The plan was that Darius would use his speed to make a quick dash towards the first ruin. But his plan hit a major setback. The full force of the gravity hit him the moment he left the protective field of the hideout. Because he used a tremendous amount of speed, the gravitational resistance slammed him like a brick. He was thrown off balance and he fell hard on the ground. Blood trickled down his nose.

After he stood up from the fall, his blurry vision picked up an image of Sybil. She wasn’t going towards her ruin, she was hunting him. With a manic smile on her face she breezed through the forest like the gravity inside had not become three times heavier.

Darius shook his head and despite still being disoriented from the hitback he picked up his speed again using the lightning step. He was unsure about the nature of his powers since he hasn’t used it in years and was even more pessimistic about his chances of fighting Sybil but if there was one thing he was certain about, his powers were abundant.

He pulled more lightning into each step propelling himself away from the girl. At a certain point he got tired. After settling down on the bloated root system of a giant tree he pulled out the data pad from the bag that Festus gave him, to survey out how much distance was left to cover. Fortunately he was only half way there. The only problem was that thirst and hunger soon caught up to his body.

A few more miles of walking brought him to a creek where a thin, crystal clear, stream of water flowed downwards. He stopped to drink the water and found it refreshing. He picked up a few leaves and a handful of nuts he plucked from inside of a pine cone. It was nowhere near a tasteful dinner, the leaves were bitter and the nuts tasted like dirt but the fact that his stomach was full with something edible made it go down without issue.

He only took a few minutes of rest before he packed up his stuff and kept on running. A quick look at his datapad revealed that Sybil had not claimed the ruin on her own side which meant that she was still chasing him. As Darius inched closer to the ruins he began to understand why Sirius told him to ‘’conquer’’ the ruin. The structure did not stand alone. It was instead crawling with winged fetters. If he was going to conquer the ruin, he had to come up with something quick. And he did.

When Sybil came around the corner of his ruin, she found Darius scouting her from a tree branch above. It was too soon. She was not only stronger than him but her senses were sharper. Darius made a run from it. His plan would have to be set in motion earlier than he wanted it to be. He passed by a tree where he had made a makeshift catapult with its branches and he cut it loose. The tree branch sprang forward with a quick thrust, lobbing the stone that rested on its leaves at the Fetters.

The stone’s trajectory was not precise but the animals were smart and they followed it from where it came. Sybil was still chasing Darius, inching closer and closer to him until she was only a few steps away. It was at that moment that Darius let loose another of his basic techniques. The Thunderclap. He slammed his palms together releasing a sharp but small lightning shockwave. Sybil easily dodged the attack but Darius was expecting that. The thunderclap was not meant for her but instead for the Plume-Flora that surrounded them.

The moment his thunderclap was unleashed the flowers in the area, acting in self defense, released vast purple plumes of pores and gas in Sybil’s direction. Her senses were distorted by the purple haze and Darius used that opportunity to hide underneath a thick, large, root system. He was aware that the plumes would not be enough to keep Sybil at bay and soon enough she cleared the area with a swipe of her hand, her eyes were watery and red from the irritation, they searched the area for any signs of Darius until they found him in the hiding spot.

Darius was not too bothered by the fact that she had found him because the nature of the trap that he had set was to stall Sybil for that very moment. The girl was about to make another run for Darius when she heard a ferocious shrieking in the distance. Racing towards her at unimaginable speeds were the Fetters that were guarding the first ruin.

The first plan of the trap Darius had set with the makeshift catapult earlier was to alert the Fetters of his location, the second step of the trap was to use his thunderclap to trigger the poisonous plants in the ares so that they could poison mist and also give the fetters a detailed idea of his location and now that the Fetters had arrived and the only person in their sight was Sybil, Darius set out gently towards the first ruin.

The ruin loomed taller the closer Darius got to it. Clearly the remnant of a larger settlement, only one building remained somewhat intact. As for the building, red columns stood in front of a richly decorated but faded fresco, depicting a humanoid creature with long wild hair stepping on a lion's head. As Darius saw the image he couldn’t help but think of the Servs and their brief empire of cruel subjugation. He shook the thought away from his mind and focused on the task at hand. There was an opening in the middle of the fresco that seemed to be brimming with a blue light. His destination.

A shadow flew over him as he reached closer to the ruin. It was the dead body of a fetter and the quickness of the throw made him stop his run. That was a bad move because a slight turn revealed an angry, blood drenched Sybil just inches away from him.

Sybil Jabbed at his face with her scarlet knife. Darius wanted to dodge the attack but a thunder step would not have been enough to do so, instead he went for full body release. He gathered the lightning in his abdomen, forming its core, then he released it outwards to all corners of his body, causing a thick shroud of lightning to form over him. Using the full release he was able to duck fast enough and the knife missed him.

After Sybil tried to stab him and Darius dodged by going down in a split second, she sent him a heavy low kick. That one Darius couldn’t dodge. The kick met him, fortunately he was able to shield his face with his arms and coupled with the full body release, his defenses were at its best. Yet the kick hurt his arm like hell. The pain caused them to tremble. Sybil jumped at him again, he jumped away from her using his full body lightning step, yet she was always close always trailing that speed of his that he was so proud of as if she were mocking his heritage.

Fair enough, Darius thought, after hearing about her story from Festus, he knows that Sybil does not trust men like him. People of noble birth who espouse regal virtues but so easily get rid of them at the slightest inconvenience, to her Darius was no different from those people. And yet he still felt the need to ask her,

“Why do you want to kill me so badly, I never offended you! If anything I too had been wronged by my family, I’m trying to help you people get your revenge so whats the deal with you being such a crazy psycho”, surprisingly the words came out of him, strained, loud and frustrated.

Sybil came to a halt and responded to him, “listen, I’m just a simple gal, I like to cut people. Dat’s all. Gimme bodies and I’m a happy girl. Then they come in and tell me dat they got something powerful, something that can turn this darn place around, I was excited, then they tell me that they gonna give it to a purple. Imma simple gal, but I can’t take dat. You’re all the same. You don’t deserve that power”

“Why not?” he asked her, almost as if he were begging her.

“I get it, your family treated you like shit. But dat don’t mean you’re like us” she responded, “we went through so much shit because of people like you and ya just like them. I saw your face when ya knew ya had your powers again. It was creepy and wicked, like them. You’re just like them” After that she came full speed at Darius.

Guessing that they’re conversation was over and seeing that Sybil was on a crusade to end him, Darius decided to let out a full body-release thunderclap, more powerful than the last, He smacked his palm together and a bright shockwave exploded from his body and tore through his surroundings. Sybil tanked the attack and the shockwave passed through her, she landed and dashed towards Darius.

It was at that moment that Darius knew that his instincts which warned him of avoiding the girl from the very beginning were correct. She was abnormally strong and her scarlet blade was staring to drip blood. He guessed that she was starting her celestial curse. With deft speed, Darius pulled out a purse from his bag and spilled the content on Sybil's face.

The purse contained some toxins and some potent crushed seeds that could kill a small wyrm. He designed it in case he encountered a great beast in the forest, and at that point Sybil might as well have been one. Sybil's eyes looked like they were in shock. Darius did not wait for her to recover, he ran towards the ruin until he was inside and he confirmed in the datapad that the first ruin was occupied.

From the safety of the domain he watched Sybil first stand in shock, then let out a blood chilling scream, drop on the floor and roll around in pain and stand up like nothing happened in the first place.

She had a cold smile on her face when she stood again. She clapped slowly and said, “congrats on winning the first ruin. I’ll go on ahead and get mine. I hope I see you again”. And with that she left. Darius did not feel too welcome by her congratulations. If anything he was even more afraid.