Chapter Seventy-Seven.

(Luca)

"No," Braden crosses his arms over his chest.

"Yes," the scary guy states. "Now get your ass in there, Braden."

The scary guy wants to split us up. It's only for a few days, but I'm not comfortable with it. He said it's for additional training while he's off doing something out of the City. I think he just wants to separate us.

"No," Braden remains firm. "You are not separating me from my brother. Luca's-"

"Going to be just fine," the scary guy states. "Now get your ass in there, Braden. You'll see him again in a few days. Luca's having a hard time gaining Experience, and he needs some more in-depth training, which I can't provide. However, what he's going to be doing, you can't join him for, so I found a suitable teacher for you."

"How is an alchemist a teacher for magic?" Braden exclaims.

I'm wondering that, too. We're outside of an alchemy shop that the scary guy led us to before delivering the news that we're being split up. I don't want to be split up from Braden!

"Blaine is one of the most powerful mages in the Boundary," the scary guy states. "He works as an alchemist to help others prepare for the war. He agreed to help you with training while I'm in Talorn."

"You're going back to Talorn?" Braden asks.

"Yes," the scary guy states. "The reasons for it will be clear to you eventually. Just do as I say, Braden. It's for your own training."

"So what's Luca doing, then?" He asks. "Going to the temple to heal people who come in needing it?"

"No," the scary guy snorts. "Their healing is mostly stuff that the passive regen doesn't work on – status effects, severed limbs, and so on. Luca's joining a Paladin heading to the front for a few days."

The front?

"The front?" Braden asks.

"There's a camp at the other side of the forest," the scary guy says. "Close to Kaelmar. They're keeping the woods around there clean, as well as the fields, while keeping an eye on things. They're all powerful adventurers, so he won't be in any danger, so don't glare at me like that. Now get your ass in there, Blaine's waiting for you."

Braden glares at the scary guy, but the scary guy's intense, and Braden gives in, entering the alchemist's shop. I want to follow him in, but the scary guy keeps a firm grip on my shoulder, glaring at my brother's back.

As soon as Braden's inside and talking with the old man at the counter, the scary guy turns and starts walking, telling me to follow him. He leads me to the western gates, where a tall man in shiny armor stands. He must be the Paladin. Why isn't he wearing armor on his chest? He's not even wearing a tunic!

That's a lot of muscle.

"Travis," the scary guy says. "This is Luca. Take good care of him, or I'm kicking your ass. If he gets so much as a scratch-"

"He won't," Travis snorts. "I promise, Zack. You're supposed to be meeting Nik, aren't you?"

"Yeah," the scary guy says. "Make sure he's safe. Or else."

The scary guy leaves, and the Paladin kneels down in front of me so that we're eye-to-eye. He's really tall.

"Hello, Luca," he smiles at me, his smile full of warmth and kindness. "I'm Travis. Zack told me last night that you were having trouble gaining some Experience, so we'll be going out to the fields and working on it a bit. I'm going to teach you a new spell that should help you a little."

A new spell? Something the scary guy can't teach me? What is it?

A pair of golden wings stretch out of Travis's back, and I stare at them. They're so pretty.

"I'm going to pick you up," he says. "Don't move much while we're flying."

Flying? What?

The next thing I know, he's lifting me up into the air. I freeze up, terrified at the sudden contact, and then suddenly, we're up in the air with a whoosh. We ascend quickly until we're higher than the City Walls, then we're flying over the fields.

The view from up here is so cool. There are lots more monsters in the field we're flying over than the one that the scary guy brings us to. Why is that? There are so many monsters. And a lot of larger Slimes. And a bunch of what look like rats…

That's what he's doing at night, isn't it? He's killing the monsters from the field so there's not as many around. He's still scary and mean, but that makes him better, doesn't it? Why's he so weird?

Travis flies super fast, and we're past the fields in only half a minute, then flying past the trees. They're all bare of leaves because it's still winter, and there's still snow around. There are paths through the melting snow, probably the way that monsters travel, though we're flying mostly along a path that goes straight through the forest.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Probably where everyone passed through on their way to the front.

After several minutes, I dunno how long, exactly, damage comes into view. It's like the forest was blown apart, with logs and stuff everywhere. Trees have fallen over or been thrown into each other and the ground pushed up to create hills, and as we draw even nearer, I realize that it's almost perfectly circular. The damage, I mean.

It's a crater. There's a massive crater here, and it even extends up to the walls of the City in the distance. Something impacted the area here and destroyed it, throwing everything away.

I spot the camp in the crater. It's a series of tents and wooden buildings that were probably made from the destroyed trees. It's erected near the edge of the crater closest to the forest. The whole camp is level, as if someone cut out part of the crater to make it even. That's cool.

"Do you see all this damage?" Travis asks as we land on the edge of the crater.

The walls of the Fallen City were even destroyed by it, but the land past its border is untouched, even though a lot of the buildings were taken out as well.

"Wh-what happened here?" I manage to ask.

"Zack," he answers, and I give him a confused look, because I'm confused. What does the scary guy have to do with this. "The Shadow of Life, our greatest enemy, killed Zack's brother and nearly killed Zack here. Zack's patron, the Crystal of Dark of Fire, personally intervened to save him. I was part of the team that investigated the meteor here, since Nik's Zack's mentor. Your leader was in a coma for a few weeks after the incident."

Miles and miles of damage… how big was the meteor?

Zack had a brother? Is that why he's so mad all the time? Does me and Braden being here make him remember his brother and what happened?

"Come on," Travis pulls a tunic from his Inventory. It looks more normal, like the rest of ours. A glow that takes on the form of the item, then fades to reveal the item. Not like the scary guy's Inventory, where the item simply appears. "Let's go to the tent we'll be staying in."

Travis leads me into a tent as he pulls on the tunic, showing me the pair of hammocks set up in it. One of them's lower than the other, which I think is mine.

"That one's yours," he gestures to the lower hammock. "If you need space for stuff you obtain here that won't fit in your Inventory, you can stick it in the chest over there."

He gestures to one of two wooden chests resting against the walls of the tent, though they're just a little away from the wall. Why did they stick a gap there? The leather of the walls are pulled taut.

Now that he's showed me the tent, Travis takes me out of the tent. I stick close to him. There are so many people here, and it's scary. He talks with a few people about the activity in the Fallen City. Something about Corrupted Monsters?

Now that I think about it, the scary guy said that if we are ever separated from him, to immediately focus on the sense that tells us where our home is. I can't sense it from here, probably because we're too far away from it. He said that if we ever end up at Kaelmar, to find an option other than entering it.

Something to do with Corrupted Monsters.

It's almost lunch when something tackles me from behind.

"Luca!"

Braden!

I wiggle in my brother's grip, turning and facing him so I can hug him back. We're back together! What's he doing here, though?

"So this is where you are!" He exclaims, and I nod. "Blaine told me that we were coming to the front at lunch, and staying a few days because of something or other. I was really mad, 'cause it meant I'd be even further from you, but you're here, too!"

"Yes, he is," Travis says. "Blaine's come out to resupply them with potions, and is staying a few days to help with some magic they're performing. You two will see each other, and probably be able to eat meals together, but for the most part, we'll be separate."

I don't care! I'm not that far from Braden anymore! I'm so happy!

___________________________________________________________________________________

(Zack)

"That was pretty mean," Nik says as I watch Travis fly off with Luca.

"It was Travis's idea," I say, and Nik gives me a puzzled look. I shrug. "I hadn't realized it, but the twins being near each other, but separated, would upset them. I was going to give the twins to Travis and Blaine together, and let them split the boys up for the training.

"Travis told me," I continue. "That if I did that, they'd both be mad the entire time, and that it would affect their ability to focus on what they're doing. He mentioned that they already view me as a bad person, so if I split them up and have the twins separated before arrival, they'd just think it's me being an ass again.

"Then," I continue. "When they find out they'll be near each other through this, their moods would lift and they'd be happier about the situation, possibly even losing the anger and sulkiness because of it."

Travis is smart. I wish I'd thought of that, but I hadn't. It makes sense, though. Let me continue to be the bad guy, while their 'other' mentors do their work. There's only one thing that concerns me about the situation.

"The twins will be back before the attempt, won't they?" I ask.

"Yes," Nik answers. "The twins will be back. Travis is leading the operation, and he's promised to not begin it until after the twins have returned here."

"Good," I let out a sigh. "I don't want them caught up in it."

"They won't be," Nik laughs, fussing with my hair. "No one there would be willing to take the kids into a Fallen City with Corrupted Monsters."

When I went to Nik last night to see about how I could contact Travis, he revealed to me about Travis and Blaine heading to the crater I made when Bryce died.

After what I said happened there, about the Shadow of Life having a weaker avatar there, it seems investigations have been done from outside of the City. With Alexander himself in the coma – which Big Flame has confirmed is still going on – they think they can take it out.

Apparently, at the same time I attacked Alexander, the avatar's actions changed. It no longer guards the altar at nearly all hours, but wanders around the Fallen City.

So they're assembling a big-ass team with some powerful-ass pre-made magics. They're going to enter Kaelmar and attempt to kill the avatar while it's in the weakened state of not being controlled by Alexander directly.

A team of nearly two hundred adventurers is being assembled for it, all of whom are at least Level 150 and possessing at least two Mastered Classes. There are going to be forty healers there, including Nathan Normar.

I volunteered for it as soon as I found out, but Nik told me that I should stick with my original plan. I'm powerful, but I don't have the decades of experience the rest of the people there do.

No one there is under seventy years of age, and all of them have been fighting here since no later than the age of twenty. Five decades or more of experience in combat that I simply don't have.

So I accepted that.

"Come on," Nik stretches out his wings. "Let's get going. You have a party to catch up to."

I walk up to him and he straps me to him with Binding Darkness, before taking off out of the City, flying north, to Talorn. He lands outside the City, in a group of ten. Six Dark Knights, four Paladins.

The Fallen Hunters.

"I'm off to join Kaelmar's raiding party," Nik tells us. "You all have fun."