TBATE Rogue

Chapter 13

Arthur Leywin POV

The final message Elder Rinia gave me when I visited her for more information about the Syndicate left me unclear. She refused to elaborate on the whole deal, expecting me to follow her blindly into the unknown. However, with no other choice, so I did.

Entering deep into the mysterious caves and dungeons of the Beast Glades, I search in vain for hours and hours. I was just ready to give up any hope for whatever reason Rinia told me to go here until mana started to blow, fast and strong. The hair on my body rose, and in a moment, I jumped towards the source with my mind racing between hundreds, if not thousands, of theories and scenarios.

I enchanted my limbs with mana and I went to the source at my full speed. With each step I made, my senses started to make clear about the situation. At first, there were four different mana signatures, each one engaging in combat with all kinds of spells and mana arts. One of them stood more predominantly from the others, having much more mana but still lacking firepower and offensiveness.

Then two more figures appeared, out of nowhere and they too, released mana spells but at a little scale. My mind, overwhelmed by the all information I gathered from my senses, pictured a mental image of a battlefield where two groups, each one with three members fought mercilessly.

Initially, I kept my pace steady but the new signatures for an odd reason, unsettled me. I tried to focus more on them, feeling their mana and possibly recognizing their identities all while navigating those narrow and claustrophobic tunnels. More and more, I started to close the distance between me and the zone where all this was happening. And then I froze in midair, finally recognizing who were the new people. My stomach dropped and a cold shiver ran through my spine.

"I am drunk or those two are indeed..." Regis, feeling too this, asks in a pessimistic tone, unable to accept the truth.

I snapped back to reality and from the mini-attack I had. Once my feet touched the hard floor of rock, I enchanted them with mana. Much mana. My bones hardened like steel and my muscles stimulated to the maximum, all the way through every cell that made them. With extreme precisions and by taking a huge risk for my body, giving every part of my feet the correct amount of mana at the right millisecond, I used Burst Step. Again, and again.

The amount of pain rushing in me was becoming unbearable but the adrenaline suffocated much of it. My legs were screaming for me to stop but the fear for the worst to happen in front of me was pushing me forward.

In the end, I met a wall, the only thing that separates me from the action. There were no other entrances for me and the fight seemed to stop, only by the side of the enemy. I called my companion. "Regis."

I extended my right arm and Regis's incorporeal form moved into my right fist. Using a final Burst Step, I put all my force into my right arm, with Regis in it, and punch the hard and sold wall of the cave with all my might. The wall, thick of maybe 10 or more meters broke into tens of solid boulders that flew in all directions.

Regis also jumped from my body and became corporeal. He jumped straight into the action, taking by surprise two men. I landed somewhere in the big cave, near the center of it, and looked left and right to understand what was happening. Big craters and huge marks of cuts, stabs, and whatever were all over the place. My eyes landed first on an elf woman, young and beautiful but with blood all over her hair and uniform. She looked at me in dread with big bloodshot eyes, mumbling something. A prayer, I believe. It was Lance Alea.

Turning my sight for her, I saw a big metal cage made of iron spikes stacked on one other. A beast, with black scales and huge winds was resting inside of it. It had glowing yellow eyes and two horns on top of its head. She looked at me with a mix of emotions, stunned, shocked, relieved, afraid, mad, and much more. I even forgot my first bond's original form. Sylvie.