Chapter 56: Prince Erik
Erik Aksel Odinson.
Born as the third prince of Titans of the Kingdom of Izaz, it was not an extravagant to say that he was born with a silver—no, diamond spoon in his mouth.
Having two older brothers, one older sister, one younger brother and one younger sister, he grew up surrounded by high expectations of many others.
A typical story, really.
Although toast into the battle for succession at a young age, he was someone who always welcomed everything in life with mischief and genuine curiosity.
But alas, He was educated to always revere peace.
To him, someone highly values his own joy, the phrase "May the battle of peace be with you" seemed always far from his understanding.
By the name of "Battle of peace" Titans loved peace, and fought for that peace when needed. Though there were many deeper meanings and theories to the phrase, Erik never understood any value in it.
Peace brought him joy, sure. And battle too, if he had to point out, brought him pure joy. There were things to learn, things to play, things to be interested in.
But the mindset of only seeking one purpose was certainly dull.
Peace didn't always grant safety, it didn't make anything helpful. In fact, only dwelling on peace made one dull, and mostly delusional with their narrow mindset.
Erik presumed being curious gave him knowledge, enough to survive the world. And his naturally playful and mischievous personality made him utilize that knowledge to the best of his abilities.
He sought what interested him. What made life enjoyable. Along the way, he became experienced.
He learned how to navigate through society.
How to trust.
How to be cautious.
How to identify what's harmless and harmful, and so on.
Hence, he had to admit; he was different from his fellow kin, who prefer a systematic life.
But there was something good he found out while he admitted that fact.
His father, the King of Titans, thought the same way.
People used to praise Erik for being similar to his father, to the point he looked like his mini version, a copy in younger form. Their appearance was similar, personality was similar, even their habits were so very similar.
But that didn't mean their thoughts were also similar; was what Erik used to think.
Oh, how presumptuous his thinking was.
The day he was called to the audience room and was explained about his father's little play, he understood. That his father was one of his kind.
He learned about the prophecy.
About the "New sun". And the danger of gaining such a miracle.
And what did he think the moment he learned that?
He thought he had to see for himself and judge for himself to take actions according to the results.
A normal titan wouldn't even dare to entertain such baptistic thoughts towards Dragons.
After all, the dragons, who gave birth to the new sun were the monarchs of the world, including all five planes.
However, to Erik, it didn't matter.
His curiosity was one thing, but the risk of letting a powerful individual roam free without understanding their essence undeniably could be a threat to their lives.
As always, Erik didn't hate peace, he just worked extra hard to keep it together in his own way, albeit without realizing.
And thus, Erik agreed to his father's play without any hesitation.
The first step was to monitor the new sun. That is; The Crown Princess of Dragons, Kyriaki Elpis Eleftherios.
Both him and his father judged the more displeasing one's personality was, the more they could squeeze out true reactions, feelings and inner thoughts from someone with high pride like an immature dragon hatchling.
Nonetheless, all turned upside down and Erik ended up with a position he himself found more fascinating and interesting than he expected.
Kyriaki's personality was truly hard to grasp, anyhow, she wasn't a typical hatchling which must still be in their personality and ego building stage.
In the end, he ended up swapped away by her whims.
Over and over.
Now he stood in a forest named "Black forest", inside the Void Plane. His teal blue eyes fixed on an open space far away.
His true form was unable to blend in with the forest well due to the size and color of his skin, but his stealth skills were exceptional enough to overthrow the balance.
Thanks to learning much from Levana the Dark High Elf, he had grown in assassination skills. And not to mention, the two dragons had helped him in mastering pure mana filtering.
With all the help, he was properly ready.
Just then, he caught something blindingly dazzling beyond tall trees. Like a new miniature sun had risen in this gloomy world.
It was the result of the
spell.And also the signal he was waiting for.
'Let's do this'
Swoosh.
Thump. Thump.
Erik jumped up from under a shadow and started running with all his might. His face was blank as if there were no thoughts in his mind.
The sheer power of his leg strength was enough to shake the surroundings ground.
Soon, the temperature around him dropped to a considerable degree.
However, Erik ran as if he couldn't feel it. As if he had shut down his own nerve system. Not long after, a ghost of the same size as him came to his view.
According to the two dragons, who had the authority to have an advanced system and information insight, it was a ghost born from a human who froze to death. It was called an Ice Ghost of S- Rank.
"Huh?"
[Basic Dagger Art]
Stab.
Ghosts have mild reactions to anything except for Humans. And Erik was a Titan. That was the reason why he was able to confuse the ghost and launch a surprise attack.
"Kyaaaaaagh!"
But it seems it was futile.
No matter what, S- was still S-. Ghost or not, that cannot be overcome by a G+ basic dagger art, wielded by a mere D ranker.
As if he already predicted this much, Erik didn't hesitate and turned around.
Thus began the game of tag between a Titan and a Ghost.
Whoosh.
Erik turned to 10° to west after running for a while, dodging attacks and giant trees on his way.
And—
Wham!
[Basic Fist Art]
"Kyaaaaah!!!!"
Crash!!!
Another ghost, having been punched in the face, crashed into a massive old tree.
Craak! Crashhh!
Due to the effects of Erik's pure mana, instead of going through the tree like a normal ghost, the assaulted ghost's transparent body made contact with the surroundings objects. As a result, the tree broke in an instant.
Erik didn't even bat an eye as he continued to run.
"I'll kill youuuuuuu!"
A strangely human, yet eerie voice was heard from behind him.
The expression on Erik's face was the same. Blank, pale and almost lifeless. But it was still stunningly beautiful. His Runes glowed in gold. His white freckles gleamed as if they were reflecting that glow, like stars.
Two ghosts had joined the chase.
And within a few minutes, more and more ghosts gathered solely to catch him.
However, the numbers kept decreasing despite the gathering of all kinds of ghosts.
Click! Clank! Slash!
"Ahhhhh!"
Another ghost screamed in agony.
It had fallen victim to a trap set by the support team and the semi-offence team.
Just like that—
Click. Craak.
Boom!
"Arrrgggh!"
Crash!
"I curse youuuu!!!"
Swoosh. Bam!
"Ahhhhh!!!!"
Kling! Clang! Kaboom!
"Xxxxxxx brat—"
Boom! Slash! Woosh!
And finally—
"Caught you."
With a sinister smile, a ghost with long black nails slash at Erik's back. In half a second, Erik's back was torn apart like a piece of paper. It looked like a wound caused by a beast with claws.
Crash!
Erik was sent flying forward as he crashed into a tree face first. He stopped moving all together as if he lost consciousness.
But there was something strange.
"Huh?" The ghosts tilted their head, warily looking at the titan body from a certain distance.
They were sure it wasn't an illusion. Illustrations don't have a physical form, they cannot be touched. But the boy they caught had a physical body. They were able to touch and feel it.
The strangeness appeared right after that. Usually, a boy like him was supposed to cry in pain and bleed. But instead of bleeding, Erik vanished.
"Wh-what?"
The ghosts couldn't understand.
"Hey, what are you looking at?"
[Basic Axe art]
Bam! Riiiiip!
"Ahhhh!"
A ghost at the rear let out a loud scream as its hand was torn apart by a double blade battle axe.
Erik, who vanished after a critical attack, was now wielding an axe instead of his dagger before. He looked completely fine without any injuries.
"Catch that bastard!!"
Very few ghosts ran towards them from afar, but stopped on tracks after seeing the other ghosts looking at Erik with dumbfounded expressions.
"What the hell are you doing!" A newcomer ghost growled at the ghosts who were standing still.
"Come at me." Erik spoke calmly, his face still expressionless.
"Get him!"
And that's how another round of chase-and-run began.
All sorts of traps activated, killing various types of Ghosts with various rankings.
When Erik was caught badly injured or killed, he vanished. And reappeared from another place as if it was all an illusion.
And finally, when only a handful of ghosts remained, Erik took on a different route.
He looked back once, noticing a S rank Ice Ghost. The only high rank Ghosts left was it. There were only a couple of high ranking ghosts to begin with. And Erik did his best to kill them with traps instead of direct combat. So it wasn't that surprising that the very first Ghost that began to chase him began to be wary of him. And made sure it protected itself.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His footsteps left an imprint on the ground as he ran.
Among the heaven-soaring trees, he finally began to see the faint light of an open space.
One meter.
Two meters.
Five meters.
Ten meters.
Fifty meters.
Swish!
Erik flung towards the space and finally stopped dead in the track.
He looked to the right; Two more Eriks flung out of the forest in the same manner as him.
He looked to the left; Three more Eriks did the same as others, jumping out with the same blank expression.
Then, Erik looked straight ahead.
Two pairs of beautiful puya flower colored eyes clashed.
In an instant, all the six Eriks that came out of the forest vanished, like they were never there. Just turned into small blueish golden particles and vanished in a second.
And the ghosts that followed them and still tried to attack them were thrown into chaotic confusion.
Looking at them, the remaining Erik couldn't help his twitching lips.
"Hahahaha!!!! Ah—this is fun! Really interesting! I like it!" Before long, he broke down. He laughed as if there was no tomorrow.
He was pretty exhausted from using two runes together. To employ his clones as well as to hide them in the forest using illusions was a big achievement considering the amount of mana he had.
Not to mention, each time his clone talked, showed any emotion or personality, did more activities with their bodies or simply wielded a weapon or a skill, he had a hard time even standing.
Good thing there were many Mana recovery potions Kyriaki gifted him. And he leveled up one sub-ranks in the middle of the chaos.
Erik was now D+ ranker, the same rank as the White-aquamarine hatchling.
He summoned his Battle axe, which was twice as large as him, from his sub-space.
"I shall face you." He pointed it at the S rank Ghost.
D+ ranker challenging a S rank monster alone was unheard of. That is, if only the monster was from a strong bloodline and the challenger was born weak.
Fortunately, the monster was a ghost, a very weak type monster. And the challenger was a Titan, the most powerful after the dragons in the Primal Plane.
Erik whispered softly. In an instant, a sky-blue hologram appeared in front of him.
〖Activating
〖All stats increase up to three sub ranks〗
〖You've been temporarily ranked up〗
〖D+ > C+〗
〖 +100% Mana sensitivity〗
〖 +100% Mana recovery〗
〖 +100% stamina recovery〗
〖+100% regeneration〗
〖+100% precipitation〗
Erik's body slowly grew larger. The barely-there muscles on his former thin arms bulged considerably. Veins popped out rapidly. Unlike his baby face, now his body was rather on the bulky side.
When his growth stopped, his size was twice his usual size.
This was a unique skill of Titans. Enhancing the body and some abilities to the peak for a fixed amount of time was indeed a useful skill even Dragons covet.
Pure non-elemental mana coated Erik's axe.
He couldn't yet use his advanced weapon arts with pure mana. It was hard for him to control it yet. Perhaps if he had a few more months in his hand, he would have been as skilled as the dragons and the dark elf.
'A shame, really.'
Swoosh. Swish.
Crude ice shards flew towards him at an unbelievable speed.
It was a skill of the Ice Ghost.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Erik twisted his body, dodging and blocking all the ice shards.
One might think he would be slow with his giant body. Oh, how mistaken their thoughts are.
Despite having a size of his own, Erik was nimble. As strong as he was, his acrobatic movements felt like it was coming from someone who had focused on his agility for his entire life.
As the highest ranking ghost began its moves, the other ghosts didn't sit back and did nothing. They all began to pounce on Erik.
Woosh. Slash. Woosh.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Here and there, ghosts of lower ranks fell on the ground after getting ripped apart. Like an assassin had slipped in among them, like an invisible hand had begun to play tricks, ghosts fell before the death they couldn't even see.
One by one, the population of ghosts reduced in real time.
And amidst it all, one ghost of A rank managed to finally catch the rat playing invincible death among them.
"Kugh!"
Levana jumped back, clutching her injured shoulder.
Since this world was grey, there was a limit to her second circle spell
"Fall back!"
"Got it!"
Riiiip.
Erik's axe ripped the abdomen of the A rank Ghost aiming for Levana.
"Hissss…troublesome rats." The ghost hissed as it floated back to stand beside the Ice Ghost.
Levana used a Low-level potion they obtained from Kyriaki.
It was a stroke of luck that Kyriaki was an Alchemist capable of creating potions at such a young age.
"This won't be easy." Levana mumbled. Her clumsy and cheerful demeanor was nowhere to be seen.
"I suppose so." And Erik agreed whole heartedly.
∆ ∆ ∆
"Puya flowers: A teal color flower type also known as sapphire tower. Famous for producing vast amounts of nectar, attracting hummingbirds. Native to Chile and Peru."
—By Omniverse_Observer—