Chapter 8: A Comrade In Battle, A Rescue Mission.

<Nozomi's PoV>

"What is this thing?" I looked a the giant dark cube. The cube is so dark it absorbs almost all light. It emits no sound neither any smell. I tried to touch it to immediately pulled my hand back. I felt something was really dangerous about this cube. 

I looked around for a small enough stone and threw it at the cube. The stone touched it and got disintegrated immediately. I shuddered at the thought of being immediately disintegrated into nothingness almost immediately. Then I continue to look around for Klein and Aster but I did not found them. Then I realised something and looked at the cube in front of me.

"You're joking right? They're in there?" I looked at the cube with disbelief. 

"How am I suppose to break into it?" I muttered to myself while thinking of a way. Breaking into it with physically is impossible.

'But what about magic?' I thought.

"[Icicle Shot]" In an instant a sharp icicle appeared besides me and launched towards the cube in high speed. But before it even touched the cube the icicle immediately disappeared into the cube but the traces of it also disappeared.

"That means the cube 'ate' my magic?" I once again looked at the cube in disbelief. Meanwhile I was pondering about what to do, I heard footsteps behind me. I looked to the source of footstep and saw two creatures. The first one is a giant creature that looked like a deer but it's not. It's one of the mythology creatures that Japan folklore has.

'A Kirin?!' I looked at the majestic creature in front of me. It has a body resembling a deer but it's body is covered in green scales like a dragon. It has long antlers, it has a autumn colored mane that is flowing with the wind. It's body is covered in divine flames.

The other one looked like a normal human.. or not. She has horns that looked like branches. Her green hair is decorated with beautiful flowers. She wore a luxury looking dress with a lot of ornaments. Her face is gentle and filled with motherliness. Her presence alone is soothing and calm. I felt no hostility from her and from the way she's approaching me she meant no harm. 

"Hello there, little sapling." I heard her calling out to me.

"Ah, um.. hello there.." I greeted her back. The greeting is pretty awkward as I don't know what to say. But she only chuckled. I could hear a lot of animals coming towards us. Theres an unusual amount of them all heading towards our location.

"So.. um.. who are you?" I asked her. She looked at me and smiled.

"My name is Ceres Fauna, I'm best known as the Keeper of 'Nature'." She introduced herself shortly. Then its my turn to introduce myself.

"Ah- my name is Kyoraku Nozomi. You can call me Nozomi." I introduced myself. Because I don't even know much about myself I can't say much about it. But after the introduction silence ensues us as I don't know what to talk anymore. She walked towards the giant black cube observing it.

"Uuuu, what is this giant cube?" She voiced her curiousity. I was about to answer her question when the Kirin spoke...

"Fauna-sama, that seems to be a unique domain. Or more spesifically [Domain of Darkness]" The Kirin explained..

'Wait the Kirin could speak?!' I looked at it while widening my eyes.

"Heee, this a  [Domain of Darkness]" She was about to try touching it. I react quickly and said.

"That thing could disintegrate anything it touches!" I warned her but she still is going to touch it.

"Heeee, I see" She became more interested about it. But when her palm touches the cube.. nothing happens. I widened my eyes seeing this.

'Nothing happened?! Am I just overeacting? No.. I clearly saw the stone immediately disintegrated then what is it?' I thought while observing her. I tried to focus my vision on her hands. Then I noticed it, a small layer of the same green energy I used. Her hands were covered with that energy. So, if I can do the same.. I maybe could break in. 

I then remembered the feeling of the green energy and tried to make it flow to my hand. I used my full concentration on this but was broken by a voice.

"That's wrong, Nozomi-chan. Do it gently, imagine you were a plant. Absorb the energy, process it, then circulate it." 

'Nozomi-chan?!' I felt a little bewildered at how she is calling me. But still she gave me a really important advice for me. I nodded at her and began to focus processing her advice. 

'To become like a plant. Focus, I should be able to do this' I thought while breathing deeply.

I closed my eyes and focused on my surroundings. At first I could sense nothing, but I kept on focusing and slowly I could feel and visibly see a small green dot. At first there are only little of them but from time to time they gradually increased in number. Until I saw a pattern of those dots. The dots combined together to make faint threads.

The threads didn't appeared randomly instead they were in a certain pattern. I opened my eyes and looked towards the threads.

'They were in the plants?! No.. not only in the plants..' I looked everywhere. The faint threads are everywhere, I could see visibly saw them inside of plants, animals, the rocks, the ground and even on the sky. The quantity or should I say thickness of the threads are different for every object. Like in the small plants such as the bushed the threads were pretty thin and looked very fragile. But if I looked at the Kirin the threads in it were very thick and looked sturdy as if it's a small tree. Then I looked at Fauna-san..

I widened my eyes in shock no.. in amazement. The threads in her body itself are like a giant plant. Each and every fiber interlocked each other making her basically a living earth. She is like a living embodiment of the planet itself. She noticed me looking at her and she smiled at me. I immediately looked away from her.

'Yabe! She is strong! I can't afford to make her angry.' I mentally noted. But I did not dwell in those things for long and completely went back to focus. I could see that in every single living beings such as animals and plants there is a complex energy circulating system. When I focused on myself I could feel multiple foreign energies. Each of them countered each other creating a balance. So if Fauna-san's system was like a huge tree. Mine was more like an endless sea containing every single things balancely. But for now I focused on one particular one. The green energy or should I call the 'Nature Energy'.I then began to think about what she meant by 'process it'. I think what she meant is too try and circulate it through a certain organ. I looked at the Kirin circulation system and observed it.

Then I saw it or rather felt it. I could feel an organ actively and constantly distributing the energy into different part of it's body. The organ I was sensing was the heart. I could feel the heart pumping the foreign energies to every corner of the Kirin's body passively. But in mine it's not circulating very effectively, rather it's very crude and lacking. I then focused in once again.

I began to immediately try and circulate my energy actively but immediately stopped after feeling the effect it had. An intense pain washed over me. It felt like my whole body was caught in fire. It felt like every organ in my body were tearing itself apart. I coughed out blood while panting exhausted.

"*pant* *pant* What the hell is that?" I tried to calm myself to not pass out. I could not afford to pass out now as both Klein and Aster are still in there and I need to help them both.

"Uuuu, you're doing it wrong. Try processing a little at a time!" She exclaimed my problem. I nodded at her explanation and tried again. But now I tried to do it a little at a time. It works! Even though it's fairly slow I could clearly circulate little amount of energy throughout my body. I could slowly felt my body becoming stronger because of this. Then I started to circulate more and more at a time. Until when I felt it became natural I tried to process the energy and circualte it to my whole body at the same time.

It is quite the indigenous task but still consumed a lot of mental exhaustion. Bit by bit I circulate more and more until I think that I shouldn't circulate anymore or it will be dangerous. I then tried to focus the energy towards spesific parts of my body, like the hand or legs. And it works! I successfully covered my hands in the energy. I looked at the giant cube with determination.

'With this could I break into the cube?' I thought while looking at the giant cube of darkness in front of me.

'Well only one way to find out.' I began to circulate more and more of the energy to my hand and shaped my hand into a fist. 

*Inhale* *exhale*

"HA!" I let out a small cry while throwing out a strong punch. When my fist touched the cube I did not get disintegrated immediately which is already a good sign. So when the impact of the punch hit the cube it spreads the vibration throughout its structure. The punch worked! But there are still a lot of crude movements in it. But I was still really grateful towards Fauna-san. 

I then looked behind me to thank Fauna-san but she is no where to be seen. The Kirin has also disappeared to who knows where. They appeared and disappeared without me even knowing.

'Thank you, Fauna-san!' I thanked her in my mind while bowing a little. I let out a little smile.

"Yosh, lets break into this thing!" I cracked my knuckles and began to circulate the energy once again.

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<Klein PoV>

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"Sigh. What a luck" I sighed seeing the man in front of me. I don't recognised him from his appearance but rather than his magic. 

'The [Domain of Darkness] a high tier non-original magic. The most infamous one was Yamikage. His nickname is 'Shadow Yamikage', just like his name he specialises in darkness and shadow magic. His usual attire consist of a plain black t-shirt and normal pair of pants. He also wore a scarf on his neck that also covers his face. He always has a indifferent look on his face.

"[Domain of Darkness] will constantly absorbing our magic if we stayed here." Aster warned me.

"Tch, you think I don't know that! The only way is to beat him." I said pointing my sword at him.

"I will fight him. You protect them." I simply said to Aster. I looked back at the man. He also looked at me with his gaze. 

"[Infuse my weapon with the blessing of earth, Element Infusion]" I used infusion to my weapon. I rushed at him without skipping a beat. I performed multiple powerful swing s that have been infused with my earth mana. But unsurprisingly he dodged every single one of my swings with simple movements making my every swings missed. He then backed up a little and smirked.

"[One With Darkness]" I only heard him chanted before he suddenly disappeared. I looked around me to try and find his position but badly failed. Based on what he chanted it's a stealth type magic. I focused on my surroundings checking my blind spot. 

I looked to the left and suddenly I felt my danger sense alert me. I quickly turned around and blocked an arrow with my shield. The arrow sticked to my shield and it has traces of darkness mana.

'Tch, infusion huh.' I clicked my tongue mentally. This is bad not only does it make this much harder it's also gonna be who he's targeting. But it has one weakness.

'[Mana Sense]' I flowed my magic to my eyes allowing me to see faint traces of mana in the arrows. But it's only limited to my field of vision. I could also sense mana without needing my vision but the range is very limited. I could faintly see his outline also but its very faint. I then take a defensive stance while waiting for his next shot. 

'Left!' I blocked another arrow from my left as I kept following his movement. But something unusual happened. He suddenly disappeared from my field of vision.

'Behind!' I blocked an arrow from behind me but I suddenly felt pain coming from my abdomen. I saw an arrow that had been somehow reached me without me noticing. I left the arrow there to not cause any bleeding. I immediately took another defensive stance and got ready.

'Front and right!' I blocked the arrow from my front with my shield and parry the other with my sword. I focused once again and looked around.

'Above and left?!' I tried to dodge the arrow coming from above me but find myself unable to do so. As something has binded my movement. So I quickly blocked it with my shield and parried the other with my sword. But another unexpected arrow came and hit me on my back.

"Argh!" I let out a small groan. He has been toying with us until now. Because I know his capabillities are not like this. He has been infamous for taking down multiple A ranked mercenaries at the same time without getting injured. He also has been wiping out multiple of the knights post across the border. So for someone like me he shouldn't be even struggling.

I didn't get any chance to rest as another 3 arrows launched themselves towards me. When I successfully blocked three arrows he launched four, when I also blocked that he launched five and so on. But of course sometimes I can't block all of them and got hit in different places on my body.

"*pant* *pant* where are the next ones?" I muttered to myself while focusing on ny surroundings. But then I realised something was wrong and became more alert. I looked everywhere but found no traces of him. I'm al beginning to run out of mana. I stopped using infusion a long time ago and right now my mana is almost completely depleted. But I then realised it and rushed towards Aster. 

"ASTER! CAST YOUR SHIELD ON YOURSELF!" I shouted at her. She nodded at me and casted her spell.

"[Fire Walls]!" She made multiple layer of fire walls around her and the others to protect themselves. When the arrow passed through the fire wall it completely burned into oblivion. But what I didn't expect is a sudden pain on my legs. I stumbled forward because I lost my balance. 

"[Barrage My Enemies and Fill Them With Despair, Rain of Darkness]!" I heard a cold voice chanted. I looked up and saw a completely horrifying scene. Hundreds and even thousands of sharp darkness infused little raindrops.

'If I got hit by all of that I will be nothing but holes!' I thought. He waved his finger down and the raindrops started to fall down at once. I tried to dodge them by rolling to my side but they're too fast.

"ARGH!!!!" I let out a scream in pain as every single place on my body is pierced by countless raindrops. I felt my consciousness wavering and I started to close my eyes. 

*Crack* *Crack* *Shatter*

But then... I could see light. The light of the sun that I always see every single day. Then a figure covered the bright sun with it's tail and ears. 

"You've done enough." The figure said and tapped my head. She has a smile on her face but the anger on her eyes are clearly visible. I widened my eyes at her and smiled weakly.

"Took you long eno-.." But I didn't have enough energy and soon became unconscious. With the last thing is a beautiful different colored eyes that looked like gems.

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<Nozomi's PoV>

I looked at the unconscious Klein in front of me. He looked pathetic with holes all over his entire body. He is in a critical state with this much injury. I subsconciously placed my palm on his heart and flow my energy to him. Then magically his wounds started healing slowly but surely. I picked him up and walked towards Aster that is still protected by the fire walls. 

I waved my hand over the fire walls and it immediately disappeared. Aster widens her eyes at this but soon calmed down after seeing me. She then began to panic again after seeing the unconscious Klein on my hand. Her tears started to flow down her eyes. 

"Klein!" I dropped Klein near her lap. She rushed in to hug him saying sorry multiple times. I turned back towards the man who made the giant darkness cube and stared at him with cold eyes. He looked surprised at me and began to grow wary.

"He's fine so don't cry instead protect him like how he protected you." I told Aster. She looked up to me with teary eyes.

"I will finish this in his stead. For now don't interfere." I said to her simply. I then started to release huge amount of my energy to the surroundings. They all looked at me with wide eyes.

"[Natures Protection]" In an instant a cage made out of trees that are almost unbreakable is created to protect Aster and the rest in there.

"Now then let me make you feel. The true feeling of dread." 

 

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