Wandering Storm

On a peaceful grassland, in the middle of nowhere. The vast expanse of the vivid green grass, along with some scattered colorful flowers here and there, together they create an amazingly breathtaking scenery. The evergreen prairie stretched endlessly in all directions and connected to the boundless bright blue sky above on the horizon. Here, one could only have the desire to lay down and mindlessly look at the sky, waiting for the day to pass.

Out of nowhere.

Pop!

A human figure simply appeared on the grassland, without any signs or disturbance, even the grass below was still gently swaying, as the figure seemed to be floating at a very low altitude. He was a tall guy, with a youthful looking face. His hair is black and simple, albeit a little bit unkempt. His eyes were grey-purple, with a hint of mysteriousness dwelt deep within.

He wore a simple brown robe, one that you could find anywhere. This style was popular among the magic apprentices in most fantasy world. However, his robe looked worn, but not too much, and it was weirdly tidy and ironed.

As his lips curved into a relaxing smile, he said:

“This is the end now, I should try to relax, haah…”

Then, Damian again strolled towards Derenal. Reaching the city outer wall, he neither disguised nor teleported in, but this time he just flew up to the top of the wall and stood there. From that point, he just sat down and savoured the immaculate scenery of the beautiful boundless prairie.

After a full 3 hours, he got down and wandered the city. He tried out more restaurants, visiting more shops and talked with more people, although very few talked with him because of his brown robe, yet he didn’t mind one bit.

At the end of the day, he rented a luxury hotel room, unlike the previous times where he only rented modest motel. The receptionist looked at him with concerning eyes until he showed her his hefty pouch of nothing but gold coins.

Having nothing to do for the mean time, Damian thought about how to entertain himself for the last 3 months before Zergish came over and destroyed everything. And so a fun idea sparked in his mind. He cast his untraceable gaze onto Alex, or should he be called Alexander I, also known as The Pope.

Damian had decided to observe the bizarre Pope who created 2 clones, one to deceive to masses and the other to blind the Church’s leaders, and lived his own life as a normal yellow robe adventurer mage.

After a few days of watching, Damian found nothing but small battles with lesser monsters whom Alex’s team decimated with moderate difficulty. Apparently, he was a fire mage, his firepower was indeed formidable, but mages like that were everywhere, more so in these hotspots for adventurers.

Bored again, Damian decided to looked into XIII the Silence, but this time he didn’t observe her, but instead watched her past.

She was the newest and the fastest climber of the ranking. And her rising from a no-name to rank 7th was really interesting to watch. Before her, the 7th rank had belonged to Therine the Impenetrable Fortress, the most powerful tanker in this world.

His legends was mostly about how he was an invincible being that wouldn’t be killed or even touched by anything, both physically and politically. Therefore, just to prove that was wrong and nothing is untouchable, XIII planned his assassination and even sent a threatening letter to him 1 month prior.

Even with all the defense and preparation, in a silent night when the moon was nowhere to be seen. Therine’s life silently fade away without anyone noticed, even the Impenetrable Fortress when he was killed.

Another interesting story was when she was chased down by a team of elite knights, this was how it played out:

In another occasion, a royal family made a plan to capture her and formed a team with 100 strongest knights in the kingdom.

With meticulous planning, they miraculously lured her to an opening field with absolutely no place to hide or conceal. In their clear sight of a fully blacked-out slim short figure, XIII suddenly disappeared without any sounds or movement. It was in broad daylight and the land didn’t even have trees or grass or rocks.

And then, creepy sounds of bodies and metal hitting the ground echoed rapidly throughout the flat land. The 100 knights kept their senses and vigilance high all the time, and yet their number was thinning quickly. After 5 minutes, there were only 5 knights left. They formed a circle with completely zero blind-spot, with their back leaned on each other’s.

Suddenly, 4 fell onto the ground and the last one was alone. He trembled in absolute fear and frantically looked around, only to see vast expanse of nothingness but dirt, sky and the lifeless corpses of his comrades. Then, his world went dark, as fleeting as when he fell into a good night sleep after a tiring day.

He didn’t stop there, as he dwelt a little bit deeper, Damian found out that XIII or Teresa Sylvanis Sulyvahn was the lost princess of The King of Darkness Rozier Sulyvahn, who was ranked 11th on the Ergosia’s ranking. The daughter’s rank was higher than that of her father!

After losing his daughter, Rozier plummeted into despair and hadn’t been seen outside of his palace for years. And perhaps XIII had also forgot about her real identity.

Having enough of scrutiny, Damian ordered a scrumptious dinner with deep fried bacon, a plate of 2-egg omelette with meat and minced carrot, onion and pork stuffing inside, a bowl of salad and an chocolate pudding as desert. After savoring his night meal, Damian washed up and went to sleep.

Unlike the previous loops, he didn’t apply for the recruitment but again wandered around the city mindlessly. He came to the library from times to times to learn more about Ergosia. He found an interesting article during his random reading spree, from a thick history book which was covered in dust and left at a corner on the highest floor of the library. The article actually mentioned Zergish and an interesting name, Ulter Sorena, the Spear of Twilight.

About 500 years ago, there was another raid of the Wandering Storm, and it was under the command of the Mercenary Organiztion and the Grand Tribe of Xotenia. The whole army of 3000 people, together with Lord Gadama and Lord Gudan embarked their journey to the mysterious mountain range where Zergish was rumored to be sleeping at. They planned to attack the Unholy Beast by surprise to prevent it from creating storms by waking up.

However, before they reached the mountain range, an enigmatic figure stopped them. And that figure the most powerful spearman in the history of Ergosia, Ulter Sorena. Rumors said that Ulter stopped the raid by himself as he believed that even with their whole force, Zergish wouldn’t be killed or even damaged.

To quickly resolve this problem, Gadama and Gudan agreed to duel with Ulter. If the latter won, they had to retreat and swore their oath to never try to raid an Unholy Beast again.

Gadama and Gudan were highly confident as they had just crafted Ember’s Wrath and Ember’s Sentence from the remnant of Arthus, the ancient dragon mage whom they had slain. However, to ensure their victory, they agreed to forfeit their pride and team up to deal with the mysterious spearman.

The 3 of the most powerful humans had a world-shattering battle, although it was merely a duel, for nearly half a day. And the victor, was no other than Ulter. Even though he had to fight 2 extremely powerful and revered figures, the Spear of Twilight still emerged in victory.

Without a second thought, the raid force decided to retreat back to their continent of Xotenia.

Damian closed the thick book, and wondered, if Ulter was that powerful, how was he not on the ranking list? Did he die or go lost somewhere? Too lazy to find the answer, Damian put the book back onto the shelf and reversed it back to the dust-covered state. After that, he resumed his boring yet relaxing mindless wander.

One month, 2 months, then 3 months, time flew faster when one was relaxing. The city was evacuated cleanly and only the raid force stayed behind, Damian with his nonexistence aura still lingered behind.

From inside the city, after hearing the muffled explosion from outside, he swiftly gone up to the highest tower where the Cannon of The End was stationed. However, he didn’t fly or teleport, but just… scaled the tower, with his strength alone. After a full hour, he had miraculously reached the top of the spire, which was 3 kilometers from the ground.

One day, two days passed. And Zergish once again emerged from the horizon on the 3rd day. Exactly the same as the first loop, where Damian barely interfered anything, the clash played like a pre-recorded film. Starting with the lightning ray from the horn and the city defended it with the orbs, then the kick, the roar, all the same.

However, a smile bloomed on his face, and Damian was gone from the top of the tower.

Poof!

Between the raging battle between a colossal mighty beast and the formidable force of humanity, a figure in brown robe appeared without any warning. With a snap of his finger, everything paused.

Zergish’s eye suddenly gained it lucidity without any significant impact, Damian had woke the mighty unicorn up so that it could be aware what was happening.

On the ground, the tide of beasts froze on spot, their saliva, their blood floated in the air. The human force also stood still, although their heads and minds were still normally functional as Damian allowed them to know what was going to happen.

On the wall, Lord Hidain, Lord Brutus, Sir Cain, Dame Elveth, along with the whole raid force, all paused and looked at the strange brown robed man floating in the air with stunned expression. Suddenly, the figure opened his mouth, the voice was soft and clean, everyone, no matter the distance could hear him clearly.

“Dear citizens of Derenal, thank you for participating in my little experiment of humanity in front of disaster. With all the data that both you and the monsters and Zergish have provided, I have had enough to write a paper and conclude my study.”

The whole city was still drowned in uncomfortable silence, as they didn’t understand one bit what this weird guy was saying.

“Ahem…” Hiding his awkwardness, Damian continued “So as to repay the effort of all of you, I shall help you in beating this horsey, with the price of its horn. How does that sound?”

Again, what answered him was quietness. A faint and awkward smiled curled up from his lips. “So no responds means yes right? Alright…”

‘Oh my god, at least say something, this is so embarrassing’ He chuckled awkwardly before performing a miracle.

Looking at the eyes of the titanic Unholy Beast, whose age was nearly uncountable, Damian sighed softly “Sorry little horsey, this is nothing personal…”

With a light twirl of his right index finger, the colossal neck of Zergish also twisted hideously. Just like 2 giant invisible hands were wringing a wet towel to get rid of the water, the beast’s neck was now in the same situation.

Wandering Storm could do nothing, as its neck twisted and twisted. Naturally, electric blue blood gushed out from the wrinkles like a flood. A flood that contained the purest characteristics of lightning. But before it even touched the ground, the flood somehow flowed into a giant jar which was conjured out of nowhere.

“This should be enough for the preparation price…” Damian muttered as he estimated the price of the blood of an Unholy Beast and all the money poured into building such a city.

Crack! Crack!

And the gruesome execution came to a full stop. The beast’s neck and head was now no more recognizable, except for the coiled horn which was still cleanly intact. With a small pop sound, the horn was plucked away from Zergish forehead like a little delicate flower and flew to Damian’s hand.

Then, he created a cushioning field and let the giant remnant of Zergish, which was more than 10 kilometers long, touched the earth soundly.

And with another the wave of his hand, all the monsters became nothing but ash and dust.

“Ok, that’s all done right? No more unpaid debts between us I supposed. Did I borrow anyone anything? No? Alright, bye!” And just like that, the enigmatic brown-robed figure vanished into thin air.

The raid force of the City of War, however, was still in a daze. All of them, even Lord Hidain couldn’t comprehend what just happened. They all stood there, like frozen statues until the sun went down.

“What?” A single utterance echoed the quiet scene and woke up everybody.