Chapters 77-80 Revised

Honestly, not too many changes made with these.  Mostly a few touch-ups and bringing the chapters more into line with previous changes.  However, if ever I do another round of revisions, I would probably cut more.  Leon's power boost during bad weather is something that I didn't do a hell of a lot with, so that would probably get cut in a future revision (it's a bit too integrated into the story as it is now to cut with this round of revisions, so, it gets to live... for now...) and Charles' discussion of painting was definitely something else that I was tempted to cut, but I decided to leave it in for the sake of his his character.  It's just good to have these little interactions among the cast every now and then, even if they don't advance the overall plot.

You might notice, however, that Matthew and Bohemond were cut.  Or maybe you won't, because neither of those characters were mentioned again after the Knight Academy arc.  Introducing them in the first place was a mistake, and their presence was kind of emblematic of the bloat that this arc suffered through.  They weren't needed and didn't add much to the story in other ways, so into the bin they went.

Anyway, let me know what you all think of these chapters, as always, there's plenty of time for me to change them again if something just isn't working right.

Also, I'm sorry these are coming out so infrequently, these old chapters can be surprisingly hard to concentrate on when I feel like my focus should be on newer chapters.  Especially this month when I've been actively writing much longer chapters in an attempt to address some of the nearly omnipresent pacing problems that my writing is plagued with.

But enough of that, I hope you enjoy this quick look back at one of the most disliked arcs in my story! =)

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Chapters 77 & 78 - Remnant

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The Snow Lions didn’t stay long after ambushing the Deathbringers. All told, the entire fight lasted barely ten minutes, and that was counting the few minutes the Snow Lions spent taking their revenge after the Deathbringers had already been beaten.

It might’ve gone on longer, but Leon heard a few more Deathbringers walking down the road who would soon come into sight of the ambush point. The Snow Lions hurried back into the forest, but it took Leon falling back past the tree line for most of them—who were riding high on their victory—to get the picture and follow him.

They left the Deathbringers there in the dirt. Their first-tier trainees had gotten off easy and had only been knocked unconscious with the Snow Lion’s training weapons.  The second-tier nobles weren’t so lucky, as all the Snow Lions got in at least one punch or kick on them. Despite this, the nobles weren’t left with any serious injuries, relatively speaking. They’d all be fixed right up with a few healing spells.

But inflicting permanent damage wasn’t the point. If it had been, the Snow Lion’s wouldn’t have used training weapons. Getting revenge for their friends and fellow trainees was the reason they had sprung the ambush, and in attacking and humiliating this group of Deathbringers, they felt that they had achieved that goal.

“HAHA! We did it!” shouted Alain in triumph as soon as they were out of earshot of the Deathbringers. His shout was echoed by the victorious Snow Lions, who joked and celebrated all the way back to their tower.

Leon wasn’t in such a celebratory mood. Instead, he felt an odd tingle in his bones and an itch at the back of his head. His eyes turned skyward and he noticed that, despite most of the morning having been clear and sunny, the sky had become completely filled with light gray clouds which promised to soon douse the area in rain.

The Snow Lions burst in through their tower’s front door, loudly making plans with each other to head into the city to celebrate. Some of the trainees glanced over at Leon with the intent to invite him as well, but Leon was clearly uncomfortable with the attention and the restless feeling that had suddenly come over him.

“Leon!” called out Charles. “We’re heading into the city, want to come with?” Henry, Alain, and half a dozen other trainees were with him, and they also nodded to Leon, silently inviting him along.

For a moment, Leon just stared at him. His heart was racing and there was a loud buzzing in his ears. He took a deep breath, intending to give Charles an answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to form any words. He slowly shook his head, to Charles’ disappointment.

“Well… alright then! We’ll be crawling through the clubs and bars in the western districts if you change your mind!”

The first-tier trainees gathered their silver, put away their training weapons, and filed out of the tower.

As they were doing so, Leon stumbled over to the stairs and started making his way up, shivering like he was a mortal in a snowstorm now that he no longer had dozens of pairs of eyes on him. He almost felt like his own body was resisting him climbing the stairs for some reason.

After several minutes, Leon made it to the top floor and collapsed onto the closest couch to the door.

He desperately tried to make sense of what was happening—he’d never experienced sudden weakness like this, and it had come out of nowhere. He tried to steady his breathing and meditate to calm himself down, but his wildly racing heartbeat refused to slow and his shivering only intensified.

Leon lay there for almost fifteen minutes trying and failing to meditate. From what he was able to tell in that time, he wasn’t shivering from cold. In fact, his body felt like it was burning up, and that heat was coming from his heart, as if it were flowing directly out of his soul realm.

[Xaphan, what’s happening?] asked Leon. He waited a moment, but there was no answer. [Can you hear me, demon?] Again, his question was met with silence.

Leon grew angry and shouted in his mind, [You worthless demon, answer me!] When that appeal to Xaphan’s arrogance, too, failed to elicit a response, Leon decided to give it a rest. He resolved to try again in half an hour or so, when he’d hopefully be a bit calmer or when Xaphan finished whatever it was he was doing.

The young mage tried to get comfortable, but he found it was impossible, while outside, the light grey clouds grew dark and began to gently rain.

As soon as the first drops hit the windows of the tower, Leon catapulted upright. He had started to realize that it was somethingspecific making him restless, and he instinctively felt that this rain was surely a part of it. He pushed himself to his feet and hurried over to the window, throwing it open and letting the rain rush in.

Leon breathed in the earthy scent of the raindrops hitting the dry ground. He stood at the open window for several more seconds before he realized that the noise in his ears had receded and his heart was beating a little slower now.

He immediately turned around and sprinted for the stairs, not even bothering to close the window. His mind was filled with nothing but the smell of the rain and the sound of distant thunder. In seconds, he burst out from the tower with nothing but the clothes on his back, his training sword, and his family’s sword.

As soon as the rain hit his skin, he stopped shivering. His heart was still racing, but he felt much better. He took a few minutes to stand under those storm clouds and enjoy the rain; he had always felt a little more relaxed when a storm rolled around, and this was the first storm he had been in since he left the Northern Vales.

But simply standing there in front of the tower wasn’t enough. Leon hardly knew what he was doing, but he took off running as fast as he could sustain into the forest, making for the western mountains.

When he had gone up to the top of the tower, it had felt like he was struggling against his own body. Taking every step had been an arduous task, as if there was a part of him that had been resisting. But now, he felt liberated, as if he had become as light as a feather. He sped across the ground so fast that he almost felt like he was flying.

Soon enough, he found himself at the base of the cliff near the pool he found the day before. But this time, he barely stopped long enough to locate a suitable spot to climb. He scrambled up the cliff almost like it wasn’t even there, the rain slicked stone proving no obstacle for him.

The higher he went—the more the rain washed over him—the better he felt. The wind picked up speed, howling in his ears. The thunder he heard grew louder, and occasionally he saw a brief flash of remote lightning strikes.

But even this wasn’t enough for Leon. Something spurred him onwards, and he frantically searched for a taller mountain.

At this point, Leon was effectively unconscious, operating purely on instinct. Magic power flooded into his body and his mind wrestled with keeping all of it in check. The only thing that he could coherently think was that he had to get higher.

After scanning the horizon, Leon sprinted for the tallest mountain he could see. He climbed with the same mindless speed he had the cliff, and he arrived at the flat top in minutes. The mountain top was just barely big enough for him to kneel down comfortably, which was exactly what he did.

He closed his eyes and fell into a motionless trance-like meditative state, allowing all the magic kicked up by the storm to flow into his body.

Leon didn’t regain control over himself until several hours later, when the storm started dying down. He was soaked by then, but his body was filled to the brim with magic power. In fact, the first thing that Leon noticed as he opened his eyes was just how incredible he felt.

He knelt there for a while enjoying the rush this abundance of magic gave him. Eventually, his mind turned to trying to make sense of what had just happened. The last thing he remembered was zoning out in the third-tier common room, then just enough flashes of him sprinting outside and through the forest for him to know that he had done those things. He had no reason for why he had done them, but given how spectacular he felt, he wasn’t too upset that he had.

He was still firmly in the third-tier, but he felt that he had made great progress this day. In fact, as he thought about it, he remembered that Artorias would do something similar whenever a storm blew in back in the Vales. He would vanish from their fort at the first sign of rain, making his way—as Leon had found out just before the ritual that awakened his Inherited Bloodline—to that mountain platform he had made.

Leon was certain what he had just experienced was related.

He was soon yanked out of his thoughts by Xaphan’s voice resounding through his mind.

[Leon.]

[Xaphan? What happened? Where the hell were you?!] Leon responded with some anger, confusion, and just a hint of betrayal tinging his voice.

[Well…] the demon began, his tone uncertain.

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Just after the ambush, Xaphan went back to quietly sitting on the red and white tiles not too far from the small throne in Leon’s soul realm. The pseudo-magic body that the Thunderbird had created for Leon was sitting in the throne with its eyes closed.

The demon had been spending his days absorbing some of the magic power that Leon’s bone marrow constantly supplied his soul realm with. Xaphan could theoretically recover his power by relying on the meager amounts of magic that Leon possessed, but it would be a painfully and highly impractical process without the potion he’d told Leon about. But there was little else for him to do on that tiny barren island in the Mists of Chaos other than watch Leon’s daily life, and that was hardly entertaining on a moment-to-moment basis for the fire demon, so he quietly sat and absorbed magic power instead.

If Leon could see him, he wouldn’t see any changes in the demon. His fires still burned all over his body, obscuring whatever might be within, but not so completely that a shadow couldn’t be seen. If Xaphan had recovered his power as fast as he had hoped, his flames would have burned much brighter, so much so that he would’ve appeared to be nothing but an enormous brightly burning flame.

As the demon was sitting there trying to pass the time after watching Leon carry out his ambush, he heard a quiet rumble in the mists. For a moment, he thought he had misheard; he knew of nothing that could exist out there, after all.

His eyes burned a bright orange within the red flames as they darted around, searching for the source of the sound. When he failed to see anything, he turned back to absorbing magic power. And then he heard the rumble again, but louder than before.

This time, the demon was certain he heard correctly. He scrambled to his feet and searched his surroundings again. And now, he saw something. It was a tiny dark speck in the bright grey mist, and it was growing very rapidly.

In seconds, that dark speck had grown to encompass the entire horizon, which Xaphan realized to be immense storm clouds. These storm clouds were upon the island before the demon could react and began pouring rain down upon it.

[Leon, what is this?] he asked in a panicky voice that was entirely unbecoming of a being of his stature, but he received no reply. He turned to look at the magic body on the throne and saw that it had been encased in a cage made entirely of lightning.

[The boy cannot hear you, former Lord of Flame.]

When Xaphan heard that deep voice that seemed to shake all in existence, he froze. Slowly, he turned to see what had spoken, and saw a towering bird standing behind him. This bird had gorgeous brown feathers flecked with gold that sparked with lightning magic. No matter how hard it was raining, not a single drop of water landed upon those feathers. It was larger even than him, and its yellow avian eyes locked him in their gaze, captivating him with their magnificence while simultaneously filling his entire being with dread and fear. Its aura towered over his, making him feel like nothing more than ant before an elephant.

Xaphan had just come face-to-face with the Thunderbird. The demon found himself completely overwhelmed in the Thunderbird’s presence, with its turbulent aura pressing down on him like a hundred mountains. There was no way Xaphan could withstand this crushing pressure, not in his current weakened state. He doubted he could even stand against it if he were in his prime.

The demon’s knees grew weak seconds after the Thunderbird arrived, and the pouring rain and fierce wind that accompanied it caused the flames that covered him to fizzle and die down. When Xaphan’s knees finally gave out, his fires were completely gone, leaving nothing but the dark figure of an enormous humanoid. He was shaped like a heavily muscled man with handsome features, only with skin like highly polished obsidian that sparkled in the lightning that surrounded the Thunderbird.

Xaphan turned his red-hot eyes—the only part of him that still burned—up to meet the Thunderbird’s bright yellow avian irises. However, after the Thunderbird forced the demon to his knees, it hardly spared him another glance. Instead, its attention had turned to Leon, still sitting on his throne as if he was peacefully sleeping.

“Re-… Release m-me!” shouted Xaphan in rage, struggling under the Thunderbird’s aura to raise his voice loud enough to be heard over the tempest that raged around the island.

The Thunderbird glanced back at Xaphan, sending the demon’s mind into turmoil with mere eye contact. Xaphan crumpled down onto all fours, barely able to hold himself up.

[Tell me, what’s a former Lord of Flame doing residing within my descendant’s soul realm?]asked the Thunderbird, its thunderous voice hitting Xaphan like hammer to the chest.

“Who… are you… calling ‘FORMER’!” roared Xaphan in response, though the effect was tarnished as he could barely string the words together under the Thunderbird’s cataclysmic aura.

[I’m calling you ‘former’, because that is what you are. A Lord of Flame who has been absent from the Void for so long is no true Lord of Flame. Especially not one so diminished as you.] The Thunderbird’s words cut deep into Xaphan, who grit his teeth under the strain of trying to respond.

[But your status is not my concern,] continued the Thunderbird. [It is your presence that demands explanation, demon. What are you doing here?]

Though his fires had been almost completely extinguished, Xaphan’s eyes burned orange like a pair of hot coals as he called upon all of his strength to resist the Thunderbird’s aura. He pushed against the island with all of his might, just barely managing to rise before the Thunderbird appeared above him in a flash of lighting and stomped Xaphan back down into the ground.

Xaphan gave a cry of pain as his chest was pushed into the stone tiles that surrounded the throne and the Thunderbird’s talons dug into his glassy back, preventing him from moving again.

[I will not repeat myself again…] it warned, while allowing the pressure on Xaphan to abate just enough for the demon to speak.

Xaphan was about to shout defiantly, but the Thunderbird’s talons twitched and allowed a few small lightning currents to pass through Xaphan’s body. The demon clenched his teeth but was unable to fully suppress his groan of pain.

“I am not trying to possess him, we are partners!” he growled, barely getting the words out through his gritted teeth.

[I saw you absorbing some of my descendant’s magic power,] responded the Thunderbird with an accusatory tone.

“I only took my share! We made a contract! I reside in his soul realm and use a tiny portion of his power to recover, while I give him counsel and some of my own power in return!”

The Thunderbird’s golden eyes seemed to bore holes through Xaphan’s shiny obsidian skin for a moment, before answering with: [A terrible lie, if you are indeed lying, for it is so easily verified…] The Thunderbird’s feathers rustled slightly, sending a pulse through its body and into Xaphan.

The demon’s ire grew as this pulse seemed to open everything about his body to the Thunderbird. He felt like he had no secrets under its unyielding gaze.

Slowly, after several moments of waiting, a thick golden thread appeared, connecting Xaphan’s chest to Leon’s throne. Specifically, it ran from the demon’s heart straight to Leon’s mana glyph on the back of the throne.

The Thunderbird’s eyes swept over the entirety of the thread, reading the nigh-imperceptible information within as if it had been carved into the heavens for all the world to see.

Though its avian face couldn’t frown, the Thunderbird’s displeasure was plain as day on its face. It removed its talons from Xaphan’s back and moved about a dozen feet over with a flap of its titanic wings, keeping itself between Xaphan and Leon. Additionally, it allowed its aura to abate just enough for Xaphan to catch his breath, but not enough for him to rise past a kneeling posture.

Xaphan pushed himself up as far as he could, then took a few moments to reignite his flames. They didn’t rise very high; in fact, they barely covered him at all, leaving most of his body exposed. Despite having some time to compose himself, he still couldn’t move from where he was kneeling.

The Thunderbird barely glanced at him again, seemingly purposefully ignoring him. It stood between Xaphan and Leon, running its beak through its feathers while keeping an eye on the lightning that surrounded its descendant.

The two maintained their silence for the next few minutes. This quiet atmosphere was only broken when the lightning that surrounded Leon suddenly started to grow far more intense. Where before it was only a few bolts here and there every few seconds, it had become a maelstrom of lightning, concentrating enough power around Leon to shock Xaphan.

“Hey, what’s happening to him?” asked Xaphan in concern, after working up the nerve.

The Thunderbird didn’t reply; it only stared with increased interest at Leon.

“Don’t ignore me, damnit! What’s happening to him?!” Again, the Thunderbird didn’t even look at Xaphan. Seeing that he wasn’t going to get an answer, the demon took to shouting at Leon, using their connection through their contract to try and communicate mentally with him.

[Hey, Leon! Answer me, boy! What’s happening?!]

Xaphan got as many answers from Leon as he had from the Thunderbird, but he wasn’t dissuaded and continued to mentally shout at his partner.

After several minutes, the Thunderbird rolled its eyes and glared at Xaphan, instantly silencing the demon with its gaze.

[Did I not tell you that he can’t hear you, demon?]

“… You did, but there’s no harm in trying, is there?” responded Xaphan with a slightly flippant look that was utterly at odds with how much he was panicking within.

[You’re disturbing my peace. That is harm enough.]

Xaphan shrunk back a little at the Thunderbird’s rebuke, but then he gathered himself and said: “Well, if you were only to tell me what is going on with all that lightning, maybe I wouldn’t be shouting, would I?”

The Thunderbird clicked its beak again, though it was in thought rather than amusement. After a moment of contemplation, it said, [This is the first natural storm he has been in since he awakened his Bloodline. My power that he has inherited is amplified during storms, and it can be extremely overwhelming. He’ll experience an overpowering urge to head out into the storm and seek the highest place he can, at least until he grows powerful enough to control it.]

“You don’t seem to care that much about it. This isn’t dangerous, is it?” asked Xaphan with some uncertainty.

[It’s fine. In fact, this is very beneficial to the young boy. A few more thunderstorms of this magnitude and he might advance to the fourth-tier.]

“Is this something he’ll get used to? It wouldn’t be very convenient if he loses his head every time a few raindrops fall.”

[It takes an enormous storm to trigger this kind of reaction. If he experiences a few more, he’ll eventually grow accustomed to the surge in power and will be affected less drastically than he is right now.]

“Good…”

The two continued to watch in silence Leon as he sprinted back outside of the tower and into the forest. They watched him race through the forest and dart up the side of the cliff. They quietly observed as he found a suitable place to meditate, then sit down and do just that.

After about fifteen minutes, Xaphan had become certain that the Thunderbird was telling the truth and Leon wasn’t in any danger, so his attention began to gradually turn to the Thunderbird.

‘It answered a few of my questions before, maybe it’ll continue,’ he thought as he summoned his courage again.

“How are you still here, if you don’t mind me asking? The universe thinks you dead, yet here you are right in front of me…”

The Thunderbird sent a dismissive look at Xaphan before turning back to Leon. However, to the demon’s surprise, the Thunderbird actually answered several seconds later.

[I am dead. What you see now is a fragment of consciousness that my descendants have kept within them for eons, a tiny remnant of what I once was.]

“A ‘tiny remnant’, huh?” said Xaphan, vividly remembering the Thunderbird smashing it into the ground. “How is something like this even possible?”

[A trick that I and several of my contemporaries discovered, an exploited quirk in the way our power is passed down in our descendants.]

Xaphan waited for the Thunderbird to elaborate, but when it remained silent, he didn’t press the issue. He doubted the Thunderbird was in much of a mood to explore the undoubtedly highly advanced and excruciatingly complex magical processes that allowed it to remain here.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to keep their exchange going just a little bit longer.

“I have to ask… Why did you answer those questions? Your reputation would indicate that you wouldn’t even spare a Primal Devil a moment of your time, let alone me…”

The Thunderbird looked back at the demon and thought about it for almost an entire minute before answering. [Hmmm. Perhaps that is the way I would’ve behaved, once. But after dying and watching my clan effectively come to an end, perhaps I feel a little more chatty. Besides, as a former Lord of Flame, it’s not like speaking with you is a completedishonor for me.]

“Don’t fall me ‘former’! I am a Lord of Flame!”

[You are not. About ten thousand years ago, another of my descendants entered the Void and became acquainted with several of the Demonic Lords. You were replaced a long time ago.]

“What?!” roared Xaphan in fury. The Thunderbird’s response left him stunned and infuriated. He hadn’t even been gone one hundred thousand years! It’s actually quite common for a Demonic Lord to go missing for millennia at a time before suddenly showing up again without warning, so one hundred thousand years is typically how long it takes the Demon Princes to appoint another Lord. He had been captured and held prisoner by the Storm King, but the traditional waiting time had yet to pass and the Prince of Flame had already replaced him!

“I don’t suppose you know who replaced me?” Xaphan asked, barely containing his rage.

[Which Lord of Flame were you, specifically?]

“The Fifth.”

[Then it would’ve been a demon named Amon. Of course, my information is a little out-of-date; my descendant was killed not too long after arriving…]

“Amon…” spat Xaphan with more hatred than even he thought possible. “I’d thought him dead…  Of course, it would be that fucking one, though. Not even death would keep him from trying to take his revenge against me. Bah, when I get back to the Void, I’ll simply kill him again…”

[‘When’? I doubt you’ll make it that far.]

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

[Before you were summoned, my clan was one of the strongest in all of the universe. They ruled a truly immense portion of the Nexus and were Lords over hundreds of planes. Yet now, in less than a hundred thousand years, my clan has been reduced to a single boy in the Divine Graveyard. A fall that sudden is impossible unless it was orchestrated by an enemy of comparable power. And they certainly haven’t given up.]

It was subtle, but Xaphan could pick up on the defeat in the Thunderbird’s voice.

“You think Leon is going to be killed by these enemies, then?”

The Thunderbird didn’t give Xaphan a verbal answer, but its silence was enough for the demon.

“If you have so little hope for Leon, why bother try and protect him from me? Why bother watching over him with so much concern? Why bother doing anything at all? I mean, these are hardly the actions of someone who has lost all hope.”

[Why shouldn’t I do these things, demon? Doomed though I’m sure he is, I will at least provide this young lion with what little help I can give him. It’s not like I can see the future, anyway, I don’t know if he’ll die or not. Not to mention... I do believe that he has the potential for greatness. He may beat the odds. Besides, I’ve rested on my laurels enough, and that has left me with no other choice than to aid this last descendant of mine or finally allow death to take me, and that I will not do.]

The lightning surrounding Leon began to die down as the Thunderbird finished speaking. The storm was ending, and so Leon was returning to lucidity.

The Thunderbird took another look at Leon, then took off from the island and flew back into the mists without so much as one more glance at Xaphan.

Xaphan watched the Thunderbird go and didn’t try and to stop it. A few seconds after Xaphan lost sight of the Thunderbird, the pressure that kept the demon down vanished. Xaphan slowly got to his feet while thinking over everything that the Thunderbird had just told him.

‘Should I tell Leon what the Thunderbird told me?’ he asked himself. After a few moments of thinking, he came to his answer.

[Leon,] he said to the young mage.

[Xaphan? What happened? Where the hell were you?!]

[Well…] he started hesitantly.

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Chapters 79 & 80 - The Next Week

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[Well…] Xaphan started hesitantly.

Leon staggered to his feet. He was still in the artificial mountains in the western third of the training grounds. His body was filled to the brim with magic power, but the wonderful and energetic feeling that brought was dampened from Xaphan seeming refusal to speak with him during the storm.

[‘Well’, what?] asked a livid Leon when Xaphan paused. [Wasn’t part of the contract that you would provide me with your counsel in exchange for residing in my soul realm? Wher—]

Leon suddenly stopped and took a deep breath.

[What just happened to me?] he asked with a much calmer tone.

[That was a side-effect of possessing the Thunderbird’s power. Keep that in mind; whenever a storm gathers, you will probably enter a similar state,] answered Xaphan.

[There any reason you couldn’t tell me this as it was happening?]

[I haven’t been able to speak with you all day. I noticed lightning gathering in your soul realm hours before the storm began in earnest, and it seemed to prevent mental communication.]

Leon took another deep breath. He tried to remain calm, but the sheer amount of energy that came with his current overabundance of magic power was making it difficult. After a few moments, he did feel his anger fade, though he still felt like crushing a few boulders to let off some steam.

[Listen, Leon, there are some other things we should discuss. I know what happened to you not because it was something I already knew, but because I was just told.]

[Told? By who?!] asked Leon as his face slightly contorted in shock.

[While you were out of it, the Thunderbird showed up to watch.]

[WHAT?! And it spoke to you?!]

[It did.]

[Why… It’s never even spoken to me before…]

Xaphan rolled his eyes at that. [And why shouldit speak to you? You are only a third-tier human, not even two decades old!]

[I’m still its descendant!]

Despite Leon’s attitude, Xaphan didn’t actually think he was wrong, especially with what the Thunderbird had told him. It said that Leon was its last descendant, so why hadn’t it spoken to him? Sure, it had sounded crushed and hopeless, but it had also attempted to protect Leon from him before it knew he was no threat to the young mage.

[Well… perhaps that’s something to keep in mind for when you make it to the sixth-tier. You’ll have created your magic body by that point and will be able to access your soul realm. I’m sure you’ll get the opportunity to speak with your ancestor then…]

[Yeah, maybe… did it say anything else other than explain what happened to me?]

[… Not really. It did attack me, though, before it learned we had made a contract.] Xaphan decided not to tell Leon the rest for now. There was no need to tell him about Amon, and certainly no need to tell him what the Thunderbird thinks about his odds of survival in the long run.

[Huh. That’s a shame, but not really a surprise. Especially about him attacking you.]

[What?]

[I’m just saying, I would be suspicious as hell if a shady character like you showed up where you weren’t expected.]

[And with that, I will leave you to your own devices. Good day.]

[Oh, come on, demon! Don’t be so sensitive!]  Leon chuckled a little. Xaphan seemed to enjoy poking fun at him, so he decided to do likewise.

Xaphan didn’t respond, though Leon didn’t think he was particularly angry. Whatever the case, he still started descending from the mountains and heading back to the Snow Lion’s tower.

---

Gaius stared at the three nobles who had been ambushed by the Snow Lions. They were in quite the sorry state, with bruises, cuts, and slightly swollen eyes or lips. None of their injuries were particularly serious, as they had been mostly inflicted by first-tier mages armed only with training weapons, and they had been taken care of with healing spells for the most part. They’d return to normal in another day or two, but that didn’t dampen their anger in the slightest.

“We need to get them back for this act of barbarism!” shouted one of the nobles, his face red with indignation.

“They fucking dare to attack us only a day after we punished them for their arrogance?!” shouted another one of them.

Gaius raised his hand just as the last noble was about to share his opinion. Based on his enraged expression, Gaius was perfectly aware of what it would be, so he didn’t need to hear it. The noble immediately shut his mouth and waited for Gaius to speak his piece.

“Let’s not get carried away, now. This was a matter of honor, you all knew this was probably going to happen when I asked you to do what you did for me. Don’t go getting all bent out of shape just because the savage did what any of us would’ve done. I understand that you’re angry right now, but keep in mind that classes resume tomorrow, so focus on those. I’ll speak with Linus and Actaeon and we’ll determine the correct course of action. Our honor will be preserved, don’t worry about that, but we’re not in our family’s lands anymore, so we have to act with a little more circumspection.” Gaius spoke with a calm and poised demeanor, but inside he was absolutely ecstatic.

He controlled himself as much as he was able on his way back to the top floor of the Deathbringers’ tower, just barely holding his smile back until he left the second floor behind, the second-tier nobles mollified at least for the time being thanks to his platitudes.

‘They did it!’ he thought ecstatically, an unabashed, unapologetic smile blooming on his handsome face despite his people having been assaulted earlier in the day. ‘These people are so damn predictable!’

He thought about his fellow third-tier nobles in the upper lounge. His unit, the Deathbringers, was the only other male-only unit to have only three third-tier members—the other seven all had four. Linus and Actaeon, Gaius’ two fellows, had been reluctant to sign off on any ‘official’ attacks on the Snow Lions, but with this attack by the barbarian on their own people, then they had to get on board!

Now, Gaius had nothing to be ashamed about in attacking the Snow Lions. He, on the surface at least, would no longer be getting personal vengeance on someone who’d wronged him, but instead he would be preserving the honor of his unit. In organizing future attacks on the Snow Lions, he’d be defending his fellow Deathbringers from their completely unprovoked aggression.

Gaius paused at the top of the stairs to wipe the unseemly smile from his face. It was one thing to act like this in private, but when meeting with his peers, he had to present himself with the august serenity that his nobility demanded. Not always an easy thing to maintain, but Gaius did his best.

As he pushed open the door to the third-tier lounge, he was already planning the next steps. With all the Deathbringers on his side, he’d easily be able to salvage his wounded pride.

---

Dinner that evening was tense, to say the least. Every trainee had heard about the Snow Lion’s ambush by then, and even if they hadn’t, the Snow Lions who laughed and jeered at the Deathbringers made it perfectly clear what had happened.

But the laughing and jeering wasn’t particularly intense and was done mostly by the more oblivious of the Snow Lions. For the most part, the Snow Lions and Deathbringers sat in stony silence, either glaring at each other or pointedly not looking in the other’s direction.

This atmosphere damped basically the entire dining hall, preventing anyone, even the most unaffiliated of the trainees in the entire cycle, from enjoying their meal.

Everyone could see the writing on the wall. The Snow Lions and the Deathbringers were enemies, now, and they were going to come to blows again sooner rather than later. The question now was what form that retaliation was going to take, and when it would happen. Only the Snow Lions and the Deathbringers might, but they were in no hurry to lay out any plans they may have had.

For his part, Leon ignored this as best as he could. The tension in the dining hall was uncomfortable, to be sure, but he ate with gusto and little reservation. By the time the Snow Lions returned to their tower, he was as relaxed as he could reasonably be expected to be, and in a good enough mood to show Charles, Alain, and Henry a few more basic sword moves.

As he was leading them in their training, a few more first-tier Snow Lions came forward asking to join, and then a few more.  Soon enough, Leon was supervising almost twenty Snow Lions, nearly everyone who had accompanied him on the punitive mission, in their supplemental training.

It wasn’t nearly as nerve-wracking as it initially seemed to him, but all the same, Leon was glad when everyone started to head off to bed. After everything that had happened during the day, he was ready to get some rest.

---

Classes began again the next morning. The Senior Instructor took the Snow Lions to the training field and separated them again into the usual groups. The trainees of the first two tiers began warming up for their morning training, while the Senior Instructor escorted Leon, Alphonsus, and Castor to the third-tiers dueling area.

Thing were a little tense on the first day, but the Deathbringers stayed on the opposite of the group from the Snow Lions, and otherwise largely pretended the other group wasn’t there. It led to a relatively peaceful first day back to the third-tiers ‘combat training’, and one that managed to deflate all of that tension considerably as the days continued on.

Leon and Valeria continued to frustrate everyone else who wanted to spar with them by only sparring with each other, but just about everyone ‘won’ anyway, because the two fought spectacularly. Leon won twice, Valeria won twice, and they fought to a draw on that Friday, leaving their record as tied as it was at the end of the previous week, frustrating them both.

One strange thing that Leon noted, however, was that Valeria seemed to have some trouble looking him in the eye. It was a weakness that he exploited during both of his wins, but she came back faster and more aggressive for her two wins. Still, Leon wondered just what in the hells seemed to be on her mind that she was having such a hard time even looking at him, at least in the early part of the week.

For a brief moment, Leon wondered if she had been the person who’d almost walked in on him while he was at the large cliff bath that he’d found, but he wasn’t able to work up the nerve to ask her. In the end, he supposed it didn’t really matter who saw him, or why she acted kind of strange, for she had seemingly returned to normal, for whatever ‘normal’ meant for them, but the end of the week.

During the afternoon classes, Valeria continued to sit next to Leon, though she deliberately avoided looking at him as much as possible. With the strangely tense air between them, Leon felt some amount of embarrassment at her presence, but he was never quite able to talk to her about anything more than just a few words here and there about the lessons of the day.

Despite this lack of familiarity and friendly interaction between the two of them, to say that Gaius was less than enthused about the situation would be to put it mildly, but he managed to keep himself under control. Leon felt the nobleman’s eyes on him many times during that week, always with just a tiny hint of killing intent that reminded him of large cats back in the Forest of Black and White, the kind that would always wait hours or days while they stalked their prey just waiting for the one perfect moment of vulnerability that would present the best time to strike.

He found Gaius’ behavior unnerving even though Gaius was largely leaving him alone. In Leon’s mind, it was almost like lying on the headsman’s block just waiting for the ax to fall. He didn’t have any legitimate reason to go after Gaius, so he kept to himself, but his instincts were screaming at him that Gaius was planning something, and that he was some kind of threat.

Leon, hoping that the tense peace that had settled over their two units would last, did his level best to ignore Gaius and focus on his training. So far, everything had been pretty basic and he hadn’t learned much, but he supposed that was to be expected. With Artorias as his teacher, he’d already gotten a good hold over the basics of knighthood and his chosen creative hobby of enchanting, even if anything past ‘basic’ was still fairly unknown to him.

As for the enchanting classes themselves, the instructor had finally gotten around to starting the lectures after having every trainee write out each of the seven basic elemental runes to prove they could do it in a reasonable time. He started with introducing the sixty other runes in the runic alphabet and giving a brief summary of basic glyph structure.

Essentially, one or more runic circles form the core of the glyph, which was where the power source of the enchantment was usually located—for most conventional enchantments, the mages using the enchantment provided the power themselves from their own reserves of magic power. Additional runes were then added in a myriad of other patterns around the core, modifying it as needed. The Art of Enchantment was often described among enchanters as the ‘Language of Magic’. From that perspective, a glyph was a sentence or paragraph made of runic letters, and the core of the enchantment, the part that would house most of the elemental runes, was the basic idea of that sentence or paragraph, with the rest of the runes modifying and expanding upon that idea.

The entire week was spent memorizing the dozens of additional runes, with lecture time dedicated to basic glyph structure. It was a mentally taxing class, but Leon loved every second and soaked up every trace of new information or enchanting technique that was presented before him.

Still, even throwing himself into his studies or his spars with Valeria couldn’t erase the omnipresent tension that he felt among the rest of the trainees that something was going to happen between the Snow Lions and the Deathbringers. It was a sentiment that he shared, but there was little he could do about it other than striking first. Given how few people had gone with him to get revenge, he doubted he’d be able to get together a force large enough to make a meaningful first strike, and even then, he wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. Another ambush on the road? Humiliating for the Deathbringers, maybe, but would accomplish nothing.

Leon supposed he could always try and make a play for their banner, but he had his doubts about whether that was a proper strike or not.

For the time being, he decided to wait and see what the Deathbringers would do. The ball was in their court, he would let them make the next move.

---

“Oh, man! I’m exhausted!” uttered Charles as he collapsed onto a couch in the first-tier common room. “This week really dragged!”

“Really? You’reexhausted?” asked Henry incredulously. It was Friday and the usual group was training in the corner.

“And why can’t I be exhausted?” Charles shot back.

“No reason you can’t be, I guess. I’ve never painted before, so it’s not like I know how draining it can be…” Henry responded sarcastically with a mocking smile.

Alain decided to get in on the mocking and said with excessive sarcasm, “Hey! Painting is real hard work, alright?! All that lifting of the paintbrush and running it along the paper—Charles, are you sure you’ve made it through this week’s classes without any permanent damage?”

“Oh, don’t start with this again…” said Charles in a tone that matched his exhaustion.

“What’s this about painting?” inquired Leon with a curious look.

“… Charles has been spending some of his free time painting…” answered Alain after a moment of faint confusion.

“You didn’t know that?” asked Henry incredulously. Leon didn’t respond verbally but shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “How did you not know?! We’ve been giving him shit about it for the past week!”

“Must’ve been while I was meditating or something…” said Leon with a little embarrassment. “But why are you giving him shit for anyway? Nothing wrong with painting.”

“Indeed, painting is a pursuit worthy of the time spent on it,” added Charles, his tone both proud and defensive.

“No, nothing’s wrong with paintingitself. It’s just that he chose painting over learning something more practical, like horse riding or military history,” replied Alain.

“I guess…” Henry conceded.

“Although… I am a tad curious as to why you picked that particular hobby, Charles, you don’t really seem the sort that would be into painting…” Leon wondered aloud.

“Well thanks for that. Really appreciate the implication,” Charles responded with sarcasm. “Anyway, the late Michael of Vesontio was born in a village less than fifteen miles away from the mining town I grew up in.”

“Who’s that?” asked Bohemond.

“A famous painter…” answered Charles a little drily.

“He painted the portrait of King Julius Septimius, as well as directed the work decorating the new dome over the Assembly Hall. Most of his private works go for hundreds of thousands of silvers if you can find the right collector,” added Alain, drawing odd looks from the others. “What? You all look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

After a brief moment of moderately stunned silence, Charles continued. “Well, every year around Michael’s birthday, we’d get a ton of traffic going through our town from art students and aficionados traveling to see the old master’s home village that inspired most of his early work. I never actually learned to paint, but I spent plenty of time around painters and always kinda wanted to learn.”

“Now’s as good a time as any,” said Alain in support of Charles, who nodded back appreciatively.

“Moving on, anyone got any plans for tomorrow?” asked Henry.

“I’ve got nothing going on,” said Charles.

“I planned to go to the Heaven’s Eye Tower,” mentioned Leon, causing the other five to immediately go quiet and stare at him.

“Why…?” Charles asked. “I get that that place must be amazing, but you couldn’t pay me enough to go there consistently. All those damn stuck-up nobles thinking they’re better than me… I think I’d end up punching someone in their upturned nose.”

“Was hoping to find a good bow,” Leon replied, completely ignoring Charles’ rant.

“A bow? You could find a good bow in just about any forum in the city. If you wanted a really good bow you could go to the Blasted Furnace,” Henry stated, much to Leon’s irritation.

“I don’t just want a good bow,” Leon growled, his teeth starting to clench, “I want a bow that I can make my own. Any forum in this city could see me a bow, to be sure, but not one that’s conducive to my purposes. I want to be able to enchant mine exactly as I want it, and what those forum merchants will try to sell me won’t be able to take much in the way of enchanting, even if they’re of otherwise decent quality.”

“I guess…” Henry grumbled, his mouth quickly shutting when he realized that he was starting to piss Leon off.

After they finished their training and made plans for what to do the next day, they all made for bed. Before they all parted ways, though, Leon did remind them to always stick together just in case the Deathbringers tried something similar to what they had done the previous weekend. While Leon had decided to take a wait-and-see approach with the Deathbringers given how little the rest of his unit seemed to want to participate in a pre-emptive strike, he still wanted his friends to stay safe. The Deathbringers were going to retaliate at some point, he could feel it in his bones.

[So, out of curiosity, why’reyou really going to the Heaven’s Eye Tower?] asked Xaphan as Leon closed the door to his room behind him.

[I didn’t take my bow when I left my home back in the north. I’ve come to regret that decision; I greatly miss shooting and hunting and want to get back into practice. Plus, I wanted to grab some good spell paper to practice writing runes,] replied Leon.

[That all? That Elise girl has nothing to do with it?]

[… No.] Leon’s voice trembled a little, something which didn’t go unnoticed.

[You don’t sound very convincing.]

[Don’t start with me, demon,] warned Leon.

[Alright, alright, fine. You’re not going there to see Elise. Why would you need to go and see her when you’re already spending so much time with… Valeria, was it?]

[Her name is Valeria, yes. And she has no bearing on this.]

[Mmmhmmm,] teased Xaphan.

Leon went silent, which Xaphan kept for a few seconds before continuing.

[You seem to be getting close to that silver-haired girl, at least. You looking to start something with her? Or maybe that red-head? They both look about as attractive as a lumpy rock to me, so I question your taste in women, but I suppose a boy like you will take whatever crumbs are offered…]

Leon, ignoring most of what Xaphan had just said for the sake of his sanity and blood pressure, replied, [‘Getting close’ would imply that we’ve actually spoken with each other, which we really haven’t. The occasional polite word and sitting together in silence does not a relationship make.]

[Right. Well, regardless, you’d better make a move, or at least do something other than stammer and blush when talking to a pretty girl, damnit. I’m bored out of my gourd in here!] the demon complained.

[That sounds like a ‘you’ problem to me. And I don’t blush!] Leon said, perhaps a little too insistently.

[Did your face go red and heat up?] asked Xaphan despite that fact that he already knew the answer.

Leon went silent again.

[It did, and we both know it. That means you blushed!] taunted Xaphan in a teasing tone.

[Whatever… I just need a bow… no other reason…] muttered Leon.

[Don’t say that! If you like a girl then make a damned move! Don’t just… You know what? You just do your own thing. I’m going to stay out of it. Of course, ‘your own thing’ won’t get you very far, but it’s your own life. Waste it as you see fit. Honestly, if your Clan is truly as reliant upon you as it seems, then it might as well already be dead.]

[Hey, screw you too, demon!]

[Prove me wrong, kid. Prove me wrong.]