Back Against The Wall

The castle was now surrounded by tornadoes. No one can escape anymore. Kies used the full might of the winds to summon the winds to lock down the area. The traitors were still here somewhere and he needed to find them. The commander of the army. No, he wasn't a commander anymore. He thought he had control of the army but as it turned out, Rui and Lentis actually had control of it.

Even his personal unit was gone, killed by him after they discovered that he was lying all this time to them. He was now alone, with no one to carry out his orders. Other than him, there was the so-called "boss" of the Black Fang, who was also alone now, without any minions to bid his doing.

They were somewhere in the city, but they couldn't have gone far from the castle. Kies knew this for sure because the rest of the city was empty other than for the military outposts and camps scattered near the walls. The winds told him all of this information. All he needed to do was flush them out of their hiding place by using the winds to tear down everything.

More importantly than that, Kies wanted to lure out a much bigger fish. But in order to do so, he needs to take care of those two first.

The sound of the winds was so deafening that Kies didn't hear a group of people approach him until he heard someone call out to him.

"Hey!"

Kies looked behind him to see Lentis, Rui, and the other soldiers gathered together. He even saw Nell and her squad within the group. It looked like they were lucky and they didn't lose anyone during all the chaos. She and her squad didn't recognize Kies in his grown form but Nell did raise an eyebrow when she saw her, finding Kies to resemble someone she knew.

"Your name was Kies, right?" Lentis asked, surprising Kies a little by showing that he knew his name. Kies didn't recall ever telling them but Nyana might've opened her mouth and it slipped out.

Upon hearing the name, Nell's eyes widened and her mouth opened as if she wanted to say something but she closed her mouth, not wanting to interrupt the royal guards speaking.

"Yes, that is my name." Kies turned his body around to face the soldiers.

"What are you doing!?" Lentis demanded. "All of this? You're destroying the place!"

"The two traitors you are looking for are hiding. I'm trying to force them to come out," Kies explained the logic behind his actions.

"...Isn't there a better way to do that? A less destructive way?" Rui asked in response to Kies' answer. She didn't doubt his method, but the tornadoes were going to destroy a considerable portion of the city, and have already destroyed a considerable number of buildings, actually.

"...I'll stop once I find them."

"You're going to uproot this entire place before you find them!" Lentis protested, telling Kies to stop. "Also, they could be hiding underground. We have sewers spread across the entire city," he added. "They could be down there. What you're doing is causing more harm than good!"

"There are sewers!?"

"Yes!"

"..."

Why didn't anyone tell him about this? Obviously, they were down there and not up here. It was the perfect place for criminals to hide. Kies complied and immediately stopped his magic, dispersing the storm in seconds. The winds disappeared as swiftly as they arrived, stunning everyone.

What a waste of time. Kies shook his head in frustration before looking back at the soldiers and asking, "Where is the closest entrance?" They could be anywhere in, under, or even out of the city right now. He needed to pick up on their trail fast if he didn't want to lose them.

"...It's this way." Lentis beckoned for Kies to follow him back to the ruins of the castle. Parts of it were still standing but Kies wrecked a lot of it with his magic. He will have to give the queen a sincere apology about it after this was over.

Lentis turned over a big rock with his magic, revealing a ladder descending into darkness.

The sewers again... This sure brought back a lot of bad memories. "I hope there isn't another dragon hiding down there..." Kies mumbled to himself.

"Sorry?" Rui and Lentis looked at Kies, not hearing what he said.

"No, it's nothing..." Kies took one look down the hole and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to question why there was a random hole connecting to the sewers in the middle of the castle grounds and started his search.

"Winds." With a howl, the winds rushed in from all around them and flooded into the hole. They spread across the tunnels quickly, searching for the whereabouts of the two traitors.

A minute passed and Kies believed that his search might end up fruitless until the winds in one of the tunnels going east suddenly dispersed. His connection with it was cut off, seemingly for no reason, but Kies knew why this happened.

"Found them."

Kies jumped up into the air without saying another word and called the winds to carry him to the location, leaving the soldiers behind. He didn't have time to waste. His winds most likely met with the commander's anti-magic field, and since the field was pretty huge, he had a lot of space to search. "Bring me there!" Kies ordered the winds. They obeyed his command, sending Kies speeding there like a cannonball. It was the closest Kies could get to flying, having the winds grab him and fling him to the target location.

Kies crashed into the ground, kicking up sand several meters high into the air with his landing. An electric tingling erupted from the ground beneath him. Looks like he guessed right. Kies followed the electric feeling to the source, feeling it become stronger as he got closer to the commander.

Kies felt himself getting nearer and nearer until it felt like he was directly above him. Sliding to a halt, Kies called the winds to his side. They wrapped around his fist, forming a circulating ball around it. It was time to see if he hit the mark.

Kies slammed his fist into the ground, blowing a circular hole almost as wide as the street. Sand and sandstone flew in all directions. The explosion dug deep enough to expose the sewer tunnel underneath him, revealing a very shocked face looking up.

Kies hit the mark. He dropped down into the tunnel, calling out his sword to his hand and swinging it down at the commander who was frozen, trying to gather what happened in his head. He moved out of the way last second as the blade came down missing head by just a hair.

*Clunk!*

Kies' sword dug into the sandstone since it was much softer than the material of the weapon. He pulled it out just as easily with no resistance.

"You again!" The commander angrily hissed, drawing his own sword.

"You're alone..." Kies noticed. The leader of the Black Fang, the one that called himself the "boss" was nowhere to be seen.

"What? Did you think we would stick together? Sorry to tell you this but as long as one of us stays alive, Otane is doomed." The commander didn't sound cocky or arrogant like the thieves. He had a more confident and serious tone to his voice, sounding just like a leader, how expecting of his title.

"All I need to do is defeat you and hunt down the other!"

Kies didn't waste any more words with the commander and charged at him with his sword pointed at his heart. The commander tried to parry his strike only to find out how big of a mistake that was when his sword was cut cleanly in half diagonally when it met with Kies' sword.

"What-" The commander shifted his body to the side, angling himself away from the blade as Kies dashed past. The sword cut his left shoulder, leaving a nasty wound.

"Grrr!" The commander didn't cry out in pain. He growled instead, mimicking that of a wild animal. He managed to avoid receiving a lethal injury but he didn't dodge the attack perfectly.

The commander jumped away as Kies spin around, swing his sword in a wide one hundred and eighty degrees arc, almost cutting the commander himself in half like his head. Unlike the previous attack where Kies caught the commander off guard with his superior weapon, the commander avoided the attack without receiving any wounds at all.

But if he thought that he was safe now after dodging the attack, he was very wrong. Kies called upon the might of winds to pull the commander back into the range of his sword. Ignoring the electric field, the wind grabbed him and pulled him closer to Kies.

"Magic!? How!?" The commander was losing his composure now. The trump card that was supposed to protect him from all magic wasn't working.

Kies thrust the sword forward, aiming at the commander's neck. With another growl, the commander slammed the flat of his sword into the flat tip of Kies' sword when it got into range, steering it away from his neck. He then returned the attack, jabbing his sword at Kies' neck.

The sharp tip of the broken half almost reached, and it would've, but Kies responded in time and clicked the button on the hilt of his sword, splitting it in two. The bottom blade came spinning around, placing itself between the commander's sword and his neck.

As the two blades collided, the Aeronite sword cut through the steel sword like it was made of paper instead. The sharp chunk of steel flew off the sword and cut Kies' cheek, clanging into the sandstone floor behind.

The commander jumped back, putting distance between himself and Kies so that he could take a moment to understand the situation. He glanced at his sword. The sword edge was gone and it was now nothing more than a blunt stub. While the sharp edges of it on either side it was still capable of killing someone, it was almost useless now.

He looked at Kies weapon which now had a blade on both ends. "Interesting..." This fight was not turning out in his favor by any means but he hadn't given up yet.

The commander swung his stubby sword at a wall, breaking off yet another piece of it, recreating another sharp edge on it.

It was now long longer than a knife. Compared to Kies' weapon, it was a joke, but the commander wasn't discouraged by it at all. "You revealed all your cards to me and yet I'm still standing," he said to Kies, mocking him.

"All my cards? Do you think I don't have more?" Kies brushed his finger against his cheek where he got cut. It disappeared without a trace as his finger slid past.

The commander didn't say anything nor did he react to what he saw with a facial expression. Sweat dripped down from his forehead and neck. His hair was full of sand from the explosion earlier.

"So you have more tricks to show me then... Let's see them all."

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