Finally I had a way to proof myself to Lucy. The paper plane in front of me was apparently something magical, but I honestly couldn’t care less. As soon as Luna had folded it appropriately, I grabbed out of her hand and pushed my mana into it.
Immediately, I felt a force coming from that thing and nodded towards Ellie who put it inside a box of barriers rather quickly.
“We are off.” I said dryly and walked away from that strategy meeting or whatever. Listening to a thirteen year old was weird, but at least she had a plan which none of the others did.
Squeezing ourselves out of the ring of humans securing the place warily, we soon found ourselves back in the wilderness.
“Why would the demons try to abduct her? And are we sure she isn’t dead already?” Ellie asked, but I wanted to hear none of that. I knew she was still alive. It just had to be.
“I don’t know … but Luna seemed to be convinced and this paper plane is still active so … “
“Just be ready for everything.” Ellie explained needlessly. We had trained for all eventualities after all.
Sadly, we couldn’t take the exact way we came, so we had to fight us through thick, crystalline bushes again until they finally returned back to normal and looked like plants once again. But that didn’t make it much better as we now had to go through this thick shrubbery.
For hours we walked on and on until we finally spotted a large castle in the distance. At first, we circled around it but as the paper plane always bonked onto the barrier in that direction, we could easily assume that Lucy was in there.
Slowly, we made our way towards the edge of the forest and glanced towards the walls, manned with goblins.
“How do we do this? We could wait till night so that Schwarz can use his magic better.” Ellie proposed, but I was massively against it. Every second wasted was another one Lucy could be hurt.
“No. We’ll go like this.” I said, stepped out of the woods and walked toward the broken down gate leisurely while the other three cursed behind me.
As soon as the goblins fired a few arrows, a thin bubble formed around me, repelling all of them effortlessly. Even though they all shot their tiny arrows, it didn’t make a scratch on any of the barriers. Instead, our mage quickly retaliated by conjuring up a gust of wind, pulling all the goblins towards us over the merlons.
Screams erupted from their throats as they fell down to their death in a rather gruesome scene. Some crashes into the wall on their way down and left behind a trail of blood while others simply died as they hit the ground.
Interestingly enough, there weren’t that many defenders though. They merely counted in the hundreds and those who weren’t on the walls turned out to be rather weak as well. They did have a single troll which seemed to be their most powerful fighter as the worm was nowhere to be found.
“LUCY!” I just screamed in the middle of the fortress, staring at the tall keep of it intensely. The paper plane was still attempting to fly towards it as I gripped the handle of my sword and pointed it at the slowly opening door.
A red haired man with black horns and wings stepped through the door, looking at us with pity in his eyes.
“So you are the so called heroes?” He said and leaned onto the door leisurely.
“Hand over Lucy right now!” I shouted out, pointed my sword at him and got ready to dash towards him.
“Let me think about it … no.” He said and curved the corners of his violet mouth upwards.
“I’ll kill you!” I said and dashed towards him right away.
“Eh … you really remained children.” His insult didn’t bother me at all, but there was something else that did. My feet suddenly felt very heavy and lifting up my arms became tiresome as well. I slowed down considerably because of that and halfway there, lifting my foot at all became an impossibility.
“What …” I pressed out, my jaw being dragged downwards as well. Even the fireballs thrown at him curved downwards and exploded a few metres away from me, throwing me off my feet.
Luckily, I managed to hold onto my sword as I crashed onto the ground, but was sadly unable to move even an inch. It felt as if thousand heavy sandbags were pushing onto over bit of my skin with even my blood being pulled towards the ground.
“How foolish you are.” The demon said, strolled over to me and kicked my belly.
“I will not …” Ellie said, somehow managed to push her spear into the ground and stood up slowly.
“Oh? You are the strongest of them?” He asked, staring at my fully armoured ally with a hint of interest while placing his foot onto my belly and pressing down.
“But can you hold out this?” He asked and made Ellie collapse immediately. Gripping the handle of my sword tightly, I began thirsting for his death immediately. This guy just kept on hurting my friends and the girl I loved so I didn’t contain my anger at all. Screaming loudly, I fought against the gravity with all my might and swung the blade upwards. The sword felt unnaturally light in my hands, even though it was subject to the same gravity I was.
But even though that man was surely surprised by my actions, he still managed to block my pitiful strike with his sword effortlessly.
“Oh? That’s a nice sword you have.” He said, apparently eyeing the cut in his own weapon. Then, he kicked my hand and forced me to let go of my blade in the process. The pitch black, curved sword slithered over the ground for a metre of so until it finally stopped. “Don’t mind me if I take it.” He said, kicked me one last time and strolled over to the sword.
“No! That’s … mine.” I pressed out and extended my hand towards it. This weapon was mine without a doubt. Mine and mine alone. Nobody could take that away from me. Nobody!
Fury rose up within me and somehow, my feelings seemed to have reached the sword as it started to tremble on the ground, right in front of him. And then, it slid though his feet back into my open hand.
“What’s this?” He asked, slightly stunned as I stabbed the sword into the ground and stood up slowly.
“I swore to protect Lucy with this sword! And I will hold my promise!” I shouted and grinned furiously. “World of darkness!” Even though that magic hindered everyone except me from seeing properly, I still thought of it as beneficial.
Fighting against the increased gravity once more, I realised that this wouldn’t be enough. Even though his vision was impaired, he still noticed everything I did.
Swinging my sword at him weakly, he managed to avoid it easily and stepped backwards.
“Did you know that the smallest atoms have a gravitational pull?” The demon asked, clearly too full of himself.
“Shut your goddam mouth!” I growled and slashed at him once more.
“What do you want to do? Defeat me with the power of friendship?” I was so done with him. I wanted to tear him apart so badly, and yet he always managed to escape my grasp. Furiously, I cancelled my magic and allowed the others who didn’t stand by idly to do their thing. I wasn’t capable of defeating him, but together, we may have a chance.
“Blinding light!” Sofie chanted loudly and conjured a very bright light in between the demon and me making us both stumble backwards.
“Earth prison.” And then, I heard how the ground beneath his feet rumbled fiercely. For several seconds of holding my hand in front of my eyes, I could t see anything before I was greeted by a ball of earth, with the demon imprisoned inside.
“Finally …” Gregory muttered which made me think if he was dumb. Just like I expected, the dirt quickly flew in all directions, forcing me to defend myself a little while the rest needed to be protected by Ellie once more.
“Everything is affected by gravity. I may not be able to kill you like this because of this stupid levelling system, but you won’t be able to harm me either.”
“Just let Lucy go.” Sofie said while pushing herself up slowly.
“That’s sadly not on my to-do list.” The demon said.
“You have been one of us in the past … but now you are just a shadow of your former self!” Ellie shouted out and threw her spear towards him with all her might. Her magical spear accelerated in the air causing a torrent of wind to swoosh past me and the demon, but the expected scream never came.
Instead, I became witness of how the spear hovered in the air right in front of the demon.
“Not too shabby.” He said, grabbed the spear, turned it around and hurled it right back at Ellie.
“Barrier.” She immediately blocked the attack, but was occupied by it nonetheless as the spear kept pushing against her barrier and even she was pushed backwards by the gravity.
“Die!” I screamed and threw my sword at the demons as well. I still couldn’t move that well, but a simple throw was possible. Laughingly, he evaded my throw easily by sidestepping right away.
But then, he changed his joyful expression into one of concern. A second later, I noticed the multitude of metallic objects rattling against solid ground as well.
“How …” He muttered and looked towards the sunset in a panic. And I used that chance he gave me to the fullest. Extending my hand towards my sword once more, I gave in to the hatred in my heart fully. The sword trembled on the ground, flipped around and swooshed back towards me, stabbing deeply into his thigh in the process.
He screamed out in pain, held his right bleeding thigh and started to limp away while I heard even more metallic objects rattling at the entrance.
“I’m not letting you go!” I screamed, and concentrated on the mystical sword once more. Within seconds, it freed itself from his flesh and flew back towards me.
“Don’t kill him! We need to interrogate him!” Ellie shouted while I, strangely freed from the gravitational pull ran towards that guy and slashed at his back with fury. And yet, I didn’t want to murder him. He abducted Lucy, so killing him would be nice.
As such I aimed at his side, but my sword had different plans. It curved upwards, no matter how hard I tried to grip it. Or maybe it was me as well as I could feel myself moving along with it quickly. Well, no matter what it was, my blade met his neck and sliced through it cleanly, decapitating him in the process.
I had killed an intelligent being. But instead of feeling sorrow or sadness, I only felt joy. And the sword resonated with it. The blood of my victim was drawn towards the blade which took it up within itself. Exited, it trembled in my hands while I was still bathing in the joys of my first murder.
But apparently, I wasn’t even the centre of attention. As I turned around in excitement, I noticed that the metallic sounds had finally stopped. In the doorway stood a girl I didn’t even recognise at first. Her hair was dyed red in blood, her attire had turned into rags. Worst of all, she was still bleeding from both of her hands and apparently her feet as well.
The chain around her neck was laying behind her, painting a very grotesque picture. Her otherwise beautiful face was covered in blood as well, and her nose was pointed at an unnatural angle.
While I was still processing what I saw there, Ellie and Gregory already prepared to fight once more even though they must have recognised who that was.
Lucy stood there.
The person I loved.
The person who I wanted to protect.
And she was looking at us with red eyes without a smile on her face.
She had turned into a demon.
Finally I had a way to proof myself to Lucy. The paper plane in front of me was apparently something magical, but I honestly couldn’t care less. As soon as Luna had folded it appropriately, I grabbed out of her hand and pushed my mana into it.
Immediately, I felt a force coming from that thing and nodded towards Ellie who put it inside a box of barriers rather quickly.
“We are off.” I said dryly and walked away from that strategy meeting or whatever. Listening to a thirteen year old was weird, but at least she had a plan which none of the others did.
Squeezing ourselves out of the ring of humans securing the place warily, we soon found ourselves back in the wilderness.
“Why would the demons try to abduct her? And are we sure she isn’t dead already?” Ellie asked, but I wanted to hear none of that. I knew she was still alive. It just had to be.
“I don’t know … but Luna seemed to be convinced and this paper plane is still active so … “
“Just be ready for everything.” Ellie explained needlessly. We had trained for all eventualities after all.
Sadly, we couldn’t take the exact way we came, so we had to fight us through thick, crystalline bushes again until they finally returned back to normal and looked like plants once again. But that didn’t make it much better as we now had to go through this thick shrubbery.
For hours we walked on and on until we finally spotted a large castle in the distance. At first, we circled around it but as the paper plane always bonked onto the barrier in that direction, we could easily assume that Lucy was in there.
Slowly, we made our way towards the edge of the forest and glanced towards the walls, manned with goblins.
“How do we do this? We could wait till night so that Schwarz can use his magic better.” Ellie proposed, but I was massively against it. Every second wasted was another one Lucy could be hurt.
“No. We’ll go like this.” I said, stepped out of the woods and walked toward the broken down gate leisurely while the other three cursed behind me.
As soon as the goblins fired a few arrows, a thin bubble formed around me, repelling all of them effortlessly. Even though they all shot their tiny arrows, it didn’t make a scratch on any of the barriers. Instead, our mage quickly retaliated by conjuring up a gust of wind, pulling all the goblins towards us over the merlons.
Screams erupted from their throats as they fell down to their death in a rather gruesome scene. Some crashes into the wall on their way down and left behind a trail of blood while others simply died as they hit the ground.
Interestingly enough, there weren’t that many defenders though. They merely counted in the hundreds and those who weren’t on the walls turned out to be rather weak as well. They did have a single troll which seemed to be their most powerful fighter as the worm was nowhere to be found.
“LUCY!” I just screamed in the middle of the fortress, staring at the tall keep of it intensely. The paper plane was still attempting to fly towards it as I gripped the handle of my sword and pointed it at the slowly opening door.
A red haired man with black horns and wings stepped through the door, looking at us with pity in his eyes.
“So you are the so called heroes?” He said and leaned onto the door leisurely.
“Hand over Lucy right now!” I shouted out, pointed my sword at him and got ready to dash towards him.
“Let me think about it … no.” He said and curved the corners of his violet mouth upwards.
“I’ll kill you!” I said and dashed towards him right away.
“Eh … you really remained children.” His insult didn’t bother me at all, but there was something else that did. My feet suddenly felt very heavy and lifting up my arms became tiresome as well. I slowed down considerably because of that and halfway there, lifting my foot at all became an impossibility.
“What …” I pressed out, my jaw being dragged downwards as well. Even the fireballs thrown at him curved downwards and exploded a few metres away from me, throwing me off my feet.
Luckily, I managed to hold onto my sword as I crashed onto the ground, but was sadly unable to move even an inch. It felt as if thousand heavy sandbags were pushing onto over bit of my skin with even my blood being pulled towards the ground.
“How foolish you are.” The demon said, strolled over to me and kicked my belly.
“I will not …” Ellie said, somehow managed to push her spear into the ground and stood up slowly.
“Oh? You are the strongest of them?” He asked, staring at my fully armoured ally with a hint of interest while placing his foot onto my belly and pressing down.
“But can you hold out this?” He asked and made Ellie collapse immediately. Gripping the handle of my sword tightly, I began thirsting for his death immediately. This guy just kept on hurting my friends and the girl I loved so I didn’t contain my anger at all. Screaming loudly, I fought against the gravity with all my might and swung the blade upwards. The sword felt unnaturally light in my hands, even though it was subject to the same gravity I was.
But even though that man was surely surprised by my actions, he still managed to block my pitiful strike with his sword effortlessly.
“Oh? That’s a nice sword you have.” He said, apparently eyeing the cut in his own weapon. Then, he kicked my hand and forced me to let go of my blade in the process. The pitch black, curved sword slithered over the ground for a metre of so until it finally stopped. “Don’t mind me if I take it.” He said, kicked me one last time and strolled over to the sword.
“No! That’s … mine.” I pressed out and extended my hand towards it. This weapon was mine without a doubt. Mine and mine alone. Nobody could take that away from me. Nobody!
Fury rose up within me and somehow, my feelings seemed to have reached the sword as it started to tremble on the ground, right in front of him. And then, it slid though his feet back into my open hand.
“What’s this?” He asked, slightly stunned as I stabbed the sword into the ground and stood up slowly.
“I swore to protect Lucy with this sword! And I will hold my promise!” I shouted and grinned furiously. “World of darkness!” Even though that magic hindered everyone except me from seeing properly, I still thought of it as beneficial.
Fighting against the increased gravity once more, I realised that this wouldn’t be enough. Even though his vision was impaired, he still noticed everything I did.
Swinging my sword at him weakly, he managed to avoid it easily and stepped backwards.
“Did you know that the smallest atoms have a gravitational pull?” The demon asked, clearly too full of himself.
“Shut your goddam mouth!” I growled and slashed at him once more.
“What do you want to do? Defeat me with the power of friendship?” I was so done with him. I wanted to tear him apart so badly, and yet he always managed to escape my grasp. Furiously, I cancelled my magic and allowed the others who didn’t stand by idly to do their thing. I wasn’t capable of defeating him, but together, we may have a chance.
“Blinding light!” Sofie chanted loudly and conjured a very bright light in between the demon and me making us both stumble backwards.
“Earth prison.” And then, I heard how the ground beneath his feet rumbled fiercely. For several seconds of holding my hand in front of my eyes, I could t see anything before I was greeted by a ball of earth, with the demon imprisoned inside.
“Finally …” Gregory muttered which made me think if he was dumb. Just like I expected, the dirt quickly flew in all directions, forcing me to defend myself a little while the rest needed to be protected by Ellie once more.
“Everything is affected by gravity. I may not be able to kill you like this because of this stupid levelling system, but you won’t be able to harm me either.”
“Just let Lucy go.” Sofie said while pushing herself up slowly.
“That’s sadly not on my to-do list.” The demon said.
“You have been one of us in the past … but now you are just a shadow of your former self!” Ellie shouted out and threw her spear towards him with all her might. Her magical spear accelerated in the air causing a torrent of wind to swoosh past me and the demon, but the expected scream never came.
Instead, I became witness of how the spear hovered in the air right in front of the demon.
“Not too shabby.” He said, grabbed the spear, turned it around and hurled it right back at Ellie.
“Barrier.” She immediately blocked the attack, but was occupied by it nonetheless as the spear kept pushing against her barrier and even she was pushed backwards by the gravity.
“Die!” I screamed and threw my sword at the demons as well. I still couldn’t move that well, but a simple throw was possible. Laughingly, he evaded my throw easily by sidestepping right away.
But then, he changed his joyful expression into one of concern. A second later, I noticed the multitude of metallic objects rattling against solid ground as well.
“How …” He muttered and looked towards the sunset in a panic. And I used that chance he gave me to the fullest. Extending my hand towards my sword once more, I gave in to the hatred in my heart fully. The sword trembled on the ground, flipped around and swooshed back towards me, stabbing deeply into his thigh in the process.
He screamed out in pain, held his right bleeding thigh and started to limp away while I heard even more metallic objects rattling at the entrance.
“I’m not letting you go!” I screamed, and concentrated on the mystical sword once more. Within seconds, it freed itself from his flesh and flew back towards me.
“Don’t kill him! We need to interrogate him!” Ellie shouted while I, strangely freed from the gravitational pull ran towards that guy and slashed at his back with fury. And yet, I didn’t want to murder him. He abducted Lucy, so killing him would be nice.
As such I aimed at his side, but my sword had different plans. It curved upwards, no matter how hard I tried to grip it. Or maybe it was me as well as I could feel myself moving along with it quickly. Well, no matter what it was, my blade met his neck and sliced through it cleanly, decapitating him in the process.
I had killed an intelligent being. But instead of feeling sorrow or sadness, I only felt joy. And the sword resonated with it. The blood of my victim was drawn towards the blade which took it up within itself. Exited, it trembled in my hands while I was still bathing in the joys of my first murder.
But apparently, I wasn’t even the centre of attention. As I turned around in excitement, I noticed that the metallic sounds had finally stopped. In the doorway stood a girl I didn’t even recognise at first. Her hair was dyed red in blood, her attire had turned into rags. Worst of all, she was still bleeding from both of her hands and apparently her feet as well.
The chain around her neck was laying behind her, painting a very grotesque picture. Her otherwise beautiful face was covered in blood as well, and her nose was pointed at an unnatural angle.
While I was still processing what I saw there, Ellie and Gregory already prepared to fight once more even though they must have recognised who that was.
Lucy stood there.
The person I loved.
The person who I wanted to protect.
And she was looking at us with red eyes without a smile on her face.
She had turned into a demon.
