The tension was weighting on the everyone.


    Notice of the recent atrocities committed by Ivan came abruptly, when no one expected it.


    "Orion, I would like to speak with you, right now if possible."


    ''There''s not much we can do right now.''


    He began to analyse the situation in great details.


    "First, let''s move."


    He placed his left hand in front of him, and opened a portal to the other side.


    The girls and Timothy all followed behind him, and the portal closed, leaving the crowd of watchers their mouth opened like goldfishes.


    Orion stepped on the white floor. He quickly walked to the mess of furniture and picked up five chairs.


    He gave one to each person. That was to say, Amelia, Karteira, Kamala, Timothy, and himself.


    "Alright, for now, I''ll be speaking out loud for a minute. Just listen."


    Orion sat on the chair with his arms crossed. They all stared at him, waiting for his monologue.


    "First of all, it will take too much time to arrive to his city. His own prowess in the lightning magic is not to be ignored. In what took him around half a day to arrive to his city, we would most likely take two weeks to reach him."


    "We will arrive way too late to change anything, it is a certainty. There is nothing we can do about that fact."


    He looked at the starry sky.


    "Second, even if we arrive, what are we going to do? We cannot save them. The moment Ivan sees us, he will mostly attack immediately. Worse if he sees me."


    "I gave him a pretty bad scar, that should have definitely placed me on his most wanted person on his kill list."


    He looked at Kamala.


    "Third, we don''t have any reinforcement."


    She nodded at his remark.


    "We cannot count on the soldiers. They are not our meat shields. The main problem is that, they can''t even follow. It would take too long either way."


    "And since you are an Apostle, I am pretty sure no one cares about that ''little'' conflict."


    Kamala thought of Florian, Olivia and Eric, the only one who would think of helping her.


    ''I thought of calling them, but as he said, that would take too long.''


    She thought so intensely that she began to speak them out loud.


    "I don''t want to see the ones that are not related to our fights lose their lives. Civilians shouldn''t be dealt with such cruelty."


    What she said was true, but she wasn''t ready for what was happening in Kaios.


    "I understand, but there is really nothing we can do. Amelia doesn''t have the same ability to use her lightning like him yet, so our only bet would be me, but I cannot run with three people on my back."


    "Even two is exhausting. I''m not talking about your weight, so don''t look at me like that."


    Amelia and Karteira stopped looking at him like he said something rude, and continued listening.


    "In all honesty, I suggest that you forget about saving anyone. You will only suffer, as no one would have survived by the time you will arrive."


    Orion made his choice clear.


    ''Understanding that and accepting it are two different results. What are you going to do?''


    The one who received his warning was, obviously, Kamala.


    ''As he said, this is impossible. I know it, I know I should simply ignore that... But!''


    She had already chosen what to do.


    "I still want to save the most I can."


    Her determination was commendable.


    "Let me ask you something else now that I saw how determined you are."


    Kamala wasn''t prepared for what he was going to say.


    "Do you really think you are able to win against Ivan? Do you have what it takes to kill him?"


    Her face wasn''t pretty right now.


    ''Is he mocking me?''


    She began to question why he would say that.


    ''No. I don''t think so. Does it have something to do with my exhaustion and the battle I had with Ivan yesterday?''


    Her face returned to normal.


    "If I said that I was ready, that would be a lie. I still haven''t recovered completely. But if he was in front of me, that would not stop me."


    She looked straight in his eyes, a gaze Orion recognized instantly as his own.


    "I would watch has his last breathe escape his mouth."


    Orion uncrossed his arms and looked at the starry sky, silent.


    Amelia took this chance to enter the conversation.


    "I''m going to speak for him right now."


    She waited until Kamala looked at her.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    "If he asked all of this, it''s to make sure of two things."


    She brought two fingers up.


    "The first one is your determination to fight by his side."


    "The last one is... well. He has found a way to get there quickly, and he his asking if you are worthy of that trouble."


    ''You know me too well Amelia.''


    He closed his eyes, with a smile on his face.


    Her mouth wide open, Kamala didn''t know what to say.


    ''He has a way to go to Kaios? To save those innocent people?''


    She was ready to grovel on the floor if he asked her to, but she knew that wasn''t what Orion wanted.


    "What do I need to do for you to acknowledge my strength?"


    He brought his face down slowly, and his gaze fell on her.


    A strong pressure fell around him, one that showed no refusal to his next words.


    "Fight me. Show me what makes you so strong."


    "..."


    Kamala knew that he was extremely serious. In her core, she was terrified, because he was a monster.


    But she also knew that unless she exchanged blows with him, she would never protect anyone.


    "Without your help, many lives will be lost, for nothing."


    She gritted her teeth.


    And with her strongest show of determination, she stood up.


    "I''ll play by your rules. If I have to fight you, so be it."


    Orion stood up and looked at Amelia.


    "I''ll be back in a hour or so. Sorry to leave you like that all of a sudden."


    She shook her head.


    "I''ll prepare food for you in the meantime. Have fun."


    He nodded with a smile.


    "Don''t overdo it."


    Karteira wanted to go too, but it wasn''t the moment to enjoy fighting, so she held back.


    "I only overdo it against you. We''ll do that later."


    He waved and walked toward Kamala leaving Karteira heating up from the sudden promise of training.


    "Could he stop riling her every time?"


    Amelia looked at his back with a small smile.


    "Lady Kamala, be extremely careful. I know you trust him, but please, don''t get hurt."


    Timothy was next to Kamala, an extremely worried expression painted on his face.


    "I''ll keep that in mind, but if I don''t go all out, I don''t think I''ll get his approval."


    She kept her gaze on an approaching Orion, but when she blinked, he was not there anymore.


    "Let''s go."


    She heard his voice behind her, and when she turned, her body was being lifted.


    "Wait! What are y-"


    Orion walked forward, and he disappeared.


    They were all dumbfounded. This was a new findings Orion made, closely related to his way to move long distances quickly.


    "Amelia, did he suddenly teleport behind her?"


    Karteira was shocked as much as Amelia.


    "He walked straight forward, and at some point, like he walked in a door, his body disappear, for him to walk behind Kamala this time. After that, he opened a portal and disappeared with her."


    Orion was already gone, so there was nothing else to do.


    "Alright, I''ll go prepare some food."


    She stood up, and walked away.


    "I''ll go place the furniture inside the house in the meantime."


    The girls left, leaving Timothy alone.


    "Be careful, Lady Kamala."


    He stared at her chair, before realizing that he was left alone.


    ~


    "Wait! What are you doing?"


    Kamala felt the same sensation she felt when entering the portal mid-sentence.


    "I didn''t want to push you in, so I kidnapped you."


    He took Kamala like a sack over his shoulders, her head in his back.


    Orion placed her feet back on the floor, and moved away.


    "If you need time to prepare yourself, I can wait. When you are ready, come attack me."


    He remained bare-handed for the sake of seeing her power, and to having hurting her. He wasn''t weak when he fought without weapons, so this would be easy for her to win against him.


    "I don''t need that much time."


    Her fists were tightly closed, and when she felt the element in her stir, she used her magic.


    She remained straight her arms remaining slightly spaced out from her sides.


    Rocks began to form around her arms, and slowly glue themselves together to form a weapon. The more the weapon form, the more impressive it looked.


    ''She wasn''t using this when I saw her yesterday.''


    Orion thought about this. This wasn''t a weapon he ever saw in a book.


    ''Is it even a weapon?''


    The weapon had finished taking shape by now. It was nothing like a gauntlets, closer to two hammer heads on a long tube.


    The tube encased her forearm into a thick layer of smoothed rock, while the tip, where her fist was, displayed a flat surface of solid rocks. Inside, there was a handle for her to grip, improving the strength behind her attacks.


    "Interesting weapon. So, are you coming?"


    He was waiting for her to attack, but she remained at her spot.


    "Aren''t you going to bring your weapon out?"


    She wanted a fair fight.


    "I can''t use a crossbow in a close quarter combat."


    He didn''t speak about his daggers, because these weren''t his main way of fighting.


    "I see."


    Kamala looked a bit disappointed.


    She took her fighting stance anyway.


    Her legs tightly closed together, her arms in a reversed V-shape, and her gaze completely focused on him. She was ready to fight.


    Without saying anything, she lunged at him.


    ''Fast!''


    Orion managed to avoid the straight punch thrown at him.


    Her punches were coming right after the other at a speed normally impossible for someone wielding heavy weapons.


    ''How is this possible?''


    Calming his surprise, Orion analyzed her attacks.


    "You''re going to take my punches without resisting?"


    Kamala continued to throw punch after punch.


    Orion decided that the only way to really know is to let one punch connect.


    One of her punch flew straight toward his face. It grazed his left cheek, letting him enough time to observe the hit.


    ''I see now. She is another interesting individual.''


    Everyone was using their attributes in their own ways. For someone that wasn''t using magic, this could be called being a genius, but for another magic user, this was their life''s work.


    Except the Apostles that had their power gifted to them, others worked terribly hard to perfect their magic.


    And it was more so for Kamala, someone who had to work two times harder than her piers. She had two elements, something rare even today.


    "Now I can see why you lost against Ivan. The affinity between you two couldn''t be worse."


    Orion said while sliding on ground after dodging another hit.


    "What do you mean?"


    Kamala followed right after, attacking again and again.


    This time, there was no need to observe anymore, so Orion began to hit back in the form of deviating her punches.


    "What you do is incredibly interesting, but against his lightning field, your punches do nothing."


    Kamala stayed silent. She knew it too, since that was the reason for her loss.


    "You can amplify each punch with your wind element all you want, if your arm gets erased in the process, what''s the point?"


    "So y-"


    Kamala stopped him and finished his sentence.


    "So I had to play defensive, because I lost my opportunity to win the moment he was my enemy. I know."


    She was bitter about it. She was a woman that used her earth element to flatten her enemies, and enhanced each punch with her wind magic. It was the ''Bullet Punch'' ability that she herself named.


    Before her punch was thrown, a strong wind pushed a single spot on her elbow, sending the punch with tremendous velocity.


    For someone other than Orion, they would already be down gasping for air, but he was not normal. He already exchanged hits similar with Karteira, even if they were slower in comparaison.


    "Knowing that you are in a losing position against him, you still want to do it? You want to sacrifice yourself that much?"


    Orion dodged another punch. He avoided another that was going for his flank, but instead countered it and sent it toward the floor.


    Kamala had her arm stuck, while she looked at Orion with slight anger.


    "Of course I''m not going to sacrifice myself! I''m going to save innocent people!"


    She removed the magic on her stuck arm, and recreated it right after.


    "So what is your plan? Do you think of using me?"


    She lunged at him again.


    "No, because the moment I''ll be found out, you would either cast me away, or kill me. I saw your eyes when we first met."


    "When you saved me, even under that false smile, I could see it. The hate you have for us."


    Orion was surprised. So surprised that he chose to speak the truth.


    "Indeed, I was weighting over killing you on the spot, or letting you live at that moment. I won''t lie, I do not trust you enough to place my life in your hands."


    Kamala knew it. This would be weird otherwise.


    "And I want to change that! I want your trust, and I will prove that you letting me live wasn''t a mistake!"


    She threw one last punch much slower than the ones before.


    Orion caught the punch with his hand, and looked at Kamala breathing roughly.


    ''So that''s why she was so desperate. She wants a reason to why she''s still alive. She needs to prove to ME that she was worth it.''


    "That''s so weird."


    He began to laugh after pushing her arm away.


    "I understand, I''ll help you."


    She recovered her balance after being pushed back, and looked at him with a shocked face.


    "But-"


    "You want to save people? I''ll let you use me, just this time. In return, you have to save everyone still alive AND kill Ivan."


    "WHAT?!"


    Her scream echoed in the empty space.