Odyssey of the Guardian Emperor

Yusa placed a hand over his nose, cursing the life choices that had led him to this stinking room. The stench that filled the air was the same as—perhaps even worse than—the stench of death characteristic of demons. The soldiers of the Emperor's Army were a force unparalleled and respected in Central Valeria as heroes who served the Emperor.

All Yusa had ever wanted was to be a part of something greater than himself, like the Emperor's Army. Unfortunately, no one told him that he would find himself at the bottom of a tavern basement somewhere in Eastern Valeria, watching a man getting pummeled beyond recognition on top of being tortured with dark magic.

The sickening sound of a fist connecting with the body of another filled the quiet, dreadful silence of the tavern basement. Barrels had been moved to the side and chairs added to face a wall fitted with chains and restraints to keep a single man bound.

Bound to the wall, the man received one blow after another. His hair, once blonde, was now tinged with a reddish-purple colour that was a mix of his blood and the tainted, dark magic affecting his system, leaving the hair a matted mess.

The man's face was so swollen that it was harder to make out his identity. His light armour was shattered, and the civilian-like clothes he had beneath were now in tatters from cuts, and stained with a worrisome amount of blood.

He'd stopped speaking a while ago—more like a day ago—, giving in to the excruciating pain of the routine torture. Each day was worse than the last as the torture tactics employed got even worse. He was barely fed and was starting to look badly malnourished. Sparing the man his gaze, Yusa found a part of him amazed at his resilience.

Wouldn't it be nice to believe in a cause so powerful that torture meant nothing? This man wasn't in pain. Whatever kept his mouth shut also gave him the endurance to fight through the pain. Yusa couldn't explain it any other way. It was like giving in was more painful to him than everything he'd been put through, which shouldn't have made sense.

"Bah! This lunatic won't crack," the soldier, punching him, eventually spat, panting heavily, "I've gone as far as breaking his bones, cutting off his fingers and toes, gutting him, burning him, and yet he still won't say a word."

At this rate, the person torturing the man always ran out of energy, which was comical to watch. The tired soldier scowled with anger, deforming the scar running down his face.

"It's like he's ready to die," the Commander of the soldiers wondered, watching the spectacle with just as much curiosity. "You think he knows what the boy is?"

"Even if he did, no one's selfless enough to give their lives for him. Besides, it's not like the boy was friends with him," Roan grinned, "This man is either loyal to something else, extremely dumb, or under a vow."

"Loyalty is feeble, dumb people have memories…" A man in dark, scaly attire rose from the bench, approaching as the shadows in the room quivered, "…and vows can be broken."

The Dark Mage was in front of Byron in a heartbeat, dropping the temperature in the room with his fearsome aura. The soldiers went silent and watched with lumps in their throats. They might have been working with a Dark Mage, but none of them practised Dark Magic, so it still felt oppressive to be in Avaros's presence.

"In the face of fear, everything can be reduced to nothing," Avaros uttered in a low, dark tone. Dark swirls hummed in his palm as he brought it closer to Byron's face, "Visit your Hell, foolish knight."

Byron's vision, already blurred and marred by his swollen eyes, thinned to a dot before he felt his body plummet at least a hundred feet into an abyss unlike anything he could have expected.

'Where am I?' his thoughts echoed after he'd hit the ground.

He looked around, but all he saw was black with a single lantern in the distance. Despite the pain shooting through his limbs, he ventured towards the light, limping his way through the uncertain darkness.

It soon became clear that the lantern was being held, and by a girl, too hard to see in the darkness. As he got closer, her features got clearer. Beautiful face. Soft features. Gentle eyes. White hair. He recognised her.

It was Lucy, and she was quietly sobbing with this lantern as her only source of light.

Byron's heart cracked. "Lucy, why are you crying?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she walked forward.

Finally, with some light, Byron started to notice a few things about his dark surroundings. The ground was uneven and squishy, making gurgling sounds with each step they took. He paid more attention and saw the soft light of the lantern illuminate a skull.

His heart sank, and soon, he noticed plenty of them. "Where are we, Lucy?"

"Melbourne," the girl's voice thundered like a melancholic war drum.

The world lit up with flames, revealing a field of dead bodies and burning buildings. The two of them were in the middle of it all. The stench of death was present in the air, and growls could be heard everywhere as demons tore through what was left of the humans in the City.

"No!" Byron gasped, stepping away from the girl, "You have Holy Magic. The barrier… The purified zone."

The girl looked at him with a look of rage that made his words stop in his throat.

"Why didn't you do it, Byron? Why didn't you tell them where Alistair was? At least that way, they would have left us alone. No one would have to die," the girl yelled at him.

He panicked, shaking his head frantically, "For you, Lucy. I am doing this for you. To protect you. Can't you see?"

"SEE WHAT, BYRON? I'M DEAD!!!" the girl yelled, "THE MATRIARCH'S DEAD! MELBOURNE IS IN RUINS. HOW DOES THIS PROTECT ME?!"

Byron's tears started to flow like rivers, and he stepped back with a pale expression of grief and heartbreak, "Death is better than the life you would have lived if I gave them his location."

With that, the man ran away from the burning city, never looking back. The darkness was better than witnessing the destruction of the city he loved and the grief-stricken face of his charge.

His guardian appeared beside him, then merged with him in a fit to fend off the darkness. However, in the darkness, they saw two all-encompassing eyes staring back at them, rage burning within them.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Give up, you vermin! Tell me where the boy is… or I will plunge you into an even darker pit. You'll never recover," the voice echoed through the darkness like thunder through the heavens, pummeling Byron into the ground.

"Drive me to madness for all I care. Do your worst, Dark One," the man yelled through gritted teeth, "You'll only be wasting your time."

The pain in the man's head reached the highest he could withstand, reducing him to a pile of bone-chilling screams. Byron's wails filled the basement's tavern, which had been enchanted to keep all sound contained. Within the contained space, he screamed at the top of his lungs while his mind burned.

By the time the Dark Mage was done assaulting his mind, he'd passed out from the pain and exhaustion. Avaros stared at the unconscious man with a confused expression. "Your assumption was wrong. He doesn't know what the boy is."

"Then why won't he give up the boy's location?" the others asked.

"Because of a girl. I don't know who she is, but he's so sure of her existence. It goes beyond the ramblings of a madman, and from what I can tell, she's supposed to be here in Melbourne. Find the girl. The Matriarch's daughter," Avaros ordered, staring at the sleeping man with a sour expression.

"The Matriarch has no daughter," Yusa responded diligently.

"THEN, WHAT DID I JUST SEE IN THAT MAN'S NIGHTMARES?" Avaros yelled. He was livid. "We had that meddlesome boy in our hands, and you lost him. Now, find the girl!"

Yusa bowed, sweat dropping off his brow before he scrambled out of the room, running out to do the man's bidding. The other soldiers rushed out as well, leaving the Dark Mage inside the basement with the prisoner.

Avaros looked like he could kill Byron right now, but he held on. The man was their last tie to the boy, and the only one who claimed to have seen Alistair take off a Face Mask.

He was a curious specimen, though. A hypocrite among hypocrites. Byron had been the one to agree to the task of sniffing out the boy, and yet upon his return, he changed his mind.

"I hate men who go back on their word," Avaros muttered quietly, even though he wasn't above doing that sort of thing himself.

Finally giving in, he sighed and left the basement.

In the darkness, a gentle glowing silhouette of a girl appeared, tears streaming down her face. The girl floated up to the man and held his face in her hands. The translucent fingers went through, but the sentiment was very much real.

As if sensing her presence, the unconscious man's pain expression turned softer, gaining a gentle smile, "Find happiness, Lucy."

A few moments later, she was gone, leaving the man drowning in a well of unknown dreams. Byron dreamed of the afterlife. In the broken scape of his mind, he dreamt of a fiery world where he burned for his crimes. In those flames of eternal torment, he found peace and solace.

"I hope she finds him and fixes that which was taken from her," he sighed, going through burning memories of Lucy as a child.

He dreamt of his old adventuring days, of the friends he went on quests with, of a life much simpler than the one he led at the Sisters of Fragrance. It was a life of freedom. A life without responsibility. A life where his happiness did not depend on the smile of another, but the depth of his pocket, the fullness of his belly and the thrill of adventure.

Lucy woke with a start. Two strong hands shook her out of her sleep, "Stop astral projecting, girl! They'll find you."

"My Lady!" Lucy gasped, pulling herself out of the woman's grasp and crawling away from her, "I-I'm sorry."

The Matriarch sighed, "Why do you insist on disobeying me? What haven't I given you, child?"

Lucy pulled her legs around her, the sound of a clinking chain punctuating her movements. On her right wrist, a silver chain was attached to steel shackles snaking their way to a vambrace on the Matriarch's own hand. The binds bore a few scratches on them, a testament of the number of times they had been used.

"Freedom," the girl responded.

The woman scowled, "What's so good about freedom? I offer safety, protection, food, wealth, and yet you scorn me on the one thing I cannot give you. You know nothing of the world, girl. After all you've seen, how can you still yearn for freedom?

The girl shook her head, tears streaming down her face. Speaking against the Matriarch should have been impossible. She'd never done it.

The Matriarch was a powerful woman who never took 'no' for an answer. But one thing had slipped through the cracks of this image of her in Lucy's mind.

The girl had seen the Matriarch's vulnerability inside the Fortune teller's tent. The Matriarch shouldn't have been capable of sadness. She was supposed to be the strong and immovable pillar of Melbourne.

It had been brief, but what she saw showed Lucy a side of the Matriarch she never thought existed. That moment had shown Lucy that the woman could be reasoned with, that she had emotions just like everyone else. It showed her that the all-powerful Matriarch of Melbourne could feel fear and despair, that she, too, had her flaws.

The girl's voice was hoarse from crying, soft like a whisper, yet stronger than a bull—filled with fresh conviction, "I want to see the continent. I want to go on adventures and make friends along the way. I want to get to know people who want to know me. I want to eat exotic food and see things beyond my wildest imagination, but most of all, I want to fix the bond with my guardian. I want a bond like the one you have with yours."

Lucy let it all out for the Matriarch to hear, and for a brief moment, there really was a spark of guilt in the woman's eyes.

That spark of guilt lasted just one second, "Who fed you all that nonsense, child? You're safe here, and there is nothing for you to see out there. It's all just death, betrayal and demons. Trust me. You're not missing a thing."

And that was that.

The light vanished from the girl's eyes, and she resigned to listening to the Matriarch's orders, just like it had always been. Only this time, her spirit was gone, crushed. She was nothing but a pale, withering flower frozen in time.

………………

The situation at the wall of Melbourne had gone from bad to worse before finally settling into something of a mild, never-ending hell. The feverish attempt at protecting the people of the city had barely succeeded.

With seven dead and twelve injured, spirits plummeted, but that wasn't all. The demons stormed the city in waves, and it took everyone even remotely capable of combat to keep them at bay.

Finn walked out of the gates with Brett at his side an hour after a particularly intense wave of demons. The pair approached a protective detail of guards and adventurers surrounding two women dressed in white tunics. Well, they were once white. What had been white tunics were now ragged with dirt and sweat from the throes of battle.

The women were chanting spells whilst casting white glows on demonic remains. Their spells made the demon's body sizzle and boil for minutes before a purified aether crystal was left behind. As the only two holy mages in Melbourne, they had their hands full. Demons could only be killed for good through holy magic, and Melbourne was currently faced with a never-ending stream of them.

These two women were to tend to all subdued demons, which was asking for too much. It was only a matter of time before they needed real rest, and after that, well… chaos.

"Brett. Finn," one of the guards acknowledged them.

"Karl." Brett replied with a slight bow, "How far?"

"The Holy maidens are moving as fast as they can, but there is only so much they can do. They are running out of aether, and there is still much to be done," Karl replied, "That and the fact that demons keep walking out of those woods just doesn't help. It's not looking good."

"Well, I have something that might help," Finn said, picking a couple of vials from his Storage Bracelet. Both vials contained a white liquid glowing inside them. "We use these at the Academy. Either pour them on subdued demons to keep them down longer or give them to the Holy maidens to help replenish their aether."

"Which one's more effective?" the guard asked.

Finn shrugged, "No idea."

Karl took them and handed them to another guard to get them to the Holy Maidens, "Thank you. I'm sorry you folks had to get wrapped up in our mess."

"It's okay. You're not the ones who cast that barrier over our heads. Fortunately for us, we have these," Finn raised up a pair of black orbs, glowing runes etched into their smooth surfaces. "We can go inform the Guardian Academy and bring reinforcements."

"Those won't work." Karl shrugged, "Saw a merchant try a few hours ago. Got his whole arm blown clean off by the backlash. He had to buy a Restoration elixir from Old Thai to grow it back. Cost him a hefty hundred gold coins."

Finn's face went pale at the news. He'd thought of this possibility, but hadn't been sure of Dark Mage's capabilities. Then again, it should have occurred to him, considering they were dealing with a Steel Rank.

Steel Ranks were forces of nature, unlike anything on the ranks below them. At that Rank, destruction of an entire city became less of a fantasy. Brett turned to the sandy-haired boy with his hands on his hips, "Remind me never to listen to you."

Finn chuckled nervously, "Uh… Sorry."

Brett raised a shaky finger at him and then walked away without another word. No words had been exchanged, but the message was clear.

They were stuck.