CHAPTER 22: THE FIRST CONFRONTATION

As they were walking inside the maze-like orchard, Mavi and Allerick kept their vigilance. The moon was shining down on them, leaving themes lightly exposed. Therefore, Mavi casted a masking spell so they could blend into the environment. It wasn't a complete camouflage, but it was enough to trick untrained eyes.

The entire orchard was very quiet. Eerily so. Mavi could almost hear his own heartbeat as they trekked through. He kept feeling that something was looming over their heads. He kept his vigilance, of course, but the anxiety almost rendered him unable to think straight.

The smell of olives permeated through the air and Mavi took a deep breath and tried to focus all his senses to his surroundings instead of his loudly beating heart. He kept feeling that he smelled something weird earlier when they had just arrived at the orchard. But the olives' smell overwhelmed all other smells and he was also unsure whether or not he only imagined things.

But the smell that lingered in his mind disturbed him. It was such an unpleasant smell that he had never smelled before. It wasn't the smell of corpses, rotten or fresh. It was also not the stench of blood, fresh or otherwise. But the smell, even for a brief while, made him want to retch.

Mavi and Allerick stopped on the edge of the orchard. In front of them was a valley covered in mist. It was a cold night. Behind them, the orchard was as silent as when they came. But something kept nagging inside their minds.

"Do you perceive anything?" Allerick asked, turning around to face Mavi who stood beside him with his eyes closed.

"Aside from the smell we smelled earlier when we had just arrived, I sense nothing," Mavi shook his head slowly.

"Did you remember something about the smell?" Allerick asked again as he once again surveyed their surroundings. He kept his vigilance up and his voice down. Mavi could still hear him clearly, though. And there was some agitation in his voice that made Mavi concerned for his lover.

"No," Mavi however, still admitted that he had not found anything that could be used as clues, "I only felt that the smell was very strange. Unlike anything I have smelled before," he told Allerick with unease. He was also slightly frustrated with himself for not recognizing the smell or where it came from.

Allerick didn't answer and Mavi turned towards him in confusion. He looked up and saw Alelrick was focusing his eyes on something ahead of them. His brows were furrowed and he almost scowled.

"I saw something just now," Allerick told Mavi as he slightly pushed the younger man behind him as he drew his beloved sword and held it in front of him, ready to attack.

"What is it?" Mavi asked, holding out his right hand, ready to cast a spell. "What did you see?"

"I saw someone," Allerick said with a gloom in his voice before he took Mavi by the hand and dragged him into a grove below them. The crouched down covered with lush bushes. Allerick had his eyes trained on the small hill below them where he claimed he saw the person earlier.

"What is that person doing now?" Mavi asked in between curious and nervous. It had been a good while since they hid and there were still no movements from the other side.

"Aren't you two tired of hiding?" a voice as soft as a woman's rang out in the air, breaking the silence, startling Mavi. Yet, Allerick only tightened his grip on his sword and Mavi's shoulder. He didn't reply to the voice and also said nothing to Mavi who had his eyes closed.

"What do you perceive?" Allerick instead asked his lover, still not taking his eyes off of the figure standing a good distance away from them.

"One person. They're shrouded in dark magic," Mavi said with a scowl on his face, clearly displeased.

"Can you perceive their level?" Allrick asked again, starting to get worried since Mavi had been crouching very stiffly since the person appeared.

"High," was what Mavi said. Only that. But by the way he said it, Alleick knew that it meant that Mavi didn't know how high that person's magic was. Only that it was high and that Mavi was worried.

The atmosphere became tense in an instant as Allerick and Mavi thought of the next step. But before they could do anything, a big fireball was flying towards them, forcing them to jump out of the grove and into the open land.

Standing under the moonlight on top of the hill, Mavi and Allerick saw a person not far from them. That person, whether it was man or woman, was tall and lean. He was wearing a dark purple robe. Their long hair was blown by the wind, revealing a very delicate face and a pair of sharp and cold blue eyes.

His aura was terrible. Mavi could feel death engulfing the person. The stench of it, along with dark magic that he despised so much, was enough to make Mavi retch.

"Who are you? What is your purpose? Were you the one who killed the villagers?" Mavi asked, almost spitting the words out in agitation and disgust, as Allerick held him back, preventing him from attacking recklessly.

"Why so many questions?" the person said with a voice as gentle as a loving mother. "When you are about to die anyway?" They added and sent out another attack, forcing Allerick and Mavi to flee yet again.

However, they weren't as perturbed as the person had hoped. Allerick and Mavi, although they were in the defense, were still calm as they jumped up from the hill and onto separate trees. After avoiding the ball of fire, Mavi held out his hand and sent out a bolt of white lightning towards the person who, of course, dodged it agilely. The gentle smile and cold eyes remained. If they weren't as uninformed as they were now, Mavi would have engaged with that person head on as he usually did. 

But both he and Allerick didn't know who that person was or what their purpose was. They weren't even sure that this person was the one who caused the catastrophe in this village. So, the best course of action was to capture them alive.

Mavi was spreading all his senses, stretching it far and wide to catch the slightest slip from them. He jumped from tree to tree while throwing out his white lightning as Allerick covered him and blocked any incoming attack from them.

But the more he threw the lightning, the more excited the smile on their face became and it irked Mavi so much he gathered all of his strength and sent a blast towards them. The shockwave was so hot even Mavi had to clench his teeth and squint his eyes to see through the smoke that resulted from the hill he had just blasted off.

When the smoke cleared, the person was still standing on the scorched earth with a big smile on their face. But Mavi's attention was no longer on the person, but the creature standing beside them.

Mavi could feel all the blood in his body drained. His whole body was freezing from the kind of horror that he had never felt before. Not only horror, but also disbelief and disgust. As well as pain and heartbreak.

Mavi gritted his teeth and charged his way onwards towards the two figures standing in the middle of the now open clearing. Allerick was stunned as he tried to grab Mavi and had him fall back.

"Mavi!" he shouted and tried to reach for the other man, but Mavi was too fast. Allerick could only grit his own teeth and wnt after Mavi, trying to keep his lover from doing something stupid and possibly suicidal.

Allerick sped up and as Mavi was about to reach the proximity of those two creatures, Allerick reached out his hand and snatched Mavi by his waist and flew up, all the while dodging the attacks from the person. Mavi himself also threw a series of attacks towards the two. Some did hit them. However, they weren't even the slightest bit phased although they sustained significant injuries. The person almost looked like he was so high on drugs they felt no pain at all.

The creature, however, was growling and shaking its body to put out the fire burning it, looking even more hideous.

"Are you crazy?" Allericke hollered at Mavi once they were a safe distance away from those two. 

They were standing on top of a tall pine tree, and Allerick was heaving with ear, worry, and anger. Mavi said nothing, however, and only looked down at their feet with fists clenched and teeth gritted.

"Why are you not saying anything? What made you so agitated?" Allerick asked again, softening his voice yet not easing his hold on Mavi, afraid the younger man would leap away once again.

"The Abomination," Mavi said after a while. With breath caught, his voice was trembling. So was his whole body. "The creature beside that person, it was the Abomination," Mavi told Allerick. He looked up at his King, with eyes full of tears of pain and resentment.

Allerick was stumped and he fell silent as his mind tried to recall where he had heard that name before. "The Abomination," Allerick repeated the name, stunned. "Dear God what have these people have been doing?"