Chapter 73: Wrath of the sky (Second Part)
“Faster!”
Once again, Jazor’s rough voice reached Alianelle who was a few feet behind while trying as hard as she could to follow his rhythm. She used the back of her hand to hurriedly wipe her forehead and put her messy hair covered with sweat behind her ears.
Without losing any time after this practiced movement, she hastened her steps to catch up before Jazor issued another profanity toward her.
She knew that Jazor didn’t bother to choose his words most of the time. It was easy to see when he was talking with Sillath. Even so, Jazor rarely used any rude language in front of her and obviously never screamed at her. The fact that he did it several times to ask her to speed up showed how anxious he was.
The newly formed clouds progressively replacing the usual blue sky and the numerous rising pillars of dark smoke all around the Advanced town were enough reasons to justify his anxiousness.
This scene seemingly born in one of her nightmares was more than enough to scare her. However, more than the risk she was facing, she was more worried about Sillath who left on his own to save her father about an hour ago.
Even she could tell that the explosions were progressively gathering around the Advanced town.
If Sillath was able to pick up her father in time, then he would need to leave as fast as possible. He definitely won’t have the ability to wait for them.
Therefore, they had to reach the meeting point before him.
However, the tallest tree at the edge of a small forest a few hundred feet away from the city’s wall seemed desperately out of reach for the tired young girl.
Only the hope to meet Sillath and her father safely there fueled her determination and pushed her to continue despite the pain in her legs and chest.
That’s why she gritted her teeth and followed Jazor as fast as her untrained body allowed her to.
Even if she never experienced this kind of forced walk before, Alianelle didn’t let out a single complaint which gained her Jazor’s silent appreciation.
Jazor was obviously more trained than Alianelle and, while the young girl had to put all her thoughts into their tiring walk, he had the time to think about their current predicament. However, no matter how much he thought about it, he never imagined that their situation would escalate so quickly. If he had known, he wouldn’t have come back no matter what.
Thanks to Sillath’s mysterious potion, Jazor was able to regain quite a bit of strength. However, it was still too soon for him to use his magic again. If another explosion somehow cancelled his magic and wounded him like before, Jazor knew that this time he would completely lose his ability to move among the earth along with any ability to defend himself.
He couldn’t take this kind of risk for now.
This threat looming over his head, and constantly reminded by the low rumble in the sky, helped him ignore Alianelle gasps for air and shaking limbs behind him. With the feeling that his magic will be their only way out of this situation once all of them gathered at the meeting point, Jazor continued to push forward.
*Boom*
Another explosion suddenly resonated.
Neither Jazor nor Alianelle were able to suppress their instinct to stop and turn their head toward this violent noise. Fortunately, this time the explosion occurred at the east side of the town and was, as a result, quite far away from them.
After noticing the distance separating them from the newly rising pillar of dark smoke, Jazor and Alianelle both heaved a silent sigh of relief and resumed their forced march. The young girl wasn’t able to stop herself from anxiously looking at the sky above their heads as if another explosion was ready to fall upon them at any time.
Fortunately, the numerous explosions threatening their sanity miraculously spared them from this terrible fate.
However, this wasn’t enough to allow Jazor to relax.
Even if he didn’t know what was causing these explosions, he spent too much time inside the wilderness to confuse it with a natural phenomenon. As unrealistic as it seemed, these explosions reshaping the face of the entire region were created by someone.
However, if this was really created by someone in response to the murder of the Ryunno clan member then what was the purpose of all these explosions?
To kill the people responsible for this crime?
Jazor had no idea how the death of this Ryunno clan member could be known just a few hours after his death, but it was still obviously impossible to send investigators this deep into the wilderness in such a short period of time.
Even with the almost unlimited resources of their clan, any kind of investigation would be extremely difficult and even if a lead was left once they arrived, the culprit would be long gone.
This reasoning was the most probable that Jazor was able to reach. If investigating and finding the culprit were deemed as impossible while being this deep into the wilderness, then it would explain why they simply chose to use such a violent method.
However, if this was really the case then why were they still safe?
The entire region was targeted but none of the explosions were close enough to cause them any harm.
Were they truly unable to detect them and simply chose to target the Advanced town as retaliation?
At first Jazor thought that this was the only reasonable explanation. They intended to destroy the Advanced town and all the camps around to punish this murder.
However, after more than an hour of a frantic run against time, Jazor finally realized that too many explosions occurred. It was impossible for the Advanced town to have this many camps around.
So why were they still stubbornly causing these explosions without any evident target?
These questions stubbornly circled in his head until the answer struck him without any warning.
The terrible truth made him stop in his steps.
Alianelle was so surprised by his sudden stop that she almost bumped into his strong back.
“Jazor?” She timidly asked with her soft voice intermingled with her rushed breathing.
However, Jazor didn’t answer her. With a pale face and dark eyes betraying his newfound fear, he resumed his forced walk even faster than before.
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If he was right then things were even worse than he initially thought. Saving everyone with his magic would also become impossible.
A single word escaped his sealed lips.
“Faster!”
Alianelle didn’t have the leisure to ask any more questions. Afraid that she would be left behind, she simply chose to follow him in silence with her gaze fixed on the imposing tree near the Advanced town.
They continued to walk without any break for what seemed like an eternity for the young girl.
The tree was almost within reach.
However, Alianelle was finally unable to bear it anymore and collapsed when they had to cross a small muddy hill. Her strength was spent and even her determination wasn’t enough to allow her to continue. While she was desperately trying to catch her breath and stand up despite the uneven ground, she felt a strong arm wrapping around her waist.
She didn’t have to turn her head to understand that Jazor simply chose to carry her like a luggage above his right shoulder when he noticed that she was unable to continue anymore.
Alianelle didn’t struggle and was glad that Jazor wasn’t able to see her face pressed against his back.
She never felt as much shame as in this instant. Her entire face was dyed red, but her eyes stubbornly refused to let the tears of frustration gathering at the corner of her eyes flow.
Sillath and Jazor took all these absurd risks just to save her and even now, they were risking their lives to fulfil her selfish wish to reunite with her father.
They gave her so much, they risked so much but she wasn’t even able to stand on her own two feet.
Several years ago, when they had to leave the Dorell kingdom and seek shelter inside this Advanced town Alianelle was still young so she didn’t have this kind of feeling even if she had to entirely depend on her father for protection.
However, now this was different.
She was old enough to take care of herself.
She always did her best to lessen the burden of her father with the farm and had always prided herself as being more independent than all the other children as old as her.
However, she now realized how wrong she was.
Sillath was even younger than her, but he was able to go to the Advanced town on his own whereas she couldn’t even stand on her own feet anymore.
She never felt this powerless before and finally realized why Sillath stubbornly continued to train his magic even under the dense and cold rain.
She clenched her small fists in frustration for long minutes when the strongest explosion they ever heard finally put an end to her thoughts and made Jazor stop in his tracks.
Alianelle wasn’t able to see where the explosion happened. For long seconds, the ringing of her ears also prevented her from hearing anything.
“No…”
The first word she was able to hear when she recuperated this ability made her entire body turn cold. Without waiting, she struggled on Jazor’s shoulder, and got on her own sore feet in a few seconds.
She slowly turned her head to look in the same direction as Jazor.
The same dense pillar of smoke was rising just a couple of miles away from them. They've never been this close to the explosions before, but this wasn’t what almost made her kneel on the ground in despair.
The smoke was coming from inside the Advanced town.
From this distance, they could see with a frightening clarity the terrible scene unfolding in front of their eyes despite the dense smoke rising from a large part of the city.
The massive door of the Advanced town was completely blown off while a violent fire was starting to spread with flames slowly rising above the walls. This city that stood tall in these unforgiving lands for so long had lost its previous grandness in an instant. The violent crackling of the fire was almost completely covered by the distant screams filled with fear and despair rising from the heart of this town once known for its safety.
This scene made it finally truly possible to understand what kind of devastating attack suffered the entire town.
“Sillath… Dad…”
With a pale face, accentuating the dried blood still covering her forehead, Alianelle mumbled these few words with despair in her voice and with her teary eyes fixed on this terrible scene of destruction.
“We’re too late.”
Jazor’s words filled with his suppressed emotions brought Alianelle back from her shock.
“We don’t know that yet! Maybe they were spared by the explosion.”
“What do you mean spared? Look! Without the wall, we would have probably been blown away by the shockwave. Who can survive something like that?”
“Sillath can!”
Jazor who was consumed by his emotions and certitude was stopped by this single sentence. The idea to flee this close to their goal didn’t appear as their only choice anymore.
Seeing his hesitation, Alianelle didn’t waste any time to continue her persuasion.
“I believe in him. We must trust and wait for him!”
Alianelle’s innocent words filled with confidence for a boy even younger than her made it difficult for Jazor to immediately react.
Even now, he didn’t truly understand what happened to this young boy he found on his own deep into the wilderness.
His beautiful face was similar to that of a girl while his frail body seemed to belong to someone from the nobility. However, his young and innocent face were betrayed by his eyes as blue as the sky.
Jazor has never seen eyes as beautiful as this but also so full with determination and weariness. No matter how he looked, he couldn’t find a single trace of the playfulness of a child inside him.
It was as if these eyes had seen more things than he did, even though he had lived for decades longer.
After crossing these mesmerizing eyes so many times, Jazor finally realized that this kind of gaze, which had obviously seen the horror of life, should belong to someone much older than him.
An ignorant child who would sometimes show his lack of teaching as if he never went to school before with eyes betraying his real understanding of the world.
Even now, Jazor didn't really know who the real him was.
However, it was a fact that this frail boy was able to confront him head on and gave him surprise after surprise.
That’s why, under Alianelle’s pleading eyes, Jazor subconsciously nodded his head.
The shock they both felt with the sight of the ravaged town subsided.
An absurd idea born from their trust in a young boy replaced it.
They didn’t need to share any other word when they resumed their walk for this simple reason.
They both shared that belief that it was too soon for them to despair.
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A blinding flash of white light overcoming for an instant the darkness brought by the dense clouds.
A violent rumble more aggressive than the strongest thunder.
A blast strong enough to shake the tall wall of this city.
Then nothing.
The heavy silence that settled for long minutes after that was only broken by the noise of the newly born flames ready to make disappear every trace of this town protecting the interest of the Dorell Kingdom deep into the wilderness.
An even longer time was necessary for the first screams of the rare wounded survivors to emerge.
Few of them weren’t at least partially buried by various debris. A part of the screams of pain quickly transformed into desperate pleadings for help and finally completed this fearsome picture.
Men and women.
Adult and children.
No matter their gender, age or race none were spared from the fury of the sky.
Not a single building was left standing either.
The center of the Advanced town was beyond recognition, completely devastated, but some of the most robust mercenaries who used their magic just before the impact were able to survive. No more than a dozen of such wonders could be seen and none was spared from bloody wounds.
These lucky survivors had troubles adapting to this new disturbing environment, but they all quickly gathered their wits and chose to run away as fast as possible from this doomed town.
The screams of hate and indignation of the people ignored by these lucky survivors continued to spread long after their departures.
Similar scenes could be seen in the various districts of this town.
Even the farmland district, quite a distance away from the place of the impact, wasn’t spared from this cruel fate.
Despite the distance, the shockwave of the explosion was still strong enough to blow away almost all the buildings and devastated the fields beyond recognition.
The same scene of destruction except that no scream could be heard there.
Within this almost completely destroyed city, this place where many people gathered to work in their respective field was without a doubt the quietest.
Until the sound of stones falling to the ground finally emerged and broke this deathly silence.
With bloody hands and in desperate need of a breath of fresh air, Sillath finally emerged from the ruins.