“Come back here little lambs” Airon shouted in the halls as I tried to calm Kai, we were able to get away from him but Song took a massive hit, the zweihander had turned into a bracelet forming a dragon and a snake intertwining. Kai was shivering uncontrollably beside me, blood still splattered across his face and clothes.

“Kai, you're going to have to calm down” I whispered to him as a crowd ran past us. “We need to stay quiet and we won’t be able to do that if you continue to do that”

“How do you expect me to stay calm after what just happened?” He demanded as he tried to crawl through the vent to another direction away from the sound, His trembling caused the metal interiors of the vents to creak. “We just watch a person get mutilated”

I stopped a moment before speaking, I had forgotten that Kai didn’t know what Song could do with his abilities. “Song is fine, you need to calm down or else he will hear us”

“Fine my ass, he was split into two with that monster's bare hands, HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THAT FINE?” He whispered hurriedly back to me. “He is D. E. A. D. Dead”

I sighed and pushed him on to get him to continue into the vents, we passed a few corpses as we continued down the maze of vents, I knew where we where aiming, we weren’t placed here under Airon because of any stupid luck, there was a purpose to everything, and this one was to collect the runes that Airon was missing.

[Time Dominance] a hard to find rune, that I used to see being used as a final rune before they sacrificed themselves to the voillings.

Heavy breathing erupted from the front of us, I stifled a laugh as I saw the terrified face of Kai etched on the surface of his face, We watched as Song lifted himself into the vent, I forcefully lowered Kai’s leg as he almost jumped out of the vent, Song’s appearance only made the vent pushed and shake, we closed the latch as we watched the Airon sprint by only a second later, met by an empty hallway he turned back and headed towards the stairs to look for his runes, every person that was within his boundary had not stayed alive for more than a second, we had to find the runes before he did.

[Mind Over Matter]

[Eye of Transcendence] My eye started glowing a bright red, but only I could see it, the extra rune that wasn’t supposed to exist, this wasn’t right, I didn’t understand I couldn’t link it to any of the legends or myths that rune, most runes that entered the world after the first wave was based around myths and legends of our world, it wasn’t until the final waves where we gained personal runes. I grabbed the runestone before it floated away. The stone shifted and tangled with the other runes that were surrounding me. It seemed that I’d surprised myself more than I thought. The rune allowed me to predict opponents strategies and moves dependent on their location and position.

“Are we not going to talk about how Song just climbed into a vent, when we saw him get mutilated by Airon?” Kai held back a whimper as Song continued to crawl through the vents.

“I am an immortal young one” Song said, as he connected his arms together. His runes rotated around his arms and glowed gold as he showed them to Kai “Just look at my runes”

[Thousand Immortal Bodies]

“What do they mean?” Kai looked confused, he couldn’t understand the runes because he never learned the runes, “I don’t understand the runes”

“They say ‘Thousand Immortal Bodies’, “ I told him, as I looked over my own runes, the purple glow of my runes. I continued to read Songs other runes.

[Cricket Luck]

[Holder of the Golden Headband]

[Journey of a century]

[Eyes of the Immortal Mortal]

All the Runes that correlated to the Original Tang San from the journey to the west, Cricket luck allowed to be especially lucky with any decision he made, Holder of the Golden Headband was a one time use for chaining the untamable beast; Son Goku. Journey of the century would keep his companions alive and the ones he chooses to join him, and Eyes of the Immortal mortal is what allowed him to see and make the choice of choosing me as his companion, Thousand Immortal bodies keeps him alive no matter how many times he dies. He felt the pain of every death, but cannot stay dead, which is why he learns to ignore the pain as it came. We climbed out of the vent in a classroom that Song had chosen, he ushered me towards the salt lamp that was on the teachers desk, the rune that Airon should have had floated around the lamp”

[Zodiac Control]

I was dumbfounded Zodiac Control was one of the hardest rune to get, It allowed the user to fuse with constellations giving certain buffs and abilities while fused with them, there was no way that it was this easy unless….

“Kai… Bring that salt lamp to me. “ I kept my eyes on Song, I felt something off about the situation, even with his runes finding runes like this isn’t easy. “Song I suggest that you don’t move”

Song had started to back away, Kai had noticed and gave Song an expression of confusion, “Why are you backing away?”

“No reason” The giggling of Song didn’t seem to fit his usual benevolent behaviour. I know what made me feel uneasy.

“Airon, show yourself” I said as the zweihander formed in my hands. Kai brought the rune to me just enough time for me to absorb it “Where is Song?”

“I didn’t think it would take you so long to realise” Airon said while shifting back into his original form, “What gave me away?”

“The fact that you aren’t Airon but actually Loki” I prayed that I was right Loki was someone hard to deal with but easy to bargain with. And I had the perfect bargain for Loki. “You’ve come to bargain no?”

“Hahaha I like you” Loki shifted into his original form, his jet black hair was gelled backwards, his face sharp with defining ridges, he looked at us with his green eyes, he smirked at the both of us, “You already took half of my bargain, What do you have to offer”

“Your most important rune,” I showed him the glowing rune on my arm.

[Serpents Domain]

Loki wouldn’t be known as a serpent tongued demon of bargaining for nothing, Serpents domain was one main rune that was used to uphold his slippery personality, A rune that let you flatter anyone with your words, make them fall for your looks, and do anything for you is dangerous if it ended up in the wrong hands.

“Interesting.” Loki stared at me, without saying anything pulled out a rock with black runes. He seemed to be able to surprise me over and over, black runes out of all the different runes he could have bargained. The runes of the new world are ranked by the colour they are; Blue lowest, green, purple, black, and white being the highest. Gold runes are known special runes, based on the personal deity title that the person takes over. I read the runes before he hid the stone back in his jacket.

[Seraphim’s Ascension]

“Why do you have a rune that doesn’t correlate to your region's mythology?” This wasn’t normal, deities of one region should not have runes from another, “Wait only one person had that rune, the leader of the seraph’s”

“He annoyed me during the conference, and said that I was betraying them with my motives” He waved his hand carelessly “I swiped this rune from his wing, when he attacked me, I wouldn’t kill any of my brethren”

I didn’t know if I could trust Loki or not, within the myths he was known for tricking and fooling people with just his words, within the new world I heard stories where he brought families of gods down with just one sentence. He never used the rune for serpents domain, so no one really knew the extent of his powers. I needed to think this through straight in case I got into some kind of trap.

“How can I trust someone like you?” I held the rune outwards as he dived for it, I was amused that the god of trickery was getting mad over a mortal. But I was cautious because he had a rune I didn’t expect him to have at such an early stage “You already have the silver tongue”

“The silver tongue is nothing without the [Serpents domain] “ He spat, I felt him use his runes to look over my skill, testing to see if he had what it took to take me on himself, he looked concerned “Hmmm… Second path”

“Interesting” I was intrigued by the black rune, a rune from christianity would definitely be enough power for me to survive the first 50 waves, but I needed to think through this carefully, one wrong move and I could end up in deep shit, by both gods and my mortal peers.

“Well?” Loki looked impatient as he reached out for the rune transfer, I watched as he put the black rune on the desk, “Deal or no deal?”

“Deal” I had nothing to lose I get a black rune that was considered the hardest to get in the world, since the only way to get it was to make a bargain for it from the holder, killing someone with the rune would make the rune disappear which made it impossible to get black runes.

“Good,” Loki shook my hand as the runes got transferred immediately, he looked around the corner before walking out.

“Can’t you just kill Airon with your powers?” I walked steadily behind beside him as he took bigger strides “I mean your godly and whatever, with all your great abilities it should be easy”

“I wish but we gods have a strict non-killing among us norse gods, we like mind games better than anything.” He smirked at me, as if already knowing what I would say before answering, he tapped his head before disappearing into a rainbow portal. “Maybe one day Odin will allow you into the Norse Mythology, with your arrogance the greeks might just kill you”

“I’ll never take the offer even if it was given to me by Odin” I said jokingly as he disappeared with the last flick of his middle finger.

I turned to Kai “Now lets go find that murderous son of a bitch and fucking steal his runes.