Nothing is Left

“What should we do now?” Audrey asked, still looking at the spot where the Emperor stood a moment ago.

Ignoring her question, Elena outraged, “Do you know what’s the worst? That I picked the wrong element to attack! To begin with, instead of Devour, I could have used Earth Magic!”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You can’t change the past, so focus on the future instead,” Audrey patted her shoulder, soothing her wrath.

Slumping her shoulders, Elena replied, “You’re right. Let’s take everything from this cave. We might find something useful.”

They packed up as many gold coins as they could since they had the same signs on them as the coins on their planet. “Now that I think about it, we just got fucking rich!” Audrey couldn’t help but curse out loud in her happiness.

“Yeah, and look at this!” Elena exclaimed as she pushed hidden tile under the pile of gold. The wall creaked as it split open, revealing a door. “The Emperor must not have noticed it since it was hidden by a spell. If I was still around the hundred and fiftieth level, I wouldn’t have noticed it either!”

Nodding her head, Audrey followed Elena to the hidden room. In the middle of the room was a simple table with a ring and a scroll on it. The ring had a purple gem in it, while the scroll looked like something that hadn’t been touched for ages. A thick layer of dust covered everything inside the room. Elena wiped the table with her hand, causing a big dust cloud to fly into the air.

*Cough* “Shit… just how old is this?”

“I have no idea, but quickly look at it!” Audrey urged her.

Name: Void Ring

Rarity: Uncommon

Effects: This is a storage ring with a space of eight cubic meters inside.

“That’s bigger than the one you have!” Audrey said with an excited voice. Elena threw it her way and raised her brows. Catching it, she pulled it on her finger and felt tiny spikes penetrate her skin and an extension of space form around her. “Thanks, Elena.”

“No problem, now pack up the rest of the gold coins…” she replied showing a smile. Turning back to the scroll, she carefully unrolled it, only to realize that it was in perfect shape, even if its outer part looked aged.

Her eyes ran through the letters, which she knew better than the letters of any language. It was the general language of the universe, after all. The one she had been using since birth. Her eyes opened wide as they got lost in the words of the scroll. “This- This is a spell and a powerful one at that! It’s called Supernova!” she couldn’t help but shout in her excitement.

Hearing the word ‘spell’, Audrey jumped at her like a hungry wolf and read the contents of the scroll with her Minor Devour instead of her eyes. “This is a hard spell and it contains a lot of advanced knowledge! The one who created this knew what he was doing!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, this spell is a mix of fire, light, and eon element, and we need Gravity Magic too, which shows how hard it is. If not for knowing about the Eon Element, we would be looking at each other, waiting for answers,” Elena commented.

“I feel so forgotten here… I’ll just lay down and sleep,” Dred chimed in as he took his place on the top of a pile of gold and transformed into his Wyvern form.

“Sorry,” Elena said, not really caring about him at the heat of the moment.

“...”

“So where were we? We have to combine the light and the fire element to create a mini sun. That’s strange considering that it’s made up of different gases, but I guess the one who wrote this didn’t exactly know it… Anyway, once we created a mini sun, it will have some basic gravity, but we will have to use Gravity Magic to increase it until reaching a certain level of dragging force.”

“So the first layer is to create a mini sun with a gravity field around it and compress the mini sun as small as we can while increasing the gravity field. That’s when we have to use the Eon Element and split the merged fire and light element with it. Based on the explanation, the bigger the mini sun we create, the bigger the result would be. If we split a set amount of fire and light elements, the explosion will stop by itself once it runs out of fuel.”

Furrowing her brows, Audrey added, “Yeah, but it seems like the smallest scale we can use this is the size of a village or a smaller city and it can turn much bigger. This would make Eon Element into something useful and less dangerous. I wouldn’t want to accidentally blow up ourselves too. We can just set the scale of this spell based on how much fire and light element we merge.”

“Although that won’t make this spell into something we could use in a simple battle, it is perfect for a large scale spell, created to destroy,” Elena summed up.

“I won’t learn it since it would be pointless for me to waste my time on this kind of spell. It will be for you to learn,” she added, pushing the scroll into Audrey’s hands.

A bright smile formed on Audrey’s face, showing how happy she felt about Elena’s decision. “I’ll make good use of this in the future!” Audrey said with glimmering eyes.

“Haha, alright. It definitely takes time to cast, which I don’t have in the middle of a battle. As my supporter Mage, you will have the time to use it, hopefully,” Elena said with a smile, patting Audrey’s shoulders. “But before that, you will have to learn it. It’s not an easy spell, but luckily you have prior knowledge related to these things.”

“Mhm, let’s go,” Audrey nodded her head, nudging Dred’s side who actually fell asleep.

Grabbing Audrey’s shoulder, Elena pulled her back, “Let him be. I’ll carry him, he forced himself way too much through these days.”

“Alright, I’ll help you.”

“No need, I’m strong enough, you know?” Elena tilted her head to the side.

“Of course! Then take your dear husband yourself!” Audre said with a grin on her face.

“You are stealing my style, but it’s not even funny! He is different, you know?” Elena asked, her face melancholic.

“Is he?” Audrey tilted her head to the side as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“What do you mean?” Elena asked, furrowing her brows.

“Nothing, let’s go,” she replied, leaving her where she was. Stomping on the ground, a human-sized hole opened up in the ground above her and a stone column took her up to the surface.

“What’s with her?” Elena muttered to herself, not understanding Audrey’s implications. But Dred has nothing to do with such things, he doesn’t even have a gender in his original form, though he could be called a guy… Oh, well, let’s go! She thought, following Audrey’s example after picking up Dred on her back. Guh, he isn’t heavy with my strength, but he is fucking big compared to me! He should have reverted to a smaller size… But maybe I’m able to change it.

Focusing on Dred’s body, she controlled the shadows and tried to resize his body with no success. “I guess it’s impossible,” she sighed and started dragging Dred on her back towards the capital city, which wasn’t so far away.

“You look ridiculous!” Audrey laughed at her.

They hadn’t yet reached the capital when Dred woke up. He apologized for being baggage, though Elena’s smack on the back of his head made him get back in the right mindset.

“You aren’t baggage, we wouldn’t be here if not for you. Anyway, how do we go around this? We killed most of the military leaders so there are only the commoners left… How do we even announce that we wish to overtake their territory?” she asked with a chuckle, realizing that she was lacking in knowledge, again.

“Let’s call Hector. He should be able to deal with this,” Audrey advised. Elena and Audrey cleaned up the Emperor’s place in the middle of the city, which had only a few guards and victims in it, while Dred returned to the capital of the Drung Kingdom to speak with Hector. It took only a few hours for him to reach the capital, but he was so tired by the end that he entered his guest room and fell asleep on his bed.

When Hector arrived with the quickest flying vehicle he had, he found Elena and Audrey meditating in the throne room of the palace. They told him that the Emperor got away, but most of their opponents were killed. Hector couldn’t help but frown when hearing their words, but he was still more than happy with what he learned.

A few hours later, his men arrived at the city and with their help, the group wiped out the hiding guards and soldiers. With nobody to command the unruly mass of soldiers, every front lost in just a few hours. In a war, unorganized forces were the easiest to kill, even if they were many. But what Elena found the strangest was that nobody came to Dink from their planet, even after so much time passed by.

Elena and Audrey returned to Hector’s palace, but before that, they visited the forest where Jake and Cor resided.

---

Jake and Cor trained hard through the days their friends were missing. Both of them were sitting on the ground, meditating and training their spells. Opening his left eye, Cor looked at Jake’s face.

“Focus on your Mana,” Jake said, his eyes still closed.

“How do you know that I was looking at you?” Cor couldn’t help but ask since this happened every time.

“Well, your level is still only at the hundred and fiftieth, so the difference between us is quite big. I can sense every movement you make, be it your eyelashes or your eyelids. As you grow stronger, your aura will create a natural barrier around you, ‘blinding’ everyone else around you as a result,” Jake replied.

“But I’m not blind,” Cor said, poking his own eyes.

“You suck… I meant that others won’t be able to sense your movements clearly. They can only see it! For example, if somebody at the fiftieth level tried to sneak up on you, they would be spotted by you long before unless they had stealth related skills. If-”

“Okay, shut up, Mr. Clever Jake. What about your dearest love? Aren’t you missing her?”

“Fuck you,” he answered through gritted teeth. Sighing loudly, he slumped his shoulders as he continued, “I do. She and Elena have been with me for a long time now. It feels very strange and boring without them. It’s fun to beat you up, but it’s not as enjoyable as having them around. I want the girls back!”

“You just want to some food for yer eyes,” Cor laughed at him.

“Screw you! I’ll be rougher with you this time, though I can’t deny that they are a feast for the eyes…” he muttered towards the end. The leaves of a bush rustled, catching their attention. Jumping up, Jake got ready to fight and used his Sense, but Audrey and Elena stepped through the bush at the same time.

“What is a feast for the eyes?” Audrey asked with interest, showing her white teeth.

“Ah, my goddess has returned!” Jake joked with her as he fell on his knees in front of her.

“You are very funny…” she stepped to the side and got around him.

“Eh? Even though I was missing you a lot and tried so hard to please you?” Jake asked with a chuckle as he got up and stopped beside her.

*Yawn* “I’m sorry, but I’m really sleepy. We haven’t really slept since leaving,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand.

“You must have had it rough. So? How’d it go?” he asked Elena, tilting his head to the side.

Brushing her hand through her black hair, she answered, “We are mostly done, though there was a complication. The Emperor had the Eighth Ring of Calamity, which seemed to be Dark Element attributed and he got away, probably to our Dunk planet. Haah- such a chore to find him,” she thought aloud, sighing loudly.

“And where is Dred?”

“He is in the capital, probably sleeping somewhere. While we meditated, he had to fly so he was awake non-stop for much longer than a day.”

“Oh…”

“And what about our corpse friend?” Elena asked while yawning loudly, stopping in front of Cor. Leaning closer, she examined his body with her eyes.

“My master has returned! Yaay-” Cor shouted loudly, startling Elena.

“... This was intentional, wasn’t it?” she asked with furrowed brows, covering her ears.

“No…?”

“His skill is advancing real quickly and his armored mode is quite tough by now. If I use nothing but my fists, I have to cover my knuckles with gloves or something else my skin will rip off. Considering that I’m a good fifty levels above him, it’s a real wonder!” Jake summarized.

“You reached the two-hundredth level? Nice job,” she commented on his level after checking Cor’s. It wasn’t hard to add a hundred and fifty-six and fifty… “Have you remembered anything from your past life?” she asked Cor, tilting her head to the side.

“I had had some hazy dreams, but I couldn’t remember them when I woke up,” came the reply with a sad tone.

“Don’t worry about it, we will help you since I imagine it’s bad that you don’t even know where you come from,” Elena shook her head with a slight feeling of sympathy.

“Thanks. You are much better than this brown haired, yellow-eyed, rubbish, bastard of a sadist Jake!” Cor started cursing at him as he grabbed Elena’s right leg and fell to the ground in front of her.

“Get off of me! What the fuck?” she shook her leg.

“I forgot to tell you that sometimes he gets in the mood and starts roleplaying or what… he has done this numerous times already. Be careful with him because he usually bit me at these times. He loves Mana filled meat and he had been missing Dred the most,” Jake shook his head.

“Dred? Well, in his monster form, his Mana spreads through his cells, turning him into a much more ‘delicious’ food for undead types,” Elena said with a thoughtful face.

“I would never do something like this!” Cor shouted.

Tilting her head to the side, Elena replied, “Your words sounded like a lie. Ah, I’m tired. Let’s go back to the palace and find Dred. I want to sleep too.”

They left the forest behind and found Dred in one of the guest rooms. Hector was in the palace, though very busy. Still, Elena and co. entered his office to talk with him. He was more than happy to see them, “Oh, you have come! The conditions you set will be satisfied immediately. I’ll ask for the best trainer who will teach you how to use your weapons, in case you aren’t better than him in it, haha.”

Hearing Hector’s words, a smile formed on Elena’s face. He led them to the throne room after telling a servant to notify the Electors. A few minutes later they took their places in the throne room and happily took the oath. To break the silence that fell over the throne room, Hector asked something everyone wanted to know, “So what are your plans now?”

“Well, based on your backstory I’m an orphan girl from the city, who had high talent in Magic so you took me in secretly and raised me until I outgrew you in strength and Magic by far. It explains why others don’t know anything about me and you can’t say anything else about me, which means that I have a perfect cover story. My point is that I don’t need to be a queen of the Sliton Empire anymore.”

“Oh?”

“The best would be if you spread my backstory in the city to make sure that many people could prove it. I also know your language by now, which adds another layer to my cover. Everything is perfect! So I plan to leave this planet after resting for a short time and going through the training your military trainer will show me. You can do what you want with the territory of the Sliton Empire. Take it back or-”

“What!? I must leave immediately in that case!” he interrupted her with a loud shout and quickly left the throne room. While standing in the door, he shouted, “Electors, do your job and help me take over that Empire!”

“Yes!” They shouted as they sprung up from their chairs and followed Hector.

Elena and co. was left in the empty throne room with dumbfounded faces. “It must have meant a lot to them…” Audrey commented.

Shaking her head, Elena made her way towards the guest rooms. “Let’s rest,” she sighed. Entering Dred’s room, she laid down beside him and used him as a pillow. Feeling the warmth of his body and the blanket, she fell asleep in the blink of an eye in that cozy feeling.

But at that time, a long, blonde-haired man with green eyes sneaked into the city, a black cape hiding his stature. Who was he?

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