“The name’s Hyx and yes as you have already guessed it, I am the Harbinger. Although, I do prefer “Shepherd” as it sounds less ominous.” said the boy named Hyx.

To Valuma who’s gritting her teeth and baring her proverbial fangs, the boy doesn’t look daunted nor afraid. Even though Valuma’s roar isn’t directed to me, I felt the pressure as a collateral.

Valuma is going to say something but the boy holds up a finger.

“Before you ask, no. I am not here to bring you salvation or here to save your brethren or any of those kind of shit. You feel me?”

That way of speech…. it’s all too familiar. It isn’t how a native of this world would speak. This crude and brutish tone brings all kinds of memories back. Is this boy summoned from Earth like me? I have heard of the news that some Holy Nation did their own hero summoning.

There are a lot of questions I’m dying to ask but now just isn’t simply the time. Valuma’s gaze turns dull when it switches to the girl with a mouthful name, Nieumilin.

“And you are?” The Berserker of the Void asked at the frail looking girl but that was only expression wise. The revolvers in her hand dispel any doubts of her presumed fragile persona. Her hands are steady to a fault as she thumbs down the hammer of the revolvers.

“Me? No one, really.” The girl responded dryly. “I’m just someone who has an extreme resentment and prejudice towards your kind.”

“Ah! I see. Ya’ met ma’ brethren and ya know what I am?” Somehow, it amuses Valuma that the two have acquainted with her kind before. A grin appears on her face which is only getting wider.

The boy approaches Valuma, standing in front of me as if to shield me from harm. “Oh yes, I know very well what you are.” The boy told the Q’nu and clad himself in liquid-like flames of dark purplish tone. These peculiar flames bring an uneasy and familiar sense. It couldn’t be… these flames…

“Impossibuh’! How did ya’ hav’ the powah’ of ma’ kind?” she snarled, with every words that escaped her lips, each words were slowly losing their coherence. Talia later told me this is due to her vessel breaking down.

“I believe his name was….” the girl mused off as she tilts her to recall her memories. She looks awfully narcissistic the way she slants her head and raises her chin as she digs into her memories. Is she doing this on purpose?

“Aedrox, the exemplar of the Void.” The boy finishes her hanging sentence.

“That’s right! Aedrox.” The girl beamed at the Q’nu who looks intimidated by their carefree exchange. “Aedrox, that son of a bastard who killed my beloved and defile his corpse even after death.” The girl’s voice twisted into disgust as she spoke on.

Without a prior warning, she fires three shots in a burst at Valuma. The Q’nu isn’t naive to let her guard down. She easily deflects the three incoming bullets without a change of expression.

“Girl, I suggest you go and hide with your wolf friend back there. I’m saying this for your safety.”

Seems like they found Lucy but…. “No. I made a vow with this sword right here.” I know straight up telling them with no context will sew confusion but…. my expectations are met with disappointment.

“Is that a Mondra?” the boy asked with raised eyebrows.

“You know of us?” Talia responded with a question of her own.

“Know of you? Well shit, I made one of you.”

It reeks of doubt in the boy’s words and Talia’s next inquiry only solidify that doubt of mine. “Strange, I don’t recall you being one of the smith.”

“Of course, you wont’. I made one of you only about two weeks ago, maybe three. It’s a shame I chose to leave him behind.”

“Lies. Only a fool will confront a Q’nu without a Mondra.”

The boy snorted, “I have something better.” And he makes a spark of dark purplish energy dance in his palm.

“That energy… It couldn’t be… Are you a Q’nu too, boy?”

Before a response came from the boy, a wave of energy cuts in between us. I let out a tiny scream that can be lost among other noises but the curious look I receive from the boy told me that he heard it.

“Having a nice chat now, are we?” Valuma asked with an aggravated tone but patched with a smile. An unsettling combination of expression.

“Nilin? What are you doing? Me and this pretty lady here almost die-d.” The boy said, emphasizing the “d” in “Died” for no apparent reason.

Contrary to me who’s slowing my breath down from the near-death experience, the boy is nonchalant with the attack that grazed our comfort.

“What? She’s too fast.” The girl named Nilin, short for Nieumilin I presume, retorted.

“Enough of ya’ mockeries!” Valuma snapped at us, or rather the two. With her eight arms, Valuma unleashes a no holds barred assault.

It’s the end of me, I’m sure of that but the boy, standing in front of me, swiftly intercepted every last strikes Valuma hurled at him. In his hands, is some sort of magic stake or blade. SIS reads; Spatial Magic: Spatial Shard.

Spatial Magic? I believe that’s the advance-version of Space Magic. It isn’t of a Unique or Legacy type but it is a very rare Arcane Art that only few have. This boy who looks younger than me has such magic in his repertoire.

“Aye’ don’t know how ya’ defeat our chief but rest assured, Harbinga’. Aye’ won’t make the same mistake!” She then proceeds to spin like a top and strikes relentlessly.

Perhaps it’s just the trick of mind but the boy seemingly moved before the next strike has even begin its wind up. It’s almost as if he’s reading into the future. Time Magic doesn’t exist as far as I know but seeing how the boy dodges all-knowingly, maybe not all Arcane Arts are documented into texts.

Clad in an aura of the same color and shade as Valuma, the boy wraps his bare hand around one of her blade-arms.

“Nilin,” he uttered.

“Get down, lady.” A voice warned from the back. I comply without an argument and a bullet flies over me, leaving a trail of cyan smoky light. That wasn’t all however. One bullet follows after the another.

The bullets are all deflected or blocked by Valuma but she can’t evade it. The boy is firmly holding her position. The boy isn’t even bulging from Valuma’s struggle. She can try to hit the boy in hopes of letting her arm go but the barrage of bullets aren’t giving her a window to do so. I thought it’s weird that the boy isn’t doing anything but upon further inspection with Dragonic Vision, he’s draining Valuma’s energy.

The revolvers are a top-break but the girl isn’t hindered by the reloading process. In fact, it looks second nature to her. The way she reloads her guns are just insanely quick that I’m convinced she’s using some sort of magic skill but her Mana flow is normal when she reloads. It’s a normal skill she train to such dexterity. Although, it’s slightly worrisome that her ammunition is running low. The reserve rounds are in a chamber per set and hoist on her sling belt and waist belt. She’s burning through it fast.

But soon, Valuma’s movements have become dull enough for the bullets to tear apart her arms. Each tore of an arm is accompanied by an agony cry that resemble no beast nor man. The girl isn’t just quick but accurate. She has used precisely seven bullets to take out seven of Valuma’s arms after she lost her speed.

“Compared to Aedrox, you’re a walk in the park.” The boy told her with a grin that will make any one interpret his subtext as, “hit me square in the face.”

Still, this eccentric duo did made the whole thing looks like a piece of cake.

The former threatening visage of Valuma all seems like a lie if one took a look at her current display. Like a wither flower with snapped off branches and fallen leaves.

“Harbinger, do not trivialize the threat she poses!” Talia’s voice echoed like a roar.

“What? She’s just a meek little kitten now, ain’t she?” The girl remarked. Her eyes spell certainty with her victory.

She’s good but she’s unseasoned. The boy however, takes Talia’s words into deliberation.

“Nilin!” The boy shouted at the next second. His fingers motioning the girl to me. She wipes away her lofty grin and dashes towards me.

At the same moment, my Divine Art who’s acting in place of my instincts, screams right into my mind. What is this dreadful sense of danger?

“Shizuka, imminent danger! Mystic Skin at maximize potential!” Even Talia is shouting at me with words of caution.

I knew something was wrong when Valuma went quiet. Panic is well-written in the boy’s eyes but the facade he wears is drenched in composure. He lets go Valuma and takes off at my direction.

Why is everyone coming at my way?

“Ya muthafuckas”!! Ya’ pay fer’ makin’ a fool out of meh’!!’” Valuma lets out an ear-splitting cursing shout that even cracks the ground beneath her feet. The dark purplish aura around her turned crimson. The space around her whirls into a vortex. The vortex expands with her now crimson indigo aura. Every thing that aura slowly decays at an exponential rate. She was absorbing everything around her like a black hole.

“Yeah… As I thought, it won’t be this easy.” A nonchalant comment came from the boy who looks imperturbable but his sweat betrayed his exterior. One look from this precise expression tells me enough that he has some psychological issues. For this reason, I’m thinking of distancing myself away from him the chance I have.

While my mind is off in my own world, something grabbed my hand and the next moment, the room changed.

When I come back to my senses, I’m in the room where I left Lucy. And there she is, still hiding in the little storage room but her head is peeking out a little. Her ears sprouted out like a carrot from the peeking is just adorable.

“Shizu!” Lucy instantly comes pattering towards me.

“Holy fuck, that’s cute.”

I shoot my glance at the one who made such comment at Lucy, it’s the boy. Why am I not surprise.

Noticing my glance, he fakes a cough. “Well now, go get your friend there. We need to get out of here now.”

“No, Harbinger. I’m not going anywhere until I have resealed the Q’nu.” Talia responded to the boy’s proposal.

“You are a Mondra!” The boy shouted which kinda made Lucy jumped. “You should be able to sense the fluctuation of her power just now. She’s going to devour everything in the vicinity and we will be one of those “everything” if we don’t leave now. And I can’t leave this place if I don’t have a Mondra’s permission. So drop your fucking useless pride in this dire battle and retreat now to live to fight another day. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while even after you leave this place. This place is designed to at least contained a Q’nu for a few days even after it broke free of the seal, right?”

Silent ensues after the boys unexpected outburst.

The place has begin to shake as a sign of Valuma catching up but we are all just standing around, still too stunned from the boy’s volume.

He didn’t wait around though. He just sighs and wraps his fingers around Talia’s handle. Since I’m grabbing the upper half of the handle, our hand didn’t touch but I won’t admit that it made my heart beat when I thought it will. Just who is this boy to make me so listless? And doesn’t it hurts to wield Talia without her permission? I can even see smoke sizzling from his hand.

“I fought and defeated one, trust me. I know the best course of action. Unless you wish for your wielder’s demise, I suggest you follow as I say, clear?”

Despite his unreliable juvenile face, the boy really gives out a feeling of dependability. I feel…. safe. No no no no, what am I saying? I just met him. Why would I feel safe around him? He doesn’t even look sane.

“Very well. I will put my faith in you for now, Harbinger.”

As soon as Talia gives her permission, the sizzling stops. It isn’t just a flesh wound. I swear I can see some bones but only for a little while. Steam erupts from his wound as they slowly closes themselves up. The little of HP he lost is instantly recovered in less than five seconds. That’s some serious regenerative powers.

“Everyone, make sure we’re touching each other. I don’t want anyone to get left out when I warp.”

“Warp?” There are a lot of things wrong with his phrasing but I blurted out the one that caught my attention the most. I sheathed Talia into a scabbard that she created with Arcane Phantasm and we hold hands to form a circle. When our skin touched, I feel a tremendous wave of power flowing through the circle we formed. By far, it is the largest amount of Mana I have felt if I don’t take Valuma into account.

My skin crawls. I can feel the space around me and I don’t mean the winds or air. I mean literally the space. Everything suddenly feels tangible and they are all closing in on me. This must be how it feels to teleport. Since he called it warp, it must be a Space or Spatial Magic type teleportation.

Whoa… The whole place is folding up like a paper.

Abaddon suddenly goes off like an alarm clock in the morning. Danger.

Before any voice comes out from my mouth, the boy has already let go of my hand. The world has stopped folding and bending. Even the Mana flow has ceased and my collar is grabbed. Everything has transpired in only a meagre split second.

My collar is tugged and I’m pulled along with the force. Eight large beams disintegrated where I have once stood a second ago. The beam came out of no where. When I comprehended the damage inflicted, my mind isn’t on myself but Lucy.

But I don’t see Lucy anywhere.

“Don’t worry, I have sent Nilin and your friend out of this place first before the beams struck. The warp is faster if there are less load.”

The boy explained after seemingly read my flustered expression. He made a wise decision. He sent Lucy away because she just wasn’t strong enough to fight a battle of this level. And it was then either me or the girl. He chose the girl because if he sent me off, he wouldn’t be able to warp out of this place if he’s not in contact with Talia.

Although, I wonder what will happen if Talia leaves this place? Will the restriction still be imposed? Probably yes if the boy’s testimony can be believed. Since Talia didn’t retort to his statements back then, that might be the case.

The boy reignite those dark purplish flames he doused out when we warped. SIS didn’t appear when he uses those flames and my Divine Arts throbs when he activates that technique.

“I will succeed where Aedrox didn’t.” Announced Valuma in another language as she appears from the smokes.

Immediately after she said those words of another language I can’t comprehend, she reappears right in front of us. I quick draw Talia. I parried two of her arm-blades, evaded one, but the last one grazed my temple. Without the paper thin difference there, I would have lost my eye.

While throwing strikes after strikes at me, she preoccupies the boy with the other side of her arms. Unlike me, the boy evades the arm-blades with ease. Although his dodges are near-flawless, his expression gives out a contrary feel. He fell for a feint and the blade almost stabs through right between his eyes. However, the arm-blade is stopped by an invisible wall. SIS reads, Plane Displacement, a Spatial Magic.

Valuma screams out of frustration as she tries to plunge her arm-blade through the defensive spell. Her crimson indigo aura flares up, from the tiniest dust particles to the walls of this room, everything is being dragged into her aura.

The boy throws out a purplish flame he summoned into his hand. The purple flame spreads with Valuma’s aura, burning it away. The purple flame spell is apparently called, Mana Burn and it’s under a Unique Arcane Art called, Mana Overseer. If anything, this magic sounds incredibly versatile.

After that spell, another one takes its place, Heavy Force. The space distorted and rippled. An unseen force carries Valuma away until the end of the room. Various parts of her body are bent in all the wrong ways. If she’s a normal person, she would have died a gruesome death but being a Demon of the Void, she’s merely snapping her body parts back into place.

“Wh…” Suddenly, my world spins. My legs lost their strength and my weight pulled by the gravity, drags me to the ground but a gentle arm prevents my fall.

“You okay?” With a face of neither caring nor concern, he asked.

My status now reads, Fatigue: High and Exhaustion: High and I even have a new status ailment, Hunger: Mild. Great, I’m physically and mentally exhausted in addition to being hungry. Now that I think about it, I do also feel quite thirsty. Damn it, I should have ate more and stock up more but I wanted to avoid any excessive spending. Without my former teammates, I can’t afford to be reserve.

“Shizuka!” Talia warned me in a loud volume. Valuma has closed our gap in an instant once again but her follow-up attacks are hindered by a black tail with a vibrant violet tip. Following the appearance of a tail that could only belong to some beast, the arm that wrapped itself around me grows in size. It becomes twice as thick. The skin turned as black as the tail and it starts to feel hard and solid. Even some tiny spikes have sprouted on it.

“Don’t squirm.” It is the boy’s voice albeit sounding like a deep echo now.

I look over my shoulder and see an over nine feet tall monster with every shade of its skin dyed to the darkest black with violet veins tracing all over its body. It’s unsettling to see its lower jaw splitting apart horizontally as it growls.

This monster is the boy, that’s my logical conjecture.

Despite the hideous appearance, what I’m feeling now could not be anything but one word, safe. I feel safe in his arms, or to be precise; claws. I don’t what he did but I can feel nothing but reassured now.

“Talia Lox, be prepare. I’m about to warp.”

“I don’t believe the Q’nu would let us unless we subdue her fist.”

“I know and trust me when I say she will be subdued.”

Unlike before, Valuma is bouncing from one spot to another, trying to rush at us at the right timing in the midst of her feints and flanks. She’s too fast for me to track even with Dragonic Vision but the boy, the monster has no such trouble. His eyes aren’t following her. He’s only staring at one particular spot. And that spot is where Valuma stops her discombobulation and shoots herself right at us.

“Like I said,--”

His tail disappears in my view and reappears right next to Valuma who’s in the middle of her charge.

“--you’re a walk in the park compare to Aedrox.”

The tail smacks her right out of mid-charge. The ground she’s hurled into becomes a small crater.

Energy begins to whirl and gather in the cavity of the boy’s large monstrous mouth. Valuma isn’t moving. That tail whip has once again snapped her body into a grotesque shape.

“Know your place, Berserker.”

He said and fires the energy in his mouth like a beam. A beam-breath then? The beam sends Valuma into the ground, literally. And it continues to do so until the beam finally stops. At this point Valuma has gone out of my perception field. Just how far is she blasted off? Honestly, I don’t think she can survive that.

“She’ll live,” but the boy said something on the contrary.

“He’s right. They are tenacious and adamant in undying.” Even Talia agrees with him.

“But can’t we just seal her up now?”

“I don’t know what she could do but going by her sobriquet, I think what I did only made her angrier and stronger.”

“You are correct in that matter, Harbinger.”

Seriously? Not even that could stop her? Just how much more firepower do we need to take her down? I’m starting to think I’m not cut out for this…

“We’ll think about our next move later. For now, let’s get out of here.”

“Y-you’re right.” I stuttered at such simple words. My exhaustion and fatigue is really getting to me.

This time, the mass warp succeeded and we are right back at the ruins where I fell from.

I was expecting Demons instantly come swarming at us but what greeted me were a bunch of peculiar individuals besides the gunslinger girl and Lucy.

A nine footer Knight with the most amazing armor I have ever seen and in his hands is a greatsword that is three quarters of the knight’s height.

A snake that’s larger and longer than any anaconda-like monsters I have encountered. It has three pairs of eyes.

The tanned boy in a bandanna and the girl who resembles Nieumilin that I met just outside the Alchemist’s store.

And finally, the most beautiful woman I have ever came across. She has raven black hair with few strands of white hair that grew until her waist. Her white dress is simply exquisite and perfectly accentuates her slim body line. Her chest is ample and filled. But what really made her stand out from the rest are the pair of ethereal wings on her back, one black and one white.

I somehow understand that they are all the boy’s companions.

“What would you like to eat?” The boy asked. Before I knew it, he had already turned back into his human form.

In this form, he looks really out of place. Just who exactly is this boy?