Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Hearing Lucius's words Kiana was a bit confused.

"What do you mean hunt?" Kiana questioned.

"Just like I said, hunt. We shall be hunting for rune beasts." Lucius spoke. "Or rather… Doyle will be." He added.

"But rune beasts don't come this close to the city… at least not usually," Kiana spoke.

"Well… we shall leave that up to Doyle here." Lucius said before he turned to face Doyle, "Go and see what you can find." He ordered.

"ENG!" Doyle grunted in response and burst forward.

~whoosh~

His movement knocked up a gust of wind and made Lucius and Kiana's clothes flutter.

"FAST!" Kiana exclaimed seeing Doyle move like a beast.

She had never seen a normal human move at a speed unless they had a gift that allowed that. But even those with gifts with such a massive speed increase were far and few in between.

One such common example of a speed type if a gift was the uncommon ranked gift Dash. It allows one to cover a short distance at a rapid speed, far faster than even a horse. But they could only move in a straight line and could not change their direction.

It also could not be used multiple times in succession as it put strain on their body and also consumed a lot of Aether. But Kiana could tell that in the case of Doyle, he was neither using a gift nor any Aether.

All he was using was his own body, his own physique… physique that had been granted by none other than Lucius himself. Kiana turned back to look at Lucius as she wondered about his gift again.

'There is no chance it is lower than a Legendary gift… no with the ability to grant powers like this to others, it cannot be a Legendary gift either… it must be a mythic ranked gift!' Kiana thought to herself.

Lucius who did not know what Kiana was thinking of nodded his head looking towards the direction that Doyle had gone in.

'His speed is certainly lower than that of a normal lost but his mass makes up for it.' Lucius thought to himself.

That was right, the speed of Doyle that seemed fast to Kiana was not actually fast at all… at least in terms of Lucius. He had seen what normal Lost ran like and they were at least thirty percent faster than Doyle.

But compared to the more defensive kind of Lost, Lucius understood that the speed had been sacrificed for the body to gain a greater mass and defensive layers. In other words, Doyle was no less than a war elephant marching into the battlefield.

Lucius sat down on a broken tree and closed his eyes, trying to sense the presence of Doyle. This was another one of his tests that he made up on the spot after learning that he was linked with the lost.

He needed to know till what distance this linked worked and how much it would affect him… or if it would even affect him. 

"Hmm… so far it's stable…" Lucius muttered to himself.

But after just a little more than a minute, Lucius felt the extra hell energy capacity he had, reduce.

"It really did fall!" Lucius realized.

He sensed that his hell energy capacity was now ten percent less than before. This was a massive difference at this point for him as that ten percent could be the difference between life and death in a serious battle.

Lucius continued to observe it for a bit and realized the changes that happened.

'So if they go past a certain distance, the link for hell energy storage will be disconnected, but the slave link I have will be sustained. Hmm… while I can't pinpoint where Doyle is, I can still roughly gauge where it might be right now.' Lucius thought to himself as he turned his head about forty degrees to the right.

Kiana noticed this and asked, "why are you looking there?"

"I'm looking in the direction where Doyle went." Lucius replied.

"But didn't he…" Kiana paused after understanding midway what Lucius meant. 

"So you can tell their location as well," Kiana stated.

"Indeed. While it is not fully accurate, I would have no hard time tracking them down. And with that, I reckon it should be the same with the Mark of Loyalty you have and the mark of obedience the others have." Lucius replied.

Kiana was impressed once again and the belief that Lucius's gift was a mythic ranked gift was affirmed in her heart further. 

~snap~

But just as she was lost in her thoughts she saw Lucius stand up as a small dried twig snapped under his foot. Seeing him stand so abruptly made her a bit surprised.

"What happened? Is something wrong?" Kiana asked.

"Doyle is returning," Lucius replied.

"Already? It has barely been ten minutes, hasn't it?" Kiana questioned.

"Either he met some danger that he cannot resolve… or he has finished his task." Lucius answered.

"Can it really finish it this quick?" Kiana couldn't help but wonder.

About a minute later, Lucius could see the faint outline of a creature approaching from the distance.

~shua~

Kiana readied her gift as a two metal shards floated above her palms. She was ready to act, just in case it was going to be dangerous. But as seconds passed, her wariness fell and finally she saw the figure getting clear.

~thud~

~thud~

~thud~

The large and bulky figure of Doyle returned from the depths of the forest with an object on his back. He was holding it with his left hand while his right hand was free and hidden behind the robe. It ran on its two legs at a great speed, creating footprints in the soil.

If anyone were to see the footprints of Doyle later, they would be greatly confused and wonder if it was some sort of a bipedal beast.

"HNG!" The grunt of Doyle could be heard as he finally returned, and on his back was the prize.