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:

“3 months… all the way to the beginning eh?”

Damian had returned to the past after the disastrous failure of the raid. With the time allotted of 1 year, he could only loop 3 times at most in order not to jumble his traveling schedule. So within these 3 attempts, whether he could somehow help the city to defeat Zergish or not wasn’t important since these were all none of his business in the first place. Still, he wanted to try to gain more knowledge about humans in front of a great disaster, one could say he used this as a grand experiment.

He again walked towards the city without the help of any magic. All because of the breathtaking view of the vast and fresh grassland. After the exact same amount of time as last time, he reached the city’s wall. This time, however, Damian didn’t disguise as an apprentice who sold rune stone, he just simply blip across both the outer and inner walls. ‘ The likes of Sonia couldn’t pass this, and even Cain or Elveth would have been struggling, hehe’ He commented on the wall’s defensive magic.

Again, he walked into a bustling city, where countless people were rushing in an organized manner due to the strict guards and regulations. Suddenly, Damian came into a grave realization and couldn’t help but muttered

“I forgot about money…”

Last time, he disguised and sold a rune stone with a high price, so he had plenty of money to spend for the entire 3 months. Luckily, he remembered how those gold coins look, reaching into his bottomless bag that looked like a little pouch, he took out 3 gold coins which were the same as the coins using in this city.

Instead of walking to the square after gaining some money, he visited a library this time. The library was anything but ordinary, it was as big as a small palace, spanning almost a kilometer square. Inside of it was countless rows of books and records, old, new, ancient, good, bad, novels, cooking instructions, everything could be found in it.

Without wasting his time, Damian casually but swiftly waltzed to the deepest and most restricted area. Before passing the gate into the restricted part of the library, Damian found a familiar face. Long hair, middle-age, purple robed, it was Sir Cain the Graviton Lance, who checked Damian’s rune stone in the previous time.

“He’s also guarding the library? Then who is with the recruits? Sonia couldn’t do all of those things on her own, right?”

Damian whispered casually in a normal volume and ignored Cain while waltzing through the gate. The gate’s defense was as sturdy as the walls’, and it even had an additional spell that would create a loud and annoying sound if intruders were detected. However, no sound was heard and Sir Cain was still reading his book about ungulates.

In the dark yet clearly lit area, Damian only found a few books. But 2 thin books caught his attention: Unholy Beasts and Ergosia’s Ranking. Both were written by the Scholar Organization.

Picking the first book to read, Unholy Beast, he took a quick scan and transformed the information into this knowledge and re-interpreted them.

“Zergish the Wandering Storm. It’s a colossal behemoth beast , who dwarfs even mountains. To imagine it easily, it looks like a hybrid between a unicorn and a dinosaur, then glorified. It’s really muscular and strong, each of its 4 legs has the girth of the Hexagram building in the USA, and the hoof is made of adamantine.

It has a long, majestic electric blue mane with a hint of rainbow-ish radiant. Its head is quite generic looking actually, just imagine what would a giant behemoth has. Like a unicorn, it has one single spiral horn on its forehead. That horn can gather or launch lightnings, like a giant powerful fantasy Tesla Coil.

Its tail is also long and majestic, with the length of 5 kilometers The torso isn’t that remarkable, it spans about 5.5km. It’s height is 6km. I don’t think it’s necessary to weight the beast”

“Luma, the Deep-sea Terror. Lurking in the deepest of the ocean, Luma has always been a mysteries to the world. Only scattered legends about it remains in time as seafaring in this world is still rather undeveloped.

It has an almost endless amount of tentacles, which also has the characteristics of hydra, 2 more will come out if you cut 1. The tentacles have 2 types: freezing ones and poisonous ones. The freezing tentacles don’t just freeze the targets they touch, but also freeze the wide area. For this, Luma also has the uncanny and logic-defying ability to “swim” through solid ice.

The poisonous ones contain neuro-venom. Which is potent enough to paralyze even dragons. Like a normal jellyfish, each tentacle has a lot of tiny pricks that inject venom to the victim

Luma also can become transparent at will, together with its habitat of abyssal deep water, it was nearly impossible to see the abomination despite its ridiculous size.”

“Ihn, the Endless Labyrinth. Another simple creature, but highly insidious. I honestly think that this is the easiest one to kill and weirdly, the 2nd hardest one to kill too.

It resides in the depth of the primal dungeon, as it has never left its cradle.

Its legends mostly describe that people will be lost at a certain area in a very low layer of the dungeon. And that area is estimated to be 50km square wide.

Once gotten into the area, one will be pulled into a dreamscape, and their memory of approaching the area will be replaced according to the Dream they’re pulled in. So far, only 3 very powerful mages who were at the pinnacle of mind magic reported to had come back alive.

One of them said that she was pulled into a wonderland, where all of her friends and family had a prosperous life and never-ending happiness. Another reported that he was in a hellish landscape with constant wailing and all kind of horrors The 3rd one erased his memory of the dream, leaving only the part that he was trapped in it.

All of the 3 said that after a tantamount effort to wake up, the area around them as their awaken was describe as a dark cave with fleshy vines all over the walls and ceiling. Their companions were described as either painfully writhing on the ground or smiling hollowly. Any effort to wake them up will simply break their brains.”

“Laquan and Ouco the Parents. This one is actually a pair of beast but they count them as one. Both of them are the first feathered snakes of this world. Feathered snake is often associated with death in other worlds, but in this case, they had the power of life.

Laquan has the affinity of water, while Ouco has the affinity of nature. Both of them are really colossal, their length is bout 15km, longer than the total length of Zergish. Their girth is about the size of Zergish’s neck, a bit larger than the Hexagon building.

Both of them has given birth to countless offspring. They reside in a mythical paradise jungle. Just imagine amazon jungle with mystical beasts and has the area of a continent.

Their strength doesn’t come from individual like Zergish or Luma or Ihn. But in the mind-boggling numbers of the jungle’s residents. Every single living organism, even the bugs and plants, obey the 2 supreme leaders.

Although they’re rather peaceful. Their speed of expanding worries the human. Therefore, humanity has been arduously keeping the boundary of the jungle for as long as history has been. They’re the most peaceful one with far fewer destructive tendencies than the other Unholy Beasts.”

“Ao the Undying Death. One day, a prosperous and powerful capital of an ancient kingdom which ruled over the land nearly the size of Europe and Asia combined, went into ruination and silent.

Flabbergasted by the occurrence, many had tried to find out what happened. But before they even found the reason behind the collapse of the capital. Other nearby countries had already seized the chance and conquered the reminding lands, but none dared to come near to the capital. Incursions had been launched multiple times, both the peripheral scouting and infiltration, but none wielded any result.

Until the magic studies has gotten far more developed, a super-remote scouting device was made and this time, miraculously, succeed finding out what caused the sudden collapse. A nearly undetectable flying eyeball which was controlled from thousands of kilometers away had captured what may have caused the disaster. After circling the capital for a while, it spotted a faint black figure wandering in the streets.

It was completely black and lanky, with a stupid looking round smooth head, its limbs were pretty long for a human standard, it has long thin sharp claws, 4 on each hands. It held what seemed like a simple looking club. After a split second, it suddenly turned it head around and upwards, revealing a single milk-white eye.

The “eye” stared directly at the “eye” floating above. Then the viewing turned black From the spotting of the creature, to the blackout, only 0.8 second had passed.”

Finishing absorbing the knowledge of the Beasts, Damian conjured a box of capri-sun, a kind of drink that he found yummy during his time in a planet called Earth. Poking the box and drank half of it, he began to read the second book, Ergosia’s Ranking. Too lazy to re-interpret the whole thing, he started with the top 10 first.

“His Excellency, Lord Hidain Pheatus of the Feathered Blade He also participates in Zergish raid. He’s the leader of the paladins of the Church.

He has long gray hair, large tall strong man frame, and an old but wrinkles-less face. In battle, he wears a huge heavy looking golden armor with holy intricate patterns. His might great blade was also golden and engraved with divine runes.

His strongest attack is Angel’s Dive. When unleashed, the attack shines in ivory light and illusory angelic wings could be seen.

Strongest attack… It could barely hurt Zergish last time, I should somehow guide him to use it more correctly this time, hehe.”

“His Excellency, Aaron van Malheim of the Benevolent Judgement The highest ranking grand cardinal, only after the pope. He came from a poor but highly religious family and rose up from dirt to the peak of the Church by his devotion alone. He is well-known as a warm and gentle old man, and usually enacts philanthropic campaigns.”

“Gadama Furhorn the Barbarian King,born from the strongest tribe in the 3 continents, he has fought his way through countless trials and united all the barbarian tribes in the Xotenia continent.

During his life as a mercenary, he had also grown to be a member of the highest council of the Mercenary Organization. His strength is even beyond that of Lord Hidain, it was so great that most weapons couldn’t bear his aura as he swung them.

Until one fateful day when he, together with multiple powerful companions, slain Arthus the First Ember, a mighty dragon mage and took its bone. He crafted an axe with that, now the axe is one of the most famous artifacts in the world. It is called Ember’s Wrath.”

“Rank 7: XIII the Silence, no comments except that this is the current most powerful assassin in Ergosia and she had taken this rank recently with the successful assassination of Therine the Impenetrable Fortress… Guess I’ll look into this later, meh.”

“No wait, I have the whole day now… Let’s see. There you are Miss Silence, hehe,” Damian mused after pin-pointing her while just casually sitting on his chair in the dark library. He then started to “read” her past

“Teresa Sylvanis Sulyvahn. She was a princess of an ancient kingdom, which held the bloodline relates to darkness. On one occasion, she was captured during a journey and then trained into an assassin. With her exceptional bloodline and uncanny physics and calculative mind, she was the only survivor of the assassin-training program.

After years operating in the dark under the hand of the Organization, she herself had successfully killed the entire force, finishing her revenge. But now, there was no turning back for her anymore. She now lives as an independent being, and rumors about a silent wind that could kill everyone echoes wherever she goes.”

“What she did was simple but clever. With the power of darkness, she could turn invisible and silence the sounds of human’s scream or breath. Also, she can alter shadows, which allows her to erase her shadow on the ground too. Very simple and un-magical to be honest.”

“Gudan Silverhorn, the World-Piercing Arrow. He was supposed to be the next Chieftain of the strongest barbarian tribe. But he left and pursued freedom and that made way for Gadama to take the spot.

Famous for his unrivalled archery ever since the young age. All because his arrows aren’t only precise but also destructive, as he could imbue aura perfectly into the arrow without any leakage.

Together with Gadama, he too had earned the ancient dragon mage’s bone and crafted it into a bow. It is called Ember’s Sentence.

His most powerful attack, Meteoric Shot was extremely revered, as that was Arthus’ death sentence. And that was when Gudan was using a less powerful bow. Now with Ember’s Sentence, his strength has been multiplied.”

“Lucianna the Unyielding Smile. She and Therine of the Impenetrable Fortress were usually compared for who was the tankiest human. Until the latter was assassinated by XIII and his 7th rank taken.

She was originally an ascetic of the paladins. But on a fateful day, she swore her devotion towards the moon and was exiled by the Church. After centuries of exile, she had become so powerful and reached top 5 of the world.

Before she made her debut, and after being freed from her exile, she wandered mindlessly and encountered the Lord of Paleness, Vizith, a mighty skeletal dragon mage, who was on par with even Arthus. Unknowingly, she engaged in a world-rumbling battle with the dragon and emerged victory.

Rumors said that during the whole battle, her smile never fade away as she beautifully danced around the battle With the blessing of the moon and formidable swordsmanship honed through decades of exile, she had singlehandedly slain Vizith.”

“The gap between the 5th and 6th rank is truly enormous eh?” Damian muttered.

“She was similar to the Lunar Fairy of Chinese myth and wuxia worlds. They could be equally strong although the Lunar Fairy uses magic instead of martial arts like Lucianna, but both of their weapons were bestowments of the moon. I might have to investigate the moons of different worlds some days.”

“Umaya, the Apocalypse Harbinger. No one knows where he came from. Just one day, a huge cloud in the color of purple swept over the entire city of Tunya(Tun-ya) kingdom. As sudden as it came, no one prepared for it and all was dead.

The weird things is, they weren’t actually dead. All of the citizens of the city had been mutated and transformed into various hideous creatures. Some got insect mandibles grew out of their entire bodies, from head to toes. Some whose spines got turned into living centipedes, others bones and blood suddenly became oil-like goo with acidic traits.

The disaster didn’t stop there. Nearby cities also got engulfed by other colored haze clouds and the results of mutation also varied.

All of those cities, were situated around a large forest. The thing is, most of the forest was unaffected by any kind of mutated creatures. Except for the middle part, where a black tiny hut could be seen.”

“Small appendix: 3 out of 5 grand cardinals were sent to cleanse the colored fog, and the 9th rank Aaron of Benevolent Judgement was one of them . But even with their joined effort, the fog barely retreated and stubbornly came back after a few hours. However, it never reached out of a certain range.

Unfortunately, the weakest of the 3 grand cardinals, Her Excellency Oma was almost corrupted. She was healed by the Pope afterwards.”

“3rd Rank: His Holiness, Alexander I the Pope. Information secured by the Church… Like that’s gonna stop me…” Damian came across yet another nearly empty page. Therefore, he once again conducted his tracing. Yes, he was still on his chair in the secluded part of the library while drinking the rest of Capri-sun.

First, he peered into Lord Hidain’s mind, the leader of the paladins as he was on his way to Derenal to dig up some information. Luckily, he and the 5 grand cardinals were the only one who knew where the true body of the Pope was.

The Pope inside Mekkan Cathedral in the Holy City was only a projection. And yet that projection had enough power to cleanse the insidious corruption on a grand’s cardinal body who was infected by Umaya’s fog. Damian himself, in order to verify the truth, cast his unnoticeable and untraceable gaze onto the figure sitting on the Pope’s throne.

There, he saw an old man with long withered beard and hair, the figure naturally and endlessly leaked divine power He confirmed that it was indeed only a projection Then he continue to track down Alexander’s real body with the info he gained from Lord Hidain’s mind and the magical string connecting the body and the projection.

He indeed found the body, but that was when his surprise surged!