*** IN THE KINGDOM OF OLLAGON, OUTSIDE THE CLAN TWOTREE COMPOUND, THE FOREST ***

*** Amriel ***

Amriel leaned against a tree and watched in full fascination as a monkey 145 meters away from him and squatting in a top branch. It was completely dark and the light of the moon is not penetrating the thickness of the forest, but Amriel is using a combination of his mage eyes, infrared visions and zoom in capability of an eagle eye, and he could see clearly as a sleepy monkey struggled not to fall off the branch, completely unaware as a blue bat is sticking near his ass and drinking a portion of his blood.

Amriel raised an eyebrow when the monkey nonchalantly started to scratch his butt, obviously rubbing the vampire bat’s wings and still he didn’t notice the flying mammal.

“It’s right there, you stupid monkey. You can feel its wings!” complained tubby, prowling around the tree Amriel is leaning in.

“Idiot,” Aida agreed, frowning right next to Amriel.

“Woof!” barked rex in Aida’s arm. He growled at the stupid monkey, but yelp when he started to suffocate in Aida’s bosom.

He watches for another half stick of time before the monkey fell asleep and the bat, having drunk its fill or had enough of the monkey’s farting, flew away undetected.

Amriel sighed. He looks at the moon high above, guessing that it’s already midnight or early morning. His guard shift is always at night because he has a lot to do in the morning. But the downside is this; pure boredom.

“Might as well do another round of patrol around the compound,” he said aloud.

“If you have nothing else to do,” said Shayla next to him. “Why not confront the intruder moving around the compound?”

Amriel staggered to a halt. He turned to face the goddess, his face shocked. “There is an intruder in the compound?!” He asked, aghast.

The Goddess simply nodded innocently.

“For how long?”

“About a stick of time.”

“Then why did you not tell me?!” Amriel said, controlling his outburst.

“You did not ask.”

With an effort, Amriel controlled his breathing. “I… am watching a flying rat-“

“For more than an hour,” Simon added, grating his teeth as he glared at Shayla.

“- Suck. a. monkey’s ASS!” Amriel continued, almost shouting now. “You didn’t think of telling me any of this?”

“Perv,” concluded Aida, nodding to herself.

Amriel, Simon, and the dog whipped their heads to Aida’s direction, annoyed. Only tubby was sniggering behind the bombshell.

Shayla frowned at Amriel. “Your specific words is to scan the place for any intruders. I did. YOU did not say anything about reporting anything I detected. Besides, I have no idea you didn’t sense them yourself.”

Amriel stopped, controlled his breathing then close his eyes. He concentrated in the radiance around him then he expanded outward, towards the clan compound a mile and a half away. He felt all the familiar radiance, including Burrlock who is sleeping next to his wife. There are two guards near the gate but like him, they are not alert and bored out of their minds.

Almost unconsciously, his senses went directly to Ella’s home and only after he is reassured by her deep undisturbed sleep did he scan elsewhere.

“Where’s the intruder?”

“Intruders,” Shayla corrected. “In the main building.”

Amriel directed his senses to that direction and sure enough, an unknown radiance is slightly glowing in the second floor. He wasn’t able to detect the second but if Shayla said that his there, then his there.

“Let’s go!” Amriel commanded.

He runs fast, moving smoothly into the thick forest. Brushing over trees, hopping over bushes, gliding over a pool of waters, then he was out.

He burst through the field faster than a charging Cheetah, not that this world had ever seen such an animal. He could feel the wind battered his face, but he ignored it. The closer he gets the stronger the radiance of the intruder. How could he have missed this? No matter, he will be there in a few more seconds, and then he will have answers.

Shayla effortlessly flew next to him, watching him. “Would you like me to deal with this intruders?”

“No!” Amriel and all his aspects said in unison. He has no question that Shayla can stop this intruder. Or any other intruder or group of intruders for that matter. She is a goddess after all. The thought of Shayla being overpowered by anyone is laughable. The problem is that the woman wouldn’t care if she destroys half the compound while doing so.

“Thank you but no,” He repeated more calmly after seeing the frown in Shayla’s face. “I want to do this in a more subtle way.”

“Very well,” The goddess said, disappointed. “I will not interfere then.”

Good.

“Thank you,” Amriel said.

Twenty meters before he reaches the building, he touched his chest and a magical rune named “Shadow walk” is created and then activated in his body. It was not the all concealing technique that Shayla is using but at this time of night, the magic was just as useful. Shadows swirl around Amriel making him semi-invisible at night. He bolted the twenty feet wall of the compound then landed on his feet and rolled to contain the force, then stood up again to continue on.

He reached the building with no one noticing him, then he again bolted the 2nd floor of the building. The windows are open and Amriel simply swings pass the door and landed inside quietly. The long corridor of the 2nd floor was completely dark but with his mage eyes and infrared, Amriel can see the intruder easily at the end of the corridor fiddling with the locks of Burrlock’s office. With Amriel’s heightened senses, He can hear the angry mumbling from the intruder, as he sneaked closer to the masked man.

“I guess lock picking is not his strong suit,” Tubby whispered to the other aspects, despite the fact that no one can actually hear him. Amriel in passing, wondered where the giant cat found the ninja mask covering his face.

The intruder is wearing an all-black attire that covered him from head to toe. Daniel is reminded of a ninja, whatever that means, Amriel thought.

For a moment, Daniel wanted to switch places, but Amriel resisted. A battle is imminent and he is the warrior in this body, not Daniel. The fact that Daniel gave in, reassured the former knight.

Five feet away, Amriel stopped and then cleared his throat. The intruder froze, then slowly turned to face him. Amriel smiled at him easily. “Can I help you?”

The intruder stood up and started to walk over to Amriel without any hurry. Amriel’s smile grew even wider. The way the intruder walks, Amriel knew immediately that his legs are taut, the center of gravity is well maintained and the steps are very light. In other words, this guy is a professional and very confident.

He can just imagine what he looks like to the intruder, just another part-time militia guard from an unknown backwater clan.

Carefully, Amriel rested his clan issued spear to one side of the wall, then his eyes started glowing blue. “You don’t want to do this,” Amriel said, matter of factly.

The intruder continued to walk closer and closer until he is an arm’s length away from Amriel, only then did he stop. Amriel can feel the intruder gather radiance around him, then without warning, he flicks a quick blow to Amriel’s face. Amriel swung his head to the right, then deflect the next blow to his ribs. His own left-hand snake out and grabbed the intruder’s shoulder, who automatically jerk it away.

Suddenly the two combatant is engaged in a rune–assisted, complex, and swift moving series of moves that ended with the intruder’s left arm bent at an awkward angle. Amriel quickly snap a low kick and the intruder fell to his knees with his other hand supporting his weight.

The intruder was good, but magical grappling was Amriel’s specialty, and it’s been awhile since anyone ever beat him in that, excluding goddesses and abominations of course.

Amriel applied more pressure and the intruder screamed. Suddenly Amriel knows two things about the intruder. One is that she is a woman because of her voice when she cried out and two is that she is a knight.

Or at least knight-trained.

The Army mold young peasant farmers into cold-blooded killers by drilling techniques into the soldier again and again until it becomes second nature to them. This way, when a real fight actually starts the soldiers can retreat into this familiar drills and let their bodies move according to their training even if they are scared shitless that they are pissing their pants. What’s more is that technique made sure that the soldier can preserve his stamina while his enemy hacks away.

Hold shield in front. Block. Absorb attack. Twist. Stab center mass. Again. Block. Stab. Block. Stab.

To be honest, this is the primary thing that differentiates an army from a mob. Nothing more. But as time goes by, veterans realized that these drills are full of holes. There are times that their training is not enough, especially against another soldier who is also trained the same. They begin to change and tweak a few things about what they learned to better adapt against an enemy attack. This is what differentiate a veteran from an OLD veteran.

This is where the knight order came in. The knights are originally old veteran soldiers who used what they learn to teach others how to cover the weaknesses learned from the standard army training.

And this female intruder is highly trained. She could easily beat another regular knight, but unfortunately, she is against Amriel who had years of battle experience. Besides, Amriel’s normal sparring partner is a god, far stronger and faster than any human has a right to be.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” Amriel said coldly. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The intruder snarled at him. “You’re dead! Do you hear me? I will cut out your heart and feed it back to you!”

“Right, but before that, you will tell me who you are and what the source are you doing here, or I will pull your arm from your socket and-“

Amriel felt the build-up of radiance behind him. He let go of the female intruder, turned around and at the same time infuse his own radiance to his arms.

Half a dozen magical missiles homed into his body from the darkness of the corridor. He deflected them all with his arm and it all exploded in the ground next to him.

His mage sight revealed an individual hiding in the darkness at the end of the corridor. He is about to retaliate when he felt another attack behind him. His body is already ducking to one side when a snake like attack whooshed pass him.

The female intruder is holding two bullwhips, and she is expertly twirling it around. Amriel can feel that both weapons are infused with elemental magic. One by lightning, the other by wind magic.

Like a Jedi, Amriel pointed to his short spear near the wall and it flew to his hand quickly. With radiance coursing throughout his body, he slides two fingers over the length of the spear, sort of coating it with magic. Instantly, two dozen runes are etched in the spear and Amriel empowered it by infusing his own radiance.

What Amriel had just done was a revolutionary new technique in rune markings. A rune knight can normally only create two runes over their weapon at least twice a day, senior rune masters can probably create just over 3-4 runes but that’s it. No one has ever reinforced a tool or a weapon with 5 or more runes in the history of the kingdom. The problem is not creating runes but how their radiance interferes with each other.

Amriel created a technique from an idea Daniel gave him by using ‘radiance channels’. Essentially, you create the specific places where a radiance of a specific rune will go to so that they can spread around the tool or weapon without interfering with the radiance of the other runes.

His wooden spear has now turned into a bluish metallic spear glowing from the inside.

And he expertly swung it around like a dancer, blocking and deflecting the attacks from the bullwhip-equipped intruder. The attack is really tricky to handle because the angle of attack is truly unpredictable. And on top of that…

Four more magical missiles raced at him from the other direction. Again Amriel deflected it to the ground then immediately fired two high-pressure water elemental sphere to the direction of the second intruder.

“Seriously?” Tubby said, watching Amriel. “The first magic that comes to your mind are your bouncing water balls of doom? That’s just lame, dude.”

“Lame,” Agreed Aida.

Amriel blushed slightly, but then again he didn’t have the time to elaborate as the woman’s attack started to become faster and faster. Amriel ducked, deflect, blocked, swing to the sides, and rolled away from the deadly whip.

When his water spheres exploded on the other side of the corridor, Amriel made his move. Amriel poured radiance to his left foot and when he stomps it to the ground, the wooden flooring in front of him started to crumble. The woman staggered for a second and Amriel moved it. He started falling to his left, then teleported to his right.

He appeared behind his opponent and with his spear, swung it to catch the woman on the side of her face. But the woman wasn’t fooled and drop to the ground and performed a perfect sweep of Amriel’s foot.

It was a clean hit and Amriel started to fall on his side, his body literally parallel to the floor, but with a single hand, he not only arrested his fall but actually jumps back into the air. He quickly throws a straight punch to the advancing woman.

“ARRGH,” She grunted. She blocks the punch, but Amriel’s strength made her stagger two step behind. This set her up for the two kicks Amriel is able to perform in that position and hit the woman twice on the side of her head and neck.

She flew to the side of the wall and burst right through it. Amriel twisted in the air and landed easily on his feet.

He felt another radiance build up from the other intruder and, this time, he is upgrading the attack by changing it into a fire element. Amriel raised a radiance shield around him just as the heat of fire burst all over the corridor. It glances pass his shield, but he remained unharmed. He then raised his spear and threw it in the blinding light of the fire. Unfortunately for the intruder, Amriel can feel him just by looking at his mage sight.

The spear penetrated his left shoulder, and he fell on his back. No matter what kind of shielding the other intruder has, his spear has a resistant to it.

A new magical circle suddenly surrounded the intruder and spread on the wooden ground. The intruder, reeling in pain, seems to be unaware of this magic enveloping him. Amriel’s eyebrow had risen as he studied the circle.

It was a far more complex rune markings, and he didn’t think the intruder himself is at a level to create one such as that. Amriel took a step forward.

He is already docking even before he knew it and the body of the female intruder went past him.

She glowered at him, then sat near her comrade. Her fingers infused with radiance, she started writing in the air as she mumbled an incantation.

Amriel recognized the runes she is writing in the air, and he started writing his own runes. Suddenly the wooden splinters all around them started shaking then begun to float in the air. They were infused with radiance and like a storm started to move all around the two intruders, protecting them like a shield.

Amriel meanwhile, called the earth elements and an earth armor wraps around him. He steps toward the storm and grimly absorb the blows from the infused wood missiles that were hurling themselves around him.

“I just need a few more inches and I can stop the magical circle,” Simon told Amriel as he also grimly moved into the storm.

But before he could touch the magical circle that spread on the floor, the two intruders glowed white then blink out of existence.

Instantly the storm around the room vanishes and every wood splinter in the air drop down like nothing happen.

Amriel cursed. His prey had gotten away from him. He slides to the floor and touched the magical circle. He started reading and understood that the magical circle serves as a teleport beacon somewhere near the capital.

Amriel easily found the first trap in the magical programming that any other teleportation using that same circle will cause the body of the one who teleported next, to be transported in 5 separate location, essentially killing him. Amriel’s hands glowed, and he started rewriting the magical program of the circle when Amriel saw the second trap.

The moment the teleportation was used, a 3rd party program in the circle was designed to gather radiance and start to overload. The radiance capacity is already full so Amriel can’t do anything about it. He somersaulted away from the circle before it exploded and destroy a huge chunk of the second-floor building. Amriel who is next to a window was blown away 50 feet from the building. Amriel twisted in the air and landed on his feet, but it took another 10 more feet to arrest his momentum entirely before he skidded to a halt.

People around the compound started to shout warnings and everyone started to grab buckets to stop the fire. Burrlock in his skivvies roared in anger as he directed people how to fight the emerging fire. Amriel simply watch.

Shayla steps right next to him seemingly from nowhere. She too was watching the conflagration in the building. “Your idea of subtleness completely puzzles me,” She said.

All Amriel can do is a grunt. "Damn it."