After a long night rest. Art and Lutin both wake up and get ready for breakfast. As Art is getting up he sees a pair of clothes on the counter. He looks at it and remembers that he locked the door behind him. He wears it and heads downstairs, he finds all of the wolfbloods in the dining room. Him and Lutin sit down and start eating with them. After finishing up, Fario tells Art to come on a walk with him. They both leave the house and start walking through the streets, while talking to each other. As they are walking, they reach a large park and sit down on one of the benches. Fario asks Art "soo…..how did you end up here?". Art looks down on the ground, he takes a deep breath and starts explaining everything. He keeps talking and all Fario could do is listen. After a bit he's done explaining. He lays back on the bench while looking up at the cloudy sky. Fario notices his eyes, broken. He gets up and tells Art to follow him. The start walking around the kingdom and eventually stopping by to get some ice cream. They stayed out the entire afternoon and got back around the evening. Art goes into the house with a small smile, he sits down with the wolfbloods and they start chatting with him. They end up eating dinner and staying up all night. The next morning arrives and Art wakes Lutin up, who's sleeping in his bed. They head down to Fario and Art asks about the sky continent. Fario says.
"If you're planning on going up there, you need to go to the demi-goblin's village first, and have them build you a one person ship. After that you need a harpyon to lift you up to the continent. Since there's a strange barrier not allowing any magical creatures"
Art says " a harpyon? Like a bird-folk?". Fario nods in agreement, he then says while writing a letter "if by chance you want to go there, show this letter to a harpyon, so that they'll allow you to go up, and while you're at it" as he pulls out another letter "give this to a demi-goblin girl, she's hard to miss, long blonde hair, piercings all over her face and long ears, smells like oil and metal and has a bit of an attitude. She'll fix you a ship" he gives the letter to Art and tells him to go to the prince. As Art is walking out of the house, he looks back and raises his hand to say goodbye, everyone else raises theirs and say goodbye to him. Fario looks at him and says "Watch yourself out there kid!". Art looks at him and nods, he then heads to the castle with Lutin to see the prince. As they walk into the same room they talked in, the prince is standing up and flipping through papers. He notices Art and says "Great timing, come over here" Art and Lutin get close, only for the prince to suddenly pull out a map and start pointing at it while saying "Here is where you're going to find the dwarf, his name is Durmer. Just tell him you're a wolfblood and things should go smoothly. After you're done, you go here" as he points to a weird shrine in the middle of the woods " and here is where the creature of balance should be. Your task is to simply kill it and bring the head back" Art asks why the head specifically and the prince says "i just want to make sure it's dead". Art grabs the map and heads out with Lutin. They traveled for a few days and have finally reached Durmer's shop. They enter it and are met with a dwarf behind a counter. He is smoking a cigar and is flipping through a newspaper. He takes one good look at Art and says "the hell is up with ya mana? You planning on killing or something?" Art says "i just have a mana overflow. I need something to drain it". Durmer asks why and Art answers with "I'm planning on killing the creature of balance, and while i'm at it, i'll get me some decent armor". Durmer says "ah, you could've said so kid. The guy uses your mana against you". Lutin asks how and Durmer answers him "he takes your mana and manipulates your mind with it, he'll make ya see shit that ain't real while also breaking ya mind" he then says "and i know who you are wolfblood, and it looks like ya got shiftnir, she looks pretty happy. Art and Lutin freeze for a moment, and say "SHE!!?". Durmer says "yeah, she a girl. I'll say been a while since she was this content. Since ya got her, it only means one thing....you're an icon of hatred". Art asks "and how the hell do you know that?". Durmer says" simple, shiftnir can only be used by an icon of hatred, and the same thing is gonna be with the armor that you'll be wearing" he puts the newspaper down and brings out a small chest. He opens the chest and takes out a key, he then gives it to Art, he them says "this key is to the room that holds the armor, it's called the soul armor". Art say "and where is that room?". Durmer says "it's locked in a dungeon not too far from here. All the way in the bottom". Art asks how exactly is the armor only for the icon of hatred. Durmer tells him "the armory was built to bring out one's nature, but not just that, icons of hatred tend to have mana overflows all the time. So my pop's decided to make them an armor that'll absorb their mana, and only for them. If anyone somehow manages to put on the armor, it'll drain their mana to zero, killing them in the process. But for an icon of hatred, mana ain't needed". They take the key and then Durmer marks the dungeon on their map. The two of them head to the dungeon and enter. After carefully navigating through it, killing any monster in the way. They reach a large door, decorated with gold and many rare materials.
Lutin tells Art to open the door. After unlocking it, they enter only to see a armor on display. Its pearly white plates that are decorated with golden stripes. Lutin says "that must be it!". Art takea his armor and starts putting the heavy soul armor on. He looks around, wondering where is the helmet. Suddenly small metal rods in the armor pierce into Art, the slowly shifts to the black color as it drains the mana and evil from Art. Metal appears from the shoulders and start covering Art's head. Shaping itself into a helmet that resembles a dragon's head and shuts its jaws, covering Art's face completely. As Art let's out a scream of pain that sound like a dragon's roar. As the gauntlets of the armor become scaly and its fingers become claw-like. Moments go by and Art is lying on the ground. Lutin fly's down to check on him. Lutin stands near his head and say "Art!! Are you okay?". The helmet retracts back into the armor and Art gets up. He takes takes a moment to catch his breath and says to Lutin.
"Come on! Lets go get the job done"
Lutin says.
"Are you sure? Maybe we should go back to Durmer and tell him"
Art looks at him while frowning and says.
"Don't make me repeat myself"
Lutin nods his head while being scared. As the two of them leave the dungeon, and head to the forest of balance.