The Misfits' road was not easy. Traveling north, the weather became worse, snowstorms being the norm while the visibility dropped to only a few meters at a time. Right now, deep in the night with howling wind surrounding them, the group was huddled inside an igloo, sitting in a circle, surrounding the fire in the middle that was painting the room orange.
"This weather is brutal…" Koa shrugged, pulling her clothes together as they couldn't use mana all the time to resist the cold, or they would get weaker and weaker.
"We are heading into winter; it's perfectly normal here," Rinzen answered, slowly munching on a chocolate bar.… not that she was hungry, but they needed some energy besides drinking potions.
"Any success in contacting the outside?" Simbad looked at Lia, who simply shook her head.
"Nothing. We are cut off for good! I can't contact anybody. The bracelets themselves are unstable."
Which was becoming more and more evident as they headed deeper, aiming to arrive at the Berison's core region before the Undead. By now, if any of them tried to bring up the map, it was fuzzy, often turning off without warning or failing to generate any image of their current location. Contacting each other was already difficult, and it was clear that soon it would become completely useless.
"If we arrive in my city, we can contact the other Six from there," Rinzen added, wiping her mouth, looking the most calm amongst the group as she was filled with an inexhaustible drive to save her home.
"How?" Aurora asked, signing with her left, curious, while her free right hand held Sion's.
"The ice under the capital is special. It was made by my ancestor, Kelmina Berison, and it still contains her own mana and frozen solid essence."
"Wouldn't that… weaken someone? Like… really weaken?" Keily asked, his mouth opening wide at hearing it.
"Yes." Rinzen nodded in answer, retelling the history that was mostly known to only the main bloodline of the Berisons. "It made her weak, but it was the end of the Dark Ages. She lost most of her strength after making it. By our records, her spells fell from the level of the 9th Tier to the 3rd Tier! It also affected her health and cut her life short, dying only two decades after Erias was gone."
"What does it do?" Ceiline asked, knowing it had to be powerful.
"It has been cultivated by my family throughout the years since its creation. Many of our ancestors who didn't step into the Three Ri realm followed her example. My mother would have too when I have returned to take over."
"This sounds like… scuicide?" Raufon asked, feeling weirded out by it.
"Not really." Rinzen shook her head, continuing her explanation, "It does not kill them, but it does sap them from all power. They can still live out a normal life afterward, growing old like anyone else who has no aptitude for magic."
"And they infuse their accumulated power into the ice below?" Simbad murmured, his eyes widening, trying to imagine it, "It has to have immense power locked under or inside the ice by now!"
"Yes!" Rinzen nodded rapidly, "We must get back because I can control it! Throughout our history, all of the leaders of my House had control over the ice. This means we could give orders to it, extract energy from it, and manipulate it! Amongst the previous leaders… I have the smoothest synchronization with it. I could communicate with it since I was young, before I was even at the 3rd Tier. If we can return, I can tap into it and use it to establish contact with the others!"
"Can you use it to kill the Undead?" Aurora asked, realizing the importance of reaching it as fast as possible.
"I don't know, but I do know that I can use it to erect a shield that could hold out for a long time! We have a doctrine: if we ever get into trouble… attacked or invaded, the citizens and the main forces would retreat to the city, and we would call upon the last gift of Kelmina Berison."
"How far are we anyway?" Keily shrugged, feeling they were lost and simply walking around aimlessly… but he never brought it up for real, trying to do his best to trust Rinzen's guidance.
"Not that far!" She answered with a gentle smile, "I know my home well, and I can feel the connection with the ice that I was born on. No matter where I am on Meriath, in fact! So I can not be lost and could find my way back home anytime."
"Now we rest!" Lia clapped, looking around the group. "After we regained strength, we move! We have a head start, so we should arrive before the real trouble! Then we can plan on what to do next!"
"We came this far!" Sion chuckled, squeezing Aurora's hand, "It would be foolish to turn back!"
"I told you not to come…" Rinzen whispered, lowering her head, but the others simply laughed, saying the same thing simultaneously.
"We are Misfits! We keep together!"
…
….
……
"The city has been frozen solid!" Neesa exclaimed as the three dragons were circling above the city of Sussarim.
"Is this the work of the Amarin girl?" Tolemia asked, but Arcus shook his head.
"No. This is not a mixed element; this is pure ice. To make something like this, the caster's ability to manipulate ice has to be extremely high. It reminds me of Kelmina's spells."
"Now that you mention it… yes." Tolemia agreed, taking a deep breath and sniffing the mana residue surrounding it. "Albert is good with water-based spells; he could tell us what happened here. This is not my field of expertise."
"It already tells us this was the work of the current gem of the Berisons, the girl named Rinzen," Arcus concluded as the three flew down, turning into their human forms. "They went north."
"Are they heading to the capital city?" Tolemia asked, crouching down, sniffing like a search dog, recording the still lingering scent of the Misfits in his mind.
"Should we go after them?" Neesa questioned, turning towards Arcus, who had a troubled expression.
"This is not good… tsk… the girl knows how to head into trouble, just like Erias!"
"Says who?" Neesa and Tolemia laughed, both pointing at Arcus's chest, poking it. "You were the biggest troublemaker of all! Running off with a human? Teaching him our secrets? Who was who hooked the little Nerifit Princess and Erias up? Huh? You are lucky he turned out to be someone we could take in as our own! It could have been worse! Idiot!"
"Worse than now?" Arcus shrugged, sounding tired and sad, turning the others melancholic. Yes… it couldn't have been worse. They were essentially a dead race now. They tried many times to produce an egg, but it was extremely hard for dragons, and so far, Neesa has never managed to do it. "Sorry… let's not speak about it!"
"Um." The two nodded, turning around and looking toward where the Misfits had disappeared.
"We won't go after them! That would alert the Undead and tell them we are searching for something or someone. We will do the opposite and harass their forces and keep them from moving in deeper! With us here, the others can spare more resources for dealing with the unrest and small fires all around their territories, so we can stop worrying about trouble behind our backs!"
"So far, they showed us six strong warriors." Neesa scoffed, crossing her arms, speaking about the Supreme Elders, "If we go in with the three Ascendri, we can kill them! They already finished off one of the bastards, so only five are left!"
"Never… and I say NEVER underestimate them!" Arcus snorted, warning Neesa in such a voice that she looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes. "Maybe you are right, and yes, maybe we could do that… but what would that cost us? How many of our top fighters would die or get critically injured? Then what? Six is nothing!" Arcus shrugged, "They had twelve before… so half of their forces are still hidden away! What if we get ourselves surrounded?"
"Okay, okay!" Neesa grumbled, raising her arms in defeat, "You won!"
"Their goal is war. We have to make sure it is not spreading anywhere else and focused here. We must limit the destruction they are causing! Occupying the home of a House is not as easy as they currently think… Which makes this a chance for us! Let our side rebuild the army, and when the Undead moves in to conquer the Berisons in full, we will also strike and hammer them into a paste!"
"I can't wait…" Neesa smiled, licking her lips before the trio turned back into their original form, flying away, heading in different directions.
…
….
……
"How's the numbers?" Killieth asked as he was meeting with the other Supreme Elders in an occupied city named Ovac. Previously, it was a small subordinate kingdom to the Berisons, but now its whole population of 20,000 people was massacred, and an army of Undead was gathering here.
"We are still hunting, turning, and expanding." Seith, another Supreme Elder, answered, cracking his neck while doing so. "My disciples are already bringing a 30,000-strong army here, and we expect to double its numbers by the time they arrive."
"Our estimations say we should have around 500,000 or more puppets by the end of the month." Feira, another Supreme Elder, answered, fixing her new clothes as she switched bodies just an hour ago, finally occupying something she found pleasant.
"Not enough." Killieth shook his head, "Send out raiding parties! We need at least a million puppets if we want to conquer this land! They are ready for us this time!"
"We don't know if we can amass that many puppets in such a short time!" Seith shrugged, not pleased by his orders, "Not when we already lost Loonah! If we delegate our disciples to control the bodies, we lose strength. Core strength that can be crucial in battles! A thousand puppets equal one such disciple! It just isn't worth it to make them control a horde!"
"Do as my brother says!" Yuya scoffed, twirling her hair and wearing a different body this time, occupying that of a young girl she liked.
"Say that again?" Growled Io, the last Supreme Elder who was silent until this point, "Because I will cut your head off if you do! Everyone knows you made it so Loonah dies! If you think you can play us the same, I have a piece of bad news for you two venomous snakes!"
Io, just like Loonah, was someone who was a Supreme Elder in the days they fought against the true enemy… those wretched Immortals. With all of his core, he looked down upon Yuya and Killieth. Even though he abhorred the duo, he acknowledged their drive, powers, and minds… but that simply made him even more wary of them.
"Loonah's sacrifice had nothing to do with us." Yuya scoffed as Killieth raised a hand to stop the argument before it escalated.
"We have to face the reality that this is not like before. These are different times… but we still need this territory! It was the easiest to infiltrate as their leaders were focused in the middle region, and their true heir was out there, still gaining experience! We have to act before they recompose themselves! Do any of you argue against that?"
"No," Io answered, and soon the others also consented, nodding their heads.
"Good. Go, gather as many puppets as possible, and we move to occupy their main city! When we have a base, the rest of the Supreme Elders will have a place to descend safely! With all of us working together, we will overwhelm them, even if they have some dragons!"
"If your sister's little slave puppet didn't screw it up, we would still have a dragon," Io added quietly, but Yuya heard it clearly and well.
"It was a fuckup by Loonah's own weak subordinates! Seeing how weak she was, her own disciples simply reflected that."
"Just stop…" Seith sighed, walking out of the room, "Let's get to work! We have the orders from the Sect Master! Fail, and he will consume all of our souls!"
It seemed his words were what had the most significant impact on the leaders of the Undead invasion. None started to argue again but simply left the city, taking their own subordinates and disciples to scour the land, find people, survivors, or armies, and turn them.
The Misfits' road was not easy. Traveling north, the weather became worse, snowstorms being the norm while the visibility dropped to only a few meters at a time. Right now, deep in the night with howling wind surrounding them, the group was huddled inside an igloo, sitting in a circle, surrounding the fire in the middle that was painting the room orange.
"This weather is brutal…" Koa shrugged, pulling her clothes together as they couldn't use mana all the time to resist the cold, or they would get weaker and weaker.
"We are heading into winter; it's perfectly normal here," Rinzen answered, slowly munching on a chocolate bar.… not that she was hungry, but they needed some energy besides drinking potions.
"Any success in contacting the outside?" Simbad looked at Lia, who simply shook her head.
"Nothing. We are cut off for good! I can't contact anybody. The bracelets themselves are unstable."
Which was becoming more and more evident as they headed deeper, aiming to arrive at the Berison's core region before the Undead. By now, if any of them tried to bring up the map, it was fuzzy, often turning off without warning or failing to generate any image of their current location. Contacting each other was already difficult, and it was clear that soon it would become completely useless.
"If we arrive in my city, we can contact the other Six from there," Rinzen added, wiping her mouth, looking the most calm amongst the group as she was filled with an inexhaustible drive to save her home.
"How?" Aurora asked, signing with her left, curious, while her free right hand held Sion's.
"The ice under the capital is special. It was made by my ancestor, Kelmina Berison, and it still contains her own mana and frozen solid essence."
"Wouldn't that… weaken someone? Like… really weaken?" Keily asked, his mouth opening wide at hearing it.
"Yes." Rinzen nodded in answer, retelling the history that was mostly known to only the main bloodline of the Berisons. "It made her weak, but it was the end of the Dark Ages. She lost most of her strength after making it. By our records, her spells fell from the level of the 9th Tier to the 3rd Tier! It also affected her health and cut her life short, dying only two decades after Erias was gone."
"What does it do?" Ceiline asked, knowing it had to be powerful.
"It has been cultivated by my family throughout the years since its creation. Many of our ancestors who didn't step into the Three Ri realm followed her example. My mother would have too when I have returned to take over."
"This sounds like… scuicide?" Raufon asked, feeling weirded out by it.
"Not really." Rinzen shook her head, continuing her explanation, "It does not kill them, but it does sap them from all power. They can still live out a normal life afterward, growing old like anyone else who has no aptitude for magic."
"And they infuse their accumulated power into the ice below?" Simbad murmured, his eyes widening, trying to imagine it, "It has to have immense power locked under or inside the ice by now!"
"Yes!" Rinzen nodded rapidly, "We must get back because I can control it! Throughout our history, all of the leaders of my House had control over the ice. This means we could give orders to it, extract energy from it, and manipulate it! Amongst the previous leaders… I have the smoothest synchronization with it. I could communicate with it since I was young, before I was even at the 3rd Tier. If we can return, I can tap into it and use it to establish contact with the others!"
"Can you use it to kill the Undead?" Aurora asked, realizing the importance of reaching it as fast as possible.
"I don't know, but I do know that I can use it to erect a shield that could hold out for a long time! We have a doctrine: if we ever get into trouble… attacked or invaded, the citizens and the main forces would retreat to the city, and we would call upon the last gift of Kelmina Berison."
"How far are we anyway?" Keily shrugged, feeling they were lost and simply walking around aimlessly… but he never brought it up for real, trying to do his best to trust Rinzen's guidance.
"Not that far!" She answered with a gentle smile, "I know my home well, and I can feel the connection with the ice that I was born on. No matter where I am on Meriath, in fact! So I can not be lost and could find my way back home anytime."
"Now we rest!" Lia clapped, looking around the group. "After we regained strength, we move! We have a head start, so we should arrive before the real trouble! Then we can plan on what to do next!"
"We came this far!" Sion chuckled, squeezing Aurora's hand, "It would be foolish to turn back!"
"I told you not to come…" Rinzen whispered, lowering her head, but the others simply laughed, saying the same thing simultaneously.
"We are Misfits! We keep together!"
…
….
……
"The city has been frozen solid!" Neesa exclaimed as the three dragons were circling above the city of Sussarim.
"Is this the work of the Amarin girl?" Tolemia asked, but Arcus shook his head.
"No. This is not a mixed element; this is pure ice. To make something like this, the caster's ability to manipulate ice has to be extremely high. It reminds me of Kelmina's spells."
"Now that you mention it… yes." Tolemia agreed, taking a deep breath and sniffing the mana residue surrounding it. "Albert is good with water-based spells; he could tell us what happened here. This is not my field of expertise."
"It already tells us this was the work of the current gem of the Berisons, the girl named Rinzen," Arcus concluded as the three flew down, turning into their human forms. "They went north."
"Are they heading to the capital city?" Tolemia asked, crouching down, sniffing like a search dog, recording the still lingering scent of the Misfits in his mind.
"Should we go after them?" Neesa questioned, turning towards Arcus, who had a troubled expression.
"This is not good… tsk… the girl knows how to head into trouble, just like Erias!"
"Says who?" Neesa and Tolemia laughed, both pointing at Arcus's chest, poking it. "You were the biggest troublemaker of all! Running off with a human? Teaching him our secrets? Who was who hooked the little Nerifit Princess and Erias up? Huh? You are lucky he turned out to be someone we could take in as our own! It could have been worse! Idiot!"
"Worse than now?" Arcus shrugged, sounding tired and sad, turning the others melancholic. Yes… it couldn't have been worse. They were essentially a dead race now. They tried many times to produce an egg, but it was extremely hard for dragons, and so far, Neesa has never managed to do it. "Sorry… let's not speak about it!"
"Um." The two nodded, turning around and looking toward where the Misfits had disappeared.
"We won't go after them! That would alert the Undead and tell them we are searching for something or someone. We will do the opposite and harass their forces and keep them from moving in deeper! With us here, the others can spare more resources for dealing with the unrest and small fires all around their territories, so we can stop worrying about trouble behind our backs!"
"So far, they showed us six strong warriors." Neesa scoffed, crossing her arms, speaking about the Supreme Elders, "If we go in with the three Ascendri, we can kill them! They already finished off one of the bastards, so only five are left!"
"Never… and I say NEVER underestimate them!" Arcus snorted, warning Neesa in such a voice that she looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes. "Maybe you are right, and yes, maybe we could do that… but what would that cost us? How many of our top fighters would die or get critically injured? Then what? Six is nothing!" Arcus shrugged, "They had twelve before… so half of their forces are still hidden away! What if we get ourselves surrounded?"
"Okay, okay!" Neesa grumbled, raising her arms in defeat, "You won!"
"Their goal is war. We have to make sure it is not spreading anywhere else and focused here. We must limit the destruction they are causing! Occupying the home of a House is not as easy as they currently think… Which makes this a chance for us! Let our side rebuild the army, and when the Undead moves in to conquer the Berisons in full, we will also strike and hammer them into a paste!"
"I can't wait…" Neesa smiled, licking her lips before the trio turned back into their original form, flying away, heading in different directions.
…
….
……
"How's the numbers?" Killieth asked as he was meeting with the other Supreme Elders in an occupied city named Ovac. Previously, it was a small subordinate kingdom to the Berisons, but now its whole population of 20,000 people was massacred, and an army of Undead was gathering here.
"We are still hunting, turning, and expanding." Seith, another Supreme Elder, answered, cracking his neck while doing so. "My disciples are already bringing a 30,000-strong army here, and we expect to double its numbers by the time they arrive."
"Our estimations say we should have around 500,000 or more puppets by the end of the month." Feira, another Supreme Elder, answered, fixing her new clothes as she switched bodies just an hour ago, finally occupying something she found pleasant.
"Not enough." Killieth shook his head, "Send out raiding parties! We need at least a million puppets if we want to conquer this land! They are ready for us this time!"
"We don't know if we can amass that many puppets in such a short time!" Seith shrugged, not pleased by his orders, "Not when we already lost Loonah! If we delegate our disciples to control the bodies, we lose strength. Core strength that can be crucial in battles! A thousand puppets equal one such disciple! It just isn't worth it to make them control a horde!"
"Do as my brother says!" Yuya scoffed, twirling her hair and wearing a different body this time, occupying that of a young girl she liked.
"Say that again?" Growled Io, the last Supreme Elder who was silent until this point, "Because I will cut your head off if you do! Everyone knows you made it so Loonah dies! If you think you can play us the same, I have a piece of bad news for you two venomous snakes!"
Io, just like Loonah, was someone who was a Supreme Elder in the days they fought against the true enemy… those wretched Immortals. With all of his core, he looked down upon Yuya and Killieth. Even though he abhorred the duo, he acknowledged their drive, powers, and minds… but that simply made him even more wary of them.
"Loonah's sacrifice had nothing to do with us." Yuya scoffed as Killieth raised a hand to stop the argument before it escalated.
"We have to face the reality that this is not like before. These are different times… but we still need this territory! It was the easiest to infiltrate as their leaders were focused in the middle region, and their true heir was out there, still gaining experience! We have to act before they recompose themselves! Do any of you argue against that?"
"No," Io answered, and soon the others also consented, nodding their heads.
"Good. Go, gather as many puppets as possible, and we move to occupy their main city! When we have a base, the rest of the Supreme Elders will have a place to descend safely! With all of us working together, we will overwhelm them, even if they have some dragons!"
"If your sister's little slave puppet didn't screw it up, we would still have a dragon," Io added quietly, but Yuya heard it clearly and well.
"It was a fuckup by Loonah's own weak subordinates! Seeing how weak she was, her own disciples simply reflected that."
"Just stop…" Seith sighed, walking out of the room, "Let's get to work! We have the orders from the Sect Master! Fail, and he will consume all of our souls!"
It seemed his words were what had the most significant impact on the leaders of the Undead invasion. None started to argue again but simply left the city, taking their own subordinates and disciples to scour the land, find people, survivors, or armies, and turn them.
