TBATE - To fulfill a promise

4. New enemies, same old mistakes

A/N: If this chapter feels weird, I was sick while writing.

Arthur Leywin's POV:

Mana shivered and flickered at Nico's appearance. I thought someone stronger than Nico was here, that the lances weren't a match for him but then I realized that he has grown so much in two weeks. He hasn't grown much in terms of appearance. But the way mana moved around him, it just warned me to stay vigilant.

The idea of using realmheart popped into my head, probably Regis using our connected mind, but I feared that he will be alarmed and fight and destroy the castle in our battle. Though on another note, killing Nico... no, a scythe here right now will benefit Dicathen a lot in the future.

'What would you choose?' I asked Regis.

Regis, scoffed. 'You realize you're asking for a weapon, right?' I sighed at Regis' response.

"Are we to fight?" I asked, leaving the decision to Nico.

Nico finally took his eyes off his hands and stared at me, finally revealing his face fully. His eyes were so dark that they would even put the darkest night to shame. He looked away from me at Regis, trying to make sense of what he is seeing right now before giving up. I was a bit surprised at his action, thinking he would attack me the moment I uttered a word.

"What happened to Tessia?" he screamed. Mana carried his voice, the atmospheric mana rumbled again. "We haven't seen any signs from her beast will. Even if she was back in that place you hid in the first place," he looked down and muttered 'unless' before shaking it off.

"We still would have found some traces of her. That means she removed her own beast will, her mana core got destroyed or..." Nico paused, trying to read my expression.

In those couple of seconds, my mind raced, already imagining the worst while also clinging to my hope on the "unless" that Nico muttered early.

"I knew it.

In a second, he disappeared again. I could still sense him without realmheart, but wanting to know how he did it, I activated realmheart, not to my fullest extent to be able to manipulate aether but enough to see the instantaneous spell formations. I saw Nico's mana being in the shape of his body, blending in with the atmosphere as he was flowing through the air. Multiple spikes from everywhere were shooting toward me and their mana fluctuation acted like a curtain for Nico's mana signature to hide between them. It was like a mirage walk but were more limited and worse. However, through his transparent body, he accidentally gave away the workings of his ability and perhaps even every other alacryans mage there was.

Mana flowed from his core through his spine, where every alacryans their runes had before being dispersed throughout his whole body at rapid speed. Not dwelling much on it, I shot out a web of aetheric lightning as I tasted my own blood. It arched in every direction to every metallic object there was, including Nico's metallic spike in the room before finally colliding together, and making its way to Nico.

Soul fire spat out from nowhere as Nico's body came into existence, his hand already pointed at the lightning attack and a flash occurred. He tried his best to block my spell but to no avail. My ears rang. When the smoke disappeared, I saw that the ground had been painted a different shade of red by blood from his missing arm on the red carpet while in his other hand, he held something.

I observed it and studied the flow of mana of that artifact. It was comparable to a small stone that fitted the palm nicely. Multiple red symbols glowed on it before one of them disappeared as an inhuman sound that I couldn't really describe rehearsed through the room. In mere seconds, most of the bones and some of the muscles regenerated.