Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 149. Incomprehensible Feeling.
“You’re back,” Wearing his usual white-golden robes, Arakar greeted Abdain with a smile. “We’ve heard you were chasing the Death Reaper of Makarash, how did it go?” he inquired, curious to hear if the sky-high military prowess of Makarash had been shaved by a yet another level. Of course, he was already quite satisfied with Mustafa’s demise, but the power of that Grand Yimarate wasn’t so shallow that the untimely retirement of their leader would shake it up too badly.
“Killed her,” Abdain replied calmly, displaying none of the mad bloodthirst he had shown in his fight against Jasmine. “The two kids are most likely dead though,” he added and followed up with a brief explanation. “Five of my personal subordinates chased them into the Forbidden Lands. Neither they or the kids came out of there, so I assumed they’re all dead. I left some low-ranked and a few mid-ranked experts to guard the overall area near the mountains just in case.”
“What?” The originally pleased look on Yimar Maar’s face quickly turned grim. “How did five martial masters of the fifth rank fail to capture two twelve-year-old boys? You’re telling me they didn’t even try to engage them and chased them all the way into the Forbidden Lands?” he asked angrily. He was against allowing Abdain to go chase the goose since the information from the Guild of Shadows was always unreliable, not to mention the way it was delivered through those annoying letters that would appear out of nowhere! Telling him that two talented brats, supposedly friends of Mustafa’s son, would be trying to sneak through to the Holy Union and telling him to capture them…!
If he wasn’t scared that whoever was delivering those letters right under his nose could kill him as easily as flipping his hand, he would have ignored their content. He could let Abdain’s stubbornness slide this one time since he did manage to kill one of the ten lieutenants of the White Guard, but losing five elite martial masters just in order to capture some children… it was absolutely infuriating.
“To be precise,” Abdain said with an expressionless look on his face, apparently used to Yimar Maar’s behavior. “We lost more than just my five elite men. Before I could make my way there, your Wind and Lightning Brothers were killed by those two boys while the experts from the Faren Yimarate were decimated by Jasmine,” he informed straightforwardly, caring little for the anger that this piece of news was bound to arouse within Yimar Maar.
In the end, Yimar Maar was his benefactor. Both he and his family owed their lives to him, the one who had recognized his talent, bought him and his family out of the slavery and taken them all under his wing back in the vast deserts of Arkaria. From a merchant and a slave trader, thanks to the many military accomplishments and the ever-increasing military and economic prowess of his, Yimar Maar had finally become a high-ranked Yimar and received the strongest of the southern Euleanian Kingdoms to govern.
Yimar Maar had always been driven by his desire to increase his personal prowess, be it in the sense of his own strength, the strength of his subordinates, his wealth or his political influence. As far as he could tell, what Yimar Maar hated the most was needing to obey orders from his superiors with which he disagreed with or objected to. Thus, ultimately, Yimar Maar most likely aimed to make it so there was no one who could force him to do anything against his will left.
“,,,” Yimar Maar frowned heavily. Just like Abdain predicted, he was quite infuriated with the loss of resources. In fact, he was so angry that he hadn’t quite committed his mind to what Abdain told him and didn’t quite process the fact who it was that killed Wind and Lightning Brothers, instead only accepting that they had died. “Whatever. It’s a good thing that scourge of a woman was killed by you. As long as we keep Mustafa’s son in check and wait a few more weeks for Mustafa’s cultivation base to fall, we will be able to put an end to Makarash right here,” he said in an agreeable manner, though both the frustration and resignation were easily traceable in the tone of his voice.
“As you say, Yimar,” Abdain said calmly and bowed slightly. He knew that no good would come out of arguing with Yimar Maar, so despite having some thoughts of his own, he kept them to himself.
“Foolish.” A few meters to the side, Arakar snorted silently. “He was the one who argued against Abdain’s idea and delayed everything by hours. He wouldn’t have lost any men had he allowed him to go immediately and he would have most likely captured those two boys safely, too. Yet, instead of reflecting on his own actions in any way, he is overcome with irrational anger at a subordinate who ‘failed him’. That’s why he’s forever bound to be a second-rate leader… and he’s not needed,” he concluded silently, the events of today only reinforcing the opinion of Yimar Maar which he had already developed.
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Although it took some time for the news to travel, by the late morning of the next day, the party traveling with Arslan was confronted by two obviously shaken messengers. One of the two men who were doing the reporting was a member of the White Guard and a member of Zaban’s small intelligence unit, while the other man was one of the unit-leaders of the people sent out by Elder Samuel and the Ruishi Federation as a whole.
The two of them described the situation to the best of their knowledge, beginning with the suspected information leakage and the ambush that awaited Jasmine, Laien, and Yin. They got through the rough description of the battle as the three present youths, Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela, listened in nervous silence alongside the many adults. The news of Jasmine rampaging through the ranks of enemy martial and spiritual masters was something that everyone accepted calmly, but when they head of Laien and Yin slaughtering two elite martial masters of the fifth rank, everyone’s jaws dropped from just a little to quite a bit, depending on the person.
Yet, before everybody could get to terms with this one revelation regarding Laien’s and Yin’s strength, the two men continued their story. From this point onwards, however, they couldn’t offer anything too detailed as the forces of Abdain’s had kept them at a hand’s length. However, there were two things they could claim to have happened with a very high degree of confidence.
One, Jasmine fought and was killed by Abdain. Second, Laien and Yin entered the forbidden Lands with five experts who were chasing them. Needless to say, neither the two boys nor the group that pursued them were heard of since then.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Both of those pieces of information were shocking to everyone, but it couldn’t be helped that some of them would be more concerned about one rather than the other. For example, Reian looked as if someone had just slapped him across the face and left him to be. He could sparsely believe what he was hearing; his teacher, the one whose strength was unmatched as long as she could fight freely, the woman he had fallen in love with… Jasmine was dead, killed by Abdain? Even though he just heard the explanation of how it came to happen, his brain was refusing to accept it as reality.
On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, was Elder Samuel. However, if one thought about it more, then it wasn’t all that surprising for him to be shaken by the news of Laien and Yin’s demise. Out of those present, he was the one who put the most faith in their future growth; the words he had spoken to Laien about saving him with the entire strength of the Ruishi Federation if need be, were one hundred percent genuine! Had the information those two men brought been different, had the two boys been captured by Abdain instead of having wandered into the Forbidden Lands, he would have mobilized the majority of the Ruishi Federation’s experts in order to save them! Alas, even he couldn’t do anything when it was about the Forbidden Lands.
“Still…” After a moment, Elder Samuel regained some clarity of thought. “Those two boys carry many secrets on themselves. Would they have really ventured into the Forbidden Lands without any plan? They surely encountered one of the Sacred Guardians… but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve gotten killed,” he thought silently, the frown on his face lessening slightly. “It’s still four years until the next time they come over. If nothing new surfaces, I’ll need to ask him what happened,” he decided, hoping that in the worst case the scenario Laien and Yin had gotten imprisoned within the Forbidden Lands. After all, even a Sacred Guardian shouldn’t easily pass on two youths of suitable age with such a level of talent and such a high present combat ability.
“Did they really die?” Arslan asked, breaking the prolonging period of silence. Of course, he wasn’t questioning Jasmine’s fate as her moment of death had apparently been seen by a few of their men, but he not only couldn’t accept that Laien and Yin perished, but he had a feeling they were still alive. He had only known the two of them for a little bit, not even for a full month. However, he had seen them create miracles and he had experienced first-hand how quickly the two of them grew in strength, shattering all expectations of those around them. Given how amazing Laien and Yin were, could their lives really have ended just like that, with no further word to be heard of them?
“They’re alive,” Mikaela said out of the blue. The tone of his voice was filled with so much conviction that even Arslan, who had asked the question and was refusing to believe that Laien and Yin died, was rather started by it. “I can tell… it’s, how do I say it? I’m worried, but my chest isn’t heavy. It might just be a stupid feeling, but I think they are fine,” he explained with a smile. It wasn’t so much with Yin, but he had created a strong bond with Laien during those few days. It wasn’t something he could explain with logic, but his instinct was telling him that Laien and Yin were alive and well.
If the people surrounding Mikaela were different, they surely would have either questioned the validity of his claims or would have straight-out written them off as unreasonable. However, everyone here had interacted with Laien and Yin in one way or another in the past. The feeling those two boys gave you… it wasn’t something that could be described with words nor comprehended with logic. It was as if they drew you in as if there was some kind of an invisible and powerful destiny on their shoulders, something that guaranteed that they wouldn’t die so easily and meaninglessly.
“Let’s assume they really didn’t die,” Sirius brought up, trying to bring the conversation to a more productive path. “What are we going to do? We can’t blindly rely on the reinforcements from the Holy Union and now we know that to an extent, an information leakage exists. Are we going to follow up with the original plan or are we going to give up and look for some other way?” he asked outright. They only had one day left until the Prophet and his eight million people started entering the Guode Yimarate, so they couldn’t afford to waste time before coming to a conclusion of any kind.
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“I won’t say much,” Elder Samuel spoke up as the first one, both his voice and the expression on his face looking to be considerably calmer compared to a moment ago. “Ultimately, the decision lies in the hands of young master Arslan. I will say, however, that I think we should at least try and proceed with the early parts of our plan,” he said briefly, but then realized that he should mention one more thing. Thus, he smiled apologetically and nodded at everyone slightly, then added a few more sentences.
“Also, I think that it’s likely that they were simply heavily on guard against any riders leaving the Ruishi Federation and heading northwards, so the information leakage isn’t a certain thing either. At the very least, I’m certain that no one from my camp or from the Grand Camp leaked anything,” he informed, speaking with absolute certainty. He had only told of their plans to those he trusted absolutely and he had made sure that the Grand Camp and its nobles were under constant supervision. It would be hard for anyone to exchange any information with how careful they were being, much less actually learn of their detailed plans and leak them to their enemies.
“It would make sense,” Sirius admitted. However, he didn’t seem to agree entirely. “But that’s only if we consider that one ambush was to be prepared. Thinking that they would risk sending their second strongest expert when a fight with our White Guard could break out at any moment just because they had a ‘hunch’ the messenger would be someone strong is stretching it just a little bit. Still… I also can’t bring myself to believe that someone from our camps would betray,” he said in the end and exchanged a wry smile with Elder Samuel. He couldn’t afford to not bring up his doubts, so he hoped that Elder Samuel would understand his position and wouldn’t hold it against him.
“I also think we should do it,” Julien said resolutely, though admittedly, a level of anger and grief was present in his voice. “The biggest strength of our plan is that we can retreat whenever we want. Arakar and Yimar Maar won’t decide to invade our country even if we make our involvement blatantly obvious. We’ve already decided to tie out fates with Makarash… so if we all believe that those two boys are still alive, then we should go through with our original plans. Who knows, maybe we will be surprised in the end,” he said and smirked slightly. However, at the same time, he realized he had unintentionally touched upon something really important.
Yes, without Laien and Yin, would the alliance of Makarash and the Ruishi Federation continue uninhibited? It was true that originally, the talent, strength, and influence behind those two boys wasn’t a major factor in establishing their alliance, but as the days went, the involvement of those two became bigger and bigger. They revealed how talented they were, they became good friends with Raphael and Mikaela, then even shared their own insights and taught them to freely to those two new friends of theirs. Moreover, given the improvements Raphael and Mikaela, with Mikaela in particular, made, it would be hard for Elder Samuel not to see Laien and Yin’s involvement as something precious.
“Reian, what do you think?” Sirius inquired, feeling that it would be for the best not to bring up that one thing everybody surely thought about for a moment. “Reian?” he repeated, seeing as Reian didn’t as much as look at him and appeared not to have heard the question at all. “Reian!” After another few seconds, he raised his voice and finally got the golden-haired man to react. He sighed heavily, then looked Reian in the eye and spoke gently.
“I understand what you are feeling, but now’s not the right time. We can mourn the dead once everything’s over… just so that we can avoid anyone else dying.”
At first, Reian felt like lashing out against Sirius, but he managed to restrain himself before he did so. Even though his heart was breaking apart, he knew that Jasmine would have scolded him badly if she learned that he allowed more of their comrades to die just because he was wailing. She would tell him to get it together and do his job… she would smile and tell him to stop caring about such a granny and to look for a girl his age, just like she always did…
Without him realizing, his eyes grew red and tears flowed down his face. Mustafa was his benefactor, but it had been Jasmine who raised him and taught him how to live. He had come to admire her strict teaching and warm personality ever since he was a kid, only to fall in love with her before he even noticed. Although Jasmine had never taken him all that seriously, she never refused his advances outright. He had truly thought that one day, he would be able to make her his own, that he would be able to create a happy family with her and raise their children together… but now, all those dreams of his would forever remain just that; they would forever be sad, melancholic dreams.
“Sorry,” he said after a brief, or perhaps after a relatively long moment. He wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve, laughed weakly and looked first at Arslan, then at Sirius, Elder Samuel and the rest of those present. “I don’t think I can think straight right now. Even after I calm down, I’ll probably choose the option that will allow me to cross swords with Abdain… so do not rely on my opinions for the time being,” he said honestly. He himself was best aware of how disturbed his mental state was at the moment and he knew that it wouldn’t change anytime soon. However, he still had enough sense to know that all his choices would be biased and thus, he said what he said.
After Reian’s declaration, everyone’s attention started steadily shifting towards Arslan. Elder Samuel, Sirius, and Reian had made their opinions clear. It could be said that in their group, those three adults were currently the ones with the most to say, so there wasn’t much of a point in having everybody else voice what they thought.
“Let’s do it,” Arslan said after a few seconds of thought. “I do think that Laien and Yin are alive, but we can’t rely on Holy Union’s help. Let’s arrange everything with father and see what we can do,” he suggested, thinking that it would be best to act with caution. Just like Sirius was saying, they couldn’t know for sure if some of their secrets had been leaked or not, so he wanted them to act with care.
“Yeah.” Both Elder Samuel and Sirius agreed at the same time. The two of them exchanged a brief look, then sighed in their hearts. With the two strong personalities of Jasmine and Laien gone, the relatively more level-headed ones like them were pushed to the front. Yet, it wasn’t something they could possibly be happy about.
“If that’s decided,” Sirius said calmly and looked around, at the faces of those nearby. “Then I trust we should start splitting up. If we wait until tomorrow, then it will be harder to look natural in the groups we’ll be moving with,” he stated straightforwardly. Since everything had been prepared anyway and only the part of receiving help from the Holy Union was invalidated, he saw no reason for them to delay. However, most importantly he wanted Reian to focus on their mission early on; he wanted to give him some time to calm down and clear his head of the thoughts about Jasmine.
“True,” Julien nodded thoughtfully. He was also shaken to have heard that Jasmine was dead, but since the woman was merely a good acquaintance of his and he had had only a slight crush on her, he was able to focus on the task at hand. As for whether those two boys were alive, since their plan didn’t rely on them, he chose not to bother himself with it too much. “Even if we would be able to act calm and natural, the people around us wouldn’t be able to do the same. An experienced person would be able to pick us out in an instant,” he added for the sake of explanation. He never liked assuming things and assuming that others understood the point just because they weren’t objecting was naturally included in that. As a military commander, he knew that most often, it would be such small miscommunications that brought trouble to the battle plan in one way or another.
“Let’s split up then.” Seeing that no one was going to say anything else, Julien declared resolutely. “I trust that you two Elders will stay near the border with Victoria and her elites as planned. Arslan, you should stick close to me. My thirty-six Cherubim, including me, will focus on making sure that no harm comes to you along with Sirius and Kasha of your White Guard,” he elaborated once more for twofold reasons. For once, he liked to remind of everything both his squad-leaders and those involved in the plan in order to confirm that everyone, including him, understood the gist of things. As for the second thing, he wanted to change this rather heavy mood that befell them in the meanwhile.
“Arslan, you do remember Jordan and Mark, no?” he inquired, though even himself he wasn’t quite aware that he caused a slight frown to emerge on Elder Samuel’s and Elder Simon’s faces. Well, it was just like him to quickly drop the formalities and no longer use the ‘young master’ title, so the two Elders didn’t make any comments about something so pointless, though mainly because Arslan seemed not to mind it at all. “If anything unexpected happens, call out to one of us three first and foremost,” he reminded and smiled contentedly when Arslan nodded in response.
“The remaining five teams of thirty-six each will be stationed in the groups close to ours,” he followed up, then shifted his gaze towards Reian. “I’ve got one suggestion though. Instead of having you stay with us and protect Arslan as originally planned, how about we change your role to roaming the battlefield freely? You were quite fast to begin with and you’ve only gotten faster after acquiring those new insights and advancing a rank, so there should be no problem unless Arakar himself shows up,” he proposed, once again with two reasons he had in mind. One of them was just like he said, while the other was that he was being considerate of Reian’s mental state.
He was well aware how the emotions after one suffered a great loss evolved. First came shock, then immense sadness, numbness… and in the end, frustration, anger, and hatred. He didn’t want to have Reian to something unexpected and leave a hole in their defensive formation, so he thought it would be better to assign him to a position where he would be able to fight to his heart’s content.
“… Thank you,” Reian said after a brief moment of silence. Even though he wasn’t in his right mind, he not only wasn’t an idiot, but he was the prime candidate for the next Captain Commander of the entire White Guard. There was no way be wouldn’t be able to realize something like how the state of his mind could influence his decisions. He had even stated early on that his opinions shouldn’t be taken into consideration because of that very awareness, so he was grateful for Julien’s suggestion.
“Good,” Elder Samuel joined in. He exchanged a look with Julien and Reian, then sighed silently and looked at the two precious youths that were standing near him. “Raphael, Mikaela. I would very much like to tell you to go back to the capital, but I doubt you’d listen to me willingly anyway. So, you two are going to stay with us at the border. That should be fine, right?” he asked with a smile. Their borders were heavily guarded and they even had Victoria and her elites at hand, so the likelihood of any danger coming their way was close to zero. Thus, he saw no particular reason to send those two away and if so, then he could as well go along with what he expected them to request anyway.
“Yeah! Thanks!” Mikaela responded energetically. He really wouldn’t have been able to bear waiting a day longer for the news to arrive, so he was happy that his father did them a favor.
“Thank you,” Raphael also expressed his gratitude, though despite feeling the same as Mikaela, he did so in a far calmer manner.
Elder Samuel smiled at the two precious youths, then gave the man from his intelligence unit a meaningful look. “I trust you already know everything needed. Go inform the Grand Yimar Mustafa of our decisions. As originally planned, we’re going to rely on his support to diver the majority of Arakar’s and Yimar Maar’s forces,” he ordered simply and only said a few additional words of explanation. Dim-witted people would never make their way into the intelligence corps, so unless he wanted a special message to be delivered, there was no reason to say all that much to them in situations like this one, when the cooperation between the parties was a genuine and honest one.
“You go too,” Sirius said to the second of the men, who bowed slightly in response and quickly set off with the other man.