Chapter 252: Chapter 251: The Fourth Route

   Amadan paced around the courtyard. He drew the obsidian sword that he conjured out of his body. Aria had taught him this. God Bless her, he thought, lashing the sword, dancing, the Ox stance, then the plow, and with a fool’s stance, then the near war, the roof, and suddenly the break.

Aria walked while walking with her white lance. “Care for a spar, Amadan?”

“Sure, Aria!”

He pressed forward. Swinging widely, aiming for the head. He did not relent. Instincts told him and his body told him to do so. She lowered to a crouch, stepping forward, aiming for his chest. He replied kindly by deftly parrying it, and then summoning a shield out of his palm, defending, and then dispersing them into shards.

She used her momentum, making use of her weapon’s reach for quick successive thrusts. She smiled, knitted her brows, lowered the butt of the white lance, and raising her slender legs for a kick. His body acted. Blocking with his forearm, and yet she spun, following it with a kick he barely blocked.

“Impressive,” she said. “Are you sure that you didn’t know how to use a sword?”

“I got into fights, but never was a swordsman or held any weapon with an edge or a point before.”

“I see,” she spun her lance. “I won’t pry.”

“Aria,” he said softly. “You never really did ask me. I know that I should be thankful, but I am curious.”

“Does it matter?” She asked. “I can still kick you around if you want to. I’m putting trust in you, and I hope that you’d care for that trust.”

Amadan nodded. He clenched his hand and the obsidian short came shattering. “I will make sure that trust will not be broken.”

She leaned on her white lance. Beautiful eyes, hair that seems to be made of silk, and that serene expression. God, she was beautiful, he thought. It made his heart ache how beautiful she was. He grew afraid of losing her trust. Her words were like pinpoint daggers. He would not dare to break it.

She walked back to her house. Amadan stared. The townhouses were releasing smoke and not far was the single road. Merchants came rolling with their beasts and he noticed a horse galloping to the house. The horse’s rider pulled the reins and stopped short.

“Where is Miss Aria?”

“Inside.”

“Thank you,” the rider said, calling out. “Miss Aria! Miss Aria! I need your help!”

He didn’t enter the house. He stopped in front of the door. Aria came out with brows frowned. She folded her arms in front of her chest, raised her head, and pointed her chin at the rider. “What do you want from me, Merchant?”

“Beast, dire ones, can you help?”

She smiled, cocking her head. “I am not an Adventurer, Merchant.”

“No one’s around Aria. Can you help?”

Aria lifted her shoulders. “Fine, where is it?”

“South of the forest, Guardsman is holding the dire beast.”

“What kind of beast is it?”

“I don’t know. Another new one. We have no name for it.”

Aria came out of the house. She locked the door and hollered. “Amadan, we’re going. Merchant, you wouldn’t mind if I borrow your horse, right?”

“But you have one,” the merchant trailed. “Got it, can he ride?”

“I don’t-” He wanted to speak more. He hesitated and turned towards Aria. “I can. I don’t know why, but I can.”

“Good,” the merchant said. He lent his horse to Amadan. He mounted the horse and he naturally controlled the horse. IT was as if he knew it well. He pulled the reigns and saw Aria pulling her horse. It was a large mare with a golden brown mane.

“Let us go,” Aria clamped the side of the horse and pushed her mare forward. Amadan followed her out of the town and into the south of the forest, traversing the landscape, leaving only a trail of hooves. Amadan heard the fighting and not far he smelled blood.

Corpses were strewn on the dirt road. Weapons were broken, and wagons were destroyed. A man in plate got his breastplate caved in, his mouth bleeding, spilling broken teeth. Aria galloped her mare, and pulled its reigns back, halting the mare. Aria leaped out, whirling her white lance, she struck the ugly creature with an oblong head and protruding c-horns around their neck. She lashed her spear, making the creature bleed. The creature stomped, and charged to Aria, she used her lance to jump out of way, and then lash at the creature again, making the creature’s back of the knee bleed.

The creature ran into a sprint. Amadan didn’t know why, but his body charged, he conjured a spear, pulled it back, and threw it accurately on the knees of the beast, then he conjured a two-handed sword, and slashed it down around the creature’s neck. Blood spilled, and the creature came charging again, this time, Aria lifted her lance and herself, driving the lance deep into the wound of the creature.

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Amadan took a step, pulled his two-handed sword back, and slammed it on the creature’s knee, making it fall forward, and the creature’s oblong head on the ground. Aria didn’t miss the chance to stab the creature on the back of its head. The rest of those who were alive, retaliated, slamming their weapons on the creature’s head.

“That’s that,” Aria said without a hint of nervousness. “You boys and girls okay?” She looked at the side of the caravan where the caravan workers were tending to their wounds and fears. Most of them nodded, except for one heavily wounded merchant who could barely lift his chin in pain. Aria ambled to the merchant, singing a song that started to make the man’s wound heal.

“Amadan, make sure the rest are okay. And bury another spear in the creature’s head.”

He nodded and conjured a spear that he stabbed on the creature’s back of the head. After that, he wended his way to where the horses were and staked them while Aria healed the caravan of merchants. Most of them were being soothed with her powers of healing.

Amadan took notice of his hands. Still bloody, the smell was foreign. Is this really me, he thought. The memories, they are familiar, but strangely so familiar to me. Why? Why is killing not making me afraid? Why am I not uncomfortable!

He recalled. He lived a life of following his dream. That dream made him lost and he always found himself around buildings. Always looking at the sky or the sunset that flashes the mountain. He was a statue on top of a high-rise building that basked in the wind’s blow.

The forest was blown by the wind tenderly. On the side were the people watching Aria dance. Her dance fluid, gentle, and oozing with vitality. She shared the dance to the people for them to be healed. Amadan watched, his eyes pointed to her dance of healing. What a beautiful woman, a fierce one, he thought. There was vegetation around the forest that made it look like a wall of green.

“What should I do?” He said, turning his eyes to the forest. The creatures polluted the air. The merchants were carving the body parts of the monsters. They were using carving tools with blackened tips to tear through the body parts of the monsters. There were many of the wounded with words of gratitude unstopping from their mouths.

He had to think. The smell of blood cooled his head. What did he miss?”

“Home,” he said. “I want to go home.”

Can you?

“No,” he said. “I can’t. There’s no way I can go back. How many years will it take to find a way? Is there even a way?”

He didn’t know what to do. Right now, he was clinging to a lifeline called Aria. She was his guiding light and even though he now knows he could take care of himself. A bigger part of him said that he wanted to help him. That he was rather comfortable to by being her side. It was not about love. He was sure of it. It was admiration and he was sure of it. It was as if being by side was a natural thing for him to do.

“What had happened to me?” He asked. No one could answer that question. For all he know was that he was transported into a world different from he knew. That is arriving in this world he became powerful and had all of these strange instincts that allowed him to act and fight. He started to wonder if there was a curse that was given to him and Aria helped him by curing it with her song. He saw Aria walked to him.

“Are you fine?” she asked, rubbing her white lance, the tip of it pointed up. “You’ve been acting solitary and dazed. I could have used your help.”

He looked at her. “I’m sorry, Aria. I just don’t know where or why I was given this power. Why am I so strong despite having no power before. I don’t think I deserve this power.”

She frowned as if offended. He didn’t understand.

***

Aria heard the most absurd thing from the mouth of Amadan. She was seconds away from admonishing him, then realized that she was speaking to a fragment of him. Yes, a fragment, but still the same, a foolish young man who appeared out of nowhere, asking her for courtship. She recalled how harsh she was and how embarrassed she was.

“It sickens me,” she thought of the torture that the other her did. That wicked woman who could never love anything other than power. That woman who had to test a man’s love for millions of years for her to accept it. She wasn’t better, but she still did refuse him for thirty-years. She was a fool. A fool who had nothing to live for and was thrown into the fray without being asked. How could she easily trust when her heart was shattered from the start? And yet he healed her foolish heart and made it whole. Still, she couldn’t forgive herself for what she had done. She shouldn’t have sacrificed the life of her child for a world that was going to be saved.

She beamed at him. “Amadan, would you like to hear a story?”

“A story?”

“Yes, would you like to hear it while they are busy prattling around?” She smiled again. “Well?”

“Then let me hear it.”

“This is a story of two fools,” she started.

It was the story of a man who had never given up. A man who everyone thought, wouldn’t last a second in the fields of war, yet proved them all wrong. It was the story of a man who stood tall against his sorrow. A man who lost those who he called friends and fought with the will and heart of steel. The man whose devoted heart keep him going and who in the end didn’t give in despite the light taken from him.

She then told the story of a foolish woman who couldn’t see love. A woman who had loved by her side, but was blinded by mistrust, a foolish woman who had accepted love and cherished it; only for her to be thrown into the abyss where everything she knew was questioned. It was the story of a woman who despaired in the abyss. It was a story of a woman who walked through a land that had been saved - only to be met with despair. A man who died in glory for what he believed in, knowing that he had done all he can to save a world. A man who wasn’t given the reward he deserved.

“Some say it was a story about him,” she smiled. She was the Sun when she did. “But I say it was never about any of them. It was about the two of them. It was the story of a man who wanted to have a new home. And a story of a woman who loved too late. A woman whose identity was taken and smudged, corrupted - yet ended up falling the same.”

It was a story about chances and destined meetings. A story of a painful cycle.

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