17 Chapter 17. The village attacked

Hearing the driver's panic fear-stricken voice, Leo and Aurora immediately got down from the carriage to take a look at what happened.

"What's happened?" Leo asked.

The driver simply pointed towards a direction in the far horizon with an extremely tense expression on his face.

"Oh no!" screamed Aurora concernedly.

Black smoke was slowly rising from the top of the coniferous dark green trees that were seen on the distant horizon in the direction of the village. Suddenly a large dome of red blazing fire appeared as a loud resounding boom sounded right after.

'That doesn't sound good. That explosion should be coming from somewhere outside the village. And it seems to be made by a bunch of cultivators attacking at once. We need to get there quickly,' Leo thought as he began to rush. The strength of that explosion was so strong that no one in the village could possibly survive if it appeared inside the village grounds.

"Aurora, let's go! This is your pay! Please start running away from here as far as you can! You can have the arts in the back carriage as compensation, we have no use for them anymore," said Leo as he grabbed twenty gold coins from his bag and quickly laid it on the dark brown wooden carriage and took Aurora hand and they dashed straight towards the village using the spider's eight leg movement art.

...

Screams of pain and remorse flooded the small village as rubble was littered everywhere. The small wooden houses lay in ruins as countless dead villagers laid on the ground, lifeless, never to open their eyes again as the survivors were all crying as they laid next to their family members who were killed.

The village entrance laid in complete disarray as the initially beautiful simple wooden gate was reduced to countless fragments that lay scattered on the floor in front. Any traveler would have no clue at all that this was an entrance due to the sorry state that it was it. And right outside, a pair of small silhouettes arrived, stopping right at the entrance.

"What happened here?" Aurora worriedly spoke as she looked that the scene inside the village. Bright hungry fires raged as they happily consumed the thatch roofs as they slowly made their way into the wooden walls and eventually breaking down the houses. People screaming in pain as they rubble landed on top of them as they were slowly burned, survivors desperately trying to get the other villagers free.

"The attacks seem recent. I can still feel the residual energy. The entrance gate seems to have been broken by a single attack right in the middle," Leo spoke as he informed Aurora.

"We should hurry, concentrate on saving everyone for now," Aurora suggested. The duo then split up and started dragging injured people from the vigorously blazing houses and slowly laid them all at the entrance. And in the end, they managed to drag about fifteen people out of the fires. However, the injuries that the villagers suffered from were too fatal and needed immediate medical care so Aurora volunteered to take care of them here while Leo investigated the situation.

*step* *step*

Leo made his way through the village as he used the white rank movement technique to his utmost limit as he quickly arrived at the Areia house.

The previously beautiful two-story humble house was now in disarray, the thatch roof had fallen and the wooden walls had crumbled and collapsed with rubble scattered everywhere. The beautiful flowers that his mother used to grow outside were all destroyed as if they had been trampled on. From the initial scene, there seemed like there was almost no sign of life until suddenly…

*wah* *wah*

An innocent heart-filled cry broke the silence, hearing this Leo immediately rushed to find the source of the cry and began desperately tearing through the countless heavy rubble.

Eventually, he tore through it all, he found familiar person, a numerous amount of rubble was stacked under Ava, and on the ground, crying under her was Lex. She seemed seriously injured as she was shouldering the full weight of the rubble to protect Lexus. Immediately, Leo lifted the rubble and pushed it all to the side as he dashed to his mother's side.

Feeling the previous overbearing weight lifted from her, Ava weakly looked up to see who had saved them and she saw the worried concerned eyes of Leo gazing straight at her. Wanting to comfort him, she gave him a warm happy relieved smile but just as she was about to speak, a mouthful of blood was spat out from her mouth as she fell on the floor and passed out unconscious.

Meanwhile, Lexus was still crying non-stop and so Leo had no choice but to comfort and tend to him first. And as though Lex immediately knew that it was his brother, he stopped crying and went back to sleep after laying for a few minutes in Leo's arms. Seeing that Lex had calmed down and fallen asleep, Leo took out a piece of cloth and tied the sleeping Lex to his back and immediately began tending to Ava's wounds.

As Leo scanned her with his eyes, he saw that her cultivation had been broken, her back ribs had multiple fractures and if he had arrived a few minutes later, then her bones would've collapsed and the rubble that she was carrying would've all fallen on the both of them, probably killing them both.

After resting for a few minutes, Ava slowly opened her eyes as she weakly turned to look over towards Leo and gave him a great big smile. She forced herself up against a standing wall and started speaking, "Leo, thank you for saving me. If you had been any later then I probably would've been unable to hold the rubble."

"Don't speak mom, you need to rest," said Leo as the weak tone of her voice started making him worry.

"Don't bother, my cultivation was destroyed to and to keep the rubble from touching Lex I've had used up almost all of my life essence," Ava weakly replied.

"No, that can't be. Just rest, I'll find a way to heal you," Leo worriedly replied as he slowly began to panic.

"Listen well Leo; the village was attacked by the soldiers from the Ruby kingdom, they said that the Lapis kingdom and the Ruby kingdom are now at war. They have destroyed the village and were planning on killing everyone, but your father and some of the remaining strongest decided to fight them off but it seems to not have worked, the explosion before should be from them," said Ava as she spat up another mouthful of blood and her hair slowly started changing color to white.

"Mom, no. Stop talking. There must be a way to heal your injuries. I need you to rest," said Leo as he started panicking and his eyes became teary, he was crazily spanning through all the books, talents and Arts to find out if there was a way to fix this.

"Leo, can you show me Lexus?" asked Ava as she gave him a weak smile, and her a layer of wetness appeared in her beautiful blue eyes.

Leo nodded as he reached for his back and brought Lex to the front.

Ava looked at both of them and could no longer stop her tears as they began pouring out from her eyes and dropping on to the hard cold dirty ground. She eventually gathered up her strength and smiled at the two of them and slowly spoke, "I have not lived a long life but I have lived a blissful one. My proudest achievements in life would be marrying your father and giving birth to both of you. Leo, please take care of Lex," she then focused her attention to Lex as she caressed his little face as the infant was awoken by his mother's touch and he opened his eyes to curiously look at Ava, seeing Lex, more tear poured out from Ava as her eyes became reddened, "Lex, I'm sorry that mommy has to leave you here. I can't see both of you grow up and become fine young men. I won't be able to see you two getting married, see my daughters-in-law, or my grandchildren. I'm so sorry for it. Please live well."

After saying this, she finally turned to Leo and smiled as she caressed his face and hair. She then slowly raised her finger and pointed to a place in the rubble.

"There should be a trapdoor under there and if you open it, there should be a badge there. It belongs to my family. Go to Sapphire city, there you should find the Decan family and just show them the badge. It should be enough to get you two into a sect," Ava spoke weakly as she spat out another mouthful of blood.

"No! Don't say that! You must survive! I have so much that I want to show you!" Leo began screaming and tears began falling from his face as he got the hidden meaning behind Ava's instructions.

"I'm sorry... Leo... I beg that you find it in yourself to forgive me for not being a good enough mother... Even since you were young, you were more mature and more talented than anyone I knew. As you quickly grew, I began to run out of things to teach you. I'm sorry..." Ava weakly spoke as she also teared up, "Please take care of your brother, bring him back here when he grows up. I want to see my little boys grown up. My last wish is that you bury me with your father and that you two come to visit me often..."

Ava's weak extremely red eyes closed as her hand lifelessly fell down, breathing her last breath as a heart-pained smile appeared on her face.

"NO!! MOM!! Don't go! Please don't go!" Leo screamed as he began sobbing as he lost control of his feeling. Guilt! Grief! Remorse! Sadness!

'Why! Why do I have to lose everyone I love! You brought me here and gave me a second life! I am a failure of a son! I once again failed to protect them!'

Leo took a few minutes to recover, if he had the mind of a child then he probably would've completely broken down. He began walked and stated clearing rubble. And just like his mother had said, there was indeed a wooden trapdoor, and inside was a shiny silver badge. It had blue line across it with the image of a large mansion engraved in the middle and on its back was a fancy 'D' symbol.

After retrieving this badge, Leo went around the village, as he took his mother's boy and started looking for the perfect place to bury her. Eventually, he ended up on a large beautiful flower field filled with roses and tulips.

"This is the place, mom I hope your soul will rest in peace here. I promise that Lex and I will visit, I'll come by as often as I can to tell you guys about our adventures. I'm going to go and find dad now. I promise to bury him next to you," Leo spoke as a tear slid out of his eyelids as he looked at the gravestone.

After saying his final words, Leo slowly started walking back to the village entrance, where Aurora was tending to the people, with Lex who was happily sleeping on his back.