Humanity's Hero Of Despair

"Flarizo!"

Flames dance across the wand, summoned from the tip of my wand as castle guards back up against the wall to avoid it. My flames manage to catch a few of the castle guards' armor on fire. My friends and I continue to defend against the onslaught of castle guards who try to attack Quillen and everyone else trying to break the magic security layers.

"Nico, look out!"

Matteo says to me as he tackles me to the ground. I immediately feel a cold sensation run down my spine as I look up and see ice spreading quickly over an area that was supposed to hit me. My eyes quickly dart in the direction of the spell. The caster of the spell is a castle guard whose armor and uniform are different from the others.

The intricate designs show these castle guards are more dangerous.

The elite guards.

I tighten my grip on my wand as Matteo helps me stand back up. If I had gotten hit by that ice spell, I might have been turned into an ice cube. The elite castle guard scowls as he realizes he missed his target. Another spell this time almost made me fly into a wall if it wasn't for Zephyr's defense spell that saved me.

My eyes dart over to the spell that almost sent me flying. It was another elite castle guard who is a wind mage. Zephyr stands next to me, ready to fight. We all continue to fight the castle guards, and the few elite castle guards manage to push us back. Matteo almost got overwhelmed by too many castle guards, but Neve helped protect him with her ice magic.

I turn in Quillen's direction and shout, "How many more layers now?"

"Three more layers to go!"

I grit my teeth as I quickly deflect another spell. There are simply too many of them, even though we are more powerful. I tell everyone to get back as I cast some light magic with both of my wands, which causes about ten castle guards to go flying into the air, hitting the ceiling with a hard thud.

"Last layer is done! Let's get out of here."

Quillen says as he grabs the Elemental Sphere of Earth and stops it from levitating. As soon as the sphere leaves the levitating area, an alarm goes off, alerting even more guards throughout the entire Pedgas Castle.

"We need to move it! Now!"

Quillen shouts as all of us push the castle guards into the corner. I unleash my electric dragon spell, which causes many of the castle guards to be on the defensive. We all take that moment to rush down the stairs to the main entrance of the castle for our escape.

We fight our way down the staircase as more castle guards appear from different hallways. It is a brutal battle as bodies go flying and spells deflect off of walls and pillars. I am super vigilant and careful as I have to dodge spells while fighting others. Eventually, we make it to the base of the staircase and fight our way toward the main entrance.

I look at my friend who is closest to me, who happens to be Neve. A silent look passes between both of us, and I nod to her. I look at my friends, who seem to be thinking the same thing as I am.

"Tenth affinity magic, Garden Of Ice!"

Flowers of ice trap many of the castle guards' feet and legs as they all become confused at what happened. We all take that moment to run from them and knock out as many guards as we are able to. We throw open the main entrance doors and run to our carriages, which are ready for our escape.

Our luggage is already there, as we planned it from before. We all jump into the carriages and urge our horses to run as fast as possible. Castle guards take position along the castle walls to shoot arrows at us. However, we manage to block the majority of the attacks as we make our getaway.

The imperial agents who are with us undo the barrier, and they hop off the carriages.

"We will handle them from here!"

One of the imperial agents shouts to me as the castle guards try to catch up to us.

"Thank you for everything!"

I shout to them all as I see their figures become dots in the distance. It all feels like a blur. The city is now far in the distance as my party and I make our escape through the vast plains. The afternoon quickly turns into evening as I become more exhausted. We run into a few bandits but quickly take care of them.

After a while, we stop at a random small village to rest and grab dinner. All of us are extremely tired from traveling so much and so far without stopping. Though it was necessary to make sure they weren't on our tail. They have probably, by now, alerted the Grand Duke, who I bet is extremely furious right now.

It's a race against time now.

A few of the imperial agents decided last second to come with us. They said while we rested at the village, they would head to the Imperial Palace to alert the Emperor of everything. I have no idea how they manage to travel and work so much despite traveling so far without rest. Maybe they have special training when it comes to that?

Anyways, we enjoy our food as much as we can. The feeling of being able to rest for the first time in hours feels so nice. The people at the village are kind enough to let us take a shower at one of the inns.

After dinner and feeling refreshed, we all start our journey back to the Imperial Palace.

In a couple of hours, I see the top of the Imperial Palace as it comes into view. We all silently cheer to ourselves as we see it. The imperial guards notice us as we get closer, and they immediately open the gates for us to enter.

As we step out of the carriages, an imperial guard quickly runs over to me.

"His Imperial Majesty wants to see you immediately, along with all your friends."

This just got a lot more hectic. We may have a war on our hands.