrist in one swift cut that severed the king's hand from his body.
"ARGH!"
The king recoiled back as his left wrist began to bleed heavily. Without wasting any time, the hooded figure kicked Alexander into the other knights as they grabbed hold of Luke and broke into a sprint.
"Ugh!" He grabbed on the knights to avoid completely falling onto the mud as he shouted. "What are you all waiting for?! After them!"
As the knights ran after Luke and the assailant—Alexander took a measured deep breath and grabbed his severed hand off the ground.
"This… this won't end well for you…" He approached the limb and streaks of dark red mist started to mend the wound with a grotesque almost ghoulish regeneration as sinew, flesh and bone locked into each other before completely recovering. "Whoever you are, I'll have your head on a pike!"
Hurried footsteps echoed through the mud and dirt. Luke wasn't exactly sure where they were heading or who the person helping him even was but one thing he was sure of, it was someone that knew the slums like the back of their hand.
"You'll be fine Luke." A familiar female voice came from beneath the hood. "I swore you'd see Leona and until she comes back, I can't have you dying on me. Right?"
His eyes widened as he uttered.
"Sophie? Is that you?"
"Haha, was it obvious?" Although she was running, a smirk from beneath the cloak was all he needed to confirm who she was. "Turns out I'm pretty good at blending in with other people."
"They're going to the slums!"
One of the knights shouted from behind them.
"We are already in the slums dumbass."
Sophie scoffed as she suddenly broke into an alley and tossed Luke on the ground and jumped on top of him.
"Oof! Sophie what are you–!"
"Shh!"
The knights turned the same corner and noticed the alleyway being empty.
"Where the…"
Three knights kept walking down the alleyway as the third one hit his foot against the rubble on the right.
"Ouch!"
"Hey! Keep your feet moving, newbie!"
"A-aye sir."
The fumbling knight stepped over the rubble and kept going. After a few minutes passed, the rubble shifted before it lifted itself upright, revealing a stunned Luke beneath it.
"Sophie how did you…"
"Ah… this is tough." A slit of a mouth appeared in the rubble as the sharp ragged rocks started to dissolve and form back into the familiar humanoid shape with jet black hair and amber eyes. "I picked a few skills. Come on, let's get out of–"
A hand appeared from the shadows and latched on her skull before she could stand up.
"Sophie!"
As Luke tried to stand up in order to help her, he was met with an unknown cast of a spell.
"Megido."
A thin streak of light pierced his abdomen. It was so fast that he only realized he was wounded after he felt the scorching heat coming off just above his waist.
"Aaagh!"
"Luke! Ugh! Let go!"
"Hmm… I don't remember creating you." His fingers started to tighten around Sophie's head until she started to groan from pain. "Oh? A slime that feels pain. This is new."
Stepping forward, Alexander showed himself to be the one holding Sophie. After inspecting her closely, he threw her backwards towards a wall.
"Ack!"
"Sophie!"
Luke shouted as he tried to get up but Alexander stomped his foot against his chest. Despite Luke's best efforts to lift himself, the pressure on his chest was too strong. The king leaned forward and asked.
"Where did you get that slime?"
"I… won't tell you… anything!"
"Oh?" He began to grind him underfoot which made the already ragged looking man groan in pain as he held his leg to prevent his ribcage from being crushed by the pressure. "I don't need you to talk, you know. I have other ways to discover what exactly she is."
He started to press down even stronger. Luke was struggling to breathe as he desperately tried to lift the man's foot off his chest.
"Aa… ugh…"
Words couldn't come out, his skin was slowly becoming purple. Seeing Luke in so much pain made Sophie shout from behind.
"I'm a frostburnt silver slime!"
As she did so, Alexander stopped and for a few seconds he remained still. As the pressure on his chest alleviated, he noticed the king's unholy smile.
"Don't you say?"
He took his foot off Luke and turned around to face the slime. Sophie was already charging him down with a half morphed right arm into a silver serrated blade similar to the jaws of a geocyte.
"DIE!"
She shouted as she thrusted her entire body forward. Unlike before, Alexander made an effort to dodge the blade by jumping backwards outside her range.
"Tsk. Troublesome." He pointed his open hand towards her. "Wind Blast!"
Sophie knew instinctively what kind of spell it was thanks to her memories of Leona practicing magic. The slime raised her left arm and the limb morphed into a large round silver shield which she angled at the last second to avoid taking the entire brunt force of the wind spell.
"Huh…" Alexander had a raised eyebrow as he observed her stance. "So you know a thing or two about combat. Very well."
She flicked her left arm into another jagged blade as she kept walking towards him.
"Sophie! Don't!" Luke shouted as he struggled to stand up. "You need to run away! He–!"
"You'll make a fine specimen."
Alexander extended his hand out as if about to cast a spell. Sophie was focused on his open palm while clenching her legs in order to lunge at him the second she got in range for an attack. She raised her arms perpendicular to her upright body as she proclaimed.
"You'll pay for what you have done."
Far away from the chaos in Arcadia, across the ocean in Nara, Leona was having an enlightening learning session with Robert. The cloudy and cold evening didn't stop her from attempting to solidify the newfound knowledge in her mind, in fact, the freezing temperature wasn't affecting her as much as she expected. However…
"Ah… haa… this is… tougher than I thought." The tactician was leaning most of her weight on Avalon as she tried to keep herself upright. "Is this… what Krieg… has been doing… the entire… time?"
She glanced up at Robert who seemed unfazed by her condition.
"Yeah. Mana reinforcement isn't a walk in the park, you know."
"Then… how…" She swallowed hard. Her saliva felt thick in her throat as she struggled to speak without taking deep breaths in between each word. "Is Setsuna… able to… do it… constantly?"
"She isn't."
She raised an eyebrow, clearly confused.
"Huh?"
"She only uses mana reinforcement during moments when she needs the strength or to shrug off blows either from weapons."
"Wait… can mana reinforcement… do that?"
He nodded shortly. He cleaned a patch of snow under his feet and picked up a stone and suddenly, with a surge of mana coming from his palm, he crushed the piece of rock and only dust remained to scatter in the wind as he opened his hand.
"It serves both as an offensive and defensive tool. Though for spellcasters like us, it's better to just use it defensively." He clapped his hands against each other to get rid of the dust. "Mana reinforcement can harden the skin enough to a point where it can deflect even a sharp blade, but it's not without its drawbacks. Use it too much and it'll make your body dependent on it."
"Yeah… well…" She recovered fully after taking a few more deep breaths. She straightened her back and cleared her throat. "Ahem. It did feel incredibly straining to have mana coursing through every single fiber of my body."
"That's why running up and down the mountain for these last three weeks paid off. Using mana reinforcement without some sort of training could even atrophy the muscles you had."
"Hah?! Why even risk doing this then?!"
He shrugged and shook his head.
"You never know. Even if you won't use it in battle, it's good to have options aside from running."
"Tch."
She clicked her tongue. Deep down she knew he was speaking from experience. As someone as long lived as him, there was surely a point in his life that he used every single skill he had acquired. Personally, she didn't really like his teaching practices, but her tactician mindset couldn't just ignore that knowledge. Having more options in the battlefield isn't a luxury affordable by the unprepared.
She adjusted her grip on the staff and asked.
"So, what now?"
"Go practice some more. Although your accuracy is good, your casting speed leaves a lot to be desired."
"Fine. I'll be right back."
As she walked away Robert kept looking at her back as he crossed his arms.
"What do you want?"
He spoke out loud seemingly talking to nobody at first, but soon after the air around him seemed to warp and tear into a rift. It was thin enough to not draw attention but the very space around it felt like it had an extremely strong pull towards it.
"You sound… disappointed."
An eerie noise echoed from the rift into words that could be understood by the sage.
"I thought it'd be my time to go."
The rift trembled as if it was amused.
"Oh, no… your time has not come. Not yet, at least."
Robert's eyes quietly glanced at the rift.
"Tell me Lastraeous, how long do you intend to turn a blind eye to the power I'm using from your realm?"
"That? That is nothing. Use it for whatever you will."
"Even though I'm planning your downfall?"
This time the rift trembled more violently. Space around it warped further into a maddening kaleidoscope of shapes.
"My downfall? Pray tell, how do you intend to destroy the abyss?"
"Lastraeous… the fact you have a will tells me you can be killed."
"I don't have a will, we do."
At that point Robert could feel a chilling grasp inside his ribcage. A ghastly hand clenched around his aetherial heart with each finger seemingly savoring each beat.
"Don't include me in your pathetic party." He snapped his fingers and his body suddenly sparked with aether, leaving his body glowing golden as if to shield himself. "If you won't let go of my soul then I'll make sure we both meet our downfall."
"Robert. I'll make sure to savor your despair until this world meets its demise."
Space started to unfold itself until the rift vanished as if it was never there. He clenched his teeth and took a deep breath.
"I will put an end to you… and myself."