System Change

Alanah felt the connection to her skill form. She kept the connection and waited for Natalie to retreat. The woman was slow, but she was doing her best to do so without causing much suspicion. Once she was well and good back into the barrier that blocked teleportation, Alanah looked around. There were many people much closer to her than Natalie and Savannah. She should be okay,

She looked up again just to see Ryven frowning. She smiled. “Well… here I go.”

Alanah grasped the skill and activated it. Her mind went hazy. Please be better than I remember. The skill took over.

Ryven looked at the beautiful half-elf with furrowed brows. What did she mean? What is she doing? He watched as her eyes lost focus, then her aura started to spill out. Quickly, he moved back and activated his personal barrier. Better safe than sorry.

The woman’s aura continued to spill. Eventually, it just disappeared. It was like all the aura left her body… like she had no mana left to control it. It soon faded away.

But then a new aura rose. Somehow, her already strong aura had completely changed forms. The aura seemed… evil. It left Ryven with a sense of darkness and foreboding. The atmosphere shifted to accompany the malevolent aura; the clouds shifted in the sky to cover the sun, and shade fell over the area.

Ryven didn’t know what to expect. The senses he’d spent centuries developing told him that it was bad… very bad. Once again, he tried to crush the woman, hoping that with her aura spent and rebuilding into whatever evil aura it was, she would be weakened. But he was wrong. Not only was she not weakened, she seemed even stronger than before.

Then, to his horror, she began to change physically, just as the aura had. Her beautiful, emerald green locks shifted and lost their luster. The luminous glow that once adorn her darkened more and more until the green was so dark that it seemed black. The once perfectly woven and maintained hair split and became wild and unruly.

But that wasn’t the only change. No, her change was just getting started. The beautiful woman was already pale, but her skin took on an even paler tone. One that was almost ghoulish. Instead of her previous smooth and supple skin, she looked sickly.

Her eyes… they seemed dead. They had taken the color of her aura, a dark, malevolent shade of gray. Her hands opened, and she let go of the hilt of her rapier. Ryven took in her hands as the new power formed at her fingertips. Her previously delicate fingernails elongated and grew into sharp, deadly weapons. Ryven gulped. This was something he’d never heard of before. Such a transformation.

Finally, his eyes traced back up her form, and once again landed on her face. She smiled, not the coy and seductive smile that she’d been giving him all along. No, this smile was something different, something malicious. Her smile widened more and more until it revealed her teeth. Her sharp, pointy teeth that reminded him of the maw of many beasts he’d fought in his younger days.

The woman in front of him… no, the beast in front of him tilted its head. He reinforced his barriers. He claimed that his barriers were enough to counter anything she did, but he wasn’t expecting something like this. He just hoped that the change didn’t come with some extraordinary power boost.

The creature in front of him ran her tongue over her razor-like teeth. Then it… frowned. After that, it looked around at its situation, then back at Ryven. It smiled at him once again, but this time, it almost seemed like the same smile he’d received from the woman before this… transformation. Still, even with the eyes, fingers, teeth, and sickly pale skin, the… Alanah was still beautiful. He had to admit that. Even such a transformation couldn’t destroy her beauty.

The creature in front opened its mouth once again and said something. Something he couldn’t hear because he was still surrounded by his barrier. But, by the shape its mouth made when talking, he guessed it was something along the lines of, “this is going to be fun.”

Her vibrations started once again, but this time, they were on a whole other level. One by one, the barriers trapping Alanah cracked and shattered. As her rapier fell from the barrier, she caught it, and it disappeared. That’s right. With those hands of hers, she no longer needed that sword. However, with the disappearance of her sword, so too did the resonance that rang through it disappear.

The creature’s smile widened even more as Ryven stood stock still. Then her gaze turned and looked down. He followed it. Her eyes were glaring at Titus. The boy wasn’t even paying attention to what was happening above him. He was more concerned with Natalie and her… retreating? Form. Why is she retreating? Is… is Alanah’s transformation that bad?

His eyes turned back to the beast and their eyes met once again, then, she disappeared. No, she didn’t disappear. She just moved so fast that it seemed like she did. He could track her, barely, but there was no way he could catch up to her, or whatever it was she planned to do. Still, he tried.

But he was too late. Before he even closed half the distance, she was standing behind Titus. The scene was… graphic. She stood, one hand sticking through his back and protruding from his chest, the heart in her grip beat one extra time before stopping. Her other hand sat on his shoulder, where it rested after ripping through his throat.

It was an instant kill. The boy didn’t even know what hit him. The death seemed… painless. But it was going to be everything but for Ryven and Indria as a whole. A prince not in line for the throne, a prince like Orion, dying was one thing. But the crown prince of an entire kingdom would make waves. It was the reason the order was to capture Crown Prince Edward, not kill him.

But now, a crown prince was dead. It wasn’t even a glorious death. He had been killed instantly, without even being able to defend himself. Ryven swallowed hard once again, the lump in his throat growing bigger and bigger.

How long could Alanah stay shifted like this? Would she eventually run out of power or mana and go back to her other form? He’d seen some transformations, none as absurd as the one he was currently being shown. But, all of those transformations had the same weakness, they didn’t last long. They were a terrible drain on mana, and usually, mana potions didn’t work on those who were transformed. Surely such a strong transformation would have an equally strong weakness, right?

But if she could take Titus out like that, then what about him? What about the rest of his army? Could a thousand elite soldiers hold their own against a single transformed half-elf long enough for her transformation to run out?

He didn’t have the time to think any more than that, as the woman disappeared again. This time, she reappeared before him and opened her mouth. Instead of biting with her razor-like teeth or thrusting into him with her claws as she had done with Titus, she screeched.

At first, Ryven heard nothing and his Sound Barrier held. He reinforced it with as much power as he could spare. All the power that had gone into the barriers used to trap Alanah had been put in his single, personal barrier.

But the screeching continued, and after five seconds… just five seconds, his fully enforced barrier shattered. Then the sound hit him. The shrill shriek jumbled his insides and his brain split in two. He reached up and grasped at the pain in his head. When he pulled his hand away, it came back bloodied. Then the beast backhanded him, and everything went dark.

When Ryven awoke, he was back in his base camp, laying just outside where his Portals had been set up, surrounded by healers. He looked up and tried to speak, but he couldn’t get any words out. A healer brought him a glass of water and he drank, and he drank. He was so thirsty.

“W-what happened?” he managed to squeak out.

“One moment, commander,” the healer said. He couldn’t quite remember her name. “Let me go get someone.”

Soon, Elmar found his way over, led by the healer. “Commander, it’s good to see you well.”

“Elmar,” Ryven said before going into a coughing fit. He took another drink of water and continued. “What happened?”

“You… were knocked out, sir. After that, Captain Jaris called for a retreat. There was nothing we could do. We had to get away from it.” Elmar looked down at his feet in shame.

“Where is Captain Jaris?” Ryven asked.

“He… didn’t make it, sir. He stayed back so more could retreat through the Portal. Soon after, people stopped coming through, so we closed it,” Elmar explained.

“How man?” Ryven asked. “How many did we lose?”

Elmar took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Altogether, at least two hundred. More than one hundred and fifty on the battlefield, and we don’t have the exact count of those we lost when the Portals vanished. Our estimates are in the fifties. So, two hundred soldiers, including Captain Jaris and Crown Prince Titus, sir. Those are our losses.”

Ryven closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the ground. This was a failure, and an epic failure on all fronts. They lost not a small percentage of their army to two people. No, there were three. There was that man who came out with Natalie. He was the one who sneaked through and destroyed our Portals.

And the loss of Titus. That was either going to be a major blow that soured the already unstable relations with Astrus, or it was going to light a fire under their king and they would put even more into this battle. This battle that has a killer bunny, the stronger women he’d ever seen in his life, and a mysterious man who, by everything he’s learned, was going to be as hard to manage as Alanah.

Ryven slowly brought his hand up and clutched at his forehead. The pain from the woman’s shriek was still there, it was lessened after all the healing, but it was still there. He closed his eyes and shook his head. What am I going to do?

***

Edgar raced through the air on Blitz. He was almost there. He was almost to Savannah. They just needed to hold on for a few more minutes, and he would be there. Using everything he had, the two pushed on as fast as possible.

Soon, he saw the city in the distance, but he didn’t see any smoke or signs of destruction. That was good. He pushed forward. Half a minute later, he hovered above what could only be described as a brutal battlefield.

Body parts were strewn everywhere, accompanied by a river of blood. Surveying the battlefield, Edgar couldn’t find anyone left standing. Just what happened here? He thought. But soon, his eyes fell onto a single figured. She was on her knees and her arm was clutching at her chest.

Edgar gave Blitz a quick command to stay there and jumped off. Then he zipped to the ground and landed in front of the figure. When he got close enough, he recognized her. It was Alanah.

She was covered in blood from head to toe, even her face was smeared with it. He took a step forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Alanah, are you okay? What happened?”

Alanah looked up and met his eyes with her own piercing emerald ones. She smiled and chuckled, then her chuckle became laughter. Then she lost herself in it and even shed a few tears because of it. She looked back up at him. “You’re late,” she said, then she fell forward.

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