The confused student and overexcited teacher met the descending harpies head-on as the servants of Chaos unleashed the first combined attack of their devas – Chaos winds. All the villains blew out extremely condensed streams of wind combining a dark red and black color from their mouths, pooling them into one considerably larger stream – a stream that could cut the whole central plaza to pieces in less than a second.

Both the herkleri and the almeyas behind him screamed in dread upon witnessing the coming attack, Tiar allowing himself to take in the joy of the battle that had started for a moment. Nothing used to excite him more than ruin, after all, and even though he was about to bring ruin to some of his former faithful soldiers, all he felt was his blood burning with so much excitement that it almost made him dizzy.

Bara joining the fearful screams of the others ended the moment of zest for her teacher when the stream had just about reached him, the tiles under his feet being ripped from the ground and some of them being lifted in the air by the sheer might of the harpies’ attack. Fully enveloping himself with the mixture of dark blue and white that was Order energy, Tiar puffed out his cheeks to mimic what his enemies had done prior to unleashing their streams, absorbing some of the energy in the air to mix with the one inside him. After the two combined, he shot out an energy roar that dwarfed what the Chaos Harpies had made, lighting the whole plaza or rather, all of Negite and beyond.

The roar vanquished the gigantic air stream, engulfing all the monsters that had made that stream and moving beyond them to reach for the clouds in the sky, at the edge of the setting sun turning from gold to orange that roar shining as the brightest of beacons. A beacon Tiar hoped could give hope to as many yuti across the dimension as possible and could serve as a reminder that Order had not abandoned them.

While being loud enough to further shatter the earth, once the roar disappeared, the one who had used it realized silence had fallen all around him. No more screams were heard. Looking at his surroundings to see the reason for this, the Viktar realized everyone who had witnessed his counterattack had been too awestruck to think about screaming, crying or doing anything else. This was true as much for those among the Chaos Harpies that had survived as it was for Bara, the prince, his guardian and all other herkleri and almeyas in the vicinity, making Tiar quite proud of the effect he had had on everyone.

Of course, no better opportunity could have arisen to teach his student her first lesson in using magic than the enemy’s current distraction, the pink-skinned beauty’s teacher giving her a shake with one arm to help her return her focus to the task at hand. Their eyes met when he did that, the young lady’s gaze still being full of amazement.

‘You’ll be able to do things like that, too, one day. I promise, Bara.’

‘That roar just now … don’t champions of Order usually fight by making different structures? Or is it just that you use a different style compared to the ones of the old ages?’

He did his best to mask it and hoped he had been successful, but Tiar’s apprentice would perhaps never fully understand how much her words had hurt him in that moment and what a painful realization they had brought him to. The shock all witnesses to the attack were experiencing was not borne solely of its power but of the shape it had taken. A shape unbecoming of one who fought for Order.

It was indeed true that whenever the former Distroya had fought enemies using Order-fueled devas in the past, they had mainly resorted to making all manners of weapons or other objects from those devas for offensive purposes rather than just shoot out shapeless rays or roars. His excitement over the battle combined with all the training driven into his core since earliest age had made him completely forget what he was now and that he needed to act in a certain way if he was to inspire hope in anyone in Yut. As of the present moment, all he had brought the yuti was confusion.

‘My style is a bit different to that of my predecessors, yes. My apologies if I have frightened you, Bara. But due to the shocking nature of my attack, our enemies are distracted as well! Let us not waste the opportunity this has provided us with!’

‘You said you’re going to teach me to use magic. What do I do exactly?’

‘What did you think about when that Chaos Griffin attacked you before?’

‘I … I thought of how much I hated him and his kind. And how I wanted to be rid of all of them.’

‘Then there was a conscious choice behind your counterattack. That’s good. I want you to recreate that feeling of hatred and direct it toward all those harpies. This time I want you to create more than one of those objects you used before, though.’

‘But how?’

‘Every user of abilities like ours has an affinity to a certain shape. Whatever they make usually uses that shape as a base. From what I saw, your base shape is a hexagonal prism. Kind of like the base of a hammer, isn’t it?’

The mention of a hammer made Bara’s face go through a variety of emotions: from surprise to anger to sorrow and finally guilt.

‘Yes, well … my father … my father often used a hammer when extracting raw crystals from the ores sent to him and maybe that’s why …’

‘That is fine, child. You want to hammer your enemies to death, have at it. Think about killing those you hate again and about you father hammering away and your base shape will come forth.’

He waved with his hand, manifesting a cross-shaped shuriken that was white with a dark blue orb instead of a hole in its center in front of him, studying Bara’s reactions as she carefully watched what he did.

‘Like so. My base shape is the cross. I think about cutting my enemies with it and it manifests. The more enemies there are, the more crosses I will need.’

Another wave of the Viktar’s hand led to the formation of hundreds more crosses identical to the first one he had made, much to the female almeya’s surprise.

‘To make more, I multiply the first cross in my mind. Times two, times four, times as many as you need. The more often you multiply your creations, the faster you will learn to do it in your mind and manifest it into reality. Until eventually you’ll be able to make a thousand at once as I just did.’

The Chaos Harpies had regrouped, their fear from the previous attack having turned to fury as they now sent a barrage, using something more solid for it through their other deva – the one that allowed them to multiply their wings. As the catapults at the far end of the plaza threw barrels full of explosive powder at them again, many more wings formed from the pair the harpies already had, covering their bodies with layers upon layers of these new limbs.

Eventually they had become like drills of wings, cladding all of those wings in their Chaos winds to further increase their penetration force, the explosions of the powder not fazing them this time around due to the protection provided by the multiplied wings. In truth, they seemed to pay the catapults no mind whatsoever, having singled out Tiar as their prime target – something that he welcomed if it could keep the others around him safe while Bara attempted to put the lesson he had taught her into practice.

During the wait for a result he made the crosses he had created spin, all being launched at the coming wing-drills of black and dark red in the form of white disks that had just a tinge of dark blue to them. Once the attack was released, the Viktar didn’t even follow its advance, instead again devoting his full attention to his still insecure student.

‘I launched the first wave of our attack. The next wave, Bara, I’m counting on you to provide for.’

He smiled at her with as much encouragement as he could muster under the circumstances, having already learned that the pink-skinned beauty always became highly motivated when she saw her teacher was truly putting all his faith in her. That did the trick once again as she directed her hands toward the empty space in front of her, closing her eyes to better focus, Tiar stealing a glance at the herkleri prince and his guardian who were observing the teacher-apprentice duo.

An idea came to the Griffin Slayer then, whispering something in his student’s ear so that no one but Bara could hear him, leaving the boy behind the two to think that he was only further encouraging her. What he really said was this:

‘No one can suspect of how deep our bond is yet, Bara. So when you manifest your creations, I will change their color to hide the Order nature of your magic. Do not worry that they will look different compared to the one you used before when you open your eyes.’

‘I understand, master. But first I must manifest something for you to change the color of.’

‘You will. I know you will. Because you have my might and a heart more fearless than mine will ever be. All you have to do is silence all doubt and summon your hammers now. So you can forge Yut’s new future.’

She opened her eyes that shone bright with the fire of conviction the moment structures started forming in front of her, Tiar immediately changing the color of the constructs simply by looking at them. Once the hexagonal prisms that numbered at least 50 were fully manifested, they all had a dark purple color, runes of the brightest pink being carved in them as Bara shouted and waved with her hands to direct her creations forward.

While the hammer bases had speed, they were not strong enough to properly break through the wind cloaks and wing armor of the Chaos Harpies, some only managing to rip off a few feathers, others being deflected without even making a mark. The young almeya’s heart seemed to have sunk when she saw how useless her very first deliberate attack was, but then her teacher pointed something to her, he himself looking ever so proud of her.

‘You did marvelous, my dear child. Truly marvelous. What was important was to take your first step. The rest of the path will now reveal itself in front of you to only follow.’

‘But I didn’t achieve anything.’

‘That is not true. Your hammers kept the enemy’s attention to the front while their backs were left exposed.’

From the moment he had begun instructing his apprentice, Tiar had been making many more, bigger and denser crosses above the sea some distance away from the plaza to keep them out of the enemy’s sight until the right time. That right time came with the distraction provided by Bara, using his new-found ability for finding the shortest path to a target, her teacher bringing his mass of crosses right at the back of the wing-drills in an instant.

Due to their piercing force being accumulated on the tip of the drills, cutting through the defensive layers of winds and wings at their back was considerably easier, the mass attack of the crosses breaking the harpies’ ranks from the shock they experienced.

‘Now, prince! Give the signal to your men at the catapults to fire again!!’

‘We don’t have any munitions left to fire! It’s not like we were able to bring that much with us in secret as we entered Negite!!!’

‘We don’t need those catapults anymore.’ – said Bara with the lethal intent her gaze had carried during the first murder she had committed, manifesting about 50 more hammers above the monsters, but having increased their velocity when they were shot down. ‘My hammers will suffice.’

The prince of the herkleri seemed almost as impressed by Tiar’s apprentice as he was himself, marveling at the progress she had made over such a short amount of time – a fact that only further solidified the belief he had made the right choice by sharing his power with her. Also, her very existence was proof of the incredible potential to spred Order the Viktar who taught her had in himself – the very potential that was the reason for him to hide the true nature of Bara’s attacks.

‘Those hammer bases you made, woman … what was that? How did you do it?’

‘Oh, it’s …’

Tiar quickly intervened, lest the female almeya reveal too much under the intoxicating effect of how successful her attack had been.

‘I have identified it as cosmic magic. Bara here is somehow able to draw energy from another plane in the cosmos that manifests in ways like the attack you just saw in Yut. This is a most wonderful gift and one I think she is not alone in possessing among the inhabitants of this dimension. Given time, we can …’

The most high-pitched chilling laugh interrupted the Griffin Slayer’s explanation, both him and the rebels around him having been too concerned with the nature of Bara’s attack to notice it had actually not been successful. Giant wings that covered the entire plaza in their shadow and were clad in Chaos flames and winds at the same time had swung and cut apart all the magical hammer bases that had rained down on the exposed harpies.

Another female harpy was responsible for that, this one’s golden armor being much less revealing than the others’, only her shoulders and the upper half of her thighs being left bare, a silver color also being mixed in the metal that covered her. The most impressive part of her attire, however, was the large blood-red precious stone in the shape of an isosceles triangle with its tip turned downward adorning her chest armor. Her colossal wings that were actually layers of multiplied wings of a normal size brought together now broke apart, amid the falling feathers left from them being revealed over a hundred harpies who also wore heavyarmor that combined gold and silver. The high-pithced laughter had come from their leader’s mouth, echoing across every corner of the plaza during her descent. When she landed, the laughter stopped but the grin on her face remained ever so wide.

‘Some fine magicians we have here! I wonder if their magic will be enough to protect all of Negite from the Harpy Bloodguard’s punishment, though. What do you think?’