Chapter 111: Chapter 111

Darkness covered the sky as birds from all direction converge towards the courtyard where Gavil, Chibi, and Marmie had seen Langrion go earlier.

“Come on, let’s go and help Shia now. She had been taken away by some monster, but I think she’s nearby,” Khailis remarked as she tried to stand, but Gavil held her tightly by the shoulder.

“Wife, you stay here with Goddess Eily. The rest of us will go.”

“Wait, no! How can I stay here? There’s no action here! Plus, I’m fine, don’t worry too much,” Khailis said, beaming with energy.

“You’re not fine. We might lose our babies, and I don’t want to lose you too... Ever!”

Khalis looked back at Gavil’s glistening eyes. For the first time since he had met him, he saw him shed tears...

Ah, she had almost forgotten! The blood of knighthood runs so strongly in her veins, but first and foremost, she was a mother now and a wife to someone who deemed her precious... She couldn’t possibly be as bold and carefree as she had been in the past.

It was time to grow up a bit and grow some fear, at least for her babies’ sake at the moment.

“Alright,” Khalis finally remarked. She stroked Gavil’s face and wiped the tear that threatened to fall down his eyes. “I’ll stay, but on one condition... You have to come back to me alive and well.”

Gavil nodded vigorously. He bent his head closer to Khailis’ lips and kissed her once more. He had missed her voice, her lips, and the feeling that she will be with him all his life during the hours that she was gone. He will turn hell upside down if there was a chance that he’ll lose her again.

“See you soon, love. Be well,” Gavil whispered as he parted away from Khailis. In a wink, he turned back into his beast form and soared into the air with Chibi who carried Marmie, Commander Rus, and Gilyan in his back.

Khailis could only look as their shadows mingled into the darkness up ahead.

She could not explain it, but she had a terribly nasty feeling Gavil’s words wouldn’t necessarily come true...

******************

Birds kept coming in like rain from every direction. Shia tried to weave a shield against herself, but it was hard. When she finally succeeded, she tried to clear a path amidst the chaotic black swarms of feathers and screeches by making a trail of light beams that render the birds unconscious when it passes through them.

“Ugh, I’m sorry,” Shia muttered to the birds which were shocked by the light and fell.

She didn’t want to hurt these poor creatures, but it was making it impossible for her and for anyone else to know where Sirion was, and that was her main goal: to get to Sirion and stab him in the heart with her dagger.

Suddenly, the earth rumbled underneath her feet. She crouched to the floor, trying to assess whether it was already safe to move or not.

She still can’t see where Sirion was. She needed to change her location to be able to spot him.

Amidst the growing chaos, she looked around and spotted someone she knew. She hurried to where he stood, careful of the breaking rocks and land underneath her.

“Langrey,” she shouted when he was close enough to hear her. He responded by turning his body towards her, clearing a path for her with his sword.

The birds kept on coming, and the earth kept on rumbling underneath them. Shia thought her ordeal to get to Langrey’s side was futile, so it was a relief when she finally did.

“Langrion!”

“Shia!” He scooped her by the waist and turned her sideways as if protecting her before he did something truly remarkable: he flew up into the air, fifty feet above the ground.

“What? How,” were the only things that Shia could utter when they flew upwards.

“That god in the underworld - he had helped me, alright,” Langrion said. “And also, the God of Darkness, he had finally set me free from the curse. He took it away when I tried to speak to Danry through the ring.”

Shia’s mouth hung open. She realized that Langrion’s face wasn’t covered by the usual mask that had obscured half of his face. He was finally showing her both of his ocean-blue eyes, and it made her thrilled. She wounded her arms into him tightly.

“That’s good! That’s really good!”

Before she could say something more, however, she felt Langrion turn her to the side, and he swung his right hand over as if trying to hit something with the sword. Shia gasped as a something cold seemed to have brushed past her back.

“Stay closer, Shia. He’s attacking us!” He held her even tighter than he did before that Shia couldn’t almost breathe.

“This isn’t a playground, Freya! Quit playing around with that toy of yours,” Shia heard the snake-like voice of Sirion coming closer towards them.

Shia turned her head to the other side, and sure enough, she was able to spot Sirion standing at the back of two gigantic birds. He was coming straight at them.

As her instinct kicked in, Shia fingered the knife in hip. While waiting for the right time and distance, Shia grabbed Langrey’s head and whispered.

“At my signal, turn me around.”

Langrion had no clue what Shia was thinking of doing, but he fully trusted her. He continued to swing his sword against the birds that continued to hurl themselves at them.

“Freya,” Sirion’s voice rumbled at the distance.

As much as she hated Sirion, there was one person she needed to spot to stop the confusing attacks, and she thought she had seen him somewhere down below. If she was right, Gaf would still be there, at a junction between two, tall trees, controlling the influx of birds.

“Now,” Shia shouted, and Langrion had turned her into a clockwise direction.

The scene played in slow motion in Shia’s eyes. She had reached for her dagger beforehand, fuelling it with her light power. As soon as she had determined that the angle was right, she threw it with full force towards Gaf.

Just as she had predicted, the dagger hit Gaf right in the middle of his rib, close to where part of his heart resided, but instead of piercing his body, it pierced a part of the veil that enabled Sirion to control him.

Gaf immediately fell down the ground. Sirion, who was at the back of the birds, also plummeted straight into the ground, and so did the birds that were attacking them.

“Brother,” Sirion had shouted, and his voice sounded like the familiar voice of Danterion.

As soon as she heard his voice, a horrible thought came into Shia’s mind. She remembered that the body where Sirion resided was not entirely his but that of someone else. She turned her face to Langrion and her horror doubled. Langrion’s dread at what had happened was written on his face too.

The two of them could only watch as Danterion’s body came falling down into the ground.

However, their expectation that his body would be crushed by the fall did not happen. Underneath Danterion’s falling figure, the earth fully opened up, revealing an enormous silver and slimy octopus - a kraken.

One of the kraken’s numerous tentacles coiled swiftly around Danterion’s body, cushioning his fall. The kraken placed him gently on top of its soft and gigantic head.

Before Langrion and Shia could even react, a tentacle quickly came at them and pulled Shia by the leg while another slimy tentacle twisted itself around Langrion’s cape.

Langrion was hurled away from the courtyard, his body colliding with several trees and bushes at the nearby forest.

Shia, on the other hand, was swayed by the terrible monster, all the while letting her dangle helplessly by her foot.

“Ugh,” Shia grunted. She missed having her dagger around, but then again, she remembered she can wield the power of light. Without thinking further, she summoned her power and fashioned it into a sword.

Using the pattern by which she was being swayed by the monster, she stuck the blade of light at the monster’s appendage as soon as she was near enough to it.

At the very moment that the blade collided with the monster’s flesh, Shia found herself free but also falling reckless to her death several feet above the ground.

It was an extremely lucky thing for her that help was on its way in the form of a cursed one.