Rise Of The Spatial Dragon

"It's you! It's you!" Alie's mother held him close and didn't want to let him go. She showered him with kisses and cradled her son, tears flowing endlessly. On his part, Alie was just as dumbfounded. He could clearly remember seeing his mother succ.u.mb to the fire. He was sure she had died, along with so many other members of his settlement.

As the mother and son embraced each other, the lavels that had surrounded them had complicated expressions on their faces. They couldn't believe how lucky or unlucky they were. The small lavel they had ambushed had turned out to be a monster, but more than that, he was one of their own.

As the story went, these lavels were part of a nomadic settlement that happened to be passing by Alie's settlement. This was mostly due to Dane's interference. A little forest fire here, a little thunder there, and the settlement would move in the direction he wanted.

If Dane's first brilliant master plan, he had designed Alie to be the mastermind criminal, the antagonist of the planet. He wanted to raise him to be a villain. To accomplish this, Dane had intended to cause the boy to lose everything, including his family. It was that rage that would have carried him through, just as it had led to his breakthrough.

Initially, Dane hadn't planned to interfere at all. If he let fate run his cause, Alie would still have been captured, maybe even turned into a slave. Such a powerful slave could become the ultimate weapon for an ambitious merchant vasil. However, Dane had affected Alie's fate once by offering him a chance at escape, which the lavel took. He had then raised him in the form of Kendar, the elderly lavel.

Now was the other time Dane had interfered. In this part of the world, nomadic settlements weren't all that uncommon. They would often migrate following their prey's movements. The one that Dane had selected had grown quite large over time, and this was mainly due to its leader, Kagatha.

Despite being the matriarch, she would be no older than Bamboo. The reason she had become the leader was that she had awakened a magical ability. She had control of the Rock Element. It should be known that the Rock element in some civilizations was named after their planet, for instance, if there was a planetary civilization on a planet named earth, they would call the Rock Element Earth element.

Mastering the Rock element didn't just give one control over the Rocks. Every grain of sand, every bit of dirt and soil could be considered part of the Rock element. Kagatha's power was even more awesome than this, for she could be considered a Rock Elemental Priestess.

In this regard, she was a lot like Krea. From an early age, she had had a bond with the Rock Element, often seen playing with soil, sand, and mud. Her mother often reprimanded her until she discovered what her daughter could do. When the various clans discovered her healing powers, they immediately made her the head of the settlement.

It was this particular reason that Dane had chosen them for the rescue mission. He wanted Alie convinced he had lost everything. At that point, he hadn't decided whether he ever wanted them to meet again, but he had to separate them by desperate means.

After spending so much time together, Dane had gained a particular fondness for the boy. He was witty, outspoken and very much a hothead, reminding Dane everything that he had been. He loved such character, and since he was the guardian, he would raise him to become as he willed.

However, due to his interference, fate was fighting back, ruining his plans. This was also part of the reason why Dane had opted to give in to Alie's request for a field trip long before the predicted time of 2 years had come to pass.

The two were ushered in. Kendar and Alie saw the once splendid nomadic settlement looking haggard and defeated, each wearing a forlorn expression. "It's probably best that Alie hadn't seen the splendor of those before him now, because it was even more depressing," thought Dane.

They were led to one of the shelters that were still standing and offered some water for their travel. Being lavels, it was expected that the travelers had hunted along the way, so it wasn't customary to offer food. Even if it was, they wouldn't have been in a position to offer it since they could barely feed themselves as is.

After encountering the burning settlement, Kagatha had led her people to rescue the victims. Under her charge, she had instructed them to bury all the living ones that had sustained injuries, which mostly burned marks. This was a strange request but knowing her power, her subordinates did not hesitate.

Closing her eyes, she had controlled the Rock elements and started repairing the broken bodies. Elemental healing involved using elements to repair the damaged parts of the body and was quite ineffective against diseases. Nevertheless, the elements did their work, and the buried lavels dug their way out of the ground fully healed.

The nomadic settlement then went on their merry way. Unknown to them, they had captured Ogola's attention.

Ogola could be said to be the ultimate overlord in these parts, although few knew of him. One of the most powerful vasil, Ogola's had powerful control over the light element. He commanded over a dozen different lavelian bandit groups and oversaw the trade of lavelian slaves.

As a criminal mastermind, he did not want his name all over the place. Only those with sufficient status even got to know of him.

Needless to say, such a powerful being would not be interested in such small flies. His goal had been to find other powerful beings and expand his strength. As a Grade F Super himself, he knew the power such beings had on a battlefield. Of course, he didn't know about Grades. He thought of himself as a Mage, a Light Mage.

When he got word of Alie's escape, he did a thorough investigation, including questioning the slaves that had been caught before their memories were wiped. It was then that he discovered that there was another Mage out there. His control was light and he was already quite fearsome, he shuddered to think about what a Fire Mage would do.

As he did further research, he caught word of a Rock Mage Healer. A healer! He hadn't even dared hope for something like that, now there was a real-life one? How could he not be intrigued? It seemed that it was finally time for him to take action personally.

Being a nomadic settlement, Ogola knew he didn't have much time before they moved. However, all nomads took time before moving on, especially now that they had new members who, though were not physically wounded, the same couldn't be said of their mind and spirit. Nothing much Kagatha could do about that.

Since there was an established settlement with shelters, the nomads were in no hurry either. They thought that they were dealing with ordinary bandits, and given their size and strength, they wouldn't dare attack.

It had been at noon when the attack came. A swarm of both lavelian and vasilian bandits attacked from every direction, easily suppressing them. At the lead was Ogola, and his target was the Healer.

Ogola had 3 main powerful skills. The first, Star Burst, as he called it, involved a dazzling attack at the eyes of the enemy, instantly blinding them. This was an AoE attack that greatly decreased the fighting power of their enemies, increasing their advantage.

Next came the Invisibility Attack. That was what he called it, but in the Universe, it was known by another name, Illusion. Since the light element was directly connected to vision, a well-practiced light mage could easily manipulate light particles around himself and his army, masking their approach.

While he could do nothing about the lavels' powerful sense of smell, most people tended to trust what they saw. As the army approached, they wouldn't be seen by their prey. At the last minute when he unveiled his army, it would seem as though they appeared out of thin air.

Ogola was a half-step Grade F+. That meant that he had the qualifications to be a Grade F+, but he still hadn't achieved that final breakthrough. Fornutalety or unfortunately, by the time he was at that level, he had already become extremely powerful politically as well. His influence was so far-reaching to the extent that when he turned his gaze upon any opponent who knew who he was, they instantly surrendered.

This being said, he had never met an opponent powerful enough to cause him enough stress to achieve a breakthrough. This was something that couldn't be triggered by just simply training, and this was why it was so frustrating. It had to be known that real power was never given nor grown but earned.

This was also one of the reasons why low-level civilizations did not have sufficiently powerful Supers. Since the true geniuses rarely occurred, those that did would gain power immediately, thus greatly diminishing any opponent. Without a need, they wouldn't unlock more power. Even if they had the talent and potential, all that would remain just that, potential. That being said, Ogola's power was more than an ordinary Grade F, and he only needed to keep his army concealed for a short time.

The psychological effect of seeing an army appear in thin air was enough to weaken the defense of the enemy, but the following light attack could be considered bullying. Ogola didn't even need to use his other offensive skills. When he entered the settlement, he realized, much to his chagrin, that the various bandit groups were fighting amongst each other for a chance to be the ones that captured her.

Yes, they razed the settlement, but they didn't seem interested in anyone else. The ones that died had just been unfortunate to be in the way. All of them fought desperately for a chance to earn his favor. Ogola didn't know how to react to this. At least the job got done, she was captured and the group that did got a substantial reward.

Kendar and Alie's had arrived in the aftermath of the battle. They saw signs of a people that had been so easily defeated and penetrated, and something so precious to them taken away. This was the chain reaction that Dane had predicted. He hadn't anticipated that Alie and Ogola would come into contact with each other so soon, and how could he waste such an opportunity.

Hearing all this, a cold rage descended upon Alie. There was a time when he had been weak, a pushover, someone targeted to become a slave. There was a time he would have felt lucky to be alive after facing such an army. That time was past.

Unknown strangers had come out of nowhere and offered their goodwill to his settlement at a time of great need, a time when he couldn't protect them. Yet these strangers had not only suffered severe retaliation, but they had also lost their precious leader, Kagatha.

There was no way he would let such a thing slide. Not to such benevolent people. Furthermore, he felt that he owed Kagatha for saving his mother's life. Without her interference, she would have died for sure. The least he could do was attempt to gain her freedom. With the help of his powerful master, whom he still didn't know just how powerful he was, Alie felt confident of their success.

With his mind made up, he turned to look at his master, who was also looking at him. They both nodded at each other, the message clear. Alie looked into his mother's eyes and smiled reassuringly, before turning to the lavel that seemed to be in charge.

"Show me where they came from."