Deep within a forest, east of Valaquen—Capital of Elendorm.
A group of 4 Elves were perched on a big tree, crouching and observing an unfamiliar human meditating near his supposed hut.
"Sir Aelar, what do we do? From what we observed, he is proficient in the sword... extremely so. Furthermore, it seems he is learning some magic."
"Calm down Caelynn. I know that his Rank is a variable since he has yet to fight at full strength, but he cannot be past the Second Realm. Sure his magic is weak, but from his training and the fact that he has yet to spot us even though we stopped using our stealth techniques to lure him means that he is inexperienced. The only problem we will face is his proficiency in the sword. If we want to capture and question him, we will have to be efficient."
The leader of the group, Aelar—An archer with dark brown eyes and short black hair, turned to the members of his cohort, Caelynn—the Mage with beautiful blue eyes and flowing dark hair, Elara—Spear-woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and light blue eyes and finally, Vael—The magic swordsman of the cohort. From an outsider's perspective, it was obvious that Vael was the strongest, especially due to his menacing gaze. He had black colored eyes and black hair along with a clean scar on his cheek.
The four of them all had pointy ears as well as a lot of common facial features. Other races could easily misidentify one elf from another, but it was not an issue for elves—often reputed for wide range of skills which include the mastery of all 5 senses.
The cohort was only in this forest to hunt and sell Rogue-horns as they were relatively hard to catch alone and required a 4-man squad. Additionally, selling their meat provided good coin. Currently, Two of them were at the peak of the First Realm, with Aelar being an Initial Stage Advanced, and Vael being an Early Stage Advanced Awakened.
"Vael, what do you think?"
Vael was silent for a while, observing the young man below carefully before giving an answer they somewhat did and didn't expect at the same time.
"I think we need to wait. From my estimates, he is around the late or peak stages of the First Realm... He is definitely an Augmentor trying to become an Augmentor/Conjurer Hybrid—A magic swordsman or similar, probably. This means that he has deliberately stagnated his advancement to consolidate his foundation of power. This guy... has unpredictable strength... And we cannot ignore his talent as well. Based on the fact that he is a human and looks like this, he should be below 20, meaning he is around 1 to 2 years younger than us... yet he is already at you guys' rank and stage. If we want to capture him, we will need to be ruthless."
Gasp—!
A sudden gasped emerged from the long black-haired young man as he suddenly stood up from his meditating position and stared at his mana communicator—which humans made to look like a mobile phone. The young man seemed to start panting and as he read the words from his communicator out loud.
"After months of wait and debate, The King of Solas has come to consensus and declared himself Emperor of Solas—with the Great Houses Constantine, Blade, Pollux, Frost, and Starlight serving House Kalix as its Dukedoms, whilst awaiting the next Ascendancy games to know who will take over Iridia and the White Palace next."
The four elves' gaze sharpened after hearing this, noting the young man's emotional turmoil while reading this. However, what made them feel unease was the fact that the young man seemed to talk... a lot. Thinking out loud and talking to himself for the past three hours they had been observing him.
"That was expected. Solas Kingdom encompasses the entire continent of the same name, and this has been the case for multiple years now—nearly a decade. It was only a matter of time before the kingdom becomes an empire considering its large influence and territory."
What seemed to have made the young man gasp was not just the first piece of news, but the second one, as the four elves could only stare in unease as the young man slowly become more and more restless.
"No, no no, no..."
Caelynn gulped loudly as she witnessed the young man fall to his knees and...
THUD—!
THUD—!
THUD—!
Caelynn turned to Aelar and whispered lowly, "Sir... his hands."
"Shh, wait and observe."
They watched silently as the young man threw the communicator into the ground. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was of high quality and was not affected by this throw. Soon, the sentence which made the young man lose his mind was visible to the cohort;
"Head of Great House Blade—Graves Blade— presumed dead after going dark during the assault of a Dark Brotherhood outpost!"
The young man crouched on the ground, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. "I waited... one year." The young man said to himself softly as he picked up his communicator and scrolled through its contents. The last message he had received was from Clara White, 9 months ago.
Orion was not mentally weak, far from it... but for the first and last message for him to receive whilst stranded in the middle of a random forest on the other side of the planet was a hurtful one, it hurt him. It hurt him more than he could have ever expected. Adding to that, the months of isolation, self-doubt, and fear—not for his safety but of his own power— made him slowly lose sanity. But he held on, as stated, he was not weak. But right now... after 12 months of waking up, fighting, training, sleeping and repeat, he needed something to anchor to, in order to not give up.
And his family was this anchor, more precisely, his uncle, Graves Blade. He had promised to come visit him today. And Orion had suspected that the '3 years' of survival was merely a joke to make him scared. Making him survive in a Forest for 3 years would be too meaningless for a talent like him. So he expected to leave here after a single year. Hence, he endured and persisted. However, instead of his mental strength increasing, it plummeted as he learnt that the only person who knew where he was, was gone.
After coming to this realization, Orion suddenly became restless. He sprang up and flicked his gaze left and right. He felt as though the entire forest was compressing him. His breath become more and more haggard and his eyes widened. He salivated to the point where he started drooling.
"I am alone..."