Chapter 7: Head Hunt

“What happened?, Edeus landed next to Rodderick. 
“Edeus!”, Rodderick jumped in happiness at the appearance of the old wizard, He looked back at the body of Ember, thinking on how to explain what just happened.
“Well, you can tell me the details later.”, Edeus looked at Ember’s hand pointing towards the forest. He followed the finger with his eyes and saw the nearby forest. 

“Edeus, is miss Ember still alive?”
“Yes, don’t worry about her, witches are immortal, she will be fine if we recover her head.” 
“Wow…”, Rodderick looked back at the body of the witch, her neck still bleeding from her wound. Was immortality also a product of magic?. “Edeus, are you immortal too?”.
“Ha!, no. No self respecting wi-“, Edeus closed his eyes and started ranting, however, as if remembering something, he suddenly stopped making a sour face.
“Ehem… no, I am not immortal, it involves going through a process of splitting your soul. It makes your mind a little… strange”
“That explains so much”, Rodderick thought. Ember was by far, the strangest person he had ever met. It seemed she wasn’t completely right in the head.

“Anyways, Rodderick, stay here with Ember, I will deal with the demons”.
“Please, let me go with you! I was able to use magic, I can help!”, Rodderick pleaded,  unlike the last time he parted ways with Edeus, Rodderick was worried, he didn’t want Edeus to lose his head too. He wanted to be there to support him. 
“Really?”, Edeus looked impressed, but then he closed his eyes and shacked his head.
“No, sorry, you will only get in my way. But when I’m back, I want to hear everything on how you used magic”, Edeus turned back, walking towards the forest.
He stopped and turned his head looking at Rodderick. “Don’t worry kid, there’s a reason they sent me out here to babysit Ember, I happen to be amazing”, he smiled full of confidence, and then he jumped into the air, flying over the forest.
Rodderick, sat once again with Ember’s body, he was worried, but somehow, Edeus’ smile filled him with a sense of security. 

….

Xion was a demon born in a small insect tribe. There were many kind of insect demons with many different characteristics. Xion’s tribe had a powerful exoskeleton covering his body, a trait present in many demons of the insect kind making his tribe nothing remarkable. However, despite not having been granted with a powerful body like many other demons, Xion was a talented fighter.

Most demons were sent to war forcefully as it was mandated by the warmonger demon lord, however, Xion enjoyed fighting and willingly stepped on the front lines. 
Fighting and devouring the humans he defeated was a good enough life for him, however, in the front lines he became to realize how truly weak he was, he met many incredible demons and for the first time he was born, he felt the difference between being born with talent, and being born for war.

There were vast differences in strength and ability among demons. Some were born with extraordinary physical attributes and magical reserves, while others, like Xion, were born with small biological advantages that wasn't rare for powerful demon races to take for granted. Determined not to accept his weakness, Xion devoted himself to training with the sword, eventually becoming an expert swordsman. 
But despite his hard work and dedication, he still fell short of true power, leaving him feeling disillusioned and unfulfilled. 

Fighting mages always brought these bitter memories back, he didn’t have any talent with elemental magic either, perhaps if he did, he could have achieved more.

“Kahahhahaha!”
Xion walked through the forest while holding Ember’s head from her long hair, he was spinning it in circles like a kid would swing a yoyo.
He started this after the witch kept cackling annoyingly. However, no amount of pain or discomfort he inflicted on her would make her stop. 

Xion finally made it out of the forest. The sun was still high on the sky making his eyes readjust after moving through the shadows of the tall trees. Once they recovered, he saw the image of an old man with a long white beard in a mage attire waiting for him. 
“Hi Edeeeeus~”, The witch greeted the old man cheerfully.
“Edeus?”, Xion looked at the man, he had never seen him before, but he had heard his name before. Edeus was a well known wizard that could stand toe to toe with the demon generals. Which unfortunately for him, meant he did not stand a chance.

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“You must be the one who has been taking down my men”, Xion let the witch’s head go, which pulled by the momentum of the spin, flew in an arc and landed in the middle of the two men. He abandoned the idea of taking her with him, he needed to run away and getting rid of the death weight increased his chances.
“I did swat some bugs on my way here, a little drake too”, Edeus advanced towards Xion, staff in hand. A wizard should never decrease the distance between them and a swordsman, Edeus knew this very well, he simply was confident that doing so would not put him at disadvantaged. The act would make any close ranged fighter happy, however, it filled Xion with dread.
“Tell me, why are you men here, are you hunting for someone in particular?”, Edeus asked while getting closer to the demon.

Without answering, Xion lowered his stance and unsheathed his sword, his legs growing incredibly muscular. 
In an instant, he threw himself towards the mage and slashed at his neck, however, as he was on the air a rock wall was risen to shield Edeus.
Xion slashed at the rock however, an instant before he connected, the rock transformed into steel, his sword could only cut so deep before it was stopped by the steel wall.
Spikes extended from each side of the wall, forming a metal cage around the demon.

“Damn!”, Xion jumped backwards, he had to abandon his sword or he would be trapped in the cage. The cage closed in front of him, as he jumped back once again to separate himself form Edeus. However, a hand grabbed his shoulder stopping him mid air. 
“What kind of swordsman leaves his sword behind?”, Edeus was there stroking his long white beard. 
In desperation, Xion focus his strength on his right arm, making it grow in size and threw a punch at Edeus’ face. However, his fist connected with barely any speed. 

“It’s over, Edeus let go of Xion’s hand who dropped on his knees”.
“What did you do to me?”, Xion looked at his left arm, it was back to its normal size, no, it was even smaller, his hand looked weak and fragile, resembling a twig. 
But it wasn’t just his arm, his entire body was losing strength and decaying at an impossible rate. 

“Just a little curse”, Edeus raised a throne of earth from the ground and sit down, resting his chin on his hand.
“I will remove it if you answer my questions. Why are you here?”
Xion, afraid of breaking his arms supporting his body’s weight, simply lay on the ground. 
“Fine, you beat me”, Xion had no hope of surviving the encounter, however, out of respect for the powerful wizard, he was willing to answer his questions.
“We knew a young prince would leave the royal capital, not sure where the information came from, if I had to assume, from Glareon the hermit. We didn’t know exactly when or to where he would go, so many teams were sent to many different cities, my team just happened to be here.”

“Glareon? The augur?”, Edeus examined the demon, trying to grasp if he was saying the truth, he didn't seem to be lying, but if he wasn’t, that would be quite problematic. 
He sighed and abandoned his throne. 
“Well, thank you for the info, goodbye.”

Xion closed his eyes, expecting to be finished off, however, the curse on his body was lifted, and he started to regain his strength. 
He sat down shocked looking at his body.
“You aren’t going to finish me off?”, letting him go would be an incredibly foolish decision, if he made it back to inform that the prince was in this zone, all the other units would come here to look for him.

“I didn’t said that.”, Edeus picked up Ember’s head which simply smiled at him and walked away from the demon. 
“Athena, he’s all yours”.
Xion stood up, the mage wasn’t willing to kill him himself and was courteous enough to give him back his strength, if that was the case, then he would rather die fighting than simply await for death. 
He looked around, but didn’t see anyone. Whoever Athena was, their were still far away. He used this opportunity to rush towards his sword, however, before he could reach it, his body was split vertically in half.

Athena who was flying high on the sky retracted the wing she just used to cast the wind spell and looked down on the battlefield.
“Just trash. If they had sent someone stronger maybe they could have saved me from the old fart. How disappointed”, she uttered some words in a bad mood and flew away waving her wings.

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