I pushed against the barrier as hard as I could yet nothing happened. The man outside began to walk toward us. As he approached, I could make out his features. He had wavy blond hair that hung down to his chin, an arrogant smirk, evergreen eyes, a sharp jaw, and pointy ears. He looked like an elf, but he was taller than the ones I could remember.
He walked with a slow pace while maintaining a cocky smirk. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was hard to hear him clearly through the pressure of the barrier. I read his lips until his voice became more audible.
"There's no point," he seemed to say. His words struck every nerve in my body. For a moment, it felt as if I had frozen in place. His voice seemed louder now. "The spell I'm using allows me to move the air around in the environment and manipulate it. In other words, on the other side of this wall, the air is pathetically less than the air on my side." His voice penetrated the barrier. His smirk grew bigger. "What you're pushing up against is all of the stolen air compressed into one spot."
As he approached, I grabbed Mia and Romeo by their wrists. I took a small step back. The sudden lightness of their bodies forced me to look down. Both of them looked extremely fatigued. Looking over my shoulder, I saw if Cres was still awake. He didn't seem alert despite the nearby danger and chaos roaming the atmosphere. Instead, his eyes looked more mellow and soft. Whatever energy he had was also fading away.
"S-so… hard to breathe," Romeo said in between pants. His blinks grew longer. I could feel his wrist being pulled down by his body.
I looked over to see Mia barely holding on. Her eyes were practically closed and her mouth was open as she tried to breathe. Her body was also falling limp.
"Damn it," I said under my breath. Letting go of the kids, I clenched my fists beside me and tried to draw out all of my magic. My veins popped out against my skin and I felt a spark ignite from within.
Come on. Come on. Come on! I thought.
I continued to bang against the barrier. I could feel the air pushing back against me with every punch. My fist ignited in a pitiful flame as I continued to smash my hand against the barrier. Still nothing.
"Damn it!" I screamed out. Baby flames spewed out of my mouth as I kneeled on the ground in a pitiful fit. It felt as if I was choking. My throat closed in and dried up, but I continued to scream out.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the man moving his hand. It wasn't clear what had happened, but a ripening pain stretched across my torso. Something had struck me and silenced my screams. I looked down to see the man had launched his next attack into me. It had pierced underneath my left shoulder and also struck Mia.
My eyes widened. Mia, the innocent and sweet little girl that I had adored, had flown several feet backward. Her body fell limp in the middle of the street. The attack had torn through the right side of her torso and left a grave hole in her abdomen.
I felt something pulse within me. It all felt so surreal: thousands of people dying, the town—no… kingdom falling apart, and sweet, innocent, pure Mia dying right before me.
I think I had stopped breathing. My heart raced, and my mind went blank. I could feel the darkness creeping upon me. It was pulling me in and inviting me.
It brought me back to a darker time: the first time I had felt something remotely similar to now. It was the same feeling I had back in Aerodom during the invasion, but stronger. It crawled behind me and squeezed me into submission. A numbness touched me. My body felt crushed by a heavy presence.
"Don't you remember?" a voice inside of my head asked. The voice was faint and distant. "Don't you remember how you felt during Aerodom?"
The vague memories flooded my mind. I remembered the fairies dying. I remembered the utter hopeless despair. And, lastly, I remembered the dire need to protect everybody else morphing into a bloodlust desire to kill and wreak vengeance.
This was no different…
"You bastard," I said. I could feel my throat tightening and closing between every word. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"
I clenched my fists tightly and blood began to trickle down my hands as my fingernails dug into my skin. My jaw locked as my teeth grinded against each other. The dark essence wrapped itself around me. It leeched off my thirst for vengeance. I could feel it growing upon me. My skin felt hot to the touch. It burned like an enormous supernova ready to explode. My vision faded and a blackness confronted me.
***
Page Break
Pov of Romeo:
My eyes felt heavy. It was nearly impossible for me to lift my eyelids, but the commotion around me prevented me from going to sleep. It was noisy: people cried out and their cries were answered by the thumps of the Golem behind us. Others, who had refused to bite the dust, gagged on their blood in the wake of their deaths.
It was hard to think or even breathe. My throat felt dry, and my body finally submitted to the ground. All I could do was watch and hope. My eyes shifted to the ground.
"I'm sorry, Ares," I said meekly.
I felt a sudden warmth and quickly looked up. I froze in a deep gasp. Everything in me was trembling at the sight of Ares. His demeanor and presence were completely different from anything I had ever seen. They were a complete opposite of his usual self.
Veins shot out across his body before retreating back under his skin. His muscles were in a full contraction, and his fists were clenched to the point of blood dripping from them. Dark flames engulfed him completely in an expanding aura. A heavy and dark presence stretched out from him and filled the atmosphere of the barrier.
In the midst of my awe and worry, I noticed the excessive heat colliding with the wind barrier. A hole began to burn through and expand across it. The resistant flow of all the wind became visible under the dark flames until the barrier dissipated.
The approaching man stopped in his tracks. He was almost face-to-face with us. His face twisted in shock, and he bit his teeth together.
The overwhelming heat of Ares's flames drew my attention away from him. It wasn't until I looked beside him and realized that Mia was not there. Instead, a pool of splattered blood took her stead. As Ares advanced forward, I noticed a wound under his shoulder and across his torso.
Looking for Mia, I shook my head back and forth before noticing Cres attending to her bleeding body behind us. A grave wound had bitten through her torso. The remaining damage resulted in excessive blood loss that spread across the cold, hard kingdom ground.
Tears surfaced in my eyes. My vision blurred under the swelling of my eyes, and a new will to stand overtook me. I lifted myself up knee-by-knee. I dragged my feet as I made my way over to my baby sister. The tears began to fall heavily as I kneeled over her body. Her eyes were half-open. She was barely alive.
"Keep fighting," I said to her. My voice broke. "Please," I begged. "I can't lose you." My voice trailed off, "Not you, too..."
"Mia!" I cried out loud. My head hung down, and I wept. "Please Ares, Grandpa, somebody... help."