Davinci looked through the thick, layered glass into the bottomless deep sea outside. The black water swallowed the Scarab’s light slowly, as if the vessel were floating through the belly of a sleeping monster. He stroked his gray beard slowly. His heavy breathing left a fleeting spot of condensation on the cold glass.
Miki remained standing firmly beside the steering wheel. Her small armored figure stood out sharply against the giant steering cabin. Her gaze was unusually sharp, cutting, and charged with pent up tension.
“Are you really planning to do something about this?..”
Davinci turned around very slowly. The copper mechanism near his shoulder armor squeaked lightly. Even before his mouth opened fully, he lowered his broad shoulders with the heaviness of a man who had already seen too many worlds collapse. He let out a deep, trembling sigh that only made the feeling of silence in the cockpit heavier.
“I don’t know what it is…” he began.
His voice sounded hoarse and raspy, as if the words had to break through a layer of sand. He looked Miki straight in the eyes and slowly shook his head.
“And little girl, don’t get me wrong… Normally, I couldn’t care less about humans. Truly nothing at all. Most problems, the worst destruction, and the bloodiest, filthiest wars in this world stem from the human race. Their ego, their urge to possess, their hunger to trample everything beautiful.”
He went silent.
The quiet fell like a heavy blanket over the steering cabin.
His dark eyes glided slowly across the faces of the group.
He looked at the youths standing around him. Young fighters with the gaze of people who had looked into the dark far too early.
Nyx and Silarias stood shoulder to shoulder. Nyx with her icy, fathomless calm and a gaze that glided like moonlight across the ocean. Silarias with his pent up fire and the constant tension in his jaws.
Davinci turned his head subtly toward Silarias, whose eyes rested fixedly on the floor.
“But in some strange way…” Davinci continued softer, “I’ve gained faith in all of you. It’s almost disgusting how fast you’ve crawled under my skin.”
Miki’s lips opened to respond, but Davinci raised a finger very calmly.
In his mind, a storm raged.
Should I just tell them already?..
Should I tell them what is truly at stake?
What Alec is really planning with the deep sea and the Wards?..
Mmh, no.
Not yet.
They will break if I lay that entire mountain on their backs right now.
With a soft, almost clumsy fatherly smile, he reached out his broad, calloused hand. He stroked Miki calmly over her head, his fingers sliding briefly over the metal edge of her Thokcha tiara.
“Well… Am I really going to do something directly? Yes and no.”
His hand dropped back to his side.
“We are going to make the difference.”
Davinci took a powerful step toward the center of the cockpit.
His posture changed instantly.
The weariness evaporated, making way for a thundering, passionate drive that flowed through the steel walls of the Scarab.
“Listen closely to me! Everyone!”
Davinci roared, slamming his staff onto the steel floor with a dull thud.
“I am not going to send you to a slaughterhouse like a pack of blind lambs! I am not your general driving you into a trench for a piece of worthless land! My task, my only mission from this moment on, is to prepare this class for the hell that awaits you out there.”
He looked around the circle, eye to eye with everyone.
“I am going to throw everything… Absolutely everything I have in my body, my soul, and my ether onto the table. Combat techniques the world has forgotten, strategic discipline, pure, raw mastery of your own mind!”
His grip tightened around his staff.
“You won’t just be students.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You will become the standard that makes the rest of this university tremble!”
The Scarab itself seemed to vibrate around his voice.
“Make sure you’re ready to shatter your own limits, because when we take that step toward the Inquisitors and Alec’s throne… We take it together. As one thundering fist!”
His chest heaved sharply.
His eyes were fixed with pure combat readiness and conviction.
At the side of the cabin stood Nicola.
His hands clenched unnoticed into fists in the deep folds of his cloak. His heart skipped a beat.
The way Davinci rallied, that fierce, almost maddening twinkle in his eyes, and that tireless urge to forge an indestructible unity…
It shot through his thoughts like a bolt of lightning.
Nicola stared intently at the old boss’s profile.
So indeed…
My mother’s brother behaves in the exact same way.
That obsessive, deadly passion…
It’s simply identical.
He truly is him.
The Scarab slowed down abruptly.
The sound of the spinning underwater engines shifted into a deep, low resonance.
With a brute thud and a giant cloud of escaping, boiling hot steam, the magical vessel landed on a narrow, protruding ledge of the cliff, right next to the massive academy complex.
The Scarab’s copper wings opened with a drawn out hydraulic hiss.
The icy, sharp night air of the upper world immediately flooded in, driving away the warm scent of deep sea meat and dragon beer.
Davinci and the Goats stepped onto the platform one by one.
The entire group gathered on the narrow stone ledge, their prototype combat gear catching faint traces of moonlight.
Before anyone could move toward the massive black wall ahead, Davinci suddenly stopped.
His eyebrows rose.
“Ahhh…”
He scratched slowly through his gray beard.
“Almost forgot.”
The Goats looked back at him.
Davinci reached deep into one of the enormous inner compartments of his robe.
Metal scraped against metal.
Then came a heavy clunk.
He pulled out a broad reinforced case covered in brass hinges, leather straps, locking mechanisms and several unmistakable scratches from Oslo’s workshop.
Vulkan narrowed his eyes.
“What the hell is that?”
Davinci placed the case onto the stone platform.
“Well…”
He flipped open the locks one by one.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“Apparently our giant blacksmith has a softer heart than he wants anyone to know.”
The lid swung open.
Inside rested a collection of dark metallic prototype headpieces.
The forge work was clearly unfinished.
Small hammer marks still ran along sections of the steel. Thin golden ether channels disappeared into the metal like veins. Narrow reinforced plates curved around the temples and crown while leaving the face almost completely exposed.
From the sides of most pieces rose two short aggressive goat horns that swept backward.
Several of the Goats immediately leaned closer.
Davinci chuckled.
“Oslo had a few more gifts prepared.”
He slowly pointed his staff toward Miki.
“Well… Most of you, anyway.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Miki blinked.
Then she touched the Thokcha tiara already resting around her head.
Davinci tapped the side of his nose.
“The little machine already received hers.”
Miki’s face immediately lit up.
She proudly pushed her chest forward and placed both hands on her hips.
“Hehe.”
Ren laughed beside her.
One by one, the others reached into the case.
Metal clicked softly across the platform as the prototype pieces were fitted around their heads.
Thin golden ether veins flickered alive the moment each piece settled into position.
Vulkan grabbed his own and immediately shoved it into place.
The two dark goat horns curved backward along the sides of his head.
He grinned broadly.
“Ohhh yeah.”
Then Silarias reached into the case.
His fingers stopped.
Silarias stared downward.
His headpiece had no horns.
Instead, two perfectly finished circular holes had been cut into either side of the metal.
Not damaged.
Not unfinished.
Deliberately open.
Silarias slowly picked it up.
His eyebrows lowered.
He turned it around once.
Then twice.
“Wait…”
Davinci casually closed the case.
Silarias looked at him.
“Aren’t you forgetting something with mine?”
Vulkan stopped adjusting his own headpiece.
He looked at Silarias.
Then at the two empty holes.
Then back at Davinci.
His face twisted in confusion.
“Yeah!”
He pointed straight at Silarias’ head.
“Why does Silarias not have horns?!”
Several heads immediately turned.
Silarias lifted the headpiece higher between two fingers.
“Exactly.”
Davinci remained completely silent.
His gaze slowly moved toward the two circular openings.
Then toward Silarias.
For only a fraction of a second, something strange appeared in his eyes.
Recognition.
Perhaps amusement.
Then a broad little grin pulled at the corner of his mouth.
“Put it on.”
Silarias narrowed his eyes.
“That did not answer the question.”
“I know.”
Davinci turned around.
Silarias stared at the back of his head.
Vulkan leaned slightly toward him.
“That was suspicious as hell.”
“Extremely.”
Silarias reluctantly placed the prototype piece around his head.
Click.
The locking mechanisms slid into position.
The two circular openings settled perfectly against either side of his skull.
Almost too perfectly.
As if Oslo had measured them for something that did not exist yet.
Silarias slowly touched one of the empty openings.
“Mmh…”
Davinci knocked his staff once against the stone.
“Stop admiring yourselves! Move!”
The twenty Goats regrouped.
Their newly fitted prototype headpieces sat tightly around their temples and crowns, leaving their faces fully exposed. Most carried the signature goat horns curling backward with a dangerous, aggressive curve.
Fine golden veins ran around their temples and pulsed intensely. They lit up as if liquid, boiling ether flowed directly beneath the steel.
Their chest plates were broad, massive, and angular, equipped with concentric armor plates around the central Goats sun emblem.
The metal was forged in such detail that it looked as if a miniature sun was trying to break outward from their chests.
The shoulders stood high and pulled up diagonally, inspired by the tense, powerful neck muscles of a mountain goat standing on the edge of a cliff.
Along their spines, the overlapping armor plates moved flexibly with every step they took, flanked by vertical golden ether channels that hummed slowly and audibly with magical charge.
Their forearms were heavily armored with deeply engraved golden lines that led the power current directly toward the thickened knuckle plates.
The ribs and belly were intentionally left relatively free for maximum mobility, covered with narrow, overlapping metal segments that bent with their breathing.
At the bottom, heavy curved shin plates and robust boots with a slightly protruding point completed the silhouette, giving them a subtle hoof like and aggressive stance on the stone ground.
Over all this, everyone wore a heavy dark traveler cloak with a rough rugged fur collar around the neck that fluttered in the biting night wind.
The twenty Goats stood tightly side by side on the stone slab.
Miki stood among them with her Thokcha tiara gleaming beneath the full moonlight.
Ren repeatedly tilted his newly acquired horned headpiece from side to side as if he still had to get used to its weight.
Then he looked around.
His eyes searched the horizon.
Before them rose no gate.
No courtyard.
No building.
There stood only a giant grotesque bare carved wall of massive ink black stone reaching dozens of meters upward, without a single door, window, or seam.
Ren scratched the edge of his headpiece with his heavy metal knuckle.
He looked up at the enormous stone mass.
“Mmh Davinci…”
He tilted his head.
“Where is the university?!”
Davinci burst out laughing.
A deep raw laugh echoed slowly against the massive rock face.
He gripped his wooden cane firmly, brought the tip down, and struck it against the stone floor in a precise three beat rhythm.
Tap.
Tap tap.
The stone under their feet vibrated lightly.
Davinci thrust the tip of his staff deep into a fine seam of the rock and turned it a quarter turn.
With a loud ringing metallic click, he detached the upper part of the cane from the lower frame.
The air around the tip of the staff immediately began to distort.
Shimmering gold blue light particles gathered rapidly around the wood.
The light swelled, becoming thicker and more viscous, as if the tip of his cane had turned into a giant magical paintbrush dripping with pure liquid ether.
Davinci slowly bent his knees.
With a single masterful fluid stroke, he swept the glowing tip across the hard rock floor.
He drew a perfect crystal clear circle of burning gold blue light around the entire group.
The ether sparked and crackled against the stones.
The space inside the ring began to ripple heavily as if reality itself were being liquefied.
Davinci straightened up with a dangerous broad smile.
His eyes reflected the golden glow of the circle.
He raised his staff.
Then rammed it into the exact center of the ring.
“Spatial Art!”
The golden circle beneath their boots flashed abruptly and intensely.
Etheric light swelled into a blinding crackling beam that struck against the stone cliff wall.
Within a fraction of a second, the figures of the Goats dematerialized, as if reality sucked them up in liquid form on the spot and slid them away into nothingness.
The shift took place on the giant marble arched intermediate plaza of the university.
The air was thick with magical resonance and the murmur of countless students.
The various Alliances stood spread across the hall in their own zones.
The Griffins stood there stiff and confident.
The massive Behemoths leaned against the pillars.
The Vipers observed the scene from the shadows.
Today, however, the Phoenix and the Chameleons were also present on the plaza.
At the edge of the landing, a Chameleon beast human paced up and down nervously.
He was clad in light armor, hung with countless clinking crystals that lit up softly with every move he made.
Waving his arms, he called out suspiciously to the group around them:
“YES… Have you seen them?! Are they already walking around here or what?!”
Right next to him stood a representative of the Phoenix Alliance.
The young man radiated an impeccable, almost unnaturally noble warmth. His graceful golden cloak fluttered calmly over his shoulders.
He laid a composed hand on the busy arm of the moving Chameleon to calm him down.
“We haven’t had any Goats for years,” the Phoenix spoke calmly, a mild smile on his face. “Don’t you just find it exciting? Let it come to you.”
“Exciting?! It’s strange!” the Chameleon snapped back, though his voice dropped a fraction.
A few meters away, one of the Griffins smiled condescendingly.
He leaned back and softly began stoking the fire to stir things up.
“Yeah sure, don’t worry man… In the end it’s just a group of kids.”
The Griffin burst out laughing, firmly convinced that everyone would still fall for that arrogant attitude of theirs.
The leader of the Behemoths, a colossal figure with broad shoulder plates, shook his head with a chuckle and called out across the plaza in a raw voice:
“Come on guys, we weren’t going to do that anymore haha… Aren’t we all on the same page now?”
The Griffin laughed again and opened his mouth to say something to clear the air and end the teasing.
But before he could utter a single word, a giant gold blue glowing circle appeared right in the middle of the intermediate plaza.