Tales of Concordia: Volume One

Chapter Three: Enter Nyx

Keita

I studied the cavern, my eyes darting around the area and quickly assessing my surroundings. Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty visible Beasts, three hidden away further in. on top of that, I counted the large humanoid one and the hooded man standing several feet away from me.

The only threats were the Large CB and the hooded man. The others were a minimal issue even if they ganged up. Despite this, I knew a cavern like this wasn't an ideal place for a long fight.

"That's odd." The man interjected himself into my thoughts.

"I could've sworn a moment ago you were poised and ready to 'kill me'. but you haven't moved since then. Did you have a sudden change of heart?" He said, mocking me from a distance.

"Ha! Nice try!" I replied. "Unfortunately, I'm not stupid enough to let a small taunt like that provoke me. Although, I do think I've wasted enough time standing around." I raised my left hand, just ahead of me. "Say, wanna see something interesting?" The space just ahead of my hand began to tear and shatter, forming an actual hole in front of me. I put my hand in the hole, grabbing something.

"False Treasure: Lumen." I removed my hand from the hole. In my hand was a glowing sword with a slight yellow hue from the portal. The beasts in the area recoiled from the sight of the blade, skittering to the darkest corners of the cavern.

"I thought you were bluffing when you said you were going to show me something interesting! I wouldn't have expected a blade like that to belong to someone like you, even if it's a replica. Your magic is interesting too, I wonder what else you have hidden in there..." The hooded man said, astonished.

"Yeah, I can say I was pretty surprised when I managed to stumble on it a while ago. I'd love to talk about it some more, but- It's about time I followed through with what I said earlier." In an instant I dashed forward, moving low to the ground and closing the distance the man had on me in less than a second. I thrust, targeting his chest with my blade, catching him off guard.

"Faster than I expected!" He moves just enough to narrowly dodge the blade, something I took into account. I continue to move forward, grabbing the man by the neck and digging my claws deep into his neck, and gripping tightly. His face still concealed by his hood, I could see him smile widely as blood began to trickle down the corners of his mouth.

*CRACK*

I snapped the hooded man's neck. His body went limp a moment after. Despite him clearly being lifeless, something felt off. I wouldn't have time to think about it any further though.

The humanoid beast the man called Seven advanced towards me while swinging wildly as it tried to connect a blow, smashing the floor of the cavern with each strike. I threw the hooded man's corpse to the side, and faced the charging monstrosity head-on.

I could tell that each blow carried an absolutely monstrous amount of force behind it, but it was untrained and had no sense of direction at all, It was far too easy to read. After throwing another massive fist, I retaliated.

*SWISH*

Within less than a second, I had carved through one of the Beast's arms up to its elbow, chunks of it splattering across the cavern floor after instantaneously switching my sword for shorter blades.

The beast staggered back, clutching the stump where its arm once was in both pain and confusion from the sudden detachment of its arm.

"There's so much power behind each swing, but at the end of the day, you're a mindless beast!" I dash forward once more, jumping up slightly before sinking my blades into the beast's face and leaving them there. Right after that, I withdrew another two blades, using both of them to pierce deep into its neck.