Tragedy

Jame ran to the building where rankers rested but he saw no one. They were supposed to be here but they didn't.

"What's going on? Where did they go in an emergency time like that?" Jame thought and searched them in the city quickly. Although he searched for them everywhere, he couldn't find them.

Jame ran to the gate to report Joe. Joe was at the watching tower beside the gate watching the elf army's movements with a telescope. He stopped watching as he heard someone coming up to the tower.

"Who?" He asked with a loud voice.

"It's me, Jame." A voice with exhausted tone appeared as he seemed to be so exhausted. When he saw Jame, he asked many questions. "Where are the rankers? Did you find them? What did they tell you?"

Jame raised his hand and rested for a moment as he was so tired. He had been running all the time. "I_I don't__don't find_d anyone." He answered with an exhausting tone.

"What? What did you say?" The elves are coming nearer and nearer. They will reach here soon. We, city guards, alone can't hold them." Joe seemed to be so worried with a sweating face. He thought for a moment. "We have no choice. We need to prepare for the worst. Come. We need to hold them before the rankers come." Joe said and went down to the tower.

"Ah_again." Jame muttered and sighed. Then he followed Joe quickly as he knew there was no time to waste. The war was just ahead.

"Close the gate. Take your place on the city wall, archers. Guards who can use magic prepare to fire. You, yes you guys, take citizens to the emergency exit behind the city. Escape with them. Don't look back." Joe was busy ordering the guards.

Archers were preparing their arrows. Guards who could use magic were preparing for battle. They proceeded to place both of their hands together and magic started to form in between them. Some used fire magic. Some used lighting magic.

"How can I help?" Jame's whisper brought Joe back out of his mind. Jame was standing beside him.

"You must escape with citizens." Joe looked him with soft eyes and said.

"No, why should I? I can fight. Even without magic, I am still a warrior, a guard of this city. Don't you believe me?" Jame complained with annoying voice.

"No, Jame. It is not that I doubt you. I know you can fight more than anyone but you must not fight. This battle is sure defeat without rankers. You must escape kid. You must not die here." Joe answered him calmly.

"No, I won't leave you. I will stay here and fight with you."

"You are so stubborn." Joe yelled.

"But something is fishy. Where did the rankers go?" Jame changed the topic.

"Don't change the topic. You must escape no matter what. I am serious, Jame." Joe sighed.

"But you are right. Something is fishy." He couldn't find the reason.

One of the guards came to Joe. He saluted Joe and reported. "Captain, enemies are in range. Should we fire now?"

"Let me check. Jame, escape now. This is my last request. Go now. We have no time." Joe said with sad eyes. Jame controlled his emotions as he knew the situation. He kneeled down to the ground and saluted him for the last time. Then he left Joe and ran toward the city.

Soon, he heard Joe's loud voice to fire enemy. "Fire!" The magic users threw their hands toward the sky and the bolts were shot out from the palms of their hands. The archers released the bows' strings. Arrows and colourful magic bolts flied into the sky and ran toward the elves.

The elves didn't stop marching. Some of them were hitted with arrows. Some were burned by fire bolts. Some were blocking with their magic. But they didn't stop and increased their speed. The guards continued firing.

Soon, the elves gradually got closer to the gate. The elves started to fire with their magic and arrows. As elves were the best archers in this world, the human archers on the tower died, one by one.

Joe ordered them to fall back to the city and open fire from behind the gate door. It would not be easy to destroy the gate door which were blocked by many objects and sealing magic. That would steal more time for citizens to escape. That was what he thought at least.

He thought his plan was perfect until he saw elves jumping over the walls. Although he had been a captain for years, he had never fought with elves in battle. So he underestimated them. He thought they wouldn't be able to climb over those high walls. Who would bother to destroy the gate door if they could directly jump over the wall?

Elves jumped over the wall one after another. By using their wind magic, they increased their jumping force. It was that moment he knew he fucked up. But he controlled his scattering thoughts and thought about the situation carefully.

The guards were in shock and trembling as they saw the elves jumping over the wall. Their morale was down as the elves outnumbered them. Joe noticed that and tried to encourage them.

"Warriors!" He shouted with his all might. All the guards turned their attention to Joe. "You guys are the last defense of this city. You have already known that rankers are not found yet either. But we must defend our best. Right now, citizens are escaping and we must steal time for them. There may be some guards who have family. If you fail here, those elves will kill your family. Remember it. Today, we will fight as warriors and die as warriors. Warriors are not cowards. Warriors! Prepare for defensive stance."

At the end of his speech, the battle cries of guards appeared. The atmosphere surrounding them changed. They held their weapons firmly and formed the defensive combat stance. They were ready for hand-to-hand combat. The magic users could also fight hand-to-hand combat as they were trained not only as magic users but also as soldiers.

The elves who jumped over the walls were coming to them. Soon, a fight broke out between the guards and the elves. The battle was in chaos. The elves were so fast and their wind magic helped them in their combat a lot.

There were two types of magic users in this world, control type and combat type. Control type magic users used their magic to form shapes as they imagined with their element magic, control them and fight, like fire bolts. Combat type magic users used their element magic to enhance their body or an object and fight like a warrior.

Example, control type wind magic users will fight by controlling the surrounding wind, summoning tornado from a distance while combat types will fight by using wind magic to enhance their body to be able to move faster with the movement of wind, covering their weapon with wind magic to be able to attack lighter and more powerful. Some people used both types.

It seemed those elves fighting now were combat type. Their movements were so fast and speed was their advantage. Small vortexes were surrounding them like a barrier. They cut the heads of guards for sure kill and to strike fear into enemies' minds. Combined with their wind magic, their blades were unstoppable. Wind was the best element to combine with the blade to cut after all.

Joe was defending himself with his swords. Although the elves were fast, Joe had the advantage in hand-to-hand combat as he was an experienced warrior.

He saw an elf coming to him. The elf was trying to cut his head but Joe dodged wisely and kicked that elf's chest. He took the chance to concentrate his lightning element magic in his right hand and shaped it into a spear.

Then he threw the lightning spear to the elf. The spear was so fast that the elf couldn't dodge. The spear pierced the elf's stomach and exploded. The elf's body shattered into pieces with blood. Joe said with a smirk on his face. "Wind is good for cutting but for piercing, lightning is the best element. Remember it, fking elf."

He dropped his guard and didn't notice that another elf was coming to cut him. When he noticed it, it was too late to dodge or block. Suddenly the elf fell down to the ground before cutting him. The elf was stabbed in the back with a sharp sword.

"Didn't you teach me not to drop guard in battle?" Joe heard a familiar voice. The one who stabbed the elf was Jame. But now, he was wearing a light armor vest over his clothes and leg armor. Jame pulled the sword out of the elf.

"Didn't you escape?" Joe asked with a surprised face.

"No, I didn't run to escape from the start. I just ran to the armory to wear some protection, you know. I need to prepare myself for battle at least. I don't want to die here. Don't ask or scold anything for now. Enemies are here." Jame said with a mocking smile.

Joe knew he couldn't do anything and continued fighting beside him.

They killed many elves as their teamwork was perfect. But the elves outnumbered them a lot and they started to get tired as time went on. About half of the guards were killed too.

"Rankers are coming." At that time, a guard shouted with joy. Joe saw there were rankers coming from the direction of the emergency exit. He sighed. Finally, they could hold the enemies.

"Wait. Is this blood? Look." Jame said and pointed to the direction of rankers. Joe looked carefully. Jame was right. There were blood spots on their uniforms.

Were there enemies at the exit? Did the elves send troops ahead to the exit to block the escaping path? Was that the reason why rankers didn't show up? Were they killing the enemies at the exit? Many questions appeared inside Joe's head.

"What? What are they doing?" Jame said with a startled look on his face. Joe was startled too after looking at it. Rankers were attacking guards. The elves stopped when they saw the rankers killing the guards. They fell back quickly to their army.

Rankers were killing the guards one after another. As they had lost their last hope, the guards started to despair and ran away. The battle was in chaos now with running guards and rankers.

"No way! Why?" Joe muttered himself. He couldn't figure out the situation. The only thing he knew now was that they were trapped between the elves and rankers. He calmed down and thought about the most important thing for now.

Then he made a definite decision.

"Jame, look. Listen to me carefully." Joe put his left hand on Jame's shoulder and said carefully. Jame's face was confused now. There were too many unsettled and confusing things in his mind. He looked at Joe and listened to his words.

"Now I am going to make you a way out of this place. You must survive. I don't understand what is going on now, about rankers and elves, everything. But this is not the time to think about it. We are trapped between them. If rankers are enemies, there is no way we can survive." Jame nodded heavily.

"But you can. Now I will use my last strength to make you a way." As soon as he had told, he picked up a long pike near a guard corpse. Jame didn't know what he was doing and stood idly.

"Take off your armors. Hurry!" Joe told him quickly. He didn't ask back and did as he told. "Now grab the tail of this pike with all your might. Don't let it go no matter what." Jame grabbed it with both hands as he said. He still didn't understand what Joe was doing.

Then Joe tied Jame's hands and the pike's tail together with a black rope. "Sir Morgan gave me this rope when we first met. Despite its weak appearance, it is very strong and hard to break it with only physical strength. This can also resist lightning. I have never used this rope before." Joe explained.

Jame started to understand what Joe was trying to do. "No, you can't. You will die. Listen to me. Don't__" Jame spluttered non-stop and struggled with all his strength to break the rope. But it didn't work.

Joe ignored him and started concentrating all of his last magic power into his right hand holding the pike and applied his lightning on the pike. Jame screamed loudly as he felt immense pain all of a sudden. The lightning pike inflicted serious burning wounds on Jame's hands.

The rankers noticed them because of lightning and ran toward them. But some guards were still fighting back. They were blocking the path to protect their captain as their last wish.

Joe aimed the pike toward the north. The tears fell from his eyes.

"You must bear the pain for now. It might cripple your hands but at least you can survive. This is the only way I can think of to to help you escape. I am sorry. Remember Jame. You must survive. And not only survive but also live a life. Farewell __son." Jame said his last words and threw the spike with all his last strength combined with his lightning magic to the sky.

When he threw the pike, the pike flew at a very high speed into the sky. As soon as he had thrown it, the rankers reached him and cut his head.

Jame saw it and couldn't do anything. He started to feel numb as it was so painful. Finally, his eyes became heavy and slowly closed.

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(Thanks for reading.😇)