Aethernea

by Cloe D Frost

  He wasn’t wrong to kill this person. If he didn’t do it, some other participant would have done it. He would have died either way. In fact, this person wasn’t a person at all. It was a Replica.

  But a Replica is also a person.

  A small voice whispered inside his head.

  It bleeds, it thinks, it feels. Just like everyone else. No different than a normal person.

  And this person, whose life you ended would never again see the light of day again.

  Even if the Replica Dungeon created an identical Replica at a later time, that Replica and this Replica would not be the same. This Replica was dead forever.

  Kiel gripped the handle of his sword so tightly that his fingers turned white. He had hoped that this Replica would disappear when he killed it. Hoped that he wouldn’t have to look at its miserable corpse any longer. In the Arena, Memory artifacts would instantly reconstruct the body of the slain party so the audience wouldn’t be able to see the gory sight for long.

  Yet, this wasn’t the Arena, this was the Replica Dungeon. And the corpse of the Replica remained there unmoving as if to prove that it was very much real and not an illusion. That it had been alive and now it was not.

  This Replica was created for my sake. It lived for my sake and died for my sake. There is nothing wrong with it.

  Kiel argued. His eyes landed on the small near transparent dagger, lying lifelessly next to his feet. Even if I didn’t kill it, would it have spared me?

  Those with an intention to kill should be prepared to be killed.

  The rest of the participants of the exam stared at Kiel with mixed emotions. The ease with which Kiel dispatched one of them left the rest feeling unsettled. In their eyes, it seemed as if Kiel just picked this person at random to attack, just because he was the closest one to him, not caring about whether this person was strong or not.

  Kiel exuded sharp coldness and confidence bordering on arrogance. He stared at them defiantly as if asking them to hurry up, as if asking them “what are you waiting for? Come at me.”.

  Yet none of them knew that that was exactly what Kiel wanted them to think. No one realized that Kiel picked this person intentionally. That he picked him because he didn’t recognize his face, thus this person should have been among the weaker ones. That he picked him because the reaction of this person to the previous beheading wasn’t pretty, which made Kiel believe that he wasn’t an experienced fighter.

  None of them realized that this defiant, cold look of his was just a mask covering his inner turmoil.

  Several seconds passed, and then, almost simultaneously, Rhur Rroda and Nelaira Helyot made their moves.

  Rhur grabbed a handful of something from his pocket. When he opened his fist, countless small, red petals were revealed. He smiled towards Nelaira, who was the prettiest female in this batch of participants, and blew on the petals charmingly, as if blowing a kiss to his lower.

  However, even though he was gazing towards Nelaira, his petals floated towards the participant closest to the man Kiel had just killed.

  You can still flirt in this kind of situation?? Kiel stared at Rhur speechlessly.

  Nelaira, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have noticed Rhur’s gestures at all. She concentrated her attention on the female to her right. She flicked her wrist, and as if responding to her gesture, hundreds of sharp icicles condensed from thin air on top of the female and started raining down like a stream of needles.

  Kiel was familiar with Rhur’s fighting style, for he had fought him before. Rhur was extremely proficient in using a sword and in fact, the reason why Kiel picked the same weapon was because he wanted to one day surpass Rhur. However, what was the most dangerous about Rhur’s fighting style wasn’t his exquisite swordsmanship, but rather, his ranged attack and control abilities.

  Rhur’s opponent looked around himself warily, observing the blood red petals. In the end, he chose to move backward to create some distance between himself and the incoming petals.

  He didn’t know what purpose they served, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good for him. Although they looked completely ordinary and even his mana sense told him that other than being filled with Rhur’s mana the petals contained no spells, he found it hard to believe that someone would choose to blow petals just to look cool.

  Do they have poisonous pollen on them? The man speculated and covered his nose and mouth with his scarf.

  And indeed, he was right to be cautious, although those petals weren’t magical artifacts, they were in no way ordinary for they came from a very particular plant by the name of Razorblood.

  Rhur didn’t wait for his petals to reach his opponent, in fact, he seemed to ignore them as if they were completely irrelevant. He smiled charmingly and flew swiftly towards his opponent with his sword drawn.

  Meanwhile, Nelaira’s opponent Accelerated sideways, barely avoiding the icicles dropping down from the sky. Unfortunately for the girl, Nelaira had taken into account the possibility of her enemy dodging and, in fact, had already predicted in which direction the female would escape towards. Therefore, the girl ended up escaping from the frying pan into the fire and she slammed headfirst into a rock wall that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

  Nelaira lived up to her family name of Helyot. Only a family of master architects would be able to Morph a wall from the ground up and transmute the earth into solid rock with such incredible speed.

  Truly, the rumors are not exaggerated at all. Helyots have indeed brought their Morphing and Material Transmutation magic to its pinnacle. Unrivaled under the Shield! Kiel thought.

  Slamming with full speed into a rock wall left Nelaira’s poor female opponent feeling as if someone had struck her head with a hammer. Her head buzzed and the splitting headache made her unable to concentrate on the fight. She stumbled back dizzily almost falling on her bottom.

  Regrettably, the place she fell towards was exactly the place from which she was trying to escape – the patch of earth turned into a pin cushion by countless icicles. Nelaira didn’t ease up on her opponent, on the contrary, she quickly morphed all of the small icicles together into a giant icicle that ended up creating a head sized hole through the chest of the poor girl.

  And thus, Nelaira’s opponent remained lying there lifelessly, suspended above the ground. The only parts of her that managed to reach the earth were the abundant droplets of blood which slid down the giant icicle like snakes.

  Kiel shifted his attention from the man he just killed to the ongoing battles. As his mind became preoccupied with analysing the battles, his racing heart slowly settled down.

  He expressionlessly evaluated Nelaira and attempted to come up with a strategy to deal with her. He wasn’t sure if Nelaira predicted that the girl would ram head first into the wall or if it was an unexpected bonus. Because, if the girl had hit the wall with any other part of her body, even if all of her bones in that part of the body shattered, she would have still been able to Accelerate away.

  However, the female just happened to hit her head. And a head injury was the most dangerous non-lethal injury a mage could sustain, for it compromised their ability to cast magic.

  And thus, Nelaira’s victory was even quicker than Kiel’s.

  In the brief time Nelaira took to dispatch her opponent, Rhur crossed swords with his own opponent. Well, actually, his opponent was an axe wielder, so they didn’t technically cross swords, but the distinction made no difference. From the moment they clashed, the man was on the losing side, constantly retreating.

  Rhur’s slashes were extremely fast and unpredictable, coming towards his opponent from inconceivable angles. They had exchanged less than 5 blows, but the man already found it extremely hard to persist. His back was drenched with cold sweat, and no matter how he wanted to retaliate, to show his superior body strength, he could only continue to defend.

  He knew that one moment of carelessness would spell his demise.

  Unfortunately, he had already unknowingly made that
careless mistake. He was concentrating so hard on defending from Rhur that he had completely forgotten about the seemingly harmless petals surrounding them.

  A split second passed, and before anyone could realize what had happened, the axe-wielding man was gripping his throat with wide eyes threatening to fall out of their sockets. Through his fingers, streams of blood continued to pour out, and no matter how the man tried to stop the blood from flowing, it was all useless.

  Before he could even fly away Rhur’s sword had already pierced through his heart like an arrow.

  Kiel was more focused on Nelaira’s fight, so he too didn’t see what had happened, but he didn’t need to see it to know what happened. Rhur was very proficient in casting Acceleration, and he could cast it so fast that it was near instantaneous, not letting his opponent react to it in time.

  He chose a nearby petal as his spell target and launched it flying in an arc across his opponent’s neck. No doubt, his timing was perfect, choosing the moment in which his opponent would be unable to defend against it.

  Though, even if his opponent could have defended against it by making a sacrifice, he wouldn’t have done so. How could he have known that a soft petal under a simple Acceleration spell would be powerful enough to slash through his spell-reinforced skin?

  * * *

  Author Note

  Wow, it has already been 100 episodes! 100! You know how other people make this fabulous number of chapters a special milestone and reward the readers with bonus chapters? Yeah? Well, I’m not gonna do that. XD I am already too behind on chapters, adding more on top of my plate would be unrealistic. Sorry about that. :P

  Anyway, for a long time I thought that the first book of Aethernea would have around 100 episodes. But boy was I wrong. By my estimates, we’ve got at least 20 episodes remaining in the first book. If we assume that I am going to succeed in catching up to all the chapters that I should have released, it means that the first book will need at least two more months of releases until it reaches its end.

  Coming up in the next episode:

  Deora looked at him provocatively, with his hands crossed. His red hair started waving upwards like flames. No, not just like flames, his hair was literally on fire!

  “Are they teaming up? Is that even allowed? Was there a mistake in exam setup?”

  The man started laughing uproariously. “I don’t know if he is really lucky of really unlucky!”

  “What do you mean expensive?! Don’t they grow in the poisonous bog our family owns?”

  “It’s not a dislike, little brother, it’s more of a fear. You need to learn how to deal with your fears. Therefore, this opponent is perfect for you.”

  * * *

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  Episode 101 – First Round End

  Episode 101 – First Round End

  Previously:

  The day of the practical exams is finally here and Kiel is inside a large arena created by the Replica Dungeon. Kiel and Nelaira manage to defeat their opponents. Rhur uses Razorblood petals to slice the neck of his opponent open.

  * * *

  He was concentrating so hard on defending from Rhur that he had completely forgotten about the seemingly harmless petals surrounding them.

  A split second passed, and before anyone could realize what had happened, the axe-wielding man was gripping his throat with wide eyes threatening to fall out of their sockets. Through his fingers, streams of blood continued to pour out, and no matter how the man tried to stop the blood from flowing, it was all useless.

  Before he could even Accelerate away, Rhur’s sword had already pierced through his heart like an arrow.

  Kiel was more focused on Nelaira’s fight, so he too didn’t see what had happened, but he didn’t need to see it to know what happened. Rhur was very proficient in casting Acceleration, and he could cast it so fast that it was near instantaneous, not letting his opponent react to it in time.

  He chose a nearby petal as his spell target and launched it flying in an arc across his opponent’s neck. No doubt, his timing was perfect, choosing the moment in which his opponent would be unable to defend against it.

  Though, even if his opponent could have defended against it by making a sacrifice, he wouldn’t have done so. How could he have known that a soft petal under a simple Acceleration spell would be powerful enough to slash through his spell-reinforced skin?

  He had no idea that those red petals came from the flowers of Razorblood, a notorious plant that fed on blood. On the outside, Razorblood looked like a harmless and beautiful bush with juicy fruits surrounded by countless flowers. However, when the creatures attempted to get its tasty fruit, those soft and delicate flowers would turn into razor blades.

  The secret of the transformation of soft petals into sharp and deadly weapons lay in the mana concentration within the petals. When the mana within the petals surpassed a certain threshold, the properties of the petals would change. Razorblood plant needed only to channel mana into its flowers, and in the next second, it would be bathing in the blood of its enemies.

  The legends say that Razorblood flowers were originally white, but because they were always drenched in blood, the blood had seeped into them turning them crimson.

  And while those crimson petals were now drinking the blood of Rhur’s enemy, on the other side of the arena, Deora stood with his hands crossed radiating an air of might.

  He looked at the person next to him provocatively, as if daring him to try and attack him but made no move to start the fight.

  The man that was in the middle, between Deora and Nelaira, hesitated in his choice who to fight. Nelaira was a female, so he didn’t feel comfortable fighting against her, but on the other hand, she was an elibu and as such considered an easy opponent to beat.

  His moment of hesitation caused him to miss his chance to fight Nelaira, who had chosen to fight with a female on her other side. And thus, since everyone else had started fighting, the man had no other choice but to pick Deora, who was the only one who hadn’t fought yet.

  The man released several daggers from his belt and Accelerated them in an arc towards Deora. He then followed, flying towards Deora with a spear in hand.

  Deora looked at the daggers condescendingly, choosing to ignore them, and then averted his eyes towards the charging man. By the time the daggers reached Deora, the man had arrived several meters away from him, aiming to exploit the moment in which Deora will be forced to guard against the daggers.

  However, he never expected that Deora wouldn’t attempt to guard against the daggers at all. In fact, he didn’t even attempt to dodge. Deora’s yellow eyes flashed, and suddenly a loud sizzling sound exploded outwards from Deora followed by a cloud of steam, swallowing both him and his opponent inside a dense curtain of mist.

  After the initial eruption, there were no other sounds to be heard. No slashing, parrying or any other sound of battle. It was as if Deora and his opponent weren’t fighting at all.

  When the steam cleared, what was revealed was Deora standing in the same position as before, surrounded by a circle of molten earth. The air swirling around him was so hot that it caused a glaringly obvious heat distortion. Though, no matter how distorted his surroundings got, one thing was crystal clear – there was no sign of his opponent or the daggers he had released.

  Deora remained standing there with his hands crossed. His yellow eyes arrogantly measured his remaining opposition while his red hair flickered upwards like flames. No, not just like flames, his hair was literally on fire!

  However, even though it was on fire, it didn’t seem to be burning, leaving everyone who saw it with a puzzled expression. If the hair wasn’t burning, then what was fueling the flames? Transforming mana into flames a.k.a. conjuring, wasn’t something that could be achieved through the usage of augmentation magic. Conjuring was a specialty of transmutation magic.

  The circle
of lava around Deora testified to the fact that he had used augmentation magic to raise the temperature of his surroundings to an astonishing degree. It was so high that both the daggers and his unsuspecting opponent melted as soon as they entered it, coupled with the speed at which Deora cast the spell on his surroundings, it left no time for his opponent to even cast a temperature isolation magic on himself.

  Deora’s awe-inspiring fiery appearance left Kiel feeling unsettled. To Kiel, those beautiful flames flickering around Deora looked anything but beautiful.

  To say that Kiel hated fire would be an understatement. Seeing those harmless looking flame tongues caused a knot to press down on Kiel’s stomach.

  Kiel let out a long sigh and averted his eyes to the ground, trying to stop his blood from boiling. He needed to stay clear headed. He couldn’t afford to be affected by his personal dislike of fire.

  His eyes settled on the glass dagger dropped by the opponent he had killed previously. The mana the mage had imbued it with had dissipated already. After a brief moment of hesitation, Kiel made the dagger fly into his hand. Upon closer inspection, he could see it was coated with a thin layer of a greenish substance.

  Kiel wasn’t well versed in poison, so he didn’t know what the dagger was dipped in, but he didn’t need to know what it was to know that it would be bad news to whoever got cut with the dagger.

  Kiel’s eyes flashed with a faint chill, and he stealthily pocketed the dagger. Besides his sword, he had no other weapons, which was a big disadvantage when compared to Rhur who not only had hundreds of Razorblood petals, but also a sword that was a powerful magic artifact. And that’s without including the other things Rhur was hiding in his pouches.

  After pocketing the dagger, Kiel once again looked around the arena towards the other participants.

  The sand had barely started slipping through the hourglass, yet out of the original 10 participants, only half were left – Kiel, Rhur, Nelaira, Deora, and Zor.