Must

"No..." Kavir muttered with a hoarse voice. His throat was in pain because of his last scream, and he no longer had the strength to shout again.

After he stood up from the wreckage of the house he had collided, he tried to walk towards the mansion, but he lost steadiness on his legs and fell on his knees.

"Why? After so long... He had already made his freaking part of the agreement! Why are you doing this!? It's just to have power? Or for that bullshit about a greater sake!?"

The Phoenix's attack made that construction get reduced in ashes and nothing more. Her flames were so powerful that just a few traces of it were left behind. Even the foundations carved into the ground were gone. If someone passed by there, they wouldn't be able to tell that something was there once.

Still flying in the air, with its mighty presence terrifying all that simple village, the Ancient looked to the sides and its eyes met with Kavir's. There was nothing but seriousness and resolution there. It was looking at him as if telling him that it had made what it should have done.

Kavir's heart sank into despair and angriness. He closed his hands tightly into fists. The veins of his forearms and head popped up as his blood pressure went at its peak. His body was dominated by a feverish sensation.

"You bastard!!" He punched the ground several times, frustrated.

The Phoenix ignored him and looked to Ares who was still staring at the place where his grandfather's mansion once was. Tears were running down his face in an intense and continuous flow. His mind went blank even before the attack landed, so he couldn't move an inch, and the environment around him was nearly invisible. His focus was on those ashes piled on the ground.

"Hey!" Kavir was now getting up, searching for his battle-axe and looking to the Ancient again. "That's my village, these are my folk, and Ares is not your object! Want to kill someone? Kill me if you can!"

The beast seemed to be irritated with that challenge. It had to take care of the most annoying one of Jasmine. The old man would surely give it a bad time if he found a way to do something. However, it still had to make the job of dealing with Kavir.

The flames around the Beast got more intense as it prepared to charge at him.

Kavir took his axe, preparing himself once again.

"Ares!" His call made the boy come back from his stupor, looking to his father with those sad eyes. "Things will get dangerous here. I know what's passing through your mind now. You must be feeling hatred, sadness, helplessness, impotence... But, look, we humans can't do everything all the time and save everyone, ok?" His eyes showed that this one was the last lesson he had to teach to his son. "So, remember to do what you MUST do. Don't let the things you cannot do put you down."

Ares looked with a pained expression at his father. He knew the meaning of those words more than anyone else. He could feel it looking at Kavir's face.

"If that's true, why are you still facing something you cannot do!?" He shouted with a choked and hurt voice.

"Because this is a thing I must do. Got what I mean now?" He smiled. "Now, go do what YOU must do."

Once those words left his father's mouth, Ares ran out of that place.

The Phoenix angrily tried to give chase at him but was stopped when Kavir jumped from the ground, opening a crack on it, and clashed with it.

Now, the brightness of the axe was getting more intense, its silver aura became denser and enveloped Kavir's body, raising his strength several times more.

Ares was running with all his might, crossing that small village like never before. He didn't dare to look behind, but he could clearly hear the battle that was happening behind him.

Those painful tears didn't stop coming, and he didn't try to hold them either. The boy was so overwhelmed with feelings that he needed to vent them somehow.

"Dad... My dad... I can't believe it! Damn!"

He was aiming to go out of the village, but he remembered what his father had told to him. Just escape from the village wasn't his must at all. He needed to make more than it.

Instead of going straight to one of the exits of Jasmine. Ares peeked at the houses around, looking under the wreckage and ashes. He was looking for someone who could still be alive.

On the way, he found a lot of people that were hiding instead of running. Others that were collapsed due to the shock. A few ones were under the rubble or then harmed enough to not be able to move. The two latest were the most difficult ones for Ares to save, he needed to find creative ways to move the havoc or do the first aid to help them to go to the exit.

Due to his constant helping, the battle, which was getting more intense each second that passed, was getting near him. The boy was already covered in sweat, ashes, and dust. His hands were wounded all over. He was at the peak of his exhaustion.

Help all those people was ending with his energy, but seeing his father fighting so fiercely with that Ancient pumped him up to keep going.

He was missing just some meters to finally exit from Jasmine's terrains and go to the golden fields, however, one more person with half her body under the wreckage drawed his attention.

"Alice!" He barely couldn't believe it once he saw his best friend with a piece of wood used to make the foundations of a house on her lower back. She had tears of suffering wetting her cheeks and was moaning in pain.

Ares got beside her and did his best to raise that wood even some centimeters high, so she could get out dragging her body.

"C'mon, Alice, get up! We need to go out of here!" He offered his hand to her and in the middle of the action, a jet of fire struck the ground near them, making an average explosion.

They both screamed as he threw himself on the ground to avoid getting hurt. The flames didn't extinguish and kept spreading around.

"Let's go!" He took her by the wrist, but Alice didn't get up. "What's up!?"

She looked to her dead legs helplessly.

"I... I can't feel my legs, Ares." Her painful voice hurt Ares's heart like a dagger piercing through it.

He looked at Kavir and the Phoenix who were clashing in middle-air. His father was flying somehow, exchanging blows fearful blows with his opponent. Sometimes, they would move so fast, that their bodies turned just into a trace of silver and red lines moving across the skies and destroying everything around them.

Ares brushed off his tiredness, taking Alice on his back, even though his legs were trembling. The youth gritted his teeth and started to run again while carrying her.

Several firebolts came in their direction, striking the ground or passing by centimeters of their bodies. The battle was arriving there already. In order to take down a monster as huge as that Phoenix, Kavir needed to make use of all the space he had available to run around.

Each explosion that happened around made Ares speed up a bit more. He was going beyond limits that he hadn't reached even during his workouts. To survive, his body was going beyond 100%. That was the first time he experienced such a thing.

In the middle of that rain of flames, the boy could do the last effort to jump past the fences that marked the limits of Jasmine, falling with his face on the ground. The peasants who were around helped Alice, taking her in their arms and supporting Ares as well.

They went some meters away from the fence, watching the fight that was still happening. Most of the villagers were trying to get away some more meters before they could even think on watch, though it was useless. Without their horses or donkeys, they couldn't do anything to take a reasonable distance from there.

A few more clashes happened in the middle-air as they watched amazed at the unexpected display of Kavir's hidden strength.

Ares was looking at that scene beside an adult, praying silently to his father to come back alive. He couldn't stand on his feet anymore, so he was sitting on the ground, resting.

After another powerful encounter that reverberated through all the fields and made the folk's neck hair stood on end, Kavir and the Phoenix took a second to catch their breaths.

The Ancient had a huge cut on its body. It was closing quickly due to the flames, that seemed to be capable of healing it. However, it was still a good strike that made her spend a lot of energy to cure it.

People got excited, and for a minute they thought that Kavir had a chance of winning, but then they looked at him and their faces went pale.

The man was still flying. That silver aura was covering his body and the axe's blade. However, his left arm... was gone.