Chapter 9: Struggle.

*A little over 4 years ago on 8th month of the Sky of the 557th cycle.*

Lhukresia follows the ‘Ancient Origin’ calendar which has 12 years per cycle, 12 months per year, 25 days per month, and 24 hours per day. The cycle years are arranged as follows: Boar, Spider, Dragon, Horse, Bird, Snake, Earth, Sky, River, Grass, Mountain, and Valley.

“Glace, you have to stay here. I can’t take you with me anymore.”

“Wait, Master Fe—“

Before the young lady was able to finish her sentence, she was put to sleep with a wave of hand by the gray haired man using magic.

“I’m sorry Glace, I can’t put you in any more danger. I hope you’ll understand, please don’t hate me for this.”

The gray haired man’s expression is that of a dad forced to leave his child. He kept himself from shedding tears, stood up made a fist and left running. The splash from his footsteps from the puddles he’s stepping on was the last thing the young lady could remember in that rainy night.

Awoken from the noise of the street, she found herself in an ally in the city of Ribas.

She was confused and looked for her companion “Master Feld? Where are you?” she said gently.

Memories from the night before came back to her and she didn’t even notice her tears falling. “Why?” she said as she covers her face crying herself out. Her tears shed non-stop as she feels alone again after the tragedy that came a few years back with her parents.

After regaining her composure the young lady noticed that Feld’s purse was tied at her waist. Upon looking at the contents of the purse she recognized that it’s all the money Feld and her had. She continues to cry as she looks at the purse of her stingy master.

---***---

The atmosphere of the area became heavy, wind was gushing out strong enough to blow a tent away blew the leaves of the trees; the archer hiding in the forest found it hard to maintain his position atop the tree so he went down.

A silver light wrapped the man where the wind was coming from the silver light seemed to have taken form of the wind and was wrapping the man like glowing bandages that continues to circle around every part of his body.

Once the glow disappeared, it became clear that the origin of the gush of powerful wind was Feld unleashing his mana throughout his whole body.

Feld began to concentrate a large sum of mana onto his hands and formed two items made of pure mana, it was a short sword a shield.

The shield had a loose triangular shape and was glowing silver but the glow isn’t bright enough to blind but rather it feels as if the shield had its’ own mana aura. The short sword felt the same as the shield and it had a curve at the tip and a wide middle.

Feld has an amazing amount of mana or magical energy, and his expertise in using it is top class.

The young man was almost stunned with what his master has showed him but he didn’t lose his focus on his opponent.

“I can’t beat this guy, there must be another way to knock him out.” The young man thought

“Hey Rei, hold him off I’ll be right there in a moment” Said by the gray death in a very confident manner

“Master Feld sure is arrogant, but his words are reliable” Rei thought to himself inwardly smiling

Instead of defending against the attacks of his opponent, the young man chose to dodge to preserve his sword’s durability and waited for an opportunity for a clean strike.

Following up on his words, Feld rushed towards his enemies and so did the pair of bandits with the cover fire of the archer from behind.

Whilst running, the dagger using bandit called Worm seemed to split into three.

The arrows fired by the archer were just brushed off by Feld’s shield.

It seemed like five versus one on Feld’s side, Worm was fast and agile but Feld kept dodging and blocking his attacks.

“Dodging and blocking isn’t going to make me win.”

He turned onto the dagger wielding duplicates and smashed them with his shield leaving only one remaining.

These bandits are rather skilled, Feld thought to himself. Even though he wasn’t using the entirety of his strength, the bandits are actually holding him off.

To Feld, these bandits we’re easy to deal with if he were alone, but with Rei and Glace in the mix he didn’t risk it. Even without telling him, Feld believed that Rei could be of help to him in this battle.

Rei was acting rather calm after seeing Feld show a glimpse of his true strength, he thought inwardly that he is a disciple of such a master; his opponent attacked and attacked but he appeared as though he can read where the attacks were going and proceeded on dodging.

As little as Rei knows about magic and swordsmanship, he knew that materializing mana was extremely hard and would require talent or years of practice. His heart jumped in joy after thinking about learning it from Feld but he knew now is not the time to think about that.

He almost forgot about what happened to Glace after seeing Feld fight with materialized mana.

He quickly hated himself then brushed it off.

The spear-wielder didn’t seem to be helping Worm much, other than sudden spear stabs he didn’t do anything else but let Worm fight Feld by himself.

Feld noticed this and kept an eye on the spear-wielder. He imagined the spear-wielder will do something to attack him the moment he let his guard down.

Feld destroyed two duplicated which left one to be fighting him, this one seemed like it’s the original.

Worm was very aggressive, he charged towards Feld without any regard for his life. Feld found it suspicious that Worm just keeps on charging like a madman towards him because the bandit group seemed to know who he is and should know that he is not an enemy to be underestimated.

Feld definitely believes that the spear-wielder has something up his sleeve, otherwise we would just let his subordinate attack him with disregard of his subordinate’s life.

Worm’s style was far from docile, his daggers seemed to be special; Feld felt that when he smashed Worm’s clones the quality of the daggers they wielded seemed to be the same as the original.

Worm charges towards Feld yet again without hesitation, Feld saw this as a chance to take down Worm; the spear-wielder also saw this as his time to unleash a killing move.

Worm multiplied again, Feld was facing more than 10 clones, he was shocked but he didn’t show it.

The Shadow Clone skill is a very hard skill to learn but it was the same as breathing for a certain powerful clan in Ino.

Ino was ruled by royalty but in a different sense, the government of Ino before the war was almost comparable to Federalism without the money. Lands were ruled not by lords but by clans, these clans are independent and are responsible in keeping peace in their respective territories.

War amongst different clans were not uncommon, but they were deterred from conflict by the royal clan of Ino. The first Emperor of Ino was of the Impelheart clan and since then they ruled Ino. The Impelheart main family said to have a terrifyingly strong skill that was only known to leaders of the different clans.

The movements of each clone is amazingly precise and didn’t seem reckless, as they surrounded Feld all of the Worms focused mana on their daggers.

A clash occurs between Feld and the 13 Worms; Feld had an amazing control of his vast mana dodging the Worms’ slashes and stabs. He used mana platforms in different ways.

Whenever a slash he can’t block is thrown, Feld uses his mana platform as a stepping stone to jump; while in the air he uses another platform to jump in a different direction.

With Feld’s amazing control of mana, the clones had a hard time keeping him in one place.

The clones started using skills.

Feld was even more surprised as the clones used skills other than Heavy Slash.

“This can’t be serious, is this kid from the Umbracloud clan?” Feld inwardly thought as he continued to jump, dodge, and defend against the Worms.

Although Feld’s shield was incredibly tough, the sheer amount of damage that the Worms inflict was taking toll on Feld’s mana to maintain the shape and hardness of the shield.

To Feld’s surprise, the Worms surrounded him again; and when he jumps from platform to platform to dodge the Worms started using platforms as well.

An aerial battle occurs and slashes were thrown on multiple directions.

*Slash* *Slash* *Slash* *Slash* *Slash* *Slash* *Slash* *Slash* *Slash*

Feld was being bombarded by slashes in the air and from the ground; the Worms were using Heavy Slashes and Mana Slicers, Feld was using his shield and short sword to block and his mana filled feet to attack by kicking the Worm clones.

: Sending a slicing mana wave as a projectile through a slash with the use of a sword or sword-like weapon filled with focused mana.

(Average damage: 5% note: this damage estimation only applies in game in Alctuz)

Surprise after surprise after surprise Worm’s clones were using mana like he has a bottomless supply.

Rei battle was rather a simple one, he dodges then counters with Heavy Slash; his opponent seemed very experienced with led Rei to conclude that he will not be able to beat him.

Instead of trying to defeat his opponent Rei focused on holding him off until Feld comes to help.

Glancing at Feld’s fight, Rei’s resolve on waiting for Feld waivered because it seemed Feld was having a tough time against that many clones.

Back to Feld’s battle

Feld’s mana filled kicks were often blocked by the clones but what surprised him was that the clones weren’t disappearing even with his kicks. Usually, the clones of the Umbracloud clan branch families are able to endure a relatively weak force to dissipate but Worm’s clones were strong enough to endure a direct mana filled kick from him.

Even the other swordsman was made unconscious by Rei’s mana filled kick, sure it wasn’t directed at the clone’s head but it should have been more than enough to dissipate the clone.

“Could it be that each of these clones is tougher than that unconscious swordsman?” Feld thought as he continued his rally against the clones.

Feld is getting stressed, not only did the spear-wielder vanish he’s taking too much time on fighting Worm.

“Tsk, I have to risk catching their attention.” Feld muttered silently as he prepares to use a skill

A burst of mana aura that seemed like white flames scorching his body, the light it emits is slightly brighter than the sun in the afternoon. An enormous pressure can be felt coming from Feld’s figure.

Rei was unexpectedly unsurprised by Feld’s display of power; he had concluded than even after showing such strength, Feld still wasn’t using his full power.

A streak of light circled through the clones and was swung to the air one by one without knowledge of what hit them.

The streak of light was Feld moving at such high speeds that it was almost impossible to follow with ordinary eyes.

Feld was using 20% of his strength; he determined that this amount of strength won’t cause the lord of Genoah to act but it was still possible to catch his attention.

His short-sword and shield became even sturdier than before.

He proceeded to cast but unlike normal shield charge Feld’s was even faster, it seemed as though a bullet train will run over the Worms; the clones disappeared as Feld rammed into them.

There were no more Worms present in the area. This caused Feld to be confused, he then proceeded to help Rei but it seemed his opponent took the unconscious swordsman and fled.

Then it came to his mind that the archer stopped helping the Worm clones as soon as the spear-wielder vanished.

There were a lot of things in this fight that Feld became curious about; an Umbracloud skill user with a lot of mana and a fight that didn’t seem to have any rational motive. To Feld, these ‘bandits’ didn’t seem like bandits at all.

Feld’s attention shifted to Glace as he hurriedly came towards her and proceeded to carry her.

“Rei, use mana to keep up with me; we need to get to the nearest village in Genoah to find someone to tend to Glace’s wound” Feld said in a very serious close to panic voice that caused Rei to attentively listen and agree.

Feld carrying Glace and Rei behind them ran across the forest as fast as a mana carriage.

Finally after a few hours of running they reached the outskirts of Genoah.

Feld then looked at Rei and was impressed by how Rei kept up with his running; Rei didn’t even seem to be out of breath at all.