Chapter 2 – Mana

“It seems like we’re done here” – Said Lucca while carrying the last Condor hunted today to the cart where his companions were waiting.

It was already half hour past four and soon the sun would set, the place where they are right now, the vast Retford Plains, weren’t particularly dangerous since no monsters inhabited the area, only normal beasts, but that wasn’t the problem, at night the world got closer to the realm of Niflheim, the realm of death, making it possible for certain abnormal existences interfere within this world in places where there’s low concentration of mana, which was one of the reasons why there weren’t villages in this worlds, since they were both prone to extermination thanks to the monsters and the possibility of being spirited away to Niflheim, the exception being those places with high concentration of mana that acted as a barrier to the invitation, therefore making the ideal place to build cities and towns.

Lucca et al despite moving at fast pace were still slower than earlier because their prey were heavy and they only got near Retford almost at sunset. What they didn’t expect was the horrifying scene they were close to witness.

Just one or two kilometer away of the city the trio started noticing a lot of people dashing like crazy in every direction away from Retford, at the beginning they didn’t minded them since could be someone rushing for an encounter here and there, but after a couple of minutes they couldn’t ignore the vast amount of people repeating the same actions.

“This is strange” – Said the brawny veteran, he has been working near Retford for years, yet this is the first time he encountered such an event of people running away from the city in the night. It was almost like saying that they would prefer to have the chance to receive death’s calling from Niflheim than being near the safe place of the capital.

“Definitely strange, let us climb that hill up there and I will get on the top that tree to check what’s happening in the capital” – Said Lucca while leaving the cart with the two and dashing to the hill, he rapidly climbed the tree and focused his inner mana to move into his eyes.

Mana was the essence of everything, since men started being able to wield mana they were able to drive the monsters away and survive, were able to escape the invite of death, were able to strength themselves to the most and reach the peak of humanity, Riviera.

Lucca with the mana moving to his eye enhanced his eyesight three or four times the normal amount and stared in the south gate of the capital, at the exact moment he couldn’t help but close his eyes and rubbing his own eyes and pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“What’s happening Bright?” (Brawny)

“Is there something wrong with the capital?” (Androgynous)

Lucca was speechless, this reaction was abnormal to the normally cheeky brat, while both of them thought that they felt a strange ominous sensation on their spine that made them dash to the top of the hill and imitate Lucca behavior. The scene that welcomed their eyes was like an invitation to a party if Niflheim and their world were to be connected together, the previous green plains right next of the south gate of the capital were dyed red in blood, countless corpses that could easily reach a thousand people were battered on the ground and this part was just talking about what looked like people, there were a lot of parts that it was just horrible bloody that looked like mincemeat one would buy on the butcher shop.

The trio was paralyzed by the atrocious scene in their front and only come back to life when they heard the sound of cannons being shot at the monsters. When they looked back they understood that at least the inside of city were safe somehow, since the sound of the cannon being fired meant people were still alive inside the capital, the gate was also closed, so the monsters probably weren’t inside the city, otherwise they would be trapped with them.

“What do we do?” (Androgynous)

“What can we do? Nothing, look at that pile of corpses and that lake of blood… We have been away for a couple of hours and when we come back it’s like Niflheim themselves come to greet us” – Said the brawny warrior while sighting and showing a slight fearful face that didn’t matched his normal imposing style.

“What could have caused this, do you have any idea?” (Androgynous)

At this moment Lucca still gazed near the south gate and looked for what could have happened, even if a huge breakdown of monsters were to reach the capital of the city, they should have been seen from far and usually the people who stay near the outskirts of the city were men who lived through fighting those type of monsters every day, what could have caused such a tragedy in such a short time? Lucca increased his mana usage by forcing more and more of his mana into the eyes making them shine in the darkness, finally then he saw what looked like a black curtain made of fog and at its right side a monster that looked like if you were to fuse a five meter tall barbarian with a goat head, two hairy legs with giant hooves and a great hands wielding a scythe almost as tall as that aberration.

“Baphomet…” – Muttered Lucca while recalling the story Ann said about the devil that lived in a maze near the ex-headquarters of the church, which was destroyed years ago by Baphomet, commander of demons, and a giant dark wraith, that commanded the animated souls of the dead, because they didn’t like the church.

The duo who was near Lucca could hear his mumbling and were shock pale when they heard the name of Baphomet, after all what could such a powerful monster that inhabited the demon maze in the northwest of the kingdom be doing here right in the capital, what’s more he commanded demons that attacked the biggest human city in broad daylight.

“Guys thinking about it won’t do us any good” – Said Lucca while dropping from the tree – “Although we don’t know what those damn monster are thinking, one thing is certain, we can’t enter the capital for now” – then he turned to the brawny man and continued – “since we can’t enter the capital and can’t stick here any longer, since they could spot us, what do we do, Robert?”

Robert, the brawny man, was the most experienced of the trio, leader of this party and the first one to accept Lucca in a party while he was still a ten-year old kid, despite most of the other people looking down on him. He wasn’t the smartest, but he always made sound decisions that made them not meet danger in those years of association as adventurers and had respect of everybody, including the other two girls not present in today event.

“You’re right, thinking about the situation we have three options here. The first one being lying low near the capital and wait to the monsters being repelled. The second going south past the mountains and enter the great desert of Marllok, towards your hometown Lucca. The last option being going towards southeast to the town of Azlud, the last one is probably the safest bet, since it’s the closer and we could reach before midnight, what do you guys think?”

“I agree” (Androgynous)

Lucca kept quiet, he agreed going towards Azlud would be wisest choice, since it was the closest, but something was off to him. The same way Azlud was the closest, if the monsters erupted here it wouldn’t be strange to they have appeared there too, or at least some part of the demons could have moved there while following the desperate people they had seen earlier.

I hope it’s me being pessimistic, so thought Lucca while started running at moderate pace while keeping his mana on the eyes to check their surroundings for monsters. After thirty minutes of running the fears of Lucca started growing as he saw some bodies on the road along the way, which made the trio become more nervous.

“Robert, I think it’s better if we abandon the cart and start moving through the forest instead of the road” – As he said that he pointed four bodies in their front and rushed to them, they were torn apart by what looked like a giant sword which cut them apart like pieces of paper being torn by a mischievous child – “Look at this equipment, those guys weren’t amateurs” – Said Lucca while holding a short silver sword.

Agreeing with Lucca opinion both of them released the cart and started moving near the forest. Lucca decided to kept the silver sword since it’s strong against demons, but he hoped that he didn’t have to confirm it if was possible. While thinking such thoughts they kept advancing for more and hour and Lucca kept seeing corpses here and there near the road, finally to the moment he saw some hundreds of meters ahead what seemed to be a fight.

“Hey, just ahead on the road there seems to be a fight between adventurers and demons, what do we do?” – Asked Lucca while keeping focus on his surroundings.

“Tell me the state of the adventurers and demons fighting” – Said Robert with a heavy tone, if the adventurers were pushed in the brink of death he wouldn’t jump in just to help them and risk their own death instead, if it seemed hopeless, they would just run.

“They are in a slight disadvantage due to the numbers of goat demons, but I think we can kill those demons if we go there” (Lucca)

“Then we go, we’ll do as usual, I’m the vanguard, Lui is the rearguard and Lucca the go between supporting us both, let’s go!” – While saying that he pulled his axe and shield and started running while concentrating mana in his legs. Robert reached the defending group in a matter of few seconds and shout loudly while concentrating mana in his voice. – “Come bite me, you fucking monsters!”

Robert was a warrior and had to hold the frontlines, by focusing mana in his voice he made all the monsters focus their attention on him while leaving a time to breath to the defending party, right after he plowed his axe into the body of the little baphomet, which were identical to the perfect monster except being much shorter about the size of a human kid.

The Baphomet used his black scythe to intercept the axe and jumped back getting out of range of Robert. Tsk, those monsters seems to have some intellect, or so Robert thought while preparing to intercept the attack of the other little baphomets ready to attack him, at that time an arrow flew from his back which made one of little baphomets stop his attack while the other was defended with easy by Roberto who can concentrating his mana on his limbs.

At the same time, on the other side of the battle, Lucca got near the back of the other group and started assisting their vanguard stop the three little baphomets that were on them.

“We are here to help” – Said Lucca while stabbing from the side of a little baphomet and making one of them stop the attack against the muscular man who served of vanguard of this party – “My party and yours have them surrounded, focus the power in a single one and try to take them out!” – Lucca finished saying that and already moved away from the vanguard and got nearby a mage looking girl who looked frightened.

“Common! We don’t have time to be scared, this is a situation of life or death. I will help you, so start doing them like you trained!” – Before he knew Lucca was taking care of the girl whom reminded him of the little sisters he had on the orphanage and made him talk like an older brother on impulse.

But somehow after a few sparks fly near the girl, thanks to Lucca et all parrying the advance of the little baphomets the girl awakened and started chanting, after a few more seconds a barrier of fire extended through 5 meters between two little baphomets and the muscular man of the little mage party.

“Good!” – Not missing the opportunity Lucca took two daggers and threw them on the backside of the monsters attacking Robert to distract them and rapidly took the silver sword and embedded with its mana, making the silver blade glow golden, which he used to attack the flank of the little baphomet being held by the muscular man of the other party.

One must know that mana is pure energy that exists in this world and one can use to wield any phenomenon as long as there is enough mana. Usually humans have colorless mana, in other words, they had mana in its formless state and could mold it as one desired, for example, as the little girl used the flame barrier she would take 10 portions of her formless mana and transform that into 8 fire mana, to them use it to create a wall of flames to stop the attack of the two monsters, usually 20% of mana were lost on the process of exchanging one type of mana to the another. But this waste of mana doesn’t occur when one own mana is already of said element, while it was rare for humans to have one own element of mana, elves usually are born with natural wind mana element, dwarves with natural earth element, dragonewt as natural flame element and so on.

Lucca is one of those rare existences within humans, his natural mana has an element, pure life force, mostly know as holy mana, this could be seen from his pure golden eyes which was a side effect of being born with it. Pure life force was the bane of demons, which were monsters that had natural dark mana.

The little baphomet clearly knew that, or maybe it was his natural instinct, which made him try to move away of the blade, but that was too late, with his back open the blade pieced the demon and the foreign mana entered his body, the pure force was like the deadliest of the poisons and rapidly consumed his insides to the moments it stopped moving and Lucca finally took the blade away from the demon body.

Robert seeing that used his mana and used a moved his whole body to slam against one of those monsters being occupied by him. Lucca and Lui eyes flashed as they knew Robert aim, the other monster seeing Robert open started swinging his scythe, but he stopped midway as he was flinched by the arrow hitting his shoulder-blade and right after two dagger hitting his arm. Lucca at this moment was already on the side of the baphomet and used a diagonal slash against it, without options the litte baphomet start moving to intercept the attack while another arrow pieces his ribcage.

The little baphomets have indeed more intelligence than the average demon, mostly due being the minions of the perfect monster Baphomet, but they still didn’t had intelligence equivalent to a grown man, and on the other side, Lucca’s party had fought numerous battles together, therefore each member knew the other abilities and worked well like a fine machine. After the fall of the first little baphomet, the second was felled right after by the combination of arrows and slashes until it slowed its movement for a heavy swing of Robert. From there on the little mage party joined the fray and they easily finished the remaining three little baphomets with their superior numbers by a piercing attack.

“That was better than I expected” – Said Lucca while walking towards his own party and used his mana into his eyes again and looked at the direction of Azlud town, in the dark horizon he could clearly see fire ahead – “though this only make me more worried…”