The Third Party - Chapter 51

3rd Person’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

The next morning the village was bustling with many magical beasts and animal beasts walking and or running around to prepare for the day, Ken woke up in a start as he felt pain on his back, he sat upright to massage his back part only to feel sudden strikes of pain jab at him.

‘What’s wrong with- AACKK!’ Ken doesn’t know why but he suddenly could not speak or shout, he inhaled for air gaping at the sudden magnified pain that coursed through his body while he sat.

‘Healing Magic: Heal.’ A magic circle appeared in his palm that he aligned to his back, the magic circle sent out green pulses checking out for any abnormality in his body, through the effect of ‘manual input’ he had made an impromptu scan on his body.

‘I can’t believe I haven’t done this before, I’ll have to add this to all of the ‘manual inputs’ on my healing spells.’ He thought, focusing on the pulse, Ken found no physical damage within his body, leading him to resort to checking other things, his mana.

Ken opened his eyes in shock at what he saw, his mana had turned chaotic at some kind of point at his back, he focused again and closed his eyes in order to picture out what’s causing all the pain.

He found a pin like needle embedded on his back, he speculates that it had inserted itself accidentally on his back when he wasn’t cautious, the pin radiated dark red energies, the same dark red energies that he cleansed yesterday.

He plucked out the pin with his magic, but as soon as the pin dislodged itself from him, it sent him a vision, Ken opened his eyes but they looked dull, his hand had cancelled out his healing magic making him look to anyone who wants to look closely, as lifeless as a doll, sitting slouched.

‘What the?!’ Ken saw the demon army marching towards the location of the Northern Village, slaughtering everyone and everything in their wake, the normal animals and animal beasts in the area perished under their march.

Ken watched as they passed the wall cliff him and his childhood friends had entered in the past as the army flew over the wall and around it, a demon trampled on the spot he used to chill out at.

About 1 kilometer and the demon army would be at the entrance of the village, but their pace was slow, as not all of the monsters that went with them were not agile in traversing the height of the wall cliff, or we could call it a cliff in general.

He watched as werewolves, and ogres that he fought before all now had dark red skin and red savage eyes, and far back he found… His eyes widened some more, as he felt that he could not bear how his eyes widened.

There at the back of the army, of about 60 battalions with 100 monsters, situated their leaders, twisted humanoid creatures (demon slaves) were roughly about 120, demon vanguards were about half of them, and one demon that exuded a very strong power than the demon he fought before.

‘WHA- WHAT IS ALL THIS?!’ exclaimed Ken, he snapped himself out from the shock and looked around him, he checked himself and found that his body looked translucent, almost like an astral projection.

‘How do I get back in-‘ he wasn’t able to finish when he felt a force pull him back, and when he woke up, he was back in his body, he glared angrily at the ground.

“Son, what’s wro-“ Lyn who had woken up minutes ago and was watching her son for awhile thinking that Ken has his head down because he was in deep thought wasn’t able to finish her sentence when Ken suddenly disappeared.

She looked around and noticed that a magic circle was left at the place Ken was at seconds ago.

‘What could that kid be doing now?’ she thought to herself, a rustle rang out from the bush nearby and her husband walked out. Alfred looked at his wife quizzically as she was deep in thought.

Lyn looked at his husband and sighed, the two then went on to fold their beddings, put them into their storage space, took out their battle clothing and weapons, to get ready for the day, they didn’t have to worry that much as they know that their son would be fine on whatever he wants to do.

Outside of the village, Ken was flying in the air, holding his scythe on his right hand and a flower on the other, he still hasn’t changed into his battle clothing as he was angry, very angry.

‘Shit, I did not expect this, I did not expect this!’ his thoughts rampaged throughout his brain, as he felt overwhelmed at the moment, but one thought that he doesn’t want to acknowledge kept resurfacing in his brain.

To ‘Lose’.

‘I will not have all those years of preparation come crashing down on me in this particular time, not when I’m still here.’ the cliff at which he always hang out to chill came into view.

“Arcane Magic: Domino Grids!” he chanted at the same time landing instantly near the cliff catching every monster off guard, the monsters have advanced a hundred meter towards the entrance of the village,

But Ken’s magic still caught up to them, as magic circle appeared below their feet encasing them in a transparent box with a dash of purple at the side, he caught the first 100 monsters of the first battalion, flew them into the air and plummeted them back down the cliff.

The boxes broke as the monsters inside had their guts pierced by the broken pieces of the box, but it did not stop there, as every piece that embedded themselves, flew out of the monster’s body leaving an unsightly scene of torn bodies behind.

Ken did not stop there.

“Arcane Magic: Arcane Onslaught!!!” Ken held out both his hands holding the two items as a small magic circle of 1 feet radius appeared in front of him, the monsters looked at Ken’s pathetic magic circle and felt absurd at the audacity of this person to use a weak spell.

They were about to growl, laugh and or mock Ken in their tongue when suddenly bright light covered their vision, the next thing, all of the monsters below the cliff were gone, Ken looked up in the sky and over one thousand monsters appeared, falling to the ground.

He did not spare any of them to fall down as large purple bombs erupted in the air incinerating all the monsters in mid-air, everything happened in the blink of an eye that the remaining battalion at the back that weren’t caught by Ken’s spell stared dumbfounded in the air.

Ken held out his left arm in front of him making the flower the color of white with a silver glow float in front of him, he held his scythe with both hands and stuck it to the ground, he walked in between the scythe and flower and touched them both with his hands while his body faced forward slightly to the left and said…

“Delve in my cold embrace, in where the heat remains, Ice Magic: Frozen Shot.” a magic circle appeared in front of him and shot out a light-blue ray on the ground where the army was standing, trailing towards the back and faded out.

The ray did not stop on the ground but instead on the demon lord that had governed this demon army, Ken still doesn’t know what they are called, but they are demon leaders, so he’ll call them that.

The demon lord who waited for the spell take to effect, felt nothing, as if that ray of light-blue light was all for decoration, he smiled and chuckled to himself, looked at the kid mockingly, Ken may not have been able to see the smile but he felt a pair of eyes boring into him.

The demon lord pointed his finger at Ken and was about to say so-. What’s this? He thought, ICE?!

Frost suddenly crept out of his finger and slowly crawling all the way to his hand, then his arm, and nearing his body, he tried to take a step but he didn’t budge, he looked down and found ice had also slowly crept up from his toes to his legs freezing him in place.

He called out his magic but it was also futile as nothing came out, and there he stood, frozen, eyes wide open, mouth agape, but before his vision was blurred out and he entered a deep slumber, he saw his army, had froze over before himself.

The area around them wasn’t covered in ice, only the bodies of monsters and demons had froze over, leaving the forest undamaged of Ken’s spell.

Ken sighed, he looked at the flower, touched it with both his hands softly, gave a soft kiss on one of the petals, and a soft magic pulse occurred making the flower emit a bright silver light.

‘Wish I could still preserve the energies left in this moon flower.’ He thought. ‘This was the flower I left on master’s cave so that it could grow stronger… I had to use it today.’

‘Are you worried for your parents, your friend’s parents and your masters?’ asked White. Ken turned his head at his left.

‘Yeah.’ He said softly, gaze casted down. ‘When I sensed that demon’s power, I panicked, and in a fit of rage, did this.’ Ken looked at the still flouting broken pieces of the boxes he made by arcane magic.

He waved his hand and all the pieces slowly created a transparent wall twice the height of the cliff, which was over 100 feet, and a width of 10 meters. He made another tweak using ‘manual input’.

‘Let me guess, you’re still worried out of your mind.’ said White.

‘Yes.’ Ken replied. ‘First things first, securing our line of defense so that we could have enough time to deal with the monsters, second, gain as much info as possible and come up with more plans to deal with the worrying ones by biding time,

And in this case, my ice spell that froze the whole army. I should set a time so that the energies of the moon flower doesn’t deplete fast.’ He took a glance at the flower then held his chin. ‘But as to how much will I need? 12 hours? 18? Hmmm…

I can’t exactly drain half of the moon flower’s energy or I won’t be able to find the other weapons of the moon.’ He took another glance again at the flower, that’s when it clicked.

‘I wonder what time it is, considering the time now, it’s still early morning, about 8 or something.’ Ken nodded. ‘I’ll freeze them for 24 hours.’ He summoned a magic circle below the moon flower so as to give a tight and secure input on the effects the flower will give regarding Ken’s ice spell.

A few more adjustments here and there with the flowing of raw mana into the flower made the surroundings howl with the wind.

‘And… there, the spell will now last for 24 hours, negating every and any type of resistance from the ones caught by the spell and will be freed from it once the timer runs out.’ Ken smiled to himself. ‘This should be enough time for us to prepare for the invasion.’

Ken teleported back to the village leaving the flower behind as it flouted seamlessly its white color and soft exterior creating a serene scene on the surroundings, technically, moonflowers were not common on this planet, it just so happens that the flowers in Klein’s caves had itself touched by the rays of the moon one night giving itself its form.

Surprisingly, only one regular flower turned into a moonflower, hence why in the past Ken stopped in the middle of his fight with Klein to check out the flower that caught his attention.

But this fact was something Ken will have to find out for himself as Klein doesn’t know of it either, along with him not noticing this flower.

Ken reappeared at the entrance of the village looking all serious and stuff, people stopped to look at their human friend in curiosity, Ken realized he was still in his undergarments and flushed deep red.

Despite his appearance looking like an angel of death -with his scythe and all- clad in white, hair dropped down and a flawless face -cause he’s femininely handsome-, he still flustered about not dressing up properly for others to see.

He ran fast towards one of the cave holes he can take to enter his master’s cave, one unique function of the caves is that anyone who can use teleportation is able to teleport out of the caves but not into the caves.

As such, the only way to get inside is to use the cave entrances. Ken flew to the center of the cave where his parents and… Everyone else, his friends, masters, and other important figures of the valley are present near the edge of the circular river, all prepared with their clothing and weapons, those in human form’s case.

All the mountain lions are slowly walking outside of the cave through the hole which Ken came out of.

Everyone looked at Ken’s outfit and can’t help but feel funny at Ken’s get up, he still hasn’t bathed yet and still in his nightwear. Ken landed near the group, turned invisible only to reappear behind the group.

He used water and wind magic to bathe himself by covering himself in a sphere of water, the wind magic created distortions inside so as not to clearly see what he is doing, he hastily cleaned himself and put on his battle suit, strapped his scythe to his back, and tied his hair to a pony tail with a spare ribbon he always carries.

While all this was happening the group had slowly turned around noticing a fluctuation at the back and there they saw the distorted figure of Ken preparing himself, just as everyone had fully turned around to watch him the water bubble popped in a gracious manner of water slowly seeping down to the ground.

Ken noticed the wet ground, he controlled the water out of the earth without carrying mud, formed a stream that directed itself onto the river. He looked unto the group and saw as they were all gawking at him, or at least Cloud and Rain are.

The rest had a slight amusement in their eyes at the display. Even when changing clothes he still makes it look majestic, White thought beside Ken.

“The demon army’s near.” The atmosphere of leisure broke in an instant at what Ken said.

“How near?” asked Klein.

“About 900 meters away from the entrance of the village.” Everyone felt their breath stuck between their throat, who would have known that the demon army was this close to their place.

“And there seems to be a more powerful demon that came out of the third demon gate, far stronger than the demon we fought yesterday.” Ken added, this piece of information caught the attention of the adults, they each looked at one another knowing full well what their course of action will be.

“But no worries, I froze them all in place.” Ken smiled softly at his statement getting a sense of accomplishment of what he had done. The adults however, stared at him wide-eyed.

“Ho-How were you…” Alfred didn’t finish what he wanted to say, getting all confused and flustered at what his son said.

“That’s not possible.” said Saber looking straight into Ken.

“O-Oh, is that so huh…” he mumbled to himself. “But I did froze them Master Saber.” He desperately said, still with respect to his master.

“I can show them to you.” Saber raised an eyebrow at that. Klein sighed, he knows the extent of the power of those demons, especially that one Ken mentioned earlier, he can’t help but feel torn between two sides, was he going to believe Ken or not.

Ken watched as his master’s face change in mood affect him, but he wouldn’t back down now, he knows that he froze the army, so he’ll show it to them.

“Arcane Magic: Mass Teleportation.” He did not spare anyone a chance to retaliate or rebuke his statement and straight out teleported all of them to the cliff he was at minutes ago. His friends are all but confused of the situation, added with the sudden teleportation made their brains spin as they weren’t able to digest the information that easily.

Why is that whenever Ken is talking with the masters or adults in general, they are all in a different world, we can’t understand, thought Wilbert, steadying himself. Allen, disagrees otherwise if he’d hear Wilbert’s thoughts, as he too was well informed by his father of the matter,

But not of this stronger demon, his face scrunched up in concentration, scouring for his memories of any chance his father had talked about such a topic with him, but he found nothing similar of the sorts, he reverted back his attention to the people conversing at the moment.

What?! What is this?! Allen thought, as he come face to face with a transparent purplish wall in front of him, the students had the same thought as they marveled at the height and largeness of… this… thing.

Even the adults were not spared of the domineering height of this seemingly thick and tall wall.

“Ken, what is all this?” asked Lyn walking to the side of her son.

“I made a wall made out of transparent material made by arcane magic mother, so that when my ice spell is over, we’re able to slow down the advance of the demon army.” said Ken his tone monotonous, free of that cheerful ring that Ken always has.

Lyn glanced at her son and felt around the area using her magic to assess the wall in front of her. Her eyes widened in surprise as she not only found out that this wall was made of so much magic, but also because she found out that it’s strength is hard to pinpoint making it seem like an ordinary wall to anyone who’d check it.

It shouldn’t have come to a surprise for her since she knows the talent her son holds, but nonetheless, this sight baffled her. Something caught her attention by the side of her eye and turned to the right, there she found a flower floating in mid-air, the color of white with a green stem.

“Then, what’s this?” she asked while approaching the floating flower in a few strides, Ken following her behind.

“It’s a moonflower mother, I’m using it to power my spell so that it’ll last about 24 hours on the army.” said Ken beside, but one word caught her and her husband’s attention.

“Son, did you say ‘moonflower’?” asked Alfred, body tense, his eyes blinking furiously.

“Yes father, why?” Ken titled his head to the side slightly. Lyn and Alfred looked at each other, then at Ken, entering into deep thought.

A few seconds later.

“I’m not sure if we should talk about this here.” Alfred glanced wearily on everyone, the others slowly sprouted worried expressions at him. “Lyn, what do you think?”

“I’m not sure too dear, this had only recently been added to the parchment, we don’t know how everyone will take it.” Ken was utterly confused, what does it have to do with the prophecy? He thought.

“Is it regarding Ken?” asked Klein, snapping everyone out of the trance, as they all turned to look at him.

“Yes.” She confirmed, everyone except Rain, Cloud, Raze, Riven, and Trun were curious as to what is new on the parchment, the five were just utterly confused as they do not know what the others are talking about.

“What does it say mother?” Ken asked. Alfred took out a folded piece of worn-out paper from one of his pockets and gave them to Ken. Ken unfolded the paper and read the content, his eyebrows furrowed.

”Can I read it out loud?” he asked, his parents looked at one another wearily, it looks as if they had a silent conversation with their eyes. After awhile Alfred and Lyn nodded at each other then at Ken.

Everyone watching at this interaction cannot help but feel lost, who wouldn’t be when this family is talking in puzzles.

“ ‘The moonflower will be your guide, treading trials through out of sight. Must you not nurture the plant, death is what it will grant. Should you go and use its powers, be prepared for all that growls, for its power may be enormous, it’s destined for a greater purpose. WMsn olovoe.’ “ recited Ken.

He observed the expressions of the people in front of him, anticipating what and how they’ll react, he doesn’t know what to feel only that he’s trying to keep his exterior calm, he already knows that he used quite a huge amount of power the moonflower had, so what now?

‘More importantly, what are those initials supposed to mean? No, I should not be worried of that, for now, I have something else to do.’ He thought.

“Anyways, Mother, Father, what did you guys think of this?” he asked.

“We haven’t really thought much about this matter since we’d only read it once when we went out to gather herbs, and as you know, we always carry the parchment of prophecy with us all the time, given the situation, we weren’t able to ponder much about it.” said Alfred.

“Then, we’ll find a way to decipher the message of the new prophecy together but first we have to tackle this pressing matter at hand, how does that sound?” said Ken.

“I agree, we have to focus on other things for now.” said Lyn, took back the parchment from Ken, folded it and put it back on Alfred’s pocket. This two really has such a unique way of interacting, thought Ken.

“Son, other than the moonflower, what have you done to your ice spell that even the demon you speculate to be far stronger than all of the monsters here got also affected by your spell?” she asked, turning to her son.

“You’re not gonna scold me for using the moonflower?” Ken asked.

“No, not today, but we’ll do that later.” Lyn said, with a look in between casual and seriousness.

“Uh… Okay, um, I used arcane magic to lock away their powers for the same duration, so they wouldn’t be able to break free from the ice, even their physical strength I had also weakened with a curse.” He said. His parents nodded at him, thinking of how good his decision was.

But the others think otherwise, they were all shocked out of their wits, even his childhood friends and their parents, to know what Ken had done to this demon army in front of them.

“Other than that, I had also specifically timed the spell to only last up for 24 hours, while any resistance of any sort would be negated by the spell.” Ken added, that made the minds of the people around them, blow into millions of particles, nah just kidding.

“But why did you do so, son?” Lyn asked.

“As I said before, I found a far stronger opponent than before, so I made an opportunity to give us more time to prepare for their assault later, plus they were all nearing the village, I had to act fast.” Ken said.

“That’s a good move, other than the part that we adults have been preparing for this confrontation with the demons of the past, we didn’t speculate that there will be someone stronger than the one we fought before.” said Lyn.

“Did you check their strength mother?” Ken asked.

“Yes, and I’m sure, if it wasn’t for your ice spell, we would be having a difficult time fighting it.” said Lyn, her eyes shined purple for a split second, she had finished examining the strength the demon lord had, even from that distance.

As to how she was able to do so, let’s just say, this family is more on magic research and passing of information with one another to further their studies on different fields of magic, although not that very prominent as they didn’t really do this kind of task for many hours.

‘Looks like our many talks of magic and practices in the past paid off.’ thought Ken, smiling softly to himself. Objectives wise, both Ken and his mother share the same trait, for him and his father it would be their curiosity to magic and its nature, or we could all blame it on Ken who already has these traits from the beginning.

“With the time we have in our hands, we have to come up with a plan to combat the demon army, as far as I’ve known the monsters can be easily dealt with if we use our strategies wisely, as for the demons… We’ll be having a hard time for that.” said Ken.

Ken can be quite the confusing one sometimes, but right now, everyone felt an indescribable sense of respect for the said person as he turned full on serious mode, and this one they do not have any qualms or confusion with.

“We’ll scout the area and the formation of the army then.” said Allen, beating his father to the idea.

“Find out the weaknesses of the formation and exploit it.” said Celine, her father and mother stared wide eyed -although not that wide- at their daughter, dumbfounded.

“And once the time ends we’ll strike while the army is occupied.” said Glen, Ken nodded, Lana stared at her disciple, wondering if this was the same disciple with all the cheeky and playful antics she taught in the past.

“Actually I’ve already scouted the formation of the army, so we wouldn’t be doing that.” -Ken-

“What? I wanted to go and check it for myself.” said Allen, torn between a mixed of disappointment and… nope, wait, just disappointed that he can’t do so.

“You can always check the formation once we set out to go and take some information from the army itself.” said Ken.

“Hmm that would do.” replied Allen, holding his chin.

“Alright, let’s set out first to inspect their formation.” said Ken, his group nodded and simultaneously said yes. While they were in their own world, the adults watched the interaction in a mesmerized state, they do not know but this scene right here made them all admire their future generation.

Ken and his group departed in that instant, either by jumping over the tall wall, or teleporting to the other side. Klein shook himself out of the stupor and smirked at his disciples. They have certainly grown, but this type of growth, is a little bit scary, he thought.

“We can’t let them outshine us now can we?” he said to no-one in particular. “Come on, let’s assist them.” He added, and jumped up unto the wall.

The adults followed suit as they all rushed to different places to commence the operation.

“Arcane Magic: Information Access.” casted Alfred, as a purple line connected him to everyone else in mid-air, he quickly sent out a message of the purpose of the spell, and the group was able to adjust fairly well, even the work efficiency of the kids had also improved.

Allen and the masters along with the two lion warriors of King Raze were dumbfounded once again of the purpose of the spell, but nonetheless they were able work just fine after adjusting.

The area bustled with energy as everyone went from back to forth on every battalion formation, studying the strategy behind and the equipments they had encountered, but things did not end well for them.

While working, everyone was looking at two battalions at the back of the formation of the demon army, catapults and mages, contraptions and personnel Alfred, Lyn, Erick, and Lorna are familiar with, also Ken.

“This is bad, we’re up against human made weapons, and it looks like black mages are thrown into the mix.” said Alfred.

“What are those father?” Ken asked pointing at the contraptions.

“Catapults are siege weapons that can wreak havoc in an area.” said Lorna.

“Not only that, black mages are practitioners of the dark arts, it’s a wonder how they were able to enter this valley when they were supposed to be at the human kingdom.” explained Erick.

“Ah, I understand.” replied Ken, he teleported himself to the catapults and examined them, finding out a total of 20 catapults, similar to the size of a tank, he speculates.

“Who would have thought that there would be black mages here too, they’re a pain to deal with.” said Lyn, teleporting to the second to the last 5 battalions, and examined the black mages, over a thousand of them, her expression blackened.

“How so mother?” Ken asked, and appeared beside her.

“They use darkness magic, but the kind that corrodes and devours their victims, they are also popular for using sacrifices to boost their powers.” she said, Ken only nodded, as one of his speculations were correct.

He checked and there were three battalions of black mages, three hundred in all, damn, this would be a pain in the neck, he thought. He glanced at the catapults and they fared no better, there was one battalion consisting of ten catapults.

‘Really? What’s with the absurd numbers.’ He looked at no one in particular, and caught a glimpse of his master examining some of the black mages. ‘Oh.’ He thought. ‘Meh *chuckle*.’

“Through the sacrifices they made, gave them immense power, and this is one of the many reasons black mages are hard to deal with.” She added.

“Mm *nod* I understand.” Ken began devising plans and courses of actions within his mind to deal with the black mages if he ever comes across one. How about I trip them using their robes, that would be very funny, he thought.

“Everyone, please come and see this.” said Allen in the link. Everyone teleported to the place where Allen was, and finding themselves on the last battalion of the demon army, one battalion that consisted of all the demons they had to fight, a total of 181.

‘Damn, I haven’t realized how big this valley is.’ Ken thought.

This battalion may have exceeded their ‘standard’ formation of 100, but that did not matter there as they were more concerned of that one demon that erected a throne at the far back-center of the formation.

120 twisted humanoid creatures were at the front in a horizontal formation of twenty individuals in a single line forming six lines, while there were 60 demon vanguards behind them with the same horizontal formation with only 10 individuals in each line.

And finally, the demon lord -which they still don’t know the title of-, sitting on a makeshift throne, holding his hand out and a gasping expression plastered on its face, it’s even wearing what looks to be fashionable clothes.

The demon vanguards wore armor, while the demon slaves, had their physique distorted by the malevolent energy inside them in swirls of dark essence, stopped in time by Ken’s ice spell.

Ken who reassessed the situation, blinked once after having analyzed some detail about the demon vanguards by scouring their minds of information, and there he found what they are called, demon slaves, vanguards, and demon lord, with a demon king too.

‘Hmm, will I be able to fight a Demon King in the future?’ he thought to himself. ‘Meh, that would be for the future, I have to focus on this first.’ He cast his gaze at everyone around, but got deeply confused of the weary and or scared look his parents and masters plastered on their faces.

“Ma, Pa, what’s wrong?” he asked. Lyn shook her head and looked at her husband, both exchanged looks at one another, and sent a thought to the link.

Everyone stared in shock after realizing the information, they all then looked intensely at the frozen figure at the throne, sweat began to form on their foreheads, some had their breath stuck in between their throat.

While this particular person, is angry.

Ken teleported everyone back to the cliff after a moment of silence to bring them out of that heavy atmosphere, but it seems they had carried it up till here.

He frowned… hard…

But it only looked like a pouting baby.

Baby face.

——-