I didn’t realize anyone had been calling my name until Sera’s face appeared above me. My screaming was a bit too loud for me to hear much of anything at all.

“North!” Sera called out directly in my face. My response was another yell as a part of my nose corrected itself. Sera’s eyes grew wide as she noticed that.

“Kid, can you hear… what the fuck?” Elm said, stopping midway as he studied the room. His eyes landed on the blade of magore stuck in Keagan’s neck.

I tried to voice out a word as I felt another crack in my nose as the bones fused. The adrenaline that had prevented me from feeling much of the pain up until this point had run out, meaning I felt every single shift in my internal body.

“Is everyone alive?” I groaned in between winces.

“Yeah, we’re fine, but you’re not!” Sera said far too loud for me. I tried to raise up a hand to cover my ear only to realize that it was my broken left arm which hadn’t finished fixing itself.

“Kid, are you dying?” Elm asked with far less tension in his voice than I expected.

“The opposite? My body is fixing itsel-” I stopped mid-word as I felt the final rib return into place and fuse again, which caused me to let out another scream. It appeared that everyone saw the rib moving, because they were glued to my chest.

“By the flow…” Deborah commented. I’d have said something in return if the process of my rib cage fusing into complete form didn’t feel like someone had shoved a fire into my chest.

I imagine I’d react the same.

“I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” I croaked. Sera shook her head in disbelief.

“How do you know that?”

“A hunch?” I said before wincing as my left arm began to fuse back into place along with all of the muscles inside of it. While the rest of the group was focused on me and my horrifying body, I could see Elm out of the corner of my eye studying Keagan’s corpse.

Mell eventually decided to be the polite Asarnian he normally is and helped me to my feet while the others ran down the steps Elm had created with his attunement to grab things from the soldiers below to cover up my wounds. I’d tried to stop them, since I could tell that the wounds had already closed themselves, but they weren’t listening. Mell was kind enough to use some of his shirt to clean some of the vomit and blood off of my face and cloak.

I feel bad for the person who gave me these clothes.

“Kid, did you create this?” Elm said, pointing to the knife still lodged in Keagan’s corpse.

“I think I did? I was just trying to focus the mana as much as possible, and when I went to use it on him, that was in my hand.” I explained as best as I could. I’d assumed feeling something physical was just caused by my mind losing oxygen, not me actually creating magore.

“He was right… that fucking bag of bones.” Elm angrily muttered as he pulled out the knife from Keagan’s throat and threw it against the ground, shattering it into blue dust. “We’ll talk about this later. If you have the ability to create magore, that has several implications.”

“Such as?” I asked. The headache of getting my brains bashed against the floor was fading faster than expected, along with the several fractures that Keagan had left in my skull.

“I said later. The fact that you’re standing and talking is already causing me a headache. Can you walk with how much blood you lost?

I was unable to answer before Sera came up and began wiping the blood and puke off of me with one of the jackets of the soldiers. I tried to move my limbs, and after a minute of attempts, found that I could do it mostly normal.

“I can move. Actually, I’m pretty sure I can walk on my own.”

Deborah and Sera both watched in bizarre awe as I moved away from Mell and began walking. It wasn’t something I should have been able to do, but whatever had happened during the fight forced my body to speed up its healing to a degree that I’d never felt it do before.

I turned around in the hallway to find everyone staring at me in shock or confusion, with the sole exception of Elm, who looked more frustrated than anything else.

“We have to get moving. We still have a coup to perform.” I snapped everyone out of their stupor as they started to run ahead of me. I picked up Keagan’s burner, took one final glance at his body, and followed after Mell with Elm by my side. I could see them take occasional glances back at me before we made our way up the stairs and into the castle.

There were occasional guards on the way there which were quickly dispatched. I wasn’t able to participate in combat, and didn’t need to as Elm and Sera were taking them down on sight.

I could tell that some parts of my body were still healing even as we walked, mostly being torn muscles or cuts I retained during the battle. I was intentionally hiding some of the panic I was also feeling at the fact that my body had somehow started healing itself at a far more rapid pace than normal without any of my input.

Is it because of how close I got to death? Is mana that intent on keeping me alive?

I wasn’t going to take it for granted, since I still had a city to liberate.

“We’re heading to the throne room, since it is connected to the largest number of safe rooms and escapes!” Deborah yelled as we started to make our way up a flight of stairs. The sounds of battle outside the castle were audible even as we delved into the deepest parts of the castle. We eventually made our way in front of a massive wooden door, ornate in design that had been left untouched by Arlin. Mell and Deborah both stood outside the door while others checked the hallways on both sides, watching for guards yet finding a conspicuous lack of resistance.

“Go!” I ordered. We all burst through the door to the throne room at once, and found a man patiently sitting upon the throne, twirling an ornate crown around his finger. The guards on each side of him were dead, a burner hole in each of their skulls.

We couldn’t help but stare at the man in confusion. Judging by how Elm stared at him, and how he was sitting on the beautiful wooden throne lined with gold implements, it was clearly the Territorial Governor.

“I was waiting for you.” He said in an unnaturally casual voice.

I studied him up and down. He was a tall man, looking almost stretched. He seemed to have gray hair, but wasn’t old. His nose was too large for his face, looking like someone had squished it. Despite it, he wasn’t what I would call ugly. Several things about this felt off that I couldn’t put a name on.

“Are you the Governor?” I asked awkwardly, still unsure if I was supposed to speak with him or order him around.

“Yes, I’m Bernard. If you are here, am I to assume Keagan is dead?”

“Uh… yes. I killed him.”

Bernard let out a large sigh, a bitter taste seeming to form at the back of his mouth as he spat to the side of his throne. I took a glance at Elm to see he was unhappy with me so easily divulging information.

“Alright.” Bernard regained his composure, taking a deep breath before speaking, “If that’s the case, I would like to ask for your help.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“What?” shouted the entirety of the group.

----------------------------------------

“I mean what I said.” Bernard placed down the crown and stood up from the throne, “Freiweld is in grave danger and I would ask that you save it. I’d prefer not to dawdle about this since I believe our time is limited.”

Elm stepped forward in front of me to face Bernard, physically blocking him from getting closer to us.

“Then explain, Bernard.”

Bernard sighed and looked behind Elm at me directly. “Keagan set up a contingency in case he was killed. A way to ensure that the rebellion died alongside him in Freiweld no matter what. Currently, there is a soldier positioned on the far edge of the city, who was supposed to receive a message over a short range soundline in a code that no one except for Keagan knew. If he didn’t receive that, the plan was for him to start a forest fire.”

All of those who had been there at the raid where we had used a forest fire went blank as they remembered the destruction wrought against the camp.

Is this why Keagan laughed?

“It seems you all understand what that means. I don’t believe we can stop the soldier, but we can hopefully save as many lives as possible before the forest gets him.” He explained in blunt terms.

“You’re the governor. You could have ordered them to stop.” Elm snarled at the man.

“I would have if not for Emperor Arlin giving Keagan the right to usurp my power and take control of our militia. That’s why I’m asking for your help.”

I stared at the man, baffled. I took a step forward to say something and stumbled, my vision wobbling as I finally began to feel the amount of blood I’d lost during the fight. Mell stopped me from face planting onto the floor by putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Fuck… kid, you gonna pass out?” Elm looked back away from the governor.

“I think I can manage. If Bernard is telling the truth, I’ll do it. But you have to order the soldiers to surrender.”

Matthias had described Bernard as being someone who wasn’t as attached to Arlinian culture, and it seemed like he genuinely wanted to save Freiweld. It didn’t matter what his character was if we were all dead anyway.

“I swear on my life. The soundline and soldier should be directly south. I suggest you go quickly.”

“You’re coming with us then.” Elm said as he grabbed the man’s arm and began to drag him along. The governor pushed off his arm and began walking on his own volition.

I’d only made it to the door when I heard the voice of the forest scream out in my ears.

FIRE

“Dammit!” Elm shouted as he looked down the hallway, seeing the guards shake under the pressure of the forest’s ire. “We’ll do this the quick way.”

Elm turned away from the hallway and towards the wall and ran at it at full speed with both hands out in front of him. Both palms landed on the wall and pushed. The old stone of the castle crumbled in front of him, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. A few surprised soldiers stood at the other side, and began to raise their burners until Elm grabbed Bernard and tossed him forward.

“Weapons down!”

The soldiers fumbled with their burners, although one of them kept pointing it at Elm regardless. He was unable to react as one of the pieces of the shattered wall flew off the ground and slammed into his forehead. I could tell that Elm was holding back, because a normal projectile from him would have gone through the man’s head.

As I was moving over the rubble, I could feel the world around me swirl again and lost my balance. Mell grabbed onto my shoulder, stopping me from falling, and placed me onto his back.

I closed my eyes tightly and focused on grounding myself. We had to find this soldier fast, and despite the fact that the forest had drawn its ire on him, that didn’t mean we could easily pinpoint his location.

Mana, please help me find the sinner.

“Shit. Should we leave you here?”

I shook my head and continued focusing on tying my own flow of mana to that of the world outside me. Rage tainted the natural flow as the ire of the forest mixed with the normally neutral mana. It felt bitter, hateful that I had even attempted to tap into it and ask for its help.

I will kill the sinner if you help me locate him.

The rage continued to flow into me for a second before stopping suddenly. The ire was still present, but it was no longer directed at me. The forest’s hate was a primal force of mana congealed into a single location, one that was impossible to appease and had placed on the people in its territory unchanging rules. Yet, it could seemingly understand what it meant to have aligned interests.

I felt a foreign tug on my mind as I opened my eyes again. We were still running to the exit with me holding tightly onto Mell’s back, the sounds of chaos growing louder and louder. I looked around and noticed something new in my vision.

It was the bright red outline of what was clearly a human being. The image was separated from the rest of my vision, like a smudge on a sheet of glass. I blinked a couple times and moved my head to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things from blood loss, but it remained the same.

“I’ve located the sinner.” I declared abruptly.

“What?” Elm shouted.

“The forest is sharing his position with me. If I kill him it will stop attacking Freiweld!” I shouted back just as loud.

“Kid, you lost a lot of blood.”

“It’s not blood loss!” I angrily shot back, “We need to meet him before he can get any deeper into Freiweld.”

“Sir, are you asking me to run towards the oncoming flood of monsters?” Mell asked, his usual polite attitude faltering.

“We just need to kill him before Corith kills us.”

I could feel the doubtful eyes of the group on me even as I held firm in my opinion. The red outline of the soldier was growing ever closer by the second.

“Sera, Ruby, I want you to help people get back to the castle. Take Bernard with you.”

They seemed to pause a moment before running off. I checked on Elm and saw that he was still unsure.

“Please. Trust me.”

Elm groaned and shook his head. “Lead the way.”

I pointed in the direction of the red blot and Mell began running towards it with Elm and Deborah by my side. Holding one hand tightly around Mell, I grabbed the burner with the other. I could see some of the road crew running back while the guards scrambled. In the longer sections of the road that we dodged through, I could look off in the distance and see the incoming tide of creatures summoned by the forest.

The outline of the soldier turned to look back and continued to ride on what I could guess was a strig. He must have felt the rage all pounding down upon him as the ground shook beneath the him.

“Follow this alley to the left!” I shouted out, and we turned down our current road into a narrow path between buildings. The red outline was growing closer, and as we turned out the alley, he locked eyes directly with me.

I could see the word ‘North’ form across his lips. He’d probably been given my description by Keagan. He took one more look back at the horde that was not far behind him and bolted forward on his strig before turning into a side street across the road.

“Go straight! We’ll cut him off!”

We began running towards another alley was the sounds of gnashing teeth and pounding feet grew louder. I took a look back as we entered another alley to see a shade wolf at our heels. Before it could get any closer to us, Elm had already launched off a shot and pierced its skull.

We made it out the other side of the alleyway to see the man running the street with the horde not far behind him. I looked at Elm and realized he didn’t have a shot prepared, and looked at the burner in my palm.

It’s our only chance.

“THROW ME AT HIM!” I screamed out above the rumbling noises. Mell turned and smiled as he reached over his back and grabbed onto me without a second’s delay.

I was tossed through the air at high speeds, watching as the man began to turn his strig into another alleyway. My hand gripped tightly onto the rod of the burner as I lined it up.

Help me strike true.

In the brief overlap where my burner and the man existed in the same space, I let go of the rod and fired a ray of pure mana. It carved its way through the air and the man’s chest, even killing the strig he was riding on. I felt a sense of temporary relief as my body slammed into the ground and I skidded on the dirt. I looked up and saw the hordes encroaching upon me, ready to tear me to shreds.

An eidgarto took the lead, opening its maw as it came for my head. It’s legs stamped on my chest and then suddenly stopped.

I turned up and saw the eidgarto stuck in place, its mind frozen. The same sensation of pause filled me as the red outline of the guard faded away. I felt my willpower leave me as the eidgarto lost all sense of individuality once again. The rumbling of the ground grew orderly. I painfully craned my head upwards and saw the hordes of creatures running away while Mell and Elm made their way over to me.

I wanted to feel a sense of victory until I looked upon Freiweld in front of me and saw only rubble.

Over half of the city had been razed to the ground by the forest’s wrath. Freiweld was only somewhat saved, and those left in the lower parts of the city were mostly Corithians, not Arlinians.

I lost consciousness as the sense of grief and failure overwhelmed me.