Two days of waiting for August’s armour to be made and training later, we walked outside the city. Dawn felt a little homesick so she returned to Methelia and I was a bit relieved honestly. As much as I knew she was a capable mage, putting her in danger always felt like the wrong thing to do, no matter how little it would seem.

The minute I cast Summon Zephyr, an object landed next to us straight out the sky, scaring the shit out of me. I hit Timedial and Divergence immediately, almost on reflex, only to realise I’d pushed away Chelleze. As quickly as I could, Convergence pulled at him gently, increasing its strength to ensure he hit Ansul’s wall as softly as possible. Timedial was cancelled and two other figures landed in the same fashion. I glided toward the poor victim of my impetuosity and helped the brunette up, casting Renew to undo whatever damage I thought I did, which was absolutely nothing.

“You’re quite the,” she put a finger to her chin in thought after she stood up, “abusive gentleman?”

“I jumped, alright?” I said, a bit defensively. Man, these guys are tough!

We returned to August, the other two armoured women who, instead of looking for Chelleze, marvelled at the zephyr.

“Nice to know you two were worried to death and searching for me frantically,” Ansul’s ‘queen’ commented.

The redhead–and by red, I mean bright red, probably the result of a dye–chortled a little, “Oh shush, everyone knows you’re invincible,” she said, then turned around and became a little wide-eyed. She literally didn’t take her eyes off of me. Is there something on my face? Did some bird shit on me? I began randomly feeling around my body then looked back at her and I realised those weren’t the eyes of someone who was just looking at the bizarre thing in the room. No, those were the eyes of a predator.

“Edgar would’ve been the one to come but,” I could’ve sworn I saw her eyes glance at August, “I insisted.” I could feel Donna laughing on the inside. “Anyway, girls, this is August, the man with unlimited quintessence. Remember, this is a secret.” The redhead shook her head and other one didn’t react at all. “The other ‘gentleman’,” she joked, “is Eric. He’s a sorcerer from the other half of the world, as I’m sure you’ve guessed.”

She then went over to her friends, “This quiet whore is Lana,” and placed her hands on the woman’s shoulder. Lana simply nodded at us. “This tall whore,” she wasn’t kidding, the redhead was the tallest person here, “is Selene.”

“So,” Selene walked behind us toward the huge eagle, “do you fly on this bird?” she asked me.

“Y-yeah,” I answered, coming out of some thoughts that pilfered through my mind.

“But we can’t all fit on it. Well, we can keep up if we run.”

I chuckled in my mind, knowing that there was no way they could keep up, but I didn’t say it exactly how I thought it. “Don’t you have limited quintessence? You don’t have to run,” I said, then summoned three more zephyrs. I gotta thank these birds sometime.

“Four?” Chelleze questioned. “There’s five of us.”

“I don’t need any.”

“You can fly?!” Selene shouted, then sort placed a hand to her mouth and looked around to see if anyone heard her, but did it matter? There were four giant birds just standing around outside Ansul, that was pretty suspicious on its own.

“Yeah,” I took her hand and flew upward a bit so I could help her onto the beast. Quickly doing the same for the other two, they were mounted. August didn’t need help as he was already on his. Lana quickly caught on to how the birds worked and lead the way for us. They knew where exactly Melissa would be.

We camped out after nearly a full day’s travel. They were about to start hunting when I stopped them, “No need.”

Transmutation was a godsend. Plates, cutlery, mugs, bedding and the actual food which we tasted quite the variety of in Ansul were made out of several Ice Walls. In fact, whatever we needed was made through transmutation. Wait, couldn’t I get super rich if I just made gold like this? I thought, then dismissed the idea. It sounded too easy so I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with it.

Chelleze, unable to contain her curiosity, asked a question that was considered a bit impolite in the quintessence-centric culture of Hyzek. “What level are you at?” She was basically asking August what percentage in quint-usage he’s currently at and he other women’s ears perked up. Thankfully, August didn’t see it as discourteous and simply told them he was at eighty-two percent.

Selene’s toothpick dropped to the floor, her mouth unable to close. Even Lana’s usually deadpan face had some sliver of emotion, of shock.

“H-how long did it take you to get there?!” Chelleze asked what they were apparently all thinking.

“Hmm? Uh,” he wondered for a while then looked at me, “was it, eight or nine months?” I shrugged at him. “Yeah, somewhere around there,” he answered his own question.

“By the light…” Lana said, a bit despondently. According to her, it took decades to reach knight-paladin level.

Waking up the next morning, I was spooning Donna. When did she… I wondered how I didn’t realise her materialise, but I was a pretty heavy sleeper. Of course, being the natural pervert I was, I squeezed her breasts a bit, playing with them as I saw fit. They feel, different? I finally opened my eyes and saw that the person in front of me had red hair. A scream escaped internally and I moved my hand back, but Selene caught that hand and placed it back on the mounds on which it was.

What surprised me though was that someone was also behind me was another woman. I took my time I felt for my connection to Donna and confirmed the one behind me was indeed her. The question was, who snuck in my bed first? Scratch that, the real question was what should I do about my awakening manhood? Selene felt it, otherwise she wouldn’t have wiggled her ass as much as she did. What a temptress… it’s still early morning, everyone’s still sleeping. Plus we’re a good distance from each other.

“Hey, whatcha gonna do with that boner you got there?”

Huh? Nothing, obviously.

“Aww, come on. I can feel her doing that to you, you know?”

Wait, you’re…

“Going to take her by surprise.” Donna cast Voidwalk and passed through us, though Selene didn’t suspect a thing. To her, a random woman just appeared lying in front of her. She gasped, “It’s okay,” I whispered, “she’s with us.”

“Name’s Donna, and you’ve been a naughty girl, haven’t you? Lend me two clones, Eric. It’s not cheating if you yourself don’t do it.”

Hmm, well, with my mana now I could probably do it. The clones appeared, and I got up and left the four of them to their fun. So, I can manage two now. Interesting. I walked out of the ‘room’ of sorts inside the cave and the minute moans of pleasure began entering my ears, I placed an Earth Wall to block it out, making sure to include tiny holes; wouldn’t want them to suffocate in ecstasy.

Man, why’d you have to go home, Dawn? Selene primed me up for nothing. I began practising another spell, a very all-purpose one that I reckoned would be extremely costly. Perhaps draining even more mana than the likes of Incinerate and Arctic Rage, or even Clone. The basis of the spell would be Renew. Renew, at its core, repaired the physical body in anyway it possibly could, which even meant it could recreate blood if the person was short of it. I wanted it as an area of effect spell, one that could be channelled so I’d never have to keep recasting it. It should effectively heal everyone within a certain radius of the caster. But that would have to be tested another time.

Chelleze and Lana sauntered out a while later at sunrise so breakfast was my immediate responsibility. After my clones, Donna, and Selene enjoyed themselves, we quickly got ready and flew about half the day, arriving at a very tall wall of light that was connected via some special pylons. It was their border and an entire army of quint-users were stationed in and around a long lining of barracks.

We landed in a somewhat open area, but some crusaders and knights had to clear a path. It seemed this particular army was exclusively Ansul. Every major city had their own army and were sectioned across the border.

From what I learned in my discussions with Edgar, Hyzek’s warriors would cull the Umbral population every three months to ensure Umbral couldn’t mount an attack against them. And now was time for another culling.

Once the trio dismounted, ear-splitting cheers could be heard at their arrival. We entered a barrack quickly and Melissa was quickly called towards us. Finding her in this crowd would be impossible.

“August?” she asked, quite perplexed. “You,” she looked him up and down, “look good in that.” She complimented his armour, a needlessly bright crystal-like purple material with plate beneath it, forming a double-layered defence.

“I dunno,” he turned around, “does it make me look fat?”

She tried as hard as she could to hold her cachinnation in but failed in a matter of seconds, especially when August made a little spin. She looked at me, then back to August, “How come you guys are here?”

“To make sure you don’t die. Why else?”

“Really?” she then glanced at the three knight-paladins who came to ensure our survival. “And why are they here?” she lowered her voice.

“To make sure we don’t die.”

Melissa sighed, “Figures.”

August gave her a bunch of enchanted rings with resilience, an attribute that focused almost entirely on defence, although, I had to resize them to fit her fingers.

In a week, more and more warriors would add numbers. August used that time to transfer as much quintessence as he could to the bulk of the group. He especially focused on Melissa as I would just use Renew on her if he gave too much quintessence. It also doubled as training so by the end of the week he settled at eighty-five percent quintessence.

I on the other hand tried creating that new healing spell but failed horribly each time. Maybe mimicking Renew is not the way. I had to return to the roots of the spell, manipulating light itself. Using two leaves a fair distance from each other, I wove light into them both with the touch of both hands and learned to channel it. That part was pretty easy. The next step would be removing my hands, but the minute I did that, the spell-in-training cancelled.

Ansul was buffed up on August’s quintessence. The sheer energy emanating from us was incredible.

During the week, it was agreed that I would go first and empty my mana with spells, only leaving enough to fly and cast Renew on people who might need it. So, there I was, leading the charge into the desecrated land. The soil was pitch black. The air was stuffy and had a weird smell, but it wasn’t some dark evil-looking place. I cast Clone twice and made sure my mana regenerated fully. Trekking through the sparse jungle, we came across a field of grass and over yonder was yet another jungle. The darkness of the jungle across from us was strange. Suddenly, a beetle-like giant flew out from the trees. The thing was as big as a fully-grown elephant. It stunned me a little, but after looking closely, I could match its appearance with the description I had written in my journal.

These were called blackshell, a name somewhat self-explanatory. Their external skeletal system made them the sturdiest adversaries Hyzek’s warriors had to deal with. And usually, they’d carry a couple stalkers on them. These were light and agile hounds, built to sprint extremely fast. Their fur was thick and their size that of a full-grown tiger. Perhaps what was most peculiar about them was the extra pair of appendages at their sides, in the middle of their hound-like bodies. When sprinting, they would place those extra extremities at the side of their ribs to allow for a flawless straight run. However, when turning, the tendrils or whatever Hyzek called the things, would support them, allowing them to lean into the ground more than usual so changing direction quickly was something they excelled at.

A few dozen blackshells lurked out of the forests and atop their backs were the damned stalkers. Not wasting time, my clones flew forward to meet the marauding band of shadow beasts halfway. I summoned Tarit and Phoenix and had them take their full forms then waited on my two clones to cast two Convergence spells at the centre. The shadow beasts began getting dragged toward the orbs, even if they dug into the ground in desperation. Some wyrms and a devil later, we were prepared to start a forest fire. Incinerate came forth from my Purist-infected hands, as well as another clone and Phoenix himself, effectively making it four Incinerate spells being channelled. The wyrms and devil simply added to the fire.

Tarit, some wyrms, a ray and my other clone made a light show. When the dust settled, well, the dust settled. The fire was enough to turn them to ashes. The lightning, if not instantly killing them, injured and stunned them enough so they’d remain in the fire. Of course, Convergence helped a great deal in the initial sequence of spells.

After the fires faded, there were still lots more shadow beasts lurking in the deep forests, so we marched on. The paladins, knowing the woods well, would take the vanguard and my spirit summons would more or less surround me. “Another battle? You have a knack for trouble, kid,” the fire avatar pointed out and I couldn’t help titter at how true it was.

Some screams were heard on our flank and a couple dozen prowlers ambushed us. A few of the paladins had their necks bitten into by the time I’d managed to fly across. Chain Lightning was my go-to spell, but that would just end up damaging the people under attack even more than they already were, so I opted for Ice Javelin to help vanquish the sneaky black beasts. Renew managed to save some, but not others. Using Retrace, I went back to my position easily. August, Melissa, the three knight-paladins who were there for the blacksmith’s protection and my summons were in the middle of our little army.

Onward we continued, into marshlands which I happily avoided with Levitate. Phoenix dismissed himself and Tarit followed in his steps. The water began getting a bit deeper, probably waist height, and just when I thought I should just make Earth Walls so I could get as much as the warriors out of the waters, a loud splash was heard. Some strange aquatic shadow beast bit onto someone, its maw strong enough and teeth sharp enough to penetrate the armour. My water wyrms quickly dealt with the situation, but that one fellow’s leg was basically hanging by threads. Renew joined a lot of the mangled tissue back together but the bones were an issue that would take a lot of time and dedication, so I assigned a clone to him. My other clone and I helped make proper flooring over the water until we reached dry land again. In a way, that alligator-like shadow beast they dubbed marshfloor diver would be the most difficult enemy to intercept, but at least there were no casualties with it.

Night had fallen and the lot of us camped out. The sombre moods instilled by the grizzly deaths of the prowler attacks were chiselled away by some woodwind musicians and dancers. Especially the self-proclaimed dancers whose sole inspiration to pursue the artforms was the booze in their mugs.

Off to the side, I stooped down and reflected a bit, an old habit of mine that seemed to be weeded out after I learned Levitate.

“Not much adversity, huh?” Donna put what I was thinking into a question.

Yeah, it’s a lil’ creepy. We weren’t really met head on.

“Then this should be easy,” Donna mused, “and Melissa will be safe.”

Yeah but, for how long? They do this a few times a year. There’s no way I’m missing my little bro or sis’ birth, so I won’t be here at all. And there’s no way I’m leaving August here. He’s just a piggybank o’ quint to them. So then…

“Bring her back with us?” Donna finished what I was thinking again, though I had a rather fundamental issue with that.

That saves her alone. What about the countless others whose lives they’re gonna sacrifice? Ugh, people in high places can be so fucked up! I clenched my fist. Sure, we could always help Melissa, but what about everyone else? My humanity was telling me not to abandon them, to end this entire war, but every time I thought of killing the shadow beasts, it seemed like a miscalculation of some sort. It was quite the ominous feeling. Every single attack has been territorial so far. Sup with that? I pondered, then decided to let go of those thoughts. Instead, I focused the rest of my night by trying to figure out Eden. That’s what I decided to call my mass healing spell.

Renew, or any form of light manipulation would be totally severed the moment my hands left the leaf I practised on. It frustrated me to no end. If there was some way I could just, do it ranged. Maybe if there was some connection or something. I wondered how I’d get the light magic to travel through a medium, and what that medium would be. And so, my brain weaved in thoughts of a totally different spell.

By the next guard watch, I finally created the spell, Light Link. With this, a part of my light energy would merge with the object’s own life essence and create a link. It felt eerily similar to my Light Resurrection link with Donna. Excited at the prospect, I made the link with a freshly cut leaf and tried Renew which worked marvellously. The only issue with it being that I had to physically touch the target to use Light Link, and only then could I heal from an acceptable range. Channelling light magic through the connection proved easy as well. It was time to sleep now, as I at least made progress.