Ebony's Fable

“It is sad to say but I believe we won’t be seeing another victory from the journeyman's champion.” Iroy commented. A small portion of the audience that started to like seeing Ebony’s expressionless and arrogant face kicking didn’t like what they just heard.

“Reaching the top 4,500, the lowest level contestant remaining proclaimed to have graduated from Bludgeon Academy. Let’s welcome...Mura! A level 162 Master Warrior that specialises in wielding a massive heavy club! Against, Rimestone! Defying the odds, will we see another miracle?! Or will it end as expected?” Iroy constantly checked Null Horizon’s expression. All he could see through her mask were her eyes but that was enough.

This sentence of his improved her mood?

He had also been lying through his teeth. Instead of getting Rimestone to fight the first matches of the 4th round the lower level contestants who won 3 rounds were also called for their fourth battle already. Leaving Mura to be the ‘remaining’ lowest level at the moment for those that haven’t fought in their fourth battle

Iroy could tell from the audience’s general reaction. Hardly anyone was really looking forward to the match. Iroy and his men didn’t even have to fix a match. The level difference was so vast there was little suspense to be had in the battle.

The fire mage was surprising enough to have forced Rimestone to use more of his skills. Iroy had his impression of Rost change quite a bit. That was a good showing from him. It was eye-catching and the audience loved it. Surprisingly, the fire mage, Rost, was pretty popular from the reactions he noticed.

Rimestone looked no worse for wear after the previous match which engulfed him in flames. It had been a very short duration but his equipment had to be pretty high quality stuff. Iroy glanced at Null Horizon again.

‘She’s grinning?’ Iroy was immensely confused. The cogs in his head moved quicker. Gaze Reading was a secret skill of his that he never told anyone about, it pretty much allowed him to gauge a person's mood, expressions and to a lesser extent, their general thoughts just through a person's eyes.

Oh shit!

Iroy was too late. The referee called for the start of the battle.

❅❅❅

Ebony bombarded everything he had at his opponent Mura. Icebody Enhancement as compressed as possible, Chaotic Repulsive Membrane and Sonic Overlay couldn’t be missing either.

Mura had charged head first with his metal spike club even longer than Ebony was tall.

Ebony exploded Frost Mist Perception Sphere covering the entire barrier’s worth of fighting space with a thick icy mist. Multiple compressed Ice Swords formed around him and were released like an arrow from its bow. One in his hand as he charged forth. The projectiles were merely a distraction that Mura had no choice but to fall for as a single swing shattered them. He timed them to attack a little delayed from each other, Mura was cut by a glancing slash as a thin line of ice formed on his metal armour.

He was a larger man than most. It was too hard to avoid multiple swords coming at him so he depended on his advantage in speed and power to completely crush the fragile things. The icy mist started to chill him and go under his armour.

“Just a journeyman! You’ll never take me down with these weak attacks!” Mura yelled as his club smashed down onto the irksome arrogant expression. Rimestone was clearly looking down on him!

The impact in his hands was unexpected as he thought that a single attack could smash Rimestone to paste. Although killing wasn’t well looked upon in a match it was not against the law. Accidents happen all the time! The level difference had to be taken into account too. Rimestone was the one who agreed to the fight.

A large shield of ice was in the way. He had mostly crushed it but didn’t break through. Mura just had to slam his club down once or twice more! The massive expenditure of mana of the large shield was going to be a Journeyman mage’s downfall.

Mura walloped and walloped his club down, the audience’s cheers motivated him. People were just savages that loved seeing the blood of strangers. After a series of overhead slams, he sensed the oddness. The crushing of ice slowly turned into knocking into something hard.

Mura stopped to see the shield now in pristine condition. His instinct got him to envelop himself in the most basic mana reinforcement Bludgeon Academy had made compulsory to reach a certain level of proficiency before being certified to graduate. The irksome boy wasn’t even under the ice shield!

Mura only barely dodged as something scraped against his Compressed Steel Chestplate around the ribs. The attack actually cut into his armour! What kind of Journeyman was he?! He tried to recall what noble family used ice magic and a greatsword but nothing came to mind. The chilly frost got to him faster and faster as he breathed in frost. His lungs warmed by the small amount of mana he reinforced himself with.

The boy was too fast on his feet. Disappearing from the spot after Mura gave a wide horizontal swing that blew the mist aside before more mist took its place again.

‘He’s gonna freeze me over before I get him!’ Mura yelled in rage. “Stop hiding!”

“I’m right here.”

Mura quickly let one of his hands go as he backhanded to smash Ebony who was behind him.

‘It connected!’ Mura was delighted as he felt something push back against his gauntlets.

Ebony’s Chaotic Repulsive Membrane from his hands pushed himself back as he flipped himself over without losing balance. Mura's reaction speed had been beyond his expectations, but he still didn’t realise that Ebony had already destroyed the back of his chest plate with Sonic Overlay. Mura's gauntlet was frosted over from the short contact as well.

His power was also really high, Layered Ice Carapace was much better at taking blunt hits but was still mostly crushed in a single hit until he drew more mana to compress it. Now that the man suddenly had a little more speed and power, getting hit wouldn’t look pretty. Even more so now that he didn’t have the Constitution buff from Reinforced Mana Chassis after dipping into his mana pool.

Still, he was pretty unimpressed by Mura’s enhancement, probably having spent most of his stats in Strength. He wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long and the enhancement buff from his likely about 100 or so Intelligence was almost negligible.

He used his usual tactic of hunting. Freezing Mura till he weakened and slowed enough that Ebony can slowly switch from defence to offence. Trying to orb and imprison Mura would likely be a waste of mana as he could easily free himself from Ebony's low Intelligence and non-skill backed orb.

Mura fell over, stiff as a rock. Ebony drew all the ice mana back into his shield and attempted to push it back into his robes.

The previous match with the fire and rune mage had been a much better battle. He wanted a rematch or more sparring with Mark.

It was a really unexpected result. Quite a large portion of the audience was cheering for Rimestone now.

The battles were taking longer even though fewer battles were being conducted. If the previous few waits took hours, now he only waited a little more than an hour before his fifth match. More than enough time for him to fully recharge. The contestants were probably taking every match more seriously as they are so close to getting at least something out of this competition.

The percentage of participants over level 200 was 5% of all the participants of roughly 35,000 people. Since they were fighting people close to their own level it meant that number was also cut down by a lot. Maybe only a hundred or so of them were left after eliminating each other. There should be only a small chance of him facing them in the fifth round unless they really wanted him to lose already.

With such a large level range though, it’s not surprising they purposely put the level 200s to face lower level people so that they could remove the lesser competition or make the final fights more exciting between stronger people. This was more accurate really because more than a quarter of the remaining people who won all 4 matches were above level 200.

Ebony’s fifth opponent was called along with him. Swift De-armed.

His opponent was a beastwoman. Cat-like ears but no further difference from a human otherwise. Short and small in stature. A level 176 Master Rogue.

He had noticed her name yelled for many times. Her opponents that didn’t forfeit in time always lost an arm. She was the ruthless type but he thought she was pretty considerate to leave the arm in good condition. Even a really good doctor can reattach it if they acted quickly, with a healer present the patient would need a much shorter time to fully recover.

“Forfeit now and you won’t have to feel the pain of getting your arm sliced off. I just can’t resist the urge.” Swift De-armed sniffed her blades before wiping her nose with her sleeves.

“It’s alright. It can be reattached if you cut it off cleanly like your previous opponents.” Ebony didn’t think she could cut through his defences, much less the robe Roya made but he couldn’t be so sure he was winning this match. Buying time till she KOs would likely be the same thing he’ll be doing.

The feline eared lady obviously didn’t expect to see Ebony’s serious expression when he said what he did. This opponent of hers this time was…not normal. Putting aside the fact a Journeyman got so far which wasn’t actually unheard of, just rare. ‘A rich kid that was sent here to gain experience’ was what many would think. Perhaps a noble, perhaps some random genius with too much time on their hands.

“Just give up. There’s no need to take the risk, you’ve already gained enough haven’t you? This is the last match before I can even gain anything.”

“Would you give up if it was you?”

“...No.”

“Mmm.”

The feline woman grinned. The match began.

She was much faster than even Scarlet was in her base form. No surprise with possibly 2000 stats she had above him. His evasive measures were insufficient and she never gave him time to build up his Layered Ice Carapace tough enough before she shattered them into thousands of shards.

Swift De-arm could do nothing about the freezing cold air. She wanted to take Rimestone down as soon as possible, already taking note of his previous tactic of wearing Mura down. Rimestone might have used a lot of mana but it was obvious to anyone that the meditative class had more mana to spare and likely used the downtime to recover.

Rimestone was fast for a Journeyman, but Swift De-arm also had Dash at level 190. He was too slow for her, but he seemed to know where she was going to come from and have a ridiculous burst of speed to dodge. How many skills did this boy have?

Swift De-arm charged her daggers with mana and burst into motion. Sending physical shock waves slicing through the air all around herself in every direction. He shouldn’t be able to read that right?

She was right but he managed to hunker down and defend himself as the long-range blades were a lot weaker than actually coming into contact with her daggers. He couldn’t meet her in a head on battle unless he truly relied on the toughness of his robe. He just didn’t want to do that.

He could only get Ceaseless Onslaught to build up an insignificant amount of momentum as his opponent was too aggressive. He estimated that her Strength was lower than his compressed Icebody Enhancement but her skills made up for it with skill levels. Hence, her attacks were able to push him back. Her speed on the other hand was only so troublesome. A snail compared to how fast Scarlet could get, not to mention her ability with daggers was subpar compared to Scarlet’s swordsmanship.

Swift De-arm clearly had the advantage. She was clearly pushing him back, breaking his ice weapon and shields. Why was she lying down now? Did defeat ever feel this cold?

‘How strong is the level 121 serpent from Hoarfrost Glade?’ Ebony didn’t think the people here stood a chance against the monsters in Hoarfrost Glade at the same level. During summer maybe. There was also the fact that he was weaker at that time and was protecting Palom. Palom or the entire village of Frost Elves that weren't considered combatants by their standards and even Class could probably beat most of the opponents in this tournament he had faced so far.

The tournament for the day slowly came to an end. He stayed to watch as an audience since one of the winners would be his next opponent. Master Jing was nowhere to be found so she likely went home after she saw his latest victory.

He actually managed to find Mark where the injured were and exchanged contacts with him. Making it known that he just started learning about runes.

Mark didn’t hold a grudge but he didn’t look happy. Unsurprising as he took a painful hit from Ebony. He also didn’t believe Ebony had any knowledge on runes until he talked a bit longer.

Mark had obviously come to love runic studies and was glad to have someone to share viewpoints with. He was the type that got really talkative and invested when talking about his interests. Not that uncommon a trait amongst interesting, successful people.

❅❅❅

It was dark by the time the competition ended and Ebony made his way back.

“Master Jing. I’m back.” Ebony reported.

Master Jing had a really wide smile as she put one hand over his shoulder and the other to ruffle his hair. She smelled like iron and plants at the same time. He wouldn’t say he hated the act of affection, it was pretty nice.

“Well done!”

“Here’s the Epic rarity metal. You can have it all.” Ebony didn’t really need a metal when he didn’t even know its properties. They would be in much better hands with Master Jing.

“I said 50/50 other than a tiv of Epic. It’s a denser metal than I thought, there’s not much that can be made with them but I’ll see what I can whip up for you.”

“...Mmm.”

Master Jing giggled. “No need to be so shy with me!”

“...”

“Those in charge of the tournament are really annoying. They haven’t even calculated what prize you’ll be getting if you win tomorrow. Luckily I ‘asked’ them to hurry up and tell me. How far do you think you can go?”

“The weakest winners today are around level 175 - 185. I doubt they would place me against them if they want me to stop winning. How much is the prize?”

“10 tiv of Epic for the first win. 100 for the second. 1000 for the third.”

“It’s around the top 1000 people now, maybe about 50% chance I would win the first. Hearing the prize, I’m probably not gonna get the second win.”

“...You can. You haven’t used your strongest weapon today?”

“What weapon?”

“Your mana, silly. Just scare them by directing all your overflowing mana from the start and crush them before they get used to it. Even if quite some of them had gone into dungeons with higher concentrations of mana before, yours would definitely trip them up for long enough for you to give them a good freeze.” Master Jing suggested.

It wasn’t like he never thought about using overflowing mana like that. More common than not, that’s exactly how higher level people suppressed the weaker party without lifting a finger. It just wouldn’t feel like a head on duel with power against power.

“3 wins will be impossible but 2 should be achievable. The top 100 to 250 are filled with actual talented and experienced people. Not as talented as you but the gap in stats and skill level is too much to cross with your current weak skills. You just made the both of us rich so you can’t stop here.”

“??”

“I betted on your victory every round. The odds for the first match were only 1 to 3. The second was 1 to 3.5. The third was originally 1 to 6.8 due to the level difference but the damn guy drew everyone’s attention and they saw that I rooted for you so it dropped all the way to 1 to 1.1. Gah! At least almost nobody thought you would win the 4th match against a 60 level difference and the odds were 1 to 9.5! The beastwoman was even better as a hot favourite and was 1 to 11.2!”

Ebony’s Mental Arithmetic was ticking.

“You bet everything on every round?” The random numbers Ebony came up with were huge already. That was just calculating with the 60 Blues he gave her. Wouldn’t he have made 73,735 Blues if she bet everything on every round? The Greens were a spare change in comparison. Master Jing would’ve made even more, wouldn’t she?

“You bet I did.” Master Jing could no longer hold back and almost crushed him with her ridiculous bear hug and inane laughter. She only really let go when she heard a loud crack and was so anxious that she legitimately hurt him when she didn’t mean to. Punching and kicking him didn’t count.

“I’m alright. Did they even accept such large bets?” Ebony was curious. Master Jing was probably unbelievably rich with her talents. She could even buy a money printing machine.

“This is a brand new natural material and not a dungeon material. How many companies and rich merchants have sent or looked well upon certain people? Many of them have deep pockets. There may only be half a million live viewers but a large majority isn’t just the locals. Too many Greens, Blues and Purples are traded, gambled under the table to count.”

“...I can’t guarantee a win.”

“I get it. I get it. I’ll be careful and check out who your opponent is before betting. Go wash up and make something nice for dinner.”

“Mmm.”

Ebony had even studied cookbooks to learn more dishes that fit Master Jing’s palate more. His sense of taste didn’t improve but at least it no longer got any worse. Same with the weird chill he felt. No, the chill abated a little when she cheered for him earlier.

The night was spent charging as much ice mana into his robes as he would need as much as he could. Ebony knew he was not actually rich despite how much mana he could regenerate. He needed to use it for many things and money wasn’t his immediate priority. He wouldn’t say no to more money though. At least he had more than enough to buy houses now.

He slept and was well-rested before the third day of the tournament.

Another rowdy crowd. More waiting. More loud MC talk later.

Not many matches will be held concurrently today. There were only a small number of them left in comparison to the start of the competition. Ebony had the first match and no other matches took place at the same time, it was obvious they were hell-bent on removing him from the competition.

[Great Lightning Archer Lvl ???]

Level 188 according to the MC. He wasn’t anywhere near the highest-level opponent that could be matched up with Ebony but he was no archer. With something closer to pistols attached to his thighs, a rifle looking gun on his back, he was probably what this world called a burstbowman.

The man was either prepared to fight Ebony with his red toned leather armour that was clearly enchanted but not with runes or it was just a coincidence that he could feel a bit of warmth coming from the man.

Enchantments are added on by casting spells on the piece of equipment or item and retaining them somehow. They tend to be more powerful but less sustainable. Once the spell effect or mana in the enchantment runs out it has to be re-enchanted with the spell again. There are only so many times materials can withstand enchantments so he didn't really look well upon them.

Enchanted items were cheaper and more powerful though, making them more popular than runic items. Even though most with a good eye and deep pockets would know it was better to get runic stuff.

Whoever fixed the match probably thought that the best way to knock him out was to do it as fast as possible and not give him the chance to break his opponents down by freezing. From what he knew, this guy was one of the hot stocks believed to at least reach top 50s despite his 'lower' level.

Ebony on the other hand believed he still had a pretty good chance. As long as the man didn’t have enhancement magic and the like. Not many humans could succeed well as a hybrid, their stats even at that level had a high chance of being all over the place. But notably strong humans tend to be able to fight both physically and magically.

If he shot out lightning from his guns like his Class suggests that meant it’s power was dependent on his Intelligence and weapon. Same with ammo, either physical or mana he would have a limited amount. If the man was so heavy on magical stats that meant Ebony could easily close the distance and take advantage of his weak physical stats. If the man was also an enhancement mage which would make sense then it would be hard for Ebony to win this.

Master Jing was hesitant but she ultimately gambled on Ebony’s victory after seeing the horrendous 1 to 17.4 odds. Only time will tell if she made the right move.

“Boltshot! Vs! Rimestone! I believe we can all say that Rimestone stands no chance of victory! Will we see another miracle, the birth of a new champion? Or will the inevitable defeat happen?” Iroy the MC announced dramatically.

He had noticed that Null Horizon was just betting on Rimestone and he had crashed her winning odds. After a night of pondering he decided that he should make her as happy as possible. It wasn’t his mana ores that the coliseum was losing and if he got fired he could always find another job in another city, people with his skills are few. Even if he didn’t anger Null Horizon, helping her indirectly was better than risking himself getting killed.

He couldn’t do much about the opponent Rimestone would face since his higher-up didn’t want to lose too much of their prize. But the least he could do was make it sound like Rimestone was sure to lose and the odds would be in Boltshot favour more.

He was right again! Null Horizon gambled an eye opening sum that had him triple checking his eyesight. The coliseum wasn’t going to earn much even with the huge traffic of bets from so many other people if Rimestone won. He even had a hand in making the odds that high, he might really lose his job today.

“Begin!”

Ebony’s body shot all the way back and slammed into the barrier hard as a thin bolt of lightning shot through him the moment the referee ordered the start of the battle. He couldn’t even see the shot but Icebody Enhancement was still activated faster. Chaotic Repulsive Membrane didn’t do shit to defend or repel lightning, though it might have swerved just a tiny bit.

He was shot through the stomach as he coughed out a mist chilled smoke with blood. He could feel his muscle lock up but nothing he couldn’t move around with, thanks to Sustained Optimum Condition.

That was what Boltshot didn’t expect as he was shooting at the same spot after Ebony instantly filled the area with a thick Frost Mist Perception Sphere. He made two ice sculptures of himself with ice mana from his robe to move around as his own shadow and Boltshot fell for it. He didn’t have a very high Perception for an archer.

As he had expected, the man was not affected by his mist as it melted upon contact and the area around him was getting warmed and heated by his armour. The burstbowman was confident but the thick icy mist didn’t die down and there was still movement.

Ebony attacked with an Ice Sword in hand. Boltshot had amazing reaction speed to draw his second pistol to cross block his overhead strike. He had the upper hand in Strength and pushed all the way down.

Boltshot let the massive sword skid down against his pistol and freed one of them to fire at Ebony. A foot found its way onto his shoulder before he even finished raising his pistol back up, it pushed lightly but Boltshot flung back hard and his shot missed.

Boltshot stayed calm since it didn’t hurt, switching out for the burstbow on his back. Taking a shot as he propelled backwards. Ebony’s Layered Ice Carapace didn’t stop the lightning strike completely and he felt another numbing sting on his shoulder.

He could no longer catch up to Boltshot who was on alert and sprinted and circled around the field and made too many shots to count. His feet sparked with electricity, a lightning element movement skill. Some of his rifle shots are balls that landed and exploded in a dome shape of electricity that Ebony couldn’t evade.

“Why aren’t you dead yet!?”

He heard panic in Boltshot’s voice. He was shooting more than 10 shots of lightning charged strikes at Ebony every second, moving around with a lightning elemental skill and finally starting to feel the chill. The melting of his Frost Mist had reduced over time. Either he was providing it less mana or the armour had its own mana reserve and was running out. The second was more likely for enchantment-based equipment.

Ebony’s ice sculpture managed to scare the man from where they stood from time to time as he was darting around. The area was under his close supervision with his Frost Mist Perception Sphere and Vibrational Gravity Sense. In the past 7 months, it didn’t increase in range by that much from 28 metres. Only reaching 31 metres, a small improvement but still decent.

The barrier was a transparent solid type, he froze his Layered Ice Carapace up somewhere and was watching blue strikes of lightning flying all over the place. He sent Ice Swords flying down from time to time to show Boltshot that he was not down yet. Too far to move his sculptures all the time he only formed one from the free Frost Mist and let them be targets.

He condensed the Frost Mist down even further to what was necessary when Boltshot stopped bolting around. His fire rate slowed. His breathing chilled too. His mind was less alert too and Ebony gave a good knock at the back of his head.

The audience saw Ebony getting shot and they cheered. Then the area misted over again and they knew it wasn’t a one hit KO. The clash of ice against metal also rang and then lightning sparked the area over and over again. They saw the light flashing and it showed the silhouette of the battle. The glowing Boltshot slowly dimmed in glow. One side of the audience saw something floating against the barrier. It got quiet, then the icy mist cleared up.

Rimestone was standing there with his chest scorched and a small black spot on his shoulder but that was it. Boltshot was on the ground.

Master Jing appeared beside Ebony without care for the barrier separating them, checking him out. The first shot worried her till no end. It was a clear strike through his body. That had been a dangerous shot since it took more than half of his health. Lightning appeared to have worked better on him as well and not just fire. Maybe that was only when he used Icebody Enhancement. He’ll have to experiment to find out clearly.

'I should've stayed to get hit to get extended exposure for lightning resistance... never mind. A single shot took half my health, I wouldn't survive extended exposure for my body to gain resistance anyway.' he thought in hindsight.

“Yes. Yes. I’m really okay. Don’t worry.”

“You can’t lie to me okay? I’m not gonna wake up to find you dead in my house alright.”

“Just burned black, I’ll wash it off later.” Ebony needed to check if the robe’s internal was fine as well but he didn’t worry too much.

He returned to the waiting area after telling Master Jing that he’ll probably not win the next match after all. She got him to promise he will forfeit after he insisted he still wanted to continue.

It was like he had assumed. A Level 210 Swordmaster was too much. Practically all swordsmen had a full set of skills, unlike their warrior counterparts. 99/100 of them learned from some other swordmaster that’s pretty accomplished.

Ebony listened to Master Jing and just forfeited without even trying. There was no point, he'd just be killed if the Swordmaster felt like it.

Going home with all their winnings. The 50kg of Epic rarity metal and millions upon millions of mana.

Master Jing brought Ebony to buy wine and liquor of every type. By the barrel.

“We’ll be moving before we celebrate. Too many eyes on us now.”

“Aren’t they afraid of you and Xengs in general?”

“I practically have all their ores in my hands. There are crazy people everywhere, blind, fearless and most importantly those that don't believe in stories of us. I’m also just a craftswoman with a puny journeyman by her side. Can’t be bothered fighting them either.”

“Let’s go then.”

Master Jing removed her entire house from sight within minutes and they left the city faster than they came. Not even bothering to sell the land she just bought.

Ebony didn’t think those people worked so fast. He spotted and sensed some really strong people who popped up from outside the city. Master Jing just transported them further the instant she appeared where they were. The distance a single one of her teleport brought them was a little less than a single jump of Master Jing’s grand aunt.

Master Jing wasn’t adept at bringing people along and each one of her teleports was practically an instantaneous covering of distance unlike the old lady’s. They went far and fast, but more shocking was that attacks were zapping after them. Lightning strikes.

“Tch. The lightning guy has a Grandmaster backer eh. Most of my winnings probably came from them who thought they would make a quick buck from your match.” Master Jing clicked her tongue. A bad habit of hers that he noticed from time to time. Needless to say, they needed some sort of confidence in their strength if they didn’t fear Master Jing.

Ebony on the other hand didn’t even see anyone in the surrounding area. Master Jing dragged him into some forest but the cover was light and the trees were sparse here. The lightning strikes that missed by quite a margin were thicker than Ebony was but that was all he managed to see other than the very ground dug up and burnt along with the vegetation for literal kilometres. Thankfully they were already out of sight of civilization.

Master Jing stopped teleporting them after the maybe random lucky shots that appeared not far off from wherever they teleported too.

“Go north. You’ll reach the Fissure Sea, go to the closest city you can find. No one would dare pick a fight there.” Master Jing pointed where she decided north was. Unless she was misleading him for whatever reason.

“Master Jing. You said you’re not a fighter.” Ebony knew he was just the burden here as a ‘puny’ journeyman. He should just get going already but he was worried for the craftswoman who said she didn’t have any fighting capabilities.

“Hmph.” Master Jing snorted but she was smiling.

“I don’t need any measurable fighting capability for some random archer that can’t even hit me when I’m standing still.” Master Jing ruffled Ebony’s hair again.

“Then I don’t need to run away do I?”

Master Jing chuckled before a palm pushed Ebony. “Think about what you want to learn from me already. I’ll look for you, stay safe.”

He found himself in the middle of nowhere, listening, seeing and feeling the lightning strikes from afar. Perhaps, staying with her might have been safer. Safer for him but not for her.

Ebony orientated himself and left northwards at full speed ahead, no longer turning back to watch the flashes of light.