“…I told you she would not give in so easily. We should have greeted her with our weapons, not our words.”

  “We are not barbarians, Nalop,” the blue robed woman said, glancing at her red robed companion. “And we told you before, if you want your revenge so much, then you can act on your own. We will not stop you and Onias.”

  “…Stop speaking nonsense,” said one of the yellow robed men. Not Vern. The other one. “Since she has already made it clear that she is not going to cooperate, then let us just quickly get rid of her.”

  “Not rid, Onias, but capture,” said the green robed man. “You have not forgotten about her origin, right?”

  “…Should we contact those lunatics from the Valence clan?”

  “Not now. You know crazy those people are. It would be best if can capture her before contacting them. At least get some irrefutable evidence. Otherwise, they might even turn their weapons against us.”

  “…You do have a point… I have been in seclusion for the past few months. Were there any patrols from the Valence clan passing through here in that time?”

  “There was one delegation investigating the recent rise in the activities of the Heterodoxies in this area…”

  “Then we can give them a double surprise,” the brown robed woman said, glancing at the lightning shield fending off the flames and the dark clouds, before turning towards the rat, that had been hammered into the sands. “Just in case though, let us get rid of the rat first. We absolutely cannot let those lunatics get their hands on him.”

  “The rat is not going anywhere,” the blue robed woman said, fixing her gaze on the Lady of Thorns. “I am more interested in the secrets that he mentioned…”

  “…The youngest Grand Wanderer in tens of thousands of years.”

  “Playing with Mysteries that only Heterodoxies can master after just a glance…”

  “And that terrifying control of Spirit…”

  “Though you should have just reached the Grand Rank, my instincts are telling me that you are far more terrifying than those old monsters who have lived for thousands of years.”

  “It is a good thing that we let the rat test you.”

  “He may be useless, but he was indeed right on one account. Your arrogance is going to be your downfall, Lady of Thorns.”

  “…I will tell you the same thing I said to the rat,” Nyssa said, walking in the air to place herself between the lightning shield and her new ‘guests’. “Defeat me first before questioning my confidence.”

  “…Do you think we are the same as that rat?”

  “No,” Nyssa said, as she reached into her Spirit World to pull out a sword. One with an eerily dark blade, that seemed to be of no colour yet glowed in all shades at the same time. Even its hilt, wrapped in some strange cloth, that kept shining in the same confusing mix of shades, seemed to be just as eerie. The only thing that did not seem eerie about the sword was its shape and size, nearly three quarters of her height, and a palm wide.

  “You are even more disgusting than the rat.”

  “That sword…” the green robed man mumbled, trailing off, with Vern picking off where he left.

  “I thought her Roots were supposed to be blocked.”

  “They are,” Nalop said. “She did not use Oren.”

  “I did not feel any fluctuations of the Mysteries of Space either.”

  “Then that sword…”

  “What an unexpected surprise,” the brown robed woman said, with a smile breaking out on her face. “The Union even gave you a Divine Treasure!”

  “No,” the blue robed woman said. “That sword is not from the Union… At the very least, it does not match the description of any of the Union’s known Divine Treasures.”

  “…A new Divine Treasure?”

  “There is no such thing as a new Divine Treasure,” the brown robed woman said. “Just one that has not been discovered.”

  “Or exposed.”

  “Regardless, it is a Divine Treasure.”

  “…That useless rat.”

  “There is no use talking about the rat… We need to think about how to deal with her. And we need to be quick. That Ritual will not hold for long.”

  “…Nalop, Onias. You go deal with Daena. There is no need to fight her to death. Just snatch the children from her hands. Especially the boy. You can let the others go, but you must catch the boy. And you must be quick.”

  “…Leave it to us.”

  The two men, one in a red robe, and the other in a yellow robe, glanced at each other, before vanishing from sight, only to be pushed out of their ‘invisibility’ and back to their original position, with an extra wound on their chest. Just a small wound, that barely broke their skins, but a wound, nonetheless. And that too, with the Lady of Thorns still being nearly a hundred metres away.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “Did I give you the permission to move?” Nyssa said, retrieving her sword from its outstretched position back to her initial stance, with both her hands on its hilt, and the sword’s blade and tip poised towards her enemies, as the trail of blood sliding down its edge sizzled from the blade’s eerie glow, evaporating in just as eerie trail of smoky red mist.

  “…What was that?” Nalop said, glancing down at the thin red line stretching across his chest, before tuning back towards the Lady of Thorns. “How can she still use Mysteries?”

  “…She did not use any Mysteries,” the blue robed woman said with an ugly face. “It was the sword that bent the world to its will.”

  “…A superior Divine Treasure that can work even without Oren?”

  “…If we want to subdue her, then we must first understand that sword.”

  “You have fought with her before, Nalop, Onias. Do you have any guess?”

  “…She did not use that sword back then.”

  “Your guess is as good as ours.”

  “What about the attack you suffered just now?”

  “You saw it with your own eyes.”

  “It happened too quickly…”

  “And too abruptly.”

  “Before we could react, the sword had already reached us.”

  “Honestly, had I not felt a stinging sensation in my chest, I might not even have noticed the sword.”

  “It was almost as if the world itself was giving way to the sword.”

  “World? Mysteries of Space? Yul’s Divine Treasure?” Vern mumbled, before conjuring flames above his palms, and shooting them towards the Lady of Thorns. Yet, the moment those flames reached the white robed woman, he lost all control over his flames, and watched with wide eyes, as they circled around her like her cub, before diving into her sword.

  “…That is definitely not Yul’s Treasure.”

  “Two lineages?”

  “That is just what we can tell. It might have Mysteries from even more lineages.”

  “A Supreme Divine Treasure from the legends?”

  “…Perhaps,” the blue robed woman said. “Regardless, we cannot take her lightly…”

  “Since Daena has chosen to stay out of the battle, let us ignore her for now, and focus on this ‘Lady of Thorns’.”

  “Or we can all move towards the kid from different directions. She cannot possibly stop us all at once.”

  “…There is only one way to find out.”

  The six Wanderers moved at once, vanishing from their position, all rushing towards the boy from different directions. Yet just a fraction of a moment after they moved, they were all forced back to their initial position, some with similar thin slash wounds on their chests, and some with wisps of flames still clinging to their robes and hair.

  “Is this…”

  “My flames,” Vern said solemnly, using his Spirit Power to extinguish the flames sticking to his sleeves, while staring at the wisps of flame leaking from the sword in the white robed woman’s hands. “She is much more troublesome to deal with than we thought.”

  “…I have a very terrible hunch.”

  “What is it?”

  “Let us try the other elements first.”

  A few moments later, gusts of wind sharper than cracks in space, earthen creations tougher than a Grand Beast’s shell, waves of water heavier than entire mountain ranges, and lighting bolts faster than thought, carrying the momentum of oceans crashing against reefs, all concentrated in one point, rushed towards the Lady of Thorns, only to be tamed and absorbed by the sword in her hands.

  “…Elemental attacks do not work on her, and we cannot get close to her fight her physically… What are we going to do now?”

  “…Should we use the Last—

  “Let us try the other lineages first,” the blue robed woman said, interrupting the green robed man. But the brown robed woman was not very confident in that suggestion. She did not have any other alternatives though, so they could only try the Mysteries of other lineages one by one. From the ethereal Winds of Fortune to the murky Whispers of Lies, even Enn’s rays and Orn’s lullabies, they tried all the Grand Mysteries they had command over, yet, without exception, all their attacks were absorbed by the sword.

  “…Is that sword really just a Divine Treasure? How can it absorb so many Mysteries?”

  “…Maybe it is not a Divine Treasure at all,” the brown robed woman said, her face turning paler than ever. “Have you heard the rumours about the relics left behind by Thrall Supremes?”

  “…Do you know what you are talking about, Gulina?”

  “…I know this may be a little hard to believe, but I cannot think of anything else… Just think about it. The way she uses that sword, cutting through space and absorbing all kinds of Mysteries, before sending them back to her enemies… Does it not remind you of anything?”

  All six Wanderers glanced at each other, before exclaiming, “Nulloids!”

  “No wonder…”

  “…If it is relic left behind by a Nulloid Supreme, then everything makes sense…”

  “…But that still does not give us a solution to our current problem.”

  “…Nulloids generally have a limit to how many Mysteries they can absorb. What if we—

  “No, that would be too risky.”

  “And stupid,” the brown robed woman added. “We do not know what the limit of her sword is, but if it is really a relic left behind by a Nulloid Supreme, then even if spent all our Spirit Power ten times over, we would still not be able to make it eat its fill. Not to mention that in our current situation, using any kind of Mystery would only end up further adding to her strength.”

  “…Then is there nothing we can do?”

  “There is,” the green robed man said, taking out a circular, palm sized blood red token from his storage ring. One engraved with the picture of a walled city, standing tall in midst of a black desert. “You just do not want to think about it.”

  “…Last Blessing,” Vern mumbled, summoning a similar token in his hands. “It can indeed help us, but…”

  “…Is it worth it?”

  “What are you hesitating for?” the brown robed woman said, glaring at Nalop and Onias, before summoning another similar token in her hands. “We have already come so far. There is no way we can back down now.”

  “And if we succeed…”

  “Then everything will be worth it.”

  “It is decided then.”

  “The Last Blessing it is.”

  “But who is going to use the blessings?”

  “…Though the desert will lend us its power as long as five of us activate the blessings, just to be sure, everyone should use their blessings together.”

  “It will also be fair to everyone.”

  “Why should five of us risk everything, while one stays to enjoy all the benefits?”

  “Since we are sharing the spoils, we should also share the risks.”

  “Is that not what we discussed?”

  “If we are going to leave the city, then all of us must leave together.”

  “…It is decided then,” the blue robed woman said, as the six Wanderers held blood red tokens in their hands, glancing at the Lady of Thorns. “Let us show this genius of the Union what we people of Lighting Region are capable of.”

  Without the need of any signals, the six Wanderers crushed the tokens in their hands in perfect synchronisation, asking the Black Desert to bless them one last time.