The Zodiac Empire

Chapter 10 - The Great Wall of Mana

"She's gonna die..." Naito said. They made a brisk turn to the left and kept on running, causing Naito to lose sight of Alile.

"You'll just have to learn to trust that lunatic...no matter how crazy she seems, she always knows what she's doing." Zento assured him, but Naito still couldn't imagine any way for Alile to survive. Hadn't they seen what those creatures were capable of? Why were they running away while she threw her life away for them?

A tree came flying their way but soared far past them. One of the moltrogks was on their trail again. Did they finish Alile off that fast?

"Yes, why are you running away?" Naito heard the same voice from the other night whisper to him. There was no one new in sight when he glanced around.

You again? Naito replied in his head, certain it was his own mind speaking to him.

"Have you forgotten what they did to us? Perhaps I should remind you."

Time seemed to freeze around him and the entire scenery changed. The world around him was now a frozen land of snow and icy mountains. Something was drastically wrong. Naito wasn't a teenage wizard king anymore. He had a pair of wings the size of pyramids sprouted from his back, keeping him in the air. His spiky, serpentine body had to stretch out eighty meters long. The simple flap of his wings created gusts of wind powerful enough to blow down an entire town. There was no mistaking it. He was a blizargwin. Nircogard. What was going on? Was he hallucinating again? He hoped for anything but that. The last thing he wanted right now was to witness more murder.

All around him was a savage massacre, corpses helplessly strewn about everywhere. Most of them were blizargwins much like himself, only they looked small in comparison to him, and they had cyan skin instead of emerald, while the others were frozen over giants. Those that still stood were grotesquely beaten, and the one directly in front of him stood out the most.

It was as tall as he was long, as wide as he was tall. Its, her body was more humanoid than the rest of them, resembling that of a naked woman. Unlike the other moltrogks, she had skin, although it was charred completely black as if it had been burnt. She even had long, charcoal hair, stretched down to her lower back. Her eyes lacked any pupils and seemed to be nothing more than burning red and orange hues. In her hands she held a flaming sword that was half her own height, and wore nothing but a cloak of blistering flames. It had to be none other than the malicious, deceiving moltrogk queen herself. Egitnafir.

Naito was back in the marsh, lying next to Alsen in the sand by the ocean. Why would you show me that...? Naito asked in his head.

"After all they took from us, can you really allow them to walk away free?" the voice replied.

Us. You're Nircogard, aren't you?

"Correct. You aren't worthy of having my soul if you're going to run away. Where's your pride?"

Well what am I supposed to do? You've never exactly defeated them yourself! You're the one that let them kill your people twice! This is all your fault! He waited, but Nircogard did not respond that time. Naito sat up to see another tree flying their way, only to fall right into the ocean.

"Lady Cosena, I'll need you to make the boat while Casele and I hold off the moltrogk. Think you can handle it?" Zento asked.

Cosena nodded. "Yeah...it shouldn't be too hard." she approached the trees and chanted "Xaerthe!", transforming her wand into an axe made of stone. With two mighty swings, she chopped the tree free from its roots. She and Zento worked together to drag it over to the ocean.