Aeon and The Wind Mage

Suri looked at the huge wall of ice that formed more than a hundred meters away from them. At the base, a small person was waving a yellow flag. He then heaved a sigh of relief.

Thankfully, Korona noticed.

But from that far away? That was really impressive. If it were him, he would not have noticed it unless he was only focusing on that direction.

He wanted to praise Korona, but when he looked over, he saw that the latter had passed out. She must have exhausted all her magic from that spell. He approached her then carried her on his shoulders. He carefully strapped her staff on his belt.

When Aeon noticed the wall emerge, he slowed down to save energy, so it took him quite some time to reach Suri and Korona.

"She passed out?"

"Yeah. You took longer than expected, she overcharged her spell."

Aeon scratched his head, "Sorry about that, got entangled with a few teams."

Suri nodded. He knew that it wasn't Aeon's fault. "Where do we go from here?"

"I found a rather safe spot on the northwest side of the forest. The ground is elevated so we could easily spot enemies arriving." Aeon answered while trying to separate the flag from its pole.

Suri noticed that the material of the flag was quite tough. No matter how hard Aeon pulled, it won't separate from the pole.

"Give up, maybe it's designed like that so we couldn't put it inside our pockets," Suri commented.

Aeon thought that it was logical. He nodded then started jogging. Their next move was to get to 'safe zone' while avoiding the other teams.

In simpler terms, it was mission impossible, but they had to do it. They were down a member and the other had to carry her. They would be greatly weakened until Korona wakes up.

Despite this, Aeon's mind was at ease. He saw more than a dozen teams at the center of the forest. They should still be fighting it out. Moreover, when he saw how huge the ice wall was, he noted that it was more than enough to shrug the teams who were following him off.

….

After an hour, the sun finally set. Fortunately, they didn't encounter any other teams, and the ones pursuing Aeon failed to catch up. It was getting darker so the two decided to camp. They didn't set up a bonfire to avoid catching another team's attention.

It would surely be one cold night.

Both Aeon and Suri realized that they had nothing to do at all. They sat next to each other at the base of a gigantic tree while Korona was sleeping right beside Suri. She had yet to wake up.

Unsurprisingly, it was Aeon who first got bored. He found himself staring at the moon. He was about to say something random to lighten up the mood, but after a few moments, he held his tongue.

Aeon did not speak not because he thought that it was inappropriate. But because he thought about something else.

He thought about...about the first night he spent under a different empire.

Aeon smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. The moon tonight looked exactly like that night's, he thought.

"Yo bro, Suri." He called out.

Suri who was staring off into space was jolted awake from his stupor, "Mn?"

Aeon looked at the moon through the canopy of the tree, "Did you know that I'm not from the Florentine Empire?"

Suri also looked at the moon and asked, "Yeah? Where are you from?"

"I grew up in the Meredith Empire," Aeon answered.

The Meredith Empire?

Weird. The Florentine Empire and the Meredith Empire had been at war for as long as he could remember. Why did the Florentine Empire allow an immigrant from the Meredith Empire? Were they not afraid of Aeon and his family being spies?

He didn't say that out loud, though. He was afraid he would offend Aeon. Instead, he asked a different question, "What brought you here?"

Aeon reminisced for a moment before replying, "We were captives of war, me and my father. Though it wouldn't have happened if my father wasn't betrayed by his most trusted companion."

Having heard this, Suri's eyebrows furrowed.

Meredith Empire.

Betrayal.

This was all quite familiar to him.

Something immediately came into his mind. It was one of the most famous betrayals inv history.

Not bothered by Suri's silence, Aeon continued, "You know, my dad was a famous general."

Suri's eyes opened wide.

How could I miss it? Morgan. I knew I heard that name from my father.

Suri turned towards Aeon, his face now calm, "He was crippled?"

Aeon wasn't surprised that Suri knew. He nodded then continued, "He was stabbed from the back by a lightning mage. He couldn't move his lower body ever since."

"He was a great General and a terrifying Marshall." Suri praised Aeon's father.

Although Marshall Morgan was their Empire's strongest enemy and caused the deaths of thousands of people, Suri could not bring himself to hate him. Marshall Morgan was only doing his duty. Moreover, his father had always told him stories about General Morgan's might. It was clear that his father looked up to him.

According to Suri's father, Marshall Morgan was taken as a captive of war and kept as a bargaining chip against the Meredith Empire.

Of course, the Meredith Empire would not easily forget their Marshall's merits just because he was captured. They asked for the Marshall to not be treated poorly. That is why he and Aeon lived amongst Sera City's esteemed guests.

But it was clear that it was against Emperor Florentine's will to do so, so he made some arrangements. First, they were not placed in the empire's capital city, Lerith. Second, the house they lived in was more like a cell.

Suri sighed.

Feeling the depressing mood, Aeon laughed, "I'm not sad about that, though. Dad said it was all a consequence of war and it was his fault for his poor evaluation."

Suri didn't respond and the two kept silent for quite some time.

Then, Suri looked at the moon once more.

"The moon is beautiful tonight," he commented.

"It sure is," Aeon responded, smiling.

….

Morning came.

Having taken the second shift in keeping watch, Aeon was already awake. He woke Suri up and gestured towards Korona.

Suri knew how much burden Korona took upon herself so he decided not to wake her up. He slowly hauled her on his shoulder.

Aeon and Suri resumed their journey.

Along the way, the two discussed how they would take advantage of the terrain. Aeon's plans mostly consisted of running away when they see an enemy while Suri's plans were more on the destructive path. The two bickered for quite some time before they finally settled on one.

They would fight the enemies off if they were only up against a single team. If not, they would escape towards the safest path the terrain could provide. It was a simple plan.

It took them two hours to reach the area below the "safe zone" Aeon was talking about because they saw a few teams fighting and were forced to circle around.

The "safe zone" that Aeon was mentioned was actually a plateau. Since the area was clear of trees and elevated, they could easily detect approaching enemies.

They circled around the plateau to see if they could find a path that wasn't too steep. The area of the plateau wasn't exactly large so it didn't take long for them to find a safe path that led upwards. Aeon took the lead and followed the path, he used the flag pole as a cane while walking. He walked very slowly.

Although they were walking at an unnatural pace, Suri didn't notice at all. He continued walking, checking on Korona from time to time.

When they were halfway through, Aeon suddenly stopped. It was at that point that Suri inwardly questioned why they still weren't at the top. He looked over the cliff and saw that they were quite high up the path already, but considering how long they have been moving they should have been higher.

"Why did we stop?" Suri gave in to his curiosity.

"Haven't you noticed something odd about this path?" Aeon answered without looking back at Suri. He continued to observe the path. From time to time, he would poke a couple of rocks using the flagpole, but never really explained what he was trying to do.

"Really?" Suri started to look at his surroundings, too. He surveyed the path twice but saw nothing peculiar.

Maybe it was just his imagination.

Suri was about to check on Korona when he saw something move in the corner of his eyes. He turned his head around quickly but saw nothing. It was just the wall of the plateau.

Suri worried that Aeon's paranoia had already rubbed on him. He took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves. However, as he was doing so, he suddenly felt the ground shake a bit.

A circular section of the ground shot towards Suri's abdomen.

Bang!

The moment the ground started shaking, Aeon had rushed towards Suri. Based on the tremors, he knew that the attack was not for him, so he did not bother defending himself.

But the attack did come too suddenly.

Suri was sent flying towards the cliff with Korona on his left shoulder. He hadn't been able to react fast enough.

After failing his attempt to get Suri out of the way, Aeon turned towards the cliff. He needed to escape.

Aeon jumped.

However…

Swooosh!

A gust of wind swept through him, pulling him back towards the path.

Aeon crashed on the ground.

….