Mikleo #4

9.5

Heldalf takes a intake of breath, looking as if he is just about to have enough arguing with me. His hand clenches on the flower stem a little bit too hard, causing some of it’s juice to seep through to his hand. It has no effect on him.

Nayla suspects that he might destroy her cure out of irritation, but then he just lets the flower drops to the floor and steps back. What exactly is he playing at?

“Well, since you don’t want it, and I don’t need it, then I guess I can just destroy it, right?”

Destroy it? Did she hear it right? He wants to freakin’ destroy a mystical flower that is so rare, it only blooms once every decade or so? Oh no. No. Freakin’. WAY! There is no way that she is going to let any of that effort become wasted by this guy!

“Stop!” Nayla yells out just before the lion hellion is about to step on the Red Moon Flower. He does, thankfully, though he doesn’t retrieve his foot entirely from the danger zone.

Heldalf waits for her response patiently. He got nothing but time in his hands. He has the Omniseraph and her cure. The eclipse is just in a few days away. Everything is in his hands. No one has any more control than he is.

“I— I still need the cure. I . . . I don’t want to die.”

“Then by all means. Take it.”

Nayla takes in short steps toward the tall male. She is still hesitating even when she is already given a clear pathway toward her goal. The girl looks like she is concentrating hard, even though all she has to do is walk. When she finally gets to where she wants herself to be, Nayla bends down to retrieve the flower. Heldalf doesn’t even move an inch from where he stands. Just when the Omniseraph is about to raise back up again, she abruptly moves in a blur.

In less than a split second, Nayla shoots a burst of sharp crystal ice toward Heldalf, intending to pierce him to death.

She has a chance and a clear shot, so she thinks, why not? But then the icy fog dies out and she can see the same tall figure still standing upward, not even disturbed by the slightest.

“Huh, do you think that a weak blow like that can harm me?” In that second, Heldalf’s eyes a menacing red. It frightens her so much, especially watching that expression closely from that odd angle, that it causes Nayla to jump three long steps back, just to put some distance away from the guy. Something has changed. It’s not just the way he looks. The very air she breathes feels much colder.

Nayla had thought that perhaps using a water element can help put more impact in her attack, but who would have thought that it would backfire. It seems like Heldalf possesses much more immunity strength that she first had thought. The ice almost has no effect on him. She can see the sparkling frozen ice crystals growing all over his body, especially on the center of his gut, where the girl had launched and focused her attack on. Heldalf can still breathe regularly (Do hellions usually even breath? She didn’t notice) and the way malevolence energy slowly pouring out of her is scaring her. Before, he was just standing there, so calm and collected, but then when his emotion changed, the dark energy just begin to keep pouring out of his body like a damn with a broken dam. Shot! What is she going to do now? Nayla looks down at her hand, where she is holding the red flower. The cure. Yes, the cure. She should take it before it is taken from her—

Before the human girl can do anything, Heldalf disappears in a blur of a speed, a cloud of dark puff of smoke left behind at his wake. Just when Nayla is about to react, the male is already standing right behind her, towering her short height with his massive build. The girl is way too inexperienced. She has become so weak that she doesn’t even realize it when Heldalf has managed to close the distance between them. She is too panic and distracted to realize that the enemy is right in front of her, until Heldalf makes himself be noticed, by clasping one of his large claws around the girl’s slender neck.

“Aagghh!” Nayla lets out a large intake of breathe as she can feel her air circulation vastly closing down through the pressure from the force. Her hands instinctively goes up to free herself from the hold, but Heldalf has made it his mission to hold her in deadly grip. He holds her neck so tightly that it helplessly chokes her. He is so strong now, especially with the eclipse approaching, that he doesn’t even have to spare much energy to cut her air circulation. With just a slight pressure to his fist, he can most probably snap her neck like a twig, and the girl will simply just lose her life; gone, just like that.

The more time spend in the choking hold, the faster her consciousness is vastly slipping by. In the process of trying to save herself, Nayla has long forgotten about the cure, and it’s now once again find itself lying on the floor. Her feet has raised a few inches off the ground, thanks to the deadly hold. He is gripping around her neck so hard that there is now way the won’t leave a mark after this, and it won’t matter even if she would survive or not. Messy saliva leaves a trail from the corner of her lips, dripping down her chin and onto the Calamity Lord’s fur coated fingers. If this goes on, there will be no saying to what will happen to the poor, defenseless girl.

Yet, surprisingly, Heldalf doesn’t close in on his grip entirely throughout the way. Instead, he loosens it, allowing the girl to drop to the floor, letting her lie helplessly next to his feet.

Nayla is rasping like a bird, her brain overloaded with dizziness. She was so close to the face of death, and she wasn’t able to do anything to help free herself. She could have used her power to attack him, but in the moment of panic, she had simply forgotten about herself — forgot that she is not a human. She tells herself that she can’t be entirely blamed for the momentary slip up — she had been raised her entire life thinking that she is just a simple human — yet Nayla also can’t help but feel disappointed on herself. After struggling so hard, she couldn’t even muster a slight bit of power.  The pain was so mind-numbing that it was all she could feel and breathe in. Has she fallen so low like this? How could she just forget about the countless hours of training that her friends have dedicated to help her master? Is this the best she can do?

That similar slab of heavy feeling creeps into her heart just when she thinks about it. And like how it usually goes, one can’t even detect it when they are gradually being corrupted. Just because Nayla is an Omniseraph, that doesn’t mean that she can escape from the dreadful corruption of malevolence. A slither of purple fog begins to cover up around her, followed with the assuring growth of self-disappointment inside her mind.

Hmm. It seems like Heldalf doesn’t even have to work much to turn her into a fallen one. But just this much is nothing. He plans to brainwash and corrupt her so much to the point that she will not be able to turn back by the time she realizes it. Though he has to admit, seeing her being this helpless brings a certain level of satisfaction to himself. The idea of this girl has been a thorn to his side for thousands of years. He had been keeping a low profile on his existence, patiently waiting for the right moment to rise. Heldalf is a man that plans and plots for a certain win. He doesn’t like his carefully crafted plans to be messed with; that’s the only reason why he has been so tolerant and even-tempered for all of these years. Seeing his supposedly biggest threat becomes like this brings up a s******c streak within him raises.

Though allowing her to go on like this is no good as well. The Lord of Calamity then decides to break away the malevolence concentration around her by snapping his fingers at the girl.

“Huh?” Nayla looks up, her doe-like eyes looking up in a confused, unconcentrated gaze. Her whole body is shivering, as if she is the one in cold. The hellion lord has shaken off her crystal ice the moment he moved. She can’t believe how trivial the attack has been to him; she has utilized all the strength she got in her body. Has things progressed this far already? Will there be no defeating him? The girl is so far back on her lessons that she can’t even bring him down at the rate she is going. How are they expecting her to save the world now?

Heldalf stares down at her with those yellow, ghost-like eyes; the gaze back to being cold and calculative like before, though this time she can see a sliver of red hiding just below the surface of his iris peeks.

He looks like he is about to burst into another fit of anger, but then he does the complete opposite by doing something that completely takes her by surprise through a turn-point. He picks up the flower and hands it over to her, this time not even fishing for a rise of suspicion. “Here, take your damn cure. I have no use of it.”

Nayla looks on at him, still shocked.

Take it? Just take it? After all this time, and all she has to do is take it? Nayla doesn’t understand this situation one bit. Then, what about them being on opposite sides? Aren’t they supposed to be enemies? Why is he suddenly helping her?

“Take it, before I change my mind.”

She quickly retrieves it from his hand.

“Um, so I just have to eat the petals, right?” she asks, unsure. None of the books explain on how one should take it.

“Hmm,” he lets out a grunt of confirmation, before the girl starts eating it.

Nayla doesn’t feel dizzy anymore. The buzzing sound increasingly reduced, before it completely disappears from her hearing.

“Just so you know, once we’re out in the battlefield, I won’t hold back.”

“We’ll fight fair and square.”

He doesn’t say anything, and the girl knows that she is pushing her luck. When in despair, one can only hope.

. . . . .

Mikleo has wanted to chase after Heldalf the moment he finds himself back to consciousness and learns the truth of the situation.

But then his friends just have to prevent him from leaving. With the boy being in the blind rage that he is, of course Mikleo has just to resort to using his powers to keep his friends away. Zaveid, Lailah, Sorey and Edna feel the need to stop him, so that he won’t be making stupid decisions he’ll regret later on. So  of course they also revert to their own powers and use it against their own friend, in hope that they will be able to get him to calm down before things go out of hands.

Things do go out of hands indeed, despite how hard they work together to keep things calm. They understand that Mikleo is worried about his girlfriend, but Nayla is their friend, too. They hate it that she has been taken away from them; right in front of their eyes, nonetheless. They wish they could have done more to prevent it from happening, but all was now in the past. What they need to do right now is to gather themselves and move on. They need to come up with a plan to get the Omniseraph back, but how?

After hearing all this, Mikleo lets out a cry of frustration, before ceasing all fight altogether. What

is he doing? Why was he fighting his friends? That was such a waste of time! They could have come up with a reliable plan right now, if only he hadn’t just went off and able to keep a cool head. 

And now, after Mikleo has calmed down a bit, the five of them decide to head toward the nearest hellion fort, in hope for finding their kidn*pped friend. It’s a long shot, and the journey won’t be easy, but it’s the only way to go. They can’t turn back now; they can’t abandon their friend. With Nayla being in the hands of Heldalf, only God knows that he plans to do to her. If they stall just for a moment longer . . . If they arrive too late . . . They can’t even imaging what will happen to her.

Before all of this mess had occurred, Nayla was just a human. Allowing the girl to get involved in their battle puts guilt in their heart. If it were not because of them, she wouldn’t be in this kind of danger in the first place. But the girl is an Omniseraph — no one can deny that fact. It is her duty to shoulder the balance of the world. No one in this world can change that fact — not even the previous Omniseraph herself. They had heard from Gramps — Jade was looking for a way to prevent the prophecy from happening. It doesn’t matter how much distance the mother put in her daughter’s path though, because in the end, even she failed to stop the wheels of fate from spinning. As natural takes it course, it’s spinning fast, and it’s spinning out of control. And now they are in this inescapable mess together.

The hellions have several forts near the area. The closest one from their standpoint, Fort Hellia, is a small one, only guarded with a dozen or so mid-level hellions. Taking them down is a piece of cake. When the Shepherd and the seraphs work together, there is nothing that they can’t accomplish. Nayla is not held captive in there, much to their liking. But of course, it’ll make no sense it she’s here. The hellions are not very smart; they can’t even form comprehensive words, let alone allowing them to interrogate the enemies. In the end, the group is forced to purified every single one of them, the corruption level they have received is nothing that is curable. As a result, the fort becomes empty quick.

After the brief encounter with the group of hellions, the squad stops to get some rest. Some of them (namely Mikleo) thinks that it’s a waste of time, but they are not machines, and they can’t work on continuously without resting. Most of the time they spend in getting through the snow. Even with Mikleo's and Zaveid’s combined magic, it’s still quite a challenge getting through these snowy mountains. The weather can be very unpredictable, and they have to be ready to take cover quick for almost all of the time.

During their resting period, the squad takes turns in sleeping and guarding. They also make sure to gather some supplies while they have the chance. And since the fort used to belong to the humans, there are bound to be items that they can find some use for in their next journey; namely some change of new clothes and other long lasting resources. This place has been abandoned though, most probably since a few decades ago, so the ground is rather unstable, and they definitely won’t find any fresh food anytime soon. Their food stock is shortening fast though, so they know they have to act fast.

Though just in case, they make sure to call for backups, sending a message to their friends back in Ladylake through Zaveid’s wind magic. Their friends will get the message, and they’ll know what to do.

Fort Sina is the next location they are heading. Aside from Fort Hellia, which they have conquered, there are two more walls. Fort Sina will be the second closest one after this. They will have to spend several hours before reaching to that place. Up ahead, there’s Fort Rozen, but there will be a frozen sea that separates the two points, plus a mountain of steep snow to climb through for. The last one definitely has the best defense, and they can’t rule out the possibility that Nayla is being kept in there. Going to that place will be extremely challenging, and they can’t even imagine what kind of pain the poor girl is going through at the moment. The hellions will definitely not spare her an easy death, if they so wish to. However, they also can’t rule out the possibility that she’ll be in Fort Sina as well. Who knows? Maybe she’ll be lucky enough get the lesser of the two evil.

As strong as Mikleo's gut feeling might be, the squad still can’t risk to rule out the other possibility. So in the end, they decide to part ways and split into two small groups; Zaveid and Edna will go to Fort Sina, while Mikleo, Sorey and Lailah are heading to Fort Rozen. Fort is Sina is ultimately closer, but the building is large and there will be plenty of places to venture to. It will take too much time if they do one by one, so this way will be more efficient. Besides, it’s good to each have someone in the smaller team who possesses elemental magic that is a match to their environment. After splitting their resources so that each small group can carry enough goods for themselves, the squad members part ways.

Mikleo is still impatient as always, but Lailah and Sorey already expected that. They won’t comment on his behavior, of course, being the two most subtle and considerate members of the squad as they are. The love of his live is in danger, so they can’t understand it when the water seraph is trying to get to the third fort as fast as they can. He is so on edge that he is throwing packs of snow left and right, moving rapidly like a machine.

Thanks to the boy’s ability, they can cross the frozen sea with ease, skating through the flat surface using ice blades that Mikleo conjures with his magic. And just in case, Mikleo conjures up a couple more ice blades, so that their friends can use them when they are ready to catch up if it’s necessary. Lailah is not so used to skating, being a fire seraph and all, but she is a fast learner. Mikleo and Sorey used to skate behind the village since they were small, so getting on the ice blades are not problems at all.

Within less than five uninterrupted minutes, they skate throughout the frozen sea without a snag. Then it’s time for climbing. No doubt it’ll be more of Edga and Zaveid’s style, but the three of them likes to think that they manage just as well. Mikleo conjures up a slab piece of ice that is solid enough to carry all of their weight as they make it up. While the water seraph is busy controlling the ice slab, Lailah melts out some snow that is on the way, helping to clear the path. Sorey helps out too, using his sword to clear the path and guard the two while they are busy working. One should not trust their safety so much when they are breaching through the enemy’s den.

And just as expected, it doesn’t take long before hellions start becoming aware of their presence. Flight type insect-like hellions attack the small group of squad. Their malevolence energy is strong enough to prevent their wings from freezing up from the cold, but that is nothing compared to Sorey’s and Lailah’s aiming skills when they attack back. But just when one group of enemies are defeated, more simply floods in. More of the flight type, and also some of the scorpion ice monsters. They small squad have one heck of a time trying to multitask. They need to make sure that they keep up with the speed of the attackers, so that Mikleo can concentrate on lifting them up and make to into one of the fort’s openings right on time, before the water seraph runs out of energy.

It becomes an intense couple of minutes of non-stop battle before the three of time finally reaches toward one of the fort’s opening, a glassless window. They sneak in just in time before the enemy hellions are able to pursue them. The small group heads in immediately, trying to orientate around the large building, heading down toward the dungeon. They encounter some more enemy throughout the way, but they try to be more subtle this time, not wanting to trigger more enemy to come their way and overcome them. Mikleo uses his water magic to cover all three of them, allowing the infiltrators to be camouflaged. Most of the lower level hellions are unable to see through the trick, though if they are unlucky enough to encounter a high level one, their covers might be blown.

They search everywhere throughout the entire dungeon cells, but Nayla is not in any one of them. The revelation is frustrating Mikleo more than he already is. If she is not in this fort, then that means that she is probably in the second fort, right? How much longer before he can finally get her back? He has no idea what the poor girl is probably going through right now. He just hopes that she’s still okay. No matter how injured she would turn out to be, they can still save her if she is still alive. The three of them are just about to head out, when they suddenly hear two hellions passing by at the higher tier.

“Yeah, I know, I don’t  really understand why the Master wants to keep the girl as well. If it’s not for her power, she would have been eliminated a long time ago. She doesn’t look like that big of a threat to me.”

He pauses, as if waiting for the other party to reply.

“I don’t think that Lord Heldalf will be happy if we jeopardize her safety, though I do believe that it is the servants’ duty to right their master’s wrongs, even when it will be against his wishes. But no worries, I’m pretty sure I can find the right time to eliminate the girl. Once Master loses all uses of the Omniseraph, we’ll make sure that she dies. It’s no need keeping her around for much longer than necessary.”

The two hellions appear to be high-rankings. The trio are unable to hear the rest of the conversation, but they have already heard everything that they need to know.

“Mikleo,” Sorey starts out.

“She’s here. I know she is. You heard what they said,” he says, not even bothered to look at any one of them.

“We don’t know that for sure, Mikleo,” Lailah says.

“Yeah, but what if she is? Are we just going to leave her to die?”

“We won’t let that happen,” Sorey reassures him.

“Then let’s go.”

“But we don’t even know where to begin searching for her,” Lailah says.

“We can confront one of those high-ranking hellions, and then we can ask them,” Mikleo says, but even the desperate boy himself knows that it’ll be a long shot. There is no guarantee that they know where Nayla is kept, or if they’ll even tell the truth.

They know that there’s no saying they’ll succeed, but what else can they do? “Alright, we can try,” Sorey throws Mikleo a supportive smile.

“Sorey, you can’t be serious. What if we lose in the fight?” Lailah asks, concerned about the Shepherd's safety.

“Oh, come on, Lailah, since when are you afraid of the enemy?”

“I’m just worried, that’s all. The Omniseraph has been taken. I don’t know what I’ll do if we lose you, too.”

“Well, I’m sure that it won’t happen. Besides, I have you guys to help alongside with. I’m sure we can save Nayla and bring her back.”

“Yes, that’s right. We’re gonna find her, and then we’re going to get out of this place,” Mikleo states.

The trio heads out to find their friend. They try to catch the hellions off guard, but as expected, they are strong enough to anticipate the incoming attacks. The seraphs and Shepperd are thrown back, but then, something unexpected happens. They tell her where they can find Nayla. They know that it is probably just a trap, but they bite into it anyway. They don’t care even if it’s just a trap; they need to find their friend and get her back.

They are lead into a great hall, where Heldalf is already waiting for their arrival. Nayla is there as well though, so it appears to be they are not lying about the girl being here. But how are they supposed to fight the Lord of Calamity now?

“Nayla, thank god you’re alright. Come over, we need to leave this place as soon as we can.” Mikleo extends his hand toward his lover. She seems to be okay, but she doesn’t make a move to approaching him, even after he gestures as her to come closer. What’s wrong?

“Nayla?” the water seraph calls out to her, a bit unsure. She can hear him, right?

When the brunette lifts her chin up, however, the motion reveals something shocking. Her eyes . . . they are no longer in the same color of gold, but that of blackish purple now. Oh no . . . don’t tell them that she has been turned. The Omniseraph . . . she has been corrupted. All of their hopes and their chance to win this war is now . . . gone. Just gone. But more than that, they’ve lost a friend . . . a lover. The Nayla that they used to know is now gone. The girl is no longer the person they knew. Instead, she has been replaced with an evil alter ego of herself. Nayla has turned into a hellion! And a powerful one at that!

“Nayla . . . no . . . .” Mikleo stumbles back, eyes widen in horror. No . . . this can’t be happening. She can’t be gone!

“As you people can see, your Omniseraph has changed sides now. She has become a fallen one, just like the rest of now,” Heldalf exclaims with tone full of triumph and content. “And now that I have finally taken control over her, I’ve become unstoppable. No one is going to defeat me! No one can! The darkness will rule over earth . . . The world is mine!”

“No! That can’t be. Nayla!” Mikleo shouts out her name, trying to get some short of a reaction from her, yet nothing happens. She just stands there like a statue, unmoving, as if she can’t even hear him.

“Now, the Fallen One, attack your former comrades!” Heldalf orders her. His words are a final strike to the blow.

Nayla makes a move now, inhaling deep, before launching an attack. Thick, dark malevolence energy surges toward the former Omniseraph, each hand gesture she makes causes more dark purple energy to gather around her, pooling around her body until it is ready to be used. And once she stops inhaling, she forms the energy she has gathered, moving her hands to channeling it at her center, before taking her shoot, shooting the ball of dark concentrated energy strike toward the three of them.

Her friends stand no chance. She has become too powerful, and there is no dodging an attack in this type of scale. All they can do is block her attack, which even comes out late. Mikleo doesn’t even look like he is planning to block her, his mind to devastated to act and move properly. One second the air around them becomes so still, it’s almost as if they were in a graveyard, and the at the next second, high pressurized malevolence is pushed toward their direction. The scale of attack itself is like a world’s end dead sentence. The fact that even the Omniseraph, their supposed savior, is turning her back toward them, meanings that they have lost the battle already. What’s the point? What’s the merit of dodging this attack? If Nayla is leaving him, then there is no point for Mikleo to be around anymore.

Just when the attack is about to hit him, however, Mikleo can feel someone grabbing him by the arm and immediately yanks him back, away from the center of the attack.

“Mikleo, it’s not safe!” a fusioned Sorey warns him, trying to make him stay low on the ground.

They can still very much feel the high pressurized power of the attack. Seconds turns to minutes, but they can’t believe that the Dark Nayla is still going at it. How much power does she have? How is it possible that she is gathering malevolence energy at this level of scale? How did she turn into a hellion in the first place? What kind of trick has Heldalf used on her? What exactly did he do, to make her fall so low into this? They the seraphs even save her now?

“No . . . Nayla, this can’t be . . .” Mikleo looks torn between fight for what is right, and saving his lover. It doesn’t matter if she has been turned; he still deeply cares about her. Her change of appearance will never affect how he feels toward her.

“It’s no use, Mikleo. You can’t communicate with her. The dark energy is corrupting her too much. I don’t think she’s even really conscious right now,” Sorey says.

“Judging from the looks of it, she has just been recently turned. We still have some time. We can save her,” Lailah informs them.

“All we need is to create an opening, long enough for us to purify her.”

“But how are we going to accomplish that? You saw it yourself. She’s way too strong right now.” Mikleo looks like he is on the verge of collapsing or crying out.

“I don’t know, but we’ve gotta try, remember?” Sorey doesn’t look like he has lost any hope. And if his pal doesn’t, then so can Mikleo.

The two raise back to their feet, preparing to retaliate.

. . . . .

Nayla doesn’t feel like herself. It feels as if she has fallen into a very deep, deep slumber. She has no idea what exactly is going on. One moment she appeared to be just fine, having just consumed the cure. But then the next thing she knows, Heldalf whispered something to her ear, and then suddenly chaos resumes. Her vision turns completely dark until she can’t see a thing, yet she is still conscious from within. What is going on? Why can’t she see anything? What’s happening to her body? Why can’t she wake up? No matter what is happening, she has a really bad feeling about it.

She feels like as if thousands of giant thorns has just taken a permanent residence in her head, slowly bleeding her from the inside. Whenever she tries to think, the thorns will move and clench down around her, hurting her at every difficult intake of breathe. The thorns are stronger than her, therefor overpowering her easily. Something is not right. She knows that she needs to wake up, but she can’t. She has been thrown out of control, and now the darkness is slowly invading her, trying to take over complete control of herself — not just her body, but mind as well. It wishes to eliminate her, but she knows that she can’t let it happen. If it success, there is no telling what her fate will be.

Just as the girl in on the verge of being defeated, a familiar glow of green light appears, letting her know that her mother’s memory self is presence. With enough power, the memory Jade is able to push the thorns back, detaching itself from Nayla’s subconsciousness, allowing the girl to be released from its deadly grip. The thorns don’t give up easily though, trying to crawl back toward Nayla.

“Stay back! It’s dangerous over here,” Nayla can hear her mother’s voice echoing inside her mind.

“Mom, what’s happening? Where am I? Why doesn’t its attacks hurt so much.” Nayla looks down, and she can see that her arms and legs are still bleeding.

“You’re in your subconscious. Something bad has happened. I can’t communicate with you well. It was too fast, and right now, it has almost taken very bit of yourself. I’m using every last bit of my power to push the thorns back, but I don’t think I can hold it back for much longer. Guess this will be the last of me, sweetheart.”

“Mom, no! There must be something I can do!” Nayla is on the verge of tears, unwilling to part with her mother. She had been waiting for so long to communicate with her mother again, but everything she attempted to do so, the girl always failed.

“You were dying, and I couldn’t let myself train your body much more that it already is. That’s why I didn’t dare to reach out to you before,” Jade explains. “But now that you’re healed, I can finally help you once again. I’m sorry I arrived too late. If only I had been a little bit faster . . . perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Don’t say that, Mom. Mom, I miss you. Please don’t go again.” Nayla tries to step closer, wanting to feel the warmth of her mother one more time.

“No! Stay back!” A cord of wild thorn manages to slip through Jade’s defenses and takes a swing at Nayla’s direction. Not having enough time, Jade uses her own body to block the attack, but as a result, the woman is now injured.

“Mom!”

“It’s okay,” Jade says without faltering her green shield around them even just for a blink of an eye. The woman is persistent in protecting her child, even in death. “I’m already dead anyway, there’s no point worrying about me. What you should be worried about is your friends.”

“My friends? What happened to them?”

“Heldalf . . . he is using he. He managed to manipulate you to turning into a hellion. You must stop him. You’re not allowed to let him win.”

“But Mom—”

“Go, just go!”

“What about you?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can stay with you anymore. I’m down to my last bit of strength. I can feel it. My power is slowly draining from the circlet.”

“Mom—”

“Listen! I’m gonna use my last essence to help you out of here. And when you do, you need to fight back with everything you got and defeat him. You can’t let Heldalf win. If he wins, everything will be over. You hear me?”

“Yes, Mom, I hear you.”

“Good, then do as I say. And Nayla?”

The girl turns back just to hear her mother’s last words.

“I love you. I’m so proud of you.”

Before Nayla can react to anything, the green light intensified, burning every other dark things in its path. Now is the chance! Nayla runs as fast as she can, trying to head back to the throne, where she can control her own self again. The girl knows what to do. She just needs to place herself back on the throne, and then she will be able to regain back what has been taken.

With dry tears in her eyes, Nayla tries to toughen herself up for the shake of the world. Every step she is a heavy one. Her movements seem to be slowed, and Nayla finds herself watching everything happening at the same time in slow motion. She makes sure to avoid the thorns attack, dodging left and right until she manages to climb up through the steps. It doesn’t matter how persistence the thorns are in keeping her away. As long as she can get back to the throne, Nayla is positive that they won’t turn out to be troubles for her any longer. The last thing she sees before placing herself on the throne is the sight of her mother casting a warm smile at her from across the sea of chaos, before everything abruptly turns blinding green and envelops the whole place too fast.

Goodbye.