The Harvester

Inside one of Plateau Zero’s largest auction houses, Cura Arlan walked down the back rooms with Rita nervously skipping after him.

 

“Stop there!” Several guards intercepted them but the shark man didn’t even bother slowing his march.

 

Holding King Gulon at hip level, he uttered calmly, “Eat.” 

 

The sentient weapon promptly followed the order and swiftly expanded its size. Its large mouth opened threateningly and a long tongue shot, wrapping around the group of guards and dragging them into its stomach before they even had the time to scream.

 

The Gulon audibly swallowed and then shrunk down as if the volume of what it had just eaten was nothing to mention about. Rita tautly pursed her lips at the sight.

 

“They’re here,” Cura suddenly said and kicked down a large mechanical gate; one strong enough to resist the power of cannonballs. Behind it, a network of jails extended for almost farther than what could be seen with the naked eye.

 

Rita immediately rushed past the shark man. She frantically looked around as she ran, the lights of the obscenely large room turning on due to movement detection. The people in the jails were already standing up after sensing that something was wrong.

 

“Sis!” A young voice resounded from a still obscured section and Rita gasped. She spun on her feet to face the direction it came from and ran toward it. Once the lights caught up with her, she could finally see who she was looking for.

 

“Milo!” She yelled out and dropped to her knees in front of one of the cells, her hands wrapping around the bars, a young boy in his early teens standing on the other side. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, right?!” She frantically asked whilst pressing his hands against hers.

 

“I’m okay, Rita…” He said with a small smile. Aside from some dusty and tattered clothes, as well as the electronic collar around his neck labeling him as a slave, he was indeed devoid of injuries.

 

“Good, good…” His older sister sighed in relief. “Move back a bit, I’ll be getting you out of here right away,” she said with a steely tone and stood up, drawing one of her daggers.

 

“Stop,” but Cura stopped her before she could continue. He approached her with a calm gait and she frowned at him, forgetting her fear of him for the sake of her brother. “Don’t look at me like that, woman,” the shark man huffed. “This facility is electronically managed.”

 

He pointed at Rita’s brother, “What if that collar kills him if it detects the jail being destroyed? You should not forget that those things are made to block the brain from using skills. They can easily kill the wearer,” he said and she paled. She gazed at the electronic lock and bit her lip.

 

“What do we do then?” 

 

“I’ve been told to wait after getting inside,” Cura uttered and fished out a phone-like device from his pocket. “Apparently, it was too hard to hack this place because it was off the grid… whatever that means,” he shrugged. “So, I bring this thing here with me, and then…” He trailed and as if on cue, the phone’s screen lit up and began to blip.

 

Then, like a domino effect, the beeping was mirrored by each jail door pad, one after the other, at a consistent cadence. Until finally, it spread to the collars of the slaves, and in one fell swoop, both the doors and collars opened themselves and dropped to the ground.

 

“Uh, nifty,” Cura commented as he checked the device over.

 

Rita didn’t waste time to rush and hug her brother after he was freed, while everyone else slowly walked out of their confinements; some with joy, others skeptical, and a few terrified. All of them rubbed the back of their neck as the needle that impaired their ability had finally been removed.

 

“Oi, all of you,” the shark raised his voice callously and everyone looked at him. “I’m here to break you out. If you wanna run away, you can. If you wanna fight with your jailers, you can. But if you wanna help me free up some other slaves, you’re welcome.”

 

No one answered him, whether it was verbally or physically. 

 

He hummed. “Well, I don’t care either way,” he uttered and slung King Gulon over his back. With his now empty hand, he pointed his palm at the wall that he knew led directly to the outside of the auction house. “You’re in the way,” he warned nonchalantly, and a transparent sphere of unknown properties formed in front of his hand.

 

It was completely see-through, almost glowing, and had a very faint undulating surface. It didn’t give off anything remotely similar to familiar energies such as mana, so it was without saying that what he was currently charging was raw ‘force’.

 

Barely a second after the crowd of freed slaves had hurried off to get out of the way, he shot it out and it traveled toward the wall without any sound or air pressure at all. Everyone was looking at it with confused eyes for the most part, but once it collided against the wall, they scrambled away.

 

The sphere expanded in the blink of an eye. It was not even gradual. At one point, it was small, and in the next, it had swelled more than a hundred times its size. Then, it burst. 

 

The wall was obliterated as if a giant hammer had hit it and the debris flew into the air both outside and inside. Cura lowered his hand calmly and turned toward a startled Rita who openly gawked at what he had just done.

 

“So? What are you going to do? That guy gave me a job and it included protecting you. But that’s only if you decide to stay around,” he said and jolted her out of her daze. 

 

The young woman took on a difficult expression and glanced at her brother. “I… don’t think I can help you. I have to prioritize my brother--” 

 

“We will,” her brother interrupted her and she looked at him in surprise.

 

“Milo! What are you saying?!”

 

“I can help, sis!” The boy didn’t relent even under her sister’s admonishment. “My Nirvana Skill is Teleportation and without the collar, I can finally use it. It should be able to help, right?” He asked with a determined expression and Cura quietly observed him.

 

He nodded. “All right. Then let’s start right away,” he declared, and similarly to Rakna and Nyx, he reached into a soul-power-made storage and pulled out a bag that rattled with its content. 

 

“Here,” he muttered and dropped it on the ground. “Mass Return Crystals. Give the people here enough to leave and take the rest with you. I’ll leave it to you to carry it,” he explained to both the siblings and everyone else listening.

 

“W-wait,” one person in the crowd raised a hand. “I will also help,” he said, and spurred on, others followed his example.

 

“Hm, looks like he was right in saying there’d be a few courageous people,” Cura commented to himself and eyed the ones that were taking the crystals and departing in groups of twenty. “And here I thought all of them would be like that…”

 

“Um… can I ask you something?” Rita spoke up hesitantly. “Who is this… ‘guy’ you’ve been talking about?” 

 

“Hm?” Cura raised an eyebrow before realizing, “Oh… it’s the one you know as Ranka.”

 

“Eh?” She blinked. “B-but, she’s a girl, you know?”

 

The shark looked at her silently and it was the King Gulon who reacted to her question, its mouth opening while it was on its wielder’s back and laughing out loud, like a demon right out of Hell.

 

“As you can see, Gul disagrees,” Cura deadpanned and turned around from the absolutely floored girl while her brother tilted his head in confusion.

 

Whilst approaching the exit he had made, Cura glanced at a few jail cells that had not been opened by Ranka’s hacking. ‘Criminal slaves, perhaps?’ He wondered and King Gulon licked the air as if it was trying to taste something. The shark man’s eyebrow twitched and he narrowed his eyes.

 

“Girl, leave. Now,” he raised his voice and briefly turned around. “Take this with you,” he said and tossed her the hacking device given to him by Ranka. “You’ll have to do the rest without me. There is a troublesome guy coming. You understand what that means, boy?”

 

Milo nodded seriously.

 

“Good. Teleport in, move fast, and teleport out. Don’t stop and don’t try to fight something out of your league. Take care of yourself and avoid danger even at the cost of another,” Cura instructed and faced the exit again. “Good luck,” he said and jumped into the hole in the wall. When he landed outside, a group of people also landed in the area right before him.

 

“Ah, crap,” one of them ruffled his hair as he stepped forward, effectively taking the apparent role of the leader. He was a man in his twenties, with spiky black hair, and eyes of an even darker shade, as if they were black holes. He put his hands in the pockets of his pants and stared down at Cura with a hunched posture. 

 

“Cura Arlan. Really? Come on, I let you enter Zero because it would be a pain to do otherwise. I thought you wouldn’t do anything… fuck me,” he grumbled.

 

Cura remained quiet, though he didn’t appear to be worried even if the man in front of him was one of Kratos’ strongest assets; an Entry Warden on par with the likes of Undertaker.

 

“You got the slaves out?” The listless man inquired as he looked behind Cura. “Why? That doesn’t sound like something the Shark King would do. Aren’t you an infamously big battle junkie?”

 

“You’re here, are you not, Karan Arkas?” The shark man retorted as he drew King Gulon.

 

The Warden opened his mouth and then closed it. “…fuck, that makes too much sense.”

 

“I’m curious, however,” Cura hummed. “Kratos should have far more people running around right now. Gulon hasn’t sensed too many people other than you and some scrubs. And out of all things, you’re here to retrieve slaves? What for?”

 

Karan rolled his eyes. “You think I’m gonna tell you?”

 

“I suppose not,” Cura nodded calmly. He took a stance and King Gulon licked its lips.

 

A second later, the surrounding area was overtaken by a dome of transparent force, blowing away entire blocks and carving a crater in the ground.

 

* * *

 

Some distance away, where the dome could barely be seen sticking out from the line of rooftops in between, Nyx waved her hand in an upward motion and solidified the shadows around her into long rows of giant scimitars. She then proceeded to do the opposite motion and the constructs swung at Zasha.

 

The scorpion grinned and tightened his grip on his weapon. With a violet burst of energy, the teeth of his greatsword began to rattle, until they eventually began to rotate like a chainsaw.

 

The result of that was a twister of shredding power that enveloped Zasha. It rose into the air in a gradually expanding pillar and turned the scimitars into small pieces in an instant. The scorpion followed up by swinging his weapon at both Nyx and Rakna. And as if an extension of the chainsaw, a toothed wheel of violet energy tore the ground in their direction.

 

Rakna narrowed his eyes and grabbed Nyx’s shoulder before using Enthymio Step. He moved out of the way and reappeared a dozen meters away, just in time to see the wheel detonate and turn everything in its vicinity into clean shreds; far too clean.

 

“One of my Nirvanas…” Zasha spoke up calmly as he hefted his sword back up, the teeth grinding to a halt. “Is Shredding. Not the most versatile out there. And certainly not the most powerful. But you know what I think? Simplicity is best.”

 

“…I have to agree,” the therian acquiesced and the scorpion scowled. “If there’s a simple solution to a problem or an easy method to an end goal, why not take it? As such, to vanquish an enemy much stronger, skilled, and experienced than I… the simplest way is to overpower them.”

 

“Ah?” Zasha scowled. “That doesn’t make much sense now, does it? How do you expect to do that?”

 

Rakna didn’t answer and merely gave Nyx a meaningful glance. She responded in kind and nodded sharply. “If you are sure…” She whispered and breathed in. She extended her arms outward and a cloak of shadows coiled around her body.

 

They crawled across her body, from her legs to her neck, and then separated themselves to form a pair of draconic wings made out of darkness.

 

“Oi, what are you…” Zasha put on a cautious expression and was about to stop her from continuing when he felt something wrong. He quickly jumped off from where he was and something pierced the ground in the next instant. It was fast and small; almost like a bullet.

 

He immediately traced it back to its source and saw Ranka pointing a finger at him. Furthermore, he had to make a double take when he saw that five lupine tails had grown on the woman’s back, channeling silverish energy to her finger.

 

“You’re--!” Zasha opened his mouth wide but was interrupted by another bullet that whizzed past his cheek. “Shit! What is this? That feels like magic, but at the same time not,” he grumbled as he destroyed a third one with his Nirvana Skill.

 

“[Lunar Drop,]” Rakna intoned under his breath and used the remaining lunar energy that he had stored in his tails. Thankfully, his lunar control fell under his Sub-Path and Lunar Drop happened to be powerful enough to make a difference as long as he put enough LPs into it.

 

“Are you ready?” Nyx asked beside him. “Keep in mind that it will be tethered to this Plateau. Mana will still be unrecoverable, but the ‘World’ will return. You know that, right?”

 

“Yes, do it.”

 

“Understood,” she sighed and clasped her hands. Promptly, her wings grew to cover the sky and everything fell into darkness. 

 

“[Crepuscule Night.]”