Somewhere in the middle of a dense forest, there were two people, hiding behind a bush, one had a beak-like mask, while the other had half of his face scarred, perhaps the scar was due to a burn.
"Alpha, the ember stone seal it in the dimensional pocket, we might have to battle a lot of knights today, and if by chance any of the family heads enter them we may have to flee, your injury is very deep only dark priest will be able to heal it." the masked man said.
"Che, I'm at least glad I completed my mission, if I didn't have the ember stone, would you have still come to save me,?" the Alpha asked.
"Don't waste your time in useless talks and focus on sealing the stone, hmm I can hear footsteps, 6 no 7 people I guess" the man said.
"Do you think you can battle them alone?" Alpha asked.
"I cannot because there are not one or two, but three family heads and three higher holy knights.
If it was only two higher holy knights, then perhaps I could manage, for now, we need to flee" the man said.
"Alpha, use the return scroll, by the time you activate it; I will cause a small distraction so that both of us can escape," the man said and disappeared from there.
He quickly appeared in the sky a bit far from the group and quickly took out his scythe from thin air.
He bent his knee in a crouching position and pushed himself toward the group.
'A small distraction, that is all I cannot afford to pick a huge fight.' the man thought.
He quickly aimed himself toward one of the knights, as he was rushing towards him at an astonishing speed, the knight seemed to have noticed and drew his blade and quickly repelled his slash, the man quickly somersaulted in mid-air gave him a kick in the chest, which caused the knight to lose his footing, but that didn't mean he lost the fight, the knight quickly used his leg as a support and covered his sword with a golden light, he quickly slashed his sword and the energy collected on the sword rushed towards the man in the shape of a crescent moon.
All of this happened in just under a minute, the man also infused his blade with a darker type of light and slashed, both the energies collided and canceled themselves like positive and negative charges.
"Oh did the empire finally send someone worth killing" the man spoke.
As he was about to utter another word, he was invited with a punch on his chest, which cracked his ribcage, the man rolled down due to the impact, stood back up, and coughed out some blood.
'Tch, this damn Ishtart,' he thought.
The one who had delivered the punch was none other than Zenith.
He quickly drew his blade and infused it with some reddish light.
"Was it you, who stole the ember stone " Zenith spoke in a cold tone.
"My, my what a way to greet a stranger don't you think, is this how the Vaun der empire gives a welcome, hmm how rude I guess I should also greet you back", the man spoke.
But then he quickly felt another person standing behind him, and another one towards his left,
" You are coming with us to the capital, " Christopher spoke.
"Ooh, even the Lancelot and Xylark seem to have come here, too bad I wished I also could play, but "
he quickly glanced at his wrist, the bracelet that he had worn seemed to be glowing.
"But it is time to go" he spoke and quickly disappeared from there leaving a small amount of light behind.
"Che, he seems to have used a return stone" Ken spoke.
"Your punch didn't it crack his ribs?" Christopher asked.
" Yeah, hmm it seems that he can endure pain, when I cracked his ribs that impact would have affected his lungs also," Zenith spoke.
"Are you telling that if had not used the return scroll, we could have caught him, that is unlikely, even if it did impact his lungs he would still give fight against all three of us" Ken spoke.
"No I'm not talking about that, if he used the return scroll that means one of the objectives is complete, and now that his ribs are damaged it would take quite some time to heal, even with the priest, that means he would not attack us for another three to four months, assuming that he doesn't regenerate," Zenith spoke.
"I guess we could discuss this further at Majesty's palace," Christopher said.
All though everyone agreed to return they still had their guard up.
Even though the enemy had returned it doesn't mean they won, it just means, they got some time to prepare for an even worse outcome.