There may also be some inaccuracies, since English is not my native language.
Essentially, TBATE is first translated from English into my native language - and in that process, some details are already altered to make it more understandable for us. Now I'm taking that adapted (and somewhat distorted) version, revising it, rewriting it, and then translating it back into English.
I hope you'll point out any mistakes in the text that I might have missed.
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Lucius Zogratis' POV
"Take a break for a moment," I said, watching the game in which Caera was once again on the brink of losing because she'd decided she wanted a clean victory again.
"Hm? What is it?" Caera replied, staring at the board with an overly serious expression.
I saw you glance at what I was doing a couple of times; don't pretend you're not interested.
"Here, I just made this," I said, tossing a snowsuit onto her head. "It should help you not die from this cold."
Turning her head, she furrowed her brows in a threatening gesture, but with the snowsuit on her head, it didn't look threatening at all. Realizing this, she pulled the snowsuit off her head, laid it on the floor in front of her, and froze.
After a few seconds of silence, her hand gently ran over the entire snowsuit.
"Thank you…" she said, beginning to quickly turn the white-and-blue snowsuit with a fur collar in all directions.
Her fingers paused at the buttons, and with a quick motion, she unbuttoned the snowsuit; the dark, soft wool met her fingers. Without a second thought, she slipped the snowsuit on with a swift movement and fastened all the buttons. Her face quickly took on a natural blush that shouldn't be present in such a snowy landscape; her eyelashes fluttered softly, and she let out a pleasant sigh.
"…It's incredible-how did you do that in such a short time?" she asked sincerely, quickly moving her face closer to mine out of genuine interest, I think. Her ruby eyes were so bright and clear that I inadvertently caught myself staring intently at her face. "Incredible abilities, immense regeneration, control over the aether, a connection with the djinn, artifacts obtained from the djinn themselves, the ability to cook delicious food-ahem-and now even needlework… You're becoming more and more interesting the more I learn about you."
"You're too close, and I'll take that as a compliment…" I lifted my head and stopped the hand I'd placed on Caera's shoulder to push her away when I barely caught a sound different from the usual howling of the wind.
Arthur picked up on the sound too and turned his head toward me for a second, then went back to listening to the noise.
Caera's face furrowed, and she tilted her head to the side. But by then, Arthur and I were already staring at the dome's only entrance.
Caera's eyes followed mine. We all waited in silence. Soon I heard it again-the heavy creaking of something large moving through the snow-covered tunnel. It was coming toward us.
One of the representatives of the strongest clan in this zone.
"Behind the platform," I said quietly, running away from our gear so that the rise would be between us and the door. Caera hurried after me. Grey acted first.
"Do you sense anything? Is it stronger than us?" she whispered, a hint of fear in her voice.
"Not at all," I crouched down and peered around the corner of the platform so that I could see only the door. "Something is leaving things here. That suggests it possesses intelligence. I want to see who or what it is before engaging in combat."
And even though I knew the story, seeing, hearing, and feeling all the wonders of this breathtaking world was magical.
I began to listen for sounds coming from the tunnel, for noises other than the howling snowstorm, but I heard nothing.
Maybe the story had shifted, and it hadn't dared to come here?
That thought was cut short when a large purple mass of aether appeared in the doorway, so big that it barely squeezed through. The aether creature stopped, then turned toward our belongings, and I clearly heard a sniffing sound, like a nose being blown.
How huge it is, and how much aether it contains-and it isn't even fully grown yet. And this concealment technique, which distorts space so that no one can see or hear you… it's marvelous.
Pushing all thoughts aside, I began to analyze the technique of this bear-like creature. It had a long, stocky body, a sloping back, and four powerful limbs. Its wedge-shaped head was lowered to the floor; it was sniffing the room, clearly trying to catch our scent.
Every step the bear-like creature took was slow and deliberate, its movements cautious, almost silent.
"I can't see him," I thought in surprise, even though I already knew what to expect. "I can only see the aether, but not the creature itself. Haha, how good it is that we ended up in this zone anyway."
Suddenly, the invisible bear nudged the game board with its snout, scattering the pieces across the cold white floor.
Caera's eyes widened in surprise, but she didn't utter a word. Nevertheless, the invisible purple mass continued to advance, its wedge-shaped head following the tracks Arthur, Caera, and I had left during our hasty retreat.
I led Arthur and Caera around the corner of the platform, then pointed to the very top of the platform before climbing up and lying down so that the aether creature couldn't spot me. Arthur immediately followed me-his head was always turned toward the bear-like creature.
Caera followed my and Arthur's example. She leaped to the top of the three-meter-high platform and used her hand to break her fall.
Only a few seconds later could I hear snorting and sniffing coming from below.
He was moving very slowly along the edge of the platform, and at the same time, I felt Arthur begin to channel the aether from the core throughout my entire body.
Glancing at Arthur and nodding to each other, we slid across the silky stone, turning so we could see the edge of the platform. After the bear had made a full circle around the platform, he approached the pile of objects at the base of the stairs.
But instead of rummaging through the pile, the bear carefully placed something on top of it, then slowly shuffled toward the door.
Realizing that he was about to leave, Arthur and I exchanged glances; without even needing to speak, we both understood. Arthur slowly stood up and raised his hands above his head, hoping that even the invisible bears ruling the aether would understand this universally recognized sign of peace.
The shimmering purple mass froze.
Since I got along well with animals as a child, I slowly stood up, slightly hunched over and still holding my hands above my head, and looked into the eyes of this creature-or where I thought they were.
"We won't hurt you," Arthur said, trying to speak in an even, calm voice.
The bear remained standing motionless. I knew that if I couldn't see the aether, it would be completely invisible and silent to me. The previous zone was like a walkthrough; there was something interesting there too, but not such direct manipulation of the aether.
"What are you doing?" Caera hissed.
But Arthur said nothing, just stared at the bear.
Without taking my eyes off the aether-protected bear, I sidestepped toward the edge of the platform until I touched the staircase. Then, with the utmost caution, I began to descend, step by step.
At the foot of the stairs, I took a step forward. At that very moment, a roar-loud enough to drown out even the blizzard outside-filled the enormous dome. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caera spin around, drawing her red blade.
Dropping to all fours, the aether beast lunged at me.
"Looks like only dogs, kids, and cats like me," I muttered.
I raised my hand, signaling to Caera and Arthur not to intervene, while at the same time enveloping myself in a thick layer of aether. I could feel my reserves slowly draining due to the density of the aether, but it's better to take precautions against enemies of unknown strength.
After all, just because Arthur handled it in the book doesn't mean I already know the force of this bear's strike in kilograms-or, in his case, in tons.
I took a stance from which I could make any move at the last moment-not as strong as possible, but better than making a mistake. And just as I thought, instead of striking me with his paws or making another move, he lowered his broad head, and the aether surrounding him flared as he charged straight at me.
It was exactly the strike I'd been waiting for, since I remembered he had a flat bony crest on his head, so acting like a tank made sense given his size and armor.
Stepping aside at the last moment, I pushed him in the side with my palm, not with much force — I intended to use his next step against him. And just as I expected, the beast managed to shift its center of gravity at the moment of contact and use the momentum from my strike to spin in place. In the middle of its maneuver, the invisible beast swung a paw the size of one and a half of my heads.
Just as I expected.
Fighting like this, where I could read every move and redirect my opponent's force against him, felt satisfying.
I blocked the blow by catching its giant paw in my hands before getting into a throwing stance and flinging its paw over my shoulder. Aether burst from my core as I hurled the two-ton monster of monstrous proportions onto the stairs.
The dome shook violently.
The aetheric shell flickered and then vanished entirely, and then suddenly I saw the one sprawled by the stairs.
It had thick, dazzlingly white fur that shimmered with a pinkish pearlescent sheen as the creature moved, a flat, steel-Grey bony crest protruding from its broad forehead like horns that had been sawed off almost to the base, and bony plates wrapped around each shoulder like armor.
"Did you just… send a behemoth like that flying?" Caera asked, slowly descending the stairs.
"I mean you no harm," I said to the bear, who was dazed by the blow. I knew he possessed no small amount of intelligence; in the original, he hadn't listened to Arthur, but perhaps I…
I slowly approached the white, bear-like beast when its eyes suddenly snapped open, and it lunged at me with such speed that its silhouette blurred.
The conversation didn't happen, again.
Thanks to frequent training with Arthur in Maerin, I was able, in the short time I had, to fully unlock the potential of an 11th-rank fighter's talent. My reaction speed was every bit as fast as the bear's-and even surpassed it. I dodged just as the bear tried to grab me and clung to its thick fur. Unfortunately, the bear had once again surrounded itself with aether armor, and my hands slipped.
I fell to the ground as if on butter, only pulling my leg forward at the last moment to avoid landing face-first. Meanwhile, Caera was already chasing the fleeing beast with a sword in her hand.
"Stop! Don't kill him..."
Arthur's voice snapped me out of the analysis I'd begun the moment the bear reactivated that aether art.
I felt a chill run down my spine as Caera summoned her innate power of Vritra and created a curtain of black fire in the doorway, right in front of the fleeing aether beast.
It wasn't enough. The bear roared again and burst through the dark wall of fire, leaving behind the smell of burnt fur.
"Don't let him get away, Regis!" Arthur ordered, quickly moving forward.
Regis appeared, now the size of a giant hound, and raced after the bear, a black-and-purple blur.
"Grey, it's not worth it…"
"You saw how he pretended to be unconscious!" Arthur shouted, cutting Caera off. "He's intelligent, and if we can figure out where he came from, we might be able to find the missing pieces of the arch!"
"Let's go and check out those clothes while we're at it," I said, meeting Caera's crimson eyes. She just nodded, then took a step back and gathered her power. Her body flared with a ghostly flame.
Arthur, like a man possessed, shot out of the doorway and ran down the tunnel; I moved after him, and Caera followed me. By the time the dome's walls disappeared from view, Regis was already far ahead, nipping at the giant bear's heels.
You could see where he'd brushed against the tunnel walls, where his shoulders had carved wide furrows as he fled. All this had caused a partial collapse, so we had to clear a new path and lose precious time.
Which worked in my favor, since I had no intention of catching or harming this child; I wouldn't have been able to defend myself against his father without activating the GodRune of Destruction. And that was the last thing I wanted to activate.
There was also the GodRune of Theft, but with more intelligent forms, it would likely be more difficult, and although I have an aether core, I can't be sure I could overpower an intelligent form created by djinn that has been evolving in this aether zone for over five hundred years.
At least not with the first layer of the aether core.
Yes, I'm good at controlling the aether, and many dragons would kill just for the level of control and understanding I possess, but that's only because most djinn are dead-reaching their level is as far from me as walking to the moon.
We climbed a snowy hill leading to the surface; the bear ran nimbly across the loose snow, its crimson mass indistinguishable from the aether-laced blizzard, and even Regis's black figure was practically invisible.
Nevertheless, it left tracks, which Arthur followed without hesitation.
Concentrating all the power of our Asuran bodies, we used the beast's compacted snow tracks as steps to continue the chase. Caera struggled to keep up with us; her fiery aura and 6th-rank armor kept her warm and devoured the snowflakes carried by the aether winds.
Coming to a sudden stop, Arthur turned to me and then quickly to Caera, who was still catching up to me. "Keep following this trail!" Arthur barked. "Lucius and I will go ahead."
Caera's eyes widened, but we didn't wait for a response.
At the same time, Arthur clenched his teeth slightly in concentration; most likely, he was now speaking with Regis. A second later, the aether in Arthur's core thickened as he attempted to activate the GodRune, and a golden glow emanated from his back.
The aether blizzard blazed with violet light, concealing the vibrations themselves and the destinations to which they led. I knew this because I had tried to activate the God Step myself, and although I could have done it, I was more than certain that Arthur could not.
At such critical moments, he reverts to strict control instead of the understanding and sensations that simplify interaction; as a result, Arthur's body took a step, after which he vanished, but even as he moved through the world of Spatium, I, standing in the aether blizzard, could still sense him.
Had I always been this sensitive to aether vibrations? No, I realized; after obtaining the last GodRune of Theft, my perception of the aether around me had greatly intensified.
And as expected, instead of appearing next to the bear-like beast, Arthur's aether signature appeared deep beneath the snow.
Arthur Leywin POV
'...hat happened?' Regis asked, his mind filled with anxiety. 'Arthur? Arthur!'
God Step. Everything got mixed up by the wind. I must have missed it. Somewhere under the snow…
My thoughts were tangled. It was hard to gather them together, almost harder than explaining how I ended up under the snow.
This was my first failure in using the God Step, and the first time I felt not only disorientation but also the backlash from the art of spatium. Had I been underground or deep in the ocean, the consequences could have been far more dire.
I pushed those thoughts to the far corner of my mind so as not to drown completely in the snow, which had opened up an empty space before my face and body.
I writhed in every direction, using every part of my body to break free from the sticky, packed snow and create a little breathing room for myself. By then, I had carved out a small space where I could breathe, and where my mind slowly began to clear.
'Regis, find me. Use the aether explosions as a guide. And if you can, tell Lucius to follow the bear's tracks."
I sensed a hint of hesitation from my partner.
"So you want me to stop the..."
"If I can't use the God Step, we won't be able to catch up to him. Just look for...'
'The Aether Cannon. Yeah, yeah, I'm already on my way, Princess.'
Using my consciousness to sense the thread Lucius often connected to communicate with us, I tried to contact him myself, but nothing happened; the thread was as if dead...
Damn, how does he do it? Why did he stop communicating this way?
Phew, okay, there'll be time to think about that later.
Using a technique I'd copied when we were trying to reach the dome, I released a small amount of aether from my core and gathered it in my hand, compressing and shaping it into a sphere. The violet sphere shot upward, easily passing through the layer of snow above me, and rose another twenty meters into the sky through the storm.
As soon as a hole formed on the surface, a piercing wind roared through it. I counted to thirty and released a second aetheric projectile into the sky, which flashed like a signal flare amid the rushing torrent of ice and snow.
I kept track of time by the number of aetheric spheres sent into the sky. Around the fifth shot, I began to wonder just how far off course I had strayed. By the tenth, I started to get nervous.
And shortly after the thirtieth launch of a violet, flickering aether rocket into the sky, a dark silhouette outlined in black flame appeared on the surface. It suddenly leaped into the hole and plopped down next to me with a groaning sound, letting out a cry of surprise as the fire flickered and died out.
"Grey!" Caera shouted, sitting barely ten centimeters away from me. "What happened?"
"Not now!" I shouted back. "Let's just wait for Regis, and then we'll…"
The shadow wolf's thoughts interrupted my own.
'Um, Arthur?'
'Where are you, Regis?' I asked, unable to suppress the disappointment I could feel seeping through our connection. Regis was getting closer, but I couldn't pinpoint his exact location in the aether storm.
'I think I'm almost there. Send another flash.'
I followed my companion's instructions, and after a while he was already gliding toward us, into our now cramped abode "untouched by the storm" .
"Long time no see, by the way-we've got some wonderful weather up there," Regis quipped. "I think soon everything will be…"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flash by and caught it before it could hit me in the head. It was a hailstone the size of my fist.
"...very different," Regis finished, as a second icy projectile landed next to me, leaving a crater just a few millimeters from my companion.
A familiar tall silhouette appeared on the surface; Lucius's multicolored cat-like eyes, which glowed with an inner light so bright they were visible even through the snowstorm, blinked a couple of times, after which a small, familiar smile appeared on his face. "Failed, Grey?"
"Screw you," I replied, eyeing his slightly rumpled appearance. "You couldn't catch up to him, could you?"
Sighing lightly, he spread his arms wide before answering, "He was like an icebreaker, and I didn't want to waste any more aether in this weather. And if I'd run any further, I'd probably have gotten lost in this blizzard. Or I could have died if he'd led me to his kind-if he has any, that is."
"Behind you!" Caera shouted as a massive hailstone appeared a meter from Lucius's head.
But as if he had eyes in the back of his head, Lucius reached his right arm back with a quick yet lazy motion, catching the massive hailstone just like a basketball.
"Thanks for the warning," he said, his calm voice sounding strangely clear amid the wind's roar. He tossed the hailstone aside, then climbed over to us.
Apparently, there was no need to tell him to keep his eyes open, and judging by Caera's expression, she thought so too.
"There's nowhere to go here," Caera said, shouting over the noise and looking at Lucius. "It's going to crush us... me to death."
Knowing she was right, I shifted my gaze to the alert but slightly disheveled Lucius, then asked him, "Can you carry her to the dome?"
His gaze shifted from me to Caera and then back to me, after which he replied, "Yes, I can, but there's no need."
"No need?" Caera muttered, confused.
I was confused too. Lucius and I could easily have been naked in this freezing landscape; our Asuran bodies would have handled it just fine. But even though the blood of Vritra flowed through Caera, she clearly didn't possess an Asuran physique.
Realizing we were at a loss, Lucius opened his mouth, but closed it immediately and instead raised a massive hailstone, then jerked his arm sharply. As Caera and I stared wide-eyed, the icy hailstone slammed into the clothes Lucius had just conjured, and instead of causing damage, it simply bounced harmlessly to the side.
Right, the system...
Caera gasped sharply at the sudden movement, but a second later, realizing she wasn't in pain, she quickly ran her hands over the spot where the blow had landed, then, furrowing her brows slightly, looked up at Lucius, who raised an eyebrow in response.
"Next time, you'd better warn me," her voice sounded too sweet, so much so that it came across more like a threat.
Lucius raised his hands in a harmless gesture, then replied in a serious tone as he pulled the hood over Caera's head under her slightly indignant gaze. "I swear on Grey's life that I won't throw fist-sized icicles at you anymore."
Caera snorted, then removed Lucius's hand from her hood, adjusted it slightly herself, and with a quick movement tucked her hands into her sleeves.
I rolled my eyes at their bickering and at the fact that Lucius had sworn on my life, and, enveloping myself in a layer of aether, prepared for a long wait.