[ 16.08.2026 - Updated ]
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"Paul isn't home yet?"
~
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"That makes it forth."
Step. Step. Step.
Grass moves away as two people - one archer, one swordman enters the vicinity of the corpse that is little Hee. Still bleeding from his neck. His eyes void of any light.
"That makes half before we meet the Quota."
"Who would have thought that church will be our customer. Heh." Mockery in the voice.
"Relevant not. Customer is a customer, not matter the status." Waving his head uninterestingly. "Does it still breath?"
"Why do you bother. I shoot it's neck. There is no creature who would stand from it."
"... You can never trust a red hare, no matter it's age, whether something kills them."
"Then feel free to check and finish it yourself." Pulls out knife, rotates it in air, catches, holding it by blade, gives it to the knight.
Looking at the given blade, he sneers. "I have my own. Your knife wouldn't be able to even skin it off."
"I would beg to differ; but alright. 'Specialist.' Show me how it is done." Rolling his eyes. "with those knifes of yours." "I am yet to know where you got those seals. You know very well that those Hucksters we have would never be able make this equipment of yours."
"I bought it."
"With what?"
Looking at the archer with amused stare.
"Don't tell me..."
"That's right. Thank you for sponsoring it."
"You SON of a BITCH. I told you to hold onto that MONEY. I would have WON it back after the next pay off."
"Yeah Yeah, gambler. And when have you ever won. You luck is worse than shit."
Sneers. "I tell you Arler. Luck may be bitch, but even Bitch will lick my shoes eventually."
"Whatever makes you sleep at night."
"You. Ughf." Boiling with restraint.
"Heh." As he kneels down on the ground, Arler grabs from his belt knife and holds it just above the chest of the red hare, plunging the blade into the chest. No movement. "Well, I give you that, you indeed killed it off with that arrow."
Huff. "Only now believing, huh? You are way too pragmatic."
"Hence why I never lost to you in cards~."
"YOU!" Finally not being able to restrain, he punches the knight, only succeding in hurting his own arm.
"Don't bother." Chuckles. Stands up. "Here, hold my knife. Skin off the animal and return back to camp with the loot."
"Ughf." Massaging his fist. "And where are you going."
"To help the boys of course. Unlike you they fight adults, you know?"
"..." Rolling his eyes "And you judge me? I am not a sadist like you, who doesn't care about age."
"And what do you imply?" Glaring at the archer.
"Well I don't know~. Do you think I don't know what you done to that 8 year old in that tent~?" Reminding Arler on what happened month ago in the camp after one particular successful raid. "I could always tell your wife what you done to that Red Hare." Sigh. "Ah. And such a fine product she was too. She would sell quite well in market too. Pity she had to be 'salvaged' because of your actions." Looking at Arler. "We lost few dennars because of it too~. Not like trading her body parts cost little. But certainly those big shots could price not broken item at a higher value." Glaring.
...
~
Not being able to hear anything more from them as the only thing Paul hears is ringing noice of more and more increasing frequency hum. His soul is boiling. Not metaphorically. Literally.
The second Hee gave out his last breath, his body exploded with Ether, dying. White Holy pillar of light connecting earth and heaven as from the body explodes the soul out into the sky. He was dead. And they immediately after coming here plunged into his unbeating heart a stiletto.
...
The ringing noice only stops when he's forcibly returned to reality - seeing as the lone now archer pulls out of one sockets the red horn hare's eyeball.
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"They deserve death." His blue visage dissapears leaving. "Every last of them."
~
Appearing in the middle of the battlefield he sees a different picture. Corpses of men lying around.
Just now he had seen as the mother kicks off one of the archers into another one with enough force to destroy someone's back permanently.
Then the disaster happened.
Rubi'i bitten one of the raiders, making her father stutter. This stutter decapitating him.
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Not hearing the mother's scream, he instead watches Rubi'i and how her face morphs in first alarm, her eyes slowly locking at the falling head of Igni'i; then panic, her heart beat increasing. Fright, as her teeth loosen around the leg. Dread, realizing her father is dead. At last, hysteria, realizing that she is the reason for it. She cries off - "DAD!" in pure agony.
In every little detail Paul sees as if in slow motion as her eyes start to bleed black, then morph; and as the eyes morph, the whole atmosphere around her changes. Even his soul is able to feel the pure emotions within the air as well as the chill, and coldness of Ether his Etheric soul involuntarily resonates with.
His eyes never averting from her as one of the soul icons that just made it's shape, opened, in a sparking manner. Automatically she gathers all of the heat from the surrounding through her horns, rushing to her brain, moving through the pathways downwards, directing all over the body, untill every spore is filled with heat. Inferno bursts out of her. Her body turns into a reactor that just exploded with the temperature of 3200 degrees of Celcius, making the 5 people that stood nearest her immediately evaporate in shockwave.
Within miliseconds their bodies went through the process of instant carbonization. At first causing instant third degree charring of all organic matter before all that's left are bones that start to boil off their material, carbonize, then totally disintegrate.
The shockwave met vaporization threshold, turning their body mass to gas.
...
Rubi'i drops onto ground, passing through Paul's body as instinctively he tried to catch her, forgetting that he is a soul.
~
Paul stands in place, his arms still outstretches in a position to catch her as it finally comes to him that she passed through his spiritual form.
Returning back to reality, his heart aches as he see children's mother dying herself. His eyes caught how her body regenerated, so it made him relief, praying that she will win. However.
This is not anime.
...
Unlike Rubi'i, Amea absorbs all of the Ether within her body into a small point that is her heart. Then immediately after she creates a detonation area of effect that reaches radius of 100 meters, creating heat shockwave that makes Ruby's pale in comparison. 5500 degrees of Celcius radiates from her body and turns every organic matter within the area into nothingness.
Unlike her however, he is not blinded by her own fire.
Seeing exactly the second how a paper on one of the human bodies flash in green, a shield is created which upon it touching the heat flare, it absorbs it, changing it into it's fuel, making the shield even stronger.
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His eyes return at Amea that's nothing more than a charred statue; - Reminding him of that scene from Dragon Ball Z where Vegeta exploded himself after not being able to win the fight with Majin Buu.
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Her body shatters into dust that is blown with wind.
Pain.
His own heart is in pain.
He sees Meteo's face frozen. Him watching with his eyes wide open. He died inside. Paul could see as reality stopped making sense to him. He saw as the only thing that sucked him back into reality is him realizing that the ones who mother tried to kill are still alive.
Dread.
Fury.
Anger.
Madness.
Sorrow.
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Pain
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~
His eye start to morph the same way Ruby's did, however, Paul could see it. He could feel it.
Meteo can see him now.
And so.
He connected their souls, making a chance to talk without the environment to have ever chance to interrupt.
~
...
The second the Sacrificial Blessing of Fire came to be, Arler noticed it, and immediately start to run, pulling sword out of it's sheeth.
He runned. Runned and runned.
Until he finally came into the clearing. Before he's able to process what happened, he nearly fails to see black strings moving at his direction. Slashing them with his enchanted to dissapate - Ether - sword, immediately making them disintegrate upon contact.
~
Meteo moving his hand forward; Black strings follow his movement, just for them to be immediately slashed into pieces. New strings are created, following up after the previous batch. Each when reaching the vicinity of the man that is running at him - being immediately disintegrated into pieces from the slashes of the blade - falling apart onto the ground as if Puppet's strings were cut from the puppeteers' hands
Meteo tries to move backwards to make enough space to dodge; however, the knight is even faster
Before Meteo can make a noticeable space, the man is already in front of him. Blade in hand, held with two of his palms right above his head, ready to make downward slash to cut him in half. Panicking, the soul that just contracted Meteo doesn't ask, but commands, for there is no time for questions. He cries out: "Give me full control, NOW!" A clear panic in his tone of voice. He did not expect those strings they had could be slashed apart this easily.
Meteo not thinking much, listens, instinctively giving the full control to Paul. Him creating in a glimpse of a second a rough edge of a gauntlet that soon envelopes their whole hand. Although the source of the material is questionable, it's hard, really tough, like iron; - Those eyes indeed guide the body to make them instinctively. Later on, if possible, there is a need to study what they are made of exactly.
Sparks fly.
Parring the blade by redirecting it to the side. This clearly surprise that man, though not for long, for he immediately switches the position for the follow up attack - rotating the blade edge from making downward slash to upward slash.
Doing the same trick - only now with feet, enveloping them with those same strings, touching the blade, going with the momentum, bouncing off of the blade's sharp edge, giving the control back to Meteo, yelling "Flip back!", which Meteo does instinctively. Action, which is impossible for Paul to do himself.
Sorry, but the control over the body hadn't come with the Manual written for it. And certainly, Paul couldn't do backflips in his past life - yes he knows martial arts - muay thai, judo and teakwondo - but imagine a 96kg man doing a flip - yeah, no. He never got to the point of learning to make one and not fail. - So it's better to be safe, and leave it for the professional artisan. Artisan who knows the body.
After the Akaiboni not so gracely lands onto the ground, absorbing the full impact of the fall, rolling backwards to absorb momentum without losing tempo, he jumps further back.
"What now??" Meteo asks with gnashed teeth, panicking. Clearly this human is not like the previous ones, being easy to cut. Although, it's not that clear whether he is special, or whether mother had to fight with men like him, but clearly those who had been left - been nothing for his strings. So, what is so different with this man to shrug off the power of Migawari so easily
"Activate your ability!" Paul shouts back. "And return the controls to me while you are at it.
"Am I not using mine now?" Yelps as he asks. In his mind, those strings that come from his fingers are clearly what he described just now – his ability – so he's confused.
"Those strings came from me! You instinctively used it when you created connection with my soul!" Paul specifies, clearly panicking enough to say it with higher pitch voice
"Oh." Flabbergasted from realization that it may indeed be true, for he made the contract before his eyes fully taken form. So, it's not like he can check whether it was his original ability. But shaking those unnecessary thoughts off, he indeed tries to summon that power of his. The eyes processing the command from the brain, instinctively know what to do. The two soul symbols that are attached to the 2 points of the 8-point star that create his Migawari eye pattern, flickers
Two of the symbols now glow, the one at the top - blue; the one counterclockwise below - red; which strains the eyes signiffically more than just using a single power like Rubi'i had previously done. However, the difference is that Paul is used to working on low fuel, so the amount of strain is negligible. The opposite situation would have happened if Meteo were to do something like this alone.
Most probably passing out after a single burst.
The strings that were enveloping his feet and hands detach, separating into their original form. From the fingertips as source, they envelop themselves into flames, changing the colour to the volcanic red hue.
Previously being easily slashed by the man, now instead they are capable of holding his blade back. The red strings envelop the blade, trying to pull the man's sword from his hand, which considering his current positioning of hands, and that he is mid switching the forms, it is easily done. Shooting the blade off his hand and sending it flying back behind the Meteo's body.
Soon, Paul sends next batch of the strings which after trying to wrap around his armoured arm, immediately as if fuel was cut from the source, made the strings dissipate.
"What?!" Meteo cries out seeing that not even this much can do anything to the knight.
The armoured man grabs the strings that are left within the vicinity of his gauntlet and pull us with his whole adult strength. With one hand pulling the strings; with other he punches into Meteo's body directly, hitting with full force onto the solar plexus.
Meteo pukes out the saliva mixed with blood. His ribs ache, feeling as if about to crack. His ears ring. Body staggering back, bouncing as if flat stone being thrown on water, rolling, eating the dirt when fully stopped.
As he tries to catch breath, he's not able to. He tries to inhale anything he can at all. After a couple of seconds finally oxygen gets into his lungs, making him cough crazily as if trying to cough out his whole lungs. Feeling dizzy.
However, respecting no time out, the knight kicks the rabbit back into the air, grabbing him by the head with just one hand, returning us back to the dirt floor with gravity working against us. Grabbing the feet that whips up from the momentum - as whip he uses it, impacting Meteo's head onto the bark of the tree. Then onto rock, making right side of the skull crack and bleed. He drops us onto the floor.
No fuel is left in Meteo's small body. One eye closed as it is covered from forehead to lower cheek in blood. The right side of his face marked with open wound, luckly not deep enough to damage his eye.
They are grabbed as some kind of animal by the scruff of the neck. Clearly, not liking the fact that we are still conscious, the knight grabs us into the chokehold.
Meteo's eyes rolling up, one behind the eyelid, struggling to keep conscious as well as trying to get out of the man's grip by jerking the whole body - left, right, up, forward, backwards – anywhere he can. Something snaps into visibility inside Meteo's mind space. The panicking soul of Paul seeing this tiny little something within his sight - he grasps it. Not letting it go.
The man thinking the rabbit had finally passed out after it finally stopped struggling, is surprised when suddenly Meteo's eyes open wide. His ring eyes morphing back into the Migawari pattern; Arler stares as the green smoke envelopes this tiny little rabbit body. Blood temporarily evaporates from his face.
Adrenaline sky rocketing - Suddenly 10 times stronger - Meteo uses his own teeth to bite – hard - successfully piercing through the iron plate armor, chain mail and leather beneath it. The runes scribed onto the inside part of the armor plate never expected a piercing attack of this type and sharpness. Both Meteo and Paul hysterically bite into the flesh of his arm, getting straight to the bone.
This man yelping from pain, tries to shake off Meteo, however, using the momentum, Meteo breaks off out of his arm by partially melting it from inside with his breath. Climbing up the armour, Meteo breaks open into the helmet by gripping onto its eyeholes.
Making large enough hole, sparks coming out, wide opening his mouth while at the same time strings come out of his fingers tying up around anything they can - locking the jaw wide open. Meteo breathes inside the helmet with all the fuel in body that he currently has and make the man breath it all into his lungs and stomach. Melting everything from inside.
The panicking now knight tries to shake off Meteo from him, however no sooner than the thought comes, as if his limbs were cut from their strings, he falls onto the ground,
Dead. Cooked from inside.
Meteo stops breathing fire as he staggers back from the man's corpse. Not having any energy to think or move, the only thing that keeps him conscious at this point is Paul's will.
The green smoke flickers out of existence in seconds as he moves like a drunkard from right to left, trying to stand still, before failing and falling onto the knees, then onto his arms, panting as he stares onto the dirt. Watching as droplets of blood mixed with tears fall from his face. His eyes morph back into his normal shaped form.
Everything hurts, all of his muscles hurt, all of his eye muscles hurt, all of his body shakes in place.
He cannot walk; he cannot speak, the only thing hearable in the vicinity being him inhaling - hard, trying to breathe in as much of the air as it is currently possible.
His heart beats fast, his ears being able to pick this up without even trying to. His red fur mixed with his blood, his ears bleed, his eyes bleed, his nose bleed. Snot mixes with blood as he crawls.
He crawls forward on the dirt, away from the armoured man, trying to get to where his sister lays, blacking out in the middle. Blacking out next to the dust of his mother, where she turned into by her own kamikaze attack.
Due to Paul's will, he immediately shakes off darkness that tries to envelop his mind, resuming to crawl for no longer than a few seconds. Finally passing out as he sees his sister steer up back into the consciousness.
- Elle'e.. - which in local language means "Sister" told in a very endearing way.
Rubi'i blinks open her eyes just to see the chaos all around her, her ears catching words faster than her eyes gathering photons to create the 360-degree image. She turns her head in the direction of the familiar voice.
- Ani'i? - meaning "Brother", male equivalent to elle'e.
She's confused about what's going on and why she has this metallic flavor in her mouth. While licking her teeth clean. She doesn't understand why her eyes itch so much, she finally looks up and her small heart start to beat faster due to panic. "Dad.." She sniffles at first, then she sobs, ending with full force cry. "Mom." Her eyes not being able to find mother. "Brother Hee?" She asks as she neither is able to find her brother. "Mitee was with brother Hee" She looks for where she heard her brother before, finding him lying on the ground, next to her. Long trail as if he was crawling to her, behind him. Snot gets stuck in her snout as she sniffles strongly.
She first moves on her four limbs, stumbling up, then hugging her brother as she resumes crying full heartedly.
"Miteeeeeee!" She squeezes. "Mommy. Daddy.. They..." Crying into his fur. Her tears mixing with his blood
"Don't leeaaveee meee..." Her voice broken as she breaks the only way a one-year-old can – crying into the sky. "I don't wanna be aloooooonee.~" Ruby's face mess as it is full of dirt, dust, clay and charcoal. The rest of the body being basically the same.
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Sorelle – By definition the word meaning sister. Within the language in this world, it is as if calling someone by their whole name. It is used when you want your sister's full attention. Male counterpart being "Branir".
Elle'e - being the normal way of using the title "Sister" in the context of everyday life. It is a way of calling the sibling in an endearing - full of love - way. Male's counterpart being "Ani'i".
Dennars - In local system of payment it's penny. It is a silver coin where one side is a letter I, on the other being the inprint of an Angel - Androme. "Aurei" is an equivalent to 100 dennars. It is a bronze coin with a letter V on one side. "Solid" being equivalent to 100 Aureis. It is a gold coin that has letter R on it. "Eter", a green coin made out of Etheritium and is worth 100 Solids. It has X inscribed on it. Combined letters create word "IVRX" - Ivrex was a dwarf from time before even elven-dwarf was a commonwealth. He ruled in 4'th century and was one of the rulers that were the reason of the two nations uniting in the first place. To celebrate the birth of commonwealth the first doctrin he ever did was creation of the standardized monetary system. Denomination that is used all over the world until this day.
Hucksters - Masters of Art of Sealing are divided by their understanding, into ink type [Huckster] - Lowest kind of mastering where one yet need still brush, ink, medium and time, to create a single seal. Medium type [Paladin] - Where with each stroke of sharp end, draws into the space, using one's spiritual energy flowing through an item, and physical energy as ink. Soul type [Don] - Highest kind of mastering where one inprint in space-time, the seals, using one's own spiritual energy as guide only. There being no space they can't use. Physical energy as inprinting ink. One need to have clear picture of seal -gon, to immediately inprint, anything working, into the reality.
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