Mikleo #4

10

“The battle might be lost, But only the dead have seen the end of war.Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, And when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

Chapter 10 ~ Final Battle

Nayla wakes up to a chaos. Or at least she feels like waking up, because everything so far had been dark, before the light comes in. It’s not that much brighter where she is, but at least it’s still an improvement compared to where she had been stuck before.

She knows that she is really conscious this time, but what she doesn’t expect is to find Mikleo suddenly standing before her. He looks like he is in pain, but Nayla’s vision is still slightly blurry, so she isn’t sure.

“. . . M-mikleo . . . ?” she tries, voice hoarse.

It’s so cold.

“Nayla, please . . .” His voice sounds so strained and labored, and all she wants to do is to help him erase this pain.

“Tell me. Please tell me what’s wrong,” she wants to say, but it feels as if a lump of dread is stuck in her throat when she tries to speak again. It feels as if she had been screaming on the top of her lungs for hours. It’s so dry and tender, and it stings when she tries to use it.

“Nayla, please, you have to stop. Come back. Come to me,” he pleads, voice almost cracking.

Time feels as if it’s moving too slow, and all the noises around her is deafened, except for Mikleo's. When the girl’s grasps of reality finally jerks back, it all comes back in full force, and all that fighting and explosion comes to her like an earthquake.

Wait . . . it is just her, or is the ground really shaking hard?

Nayla jerks her head around warily, before finally focusing back to what’s going on in front of her. She can see her friends fiercely fighting some shadow enemies, with a transformed Sorey facing the Lord of Calamity, Heldalf. The sheep and blonde hellion are there too, locked in a deathly match with Zaveid and Edna. And in the midst of all that, Nayla narrows her eyes to what the person that is standing in front of her, Mikleo, how appears to be short on breath, staff out and water frozen all around them, trying to defend himself against the dark shadows that threatens to surround and consume his well being. It is not until Nayla takes a step back that she realizes who it is he has been fighting with: her.

“Oh my gosh, Mikleo!” It is only then that she finally withdraws her power and makes everything disappear. The dark shadow is gone, leaving a gasping water seraph dropping to his knees.

“Mikleo! Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. I can’t believe I attacked you.”

“Nayla, you’re back,” he sighs in relief, lavender eyes sparkling yet glazed. Fatigue. She can tell all the signs of it.

“What happened to you? What happened to me?” She is kneeling right next to him, helping him get back to his own feet.

“Heldalf had done something to you. You became his puppet, and he made you a hellion; you still are, but at least you’re back to your old self.”

“Come on, we gotta get you out of this place first. Are you okay? Did I injure you?”

“Nothing I can’t heal myself. But listen, we gotta hurry. I don’t think the others can last much longer. We’ve been fighting them for hours now, and what with you being under the hellion lord’s control, we really can’t stand a chance.”

“Well, I’m back now, and that’s what matters.”

“But your sickness—”

She cuts him off, “He gave me the cure.”

“What? Heldalf? But why?”

“So that he can use me as his weapon, I supposed? But don’t worry, I’ve broken through the compulsion, and there is no way that I’m letting my guard down around him for the second time.”

Once they finally get to a safe distance, Nayla drops him down so that he can have time to heal himself with his water magic.

“What, Nayla, where are you going?” Mikleo asks, stopping her on her tracks.

She turns to him. “The battle. I gotta save the others.”

For a split second, it looks as though he wants to say something, looking so reluctant to let her go. But he knows that she must, so instead he says, “Be careful.”

“I will.”

And then she is off.

Something about the air is different. Sorey, Lailah, Edna and Zaveid are just trying to fend off the enemy. Alisha, Rose and Dezel had caught up with them a few moments ago, bring a number of reinforcement after they caught news of the party’s situation. It has been an intense fight, with no way to tell which side is winning and which side is losing. Both are experiencing their own losses, but none of that will matter if they can’t stop Heldalf from unleashing darkness into this world. All they know is that it will have something to do with the obscuration of the full moon, and that they have time until the cloud moves over.

Hours later, it is evident that the hellions are finally having the upper hand. The full moon is so close to its peak, and Heldalf is announcing his victory.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! You people are doomed. Once the eclipse arrive, I’ll unleash upon this world, and there is nothing you pathetic lot can do. You’ll suffer through the ends of the earth!”

But his victory speech is quickly cut off by none other than a feminine voice.

“Not while I still have a say about it!”

They all turn around to see Nayla floating five meters high from the ground, with some evident of wind magic entails from beneath her weight. Oh my . . . is what they are seeing for real? The Omniseraph . . . has her power truly awaken? And moreover, has she managed to break herself off Heldalf compulsion?

“No way . . . my compulsion magic—

“You mean that pathetic illusion you keep pushing into my mind?” Nayla cuts Heldalf off, angry. “The one where you made me think that my mother was alive?”

“How did you figure it out? My illusion magic is supposed to be perfect.”

“Oh please, all you’ve been doing is bullying me; bullying my friends. You took advantage of my weakened state to sneak in ideas and images into my mind. I had obviously fallen for that, thanks to my inexperienceness fighting against someone as ancient as you. But don’t worry, there will not be a repeat of that, I can guarantee that for sure.”

“Huh, I don’t like the tone you’re using on me. Don’t you know that you’re already too late, little girl? The eclipse is merely minutes away. And once it happens, it will engulf the world in darkness.”

“The eclipse won’t last forever.”

“Oh, but it will. I will make sure of that.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Guess you’ll have to find that out yourself.”

Just in time, their surrounding becomes even much darker that it already is; so dark that they can barely see a thing. Then, purple fog oozes out from Heldalf armor, flowing as he waves his arms. He starts to chant, and the seraphs try to stop him, but the hellion lackeys are there to guard their lord.

Suddenly the air grows thicker, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Before they know it, the seraphs and humans are on their knees, including the omniseraph herself. The darkness is so intense, it clings to their skin so thickly, filling them up all the way to the capacity of their very lungs.

They see something briefly moving to obscure the moon, before everything goes dark. And now that the eclipse is upon them, it’s already too late to stop the wheels from spinning. The seraphs’ powers are no longer working. And it’s not only that, but they are no longer immortals. One of them find out when a hellion sends a stray attack and Zaveid, and when he brings his hand to the side of his face, he discovers that there’s blood. The wind seraph can’t remember the last time he was bleeding.

But even as the other seraphs find that they are powerless, they still have hope. The omniseraph is still standing, and her might power is not erasable. With a wave of her hand, fireballs gather around her, the earth rises from the ground, water crashes through the venue, and wind still blows mercilessly.

Heldalf uses all that he’s got to push his malevolence energy at the center of the eclipse, planning to make it last forever by sealing the star alignment. The power glows in purple, and for a moment it looks so out of this world that they can’t help but to be struck by its beauty. How can something so evil and destructive be this wonderful?

Taking advantage of the distracted lackeys, Nayla attacks them. They still have no idea that she still have some power left, so of course it comes as a surprise when they find themselves pushed roughly against the walls, balls of hardened earth collided against their mid sections, knocking the air right out of them. Before Callus and the other, a lamb hellion, can do anything about it, Nayla locks them against the wall, by tightening the earth around their bodies, serving as a much tougher version of ropes. Once they are locked inside this little prisons she has made for them, the omniseraph goes for their leader.

Heldalf is using both his hands to channel his powers upward. This position leaves his sides open. Nayla wastes to time to attack him, not knowing that the Lord of Calamity is already anticipating her coming at him.

He suddenly turns around, catching her by surprise. Before Nayla can stop herself, she throws the large fireball that she has prepared in her hands. It launches itself right at Heldalf. When it collides against the hellion lord, it explodes, and a cloud of grey smoke appears. She coughs a little bit, hoping that it should burn him bad enough. But when the smoke clears, Heldalf appears to be unaffected. At all. No way . . . how can this be?

“Impossible!” someone shouts from behind her.

“Ha! If you think that you can harm Master Heldalf at this point, then you can dream! Open your eyes, seraphs! The eclipse is already upon you. Just because your omniseraph can still use her power, that doesn’t mean that she can defeat our master!” it is Callum, the humanoid goat hellion, who speaks.

“I— I just have to try again,” Nayla says, more to herself than anybody else. Her composure is faltering though, her subconsciousness already knowing that this fight is turning futile fast. She uses the other elements this time; water, earth and air. But this it won’t work. Heldalf appears unscratched, no matter how much force she puts through her attacks.

What to do? What to do? The girl panics.

She tries one more time, this time hoping that a combination of all four elements might be able to stop Heldalf, but it’s still useless. In the end, she just ends up wasting her energy, launching the attacks only causing her to go breathless from the physical strain. Heldalf still remains hatefully unaffected, and she wishes she can do something about their impending doom. The fate of the world depends entirely on her, but Nayla is afraid that she might doom them all.

Oh, how she wishes that her mother is still here. She can’t feel Jade inside her mind anymore though, and the green light of the gem in her circlet has already died out a while ago. Her mother had used every last bit of power she got remained, and now Nayla can no longer communicate with her. She’s running out of options. If the elemental powers no longer work on Heldalf, then what should she do? It feels as if, the longer she allows the eclipse to last, the stronger does he become. And it’s not only that. She can tell that the hellions are also growing in strength. If this continues, soon enough, even his lieutenants will break out of the earth prisons as well.

“Nayla, watch out!” She can hear Sorey shouting out, before she finds herself suddenly being yanked back toward the group, her face narrowly missing a cloud of purple mist being thrown at her. When she turns her head, she discovers that Callum has broken free from his restraints, and is now more powerful than ever.

“I’ll start eradicating the seraphs and humans with you guys,” he says, an evil smile twisting on his angelic features.

The squad prepares themselves for the impact, knowing that they have to rely solely on physical strength to protect themselves now.

Nayla doesn’t like this situation one bit, and knows that the duty to protect them now lies on her shoulders.

“Guys, it’s not working. What should I do?”

“For now, my knights will cover for us,” Alisha announces, commanding her troops to move.

Armored knights surround the squad all at once, blocking the attacks of any incoming malevolence energy by using their shields — the shields who happened to be made by special reinforcements. Maltran is there too, and she aids the knight princess by her side. They all look mighty in their shiny new armors, and something about the way the steel glows under the light really catches Nayla’s attention.

Before coming to the cold mountains of Tethe’alla, Alisha and her knights are guided by Rose and Denzel to a nearby seraph village, where a collective of seraph-made reinforced steels have been waiting for their arrival. This is also the reason why Rose have been so busy and unavailable lately. She has been collecting materials and earning resources, so that she can prepare these weapons in case of emergency. And now, the knights under Alisha’s command are wearing these reinforced steel from head to toe, starting from their armors, shields, swords and spears.

Denzel explains this to the other, clearly Nayla’s previous unsupported suspicion of the head merchant. So that was why Rose sneaked around. She wanted to make sure that this preparation wasn’t leaked, like the last time their surprise attack was leaked to Lunarre. Maybe that wasn’t leaked at all. Maybe he just figured it out himself.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Just when they thought that they finally make the upper hand, another hellion appears before their eyes. This time, the appearance is not a stranger. The fox hellion, Lunarre, is back, and he is standing before them with a smug smirk plastered on his face.

“Y-you . . . What are you doing here?” Lailah mutters with disdain.

“Lunarre! I thought we killed you already?” Edna spits out.

Everyone goes still right at the same time.

“Well well well, is that how you greet an old acquaintance? Besides, it was all thanks to you lot that I had to go MIA for a while. Aren’t you glad that I paid you people a visit. This way, I can get to pay the favor I owed you,” he pauses briefly to take out his newly grown razor sharp claws, purposefully showing them off to scared the lot, “with interest!”

Oh great! Not only is darkness upon them, but the lunatic just has to make a comeback too. What’s next? The world cracked into half?

“Don’t jinx it,” Zaveid says with unease when he hears someone says those words.

“Ha ha! You better pray to whatever God you believe in, because I obviously won’t back down. I’ll hunt you down to the very last one of you. And that includes you, omniseraph! I’ve killed one of you before, and I’m gonna do it again!” says the murderous lunatic, before he starts raining down attacks on them.

The knights can barely manage with two hellion lieutenants, Callum and the lamb hellion, going at them at once. How can they defend themselves against three of them at once? Especially with Lunarre standing amongst them. It took everything they had to just kill one hellion that strong, using a much larger force and a much more complicated scheme — and even then the fox managed to almost escape from their clutches, if it were not for Nayla falling into a berserker state. How are they going to defeat him now that Lunarre has returned, who has now become even much more powerful thanks to the dark power of the eclipse?

“I had to give it to you though,” Lunarre points at one of the knights, who reveals to be none other than Maltran, “if it weren’t for your incessant curiosity for a certain piece of rock, my essence would have been too scattered to be revived.” Though he purposefully leaves out the part where Lord Heldalf also had a hand in his recovery.

“T-that was you?” the redhead exclaims in surprise. “Your Majesty, it wasn’t my intension to. I humbly apologize—” The knight tries to explain, but she is quickly cut off by the unfaltered Alisha.

“Hush now, it doesn’t matter what had happened. What matters is what we’re gonna do next.”

Maltran, touched by her princess’ collective and humbleness, dutifully says, “Yes, Your Majesty.” Then to the troops he says, “Knights! Do not be afraid. As long as we have the Princess and the Omniseraph on our side, victory will be ours!”

Hearing those encouraging words, the troops echo with willfulness, trying their hardest to fend the enemies.

They are not the only ones who are working hard as well. Squires and seraphs are working in turns, trying to protect one another, while at the same time trying to decipher the situation.

“We’re so sorry for not being able to teach you more before this happens, Nayla,” Lailah says as she produces twelve daggers from her hands, before launching them off one by one. “We thought that we would have more time to teach you, before the eclipse occurs. We didn’t expect you to be kidn*pped right after the red full moon.”

“It’s okay, guys. My mom had taught me everything that was left for me to know when I was still under Heldalf’s compulsion. I know how to use the four elements now, but I have no idea what to do to defeat Heldalf. Even my mother wasn’t taught about this back when she was the omniseraph!” Nayla summons her giant sword, before swinging it around to banish five incoming malevolence energy attack.

“There’s got to be something we can do. We can’t just give up,” Edna exclaims.

“Yeah, but the eclipse is already happening. What else can we do?” Zaveid grimaces.

“Wait, I just remember something important. I heard about this, from Gramps. He mentioned something about the eclipse,” Sorey suddenly adds in.

“What about it? Spill it out!” Alisha says, so unexpected impatient that it causes everyone to stare at her rather disbelievingly.

“Well, like any natural-occurring eclipses, it will pass soon once its natural course is done,” Sorey explains.

“So what you’re saying is, as long as we can prevent Heldalf from messing up its natural course, we can stop all of this?” Mikleo concludes.

“Yes!”

“Then what are we waiting for? It’s distract him!”

And with that, the emergency discussion is disbanded.

“Wait, how are we going to attack him? Now that our elemental powers are temporarily out of order?” Zaveid asks.

“Well Zaveid, sometimes we just have to wing it,” Lailah says winking, going a little bit out of character compared to her usual prim and proper mannerism. She is not usually one that does things without thinking things through.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I like this new you,” the wind seraph grins back.

They hate having to do this, but the seraphs have no any other choice at the moment than to rely on the human knights. These humans are the best chance they got, because they are more acquainted with brute force.

Maybe it is because Heldalf thinks that he is winning, that he underestimate these very same human knights as well. It doesn’t matter even if he thinks that he is much better than these humans, because his arrogance is the thing that is going to make him lose.

Nayla uses everything she got as well, gathering up all kinds of magical energy, before launching it toward Heldalf.

His lackeys are there to protect him, but this time they miscalculate the power of the attack.

It is not just the Omniseraph who is there to attack them, but the humans as well. When their strikes are combined, the hellions are forced to be pushed back, including their lord as well.

And once they’ve pushed the Lord of Calamity back, this focus is distracted. The powerful hellion boss has never looked so threatening before, especially with the way he lands his hard, furious gaze on them. It’s a good thing, but also bad news for them. On one side, they finally make him stops working on the spell. On the other side, they are getting his full attention. Which means he’s going to attack.

Heldalf gathers his strength, before launching it toward the people. With a sweep of his hand, most of the knights are being pushed back. The dark energy hangs thick in the air, threatening to consume them strongly.

They can’t just give in to the dark pull though. They can to hang on. It is the only way, if they want to survive.

Using every bit of courage they have, the knights rises up, strengthening the belief they possess in their minds.

Their princess, Alisha, has reminded this of them before. With the help of Rose and Dezel, they’ve trained the knights during their preparation period before.

Looking at how determined these humans are is making the seraphs feel encouraged to do the same as well. This response only makes the Lord of Calamity even more furious.

“How dare you . . . humans. Resists my compulsion!” he mutters through his razor sharp teeth. “Well, if that’s how you lot are going to do this, then don’t blame me for being merciless.”

Heldalf throws another ball of concentrated malevolence energy.

Nayla steps in this time, but the girl can barely hold on to the attack.

She manages to stop it mid air, but the dark energy is still pushing at her counter-force, forcing her to step back.

The girl knows that she can’t give in, but it’s too hard . . . too heavy . . . too much!

“Nayla! Concentrate. Don’t give up. You must hold on,” she hears a male voice from the distance.

Mikleo.

“We’re all counting on you,” another one says.

Sorey.

“Just a little bit more. Yes, that’s it.”

Lailah.

“Go on, Omniseraph. We’ve got your back.”

Zaveid.

Then, she can feel it. There is this unfathomable energy pulsing from behind her, oozing in mass and into her body. It moves in and replaces the empty space where she is burning her own energy from using her power so much, powering her up in return.

Something in the back of her mind is providing the information. She recognizes this energy. It’s the pure energy of faith. It moves freely in the air, woven by the believers. It helps and guides her to move, wanting to fulfill the wishers’ hope in defeating Heldalf.

This light . . . she knows it, understands it . . . . It’s the purest form of element — Faith. These people trust her, and she’s not going to disappoint them.

Nayla uses this chance to push out all of her power, allowing this mysterious new energy to surge through her from the inside, and into her enemy.

This light . . . It’s so blinding and it’s hurting him. She knows because the sound of him groaning in pain is not just her wishful thinking. This is really happening. Heldalf is losing.

And now that there is no one left to cast the spell, they just need to keep this up until the eclipse pass on its natural course. It’s a bit challenging, especially when an army of hellion suddenly appear inside the room, working to push the humans and seraphs back to their places. The good hold on to their stance though. It doesn’t matter how desperate these hellions are in turning the table on them, because they have the Omniseraph on their side.

“Back off!” the brunette says warningly, face solid with determination. She’s still pushing that bright, white energy toward Heldalf, the attack occasionally coupled with some elemental magic whenever she sees him trying to step out of the line.

The fruit of their hard work finally shows itself when their surrounding starts to become bright again. Whatever is blocking the moon is finally moving away, and the other seraphs can finally use their powers again. And once they do, they are not afraid to use it against the hellions, some even showing off more than it is necessary.

“Yeah, you lot better back off!” Zaveid exclaims, causing a whirlwind to appear all around him, moving them toward a hoard of incoming hellions.

The eclipse has passed, and the hellion army is not as strong as they were before. The light has shine itself into this world again, and they are finally going to win this battle.

“NNNNOOOOOO!!!” Heldalf lets out an angry roar, definitely not happy that he has passed up the chance to enact his plan.