Prelude: To Domathra (Isekai/LitRPG/OP MC)

Tara stalked through an alley, the oppressive darkness no hindrance to her nuarch senses. She stepped lightly, heel-toe, heel-toe, silent. She breathed steadily, her mind somewhat returned.

Fragments of muted whispers reached her ears.

“—doesn’t matter if anyone sees us. That’s the point of the uniform—”

“—gonna fight ‘em? That doesn’t seem very guardly of—”

“—point is so I don’t have to fight ‘em—”

“—ain’t even got anything valuable to take—”

“—can get a lot for the kids if their parents are rich—”

Tara clenched her fists; the voice, on its own, nearly sent her into a blind rage once again. However, a quiet voice echoed in her mind, overpowering the whispers in her ears.

“Peace, child. Your anger will accomplish nothing here. You possess neither the power nor the battle instincts to benefit from berserking.”

The fire burning in her heart condensed into a cold heat, cooling her boiling anger into a simmering anticipation. She unclenched her fists, raising her right before her.

On her open palm sat a small, thin wire, a bracelet. It was traced with etchings, and she knew she needed only to pass the tiniest stream of mana to activate it.

It would light up blue, extending a temporary mana shield around her, and Nephthys would very likely arrive before it even finished initializing. She had given it to Tara during their quick journey to Promise City, explaining that it would keep her safe and help her stay in contact.

It could be activated with a slightly more complicated mana sequence to enable communication rather than deploying the emergency shield and signal, but Tara had yet to use it other than the initial test.

She now stared at it, considering how easy it would be to contact Nephthys. Maybe, if she fully explained her situation, Nephthys would understand, maybe even help. Maybe she would feel the same cold fury that Tara herself experienced. Maybe…

Tara exhaled, putting the bracelet back in her pocket. This was her problem, her past, and her responsibility. She had been on her own since…

She had to rely on herself.

But what was she going to do? Her body practically vibrated thinking about the man who had abducted her, but what did she want? Did she want an apology from him? Did she want to kill him? Did she want him jailed?

A thud and a cry pulled her out of her contemplations, and she raced to the corner of the alley. Peeking around, she saw the wiry man standing guard outside a door, clearly the back door to someone’s home. The door was splintered around the handle, and the wooden frame was damaged where the big man had likely kicked the door away from it.

Tara bounced on the balls of her feet, unsure of what she should do, but another shout from the other side of the door spurred her into action. 

Fur grew on her limbs, and claws extended from her hands. She sprinted for the door, bracing for combat, but the instant the man standing outside caught sight of her, his eyes widened, and he took off in the opposite direction.

She skidded to a halt in front of the smashed door, confused. The man cleared the edge of the alley and bolted into the main thoroughfare, disappearing among the foot traffic. 

Tara stared at the distant mouth of the alley and the people running past. Surely they had heard the scream and the door being smashed. Why was no one stopping to investigate? Were there riots nearby? Is that why everyone was running?

She had followed the men into the inner city, and they were now in an alley near the divider between the noble and market district. There was no formal border between the two, but the increased guard presence was an indication enough on its own. Though they were conspicuously absent at the moment, likely dealing with violence somewhere nearby.

Tara had not considered their location, but she supposed if ordinary people were going to riot, both the market and noble districts would be equally good places for it.

“Please! I don’t have anything of value! Take anything, just leave my children alone!” a woman pleaded from inside the building.

Tara turned, looking into the smashed door at a vacant kitchen, now in horrible disarray, as if the man had flipped it upside down on his way into the house.

“Lady, get the fuck outside. I’m a guard, real official-like, and your kids are—uh—yeah, tha’s right! They’re rebels! I gotta take ‘em to the uh, the guard station. Get ‘em checked out. 

“Won’t take but a minute. Gotta make ‘em give us names of their rebel conspirators, then they’ll be free to go!” the man claimed, and Tara could practically smell his breath from here.

“My babies! What could children have to tell you about rebels? Surely, if you’re going to take them, I can come with them as their mother—” the woman begged, but she was cut off by a strangled cry and a thump.

“Get the fuck outta my way, lady!” the man shouted.

Tara was through the door, fur traveling down to her toes, fangs jutting from her mouth. A snarl built in her throat as she charged through the home. She dodged counters and tables and chairs as she ran, transitioning to all fours and bounding through the house to the source of the voices.

————————————

Lyron jogged through the streets, a trail of blood dripping behind him, which he tried to ignore. He glanced over toward the Needle in thought. Its blue light had gone out after only a couple of minutes.

Initially, he had been grateful for the light. When it ignited, most of the city had stopped and stared, even the riot he had been ‘agressively calming’ had ceased momentarily. Magic did nothing to him, and he nothing to it, so he could only guess what it meant.

He had assumed it to be some ploy of the mages operating the Needle. Perhaps the magic field it exuded could be modified to…calm people down or something? However, within moments of the light appearing, the riots and violence resumed.

Then, mere minutes later, the Needle’s light went out. Had the rebels somehow managed to take it? Surely, even if they had, they would have no idea how to work its magics.

Lyron decided he would have to investigate, though he feared his anti-magic body would disrupt its workings even by proximity. Still, he had a duty. Though his duty to Radaar and, thus, the Needle, was secondary to his duty to Sardvend and quelling this rebellion.

He was not avoiding the Needle because the rebel leader would likely be there, no. He had to keep the peace in the city, lest it fall. That was it. The rebel leader could not control the city by himself, so if the city was not with him, he was a lone operative in hostile territory. Yes, that was right.

“Disperse or be dispersed!” he shouted, striding over to a group of guards on the backfoot, pressed by a mob of civilians, though Lyron had stopped using that word to describe them.

“You are in rebellion against the Sardvend Kingdom. If you do not disperse, you will be dealt with as traitors and combatants!” he bellowed.

A few of the guards turned to him, relieved looks on their faces, while only a couple of the citizens even acknowledged his presence.

“You were warned,” he declared through gritted teeth.

He braced and took off, the ground shattering beneath him. He stopped on the other side of the crowd, turning to face it as a spray of gore erupted in a straight line from his starting position to the finish. 

Anyone in his path was ripped to pieces, and many others were blown back by the shockwave, hitting the ground feet away, where they lay now, hopefully still alive.

Lyron took no pleasure in this duty and sincerely hoped they were alive, but duty was about what was best for the kingdom, not individual people, nor even his own soul, so he would do whatever he must.

Things proceeded as they had for much of the last couple of hours. After eliminating many of the key players in this particular mob, it seemed to disperse, many fleeing in fear. He could only hope they were returning home rather than fleeing just to riot elsewhere.

The fight had taken him down the street, out of the noble district, and into the markets. He had strayed quite far from his target, which was in the very center of the city. 

He turned as guards approached, likely to thank him for his intervention, as had been a repeated pattern this night.

A crash from just down the road had him spinning on his heels, his hands rising as he crouched into a combat stance. Surprisingly, it was not the sound of an angry mob coming after him. 

A tall guard flew through the air, clearly thrown through a new hole in the side of a house along the street. He landed on his back with a strangled choke, flailing and struggling to stand.

A beast emerged from the hole in the wall, all blue fur, teeth, and claws. It wasted no time, lunging for the downed guard.

Lyron wasted no time either, launching himself down the street on a path to intercept the beast, yet it was he who was intercepted. A huge cat materialized seemingly out of thin air, both forelimbs aimed at his chest. He had time only to turn his body to the side and raise his arms before its claws raked across his skin.

He landed and skidded across the ground, keeping his feet. When he came to a stop, he found no trace of the cat, and a warm fluid ran down his arms. He was bleeding. It had cut his skin.

It had cut his skin.

Instantly, Lyron assumed a guard. This cat was not a creature to be taken lightly. Blood dripped on the ground, running from his elbows, as he stood and waited. He heard the recognizable sounds of the guard fighting for his life behind him, the beast sounding like it had the upper hand, but he could not pay attention to it right this second.

A shadow, somehow darker than the surrounding night, lunged at him, and he dodged to the side with a step mighty enough to break the paving stones beneath him.

Claws passed by his face so closely that he could see a glowing blue light beneath the fur, and then it vanished in a burst of smoke, the shadows dispersing across the ground.

Thinking quickly, Lyron placed the back of his hands on the tops of his thighs, closing his eyes, which already struggled to discern the cat’s shadow from the others, and focusing on his other senses.

A slight rustle behind him signaled another imminent attack, and he pressed his hands up toward the sky with such force that they made two booms, followed by the cracking of the stone beneath him. 

The force pressed his legs into the ground until he was buried to his waist, and he looked up just in time to see the cat’s chest above him, slicing the air where he had just stood.

His hands already above him and in position, he grasped the cat’s two back legs just as they began to wisp, turning to smoke. Lyron’s anti-magic refused such an escape, and the cat growled as its form firmed, its escape denied, only for it to shift to a yowl as Lyron slammed it into the ground before him.

“Aka!” a girl shouted, making Lyron briefly worry that a child was near such an intense confrontation before his battle sense refocused him on his enemy.

The cat crushed the paving stones, the force driving it into and under them, and Lyron lost his grip on its hind legs, which kicked and thrashed in his grip. The instant they were free, the limbs, all he could see of the cat, vanished in a puff of smoke once again.

He jumped up to stand on the ground once again, slowly walking backward, his guard raised, waiting for the cat to reappear. An itch in the back of his mind made him turn to the side, his instincts warning him of an attack, and the blue beast the guard had been fighting passed by, claws-first, where his back had just been, clearly intending to strike him. 

Instinct took over, and he made a fist.

Wham!

He struck the beast in the head hard enough to break windows near the impact, and it flipped end over end, striking the ground head-first as it tumbled forward.

Fuck, the cat! he thought, turning just in time to see the cat’s claws, his real foe, inches from his face, blowing away in tendrils like smoke being dispersed by the wind.

The cat had vanished, and his senses told him it had not merely hidden itself. It was actually gone.

Lyron turned back toward the beast he had struck and recoiled in shock. Before him was a child, a young girl, surrounded by a pool of blood, motionless. 

Had he just killed a child?

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and a chill ran down his spine. Space cracked, a hand spearing through it. It grasped space like a physical thing, ripping it open like one tears paper. Out stepped the woman he had met before, outside the guild.

She exited the spatial tear, which closed with a snap, like a cracked whip. The woman stared at the girl on the ground, not even glancing at Lyron or her surroundings. She stood motionless for a half-second that felt like an eternity, then bent down, placing a hand on the girl’s chest and her other on her mangled head.

The woman’s skin began to peel, flaking off her body and flying up into the air like coals from a fire. A void of stars shone through the cracks, and her eyes glowed like the sun. Her next words slicked his back with sweat and chilled the blood in his veins, for although she stared at the girl, he knew they were aimed at him.

“What have you done?”

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!