UNKNOWN POV

Four black-robed men sat in a circle in the middle of a grove far from civilization. They were currently resting, as in the past few days of their exodus they’ve been exhausting their mana capacity to travel great distances using the void.

They all thought that it was peculiar that self-teleportation usually ate a lot more of their mana than just summoning but they knew that there’s more to teleportation than just accessing the void to jump locations.

They needed to protect their body from the void and coat it with mana, all the while making sure that their souls stay connected to their bodies and does not get stuck in the void. It was an arduous and demanding process. Especially when traveling distances more than two kilometers; they had to rest every time they jumped.

That is unless you were a master of the void which even to the cult meant only the eight leaders of each section of their cult called the Athala. Though, this excluded the two ambiguous founders of the Cult of Rizale who are said to be immortal. To the members, these founders existence itself was mystifying.

Right now, they were three jumps behind before they finally get to the Dead Whispers, an archipelago in the middle of an ocean south of Ensfell. The Dead Whispers is unknown to the rest of the world and is the place where their cult has rooted their seat of power and operations.

“Aiy,” the black-robed man whose clothes were burnt and ripped on various parts including the shoulders turned his head towards the voice that addressed him. “Who was that kid? It took a lot for us to breach his influence against the void. He knows about the void,”

The man called Aiy, who fought the silver-haired kid from a few days ago touched his shoulders carefully, still feeling a searing pain from the burns he got from the anthropomorphic fire that entangled him. To him, there was more to the kid than just knowing about the void.

“My eeno, I think it is better for us to assume that he’s an enemy of the cult, and that we know nothing of him yet. Perhaps, we should ask the founders to pay closer attention. He..." the man's next words caught in his throat. He was careful. Besides, it isn't possible that he coud be the reincarnation. But... that being - I don't remember if he said Rizale'.

The man he addressed as Eeno nodded. The Eeno are the leaders of a three man-cell that operated on the Cult’s orders. Each member of an Eeno’s cell can only be called by a single letter that also signified seniority.

The man called Aiy noted that the Cult’s way of hiding their identities even from their colleagues and comrades were paramount to the Cult’s goal of being an obscure power in Ensfell, until the spark of revolution.

At some point, this revolution became Aiy’s mantra. The power of the void that he was granted access to only served as validity towards this cause. He believed that everyone should gun for their own desires, and that the cult was only doing what was natural to them.

He was doing what was natural to him. He couldn't exactly tell when those thoughts first occurred to him, but he believed it to be so as quickly as it came.

Aiy had a daughter, and what's best for his daughter was best for Rizale.

He wanted to show her the ways of Rizale, and how it opened up opportunities for your growth in power and status.

Though, he knew there was a price to pay, and a lingering feeling of that price coming just around the corner bothered him. Exactly what, remains unseen.

“We are going to. The previous orders were to just observe him but I thought that it’d be better for us to make contact. It is great that we found out so soon about his powers and unwillingness to cooperate. As soon as we inform the higher ups, we’ll make sure to advise them to eliminate or capture the Raven boy,” the Eeno assessed, his eyes shifting downward ever so slightly.

In the few encounters and missions that the cult performed that was directly accomplished with their person, no one has been able to solve the puzzle of nullifying access to the void. In truth, one needed to have the sensitivity of a void mage in order to do so.

Nor has anyone who has been captured could reveal anything deep and important to the inner workings of the Cult. They just knew moot. Usually, the members of an Eeno’s cell are only given specifics of the mission, and are slowly introduced and trained to use void magic. Even if they did explain void magic, the language that the cult used was slightly different, but crucial in understanding how magic operates. With at least six generations behind the cult, it was suffice to say that it was a society of its own.

It might be different if an Eeno was captured but Aiy internally shook his head. Just the gap between him and his Eeno was enormous. He doubted that anyone could capture him alive.

The man called Aiy snickered as he thought of retribution. He wanted to at least deal the finishing blow against the kid. Rip the kid’s tongue out of his mouth, then remove his eyeballs, then-

Aiy heard the earth rumble faintly in his eardrums. He looked around. He only saw the other men and their Eeno checking their surroundings. Before Aiy was about to breathe a sigh of relief, the trees around him withered.

Everybody including Aiy stood up.

He flared up his mana core as he felt a familiar yet different influence take hold of the surroundings. It was damp yet relaxing, but it was heavier than most that he’s encountered.

“My Eeno, it is the kid’s pet! We must get away from here!” warned Aiy only to hear a snort from his Eeno.

“Whoever you are, I advise you not to show yourself,” his Eeno calmly declared with a stoic expression.

“Oh, so you must be the leader, I assume?” A velvety voice whispered to everyone in their group. There was still no one in sight.

Aiy sweated profusely, he knew they had to get away. Without orders from the Eeno though, they were stuck here to deal with whatever monstrosity the kid has come up with again. He's felt fear, respect and admiration for his Eenos. But not this.

“Of course, why do you-” his Eeno was cut off as a ring of water strangled his neck. Gagging, he tried to remove the ring but his fingers only passed through its watery surface.

“My Eeno!” One of the other robed men shouted as he prepared a void spell. Just as Aiy felt his colleague’s mana wrap around the area where the Eeno is, a fog wrapped around the Eeno that quickly turned into a capsule of water that encased him.

Aiy looked towards his colleagues and nodded. They simultaneously faced their palms forward and channeled the void. They were preparing to jump. There was nothing they could do about their Eeno. They had to escape.

A large lump of mana gathered around their bodies, and they willed their mana to rip open the void. However, the same voice that presumably caught their Eeno whispered to them.

“I apologize. Your path ends here,” the voice declared.

Aiy saw particles of the ground slowly wrap around his body and he lost control of his mana which dissipated. Rough minuscule soil clutched onto his skin and clothes and was slowly forming layers. When his arms were finally covered in earth, it gave out as he lost control due to the added weight.

Aiy’s lungs were being punctured by the air he breathed, which carried the same particles of soil with it. He wanted to just dip himself in water, as the soil that eliminated his movements revealed to him the dirt that his body has become.

At the beginning, he really didn’t want to be part of any cult. But growing up part of it, there was little you can do. In the Cult of Rizale, insubordination and blasphemy meant death. There was no way out. His wife grew up in the same way. Their daughter's...

He wasn’t so sure if he had the same circumstances as other members in his cell but if this is the price to pay then he hoped everyone in the Cult would also be statues to remind people of what happens when you’re wrapped in your own beliefs.

Aiy has accepted that he became the very man he didn’t want to become but he was glad that he was at least given time to realize it. Were there others like him in there... what if his daughter thought the same way he did when he was younger. He loved his daughter and in order to save her, he had to give in to the Cult, his Eeno’s demands. Pretty soon, he was believing what they believed.

He felt the fire of revolution spark in his heart. A fire that was thoroughly being extinguished by the prickly earth that he now called his body, a memento of regret.

Bella..

The earth that stuck to his legs were starting to solidify as a numbness crept up towards his waist. He found it impossible to breath and his body heavy in more ways than one, but he remained on his feet.

Aiy had stumbled upon the price to pay.

A heavy migraine overtook his thoughts and his vision darkened as specks entered his eyes. His last hope was that fate also decides to turn the Cult’s dreams into brittle stone that would never stand the test of time. He hoped that with that, her daughter would find her true calling.