It was late at night, and there was complete silence on the east side of Chestertown. Everyone was asleep in their homes, and no one could have predicted that a battle would soon break out in one of them.
One of the mages from Leah's side noticed the tension and quickly made the wise decision.
He immediately raised the stone wall that separated the invaders and children.
"After me!" Leah yelled and charged fearlessly toward the seven of them with her katana.
"I will handle her, try to take as many kids as you can, and use the escape scroll." The invaders' leader said as he rushed towards Leah.
Alisha noticed that and quickly shot arrows at the group as her team rushed them from both, the right and the left, attempting to flank.
The woman from the invaders' group used wind magic to disrupt the arrow's trajectory, while another invader's mage broke the stone wall with his hammer.
If the invaders got close to the kids, Leah knew they wouldn't be able to do anything when they used the escape scroll.
The miraculous scroll that could only be found in noble families was the escape scroll. The scroll is cast on your magic core, and a magic circle is cast on the location to flee if an emergency arises.
When used, the magic scroll would return a person to wherever they had cast the escape magic circle, and the opponent would be powerless to stop you.
The earth mage from Leah's group used stone bullets, while Alisha shot more arrows.
Leah was clashing swords with the leader of the group when she saw an opportunity.
She used the wind to change the trajectory of arrows toward the leader of the group while boosting the speed of stone bullets.
The arrows changed direction and pierced the leader's back. Leah quickly separated his head from his body with a quick slash and dashed toward the kids while speeding up.
The stone mage started making small earth domes toward the kids and the boosted stone bullets hit the rest of the group of invaders.
The woman from the invaders' group knew they wouldn't be able to escape with all the kids, so she decided to get her hands on at least one of them and use the scroll to escape.
Leah struck wind slashes at the invaders.
The woman ignored her group and dashed towards the last kid where the earth dome had not completely generated, grabbed the kid, and used the escape scroll. She surrounded the kid with a mana layer, and after 2 seconds...
*puff*
"NOOOO...." Leah shouted, but it was too late.
The earth mage quickly dispersed the earth domes as Alisha and Leah made their way toward the kids. The rest of the invaders were dead from Leah's wind slash and stone bullets.
Leah took note of which of the kids was missing.
"We are fucked..." She whispered slowly with a defeated expression.
"We should first move them to the castle, along with Daisy and her kid; we can't take any chances," Alisha said. They quickly took the kids out of the half-destroyed house.
As Leah and her group were taking the children with them, noises from their fight had woken up the neighbors.
Leah's group returned the children to the castle. Leah and Alisha, on the other hand, went to Daisy's house.
*****
The sun rose over the cityscape, casting a warm glow over the bustling streets and skyscrapers. Honking horns, revving engines, and the chatter of people rushing to their destinations filled the air.
The streets were already congested with commuters and workers heading to offices and shops. People rushed past on sidewalks, their faces buried in phones or newspapers. Coffee and breakfast food aromas wafted from cafes and food trucks, mingling with exhaust fumes and the occasional whiff of garbage.
Aizel woke up with a yawn; he had a great sleep last night. He headed straight to take a bath.
He went to the kitchen to make breakfast after; for some reason, Alora was not watching K-drama in the morning. She sat quietly on the table waiting for breakfast.
"What happened today? Did you get tired of the series?" Aizel inquired while serving breakfast.
"I'll watch it later. Come sit down and eat a proper breakfast; it's going to be a long day for you."
"Long day, what do you mean?" Aizel asked with a confused look on his face.
"Just sit down and have breakfast first," Alora replied. Aizel followed and sat with her and ate.
"How did you feel when you killed Larisa?" Alora asked.
"Why do you ask?"
"Just answer." She insisted.
"I... I didn't feel anything, even when I burst her head. I even went to talk to Dr. Shelly about why I didn't feel guilty when killing a human, even though she wanted to kill me.
"It felt easy like I could do it many times again without feeling anything as if I have done this before."
"How would you feel if you killed a human in this world?" Alora asked.
"Why would I ever do that? This is not Xelgar."
"When mana comes to this world, this world will become like Xelgar. Why is Xelgar different from your world?"
"If we take mana out of the equation, Xelgar is somewhat crueler than my world," Aizel replied.
"Somewhat crueler? You haven't even stepped out of a little town. If you keep thinking that Aizel, you will be broken down by what you face in the future.
"What you are going to face next will be a true test for you, Aizel.
Alora stood up, got close to Aizel, and held his hands together.
"What has happened to you today?" Aizel inquired, his hands clasped in Alora's soft little ones.
"No matter what you do or how people see you, I will always be with you, Aizel." A single tear fell from her eyes.
Before Aizel could say anything more, he found himself back in Xelgar.
He blinked his eyes a few times to make sense of what just happened.
He then looked at his destroyed house in a daze.
"Huh"
