Chereads / History of the Yablokan Elves / Chapter 12 - Struggle

Chapter 12 - Struggle

The war is going too fast for comfort. Just the next day, Margaux from the Alrodenan army and her team flew undetected high up in the air towards the Asterisk centre, dropping large boulders on the Team Anne stationed there, the wood splintering in all directions. With a wave of his flaming sword, Murray managed to defend himself, but the two others had to be shielded by Anne with a rock wall, the useless bunch.

Seeing as this didn't work, Margaux, who is not an elf but a harpy decided to do it again, telling Uhr to drop more fist sized pellets towards the group, who had no choice but to defend. The harpy team does this four more times, and all Anne and her group can do is to hunker down.

Margaux must be planning to tire her out, which will take a long time. 

"Those who can fly are too dangerous, and apart from Harpies, Wind users can fly too. In order for there to be peace in this world, all Wind users must be eliminated early to level the field." Anne mutters softly, while keeping up her earthen defences, thinking about what to do next. 

Finally after all those falling stones, Anne suddenly forms a fifty metre platform, shooting her up to the sky, levelling the low flying harpy, and almost instantly forming a five by three metre platform balanced on top of the pillar before charging towards the harpy, catching Margaux off guard.

Her reinforced rock fist connects with the harpy's face, but the harpy quickly uses her right arm to punch out, aiming at Anne's shoulder. Anne clasps her hands, nearly a hundred fist sized projectiles shooting off towards the harpy who tries to shoot out wind from her arms only for it to be dispersed by the rock. 

Margaux decisively drops the three elves hanging on her talons, letting her team members to fall from the sky as she evades the bullets. 

One of the elves dropped, Cai Eskil conjures a pool of water moments before they fall to the ground, breaking their fall to some extent.

On the ground, Isla, using her lightning, fights Eskil, who simply avoids all her strikes. After getting far away from Isla, Eskil inhales and spews out a flood of water that doesn't seem to stop. Uhr forms an earth platform towering five metres tall, enough space for he, Eskil and Louis to escape the torrent of water flowing out of Eskil's mouth.

His mouth is like a faucet connected to an ocean. Isla uses her lightning to evaporate the water, but even after using all her mana the water keeps on gushing in quickly. The water vapour from nineteen thousand litres of water rises to the air. She is forced to burn her life to fight the fast flowing flash flood, but after only a few moments her feet are swept away and the water rips her to shreds, dying it purple.

Murray isn't faring any better, after fighting the current for a while, he closes his eyes and makes a life changing decision. He bites his tongue, his body glowing brighter and brighter until.

Boom!

A deafening explosion occurs, as Murray explodes with the burning glory of a warrior, punching a five metre hole on the Wooden platform. The steam from evaporating fifteen thousand litres of water rises to the sky, marking the last and only epithet for an individual named Yamada Murray, who once lived in this world.

As the hole is punched into the wood, the water starts flowing into the hole down to the abyss. Sakurako, who turned into water to survive, had to materialise herself within nine-tenths of a second as all fifty six thousand litres immediately flowed down to the abyss. 

Flopping on the wooden ground like a fish, Sakurako is now wet and miserable. Her clothes are uncomfortably sticking to her skin. She stands up, quickly flashing away as a wind blade nearly decapitates her. 

"Fuh… Fuck… They're all dead..!" It sounded a bit guttural when Sakurako said it, as she's out of breath, wet, cold and tired. Her body is aching and her eardrums are still ringing with the eerie aftershocks of the explosion, then signalling someone leaving this world. Those two she was talking to yesterday didn't even leave corpses, and honestly she's a bit… shaken?

"You'll forget them." Sakurako feels someone grab her waist, hoisting her up. Anne runs away with a pig in her arms, towards Asterisk's team Colin. The only way to defeat this Margaux is with another team's help.

"Sakurako, you'll forget them, stop vomiting on my coat." 

Sakurako looks up to see Anne's deadpan expression, the sky darkens even more as rain starts pouring heavily due to the heat that rose to the sky, the rain wiping the coat clean, but only making Sakurako even wetter, and even more miserably cold.

Looking over her shoulder to make sure they're not being chased, Anne throws Sakurako on the ground, and kicks her hard on the stomach. 

"Stop crying, useless pig, I didn't live for four and a half centuries to have to listen to your pig-like squeals." Anne kicks her again.

"I've been to wars before this and the gods forbid some rookie like you vomit on me." At this point, Anne's monotone voice rises. "They're dead, so what! Move on! If you want to live for as long as me, none of your friends or acquaintances you met on day one will be with you! You're a hundred years old, not a baby, grow up!"

Sakurako gulps down the vomit that tries to escape her mouth, and the tears that want to run down her face. She's a hundred, and she hadn't still known what it felt like to feel death, to watch people she's familiar with die. She nods, and Anne stops kicking her.

They start to retreat towards Asterisk's team Colin, who's not too far away. The rain is cold and unforgiving, mixing with Sakurako's tears. The ground beneath them is slick with mud and moist wood, making each step a struggle.