Astrum Irae

The pink apparition reappeared following Rigel's declaration and callously spoke, "They haven't stepped into an overarching magic yet because they are setting up their foundations. In fact, one is closer to space magic than you'd think. She has already begun starting to wrap up void magic, a sub-school of space magic."

Rigel started breathing heavily, but managed to calm himself down before he crossed the line with this deity. "Either way, I need to get a further understanding of space magic and increase my own power.

"Well, since I'm here, what's the deal on the whole powers situation, now that our previous arrangement has degraded?"

"They decided that both camps would just keep track of merits individually and the side that won would take priority over the losers, who would take priority over the teamless.

"You know, I know that was hard on you and I honestly feel sorta bad seeing you so miserable and mentally unstable. Here, maybe this'll help, even if it's only a bit."

"You sound compassionate and not completely apathetic all the sudden. What's this about?"

"Seriously." A surge of information rushed into Rigel's brain and he suddenly knew a certain portion of what Elric had written in his letter back to his uncle a few days after the war between the 2 countries ended.

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...It's been a few months since Rigel disappeared, and I'm worried about him. I know that people said he's a spy but there was no actual evidence. He was my friend and we got along well enough, so I feel worthless not being able to help him in his time of need. We won the war, and the commander said the Rigel went downstream towards Dreida before he passed away, allegedly, so maybe Rigel got dragged into the war and had something happen. On another note, I got promoted to…

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Rigel took a few moments to take it all in, then started crying quietly. After taking a few moments, he recovered and dried the tears from his face. "Thank you. This means a lot to me. It's just nice to see that even though I was screwed by the people I trusted, at least one thought of me in a good light the whole while. It really is."

Rigel took a deep breath, then continued. "I am going to take off now. I plan on getting rid of this stupid body that can't ever improve and take the world by storm! Like they said, in order to group myself in with them I at least need to be able to defend myself and the world has had 2 thousand years to develop solely magic. I have no clue how much they've improved!"

"Mm. Good luck, I suppose."

Rigel nodded then willed himself out of the white void and woke up back on the endless plain. He looked back down towards the semi-naked, headless and 1 legged body in front of him with disgust. He scoffed and burned it all to ashes. "Void magic, huh? Not a bad idea… I want to combine void magic with fire magic to make void fire- the fire that burns even the void.

"But first, to find an actual city, or even a village. She had to be from a village, so I suppose I'll look around."

Rigel sprinted forward and continually ran in one direction, until after a long, long time, Rigel saw a herd of bison-like creatures in the distance. His curiosity was piqued and he detoured off his original path and towards the creatures. Drawing ever closer, he started to notice that the herd was seemingly much closer than he originally realized, then his curiosity turned to a slight dread when he had an epiphany: the furred creatures were actually much larger than bison.

When he was but a hundred meters away, he roughly estimated that the herd consisted of 24 elephant-sized creatures. The creatures were similar in shape to bison, but were much hairier and had long, protruding tusks like an elephant's.

Rigel took to a prone position and carefully observed the leisurely grazing herd. "These must be the animals that were affected by the long-term exposure of a rich mana environment. 'God' spoke of the effects briefly, but these must be one of them."

Rigel pondered for a moment and decided to carefully observe their behavior to see if it was worth attempting to hunt one for the money when he eventually found a city.

He waited until nightfall, and then another few hours. The vibrant white light of the gibbous moon illuminated the plains. The shining grasses beautifully waved to and fro, reflecting the moonlight in a myriad of directions.

The big bison- the monsters- were peacefully either sleeping or lying down on alert. Rigel was still placidly spying on them when he saw a different light than the moon's, a blue and orange one, spark up in the far distance. The light gradually drew closer and Rigel saw what it was. He identified it as a fireball, and a very fast and big one at that.

The fireball flew towards the herd and gradually seemed to grow in size as it got closer. The guards of the herd started to panic and cry out, warning the sleeping ones. In just a few moments, the entire herd was up off the ground and started to move.

Unfortunately for them, the fireball only took just more than 2 seconds to reach them.

Rigel gazed on with great interest. When the fireball arrived at the herd, he could clearly see that in size, it was the same as some of even the biggest monsters in the herd. With a massive boom, it collided with one monster and flung it back. The excess kept going forward and scorched many others. All of the herd cried out in agony, either for themselves or others. The injured beasts couldn't move, so the rest huddled around in a defensive position, facing the direction the fireball came from.

Just one second after the initial impact, another intense boom rang out in Rigel's ears. "Faster than the speed of sound? A fireball?" The idea that there was someone so excellent at fire magic out in the middle of nowhere roused Rigel even more.

After just a few seconds, Rigel could see the outline of multiple figures riding horses towards the herd in the direction the fireball came from, all sporting long spears. After about a minute of intense calmness, the cavalry arrived. The various beasts growled loudly in intimidation, but none of the mounted figures were startled. Rigel found it hard to identify exactly what the people looked like in the moonlight, and what they were wearing, but it didn't bother him. He was just looking forward to seeing the high-level combat that was assured.

The beasts were extremely alert, and with a great deal of caution, arranged themselves in a different defensive arrangement. The cavalry wrapped around the monsters and went towards the wounded beasts. They were superior to the monsters in speed and agility and easily made it to the casualties. They struck with precision and accuracy, spearing the beasts through the neck and quickly avoiding retribution from the healthy ones. The small scale skirmishing slowly drew to a close, and the attackers circled around the defenders. They slowly whittled down their opponents' health and stamina with small stabs and slashes, not giving them any time to strike back.

Time seemed to slowly pass until there were only 4 of the once so intimidating creatures. The mounted figures all pulled back except one. The sole remaining person demounted their horse and approached the remaining monsters with speed not outclassed by the horses. They weaved in and out of the beasts, once again slowly draining them of their vitality with the longspear. This time around, however, the dominant method of attack were slashing attacks, not thrusts. 2 of the monsters gradually fell, and then the sole human fighter suddenly burst back a few meters while launching an extremely fast fireball, so fast that Rigel only saw the afterimage. It collided head-on with the front of a monster's face, immediately toppling the towering figure over. The sole survivor, enraged, charged at full speed at the spear user. The spear user jumped towards the monster and thrust the spear straight through its forehead. The beast didn't immediately die, and it cried out in pain and wildly swung its body around. The human, still holding on to the spear, put their hand up against the creature's head and, with a boom, blew a huge hole in its head. The person flew off the monster and landed on the ground.

Now that the action was over, Rigel decided to make his move. Sparing no caution, he lit a small fire in front of himself and stood up, waiting for their attention. Sure enough, one of the various people noticed the small fire and Rigel's figure just a hundred meters away, and the group moved towards him.

When the group arrived, they displayed a similar level of caution as Rigel did. They circled around him a few meters away, ready to strike. Rigel stood calmly in place, waiting for any communication from them.

"Who are you?" one of them finally asked. He had a young, masculine voice traced with a bit of concern.

"I am known as Rigel. I come from the south, looking for a major city to establish myself as a magician," Rigel smoothly replied.

"What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere with no food then?" the same young man asked.

"I have no clue where a city is!" Rigel honestly replied. "As for the food, I recently ran out and I was planning on trying to pick off one of those beasts you guys hunted. I come from a small, secluded forest village so I am unaware of much of the outside world."

A few muffled mumbles shot from person to person. Eventually, the same man gave Rigel a response. "Those were category 1 monsters- Direbison. If you think you can pick off one, in a herd of 20, then you must have some confidence in your skills."

"Category 1? How does that work?" Rigel asked, puzzled.

"You don't even know the basic classification of monsters? Fine, I'll explain briefly. There are 6 'ranks' for monsters to fall under depending on their degree of danger, individually, to onslaughts- not civilians. Commons, the zeroth category, are the most abundant and are relatively only dangerous to a single, untrained person. Carnages, the first category, are threats to either 1 average hunter, or an entire untrained hunting party. Obviously, the direbison are carnagebeasts. Most diremonsters, in fact, are ranked in this category. Chaoses, the second category, are all big game. Just one can rival some of the better hunters. However, teamwork still prevails and they are relatively easily killed alone. Desolates, the third, are terrifying existences that almost never show up here. The best magicians and fighters are required to take one down. That's the largest that I've ever heard of directly, but there are still 3 more categories. The fourth and fifth and sixth categories are Sovereigns, Monads, and Gods. I'm not even sure if such powerful existences even exist, but at the very least the categories go up that high."

Rigel quickly absorbed the information and nodded in reply. "I understand now. Thank you for informing me."

"No problem. Ignorance can mean death, after all. So, do you want to come with us to our town? It's no city, but I plan on traveling to the hub of magecraft around here, Zephledawn, and you'd be free to join me then."

Rigel wasn't exactly trusting of the plain-dwellers, but he couldn't see any harm in the matter, so he agreed.

He rode on the back of the man who he conversed with's horse. It took the posse a total of 2 hours to reach the town, not including the time it took to skin and remove the tusks of the direbison.