The fateful was finally here, the sun began to peak from beyond the horizon, illuminating the sky with a soft orange with the first couple of rays, Outside however was still cold, the air fresh and crisp, as yumi held her eyes closed slowly breathing it in, she opened her eyes and peered over the open ocean which had a slight mist billowing on it, she looked down from the bow of the boat at the four young men that would be accompanying her back home,

“how did she get a boat this big”, Polaris questioned looking up at yumi,

“I know I left and, probably missed a bunch of stuff she said about herself, but this is a pretty big boat”, Barak said, walking along side the boat, on the shoreline,

“yup, I definitely thought that the boat would’ve been”, Aster paused,

“more unnoticeable”, Aster finished, dropping the ropes he had strung over his shoulders, these were connected to a rather large crate, Aster left the crate next to the boat, he took a step back, and stomped his foot once, the earth underneath the soft sand began to slightly rumble, after a few seconds a square rock pillar began to raise the crate in to the air , with it coming to a halt at the same level as the deck of the boat, Aster walked over to the pillar, placing his hand onto it, the sand that was under crate began to move lifting the crate into the air, gently placing it on to the boat’s deck,

“well that’s the last of the crates that you told us we had to bring”, Aster said, reaching the deck of the boat,

“tell us again why we’re transporting multiple crates of a drug I have never heard of to your home country”, Aster asked, looking on at yumi,

“it’s the price of business aster”, yumi said, walking over to the ocean side of the bow, staring down into the water,

“Aster may be out of the loop but I’m not, I’ve seen what river can do to people, hell even canaan, the greedy bastard that he is, refused to sell it”, levant chimed in,

“makes sense why I didn’t know about it”, Aster murmured to himself,

“the point is we have a boat, a way to cross the ocean and a clear route to get there, so what if I have to deliver drugs, once it helps me stop this senseless war”, Yumi said, her eyes as sharp as fangs and her tone of voice even sharper, Aster let out a sigh, silently walking below deck, Levant at a loss for words made his way up into the lookouts post, Barak had been sitting next to the Helm of the ship, which conveniently had a nice cool roof over head, and Polaris was to the back of the boat, while the boat was a sailing vessel yumi had tasked him with pushing the boat along in the water as much as he could to make the journey faster, Yumi made her way next to barak, who was just sitting there watching the ocean,

A couple hours later

Polaris was fast asleep on the back deck of the ship, a couple hours of constantly using his powers to guide along the massive ship coupled with the intense training he was doing up till recently had completely wiped him out, luckily for him that part of the deck had a nice spot in the shade perfect for sleeping, you could here the loud snores of Aster from below deck, which had kept Levant awake and between picking apart his guns and reassembling them and playing with a small ball of fire in between his fingers he wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon, barak had been restless going from below deck to the bow ever so often, yumi just silently observed them for a while, the sea was clear and open and the wind seemed to favor them, so her mind and eyes wondered, ,

“ I heard everything from Pol”, barak said, walking up the stairs to the upper deck,

“well I figured that one of them would tell you sooner or later”, Yumi replied, her back turned to Barak, as she was focusing on guiding the ship,

Barak walked up next to her, taking a seat in the chair next where she was standing, his eyes focusing on her,

“well it doesn’t matter now, you held up your end of the deal, I can sense that those three are much stronger now, now we just have to hold up our end”, Barak said,

“ Ohh you can sense that, I take it your master taught you about divine energy then”, Yumi replied,

“you say that as if you know exactly where I went and who my master is, in any case, yes he did teach me about divine energy, though knowing him I doubt he taught me everything he knows about it”, Barak, answered, his interest now piqued,

“well to satisfy your curiosity, yes, I do know who your master is”, yumi explained,

“ I doubt he would remember me, I met him about ten years ago, I was eighteen at the time”, yumi continued,

“oh, he remembers you, you and Aluric, in fact I got a whole lecture on your history”, Barak said, yumi finally glanced at him, a small smile could be seen on the corner of her face,

“ Elphante Macabee, he sure does bring back memories ,he was the vice captain of an elite dungeon diving squad, we met in a dungeon, though at that time, it was me, Aluric, and five others, we had been sent on mission by the king and our former guild master, a rare dungeon had appeared in another country, luckily news traveled to us quickly”, yumi continued her story,

“ what country was it ?”, barak asked,

“Flanesa, the country of elves, the news of the rare dungeon had been wide spread at the time, many other countries sent in their own exploration parties to see what the dungeon had to offer, of course Dracht was no different, but the problem everyone soon ran into was that  we were all competing with each other, the finds in the dungeon were so rare and valuable, so naturally when groups or parties ran into each other it ended rather violently, everyone tried to steal from each other, or fought each other when they stumbled onto something valuable, we were down there for weeks, it had become commonplace to find whole parties massacred, even we, even I, had a hand in wiping out dozens of them, but, when we ran up on elphante’s party we were almost completely outmatched”, yumi continued,

“sounds about right, I was told often that in his younger years, he was quite the force to be reckoned with, but he also said the same thing, so I would reckon that you guys were evenly matched ”, barak exclaimed, a smile breaking across his face,

“our fighting had spilled out into the forest that surrounded the dungeon, part of the forest had caught fire, the elves weren’t to happy about any of it, but, fortunately the rain so came in, at that point out parties had been fighting non stop in the dungeon for hours and hours on end, I realized in that fight thay your masters party was comprised of elite fighters from all over the world, but we were still holding our own against them, we got lucky because aluric managed to injure your master, and with that opening we managed to take out one of them, so they decided to retreat, but, the monster that he is, he took out half our group by himself with his face split open none the less, while another member of your masters party ripped off one of my friends arms, afterwards they retreated and so did we”, yumi finished,

 

“however I heard a couple months after that they got disbanded because their captain got killed,by a group from the church of Exxion, Aluric also told me that the one who ripped off my friend’s arm had become the leader of your country, and she made an elite force to hunt and kill those that killed her captain, Aluric had reason to think that she was way stronger than your master, so since then we have been wary of her”, she added,

 

“ okay, well…., now ii see why she issued that K.O.S(kill on sight), for you once she found out you were here”, barak said,

“she did what”, yumi jolted her head around looking at barak,

“yeah, she said something about you killing her husband, my masters brother”, Barak answered,

“oh shit, she’s gonna try and hunt me down, great”, yumi said, slumping onto the helm,

“nah, she said she’d kill you if you come back to arteva, plus she’s busy with other things”, barak said,

“what was the name of his old squad anyways ?”, Barak asked,

“they were called Bahamut’s Hand”, Yumi answered dejectedly,

“that is a very ominous name”, Barak stated,

“yup, and they all lived up to that name”, yumi said,

Maria though, she is one scary person”, barak said,

“coming from a fight junkie like you, she must’ve gotten insanely powerful”, yumi said,

“if she is that powerful, she could’ve done something to reprimand those skovol dogs that she has under her command”, barak said,

“what is a skovol ?”, yumi asked,

“ the skovol clan is the only other clan in arteva with the strength and number to match ours, but they have a fucking attitude problem, and love provoking fights, since that’s all they are good at, so good that on average they are better fighters than us”, barak explained,

“okay, but why would she have to reprimand them”, yumi asked,

“Unlike us, the Kadar clan, who elect a clan leader, The skovols leaders are hereditary, when I was a little, my father, had an affair with the chieftan of the skovol’s wife, and ended up getting her pregnant, those savages invaded our home, so to prevent a war being reignited between the two clans, the elders offered up my father as a sacrifice, but the skovol chieftain at that time wasn’t looking for peace, they waged a war on us in our home, and”, Brak gave pause, he could feel a lump in his throat and the burning sensation of tears in his eyes,

“and”, yumi said,

“And during the fighting he found my mother and killed her, he didn’t see me in the room at the time, her youngest son, hidden away, she had given me this to protect myself”, Barak said, pulling a small dagger from his belt,

“so when he turned his back, I jumped on him, I fought and clawd at him, plunging this same dagger into his eye, he died swearing he would get his revenge, that was the first time I had ever killed a man, but it didn’t stop the fighting”, Barak explained,

“sounds like your dad is a prick, so what happened”, yumi said,

“well he is, my father and the skovol chief’s wife got banned from both of their clans and effectively the country, we pleaded with the leaders of arteva to take action against the skovols but they said they had all rights to retaliate how they saw fit, and gave us the fault in the matter”, Barak said,

“ohh, I could see why the bad blood would intensify over the years, what happened to your dad though”, yumi asked,

“don’t know and don’t care, whatever little hole he decided to go off and die in is up to him”, barak said,

Two days later

As they drew in closer to where they were suppose to dock, mist started to slowly appear, by the time they were ready to get off of the boat, the mist had become rather thick, with each passing minute yumi grew to worry a bit more,

“okay boys grab your weapons and take the cloaks, out of the crate, let’s get a move on”, Yumi said, you could hear a slight break in her voice,

“you okay ?, you sound worried”, Aster asked,

“yeah I’m fine”, she said throwing on her cloak and jumping off of the boat,

“ what’s got her so freaked out ?”, Levant asked, appearing seemingly out of nowhere,

“AHH, dude stop that”, Aster jumped,

“you two done playing around, Pol and yumi are already off the boat”, barak stated,

“yeah yeah, were coming”, Levant replied, he followed by aster jumped off the boat,

 

it was odd, though it was a small village the people here were usually friendly and many of them knew her, yumi thought, so why is it that no one has come to greet them yet,

 

“this is starting to bother me, this place feels like a ghost town”, barak said,

“everyone stop and don’t move”, barak continued, causing everyone to stop dead in their tracks,

 Barak placed one of his hands on the ground, sending small currents of electricity in multiple directions,

“Rak what is it”, Polaris asked,

“there’s a big pile of something over there”, barak pointed, in a eastward direction, but nothing ahead could be seen properly due to the thick cloud of mist,

“they followed him as he walked in that direction, after a few moments he came to a stop,

“what is that smell”, Bark, whispered to himself, covering his nose with his hand

“dude whats the hold up now”, Levant commented, he continued past Barak,

“look nothings he-……...”, he stopped short, he was falling, the ground beneath him had began to crumble,

“Oh come on Lev”, Aster grumbled, placing his hands on the ground, Earth shot forward below where levant was going to fall,

“you need to be patient, if you were, you wouldn’t find yourself in these situations”, Aster complained, the resulting actions had dispersed the mist surrounding them, Aster took his hands off of the ground, however they felt odd, he looked down, his hands were smeared in blood, though it felt very sticky, some of it had a blackish colour to it,

“guys, I think we’re standing in blood”, Aster said, but, no one responded to him,

“guys”, he said again, still nothing, he looked up to see everyones eyes glued onto something in front of them,

“ I really don’t want to come across the people who did this”, Polaris uttered,

“ I’m betting we already did” yumi said, What stood before was a large hole dug ito the ground, with a pile of rotting corpses inside of it, eyes were falling out of sockets, burnt fleshes was peeling off of faces, charred skulls laid at the bottom of the pile, looking closer smaller bodies could be seen, children, all manner of bugs crawled in and out of every open hole and crevasse, and the smell, it smelled as though someone had left food and shit to rot together in the sun for days and then burned it, After staying silent for a while, Levant decided to speak up

“oh well, lets go and get some supplies and start to head to the main army”, Levant said,

yumi stood there still in silence, tears falling from her eyes, that familiar feeling of her throat running dry came back, she knew in her head that she had seen only two people capable of this kind of massacre, especially if they were together, Yumi got down on her knees at the edge of the hole, in the dirt she drew a long line with an X to the top of it, taking up some of the dirt and blood, she clasped her hands,

“hear me lady of truth and forgiveness, your eyes see all, Atros rya, Atros rya, usher these forsaken souls peacefully onto the realm of the dead, I pray for their loss, Rya”, she finished her prayer, Levant had gone off, but the other three stood there in shock,

she dried her eyes wiping her tears away, steeling her emotions,

yumi sighed, ”I guess he’s right, I  can’t do anything about the situation here right now anyways”, yumi said, though the look on her face was quite pained,

“I didn’t know you were a follower of Atros”, Aster said, his face still shocked and bewildered,

“I’m not, but, that is a prayer I learned a long time ago in the orphanage I grew up in, where me and aluric grew up”, she said, her eyes shifting to the ground, she walked away from the three boys, They gathered some supplies in a mournful silence, Polaris had found some bast rhinos and an empty wagon, they threw their things in the wagon and jumped in the back with barak and polaris at the front steering the wagon, The next three days went by slowly, with them stopping and resting every once in a while, with barak and levant complaining about how uneventful the journey on the shadow continent was so far, they came to a large open field with a chasm running along side of it, and from out of the chasm flew these multicolored large insects, with four sets of large transparent wings, that changed color as they flew through the air with the sun shining through them as they zipped around,

Asters eyes filled with excitement,” what the hell are those things ?”, aster asked,

“Giant Vorgas dragon flies”, yumi said,

“beautiful aren’t they”, yumi asked,

“yup, they are amazing”, aster said,

As they made it past the vast open field and the chasm, they came into a forest, the sun peaked through the trees, the atmosphere inside the forest was serene, the large trees and their moss covered trunks, the sounds of the birds from the canopy above, the occasional rustle of branches, Levant and Barak stayed on edge the entire time, which made aster and Polaris chuckle, they knew thise two never really did like the quietness of nature, About an hour into the forest they came onto a stone road, with a stone brick tunnel, that had seen better days, it was over run with vines and wild flowers that were matched with the cracks that ran through it, a few birds were perched on top of it, as they made their way through, on the other side was a small hill, it overlooked what seemed to be a quite sizeable village or what use to be a village, the buildings were covered in grass and trees, behind the village stood a mountain range, as they continued they eventually came to a mountain path, they followed and came to a guard post, after a brief talk with the guards they let yumi through, as they continued up the path they came to a dead end,

 “oi get up we’re here”, yumi shouted as she was in the drivers seat and the boys were in the back of the wagon sleeping,

 “what its just a dead end, you sure you didn’t take a wrong turn”, levant asked,

 “well I guess I’m up”, Aster said getting down from the wagon and doing some stretches, as he approached the wall it began to rumble and then it started to lower

 “`what the hell did you do aster”, levant shouted,

 “me, i didn’t do anything”, aster shouted back,

 “boys stop bickering”,yumi shouted,

 “look its the entrance to the headquarters of the rebel army”, she continued, as both boys stopped shouting at each other to turn and see a large tunnel with workers on the inside