4 Cilan Mamoru

"Meet at abandoned Church!" Seph shouts in Thieves' Cant.

Thieves' Cant is a unique and exclusive language that only us rogues can speak and understand.

Seph uses her dark elf magic to create a fog blinding all of us, which is sort of bad for us since we also can't see but, we're gonna have to trust our memory to find the abandoned church. I ran back from my initial position hoping it is the right way to the abandoned church. I ended up in the forest with no clue where I am. I started hearing more knights walking around and shouting commands to find us, they seem to be still in the fog but not that far from my position. I got a rope from my bag and a grappling hook, I attached the grappling hook to the rope, and threw the rope up in the air. The grappling hook clings on to a tree and I climb up the tree with the support of the rope. I waited for a while before I made my move. I watched as the fog slowly vanish, it vanishes and I'm around 60ft away from the village. Which means the direction of the abandoned church shouldn't be that far from here. I waited a bit more because patience is key. If I move and get caught now, it's game over for me.

Half an hour has passed since the fog vanished, I almost fell asleep on the tree I'm on. I'm starting to feel tired from this quest. I open my bag to get a ration and I eat it quietly. Once I finished eating I decided to make my move. The knights have split to search around the forest, so I should leave and reach the abandoned church before they can. With my rope, I throw it to the next tree and the grappling hook clings to it, I jump to the next tree easily towards the direction of the abandoned church. I continue to do this for the next few hours as I take small breaks after jumping from time to time.

Luckily, being on the trees I don't encounter any wild hostile creatures on the way. I reach to monument statues of the great heroes. Therion Valkenheim, Berrik Alberos, Steak (yeah, weird name), Maori Zion, and Cilan Mamoru. Just by looking at Cilan Mamoru's statue, he does look similar to the the dark shadowy figure I saw in the goblin base. Having the 2 scimitars, and a bit spiky hair. Only that Darky fully dark, is this shadow figure the spirit lurking around? Is he Cilan Mamoru? If so, he's the culprit behind the dark aura and stuff related to it. This monument here should mean that the church is nearby. I continued on the direction and I eventually find the church. I in the church and saw the my group. Ravenna, Seph, Razz, Domotraus, they were waiting for me.

"Where have you been, Athel?" Ravenna asks.

"I got lost a bit, you could say." I responded back.

"So have you learned anything while you were gone?"

"The knights are out on the search, and I'm pretty sure we all know this but we have to be cautious of enemies with the dark aura. You guys can see it also right?"

Razz gives me a weird look before he responds.

"You hit your head or something? People with dark aura? I don't think stuff like that exists ."

"So you guys couldn't see the aura they had, especially that one berserker we fought in the goblin base, his aura was very dark."

Seph would be seated on one of the chairs juts counting how many bolts and arrows she has left. After hearing the talk about dark aura, she looked at me surprised.

"You could see the dark aura?"

"Thank god I'm not the only one who could see it!"

"I think you two should explain this aura thing to the rest of the group, but it's okay if you can't we understand" Ravenna sarcastically suggests.

I start sensing a dark presence approaching our direction. It felt strong I didn't realize that I had already started shivering. I could feel it's evil intent even from inside the church.

"We should get out of here, I'll explain about the aura when we reach a safe place." Seph says as she begins packing her things.

"Yeah, something is coming here!" I second the motion

Razz stands up and opens the door. It was too late for us, the captain knight was outside with a dark aura surrounding him. He's alone outside with his helmet on and his sword drawn.

"Get away from him!" Seph shouts a warning.

In a flash the knight does a quick sword strike without warning towards Razz, almost hitting a vital spot. Razz was able to dodge a fatal blow, but the attack still got him on his right arm.

"Argh!"

Razz stumbles down to the ground 5ft away from the knight. Domotraus got his dagger ready about to make quick attack on the knight. The knight being experienced knew it was gonna be a quick attack, so he tries to dodge the attack, but Razz reacted to Domotraus quick attack by immobilizing the knight. He grabbed the knight's legs preventing him from moving. I sneaked out of the church through the window and tried to get in behind. I got my short sword and went in from behind and attacked him from the small openings of his full plate armor. The quick attack of Domotraus was parried by the long sword of the knight but my sneak attack got him. I stabbed him behind his knee. This spot is my most favourite area, because they would fall on one knee, making it easy to deliver a fatal blow. This also helps my team connect their attacks easier. The knight falls on to one knee and his block gets overpowered by Domotraus' attack. The dagger missed the armor's opening, thus dealing no damage. Ravenna starts to create some flames from her ring. According to her, she found the ring in the Elven country, in the area that hasn't recovered from war. So it has magical properties, and it's used as her focus to cast magic. She shoots out a firebolt towards the knight. The attack connects as he screamed a bit in pain from feeling the heat of the firebolt. Seph used her long bow instead of her short one and carefully aimed her shot. She aimed for the straps in on his armor, which she misses. The arrow hits the armor instead. The knight gets back up immediately despite the wound I gave him . I noticed something again, the wound from where I attacked stopped bleeding. Did he regenerate already? Anyways, Razz still grabbing on to the knight, gets up and tries to restrain him, which he fails. The captain knight was too strong, and he broke free from Razz's grapple. The knight begins to slash his sword at Domotraus a lot of times, with proper form and good slash transitions. Domotraus being able to dodge most of the attacks got hit at the fourth slash. Domotraus backs off a bit to create some space, but the knight took advantage of this and takes the opportunity to attack him. Domotraus couldn't react in time and so he got hit again.

"We can't take on this guy, he isn't normal! We need to run!" Domotraus screams this in pain.

I knew we were too weak, but how can we run from these knights? There's a possibility that there are other knights nearby still searching for us in the forest. This knight is powered up by this dark aura, he is most likely capable of chasing us down even if were going to decide to flee.

Razz got into a stance and I knew this stance so well, this stance allows him to freely move around smoothly in the battlefield, as if he was a snake. He suddenly got in between the knight and Domotraus with his dagger ready and aimed for the same spot where Seph aimed for. I assisted him attacking behind the knee again, this time I slashed both of legs. He fell on both knees, and Razz was able to cut out one strap on the knight's chestplate. The knight couldn't react fast enough to Razz's attack. So instead the knight decided to counter attack him swinging his sword towards him. Razz was quick enough to jump and with perfect timing, he somehow was able to land the knight's sword. The knight became immobilized more, and I went ahead and cut the other strap of his chestplate from behind. Razz jumped once more and did a somersault above the knight landing behind him, while taking off the helmet. I moved aside before he could land, and saw Domotraus catching two short swords that must've been thrown by Ravenna and stabs the knight with both of them in the chest right after Razz made the jump to take off the helmet. As soon as the helmet was removed I went ahead and with all my strength I went for the finishing blow. I stabbed him through his right cheek, with the sword reaching to the other side of his face. With an arrow hitting the forehead of the knight just in time the helmet came off. Seph smirked in amusement with her shot connecting, and it was even a headshot. The dark aura from the knight faded away, and the he died. The knight's face was revealed and it was an elf. He must've come from the capital. How did he know we would be here? We got to the village as soon as it was on fire, and he arrived already informed of the situation, only that whoever reported made us the culprit of the incident.

"We need to get away from here as quickly as possible!" Ravenna says

We all got on our feet and we followed Ravenna. We have a hideout back in the city of Erudia. This city is the capital of the Elven country known as Antornth, which we are in right now. Before we could get very far, we encounter a very scary enemy. Yes, it is Cilan Mamoru or I'd like to call him Darky. We stopped in our tracks as soon as we see CIlan Mamoru blocking our way.

"Isn't that Cilan Mamoru?!" Seph says in shock.

"Isn't Cilan dead? It's been over centuries hell even a hundred of years ever since the great realms war ended!" Ravenna says

"Whoever this is, we can't let this stop us now, otherwise the knights might find us here." She continues.

"Sorry... but I can't allow you leave..." Cilan responds to us.

As he spoke I could feel pressure from his words, and it made me feel like turning away and just run as far away from here.

"W-Who are you?!" I ask, knowing he is Cilan but just to make sure.

"Cilan Mamoru, a Divine Spirit of Avalon " He responds.

Divine Spirit? Avalon? I have no idea what he's on about, but he sounds very delusional. I don't remember an Avalon ever existing. I have seen the world map countless of times, and there is no Avalon in any of the countries.

"In any case I can't let you escap-"

Just before Cilan could finish, Domotraus would interrupt him with a quick attack followed by Razz's quick attack also. They both slash their daggers at him. In a blink of an eye, Domotraus and Razz were thrown downwards, they both hit the ground hard. I couldn't see it clearly but in a split second, I believe to have seen Cilan react and grab both of their wrists and fly up quickly and threw them. Cilan would be levitating mid air.

"Argh!" they both get hurt from hitting the ground too hard

"I was still talking, as I was saying. I can't allow you to escape!" Cilan says this as he slowly gets back on the ground.

I felt shocked to see him being able to handle both Razz and Domotraus easily, especially since they charged at him so quickly. We have no way out of this. Seph could create a fog again, but there's a chance Cilan might be able to counter the fog. I know a spell called 'Counterspell' which was used in magic battle between mages. Since this guy's power is above and beyond, I highly doubt he wouldn't be able to cast spells. Damn it, what do I do in this situation? If we don't do anything, he might go in and kill us. We're too weak to go against someone of this caliber.

We were hopeless and we couldn't do anything, but luckily he faded away, and the other knights found us. We'd rather get caught than to get killed from Cilan. Seph looked like she was about to create another fog, but she hesitated and didn't cast the spell. She was probably thinking the same thing I thought of. We might've been killed by Cilan if were to get away from the knights here. They confiscated our gears and equipment. We were cuffed and they took down all of us. We became unconscious.

The following day, I woke up in a cell. I checked my surroundings, and the cell was empty. From the other side of the cell I was in, I could see Ravenna in another cell still unconscious. I looked around and there were more cell, it was like a hallway of cells. I could see Razz in the cell beside Ravenna's. I couldn't find the others. We had nothing but our clothes. A strange looking man would enter followed by guards. This man would be wearing what looks like to be Elven armor protecting his upper body, with a white cape and an Elven mask covering his face, he would be wearing light green upper clothing, which can be seen through the spots of his armor, and light green pants, with his clothing having some silver stripes. He'd have light blonde short hair, and his body would be in good shape. He continues to walk and stops in front of my cell.

"I see you've awaken..."