The Traitor

We waited for the right moment to attack, but to our surprise the Elderwood Guardian landed the first blow first.

Few of its vines reached out and tried to smash us, we all split and scattered around the Guardian.

The seers prepared their spells while the avivers tried to chop off the vines that were coming towards them.

Three vines came towards me so I prepared my earth and water spells- unlike other people, I don't like to chant much, I mostly imagine the spells in my head.

As the Vines grew closer the water ball in my hands turned into blades that cut through, I prepared my other earth spell making the earth under me form into spears as long as my arm.

I struck the earth spears at the vines that were coming for me from the other side.

"Watch out!" I heard a scream behind me while a metal spike flew at the vines that were sneaking up towards me.

I turned my head towards the direction of the voice and I saw Luke sweating profusely. He gave me a thumbs up and I smirked at him behind my mask.

I turned my attention back to the ElderWood, we kept fighting profusely for a long time but it seemed like we could do any damage.

It seemed like the ElderWood Guardian thought the same so he decided to take the fight to another level. It released a purple-like mist, as soon as I saw this I yelled at everyone to not breath it in.

"Don't breathe it in!"

'Seems like it had some tricks up its sleeve. You have to be more cautious papa.' Ari warned.

'If anything happens you can turn into your dragon form and save us.' I said without hesitation, I wanted to hide Aria's other form but it seemed like things were not going to go well.

'Are you sure papa? I thought you didn't want me to use that form.' She said a little bit concerned.

'Don't care about that right now, do as I say.' I said in a commanding tone, I could feel that she was still a bit concerned.

'If it's fine with you then I'm okay with it.'

----

It seemed like some of the people in my party didn't listen to me, as soon as they breathed it in they fainted. I ran over to them and felt their pulse on their wrist, nothing.

Everyone else started to run over to where I was, concerns were written all over their faces but Xavier had fear, deep fear that reached so deep that it felt like desperation for escape written all over his face.

"Are they alive?" Oliver asked in concern and worry.

I shook my head, two people died and it was only the start of the adventure. I couldn't help but feel concern for the people around me.

'I knew we shouldn't have gone further.' Aria said, a bit irritation was in her voice.

"It's all my fault, we should've risked it, we should've just told the guild." Olive said in guilt.

"There's nothing we can do now except to retreat." Shane said as he carried the two bodies on his shoulder while gazing up at the Elderwood Guardian.

"If we can even manage to escape here." Embry said in disappointment.

Before we can say anything else the ElderWood lashed out.

"DUCK!" Sophia screamed as we tried to dodge the attack.

I was just fast enough to to roll over but my vines got close enough to leave a cut in my arm. It was deep enough and long enough to leave a big scar on my left arm.

"We have to retreat! I will distract it!" Oliver said, still fighting the dozens of vines coming from the ElderWood Guardian.

We all retreated but the ElderWood got closer and closer, Oliver tried his best to distract it but slowly it started consuming him.

"Oliver!" I screamed in desperation.

'Damn it!' I screamed inside my head, running towards where Oliver's body was. Blood was oozing out of his body, his right hand was chopped off clean by the vines, his left leg bent in an unusual way.

Xavier was the closest to the exit, looking back from his shoulder he widened at the sight that I was "luring" the ElderWood Guardian near him.

I looked at him in desperation and yelled out, "Help us!"

He smirked and a glint of evil flashed through his eyes.

"Inferno!" A dozen fireballs aimed at us.

I used mana to protect my body and Oliver's for the impact- the fire ball hit us all towards the ElderWood Guardian.

I had not choice but use my beast will, as soon as I activated it I felt a surge of warm mana in my body, I ripped my charms off my necklace that made me "handycaped."

I used my will and welled the elements around me, using my space element I moved at an amazing speed around the ElderWood Guardian. My vision blurred from the speed, as I attacked the Guardian I felt a click in my mind.

It felt as if I discovered something new, my space magic turned into void magic and my water into ice magic.

I didn't know what happened next, it was like my memory was erased but I remembered clearly that at the end I killed the ElderWood Guardian. I stood there for a few seconds that felt like hours, and my head hit the ground hard and I felt my eyes drifting into consciousness.

'You will pay for this Xavier Jacomus…'

After my eyes gave up on me, I fell in and out of consciousness, I could feel that someone was dragging my body but soon enough I was engulfed in darkness.

----

Slowly opening my eyes I could feel my head pound, my body throbs in pain; it felt as if someone stabbed, burned, and twisted my guts inside and out.

I tried to sit up but winced in the sharp pain that traveled throughout my body. Trying to fight against the pain in my body, I finally learned against the cold metal wall.

My breathing began to quicken, I saw Luke beside me panicking and wondering what to do.

"W- Where's my pouch?" I asked, trying to look around.

"Ah, over here." He said as he grabbed it from behind him.

"Q- quickly...give me one of the gems out of the pouch." I said, pointing to the pouch.

"Oh, okay." Luke hurriedly grabbed one of the gems out of the pouch and gave it to me.

The gems shimmered in a brilliant green color. It was embedded with healing magic just in case I got injured severely. I didn't want to bring it along because I thought that I didn't need it but who knew that this would happen? I quickly thanked my mother in my head for insisting to bring this along with me on my adventures.

I quickly used my mana that I recovered while unconscious and injected it into the gem, as I injected the mana the healing kicked in. The magic quickly spreaded around my body; healing my cuts, bruises, and replenishing my mana.

I left out a quick sigh of relief and slowly took in my surroundings. Sophia was laying down next to me, bandaged and still unconscious. We were in a metal hut-like shelter that protected us from the outside.

"How do you feel? Are you better now?" Luke asked, looking at me up and down.

"Yes, did you drag us here?" I was a bit surprised.

"Yep, I couldn't just leave you guys there or you would have died because of your sever wounds or I would just become Xavier." He said scratching the back of his neck.

"Xavier...that bastard!" I said angrily, as I remembered the scene that unfolded before I grew unconscious.

'That brat! He just left us to die! A Traitor!' I couldn't help but get angry, I hated people who backstab others. In my old life a lot of people backstabbed me just to get more powerful but I was a king before so I just executed them, I can't do that right now. I don't have the power to do that. Only if I could...

I shook off the evil ideas in my head and just felt thankful that I was even alive right now.

"Did you make this small hut." I said feeling the smooth metal against my back, trying to break the awkward silence,

"Yea, it's just something I learned before." Luke said, a glint of happiness in his eyes.

"That's really something." I said, chuckling a bit.

My hair had grown a bit long during these few months, I tied it up and I realized that my mask was gone.

"Where's my mask?!" I asked, clearly worried.

"Hahahaha, it's right here with your sword." He said, holding up my mask.

I sighed in relief, I couldn't help but laugh at myself for being in this state. 'How reckless' I thought to myself, I've never been this reckless since my last life with my...friends.

"I've never thought that the mysterious Sol was so powerful. It was really something when you fought the ElderWood Guardian, never thought a person who wasn't even in S rank could fit it." He said with a sigh.

"Well I could." I said laughing sarcastically.

"You're a sextuple elementalist too? And a deviant? Also mentioning the beast will!" He asked, being bewildered by what happened before.

"Well did you see the fight? I think there was a tone of evidence in that fight, right?" I asked, smirking.

Sometimes I like to brag a bit myself, it's not like I was just someone serious and with a low EQ kind person.

"So my eyes didn't fail me huh? Wow!" He said, still trying to soak in all the information.

"Ugh…" I turned my head towards Sophia, I could see that Sophia was struggling to get up.

"Quickly give me the pouch." I said hurdley towards Luke.

"Oh- here." He fumbled with the pouch but finally managed to give it to me.

I took out one of the gems and gave it to Sophia. Since she knew how to use it, she quickly recovered from the shock.

"I'm so sorry! I should've protected you!" She said, hugging me while crying.

"It's okay, it was my choice to go back and save Oliver." I said hugging Sophia back while she cried on my shoulder.

As soon as she settled down I took out my communications scroll and wrote down a letter to my parents that I was fine.

"Hey Luke, how long have we been in here?" I wondered how long I was unconscious.

"About 2 days." He said with a curious face as if thinking why I asked.

I nodded and finished writing the letter- the letter vanished and I put the scroll back into my backpack.

'Ari are you there?' I wanted Ari to come here, she was out hunting other mana beasts to train.

'How are you feeling papa?' She asked, concerned.

'I'm good, I want you to come back so we can leave this place.'

'Alright, I will be there in a jiffy.' She said as I snapped myself back to reality.

"My bond will be back to help us, we'll have to wait and look after Oliver right now." I said looking back at them.

"How is a small beast going to help us? I don't mean to be rude but logically speaking-" I cut him off while straddled him.

"We will see about that." I said, mischievously smirking.

"Alright then." He said, puzzled.

"Why don't you explain what happened while we were unconscious?" I wanted to know more about the details after Xavier backstabbed us.

Luke had explained that he only found me and Sophia after the battle, it seems like some of them died and others had run away from the site.

We continued to wait and talk about different things.

After several minutes Aria came to help us; "Wow...your bond is a dragon?" Luke asked, shocked by what species my bond is.

"You can say that." I said, chuckling a little.

"Oh stop chuckling, It's rare to see a dragon as a bond." He said a bit irritated.

"Okay, Okay." I stopped chuckling and began to grab my things and with Luke's help we carried Oliver onto Aria's back.

We began to head back into the outside world; out of the darkness.