"Breaking the second seal must have left Arulli as crazy as an animal on drugs. Because what does he mean become the destroyers of the earth? Was my initial thought to his blatant and yet familiar claim, just as absurd as ever.
Arulli called me, FeveR, Jixon, and dear Andersi for this!
FeveR was a name we had come up with to label the twins, Fev and Rev together. Jixon had died just like Kol, but she had retained her sense of self and memories, shaping her soul, mimicking her physical form. Debatably, she was even stronger as a ghost.
Andersi was Arulli's wife. A very powerful spirit that had come from a planet far away from Earth, a planet that has not even been made privy to the presence of darkness.
Both of them met in the Realms, she was one of the locals assigned to live out their after lives in this section of the Realms, Realm core Hookahs Pookas. Renamed after how lax the guardian of this place was, the same one Arulli had talked to on multiple occasions.
Each Realm had a guardian, and this one was so chill that Arulli had a conversation with it every time they met. Unfortunately, it refused to let us leave this section, which was fair considering that it ignored the fact that we came here through illegal means.
Arulli's words again echoed in our mind. "Listen up guys, we are going to become the destroyers of the Earth."
Just where he left off, he continued, "I have realised, fixing the Earth changes nothing. What we have to do is something else. We are going to beat them to the punch and destroy the earth ourselves."
Concerned, Andersi asked, she knew not of Earth, but even she could here the crazy in his voice.
"I you saying we become the very thing you swore to protect against!"
He took a few relaxed breaths, each as calm as the last. "My second power has opened my eyes. It is the authority over paths. It allows me to…"
"Second power? When?"
I answered them, "Apparently Arulli here broke the third seal and got second power while he was at it, all without uttering a single word."
Everyone threw a tantrum, debating to him the implications of his silence, but just as when I did, Arulli ignored all of it, and instead, he kept on speaking.
"My power allows me to see and edit paths of reality as I see fit. With my patterns power, all I did was copy and channel paths that already exist and force them into an object to do something it was incapable of. With this new power, I am able to change these paths and still channel them using my patterns, creating my own original paths. Sure, at level 399, all I can do is humble, but that won't be for long.
With it, I have devised a way for us to push back the conquest of the darkness. Something so grand that even the destroyers will cower in its wake. Here are your marching orders:
Jixon, I need you to master beyond all doubt your power over dimensions. At all costs, you too will become like me. Don't bother with a second power, I need your entire focus solely planted on the becoming the sole, and most powerful user of this. Your dimension power will be able to let you escape the Realms even as a spirit and become our security contractor.
Fev, Rev. I need FeveR to learn a third power, and possibly a forth, I need the first and most powerful mages in history to be able to use all seven powers over all seven elementals of reality. I need you to surpass the dragons in might. I will be sending you guys back for training, make sure to also train a few apprentices as well, the world cannot lose their mages and spells to history.
Laurel Do, I need you to break through the third seal, and I'm sure you guys won't be as lost as I am so reaching 400 will be a sinch. In that time, I need you all to learn a second power, but mostly make sure to improve your current one, I have a request to make of all of you, prepare yourselves accordingly.
Andersi my dear, I… need children. Awkward I know, but unlike the first two legendary heroes', should I disappear, I wish to remain a thorn in the face of the darkness. I can see it now, my children fighting against the darkness. And even if they don't, I'll still be happy to know they existed long after me, like I was there myself."
No-one said it, but Arulli spoke as if he was going to die, and by the tone in his voice, nothing could convince him otherwise. Andersi had to interrupt him still. Not only was he sounding crazy, but the crazy was happening too fast for anyone to absorb it.
"But I don't have a physical body…"
"I'll handle that, I feel like there's nothing in this world I can't do."
I had to ask my own questions as well.
"Your request, will you tell me now, or after your master plan?"
"Don't worry, just tell Laurel Lerva that I do think erasing everybody's mind is a good idea, that is once I fix, well… destroy the earth – she won't mind the slight change of plans."
Jixon was the stoic silent type, and her trust in Arulli was unrivalled, so she had nothing else to ask.
Crazy as it was, we followed his lead. Even though we lost many knights, many returned back home to once again resume the fight against the darkness. Many would go on to become wonderful teachers, an even thinner few went on to break the third seal, becoming part of the worlds first group of Bannerets.
But as things stood now, Arulli and Jixon (who had both reached level 399) were the only knight Bannerets we had now. The war was coming soon, and we could all feel it.
Three hundred million years ago, long after Arulli's confession to his extraordinary strength to us, the war the dragons had been hoping for was about to begin. Many of all of Arulli's plans had gone as thought, some even turning out even better. Only a few plans went ary or faced some sort of difficulty.
This went on to be first official push back we ever accomplished against the darkness.
First, let me begin with all that had gone as planned, and even those that had even surpassed all our expectations. Jixon had reached level 445, and this was way beyond made her strong enough to fight toe to toe with any divine angel, or any destroyer. She became the face of the entire war effort when Arulli was in the Realms.
Arulli had somehow managed to surpass even that level of performance, just stuck at level 450, now officially the grand master of all knights. When he showed up, not a single person died. Every armour he made, every building, every town, every city, everywhere he used both of his powers to fix, left unstoppable pieces of his work.
He had not done all his patterns across the planet as he had wished, because he had another plan, but instead he made many other achievements. One of his most impressive creations was the training dome right beneath us."
The Knight thought about it, the training grounds were so strong that even a void lord had to exert effort to leave a simple scratch, but the Knight could not see where Arulli could have made this on a planet as small as the earth.
"Arulli was sure that there was no saving the earth, so instead he emptied it, leaving only the crust. Inside its hallow centre, he build an impregnable sphere, made permanent. It would supply power to the surface of the earth, keeping it functioning long enough for the plan to succeed. The dome he made in the hallowed earth eventually became the training dome underneath the academy."
Again, the Knight had to think of something. 'Was the earth so small that it could be supported by that? Or was Arulli so powerful, that was all that he needed.'
Information kept flying, much of it the Knight kept to later mull over. The details of the war were just much more than the Knight had anticipated.
"Arulli had given us things we could depend on. Our houses wouldn't crumble to ashes after a monster rush. Our armour held up even longer than we did. He had even done even more than that, he had made devices that used to be electronic, into soul focused. The best one was the fact that everybody's soul was a walking ATM, after he created value points.
After all this and more, there was no other choice, even the people started to scream it at the top of their lungs. Arulli had done it, he had become the third legendary hero, accomplishing feats that were proportionately comparable to those of the first two. Thus, the legendary hero Arulli of patterns was born, during the last war on earth, WWXI.
He had many children, and even given Andersi a physical body, bringing her back from the dead, and putting her on earth with help from Jixon, to defend earth and his children, she was no push over.
Wherever he went, all hoped he would never leave. Looking at him, everyone thought that there was nothing he couldn't do, he could say hot was cold and it would be true, but even then, just as he had predicted, he was still not enough.
The plan he had made for FeveR twins is what most failed actually. First, it began with his conversation with the dragons.
"What do you mean you can't get any stronger!?"
It was Acxiquark he was speaking to, the dragon that had undisputed rein over the element of purpose.
The twins had learned a third power, bringing Arulli to six power elements in total. But no-matter how much training Acxiquark gave them, none of them manifested a forth power, and Arulli was trying to convince Acxiquark to level up, and become the seventh one he could use, as he was now, he was not strong enough.
"It's just that… long ago, we used to be nothing but common earth lizards, but all seven of us, decided to become more than that, becoming some of the first ever True Beasts. But even then, as you have said we were not enough."
"I do not see what this has to do with not being able to level up anymore!"
"This is because we chose to become Disaster class.""