[POV: Silver Davis]
Silver groaned and shifted to his side. Why was his bed so hard and uncomfortable today? And why was it shaking and rattling? Was this an earthquake? This was bad, he needed to get out of here.
Silver tried to bolt upright and dash out of the room but something went wrong, his body just would not listen to him. Every fibre, every bone in his body felt limp.
Silver opened his eyes, and as soon as he did his head began to throb furiously. It felt as heavy as iron. Silver groaned. Everything was dark and blurry. When he tried to lift his hand up to his face, he could not. They were strapped together behind his back.
Even with how limp his entire body felt, he somehow managed to heave himself upright. The rattling and shaking had not stopped. His vision was slowly returning.
His bed jolted and Silver bumped the back of his head into something hard.“Argh! Why the hell is everything moving?” Silver growled under his breath.“Cause it's moving. Look around you, idiot.” A familiar voice said.
"..."
Silver did not reply to the voice. His vision had finally returned. With his vision came his memories.
He was being transported in some kind of caged wagon as a prisoner. It was dark outside; dark clouds were hovering above, covering the entire sky. The only sound he could hear was soldiers' footsteps and rustling wheels of the wagons. Two guards were walking beside the wagon. One of them was Vlad; the source of the familiar voice. The man whom Silver always hated. His ego, his disgusting laughs and his twisted personality. If Silver were to define psychopath, his name would pop out of his mouth.
Thousands of men were marching at the front and a few hundred men followed after, with three huge wagons carrying something eerie, inside some kind of transparent vessel. An uneasy feeling passed through Silver's gut just by looking at it. The wagons were being pulled by Pyromuthus. A massive elephant-like magical beast with massive twisted tusks. They had rough fiery-red skin. A single twisted horn protruded from its head. And more horns lined its back from its neck to tail.
Thankfully silver could still feel his grace. When silver tried to pull on his grace it just... slipped away. Silver thought about his symptoms for a few minutes. Limp body parts, throbbing head, and his inability of pulling on his grace. These were all the symptoms of a drug called Gracebane.
Silver didn't utter a single word for days. They were travelling continuously. They were no longer at the Elohim's plateau. It has been at least eight days, Silver thought. The guards were continuously talking about a package, Colin Smith. That was what they called him, a package.
The wagon had stopped outside a village. The village was right next to the forest.
***
It has been an hour already since the wagon had stopped moving. Suddenly, Silver heard a voice while he was staring at the sky as it was the only visible thing for him.
“You promised you would let them go. The deal is off, let me go.”
“We promised no such thing, I only said I would not harm them, And I have not harmed them. However, I said nothing about not taking them a prisoner. You should be glad that my oaths did not allow me to order them to be killed or tortured. But if you struggle boy, my oaths will allow me to do so.”Silver jerked his head out of curiosity. Vlad dumped someone else inside the wagon he was in. Silver quickly realized who that was.Silver gently smiled and said, "You must be Colin."
Colin’s eyes widened with surprise, probably shocked. Colin asked, “How did you..."
“How did I know? Please, the only thing they talked for 8 days was about is you. How you were an important package that promptly needed to be delivered.”
The two exchanged many words with each other all day long inside the wagon and consequently became good friends in a short time. Well, they had only each other to talk and vent out their frustrations. They didn’t talk to their guards, and there were no other prisoners. During their latrine breaks, a mage would dose them with gracebane before removing their grace dampeners. A dose strong enough to make them lose the ability to pull on their grace, but weak enough so that they could still walk around and do their business. Few guards would constantly follow and watch their moves during their break.
It had been three days since Colin was captured. The mages had left the group along with captured humans a few hours ago, just after their latrine break. They finally arrived at the top of the plateau. Out of curiosity, Silver finally asked,
“Do you have any idea why you were targeted?”
“I was born with way too much grace. I guess that they want to harness grace from me to create magic items or something.”
“That could be one of the possibilities,” Silver said with a nod.
Vlad laughed with amusement. “You kids are hilarious. It's not possible to extract grace from any of the races let alone from a punisher, other than a mage that is.”
“Then why bother capturing him?’
“It's simple, he's a payment for the organization who gave us this army.”
“What idiot gives an army of this size for one person.”
"You've got it all wrong. He's for the army of fifty mages and fifty-thousand vampires. And he's not the only payment. They want Firestone and Waterstone as well.”
“So, you attacked our village just to get your hands on the Firestone,” Silver hissed every word.
“Yup! That is one of the reasons but not all of it.”
“Why you?” He looked at Vlad with a vengeful eye.
“You wouldn't be so cocky if my hands weren't strapped by this damn thing.” Silver shook the grace dampeners. “I would've killed you this instant.”
Vlad Snorted loudly. “Even if you weren't cuffed in that thing you still wouldn't be able to lay a single scratch on me, that's how powerful I’m.”
During his fit of anger against Vlad Silver realized something, something wonderful.
“Hey Col," Silver whispered.
“What is it?”
“I'm going to get both of us out of this cell.”
Vlad laughed. “Good luck with that. That was the best joke ever," Vlad said walking away. He had left another guard in his stead.
“What? How?” Col whispered.
“Just trust and sit back to back with me.” Silver said. Col did as he was told.
“Hey, you! What are they carrying in those wagons?” Silver jerked his head towards one of the guards.
“Trust me you don't want to know what it is,” the guard said.
“Just tell me already,” Silver shouted.
“Watch your temper kid,” the guard shouted back. “That's all the blood we collected from your villagers.”
“Why would you want to collect all that blood?”
“We are vampires and we need blood to survive.”
“Then why didn't you collect blood from royal families.”
“Because it's so much fun to watch all high and mighty royal families heads being ripped off.” He said with an ugly laugh.
“You son of a bitch!!!!” Silver snarled. “I will kill you.”
Silver and Col slowly stood up. Both of their hands were freed from the grace dampeners.
If you have forgotten, Elohim's Plateau is where the country of Sizen( County of elementals) is located.
[POV: Silver Davis] “How did you get loose?” Beads of sweat formed on the guard’s forehead, eyes wide with horror. “How did we get loose?” Silver smiled, trying to make it as sinister as possible. “When the mage cuffed me after the latrine break, she used a fake.” That was the only conclusion Silver could reach. Only mages had the chance to change real dampeners with fake ones during their latrine break or eating break. Knowing that it was a fake it was easy to saw through the cuffs using water Colin's was real so he had to wait till he freed Colin. “There is a rat among the mages,” the guard said, terror still apparent in the guard’s eyes. The two guards probably knew they were going to die. That was probably why they still hadn’t sounded an alarm, trying to figure out a way to survive. Which was very convenient for Silver. “Let me handle this,” Silver said to Colin. Collin nodded his reply. “We can make a deal,” the gu
[POV: Silver Davis] First, two vampires dashed towards them, shouting some sort of battle cry. Silver raised his hand, pulling on his grace, commanding it. Both vampires were knocked out flat, coughing blood even before they could touch them. Second, seven vampires attacked them. Arrowhead chains that appeared out of nowhere pierced five of their hearts, knocking them out cold. Silver slashed the air with his hand. A thin line of water blade shot forward, cleaving the two vampires in half. Back at home, Silver remembered doing the same thing to vampires. Vampires were obstinate creatures who refused to die, no matter what. The vampires had to be burned or had their heads cut off to be killed, so they were most likely still alive. Either way, he should not have used a water blade, as it consumed too much grace. He had to be conservative if he wanted to survive this many enemies.
[POV: Silver Davis] Chains whipped around Silver, lashing vampires that got too close to him, carving them in half with grotesque wounds. Silver swiped his hand in rapid succession, sending blades of water that found the heads to hack off. There was a mound of vampires around them, in a ring. The vampires now had to climb over their dead friends to reach them. The vampire seemed more hesitant than before. Of course, they were. How can two children fight off so many vampires at once? Hesitant though they were, they did not stop throwing themselves at Silver and Colin. At first, Silver had thought that they had some chance of survival. Yes, they could do this, they could survive this. They had survived for so long now, and they could survive much-much longer. However, the reality of their situation struck him like a hammer of realisation. The vampires had obviously realised why they were losing. Silver and Colin’s defensive and offensive
[POV: Silver Davis] Vlad shot forward like a human-sized bolt of lightning. Silver sidestepped just in time to avoid the human lightning which screeched past him, skidding across the earth, showering dirt to either side. He heard a growl from Vlad. Lightning was streaking around him in flashes of purple. Silver danced with them, weaving around the bolts, again filled with grace, to the brim. The odd thing was the lightning was behaving like… like the lightning in the sky, arching in the random direction, mostly downwards. These odd, arching attacks made it easier for Silver to dodge them. But how could that be? It was a construct of grace, not real lightning. The other man should have better control over his own constructs. Then Silver saw the sheer number of flashes scratching about. Of course, the sheer number of attacks should make it difficult to control. Why follow such a tactic, though? It would have been better if he used more concise attacks rather th
[POV: Silver Davis] All elementals had an equal amount of grace. No one knew the reason for this, but it was an undeniable truth. This meant that the true strength of each elemental was determined by their talents. Silver, however, was a strange case. He was born with a weak body which affected his ability to pull on grace. Just pulling on a third of his grace exhausted him. However, if he pushed his limit even further, he would pass out for hours. The Windstone helped him somewhat. It didn’t increase his grace pool, no, but it increased his ability to pull on his grace. In fact, with the Windstone, his ability to pull on grace was now as much as the added ability of two elementals. That, of course, meant that his grace would deplete twice the speed of others of his people. But that was no longer his problem. His grace was somehow twice as much as before. He had noticed it a fe
[POV: Colin Smith]Colin pulled on more grace using 20% of his ability. Now his chains made short work of the beast by beheading. The headless bodies of the beasts sprayed blood like erupting volcanos. The three riders crashed to the ground rather unceremoniously. One of them was crushed under the weight of the Pyromuthos that was still twitching. Blood slowly pooled under the bodies of the dying beasts. Without wasting time colin beheaded the two reaming riders. Colin knew that he was in the maw of a beast but, he couldn't help but glance at the three massive heads of those Pyromuthos. Pyromuthos were B-rank beasts, almost an A-rank and they had two blood sacks one behind each ear. That meant a lot of money was sprawled uselessly near Colin and he couldn't help but get greedy. He just wanted to throw the caution to the wind and grab those blood sacks. Colin summoned two of his chains and wrapped them around the ankles of two Vampires who were almost on top of him and began to swing
[POV: Colin Smith]The pentagram crackling and popping with violet energy spilled black smoke with a tinge of ember-like glow. From the smoke came 10s if not hundreds of burning obsidian chains with arrowheads and attacked everything that was alive within the area of effect. One of the chains went right through the stomach of a vampire. The vampire’s stomach was reduced to ash, and the rest of his body followed like a disease. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of vampires were reduced to dust, and not even the plants and other lifeforms in the areas were spared. Everything alive was reduced to dust by those burning chains. Vampires ran in every direction, trampling their fellow soldiers. Some of them slumped to the ground with dazed eyes and muttering prayers for mercy. Others collapsed with eyes rolled up behind their heads. Colin tried to ignore the shouts and screams of terror as he was committing genocide. Colin constantly pulled a stream of grace from his grace pool and pushed it
[POV: Silver Davis]Silver tossed and turned. Would someone please stop battering his head with a stick, it was not a drum, it thrummed painfully. Silver knew something about that thought did not sound right but he did not care at the moment.He realized that it was not just his head that was throbbing like a drum. It was his entire body. Oh, Undine! How it hurt. Silver groaned. Silver opened his eyes, well tried to. His stubborn eyes would not listen to him. After an eternity of struggle, he finally managed to open them. Everything was a blur as if he was looking into the world through a hazy mist. As his vision cleared the first thing he saw was a little girl with blonde wavy hair that went down to her hips. On closer inspection, he realized she was no little girl. By her face, she was probably as old as him and taller besides. For some reason knowing there was a girl of his age who was taller than him gnawed him to no end."Finally, thank the gods," the girl said with a relieved si