Timeless Prominence

At the top level of the ancient underground dwarven ruins, Ailehr was barely keeping herself alive through the use of magical pills and Xeeseir’s body.

She could already sense the imminent breakdown of her very flesh after consuming pills repeatedly to maintain her strength at the telekinetic realm.

Her original strength was at the peak of the outer realm, and the overuse of said magical pills has devastating long term effects. Still, she had no choice. Not when faced with death against Bienze of the Uni Sect.

Bienze struggled to regulate a stable breath as he hovered across her in the distance. His six arms vanished as he transformed back into a normal human form.

“You’re not doing much better,” Ailehr forcefully uttered through the pain pulsing in her veins.

“Hah!” Bienze scoffed. He could see that Ailehr had begun to understand the use of telekinetic abilities after remaining in this advancer realm for an extended time through pills. “Of course. These transformation skills are meant for those above the telekinetic realm.”

“But!” He leisurely smiled as he crossed his legs midair in a meditation posture. “Unlike you, I simply feel… somewhat tired. You, on the other hand…”

Bienze had to admit inside his heart. That if there was one thing about the devilish advancers that he respected, it was their tenacity, willingness to push themselves to the very brink even for just a tiny breadcrumb. He could tell that Ailehr’s body might very well crumble into dust within a few full moons even if she survived this day.

Seeing Bienze meditating, Ailehr finally had the chance to activate a treasure that required preparation. She was never given the chance to do so prior to Bienze’s exhaustion.

She withdrew a miniature model and threw it onto the ground. The miniature model expanded into a gate. The gate consisted of four pillars and three overhanging roofs with upturned eaves. The central two pillars framed the main gateway and had the higher roof.

Upon the top of the central gateway were the symbols for ghost and spirit. Motifs of malevolent faces were carved around the four stone pillars of the gateway.

Ailehr settled herself upon the top of the gate, gathered her aurae, and began smacking down upon roof of the gateway with her free palm in a meaningful rhythm. Every few strikes of the palm, she would take a moment to steady the state of her own body.

The gateway soon exuded a chilly mist that raised goosebumps on Xeeseir’s skin, who had no choice but to cooperate with Ailehr’s hand clenched upon his neck.

Bienze sighed, recalling memories of the many devils that hopelessly struggle to their last breath. Having mostly recovered, he warped back into the see-through horned eel and faded invisible.

Ailehr flicked the wrist of her free hand and an army of hundreds of ghosts charged forth from the gateway.

She could barely contain a painful smile. Her understanding on how to wield her divine sense had grown after the time she had spent in the telekinetic realm. Her ability to wield ghosts to enfeeble her opponents is a devil art that relied on telekinesis. After all, the art attacked the very souls of enemies.

She once again focused on attempting to wield her divine sense. It was effectively a sixth sense, of the soul and mind.

Finally, she was successful at employing this new sixth sense-- she felt a sort of odd feeling from a specific direction. Like the buzz of an untraceable fly on the corner of her mind. An intuition of an enemy’s location.

“There!” She gestured with her free palm, while clutching Xeeseir before her in a defensive posture. Half of her ghost army charged forth.

Ailehr was overjoyed when the form of the translucent horned eel flickered into visibility as it crashed into and crushed a group of onlookers, its flat body swamped by the ghostly forms of screeching skulls.

“Hmph.” Lightning gathered within the horned eel’s body and discharged blinding zigzags that arced across the eel’s body, shattering the ghostly forms in its immediate vicinity.

Ailehr immediately recalled her ghosts with her heart palpitating in a panic. This was the first time that Bienze had displayed the horned eel’s ability to wield lightning, an element rather troublesome to deal with for those of certain devil arts.

It should have been expected-- many eel-like creatures can perform lightning-aspected skills, after all.

“Still not handing over the stolen treasure?” Bienze sighed as the horned eel darted towards Ailehr with lightning wrapped around its body.

“As I’ve said,” Ailehr stared with venom at the approaching horned eel. “I do not have said treasures!” These damned orthodox advancers!

Her ghosts recoiled away from the lightning surrounding Bienze’s approaching eel form, and Ailehr could only hold Xeeseir up, intending to use the man’s ‘Rebound’ body to reflect the lightning energies of Bienze back to the origin.

At the same time, she kept an eye on the six aspected swords of Bienze. She could now somewhat sense the invisible sword’s movements after spending extended time in the telekinetic realm.

Yet, how could Bienze allow Ailehr to protect herself in such a manner? Right as he reached Ailehr, Bienze transformed back into the six-armed form and intended to use his physical strength to remove Ailehr’s shield--Xeeseir-- once and for all.

Ailehr understood Xeeseir’s origin ability enough to know that Xeeseir could not reflect pure physical attacks.

She flew backwards to gain a small gap, and controlled her ghosts to attack the six-armed Bienze now devoid of lightning.

She also had no choice but to make preparations to block Bienze’s fists with her free palm and body. She cannot allow Xeeseir to die here, for she needed to use him to block aurae-based attacks, such as those aspected swords coming in tandem with Bienze’s fists!

Bienze’s goal was, of course, to take the life of Xeeseir with the physical power of his six-armed form, and thus remove the danger of potentially having his aurae-based attacks reflected back to his own self.

Ailehr focused all of her efforts on using her abilities to counter the physical means of Bienze, while using Xeeseir as a shield against aurae-based arts.

So it was that Ailehr’s ghosts flung themselves at the six-armed form of Bienze, many of them wrapping themselves around his arms simply to drain the strength coursing through those muscular limbs.

Meanwhile, Ailehr was ready to block any weakened fist that bypassed her blockade. She held Xeeseir upwards, ready to use his body against any of the aspected swords.

Bienze simultaneously attacked with the six aspected swords as he punched with six of his arms, and Ailehr was forced to maneuver some of her ghosts to tangle with four of the swords. Even with speed, she’d only be able to use Xeeseir to block two swords.

This freed up Bienze’s six-armed form, and the Uni Sect advancer successfully delivered two powerful punches. One, to Ailehr’s abdomen that fractured her ribs and caused further internal bleeding to her organs, and a second that was diverted by Ailehr’s free palm at an angle. The devil woman dared not directly block Bienze’s fist.

Still, the additional injury to her ribs worsened her fate. If she was going to survive for three full moons, she’d only survive for two now.

Suddenly, Bienze stepped on air as he leapt backwards to the surprise of all present.

As a telekinetic advancer, his senses are far sharper than the others. As such, his attention was drawn to the faint remnants of Rein’s hollering of treasure from the depths of the ruins. In comparison, the others’ ears failed to pick up Rein’s voice.

Bienze decisively disappeared. He wasn’t attacking Ailehr just because of his original belief that she must have taken the treasures from the dwarven vault. He was, in fact, rather interested in obtaining Ailehr’s heartblood, and had some desire to absorb part of her understanding of souls borne of her use of the ghostly art.

It is rare to find a weaker advancer, a devil at that, with unique traits. For orthodox advancers, taking the life of a devil has no consequences, for the most part. Unless said devil happens to be a disciple or a useful tool of one far more powerful.

Bienze’s disappearance caused confusion amongst the onlookers. Only Ailehr breathed a sigh of relief at being given a chance to escape.

Then upon Rein’s baby dragon roar, even the other advancers of the outer realm, both orthodox and devil, knew something unexpected must have happened, and understood why Bienze had vanished.

They rushed towards the spiral stairs, already many steps behind Bienze.

____________________________________________________________________________

Prior to Rein’s faint hollering, Jekcen was furiously searching the middle level-- the original entrance to the ruins-- for Rein’s shadow. Though his sense of aurae had been warped, he could not be bothered to figure out how exactly. Surely, his plain eyes would not fail him, so he thought. 

These were the sorts of moments where he wished he could employ the divine sense of the telekinetic realm. Unfortunately, he was currently only an outer advancer.

He flitted about with his feet an arm’s length above the stone ground, yet failed to find any signs of that elusive member of Rein’s group. The name, he knew not, but he believed in his ability to recognize a face.

He grew increasingly frustrated, and finally chose to rely on his currently distorted aurae sensory skill that all outer advancers have.

Upon circulating aurae into his eyes, he noticed a figure cloaked in Rein’s aura directly before him a short distance away!

“Found you!! Hah!” he laughed as he now leisurely floated towards his prey, who no doubt would fail to escape him now.

“Why… hello there, old man,” that figure said. “Jekcen, was it?”

Confused by the figure’s casual tone, Jekcen ceased circulating his aurae to augment his vision. The energy of the world vanished from his eyes, returning his surroundings to a normal appearance.

To his shock, the figure he thought carried Rein’s aura was not Rein, nor any faces of his companions!

Jekcen felt a tingle of fear as his eyes rested on an infamous man-- Wahrzein of ‘Infinite Faces’!  One might wonder why he felt fear facing a man still in the shell realm.

The truth is that ‘Infinite Faces’ was only given to Wahrzein as a nickname. In order to master ‘Infinite Faces’, Wahrzein needed to have a good level of affinity with nearly every single element in the world, as well as have a decent understanding of all these elements. Only then, can one weave the many elements together to form an unlimited number of disguises.

That meant Wahrzein of the Uni Sect could use all sorts of advancer arts, and likely, have combined many together to create unique complex magics. Wahrzein was simply the prodigal son, the fated one of the Uni Sect’s dreams.

“What are you doing here?” Jekcen croaked, his mouth dry with nervousness.

“Hmm…” Wahrzein shrugged. “I have always been here. I might be a guard you’ve walked past. Or perhaps even… your very disciple.”

Jekcen’s left eyelid twitched. He circulated aurae back into his eyes.

“You have the aurae of a figure that I am tracking,” he went on the offensive after having his feathers ruffled. “Explain yourself!”

“Really? Have you fallen under the effects of an odd magical art?” Wahrzein beckoned with a hand as he indifferently turned his back and strode towards the exit.

Jekcen clenched his teeth, evermore perturbed.

He followed Wahrzein until his aurae vision came upon the members of the Great Sects placed as guards around the exit. He was shocked to discover that all these guards had Rein’s aura. 

“So?” Wahrzein raised an eyebrow as he questioned the Sun Sword Sect ‘elder’. 

“N-nothing. My mistake.” Jekcen turned and floated away, having no desire to further humiliate himself. If he revealed that he was still in the process of figuring out how his aurae vision had been infected to a shell advancer…

“Are you certain you don’t need any help, elder?” Wahrzein pointedly asked.

Jekcen waved an arm as he increased his flying speed. However, he could not escape his humiliation.

“Elder!” Wahrzein elevated his voice, ensuring that all members of the Great Sects guarding the area heard his words. “You must have risen to the outer realm with an overreliance on psychedelics, and lack understanding of aurae vision!”

“I recommend oscillating the aurae within your eyes before gathering your aurae and performing multiple aurae bursts from your eyes to flush your vision!” Wahrzein’s loud voice echoed on the level, finalizing Jekcen’s absolute loss of face.

Jekcen could feel a deep-seated hatred rising from his heart, which he had squashed when facing Wahrzein earlier.

The Sun Sword Sect, having sided with the Convergence Sect, naturally came into conflict with the Uni sect. The truth of their disagreement came from a much deeper source.

The reality was that the Sun Sword Sect was not just a branch of a Sect from an upper realm world. It was a leaf of a branch. The mother sect of the Sun Sword Sect is the Celestial Sword Sect.

The Celestial Sword Sect had many sword arts, the best based on celestial bodies such as the sun, moon, the fire star, and more, each with unique powers.

Only with combined masteries of all these sword arts could one be considered the top of the Celestial Sword Sect.

Naturally, the Uni Sect, which considers mastery and combination of all elements to be supreme, views the Sun Sword Sect in this Fusion Realm as a joke.

Jekcen’s ears then heard a beastly roar from the depths of the dwarven ruins, and he discarded the issue of the elusive figure who he knew must have at least entered this level. His form flitted back towards the spiral stairs.

Meanwhile, Wahrzein casually strode out of the ancient dwarven ruins as he whistled. The guards lowered their heads regardless of their own sect. They all feared Wahrzein. More so after his sudden reappearance after many months. He must have further strengthened himself in seclusion, so they thought.

______________________________________________________________________________

Rein sat to the side of the pipe opening to the chasm. He was not entirely sure if he had taken the right course of action.

Part of him wondered if he should simply have quietly escaped by following the whisperings of the wind within the chasm. However, doing so would doom his companions being pursued up above. And Beincen would survive.

As such, he chose to knock Beincen down into the darkness before alerting those up above-- an action which would undoubtedly awaken the dragon within the chasm, thus sealing Beincen’s fate.

The only dodgy aspect of his imperfect plan was that he would need to enter the chasm to find his escape route. Not exactly possible with it currently being the awakened dark dragon Darkendusk’s domain.

He could but wait for an opportunity once those up above arrive and clash with the dark dragon Darkendusk. Yet… how long would they even last against this ancient powerful dragon? Doubt filled his mind.

“Huh.” Bienze narrowed his eyes, somewhat perplexed when he arrived at this hidden chasm and discovered Rein to be the one who ‘attracted’ him here.

“Just to be safe.” Bienze flicked a finger and Rein was sent spinning by an invisible force, his body burrowing into the opposite rocky chasm wall!

Rein could not believe that one such as Bienze would take such action against him, a harmless ant. He lamented inwardly as he puked crimson blood, his bones shattered under Bienze’s telekinetic powers. In the blink of an eye, his life now hung by a tenuous thread!

A dragon’s guttural grumble sounded within the chasm. A flash of alarm filled Bienze’s face, but only for a heartbeat.

Bienze fearlessly descended into the darkness, and did not bother to examine Rein’s body. As far as Bienze was concerned, not even a master of the physical augmentation, body tempering arts below the shell realm could survive a flick of his finger.

He clapped his hand and a neon blue spark rose into the sky and illuminated the whole treasure hoard, including the onyx -scaled Darkendusk, in a soft glow.

“A measly telekinetic advancer. You dare to plunder my hoard as well?” Darkendusk threatened Bienze with dense rows of razor teeth.

Bienze theatrically laughed as he paced back and forth before Darkendusk’s intimidating draconic head, his boots kicking up no small amount of limpite and lumite coins.

“What is your name, dark dragon?” he asked, but did not give the chance for Darkendusk to answer. “Well, that matters not. For it is known that the Hall of Heroes are hunting dark dragons. A personal vendetta of the Allfather, so they say.”

“You are but an ant to one such as me. You dare threaten me?!” Darkendusk’s neck curled around, and his large skull lowered beside Bienze, a single narrow pupil glared at the human. Upon seeing the eye, Bienze felt a heavy pressure that forced him onto one knee, and he had to transform into the six-armed form to avoid being flattened onto the ground.

“There… are many others descending the ruins, and they will soon … arrive. You may be powerful, but do you… think you will be able to take the life of all? And even if you could… such a display of power and significant loss of lives-- you believe that the Allfather would not…sense your presence here?” Bienze remained incredibly calm in the face of such pressure, forcing words out from his clenched jaws.

“What is your offer?” Darkendusk growled.

“I want three-tenths… of the hoard. Not for myself, you… understand. The Uni Sect will offer you a… temporary cover and give you an obscure pathway to another… realm.”

“Two-tenths!”

“Deal!”

Bienze agreed to two-tenths so quickly that Darkendusk realized that this was the human’s original aim.

“Damn humans!” he growled, and the invisible pressure increased. Bienze groaned and had to use four of his six arms to prevent himself from knocking his forehead against the ground.

After a few heartbeats, that pressure lifted and Bienze stood back onto his feet with relief.

“Thank you for your mercy, dragon,” Bienze politely hooked his fingers and bowed in greeting.

“Hmph.” Darkendusk warped into a humanoid with gray skin, his body framed with sparse onyx scales and two horns. He waved an arm to gather his treasure hoard. The treasure hoard was not just limpite and lumite coins. There were also many types of armors, weapons, cloaks and more that spun into Darkendusk’s storage ring.

“If I may…?” Bienze hesitantly interjected.

“Go ahead.”

“You may wish to leave something for the others to squabble over,” Bienze said. “Else… they will sense something amiss.”

“Hmph.” A wave of a clawed hand and one-tenths of his treasure hoard was flung back onto the chasm ground.

“Dragon,” Bienze sighed. “Why did you release a roar? We would have more time to arrange the scene and sow confusion if you remained silent.”

“It was not me, but the child that you flung into the wall,” Darkendusk replied. “Hmm…he strangely seems to still be somewhat alive, though it’s uncertain how long he might still draw breath.”

“It was that child?!” Bienze was astonished. That dragon’s roar, though faint, was rather realistic to his ears.

“How odd…” Bienze muttered to himself. “Well. If you wish to finish him, that is your choice. If he somehow survives and reveals your presence… he is a member of the Hall of Heroes, after all.”

Darkendusk, in human form, floated beside the hole that Rein’s body had drilled into the side of the chasm wall.

The dragon peered into the hole and his unique vision beheld Rein’s half-dead state.

“How odd…” It was Darkendusk’s turn to feel the situation to be bizarre. He almost felt a sense of familiarity with the human child before him. A feeling that only two dragons would sense in one another.

He extended a wisp of his dark aurae towards Rein’s body, and when said wisp touched Rein’s skin, he was astonished to see a recognizable and unique orange-toned lightning spark defend Rein’s body. The very same draconic lightning that he had lost many years ago upon transforming into a dark dragon.

“We leave,” Darkendusk growled. “Let the heavens decide his fate.”  He could not tell if Rein was an ally or an enemy, and thus chose inaction.

The figure of Darkendusk and Bienze flickered out of sight.