"You have an ability?" Ace and Ariel said at the same time. It was already unfair that he had all the powerful skills, and now he said he had an ability too.
'I guess I know who the protagonist is.' Well sadly it was not Ace-wait. Oh yeah, sadly Ace thought it was him-which idiot would even make this weak and lonely kid a main character?
"Yeah." He hesitated for a while then spoke once again. "Its name is Inhuman."
"What does it do?" Ariel asked, curiosity replacing anger.
"Uh, gives me inhuman physical capabilities. It says I have surpassed normal human capabilities."
Ability: Inhuman
The user's body surpasses normal human limits, granting enhanced strength, speed, and endurance. The ability grows stronger with training.
It was after some time of explaining was when they decided to go out and see the situation of the ship, there was no sun at night and even though the moon reflected the sunlight, there was a possibility that they could snap someone out of its control.
Now, they were ascending the stairs, Ace was the first running his way up and behind him his two friends walked calmly a few steps behind.
When the teen opened the door and stepped under the roof, he froze. What he saw was sadly not normal.
"Guys, I think we have a problem." Ace said, his voice echoing behind him in the empty ship, Ray and Ariel soon came beside him and when they saw what he did... Ariel paled and Ray frowned.
Everyone whose energy was sucked out was still there, and they were also looking at one direction and at the same direction, at least how many ever they could see but the direction where they were looking at was the problem.
Every last one of them was looking at their direction-at them, they were looking at them with a terrified expression and this time there was even fury in their faces but those expressions did not reflect in their eyes-no. Their eyes which stared at them were completely empty.
"What now?" Ariel asked still as pale as a paper. If it were not for the other two beside him-he would have locked himself in a room seeing this expression and even though they had similar expressions on their face-at least they were there with him.
"Let's go..." Ray whispered, his tone showed a hint of nervousness and fear but he hid it quick.
"Wait, we still don't know if we are safe outside." Ace said gripping Ray's shoulder, Ray meanwhile just shrugged and continued walking and without fear, he walked more and even when there was no roof above him he did not stop instead he stood beside the figure staring at him and looked back at them.
"See? I don't feel anything."
'He's crazy.'
Ace shrugged and walked front and Ariel followed them, they hesitated for a while and continued walking more and stood in front of Ray. By this point, the glares of the people was distinguished and random.
Some glared at Ray, some at Ace, and some at Ariel.-it was creepy but Ray seemed unaffected by this.
"Well? What now?" Ray asked as he and Ariel looked at Ace once again needing his advice for things like this. Ace thought for a while, it was quite obvious what to do now.
"It's obvious, let's explore this now."
Both nodded though Ariel's face slightly showed a hint of disappointed, he had expected for his friend to just give a detailed list with theories of what happened, what is happening and what will happen and even the cause and solutions of these things.
They walked their separate ways, gazes of other unlucky people followed their every movement and soon Ace found himself standing in front of a woman, his expression was sad, he was full of anger and a lone tear ran down his cheek. He was standing in front of his mother.
Instead of the usual cheerful, kind, warm and bright smile she gave him-now she glared at him with a terrified and furious expression on her face and not even a single expression of love, happiness or anything like that on her eyes. It was completely empty
She glared at him, motionless and eyes full of emptiness-he did not even know if she was conscious, if she could see or hear or had she...just died. The weak teenager did not have a clue on that matter, all he could do was shed silent tears.
He could not even hug his mother, who knows, the infection of the sun could be physical too and his energy would be sucked out if he hugged his mother.
He would not have a problem dying like that, in her arms and hugging his mother but he still did not know, there was a slight chance that she was not actually dead and there was a way to fix all of this-and he would cure her, no matter the cost.
Suddenly he heard a roar from some distance behind him, across the deck of the ship, he could easily see the towering figure of the Iron Beast, still at least three metres long, then he saw the beast getting burnt and covered in flames, he immediately knew who the tall beast was fighting-it was fighting against Ray.
He lingered for a while, then decided to go help his friend-at least if he would help his friend defeat this fiend then maybe they would be one step closer to finding a cure for all of this.
Back when the sun disappeared, the Iron beast disappeared too-he thought that the sun was boosting the powers of the beast and because of that it could only appear at night but this...this proved his assumption wrong.
By the time he got close to the two figures fighting, Ariel was by his side running beside Ace.
"When did this beast come here?" Ariel asked with a tense expression-Ace frowned, he had not thought of this at first-how did the beast sneak up without making even a slight noise. The beast was made of Iron so it's walking should have caused some sound-especially in silent nights like this.
'Now that I think, even before killing the chef, there was no sound before this fiend tore open the wall and cut the man in half.'
It was weird, how could such a huge and heavy figure sneak up-especially how in the world did it sneak up on Ray.
Ace and Ariel stopped at a safe distance as they watched their friend fight the Iron Beast, Ray's face was expressionless and calm-it was the complete opposite of what he and Ariel would have had in that situation.
The flames burning the fiend was now gone, that was surely the flame touch skill of Ray's.
Ray sidestepped a stab aimed at his heart and threw an uppercut at the Iron Beast's chin. His hand was covered in flames, and with the Inhuman ability his strength was far greater than before.
The beast however dodged moving back and bringing his sword in a kind of backward slash aiming to cut Ray in half from his waist but instead, a huge beam of flame burst from Ray's hand and hit the creature sending it crashing behind but still it managed to slash Ray's waist.
However Ray did not seem affected by these and summoned a weapon-a bow. It was brown in colour with orange bright flame symbols on top of it, it was huge and looked heavy but Ray lifted it as if it was weightless and then a black arrow covered in bright orange flame at its tail appeared in his hand and soon he shot the arrow which travelled with pace and hit the creature right where a heart would be.
The arrow pierced its chest, going deep and crashed into the ocean for the third time. The beast now seemed less like a terrifying monster and more like a stubborn troll.
Well sadly, the beast was not a troll and soon jumped up from the ocean and reached high into the sky and crashed on the deck once again.
'No way.' Ace thought tiredly, he did not want to fight this fiend but it seemed that if things went south then he would have to join the fight.
the beast roared with mad fury as it lunged forward, its iron blade still in its hands-the blade looked heavy but the beast did not have a problem moving around with it at all.
Once again, the beast brought the heavy sword to the sky aiming to cut Ray in half from top to bottom but once again with precision Ray sidestepped at the last moment, wisps of flame appeared and disappeared in an instant in the place he had just been standing.
'He used Flame Domain to make himself stronger and dodged and immediately deactivated the skill.' Ace saw his friend effortlessly dodge another of the beast's slash with ease and frowned.
'But why activate and deactivate it every time?'
The beast aimed another downward slash, the sword slammed into the surface of the deck where Ray stood just a second ago, the sword split the wood apart-Ace grimaced. If he was right then one of either the rooms or the hallways could be illuminated by the sunlight in the morning unless they cover the hole that is.
Ray raised his hand.
"Flame Bullets."
Several small spheres of blazing fire shot from his palm striking the beast with precision and strength but sadly unlike the previous time, now the beast only stopped for a second when it received the attack and then resumed to lunge towards Ray as if nothing had happened.
'A sudden boost in power... Could it be?' Ace's pupils widened as he came to a revelation, that could maybe explain how the beast suddenly grew stronger.
Either, it was a natural ability most beasts have, or maybe it was just unique to the Iron Beast or... Ace shuddered thinking of the possibility.
'What if the beast was not actually a beast and was actually a human?'
This made sense, the beast would have maybe used its bonus, skill or ability to get a sudden boost and it could also explain the way it sneaked up on them but still why would a human do all of this? And if it was a human then who was it?
All Ace could do was invade his own mind with the barrage of questions for which he did not have answers.
"Flame Domain." Ray whispered. Immediately Ray felt his body grow stronger, lighter and more durable and flexible-he easily dodged the beast's sword but unexpectedly that was only a feint and the real attack was the beast's punch.
The beast had now known that striking the human even with its iron fist would be enough but the human it was facing was skilled for no logical reason and the teenager dodged the punch as well and his palm touched the iron beast and once again the beast was caught in fire or rather put in fire.
The beast did not sway though and aimed one more slash at his throat but instead of dodging, Ray caught the blade with his own two hands and smirked with a satisfied expression.
Then suddenly he punched the beast in the chest and using Flame touch set it in flames again, and summoned the flame bow again and aimed at the beast. Before the mighty beast could recover, the arrow had already pierced through its armour and sent him skidding a few metres back.
Then the beast however began to glow, Ray and Ariel seemed startled for a second but Ace was not-the beast was glowing, it was emitting light and he did not know what type of light.
"Find cover from the light." He shouted and ran towards one of the close doors but stopped-the glowing stopped, the light disappeared and the beast was gone, as if it had never existed in the first place.
It vanished just as suddenly as it had come.
No trace of where it had gone or came from.
The only proof of the beast was the hole in the deck and several scorched wood due to the fierce and short fight between Ray and the Iron Beast. Ace frowned and looked around but found nothing, it seemed that the beast had retreated.
Maybe the beast ran away forever-or maybe just until till sunrise after all, after seeing how slow the beast was against the fight with Ray, his previous intuition of the sun making the beast stronger came back to his mind.
With that however, one more thing came to his mind.
'What if he's a human and is spared by the sunlight because of the armour?' The possibilities and questions were unknown and sudden but for the answers, they had to wait.
Soul Rune
Name: Ray
Age: 16
Rank: Novice
Bonus: Flame Manipulation
Rank: Lesser
Skills:
Flame Bullets
Flame Domain
Flame Bow
Flame Touch
Ability:
Inhuman