"We... we are all going to die."
Leo watched as a young man dressed in a military uniform, signaling he was an Aura Farr, knelt to the ground. His eyes were wide with horror and hopelessness. The man muttered sentences that made Leo infuriated.
He walked toward the man amidst the chaos of civilians running helter-skelter. Not that they had anywhere to go, but it was better than kneeling and becoming hopeless.
He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and tore away the band that identified his rank in the military.
The man turned to him. "Why? Why did you do that?"
Leo frowned. "Because you don’t deserve it. An Aura Farr should never be hopeless—"
"Leo! What are you doing?" Taren yelled. "I asked you to stay in sight."
He turned to the soldier on the ground. "Sir, please stand up and assist the civilians."
The soldier laughed. It was a painful laughter. "Why would I waste my ti on such things? Only formidable enemies are powerful enough to open multiple portals all at once. We’ve lost this attack. Maybe we will win the next one, or the one after that, but we’ve lost this one."
Taren gritted his teeth and dragged Leo away, leaving the man alone. Before they were out of the man’s sight, the soldier asked Leo, "Have you ever lost hope before?"
****
Leo, Taren, and Mirage ran. Technically, Mirage wasn’t running, as Taren carried her on his back. Behind the three were the civilians they had been able to gather, fleeing into the small forest within the city.
There were no signs of portals opening in the forest for now, so it was relatively safe.
Leo would have stayed back in the city to fight, but he had no choice but to run. He was still weak, a re Capricorn. He would be killed in seconds if the enemy was strong. He had only caught glimpses of them as they stord out of the portals, not knowing what type of creatures they were. Eldrath was filled with non-human and semi-human races, so the enemy could have been an elf clan, an orcish army, or sothing else entirely.
Taren finally ca to a halt in a dense thicket near the center of the forest. He lowered Mirage’s feet to the dirt and leaned against a thick oak, his chest heaving. The group of nearly twenty civilians they had picked up along the way collapsed into the ferns; so sobbed quietly, while others stared at the canopy in a daze.
"We stay here," Taren wheezed, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Leo didn’t sit. He stood at the edge of the clearing, his fingers wrapped tight around the matte black grip of the [Yielding Spine]. The crimson blade felt heavy and cold, a strange weight that seed to pull at his very pulse. He looked at the long, red needle-point of the sword and then back at the terrified people behind him. He felt disgusted—not by them, but by the fact that he was once again the one standing between a crowd and their deaths.
Technically, it was Taren’s responsibility, but Taren was a Banished whose ability ca from shooting aura blasts from the chanical limbs Jean had made for him. It wasn’t a natural ability, but rather a boon that ca with the artificial limbs, which was the reason Taren had joined the military.
So, in a sense, Leo was the hidden leader. A weak one at that. The soldier’s question echoed in his ears again. He hissed and looked forward.
Was he crazy? How broken was he?
Thousands had just died under his protection. A whole realm had been destroyed because of him. Of course, it would have been destroyed even if he hadn’t been there, and the realm he had visited was just an illusion created by either the Awakening Tree or the System to test him—yet he couldn’t say they weren’t real.
It had all felt real. And now, he imdiately wanted to join the battle?
"I’m so damn stupid."
Then again, he wasn’t that stupid. Aura birthed the struggle for power and survival. There was bound to be a battle every now and then. He was born into this world, so it wasn’t his fault he was so bizarre or had such a crazy personality.
One has to be crazy to survive in this world, huh? He inwardly repeated Jean’s catchphrase and turned toward the civilians.
He still wasn’t able to answer the soldier’s question, so he sighed and pushed it from his mind, though it remained present sowhere in his heart.
Leo’s thoughts were interrupted when the wind beca violent, swaying the trees back and forth.
"Tch."
Taren, Mirage, and the civilians prepared to run, but it was too late. They were thrown into the air, their bodies hitting trees with great force.
Leo, anwhile, thrust the blade of the [Yielding Spine] into the ground and held on. His cape tore away from his clothes due to the forceful wind.
Countless feet away from him, reality cracked again and grew larger, revealing a blue portal. The trees around it exploded into tiny shards.
Leo gritted his teeth, holding onto the sword until the wind cald to a decent rate. Then, a white liquid ford at his legs and slowly hardened, finding its way up to his thighs, torso, chest, neck, and face, forming a white tallic armor that connected to his body.
He opened his mouth, revealing rows of tiny, triangular tallic teeth. His eyes were replaced with crimson orbs that resonated with dread. On his head sat a small, inset crown that looked like needles.
The [Shell of Dread] was back in good shape.
He pulled the blade of his other Vestige from the ground and held it in a fearso stance, waiting for the enemy to step out of the blue portal.
The person who erged first was a humanoid being with white dreadlocks, wearing only brown leather pants. An azure mark ran across his bare upper body. He held an extrely long spear and wore a determined expression.
Behind him, a crossbreed of a lion and a dragon with three heads stepped out. A young blue humanoid sat atop the creature, wielding a long blue staff with a crystal on it.
The beings kept pouring out without end. When there were more than a hundred, they stopped, staring at Leo and the others with enmity.
Sigurd and Hafgrim stared at the fearso white creature in front of them with expressionless gazes.
Leo pointed the blade of the [Yielding Spine] at them and spoke in a cold, insidious voice, revealing his rows of triangular teeth.
"Vikings! How dare you invade Primoria? Now, you will have to bear the consequences!"
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