Amaxi
Three hours ago
West Lentyra time
Eleonor,
The name given to her by Althma
Pain, It's all I feel
Eleonor tried to draw into herself, overwhelmed by her feelings, she hid in the dimly lit, shadow-encased wall. The other children were huddled together, moving away from her when they saw the colour of her eyes.
Mallanian, that was the form her Althma had chosen to disguise her as today.
Eleonor tried to use her clairaudience to listen in on the hushed whispers of two trembling five-year-old girls that were holding onto each other but was unable to.
I was right, she thought in dismay
A force that could disrupt her innermost thoughts and strip her of Althma's full capabilities, that was something she had never encountered, normally her Althma could heal her easily but that strange force had rendered it partially dormant, so in order to heal her, it used half of its energy on her to heal her from the aftereffects of the pearl tower.
The acute sense of pain that had immobilized her and killed over a hundred Normies and Lighters still lingered in Eleonor's memory.
Baby , let's celebrate Masdew
Althma had released a burst of energy to reach out into the thoughts of two unknown presences above the underground tower, after that she had been unable to hear or see with her clairaudience and seer. But the voice of the woman's soul she had absorbed still played in her mind .
The strange energies in the space allowed Althma to change her disguise and slowly assimilate into her core, improving her strength.
From the information provided from birth,
Eleonor, an orphan, her power division unknown, had been birth by a Piratian slave in the empire, and later left for dead in an abandoned Piratian ship, 200 meters from the city of Malie, near the Island of Isis.
Unlike the other children she knew, her life force wasn't the Altrea pearl but Althma. Her name had even been selected from the womb by this life force.
As she grew, she relied on Althma, it protected her from various monsters since she was the only inhabitant dwelling in Isis, the former inhabitants had abandoned the Island after a sudden rise in monster attacks. A couple of ships had been abandoned in their haste to escape the Island.
From the age of three, Eleonor learnt to feed off energies and hunt monsters. She could also put a portion of Althma life force into both inanimate objects and dead creatures.
She wasn't knowledgeable of Althma's full potential , or her power rank in the Altrean system , all she knew was that Althma would be with her in the form of the dead creatures she brought back to life.
By the time she turned five, she was caught by Piratians when she tried to leave the Island of Isis on boat, the boat had been imbued with her power to move on its own, and because of that the Piratians had mistaken her for a Mallanian.
Eleonor tried again to use clairaudience on the two five-year-old girls but couldn't, she shifted her focus from the girls and tried instead to view, the power levels of the surviving lighters.
To her surprise, her core resisted and instead remained unresponsive.
Maybe it's because I tried to use seer on all of them
She been gifted the power of seer on the Piratian slave ship, after an encounter with an exiled Malie witch, she had unlocked a portion of Althma and surpassed her power limitations.
Her main goal had been to find her father,when memories of him began to surface in snippets, she escaped from the ship upon docking in Malie. Due to the mass amount of energy in Malie, her sense of identity, began to fade away and it was during this period, she began to absorb the energy of souls in the air.
Those life source had been her sustenance for two years as she tried to survive in Malie.
The power to hear the words of others activated during her first Masdew in Malie, she received clairaudience, and gained the full cloak of Althma. That day also marked the assassination of the first Queen by an ancient shadow, a turning point in her life as she had unknowingly absorbed the soul of the Queen before she ascended to Altrea.
As all Lentys were immortal, the Queen memories began to merge with her own, it revealed to her the history of shadows and warriors, this spurred her to look for her father, as she found out that without her father's acknowledgement she would become cursed.
During her search, she was caught by Amaxian shadows, that was how she found herself in the dark tower.
Eleonor's thoughts was broken by the pitiful sobbing of a lighter boy leaning on a pillar.
She tried to analyze his power, and her core, as if apologizing for its earlier resistance, brought up the boy rank. She sighed in relief, her gift had at least survived that grueling experience.
A mixed Troll
Eleonor slowly disengaged herself from her shadow space, so as not to draw attention to herself, she crawled her way quietly through the hundreds of children clustered together, and stopped in front of the boy.
He was the only one like her, with a hint of mixed energy running through his Meridian core, which sparked her interest.
Eleonor sensed that his power was incomplete and knew it would be safe to speak to him, as he would be unable to use his power on her and discover her true identity.
Meanwhile, Esther quietly examined the faces of the children gathered in the tower's hall, the computer screen reflected all the energy ranks of the children, and she was shocked to find that not one of them gave off the amount of energy needed to infiltrate the mind of a Normie and Shadow, she turned away from the digital appliance, as a young man clothed in lab coat walked in.
" Is this the file on the group that made it through the pearl tower, " she muttered, as she collected the file stretched out " These are the new candidates ".
After her abrupt departure from the now recovering Stephanie, she had been punished by Caius, as the overlord had left the tower to go into the chamber of friction, a chamber created by the beast of Amaxi, but being the cruel overlord that he was, he had left the fate of her punishment in the hands of his underling.
Esther knew a blessing when she encountered one and was all to glad to receive any kind of punishment bestowed upon her by Lord Caius, remembering the survival rate of those punished by the overlord were dangerously low. It hadn't been any less painful at the hands of Caius, but being a first time offender, she had been spared being swallowed by a dragon or fed to the Damons, instead she had been thrown into a water filled tank of nightmares.
Where she had endured three hours of exposure to a broken shard of Althma gotten from the bone of the last existing Althmatanian. After her release from the tank, a command had come from the control room to prepare the children for the overlord's return.
Esther perused the report file and her brows furrowed in confusion as she looked up at the lab physician standing in front of her, the physician fear was palpable. New Amaxian scientists and doctors were tasked to report the activities and progress of the lighters to Shadows. And in Amaxi, it was a common knowledge that from time to time, it wasn't unheard of to receive news that a scientist had been killed off by a shadow .
From the time they were surgeoned on to receive a shard of Anastasia which turned them into Damons. They all became monsters incapable of feeling pain.
The fear was something that all scientists lived in, especially when a new Damon was created, their inability to produce blood or life force of their own, made them threats to the personnels working underground, the flesh of humans and monsters alike were the food source of the Damons when faced with countless obstacles, as they needed it to attain the power of a shadow.
Bastards, every single one of them
"This doesn't meet the 3000 quota demanded by the overlord " she stated, as she moved on to the next page, she read the power levels of each of the children and sighed " why were Normies added too?"
As he answered her, the lab physician began to tremble, his eyes reflecting fear despite his attempt to remain confident,
" The Trollans have tightened security lately, especially in the last two years, after the coronation of the late Queen's son Dami..." He stuttered to a stop as the temperature in the room suddenly dropped and he felt instantly a murderous presence.
Esther hissed when her hidden Damon recoiled in fear, these were undoubtedly the overlord's beast tendrils, it was known to suck out power from the meridians. Her anger rose at the careless mistake of the physician and she snapped, " Are you mad? if you gladly seek for death, go wait at the forefront of the tower and plead for it, don't get me involved"
The physician body broke out in cold sweat, his face contorted in horror as he tried to hide himself, he tried drawing closer to Esther to escape the feeling of death but immediately stopped in his tracks when she glared at him, " I'm so sorry. Please.... I didn't know"
Esther felt no pity as she looked at the young man, everyone knew that the overlord tolerated no mistakes and would likely punish the young man when his spies brought him news of his mistake, no one knew why the Lentyra royalty was a sore subject to the overlord, yet it had been a way out for a lot of hopeless Damons, because as soon as they called on the name of one Altrea celestials, they were immediately offed.
She regarded the man in front her and concluded that he had been enticed into the job by promises of wealth, and was totally unprepared for the true horrors that awaited every one coming into Amaxi .
But that wasn't her problem to deal with now, Esther cared for no one but herself and right now her only hope to escape the overlord was finding the owner of the voice that she heard earlier that day.
No one could verify the compatibility of a suitable host for Anastasia except her, and if she wanted to escape from this facility, she needed to find the owner of that voice but right now, she was unable to pinpoint the source of the power, it made her restless,the child could be anyone from any of the sorry looking children crying in the hall.
A voice came over the speaker system, " Atria Covertti "
That was a command for all shadow enforcers to go to the hall, as the overlord had returned from the chamber.
Eleonor sat down next to the boy and smiled at him, " Hello, my name is Eleanor. What yours? "