Mikleo 3

8.5

Mikleo and Zaveid keep alternating in warding off any incoming snow or wild wind, clearing the path for everyone to take. Lailah uses her flames to melt down the snow in front of them, so that it will be easier for the rest of them to walk through. Frost gathers on her luggage so much that Edna feels like she has to drag down her umbrella with her. They others walk with silence, but even the Queen of Tease can’t say anything about the lovey dovey couple (she has a pound of extra weight to carry, thank you very much!).

Finally, half an hour later, they start to see some more varied landscape up ahead. Sharp-angled cliffs, just like what Lailah had said. It’s not even that long yet since they start their journey on foot, but it feels like hours rather than one. Even the sky is still as bright as cotton.

“Tethe’alla,” Nayla whispers, her breath forming white fog when she speaks.

The day is still bright. They are there too early, so they have some time to camp out before going out for the search. Not wanting to freeze to death, they find a cave to retrieve in for the day. They will settle down and rest for a few more hours while waiting for the night to come. That is where the red full moon will appear.

They take this time to eat some dried meat strips and rest their muscles. Some decides to take naps to save up energy later on. Lailah slums her head against a sleeping Zaveid’s shoulder without even realizing it, since she has taken a seat next to the man and drifts off to snooze. Nayla knows that Edna and Sorey are still eating, with the earth seraph protesting through the hard dried strip in her hand. Nayla only eats a little, not actually have the stomach to contain that much food this time around. She opts out to sleep next to her seraph boyfriend, and the two falls asleep against each other.

It feels like they have been waiting for hours, and that the night should come already. But it is clearly still bright outside. Everyone is still fast asleep when Nayla eventually wakes up, only to find a hand resting against her a*s. Blushing madly, the brunette quickly slaps Mikleo's hand away, jerking him awake along the way.

“What? What? What’s wrong?” He looks surprised, hair disarrayed.

“Nothing, go back to sleep,” she whisper-shouts.

“Hhmm, okay,” he mumbles with a lower voice, before going back to the same position, palm squeezing her butt a little bit.

“Mikleo, not now!” she slams his arm again.

“What? What’s wrong with you?” now he whisper-yells.

“Stop grabbing my butt!”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Others might see!” she whisper-shouts, as if it is not obvious enough.

“They’re all still asleep!”

“I don’t care. Just not now, okay?”

“Fine, but that’s a promise,” he says before retrieving his hand, though rather unwillingly, making sure to squeeze her one last time.

Geez. What has she gotten herself into? The girl curses with regret inside her head.

She looks outside one last time, just in case, thinking that she is going to drift back to sleep again, only to discover that it’s suddenly so red outside.

“Guys, wake up!” she quickly shouts, waking everyone up. She walks out, the others follow her steps closely from behind, at awe at the sight that greets them.

Red. The color red is splashed everywhere, as if someone had poured a bucket of red paint all over the plain. The ground, the hills, the trees, even the snow. Nothing escapes the color red. They look up to the sky, revealing the ever so bright red full moon.

It’s time.

The search for the Red Moon Flower is on.

They leave most of their things in the cave and go out for the search, eyes looking for any signs of living plants.

They have a lot of ground to cover, so they decide to split up to make this process faster. Mikleo takes Nayla’s hand before anyone can say anything, leaving the others to their own, watching the two couple as they make their own decision.

“We’ll take this side,” Mikleo says quickly with a wave, before leading Nayla east, towards the start of the forest.

The girl follows him quietly until she sees a flash of green. In a heartbeat, she knows that it must be Jade, her mother.

Or at least her spirit, who turns out to still be trapped in this plain. That was only according to the spirit s***h illusion. Is it true, or is she just so desperate for an answer that she is imagining it, the girl has no idea. She doesn’t even know for sure if she can trust her, yet the sight of her dead mother’s spirit makes Nayla wants to follow her.

So she does.

“Nayla, wait!” She can hear Mikleo calls out to her when she takes off running.

Jade waits for the girl to catch up, only to head even deeper into the forest.

Nayla rasps in her breath, finding herself having to run again after being pampered from physical work for some time. Dang, she has only been running for a few minutes, but her thighs and calfs can already start feeling the burning pain in her leg muscles. The uneven terrain is not helping either. The girl has to dodge a couple of n***d tree branches and jump over a handful of thick roots to allow herself to keep up with her mother’s spirit.

“Wait!” she wants to say to her mother, but her throat feel stuffed up. Where is she going?

Nayla still has no idea what is going on, or why she is even driven up to follow her mother’s spirit this far in the first place. But all questions fall in place when Jade eventually leads her out of the forest, and straight into a clear opening. Nayla sees no difference except white, until she pauses and stops walking just beside the waiting spirit. Jade looks down, and the brunette girl copies her, only to reveal that they are standing at the edge of a cliff.

Nayla has no idea how deep it goes, since it is hard to tell in this angel, but she knows enough to take several save steps back rather than putting herself at risk of being blown down.

Jade continues to look down. Nayla has no idea what the spirit wants. She tries asking, but this one doesn’t talk much. Well, actually, she doesn’t talk at all. What does she wants her to do? Jade shifts her gaze long enough to glance back at Nayla, before returning to look down, and if telling her to do something through the silence.

“What is it? What do you want me to do?”

Nayla hesitates for a few moments, before finally walk back towards the glowing spirit.

She looks down, trying hard to ignore the sudden dizziness she feels once she discovers how depthless the cliff is, and this time notices a single stem of red flower blooming in between two decent sized stones by the edge of the cliff, hard cold winds blowing it around merciless, looking so fragile and so ready to be picked. The question is, who will get to it first? Her, or the wind?

Jade suddenly leaps down before Nayla can do anything, making the girl almost crouch down in response. The glowing green spirit zooms through the space and abruptly pauses, only to float through the air, unaffected by the laws of gravity. She then reaches out an arm toward the stem of flower, about to pick it for her daughter, until her own fingers brush pass the plant. She tries it again, but to matter how many times she tries to help the girl, she is still a spirit, and a spirit has no physical body, let alone to establish contact with the real world.

Jade looks up, as if torn to say something, but disappears from sight instead, like a burst of light.

What now?

Left alone by the edge of the Nayla, the omniseraph is torn between heading back right from where she came from to find her friends and ask for help, yet risking the chance of the flower being blown away by the wind, and climbing down to reach the flower herself. Either option has a huge risk of its own, and if she doesn’t act soon, the might just lose her chance. What is the probability of her finding another one of that Red Moon Flower?

She is just about to make her move when she feels another presence. She can see a dark figure appearing from within the forest, the opposite direction to where she came from. Nayla can hardly see anything much in this all-red color scheme phenomena. The figure wears a long dark coat, the edges flown by the wind. This person is real, she notices.

“Allow me to assist you, young lady,” the man says as he approaches toward where she is standing.

Nayla doesn’t know this man, and she is not sure if it is wise to accept help from a random stranger. She doesn’t even get the chance to say anything to him before he jumps off the cliff.

Her heart leaps to her throat, but she looks down from the cliff just in time to see the cloaked figure catches himself in between the edges of the cliff, while one hand reaching for the stem of flower.

Just as soon as he jumps down, he finds himself back on top of the cliff, standing in front of her with the stem wedged in between his teeth.

“Thank you, I—”

“Oh, did I say you can have it for free?”

Well, it is normal for someone to ask for something in return, especially when he had just risked his life to obtain it. Though seeing at how he had moved, the man made it looked so easy climbing down this steep cliff.

“I don’t have much to offer you,” she starts out.

“Hmm, but you do have something that I need.”

She has a bad feeling about this. His presence is just too coincidental, and something in the back of her mind just can’t stop bothering her about this. Still, even suspecting that, she asks, “And what will it be?”

“Your life.”

He lunges at her.

Nayla lets out a scream in panic, scrambling to her feet, feel the heavy snow underneath her boots. The girl looses her balance and trips, but the fall gives her just the right amount of distance to put herself with from the incoming attack, causing the man’s large hand to miss her, if only just a mere centimeters away.

She can hear him groans, the sound much more feral than she expected, like a predator.

Cold. She shovels the snow beneath her body, trying to put more distance between them, but her arms and legs feel like they are sinking in with the more strength she puts.

He is about to get to her, when a sudden burst of orange light appears, heating up the area around them in a drastic increase. Nayla opens her eyes to see one of Lailah’s flair of fire magic, bursting out at the cloaked figure like an angry torch. She looks behind her and immediately spots the fire seraph standing in a defensive pose, holding a set of paper talismans that look like they are ready to be used.

“Begone, hellion!” the silver haired exclaims.

The revelation surprises Nayla, much because she can’t even detect a single drop of malevolence coming from his direction through this whole time. Yet true enough, the hellion removes his cloak, revealing the face of that of a lion.

His face looks like a permanently angry gorilla, yet he has the full mane of a lion. His eyes glow a silverish gold, much like Lunarre’s, but there is a deep untold tales of anger embedded in his cold glare. His eyebrows are thick, just like his golden mane. His facial expression is pulled into a hard flex, showing off each curve of stress muscles. His nose is big and he has fangs, wrapped in hard jaw muscles. Everything about him is large and hard, making the girl wants to get away from this place as fast as possible.

“So it’s you, the Lord of Calamity,” Lailah gritted her teeth. Behind her, the rest of the group catches up, some taking a sharp intake of breath when they realize the opponent that stands in front of them.

“Nayla!” Mikleo heads toward her side, and the girl stands up to meet him halfway, before being pulled to the back of the group, putting as much distance as he can from the enemy.

The hellion looks scary up close, and he doesn’t look less scarier from the distance. He has the head of a lion and a body of a man’s. But how? She has never seen a hellion like this before. Looking so close to resemble an animal, but still maintains a body structure of a man.

She has no idea how it is possible, but the hellion looks positively regal, standing in front of them wearing a dark metal made armor. Didn’t Lailah mention something about him being a lord of something? The Lord of Calamity? Dang, even his name sounds ominous.

Purple color lights up from his body and that is when Nayla finally sees the thick miasma covering his entire body. He is not just emitting pure malevolence energy, he is the malevolence! She can see the way purple fog gathers from the center of his armor, spreading to his entire body. Nayla has no idea how one hellion can possess this much dark energy before. It is so thick in the air that just breathing within proximity hurts her.

All too suddenly, she is being attacked by a jolt of migraine to her brain. It disappears as soon as it arrives, but it does not take long before another wave of achingness throbs into her head. What is happening? Is it the side effect acting up again? But she hasn’t even use her omniseraph power!

“Mikleo, I don’t feel so good.” She grabs into his sleeve, looking for support. The white haired boy wraps an arm around her body to help her stand, and she leans into the touch, eyes struggling to stay open.

“What’s happening? You’re burning up,” she can hear him mutter in concern after he places the back of his palm against her forehead. “Edna, I think something is wrong.”

The earth seraph warily moves, not wanting to take her eyes off the hellion lord even while she makes her way to her sick friend. She quickly checks on the girl’s in expert speed, before coming down to a conclusion.

“It’s the malevolence energy,” Edna explains. “She has never been exposed to this kind of amount before. A normal human would have collapsed and succumbed underneath the pressure, but considering her . . . err, nature, she is only baring half of the effects. She should be fine as long as we get her away from him.”

“Do you mean the omniseraph?” comes a low tone voice vibrating through the frosty air.

“So you already know. Have you come to attack the omniseraph, Heldalf?” Lailah asks vigilantly.

“Isn’t it quite obvious? I can’t have the girl ruining my plans for the world,” Heldalf says.

“You mean  the world into chaos and doom everything that ever walks the earth?” Zaveid hisses.

“You get the idea. Now hand over the girl and I might just let you all walk out of this peacefully.”

“Ha! The Lord of Calamity? Peacefully? I doubt so,” Edna shoots back.

A blinding outburst of light, and suddenly Sorey and Lailah are already merged in their Kamui Fusion form, cover in white, gold and red colors. Nayla opens her eyes just in time to sense the harnessing overwhelming power within the fusion form, red light emitting around Sorey’s body like a protective shield.

Her eyes are immediately drown to the freakishly large sword in his hand. It looks like a claymore, but the size is undoubtedly twice— no, thrice the size of any normal great sword. Red light emits from it, showcasing complicated design that holds the entire larger-than-life weapon together.

Most of Sorey’s appearance takes over that of his Prime Lord. His short brown hair has grown long, a mass of beige blonde tied in a ponytail, pulled together at the back of his head with a burgundy scarf. His eyes also takes after Lailah’s ruby eyes. He wears a white and gold robe, a long cloak clinging to his masculine form. He looks ready for a fight.

“Wait, he’s got the Red Moon Flower,” Nayla announces.

“Then please hand it over. Our friend needs that,” Sorey says, ever so polite despite being about to join in a combat.

“I will hand the flower over for a trade. The girl, if you please,” Heldalf says with a mocking tone as he twiddles the stem with his sharp claws.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not an option.”

“If you won’t, then I can’t guarantee that the flower will still be in one piece after this,” the Calamity Lord says harshly, starting to lose his patience.

“I don’t like to handle things so crassly, but we will fight for it if we must. Our friend is sick, and she needs the flower as the cure.”

“Do you think I didn’t know that? Why did you think I even bother to go this far to following you lot?”

“We can’t hand over the omniseraph.”

“Fine then, so be it.”

Heldalf attacks first, shooting a blast of pure malevolence energy ray without as much as a warning.

Sorey has a good reflex, and he quickly dodges it, swing the claymore in his hand in return.

The attacks are accurate, but Heldalf sidesteps the swinging blade right at the last moment, causing the snow behind him to form a large new dent.

Sorey moves his sword with more vigor, this time intending not to miss.

However, no matter how fast and strong Sorey is, the fusion form can’t even hold a candle to the hellion lord.

The rest joins in the fight also, Zaveid and Edna activating their elemental magic and throwing attacks simultaneously at Heldalf, while Mikleo hesitates, torn between protecting Nayla and joining in the fight. Clearly his friends are not doing any better, but if he helps them, it’s not like he can turning the situation around as well, while he might be leaving Nayla exposed from protection.

Things finally get so bad until he watches as Sorey being flung back across the field, wounds covering all over his body. “Sorey!” his friends all him, but the impact must have knocked him out cold, because they can see no response coming from the boy.

The fusion collapses, leaving both Sorey and Lailah wounded. Their best fighters, lost.

They can’t explain it, but the red moon is somehow making the hellion stronger, even much more than he already is. No matter what they do, they just end up losing the battle.

“Quick, I’m gonna cover us. Take the others and go,” Edna barks an order.

“What? You go!” Zaveid says, offended to think that he will allow the female seraph to stay behind.

“I can’t carry both Sorey and Lailah at the same time. It’s you who has to go!” Edna tells him.

The wind seraph curses in silence, but knows that she is right. Hard-heartedly, Zaveid turns his back from the fight and immediately go for the two.

“Come on, we should go as well,” Mikleo says, pulling Nayla back to her feet.

“Wait, what about Edna?”

“She can hold on her own?”

“Are you sure? I mean, look at this climate. Wouldn’t a water seraph make more benefit?”

“Yes, but she is stronger. She can handle the enemy — at least until we get away.”

“Hurry up! I won’t be able to hold him off for much longer!” Edna exclaims, both arms thrown up in a stance, fists clenching as the rocks move around Heldalf, crushing him from the outside, as well as surrounding him, preventing him from making any sudden move. She digs up more dirty and rocks, and throw them up towards the hellion lord, surrounding him with thicker layers of barricade, hoping to keep him down even longer than she is already pushing it.

Heldalf hardly looks uncomfortable, that is just not even the most disturbing thing. He doesn’t look like he is hurting though, despite the many force that Edna is putting him through. He spares a glance at the couple’s direction just as Mikleo is about to pull her away from the scene, and she can see something flaring in that hard cold eyes of his.

The forest blocks her view before she can see into it. They run through the winter woods, their breathes quickly fogging in front of their faces as the break out into a sprint. Zaveid already takes off a few seconds earlier, already running way ahead of them despite carrying two other person on each of his shoulders.

“Come on, run faster. Edna won’t be able to hold him for much longer,” there is a certain desperation in Mikleo's tone that makes Nayla scared. He has never sounded this frantic before. It only makes her wanna keep going. But because of the snow, each take she takes causes the end of her booths to sink lower, making it hard to keep up. Mikleo finally notices her struggle in the next minute, before using his water magic to push away the snow from her path. That is when she really makes some good progress running. Her legs are gradually killing her, but at least she can still move.

A scream tore off from across the forest, no doubt coming from the edge of that cliff. It’s Edna. She has lost.

“Don’t looking back,” Mikleo says, warning her, even though his own tone is faltering, unable to hold back the unnerving sense of doom.

He’s got her. She’s down.

“I know,” Nayla mutters, barely heard, tears streaming down her reddened cheeks.

Is she okay? Is she still alive?

All too suddenly, they can feel a flare of dark energy zooming towards them. Nayla can barely register what is happening. Something heavy knocks at her back, strong enough to cause her to tumble forward.

Her hands and knees are there to catch her mid fall, bruising upon impact. She can feel a large hand taking a hold on her, but it doesn’t stay there for long, as a whip of water forces it to release her.

“Stay back!” Nayla can’t tell if he is talking to her or Heldalf.

Mikleo uses everything he got to push him back, but the hellion lord doesn’t even seem to be spending much effort countering the water attacks.

The water moves around his body like a thousand whip, yet Heldalf still looks unmoved, as if unaffected by harm. The water whips s***h around him, even hitting his body, but he takes them as if they are not hurting him at all.

Heldalf remains standing. With one wave of his hand, he is able to command a large armada of dark shadows, causing nauseating purple fog to oozes out from the center of his armor like a flood. The miasma hits Mikleo ten folds back, one impact already strong enough to knock him off his feet.

He groans in pain and orders Nayla to leave, but the girl can’t. It’s not that she is not drown in fear and want to die, but she just simply can’t bring herself to leave the boy. It takes her some time to realize this, but Nayla can finally realizes that she actually has feelings for him. She loves Mikleo, and she can’t just leave him be. God knows what Heldalf will do to him.

Stupid girl! Mikleo wants to yells out loud, but can’t. Everywhere hurts. He can’t move, let alone fight. Who’s going to protect the girl now? He just hopes that the others are still save.

It’s funny what dangerous situations can make humans do. Out of desperation, Nayla starts using her power.

Heldalf recognizes the gathering energy around the girl’s body lighting up, and immediately knows what she is trying to do. Before he can even figure out what type of element she is going to release, he swings his arm, the back of his lion paw colliding with the side of her face hard, causing her to be throw back several feet until her back hits a tree.

The girl coughs, and a trail of blood drips from her lip.

“Don’t touch her!” Mikleo aims his staff at the hellion lord, but barely any water comes out this time. He is hurt, and his stamina is vastly draining thanks to the excessive use of magic just before.

Nayla holds her own, using the snow to move and trap Heldalf into place. Her magic is much stronger, but the usage of that much power if putting too much strain into her mortal body. As a result, it doesn’t take long before she starts coughing of blood. Her victory is quick, but only momentary. She can see that the hellion lord looks a bit taken back by her sheer strength, even though her defense doesn’t last long.

Once that deathly loosens, the two are left to face their fate.

“It seems like that fox was right. You are strong. But I’m afraid your skills will be wasted at the side of the seraphs. Join my army, and I promise that you’ll never feel weak again,” Heldalf says, trying to recruit the girl.

“You attacked my friends. What makes you say that you won’t end up killing me as well in the end?” Nayla asks, voice rasping. Her chest hurts. Her body feels hot despite the cold air around her. s**t, she already starts feeling worse again.

“I attacked them because they are in the way, and because they are weak. Scums like them deserved to be defeated. Their place is on the dirt,” his answer sounds like the most bigoted things in the world.

“If you’re trying to get me to join you, then you’re doing a very poor job by insulting my friends. Besides, what makes you think I’ll take your side.”

“Omniseraph, you and your friends are already defeated. Are you sure you want to keep this up? I obviously can, but how about you? Besides, I have the Red Moon Flower now. Do you want to get better, do you?”

The mere mention of it causes her eyes to lid up.

“Don’t listen to him . . .” Mikleo whispers weakly.

“Shut up, seraph!” Heldalf waves his hand, and a rush of purple fog knocks Mikleo to the side.

“No!” Nayla screams angrily. No, please wake up, she cries in a whimper fearfully, but the boy remains unmoving. She rushes to his side, shaking him to wake up. She tries to feel his pulse, but her hands are too cold to detect anything. Fearing the worst, her own heart rate slows down.

The sight of her beloved being harmed does something inside her, and she can feel something snaps within her mind. All too suddenly, the air changes around them. It becomes heavy, much more violent and uncontrollable.

A hurricane sweeps around the forest, forming destructive circles around them. All of a sudden, it’s not just one, by six hurricane whirlwind spinning around the forest, destroying everything in their path, a silent of total elimination hanging in the air.

Heldalf is the only thing that remains unmoved, despite the growing calamity around them. If this keeps going on, even the Lord of Calamity will be put to shame from the amount of destruction the girl alone can cause.

“Alright, that’s enough!” He sweeps his arms, launching a full on attack on the omniseraph.

The dark forces gathers, and it shoots out toward the girl all at once. Her eyes already look dead since her powers go hammock, but she doesn’t even show any signs of life when he finally manages to get her to calm down by force, once again knocking her back down.

For a second she makes him believe that he has killed her, until he steps closer and sees her ribcage moving, her body still breathing despite the pain irritating her entire being.

“Not so fast!” The wind seraph comes charging back before Heldalf can touch the unconscious girl, carrying a whirlwind of his own. His are not as large scaled as the omniseraph, but the winds he throws at the hellion’s way is enough to knock him back several feet. Heldalf is still standing, but the seraph has proven to best him, and he holds back a groan of displeasure.

“Should have stayed with your friends, seraph!” he spits out the name like a curse, before launching an attack back on Zaveid. The purple fog comes flowing out, rushing to the wind seraph’s side in less than a second. Zaveid tries to fight back, hurling a few wild winds aimlessly, before being completely drowned by the endless wave of dark energy.

“What’s wrong? Where’s your savior now? Look at the omniseraph! She’s dying and she’s pathetic. You lot will have no chance to defeat me now!” Heldalf exclaims victoriously at the defeated sight.

Cold. The girl shivers even in the endless pit of darkness. She wants nothing more than to keep falling asleep, finding herself in the comfort of her own home. She misses her father, and the small amount of warmth that her small bed can provide. Why is she venturing so far from home? It’s not even safe outside.

She feels like she has been fighting for so long without end, pushing back against her own body’s fatigue and the forces of nature itself. She hates this. She wants to go home. But then faces of her friends appear in her mind, making her remember the entire reason why she is out here in the cold instead of the comfort of her home. She is here to fight. She is here to save herself from being claimed by death, so that she can save the world.

Nayla wakes up just in time to watch what has transpire, watching as Zaveid is rendered helpless to the ground. She hears what the so called Lord of Calamity has just claimed, but he is not the only one who has something else to say. Angrily, the girl shouts back.

“If I’m so pathetic, then why do you even bother to prevent us from getting cure? It’s obvious that you don’t think you can win against me, even when I’m still a novice in using elemental magic. Admit it! You didn’t think you’d had the chance, that’s why you’re trying to off me now, while I’m at my weakest point.”

Heldalf doesn’t even have to confirm anything. His silence says everything. He just looks down on her, eyes cold and challenging.

And what if the girl is right?

“You want to bully the weak; you see us as nothing but trash. In the end, you are no better than us, who also struggles to live. You want to cheat and take on opportunities when you have the chance, just because you can, just like what you’re doing now. But let’s face it, it is all just human nature. I might not be such a perfect hero for these people, but you are no better.”

He groans like the monster that he is, and Nayla knows that she has just hit a sore spot. He doesn’t like being compared to them humans, she can tell. It must have been one of the strongest reason why he turned into a hellion in the first place. If her studies about understanding hellions is right, is that there is always something embedded in the human counterpart to have triggered and turned them completely. She knows that she should not be pushing her luck, but there is a new determination burning inside her now. She is done being pushed around. She is not going to back down just because he gets a little bit angry because she states the truth.

“You speak of the seraphs being no better than dirt, but you’re just a cruel man who knows nothing of struggle. Just because you’re strong, doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable for you to bully the weak. Can’t you see that we’re too weak to compete against you? Why are you even doing this anyway, if you’re so sure that you’ll win in the end? Why take the flower? Is it because you’re afraid to face the real me?”

The world might be corrupted, but that does not mean that it is okay to let the darkness rules everything. There is always a balance in between. Shadows and light must exist with each other. None can live without one another, and there is no way that they can erase every ounce of malevolence that circulates in this world. The light can not remove the darkness completely, but it also works the other way around. If the darkness consumes this world, then there will be no doubt that a total destruction will occur. Once the balance is tipped, it will not only be the light that disappears, but also the darkness as well.

Nayla has read many books, and everywhere she goes, she knows that there will always be a balance to secure. She is not ignorant, she knows exactly just how the world works. It doesn’t matter if it’s a different field of study, or how written words are much different from this reality, or even the prophesy that is connected to it. She might not even know if what she suspects the most will come true, but there is a chance that it might just happen. She will have to find a way to mediate this situation somehow.

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” His tail swings like a whip, looking ever so sharp and lethal, almost like it is moving on its own, in sync as his anger flares up. “What does a girl like you know? You’re just a child. In my eyes, who have lived for thousands of years, you will turn into nothing but specs of dust in a blink of an eye. Yes, you mortals are all the same. All talk and so self-righteous. But in the end, you will all disappear through the test of time. And what is left, but mere words that say nothing?”

“Why are you so hell bent in creating chaos? You don’t strike me as one of those mindless hellions who simply attack any moving, living things. No. You’re too intelligent, well above them.” Yes, she can recognize that look in his eyes. Despite how he wants to carry himself, she can tell that he has a high form of intelligence beyond any normal immortal. There is a certain will power within him that drives him to do things, that he echoes that out through every step, every intake of air that he makes.

“Don’t speak like you know me. I don’t understand why do you even bother to defend the humans. It’s not like you owe anything to these people. Humans are all the same; they only think of their own selfish needs. Why did you think I abandoned my origin in the first place? I got tired of having to live in the save rules — rules that break the humans and overthrow each other like we were just a bunch of disposable pawns. You should know best, you are still one too after all, omniseraph or not. One day, these people will turn on you.”

“You misunderstand. I’m not doing this for those people I had yet to even know about. I’m doing this to save my friends. It’s true, if I hadn’t known them, if I hadn’t met them and understand the warmth of friendship, I would never even bother to consider myself doing all of this. I’m literally dying over here just to protect them. You might think that it’s stupid of me to do so, especially since they are immortals, but I right now, I don’t care about those stupid idealism. They are my friends, and friends protect one another. There is all there is to it!”

“And so what? Are you going to keep opposing up until the very end? Are you saying to want to die in here, surrounded by your dying friends? Look around you girl, there is nothing left to fight for. Stay stubborn as you like, but in the end, you’re just gonna let their sacrifices becomes nothing but wasted efforts.”

Nayla spares a glance at Mikleo, who is shivering in his weakened form. He is still not opening his eyes just yet, but she knows that he will still not be able to fight just yet.

She turns her gaze towards Zaveid, who is still struggling against the dark shadows that surround him. He is not backing off easily, but even Nayla can tell that his physical strength is gradually draining. “Don’t do it,” his eyes say when he can’t speak.

The girl bites into her bottom lips, cornered. What is she going to do next? They are clearly outwitted and rapidly losing, and there is no use in fighting a battle one can not win.

This is not their lucky day.

[End of Book 3]