Everything came as a shock to us, the walk home was silent but she decided to stay at my place since we’ll be going to a ruin together tomorrow night. It was a quiet few hours, I stayed on the couch to sleep as she walked to my room to sleep on my bed. I had the same dream, a pair of eyes with crosses as pupils staring directly into my soul. Gave me an uncomfortable feeling, made everything stir on the inside. Afterward, I wasn’t able to sleep. I decided to go out for a walk and get some air, the night sky peaceful and almost a full moon. I stop at the training center I was at with Alex earlier and started training on some dummies. As I trained I started thinking back on how things have changed so quickly. One minute I wasn’t awakened to another day a gem gave me some sort of powers. It made me angry, my dads blood was supposed to be the reason I had power, but that didn’t help. Not only did he leave my mom and I, but his own blood couldn’t help his son become awakened to help fight in these ruins, a gem did.

  As anger boiled up inside, I punched a dummy, breaking it in half.

  “Huh… these aren’t supposed to break though?” I stared confusedly.

  I walk to the front desk and ask them how I can help to replace it. They looked at me frightened, shocked, almost as if they were scared to speak.

  “W-we can take down your number here and we’ll contact you with our manager in some time.” the front desk worker says.

  I walk out after jotting down my number for them and walk home, I lay back down and fall asleep. Morning time comes and I wake up, Alex is still asleep and I begin to sit and think about how sudden the upcoming ruin run is. why with the 10th, 9th and 8th strongest ascended in the area? being with them, what can go wrong?

  Finally Alex wakes up, it’s more of a quiet day. She spends the day looking stressed and mentally prepares for the night ahead and I head to the training center to train a little more.

  ~ Skipping to the evening ~

  “Hey Alex, ready?” I ask.

  “Yes, let’s go.” Replies Alex.

  We head to the ruin, finally meeting up with the three ascended.

  “Hey, I’m Luka, number 10 in this area!”

  “Hey, I’m axel, number 9.”

  “Hey, I’m Soren, number 8.”

  We all introduced ourselves then finally split into two team. Axel and Soren head with Alex as I’m with Luka. The beginning flows by smoothly till we encounter a group of ogres. They’re stronger than the ogres I’ve faced before, but with Luka it should be easy right? We begin fighting, taking down one of 5 ogres. Suddenly Luka takes a massive hit from 3 ogres at once. He hasn’t gotten up, thinking nothing of it I start fighting to make sure we survive. Taking down one with a punch to the head, yet getting grabbed by another. The ogre tries closing its hand to squish me dead, but I managed to break free from its grip. Laying a hit on the ogre that sends him into the wall. A magic arrow flies by me, piercing an ogre in the head and another getting stuck in the last ogres chest. I turn around and notice Luka smiling before saying, “you got this” then closing his eyes.

  I run towards the ogre, but the ogres screaming in pain. His chest turning purple, I realize it’s a poison arrow and decide to jump onto the ogre and push the arrow deeper into the ogres chest. Killing it on the spot. I walk towards Luka to check if he’s okay, but he’s bleeding a lot, I get up to find Alex. A few minutes pass walking around the ruin when suddenly, fwish, a kunai barely misses me. I turn and see… Luka? laughing historically then running at me to attack. I dodge his first few attacks and got sliced by a small kunai he pulled out of his pocket.

  “I’ll end you here, you’re too much of a threatt to our order..” Luka states while laughing.

  “Ah.. I see. Okay.” I responded calmly.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Lukas demeanor changes, from laughing to angry.

  “How dare you be calm at death’s door?.” Luka yells.

  Without a second thought, I move so quickly toward Luka he didn’t realize, taking a hit directly to the jaw.

  Luka: “Beginner’s luck? Now, the real fight begins.”

  I stare at him, him staring back at me too. We charge each other, exchanging hit after hit. He finally lands a strong attack, sending me into a wall, he charges off that but I dodge, kicking him down onto the ground and punching him. Luka then uses his magic to spawn weapons, a katana forms in his hand, slicing my chest. Luka laughing chants a spell I cannot understand, lightning strikes down almost hitting me.

  meanwhile

  Axel, “Looks like Lukas party started, let’s start ours”

  They both turn towards Alex, who’s already visibly worried about what’s going on by me. Next thing she notices is Soren charging toward her, there’s nothing to do or say other than fight back. She casts a spell, landing a direct hit on Soren and charges Axel. Axel punches her but immediately gets hit back, Alex punching him harder and harder, faster and faster each time she connects. She jumps up, noticing Soren charging her from behind, making Soren’s punch directly hit Axel.

  Soren helps Axel up and they both stare at Alex..

  “Stop playing around Soren and kill this slut already.” Axel says.

  Soren gets serious, releasing an indescribable sensation of aura. It felt overwhelming to Alex, but she can’t let that stop her. She’ll continue to fight no matter what. They both charge Alex, Axel taking out a katana and Soren charging up a spell. Alex dodges katana slices, matching magic shots with Soren. Alex then counters Axel, knocking the katana out of his hands. Soren lands 2 punches to Alex, sending her away from Axel. Getting up slowly, Alex sees the katana next to her and picks it up. Coating it in her magic, flames imbue the blade, and is ready to slice anything that it meets. Soren firing attack spell after attack spell, Alex slicing through them, still hurt badly by the impact of the spells hitting the blade. She casts a self healing spell and run towards Soren, also repeatedly spamming attack spells at him. A few hitting and a few getting dodged, he tries to punch but Alex blocks and sees Axel trying to punch her. She slices his hand off.

  He looks at her in pain, agony. Starts screaming, noticing his hand is on the floor and he’s gushing blood. Soren is visibly angered by this, he starts hitting Alex with powerful spells, sending her flying and blood starts coming down her arm. She thinks nothing of the pain and rushes toward Soren, Soren dodging everything and hitting her with every spell he can muster. Alex still sees Axel on his knees staring at his cut off hand and pretends to run toward Soren, Soren dodging toward Axel, Alex takes advantage of this, pretending to attack Soren once more before putting the katana straight through Axels chest.

  Soren, watching his friend die, gets even more angered but then smiles. It scares Alex.

  “You just helped me get so much stronger Alex, I APPLAUD YOU,” Soren says while laughing.

  Soren puts his hand out over Axels body.

  Back to Josie

  Stunned by the power I am up against, Luka stops and says, “Your little whore girlfriend is probably dead by now.”

  Anger, rage, a temper to kill what stands before me is what I feel. What is taking over my conscious. Without second though, I charge Luka, saying nothing but letting my fists speak. Punching him repeatedly, blow after blow, hit after hit. Luka bloody and visibly hurt by the impacts of my punches laughs and laughs.

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, NOW THIS IS A FIGHT. KEEP COMING. KEEP PUNCHING ME. THIS IS THE MOST FUN I’VE HAD IN SUCH A LONG TIME.” ~ Luka

  As he finished that sentence, my fist coated in my power lands right on his jaw. The pure power and impact of that sends him flying through the wall. Entering the room where Alex, Soren and Axel’s at. Luka gets back up noticing Axel is dead, but laughs even more.

  “Wow, impressive. You’ve all surpassed my expectations. Soren, take both our strength and power as offerings, become the strongest and kill these fuckers.” Luka says as his final words.

  A beam of aura hit both Axel and Luka before being shot into Soren. Soren screams and yells in pain, but we can feel the killers intent and strength get stronger by the second. Once it’s done Soren looks at us both and says, “You’re being granted an early death, be happy.”