Chapter 22: Chapter 22 Ren Arden (2)
Quick disclaimer : Ren himself isn't attending the academy, he's like a body guard pretty much.
Walking through the academy gates, Ren's height gathered quite a few glances, however the incredibly handsome crowned prince of the kingdom next to him was enough to gather a crowd.
Ren paid no attention, he focused on solely surverying the surroundings in case of a possible assassination.
His star shaped pupils scanned the area, his gaze sharp enough to spot even the highest level of assassins.
Being certain that no one had the intention of attacking Rauri, Ren sighed and looked at his companion, who was flirting with a whole crowd of girls while all of the boys were looking at him with envy.
Ren nearly chuckled at the sight, but quickly turned around and stared directly into the eyes of an equally tall man with Raven hair and golden eyes, one of his eyes had a familiar strange pattern of black sclera and the golden circles rotating around his golden iris.
Ren's bloodlust immediately began to seep from his body, just looking at that piece of shit's face was enough to get his blood boiling.
It was Dylan Arden, the Chrono-Hunter.
Rauri noticed Ren's aura spiking and tapped his shoulder with a somber smile.
"Hey Dylan, long time." Rauri looked at Dylan with an stoic expression, but his eyes displayed something more mischievous.
Dylan flinched at the princes piercing gaze, and quickly hid behind his personal companion.
He was a brutish man of 2.4 meters in heigh, huge bulging muscles and long black hair.
Ren looked at the large man, he was clearly of the barbarian lineage but it was the first time Ren had seen one being so… docile?
Either way, Ren followed Rauri into the entrance ceremony hall.
Looking at the slightly dusty seat designated for him as a guardian, Ren sighed, how did he go from slaughtering people ever day for years on end to being some Prince's bodyguard.
Ren tried not to fall asleep listening to the speech of the student council etc…
He could care less about all of this, he just wanted the academy to start so he could put his plan into motion.
…
The next day, Ren accompanied Rauri to a training ground, where he watched all kinds of interesting swordsmanship, spearmanship, bowmanship, axemanship, polemanship, staffmanship and other weapon techniques.
Observing all of the students training, his right eye's star began to spin slowly.
His sclera slowly became more and more red and his grin grew wider and wider, gaining a few weird glances as he smiled creepily at all of the students training.
But Ren was delighted, just one day in the academy and he'd already learnt 30 new combat techniques he could use to increase his own battle prowess!
This theme of waking up, showering, eating, training while Rauri has class, stealing the techniques of many during Rauri's training, eating, showering, then sleeping went on for a couple of months before Dylan had enough of pretending Ren didn't exist.
As Ren was walking towards the training ground, hoping to steal his 500th technique with a smile plastered on his face, a familiar voice sounded out from behind.
"Oi, bastard." Dylan slowly walked towards Ren, his Máti glowing intensely as he watched Ren's every move in a speed that could capture the fluttering of a flies wing.
Ren tried to ignore it, continuing to walk away.
However, the large barbarian suddenly blocked his path, but Ren simply looked up at the barbarian, his own bloodlust clashing with the primal rage from the barbarian.
Dylan quickly reached Ren from behind, placing his hand on Ren's shoulder.
Ren sighed, he knew what was coming.
"Why don't we go have some family bonding eh?" Dylan grinned, seemingly forgetting that the man before him was a being recognised by Julius Beauchamp himself.
In a space that no one could find them, the barbarian and Dylan both looked at Ren with greed.
Ren simply sighed once more, his left eye's star began to spin slowly and with a flick of his wrist, hundreds of golden stars appeared around him and his two adversaries.
"Are you not familiar with who I am?" Ren spoke, his voice dark and commanding, even splicing some of his bloodlust within.
Dylan's confidence was shattered in an instant, he tried to back up, but the golden stars blocked his exit and he didn't want to test his luck by trying to run through them.
"'Chrono-Hunter' my ass, you're just a fool relying on his one trump card to carry him through life. See now that you're in a situation you can't dodge? You can't do anything to me, Dylan." Ren slowly walked closer to Dylan, slowly unsheathing his blade as the stars surrounding them began to spin, creating a dome so that no one could see what he was about to do.
Dylan Arden, the Chrono-Hunter, and his barbarian companion had both one arm missing, and Dylan's Máti had been ripped from his head.
Ren dispersed the stars, and walked away holding Dylan's black and golden eyeball in his bloodied hand.
Ren had an idea for what to do with this eye, after all it was a power strong enough to give someone so untalented a chance to reach the top of the academy, and in the right hands, it could be enough to reach the pinnacle of man.
Not even five minutes after the one sided fight, Ren found Rauri and quickly informed him of the situation.
Rauri burst out laughing, the situation went exactly how he had imaged it, the situation was too comical, even for him to handle! "Wow, you've put us in serious trouble you know?" Rauri wiped a tear of laughter as he outstretched his palm.
Ren already knew what to do, he gave Dylan's Máti to Rauri.
Thanks to the unique and mysterious nature of Máti, Rauri was able to simply place the Máti in his eye, despite already having an eye within.
Rauri sighed heavily, then opened his eyes and looked at Ren, and Ren had to say, it certainly looked way cooler on Rauri.
Instead of the three spinning circles around a bigger circle, Rauri had a swirling azure vortex inside of a completely black eye.
However, due to the Máti being stolen, Rauri's face had undergone changes also.
Most of the left side of his face had a strange black substance covering it, but it didn't actually affect Rauri in any way, if anything, it made his Máti look even cooler.
And Rauri was yet to awaken his personal Máti, so if his personal Máti is in his right eye, he has hit the jackpot and can house two Máti just like Ren.
Rauri smiled at Ren and asked, "How does it look?" Rauri spoke while feeling the strange hard substance on his face.
"Certainly better than mine." Ren said with a giggle, before he headed to the showers for a clean up before they would leave the academy.
Rauri and Ren had this planned out for a while, they wanted to cause some trouble and then leave the academy and go on their own journey to explore the world.
Rauri knew of Ren's ability to copy techniques and had waited for Ren to copy enough techniques for their journey, and Ren had seemingly copied enough.
…
That night, right as Ren and Rauri were about to leave, a loud alarm was heard throughout the entire academy, and at that moment-
*CRASH*
*BANG*
A loud crash and an even louder thud reverberated behind the duo, to which Ren quickly turned around to face the opponent.
But what he saw interested him…
He saw… the barbarian companion of Dylan, and Dylan? And many others? All fused into one?
Ren didn't really know what he was looking at.
But the creature infront of him had three heads, and in the middle was the barbarian and his red eyes had the slit black pupils, that's right, he had two Máti, he probably awakened them after being brutally beaten by Ren earlier.
And the other two heads were Dylan Arden and the student council president.
The barbarian was even larger than before, at a staggering 10 meters tall.
He had one small arm, and the arm that Ren had thought to have cut off was now a vulgar amalgamation of twisted and broken arms and legs of various students.
The barbarians right Máti ability was the ability to fuse any body part of anyone he kills to his body.
And the left was the ability to permanently enter the primal rage mode of the barbarian lineage, which was a pretty bad ability considering it would drive him into an eternal rage that would leave him pretty much out of control of his body.
However, to make the situation worse, Dylan's deceased head now clearly also had two Máti.
His slow perception Máti had miraculously returned to him and his other eye was the same, indicating an improvement in his ability.
And for the student council president, one of his green eyes had a white triangle pattern within, which Ren couldn't begin to guess what did.
But as Ren looked closer, he noticed hundreds of green eyes with the same pattern all over the barbarian's body.
Ren quickly unsheathed his Odachi, placing it on his shoulder as he braced himself for a battle.
To his side, the handsome young prince with his new stolen Máti tilted his head and open and closed his right eye, trying to adapt to this new slow motion vision of his left eye.
The barbarian let out a monstrous scream from all three mouths before lashing out with its larger arm, the large arm suddenly elongated as even more grotesque arms exploded outwards towards the duo.
Rauri, seeing this in slow motion, giggled and easily walked out of harms way.
As for Ren, the stars in his eyes grew and began spinning slowly as he vanished and muttered, "Arden Swordsmanship : page 12, Dance of the Hunters Moon."
Ren disappeared and reappeared throughout the battlefield, slicing off a different arm with each blink.
He was moving so fast that Rauri, even with his 'Máti of the Chrono-Hunter.' He could barely keep up, making his eyes widen.
Ren's odachi glowed with a golden brilliance as blood began so flow from his nose.
Using a sword technique was so taxing on the body for someone with mana, which is the reason for people for mana to not become swordsmen, leading to there being no magic swordsmen.
But thanks to Ren's Máti, he could use mana freely without incantations or even magic circles, which made the tax on his body significantly less.
The barbarian, seeing Ren dancing around, suddenly retracted his arms, before all the green eyes on his body began to glow with verdant brilliance.
Suddenly, from each eye, burning green lasers were shot out and destroyed anything they came into contact with.
'Ah, I see…' Ren quickly analysed and understood the ability of the student council president's Máti.
It was heat vision, but the barbarian had multiplied this Máti all throughout his body, granting him such a deadly technique like this!
Ren looked over at Rauri, fearing the worst…
But he saw Rauri simply dodging each beam gracefully, as if he was a ballerina.
Ren couldn't understand this guy, he always looked as if he was having the time of his life even in situations like this.
Ren sighed, then lunged forwards, deflecting and blocking each verdant beam.
Ren kicked off the ground, causing the ground beneath him to shatter as he leaped upwards, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Ren suddenly began glowing with a pale golden hue.
"Sylvia Lunar Magic, Arden Swordsmanship : page 5 v2, Shooting star." Ren spoke aloud, loud enough for Rauri to hear, which caused him to pause for a moment, nearly getting grazed by one of the deadly beams.
Ren suddenly flew forwards at blinding speeds, slicing the grotesque arm clean off the barbarian, however he didn't stop there, now that he was on the ground, Ren spoke once more.
"Arden Swordsmanship : page 4, Orbit." He muttered, and instantly vanished, only to appear behind the barbarian, with his odachi aimed high, ready slash the head of the council president clean off.
However, despite his efforts, Dylan's Máti was enough for the barbarian to see through Ren's attempts.
An arm suddenly reached out of the class presidents mouth, grabbing Ren's arm and throwing him to the side.
Using this, the barbarian suddenly aimed the council presidents head directly at Ren's flying figure.
A larger and more vibrant beam shot out from the presidents right eye directly at Ren, piercing him straight through the chest.
Rauri looked at the now unconscious Ren with surprise, "Interesting? I didn't expect that." Rauri stroked his chin in thought, still dancing around each beam.
"Oh well, he's unconscious now, he won't be able to steal my technique." Rauri suddenly grinned maniacally, unsheathing the magnificent black and blue katana at his waist and muttering,
"Beauchamp Swordsmanship : page 1, Severance."