Rodderick was sitting with Ember’s body, looking at the forest. Unlike last time, he could not hear the ongoing battle.

He sighed. Last fight was incredibly quick, everything could be decided in a matter of seconds, he didn’t know how much he had actually waited, but it felt eternal..

“Wahh!”, suddenly, Ember’s body started clapping, which made Rodderick jump in freight.

Is that a celebration? Rodderick’s face transformed to one full of joy.

“Yeaaaaaaaah! Hahahaha!”, he couldn't help but jump and run in circles out of sheer relief.

“Cough, anyways, just as expected of sir Edeus”, he sat down as if it wasn’t a big deal. If he was going to learn from Edeus, maybe he should start imitating his cool reserved attitude.

After a few minutes of waiting, Edeus appeared flying over the forest hugging Ember’s head with one arm and landed next to Rodderick.

“Hey Ricky, I’m back!”, the witch greeted him like she just went out for a walk. Used to the witch’s bizarre attitude, he was no longer bothered by her eccentricities, instead he just felt happy to reunite with his friend.

…

The trio was back inside the earth hut. Ember was holding her own head in place while Edeus muttered a healing spell.

“There you go, try not to lose your head again”, the old wizard let go of her and took his staff in his hands.

“You got it, boss. Ember’s head and leg we back to normal. She stood up, kicked with her leg a few times and moved her neck to get rid of any discomfort.

“Healing magic is amazing, can you heal anything as long as someone is alive?”, Rodderick was amazed at the resilience of the witch and the capacity for restoration of healing magic and asked in a curious tone.

“What makes you think death could stop me?”, Edeus chuckled. “There’s magic that can bring the dead back to life too, under certain conditions of course. For example, if a demon devours a human they can’t be brought back to life”.

“Why is that?”, Rodderick asked confused, it was a very specific condition.

“Because the real reason demons devour humans is to eat their souls, it is the core of our very existence, without it, there’s no life.”

“I see…”, Rodderick sighed. When he heard Edeus talk about bringing back the dead he felt excited for a second, if he became a powerful wizard like him perhaps he could bring his parents back to life, however, his hopes were quickly crushed.

Edeus understood Rodderick’s sadness, he wished to cheer him up, perhaps by talking about how he was able to cast magic, but his duty didn’t allow it, he still had to find the prince.

“Alright Rodderick, I will now tell you why Ember and I came here”, Edeus had casted a protective spell on the earth hut before restoring Ember back to health, now that he knew the snake augur was back in action, he had to take every protection against scrying magic as he could. Because of this, he no longer had to be secretive with the child.

Rodderick nodded, interested, at first he thought they were simply patrolling near the front lines, however, that didn’t seem to be the case.

“We are looking for a little brat that decided to run away from home. He goes by the name of Adrian Aeron, but you may know him by his title instead, the third prince of the Aeron kingdom.”

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“A prince?!”, Rodderick jumped on his seat, he only heard of royalty in stories. Meeting these two mages had truly turned his life into a fantastical adventure.

“That’s right, listen well. Everyone in the royal family has shinning red hair, keep this in mind when looking for him”.

“Leave it to me!”

“Good, let’s go then.”, Edeus ruffled Rodderick’s hair with a smile on his face.

“To Dorhem!”

…

In the north of Dorhem, there was a fortress occupied by the demon army. In the nearby lands, troops had risen a camp with numerous tents of varying sizes.

A humanoid demon was looking down on at camp from his room in the fortress. His name was Abeon, a talented commander with over 500 demons under his command.

In the room with him were his two trusted friends.

Mytha, like him, had a very humanoid appearance one could only differentiate them from humans by the color of their skin and other small features.

Abeon had dark blue skin and a small pair of wings sprouting from his head.

Mytha had green skin and a long thin tail like that of a lizard which she used to balance her self and as a weapon.

They both belonged to the Yoma kind, which most demons were part of.

The power of Yoma varied greatly depending on the amount of magical reserves they were born with. Most were unremarkable and formed the foundations of the demon army as foot soldiers. Some, on the other extreme were mages so powerful that defied comprehension.

Blain, the third demon in the room was an Abyssal.

Abyssal were descendants of a previous demon lord, and as one would expect, they were exceedingly powerful from birth, they had a terrifying ability which allowed them to regenerate from any damage. Their body was a combination of powerful muscles, bones and fur.

Blain’s face resembled the skull of a cow with red flaming dots inside the eye-sockets, his collar was adorned by black fur and so were his shoulder and legs.

“Have you guys heard? There’s a little prince on stroll around these parts”, Abeon looked back at his friends who were playing a card game on the floor to combat the boredom.

“Yup, everyone was trying to get a piece of him, but finding him sounds like a drag”, Blain inspected the cards which looked comically small in his hands planning his next move.

“Well I have good news for you, guess who I just saw inside Dorhem?”, Abeon moved away from the window and a small crow landed at his side.

“No way! For real? Gahahaha! Let’s go! Let’s go eat him right now!”, Blain excitedly threw his cards away.

Mytha who saw her card game come to end, threw her own cards and looked at Blain.

“Don’t be an idiot, it has to be a trap, why would the royal prince come to the front lines? Glareon only saw the prince go out of Whilmcaster, but he didn’t see why. They could be trying to lure us out while secretly escorted by powerful enemies.”, she rested her head on her hand while lying on the floor.

“My familiars inspected most of the city, he is indeed escorted by a soldier, however, it’s only one, it doesn’t seem to be part of an operation.”, Abeon scratched the head of the crow next to him, thanking him for it’s hard work.

“Who’s the escort?”, Mytha asked cautiously.

“No idea, never seen him before, if they haven’t fought in the front lines they are probably not very strong, this is the prefect chance to climb up the ranks”

Mytha closed her eyes for a second pondering.

“Alright, I’m in. What about you, Blain?”, she opened her eyes and looked at the big demon.

“Do you even have to ask?”, the abyssal stood up more than 2 meters in height and started warming up.

“Let’s hunt the little prince”, Blain muttered, his mouth was salivating in anticipation.