Aster looked at Yumi, frozen with fear and unable to move, he could see she was shaken from looking at the person who was out there fighting with barak,

‘from how shaken she is he must be really bad news to us’, he thought to himself, Aster shook his head as he tried to dispel any worrying thoughts at the moment, he began to move forward back to the battle , holding out his hand as his warhammer peeled itself from the wall and flung itself into his palm,

As aster was about to step outside Polaris grabbed onto his leg,” don...don’t.....don’t let him touch you”, he struggled to say, as he passed out again,

Aster paused momentarily, ‘what could he mean by that, is it some sort of power he has, its probably why pol got beat and why lev is missing’, Aster’s head was swirling with thoughts as to what Polaris could mean,

“ASTER MOVE”, barak shouted, as both him and the assailant flew towards him, aster ducked causing both of them to crash into the wall behind which he had crashed into earlier, though now it had a thorough hole in it,

the assailant got up from the rubble, pushing a slab of the wall off of himself,

“Now that he’s out the way for a while”, aluric started to say, but then he paused to dust off himself,

“Right where was I, ahhh yes, yumi, how has my favourite rebel been”, he finished saying,

yumi was silent she was ready to flee at the drop of the hat, she gulped her throat still feeling dry, she regathered her composure and planted her feet,

” Aluric my pain in the ass, to what do i owe this displeasure”, she said trying to put on a confident facade,

“tsk, tsk, tsk, why would it be a displeasure, think back to all the good times we had, while we were playing for the same team”, Aluric said,

“exactly, we ‘had’ good times, that’s all In the past, especially after you and the prince got greedy”, yumi said,

“now why did you decide to come in person, couldn’t you have sent one of the pillars, you just said pix was out there”, she said,

“Well you attacked my guild’s headquarters and after getting you and your rebel’s collective ass handed to you, you scurried off and hid, and low and behold this is where i tracked you, well pix tracked you to be quite honest”, he said,

“plus having pix or any of the others do it wouldn’t have been fun, all four of them are too serious and would’ve just killed you on the spot”, aluric said,

“Though I am disappointed now, pix had found out about these four young talents, but they turned out to be disappointments, I would kill them, but they aren’t even worth that much, hell, they don’t even appear to know how to sense or detect divine energy, all four of them just a complete waste of time”, Aluric said,

“Oh by the way, I gave the rebel army three months to get their affairs in order and surrender, if not I’m wiping them out, and if you aren’t there surrendering with them, I will still wipe them out”, aluric said,

he said all of this with a pleasant smile on his face as if he wasn’t threatening people,

he opened his eyes and stopped smiling,” so you better not disappoint me, it would be a shame if it’s your fault all of them end up dead”, he walked through the hole that was made by aster, walking past him aster as he was frozen in complete disbelief,

“Now if you don’t mind bring me back my guild member if you will”, Aluric stated, however this did not feel like a request, more like an undeniable command,

Yumi moved from where she was standing, making her way through the corridor, after a few moments she returned with the person who had tried to capture her, he was bloodied, battered and bruised, he couldn’t even walk by himself so she had him propped up on her, Aluric made his way over taking his beaten guild member off of yumi’s shaking shoulders,

“I refuse to believe that that was all you came here for”, yumi said,

“It wasn’t, I had planned to try and sway those four into joining me, and if refused, I had planned to kill them, but even if you help them, they would take a while before they could even catch up to me”, aluric said,

“So you just had a change of heart out of nowhere”, yumi said,

“No, believe it or not, putting aside the whole war business, I haven’t forgotten what we had”, aluric said,

“And I do still miss you, you know”, he said to yumi, as he walked off, leaving the house and disappearing into the woods,

Moments later Levant came stumbling out of the woods, heavily injured, he barely got any further before he fainted, Aster and Yumi rushed to him and carried him inside, after wards Aster dug barak out of the rubble, all three of them were carried into their separate rooms to rest and heal for the time being,

Aster and yumi spent the rest of the evening repairing the hideout, eventually night fell,

Aster was outside sitting at a fire he had struggled to start, since Levant was out of commission, yumi approached him and took a seat,

“Well today was fucking devastating for all of us”, she said, aster just sat there in silence,

he was lamenting on the fact that he was completely frozen in fear earlier and couldn’t do anything to stop what was happening, he was angry partially at Aluric and partially at yumi for involving them in this dispute between the both of them, but he was most angry at himself for how powerless he felt, and he could only imagine what the rest felt like getting destroyed single handedly by him, but what he had also came to realize is that he was in awe of the power Aluric possessed, he wanted that for himself, he wanted the power to destroy all of his enemies that stood before him, he also wanted that power so he could immerse himself in a world of battle and fighting extremely strong people,

“In the end I’m not so different from Rak, and I also turned out how the elders wanted me to”, aster said, letting out a sigh,

“What do you mean by that”, yumi asked,

“I’m sure that even you noticed by now but barak, he loves the thrill of battle, the thrill of testing his strength against stronger opponents”, aster said,

“I thought I was different from that, I thought that I only sought strength in order to protect those I care about”, aster said,

“And what’s so bad about wanting to fight”, yumi said,

“your kidding right, all immersing yourself in fighting does is bring unwanted enemies, and gives you a craving for unwanted destruction and chaos”, aster said,

“hmm and yet you’re an enforcer for your clan, seems hypocritical”, yumi said,

“that’s why I can say what I said, I know from experience, and I’m barely twenty-one”, Aster said,

“hahahahahaha, you’re most definitely still a child, there are people in this world who have lived hundreds of years, and experienced countless things more than you have, don’t go around drawing conclusions about yourself just yet, when you haven’t even lived a third of your life yet”, yumi said,

“ though I am curious on how you turned out just like your clan elders wanted”, yumi asked,

“that’s easy, the three closest people to me are in this house severly injured, and all I canthink about is how I want that man’s level of strength, not to make sure nothing like this never happens again, but because I want to tower over my enemies with overwhelming strength, and that is exactly what the elders wanted from us, to be nothing but beasts who focus on fighting and growing stronger, all the while knowing that we have allegiances to them”, aster said,

“well then I don’t think your going to live up to that fear, from what I’ve seen you four, have you own goals and aspirations, but if you’re so worried why not become the next head of the clan or a clan elder”, yumi said,

“can’t become an elder, that position can only be held by the women of the clan, as for being the clan head, you have to be voted to be a nominee, by the other clan members, and then chosen by the four of us and the elders”, aster said,

“Wait, why the four of you”, yumi asked,

“Well I guess you wouldn’t know, but the four of us, are considered ‘special’, all four of us have been given our powers by the gods, and we weren’t born with them”, Aster said,

“WHAT, do you understand how rare that is, and it happened to all four of you, this changes everything, I had thought that I could at least get you to the level of the pillars, but the fact that you are Blessed by the god’s changes everything”, yumi said,

Aster looked around at yumi,” we came here to train and to be honest after what happened today i realized that we only thought we were strong, but there are true monsters in this world, so I don’t care if I’m blessed by the gods, or if my powers come straight from hell itself, if you can make us stronger I’m all for it”, aster said