“We should arrive at Sandaras tomorrow night if we ride through the night and the next day”, said Reston as he yawned. The group of three was riding non-stop for the last few days. Rild's injury has been treated by Tyler, but the priest's water magic was not advanced enough to regenerate the lost blood. Due to this Rild was suffering from a slight case of anemia. Because of this, the ones riding were only Tyler and Reston.
It was time for Tyler to take over. The young priest climbed from the back of the cart to the front and took the reins from Reston's hands. The latter did not immediately go to the back of the cart and instead looked to the front of the cart.
“Change of plans. We're resting for today.”
Tyler raised his brows in surprise but did not object. The group steered the cart to the side of the road and started preparing the fire. Right now Rild woke up from his meditation.
“Why have we stopped? If you are too tired I can steer the cart”, he started complaining when he saw Tyler trying to light the fire. In his eyes, the most important thing right now was to get to Sandaras. To his surprise, the one who answered was not Tyler, but Reston who did not speak much during their entire journey.
“It's not us who is tired. The horse is about to die from exhaustion. If it's gone, then we have to abandon the supplies and start walking. Your condition at the moment is not the best for walking.”
Rild looked at the already sleeping horse and nodded reluctantly. The next thing he did surprised the knight and priest. He jumped from the cart and walked to the fire pit Tyler built.
“Wait! How can you already walk so easily? Your blood should not be replenished by now!”, cried Tyler in surprise. He has treated a lot of people and knew, that blood could only be replenished slowly over the course of many days if you didn't have the help of a mage. The amount Rild lost, was enough to make him bedridden for at least a week.
Rild did not even look at Tyler as he knelt down, took a branch and closed his eyes. He sat like this without saying anything for a minute, before the branch in his hands started to burn. Rild immediately put it into the fire pit.
When Tyler saw the flame of the branch he was gobsmacked.
“You... You... Already opened the first gate of fire?!?”, he shouted out in surprise. He starred at Rild with wide open eyes. The young mage wasn't even able to cast a simple flame arrow a few days back when they were attacked by the robbers. How did he open a gate of magic so fast? And how did neither he nor Reston notice it? When a mage opens gates of magic it generates a shock wave in the material world. Which is even notable by normal people, not to mention Tyler, who has opened the first gate of light and water. They were in Rild's near vicinity the enitire time and didn't notice anything.
Rild finally raised his head an looked at Tyler.
“No. It wasn't fire magic. Just a trick you can do with non-elemental magic energy” answered Rild as he stood up and walked back to the cart leaving the still surprised Tyler behind.

The first on the lookout was Reston. The knight was attentively listening to the sounds around them. Nowadays there was a lot of crime and robberies so Reston did not relax even for a little. From time to time he looked at the sleeping Tyler and the meditating Rild.
Reston was deeply impressed by Rild. The young mage spent most of his time in meditation. Through his career, Reston met quite a lot of mages. He knew that mediation to gather magic energy, contrary to the general assumption, was quite difficult and strength-sapping. It was not even the body which was exhausted, but the soul. A body could be healed quickly through the help of another mage or potions, but the soul was an entirely different matter. There was no way to heal the soul. It had to heal naturally. And no mage he ever met was meditating as tirelessly as Rild.
Reston felt a deep admiration for Rild. In his eyes, the young mage took his duty as guardian of the goddess extremely serious. In the eyes of the knight, Rild should be the leader of the church and not a random person, who managed to obtain the post through political manipulations and assassinations of his rivals. Of course a few years back he still believed, that the holy father of the church was chosen by the goddess herself, but that time has passed. Some time passed and it was Tyler's turn to stand watch. The two of them did not talk much with each other before Reston went to sleep. Tyler's watch was also not very eventful.
It was still some time before it was Rild's turn when the young mage just woke up and walked to Tyler in order to replace him.
“Go to sleep. I'll take it from here”, said Rild as he sat next to the priest.
Tyler shook his head.
“No, get your sleep. You should be the most tired of us since you were meditating the whole time. It is impossible for a soul not to be exhausted after so much effort.”
Rild looked at Tyler and sneered with a despising smile on his lips.
“Let me guess. You are one of the priests who meditated only five minutes per day and then proclaimed to be a hard working person while in reality, you had no idea what true effort is. But of course, all the effort you did was true effort, since you are a priest and nobody dared to say otherwise”, said the young mage in mocking tone. “I'll give you an advice: Don't butt in things which you have no idea of.”
Tyler did not say anything for a while. He had already given up being on being friendly with Rild. He could not understand why Rild hated the church and priests with such a fanatical fervor, but he had to accept, that this was something he could not change just by being nice to Rild. But this time Tyler decided not to back down in front of Rild's insults.
“Alright, great master. Then tell me how one can meditate for such a long time. Teach me! In that case, the useless and lazy priest will learn how hard working people do it!”
Rild smiled at Tyler's annoyed sarcasm. Although he didn't want to teach the priest anything, he had to come to terms, that Tyler will travel with him, whether he liked it or not. In that case, he could try making the priest a bit less useless. The knowledge he was about to tell Tyler would probably not be very useful for the priest because it was very specific, but he could start with it in order to insult Tyler a bit more.
“Alright. The secret of my training is to let one soul work on collecting magic, while the other rests. Once the first soul is exhausted, the other starts collecting and the first gets some rest.
This way one soul is working and one soul is resting at any given time. Now since you are a priest in order for you to understand that I need to teach you some basics of what I said just now. The first unknown word for you priests should be 'work'. Work is when a person...”
Before Rild could continue to insult Tyler, the priest interrupted him in an excited voice.
“What? How is this possible? Aren't the souls synchronized? Whenever I collect magic I can only collect with both souls at the same time.”
Rild starred at Tyler with an open mouth, when he heard what he said.
“Both souls? You- you are blessed by the goddess?”
This was something the young mage did not expect and Tyler could see this fact on his face.
“Yes. I am” he said with a bit of pride in his voice.
Rild's face got sour when he heard the priest's confirmation. He just couldn't believe the goddess would bless someone at birth who would become a priest. Without thinking he just spat his next words out.
“Seems, like even the goddess can get dead drunk and commit some stupid mistakes.”
Tyler just looked wordlessly at Rild. Blood was flowing through his head as he tried to control himself. Rild would rather insult the goddess than accept, that not everybody in the church was a corrupt scumbag. Tyler was a true believer in the goddess and could not tolerate such an insult. Tyler tried to calm himself down but in the end, he could not hold it in and exploded. Before Rild could realize what was happening Tyler's fist struck him right in his left eye. Rild was flung backward by the impact.
The young mage just looked flabbergasted at Tyler. Then without a word he took his staff and swung it at the head of the priest. Tyler did not expect Rild to just stand up like that. Only when the staff connected with his jaw did he remember that Rild seemed not to have any problems to just ignore pain altogether and react without any delay. Tyler did not have such an ability so he needed a few moments to stabilize himself. He furiously looked at Rild and saw, that he was just standing with his staff in his hands and smiled provocatively at him.
Tyler knew, he would lose to the staff's length if he tried to attack him normally, so he decided something else. He ran up to Rild and crashed into him with his entire body. Rild did not expect such an aggressive attack from the priest and fell down with Tyler on top of him. Tyler expected to stun Rild for a few seconds with this but was sorely disappointed, when the young mage under him started punching him without any delay. Tyler had no choice but retaliate. The two young men were in equilibrium. Tyler was stronger than Rild, but Rild ignored pain completely. The two of them continued for a few moments before both of them were lifted from the ground into different directions.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?” bellowed Reston as he held the two in each hand. Although Reston was a drunk for nearly two years, his body did not deteriorate at all. He was still an elite knight and could easily lift each of the young men of the ground with one hand. Rild just venomously stared at Tyler and said nothing. Tyler was also silent for a while and then started to retell what happened. Reston listened attentively and sighed at the end.
“Rild's at fault. End of discussion”, said the knight as he pulled them down. When he saw that Rild wanted to protest he added without letting Rild saying anything “You insulted the goddess. You earned that black eye.”
Rild closed his already open mouth and touched his left eye. He could feel pain when he touched it. He could also feel some pain from the bruises Tyler inflicted on him.
“Alright let us continue our journey since everybody got up. We won't be getting any rest anyway”, said the knight as he started to pack the wagon once again.”The horse should have had enough rest to pull us for while.”
Rild just climbed into the back of the cart and started meditating.

“Only a few hours and then we are at our destination. So Rild, why are we going to Sandaras?” asked Tyler.
Rild opened his eyes and wanted to answer when Reston interrupted them.
“Rild, Tyler. You smell it?”
Rild looked confused at Tyler and Reston who had a serious expression. He tried to sniff a bit but could not smell anything at all.
“Blood”, Reston said “it's faint, but it's still here. So what should we do?”
“Can't we just ignore it?” asked Rild. He did not understand why the smell of blood was so important.
“Unwise. If we continue, then whatever or whoever is responsible for it could attack us from the back. If bandits are the cause then there will also be the probability of an attack from the front. Most likely a trap.”
“We should follow the blood smell in order to find out where it leads. If it's just a few wolves, then Reston will be able to take easily care of them. If it's bandits we can sneak back and take another route.”
Rild's left eye twitched when he heard the word 'wolves' which immediately started to pain due to his black eye. He could only agree with Tyler and Reston since he had little to no actual experience of such situations and therefore knew next to nothing on how to behave correctly.
The group parked the cart near the road and started to slowly follow the smell. They did not need to walk very far. Just behind some which were still visible from the cart, they found what they were looking for. In front of them were various pieces of bodies all around.
“Still think you will manage the wolves alone?” Rild asked Reston as he examined the body parts from apart. Reston frowned as he looked at the scene.
“I don't think that is the work of wolves. Too bloody and savage. You can see that some of the body parts were literally shredded apart from the body. Also, wolves would leave the bones. The only animals eating bones in these parts should be bears.”
Tyler shook his head.
“No. Bears are solitary. A single bear would not be able to kill that amount of people. Also, the scene would not be as bloody as that. There are pieces of weapons around so these people tried to defend themselves. A single bear would be killed by so many people. No this was somethi... *PHUA*”
Just as Tyler was telling his thoughts he was body tackled to the ground by Rild. Just when Tyler wanted to curse at Rild for starting the fight again he saw something gray sailing through the air half a meter above them. The thing landed and immediately jumped towards the two young men on the floor. Before it could land upon them Reston came from the thing's left and tackled it to the ground by ramming right into it. This gave Rild and Tyler enough time to stand up and look at what exactly was attacking them.
In front of them standing up was a monstrosity with six legs, which each had razor sharp claws. It had two mouths with an uncountable amount of teeth. One in front of its head and one on its back.
“Eater!” cried Rild in panic. Why was that thing here? This is extremely far from the border. There should still be time until the eaters advance upon this kingdom. “Wait! The eaters build a wall... They had an advancement as a species. This could be a scout” he thought.
Rild's mind was racing. He knew the weaknesses of the eaters. Those were namely their eternal hunger and magic. Rild did not know why eaters were extremely weak against magic. Unfortunately, this was only true for the first wave. The later waves would have more or less immunity.
“Reston! Your sword!” cried out Rild before he turned to Tyler. “You know some enchantments, right? It doesn't matter what kind of enchantment. Even a glowing one is fine. You just have to imbue the sword with magic.”
“Ye-Yes, but I don't have enough magic in order to fill it! My gates of light were reduced to one. I'm...”
“Doesn't matter. I might have an idea. Most likely it won't work but there is no other choice in this situation.”
Reston has already drawn one of his two swords when he heard Rild's shout. Without hesitation, he used his other hand in order to draw the second one and threw it to the two young men. The second he did this the eater jumped straight at him. Reston cursed, as he ducked under the incoming mass. As soon as he stabilized himself he swung his sword in retaliation. The sword made a 'clunk' sound as it landed on the gray skin of the eater without doing any damage. There was only a small scratch.
As soon as the sword fell in front of Tyler the priest started to madly chant the incantation and draw the magic circle. Rild frowned when he saw Tyler's speed.
“He won't make it in time. It's impossible for Reston to distract the eater that long”, he thought. His plan was a gamble, to begin with, but now the chances got even slimmer.
Just when he was thinking of an idea the eater roared. The beast ignored Reston completely as if it understood, that it would only be wasting its energy by attacking the ever dodging knight. The next second it turned around to Tyler and Rild.
Noticing that things were developing in a bad direction Reston decided to sacrifice his sword in order to buy Rild and Tyler some more time. Shouting his lungs out the knight swung his sword at the head of the monster. The eater noticed this move and snapped with its teeth towards the sword. The next moment the sword was splintered into two pieces. The handle with a tiny bit of blade remaining was in Reston's hand while the rest of the blade was devoured by the eater. The three men could heat the eater munch on the metal as he slowly chewed.
Unfortunately, the eater ignored Reston completely after that and jumped towards Rild without any hesitation.
“NO!” screamed Reston, as he tried to run after the beast. Unfortunately, the eater was far faster than the knight and it took only one moment before it was right before Rild.
The young mage knew he would not be able to dodge the beast in time. Out of reflex he raised his staff and put it horizontally in front of him in order to block the uncountable amount of teeth coming towards him. He knew that it would be meaningless, but at this moment his instincts controlled him. The eater crashed right into him and Rild was pressed against the ground. The staff was right in the mouth of the eater when the beast bit right into Rild's right shoulder. The teeth also managed to dig themselves into Rild's hands, which were holding the staff. Both hands were still holding the staff horizontally in the eater's mouth and unfortunately, the mouth of the monster was wide enough to pierce both of them with its teeth. Rild felt an immense amount of pain from his shoulder and hands but one thing was peculiar. Rild noticed as soon as the eater bit down that it was stopped by the staff. The teeth of the eater could not bite through the piece of wood in Rild's hands. Just as Rild was wondering about this the eater was once again tackled away from Rild by Reston.
“I- I managed to draw the magic circle but like I said I don't have enough light magic energy to activate it.”
Rild suppressed the hellish pain in his body and stepped towards the sword on the ground. He fell to his knees and started to bleed on the sword.
“Let's hope my hypothesis is true. Tyler, use the blood as a source of magic.”
“What are talking about? There is by far not enough magic in order to...”
“Just do it you moron.”
Tyler nodded and started to try and use Rild's blood as a medium. Although he did not believe that it would work, he had no other options. The priest's face was plastered with surprise, when he noticed, that it could possibly work. Rild's blood was for some reason very rich in magic energy. It was not pure light magic energy, but it was enough to activate the enchantment for a few swings of the sword. It took Tyler only a few moments in order to activate the magic circle. When he looked up to Rild in order to question him, he noticed, that the young mage was starring towards Reston and the eater. Tyler had no time to heal Rild at the moment. He took the bloodied sword and threw it towards Reston who was annoying the eater by constantly dodging its attack and pummeling it with his fists in retaliation.
“You have at most three swings before the magic fades!” cried Tyler.
“Three is all I need” answered the knight as he caught the sword. The eater did not seem very bothered by Reston's new weapon as it plunged right at him. Reston dodged once again but this time he swung an enchanted sword instead of a normal one or his fists. The next moment green blood was flying through the air. Reston managed to wound all three legs on the eater's right side with one swing. The eater could not stand straight anymore and fell to his side. This did not stop him from trying to crawl up to Reston in order to bite him. At this moment the eater posed no threat towards the experienced knight. This kind of eater relied overwhelmingly on its speed which it gained by having six legs. Reston just walked around the beast and stabbed the sword into the belly of the monster.
The eater started to twitch and its movements started to slow down.
Reston ignored the dying beast as he walked quickly towards the still bleeding Rild and the Tyler who was frantically trying to heal him. Just when Reston reached the two of them Rild spoke in a grave voice.
“Looks like it's still alive.”
Reston immediately gripped his sword tighter as spun around.
“Damned. I have only one strike. Gotta make it count” he thought as he regretted not finishing the beast off while he stabbed it into its belly. Not far from the group the eater was slowly standing up. Its innards were flowing out of the hole in its stomach as it looked at the group. Suddenly its eyes turned completely purple.
“You should be dead. Haven't I told the church were the palace of the worldmages is? It is impossible for them to let you live.”
The eater started to talk in the voice of an older man. Rild was looking grimly at the beast in front of him without answering. He understood that the eater in front of him was possessed at the moment, but he did not know how and by who? Nevertheless, that probably explained why the eaters who were nothing but animals the last two invasions gained some sort of sentience in this one.
“Wait. You are too weak. Why? Ahhh... So this is the final trick of the so-called goddess. Hehehe. Very well, so be it. As I see it this body of yours has far worse talent than your old. It's still more talented than anything else in this world but still incomparable to your old one. You won't be a danger like this but to make sure I should probably still kill you. Let's see how you will handle the eaters I will send towards you.”
With these words the eater in front of them collapsed. This time it was completely dead.
Rild was looking towards the corpse of the monster with a grim face. He felt that things got a lot more difficult.
“We should move on,” he said as he started walking towards the cart.
“Wait. Aren't we gonna discuss what exactly this was? Whoever that was said, that it was him who told the church where the worldmages were hiding!” protested Tyler.
“We can do so on our way forward. From what I see we will do a lot of things while we travel. The time we have is a lot shorter than I thought.”
Reston and Tyler looked at each other for a moment before they followed Rild. The young mage ignored the pain in his right shoulder and his hands as he strode forwards. He did not notice, that the blood which flowed from hands down the staff never reached the bottom. Bit by bit all the flowing blood was absorbed by the staff in Rild's hands.
They were riding the cart for a while now. Reston was steering, while Tyler tried to heal Rild with water magic.
“I have to ask. How can you ignore pain so easily?” asked the priest as he pressed a ball of water towards one of the bite marks on Rild's shoulder.
“Opening the sixth gate of any magic requires you to purify the already collected elemental energy. It is a hellish pain. I opened the sixth gate of fire and started opening the sixth gates of the other elements.”
“And this allowed you to develop such a high pain threshold? I mean you did not even scream when the eater bit you into the shoulder!”
“No. I also started to try to open the seventh gate of fire. The pain you have to endure there is on a completely different level than opening the sixth gate. It is as if your very existence is slowly eradicated. After this pain, everything else seems harmless.”
Tyler silently listened to what Rild was saying. He has already collected the second ball of water, which he pressed towards another bite mark. After a while he said.
“Also... Thank you for saving me. You know when you pushed me out of the eater's way.”
Rild only nodded slightly without answering. Tyler could see that Rild was lost in thoughts. Very worrying thoughts.