Chase tilted his head in confusion, reaching out for the glowing metal objects outstretched in Luna's hand.
"What are they?" Chase asked, squinting his eyes at the opposite colored crescents, one glowing a bright luminescent ivory, the other laced with shadow and darkness, eating away at the light escaping from the other crescent lying in Luna's other hand.
Luna grinned, her eyes meeting Luke's who had lifted his head from the kitchen island.
"They are lumens, I've noticed that you struggle with ranged attacks, so we all decided that forging some sort of throwable weapon would be the best move forward." She said with pride as two lunar sigils began to glow vibrantly on the unknown metal of the crescents.
Chase realized quickly what it meant to have a throwable Lumen, because the thing about them was that they could be summoned back to the user's hand, and if they were damaged, they could be brought back into the catalyst to heal before being destroyed in the real world.
Meaning that Chase could effectively throw and call back these weapons an infinite amount of times.
He didn't know what to say at first.
Nonetheless he gratefully accepted the gifts from his benefactor and friends, holding out his hand and letting the neon green fog fade away the crescents in each of his hands.
"Doubt you'll have as good of aim as me or my best student, but ya know... It is a step up." Luke tiredly chuckled, before placing his forehead back on the kitchen island.
Then another figure nearly fell down the stairs before they spotted Kaylynn glaring up the stairs with a vicious scowl.
Justin caught himself on the wooden railings, reeking of booze and ale as he stumbled around Kaylynn and grinned at Chase.
"Heard ya won the placement match!" He patted Chase on the back, mainly to congratulate the newly forged gladiator, but he wouldn't be surprised if Justin was just using him as standing support.
"Yeah." Chase nodded, viewing inward with his soul sight at the two glowing orbs circulating around Apocalypse within his shriveled up catalyst.
He could also see the countless purple threats tightening around said catalyst with an eroding violence filled with what could only be described as a hunger of decay and poison.
But he remembered what Equan had said, and recalled to himself how much a challenge his battle with Rider had been, even with the aid of Ivy who even then was not much in the face of a king as powerful as he was.
"You should probably sleep..." Luna sighed, as a single thought slipped from her mind into Chase's.
Recently that had been happening way more, which made Chase naturally assume that he was getting stronger, because before he could never see into Luna's thoughts just as he could see into his own.
But now, if he focused really hard in silence, he could hear a string of thought or two from Luna's internal monologue in his head for a short moment.
The thought was that of the past, which could only mean it was directed at the future.
'This time it will be different...' He thought... His vision meeting the living room window that reflected the towering walls of Seh Jenah...
'How can you be so sure?' Luna asked in his head with a clearly worried tone of thought.
Chase found himself clenching his fists tightly as the sight of the children playing in the road, the spectators who were watching two noble boys duel outside of the coliseum, and the street performers flying over the streets with joy: played back in his mind.
"I'll make sure of it..." He whispered once he had stepped into his room beside Luna who was looking at him with worry ridden on her face.
What was that he would make sure of? Well it was simple really...
Equus is a crater in the East... Frostfang had turned to smoldering ruins... And Solis had nearly suffered a very similar fate...
Chase lie face down in bed, taking a heavy breath as Luna sat beside him.
"It's probably going to keep getting worse..." Luna said sadly, as Chase pulled his leather tunic off before resting his arms lazily at his sides.
Chase didn't respond, mentally preparing the painful gritting of his teeth to numb the far worse pain that was inevitable.
"Alright then... You sure you don't what a gag?" She said jokingly, but Chase would have proffered cloth to bite on in place of drawing blood from his own gums.
He clenched his fists tightly as Luna's small cold hands landed with precision on the small of his back as well as the upper center of his spine.
Luna frowned, feeling the terrible energy of corruption begin to gnaw at her skin from just a single touch.
"It's festering..." She whispered in disgust.
Chase couldn't respond though, as the touch of a lesser goddess meeting the very thing that was slowly eating him alive, was enough of an energy fluctuation to bring about a great pain in his entire body.
A pain nearly matching that of his entire body being destroyed and rebuilt...
She scowled down at Chase's back as swirling black runes began to slither across his skin and violently protest the ritual.
Chase's eyes widened in agony as lunar energy began to flow through his body, killing what corruption it could as it spread far and wide.
He could feel the small buds of corruption getting nipped and burned at the stems from the goddess's power.
Blood began to fall onto his bed from his nails biting into his palms, just as blood began to flow from his lips from the violent biting of his teeth.
However... Until he could venture back to Phoenix Academy, as well as find Lithica... This was the only way to keep him alive... Every single night since Olympia... Luna had been halting the growth of corruption with her own essence...