[Chapter Size: 2100 Words.]
Third Person POV
Northern kingdoms.
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A man entered the inn that morning. While everyone was looking at him suspiciously, as he was clearly an outsider, he didn't care about it and approached the bartender, while the man looked at him curiously. The outsider asked in a firm tone, "Looking for two children, have you seen them?" He waited for an answer.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the bartender was a bit confused by this question.
"Don't lie to me!" the man accused, raising his voice, as the bartender tried to back away. But he was grabbed by the arm by this man, who looked at him seriously. The disguised mage took the opportunity to look into the bartender's eyes, trying to enter his mind and search for what he wanted.
However, he was disappointed, as he found nothing about the princess he was searching for. "This can't be possible..." he murmured, confused, finally letting the man go, while the bartender knew this was no ordinary man, so he said no more to someone so dangerous.
The mage had not given up on finding what he wanted, so he took a potion from his robe and began to remove the stopper, while a mist escaped from it and headed towards the stairs—a magical potion that sought whom he wanted—and he followed it upstairs without caring about the stares.
He then decided to move down the inn's corridor, entering each room until he finally emerged at the last door.
Upon opening it, he found an empty room, with no one present. But this did not stop him from looking closely around the place and noticing that the room had been recently used by two people, deducing they were just children from how the bed was crumpled.
"They were here..." he murmured, still not fully understanding what was happening, since they had somehow escaped him before he arrived here.
The mage just sighed and quickly began to leave before drawing more attention and followed the streets disappearing among the crowd, determined to continue the search for the princess while he still could use that vial, but with a limit, as soon the contents were becoming less and less.
Meanwhile, Madara and Ciri continued advancing north. "Are we going to Redania?" Ciri suddenly asked, while Madara nodded his head continuing to move as he jumped from tree to tree.
"No, not yet," Madara responded. "First I want to check a place. We might need to take shelter there for a while..." He was reconsidering that his journey wouldn't be as easy as he imagined.
Ciri nodded, as they continued moving through the forest of Verden. "Let's keep going until we find a place to camp," he said carrying the girl.
For the rest of the day, they continued traveling until Madara found a good place to camp in the forest. They stopped, and while Madara was setting up the camp, Ciri also took the initiative to help him. She watched him arranging the fire and tried to do it in a very clumsy way, getting frustrated and looking at him with a look of someone needing help.
Madara stared at her while she murmured something incomprehensible. "What is it? I can't hear you... Is the spoiled princess trying to do something?"
"I need help!!" She immediately exploded. "And I'm not spoiled!!" She finished with a pout.
Madara looked at her and just came over while taking her hand to teach her, and it went on for a while as she began to make her own fire. It was at this moment that she looked at him and they both stared at each other.
Madara let out a laugh with that, and Cirilla immediately burst into laughter. Even after that chaos, both seemed to let some laughter out.
"Alright, I'll believe that you're not spoiled," Madara said at the end, while Ciri puffed her cheeks again, determined to show that she was capable as she moved on to the next task.
Madara quickly climbed up a tree to check the forest. He found nothing to be immediately concerned about, the sunlight was getting dimmer, giving way to the darkness of the night.
And it didn't take long for Madara to come back and light the fire with a fire spit, as by this time, darkness had taken over the forest, with only the sound of the wind along with the animals, echoing through the night.
A noise was heard in the distance with a wolf howling, causing Ciri to look to the side. But she was already accustomed to such scenarios and began to eat her meal while Madara joined her.
Madara had always taken care of such predators, eliminating them with ease by throwing dozens of kunais at the same time, hitting their vital points with a single shot, unlike a Witcher who would have some difficulty while a shinobi would handle it differently and more quickly against these common animals.
Everything seemed peaceful. Madara grabbed a piece of meat to eat when, suddenly, his eyes fell on Ciri. The girl's eyes shone for a moment, while she seemed to be looking at nothing. Finally, her gaze returned to normal, and she looked directly at Madara.
"We will be attacked soon," she announced with an urgent tone.
Madara quickly extinguished the fire and picked her up. "Stay quiet," he said while paying attention to the forest to see if he had missed anything.
Ciri nodded, despite not seeing anything in the middle of the forest. It was at this moment that portals began to appear from different sides of the area, shining among the trees at least 50 or 100 meters away, which stood out easily among the darkness.
Madara, without hesitating, jumped up, reaching the trees.
"Are you sure it's here, in the middle of a forest?" Both of the teenagers heard a voice while Madara held Ciri, countless lights appeared at this moment as they rose to the shoulder of the mages. A kind of magelight.
"I'm sure it is," another of those mages answered the first. "We spent a fortune on the potion, which led us here. So, I'm sure the princess is around here," the man spoke.
"This is bad," Madara murmured, quickly advancing forward. There were several mages, at least about 15 of them, as one of the mages approached the camp. He did not even notice Madara, passing silently over him, going to another location where he would leave Ciri.
"Madara, what will we do?" She asked with a certain tone of fear after they moved a great distance.
"You'll stay here," Madara said.
He needed to end this pursuit, after all, it seemed to be just the first of many, so merely running away was not enough, he had to send a message. After moving a bit away, he started to move his hand and created a jutsu after cutting his finger, he struck the ground and an invocation occurred.
"Summoning Jutsu!" He murmured, causing an explosion with Ciri curious about it, the mages were far enough not to hear this. A large form took shape in front of Madara while Ciri was curious about it, but did not know what was in front of Madara.
"I need you to help me, stay in the air and protect her at any cost," he spoke, and quickly made other clones to stay with Cirilla, a flapping of wings was heard from that area, while Ciri just looked on, not knowing what Madara had summoned, and the original had already disappeared from there while advancing towards the mages.
"They think they are the hunters? Let's show them..." Madara spoke, approaching as his eyes turned red, he soon disappeared into the darkness.
One of the mages finally found the camp. "I found their camp! They are really here, but they managed to escape just in time!" the man spoke, wondering where they were, while his companions approached.
"They knew we were coming?! That's impossible!" A mage said mockingly.
"Don't underestimate the power of the old blood..." Another mage spoke. "The girl might have the power to foresee the future..."
"This is creepy..." another commented.
Meanwhile, one of the mages who was farther away also approached the camp when she heard rustling leaves at that moment. She looked up, searching for anything, but couldn't see anything in the darkness.
"Maybe it's a bird or an owl..." she commented, and behind her, above the trees, two small red eyes glowed. Quickly, she felt something cutting through the wind, and when she looked back, her neck was pierced. She only let out a scream of surprise before falling to the ground.
"Quentuy?? What was that? Are you okay?!" Her companions shouted, alarmed at hearing the scream, but she was now falling to the ground, writhing as her neck had been cut and pierced.
"Hey hey! What's going on?" Other mages began to get worried. It was at this moment that another mage nearby them was suddenly attacked, and his light magic was extinguished, as he writhed in pain before falling dead.
"What's happening here? What is this?" The mages began to be surprised and somewhat afraid.
"Stay alert, we're being attacked!" They spoke immediately, as a mage heard a sound coming from above, cast a spell that glowed, and he saw someone moving in the air among the trees, leaving him stunned and immediately exclaiming. "Whatever is attacking, it's above in the trees," he declared, as all the mages began to cast spells upwards, trying to hit whatever was there.
As Madara continued to easily dodge the attacks, as they weren't even aiming at him, just hoping to hit him by luck, he quickly began to make a series of hand signs, before releasing fire from his mouth. A flame emerged at that moment, above a mage who had no time to react, as the flame exploded on him. But it didn't stop there; after all, there was more than one Madara in this location while his clones quickly launched other flames that began to explode at various points in the forest.
"What is this? What's attacking us?" They cried out immediately. Everyone raised shields while protecting themselves from the flames falling like giant balls. One of them was struck from behind the next moment, stunned before seeing two red eyes staring at him, before returning to the trees again.
The terror continued for a while, as the mages began to regret being here in this madness. As the mages tried to hit him, he launched his wind-wrapped stars, highly sharp and many of them piercing through the shields, with mages being sliced in half.
The night, which seemed to be a hunt, became a memory full of pain and terror before their lives were reaped in various horrific ways, whether burning alive or being cut in half.
Meanwhile, Ciri could hear all this at a distance, as the flames began to spread, devouring the south of the forest. Once again, she felt a bit frustrated at being left behind while Madara fought to protect her.
"I'm always going to be like this..." she murmured to her clone.
"Depends, do you always want to stay like this?" He asked, challenging her.
"Of course not!" she said immediately.
"Then train and get strong. You still have time to do that," he said.
"But it's going to take a long time..." she commented.
"Better late than never," was Madara's reply, as suddenly a portal appeared near them, making Madara narrow his eyes.
A mage stepped out of the portal, first looking surprised at the screams and flames lighting up the forest. "What is this?" he murmured, and turned to the children. "No matter, as long as I capture you and get out of here before this...!" He said, starting to conjure a spell, his staff shining.
The next moment, a scream of an eagle cut through the darkness of the night. Before the mage could complete the spell, he looked up in surprise and was quickly crushed, unable to react, by a glyph that Madara had summoned, killing him the next instant.
"Incredible..." Ciri murmured, seeing the glyph for the first time. It didn't take long for the real Madara to appear, deactivating the clones and saying goodbye to the glyph. He raised his demeanor, observing the dead mage on the ground, crushed. Certainly, it was not a pretty end.
"We're done here. I'm sure those who managed to escape will spread the word convincingly enough to stay far away from us and I left a surprise for them..." was all Madara replied as Ciri nodded, before they left the area.