Astral Realms

#17: Deaths of the Khomdran Cave

Viraj and his family returned from their trip, he as usual trained with Dilip sensei and learned new things.

Dilip sensei explained him that to become a Marshall all the natural attributes must be awakened. But one must be master of one or more, being mediocre in it won't work in tough battles. Viraj's wind slash and Chain-lightning techniques needed more improvements. According to Dilip Sensei his attack must be able to slice a mountain only then he will be close to being an Admiral knight, your Spen will be useless if you cannot have shattering attacks. Many nobles have more than 1 million RSP but they are not promoted to Marshall level just based on RSP. Your battle IQ, your experience and your power in attacks all matter to get promoted to an Admiral level and then to Marshal.

Being a Marshal means you can take down an army of Admirals and A rankers. Viraj got the idea that he have to work harder to become what he has promised himself.

After 2 days he was visited their Astral Office, a there were a bunch of missions to choose from for Viraj. He took a mission at Khomdran, a very advance planet where a day is equal to 50 minutes. This planet is according to the given information don't have any nights of days. It is a tidally locked planet with its home star.

His destination was Junction 4B, where he met his team. It was a team of 3 A rankers, 6 B rankers, 6 C rankers and 6 D rankers. The team leader was Farhan (A ranker) from Dubai. They took their gears, swords, knifes and guns and sat on a mid size hyperloop.

The mission here was to protect a VIP who had asked for help as he was been targeted for being trading gemstones and hyper gas. The hyperloops run with the help of Hyper gas which is prepared by the alchemy of a variety of ingredients.

He didn't met anyone from the earlier missions. It was a small group though. An A ranker Girl sat next to him. She was introduced as Priyanshi. She was the only Indian in the group apart from him. She seemed to be a serious girl. He was a bit nervous seating next her though acting like a stud.

They reached the destination, and all of them got out the hyperloop. They lined up and waited for vehicles to pick them up. Their came some flying carriers. The carriers had a capacity of 10 people apart from the pilot. So they will go batch by batch as 1 As, 2 Bs, 2 Cs and 2 Ds. Viraj was hoping to get under Priyanshi, he was shy even to look into her eyes. He got a crush on her. And he was smiling as he looked at her carefully not to make her notice.

Unfortunately Viraj was sent in the 1st batch with Mr Farhan. Priyanshi would come later. It was a 30 minutes trip to a icy area. The weather at Khomdran was weird. The place they landed was very warm and was desert like but as they moved towards South side of the planet it was icy. They landed and entered a villa which was thermally very much insulated. After everyone arrived an woman came out to the lobby with her heavily guarded bodyguards. She was the VIP Gemma Adnis, she was also an astral user and she had a very rare ability, the ability to transform inanimate stuff. She with her helpers create the Hyper Gas which in turn is sold in Millions of valuable stones and other resources. She needed to go to a gas rig in the north, but a local tribes in that area have tried to bomb their rig and have tried to kill her too. So they need to protect her for them and also track down the attackers to their source and annihilate them all. They were not Astral Users despite one or two so it won't be a heavy work.

Viraj felt a little bad, he felt like today he is an invader in someone others home. A huge aeroplane was readied and the Knights squad took their positions inside of the plane. They took off after an hour. In 5 hours they reached the Gas rigs.

Farhan asked for 7 volunteers who would go join the assault team. Priyanshi raised her hand, she her Viraj did the same. All hands were up, so Farhan called out names he chose, "Priyanshi, Hasuke, Tyler, Xin, Ortiz, Sam & Viraj." Viraj was delighted inside. Priyanshi being the highest ranked was made the captain. They without wasting any time took the necessary things and marched in the dessert.

They walked for about an hour and got no trace of anyone, they saw hills far away and decided to rest there in its shade. They reached near the hillside, they found man made caves. They became alert and got into formation. They entered the dark cave and walked, they found the caves to be empty. So they decided to rest. Viraj also took his chance to nap. After a few hours Viraj heard a commotion and it was from the other chambers of the cave. Ortiz, Sam and Tyler were fighting with Priyanshi and saw Xin whose clothes were torn. Viraj got idea what must have happened and jumped into the battle to help Priyanshi. Seeing Viraj taking sides with Priyanshi they were furious. They wanted him to side with them, maybe the fools were thinking boys-boys same side logic. The three attackers were B ranked and were experienced. Priyanshi might be an A ranked but lacked experience, so was with Viraj who officially was a D ranker.

Tyler was a time user like Dilip sensei, he could slow down the opponents moments despite their speed. Sam and water user but he was draining his Spen on creating water attacks in dessert, his wind attacks were not powerful enough. His major attribute must be the Water, a bad match up in dessert. Ortiz was physical and healing type user who could enhance his body speed, strength and durability with Spen. Priyanshi had been handling them quite well as Xin was still traumatized.  Priyanshi was also a physical, fire and soil user. She could create fiery rocky daggers like throwing fire bullets, the three were dodging her attacks well as they were using ice barriers to block those fiery sharp heads or stopped its movements by slowing. Viraj's inclusion in the attack gave Priyanshi an Upper hand. She didn't had the time to ask him his motives and synchronised with him to attack.

Priyanshi's rocky dagger pierce Ortiz but he was able to head instantly, like Viraj does. They don't know anything about Viraj's powers. He was an unknown variable in their battle. They were not underestimating him until he show his attacking powers. Viraj didn't had chain blade. He had gave it to the Tortorean prince as a gift. He should have custom made another. But he induced electricity on his sword and with telekinesis used it like a chain, he imagined a chain holding it and was fighting like using an invisible Kusarigama. The trio were quite confused how was able to do that. Was he metal and electric type to do so, but they were just guessing his attacks. Priyanshi showered small fiery darks on them and Sam blocked it with ice Viraj shoved his sword on the ice and released a huge lightning attack shatter the ice, Tyler slowed the Velocity of the approaching Sword and Viraj made his wind shash. The wind slash though slowed was sudden for Tyler and it pierced him through. Viraj's wind slashes were quite powerful, he had practiced it with Dilip sensei who also used to slow time but couldn't stop it from hitting the target. Seeing Tyler fall and Viraj absorbing spen shocked the other two. They shouted he must be the rumoured Absorption type. They got scared of dying, Priyanshi took this opportunity and threw her fiery darts to make another opening. But this time Ortiz blocked them with his body and Sam released an array of ice darts at them, Viraj did the same and blocked the ice darks with his body though some made cuts on his body he healed them quickly.
They were not ready to know he could also heal himself, how many more abilities does a mere D ranker have under his sleeve. Viraj released his wind slash and it severely injured Ortiz, it would take time for him to heal. Viraj induce lightning on his body and made his lightning run and telekinetically pulling his blade and shoving it in Sam's chest, he also induced his lightning in it so it was deadly enough for him. He didn't gave any time to Ortiz and released as many wind Slashes he could. This was the end of Ortiz too, his whole body got so obliterated that except for his head nothing was there as body part. Viraj thought he over did himself, even the rocks on the opposite side were damaged. This was the end to the trio but there was a mystery behind their unnatural behaviour.