[Chapter Size: 2200 Words.]
Third Person POV
Northern kingdoms.
...
...
In a distant place from where Madara had encountered the wizards and engaged in battle, portals began to appear in a large hall. As if in a place while wizards emerged from them, but nothing like how they were when they first passed through the portals.
"I'm burning! I'm burning!" one of them screamed in pain as his clothes actually caught fire.
"This hurts! This knife hit me!" another exclaimed as he had a kunai stuck in his leg with blood streaming down.
"..." A mage stood still in shock with the memories of seeing her companions falling around her.
Despair quickly filled the hall, while footsteps echoed in the corridor with a group arriving to see what was happening. This group quickly arrived, led by a woman, as they looked around, stunned by the scene, seeing only one-third of the sent wizards. The whole group was trying to understand the situation, but all they saw ahead was chaos. There was a constant plea with some bruised, others paralyzed with a look of fear.
"What happened?" a man with a crown murmured; this was the king of Brugge, who had made a deal along with Tissaia de Vries in search of the princess, looking at the scene of horror.
The rector of Aretuza swallowed dry before she approached to see many of those who were her students and colleagues injured. They had already made a deal with the king to look for the princess, however, when they thought they were going to succeed in the mission, it seemed that it wasn't exactly what happened...
"Tell me, what happened?" she asked with a concerned tone.
"We were attacked. We don't know what it was. It just started killing all of us during our search in the middle of the forest... It could only be a wizard, I started burning the entire forest by casting flames..." a frightened man said to the rector.
"Yes, I saw him in the midst of darkness! He moved through the trees at high speed. He moved like an assassin in the darkness... killing each one of us without being able to react, then he started setting fire to all of us. The forest turned into chaos, I saw several companions dying, I've never seen anything like it... That was not human!" They began to murmur.
"Are you saying something killed a dozen wizards?" Tissaia imagined they were surprised by soldiers from Nilfgaard also in the search, but seeing more than 10 wizards not coming through the portal while most of them were here injured and hearing that a single person or thing as they are talking about, did this, it was not normal at all.
"Damn! This means I lost my personal wizards, Tissaia! You must pay for this!" grumbled the king angrily.
"And you think you were the only one who lost your people here?!" Tissaia snarled at the fat king, before continuing. "Now is not the time for this. We must help them," she said, beginning to approach the injured wizards.
Thus, she began to help the most injured. The wizard at the back of the group, who was standing just with a burned arm, looked with a gleam in his eyes and made a quick movement while placing his staff in front.
In the next moment, he manifested a lightning bolt, which stunned everyone with quick eyes to know what was happening while he pointed that lightning bolt at the king.
Quickly, he launched the bolt toward the king himself, who was paralyzed by it. However, the rector quickly appeared and cast a defensive magic, which slowed down the lightning bolt. She looked at the wizard with stern eyes, and with a skilled movement, sent the bolt back, hitting his chest and making him fall to the ground unable to react with his own magic sent back.
"What does this mean?" She growled, after all, she knew that wizard very well.
While everyone was shocked, a sinister laugh emerged from the fallen and injured wizard. Even with his chest bleeding, he lifted his head and looked at everyone with a malicious smile, while his eyes, no longer normal eyes, now glowed red, showing he was under the effect of a Sharingan's genjutsu, not that the people there could know that.
"Well, I couldn't finish you off, but what a shame..." He spoke calmly, and the whole room fell silent until the rector looked in shock at this, as it was obvious that something was controlling the wizard.
"Who are you?" she murmured, knowing he was no longer the same.
"It doesn't matter who I am, but I will warn you just once: try to hunt us again, and I will make sure to kill all of you," he said firmly. "And you too, king. I can easily kill you, so you better not put more resources into looking for us... Otherwise, I will make sure to end you next time," the man continued, speaking each word with a serious tone, and the king ended up feeling a chill on his skin.
"What is this? What the hell is this?" he demanded, fear taking over his voice.
"Red eyes... there's no doubt... You are Madara Uchiha we've heard about! The boy is with the princess, isn't he?" Tissaia spoke. "How can you dominate the mind of a wizard...?" she said, feeling a mix of admiration and fear at the same time.
"You are not worthy of having this conversation with me, Witch. Anyway, I've delivered my message. I hope you comply, otherwise, I will finish my job, and I can do that in many ways," the wizard spoke in a serious tone.
"Do you think we will be the only wizards to come after you?" the rector spoke with a somber look on her face.
"No, I don't think that..." he acknowledged. "But surely everyone will die, no matter who comes," he continued, confident. "So don't send people to die."
After that, his eyes began to change, turning brown as they were before. Then, the man, feeling the change, immediately looked down where his blood was dripping from his chest, and began to scream: "Heal me! Help me! It hurts!!!" he exclaimed, terrified, not understanding what had happened. Everyone in the room was still paralyzed, wondering if all this was real.
"Someone help him! But lock him up with dimeritium chains!" the rector immediately exclaimed, not wanting to let the wizard die, despite still not trusting him at all after what she had just seen, at least with dimeritium, he wouldn't be able to use magic.
While this confusion continued, Madara approached Cirilla again. He had made sure to send a wizard after placing him under a genjutsu, which was sent through a portal, to try to catch the leader or at least deliver a message, but he didn't know what really happened, as he didn't have real-time information or how his shadow clones were faring.
Regardless of what happened, he was sure he had left his pursuers quite frightened, making them think twice before trying to act against them again.
"Is it over? Hey, what is this... is it the Griffin you caught a while back...?" Ciri murmured, despite having seen much blood and death, she knew that Madara was protecting her, as her gaze turned to the winged animal still standing on top of the body of the wizard who had approached while Madara's clones disappeared with the original approaching, the animal seemed to wait for Madara's orders like an obedient dog.
"You've never seen this, have you?" Madara said calmly, as if he hadn't just killed 10 wizards, while some years ago, he struggled to fight against 1.
"No... It's incredible! Can I get close?" she said, filled with anticipation.
Madara nodded, knowing the Griffin would do nothing against her. "Now, let's choose a place to sleep and continue tomorrow. I'm sure we're close to where I finally intend to reach..." he said. Ciri nodded after petting the giant animal.
Madara chose a place nearby, but away from the chaos of the burning forest. Again, he laid out other mattresses, since those they were using had been destroyed. The girl went back to sleep while he just made sure to stay vigilant for any movement in the forest, while a part of it still burned illuminating the night, but not reaching them.
The next day, Ciri woke up. "This smell is horrible," she immediately complained, coughing due to the smoke reaching her nose this morning, next to her was Griffin who approached her.
"Let's start getting out of here, let's eat something further away." Madara spoke and picked up Cirilla after packing up while Griffin followed them the whole time flying around them.
"Never seen anyone tame a monster... You are truly amazing, Madara!" She spoke with admiration, looking up at the young animal flying above them.
"Yes, I was fortunate to find this youngster after his mother died, so we ended up helping each other and I didn't put him under an illusion... just made sure to convey my intentions to him," Madara spoke.
Meanwhile, to the south of there, Geralt continued traveling after leaving the woman he had saved in Cintra with her uncle. She had even asked him to stay, to marry him, but he had important things to do and knew that her uncle did not like him and wanted him to leave as soon as possible.
The shadow of war was spreading through the north, and he could not stand still. He needed to find Cirilla and decided that his destination would be Skellige.
Back to the north again, black soldiers were scattered on the ground, all dead. While Madara looked down at the last one trembling before him according to his sword. The Uchiha looked with disdain and quickly cast a genjutsu on the young man, knowing who he was. He quickly saw his memories and noted the desire for vengeance he had for him, delivering all kinds of information he could to Nilfgaard, but very limited.
"Well, it seems that you want to kill me, Lord Rushford... I am surprised you did not want to do this in the war of southern Cintra, but I believe tens of thousands of black soldiers made you think twice and in the end you were sent here, to die, I killed your father as you suspect and your revenge will not happen in this life..." Madara spoke, as his sword sliced through the young noble from Cintra's neck, and he fell dead without doing anything.
Despite Madara clearing an ant in his path, he also acquired interesting information. That Cahir was leading a whole group, and there were more of them chasing them everywhere.
Anyway, he turned to Ciri, picking her up, and they began to travel again. It didn't take long for them to find what he was looking for, something he hadn't seen for a few years, but knew exactly where it was after looking at the maps and asking Mousesack.
"Where are we?" Cirilla asked.
"You'll see," Madara responded tersely as she pouted at his demeanor though she was used to it by now.
He went to a place near a lake after his sharingans scanned every detail of the area and found the entrance. This would be their next refuge, after all, it was where he had faced that wizard some time ago. Who after he had killed the younger brother of that noble he had killed yesterday, fought against the wizard and his robot, killing him in the end.
"What place is this?" Ciri asked again, curious.
"It will be our home for a while, until things calm down. After all, it will be very bad to travel north being chased all the time, so we'll stay here for a while," he responded.
The only thing Madara had to do now was spread the dimeritium he had in the storage of the base after he found it that many years ago and this base didn't seem to have been visited in this time. After all, the wizard liked that substance a lot along with the drug it produced.
He didn't know very well how to use dimeritium at the time he was here and didn't care much, so he ended up learning from Mousesack a few years later, knowing that those dimeritium would cancel magic. Even more after discovering how some of the wizards had managed to pursue them, using belongings of Cirilla that they took from her room during the fall of the capital.
"Let's go. We'll also start your training," Madara said, as Cirilla looked at him in surprise.
He knew he couldn't protect her all the time. She also needed to know how to protect herself. Not that Ciri wasn't already strong enough to fight an adult, but it was time to teach her to really fight against dozens of stronger enemies. After all, she had ancient blood that could make her body adapt easily. That's how she became as strong as any witcher, even without going through the trial of the herbs.