SUTA POV

"Suta...Suta

Suuuta…hehehe.

You should wake up now.

The sky is falling.

You should hurry and find them. I can feel them beating even from here.

She needs them to survive what's to come.

Hurry, wake up and find them.

Hurry before it's too late.

Before they find us, hurry, Suta. Hurry up. Granny is in trouble.

Demoria is in trouble. Ringo is lost

Suta. You must help them. Quickly before it's too late."

Suta's eyes flickered open with a short gasp breaking away, swiftly followed by hurried breaths fighting quickly to escape from his partially opened mouth. A brief panic stole away his senses, desperately yearning for air like a fish out of water. But once he overcame the distress, his dreary gaze awoke to that familiar red sky staining his view. With a feverish ache within his bones, he gently moved his fingertips, stirring himself awake. He felt his body lethargically regaining clarity slowly.

Suta slowly pulled his torso into a seated position, where he quickly felt Verdi lying against his chest. Its soft snores thrummed melodically against his skin. He paused his movements and deliberately softened his breaths. Watching the little fairy brought a warm smile creased against his chapped lips.

"Hey…" his hoarse voice eventually whispered gently.

Using his thumb, he carefully prodded the fairy until it stirred awake. For the first few seconds, Verdi looked disoriented, rubbing its little eyes a few times before it observed it took a deeper look around to inspect its surroundings. Suta chuckled a little. He enjoyed watching it slowly bring itself back into reality again. Its whimsical eyes, glossed with an ethereal glow, brightened into life again soon enough. Suta watched it go from happy to sad to worry. Verdi swiftly flew a little above his head to survey their surroundings.

"M-mister, did we fall asleep…out here?" A slightly dazed and troubled-looking Verdi inquired.

Suta scanned the somewhat barren land. Apart from the blue weeds growing sparsely against the dried land and the thin cyan stalks with pink and orange tulip heads folded downwards, most of the land lacked any foliage or crowd of bushes. It felt deserted, not quite like a dune, but a barren flat plane with scarce pools of water and more hard-shelled tiny critters walking along the ground.

Compared to the heavy and somewhat suffocating atmosphere within the jungle, the air around these parts was less overbearing and lighter. Suta lifted his gaze upwards, noticing an uneasy facial expression resting against Verdi's features and the constant nervous glare pressed towards the westward way.

He followed Verdi's gaze and narrowed his brows in response.

"Trouble?" He asked the fairy.

Verdi's body noticeably shivered before softly bouncing its head up and down.

Suta didn't say anything else. He slowly rose to his feet and stretched out his sore limbs. His wounds had scarred and scabbed over, but the pain was consistently biting at his pores with each movement he made. Verdi's blessing ability wasn't as potent as it once was. They both needed a lengthy rest, preferably a few days at this rate, without moving around and, indeed, without fighting.

Thinking about this, Suta decided that he couldn't afford to engage in any more drawn-out fights for now. Despite the ferocious will he cradled, brewing each day towards the need to acquire strength, reckless engagement would not only put himself in danger but also Verdi.'

Back in the tunnel, Suta had initially been looking forward to venturing with a party of four for once, despite the glaring mistrust between him and Gio. The blue-shelled carp-faced creature was a welcoming addition to his arsenal. His sensory skills were also exceptionally accurate, more so than the current and still-growing adolescent Verdi. Likely, he would be wise not to admit that out in the open.

'There's no helping it; I must keep moving, sore body or not .'

Suta understood the obvious reasons for his intrigue toward the boy named Polkadot, but he wasn't in any rush to look for trouble. Also, given the way current events were going these days, he was almost guaranteed to bump into him again.

Suta stared beyond the horizon, finally examining the familiar blue rolling hills. If memory served him correctly, that enchanted and ethereal arrayed blue castle wasn't too far away from here. In his mind, he could still see those towering iron portcullis and rising drawbridges framed with golden iron links. He still remembered those spacious, grandiose halls he actively detested at first. He understood that in the heart of these foreign marvels, his uneasiness and distrust had marred the other side of his personality toward these things.

The face of a blue-haired girl, often deemed outwardly proud but inwardly quite caring and uniquely gifted, flashed through his thoughts.

If his body wasn't still reeling in fluctuations of pain, he might've increased the pace of his walk a little more. Suta studied the lands carefully, ensuring they followed the formless road west without any stops. Verdi led the way, of course, and they both moved west.

Soon, they arrived at a barren hillside, flanked by broken rocks and matted with partial cyan-coloured grass. A large twisting white tree had grown away from the hill; its strange miscoloured orange leaves drew a peculiar attraction from him. The bushes were full, and even violet-coloured plumes had begun to bulge and hang. Two delicate-looking sunflowers wrapped around a thin branch. Suta drew close enough to admire the intricately woven petals coiffed over the slender vine. A frown creased his face, watching the mask of a hideous face scrunching its features together. The moment their black, soulless eyes beheld him, they reigned upon him the same song of reverence all the ugly-faced plants sung to him.

"Abbra-oh-Abbra, our king has come."

"All hail Abbra!"

"Hail him-Hail him."

Suta withdrew Red Tooth menacingly; their screams were driving him mad. He was about to sever their stems when he heard the sounds of distress coming from somewhere close to the jagged hill. He and Verdi moved towards the sloped edge, where they pressed their gazes upon the distant horizon. A noticeable shock almost broke free in unison from their drooping jaws. Suta rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. After clarity set in and he was assured those distant smoky blue towers were, in fact, the blue castle, a sense of deep relief washed throughout his entire body.

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"We…we made it…heh…heh-hahaha-Verdi, look, we made it ho-home!" His voice almost broke from the euphoria slowly rising in his gut.

Suta sensed Verdi's disconnect. "what's the matter?" he asked, noticing a somberness to the little sprite's demeanour. Verdi fidgeted with its little hands before delicately affixing its large pair of eyes towards Suta.

"I…I don't…wait-mister, what is…look over there," Verdi gestured towards the other side of the meadow covered in tall blue wheatgrass with pale seeds adorned against their slender necks. Suta peered in that direction and almost flinched upon seeing what was happening there.

'Is that? An army?' His brows furrowed deeper, and he felt his throat slightly tightening.

A sizeable throng of shadows was making its way towards the blue castle. Beneath the striking red skies, he saw waving banners covered in red and gold. A sigil of a golden sun with a red hangman hung in the middle. Just from this distance alone, Suta noticed the large group draped in heavy gothic armor, like living flesh pressed over their limbs.

'Why is there an army marching towards the castle? D-Demoria, please be ok.'

Suta was hurrying to cross the meadow where he would finally reunite with the youthful girl with whom he shared many great days on the farm. He searched for the nearest sloping descent towards the flatter earth beneath. While doing so, he noticed something catching his eye in the corner of his peripheral vision, drawing his attention closer. He frowned instantly, beholding a disturbing scene of a litter of dead animals sprawled between the tall wheatgrass. The suddenly contrasting view of death marred against this beautiful scene was like a thorn to his fairytale. Reality had reminded him swiftly that he was still entrapped in an unforgiving jungle beneath a dreadful curse.

Verdi hovered a little ahead of him; unease and worry hung around the fairy. Suta understood what it likely felt from its reaction.

"That's where the trouble is?" he asked seriously, to which Verdi slowly nodded.

Suta pressed his gaze deeper towards the trail of the dead. Very faintly, he could see two shadows engaging.

Two figures danced against the air in such a precise and high-speed manner that his eyes couldn't follow them at first.

He secured Red Tooth and Moon Drop and stared on, glazed with a blank, stiff expression, awaiting the inevitable reveal. Suta started to get into the habit of stretching that tiny wisp of mana his body could produce to flow around his body. It didn't achieve much but calm his nerves; he liked the cooling sensation of mana against his warm blood. Thankfully, he was perched on higher ground, overlooking the field of blue wheatgrass from above.

He heard a loud clang and a voice cried out in distress. The shadows dispersed away from one another; the figure closest to him drew away, desperately shedding bits of its body away. Suta saw the slender, leafy-covered back and his blank expression twisted into a frown. its torn ribcage consisted of coiled wooden vines, instead of human skin, it was a forest green, leathery texture with autumn-colored leaves patched all over the clear womanly humanoid form.

Her hair was a tangle of loose vines and stiff-shaped branches. Tiny white and peach-coloured flowers adorned in a style to form the crown of her head.

A swelling ire roused from Suta's gut whilst he finally made contact with the one beast he vowed to repay for all the trouble she had caused him.

'T-the thorny princess.' He grimaced darkly.

But the usually imposingly cold-hearted creature was displaying a strangely haggard appearance. Below its left elbow, its limb was missing, and there were noticeable signs of deep wounds against it. Suta noticed the ragged breaths escaping through its small, perched mouth. He might've secretly rejoiced seeing one of the kings of the jungle get their just desserts, but his gaze brushed over the thorny princess and fell against the aggressor. Its slender silhouette sparked goosebumps running down his arms.

The cold shiver immediately overcame Suta, whose entire body turned to ice. His eyes rattled like two glass balls, disbelieving and harrowingly hoping his eyes were lying to him.

"N-no way…is that..."

The slender figure walked away from the narrow shadows. A soft clank of pressed iron echoed as it moved its sturdy limbs; the white-furred creature was clothed in partially torn armour, barely clinging to its bony frame. Suta felt his breath caught in his throat, watching the ghoulish-looking figure slowly approach.

His thoughts drifted to when he shared a brief walk beside the honourable, tiny, flat-footed fellow dressed in tiny knight's armour. At that time, Suta was almost perplexed by its unusual getup. The placement of its long ears held a profound mystery to him until this very moment. He had doubts about its origins, but now he could see it - two tall-standing white ears forced through a jagged hole in the tight visor, with long claws protruding bloodily from white, bearish paws. The ghoulish, zombified rabbit breathed hoarsely through the closed visor. Suta felt terrible observing what had become of the tiny knight, Ser Ector.

'You called yourself the noblest.' His thoughts darkened at the cruelty of this world - not just this world, but his own, and possibly all other worlds just like this. Suta breathed and exhaled before he tilted his neck back. His half-closed eyelids focused on that gigantic eye beheld in the heavens.

'Lysann, was your spell really to save this place, or was it…'

Suta lowered his pensive gaze again, beholding Ser Ector's transformation. The creature raised its helm upwards and roared defiantly into the air. He felt every nerve within his body reject the sheer shockwave from that roar. The thorny princess would continue to maintain her distance; that thing Ser Ector had become was trouble, yet to Suta, all he felt was a dreadful sadness.

'Was it to create this chaos?' He asked himself, from the strange inhabitants of the whimsical blue castle. To the lonely vampire Anak, the fairies, Zoroth the willow o wisp said once to be a great general of the demon king. There was nothing but chaos raining down from Lysanns choices.

The thorny princess held her stub of an arm out and focused intently; a small coiling stem painfully crept out. Her voice snarled loudly from the pain, but she managed to regrow the wooden skeletal outline of her arm back. Her shifty, cat-shaped eyes scanned her surroundings. She very quickly sensed the presence of the nearby visitors on a vantage point behind her. Her initial look was shock, discomfort, and intrigue, and then a cunning smile birthed.

Suta didn't hesitate and slowly reached for his two bladed weapons secured by his hip. The thorny princess snatched one more glance at the tall-eared knight before unexpectedly spinning on her heels and beelining across the tall field of wheatgrass towards the sloped hill where Suta stood. She was still just as dangerously quick as he remembered. Unconsciously, he even placed a hand on his chest to massage the wound she had gifted him with during the first few days he spent on the island.

She leapt towards the rising earth and kicked the earth midway before using the footstool to create a second jump, scaling over the sloped hill. Her graceful, half-tree body rose above Suta, who didn't move an inch. His wide eyes watched her with a dangerous glint within them. Since she appeared, the countless cogs in his mind had been moving as quickly as ever. He was already borderline on that state of inhuman focus, daydreaming of cutting the thorny princess down but wondering just which limb of his he would have to sacrifice in the process.

Their eyes finally met. Suta beheld those golden and black, truffle-looking eyeballs filled with a strange sense of uncertainty. She landed a few feet away from him, her movements as refined and graceful as those of a feline. Suddenly, her body moved; she shot past him. Her mouth moved just as she zipped past his still frame.

"Good luck… kekeke-my pretty."

Her voice trailed away into a ghostly whisper. Suta didn't bother to spare her a second look; he held only one focus. The beastly form of Ser Ector seemed to realize its prey had fled, and it too, wasted no time in locking onto another. Suta flinched, and the creature reacted. It stepped forward and jumped as high as anything Suta had ever seen. Verdi held onto one of his braided locks with all its might. The impact of its landing alone sent a small gale rushing forward.

As for Suta, he remained poised as a statue, his heels anchored against the firm ground. He felt the resounding pulse against the ground beneath his feet, almost reminiscent of a time he snuck up on Granny Baba and felt a sinister cloud seeping between the walls.

Standing beside this creature up close was borderline terrifying. Firstly, now that its slender and almost nightmarish form stood directly in his view, he was assured this was once Ser Ector, but as if the honourable, tiny little thing he once knew had transformed into some werewolf crossed with a zombified skeletal creature.

The zombified figure of Ser Ector exhaled a murky breath. A coldness ran down Suta's spine as a vision of death flashed through his thoughts, forcing him to swallow a harsh gulp just to relax. Before his mind could become sullen, he captured Verdi's wings twinkling beside his ear.

"Mister...th-that thing...is strong."

Suta creased a wry smirk and almost laughed in response.

"No, not just strong...he will be the strongest we have ever faced."