Alacryan Arthur

Chapter 27

Arthur Leywin POV

"Arthur, what do you mean, the voice?" Caera shot me a concerned look.

"Wait, you can actually hear me?" the voice asked.

"Yes, I can hear you. Who are you? Why can only I hear you?" I asked back, generally in the direction I heard the voice from.

"Oh, it seems you really hear me. That's a first. Well, I can't really tell you who I am, but it seems you have an incredible affinity for aether, so you can hear me. Although you're not able to see me, as it seems.

So you haven't learned about aether, or at least not how to communicate with it.

I am curious, can you feel this?"

Oh man, this voice really liked to hear itself talk. To be fair, the voice was pretty comfortable to listen to, with a low and relaxing sound, not so low, that it is just a grumble, not so relaxing, you want to fall asleep, but a voice I imagined a wise old man might have, similar to the voices of the council, but with more warmth and stress, as if every word that was uttered from this voice, had its own reason of existing, not like the empty talk of the politicians.

My train of thought was interrupted when I felt an incomprehensibly powerful intent focussing on me. This intent was stronger than the intent I had felt on the days of Sylvia's death, or the intent Cadell manages to emit. Who or what was this voice, to be so powerful, but yet unheard of. The strangest thing was, that I couldn't see any reaction of the mana particles nearby.

If I, or someone else for that matter, used their intent the mana particles began to shake a bit, the stronger the intent the more they vibrated in the air. But this time the mana particles did not react at all.

No, instead of not reacting, they didn't move at all, as if they were frozen in place. Even as I tried to absorb them, they did not move. Just now I noticed, that Caera still looked confused and a bit worried, that I might have gone insane.

"Try manipulating or absorbing some ambient mana, it won't work. The voice I hear did that, as well as quite the intent."

"So you do feel something. To be honest, I was expecting a bit of a reaction, so I figured you couldn't feel it, but it seems you're stronger than I thought. All I could feel from your core was the will of one of these beasts."

"She wasn't a beast" I blurted out. I knew it might not be smart to confront someone this strong, but I had to defend Sylvia.

The voice remained silent for a second, before answering: "Someone who murders innocents out of fear of what they might do in the future, who slaughtered children in front of their parents, wives before their husbands, unarmed and harmless people in their own house, what else would you call them? Do you know how it feels to tell your child that everything will be fine, when he has a hole as big as my fist in his chest? The last thing my son ever heard was me telling him a lie, because one of these asuran bastards decided that we were too advanced, and felt threatened by peaceful builders, that they decided to eradicate us?"

The voice shouted at me, rage building in his voice, with the pressure increasing, so much that I felt to the floor, unable to stand anymore and grabbed my throat, trying to ease my breathing, as inhaling air was getting more difficult by the second.

Caera rushed over to me, seemingly unaffected by the pressure. She turned toward me, so my back was on the ground and looked for something wrong with me. I could see how she tried to cast a fire spell, but of course the particles did not respond.

"No att..ck, ju-. -tent" I managed to get out, unsure if she could understand.

"How can you defend someone like that?" The voice boomed.