A Sunless Dream

The feeling of the warm air in God Grave brushing across Kai's skin as he cut through the atmosphere at high speeds was one of the most major things he cherished. Taking a moment to absorb the environment from above, Kai couldn't help but smile at the beauty of nature that had presented itself to him.

It wasn't often he got the opportunity to appreciate such scenes, and so every time he did, he cherished it.

In the air, he no longer had to worry about the turmoil that had threatened to split the cohort apart from inside additionally it allowed him to experience pure unaltered bliss with the wind as his only company. If he knew this was what being an awakened promised, he would have quit his career as a singer much sooner.

Across the horizon, a large castle loomed over the environment creating tension and an oppressive aura around it that even nature itself seemed to be affected. Though the light rays pierced through the clouds as normal, upon making contact with the castle they appeared to distort unnaturally and flee from it. As though the castle possessed an unknown plague.

The influence of a saint was clear as day for anyone who took even a second to analyse their surroundings. Wiping off his joyous expression, Kai focused as he slowly came to a stop around the entrance of the castle and there he was met with the three sources of the oppressive aura. Morgan, Jet and Effie.

Although Effie seemed oblivious towards the situation, the unspoken tension created by Jet and Morgan simply being in the same room caused lesser awakened to fall to their knees and ultimately vacate the vicinity. He never quite understood why such tension existed between the two saints, his experiences with both had been extremely pleasant frankly even more so with Morgan.

Landing before the three saints, Kai did his typical greetings as he shot each of them a smile before going to strike conversations with them individually. Due to the tension between the cohort choosing to opt out of engaging with Effie and Jet first seemed to be the wisest option as he turned to Morgan who for some odd reason scoffed and looked away at the sight of him.

"Good afternoon, Morgan, how have you been?" Kai asked politely, although he knew that Morgan and Jet were not on the best of terms increasing the amount of tension surrounding the castle might eventually kill one of the awakened and so he chose the selfless option and attempted to break the ice between the two.

Morgan, however, chose to ignore his greeting as she replied mildly "You're late". Looking at Kai got on her nerves for reasons she couldn't explain, regardless of the fact that they were about to go on an extremely harrowing mission which could mark the end of their lives he still managed to look well put together and overall hard to disagree with.

Kai scratched the back of his head at the cold reply and bowed his head slightly in apologises, he wasn't going to go as far as to lie to her, he detested liars, and so choosing to keep the reason behind his lack of punctuality to himself seemed like the best of options. He could only hope she doesn't pry further.

Turning slightly, he locked eyes with Jet, from her expression she didn't want to be there for a second longer than he had to and so he discarded pleasantries and asked immediately "We're handling a horde, correct? They're mainly fallen terrors though why would the government ask us to ally with Valor over threats that masters could take care of?" he asked, although Kai was not the type of person to outwardly express his confidence in any talent he possessed he was extremely perceptive towards how others perceive him allowing him to somewhat predict how they would regularly act on that basis.

Being able to tell when they're lying was also a bonus as well.

Jet shook her head understandingly, in all honestly upon hearing the initial mission briefing she had the exact same reaction however, upon learning the true entailments all she desired was to get the mission finished as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Pointing to the ground, Jet replied "Around four hundred thousand miles below the ground, is a cursed tyrant although it appears to be asleep. Frankly, we awakened do not have the resources to engage in a battle with that thing especially with the upcoming conflicts" she stressed the word conflicts as she narrowed her eyes at Morgan who brushed her off and turned in the opposite direction.

"We're tasked with eliminating any and all nightmare creature activity which may cause the tyrant to even begin thrashing in it's sleep. A being like that could change the landscape of our very world as we know it, not to mention imagine the horrors if it happened to pass into the waking world" Jet finished her sentence as she continued to put more distance between her and Kai, "Now, if you'll excuse me princess I'll be going to clean up the horde" and with that Jet immediately began running west.

Morgan was quick to follow her however as they both ran alongside each other towards the presumed direction of the horde. However, this left only Kai and Effie standing next to each other in quite an awkward environment. He was used to Effie always having sly and perverted remarks at every turn and quite frankly he would give up a lot to have that Effie return immediately.

"We'll talk once this is done" was all she said. And in one leap, she caused a miniature earthquake shaking the entire castle as she began sprinting in the same direction Jet and Morgan had gone. This left Kai alone as he looked towards an awakened who was barely remaining conscious at the tension between the four "I've really surrounded myself with an odd bunch haven't I?" he commented with a laugh. Before the awakened could reply however Kai had already crossed the horizon in their direction, moving so quickly he had left an after image standing exactly where he had once been.

Upon his arrival Jet, Morgan and Effie were moving through the fallen terrors. He couldn't miss out on the fight left he risk having a bad report in his work summary for the month and immediately he crashed down into the middle of the horde. Throughout the time since he first met Sunny in the waking world, Kai had gone to extreme lengths in mastering his transcendent battle art.

Although he had continuously been surrounded by a wide variety of expertly skilled melee fighters, he had realised he allowed his close quarters skills lag behind the rest of his friends. However, his training had been primarily focused on turning the bow into both a long and short range weapon.

Summoning his most trusted weapon, a silver compound bow, Kai grabbed it by the lower limb and swung it's string at the closest abomination to him. The string was long and so thin that it appeared practically invisible to the untrained eye, one of it's enchantments allowed Kai to modify it's sharpness depending on the essence poured into it and he was not going to let it go to waste.

The string passed through the abomination which had taken the form of a skull knight with three arms all wielding a sword, it attempted to swing at Kai however both halves of it's body quickly separated offering no resistance towards the incredibly sharp nature of the string Kai possessed. Not giving the rest of the hoard any time to respond, Kai mowed through the crowd sometimes using himself as the arrow of his bow to shoot himself forward at incredible speeds and shatter the skulls of any enemy he had come into contact with.

Deciding he had grown tired of the extended engagements with the fallen terrors that couldn't even dream of comparing to a saint. Kai simply shouted, "Die" and all the skeletons disintegrated into dust. Brushing his hands off he was tapped on the shoulder approvingly by Morgan as she again as per usual didn't meet his eyes "Excellent use of the bow, I didn't know you could adapt it to short range in such a manner" she said. Before Kai could thank her for her compliment however Morgan had already began leaving for Anvil's castle, causing the words to remain dead in his throat.

Looking around, he realised that Jet too had already left. In all honesty where she went after missions was an utter mystery however her disappearance left him only one person to interact with.

That was Effie.