“Antonella?”
“Yes?” she answered as if there was nothing wrong with her.
But I know it, and I feel it, she was not the same Antonella I know. And I could feel it, energy opposite of the ember I hold.
“Where are the milieus executives?”
“They are preparing for the resurrection right now?” she nonchalantly said.
My eyes almost widened but I was able to maintain a straight face.
“Did they hurt you?”
“Why would they? They opened my eyes! Now I am able to see the ugly truth about the life I have been living,” she spread her arms wide and her lips trembled.
“Let us go back Nellie, to the academe; William is worried you know,”
Antonella’s expression turned into the worst turn after hearing William’s name. A circle formed under her feet and the trees around us began to move. It was turning into a cage.
“Do not mention that person’s name in my face!” the anger did not show any signs of dissipating at all.
The cage began to trap us inside but Johann easily slashed it with his sword and it immediately vanished. That was we thought, because it was already too late when we were trapped in the cage because of an attack we could not see.
“This is the ender eye,” I painfully said.
I should accept it now, that Antonella…
“What do you mean? She has the ender?” the disbelief in Johann’s voice was enough to make me understand how he was not able to comprehend this whole situation.
Around us was only pitch black, being trap inside we tried many spells and even brute force but every time we are about to destroy the cage, it regenerates by itself making our efforts futile.
“Shit, just what is going on?” Johann gritted his teeth in frustration all while slashing his sword to the cage that was attempting to crush us now.
Just then, I felt a very ominous energy surge in the middle of the forest that made me jolt. It was a familiar energy, an energy I only felt in my memories as the goddess and that memory was the battle with the grand arch wizard. It can’t be, no… are we too late?
“Johann, stop.” I held his wrist and stepped forward to touch the cage.
I spread my palm and envisioned my wind filling up the entire volume of the object.
“Antonella… has the ender eye, her attributes are tarnished by the ender, and we could think that this cage really isn’t doing anything special, it is just playing with our eyes.” I looked at him with grievance in my eyes.
“We don’t have time, he is rising,”
Johann quickly understood my message and nodded, “What should I do?”
I turned my eyes forward, towards Antonella’s direction, as if I could see her through the cage.
“Lay out the domain, we have no choice but to pass her even if it means hurting her,”
“It will be okay,” Johann trapped me in his embrace, filling me with comforting warmth, maybe he saw my distress even in this darkness, and I could only smile painfully.
“I will be okay, now, let’s do this,”
Johann took one step backward,
*“I am your king, heed my orders,”*
The halo and the cross appeared above Johann’s head and the black and white tiles spread all over the ground. The cage that bounded us broke giving us light once again.
I saw Antonella was still standing in the place we last saw her, unmoving. But there was something even more different than her, her eyes. It was as if it was not her own. As if someone else was peering through it.
*“Wind of the celestial
Heed my plea,
Gale as swift as gust
Bind her free”*
I murmured under my breath. I am sorry Antonella, but we need to prevent even bigger disasters.
I thought she would deflect the attack, but she stood there, unmoving. Her eyes look like it was smiling; it was so out of place in her dead face.
“No!”
My eyes rounded when I saw William leap out of nowhere and stand in front of Nellie, he was already preparing himself to receive the impact of my spell. But when that happened the wind took a turn making its way to Antonella again.
“It is a spell meant to hit her, it would not stop until reached her,” I regretfully said to William who was looking back and forth to Antonella who was about to get hit and to me.
“Like a missile,” Johann whispered to himself.
“But you should not worry William, that Antonella will not die just from that spell,”
Antonella motioned her hands and the roots made a shield to protect her. The impact lasted long and harsh.
“Johann, release the domain, let us move forward. William… I trust you could bring Nellie back, I’ll leave this to you,”
I held Johann’s hand as he released his domain and William nodded at me.
“Quinn, fly!”
A huge dragon began to materialize under our feet and as it completely formed we were already flying above the clouds, exactly like my memories.
“So you’ve recovered your original form too huh?” Johann stated to Quinn who made a smug sound.
“It’s because I remembered and I have the ember back now, but how did you find Quinn?”
Johann’s face became unpleasant for a moment but he recovered.
“When… you disappeared, an egg appeared. It seems like Chaos was suppressed to that form when your body vanished, the connection between the two of you became too thin that he could not maintain that form. That is also the reason why I believed you were alive and that you will come back. As long as something that represents you is here… I know you’ll eventually come back. So I kept the egg, and waited for years,” a smile was etched in Johann’s face; it was a smile that had a few traces of sadness.
I reached out my hand to hold his face but if froze and turned around when I felt a black energy surrounded the whole forest. It was the same energy from earlier!
And I saw it, in the middle of the forest, there was a magic circle and in the middle of it, a condensed black aura hovered.
Six figures surrounded the circle; they were guarding it, The Grand Arch Wizard.
I feel it, the energy totally opposite of mine, the ender.
As I was up above the air, one of the wizling that stood in the middle of the circle looked up, with the impossible distance between us it was possible to call it my imagination, but it was not since I felt it. The shiver I felt when it’s eyes locked into mine, that malignant energy almost ready to kill, the Grand Arch Wizard was fully resurrected.