We wasted no time staying in that house after everyone has woken up. As soon as we’re done preparing everything we’ll use or things that will come in handy, we trekked north-east of the valley, where the mountain ranges could be seen stretching for miles on end. We only brought about half of the group, only bringing those who are combat-capable, bringing our numbers down to sixteen, myself included.

As we were walking, Frain approached me with a familiar worried look in her face. The two of us slowed down our pace, so that we would be behind the group and no one would overhear our conversation.

“This is going to be dangerous.” She said. “I’m nervous.”

“Gabriel’s strategy sounds effective and efficient.” I replied to her. “Do you not trust his wits?”

“That’s not what I meant!” She replied with a frowned face.”Some of us might not make it back alive... Come to think of it, what happens if your body dies?”

I paused for a brief moment at her question. Now that she brought the question up, I realized that I haven’t told them yet just what are the possible outcomes of this body dying. Now might be a good time to tell her.

“My real ‘body’ is what acts as this body’s soul,” I said. “If this body dies, there are three possible outcomes that might occur. The first is that my astral form could be sent to Nekerheim, being mistaken as a mortal soul, where I could just leave whenever I want to. Second, it may break free of this body and instantaneously revert back to its previous form. That’s the least pleasant outcome as that would also mean all of my pent-up and restrained mana would spontaneously expand into this plane, resulting in a violent and destructive explosion of pure mana. The last possibility is that I might just die. And by that, I mean the consciousness that I am would stop existing. If that’s the case, that would be the first ever occurrence of a ‘death’ of a Celestial.”

“And yet, you still decided to limit yourself in that form despite knowing that you could die?” She replied, now more concerned than before.

“I’ve been alive ever since the beginning of the universe, Frain.” I told her. “I’m not an omniscient god who knows everything. Billions of years of being alive would make you start to question the purpose of your existence… which I fail to see. I don’t care if I could die or not, since I wouldn’t even be able to care once I’m already non-existent.”

She now looked gloomy, looking at me in pity and sorrow. We continued our talk about the nature of life and mortality for the rest of the way.

After half an hour of walking, we finally reached our destination. A giant pollus tree with an ever-changing leaf color which appears to dance with the sunlight. To the distance is a cliff, with what seems like a mine shaft entrance on top of it. The door of the entrance shines as it reflects the sun’s light, suggesting that it is metallic in composition while also having several layers of magical protections cast on it.

“Frain should be able to blast off that door.” Gabriel said. “After that, we’ll proceed as what he had planned last night.”

“No, it won’t be that simple.” I told them. “That door is protected with layer upon layer of rank five and above magic protections. I could easily disarm those protections with my mana drain though so no need for concern.”

While we were discussing on how we’re going to attack, the door that we’ve been planning to bust open suddenly dropped all of its magical protection and moments later, a familiar figure of a woman emerged from the door, along with a man who I’ve never seen before. We all looked in silence as we watched these two figures. Looking closely, the woman appeared to be Twelve, the one who we fought back at Palgrim. The man with her, who was wearing a mask that resembles a dragon and a hooded robe of pure black that completely covers his entire body, looks around as if surveying the area. Twelve also appeared to be concentrating, maybe trying to look for our magical auras. It looks like we’re too far for her to detect us.

“They haven’t seen us yet.” I told everyone. “Casting spells that can be detected will give away our position, we shouldn’t be hasty.”

“Then you can use your mana drain.” Frain told me. “You said it can’t be detected, right?”

“Yes, it’s true that it doesn’t give off any mana signature,” I replied. “But I need a clear line of sight towards my target, which would show myself to that masked man. Casting would take at the very least two seconds, and at that time frame they could attack us with anything.”

As we continued to hide behind the wide trunk of the pollus tree while discussing the various ways we could go around this predicament, a loud explosion that echoed a deafening pulse of noise was produced, causing us to freeze in our places while desperately covering our ears. The sound was eerily composed and concentrated however, that it didn’t feel natural. Yes, too concentrated, like the explosion was designed to produce that specific type of sound.

“Wait… Could this be…?” I thought to myself while barely holding my consciousness amidst the continuous stream of deafening noise.

Sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed to be true when the masked man suddenly came flying past us, right after the noise has subsided. Out of reflex, I held my barrier with my left hand towards the man in mid-air, negating a blueish green bolt of spell that he casted.

“They found us using the echoes!” I told everyone. “Don’t just sit around!”

I continued to block the masked man’s flurry of attacks with my barrier, literally putting myself between him and the others since I can’t cast my barrier on them. Meanwhile, Twelve is walking casually towards us while preparing her own spell. If I’m going to guess, it’s going to be another rank six or greater spell, designed to wipe us all out in one fell swoop. What concerns me though is the time it’s taking her to finish the spell. If it takes that long for her to cast it, I can only worry how powerful that spell is going to be. Thankfully, the others have started to get ahold of themselves and began to pay attention to Twelve.

“Can you hold out him for a little longer?” Gabriel asked me. “We’re going to take Twelve out first.”

“Wise choice.” I replied. “I can tell this guy specializes in continuous attacks, unlike Twelve there.”

Gabriel then started shooting his crossbows towards Twelve. Some of the bolts ended up missing, but those that are supposed to directly hit just melts in mid-air right before it hits her.

“She has a flame barrier around her!” I shouted. “Physical attacks won’t affect her!”

Seeing as I diverted my attention for a split second, the masked man who was just sending out a continuous volley of magical bolts stopped casting and instead decided to rush towards me with a dagger in his hand. I stood firmly at my place and waited for him to get close so I could use my shield to drain him off of his mana but just right before he gets in range, he jumped up over me in an inhuman display of athleticism, and in just a single sweeping motion, has now landed at my back. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough to turn my barrier towards him. He quickly used his dagger to thrust into my neck, and for a moment, I thought that it was over and that’s where this mortal body dies. Thankfully, just before the dagger make any contact, a searing bolt of blue lightning hit his right arm that’s holding the dagger, burning the sleeves and revealing his charred skin caused by the spell. The dagger had been flung away from us and fell down a cliff.

“Are you alright!?” Frain shouted.

“I am!” I replied. “Thanks!”

I have now turned my left barrier towards him, and my right one on the side, ready to protect me from the back any moment he decided to attack from there. Looking closely at him, I noticed that there’s a carved out symbol on his mask’s forehead that seems to be the number fifteen. His eyes are almost completely pitch black, with the exception of his pupils, which are bright red.

“So it’s true.” he said in a surprisingly somewhat feminine voice. “Your barrier really does drain mana from anyone who makes contact with them.”

“How did you--”

“How did I know?” He interrupted. “Most of the Empire knows already. The knights you captured reported that a goblin died of mana deficiency when it touched your barrier. Seeing as how you attempted to ram it unto me just proves that.”

“Knowing that doesn’t help your present situation.” I told him as I attempted to hit him with my left barrier as fast as I can, but he’s just too agile and immediately stepped back several feet away from me. He wasn’t able to regain his foothold though, as he failed to notice one of our men standing not too far from him. The man immediately saw the opportunity and raised his sword up, preparing to strike the masked man from the back but the masked man saw the sword’s shadow from the ground and quickly stepped to his left side to avoid the attack. He didn’t managed to completely avoid though and the sword grazed a part of his mask, causing a huge portion of it to crack down and fall, revealing some part of his face… or should I say her face. Seeing as the mask could barely be called a mask now, she decided to remove it completely, showing her face with that pitch-black eyes, along with black, symmetrical stripes that looks like a tiger's’ stripes running across her face.

“Tsk…” she tutted in an angry and annoyed expression.

Before the man could even hold his sword up again, she drew another dagger and charged at him at blinding speeds. The man had little time to react as the dagger slices through his throat, spurting out blood afterwards. I too, had little time to react while she uses the man’s body to propel herself towards me. I was in the middle of holding my left barrier up when a shout from the other battle catched her attention, causing her to drop down to the ground, a few feet away from me.

“FIFTEEN!” Twelve shouted.

As we both look towards the other ongoing battle, I saw Twelve, who’s now forced in a defensive stance, kneeling down the ground while Frain and the other mages tries to overwhelm her with attacks. Gabriel and those non-mages have completely surrounded her, ready to strike the moment she drops down her guard.

I never understood why, but instead of attacking me while I was defenseless and distracted, the woman I was currently fighting immediately rushed towards Twelve, slashing away those in her way from their backs before the others even realized it. This lessened the number of attacks that Twelve has to defend to, allowing the both of them to escape in an explosion of relatively harmless fire. After the smoke disappears, the two of them left not even a single trace of their whereabouts, leaving us with the five dead bodies of those who met their end in this battle.

“We’ll come back for them later.” I told them, breaking the silence seeing how no one seems to know what to do next. “For now, our priority is the research facility.”

“Y-yeah, he’s right.” Gabriel depressingly said. “We were aware that some of us will die in this mission.”

We all proceeded to cautiously enter the door that the two left open, with me in the front of course, holding my barrier up. The entrance leads down to a stairway entirely made out of gray bricks with lanterns to light up the path. We slowly made our way down, checking for traps and such along the way when we heard a faint voice calling for help. As we go deeper, the voices become louder and more numerous until we reached our destination: the prison cells, where we saw a somewhat similar setup as the one in Albes. The only difference though is that the ones imprisoned appears to be children to teenagers. Not a single adult.

“Where are the researchers?” Gabriel asked one of them while unlocking the prison cells.

“T-they’re gone. They left just earlier.” A boy with white hair said.

“Arthur, can you sense anything?” Frain asked me seemingly concerned if it’s a trap.

“No, they’re really gone.” I replied. “I can track them from the mana they left behind if you want me to.”

“No, there’s no need.” said Gabriel.

We continued to explore the area and went to the experimentation room where we found several dead bodies of children lying around. Most of them have been physically deformed in various disgusting and inhumane ways. Frain couldn’t handle the sight and immediately left the room while Gabriel was consumed by rage and punched a wall so hard that it made his fists bleed.

“Bastards…” he said. “To do this on kids… I swear if I see one of them I’ll--”

All of a sudden, a crystal on one of the experiment tables started pulsating a purple light that’s so bright it made the whole dark room glow. It’s strange, the feeling I’m getting at this is the same as when I first entered the prisons in Albes, but this time it’s stronger, maybe because I’m closer to it now.

“Hey,” Gabriel warned me. “What are you doing? It might be dangerous.”

The pulsating that seems to synchronize with my heartbeat grows stronger as I get closer and closer to it. As I reach my arm out to touch the crystal, I can’t help but get a familiar feeling from it. Like I’ve seen this crystal before, a long, long time ago.

For the first time, I felt fear and a sense of urgency upon touching the crystal. I finally know why it felt so familiar, powerful and archaic. How did they get a hold of this? Those mortals, what are they planning?

“Telesma.” I said out loud.

“What?” Gabriel asked, confused as to what I’m doing.

“Its…” I replied, stuttering and shaking as I look at Gabriel. “Its an attempt to replicate Telesma. This thing… this thing shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t be allowed to exist.”

“Telesma….?” he asked, still confused.

The anger that he earlier displayed has now been replaced by the similar fear that I’m expressing. He must have realized the magnitude of it, seeing a Celestial like me showing fear and trembling.

“It’s not a perfect replica…” I said. “I’d say about ten percent the power of the original, but that ten percent alone is already concerning.”

“If every research facility has this... “ I added. “Then they have obtained the basic understanding of how the Telesma work… but your primitive civilization should still be millions of years away from that…”

“Look, I’m not getting anything from what you’re say--”

Before Gabriel could even finish his sentence, I quickly smashed the crystal unto the table, completely shattering it and exploding into mana particles. Due to the artificial nature of it, the mana that it turned into burned my arm as it passes through it like wind, although not to an alarming degree.

“The research facility at Albes should also have one of this.” I said. “We need to destroy that one too.”

“Wait!” he said. “Maybe you should start by explaining everything first? And besides, they most likely have secured it already if it’s really that powerful.”

“You… have a point.” I replied. “But I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about it.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Mortals aren’t supposed to be aware of its existence.”

“Well, the ones that made it certainly are.”

I paused for a moment. It’s true, there’s no point in hiding it if they’ve already been making replicas of it.

“Very well.” I said. “I’ll explain it to you and Frain.”

After we released all the child prisoners, we returned back to the mansion at the village of Makkor where we buried the remains of the five who died earlier. I don’t understand why we can’t just cremate them for efficiency though. Gabriel said that his “informant” will take care of the children in an orphanage but two of the eldest still decided to come with us anyway and fight. One of which is an elf boy named Khiir, which means ‘the harmony of mana with nature’ in elvish, according to him. The other one isn’t very talkative and he just prefers to be alone most of the time.

I was about to ask Frain to come to my room with Gabriel when I saw her talking to Khiir.

“Why did you decide to join us?” She asked. “Wouldn’t it be better if you just fled to the elven kingdom? You know the Empire are enemies with elves right?”

“W-well… that’s because…” He said hesitantly. “Well I’m… I’m a half-elf so I’m not welcome in the elven kingdom either. I thought it’d be better if I just joined you.”

“Oh... Is that so…” she replied. “I see. Well, I’m sure you’ll fit in with the group easily.”

“How can you be sure?” Khiir asked.

“Well, let’s just say we have very diverse members.” She said as she looks at me smiling.

Once Frain and Gabriel were in the room, I proceeded to explain them everything. I had to tell Frain what happened first because she wasn’t present when the crystal activated.

“So you’re saying that the Telesma is the one that created the universe?” Gabriel asked.

“Yes… and no.” I said. “It was the source of the universe, the mother of it, but it didn’t created it per se. Think of it like this: The magic within the Telesma gradually became unstable until it formed itself into time and space. Then the Telesma simply ‘birthed’ the universe out.”

“So… the Telesma existed before the universe did?” Frain asked. “How is that possible?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that.” I replied. “You see, when we were born with the universe, we came out the Telesma as if it was the womb of our mother, fully conscious and not knowing the purpose of our existence.”

“So where is the Telesma, exactly?” asked Gabriel.

“At the center of the universe.” I replied. “A huge majority of us Celestials are concentrated there to protect it. Obviously I’m not one of those.”

“You said earlier that the Telesma exists in all planes?” Gabriel added.

“Yes, indeed.” I said. “Its existence encompasses all planes and is the only thing that’s in the Void. Nevertheless, our main concern is how the Empire managed to imperfectly replicate Telesma, or just what they’re trying to use it for.”

“Zero.” Gabriel said. “My informant said the one who’s in charge of everything is named Zero… or at least, that’s the name he goes by.”

“Zero, huh.” I told him. “Well we don’t have to look for him. If we just continue to raid the research facilities, he’ll come to us himself.”