I would like to say I took the time to relish my newfound freedom.
But I didn’t. Because the truth of the matter was that I still wasn’t free. Not yet.
I was still too close to The Pit. Any of the cell block leaders could close the distance from there to me at a moment's notice. And I didn’t plan to stick around and welcome them.
I looked towards Verdanst and then aligned myself in the direction I wanted to be heading, pointing a hand towards the Seltas border where I had crossed over into Alixia.
I angled my hand slightly upwards and then fired a singular splinter of [Web of Lightning] into the sky and then jumped through it.
With my ascension into the third tier, My agility was roughly 25% higher than it had been. What I noticed, however, was that I was not 25% faster.
No. I was roughly 50% faster.
Something else I had noticed previously in the arena was that my skills were increasing in speed at a different rate than mine. Initially, I had thought my skills were just increasing at a set speed faster than me, but now I was realizing that wasn’t necessarily true.
I couldn’t tell what the factor of controlling spell speed was, but at the very least I knew it wasn’t agility otherwise it would increase at the same rate as my physical speed.
At the moment though, I didn’t have time to work out the mechanics of my spell speeds. All that mattered right now, was that my lightning was roughly 3x faster than I was, and because of that? A trip that had taken me 16 hours to make, heading from the border to Verdanst, now only took me a little under two hours.
After I had jumped through my lightning, I allowed it to gain sufficient height before using the one redirection I had to level it out and let it streak across the sky. No longer gaining height I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally flying into the atmosphere.
Or out of it.
I wasn’t able to actually see while I was lightning. I could still use my other skills and through those, I could still sense things. This made [OWN] even more valuable than it already was, considering it was the main thing allowing me to see the world around me right now. I could probably use things like [Mana Sense] and [Electricity Sense] as well.
But at the moment I didn’t really need them.
Despite being able to see with the skills, however, it wasn’t a perfect solution. I had about 7 seconds of notice before whatever I saw with the skill was upon me.
Which didn’t lend me a whole lot of time to try and come to a stop before I saw the wall approaching. I didn’t actually plan on stopping though. I would’ve preferred to do this a lot more stealthily but at the end of the day I just really did not care.
I wanted as much distance between me and Alixia as I could right now. I also just wanted to be somewhere familiar. Somewhere I felt like I wasn’t going to be turned into a slave just for existing.
The border wall quickly sprung up into a view and a few seconds later I was crossing ov-
I immediately crashed and was shunted out of my lightning bolt and began falling towards the ground.
Disoriented from the crash and unable to catch myself I fell 50 feet and slammed into the ground painfully.
I groaned as I lay on the ground, it didn’t feel like anything had broken in the crash or the fall, but it wasn’t a great feeling.
My senses slowly started to come back to me and I heard distant yelling. I wasn’t quite sure what they were yelling about but it was annoying and I wanted them to shut up.
I slowly pushed myself off the ground where I had landed painfully. Contrary to popular belief, there was not a crater. The terminal velocity with normal human weight was not enough to sufficiently impact the ground like that. In fact, if I had landed on my feet I doubt I would’ve even been that hurt, the only reason that landing had been painful at all was because I hadn’t been able to brace myself.
It was nice to know that I could survive terminal velocity falls now though.
I pulsed a heal through my body clearing up my mind and any lingering pain and looked around. I was relatively close to the gate in the border wall that the Alixian guards had tried to scam me at.
I frowned a little at the upsetting memory, but quickly pushed it to the back of my mind. It wasn’t relevant.
Standing up fully I activated my armor and passive skills. Wind and lightning exploded off of me as I started pushing mana through my body, circulating it through the skills and awakening my senses.
Looking towards the sounds of the voices I saw two familiar guards, their armor glowing softly in the sunlight. Not magically, thankfully, just aesthetically.
“Look who it is,” I said with a scoff towards the two guards approaching hesitantly with their weapons leveled at me.
“Mordecai and Rigby.”
Malachai came to a stop with a slightly confused face, “My name is Malachai?” He said, more as a question rather than a statement.
I just scoffed again.
“Listen, I don’t give a damn what your name is right now. What you’re going to do is listen very closely to what I’m about to say.”
I paused to make sure I had both of their attention before continuing.
“I’m in a very, very, very bad mood right now. So I’m going to tell you once, and only once. Open that gate, and get out of my way.”
I wasn’t sure why the wall had prevented me from getting over this time when it hadn’t last time. But I would get through one way or the other. The only difference would be how many people I had to kill to do it.
Malachai’s face paled slightly at my words, noticing the lightning sparking off me wildly into the ground.
“I uh…”
I took a single step forward, forcing mana through my auras making them grow wildly.
Malachai let out a squeak before turning around and running towards the gate, Gary in tow.
I followed behind them at a sedate pace pulling out my sword and then crafting a second one to match it. I held the one that I had made in my off-hand, I expected this one to break more often and it would be easier to replace it if it was in my prosthetic hand since I could just grow the replacement out of the palm of my hand.
The gate was quickly raised and I briskly walked under it, ignoring both the guards as I passed them by. They quickly scrambled away from me trying to keep plenty of distance between us.
I glanced at them and the soldiers coming from the Seltas side guard house. I didn’t recognize them, but they hadn’t stuck in my mind that much given that I hadn’t really interacted with them in any way.
I also wasn’t planning on sticking around to talk with them.
I put my swords on my back, attaching them to my wooden armor before pointing my good hand to the sky and firing off another splinter of [Web of Lightning] and jumping through it. I allowed this one to carry me over 100 feet into the air this time before redirecting it to level out.
I’d have a little bit less warning before I came up on something important on the ground, but hopefully, if I got shunted out of my lightning again the larger distance from the ground would give me sufficient time to catch myself before hitting the ground again.
If it didn’t it wouldn’t matter anyway since the fall wouldn’t hurt me any more than the other one had.
The landscape blurred by once again as I covered a tremendous amount of distance extremely quickly. In just a few hours I covered the distance from the border to Lustirne. But I didn’t stop there, I continued traveling and carried on right over the top of the city and continued traveling to the capital.
After a close to another hour of travel, I became tired.
Not physically. My stamina and mana were both fine.
I let go of my skill carrying me through the sky and fell towards the ground, my inertia carrying me forward with the same speed.
I hit the ground and didn’t even try to brace the fall. I went into a tumble bouncing over the ground acquiring new bruises to replace the ones I had healed not that long ago.
I eventually rolled to a stop on my back and just lay there, staring at the sky.
In a way, I felt relieved.
I had put a massive amount of distance between me and the hell I had been living in.
I was free again. I should be happy.
I should be happy…
And yet I couldn’t stop crying.
Tears streamed down my face as I took a shuddering breath. I slowly curled up on the ground, some distant part of my minds telling me I should be seeking shelter or, at the very least, creating my own.
But I just didn’t care. I couldn’t care.
All I could think was ‘Why me?’ I just couldn’t understand, why was I being framed as a mass murderer. Why was I enslaved for it? Why did I have to kill people? Why was I okay with killing people? Why did people hate me just on sight? Why did I get pushed away from Penny, Garrus, Karif, and George? Why did The Harbinger have to attack the capital? Why did the Sentinels have to attack the citadel? Why was I given the Heart? Why did I get turned into an elf?
Why did I come to this world?
There were so many questions in my minds running rampant and I had answers for exactly none of them.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there on the ground. It could’ve been hours or days, months, maybe years. I wasn’t sure.
I pushed myself up slowly, shakily up to my knees.
The sun had set at some point and the moon was high in the sky, a perfect crescent shining down mournfully.
The night sky was still breathtakingly beautiful. As my eyesight enhanced over my levels I could make out more and more of that beauty. The swirls of distant solar systems in the galaxy, the twinkling of constellations that seemed to shift ever so slightly in ways that wouldn’t have been natural back on Earth.
The hues of the night sky blended together to create a tapestry of natural beauty that no mortal painter could ever hope to comprehend, let alone capture on a canvas.
It helped calm me. It didn’t solve my problems, but looking at this scene helped center me slightly. It also genuinely confirmed that there was something unnatural about how I reacted to the beautiful parts of nature now.
As an ordinary human, I never would have felt this calm after everything I had gone through. Especially not just from seeing a beautiful night sky. But I did now, as an elf. I wasn’t fully sure if I wanted to be upset that there was maybe something mentally affecting me somehow, especially after all the mental torture I had gone through recently. But given that it was allowing me to center my emotions and chaotic mind I couldn’t find it in me to be too upset right now.
I slowly got to my feet and took off again. I wanted to go back to Vinwood. Even if I couldn’t rejoin the Earth Raiders right now I wanted to be with people I knew, to feel something akin to being safe in a home I recognized.
I surged through the sky again. This time carrying myself up several hundred feet. I remembered the palace being relatively high up and pretty big, so I’d need to go this high to avoid it and any barrier surrounding it.
‘Ping’ Skill combination unlocked: [Web of Lightning] / [Ride the Lightning] > [Skill Combination: Wings of Lightning]
I dropped my travel falling to the ground again, this time I braced properly and landed on my feet, albeit heavily, and slid to a stop after a few dozen feet.
I looked at the new skill I had just acquired.
[Skill Combination: Wings of Lightning] -
Using your skills in a creative fashion you achieve flight where you should have none, now you can warp your abilities as needed to achieve a more natural form to suit your needs. Flight speed based on spell speed.
I took a moment to read over the skill a few times. I had somewhat forgotten about the fact that I had unlocked skill combinations. Checking my status I saw where it fit in.
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 5
Tier 2 Class - [Mage of the Storm] - Level 1
Ability - [Storm Call]
Ability - [Storm Explosion]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Storm Aura]
Ability - [Web of Lightning]
Ability - [Storm Points]
Tier 2 Class - [Blade of Lightning] - Level 1
Ability - [Forged by the Storm - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Strikes]
Ability - [Lightning Blade’s Guidance - Hybrid]
Ability - [Lightning Stream]
Ability - [Ride the Lightning]
Ability -
Tier 2 Class - [Nature’s Enforcer] - Level 1
Ability - [Wood-Infused Armor]
Ability - [Healing Lily]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Bind]
Ability - [Nature’s Embrace]
Ability - [Nature’s Rampart]
Ability - [One With Nature]
Skill Combinations -
Ability - [Web of Lightning / Ride the Lightning] > [Wings of Lightning]
Ability -
Ability -
I had enough open slots for a total of three abilities, including the one I just got.
I wondered if I would get more open slots as I increased in tiers or if three was just the maximum to get.
I also wondered if these skills could also go to the repository so I could swap them out as well. Maybe something I would discover in the future.
A small smile curled at my lips. I had gotten a flight. I had achieved it.
Slowly, hesitantly, I activated the skill.
The first thing I noticed is that this skill would not be great for getting around unnoticed. Not that I was particularly surprised. The movement I had been using before hadn’t exactly been inconspicuous either.
I would also hesitate to call what I had ‘wings’. It was more a mantle if anything. Maybe a cloak really since it covered all the way down my back.
Lightning coursed violently around me, although I doubted it was actually dangerous, more just loud and very bright.
But damn did it look cool.
I tried to take a step and immediately lifted off the ground slightly. I would have stumbled if I had still been walking, but instead, I flailed a bit wildly as I floated through the air awkwardly.
I quickly managed to gain my balance, thanks to my high dexterity. From there I tried to use [Electric Manipulation] to control the skill. I was pleasantly surprised when it actually worked.
From there I floated more serenely through the air a few feet off the ground. It was still loud and bright, but it was smoother than it had been when I had initially left the ground.
I pushed myself up a few more feet into the air, the skill responding immediately, if somewhat sluggishly. I wasn’t going to be doing air acrobatics anytime soon, but the fact that I could fly at all brought a smile to my face, distracting me from the existential crisis I’d been having up till a few minutes ago.
I then pushed the skill to its max and shot up into the sky, the wind blasting into my face. I had to squint slightly as the air slammed into my eyes. But it wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be.
A light and happy feeling bubbled up into my chest as I slowed down to a stop high in the sky.
I could fly.
I could actually fly.
It was unwieldy and clumsy, and I could already tell it would be horrendous at turning.
But I could fly.
I let out a laugh, this one not full of scorn and abhorrence for the people around me. But instead a laugh of joyful mirth at the situation.
My life hadn’t suddenly changed or gotten better in any meaningful way. I still had a lot of unanswered questions. But after taking a moment to breathe and calm down, with a new skill that gave me a new avenue of joy, I felt a lot better.
I shot off in the direction of Vinwood. As the skill said, I was moving at the same speed I had been when using [Web of Lightning]. Which was really fast. It was one thing to see the ground blurring past me through [OWN], or rather seeing myself blur by through the skill as it gave me a different point of view outside my body.
It was another thing to see it with my own eyes.
In the distance, I could make out the capital city, Elendar. I started curving my flight to the side. I planned to go around Elendar, not over it. And I planned on giving it a wide berth. I didn’t want to get in trouble for violating airspace or anything like that and I really didn’t want to be stopped either.
The extra distance added a few minutes to my travel time, but in the grand scheme that wasn’t all that important. I quickly got around the capital city and continued on my way.
I was only a few hours out from Vinwood, once I got there I could plan my next steps.
At the very least I wouldn’t have to be worried about being framed for murdering thousands of people.
***
Vinwood was on fire.
Huge swathes of flames covered the city. Wherever the orange flames weren’t burning the buildings lay in ruin, bodies filling the streets.
I was completely numb.
I was high above the city looking down, completely unsure of what to do. I wasn’t even sure if anyone was even still alive. I didn’t see any movements within the city. Or at least no obvious movements.
Why? Why was this happening?
Dread filled my chest.
Nauseating fear permeated every part of my mind.
I slowly lowered myself down to the ground, outside the north gate.
My eyes closed, I couldn’t bring myself to look. I knew what I would see. I didn’t want to see it. I knew the scene was there. It was the second thing I had noticed after seeing the burning city.
I didn’t want to acknowledge it, I knew it was there.
I couldn’t acknowledge it.
I knew it was there.
I didn’t want to look.
But I’d already seen it.
I landed lightly on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. I felt as if I didn’t acknowledge it, if I didn’t burn the sight into my memory I could pretend it wasn’t real. I could pretend it never happened and I could go the rest of my days…
I slowly opened my eyes and looked up at the four corpses hanging from the walls above the gate.
The last intact part of my mind broke at that moment.
I couldn’t even cry.
Garrus was missing the entire bottom half of his body.
Karif's skull had been crushed at the top. His jaw hung open in a silent scream.
George’s throat had been torn out, one of his arms completely mangled. Twisted around and around and around, not unlike a dishcloth you would wring out.
Penny…
A keening whine built up in my throat as I fell to my knees, unable to stay standing any longer.
She wasn’t even recognizable. Her body was completely torn apart. The only way I could tell it was her was the remaining hair on her head, the vibrant strawberry-blonde hair that I had found so beautiful.
It was matted to her skull, thick with dried blood.
My heart felt like it was trying to tear its way out of my chest. My throat constricted to the point where I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The world swirled around me, my vision unable to stay focused on the scene before me.
I leaned over and vomited, heaving until there was nothing left to throw back up.
And still, my stomach churned uncontrollably.
I heard a stampede of feet come up behind me, but I couldn’t even be bothered to look. My mind barely even acknowledged the sound.
I felt a hand grab my shoulder and gently pull me back, Fiona’s face came into view. She was saying something, but I couldn’t hear the words. Her face swirled around in my vision, the words she spoke didn’t make sense to me. They blended together into incomprehensible nonsense.
Her face softened and she pulled me into a hug that I didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, reciprocate. My arms refused to move as they twitched, my mind unsure of what was happening.
Something horrible. Something bad had happened. I couldn’t remember, why…?
I looked up again and saw their corpses looking down on me, hatred in their unseeing eyes.
I had killed them.
They had died because they knew me, because they had helped me.
Just like the elves had.
Just like Illesea…
Illesea hadn’t died though, had she?
She had escaped the sentinels, she had lived.
My senses achingly slowly came back into focus and I saw the army of soldiers and adventurers behind me.
“Alex, are you… unhurt?”
I turned to the voice, it was Marcie. She was standing next to Fiona. Kaylith and Striga both were nearby as well.
I didn’t answer and instead turned back to the city as it was burning.
The Sentinels had a fire user, didn’t they? It was more than likely that red demon-looking guy I had seen on the road to Vinwood after I got teleported out of the citadel.
Except…
The fire in the citadel had been a different color hadn’t it? That had been more red, this was just… A normal fire.
A big one certainly, but a normal one.
I felt a presence enter into the very edges of [OWN]. My head snapped over to it.
I shrugged my way out of Fiona’s grasp and began walking in her direction.
Fiona called after me but I ignored her.
I knew she was following after me, and so were the rest of her party along with several people from the group that had come here with them. The rest started making their way to the burning city, to potentially help any survivors.
I doubted there were any.
I ignored all of them and kept walking. The familiar presence approached me as well, albeit a bit more quickly than my brisk walk.
She quickly came into sight and landed lightly about a dozen feet away from me.
We stared at each other for a moment before she spoke first.
“Alex,” Illesea said, giving me a slight nod.
I used [Identify] on her.
[Level 801⁷]
Fiona came to a slow stop behind me glancing between the two of us. She opened her mouth to say something but Striga stopped her, shaking her head. Fiona closed her mouth and settled back watching with the rest.
I finally managed to ask, my voice choked and hoarse, “Who?”
Illesea let out a sigh looking towards the city.
“You know who. It was The Seven. It was always them, it will always be them. They will not let you rest. Not now, not in the future.”
I didn’t so much as twitch.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, my voice clearing up slightly. I straightened my back a little standing at my full height, which was comparable to Illesea’s.
She tilted her head a little looking at me, “What do you mean?”
“I meant what I asked, how did you know to come here? How did you know I was here? If you were just following The Sentinels, you either would have been here already or would have already fled and not come back after failing to stop them again. But you didn’t do that, did you? You came just now after I did. You also knew how to find me after I nearly killed myself healing people during the demon incursion.”
Illesea let out a sigh, “I can track the sword you hold. So while I don’t know exactly where you are, I have a general idea of your position.”
I nodded.
“How did you escape the Sentinels back in the citadel?”
Illesea frowned slightly, “Why are you interrogating me? I am here to assist you in this endeavor.”
I ground my teeth in frustration but slowly swallowed my anger letting it cool back down to a simmer.
“You’re tier seven. You’re strong, undeniably so. The Sentinels must also be tier seven. In fact, if they are as dangerous as you say I have no doubt some of them are even higher than tier seven. If there’s something I’ve discovered, it is that regardless of how strong you are, unless you have something that provides a distinct advantage, or the enemy is just stupid, you can’t defeat people in significantly higher tiers than you. The only reason I have done so is because of the Heart along with the epic grade class and weapon you have given me.”
I stared at her for a moment before continuing, “So I’ll ask again, Illesea. How did you escape The Sentinels of Discord that day? There’s no way they didn’t notice me on the road that day.”
As I spoke, more pieces slowly fell into place in my mind. Inconsistencies, small ones, that didn’t make sense with the truth as I knew it.
“The only thing that would make sense is if they noticed me, but didn’t care. They thought I was a human. Up the road from where I had been hiding there was a group of slain adventurers. Their bodies had been relatively fresh as well. If The Sentinels had wanted to kill me, or all humans in their path, they would’ve killed me in that bush and been done with it.”
“But they didn’t. They moved on. But there’s a zero percent chance they didn’t know I was there. I could find someone hiding at that distance at level one tier zero. It would be painfully easy.”
Illesea gazed at me for a long time. Holding my eyes unflinchingly.
“Illesea, this is not the fire I saw in the citadel that day,” I said, my voice deceptively calm. Underneath the veneer of tranquility was a seething, writhing abyss that everyone around me could sense.
“Did you kill them?”
She held my gaze unflinchingly.
And for an eternity we stood there, unmoving. Waiting.
Illesea let out a long, weary sigh.
“You are just too smart for your own good, Alexander.”
I reacted instantly and completely without hesitation, drawing both my blades and swinging them with a roar of fury, lightning and wind erupted off my body causing the people near me to flinch backward as I attacked Illesea.
She calmly stepped back dodging the attack as if it wasn’t even an afterthought.
I let forth a furious flurry of blows, lightning rained from the sky crashing into the ground, and fired from dozens of tendrils across the ground from dozens of angles. [Storm Points] formed a constantly rotating and complex grid around us, constantly sparking and trying to catch her unawares and I was constantly warping around her unleashing attack after attack with spells and blades.
And none of it hit her. None of it connected, she calmly walked through all of it as if I wasn’t even there.
With another sigh, she snapped her fingers. A blast of percussive force came from her hand and detonated all the wood I had conjured, including the sword she had given me. My arm, my swords, my armor, my tendrils. All gone.
“Stop that, it is quite unbecoming,” She chided.
I screamed in response, hate filling my mind, blinding me, and taking control of my actions. I lunged at her, even if I had only one arm I still had lightning to use. I summoned a ball of it and quickly began compressing it and manipulated it into the shape of a blade that I could wield.
It was an unfinished product, but it would do for now.
I swung at her, but this time she didn’t even dodge. She let the blade of pure lightning connect with her neck.
And it just stopped.
Illesea stood there uninjured looking slightly perturbed.
“Do you see? You cannot hurt me, not because I can dodge your attacks, but simply because you are not strong enough,” She let out another sigh and flicked me in the chest, sending me flying backward and tumbling across the ground.
I felt several of my ribs crack and break from the minuscule attack she had given me.
I growled, pushing down the mind-numbing pain, and tried to push myself to my feet. Blood filled the inside of my mouth coating my tongue, but I ignored the damage I had taken and started pulsing magic to try and heal my wounds.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” I screamed at her with every ounce of hatred that I had in my soul.
“I’M GOING TO RIP YOU TO PIECES AND BURN YOUR CORPSE TO ASHES!”
She just sighed and stood there waiting as I screamed at her, my unbound hatred filling every word of every curse I hurled her way.
None of it caused her to so much as even twitch. Her face remained peaceful and serene the entire time.
“I had not planned for you to find out about this now. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to get here as quickly as you did. I expected to have a few more hours to work as you wallowed in pity outside Elendar. But I guess now will have to do.”
She snapped her fingers again, except this time instead of a blast of force her appearance started to warp slightly. It blurred and changed, she slowly grew another couple of feet. Going from around 6’3” to a towering nine feet tall.
Her hair grew out even longer and slowly flowed together in complicated braids and patterns. Her hair was adorned with pieces of decorative wood that glowed softly in different colors. The ends of her hair brushed lightly against the ground.
Her eyes changed from the colors they had been, one of them turned to a solid pale green that glowed, the other a pale red. She had no iris or pupils, they were just solid, glowing colors.
Her tunic changed into something akin to a ceremonial robe with long sleeves and a long flowing skirt. The top went up to her collarbone and covered her breasts and cleavage but still showed off a tantalizing amount of skin. Her midriff was left exposed to the elements and her skin was tattooed going up under her top all the way to her face and also extended down all the way to her feet which were also left exposed.
The tattoos were a swirling pattern of reds and greens that both glowed the same colors as her eyes.
Atop her head rested a crown. The crown shifted states, one moment it was a wreath of flowers, the next it was made out of wood, other times it was the antlers of some creature I didn’t recognize. It constantly shifted, never staying the same for long and never becoming the same thing twice.
She floated up just a few inches off the ground and surveyed everyone around her, nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Her presence coated the entire area making it difficult for me to even stay on my knees. I could barely breathe.
Eventually, her gaze settled back down on me as I wheezed, blood drooling lightly from my lips.
I tried to [Identify] her again.
[>>>>>>????
I would like to say I took the time to relish my newfound freedom.
But I didn’t. Because the truth of the matter was that I still wasn’t free. Not yet.
I was still too close to The Pit. Any of the cell block leaders could close the distance from there to me at a moment's notice. And I didn’t plan to stick around and welcome them.
I looked towards Verdanst and then aligned myself in the direction I wanted to be heading, pointing a hand towards the Seltas border where I had crossed over into Alixia.
I angled my hand slightly upwards and then fired a singular splinter of [Web of Lightning] into the sky and then jumped through it.
With my ascension into the third tier, My agility was roughly 25% higher than it had been. What I noticed, however, was that I was not 25% faster.
No. I was roughly 50% faster.
Something else I had noticed previously in the arena was that my skills were increasing in speed at a different rate than mine. Initially, I had thought my skills were just increasing at a set speed faster than me, but now I was realizing that wasn’t necessarily true.
I couldn’t tell what the factor of controlling spell speed was, but at the very least I knew it wasn’t agility otherwise it would increase at the same rate as my physical speed.
At the moment though, I didn’t have time to work out the mechanics of my spell speeds. All that mattered right now, was that my lightning was roughly 3x faster than I was, and because of that? A trip that had taken me 16 hours to make, heading from the border to Verdanst, now only took me a little under two hours.
After I had jumped through my lightning, I allowed it to gain sufficient height before using the one redirection I had to level it out and let it streak across the sky. No longer gaining height I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally flying into the atmosphere.
Or out of it.
I wasn’t able to actually see while I was lightning. I could still use my other skills and through those, I could still sense things. This made [OWN] even more valuable than it already was, considering it was the main thing allowing me to see the world around me right now. I could probably use things like [Mana Sense] and [Electricity Sense] as well.
But at the moment I didn’t really need them.
Despite being able to see with the skills, however, it wasn’t a perfect solution. I had about 7 seconds of notice before whatever I saw with the skill was upon me.
Which didn’t lend me a whole lot of time to try and come to a stop before I saw the wall approaching. I didn’t actually plan on stopping though. I would’ve preferred to do this a lot more stealthily but at the end of the day I just really did not care.
I wanted as much distance between me and Alixia as I could right now. I also just wanted to be somewhere familiar. Somewhere I felt like I wasn’t going to be turned into a slave just for existing.
The border wall quickly sprung up into a view and a few seconds later I was crossing ov-
I immediately crashed and was shunted out of my lightning bolt and began falling towards the ground.
Disoriented from the crash and unable to catch myself I fell 50 feet and slammed into the ground painfully.
I groaned as I lay on the ground, it didn’t feel like anything had broken in the crash or the fall, but it wasn’t a great feeling.
My senses slowly started to come back to me and I heard distant yelling. I wasn’t quite sure what they were yelling about but it was annoying and I wanted them to shut up.
I slowly pushed myself off the ground where I had landed painfully. Contrary to popular belief, there was not a crater. The terminal velocity with normal human weight was not enough to sufficiently impact the ground like that. In fact, if I had landed on my feet I doubt I would’ve even been that hurt, the only reason that landing had been painful at all was because I hadn’t been able to brace myself.
It was nice to know that I could survive terminal velocity falls now though.
I pulsed a heal through my body clearing up my mind and any lingering pain and looked around. I was relatively close to the gate in the border wall that the Alixian guards had tried to scam me at.
I frowned a little at the upsetting memory, but quickly pushed it to the back of my mind. It wasn’t relevant.
Standing up fully I activated my armor and passive skills. Wind and lightning exploded off of me as I started pushing mana through my body, circulating it through the skills and awakening my senses.
Looking towards the sounds of the voices I saw two familiar guards, their armor glowing softly in the sunlight. Not magically, thankfully, just aesthetically.
“Look who it is,” I said with a scoff towards the two guards approaching hesitantly with their weapons leveled at me.
“Mordecai and Rigby.”
Malachai came to a stop with a slightly confused face, “My name is Malachai?” He said, more as a question rather than a statement.
I just scoffed again.
“Listen, I don’t give a damn what your name is right now. What you’re going to do is listen very closely to what I’m about to say.”
I paused to make sure I had both of their attention before continuing.
“I’m in a very, very, very bad mood right now. So I’m going to tell you once, and only once. Open that gate, and get out of my way.”
I wasn’t sure why the wall had prevented me from getting over this time when it hadn’t last time. But I would get through one way or the other. The only difference would be how many people I had to kill to do it.
Malachai’s face paled slightly at my words, noticing the lightning sparking off me wildly into the ground.
“I uh…”
I took a single step forward, forcing mana through my auras making them grow wildly.
Malachai let out a squeak before turning around and running towards the gate, Gary in tow.
I followed behind them at a sedate pace pulling out my sword and then crafting a second one to match it. I held the one that I had made in my off-hand, I expected this one to break more often and it would be easier to replace it if it was in my prosthetic hand since I could just grow the replacement out of the palm of my hand.
The gate was quickly raised and I briskly walked under it, ignoring both the guards as I passed them by. They quickly scrambled away from me trying to keep plenty of distance between us.
I glanced at them and the soldiers coming from the Seltas side guard house. I didn’t recognize them, but they hadn’t stuck in my mind that much given that I hadn’t really interacted with them in any way.
I also wasn’t planning on sticking around to talk with them.
I put my swords on my back, attaching them to my wooden armor before pointing my good hand to the sky and firing off another splinter of [Web of Lightning] and jumping through it. I allowed this one to carry me over 100 feet into the air this time before redirecting it to level out.
I’d have a little bit less warning before I came up on something important on the ground, but hopefully, if I got shunted out of my lightning again the larger distance from the ground would give me sufficient time to catch myself before hitting the ground again.
If it didn’t it wouldn’t matter anyway since the fall wouldn’t hurt me any more than the other one had.
The landscape blurred by once again as I covered a tremendous amount of distance extremely quickly. In just a few hours I covered the distance from the border to Lustirne. But I didn’t stop there, I continued traveling and carried on right over the top of the city and continued traveling to the capital.
After a close to another hour of travel, I became tired.
Not physically. My stamina and mana were both fine.
I let go of my skill carrying me through the sky and fell towards the ground, my inertia carrying me forward with the same speed.
I hit the ground and didn’t even try to brace the fall. I went into a tumble bouncing over the ground acquiring new bruises to replace the ones I had healed not that long ago.
I eventually rolled to a stop on my back and just lay there, staring at the sky.
In a way, I felt relieved.
I had put a massive amount of distance between me and the hell I had been living in.
I was free again. I should be happy.
I should be happy…
And yet I couldn’t stop crying.
Tears streamed down my face as I took a shuddering breath. I slowly curled up on the ground, some distant part of my minds telling me I should be seeking shelter or, at the very least, creating my own.
But I just didn’t care. I couldn’t care.
All I could think was ‘Why me?’ I just couldn’t understand, why was I being framed as a mass murderer. Why was I enslaved for it? Why did I have to kill people? Why was I okay with killing people? Why did people hate me just on sight? Why did I get pushed away from Penny, Garrus, Karif, and George? Why did The Harbinger have to attack the capital? Why did the Sentinels have to attack the citadel? Why was I given the Heart? Why did I get turned into an elf?
Why did I come to this world?
There were so many questions in my minds running rampant and I had answers for exactly none of them.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there on the ground. It could’ve been hours or days, months, maybe years. I wasn’t sure.
I pushed myself up slowly, shakily up to my knees.
The sun had set at some point and the moon was high in the sky, a perfect crescent shining down mournfully.
The night sky was still breathtakingly beautiful. As my eyesight enhanced over my levels I could make out more and more of that beauty. The swirls of distant solar systems in the galaxy, the twinkling of constellations that seemed to shift ever so slightly in ways that wouldn’t have been natural back on Earth.
The hues of the night sky blended together to create a tapestry of natural beauty that no mortal painter could ever hope to comprehend, let alone capture on a canvas.
It helped calm me. It didn’t solve my problems, but looking at this scene helped center me slightly. It also genuinely confirmed that there was something unnatural about how I reacted to the beautiful parts of nature now.
As an ordinary human, I never would have felt this calm after everything I had gone through. Especially not just from seeing a beautiful night sky. But I did now, as an elf. I wasn’t fully sure if I wanted to be upset that there was maybe something mentally affecting me somehow, especially after all the mental torture I had gone through recently. But given that it was allowing me to center my emotions and chaotic mind I couldn’t find it in me to be too upset right now.
I slowly got to my feet and took off again. I wanted to go back to Vinwood. Even if I couldn’t rejoin the Earth Raiders right now I wanted to be with people I knew, to feel something akin to being safe in a home I recognized.
I surged through the sky again. This time carrying myself up several hundred feet. I remembered the palace being relatively high up and pretty big, so I’d need to go this high to avoid it and any barrier surrounding it.
‘Ping’ Skill combination unlocked: [Web of Lightning] / [Ride the Lightning] > [Skill Combination: Wings of Lightning]
I dropped my travel falling to the ground again, this time I braced properly and landed on my feet, albeit heavily, and slid to a stop after a few dozen feet.
I looked at the new skill I had just acquired.
[Skill Combination: Wings of Lightning] -
Using your skills in a creative fashion you achieve flight where you should have none, now you can warp your abilities as needed to achieve a more natural form to suit your needs. Flight speed based on spell speed.
I took a moment to read over the skill a few times. I had somewhat forgotten about the fact that I had unlocked skill combinations. Checking my status I saw where it fit in.
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 5
Tier 2 Class - [Mage of the Storm] - Level 1
Ability - [Storm Call]
Ability - [Storm Explosion]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Storm Aura]
Ability - [Web of Lightning]
Ability - [Storm Points]
Tier 2 Class - [Blade of Lightning] - Level 1
Ability - [Forged by the Storm - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Strikes]
Ability - [Lightning Blade’s Guidance - Hybrid]
Ability - [Lightning Stream]
Ability - [Ride the Lightning]
Ability -
Tier 2 Class - [Nature’s Enforcer] - Level 1
Ability - [Wood-Infused Armor]
Ability - [Healing Lily]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Bind]
Ability - [Nature’s Embrace]
Ability - [Nature’s Rampart]
Ability - [One With Nature]
Skill Combinations -
Ability - [Web of Lightning / Ride the Lightning] > [Wings of Lightning]
Ability -
Ability -
I had enough open slots for a total of three abilities, including the one I just got.
I wondered if I would get more open slots as I increased in tiers or if three was just the maximum to get.
I also wondered if these skills could also go to the repository so I could swap them out as well. Maybe something I would discover in the future.
A small smile curled at my lips. I had gotten a flight. I had achieved it.
Slowly, hesitantly, I activated the skill.
The first thing I noticed is that this skill would not be great for getting around unnoticed. Not that I was particularly surprised. The movement I had been using before hadn’t exactly been inconspicuous either.
I would also hesitate to call what I had ‘wings’. It was more a mantle if anything. Maybe a cloak really since it covered all the way down my back.
Lightning coursed violently around me, although I doubted it was actually dangerous, more just loud and very bright.
But damn did it look cool.
I tried to take a step and immediately lifted off the ground slightly. I would have stumbled if I had still been walking, but instead, I flailed a bit wildly as I floated through the air awkwardly.
I quickly managed to gain my balance, thanks to my high dexterity. From there I tried to use [Electric Manipulation] to control the skill. I was pleasantly surprised when it actually worked.
From there I floated more serenely through the air a few feet off the ground. It was still loud and bright, but it was smoother than it had been when I had initially left the ground.
I pushed myself up a few more feet into the air, the skill responding immediately, if somewhat sluggishly. I wasn’t going to be doing air acrobatics anytime soon, but the fact that I could fly at all brought a smile to my face, distracting me from the existential crisis I’d been having up till a few minutes ago.
I then pushed the skill to its max and shot up into the sky, the wind blasting into my face. I had to squint slightly as the air slammed into my eyes. But it wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be.
A light and happy feeling bubbled up into my chest as I slowed down to a stop high in the sky.
I could fly.
I could actually fly.
It was unwieldy and clumsy, and I could already tell it would be horrendous at turning.
But I could fly.
I let out a laugh, this one not full of scorn and abhorrence for the people around me. But instead a laugh of joyful mirth at the situation.
My life hadn’t suddenly changed or gotten better in any meaningful way. I still had a lot of unanswered questions. But after taking a moment to breathe and calm down, with a new skill that gave me a new avenue of joy, I felt a lot better.
I shot off in the direction of Vinwood. As the skill said, I was moving at the same speed I had been when using [Web of Lightning]. Which was really fast. It was one thing to see the ground blurring past me through [OWN], or rather seeing myself blur by through the skill as it gave me a different point of view outside my body.
It was another thing to see it with my own eyes.
In the distance, I could make out the capital city, Elendar. I started curving my flight to the side. I planned to go around Elendar, not over it. And I planned on giving it a wide berth. I didn’t want to get in trouble for violating airspace or anything like that and I really didn’t want to be stopped either.
The extra distance added a few minutes to my travel time, but in the grand scheme that wasn’t all that important. I quickly got around the capital city and continued on my way.
I was only a few hours out from Vinwood, once I got there I could plan my next steps.
At the very least I wouldn’t have to be worried about being framed for murdering thousands of people.
***
Vinwood was on fire.
Huge swathes of flames covered the city. Wherever the orange flames weren’t burning the buildings lay in ruin, bodies filling the streets.
I was completely numb.
I was high above the city looking down, completely unsure of what to do. I wasn’t even sure if anyone was even still alive. I didn’t see any movements within the city. Or at least no obvious movements.
Why? Why was this happening?
Dread filled my chest.
Nauseating fear permeated every part of my mind.
I slowly lowered myself down to the ground, outside the north gate.
My eyes closed, I couldn’t bring myself to look. I knew what I would see. I didn’t want to see it. I knew the scene was there. It was the second thing I had noticed after seeing the burning city.
I didn’t want to acknowledge it, I knew it was there.
I couldn’t acknowledge it.
I knew it was there.
I didn’t want to look.
But I’d already seen it.
I landed lightly on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. I felt as if I didn’t acknowledge it, if I didn’t burn the sight into my memory I could pretend it wasn’t real. I could pretend it never happened and I could go the rest of my days…
I slowly opened my eyes and looked up at the four corpses hanging from the walls above the gate.
The last intact part of my mind broke at that moment.
I couldn’t even cry.
Garrus was missing the entire bottom half of his body.
Karif's skull had been crushed at the top. His jaw hung open in a silent scream.
George’s throat had been torn out, one of his arms completely mangled. Twisted around and around and around, not unlike a dishcloth you would wring out.
Penny…
A keening whine built up in my throat as I fell to my knees, unable to stay standing any longer.
She wasn’t even recognizable. Her body was completely torn apart. The only way I could tell it was her was the remaining hair on her head, the vibrant strawberry-blonde hair that I had found so beautiful.
It was matted to her skull, thick with dried blood.
My heart felt like it was trying to tear its way out of my chest. My throat constricted to the point where I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The world swirled around me, my vision unable to stay focused on the scene before me.
I leaned over and vomited, heaving until there was nothing left to throw back up.
And still, my stomach churned uncontrollably.
I heard a stampede of feet come up behind me, but I couldn’t even be bothered to look. My mind barely even acknowledged the sound.
I felt a hand grab my shoulder and gently pull me back, Fiona’s face came into view. She was saying something, but I couldn’t hear the words. Her face swirled around in my vision, the words she spoke didn’t make sense to me. They blended together into incomprehensible nonsense.
Her face softened and she pulled me into a hug that I didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, reciprocate. My arms refused to move as they twitched, my mind unsure of what was happening.
Something horrible. Something bad had happened. I couldn’t remember, why…?
I looked up again and saw their corpses looking down on me, hatred in their unseeing eyes.
I had killed them.
They had died because they knew me, because they had helped me.
Just like the elves had.
Just like Illesea…
Illesea hadn’t died though, had she?
She had escaped the sentinels, she had lived.
My senses achingly slowly came back into focus and I saw the army of soldiers and adventurers behind me.
“Alex, are you… unhurt?”
I turned to the voice, it was Marcie. She was standing next to Fiona. Kaylith and Striga both were nearby as well.
I didn’t answer and instead turned back to the city as it was burning.
The Sentinels had a fire user, didn’t they? It was more than likely that red demon-looking guy I had seen on the road to Vinwood after I got teleported out of the citadel.
Except…
The fire in the citadel had been a different color hadn’t it? That had been more red, this was just… A normal fire.
A big one certainly, but a normal one.
I felt a presence enter into the very edges of [OWN]. My head snapped over to it.
I shrugged my way out of Fiona’s grasp and began walking in her direction.
Fiona called after me but I ignored her.
I knew she was following after me, and so were the rest of her party along with several people from the group that had come here with them. The rest started making their way to the burning city, to potentially help any survivors.
I doubted there were any.
I ignored all of them and kept walking. The familiar presence approached me as well, albeit a bit more quickly than my brisk walk.
She quickly came into sight and landed lightly about a dozen feet away from me.
We stared at each other for a moment before she spoke first.
“Alex,” Illesea said, giving me a slight nod.
I used [Identify] on her.
[Level 801⁷]
Fiona came to a slow stop behind me glancing between the two of us. She opened her mouth to say something but Striga stopped her, shaking her head. Fiona closed her mouth and settled back watching with the rest.
I finally managed to ask, my voice choked and hoarse, “Who?”
Illesea let out a sigh looking towards the city.
“You know who. It was The Seven. It was always them, it will always be them. They will not let you rest. Not now, not in the future.”
I didn’t so much as twitch.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, my voice clearing up slightly. I straightened my back a little standing at my full height, which was comparable to Illesea’s.
She tilted her head a little looking at me, “What do you mean?”
“I meant what I asked, how did you know to come here? How did you know I was here? If you were just following The Sentinels, you either would have been here already or would have already fled and not come back after failing to stop them again. But you didn’t do that, did you? You came just now after I did. You also knew how to find me after I nearly killed myself healing people during the demon incursion.”
Illesea let out a sigh, “I can track the sword you hold. So while I don’t know exactly where you are, I have a general idea of your position.”
I nodded.
“How did you escape the Sentinels back in the citadel?”
Illesea frowned slightly, “Why are you interrogating me? I am here to assist you in this endeavor.”
I ground my teeth in frustration but slowly swallowed my anger letting it cool back down to a simmer.
“You’re tier seven. You’re strong, undeniably so. The Sentinels must also be tier seven. In fact, if they are as dangerous as you say I have no doubt some of them are even higher than tier seven. If there’s something I’ve discovered, it is that regardless of how strong you are, unless you have something that provides a distinct advantage, or the enemy is just stupid, you can’t defeat people in significantly higher tiers than you. The only reason I have done so is because of the Heart along with the epic grade class and weapon you have given me.”
I stared at her for a moment before continuing, “So I’ll ask again, Illesea. How did you escape The Sentinels of Discord that day? There’s no way they didn’t notice me on the road that day.”
As I spoke, more pieces slowly fell into place in my mind. Inconsistencies, small ones, that didn’t make sense with the truth as I knew it.
“The only thing that would make sense is if they noticed me, but didn’t care. They thought I was a human. Up the road from where I had been hiding there was a group of slain adventurers. Their bodies had been relatively fresh as well. If The Sentinels had wanted to kill me, or all humans in their path, they would’ve killed me in that bush and been done with it.”
“But they didn’t. They moved on. But there’s a zero percent chance they didn’t know I was there. I could find someone hiding at that distance at level one tier zero. It would be painfully easy.”
Illesea gazed at me for a long time. Holding my eyes unflinchingly.
“Illesea, this is not the fire I saw in the citadel that day,” I said, my voice deceptively calm. Underneath the veneer of tranquility was a seething, writhing abyss that everyone around me could sense.
“Did you kill them?”
She held my gaze unflinchingly.
And for an eternity we stood there, unmoving. Waiting.
Illesea let out a long, weary sigh.
“You are just too smart for your own good, Alexander.”
I reacted instantly and completely without hesitation, drawing both my blades and swinging them with a roar of fury, lightning and wind erupted off my body causing the people near me to flinch backward as I attacked Illesea.
She calmly stepped back dodging the attack as if it wasn’t even an afterthought.
I let forth a furious flurry of blows, lightning rained from the sky crashing into the ground, and fired from dozens of tendrils across the ground from dozens of angles. [Storm Points] formed a constantly rotating and complex grid around us, constantly sparking and trying to catch her unawares and I was constantly warping around her unleashing attack after attack with spells and blades.
And none of it hit her. None of it connected, she calmly walked through all of it as if I wasn’t even there.
With another sigh, she snapped her fingers. A blast of percussive force came from her hand and detonated all the wood I had conjured, including the sword she had given me. My arm, my swords, my armor, my tendrils. All gone.
“Stop that, it is quite unbecoming,” She chided.
I screamed in response, hate filling my mind, blinding me, and taking control of my actions. I lunged at her, even if I had only one arm I still had lightning to use. I summoned a ball of it and quickly began compressing it and manipulated it into the shape of a blade that I could wield.
It was an unfinished product, but it would do for now.
I swung at her, but this time she didn’t even dodge. She let the blade of pure lightning connect with her neck.
And it just stopped.
Illesea stood there uninjured looking slightly perturbed.
“Do you see? You cannot hurt me, not because I can dodge your attacks, but simply because you are not strong enough,” She let out another sigh and flicked me in the chest, sending me flying backward and tumbling across the ground.
I felt several of my ribs crack and break from the minuscule attack she had given me.
I growled, pushing down the mind-numbing pain, and tried to push myself to my feet. Blood filled the inside of my mouth coating my tongue, but I ignored the damage I had taken and started pulsing magic to try and heal my wounds.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” I screamed at her with every ounce of hatred that I had in my soul.
“I’M GOING TO RIP YOU TO PIECES AND BURN YOUR CORPSE TO ASHES!”
She just sighed and stood there waiting as I screamed at her, my unbound hatred filling every word of every curse I hurled her way.
None of it caused her to so much as even twitch. Her face remained peaceful and serene the entire time.
“I had not planned for you to find out about this now. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to get here as quickly as you did. I expected to have a few more hours to work as you wallowed in pity outside Elendar. But I guess now will have to do.”
She snapped her fingers again, except this time instead of a blast of force her appearance started to warp slightly. It blurred and changed, she slowly grew another couple of feet. Going from around 6’3” to a towering nine feet tall.
Her hair grew out even longer and slowly flowed together in complicated braids and patterns. Her hair was adorned with pieces of decorative wood that glowed softly in different colors. The ends of her hair brushed lightly against the ground.
Her eyes changed from the colors they had been, one of them turned to a solid pale green that glowed, the other a pale red. She had no iris or pupils, they were just solid, glowing colors.
Her tunic changed into something akin to a ceremonial robe with long sleeves and a long flowing skirt. The top went up to her collarbone and covered her breasts and cleavage but still showed off a tantalizing amount of skin. Her midriff was left exposed to the elements and her skin was tattooed going up under her top all the way to her face and also extended down all the way to her feet which were also left exposed.
The tattoos were a swirling pattern of reds and greens that both glowed the same colors as her eyes.
Atop her head rested a crown. The crown shifted states, one moment it was a wreath of flowers, the next it was made out of wood, other times it was the antlers of some creature I didn’t recognize. It constantly shifted, never staying the same for long and never becoming the same thing twice.
She floated up just a few inches off the ground and surveyed everyone around her, nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Her presence coated the entire area making it difficult for me to even stay on my knees. I could barely breathe.
Eventually, her gaze settled back down on me as I wheezed, blood drooling lightly from my lips.
I tried to [Identify] her again.
[>>>>>>????
