Once we were inside the Crest House and on our way to the throne room, we were greeted by another of the Crest Head's personal guards. Her name was Callista the Black Summoner. She was a 3-star threat too, with a base EQN of 45,826,720. She had the same Dark Radiance element as Tymon and a temp cintracy called Summon.
She wore similar military armor to Brodwi, except hers was darker and covered less of her body. Her jet-black hair was in a loose ponytail, and she wore a pair of dark shades on her head. All in all, she seemed like a nice person until she spoke.
"So you finally made it all the way here," she said with an "all-knowing" kind of attitude. "I'm Callista, left hand of the Crest Head, the one who knows everything happening on the planet."
"Everything?" I asked skeptically as we followed behind her.
"Yep. For example, I know the dark one you arrived with has been using my shadows to travel through Forgeton."
Her shadows...?
Do not take everything she says as verity. Her powers are not nearly as divine as she portrays them to be, Viraa told us. This cub merely possesses an admittedly interesting temp cintracy that lets her summon four different creatures and use their perceptive abilities. One such creature resides in the shadows, allowing her to view through the shadow realm and monitor others on the planet.
When Callista opened the door to the throne room, we entered in time to witness a pneumarian yelling in agony as another guy pulled his magma fist from the pneumarian's chest, leaving a hole that we could see through. Strangely, the magma around the guy's fist had a faint blue hue. Even more strangely, the wound inflicted on the pneumarian didn't mend itself despite the pneumarian not being out of energy. That must've been the Hellfire effect of his sacred gift. Did that mean he could permanently hurt even pneumarians?
The guy was tall with short red and black hair. His skin was blackened like cooled lava, and his eyes radiated a fiery power from his very core. He stood dominant in the presence of the other pneumarians and klevonians who watched in silence — in fear of his attention being turned on them. He was an unyielding force before them that expected to be feared.
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His name was Ekitaihi, also known as "The Hate", but more commonly referred to as Kit. He was a 3-star threat with an EQN of 524,800,000. He possessed the Core cintracy that gave him dominion over magma, but he also had another one, Golem – a temp cintracy that gave him the ability to conjure puppets made of his spirit energy. Oh! That must've been what that thing was earlier!
Kit felt like a source of bottled-up hatred, but it was odd. It didn't feel like an uncontrollable force, but more like a honed, focused purpose, and based on what we'd just witnessed, he wasn't the type to lash out randomly—he used calculated devastation.
"Now leave. Before I decide to kill you myself," he commanded in restrained aggravation, as the wounded pneumarian cowered away.
I gulped anxiously as we approached next. When the Crest Head saw us, he dismissed everyone except his guards out of respect for my status.
"The newest Crest Head," he said in a low voice as he sat on his throne. He took a good, silent but brief look at me, completely disregarding Za'Fia and Avarice next to me.
"Hm, so you don't have anything to do with the missing children. Not surprising now that I've looked at you," he stated.
"N-No," I found the courage to speak. "But what makes you so certain? You don't know anything about me."
"It's simple: you're too weak," he answered frankly. "It's not difficult to read people if you know how, and you clearly lack the resolve to do something like this. You're a child with a fraction of real power. Plus, you haven't been apprehended by now, so the others must've come to a similar conclusion."
We suddenly heard a short, high-pitched beep play from somewhere within the room, and Kit sighed exasperatedly.
"Hm, I'm being summoned," he grunted before standing. "Fortunately, I have no business with you now. You've fulfilled your quota of meeting your fellow Crest Heads. Now I have more pressing matters to deal with," he turned away from us and started walking away. "Brodwi, escort them out, then go see what the commotion in the east is about. Callista, send a small team out to clean up after him."
Rather abruptly and rudely, Brodwi ushered us out the door and formally apologized on Kit's behalf as he walked us to the house's exit.
"Sorry, he's a straightforward guy. Not one for pleasantries and courtesies. Don't take it personally."
"No offense taken, I get the feeling he wasn't singling me out or anything," I responded light-heartedly.
"Nah, he wasn't," he chuckled as we stepped outside. "Well, I'm off. Duty calls," Brodwi smiled before sprinting off in a blur.
"It must suck not being able to fly," Za'Fia remarked.
We took off after that. Now that we'd learned the basics of each district along with their respective crests, we could make our way to the Northeast Hemisphere!
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