System Change

Silvi hopped off of Derek’s shoulder and onto Edgar’s. Derek laughed—she hadn’t left the poor prince a choice. Obviously, she knew that Derek was about to teleport away once again, and if he did that, she would be stuck in the air with nowhere to go. So, she had chosen the best of the available options and picked a new mount for the time being. Derek knew that they were very rare, but he would have to look into getting her a flight, or at least a floating skill, in the future. Using her dragon flame as propulsion just wasn’t a viable option.

She was very agile while fighting in the sky, but she didn’t have any way to maintain her position without using either her Dragon Fire skill or Active Void Shift. I guess I could get her a lid from a pot and she could use that with her Telekinesis skill. It would definitely fit her. Derek made sure to make a mental note that if he couldn’t find a proper flight or hover skill for his companion, he would at least get her a very well crafted pot cover.

Derek looked the prince in his eyes one last time and said, “The three of you need to keep an eye on the army. Don’t let them regroup.”

“Got it.” Edgar nodded. He did not look the least bit comfortable with Silvi perched on his shoulder.

With Silvi off his shoulder, and his mana slightly recovered, Derek slipped away from the prince with Active Void Shift and appeared next to the odd-looking Alanah. With his appearance at the other battle, their fighting ceased once again, and Derek gave a quick look at his new opponents.

The elven one, who he assumed was Ryven Elras, did not look happy at the moment. He kept glancing at Derek, then back over to Edgar. No… he’s looking at Silvi, isn’t he? Oh, yeah. Edgar said something like he would probably issue a command to kill Silvi, and the fact that they did indeed attack Savannah means that he really did. At that thought, Derek stared daggers at the commander of the army. The elven commander’s eyes also occasionally fell on his now scrambled army.

There was a look of uncertainty in the man’s eyes, but Derek didn’t see anything like fear, or even anger. Even with everything Derek and Silvi had done once they made their appearance, the man still looked pretty calm. Either he’s very calm and collected, or he’s just really good at not letting his emotions show.

The elven commander looked rather young, but Derek knew that the man’s age and his looks didn’t have much to do with one another. He was a full-blooded elf, and they aged at a much slower pace than humans, and lived longer as well. The man had long silver hair pulled back into a ponytail, and had a striking pair of emerald-green eyes. Derek couldn’t help but think back to the rude elven girl he’d encountered when he first arrived in Savannah.

Wait, what did Shae say about her? She was a duke’s daughter sent to Cydaria as a foreign dignitary… I think. What was her name… Sarina… no, Sabrina. That was it. This guy looks a lot like that girl. I wonder if this duke is her father. I didn’t ask Edgar if the king had more than one brother. After thinking about it for a moment, the similarities between the duke and that girl were too much to be anything but father and daughter.

Moving on from the elven commander, Derek next checked out the three humans. Two of the men both had very pointy facial features, like their chins and noses, and just gave Derek a slimy feeling. What caught his attention the most was the odd shade of hair that they shared. Derek reached up and ran his fingers through his own hair. Is that what mine looks like now that it’s tinted a bit by the color of the void? What he was thinking about was the extremely dark blue hair that would have looked black if he wasn’t closely inspecting the two. So that’s the King and Duke of Astrus.

It wasn’t hard for him to make that educated guess. The two men both shared similar features, including the dark blue hair, though one wore it long and loose, and the other had it closely shaven, and they both had little glistening crystals circling around them. Both men were glaring at Derek, and the one with the short hair looked to even be shouting something at him. However, no sound seemed to leave the man’s mouth. Derek shrugged and looked at the final person.

The last man was heavily armored from head to toe. If it is even a man, Derek thought. With armor like that, it’d be hard to tell until they lift their visor or lost their helmet. Definitely carries himself like a man, though. The person was wearing a dark gray set of plate armor and wielding a longsword with minimal decoration. Is he a tank, or super offensive and wearing armor like that to boost his lackluster defense? Derek wasn’t sure which, but he was sure he would be finding out soon.

Finally, Derek’s eyes fell on the emaciated-looking Alanah. That was the only way to describe what she looked like. It was like she had gone weeks or even months without any sustenance or sleep at all, and her body was punishing her for it. He did like the plated armor she was wearing, though, and he found it interesting that she used one of the smallest bladed rapiers he’d ever seen, and he’d seen at least two or three.

At first, he was a bit worried about her, but decided that she wouldn’t look like she did without a reason. Not to mention the overall change in the aura she’s letting seep out of her, he thought. The odd aura that I felt while inside the void was definitely hers. Derek looked her up and down, and it looked like she was waiting for him to speak first, so he did.

“Did you do something with your hair?” Derek finally asked, commenting on the dark, less vibrant, hair that she currently had.. Alanah smiled, and when she did, it revealed some fang-like teeth inside her mouth. Derek widened his eyes. That’s something you don’t see every day.

“I did do something to my hair,” Alanah said.

The instant the words left her mouth, Derek momentarily felt like he was hit in the head with a ton of bricks before he snapped back to. Whatever the form she was in now did, her voice was much harder to deal with than it was before.

Another signal that what he was thinking was true was the fact that his new Mental Resistance skill had leaped all the way from level 1 to level 3. Just casual conversation with her in her current form would be enough to train that skill. Two whole levels in a single sentence from her. Awesome. He was definitely going to use her to level his skill. It’d be better than asking Lyra to help me with it. She’s already doing enough babysitting all those dragonkin.

“It was kind of you to notice,” she continued. Her voice was slightly deeper and more sultry than he remembered, along with everything else. There was also an edge to it—like one wrong word or question would set her off.

It seems that she may not have total control of whatever skill it is that she’s using, he thought. Derek also realized why no words were coming out of the other men, even though they had been shouting at him before. They must be using some skill to keep her voice away from them, but it also makes it where we can’t hear them, either. It definitely wasn’t a bad move when dealing with someone like Alanah.

“Of course,” Derek said. “I haven’t been gone so long as to not recognize when you changed something up. And it looks like you got a manicure, too.”

Alanah held the hand that she wasn’t using to hold her rapier up in front of her face and examined it. “It would seem that way,” she said. The fingernails, or claws really, looked sharp—maybe even as sharp as the sword she was holding.

Derek was about to tell her that she needed to work on getting more sleep, and possibly run a comb through her hair, but the man who was trying to shout at him before cut their reunion short. The next thing Derek knew, a massive spike of what looked like black ice was rapidly closing in on him. Derek was about to dodge the attack by slipping into the void, but he thought better of it. Not knowing how hard his new skill was going to be to use, Derek stopped Greater Meditation so he would have greater control over his own body.

After that, he quickly waved his hand, and a rip in space appeared in front of him just before the ice reached him. It was the first time he’d used the new skill, so Derek stalled for a moment while figuring out what to do next, but the next instant, he felt, more than realized, what he needed to do next. With another wave of his hand, although he figured it could actually be done with a thought if he practiced and leveled the skill enough, Spatial Redirection instantly opened another tear in space and the ice appeared once again.

“Well, that worked,” Derek said as he looked at the doubled over elven commander who had just taken a large spike of black ice to his gut. Some of it even managed to break through his armor and penetrate into his stomach. Fortunately for the man, he had reacted quickly and was able to slow the spike enough with his hands that it didn’t go all the way through him.

Derek turned to look at Alanah again to see what to do next, but it seemed that the woman wasn’t going to let this chance to attack the enemy pass her by. She had disappeared without him even noticing. Damn, she must be fast.

Derek quickly glanced at his still recovering mana and sighed. He’d had Greater Meditation active for most of the time, other than when he quickly dropped it to be able to react fast enough with Spatial Redirection. Looks like we’re doing this whether I’m ready or not.

With a thought, Harbinger appeared in his hand and he kicked off the void toward the leaders of the army. Alanah was already on the armored general, attacking him while dodging everything that got close to her—and there was a lot trying to hit her.

On top of the general swinging his own sword, the two royals from Astrus were shooting ice pellet after ice pellet her way while trying to circle around their fight to get a better angle. Alanah did a great job of keeping the man she was attacking between her and the ice attack—which also made the king and duke have to be more precise, and thus slower, with their own attacks.

Seeing the three of them occupied, Derek decided to deal with the man he’d already started attacking. Duke Ryven seemed to have the same thought, as he wasn’t even looking at the fighting going on next to him. His focus was on the approaching Derek.

I guess I would be like that too if someone had just placed a large icicle in my gut. It was a split second decision, but Derek thought that taking out the commander first would be the best decision. From what Silvi had told them, the royal elf she killed had used barriers of some kind, and since it seemed like most families passed down affinities, even if they didn’t know that was what they were doing, it was a safe bet that he was the reason that Alanah’s voice didn’t affect them. If not, then taking out the commander of the army would still be the best thing to do.

The ice mage had already removed the icicle from the elven commander’s gut, and he was well on his way to recovering. But Derek had some other things he wanted to try out, and a shiny new training dummy to try them on. If the duke wanted to blame anyone for what was about to happen, he could blame himself because it was his own fault for ordering his army to attack Savannah.

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