There may also be some inaccuracies, since English is not my native language.
Essentially, TBATE is first translated from English into my native language - and in that process, some details are already altered to make it more understandable for us. Now I'm taking that adapted (and somewhat distorted) version, revising it, rewriting it, and then translating it back into English.
I hope you'll point out any mistakes in the text that I might have missed.
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Lucius Zogratis POV
Caera spun, parried, dodged, and cleaved through the golems like a swordmaster whose precise strikes incinerated enemies while carrying her clear of claws sweeping close past her. Even so, some of the aether mists near her began forming bodies again-I could see it clearly.
Activating the GodRune of Theft, I sent several aether arms flying from my body toward the place where Caera was fighting, and they plunged into a cluster of aether mist trying to form a new snow body.
A little more than an hour had already passed. In that time, the three of us had managed to establish something like a rhythm.
By this point, I didn't even know how many times I'd activated the GodRune of Theft. I'd used God Step so many times that I stopped counting that too. But it was precisely in this prolonged meat grinder that new possibilities began to show themselves. Under constant pressure, right on the edge of habit and instinct, I managed to apply the GodRune of Theft in a new way, tuning it not only for directly stealing aether from the bodies of the snow monsters, but also for disrupting their restoration, intercepting aether flows before they could stabilize inside a monster's body.
However, new difficulties emerged. Caera couldn't replenish her reserves the way Arthur and I could, and her body did not move purely thanks to mana or aether. Her movements became slower, and the soulfire coating her red sword started to flicker faintly.
As she raised her blade for a downward slash, she left herself open to an attack from behind.
Activating God Step, I managed to place myself between the golem and Caera in time.
I shielded Caera with my body. The blow landed across my back, and the familiar tingling spread through me at once. But it was too light, too superficial to truly worry me. The sensation had nothing to do with the pain of a real wound. It was more like an echo from my sense of aether, instant feedback from the collision of enemy claws against the protective layer covering my body.
The aether claws had only lightly scratched the outer layer of my aether defense.
By now, I had adapted so well to the second layer of the aether core that aether settled over my body almost naturally-like a second skin. The moment I even had the thought that there was a chance of being pierced, the aether condensed into something like an instinctive shell, instantly thickening exactly where the monsters' attacks had a chance of breaking through my defense.
Caera's eyes widened in amazement. "Lucius?"
"It's nothing," I said, releasing her. "How much longer can you keep going?"
"Not long," Caera admitted.
"Gray!" I shouted, drawing his attention. "Let's make a small circle. Caera's running low on mana."
Nodding, Arthur moved closer to me and positioned himself with his back to Caera, blocking most of the incoming damage.
After giving Caera a nod, and getting one in return, I began hurriedly twisting aether in my hands, creating a sphere about one and a half meters tall, spinning at enormous speed.
Without hesitation, since I had already done it a few times, I activated the GodRune of Theft and inserted more than twenty aether arms into that spinning sphere, then released it. The aether sphere, filled with aether arms ready to steal aether at my command, slammed into the cluster of frost monsters and tore apart more than thirty of them.
At once, the aether arms stretched toward the aether blizzard and, with a grasping motion, stole all the aether in a single second. By my will, half the arms flew back into my core, rapidly refilling my aether reserves, while the other half flew toward Arthur and quickly replenished his aether core as well.
After filling my internal reserves, I focused on creating an aether blast. It burst from my hand, swallowing dozens of golems that made up the snowstorm around us, giving me a brief view of the landscape beyond it.
Barely two minutes passed before something changed. The blizzard swirling around us shuddered, and several dozen creatures within it began merging together until they resembled one violet bubble inside the white wall.
What emerged from the blizzard didn't resemble a vortex of snow and ice or a tornado.
It stood no less than three and a half meters at the shoulder. It looked like a bear, but moved on six developed limbs ending in gleaming aether claws. From its round, shapeless head projected a long spear-like beak of pure ice.
The resulting monster looked like a fusion of a Spear Beak, a Shadow Claw, a Ghost Bear, and a Four Fists, only many times larger.
Excellent. I'd been waiting for this.
Dozens of snow golems gathered together to form three disgusting snow figures. At that moment, Regis burst from Arthur's shadow, no longer in body form but in a heavily altered state.
Besides the fact that he had grown to over two meters tall when standing on all fours, and that his forelimbs had become longer and more muscular than his hind legs, the appearance of the shadow wolf had changed radically.
Regis's fur stood in stiff spikes, gleaming like obsidian beneath sharp tongues of violet flame dancing over him. His horns, like sharpened spears, rose from his temples and thrust forward like a bull's, while rows of jagged daggers jutted outward to form fangs.
A powerful roar burst from Regis's throat, carrying a tangible pressure, akin to an aether version of King's Force. Sensing danger, the three giant golems shifted their attention to Regis.
Arthur turned sharply toward Caera, who was sitting and refilling her core. "Plans changed. Support Regis!"
Despite her exhaustion, Caera nodded firmly and directed Soulfire into her scarlet blade, while Regis lunged forward, throwing up a cloud of snow behind him.
Regis's movements seemed blurred, though not because of speed. He tore a chunk from one of the golems with his claws before spinning and smashing another with his spiked tail.
Where his claws moved, they left behind a violet trail carrying the aspect of Destruction.
Although his attacks were nowhere near as powerful as the amethyst flame Arthur could create with the GodRune, they were able to suppress the golems' regenerative abilities, unlike Caera's soulfire.
Absorbing the information coming to me through my aether channels, I used God Step and stepped to the giant golem that was still trying to restore part of its torso, jumping onto its shoulder before plunging my hands into its body.
As I began rapidly absorbing the aether mist that made up its true form, the third golem-which should have been focused on Arthur-struck back, creating a spear of icicles in its clawed hand and hurling it at me.
Before I could even think about dodging, a sphere of soulfire slammed into the giant icicle, devouring the golem's attack before dissipating.
"A new spell?" I muttered, continuing to absorb the aether.
Caera smirked. "You're not the only one who's been training, Lucius!"
Ignoring the other golems, I began frantically absorbing aether from its mist body.
Caera released another cluster of smaller soulfire bombs, which expanded on impact, destroying the remaining limbs and body fragments of the giant golems, now fully deformed.
Letting out another roar, one that sounded more draconic than lupine, Regis turned into a whirlwind of jagged flame, fangs, and claws, grinding the two remaining golems like meat in a grinder.
"I don't even think he needs us right now," Caera said with a tired laugh, and the black flame dancing around her fingers dimmed.
As if the golems had taken her words as a challenge, the physical constructs of snow and ice that made up their bodies suddenly collapsed to the ground.
The violet mist that formed their true shapes seemed to rise out of the ground and merge together, growing denser and more transparent while also shrinking.
From the place where the aether creature gathered, a dome of kinetic force burst outward, sending Regis sailing over the snow. Caera barely managed to stay on her feet thanks to my hand at her back, while Arthur and I chose to wrap ourselves in a thicker layer of aether and dig our heels into the ground.
From the epicenter of the blast appeared an incorporeal humanoid creature with four translucent violet arms and a pair of wings twice its height, which stood a few centimeters taller than I did. Its limbs were covered in armor plates made of ice. But its most astonishing feature was a white shard covering half its faceless head like an ornamental mask.
Caera took a step forward. "That's..."
A satisfied smile appeared on my lips. The plot was moving exactly as it should. "A portal fragment."
Arthur's body was tinted violet as aether wrapped tightly around him, but apparently Regis's rage in his Destruction form sent Arthur all of its emotions, because he flinched and lost concentration.
"That thing is mine!" Regis snarled in a voice that didn't sound like his own, and lunged forward, snapping his jaws, filled with the power of Destruction.
However, the snow beneath Regis bent and hardened, freezing his limbs to the ground.
Letting out a disappointed growl, the dark wolf began straining with his whole body, trying to break free, but even though his body was coated in Destruction, the ice held fast.
With one beat of its translucent violet wings, the creature rose high above the ground and began raining down a barrage of icicles stained the color of aether.
"Are we helping him?" I asked, watching this peak battle. Regis in Destruction form was majestic as hell.
Caera flashed past Arthur and me without hesitation, stepping between Regis and the barrage of aether-coated icicles, and created a wall of soulfire.
Meanwhile, Arthur activated God Step, teleporting into the air above our opponent to stop its attack. Wrapped in a halo of violet energy, he oriented himself and dropped straight onto the humanoid's shoulders.
And me?
I simply watched, while at the same time burning aether from my core, because I knew that if I activated the GodRune of Theft right now, I wouldn't be able to steal even part of the aether from its body-I simply had nowhere to put it. My second-layer aether core was oversaturated with aether after all these battles.
My body is a container with an aether core hanging at its center. If you open holes in that container, aether will flow freely. So I consciously made those holes, which took the shape of an aura-or King Force, as the asuras call it. That action, along with mindless activation of the GodRune of Theft not directed at anything but plain snow, would quickly dry up my aether reserves.
Grabbing the creature by the neck while its wings beat wildly in every direction and their bodies bounced up and down in the air, Arthur wrapped his legs around its waist and tried to tear the portal fragment from its head. But the white stone slab refused to budge, and the plates of ice armor began eating through the protective layer of aether surrounding him.
Seeing that Caera had managed to fend off most of the attack with her black flames and free Regis, Arthur changed tactics.
Instead of trying to rip off the portal fragment, he seized the humanoid's head with both hands. However, when he tried to absorb the aether composing its violet flesh, he was apparently overwhelmed by the flood of energy and abruptly let go.
How strange. Even now I can see the amount of aether in the frost monster's body. Looks like the 13th-rank GodRune Aroa's Requiem, the 11th-rank GodRune of Theft, and the system's own function had done their work.
Just as I expected, even for the second layer, this amount of aether was far too much. If our cores had been empty, Arthur and I could have completely absorbed its aether. But with our cores already nearly full? Impossible.
"Probably time to start moving," I said to Caera, who had just jumped back. At that moment, my attention was drawn to the bleeding wound on her shoulder blade and shoulder. "How did you get that injury?"
Had Regis actually managed to wound her even now?
Caera shook her head helplessly. "It was Regis, but I don't think he even realized he hit me. He's not in the right state right now."
Arthur, who had leapt off the frost monster, frowned as he came to stand beside us. "I can feel Regis's consciousness being eroded by his new form."
Nodding, Caera stepped forward and stood beside me. "I spent too much mana trying to keep up with both of you. I'll support from the back."
My gaze dropped to the curved wound stretching along her shoulder. Although it had stopped bleeding, I could make out the violet tint left in it by the GodRune of Destruction. "I can try to fix it after we kill this monster."
With a faint smirk, Caera nudged me forward. "That's all well and good, but if scars are left, the two of you will have to answer to my mentor. Now go."
Aether lightning crackled around me as I activated God Step and the GodRune of Theft in the same moment, layering their properties together and greatly amplifying them, and a second before plunging into the world of spatium, I heard an intellectual exchange.
"It's mine!" Regis snarled viciously.
"Shut up," Arthur spat back, rushing forward in an aether-clad step.
I found myself again in the world of spatium. Without hesitation, because of the amount of aether being spent and the strain on my mind, I reached for the portal remnant on the monster's face like a mask and yanked sharply.
At once, the familiar weight appeared in my hand and immediately went into my inventory.
Opening my eyes, I saw a rather strange sight. Arthur had gathered aether, preparing to strike point-blank, when Regis suddenly slammed into him from the side, knocking Arthur away before crashing into the humanoid golem, badly weakened by the removal of the mask.
"So that's how you want to behave?" Arthur asked, his voice now full of anger.
An aura of violet energy hummed around his hand as he advanced toward Regis and the aether creature rolling across the snow like a pair of fighting wild beasts.
No longer bothering to hold back, he raised his open palm and aimed it at both of them before unleashing a stream of aether.
An inhuman shriek and a deep howl of pain echoed through the mountain peaks. Both Regis and the creature were blasted off balance and writhed in agony, stunned for a moment.
"Thanks for holding that thing nice and tight for me, buddy," Arthur said, before plunging one hand into the fading violet body of the creature and carefully absorbing its aether.
The dense concentration of aether that had made up the humanoid's body had already noticeably weakened after I pulled the portal fragment out of it. The creature's stability had already been hanging by a thread, and Arthur's actions completely upset that fragile balance. In the next instant, the aether creature exploded into a massive vortex of violet energy, which soon ceased to exist.
"Look what you've done!" Regis spat, approaching Arthur with murderous intent. "If you hadn't been so obsessed with that stupid piece of stone-which Lucius stole anyway-I could have absorbed all of its aether!"
"And then what?" Arthur met his companion's threatening stare. There wasn't a trace of sympathy in his voice. "You were going to kill me, Lucius, and Caera and just wander this wasteland peacefully?"
Regis bared his obsidian fangs. "Maybe I would have..."
Arthur's fist slammed into Regis's cheek, driving the shadow wolf's head into the snow.
"Want one?" I asked Caera, handing her several very delicious grapes. Rank three, by the way. Very tasty and nutritious.
Without a word, Caera's fingers found a couple of grapes, after which she shifted her gaze to the two fighters. "You're not going to break them up?"
"No. It's just a men's scuffle. Let them work it out," I answered without hesitation, tossing a grape into my mouth. "What a tasty thing."
Caera nodded slightly, slowly brought a grape to her lips, and ate it. Then her eyes abruptly widened like saucers. "What a tasty thing."
Quickly finishing all five grapes, she turned to me at once. There was no longer any soft politeness or former restraint on her face. Only a rare, almost frightening seriousness of someone who had suddenly realized that something truly important existed in the world.
She extended a hand toward me. "Do you have more?"
I looked at her for several seconds without rushing to answer, then couldn't help a pleased smirk.
Heh-heh.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Arthur and Regis continue beating each other senseless off to the side, kicking up snow, growling, cursing, and periodically trying to pin one another to the ground. With a furious snarl, the shadow wolf answered with a swing of his massive paw, then threw himself at Arthur, baring jaws infused with Destruction.
Arthur answered each of Regis's attacks with one of his own strikes, saturated with aether, with the only difference being that Arthur's blows actually landed.
"Did you forget that you have no idea what happens to you if I die?" Arthur growled, landing a blow to Regis's side that sent him sliding more than ten meters across the snow.
Regis let out a cold, ugly laugh. "Don't pretend you care about me. You only ever saw me as a weapon, a tool you could use! Now that you've seen my potential, you're afraid of me, aren't you?"
"I'd be much more emotional if I'd ever seen you as a weapon," Arthur sneered. "You were more of a leech than anything else."
With a furious howl, Regis lunged at Arthur, his aspect of Destruction flaring even more violently.
"You've been sucking my aether core dry for the last several days and suddenly you think you've become powerful?" Arthur said mockingly. "I think the asuras were wrong when they told me you'd become a weapon."
"Shut up!" Regis roared, his voice growing more and more distorted as the aspect of Destruction overtook his body.
Arthur suddenly surged forward, locking an arm around his neck, then flipped Regis over his shoulder and slammed him into the ground so that he was staring directly into the wolf's wide glowing eye. "You don't think that if I can force you out of my body, I can't take you back in?"
The bear-sized wolf jerked and began melting into smoke and aether as his shape retreated into the shadow beneath Arthur's feet.
At the same moment, Arthur froze abruptly, and beneath his clothes, his own GodRune of Destruction shone brightly.
"Well, since they're occupied, let's heal you. Turn around," I said to Caera, who narrowed her eyes slightly, clearly not fully understanding what exactly I intended to do, but she didn't argue. Without a word, she silently turned her back to me.
Her clothes still bore traces of the recent battle. In some places the fabric was torn, in others darkened, and in others gone entirely, unable to withstand the constant collisions with aether golems and ice claws. Her body itself, though still holding together with its usual steadiness, still bore many minor and not-so-minor injuries.
Activating the 13th-rank GodRune Aroa's Requiem, violet specks of aether drifted from my hands and settled over the damaged areas of Caera's body like snowflakes, rapidly healing them, then just as quickly restoring her normal clothes, since during the battle she had hidden the snowsuit because of its size.
Caera slowly ran a hand along her side, then her shoulder, then carefully touched the place where wounds had been only a moment earlier. For the first time, an expression close to childish disbelief flickered across her face, mixed with genuine admiration.
"This..." she said quietly, as though still checking whether she could trust her own senses. "That's a miraculous ability."
Then she turned toward me.
Her soft smile caught the light of the artificial sun, and that light, reflected in her hair and eyes, made her even more beautiful than usual. Against the cold glow of the glacier-blue sky and the endless blizzard, she looked almost unreal-too bright, too alive for such a harsh place.
"Thank you," she said.
I blinked.
Only once.
But that was enough to understand that for a couple of moments I had simply frozen, completely captivated by her smile. I had to awkwardly shake my head, as though that motion could drive off the sudden embarrassment. "You're welcome."
A few hours passed, and the sky above us shone glacier-blue and rippled with the colors of the aurora.
I turned my gaze toward Arthur, who had finally come back to himself after yet another internal struggle.
Raising my hand, I gave him a faintly amused wave. "Welcome back."
Caera, already having fully restored her mana reserve and calmly chewing on a delicious third-rank apple as though nothing had happened, also looked his way. "Welcome back," she repeated.
Arthur gave a slight nod, after which Regis appeared from his shadow in the shape of a small wolf pup. For a moment, they met each other's eyes before Regis shifted his gaze to Caera. "Gray, Caera... I-"
"No need," Arthur said, cutting him off before he could finish. There was no irritation or anger in his voice. Only calm firmness. "You tried to kill me, I said some nasty things to you. Let's call it even."
Stroking his dark head, Arthur gave Regis a smile. "Besides, you were pretty cool."
"Agreed," Caera said, giving them a playful smile, then turned her back to show perfectly restored clothes that looked as though they had just been made, even though a few hours earlier they had been badly torn in battle.
"Maybe a battle scar would've helped me get rid of at least some of the potential suitors my Blood has so kindly chosen for me," she said with feigned sorrow, though obvious mockery colored her voice. "But thanks to Lucius, that wonderful opportunity has been lost forever. What a tragedy. I'll have to fend off hundreds of possible suitors all over again."
The three of them began laughing in relief in the silence of the snow-covered field, but a sharp cry from somewhere above interrupted them. We looked up and saw several white birdlike figures circling in the blue sky.
"Spear Beaks," Arthur said. The memories of how the Spear Beaks had killed Three Steps' companion were still fresh in his mind and burned very brightly now. I was sure of it.
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3885 Words