Ancient Pasts - Tbate

Reunited

Arthur Leywin Pov

"Art... You dummy." Tess hiccuped as tears streamed down her face.

"I'm sorry, Tess." I gently patted her head before trying to move away.

Tess held onto me tighter as I tried to stand up. "Don't go..."

"I'm just going to be gone for five minutes, Tess, I promise." I comforted, kissing her forehead.

Tess hesitated before letting me go with a face full of tears. I patted her head with a smile before godstepping towards Cadell with a stern expression.

"Lady Sylvie, Arthur Leywin," Cadell welcomed with his everlasting frown.

'Sylvie, can you protect Ellie and Chloe? I don't trust Regis with them one bit.' I mentally transmitted.

'Hey!' Regis yelled out in protest.

'I finally get to meet my baby sister.' Sylvie huffed, ignoring Regis.

Cadell deftly landed on the ground and got into a stance. He knew he couldn't hold back against me anymore. The soulfire enveloping Cadell's hands transformed into a greatsword.

He lunged forward and swung in an arc, but I ducked and avoided the attack before punching him straight in the gut, hearing some cracks resounding. My punch sent Cadell skidding to a stop with a few broken ribs.

I godstepped behind Cadell and fired an aether cannon at him from point-blank range. Soulfire lept from underneath his skin and formed a wall as he jumped backward.

The aether cannon completely destroyed Cadell's soulfire wall, and it looked like he anticipated that. I godstepped behind Cadell, but he seemed to predict where I was going since he was already looking behind.

Cadell attempted to grab me, but I sent aether into another godrune, and in an instant, everything, including Cadell, slowed down before I gently landed on the ground. Cadell's eyes widened as he dropped his sword but realized it was falling too slowly.

Everything moved slower, the wind, the laws of physics, and living beings. None of them were an exception unless I decided to exclude them. Well, they could move normally inside this zone if they could manipulate or influence aether as well, but a scythe wouldn't be able to use aether in any way.

Looking around, I noticed Ellie, Tess, Virion, and the elf girl that I didn't know were confused, with only Chloe somehow falling asleep while we were fighting. Leaves fell slowly to the ground while the breeze moved too slowly to move those leave.

I scratched the back of my head before turning to face Cadell.

"Neat, isn't it?" I grinned innocently at the defenseless Cadell. "You can predict my movement and counter, but what if you couldn't counter?"

Cadell opened his mouth to say something with a deeper frown than usual, but his words came out too slowly to be articulate. I shrugged and turned to Regis in his puppy form, who was sitting on the grass, enjoying what remained of the sunlight before sunset.

"Regis!" I called out.

Regis let out a groan before jumping into my body. "I'm here."

I let out a long sigh as destruction flames covered my hands. Turning to face Cadell, who was still slowly swinging his sword, I smirked despite wasting a decent chunk of my reserves.

"I can't let you feel what I did back then, but how about some payback?" I smirked.

"Burn," I commanded.

I held onto Cadell's soulfire sword, and the purple flames of destruction lept from my hand and turned the black fire sword into a purple fire sword.