We start to make our way through the destroyed battlefield to head inside the castle. Apparently the battle with Archer destroyed a lot more of the surrounding area than I had anticipated. Dozens of large bluewood trees scatter the battlefield, some having been blown by the explosions all the way to the castle courtyard. The remnants of the cohort are tending to the wounded that managed to miraculously survive the pandemonium that was Amon. But to believe that one man was capable of taking on that many people baffles me. The difference between those that employ aura and those that don’t is what can single handedly decide a fight. We have a few small groups of soldiers that are still in fighting condition. Since a lot of their commanders died in the fight against Archer that technically makes me the highest ranking person left on the battlefield besides the old coot General Frederick who at this moment is taking a nap. I order the ones who can still fight to secure the castle but retreat if their lives are in danger.

When I say fighting condition, I mean capable of at least fighting rebels, but fighting condition nonetheless. Which reminds me...

“Ok all of you who are still in fighting condition raise your hand,” I say to everyone.

“What do you mean by fighting condition?” Remi asks.

“Um I mean are you ready to fight an enemy that could be more or just as strong as Amon. I won’t force anyone to come considering how exhausted we all are, especially Quincy, I don’t know why you're still here and not resting with the soldiers,” I comment.

Everyone in my party raises their hand, Nerva has hers sky high as do Akane and Quincy. Adam is the only one who doesn’t raise his hand, which promptly gets him smacked by Nerva.

“Oh come on Adam, Quincy has brain damage and he’s still willing to fight,” Nazuko comments.

“Well I-I don’t really think any of us are in fighting condition. What if we have to fight someone stronger than that scary Archer guy? Isn’t there still that Man of Stone guy in there? Maybe we should just leave this to the knights?” Adam suggests.

“Are you saying that you want to abandon Warren who’s still in there fighting who knows what?” Quincy states.

“N-No but I’m sure that he’s gonna be alright, I mean there’s no way that what he’s facing is worse than what we all just went through right?” Adam claims.

“Since Warren isn’t here that automatically makes me team leader and thus I say that we’re going after Warren,” Akane states in a deadpan tone of voice.

“Yeah no amount of brain damage is gonna stop me from helping Warren,” Quincy says.

“Logically speaking you have to have brain damage if you are willing to progress in this scenario, but I digress. Let’s just get moving, the sooner we deal with this attack on the castle the sooner we get to go home,” I say.

“Yeah we all have brain damage!” Nazuko claims.

“Given how many times that girl’s been knocked out she just might,” Remi claims.

“Hell yeah brain damage!” Nerva celebrates.

“Hooray!” Ryder also celebrates.

“This group really worries me,” Azura comments.

The front of the castle was completely unguarded other than Archer, so we had no difficulties in our infiltration. We had Ryder blow away the castle doors before we all charged in expecting to fight more rebels, but the interior gave off this completely empty feeling.

“I expected there to be more soldiers waiting to ambush us once we got into the castle. Where did they all go?” Lilith asks.

“Hmm, I think I know where the majority of the rebels are. When Warren and I first invaded the castle we set off an alarm and a ton of men came after us. I also know where Warren headed so I guess I’ll lead the way,” Nazuko states.

“You set off an alarm? I thought you’re supposed to be an undetectable thief?” Remi questions smugly.

“Well to correct myself, it was Warren who set off the alarm not me, so HA in your face!” Nazuko retorts.

Those two continue bickering as Nazuko leads the way through the large partially destroyed castle. Parts of the castle walls have been blown away during our clash with Amon, primarily due to Ryder and his bombs. Nazuko leads us towards what seems to be the barracks and it seems to be the right way indicated by the accumulating dead bodies lining the hallways. Several men lie on the floor, several of which have knives sticking out of their throat or lodged in their head. The floor is stained dark red as pools of blood cover it like dry paint.

“Geez, does Warren have to kill every last person who gets in his way? I mean they’re rebels who don’t even use aura, it's probably not even that hard to knock them out or tie them up,” I say.

“You know I tried to tell him to stop killing everyone, but I guess that’s just his way of doing things,” Nazuko responds.

“Warren would probably not make a good assassin, he gets too preoccupied killing weaklings that his target would run away by the time he makes it to them. I should give him lessons on how to properly infiltrate bases the next time I see him,” Akane mentions as she goes around collecting the knives lodged in the dead mens’ bodies.

The silence is broken when a haggard looking man opens the door before almost collapsing onto the floor. He appears wounded as he has a broken hand and broken leg.

“Oh hey it's our friend from earlier!” Nazuko exclaims.

“Oh shit! Get away from me you b*tch!” the man yells.

“Why haven’t you left yet? Did you want to see me again?”

“Do you know how long... it takes…. to climb that many stairs with a broken leg?” the man says heavily panting.

“I dunno 5 minutes,” she says nonchalantly.

“Oh I’m gonna get you back for this,” the man says as he limps towards Nazuko, but she ends up pushing the rebel back down the stairs, sending the man tumbling back to the bottom.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow...”

“I guess that man can count how long it takes to get back up to the top now,” I say, completely disregarding Nazuko’s act of cruelty.

“Say you don’t happen to have made any more friends recently?”

For a few seconds Nazuko’s face turns pale as if she remembered something.

“Uh nope, why would you ask?”

“Just had a weird feeling, instinct you know.”

We descend the staircase for about two minutes until we reach the bottom where an opened large metal door lies as well as the man who Nazuko pushed down the stairs.

“Ugh there goes my other leg!” the man groans.

“You know I’m starting to feel a little bad now, it was funny when Warren did it, but now I feel like a jerk. We should at least send him out of here,” Nazuko decides.

“Ah no worries I got this,” I say as I open a portal underneath the disabled man and he falls through.

“Where did he go?” Quincy asks.

“Oh I just sent him to the castle courtyard, but the thing is I don’t really know how far up that is since we’re underground. So I kind of had to guesstimate, there might be a slight chance he falls out of the sky.”

“So you sent a guy with two broken legs through a portal where he could potentially fall out of the sky,” Azura affirms.

“Yes.”

“The portal hero strikes again,” Quincy states.

“Hero?” Remi questions.

“Don’t correct him, I like that better,” I interject.

“Ah I mean menace, stupid brain damage,” Quincy states correcting himself.

“We really need to get him to a hospital, I can guarantee the damage won’t get any worse with my healing magic, but the sooner we fix the underlying issue the better, especially since Quincy still has... um nevermind,” Azura trails off.

“As long as I don’t lose my ability to read it's fine.”

“I wouldn’t say it's fine, but Quincy would rather die than lose the ability to read,” I tell her.

Before I manage to take a step further I almost collapse as I hold onto the doorway. I feel dizzy and my vision blurs, before I get back up.

“Hey Will are you alright?” Azura interrogates.

“It's just… aura exhaustion, I’m fine,” I tell her.

“The moment we get to rest I’m prescribing at least a month’s worth of bedrest and this time no wheelchairs,” she says recalling our last healing adventure.

We walk through the large metal doorway and follow Nazuko through another large metal door eventually coming to a hallway that splits into two directions.

“Ok this is where I separated from Warren, I believe the slaves were held at the end of the hallway on the left.”

“Alright then let’s get moving, we might make it in time to help Warren,” Akane commands.

“Yeah you heard the team leader, let’s go,” I directed.

“But she’s not our group’s team leader though,” Lilith notes.

“Well she can lead me anytime, if you know what I mean,” I say stupidly.

That comment simply causes everyone to give me a weird look.

“You sure you didn’t get shot in the head in the Archer fight?” Remi asks me.

“Look… I’m just tired, okay, I got like no aura left and I’m not thinking straight. Let’s just save Warren and get out of here already.”

We continue walking down the very large hallway and still haven’t encountered any enemies. I don’t know whether or not that’s a good thing. I guess it's a good thing, because we are not prepared to fight any real strong opponents at this moment. Anyways even if we do find strong opponents I plan on getting everyone out of here with my portals. There’s no point in fighting recklessly against an opponent you’re not prepared for. Doing so would simply be the height of arrogance and stupidity. Only fools with a death wish would even think of something like that.

That’s kind of harsh, isn’t risking your life to save others regardless of how strong your opponent is the definition of what it means to be a hero?

“That may be so, but if you can accomplish your goals without partaking in unnecessary risks, then I don’t care how cowardly my actions come off as. If I could stop the demon wave without ever having to fight demons, wouldn’t that be the best course of action.” I tell Mythril.

Yes, but I honestly doubt that will come to pass.

“Yeah I do too, unfortunately.”

It’s weird this entire passageway feels like a ghost town, I’m hoping we don’t come across actual ghosts at this rate.

“So… many… stairs…” Adam complains.

“We should have brought wheelchairs and we could have ridden down all those stairs like we did in the tower,” Ryder reminisces.

“Quincy’s gonna need one if we take any longer, hurry up,” Azura says as she makes everyone hurry up.

We move at a slight jog, but eventually we start to feel rumbling coming from the floor. With each passing second the rumbling only gets more and more intense.

“Whoa, what in the world is this shaking feeling,” Remi grumbles as the shaking causes her to stumble.

“Don’t know, but it feels evil,” Akane states.

“It feels like it's only getting stronger, perhaps I should blow up the floor,” Ryder suggests.

“No dummy, do you want the tunnel to collapse on us,” Azura scolds.

“Hmm, it could be an enemy as we don’t know what to expect down here. Everybody get ready to fight,” I announce as everyone prepares themselves for combat.

Suddenly a large hole is created in front of us, as rocks and debris fly everywhere.

“I don’t think they know we’re here, if we jump into that hole we can launch a surprise attack,” I informed them.

Everyone simply nods their head confirming my plan of attack. Right before I attempt to enter the hole, I’m stopped by Akane.

“Wait, there’s something I wish to try, I wish to enter the hole first so I can utter my victory cry. My master told me, it would grant me utmost power if I announce that whenever I make an entrance. While it's not very good for assassinations, it's still worth trying,” Akane tells me.

“Your master? Who is that again? Never mind it doesn’t matter, go ahead, I feel safer with you going first anyway,” I respond.

Akane draws her sword and leaps into the hole. I draw my weapon as well and leap in after her.

“Hiyah,” Akane yells in deadpan.

We’re shortly followed by everyone else jumping into the hole as well.

“Damn, Akane, that was so cool! I can actually feel the power you're emitting,” Nerva yells into the tunnel impressed by Akane.

There goes our surprise attack, I hope it really does make her more powerful, I’m way too exhausted to have a real fight at the moment. Also for some strange reason I feel like the amount of aura she’s outputting actually increased.

“Hiyah,” I whisper quietly.

One second passes, then two, then three.

“Hmm, nope I ain’t feeling anything.”

“You simply didn’t yell loud enough,” Akane tells me.

There’s barely any light down here, but it appears like something was tunneling up to the surface as the tunnel only goes down. We look around for the source of the rumbling only to find a familiar figure.

“HIYAH IT IS I! Excellent Hiyah my disciple!” Luther suddenly yells as he appears out of nowhere.

“Ah master, I am glad it met up to your expectations,” Akane says as she greets Luther.

“Oh thank god, they weren’t enemies,” Adam sighs.

“Oh it seems like the rumbling was just the knights,” Lilith observes.

Marianne, Anastasia, and Ricon shortly appear behind Luther with Warren being carried on Anastasia’s back.

“It seems you guys survived whatever demon grabbed Ricon,” I say as Marianne comes towards us.

“We were in a rough patch for a little while, but thanks to Luther and Ricon’s… ‘Super Friendship Attack?’ they managed to finish off the demon,” Marianne struggles to say.

“We are not calling it that!” Ricon yells.

“Either way we managed to defeat it and the tunnel that the demon made led to this place. It looks like you guys managed to defeat that powerful Archer.”

“Yeah, but just barely. It took everything we had and more. Quincy even got shot in the head, so we kind of need to hurry up here. Is this place the enemies’ main base of operations? This entire underground place feels like it was used for something big,” I say.

“Yes, however it seems we were a little bit too late. The enemy seems to have disappeared by the time we got here. All that remained was a destroyed orb in some kind of ritual site and Warren in an extremely dangerous state.”

“Oh no, we were too late,” Adam spoke.

He immediately notices the condition Warren is in and quickly begins to apply emergency healing. The large gaping wound in his stomach slowly closes as a green light comes off of Adam’s hands.

“It… seems so. Judging by all the dead bodies in that area, a fight took place there, one which Warren did not win,” Marianne tells us.

“Damn it, if I were there I would’ve f***** everyone up,” Nerva claims aggressively.

“Were those people Warren’s friends?” Quincy asks.

“...”Anastasia answers as she appears next to Quincy.

“She’s right, we need to worry about the people we can save at the moment instead of wallowing in sadness,” I translate.

“You don’t need to translate this time, I got that loud and clear, wait… how did I just understand her,” Quincy wonders to himself.

“Could it be the brain damage? Quincy, maybe this injury isn’t such a bad thing after all,” I joked.

I don’t even need to turn around to know that Azura is glaring at me for that remark, but I meant what I said.

“Oh now that you’re here Will can you open a portal to get us out of this place? It would take far too much time to carry him out of here especially with how badly injured he is,” Marianne informs.

“Sure I’d open a portal to get us out of here, but we’re underground and I have no idea how far underground, so if I opened a portal to the top we might end up falling out of the sky,” I inform everyone.

“Oh the distance isn’t a problem, I’ve got that covered,” Nazuko announces.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“So we climbed about stairs for like 5 minutes at a pace of about 100 stair steps per minute with each stair step at a height of 7.8 inches which means we are approximately 325 feet below ground. So probably make a portal a little bit above that. If you make one and dirt comes out you know you didn’t aim high enough,” Nazuko calculates.

“Did you really just… wow… ok then... problem solved lets go people,” I say as I open the portal directly according to Nazuko calculation.

My first portal has nothing but dirt come out of it with rocks rapidly piling up. I probably forgot to account for the distance we jumped down into Luther's tunnel. The second seems to be clear and we all quickly move through it.We shortly emerge into the castle courtyard where Marianne takes a look at the destroyed battlefield before her eyes. We end up walking back to the carriages we arrived in as not all of them were completely destroyed by Archer luckily.

“Is there really no one left, after your battle with that Archer?”

“Well there were but I sent the remaining soldiers to secure the rest of the castle. The injured soldiers are recovering at our pre-assault campsite,” I inform her.

“In that case we’ll go back there in order to get a team of medical professionals to look after Warren and Quincy. They’ll need to be transferred to an actual hospital for further treatment with the level of injuries they have. I’m simply worried that Warren may not make it there in time.”

“Can’t we do anything to stabilize Warren for the time being?” I ask.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know, maybe we can freeze him temporarily or something, can’t Anastasia do something about that,” I suggest.

“That’s quite a risky procedure, but considering the state of things we’ll have to try something. Anastasia, can you do it?” Marianne asks.

“...” She vocalizes firmly.

We slowly watch as Warren’s body is slowly encased in a solid block of ice and loaded into the back of a carriage.

“Quincy you’re pretty injured, do you wanna undergo the Mrs.Freeze treatment?” I ask him.

“Look I’ve been frozen in ice before and it particularly doesn’t feel that great,” he responds.

“Quincy y-you really shouldn’t try to move around too much. I didn’t want to tell you if I didn’t have to because you might panic, but Azura and I still think the bullet Archer shot you with is still in your head,” Adam informs him.

“Adam, why would you wait to tell me that until now! Are you stupid or something? Nevermind I already know the answer to that question!” Quincy yells as he shakes Adam around.

Anastasia wastes absolutely no time in encasing Quincy in a block of ice as well and loads him into the back of the carriage with Warren.

“Wow that girl really takes action,” I say in awe.

The rest of us quickly load up into the carriage, but it turns out we don’t have enough room to fit everyone with all the space the two ice cubes are taking. So Anastasia ends up making Nerva and Nazuko walk behind the carriage, one because her passive heat would end up melting Warren and Nazuko because she decides to walk alongside her friend. However as it turns out the two horses Nazuko and Warren used to invade the castle from the back returned for some strange reason. After that Nazuko simply wouldn’t stop talking about how Yuki was the best friend she never had, and started bragging to Remi about how much better she was liked by animals compared to her.

And with that I suppose that summarises the entirety of our little castle invasion. It was a rather disappointing finale to this entire rebellion. However with the incriminating documents Nazuko found we have everything we need to prove that the rebellion was staged simply as an act by Lucius to get revenge on Creon as well as gather thousands of slaves in secret to be sacrificed in a plot to start the demon wave. Once Warren and Quincy were safely transferred to the nearest hospital in Artry, the knights were sent back to investigate what the entire underground area was used for, further confirming the information found by Nazuko’s documents. Apparently whatever that orb was being used for, was nearing completion as was estimated by the residual traces of magical energy it emitted. In the end we were indebted to Warren’s friends for saving all of us, but I can’t help but feel pity for Warren after everything he went through just to find them. Adam himself requested that whatever remains of Warren’s friends be transferred out of there so they could at least have a proper burial. We ended the rebellion, but at the cost of so many lives. It's a victory, but I can’t say this is anything more than a pyrrhic victory.

21 Dayspring 2660

Reaper Arc

END