The Chase

He opened the door and his dark room appeared.

The boy was confused. He had left his room with the artificial lights in his room on and he could not remember the lights ever being able to turn themselves off. His confusion instantly turned to wariness with a slight bit of fear.

It is worth mentioning that the time was 8 pm and little light was being casted into the open room from the sun which had already hidden itself behind the horizon. Realizing this, The boy glyphed one of the only spells he knew, which was light casting, and slowly stepped through the maw-like opening.

Nothing occurred as he crept into the room as if stepping on shards of glass. The only thing happening was the ever increasing amount of worries inside the boy's head, each more frightening than the last.

Then, as the door behind him slammed shut by some unknown force, one last worry went through the boy's mind.

'Could it be? My fathe-'

As if by magic, which it most certainly was, the lights turned on and a figure who was sitting on a chair at the boy's work desk made himself known.

"Avnar," he said in a very soft and quiet voice that seemed to freeze the very walls and air itself. Eyes as icy as a glacier stared at the boy from across the room, paralyzing him with terror.

"Yes father?" The boy asked in a meek voice.

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As I ran I reminisced. The shadows and darkness of my past continued to haunt me even after I had left that wretched place. In the 7 years that had passed between my first encounter with the outside world I had matured greatly. I now knew what went on within my father's twisted empire. Although it was called an oligarchy, my father held the true power, with influence over all the other senators

With this power my father had created his empire which spanned over 3.7 million square miles (AN: basically the size of the United States) and encompassed around 100 million people. Each senator, of which there were 20, controlled equally sized areas across the empire while the prime senator, my father, controlled the area in which the capital resides.

The prime senator's position used to be a figurehead of the other senators but when my father rose to the position everything changed. Although it was an extremely hard fought and tedious battle, my father had managed to subdue the other senators using exceedingly ruthless and brutal methods. For example; kidnapping members of their families and holding them hostage, cutting their supply chains, killing people close to them and leaving threatening messages behind with no evidence, and finally assassinating a few of the more unruly senators to scare the others into submission.

Of course, I had not known all this until I became more successful in my adventures outside the palace and was able to access my father's study without him noticing.

Running along through the forest, I kept both eyes on my surroundings. I knew that my father had sent some men after me but the only problem was figuring out how far away they were currently. I still needed to get to the nearest village in the Lakna Vis' territory to gain any semblance of safety. Never mind if the populace will accept me or not, it is my only option.

The natural scenery and beauty of my surroundings did have some effect on my gloomy mood, causing it to lighten as I enjoyed the freshness of the slight breeze blowing through the underbrush. What was a determined run at first, turned into a sort of leisurely jog as I relished my current freedom.

'Is this true freedom?' I wondered in sudden realization. 'I am still bound by my past and the parasitic idealisms instilled within me from my educators and father. Only by ridding myself of those can I become truly free. But how would I go about doing that? It's not as if I can surgically or magically alter my brain to rid myself of these maladies, these experiences and philosophies are ingrained within my very soul, making them impossible to remove! Then perhaps I could make peace with these memories. Then how would I do that...' I continued this never-ending, paradoxical thought process for quite a while as I continued my relaxed jog through the forest.

My eyes took on a glazed appearance and my actions became almost mechanical. It just so happened to be at this time that I tripped over a root and slammed face first into the leafy detritus beneath me. I was yanked out of the abyss that was my mind to face the outside world once again.

Sighing with annoyance at my own stupidity I looked around, which I hadn't been doing while stuck in my head, and noticed that I was in a clearing of sorts. Blood was dripping from my face and I had a gash on my right knee. I knew something wasn't right.

I leapt up with minimal effort and used Laknan healing magic on my cut face and knee. This form of healing magic did not require glyphing and was slightly stronger than the human equivalent.

I bent down and examined the ground where I had tripped. I grew more worrisome at what I found or the lack thereof. I continued to search the immediate area and found absolutely no sign of any roots.

'Damn my carelessness! I've ran right into a trap haven't I?' I thought, agonizing once again over my stupidity. 'Whose trap is it though? Although neither option would be good, it could be either the people my father had sent, who should have been behind me, or it could be the dragons. There would be no reasoning with the men my father had sent. Their fear of my father overruled their fear of the dragons and they most certainly didn't fear me, thinking I was only a stupid child who didn't know what was good for him. There would be a way of reasoning if I was trapped by dragons however. It would be a tricky process as the dragons had most likely set these traps up to catch any intruders who managed to stray past their magical border wall, the key to which was currently within my possession in the form of the black moon carving. If I am able to show them the carving the dragons should welcome me. It is still a toss up though because they might not even give me a chance to speak before they decide to kill me.'

As I was thinking all this through, I ran along the edges of the clearing, confirming that I was indeed trapped by an invisible barrier. A pulse emanated from the barrier throwing me back to the center of the clearing. At the same time, all the earth and grass in the clearing rose into the air, compressed into a tightly compact ball, and flew straight up into the sky. During this process I was twisting and turning across the ground trying to avoid getting hit by large rocks. In the end, my traveling clothes were completely covered in dirt and I had gained a few new scrapes and bruises.

As the compact ball took flight, a stone slab was revealed with an assortment of ancient glyphs circumscribing the center of the circular slab.

As I watched with abject horror, thinking my life about to end, the glyphs and radial lines began to light up starting at the edge of the circle moving onwards toward the center.

My mind snapped out of its daze at this moment, allowing me to think of a solution in the infinitesimally small time frame I had before the circle fully lit up. I conjured my largest and most destructive spell i knew and fired it at the center of the circle.

The spell that I used was called 'fire fall', a specialized version of a spell called 'sky flame' that I manipulated to simulate flames falling into a singular point of space to maximize damage. the fire began appearing in the air, fueled by the mana I poured into it. The fire accelerated downward once the maximum amount had gathered in the air and crashed ferociously with the focal point of the glyphed slab.

Theoretically, the weakest areas of most to all magical formations was the center. However, this theory remains largely untested as formations such as these are exceedingly expensive and time consuming to set up.

As such, when the attack ended, I realized that my spell seemed to have had an adverse effect on the glyphs. The glyphs were even brighter and had reached the center. A light that shone like a beacon emanated from the center of the slab into the sky, growing brighter and brighter until I could no longer see.

I felt an intense pressure on my head and my ears started to bleed. I screamed in agony as it felt like my skull was about to implode. Then, darkness...

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The Senate Guard arrived at the Laknarian border and set up camp for the night. Animated conversation sprung up all around the camp and the commander was ostensibly scrutinizing a stack of papers in his tent. The men were surely tired, however they didn't let it show, not while their commander was in the vicinity. He was known to have eyes everywhere.

While the men shared camaraderie, commander Falxen sat there wondering about his future. He was only 27 and had a long life ahead of him. He was currently aiming to become the captain of the senate guard which was proving to be quite difficult. He had been in his current position for 7 years now and was getting quite impatient. He was willing to do whatever it took to become captain of the Senate Guard.

Lately, there hadn't been many opportunities to prove himself to the prime senator, the one who commissioned the Senate Guard into existence to keep a check upon the other senators. The Senate Guard also protected the senators and the senators themselves could control them to some extent. Each senator had a group of 30 Senate Guard however there were exceptions. Like Falxen's group of 30 men, who were in charge of the field missions assigned directly from the prime senator. Falxen and his men were renowned throughout the oligarchy as extremely ruthless and brutal in accomplishing their missions but also very thorough. Through this growing reputation, they had been infamously dubbed as the Cruor Maxim.

(AN: I'll refer to them from now on as "the Cruor")

This captured the attention of the prime senator who made Falxen's group his own personal task force. Falxen, at the time, had been assigned as the commander of senator Romway's Senate Guard and when he found out that he and his group had been transferred, he was elated. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get closer to the prime senator so that his dreams could be realized.

And so, here he was, chasing down the prime senator's wayward child. As mundane and silly as it may sound, this was actually a godsend of an opportunity for Falxen. When Falxen brings back the oligarch's son, he would have a chance to grow even closer to him. There was still be, however, the problem of becoming the captain of the Senate Guard as someone currently occupied the position. A healthy man in his forties who had been the captain ever since the commission of the Senate Guard. It would not be easy to remove this man from power. No matter how many feats Falxen achieved, it would not be enough to convince the prime senator that he was a better choice for captain of the Senate Guard.

'The power of trust sure goes a long way. I wonder if I can manufacture trust? Is it possible?' Falxen mused as he rose from his position sitting on a chair.

He walked to the front of his tent, peering outside. He looked beyond the magical border wall and examined the foliaceous forest on the other side. At this time, a rather peculiar sight was seen on the not so distant horizon.

A luminous beam of light was discharging itself into the sky.