The Third Party - Chapter 54

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

Watching as his forces get massacred down by a bunch of ‘kids’, made Rize, the demon lord, blood boil in rage and humiliation.

“Blast those beasts and humans joining hands in the battle.” He said to no one in particular since he was here all alone governing over these monsters and demons, he thought that this would be an easy task to handle so he didn’t bring any of his high ranking subordinates,

Turns out, that was a bad move as even the black mages he sent turned into a disaster by one of the kids for his army. He reassessed the situation again and recalculated his moves for this operation.

‘How was that kid able to pinpoint every black mages I had deployed?’ He thought to himself. ‘I have only about two hundred and fifty black mages left.’ He smirked.

“Get all black mages in the fight, now.” He said. A demon vanguard in front of him nodded at his command and walked to the front of the formation of the catapults in a slow but steady motion.

The demon issued an order on one of the black mages at the back of the ranks, the black mage nodded in understanding and immediately a black magic circle formed atop the mage’s head for a split second before vanishing into thin air.

The other black mages also vanished into thin air right behind the mage that they deem as their top dog, for they already know this order from their higher up and that was to cause havoc within the enemy ranks.

Ken having noticed that something was amiss -again- in the air, used his magic silently to feel around him and found that his blue raw mana would suddenly turn violent on specific locations, and in this case, two hundred and fifty of them he sensed.

He smirked to himself, and plastered on a calm face so as not to startle the enemies advance. Meanwhile his friends and even the adults felt a sudden fluctuation in their surroundings, Allen who was keenly paying attention to his surroundings struck out his right hand to his side and out came a black robe mage in thin air clutched in his hand by the neck.

“They’re taking action.” He said. Ken took a quick glance at him and felt his lips curl slightly upwards.

“It seems so.” He replied, suddenly, the monsters caught by Ken’s spell stopped fighting one another as the frost in their bodies melted away. All monsters looked at the direction of the cliff and immediately ran to flood down the paths.

Ken having predicted that this would happen didn’t have a change in expression, so as his companions felt uneasy at the increase of monsters that they had to face, for out of 50 battalions, they, the first and second battalion was deployed as vanguard for the army,

Now, eight where deployed but with lesser numbers about half or more but not more than 75% of its former number, had joined the first two battalions to fight against them, rushing more blood crazed than before.

“What do we do with this?” asked Allen, by now everyone had noticed what Allen was holding, a choking person clad in black, desperately trying to pry off the hand that held its neck, but to no avail.

“Hmmm, I don’t know, kill him maybe?” replied Ken, the mage even more desperately tried to pry of the hand of Allen on his neck after hearing what that kid said, thinking to himself how he cannot die like this.

Ken‘s attention suddenly shifted to the front eyes staring profoundly at the figure standing at the middle of the rushing monsters in black robes just outside the wall, the mage walked to the wall, lightly touched it, and soon small cracks started to form on the surface.

The mage backed up two times before holding out his hands like he’s tearing into something, with one forceful tug of his hands the wall suddenly broke apart in an instant sending a powerful shockwave and shards of glass everywhere.

The black mage Allen was holding freed himself from the grip, and fell down on the ground with the help of the shockwave, but was unfortunate for him for as soon as he had fallen down to the ground a glass shard followed embedding itself on his chest, killing him on the spot.

The broken wall created white smoke of the collision of both energies of black and arcane magic, the mage bellow the ground smirked at his handiwork and praised himself in his head, lavishing in the thought that he had caused immense damage to the opposing factor.

His senses suddenly perked up when a fluctuation suddenly erupted from his side, he jumped to the opposite direction aiming to avoid whatever is going to occur right then and there, but to his surprise when a kid just below his shoulders appeared on the spot with a scythe on one hand staring straight at him.

With exquisite features one couldn’t help associate to a girl with that long hair and slim figure and a feminine face, but the clothing says otherwise, the black mage doesn’t know that.

The kid swing his scythe at the mage but the mage dodged in time, stopping just a few feet apart from the kid. That was dangerous, he thought. Various thoughts swarmed his mind as he could not understand how this kid was able to suddenly surprise him like that.

“That was a bold move black mage, but no matter, you weren’t able to sustain even a single scratch on me.” said the kid, the black mage who got snapped out of his stupor also stood straight and calmed his breathing. This is just a kid what could she possibly do? He thought.

“Step aside or suffer the consequences.” said the black mage. The kid rolled their eyes in a nonchalant manner, but resumed staring hard at the mage, the kid suddenly scoffed and covered their mouth.

“*Sigh* I really don’t get why they say such stuff, I mean, hello? Can you not see that?” the kid gestured at the top, the white smoke clearing, revealing people atop protected by a white barrier of some sort, the monsters being slowly slaughtered again at the paths.

In addition to that his fellow black mages who were in hiding had been revealed and are floating lifeless in the air, all two hundred and forty nine of them. How… is this possible?! They were all invisible, the mage thought.

The mage stared in disbelief of what’s currently happening, cursed to himself of what has transpired as his magic ran wild around him in black swirls of wind. He wasn’t the only one in bewilderment, Rize was also gaping in shock of the situation.

The mage, even though his face could not be seen had clenched his teeth in anger, the black winds flapping his robe.

“YOU!!!” He dashed in front aiming to strangle the kid by their neck, as he held out both of his hands and blinked in front of the kid, he noticed the never changing nonchalant expression of the kid before him, and that’s where he noticed something was wrong.

“You really should learn how to fight properly.” The kid said, in one swift motion, the scythe that was loosely held by the kid’s side twirled to strike the black mage with the rod on the mage’s face,

But the kid did not stop there, as he used the blunt parts of his weapon to repeatedly bash every parts of the body of the black mage in quick succession alternating from the upper parts then to the lower parts, slowly but surely pushing the mage back.

What is with this power, she’s just a child!! The mage thought before blacking out as the kid knocked him unconscious with a final blow in the head that sent him flying five meters back.

Ken having been satisfied at his work over the black mage pointed his scythe at the incoming werewolves and ogres and conjured a purple magic circle in front of him. Manual Input: fire black magic, he thought,

And almost simultaneously, all the floating black mages at the top of the cliff formed a wall of their numbers, and held out both hands in front, and a black magic circle appeared in front of them.

Bolts of black lightning, fire, and ice rained down upon all the monsters before Ken at the unconscious black mages above him, the onslaught continued for a few minutes but the damage was quite massive as all the monsters of the ten battalions were wiped out in that instant.

Ken smirked again at his work, and used manual input to bring down all the black mages from the air and tied them all on the trees with its bark, covering their bodies and their mouths leaving their eyes and nose for breathing when they’d wake up.

He blinked back at the top of the cliff and to wait any other action of the opposing force.

Rize’s rage blasted off to the skies as he watched his mage division fail before his eyes, even thought he was very far away he had still saw clearly as his top mage was pounded and beaten to a pulp left to fend for himself at the side.

Unfortunately he lost that mage too as he had seen a stray black lightning, fireball, and ice spear, hit the mage squarely, leaving a black robe behind as the mage dissipated into thin air by black dust.

Rize stared harder at the kid who made short work of his frontlines and disposed of them as if they were paper. I will make you pay! He thought, as his magic created a dark red atmosphere around him slightly.

“Ken.” said Alfred approaching behind his son.

“Yes papa?” Ken slightly glanced at his father.

(slaps head)

*PA!!!*

“WHAT did we tell you not to do?” said Alfred sternly, looking down at his son clutching the back of his head from the slap, Ken stared pitifully at his father with matching teary eyes and pouty lips, Alfred just raised his right eyebrow at him.

“Not to engage?” replied Ken eventually as his father did not give in to his baby eyes, whimpering once when he touched the sensitive bruise on his head.

“And what did you do?” Alfred crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“I engaged?” said Ken, this time holding his head down, slumped shoulders and draped arms, having finished massaging the area his father hit him. Ken abruptly faced his father hands near his chest. “But, if I hadn’t done it then wouldn’t we be in much bigger trouble?”

“Really? You don’t believe in the capabilities of your friends?” said Alfred and gestured to Ken’s companions at the sides finishing with disposing of the leftover monsters at the paths and had slowly approached them.

“You even made us adults look like displays over here, then how about us, you don’t believe in our capabilities to fight?” added Alfred, Ken stared at him apologetically, looking for words to apologize to his father and the rest of the adults.

Alfred dispersed the white barriers surrounding each individual with arcane magic and used said magic to float all the broken shards to reassemble the wall Ken made.

Meanwhile the audiences at the side can’t help but be bewildered of the dynamics of this father and son, the lions and wolves were more left dumbfounded at the expense of how fast these humans seem to change mood, as if there is no eminent danger before them, and they even had the gall to lecture their offspring.

“I’m sorry.” Ken buried his face on his father’s lower chest, his father’s big arms placed atop his head, funny enough, Alfred was almost as tall as Vin but his wife, could be considered a sister of Ken for they are almost of the same height, just five feet four -Ken is almost five feet-, while he was six feet three -Vin is six feet five-.

“I was just scared.” Ken added. Alfred caressed the top of his son’s head with his right arm and stared fondly at his child, an adult like child that he vibes so much with, in both practical and emotional, it’s scary how it’s possible, but it is what it is.

“Don’t go doing things on your own okay? Be sure to remind yourself that.” Ken nodded at his father’s advice and broke free from the hug, but Alfred scooped him up and tossed him in the air, catching his son giggling.

“Now why don’t you fix that wall, or you can just take it down so that we won’t have to experience what happened again.” said Alfred, Ken reconsidered for a little bit, weighing which choice would be more suited.

“I’ll take it down.” He eventually said, Alfred put him down and Ken immediately used his arcane magic to disperse the wall before them, but it did not end there, as what seems to be glitter particles of the wall floated to each individual of the northern villagers, wolves, and lions.

“What’s this?” asked Alfred.

“I turned the wall into an enchantment, just a slight boost to everyone’s physique.” said Ken smiling at the end. Ken converted the excess energy through ‘manual input’ and a new ‘concept’, the ‘concept of recycled energy’, to which he perfected just about now.

Everyone stared dumbfounded at what Ken had done, but not so much as his friends who had witnessed this kind of magic done by Ken before, but to the others, had their brains shut down from that simple sentence, the question ‘How?’ was swimming in their heads.

But to those that heard him at least, the ones in the back and far back, were just marveling at the sudden glitter on their body, and they felt like they have renewed energy and vigor, ready to combat more monsters.

Guess exchanging groups by group in the frontlines wore them out. Alfred did not know what to do and turned around from his son to walk away, feeling his brain doing a dump on his head, Ken, who forgot to introduce that he can do such magic, tilted his head and asked his father.

“Papa, you didn’t know?” Alfred turned to him, annoyance on his face, although he’s trying hard not to.

“Of course not! How would I know?” Alfred said, making Ken scratch the back of his neck awkwardly. Ken then proceeded to explain how he was able to do such magic to his father, Alfred’s expression slowly but surely relaxed, but towards the end he frowned.

Not knowing that his son could do such magic made him annoyed and sad at the same time because as a parent he deserves to know what has been happening in his son’s life, so he proceeded to tickle Ken out of submission all the while asking that same statement.

And just like that the sudden tense atmosphere was changed into a joyous one.

“What the hell was that.” remarked Rain, as he finds it hard to digest in his system the series of events that seemed to have happened in a blur. Raze beside him chuckled at the blunt thought of his friend, although he suspects that that thought was only meant for himself -Rain-.

Trun and Riven did not know what to feel as the situation felt familiar to them and not at the same time, almost like they know of a certain person who’s a genius in magic, once the thought struck them, they both looked at each other then proceeded to stare at their King.

“That’s not the end of it.” said Raze chuckling as the further confusion induced. Rain racked his brain for answers. Cloud on the other hand, was slightly suspecting of the situation, questions swirling within his head.

‘What are you?’ This he questioned within his thoughts.

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