Chapter 144 (2/2)

It was hard to describe. She struck forward, then moved smoothly into her next stance, then into the third stance. Extremely slowly, she straightened. Suddenly, flaws in her movements were quite clear. She moved through her flowing stances again. And then again. Then again.

Her face grave, she continued through her stances for another minute as the last of that energy dissipated from her body. It was Aether, for sure. And…

An Aether so pure it seemed impossible. She had gained 5 skill levels in each of her three moves over the past few minutes. The first 3 skill levels happened the first 3 times she moved after she had the insight into her previous flaws. This kind of power…

It seemed that she wasn’t the only one that noticed, because people were coming to the decks of nearby boats, looking over at them with serious expressions. Even Divvit, the old fart, had moved, moving a finger back and forth lightly.

Shal appeared on deck, and he and Divvit exchanged a serious glance. But they didn’t speak, instead, Shal walked over to the Ghosthound, then looked down at him.

“You fucking dimwit.”

His voice was angry, but Helen was near to them, and could see Shal’s face. It was twisted in a manic smile, his teeth clenched in a dead simulacrum of a smile. Any other would just assume something had gone wrong in training, but the way Shal was looking at the Ghosthound… it was the way a wolf looked at a fat sheep. Shal was definitely pleased by something.

Then Shal abruptly straightened, and Helen blinked.

Two figures had simply appeared on a small boat to the side of their group’s boat,, a bobbing, sudden neighbor. The large, light blue Tassle of the Crashing Wave Style hung above the two figures, the man slight and silver haired, the woman huge and broad.

“Greetings.” The man spoke softly, his voice smooth.

Divvit stood and bowed. “Honored guest, would you bless our vessel with your presence?”

The man’s eyes slid over the scattered boards and gaping hole left in the deck. “...I think not. We were just out for a stroll.”

Then the man breathed deeply through his nose. “A good breeze, over here...Until next we meet, friends.” Then the small boat carrying the two turned and began to float away, boats hastily pushing themselves apart to allow them through.

Helen scratched her head. What the fuck had just fucking happened?

****

Shal looked at his disciple, who appeared to still be sleeping peacefully. The memories were still fresh in his mind of what had happened an hour earlier, as he had lowered the formations that surrounded his disciple.

As the formations slowly began to be disabled, there was a strange resistance. They were running mostly off energy from Shal himself, so he was a little stumped as to why the formation persisted after he had cut off its energy supply. He supposed that he had never been the one to run the formation for another, for such a long period of time, so perhaps he had given it too much energy previously.

So he reached out with his will and pressed the formations out of existence, the light flickering out of them.

What he was greeted by was a huge wave of energy that crashed into him, as the sweating, but standing form of Randidly was revealed. Energy surged around Randidly, swirling his dark hair and making the air around him almost glow.

Seemingly surprised, Randidly looked up, then smiled lopsidedly and said. “Shal, I think I found a new image. Let me know what you think.”

His disciple immediately lowered his stance, and then took a fighting stance. Before it even happened, Shal’s instincts warned him that a thrust would be coming. And a second later, it rolled forward, smooth and even, and strangely slow. But as Shal witnessed this spear thrust, his eyes couldn’t help but shoot open.

That spear…

In that spear, he could see the cruel smile of his father. All his confidence fled his body, and for a brief moment, he trembled. But instinct was more powerful than fear, and Shal stepped forward and knocked his disciple up in the air, before he could complete that spear thrust. Such was his haste that he used perhaps too much strength, smashing his disciple’s body up through the deck and into the air.

It suddenly struck Shal that the thick energy around his disciple... was Aether. A thick and wild Aether, that seemed to fill his body and whisper possibilities of strength. So it seemed that his disciple was honest, if doomed. If the big Styles figured out about how this was possible to hold in the body…

Forget even the larger threat of some system based life form coming to deal with this deviation, the people on this planet would kill for the power that his disciple possessed in his body.

The detecting and arriving of the Crashing Wave Style so quickly was chilling. And from the stance of their leader, he was aware that somehow, a huge burst of very pure Aether came from this boat. Their intentions were peaceful right now, but if push came to shove. Shal narrowed his eyes and calmed his breathing. Perhaps it was good to leave then. And the Aether in his disciple’s body gave him hope. Perhaps he would get the chance at his long awaited revenge.