Aether Beasts

[There will be a few more chapters out this month, and then starting next month, it will be back to daily releases. I also have a new novel releasing soon. Also, I Have a Dungeon in my Backyard is back up, and my entry for the Webnovel spirity awards.]

Katie's back was as stiff as a board, and the fear was still obvious. I could tell she wanted to look back, maybe to see if I was still following or because she thought I'd kill her. I was going to do neither and my thoughts were too busy elsewhere to reassure her.

Another world.

Things really never did work out the way they were meant for me. It truly was one thing after another, though this time was beyond anything else. At least I had Aneva, though unhelpfully she had gone dormant just after I had started following Katie. There was something she wasn't telling me, I could feel it through the bond and I guessed rather than me confronting her about it now, she'd gone dormant.

I'd have to talk to her later and get some answers, but for now, I was focused on trying to figure out my surroundings. The biggest difference I'd noticed so far was the complete lack of aether. I still had my cores and could feel the aether within me, which was a comfort. But another thought had come to mind. I had cores inside my storage rings, but not an infinite supply. Which meant eventually I would suffer from aether dilution, which would be even worse since there wasn't any ambient aether in this world.

It did not look good.

Katie seemed to know where she was going, and I wasn't worried about her trying anything. She was a regular human, and if I stood still and she hit me with everything she had, it wouldn't do much. That dagger of hers was normal metal as far as i could tell, and as a normal human, she didn't have the strength to use it to break through my skin if it could do such a thing at all.

I wondered if this world was just normal humans. But no, there was the magic of some kind. I had read some of my aunt's novels and they had magic in those stories, but it differed heavily. Would I find Wizards here?

"We're almost there," she said. She stopped as she realized I wasn't moving. "What?"

"Fire and ash," I said, sniffing. "I can smell smoke up ahead, and hear faint cries..."

Her eyes widened in alarm. "The village, it's under attack."

"I could do with a fight," I said, walking past her. "Stay out of the village until I see what's happening and solve it."

"Alone?"

I turned and gave her a blank stare. "Yes, alone, unless you have magic you haven't shown me?"

She shook her, looking worried, and confused. Her right hand was twitching.

I didn't have time to comfort her. I formed my bark armor around myself and pulled my glaive from my storage. She gasped and took a step back, staring at me with wide eyes.

I didn't need her to show me the way anymore. The direction of the smell and sounds was clear, and I took off in a sprint, using aether burst to increase my speed. I would have to be careful of much aether I used since something had happened to Zirani and while the bond was still there, it was different, like a string pulled taut and for some reason, she hadn't or couldn't return to me. I was worried about her, and the others. I would deal with this problem, find out what I could, then find them, starting with Sandra who was the closest.

I burst from the forest tree line and into an open area, a field surrounding the village, which was currently burning. Screams, laughter, and shouts sounded, and I immediately knew what was happening. I'd first heard of it while I'd been in West Vale. Groups of arcanists raiding small villages and towns, taking the people and anything they could. West Vale had been safe, due to the number of arcanists we had, and the defenses, not that it hadn't been tried. From what my aunt had told me, once a group had attempted to break in, but they'd run after half of their number had died trying to get into the walls.

I was in the chaos within seconds thanks to my speed, and all around I could see the devastation. Men, wielding crude weapons ran about the town, killing, laughing and I noted with no small amount of disgust and anger, raping. Some wore simple clothing, dirty, while others had on crude hide or leather armor. Most of it looked ill-fitting and worn.

The man who was atop the woman nearby died first, his head cleanly severed from his neck. I kicked and his body flew away, crashing against and breaking the wall of a wooden building.

The entire town was mostly made of wooden structures, with thatched roofs. Very crude and like something out of one of my aunt's fiction books. Like a very, very old world village. I didn't spend more than a few seconds examining the buildings before I was off.

One of the men had noticed me kill his friend, and was in the process of charging at me. He was a burly fellow with a pudgy face that looked repulsive. My glaive cut his body in half, like a knife through butter. I heard the sound of splattering as bloody viscera hit the ground, but I didn't look back. I moved as fast as I could, far too quick for any of the men to even notice me before they were dead. They were all normal humans as far as I could tell.

Dead bodies of villagers lay scattered about; Men, women, and even a few children. It set my blood boiling and I continued to carve a path through the raiders who had no idea what was happening. I was moving too fast for their eyes to see. My blade rose and fell; again and again and with each swing, another died. This wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter. I was butchering them.

In only a matter of minutes, all were dead, though one problem remained. The fires. There was no easy way to do it, and after a moment, I decided to use some more aether. I sent out waves of nature aether towards the burning wood, and it morphed, changing. It was an aether change technique, one that I hadn't mastered yet. Its purpose was to create wood to combat heat and fire. Zirani had said it was possible and could teach me, but I had wanted to try and learn it on my own. I was regretting that now.

The fires slowly died down until all that was left was smoke and ash. Almost half of the village was destroyed, and everywhere I looked, villagers cowered. Most still hadn't realized that the threat was gone. Then again, many had seen nothing but a blur and then the raiders, dead. They probably thought something else had come to kill them.

I could have stayed, but I thought it best to get Katie first. These people didn't know me, but they knew her. I was out of the village and back into the forest in moments and it only took me a handful more to find Kaite who had slowly come closer.

"It's done."

"What happened?"

"Raiders. All dead." I grimaced. "Your village is in bad shape and some are dead, but the fires are stopped."

She looked like she wanted to ask how, but I didn't have time to answer her questions right now. "We can talk about how later," I said. "First, you need to get back to your village."

She nodded and I let her take the lead. I followed slowly behind, my armor unmarred and my glaive bloody. If most people in this world were normal then that would make things easier for me. It had been less than an hour, and I'd already gotten into a fight. If that massacre could be called a fight. It had been as though I was a farmer with a scythe and they had been a field of wheat.