Nar kicked forward, slicing through fur and snapping teeth.

  [Aura Quickening]!

  There was a whooshing rush of sound, his sight tunneling and extending before him, and pain exploded inside his skull, ricocheting through his brain and kicking against the back of his neck.

  Damn! He thought, in that timeless moment as his [NPC] kicked into overdrive. Aura flooded his brain through his recently established pathways, and Nar remembered, too late, that with everything else going around, he had forgotten to test and get used to his [Aura Quickening] since his significant Ceremony gains.

  200 [Aura] now… Plus an upgraded [NPC] and the brain pathways. Crystal…

  He struggled to remain awake under the sudden onslaught of an additional 20 extra points being injected into his [NPC], [Reflex], [Agility] and [Speed] each, for a combined jackhammer of 80 extra attribute points being shoved into his mind and body in that split moment in between steps. A moment that seemed to stretch forever, his sword gliding across his field of vision, cutting and instantly cauterizing through a dark gray psaelis, the beast’s mouth opened in a long screech of death, now about to be silenced in a gurgle of green.

  Then his vision and sound rushed back, and Nar was through. He had the distant awareness of a dripping leaking down his nose, and of his protesting heartbeat at his temples, but the sudden influx of aura that burst from his chest took all of his attention to control.

  A step carried him forward 10-feet. His blade, now stained green and bereft of his aura, which he had lost control of in the focus to cycle, still sliced though the enemy with impunity, bolstered by the tremendous speed and momentum in his sweeping strikes.

  The psaelis around him looked as though they were moving through jell-o, their movements almost comically slow, and between his [Instinct] and his sense, now further bolstered by his [Awareness], it was as though he moved in a maelstrom of his own making, aware of every danger, every attack, and of every next death reaping step, as he left nothing but dismantled and disfigured bodies in his awake.

  I wonder if that’s going to reduce their value, Nar briefly considered, as he got a glimpse of a psaelis cleaved in two, however, in the distance, the dust shifted, and he caught sight of his target, and one whose head was worth major XP for them.

  Within moments, Nar had cut through and had caught up with the glowing yellow eyed psaelis, just as it attempted to hide in the dust again.

  By keeping their heads intact, the COO must have been thinking of those eyes, Nar thought, as he slashed through the last line of smaller psaelis, and stood before the beast he hunted. The creature stood a full head above him, being both thicker muscled and wider than the other beasts Nar had faced thus far.

  Even with his [Aura Quickening], the beast reacted fast enough to his approach, and his sword met yellow glowing and dripping metallic claws, each 6-inch long at the shortest. His skill ended, and the battlefield returned to normal around him, and suddenly, Nar found himself on the back foot.

  It’s strong! Nar thought, gritting his teeth. And fast!

  The psaelis’ clawed blows rang against his sword, leaving his arms shaking, and in the panic to keep up his defense, Nar struggled to get his aura cycling again.

  “And remember, do not use your [Aura Attack]!” his master had warned him.

  Nar grunted, and pushed away the thought of the skill that he had almost called upon.

  “If you keep using it and relying on it, you will only delay upgrading it into [Sword Aura],” the master had explained. “And we can’t afford any delays with your path. So don’t use it! No matter what.”

  Nar snarled at the squealing psaelis, and finally managed to pull on his aura, flooding it down his arms, into his hands and bursting through his fingers and into the sword. The blade erupted in wild aura, and his enemy screeched and retreated from its touch.

  That was all that Nar needed to regain the advantage, and not bothering to keep his aura under control, he swiped at the creature, hoping that his snapping aura would inflict some damage, even if he didn’t hit.

  The beast, unfortunately, sidestepped his attack, and launched a flurry of its own. Once more, Nar found himself on the backfoot, except this time, with his sword covered in uncontrolled aura, he was finding it more difficult to position the blade to stop the psaelis from reaching past his defenses, and punching its claws into him.

  This is not gonna work! Nar thought, grunting through his clenched teeth.

  With a supreme effort, he pulled his aura back down, away from his 125-point limit, but as he did, his [Instinct] screamed at him in warning. All he could do was angle his body sideways, but the claws still sliced through his shoulder.

  “Agh!” Nar gasped, retreating.

  Sudden pops and hisses snarled from his shoulder, and he clenched his jaw against the sudden pain. A quick glance revealed that single line had cut through his aura armor, angry gray swallowing a fizzing line of sickly yellow aether. His gear had apparently stopped all but one of the claws, but the one that had gone through had been enough to leave a numbing, invasive sensation that quickly spread over his shoulder, and which he felt his own aura fight and rebel against. Nausea churned in his stomach, and his legs faltered under him.

  “If you get hit with aether, and it gets inside you, it will disrupt your pathways, your attributes and your fighting ability. Not to mention the tremendous damage it could do to you,” his master had told him. “When that happens, you must cycle and burn through the aether. You must regain the purity of your body as soon as possible!”

  Nar inhaled sharply and pulled more aura from his core, cycling across his invaded body with renewed strength. To his surprise, the foreign sensation was gone almost immediately, as though devoured and burned to nothingness by his angry aura, which possessively reclaimed his body and flesh.

  What in the Pile? So, do they mix or not? He asked himself, searching for his enemy.

  The psaelis circled him cautiously now. His movement did not indicate any worry, but the beast seemed to have at least come to respect him as an adversary.

  “Well, thanks,” Nar muttered.

  The beast screeched at him, its eye glowing brighter.

  “That doesn’t work on me!” Nar shouted.

  [Aura Quickening]!

  He was on the beast in the blink of an eye, and this time, he managed to catch the psaelis by surprise. It backpedaled in a frenzy, its cloven hooves stumbling and tripping on the bodies of its fallen comrades as Nar brought to bear his skill and cycling as one.

  4! His UI told him, directly into his brain.

  His sword described arc after arc of gray light, and he noticed the psaelis flinching whenever he blocked him.

  3!

  He had only been swiping at the creature, overwhelming it with his temporarily superior [Speed], but his real goal was coming.

  2!

  The beast slipped on a dead psaelis, and lost its balance, raising its clawed hands to cover its face and oversized yellow glowing eye.

  1…

  Nar lowered his stance at the last moment, pushing through a very poor crossing step, and turned his horizontal strike into a thrust that went through the psaelis left side. At the same time, he pushed his intent onto the blade, focusing and committing everything into the strike, and reaching for the yet elusive [Sword Aura] skill.

  His [Instinct] cried out a warning, and he angled his body to the right, to avoid the surprise attack that the psaelis threw at him, even as his sword and aura plunged and burned deep into its body, powered by his basic fumbling at [Sword Aura].

  The beast let out a blood curdling cry, blood flying from its mouth, and its eye at last went dull as it dropped to the floor, adding to the pile of the dead beasts. Nar pulled his sword out of the corpse and stumbled back.

  “Crystal… Damn… It!” he gasped, staring at his downed opponent.

  The thing had been strong, and without his [Aura Quickening], they had been evenly matched! Damned the loss of his free use of aura! But by everything that was holy, he was clawing his way back to his full might, and he would soon soar past his previous aura capabilities as well.

  With a grunt, he sliced through the psaelis neck, and grabbing hold of its fur, ripped the whole head free.

  And that’s one, Nar thought, storing it in his inventory, even as he struggled to get his breathing back under control.

  In the sudden quiet, he scanned his surroundings. [Aura Projectiles] glistened through the dust, exploding far beyond where he stood, and in the relative pocket of silence he found himself in, he heard the sounds of battle drifting out from the dust cloud, closer to him than to where he had left the frontline.

  That’s not the frontline, he realized, seeing as though he could just about make the shadows of the line of apprentices in the distance behind him. Are there others fighting these things too?

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Nar dashed to the right, towards the sounds of the closest conflict, and he burst into a tight battle between another one of those glowing-eyed beasts and an apprentice in gray armor like his, who swung a massive hammer with startling [Speed] and [Agility]. However, her armor was punctured in several spots, blood mixed with yellow aether dripping down her flickering armor, and she was favoring her leg.

  The psaelis’ eye flared with sudden intensity, and she faltered, right as a clawed hand thrust forward, ready to spear through her heart… Except it met Nar’s blade instead, and within the grips of his [Aura Quickening], and catching the beast by surprise, his blade soon sliced open the beast's gut, spilling green entrails all over the floor.

  “Tha-thank you,” the Heavy Weapons apprentice breathed, leaning over her hammer in an attempt to gather her breath.

  “No worries!” Nar said. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’m alright… Ain’t worse than the Climb, am I right?”

  She chuckled at that, and a grin took Nar’s concerned expression.

  “Want me to take you back?” he asked, motioning towards the line of apprentices.

  “Please!” she asked, pushing herself to her full height. She had to be a morsvar or an altei, and Nar could practically feel the gratitude oozing out of her when he further tossed the dead beast’s head at her. “Thank you so much, honestly! Our party got hit hard by those things, and most of us went down. I know it was stupid of me to leave our tank behind, but we needed this thing down…”

  Nar nodded, it was the same story as theirs, and he ducked under one of her arms to support her as they made their way back to Tsurmirel’s frontline. He also quickly passed on Cen’s information about psychic and mental attacks, and they shared a quick moment of commiseration at not having been forewarned by the faculty about that particular detail.

  Soon, they were cutting through psaelis and Nar left the heavy-hammer wilder safely behind the line of apprentices, to go find the healers on her own, and he ran back into the cloud. As expected, he came across other apprentices who, like him, had split from the frontlines to attack the bigger psaelis launching their mind attacks at their parties from under cover of the dust. However, unlike him, these apprentices worked in duos or even trios, as they canvassed the dust for those psychic psaelis, and Nar joined in from group to group, aiding in bringing down the beasts one after the other, or facing them by himself, and collecting heads for the party.

  The [Aura Projectiles] sailing over their heads did a good job of keeping the worst of the tide at bay, their numbers still hidden by the dense clouds of dust, and Nar and the others were able to throw everything into those psaelis leaders.

  At some point, an undetermined amount of time later, Nar stumbled upon another one of those big psaelis. He was alone this time, but he had grown confident in his ability to bring the beasts down, plus, his aura cycling had grown much steadier, and he was even managing to remember a few of his learned steps here and there.

  However, before he could reach the beast, a bright blue arrow tore a hole through its head.

  “Sorry!” a voice said. “But I was aiming first!”

  “Uh?” Nar said, looking from the twitching corpse to the archer that stepped out of the dust.

  “No worries…”

  Nar paused as he laid eyes on the newcomer, armored from head to toe in a dark blue and very much solid armor. The guy also noticed Nar’s shifting gray armor and he paused as well.

  “Auramancer?” he asked Nar.

  Nar nodded, in turn examining the man’s simpler looking, mat blue armor, and the dark blue shortbow in his hands. “Uhm… Navy, right?”

  The Navy apprentice nodded at him, throwing a grinning, two-fingered salute his way. “Got it in one! But if you’re here, either I’ve come too far, or you’ve come too far.”

  “Or both of us,” Nar said, sighing and considering the dust swirling around him.

  The archer chuckled.

  “I better turn back,” he said. “Before my decaenus starts screaming at…

  “Watch out!” Nar shouted, sensing the psaelis in the dust behind the archer, but the aethermancer was already on the move before Nar’s warning even left his lips, and Nar’s [Instinct] warned him of further danger surrounding them.

  Psaelis surged towards the two apprentices, and for a moment, the two of them joined forces to eliminate the beasts.

  He’s being so careful, Nar noticed, eyeing the aethermancer out the corner of his eyes. Any time I get closer to him, he moves back.

  After a frenzied couple of minutes, the two of them panted in the sudden silence, regarding the fresh bodies around them.

  “Is it… Is it that bad?” Nar found himself asking, his brain taken by adrenaline.

  The archer frowned at him. “What is?”

  Nar lifted his sword, still wrapped in aura, and the aethermancer took a discrete step backwards.

  “This. Aura and aether,” Nar said.

  The other apprentice frowned at him, or at least Nar he imagined he did, behind his helmet. “You don’t know?”

  Nar shook his head.

  “I practically just got out of the Gate…”

  “Ah!” the guy said.

  He made to scratch the back of his head, clearly awkward about the whole situation, and instead, his gloved hand touched only his helmet.

  “Well… Yeah, sorry,” the guy said. “Like… Like that, on your sword, under your control, it's fine. I could maybe touch it with one of my aether arrows, if I held onto the skill… But if one of us is not controlling it…”

  “Boom?” Nar asked.

  “Pretty much,” the guy said. “As long as they’re both under someone’s control, it’s fine. Sapient, beast, monster… All good. But once just one side is not… Then, yeah. No good. And, don’t know if you know this but, aethertech’s also no good… No one’s controlling that aether.”

  “That explains it, then” Nar said, looking down at his sword. “Thank you.”

  “No worries…”

  Nar looked up, sensing the archer still staring at him.

  “What?” Nar asked.

  “You…” the guy said. “You’re not what I expected.”

  Nar frowned at that. “What do you mean?”

  But the navy guy shrugged. “Beats me. Anyways. So long, mate. Good luck out there!”

  Nar lifted a hand in a half wave, and the archer disappeared back through where he had come from.

  I better get back too… he thought, still stunned at his sudden encounter with the Navy aethermancer, but just then, he heard Kur pinging him through his party view. Oh, damn it! I got too far, didn’t I?

  Hopefully, the heads he had collected would pacify his angry party leader.

  *********

  He quickly retraced his steps, and it was a concerning long while before he met a non-snarling face. He even stumbled upon a pack of psaelis, tearing and pulling at what was undeniably a sapient. Nar rushed in, his heart hammering in worry and rage, and slaughtered through them, dispersing the rest, one of the beasts stealing away with a limp hand tucked between its metallic teeth.

  The apprentice, whatever gender of species they had been, wore a black and yellow uniform, marking him as belonging to the third apprentice-ship that had joined in the den clearing efforts. It felt wrong to just leave them behind, no doubts to return to being a meal to beasts still scurrying in the shimmering dust around him, but he wasn’t sure if he should just bring them back to the Scimitar’s battle line either.

  Fortunately, just then, more black and yellow uniforms streaked out of the dust. One of the apprentices dashed forward to throw themselves at the corpse, weeping over them, and with his throat tight, Nar relayed to the rest of the group how he had found their comrade, though the bite and claw marks made the story pretty evident. Relieved that someone would take care of the body, Nar departed once more, and was swallowed by the dust, his heart weighed by the dead body behind him, and the memory of that hand.

  They had been warned that apprentices died out there, and had Nar not intervened to save the heavy-hammer fighter, she would have joined the numbers of those who had died in past den clearings.

  Eventually, he managed to stumble onto his own line again, and sighed in relief as he noticed their predominantly, shifting gray armor.

  Oh, thank the Crystal! He thought, and he ran the length of that line until his eyes fell upon a familiar bulk.

  “Gad?” he shouted.

  “Nar! Crystal! Where have you been?”

  “Sorry,” he said, hanging his head low. “I got lost in the dust. Went too far.”

  “Don’t stray so far from us again! We needed you!”

  “I’m sorry! It won’t happen again!”

  She nodded and left it at that. At least for the moment.

  “How are things here?” he asked, noticing how she swayed slightly.

  “Not great,” she said, nodding at the center of the party.

  Mul and Cen were kneeling next to Kur, who despite his helmet covering his face, gave Nar the impression he was still in a daze, staring off into Crystal knew what. At his side, Jul was similarly shaking her head, slowly, and as if coming back to herself, letting him know that they had most likely been attacked again in his absence, something for which he internally berated himself for not being there for them. As for Viy, she muttered and tossed her head right and left, while Rel stared down at her, lost as to how to help, a hand on the spear woman’s shoulder, Cen holding on to her hand and whispering usherances as Mul watched over them.

  “Whatever that was, Viy’s still down, and Kur’s still working through it, while me and Jul are almost through it,” Gad told him. “Did you hunt those things?”

  “Yeah… I met up with other apprentices out there, and we killed loads of them,” Nar said. “That’s why I went so far… There was always another one.”

  Though by the end, it was just me for a long while, he thought, guilt weighing upon his conscious.

  “Ah, that’s probably why the assault weakened,” Gad rumbled. “Well done, even if you did go too far.”

  “I’ve got six heads in my ring,” Nar said. “Does that buy some forgiveness?”

  Gad snorted. “It definitely helps…”

  “Apprentices, that was painful, but you did it! All the beetles have finished their second run and will now serve as field infirmaries!” Tys’ voice echoed from behind them.

  Nar glanced back towards the large outline of the ship closest to them. Looking around, he found that there were a lot more apprentices in their line now, and that the line was resembling a proper line at last, as people recovered from the invisible, surprise attack.

  “You’ve gained your foothold in the den, now, you push forward! And know that the main force is now heading your way! COO, out!”

  Crystal… Main force? What did we just fight then? Nar thought, watching the line thicken around them, as more apprentices streamed in, looking fresh and recently landed.

  “Help me up,” Kur suddenly said.

  “You should rest while you still can!” Jul insisted.

  “I’m fine,” Kur said. “I need to see what’s happening.”

  “Not much to see out there,” Mul said, but he pulled their party leader to his feet nonetheless, and Nar noticed vaguely that the two aura armors touched each other without any reaction. Thinking about it, they had sat on the ship and strapped in without any issues either.

  So, it just protects, then? Nar wondered, considering his gauntleted hand. Crystal, this is such a mess…

  But that reminded Nar of what the aethermancer had told him, and he quickly relayed it to the party, as well as what had happened to him when the psaelis had wounded him.

  “Wow! You met the Navy!” Tuk said.

  “Well, that explains things,” Kur said. “Alright, guess we still need to be careful after all… Alright. Good job everyone, for keeping it together. And thank you, Gad and Nar, for keeping us going.”

  “I’m sorry. I went too far,” Nar said, hanging his head.

  “Don't do it again,” Kur told him. “I know I said you are acting independently of the party’s formation, but that doesn’t mean you can just disappear and do whatever you want! Stick to the party, unless you really need to go!”

  “Yes,” Nar said. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “I know,” Kur said, his tone softening. “And I know you were trying to help, and that this is a new role to you, but it had to be said. Next time, come check on us first before you decide to go further.”

  “I will,” Nar said, with a curt nod. “I won’t let you down again.”

  A loud roar rose from within the dust, and a countless multitude of screeches and squeals rose up in answer.

  “They’re coming again,” Jul said, pushing herself to her feet with Tuk’s help. “And there’s a whole lot more of them now.”

  Nar noticed again how their hands touched, despite their differing auras.

  That’s a relief, at least. It’s bad enough with the aether… he thought. Imagine if we had to be careful of each other as well!

  “We need to form up with them,” Kur said, nodding towards the line. Then lowering his tone, he added. “Although it wouldn’t hurt us to hang back a little behind the fresh guys.”

  “I think the same,” Gad rumbled.

  “Good! We all agree then,” Mul said, loud and uncaring as always. “Let them push for a while!”

  The floor began to shake from under their feet, as the main force of the psaelis charged through the dust, headed towards their line, and that of the other apprentice-ships.

  “Form up!” Kur told them, and despite his earlier words they once again found themselves at the front of the line, shoulder to shoulder with the other parties forming it.

  “Here they come,” Mul grunted.

  A dense line of psaelis emerged from the dust clouds, screeching for their blood and flesh, and all of their eyes glowed yellow now.

  “That must be the Den Boss’ buff!” Kur shouted. “Hold tight! They’ll be stronger now!”

  Well… Here we go, Nar thought, as he cycled his aura once more.

  The battle for the den was about to properly begin.

  - Nar's attributes: as I edited from the beginning of the story, I realized that in my worry to not make Nar too OP from the start, I actually became a little too stingy with his gains, so I've been bumping them up little by little and as appropriate/deserved, so you might notice a mismatch in the numbers at some point.

  - Ending of Arc 1: one of the fixes that went into that ending was to change it so that it was Nar himself that resisted the temptation of the outside world, and fear of letting down his dad as the electric projectiles were coming down on the fleeing Climbers after the Raid Boss went down the first time. This was done because I felt that (as some as you rightly pointed it out) it did a disservice to Nar's growth and journey, and I think it removed some of his autonomy as a character as well... Anyways, I just wanted to mention this, as all mentions of his regret for what "he almost did" have been removed from the edited chapters as well!