Ikko sighed and walked ahead of me into the city. "And we planned to split up too... Stupid freaking..." He mumbled under his breath annoyingly. We followed him through the entrance onto the main street. The sight in front of us was breathtaking. There were so many buildings and spires lined with gold and stone, and in a large building a distance in front of us was overflowing with treasure.
Johnathan entered behind us and his mouth dropped. He then turned to me anxious. "Um, I'm going to see if any demons are ahead! No particular reason I'm picking this direction, I just have a feeling that they're all over this way-!" I cut him off annoyed. "Oh my god. Go jump into your sea of gold already! Just try to help whenever your head is out of your ass!" He then Immediately ran towards the treasury with his men. "Thank you!!"
After they were gone I turned to Sythyon. "Wait, can you track where Cienar is still?" He looked around seeing if he could smell something. "Of course Lothor wouldn't let it be that easy. There's a strange magic here. I can't pick up anything."
I was disappointed but expected this. "It's okay. Looks like we're going to have to find him the hard way." Sythyon walked ahead and spread his wings. "I'll find Lothor." He then flew up fast over the city and out of sight. Ikko did the same and started to fly away as well. "I'll help find Cienar after I find Crucifix." He then took off in another direction leaving me and Arine.
Arine walked up beside me. "Looks like it's just you and me." I smiled a little and started to walk with Arine down the path. "So, this city is huge. Where are we supposed to look for Cienar first?" I asked still amazed by the ancient ruins that surrounded us. Arine looked up in thought. "I don't know. I've never been to a place like this before, but I have a theory." I turned to him interested. "Any thoughts would help."
He continued. "I used to read a lot of adventure books back in my village. And usually when the characters would find an ancient civilization there would be tons of secret puzzles, trap doors, mazes and-"
Arine was cut off as he stepped on a stone that sunk as soon as he stepped onto it. He then Immediately grabbed my arm and flew high up as a square of spikes shot out from the floor where we were standing. The spikes then retracted and Arine and I looked to the ground fearful. "Booby traps..." Arine exhaled. I gained control of my movements and used my wings to hover next to Arine.
"Wow. I'm glad you're educated in this area. We were almost shish kebabs. Well I guess now it makes sense why this place still has its treasure after it was abandoned." Arine looked to me nervously. "Let's fly from now on." I nodded looking back to the floor. "Good idea." We then started to fly above the path and look around for any secret entrances that Cienar might be in. It had been awhile with no luck but we still had an entire city to search.
*
Meanwhile:
It had been almost an hour since I started to look for Lothor. It annoyed me how the magic here was messing with my senses so I couldn't find any scents. I tried to ignore it and continued to look for Lothor around the city. I found and killed demons that I saw, none of which knew where Lothor was.
By now the crack in my neck that was put there by the poison arrow Crucifix shot at me was almost completely healed, and only a sliver was left. Even though I was able to concentrate again, I've been in complete demon form for so much longer than I should have, and was starting to feel the strain. And piled on top of all of that, being away from Silvera is already starting to kill me. I couldn't stop thinking about having her underneath me again and it's worse now that she was gone. At least when I was around her, her healing soul distracted me from everything that was weighing on me.
Knowing how important it was to find Lothor, I pushed all of those thoughts out of my mind and continued to concentrate. Later I landed in an open area that looked like what used to be a courtyard. I was about to walk past it when I suddenly caught a hint of Lothor's scent. I turned around but there was no one there. I kept my guard up continuing to look around when a flash of grey appeared in the very corner of my eye.
Without thinking, I turned around and slammed my fist into the ground, immediately smashing it into pieces and a line of rubble burst from the ground towards the figure, but the smoke disappeared as soon as the force and rock hit the building it was in front of.
I then heard a voice behind me. "Nothing gets by you huh?" I turned again smashing the floor toward where Lothor was standing. He then flew up and back onto a building ledge as the stone made impact on the wall below him. "And here I thought you were the reasonable one." I felt anger envelop me and black fire surrounded me. "Maybe a thousand years ago. If you knew who I was now you'd see that I'm the exact opposite of reasonable."
Lothor shook his head mockingly. "How sad that I wasn't there to see this transformation of yours. We might've gotten along better." It was obvious he didn't believe that I was a different person than he knew before and I didn't move. "Trust me. If I didn't banish you I would've kept you in prison where I would've shoved knives through every inch of your body besides your heart every day, just so I could give you a sliver of the amount of pain I was experiencing every minute for the next thousand years because of you."
I smiled picturing the thought, which made Lothor's expression fall emotionless with a small amount of surprise behind his eyes, as if he didn't expect me to say that, let alone smile to it. It quickly disappeared. "You're so dramatic. You got your precious Alathera back, so there's no point in whining about it anymore."
I snickered holding back from laughing. "My god, you became just like our father!" His eyes widened and a black fire ball appeared in my hand. "You really think I don't know what you're up to? Why else would someone like you want to find Atlantis? You complain about how hard I've held a grudge against you, meanwhile you're doing the exact same thing! Even you know that such jealousy and revenge was a classic father move."
I then raised the fireball. "It's a good thing I plan to end this rivalry once and for all before I die of laughter." Lothor glared at me and a ball of grey magic appeared in his hand as well. "I wouldn't count on it. You're going to regret ever comparing me to father!"