Blocked

"Faster!" Rezio shouted, telling everyone to go quicker with their steps.

The moon's place on the sky indicates that it's currently 2AM past midnight, while humans normally sleep at this time, Carfeld and his group were instead running away from a demihuman shrouded in mystery.

They all ran past the giant trees, cutting large leaves and many more roadblocks in their way, just because most of the area in this place is an open area where there was basically nothing but trees, that doesn't mean cramped space filled with plantation and insects wouldn't exist.

"Hehehe!!"

From behind the knight's group, Sylias's laugh was heard in the distance, laugh sounded demonic, almost as if her high pitched voice is a gift from hell, her physical appearance hasn't come out yet, but her voice is there, she must be hiding from everyone's sight while she follows them closely.

"SHE'S HERE!"

"UGH?!"

Rezio felt a chilling goosebump behind his neck, and in shock, he instantly turned around and swung his sword horizontally, turns out, his instinct was right, a large scythe came to his direction from behind.

CLANK!!

"KEUKK!!"

Thankfully he managed to parry the attack, bright spark bursts out of the end of each weapons, the result of that attack knocked Rezio away a couple feets, his body got dragged on the floor, passing all of the people in the group while standing.

"REZIO!"

"KEEP GOING!"

"!!!"

Everyone understood the assignment, they all nodded and kept running past Rezio while he stays on his place, his eyes were locked to the front, at the location where Sylias was seen standing with a scythe in her hands, the size of her scythe is approximately the same size as her whole body, infact it might be even bigger, it would be strange to call it normal for a girl that seems innocent to be holding a scythe that had the same size as her body.

"They abandoned you?" Said Sylias.

"You, who are you, where did you come from."

Rezio was clearly sweating at this very moment, he is trying to buy as much time as possible so that Carfeld and everyone else would be too far away for Sylias to catch up, Rezio hoped that his sacrifice would end with everyone surviving until they left this damned forest, because for a knight, self sacrifice for the greater good is something they had been taught since the start of their training.

'8 Minutes, no, 5 minutes– I have to hold on for 5 minutes.'

"Fine, im thinking it would be fine if i tell you, there are no one else in here except us— My name, is Sylias, as you can see im a demihuman."

Sylias began wagging her tail and moved her ears for Rezio to see.

"Cut the bullshit out, who are you."

"— Who knows.. I don't have an answer for that."

"Fuck.."

"Well i'll say this beforehand, but how would you like to die? Beheading? Sliced in half? Cut into pieces? Or perhaps..."

Just then, a terrifying smile formed on Sylias's face.

"A torture perhaps?" She said with joyous voice.

"Heh, i'd like to not die instead, thank you."

DASH!

In a speck of a second, Rezio lunged forward, his posture showed that he is ready to attack at any given moment, with he and Sylias's gap becoming shorter and shorter, a devastating swing of his sword moved towards Sylias, the airs around followed Rezio's blade trajectory as it hit Sylias in the face.

'HER WAIST!'

< FIRE AURA >

Rezio conjured his Aura, his sword began to burn as the bright yellow fire is only mere inches away from Sylias.

CLANK!!

It was instant, the whole thing happened within the span of less than a second, Rezio's dash, his sword attack, and Sylias managing to parry it at the last moment, all of that happened in the blink of an eye, loud clank filled the forest with its ear-piercing ringings, both Rezio and Sylias also got knocked back from eachother.

"Interesting, your skill is roughly the same as that guy, who's his name again?.."

"You know about Captain?"

Rezio didn't want to reveal Carfeld's name to Sylias because he doesn't know what she would do with that information, if she is interested with Carfeld, then that means Carfeld is in danger.

"We've met before. Back then he was so amusing, im starting to regret leaving him alive.."

'This girl's head is definitely crazy, she reminds me of someone who's a criminal..'

'Shit, what should i do now, im starting to feel light-headed, is it because of my energy running out? anyhow, i need to end this quickly!'

"Should we continue this dance?" Sylias asked, her body started to exude a flaming white aura around it.

[ Sylias's 3rd Class "Battlemage" Spell ]

< FUSION STRENGTHENING >

'No way! Is that.. Aura?!'

Rezio froze in fear upon witnessing Sylias using a spell similar to Aura, a mage shouldn't be able to use Aura, they're supposed to be an alternative for those who did not possess a mana heart, there has been no record of someone being able to use both magic and aura.

'Research have been done in the past! I remember a mage was trying to obtain energy to use aura but he was unsuccessful no matter how hard he tries! Even after years of intense training, he showed no sign of obtaining energy, it was because energy is supposed to take place as a mana heart alternative! there can't be both at the same time!'

'So, how is that demihuman—

"Come." Sylias confidently said.

Rezio was stunned after hearing that word, he took a few moments to process what his next action should be, and after thinking about it for a while, he found an answer.

"This will certainly be painful, haha.. But— If it meant that this would bring you down with me, then im willing to take that choice as many times as i can!"

DASH!

Another chance has been given, their dance shall continue under this mesmerizing moonlight, in the heart of Monoghriad Forest, a fight is being held between the honored knight and the godly demihuman, the outcome should be obvious, however it is the way how it ends that matters.

In that intense battle, Rezio showed not only strength but also speed not comparable to how he fought before, he has gotten faster and stronger than the fight against the Great Treant and Chimera, the flame aura in his blade scorched his tainted black hands, it is burning, it is screaming, yet he didn't care, as his focus is entirely stolen by Sylias.

< DANCE OF THE FIRES! >

Mysterious voices kept talking over Rezio's and Sylias's mind, inside of Sylias, that voice sounded similar to her voice, while inside of Rezio's mind, that voice sounded similar to his voice, each of the voices in their mind shouted all of their attack name.

And for those who lived in this world, this voices are known as the voice of the earth, it is believed that magics and auras are created by the planet itself, the planet is essentially a living being, the god of all magical things, it is unbiased, it doesn't have any morale sense of good or bad, it doesn't discriminate, all of living being in this planet was given a choice to evolve and become stronger.

Our planet speaks, our planet gave its blessing, the planet shouts the name of its blessing, we the creature stepping on mother earth's land, are the one that it loves the most.

CLANK!

CLANK!!

SHRRIIIINNNGGG!!

SWIISSHH!!

BOOM!

The battle between Rezio and Sylias lasted for 10 minutes, and in that 10 minutes, many destruction occured, countless plants got decimated, and litres of blood got wasted on the ground, Sylias puts a smiling face for the whole battle, she was obviously enjoying each seconds of the fight, on the othe hand, Rezio was fighting for his life, he released every bit of his energy, his life force, and himself.

Another sword slash was heading towards Sylias, but yet, just like every other attack, it was easily parried with her scythe, Sylias uses the top blade of her scythe to block Rezio's blade since it has more density than the bottom part of the scythe, not long after, she countered back by spinning her scythe vertically before swinging it towards Rezio, her scythe went all the way pass Rezio's body, the blade of her scythe is now behind Rezio's back, in a quick response from him, Rezio turned around and placed his sword infront of him in a vertical angle, if he was late just a second, he would've been cut in half!

'SHIT! SHE GOT ME!!'

Sylias then pulls her scythe with insane force, since her scythe blade is behind Rezio, he also got pulled towards her, that's why he placed his sword infront of him, as he was getting dragged closer to Sylias, a slight opportunity appeared and Sylias pulled her scythe back before punching Rezio on his back, specifically at his belly point, causing him to get launched way past her scythe blade and to the giant trees in the forest.

BOOM!

***

Faraway from the battle, at a place near the exit from the inner forest..

"Hey, Shouldn't we wait for Rezio to come back!?" Davira asked.

"We can't just abandon him! What about our promises of surviving together?!"

"Shut up woman, he's sacrificing himself for our safety, we need to survive no matter what." Deter stopped Davira from talking.

Ever since the group abandoned Rezio due to his own order, they have been thinking about nothing but his safety, he is alone in that place with Sylias, where there can be more dangerous monsters coming after them, it's been more than 10 minutes and they have not received any news of Rezio being alive or not, because of that the group had been worrying him relentlessly.

"Do you think he can survive?"

That question made the entire group fell silent, and the atmosphere around them changed to a constant sound of nightly insects like crickets.

GRRR...

"Huh!?"