Ascenders: Rising From Zero 43 Clashing Interests

In front of them was the cave, the vampires and their catch, the Latent Stealth Dog whimpering in severe pain, unconsciously.

Earlier on, they had followed a lead provided by a certain Vela, on the permission of Lady Grant, who happened to be a wealthy merchant powerhouse in the Coalition.

They had questioned it. Infact, his partner had doubly questioned it.

What was this Vela's motive?

How did she know?

What did she really want?

A thousand and one questions had being put to him by all who heard of the information provided. Even Lord Bello has asked and ended up seeking a meeting with the Serpentine lady.

However, their search was productive. They found the beast, right there in the Drago forest.

For some days now,they monitored it progress, putting two plus two to deduce that this was the beast they were after.

It has taken a lot of conviction to be out here. After all, they had come for an Ironspike Tailed Dog but what they saw was an undiscovered specie of Latent Stealth Dog. However, their investigatory prowess was at play when they finally connected the dots.

This dog was their charge, an Ascender, The Ascender And there was no way they were letting these Adze Sc.u.m take it away.

"For the last time, I ask, inorder to avoid wasting your petty lives, leave, the dog is ours." Terilius growled out while Mackrys merely stared, hands behind his back.

Tobia smirked, looking at the opposition, the two famous investigators, from the beastkin alliance. And they were powerful too.

It was a matter of pity that they hadn't taken them out in an all out unleash. But again, he was a vampire.

Despite the fact that Sleeper Agents were relatively low cla.s.sed, it didn't mean that they were weak.

Infact, a dozen of sleeper agents were capable of taking down even the most powerful Prime cla.s.sed being to stalemate.

But that was only when they had the numerical advantage, seeing that it would be plain suicide for one agent probably with a soul cla.s.s of Elite or Ground or Omni at most to combat an Alpha or even a being below that.

Especially in the case he found himself.

His partner, Deola was still seething and groaning in anger and pains at her soulbound forceful extraction by absorption.

He got it that women could be emotional but... now was not that time.

"You seem to have a way with words, Terilius. But you should understand that we, give Death. No one can hold us to a ransom of death." He retorted, clenching his fists.

He could drag this on, till Deola could compose herself and rise from the ground. And then, it will be evenly matched. Tobia thought as he cast a fleeting glance at his partner.

"Ah..." Terilius muttered, following Tobia's eyes. "Enough! You want to prolong this so that you can have a better chance at resisting? I see." He spoke slowly as one hand tugged at his mane.

"No... we are cowards like you who would..."

"I said Enough. Ste-..."

"No! I give the orders here." Tobia flared , pointing a finger at the lion-like humanoid.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d" Tobia added but Terilius did not reply.

Instead, the Lion faced being inhaled, his chest puffing up as large amount of air gushed in.

In a heartbeat, the airs around Terilius changed colors, s.h.i.+fting to all the colors of the rainbow as his aura fired out in form of an X like circle.

ROAAARRRRRRRRRRRR...

Terilius roared mightily at Tobia, his voice amplified to extreme levels and laced with tremendous power. The shockwaves from the roar ripples through the atmosphere, spreading out towards Tobia.

"Tsk... Principle of Ego, Pride." Tobia frowned as the shockwaves transversed and ripped the ground to him.

Only few nanoseconds and the roar would hit and stun him, allowing Terilius to deal a decisive hit to him while stunned.

But that was not going to happen.

"Law of Death: Shadows Eye." He chanted, weaving an enchanted pattern in the air.

In a flash, he vanished as the shockwaves rammed in hard, blitzing and shattering chunks of the cave behind where he stood before.

"Behind you." Mackrys said calmly.

The shadow behind Terilius who was yet roaring, rippled and suddenly took form as Tobia appeared behind him with a smirk and a Saarin (1) in hand.

Tobia adjusted his weight, trying to twist as pointed his Saarin for a critical hit in the neck of the Lion.

Few seconds of no-calculation by Terilius and he had used that to penetrate his defenses like water.

'It's too easy.' Tobia thought, only to gasp as he heard a grunt behind him.

How could he had missed it? That Mackrys has being lurking right behind Terilius. He thought he had opening but instead, he was only being baited.

"Agbara Igi(2) A thousand Fists" Mackrys chanted as his fists suddenly developed afterimages as they sunk into Tobia's chest, dealing damage with a thousand fists.

The vampire shuddered and spasmed as each hit landed, each homing in at nanoseconds, in power packed fury while the caster of the technique merely stood watching his hands move at the speed of sound.

The technique was one that allowed the user manipulate the versatility of the wind or storm in its ability to cover so many areas at once. By inverting that energy into the body, one was capable of unleas.h.i.+ng a part of his or her body to do the same thing over and over again, howbeit at the cost of huge amount of energy.

Mackrys was bleeding thousands of energy points in keeping the attack on. Vampires had high durability so that was worth the while.

He had used Agbara Igi, instead of Law of Storm and that was even higher on the energy consumption chart than mere Law of Storm.

By using Agbara, one could connect directly to tap into the energy ofthe Aspectual Orisha, a potent energy that allowed them increase the Effiency of the technique as compared to Law where the technique were not that efficient.

It came at a cos of higher energy expenditure but also made their energy replenishment easier.

This was the method used by th Irunmoles as they were able to glean the Aspectual power of the G.o.ds easier than those using Law.

In simpler terms, Agbara Igi was calling directly on the Aspectual Power Of Oya, the Mother of Storms while chanting Law of Storm would do the same but with far less potency.

And it was worth it, as the vampire shuddered one last time and slumped.

"Lady, it remains you. Give up and let us have our charge." Terilius asked the rising stunned Deola with an open gasping mouth.

"Over my dead body." Deola fires back, coldly.

"Very well, you have chosen Death." Terilius muttered.

Deola stood on her feet now, calmly. She looked at the dog and noticed the tears running down its snout as she shrugged.

She will deal with that later.

For now, the beastkins needed to be dwelt with.

"You say death like he's your friend. Such confidence!" She snickered as she rubbed the ring on her middle of her left.

Mist rose from the ring as she brought it to eye level, putting her left hand in open.

A plop sound resounded as an oval shaped gla.s.s...o...b..dropped into a waiting hand.

The orb glowed as an inscription symbol of the G.o.d of Divination and Fate, Ifa s.h.i.+mmered into existence. It was like an arrow with two candle holders shaped like triangle beside the main arrow tip. Below the trident head, it had a tail crossed with a bracket kinda that had its ends facing opposite direction.

"Orb of Occurence?" Terilius gasped.

"That too, a high grade one at that?" Mackrys questioned as their eyes widened. Quickly, Terilius feet pounded across the land as he raced to Deola with thoughts of disarming them.

"Stay still... d.a.m.n you." Deola groaned, Essence bleeding out from her lips.

The Orb Of Occurence we're artifacts created by high cla.s.ses Fate Experts That allowed the user tweak fate to some degree. However, the perk was that Fate rejected any changes to it. To over ride this, one would need induce so much Agbara to combat the resistance of Fate for the changes to be made.

Also, if one needed to use Fate to reject a recent Occurence by rewinding time, everything needed to be still around the area of impact. If the slightest thing moved, it made it even difficult and tougher to focus on what needed to be rewound as time pa.s.sed with each motion.

The movement of Terilius was not helping the case.

"Tas..." Deola growled, infusing over 30 thousand points of energy into the orb. A sort of screen opened up before her, showing the current events in blue holographic lights, such as the running of Terilius to her.

She pinched the screen and the image rewound, going back to its starting point. "4 meters... 8 meters... almost... d.a.m.n!" She groaned as Terilius in person was just inches from grabbing the floating orb.

"Law of Death; Ghastly Rods." She chanted as 6 rose of s.h.i.+mmering black energy materialized and three rods each, zoomed towards the investigators.

Ghastly Rods was a death technique from Principle of Decay that immobilizes it's target as soon as it pierced in. Not only that, the technique could also, depending on how much energy was infused, cut off the opponents acess to Agbara as well as decaying and forcing the soul of its victim to soul decline.

A more intense form was the Ghostly Lance that animated the corpse of its victim, if it died, to become a minion of its attacker, howbeit at the cost of constant Agbara to keep the animated body at bay.

And these techniques had no counter. It could only be dodged, which was hard seeing it had homing ability.

Terilius threw a backflip immediately, avoiding the first rod but the rod righted itsel and followed,accompanied by the two other 1 meter long rods.

"Agbara Igi: Gale." Mackrys chanted as a short burst of tempestuous energy of wind exploded from him and slammed into everywhere.

The winds dissipated, as the rods were stuck into the ground, rocks and nearby trees, fading off gradually.

"Ah!" Terilius groaned, on his knees. He hadn't being lucky as a rod had lodged in his stomach as it began chaffing away.

"Activate!" Deola ordered as she sucked into the orb, lines of energy crisscrossing the air.

She could see it all.

Tobia as he teleported into the range of Mackrys in the purple energy to Fate itself.

A Shadow eye had opened up below Mackrys. Tobia knee what he was doing but he didn't just anticiapate how fast Mackrys would be.

Bonus of using Agbara energy instead of Law energy. Mackrys was about to unleash his technique when She moved.

"Law Of Death; Shadow shroud." She chanted as a cape of darkness surrounded, giving a ma.s.sive momentum boost.

She appeared before Mackrys before his first punch could land and latched onto Tobia, the scene fading away as Essence trailed down her eyes.

She was pus.h.i.+ng it too much.

Meanwhile, behind her, Mackrys held onto the kneeling Terilius with one hand while he gazed at the Now unguarded beast.

"You should have increased your understanding of the Principle of n.o.bility, Terilius. But instead you focused on Ego alone. Now see."

While the Principle of Ego boosted physique as well as granted energy to form damage dealing ethereal forms, the Principle of n.o.bility, under the law of pride, granted grace and energy meltdown of using Ego. Not only that, it was purifying, an internal form of defence.

"Agbara Igi; Cyclone." Mackrys extended the other hand and a cyclone blitzed out, whoos.h.i.+ng towards the dog as other hand created a wreath of air around Terilius that slowed the chaffing of the rod.

"Hey, That beast is ours." Tobia shouted as he saw the scene. Immediately, the two of them blurred across the ground, each having a shroud of darkness on.

Or appeared to as two huge lion claws of ethereal energy reached for them from Terilius.

"Impossible." Tobia growled as he sidejumped away

"Oh! He cannot use Agbara but when he is being fueled by his partner, he can. d.a.m.n your unity" Deola growled too, jumping away.

Suddenly, a lions head created out of s.h.i.+fting rainbow energy popped into view roaring mightily.

ROAAARRRRRR...

"Shadow Eye."

"Shadows Eye." The duo chanted as they faded into their shadows escaping the sonic roar.

They popped up in front of the investigators smiling.

But it was such a wrong move as two astral claws gripped their necks up high.

"s.h.i.+t!" They cursed.

"The move is so easy to antic.i.p.ate." Mackrys muttered while Terilius groaned on his knees.

"It's useless, we failed." Deola muttered as the astral paws began to lower while essence trailed from her eyes, mouth and nose.

"Tsk... can't use Agbara here." Tobia growled, squirming.

"You don't get it? The ghastly rod is meant to immobilize and cut off the victims acess to Agbara. Somehow he by pa.s.sed it through his partners help but that doesn't mean the rod isn't trying to shut it down. As we are in the grip, that extends to us too."

"Well... once we land, there'll kill us."

"Yes, what do we do?"

"I'm with the detonate item."

"Me too."

Tobia's hands flicked, as a circular orb flashed in his palms. Without second thought he crushed it, just as the paws brought them inches to the ground.

Just then, the a patch of red began flas.h.i.+ng red lights, glowing from their dark gowns.

"No!" Mackrys huffed.

"Detonate?" Terilius asked as the last piece of rod faded away from him. He got up hastily and made to run as his astral lion paws vanished, dropping the vampires unceremoniously.

"Not so fast. Hehehehe..." Deola laughed manically.

"We don't it, you don't. Cold hands of death, activate" Tobia ordered.

In a flash the two investigators made to jump but were knocked back by sudden appearance of large skeletal palms shrouded in a wreath of darkness that projected from the ground.

"Nooo..." Mackrys screamed as his hands blazed with ferocious winds, slamming against the palm but to no defect as the giant palms clasped over them, capturing vampires and Beastkins in an enclosed s.p.a.ce.

KBOOOOOOOOOMM....

The hands rocked abit as the explosion rang out, fumes of yellow hot flames escaping from its fingers. The Fire blazed on, still covered by the palm but began dying off as soon as it started.

FWISSSSHHHHH...

The giant skeletal hands hummed, shrinking and retreating into the ground, leaving behind a thoroughly scorched crater of black and an unconscious dog with its frame shuddering behind.