The night sky that covered the vastness of the Medea forest, was a peaceful contrast to the antagonistic massacre that only a few hours ago had occurred on its plains. Piling the bodies of fallen combatants to be thrown on the pyre, members of the imperial army like birds of prey looted the dwarfs' belongings before throwing them into the bonfire.
Rings, gold teeth, their weapons and other personal items were taken by the victorious mercenaries; fighting among themselves to keep them or betting them in card games. The spoils of war were distributed like spoils without the slightest feeling of guilt.
The soldiers who returned from committing genocide in the tribe of the dwarves also carried part of their loot among the wagons they had stolen. Even though the order of the army commander was not to take prisoners, some soldiers dragged a few surviving women from that ferocious attack.
With their bruised faces, others with a lost look. Mothers, sisters and daughters saw their families die in the cruelest way possible. Only empty shells remained of those who at some point were women full of life, dreams and hopes.
Even though they were mired in their misfortune, one of them broke out in a panic after seeing how the men of her village were thrown into the fire like logs on coals. Desperately trying to escape, he hit one of his captors and began his escape running with his bare feet over the pebbles and metal splinters that still rested on the green grass of the plain.
His escape did not last long, without prior warning from the top of one of the trees an archer who acted as a lookout, aimed with certainty at the heart of the unfortunate woman, falling completely inert to the ground with no other remedy. With the sparkle in his eyes fading completely.
The mocking laughter and cheers of the drunken soldiers for their companion, were a satyr trill to the ears of the prisoners who continued their tortuous march to the cages they had prepared for them.
"It looks like it will be a calm night" – Sitting around the bonfire covered with a blanket, one of the soldiers took some of the meat that was cooking on the fire while another handed him a mug of beer.
Telling their anecdotes of past battles, the combatants gloated in the stupor of alcohol and abundant food. For them victory was assured and they could return to their homes with their families.
On the battlefield the bloodthirsty beasts brandish their sword and cut their victims, steal and rape without guilt. They don't see their enemies as human, and even if they were, the enemy was someone they looked down on as unclean.
They would wipe the blood from their clothes and weapons, rinse their faces, and hide their iniquities with a false smile when they reached their homes. Beasts on the battlefield, family men in their homes. Where is the fine line between monsters and decent people?
"Eric, do you remember that story our mothers used to tell us to scare us before going to sleep?" – Giving a sip of his beer, one of the men speaking with complete familiarity began to narrate a tale of yesteryear over the campfire , which grandmothers used to tell their grandchildren and mothers to their children when they misbehaved.
When the moons were at the top of the firmament and the night wind was silent, a woman's silhouette appeared before the men who dwelt under the stars. Bathed in darkness, her eyes like burning coals, she descended with her sickle on the fields where farmers tended their flocks.
Yagta Azuri, was the name of the spirit that wandered at night looking for victims with which to make garments for its many children. The sign of its arrival was that the wind blew out of nowhere and with a movement the blade of its scythe cut off the heads of its prey.
Her scream made the blood run cold with terror and those who stood in her path could not move from shock.
Grandmothers told this story every night in the bedrooms of misbehaving children, as an open threat that Yagta Azuri would come for them if they disobeyed their parents and did wrong.
The laughter of the soldiers in the middle of the camp when telling that story, soon turned into a sepulchral silence. A wind that they did not know where it came from or was going to suddenly blew when the soldier told the end of the story.
The hairs on their skin stood up like frightened cats and the drafts of beer stuck in their throats. Eric got up from his place and went behind some trees to urinate, while the soldiers continued drinking and chatting.
A few minutes passed and Eric's absence alerted the soldiers that something was happening, thinking that it was some enemy that had been left alive and ambushed the unnoticed soldier. They walked stealthily towards the trees with their swords in hand, when suddenly a fireball descended from the sky making an intense sound when hitting the ground.
The clouds that covered the moonlight did not allow a good view of what it was in the middle of the darkness. Using the tips of their swords, the soldiers began to tap on the object that had fallen from the sky to find out what it was.
By the time the wind moved the clouds and the moonlight bathed the meadow once more, they were horrified to contemplate the mangled body of the soldier who had been absent from the camp a few minutes ago.
Like an animal that has been alerted by the presence of a predator, the warriors turned their gaze to the sky and watched as the stories were embodied in their worst nightmares. Spreading my wings, I let out a cry from the depths of my being. With damaged vocal chords, the crash resounded like the mixture of many voices. Just like a demon would and that night, he would let hell run rampant on earth.
The most fearful soldiers were the first to succumb to the edge of my weapon. The entrails and blood flew with the intensity of the wind splashing the faces of those who still kept their nerves before the cruel enemy before them.
From hunter to prey, how easy roles are changed and how simple it is to take a life guided by emotions. In all my years, I had never felt such suffocating emotion. Even video games couldn't compare to the suffocating sensation of the frenzy of carnage.
Did they have mercy on the families they destroyed? Did they sympathize with the women they raped or the children they tortured? So why beg for something that was never in you to give to others. Reaping what is sown is the golden rule of life; and I at that time, was the reaper.
Absorbed by my own attacks, I was unable to notice the moment the sorcerer squad appeared on the scene. With a single command, the archers took aim at my wings while a line of mages cast fire spells by igniting the bolts.
The arrowheads pierced my wings with the impact and my nerves were seared by the searing fire. When I tried to move my wings again, the skin had been eaten away by the flames and the bone was completely exposed.
Launching an airstrike was no longer a feasible option with my handicap, raising my arms and surrendering either. Burying my claws into the ground, I began to cast level 4 circle spells combining fire and earth. Returning the trick of the afternoon, I made the ground under their feet engulf them until they reached a river of magma that made them scream in agony for a few seconds.
By the time the one-sided massacre ended, I set out to release the captives from their cages; but it was then that I realized, that I had turned into a monster completely. The bars of the cages were completely crushed by what looked like claws and the bodies of the victims still had traces of their attacker's mana flow.
Raising my hands to my head, pulling my hair, I realized that blinded by rage I didn't hold back my strength around my surroundings. Reaching with my attacks the people that I had been entrusted to protect.
"I'm not better than them" – Repeating that sentence to myself for my sin, I lost track of myself again and started screaming madly. Is this the power I wanted to get my hands on? The oracle of the end was a devastating force that could not be controlled, the threat of Freya's prophecy was a manifest truth in what happened at that moment.
If I wanted to rescue Calisto, I couldn't do it with that sinister power that devoured my being, I couldn't allow myself to be absorbed by what Sara, Calisto, and I had fought so diligently against.
When deactivating my transformation, the wounds on my body manifested themselves in a brutal way, the pain I felt when recovering my true essence was such that my skin had very deep oozing wounds.
From among the corpses of the soldiers I took some ointments and healing potions to treat my injuries. Although they weren't as effective as the ones that the arcane elf tribe made, they were not insignificant in my situation. Tearing the fabrics of their clothes, I made some bandages to wrap my wounds with some medicinal herbs that grew near the trees.
Taking strength in the midst of my weakness, I prepared graves for the prisoners who had died because of my mistakes. As I dragged the bodies to their graves, I realized that most of them were near the bars at the time of the attack. The most natural thing to see that something is coming against you is to back down, but they had held on to the bars, as if they expected to receive the blow directly.
It was then that I realized that even if I had rescued them from their confinement, after experiencing all those horrors and witnessing the destruction of the bodies of their men, it was impossible to have saved them. Because they were already dead inside.
For an instant my consciousness clouded over again, letting out an ominous laugh from my lips as a result of my delusions. "What the hell is happening to me?" – I told myself in the middle of that spectacle of corpses while my nose stung from the smell of burned meat.
From the moment I was reincarnated in this world, I was nothing more than a stupid child in the body of an adult. It was too much to ask for all the demons that tormented me from my past life to get away from me, they were there, they continued with me, giving shape once more to the old Hitomi.
The abandonment of my mother, the death of my father, and Akemi's unwarranted hatred of me; all of that, repeating itself like vile shit even in this world with the body of the girl I've possessed.
My mistake has been trying to live my existence trying to satisfy the expectations of others, that is the authentic demon that has shaped this abominable being that I was struggling to bury in the depths of my subconscious.
I was only one year old, that was what the goddess Freya had put on my shoulders like the trap they give animals to plow the field. Looking around me at all that desolation, I realized that this was not my war; I could be selfish and leave everything behind, no one could blame me for running away.
Even having such an immense source of power, not knowing how to use it made it a useless weapon in my hands. Until recently we were a battalion against an army, now only I was left standing. Saving Calisto was an impossible task, she did not want to continue walking that path of futile effort.
So I walked and kept on shuffling my feet through the filth of that killing field until I reached the trees, giving a sidelong glance at what I was leaving behind me. The moons were beginning to fade the scarlet glow of the eclipse, slowly leaving light as clear as spring water.
It was there that I saw him, standing in the midst of the carnage with a pair of majestic jet-black wings, his gaze fixed in the direction of my humanity. As if disapproving of my behavior with a slight shake of the head , the imposing dragon was enveloped in a whitish mist until its immense silhouette gradually changed to the shape of a human being. While taking short steps without removing a severe frown from his face.
Upon reaching me, I felt that my body did not respond to me no matter how much I ordered my legs to start running. That feeling of helplessness and fear overwhelmed my heart, at the same time that Fausto's hands reached my cheeks, holding them so that I could not look away from him.
"Then you will flee as you have always done until today" – The words of that ancient dragon reverberated deep inside my being, as if they drilled into my head, removing the hidden things that remained in my thoughts.
The year father died, I had barely reached 18 years of age. Akemi had barely turned 15 when dad's heart stopped beating. We had both grown up with many limitations, far from the love of a mother and with the burden of our father's illness. During the interminable 5 years of our father's grief, my care for my sister soon turned fully to our dying father.
For a 10-year-old girl, experiencing such abandonment left a terrible mark on her heart. Well, although it was true that I stayed with her providing her with basic needs, my affection and dedication towards her dissolved like the foam of the sea that is lost in the sand of the beach.
Yes, by sending her to our grandmother, the fragile bond that was still uniting us was completely broken. When I remember her look when I got into the car, I could see in them the same 10-year-old girl who was still looking for me with longing, as if time had stopped for her with her father's cancer.
"You are going to abandon Callisto as you abandoned your sister"- Fausto did not hold back in saying those scathing words as sharp as knives that hurt my heart. The tears did not stop flowing from my eyes as I pressed my nails against the skin of his hands.
"What are you going to know about me?" – Was what I yelled angrily against the ancient dragon, while trying to let go of his grip. Being that moment when, freeing his hands a bit, he guided his arms around my back and hugged me pressing my face against his chest.
"There's nothing wrong with running away, I'm not condemning you for it. All living beings experience fear and abandonment at some point in our lives. But I can't allow you to run away just like that, without trying, even one last time" - What until a few moments ago was a tone of severity in his voice, became a warm balm that appeased my senses and I cling to he crying with such force, that I felt as if my soul melted before his heart.
The minutes passed and with them he gave us an hour in which the ancient dragon stood firm at my side, consoling me. I needed that hug so much that I got lost in its essence as if time stopped passing when I was with him.
When I regained my composure, I directed my gaze, still blurred by tears, towards his face. With his pearly skin and beautiful black eyes, his long, waist-length hair gave him the appearance of a fairy tale prince. He would never have thought that this gigantic animal was capable of possessing such unique beauty that it rivaled the musical idols of the world from which it came.
"If you have managed to calm down, come with me for a moment please" - Wiping the tears from my eyes, I took Fausto's hand and walked a few steps until that draconic man took me in his arms and took out his wings to rise through the night sky in complete silence.
The view of the forest from the sky was very different from what could be seen at ground level, while in some parts the bodies of allies and enemies still lay bathed in blood, on the other hand, the immense thickness of the treetops. The trees gave off a slight emerald green glow against the moonlight.
There was no doubt that this forest was blessed by the race of fairies and why the empress had wished to get her claws into it. The lake in the center of the forest shone like a great diamond set in that thick greenery, a sign of its abundant pure mana.
With the original kingdoms vying for dominance of the world, whoever had control over such a vast source of magic would be able to tip the scales in their favor.
"Look in that direction, just at the edge of the forest where it communicates with the road by which your captors brought you here" - Illuminated by the light of the torches, an infantry camp was posted in that place with a large number of soldiers guarding him.
Pronouncing a chant in an archaic language that was impossible for me to decipher even with the help of the oracle of the world, Faust covered us with an ancient magic that made us invisible to the senses of human beings. Even for those magicians who mastered the fifth circle of magic.
As if we were a couple of ghosts, we walked among the soldiers, sneaking past them through all the tents that were set up in the camp. Like thieves who have sneaked in to snatch something and then run away.
Arriving at the last tent where a crest with the effigy of a griffin hung, a man in a dark gray hood glanced sideways at our position as if he had noticed our presence. Even for Fausto that was a surprise, since it was assumed that that lost magic was incapable of being detected by the common human eye.
Trying to hold my breath in panic, I felt Fausto's steady hand clamping onto mine as his free hand changed into the shape of a bestial claw. The draconic was more than ready to deal a fatal blow to the individual's fragile humanity, but I was barely able to persuade him by holding firmly to the hem of his coat lapel.
"I remind you that this is only a form induced by magic, what you are holding now is literally the skin of my bare chest" – Using his telepathy, the ancient dragon looked at me sideways with a slight expression of embarrassment on his face. To which I didn't know how to respond other than returning my flushed expression as if I wanted the earth to swallow me.
"Viscount Ephesus, the preparations are already concluded. We are just waiting for the ritual to begin" - Upon hearing that soldier, the man in the gray hood immediately turned his back on us to head towards the entrance of the tent. When I saw him cross the threshold, I breathed a deep breath of relief as I stepped away from Fausto, who was adjusting the wrinkles he had left on what at first seemed to me ordinary clothing.
– "There is something that caught my attention in that man"
-"What are you talking about?"
-"The guard called him by the last name Ephesus, that is the name of one of the original draconics. Members of the bloodline have features of blonde hair and golden eyes. But that man had brown hair and eyes with an orange tone" – Raising his hand to his chin, Fausto lowered his gaze as he continued pensively taking a few steps in a circle in the same place.
Stopping abruptly with his face twisted in dismay, the ancient dragon walked up to me, taking me by the shoulders as he asked me to draw my sword with the rainbow stone. Not knowing the reason for the haste of his request, I took my sword out of its scabbard and accidentally placed the hilt inlaid with the stone against Faust's chest.
Suddenly, a light discharge struck the dragon's chest, knocking it to the ground. Breaking for a brief moment the effect of the enchantment, causing the sound of his body hitting one of the chairs in the store to alert the guards of the place.
"Who's there?" – With their spears pointing straight ahead, the soldiers entered the store threateningly, turning in all directions looking for the source of the sound. It was evident that Faust's magic was still active, but it was in that brief moment in which he made contact with the rainbow stone that the balance of mana was broken.
"It must have been some rabbit or rodent, let's go back to our positions. The stone extraction ritual is about to begin" – The soldiers raised their spears again and walked out of the store, in the same way, I quickly approached Fausto to help him get up. Feeling completely sorry for what happened.
Calming his temper, the ancient dragon smoothed his hair and explained that the rainbow stone reacts according to the mana flow of its user. And when bringing it closer to a member of the original lineage, the color of the stone would light up with its corresponding shade of eyes.
In his case, being an ancient dragon that did not become human through the transmutation of the goddess, his transformation would collide with stone by treating him as heresy until he returned to his original form.
- "I need to confirm one thing, we must get as close as possible to the man in the gray hood and bring the rainbow stone closer to reveal his true lineage"
- "What are you talking about?"
- "That man is also wearing a shapeshifter pearl to hide his true appearance. We must find out who it is immediately" – Placing his hand on my shoulder, Fausto directed his gaze to the entrance of the store with a worried face at the ominous feeling that resided inside.
Nodding my head, I took the dragon's hand and we walked once more until we reached where a large crowd had gathered around a circle of spirit energy. Men with their heads covered by black hoods chanted runes while making light cuts in the palms of their right hands and throwing the blood into a bonfire, which changed its color to a deep blue hue. Until it turned an emerald green that glowed with each lick of the flames.
It was then that I saw her, tied with shackles in both hands, exposing her chest, Calisto's face was down as if she had been crying all night. The expression in his eyes looked as if he had given up all hope of rescue, but more than that, the sparkle in his gaze had been completely extinguished.
Looking more closely around me, I was horrified to see the dismembered body of Virgilio at one end. The proud satyr who once stood as guardian of Medea's forest, had fallen by the edge of the sword of betrayal at those who promised him the salvation of his beloved mistress.
I turned my face, taking my hand to my mouth, while trying to close my eyes before that abominable end. While it was true that due to her treachery we could not prevent Callisto's capture, it was also true that she was another victim of Gamaliel's machinations.
"Girl, come to your senses and come with me. We must continue until we reach the man who is standing in front of the fairy" – Shaking my free hand vigorously, Fausto hurried my steps until we reached where that man was. Who was in front of Callisto chanting a ritual holding a dagger that pointed very close to his chest.
At the ancient dragon's signal, I drew my sword and aimed the hilt at the hooded man's back. The stone for an instant did not emit any glow, until suddenly an amber glow was reflected in it.
"And I thought that it had only been my nerves due to the emotion of the moment. But who would have thought that a proud member of the Casius lineage would come to see me, but I never imagined that, during these centuries of being hidden from the human eye, they would come to take rats as pets.
The magicians that were forming that magic circle hit their staffs against the ground, releasing a flow of mana that broke the enchantment that covered Faust and Hitomi.
Turning to face the couple, the man removed his hood and revealed his true appearance to the stunned gaze of the dark lineage member of Casius.
- "So all this time the stench that permeated my nose was yours. Damn Asmodeus"
- "Is this how you greet the family, dear cousin?" – Releasing part of his enchantment, Asmodeus's hands turned into claws, while revealing his imposing wings that were illuminated by the light of the bonfire.
"A long time has passed since we last saw each other. I think we have a lot to talk about between the two of us" – With a mischievous smile, Asmodeus pounced on Faust, letting flow that thirst for blood that came to suffocate me by the pressure of his mana.