33 Risen#re

The entire first exploration group crumpled to their feet, they had escaped the nightmare, or so they thought for just an instance.

They had all heard the story, by now of the commanders strength, but they had tasted the power of the third-grade beast, their attacks had bruised the creature at best, and that was from a company of over a thousand people, but right now a group half their size was attacking it.

Even with the commander they doubted that the beast could be stopped, he'd only be able to injure it at best, and after that they'd be in the line of fire once more.

Most of them looked up to the sky, hoping to see the flying vehicles, that would come and take them back to base but there was no such sight yet in the sky.

At that moment they noticed a group of people that came up to them, at the front of them was Edith, she wore her camo uniform and had a sword on her hip as she looked at them.

"We have a plan to kill the mammoth, but it requires our full efforts, we'll buy you guys ten minutes, to refresh yourselves at that time you'll join in the battle," Edith explained to them quickly, time was of the essence.

But as Edith spoke there were several cries of outrage from the exploration group.

"We are exhausted from luring that thing over here, now you want us to fight it?!," some cried loudly, "Most of us have already given up on the expedition, and the vehicles will be here to pick us up soon, no way are we fighting!"

As more and more people began to agree, Edith frowned, it seemed that things were going exactly as Lirian expected them to go, she didn't like it one bit because she knew the solution.

She quickly found the loudest voice in the crowd, and prepared to do something she had never done before in her life, take a human life.

She had seen many deaths, mainly she saw the assassins that came after her getting killed or tortured to death, she had no problem with watching that after all they were the one's that tried to kill her first, but she had never personally delivered a killing blow.

She figured that the first time she had to take a life would be during her trial, but she was reminded of Lirian's words to her from a long time ago.

'As candidate's we learn a lot about politics and scheming, but they don't teach us how to take lives,' his words were something along those lines and she couldn't help but see the truth behind them at this moment.

Edith steeled her resolve and approached the boy with her most calming smile, Edith was easily one of the most beautiful girls in the entire academy, and she knew that her beauty had a calming effect on anyone she smiled at.

Then she wrapped her hand around the pummel of her sword with white knuckles and drew it too fast for the exhausted boy to react.

The blood splashed in an unruly manner all over the ground, and as the head rolled to the solid brown earth, blood shot out of the boys severed neck and rained down on everyone around his corpse.

Tobias and Wentian, were sitting on the ground heaving laboured breaths, they didn't have the advantage of extreme stamina and more durable bodies, that someone who experienced their first life hierarchy ascension so even with their horse the journey was even harder on them, leaving them almost incapable of moving after they stopped moving.

But the scene before their eyes, made them think that they were hallucinating, even Lirian hadn't executed anyone so far, the only person they thought would have the guts to do such a thing, but it was Edith instead.

Edith looked around coldly, with her steeled resolve, she couldn't allow any regret to show on her face as she looked at them.

"This is the commander's will," she stated loudly, "You help in taking down the creature you provoked, or he will kill every last one of you,"

"The commander has a message for all of you, you help or he will kill you here, if he can't kill you here, he will kill you at the base, if he can't kill you at the base, he'll hunt you down and kill you once we return to Xelia,", she said reciting the words that Lirian told her to say.

Though unwilling the students fell into line, if it was a threat from Lirian, they knew that they'd be dead without a doubt if he wanted them dead, after all the empress was his mother, and she'd do anything for her children, or so the rumours went.

---

Lirian stood high above collecting energy at a steady pace, he was in no rush to attack the mammoth and instead observed the flows of energy coming from the mammoth, from the first attack he had a suspicion of the mammoths true ability, but he needed to observe it one more time before confirming his theory.

At that moment he heard someone breathing quickly as they settled on the branch he was standing on, "Did you manage to learn the skill successfully?" Lucian asked facing Karen.

Karen looked down and wrapped her legs tightly around the branch she was sitting on, doing her best not to squirm as she looked down from so high up.

'I just had to become a mental psychic,' she complained to herself, it was all because of her ability that she had to come up her with Lirian.

Her biggest fear was that the mammoth would knock the tree down, and she'd have no place to retreat.

"Yeah, I learned the skill it wasn't difficult at all," she said with a little pride in her voice, "But I can only handle it for ten minutes at most, after that I'll be completely drained," she said giving a rough estimation, it was a new skill so she didn't know how proficient she would be in it.

"That will be enough," said Lirian with an eager expression.

"How do you even know such a skill?" Karen asked curiously and looked at Lirian strangely, he had passed her a simple psychic skill, that would allow him to see through her eyes, and it was easy enough that she could have a degree of success in just a few hours of using it.

"I sometimes hack firewalls with confidential intel," Lirian said with a shrug of his shoulders, "And when I found that spell I thought it would be useful for me someday," what he said wasn't a complete lie he did often hack into confidential files, but the spell was one he made up on the spot.

He made it as simple and easy as possible, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't impressed by Karen's learning speed, most people would require at least half a day to learn that spell.

In order to take down the third-grade beast the most important thing Lirian needed was to observe it, he could do it by just listening and using his sense, but that would waste time so he wanted to speed up the process.

He could figure out the creature a dozen times faster by observing it visually.

Karen almost lost control of the psychic energy she used to form the spell, 'Did he just tell me that he hacks into confidential intel!? That isn't legal, how the hack is he still a prince candidate? and he actually dares to admit it to me, does he think I won't tell anyone?' she wondered.

She slowly re-built the spell with psychic energy, while being surrounded by silver energy particles, that were slowly covering the area.

Then she reached forward and the spell construct, formed around them and in the next instant a smile formed on Lirians face as he looked at the world for the first time in over a month.

"Turn your head and face the first exploration group," Lirian said, the spell was a very simple one it didn't give either one control over the other, it only allowed Karen's vision to be shared, so what ever she looked at was all that he could see.

When she turned to face them, Lirian first noticed the decapitated corpse, and the bloody blade in Edith's hand, he smiled at the sight and was glad to see that she wasn't shaking from what she had just done.

Karen however had a different reaction, "What the hack did she just do?" she cried out, this was bad, after all she was from the Eden family too, and this would definitely spark trouble for the family, Lirian might have spoken and threatened about executing people but he never actually did it, and it spooked her that the genius of the Eden family had done such a thing.

"She was teaching them an important lesson!" Lirian said with a happy grin on his face.