He was closer to the Temple than he was the city now, marking his entrance through the mountain region by a clearing in the kilp woods with a hand-shaped lake of dense cloudy saltwater. Abruptly, the stream of fizzing bubbles that trailed Kaero sizzled out and left him free falling above the cloudy hand-shaped brine pool, with shards of white crystal sand growing on its perimeter. He descended above its reflective surface like a falling star, eruptive barrages of bubbles foaming up from the remaining drag force he carried as he slowed himself down feet first. His momentum came to an aggressive halt in the center of the lake, where the tips of his toe sandals softly dipped into and rippled the water. This disturbance sent the crystallized glowing kilp berries dancing across its miniature waves, glints of red and green painting the frosty water canvas.
"Onuma's divine keepers Onurai, Onukai, and Nuovai — protect me on my journey back home, and bring fortune to the souls I'll meet along the way. Forgive my potential enemies and spare them from your wrath, and show mercy to them in my favor so they can find peace…"
Kaero's eyes of crimson stared down beneath his feet, showing reverence to a barely visible statue that had buildups of salt disguising its shape. It was once a tall rectangular sculpture with symbolic depictions of the three deities' faces, but time shaped its form into a thick white obelisk construct. He still stopped here to pray every time he left or entered the mountain paths, marking it a sacred space. On the end side of his prayer beads was a brass colored metallic ceremonial dagger, with a circular shape covered in 6 spikes where the handle would've been. The blade of the dagger extended from the circle and had more spike prongs prodding out of it, but the real beauty of the dagger was what he kept hidden inside of it — an heirloom from his family lineage.
Kaero dipped the ceremonial dagger in the salt lake, blessing it and adding to it what he prayed was protection. Many of the Onuma religious practices revolved around appreciation for water and its perceived properties. With this blessing, he felt safer than walking into places of danger alone.
His short reverence period ended, and he hovered forwards through the less dense watery atmosphere above the thicker brine pool. In the distance, just a few sculls off from the shore of the lake, was a carved out entrance between the wall of deep-sea mountains in front of him. Around its circular curvature were webs of ferovines, dark green vines with the texture of slimy wood and patches of red mucky weeds. He made sure not to touch them, the red patches possessing secretions used in medicine that were irritants in large amounts.
He followed a trail of winding paths between carved out foam-stone, the top of this rocky maze too high up to see the end of. He clutched the medallion on his beads closely, the symbol of fish bones marking his faith in the deity of strength and providing, Onurai. He felt his success as a monk so far was thanks to this deity, but everyone else knew the more grounded truth of his power as a recognizable figure. He was a living member of a dying lineage, a greatly hated type of onuman known for their venomous spikes that grow naturally from their bones. They were notoriously carnivorous predators that modern onuman society found difficult to civilize, and too powerful to tame. The King of Greater Ouma would've likely ordered him dead if not for the shielding cover of the monk who discovered him. His worship for the deities of Ouma was deepened by their direct link to his continued existence and the republic's choice to keep him alive.
There were four temples set up in worship of the 3 deities, each honoring a specific deity more based on lineage. The East Onuma Temple where Kaero lived was devoted to Onurai, the West Onuma Temple devoted themselves to Onukai, and the South Temple devoted themselves to Nuovai. The temple in the north was once the main temple that worshiped Nuovai, and the true South Temple devoted itself to a fourth and now forbidden deity. Instead, the temple in the north became its own sovereign theocratic kingdom, separated by the frigid and unnatural phenomenon of the frozen waters. The worshipers of the forbidden deity merged into the southern temple with worshipers of Nuovai.
The guarded gates between the temples and the outside world were not only there to preserve the powerful secrets of onuman primal techniques, but to protect normal society from the deadly practices and exercises that shook terrains larger than continents. The keepers of these gates themselves were powerful, along with the monks from the temples they hailed from, always similar in species to the deity they worshiped. For the Eastern Temple, the monks and gate keeper were of the bone-fish species, and the keeper was the least threatening of the 4 regions. His perceived threat level had nothing to do with combat ability, but his softer personality and pretty appearance. The Gate Keeper, Oriyu, was from the lineage of golden raiyim. This bone-fish species with gold and orange scaled fins were more renowned for their attractive features, not any notable warrior history. This made Oriyu more likable among the Eastern Temple — less strict and more cutesy for their enjoyment.
Kaero looked forward to delivering the kilp flakes for his dear friend, wasting no time jetting himself through the winding mountain paths that stretched for what would be triple digit kilometers for humans to travel on earth.
"WHERE'S MY GOLDEN BOY?!"
His enthusiastic voice shouted out for Oriyu, another explosion of fizzling air bubbles ascending into a trail that could be seen from the top of the mountain pass. The altered mountain top had a rectangular red clay roof between the rock walls, with winding pillars and bars blocking the path remaining ahead. On both sides of the path were tall spine-kilp, pink ribbon plants that formed the shape of leafless trees in winter, swaying their thin fluttering branches in the upturned water currents from Kaero's approaching jet stream.
Oriyu could hear Kaero's calls from sculls away, his elactrite gem alerting him of the monk's audible thoughts before he arrived. The Gate Keeper's orange eyes stared down the curved pathway wall, waiting to see Kaero's red locks speeding around the corner between the spine-kilp branches. A smile crept onto his lips, watching the waves turn furious from the whirlwind of residual jetting force Kaero funneled through the narrow space, shaking the gate and the orange-white ombre robe garment dawned by Oriyu.
"Kaero, you're late! I've been craving my flakes for 6 blooms now!"
He tapped the golden ceremonial staff in his hands furiously on the spongy rock road, two bowl-shaped glass balls hanging from chains on the left and right side of the staff's tip. Each of the bowls were filled with a glowing teal liquid, its luminescent light matching close to the shimmering shine of bioluminescent bacteria in their false sky. The liquid reacted aggressively to the approach of Kaero, peeling around the curved wall and coming to a sliding halt in front of the keeper.
"Your pets must sense these delicious salted kilp berries! I had to tame a giant pre— Wait a second, I bought you kilp flakes 4 blooms ago, Oriyu!"
Kaero tossed the sack off his back, letting it float and fall gracefully before Oriyu to show off the light show of green and red berries shining through the pile of kilp flakes. The carnivorous bacteria liquid within Oriyu's staff were attracted to light, reacting more lively within their bowls when photon sources came near.
"Not recently you didn't, I would remember! The only visitors I've seen recently were those fuzzy backed travelers."
Kaero raised an eyebrow, knowing good and well that Oriyu would NOT remember in truth. The golden raiyim lineage were known to have horrible memories, making it all the more intriguing to make one a gate keeper to their sacred grounds.
"Oriyu, I think you're doing that memory lapse thing again. I genuinely think we should get you a sign-in calendar… And what type of fuzzy backed travelers are you talking about?"
Real concern echoed through his last sentence, not aware of anyone with that description crossing this region. Maybe the fuzz was a garment or an accessory, but what business would they have in the Onurai Mountain Reserve? The most they had around these parts were dangerous preta-life from the primal age, still shacking up in the caves of the spongy cliff side.
"They were strange looking, with fins on their backs that were covered in fluff. I thought they might've been extra arms or two tails… but they were behind their shoulder blades, and they didn't look wet."
His account of these travelers was troubling for many reasons, but the difference in experience between the two monks kept Oriyu from understanding the oddity of it all. The young did not remember the stories of the past, where mysteries like this still echoed.
"Fluffy fins? There's no onumans with that description, Oriyu. What did they tell you? Did they speak oumoan?"
Sweat would muster up if it could, the description provided reminding Kaero of certain legends and myths he was told as a child in monk schooling. Statues were said to fall from a realm above the upper seas, sinking into the world of Ouma with depictions of figures wearing armor and two outstretched fans on their shoulder blades, sculpted to resemble what they could only describe as layered fluffy scales. Kaero's master called them wings, but never said that these statues were based on real beings. Nothing like that could exist in the water — it wasn't anatomically efficient.
"They spoke perfect oumoan to me, but they called it something different and seemed surprised I could understand. That kind lady said they had no interest in passing the gate, so I didn't have much problem with them. They were more interested in my eyes and staff."
Oriyu was dismissive of his friend's questioning, diving to his knees and digging into the kilp flakes instead. He answered without care, inspecting the glowing kilp snacks between his fingertips. The long dorsal fin on his spine twitched gleefully at the crunchy crystal texture, the childish monk popping the treats into his mouth like candy.
"You've told Grand Monk Omuzen about this, didn't you? That encounter sounds alarming if you're being serious about it."
Kaero watched the easily distracted gate keeper tear into the sack, crunching on flakes of kilp like the information provided was anything but unsettling.
"Oh — I forgot. You think he'd be interested in them? I don't think it's that important."
A sighing whistle escaped Kaero's mouth, already drained from the interaction. As weird and bizarre a story as this was to him, it wasn't the first time strange and random things had come from the labyrinth that was Oriyu's head, a brain static that came as factory settings for goldies.
"Yeah, alright man. I'm gonna go tell Omuzen myself anyway just in case. We can't have you getting visits from mystery onumans — it's not normal, and I think you should be a lot more concerned if your memory serves you right. Regular people don't venture this far out."
Kaero's delivery of the kilp flakes was fulfilled, and he had nothing more left to offer Oriyu but some advice. He didn't make himself too concerned by the situation — they were both still onuman monks after all and could take care of themselves in situations of danger. He slid open the gate bars and clanked it back behind him, crossing his arms behind his head as a show of dismissing the problem from his mind.
"If it were a problem I'd have taken care of it. I'm strong enough to handle myself, you know? I signed up for this role to prove I can keep my chosen family safe, and I have, right?"
Kaero treating him like a kid again was getting to him, Oriyu's fingers fidgeting around the staff nervously. He was always eager to prove his capabilities to the other monks, being the youngest and most pampered of the easterners.
"Good or bad memory, I'll remember how to guard this temple the way you taught me. And when you get back to the temple, save me some leftovers if you're cooking. ONLY if YOU'RE cooking, not Teiren. I can't handle any more of his exotic spices."
Oriyu slid open the gate, letting his friend move safely past the runic crystals etched into its frame. Once he was through, Kaero closed it back and left the gold monk on the other side.
"Yeah yeah, just don't get there before it's cold. I'm making foamweed and herbs, might even throw in some gloshrub grains."
Oriyu finally paused from crunching on his snack, jolting his head at Kaero through the gate bars, a glimmer in his gilded eyes.
"You can bet your ass-fins I'll be there when it's fresh out the steamer!"
His excitement could be felt through the water waves, putting a smile on the face of the red monk, who loved to chef up for his temple family. He didn't have his blood family around to take care of, so he was the little-big brother of the house to everyone else. He felt almost bad leaving Oriyu at the gate with such a brief hello, but he needed to get back to the temple grounds soon if he wanted supper done in time. The connection between their communicative elactrite gems grew weaker and weaker the further he walked, distancing the gap between them. The path to the temple was much shorter now, and he was only a couple dozen sculls away from the compound. If he jetted he could get there in no time, but he chose to take his sweet time so he could digest the strange information Oriyu gave him.
His master had always insisted the statue truly did fall from somewhere, despite the monarchy's accusation of conspiracies and hoaxes. The only world that the people of Ouma knew were within the confines of their salty sea world environment. The planet of Neravor was over 50 times the size of Earth, so the threat of gravity prevented life from growing outside the confines of deep sea brine pools across the ocean floor, connected by cave systems tunneling through the spongy planet's outer core. The idea of something living outside of the buoyant brine pools was unheard of, and even onumans couldn't go above the upper seas, imploding from pressure the moment they crossed the firmament of ambient salt that marked separation from the waters they called Shallow Neravor.
"Could they have come from up there?"
Kaero found his eyes wandering upward to the open waters above him, staring upon the darkening upper waters that signaled the coming of late-evening. Maybe they came from even higher than Shallow Neravor, he questioned. According to their ancient texts, there were other worlds outside of Neravor that floated adrift in a black void they called space, complete with stars and moons they'd never get to see. These questions ran amuck in his head for the rest of his walk, something gnawing at the back of his brain like a memory — or a warning.
The urge to turn back took hold of Kaero's heart, gripping his stomach like an instinct of danger bubbling to the surface. This feeling of fear proved to be a correct one to have, the scent of blood lingering in the water currents that brushed past his nose.
"ORIYU?"
The panic in his tone expressed itself as a voice crack while saying his name, an aching grief hitting him like a wave before he could decipher what his senses were saying. Kaero hurriedly pulled out his 4-pointed blue elactrite crystal and held it to his mouth, his eyes wide open and his head turned in the direction he just came from.
"Oriyu, are you there?"
Kaero hadn't walked that far away yet, so Oriyu should've been able to hear his voice and respond from the gate with his elactrite. When there was no response, Kaero sprinted back down the mountain steps, jetting around the curved winding rock walls. The scent of blood became stronger and stronger the closer he got, building up in his nose and gills until even a taste developed — the taste of a gold fish.
"Don't let it touch you, just stuff the pieces in so we can get back to Aeropa. I don't think Xol's had a gold offering in centuries!"
In the spot where Oriyu once stood was something that Kaero had never witnessed since his conception. Two figures — a man and woman with silver boots and pure white garments not native to Ouma. The man's shoulders and sleeves were armored in segmented plates, gilded with golden edges, the same color as his star-shaped knee pads of a similar metallic matter. Holding the armor in place to the man's undergarments were straps of brown leather made from unknown skin. It held together a large silver plate over his chest, with the same golden gilding on the bolts of the armor. The woman was dressed similarly, her hair a darker shade of brown than her accomplice. Their matching attire made clear to Kaero that it was a uniform, but what need would a uniform have for armor if not violence?
Just as Oriyu said, they adorned outstretched wings covered in white feathers, the man clutching a simplistic spear in his fingers that radiated with strange energy felt even through the gate. The woman wielded a thin needle-like sword with a deep ember colored crystal on the end of its hilt. Both the weapons and the armor were coated in a fiery translucent aura, faintly glowing the two winged figures with golden-orange light.
Staining the spongy stones of the mountain path was a red misty particles and tiny chunks of meat gliding across the pebbles as the sea swept the slurry around the ocean floor. The mountain gate behind them framed the scene like a picture, the towering kilp trees on either side of the path rising 800 fins into the open water above, their crystallized mineral stalks catching the bioluminescent algae glow and scattering it across the bloodied floor beneath them.
The red mist reeked of Oriyu, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. Kaero, who mutely shuffled open the gate, had drowned out everything else. He wasn't worried about the mysterious beings noticing him — he was only concerned about understanding where his friend was, and why the red sludge carried his scent. The vibrations of the gate opening and closing startled the two figures, the female entity darting her attention to the dazed and confused monk, offering back a smile that was twisted and crude.
The sudden shock was so overwhelming that he hadn't noticed what it really was that the woman was stabbing at with her spear and putting into a brown sack — a bag so similar to the one that was filled with kilp flakes just an hour earlier. This time it wasn't kilp, and that realization came to Kaero in the noticing of tattered orange fabric patches floating adrift from the red slurry, as if the will of Oriyu wanted him to see what they had done to his body.
"Hold on! I've got to be careful with the best parts."
A single disembodied eyeball with orange pupils was carefully plucked from the red slurry and slipped into the sack, floating right in next to a severed hand and a round flesh patch covered in golden hair strands. The woman's voice oozed with mocking intent, the sound only reaching Kaero's ears through orange pulses of heat that echoed from her mouth like sonar. Until now, Kaero had only heard voices through telepathy, but somehow the foreign orange crystals on their armor were turning sound waves into decipherable patterns of heat. These patterns could travel through the water and carried the voice and message of the winged beings with it.
"What did you do to Oriyu?"
Kaero still had not looked at the two warriors, his eyes fixated on the dissolving puddle of blood and internal organs. The calm in his voice was offset by the tingling sensation of needles, not only projecting his voice but his every emotion into the winged duo. They could feel the cords in his brain snapping, the switch of logic and reason flicking off in the face of otherworldly depravity.
"Don't overwork yourself! We gave him a great honor and gift that cattle should be grateful for. Rest assured, there's nothing but pleasure in feeding your subsistence to Upper Aeropa. He'll be sharing his energy with gods, for Xol's sake!"
Crystallized streaks streamed down Kaero's cheeks, the dense salt content of onuman tears causing it to trickle down like sparkling liquid diamond dust. The Monks of Ouma were taught to be peaceful and pacifistic, but a deep red hazed Kaero's vision and he couldn't think of a single thought other than seeing the rich scarlet liquid in their veins painted on his hands. The level of violence unleashing in his soul gave them shivers, feeling the brutal intentions discharging from his brain the way that doomsday sirens blare during war.
His lack of response and subsequent silence marked the end of their conversation, and he was not interested in hearing anything else from the witch's mouth. His eyes were now closed and his body tensed, dropping the burgundy prayer beads from his fingers to ball a tight fist. Still not facing the winged intruders, they assumed Kaero was losing his will — but he was forfeiting the first attack in hopes that the gods would forgive him for violence if it were clear self-defense.
The male winged warrior circled around his partner, stepping through the dispersing pond of blood and meat that they created out of Oriyu, then aimed his spear at Kaero's neck.
"Since you're so heartbroken, how about we offer you the same glory? It can be quick — a single cut to the neck!"
The man's offer was never optional, and the gleeful smile they wore showed how significantly exciting to them the act of killing was. To the winged duo, this was a fun sport of fishing, and it sickened him how they referred to their violence as means of worship to their deities. No supreme deity would condone the killing of innocents — not for food or selfish rituals of devotion. They were heretics to him.
The amber colored crystals that decorated the duo's armor began to shine brighter, boiling the sea water around them but leaving their bodies unfazed and untouched. The translucent aura that surrounded them grew more intense, igniting their bodies into a smokeless and plasmic golden fire. These vile creatures that murdered Kaero's friend somehow looked angelic and divine, masking their evil with light that felt holy.
A swift push of his forefoot sent the man's spear jabbing towards Kaero's jugular, closing the small gap between them in a swift nanosecond. The large wings did not give him a disadvantage underwater, but acted as propellers to thrust him in the direction he wanted to go. It should've been over for Kaero that instant, but without opening his eyes or facing his opponent, the spear clashed against metal before it could break skin.
The force from the collision shook the gated mountain side that they stood on, repelling the spearhead with rings of shock waves rocking through the watery environment. What blockaded the monk's body from his attacker was the very prayer bead rope that he dropped to the floor, its length appearing to have increased in size with more beads than it had before. The rope of large round beads coiled around the close perimeter of Kaero's body like a protective serpent, with the ritual blade at the end of the rope behaving as its head. The man instinctively propelled himself backwards with a vicious flap of his wings, the explosive pressure rings slapping him and his teammate out of the mountain path and into open water above. This wasn't an attack, but the movement power of the beads carried enough potency to upset the sea water it traversed through. Up above, they avoided getting swept around in the updraft by balancing themselves with wing flap coordination, creating a distance of several dozen paddles between them.
They hovered level with the upper canopy of the kilp trees, the long translucent ribbons of the bushels fluttering around them in the residual pressure rings, catching and releasing the light like dozens of slow moving curtains.
"Zirava, did his beads grow into a weapon? I don't remember this type of technology in our studies, and that blade at the end is a grossly strong material."
The surprised warrior calmly regrouped with the woman he called Zirava, inspecting the crack that formed in his spearhead from its clash. He seemed unperturbed by the display of defenses, fairly confident that this primitive opponent was still easy prey.
"Nope! You almost had it, but not quite! Look closer at his bead symbols and you'll notice they're repeating. Some form of technology is vibrating his beads in a movement sequence fast enough for it to look like it's extending, and it must be pretty sufficient if it's making the echoed afterimage beads tangible too."
Zirava was the smarter of the two, catching onto the workings of Kaero's weapon within just seconds of seeing it in action for the first time. Technically, all species of Zirava's race were this intellectually talented, some just faster to the jump than others. Kaero still refused to look at Zirava and her companion, believing both sides to be at equal enough footing for him not to dishonor his eyes with their corrupt mugs. That only made their bloodlust grow stronger, comprehending the disrespect across cultures.
"Stop talking and strike me before it's too late. My mercy and your grace period are draining by the second."
Regardless of how he structured the threat, Kaero's voice was unchanging in tone and furthered the assumption that they were HIS PREY, and not the other way around.
"AH — HA HA! I like this onuman! He's so emotional you'd almost think they were equally sentient, but animals love mimicking behaviors they see."
Those demeaning words from Zirava's partner were starting to work on Kaero, penetrating his composed mind and striking a chord by equating their species to less than. Kaero's eyebrows visibly furrowed, the telepathic communication line sparking with notes of seething rage. The man smirked, reading through Kaero as though HE were the psychic one. Holding the spear above his head, the gemstones on his armor jolted a surge of golden light through its rod, causing it to deform and puff out of its shape as though made of cotton. Once the surge of golden light settled, the spear reformed without a crack in sight. It was a technology unfamiliar to Kaero, who turned his eyes in order to catch a quick glimpse of its capabilities.
"My name is Kaviro — you've earned that much. Where'd you learn these thinking skills from, little raiyim? Have you encountered us before?"
Kaero lifted his left hand to his chest and stuck out his middle and ring finger, causing the serpentine rope of beads to expand further and faster, crafting a cyclone of in-line beads circling him like a barrier with the blade end facing Kaviro. He didn't care for learning Kaviro's name and closed off his ears to the taunting voices, opting out of their distractions just a slim moment too late.
"I warned y—!"
Kaero's sentence cut off early, his thoughts and voice pausing midway from the intrusion of a presence just a few fins to his right. He might've made a mistake not keeping his eyes on his opponents, because Zirava had gone from paddles away in the water above him to one step away from his barrier of beads. Behind her, the nearest kilp tree's ribbons still swayed from her passing — the only indication that she had moved through that space at all.
"So that's how it works?"
A flash of golden light, followed by the snarky questioning of his barrier, shook Kaero in a way he hadn't felt in a very long while. His eyes shifted to face the direction her voice came from, finally ready to glance at the sneaky threat, but already catching a slick of blood on her sword edge that wasn't there prior.
"Easy openings appear if we just change the rate that it's perceived. Guess that makes it useless now, huh?"
Standing just outside the spinning bead barrier, Zirava swiped the blood from her blade and dispersed it into the waters. The same colors spewed from beneath Kaero's shocked stare, the wound she drew on his lower thigh lagging in presenting itself because of the speed it was inflicted with.
"Is this teleportation!?"
Kaero composed himself again, using jetting to slide himself away from her. His voice was panicked, and it should've been. That flash of golden light he saw wasn't just for show — it was for movement. Somehow, she could not only see and comprehend the movement of his beads, but she could also move at a speed rarely encountered.
"I'm not a sorcerer, that was just the power of light. You're using a crystal to fuel your weapon, right? We use a crystal with similar compounds — Ignistrite — but our crystals come from up there."
Zirava pointed to the upper seas, but what she really meant was the world above the water — the sky. Zirava and Kaviro were from the clouds, and the weapons that they wielded were made out of clouds too, sort of. The atmosphere of the planet was filled by gaseous clouds with a makeup like dense aerosol foam, trapping in microscopic crystals from Ouma that were swept into the precipitation cycles of Neravor. Eventually, these crystals bond with impurities in the foam clouds and grow into amber colored crystals called ignistrite, a stone not found in the ocean depths — but in the clouds.
"I don't care WHERE your crystals come from! Your technology CAN'T defeat my gods, and they've blessed every elactrite stone to pass through MY hands!"
The gloves were off, Kaero refusing to acknowledge the advanced nature of his assailants. They were troublesome and outnumbered him, but he wouldn't be an Ouman Monk if he couldn't defend himself from some overgrown birds. Moving his two fingers down to his knees, Kaero injected the ritual blade and its beads into the spongy rock underneath, quaking the gate and mountain platform. Hidden in the ground, the beads evaded Zirava's senses, ejecting themselves in random scattered patterns like shotgun fragments. The pressure of each bead left holes in the terrain, one of them puncturing Zirava's wing in her escape.
Several of them tore clean through the cyan algae sprawled across the rock formations along the path walls, leaving scorched dark streaks across their painted surfaces where the bead pressure carved through.
She lifted herself back above the battlefield, gritting her teeth at the damaged feather. It didn't wound her physically, but it did wound her ego.
"So that's it? The protection on your back fluff is weaker than the rest of you… I wonder how you'll do if I remove them."
Zirava narrowed her eyes at Kaero's taunt, both of their weaknesses now exposed by the other. She turned her head to Kaviro in response, nodding to him in an unspoken agreement. Neither one of them wanted to let this play out much longer — they had already exposed too much of themselves.
"I don't think we'll feed you to Xol, little guppy. We might just bring your head back for the fun of it!"
Kaviro was taken aback at the sight of Zirava's feathers taking damage, aware of the force required to penetrate the average ignis shield. It was an offense to their culture that outdated Ouma weaponry could challenge the skies of Aeropa.
Together, Kaviro and Zirava flashed away in golden light, flickering around Kaero's position like luminous fractals. Kaero hastily recalled his beads to his defense, commanding them to circle him as a safeguard. He tried to sense their location through the water currents, but it was like they had no mass or impact on the watery environment at all.
The beads were smacked out of motion one by one, each enemy chipping away at his defensive formations until the openings were clear enough for a swift takedown. It didn't take long for small incisions to appear on random parts of his body, getting constantly nicked by the closing in predators.
"Did they ACTUALLY turn into light!?"
The puzzle was piecing together. They were moving through the photons their ignistrite generated, granting the duo light speed — a speed Kaero couldn't outright comprehend, making him a sitting duck. He knew he needed to act fast before they made an unpredictable strike, so he focused on something else for guidance.
Kaero honed in on signals from the light-eating bacteria that overpopulated the water around them, closing his eyes to communicate directly with the hungry intentions of the algae to predict light movement. Once he locked on to an escape route from this bombardment, he opened his eyes with moxie.
"DRIFT."
In desperation, he activated a technique only taught to exceptional monks — Drift. His body faded from where Kaviro and Zirava planned to strike, confusing the enemies into a forced halt. The light retreated back up, the two regrouping to find their prey.
"Can onumans teleport, Kaviro?"
Zirava turned to her partner, caught off guard by the monk's sudden disappearance. That couldn't have been a high-speed technique like jetting because they'd have easily seen his movements, but there was no indication that he had traveled any distance.
"Not quite!"
Kaero's startling voice projected from all the way down the mountain path steps, the ritual blade hovering in front of his fingertips with its floating beads trailing close behind it. Kaviro and Zirava could feel the attack coming, bursting themselves into dazzling arrays of dancing beams, expecting his aim to falter in the face of their speed.
To their surprise, the ritual blade and its beads lunged at the team with pinpoint accuracy, burrowing at them in torpedo fashion. Their saving grace was a last minute split up, pushing off each other to dive on both sides of the attack. The rings of rippling aftershocks trembled the waters, the blade carving a clean path through the mountains behind them.
Zirava gathered herself, but her expression of satisfaction was not what Kaero expected to see. A spark of warning stung Kaero's nervous system, alerting him too late of the danger standing behind him. Blood fumed from Kaero's mouth, a white-metallic spearhead protruding through his chest. Like a mirage, what he thought was Kaviro's body had instead dispersed into light.
"Checkmate."
At some point, Kaviro had switched himself out for a body double made from his ignis shield aura. The ignis shield on his true body was faded and barely cloaking him in its light, and that let him sneak past Kaero's new sensing method. His disturbingly delighted face pushed over Kaero's shoulder, their heads side by side.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice the algae?"
The spear ripped back out through his back, taking a chunk of meat and puffs of blood with it. This should've killed Kaero and turned his heart into ribbons, but he was shockingly still coherent. That split second warning he received was enough for Kaero to brace himself for impact, moving his heart from the danger zone by 1 inch.
"Shuzz…"
Disappointed in himself, Kaero could only utter a single curse word at the excruciating blow struck to his body and pride. His ability to even speak stunned Kaviro, who realized he must've somehow missed his organs. The power to move an organ at will was not a normal one, and doing so made the sky dwellers question if his abilities really were divine in nature.
Kaviro wasted no time flapping his wings to clear some distance between them again, not wanting to touch the blood that left Kaero's wounds. The amount of red that filled the water was more of a defense than his beads were against these Aeropians.
"Don't get that stuff on you, or I'll have to kill you myself, Kaviro!"
His partner reminded him of the rules, implying just how dirty they thought Oumans really were. Zirava and Kaviro gently floated overhead, waiting for the monk to bleed out from his untreated injuries. They were like banshees — or even vultures — waiting to rip at him once he had no fight left.
Kaero fell to his knees, the beads separated and adrift through the water with no more weapons to save him. Holding his middle and ring fingers out on both hands, he placed his palms together to pray. He prayed to all three deities — Onurai, Onukai, and even Nuovai — consulting the entire pantheon in his reverence. He wasn't praying for strength or power to overcome his challenge, but for forgiveness.
"I'm sorry that it's come to this, my lords."
His voice was solemn and purely dismayed, feeling shame for what he was gearing up to do. Kaero was among the strongest monks in the sea, and with that came regulations and oaths that he could never break. With his life on the line, he had no choice but to use a forbidden weapon restricted for the betterment of civil society. His eyes shone a deep neon red that could be seen through his eyelids — brighter than the aura of the ignis shields, and brighter than the algae forming the false sunlight above.
"ANIMUS TOTEM—"