'Reaper' turned his head to the left, raised his left hand, and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed across the water, sending ripples outward as the waves collided violently, crashing into one another and slamming a wall of water into Mike's face. The force nearly knocked him into the sea, but he remained firm, anchoring himself with a gravity incantation.
"So, you've grasped the fundamentals of gravity-based incantations? It seems the notes weren't inaccurate. Fascinating," Reaper said, his voice cutting through the air before trailing into a heavy sigh. The water surged with increasing intensity, the ripples folding into one another until the waves converged and rose skyward, twisting as they formed the beginnings of a towering tsunami.
Mike swallowed hard, his eyes flicking to the towering tsunami as it took shape. He licked his lips, and his spear began to glow with a silver light. "What the hell is it that you want from me?" he shouted, his voice sharp with desperation.
'Reaper' paid no attention to his words. Within seconds, the tsunami had fully formed. Overhead, the clouds began to churn, spiraling with violent force. Rain fell harder, pounding against the earth as if hell itself had broken loose. A bolt of lightning tore through the sky, striking the ocean with the force of an executioner's blade. The electric current surged outward, enveloping Mike in an instant. His entire frame shuddered as his left arm convulsed uncontrollably.
'Reaper' advanced steadily through the chaos, undeterred. The tsunami roared behind him, fed by furious winds and gathering even more water as it twisted higher, rising past the clouds.
'Reaper' took a slow, deliberate inhale, then exhaled through his nose like a beast restraining itself."I'll show you just a taste—just a glimpse—of what water can truly do. People love to scoff at water. They call it weak... passive... pathetic. They think fire burns brighter, that lightning strikes harder, that earth stands stronger. But they forget something. It can carve through mountains with enough force. It drowns empires. And when you command it like I do..." He spread his arms as the air thickened with tension.
'Reaper' cracked his neck, extended his left hand toward Mike, and stretched his open palm forward before casting a speechless incantation. Fifteen golden strings erupted from his palm and shot toward Mike.
Mike thrust his spear at the golden threads, managing to break a few. But with his body twisted under the strain of the terrain and the pressure around him, his balance was off—he couldn't destroy the rest. The remaining nine strings latched onto him, wrapping tightly across his body.
'Shit' was all Mike could think before his eyes widened, water spilling from them as the strings flared with a brighter gold. 'Reaper' closed his palm.
Mike's body twisted and convulsed as a scream tore from his throat. He could feel the water inside him begin to boil. The acid in his stomach churned violently, sloshing up and down, side to side, until it surged up his throat, searing it from the inside. His blood pulsed in chaos—flowing, halting, then flowing again—repeating the cycle as if under the command of something far beyond him.
'Reaper's' control over water was so precise, so absolute, that even the blood in Mike's veins obeyed. The golden strings anchored to his body acted as conduits, turning Mike's own fluids into weapons against him.
Then, without warning, everything stopped. The strings vanished. The towering tsunami froze mid-motion. 'Reaper' stared down at Mike, who was hunched over and coughing blood into the water. His eyes bulged unnaturally, almost dislodged from their sockets, the pressure from within nearly overwhelming him.
"Tell me everything you know about a kid named Zay Yuso," Reaper said coldly. "I want every damn detail you've ever heard. Every conversation, every meeting, every reason he was connected to you. Where he went after, what he said, what he did. Every. Single. Damn. Thing. I want information."
Mike panted heavily, his chest rising and falling in quick, uneven bursts. His stomach felt like a wreck. Water streamed from his nose as he coughed up more of it—mixed with blood.
'W-what the... hell h-has he done? I-I need to... warn him a-about this monster.' Mike thought, forcing his gaze upward toward 'Reaper'. His mouth hung open as he gasped for air, barely conscious. Then, his body gave out. He collapsed into the water, unable to maintain the gravity incantation any longer.
Water flooded his lungs. It rushed to his brain, seeped into his chest, and began to pour into his veins.
"Tch."
'Reaper' turned, and with a simple snap of his left hand, the tsunami crashed down on Mike's lifeless body. It swallowed him whole, twisting his form violently until his bones snapped like twigs. His body tore apart, splitting into pieces before the wave faded back into the sea. Reaper ended the incantation, and the water began to rise into the sky, absorbed by the clouds that had once released it. The concrete walls surrounding them crumbled into dust and fragments.
Mike's house was completely flooded, crushed under the collapsing weight of stone, and shattered into ruin. 'Reaper' stared at the wreckage for several seconds, then pulled a folder from his Arbiter: Vault, opened it, and continued reading through the pages.
"Maple Yuso. She's the closest one here. But she's part of the history department at the High Ovaris Academy. This will be irritating... Worst case scenario, I drown every student and teacher until I find her."
He shrugged and gave a small nod to himself before closing the folder, placing it back into his Arbiter: Vault, and walking off toward the academy's history department.
"It'll take at least a week to get there from here which is fine but damn that's a long time to wait for more torture."
...
Rei looked out the frosted window, the glass trembling softly with each creak of the caravan. Snow drifted from the gray sky in slow spirals, brushing against the glass before melting into thin streaks. The world beyond was a haze of white and shadows. He checked the time again: February 21st, 4:15 P.M.
Pulling out his worn leather journal, he scribbled down the date, time, and year—Second Year of the Draconic Calendar—then let out a short sigh.
'What the hell are we even doing? What is it that we're supposed to be doing here? There's no fucking answers anywhere besides from cold snow, blizzards, random people we've never met... and I'm the only one who's awake still...'
He glanced up from the journal, his eyes rolling over both Naomi and Zay. Both of them were slumped over, their bodies wrapped in thick layers of furs and leather, deep asleep. The steady rise and fall of their chests and the faint mist from their breaths were the only signs of life.
'If I am the only one awake, this means I can start really asking questions and possibly finding more information out.'
A slight smile crept across his face. He rose quietly from his seat in the back of the caravan. The walls were lined with crates, folded blankets, and old barrels lashed to the sides. A dim lantern hung from a hook above, its flame flickering as the caravan rocked. He stepped toward the small wooden door that led to the front and opened it, slipping through without a sound.
The front cabin was colder. Wind leaked through the seams of the wooden frame, carrying with it the scent of frost and pine. Rei sat down on a bench beside the coachman and glanced over. The man wore a thick white overcoat, padded with fur, and a featureless mask that reflected the soft glow of the lantern nearby. The horses trotted ahead steadily, their hooves crunching through snow.
"I have... some questions, if you don't mind answering them for me," Rei said quietly.
The coachman turned his head slightly. Though silent, he gave a single nod.
'I take that as one question... and one answer? If that's the case, how should I go about this and get the most out of one question? Where we are? No, that's Vex. To be more specific, actually, I'm unsure but I do know we're in a continent known as "Eclipse." So asking where we are won't be a good question.
'What if I ask something about the work we're doing? No, that won't work. If I were to ask about that, this person might simply reply with something vague similar to "You'll know once we arrive", "I'll inform you once we get there", or something of similar stature. I need... a real good question that can both get answers I want and also possible answers that I don't want to know. How though?'
The silence was heavy, broken only by the gentle fall of snow outside and the rhythmic creaking of wheels on frozen ground. Rei sat still, listening to the wind slide across the caravan walls, the faint breathing of the man beside him, and the distant call of a crow echoing somewhere deep in the trees.
Five long minutes passed as Rei ran through ideas, building a mental list of questions and crossing each one out.
'The best question by far I've came up with is, "What is it that we do as an organization that operates in such a large area of work." But, that too has cons I do not want... such as one con being that this person might get suspicious of me if I ask such a "stupid question" as I should know the answer since I am currently employed by these people.
'The second best question I've came up with is, "The history behind what it is we do, is it really that important to keep everything the same that we're doing?" It sounds a bit odd to some, phrasing it this way, but if I do, I might be able to get multiple answers from one question. The main con behind this question though is that I might not get the answers that I actually want to know. But on the other hand, it might lead me to more answers about everything.'
Rei sighed deeply, then swallowed hard. He turned to the masked man beside him. "My question," he said, pausing to make sure the man was listening.
The coachman nodded slowly once more, listening to Rei.