The next few days one could hear a scribbling sound from Rild’s room. After hearing the news about the wall the eaters built, Rild entered a state of panic. His plans were to start his journey after two weeks when he accustomed himself to his new body, but this plan was disrupted, when he realized, that he needed to train this body. Now nearly a month has passed and he was still sitting in his room instead of traveling to the kingdom of Sulios. Although his body was still not in the best condition, Rild decided to speed things up and leave in a few days. He hadn’t told about this plan to the old mages, because he knew, they would not let him out just like that. They would probably urge him to open the first gate of magic before he proceeds, but Rild simply knew about the limited time he had.

The last time the eater came into the world much of the knowledge, which was considered as lost nowadays, was preserved and so the general level of power was higher. Nowadays a mage, who opened the fifth gate of any element was considered as the peak of magic. There was a handful of them in the great mage families, but because they nearly never ventured out they were considered legends by the commoners. But in the times, which are now referred as “ancient” a fifth gate mage was respected, but in the end, he was nothing special, as there were sixth gate and seventh gate mages, albeit those were rare even back then. Also back then existed a special technique, which allowed knights and other fighters to reform their body with the help of a mage. If a knight reformed his body with the wind element, his speed would increase tremendously and a normal knight would be no match for him anymore. Then there were artifacts, elixirs and so on, which nowadays only exist as inherited objects. Many of these artifacts were destroyed or were simply lost.

The fighting force of the world in the ancient time was vastly superior to the world nowadays. And yet the eater nearly annihilated the world. The world was saved the very last second. And now the eater seemed to have evolved. Rild did not know, how far they have evolved, but he knew one thing for sure: They are stronger than last time and we are weaker than last time. Their only chance was to seal the scar before it was too late. Rild speculated that he has at most 10 years before there will be no hope.

“It looks like I need a change of plans. I will need an extremely strong force if I want to break into my old palace and seal the scar. Therefore,” Rild mouth turned into a smile as he thought up a plan” I’ll just use the great mage families. The losses may destroy them, but I don’t care. They need to survive for the time being, but I don’t have enough time to save them… Which means they must save them themselves. I have no hope in saving this continent, but the other one… There is still hope”

Rild took the feather on his table and started writing. One could hear the scribbling sound once again.

Solana was watching Neln, as he drew a magic circle on the floor for her. This specific magic was only available for mages, who have opened the fourth gate of air. Since Solana had opened earth gates she needed to ask Neln for help.

“Who do you want to contact?”

Asked Neln as he drew a square into the circle.

“My old team. Although we did not part as friends, I want to ask them for help. Each one of them is an elite in their field.”

She was thinking what she would say to her former friends. After they killed Rild they stayed together for a while, but everyone went their own way after some time. Fai was far too bored with Solana’s task to sort the archives of the worldmage and left the group first. Tyler helped her for a while, but then he left in order to prepare to open his first gate of water. Since he was the only one Solana’s squad accepted as their healer, the church has let him use an artifact, which immediately opened the fourth gate of magic for a short time, but came with a price. Once the time was up, then no matter what gate you opened in this specific element, it would be reduced to the first gate, without any hope for improvement. Tyler used the artifact to gain the power to stand against “the devil”. In fact, he did not think they would survive, so he was not overly worried about losing his magic of light. When he survived, he started to specialize on the magic of water in order to harvest the healing power of the water, since his path in the magic of light was blocked. In order to do so, he needed to meditate and collect water magic essence to open his first gate of water. Since meditation works the best, when your mind is completely calm, he returned to his hometown to have peace and quiet. As for Reston, the knight of their group, he was sent away by the church to battle an evil cult.

Two years have passed until they met each other again. To say that this meeting was horrible, would be a strong understatement. Solana as the leader of the group gave herself the blame for the release of the eaters, as did Fai, who was the person who killed Rild. Reston was already an alcoholic back then. He was a firm believer in the church and loyal to the goddess, so after it was exposed, that the church was the one, who killed the guardian of the goddess, Reston fell into a sinking depression and started drinking. His entire world collapsed, when he found out, that he was part of the worldmage’s death. Tyler was better off. He was also a frantic believer in the goddess and also lost faith in the church, but he remained calmer than Reston. In his opinion he had to redeem himself for his sin, so he was wandering around and healing injured and sick people in the name of the goddess.

The meeting of the former friends started out bad and through it, many things were said and many bad words shout. In the end, everyone once again went their way, but this time not as friends anymore.

“Tyler will be a little bit weak, but he is a natural-born supporter… And I hope, that,with Rild’s help he will advance faster, than normal”

Solana told Neln.

The old gray mage nodded and drew the last line of the magic circle.

“Done. Just insert your magic inside the circle and think about the person you want to contact. This circle will work six times until I have to redraw it.”

Neln was in a pretty good mood recently, since he finally knew how to advance to the sixth gate of air. His good mood was dampened a bit, by the pain, which was assaulting his body and soul when he purified his air element essence, but not for much. Neln knew the meaning of “no pain, no gain”.

Solana stepped into the circle and closed her eyes. In her mind manifested himself a knight in silver armor. Calmly she whispered.

“Reston”

The entire room of the run-down tavern reeked like alcohol. Reston sat with four other drunks behind a wooden table, as they lamented their fates. Since he found out, that he killed the guardian of the goddess in the name of the church he started to question his life decisions. He investigated a few former orders the church gave him and discovered a few unsettling things, which pushed him completely into self-loathing and depression. Many of the orders were eliminations of some members of dark cults, so he didn’t question his superior for details. He knew, that he served the priests of the goddess and had absolute trust in them. At first, he thought, that the church simply did not know about “the devil” being the guardian of the goddess, but after he reviewed a few orders he started to have doubts. He reviewed these cases in order to tell himself, that the murder of the worldmage was just a blunder and the church is as righteous as he hoped. One of the cases was the elimination of an evil mage. Reston traveled in is investigation back to the little town where he killed the mage. What he found out there shook his beliefs further. Back then he just located the mage and killed him silently in the name of the church. Back then he was told he must act secretly because the populace did not need to know about the danger they were in. There simply was no need to spread panic, when the church guarded them. Reston believed everything the priests told him and so he did not gather information about the mage but used the one the church gave him. He knew from the very beginning where the mage was hiding and could eliminate him without raising a commotion. He disappeared as quickly as he came.

Now he found out the mage he killed was nothing more, than a magician who opened the second gate of light and healed people for free. This way the magician could train his healing spells and do some good. In the end, it killed him. The church in order to appear saintly had long ago monopolized the healing institutions. There were many mages who used healing spells as their choice of income, but these were either very small-scale businesses or were in some way under the control of the church. This particular mage has expanded his business too much. It would be no problem if he charged some fees and split his income with the church, but he healed people for free. Of course, the church did not react kindly to someone, who was stealing their business. They send Reston to eliminate the poor mage and the very next day they proclaimed, that the good-hearted healer was killed by an evil cultist, which in return was killed by the church. In this way, the church had disposed of a competitor and also boosted their reputation a bit. Reston now realized, that there was also a third benefit for the church involved. It fooled the idiots. Idiots like Reston.

Reston served the church for many years and was an elite knight, but for some reason, he always remained a knight. He never had the chance to be promoted and climb the ranks. Now he knew why. He was never corrupt enough. He truly believed in the goddess and the church, so they simply couldn’t let him get more truthful information, as he would do too much trouble. In the end, the church would be forced to eliminate him. So to not lose resources unnecessarily they just blocked his career advancement.

Reston silently smiled at his own stupidity as he looked down the half empty glass. Without a word he silently gulped down the brew inside and put it on the edge of the table, so the barmaid could take it away more easily and bring him a full one. He was not yet drunk, so his mood was pretty down. He listened to his new “friends” laments as he waited for his next glass of brew. As of this moment, the only thing he wanted to do was to drown his guilt away.

All of a sudden he felt a strange energy flowing through him. He sat upright at once and started to gather the few drops of magic he possessed to resist the strange energy. Reston was no real mage, but he nevertheless collected a few drops of magic in order to resist harmful magic spells better.

“Nice try, but against someone like the person, who drew this circle your few drops are useless.” Reston’s face changed into a grim visage, as he heard the voice of an old woman inside his head.

“What do you want Solana?” he said out loud. Nobody reacted to this, as he was already a well-known drunk, who loved to say unrecognizable and incomplete sentences.

“You do not need to speak out loud, just direct your thoughts towards me. What I want is… To help this world.” was the answer he received.

Reston nearly jumped up in fury.

“Help the world? Have we not “helped” the world enough already? We nearly “helped” it into oblivion! And now you want to “help” some more?”

Reston could hardly control his rage as he listened to Solana.

Solana seemed to expect this cry of outrage and continued in a calm voice.

“Because of that, we will not be the ones who will make the decisions. We will be simple followers. Our leader will decide everything for us.”

“And who exactly will be our leader? The corrupted church? Do we want to slaughter innocent just to preserve the little power they have left? Your three great mage families? Don’t fool me. The mage families only have their own interests in their mind, just like the church. Any of the kingdoms? They too only seek to solidify their own power and destroy their adversaries. So tell me who will lead us? WHO?!?”

Reston shouted the last word loud out in his mind, as he directed his entire rage towards the old mage talking to him. Despite all this Solana’s voice remained calm as she answered him the question he asked.

“The worldmage.”

Reston felt like he was struck by lightning. At first, he thought he misheard but then realized there is nothing he could mistake it for. The answer was completely out of his expectations. He could not help but ask again.

“Wh-Wha-What did you say? The worldmage? But we killed the last” he stuttered in his mind.

“We resurrected him. Using an astronomical amount of resources we brought him back to life. At the moment he is very weak, but his growth is extremely quick and his knowledge is unbelievable. He even knows the true way to open the sixth gate of an element.”

Reston could not believe what he was hearing. Did they resurrect the worldmage? Although Reston was only a knight, he had many friends, who were magicians and mages. He knew, that it was impossible to resurrect someone, who was dead for more, than two days, so he had his doubts, but then he realized, what Solana said. He knows how to open the sixth gate of magic naturally? There were ways to open the gate forcefully, but this would force the person to endure extreme pain for the rest of their lives if they survived. The true way to open the sixth gate was lost long ago and the only person to know the way to open it would be the worldmage. In the end, Reston was not satisfied. It could be a con-artist. They resurrected someone, who looked similar. This person quickly realized, that he was not the target of their resurrection and tried to lie his way through.

“I know, you do not believe the person is the real worldmage, but you can be at ease. The things the person has done could only be done by someone with the knowledge only the worldmage possesses. Besides we created the body from a drop of his blood and even if it is someone who looks similar, he would not be resurrected instead of the worldmage, because we directed our magic directly towards him. If we want to resurrect him, only he will be resurrected. Magic does not pick someone randomly if it doesn’t work. In that case, the spell simply doesn’t work.”

Reston’s murky eyes slowly started to clear up, as he heard Solana’s explanation.

“You mean…”

“Yes. He is the real deal.”

Reston closed his eyes for a moment. This was his chance to redeem his past mistakes. It was a chance to serve the goddess truthfully, but on the other side, it could go even more awry, than his previous decisions. If this person is an impostor he would create even more chaos if he helps him, but if not…

“Where to?” he asked the voice in his head.

“Sulios Kingdom in the west. It is…”

“Got it. Meet you at the capital. I think its name was Sandaras”

Solana did not answer Reston and interrupted the communication. Reston slowly inhaled and exhaled. He has made a decision. Little did he know, that this decision will make him question his morality even more. This decision will lead him to other decisions, which will change his life even further.

In front of Reston and the other drunks stood a waitress. She looked with annoyance at the dirty table. She was already used to this scene. These drunks were always dirtying the table and the floor around, but they paid their bills, so she overlooked it. As she was about to put down the next batch of drinks she looked at Reston’s face. She sighed in her mind as she thought, that Reston was wasting himself. Reston was in his forties but looked still pretty young. His face was well formed and every part of it was masculine.

“If he would turn his life around, then he could with his look alone easily find a woman to settle down.” She thought to herself. Just as she wanted to look away from his face his eyes suddenly snapped wide open. The waitress gave out a small cry as she saw his eyes. These were not the eyes of a broken drunk she was used seeing on his face. These blue eyes shone with determination and stubbornness. These were the eyes of a man, who had a clear goal in his life.

Reston stood quickly up and stretched himself. His eyes landed at the waitress, who was looking at him unbelieving and took out two gold coins. He threw the two coins at the table.

“Tonight is on me. Keep the rest.”

He said as he started to walk towards the door.

Across the room sat two people. One of them was wearing a full leather armor and the other had a chain mail instead of a leather torso. As the two of them saw the gold coins Reston took out, their eyes flashed with greed. Both of them stood immediately up and moved towards Reston. As they were near the exit one of them blocked it, as the other came up to Reston.

“My friend, why are you leaving? Let us have some drinks together!”

The man with the full leather armor looked greedily at Reston’s purse without concealing it. Reston on the other side looked at the body of the man in front of him and noted every single move the man did.

“Amateur. He is putting too much weight on his left foot. This will be easy.”

Reston analyzed. He looked in the eyes of the man and just told him what he was thinking.

“Sod off!”

The man in the leather armor smiled as he looked at Reston with despise. In his opinion, this stupid drunk did not know, what was good for him. They would take his purse and flee the town before the guards showed up. After two weeks at most, everyone would have forgotten about this and they could return. The man did not want to kill Reston, but he wouldn’t mind, if his hand slipped. Things like that happen very often at this time. His hand shoots to the sword hanging at his right side. He wanted to use the sword to threaten the drunk, steal his purse and then run. Just as he was about to pull out his sword he felt something around his head pulling him down. The next thing he felt was unbearable pain.

As soon as the man’s hand landed on the sword hilt Reston immediately put his hands on both sides of the man’s head and pulled it towards his already rising knee. The man’s nose exploded like a ripe fruit when it met Reston’s knee. The man immediately fell down and started screaming his lungs out.

Reston didn’t lose time and quickly grabbed the sword of the crying man. His partner was already running towards Reston with an unsheathed sword. Reston needed only one glance to determine the weaknesses in the man’s stance. Even though he was wearing a chain mail, he would not be a bigger threat, than the first one. Reston stood still and let the man come closer. His opponent was already far too enraged to notice the completely serene face of Reston. If he had, he would probably act more cautiously. But he didn’t, so he raised the sword above his head and stroke down with it. Reston’s brows furrowed as he saw this.

“If you guys are mercenary you should have at least some techniques.”

He thought as he caught the wrist of the man with his left hand. The man did not realize what was happening for a moment and when he did it was already too late. Reston rammed the pommel of the sword in his right hand into the face of his opponent. Now both of the wannabe robbers were rolling crying on the floor, as they tried to stop the bleeding of their broken noses. Reston looked down at the two of them not sure how he should handle the situation.

“If they tried to rob me, they will try to rob others. The more logical solution would be killing the two of them right now, but… These are desperate times and I can understand their situation. The two of them have no battle experience what so ever. They are too bad to be bandits and are probably some poor bastards who are desperate enough to become a mercenary.”

Sighing Reston knelt before the first man and stripped his belt from him. He put on the belt and sheathed the sword in his hand. He then walked towards the second man lying and crying on the floor and took his belt and sword too. Putting the sword on his back Reston walked out of the tavern. After taking the two swords he could defend himself more or less.

After a few hours, the guards at the north gate witnessed a person in a red cape walking out of town. The person was wearing a large bag of supplies behind his back and two swords at his left hip. One of the guards looked surprised at the back of the figure, which got smaller and smaller. He seemed to think for a second before he asked the other guard.

“Hey, wasn’t that Reston? You know, the drunk?”

The moaning of pain was echoing through the nearly destroyed house. On the floor were lying people in an orderly line. Each one of them had one injury or another. In front of one a young man was kneeling. The young man was whispering something as he moves his fingers slowly in the air in front of him. Slowly but steady a magic circle manifested itself in front of him. As the chant and circle were completed a little water ball manifested itself in the young man’s hand. The ball stood perfectly still inside the hand. Not a single ripple was visible across the surface made out of the water. The young man had a determined look on his face, as he pressed the ball of water against the body of the man lying before him. To be precise he pressed the water ball against a nasty looking wound on the left part of the man’s chest. Slowly the ball of water started to flow around the wound. After just a few moments it covered the entire wound. The young man concentrated again as he started to chant another spell. The water membrane on the wound started to vibrate and the wound started to close. The man receiving the treatment howled out in pain when the water started to vibrate. If he had the strength to push the young man who was healing him away, he would have done so. After just about half a minute the treatment was finished and the wound became much smaller.

Sweat was pouring down the young man’s face as he looked at the man before him. Since he has just opened the first gate of water not too long ago, his control over the water element was pretty bad.

Nevertheless, people came to him in order to get healed. Tyler had to endure quite a few troubles since he started healing people in this abandoned building. Most of the people were not too happy with him wearing the clothes of a priest. Although he left the church he still wore his old clothes, because they had a symbolic meaning for him. One time he nearly got stabbed and was only saved by a man whom he healed a few days prior.

Tyler concentrated once again and looked at his next patient. With a sigh, he started to draw the next magic circle.

A few days later Tyler was sitting at the back of a carriage belonging to a merchant. He saved the life of the merchant’s son, so the merchant was more than happy to help Tyler get to the next town. Tyler was dozing off when Solana’s contact came. He opened his eyes immediately and looked at the road.

“Hello, Solana. How are you?” Tyler asked with a tranquil voice in his head.

“How did you know it was me?”

Solana did not answer Tyler's question with her own.

“Who else could it be? One needs a pretty powerful air mage for this communication spell. This point all alone disqualifies 95% of people, who would contact me. In fact, I know only of two people capable of enlisting the aid of such an air mage. One is you and the other is… unimportant.”

“Alright, but how did you know, that I had access to such an air mage?”

“Have you forgotten, that I’ve met Neln? The first time I saw him I thought he was a wandering spirit, because of how gray he was and tried to exorcise him, while he gave me tips on how to do it right. How did he even knew about this stuff? Isn’t he a pure air mage?

“Hehe. Right, there was this incident… What do you think? Although he is an air mage, he is quite old already and was stuck at the fifth gate of air for a long time. Of course, he would look into the other elements in hope to find the answer on how to open his sixth gate. He most likely read more books about light magic, than you, who specialized himself in it.”

Tyler smiled as he heard that. He knew, that this was most likely true. His first meeting with Neln ended in a funny way (if you ask Neln, embarrassing if you ask Tyler), but Tyler had great respect for Neln.

“So, why are you contacting me?”

“Go to Sulios. Sandaras to be precise.”

Tyler once again slowly closed his eyes and asked the voice in his head.

“Why?”

“Because that’s where we will meet up with the others.”

“I think you misunderstood my question. What is the reason of me going to Sulios?”

For a few moments, there was only silence.

“To help the worldmage. We resurrected him and for some reason he wants to go to Sulios kingdom first. My plan is… to listen to his plans.”

Tyler's reaction was quite the opposite of Reston’s when he heard the news of the worldmage’s resurrection.

“So this is it. I was asking what it would be.”

“What do you mean?”

Solana’s voice had a trace of confusion when she asked the question.

“The chance to set things right and save this world. I knew the goddess would give us the chance, but I did not know in what form she would give it.”

“So you are just like Reston? You are after redemption?”

“No. I just want to do the right thing. The worldmage was weakened, because he strengthened the seal and he let us kill him, without much resistance. If we hadn’t killed him, then another team would have killed him. We are not to blame for his death, as we were nothing more than the executioner’s blade. At least not entirely. He was hunted by the whole world, so I believe, that everybody in the world is at fault. If we have to redeem ourselves, then everybody in the world has also to do it.”

“I see. Although I do not agree with your view, I respect it. In the end, it was us, who killed him. If we believed him and helped him escape, then he would be at full power right now. But this is unimportant right now. Let’s meet at Sandaras.”

“I’ll be on my way. Tell Neln hello.”

As soon as he transmitted these words the connection was broken off. Tyler once again opened his eyes and looked at the road. Since he was traveling in the right direction anyway he just closed his eyes again as he tried to collect more drops of magic.

The smell of blood and gore was hanging in the air as cries of pain and the sounds of weapons resounded through the entire battlefield. Soldiers were fighting for their lives against horrid aberrations.

The monsters had was half a man’s height and were nearly as long as a horse. They had six strong legs and two tails. The most horrifying in their appearance were the two mouths the monster had. One was like normal animals at their head, the other was at their spine and both mouths had razor sharp teeth. The three pair of eyes were overshadowed by the sheer amount of teeth, so they did not look too scary. The skin of the creature was a pale gray and far harder than normal skin should be. Another strange looking thing was the absence of a neck. The torso and the head were the same body part. At the end of its feet, the creature had razor sharp claws. The soldiers, who fought against these creatures knew all too well, that these claws can destroy a plate armor without much difficulty. Although the claws were dangerous they were nothing compared to the teeth. If something landed in the mouth of these creatures, then it was lost forever. That was the reason, why they were called eater. What the inhabitants of this world knew about the eaters they knew from the archives of the worldmages. Luckily the worldmages had documented the last two invasions of the eater very meticulously. Many of the eater species were described in great detail, so the soldiers knew of many weak points, but nevertheless the border was pushed back a bit more every day. For every weak point the eaters had, they had one strong point and these strong points were far more formidable, than the countermeasures , which this world could employ. Their skin, for example, was nearly impossible to pierce with normal weapons. Every weapon had to be enchanted by a mage in order to do some real damage, their speed although not very fast, did never decrease. If an eater decided to eat you, then he would use 100% of his power to do so. There were only three types of outcome in such a situation. The first one was, that the eater would kill and then eat you. The second one was you would kill the eater and would not be eaten. The third one was the unlikely situation that the energy of the eater is depleted and he would die of exhaustion.

An old and grizzled soldier was fighting against an eater for his life. The soldier was wearing a leather armor engraved with the symbol of the lord he served. The lord himself had died almost two months ago when he was trying to protect a few of his men from the relentless onslaught of the eaters. The few soldiers remaining were forced to join the regiment of another lord. The old soldier knew he would die very soon. If not to this eater, then to another one. He had come to terms with this long ago and did not fear death anymore.

The fight against the eater continued. Hit, evade, repeat. At one moment the old soldier was distracted and his sword landed between the teeth of the monstrosity. With a loud “cling” the sword snapped and half of it landed inside the belly of the eater.

The eater did not celebrate his victory and jumped towards the old soldier. The man could only evade now, as the only weapon he had remaining was his dagger. Only his sword was enchanted, so the dagger could not pierce the tough skin of his enemy. The concentration of the old soldier once again failed and he lost his footing. He was fighting for a few hours straight and had no more power left to resist. The eater pounced towards the man with an open mouth. Just before the gaping mouth reached the petrified soldier a flash of black appeared in front of his eyes for a moment. The next thing he realized was, that he was drenched in green blood. He looked up with unbelieving eyes and saw the eater divided cleanly into three parts. Before him stood the figure of a young woman with pitch-black hair with strands of red. She was wearing a dark brown leather armor and in her hand was a flaming black sword. The old soldier recognized her immediately, as she was famous all over the border of the eater invasion. She was the fairy Fai.

She had made herself quite a name on the border. She appeared one day as a mercenary in battalions camp and at first everybody scoffed at her young age, claiming, that she should better find herself a husband instead of getting killed on the battlefield. It took only one battle against the eaters in order to shut everybody up. Normally it would take a team of two or more people to defeat one eater or one very experienced warrior. Fai was fighting from time to time against two or more eaters all alone. Such a situation would place a group of three people at a great disadvantage and would more likely than not end up in the death of the group.

Fai did seem to ignore these norms, as she cut through the eaters like a hot knife through cold butter. After her first battle, the battalion was to be changed as it fought already for two months and the soldiers were weary and needed rest. When Fai was about to receive her payment she was summoned by the commander leading the battalion. The man wanted to employ Fai permanently as his bodyguard. Fai noticed his lecherous gaze, with which he was sizing her up and refused.

Most likely the man was not used to being denied, as he tried to detain Fai against her will. As this happened in front of quite a few soldiers in the temporary built barracks there were many witnesses to what happened next. Although the stories are different each time they are told the ending was always the same. The arm, which the commander used to grab Fai was reduced to coal when Fai suddenly burst out in black flames. The soldiers immediately started screaming when they saw this. To say, that they were frightened out of their mind would be a strong understatement. These men were battle-hardened veterans, but when they saw the delicate looking Fai burst out in black flames panic broke out. The flames disappeared as quick as they came and the panic settled pretty quickly. The incident nearly caused a lot of problems for Fai. Since she nearly killed an army official she was brought before a military tribunal, but all charges were dropped, when two things became clear.

The first one was, that the soldiers were on her side. In the battle against the eaters, she has saved a lot of lives, which gave her a lot of supporters. Some of them even accused the commander of trying to rape Fai in front of all the soldiers. The higher ups knew that the commander was very unpopular with the soldiers, due to his lack of qualifications. The man was a noble and was bestowed his rank without doing anything. So if they imprisoned Fai right now, when she had the support of nearly the entire battalion it could lead to desertion. The moral was already quite low due to the eaters and the imprisonment of someone, who proved herself to be a lifesaver on the battlefield would be the last nail in the coffin of moral.

The second one was probably the one, which was more of relevance. Fai made it clear, that she doesn’t give half a shit about the lords and their arrogance. She made it clear, that she would just kill everybody who stood between her and the next battlefield. Everybody was quite afraid of the black flames she controlled and nobody wanted to risk their lives.

Fai left the camp of the battalion the day she was “released”, but word of her spread around the entire border. Since then every battalion was celebrating when she joined for a battle and dispirited when she left for the next.

The old soldier stared at Fai as if she was his guardian angel. The young fairy looked at the soldier on the ground and took one of the many swords strapped behind her back. She threw the sword towards the man on the ground and ran away. Her gaze was already fixated on another eater. She appeared to stop her run for a few moments before she started to run again.

“So this is what is feels like to be contacted by the whispering wind spell. How are you doing Solana?”

“You even know the name of the spell. Impressive for someone, who lives in the realm of humans for only six years. Most mages do not know of this spell until they reached a certain threshold of knowledge.”

“You forgot, that I spent far too much time with your granddaughter, who was quite a fanatical reader of magic books. She was quite… talkative.”

“You have to understand, that you were the only one her age around at that time. Of course, she would stick to you.”

“Oh, I’m was not mad at her. She’s quite nice. I’m just explaining to you, how I know of the spell.”

“Then why does your explaining sound like you’re complaining? But that’s irrelevant. Fai go to Sandaras in the Sulios kingdom!”

Fai’s sword whistles through the air and another eater was split in half by her black flames. The soldiers she saved started to cheer and thank her, but she was already on her way to the next one.

“Sorry, can’t do that. I need to perfect my mastery over my Darkfire. If I can upgrade it into a Shadowflame, then I’ll be one step closer to my goal and constant fighting against strong foes helps a lot with that.”

“You still haven’t given up on your revenge? The whole world is going to be destroyed and you still cling to it? Can’t you let it go? Why not spend the rest of your days in leisure? You know exactly, that even if you upgrade your flames, you will be only equivalent to a mage, who opened his fourth gate of magic. You know it will be far from enough. You would need to upgrade your flames one more time after that and there is simply no time for it, so why are you still trying?”

Fai’s figure stood still for a moment before she continued her way to the next eater.

“I’m not like you. You had your granddaughter to take care of, so you could forsake revenge in order to raise her, but I have no kin anymore. Also… you only heard about your the death of your… Forgive me, that was uncalled for. But it’s still different, then seeing it. I swore an oath to take revenge should I survive and until I die I will work as hard as I can to achieve this goal.”

“What if you could get more time?”

A look of surprise flashed across Fai’s face, as she drew out another sword because the one in her hand got eaten.

“How so?”

“We resurrected the worldmage.”

Fai’s sword split the eater in half, but this time she did not run tot he next one. Instead, she simply stood on the spot with an expression of utter disbelief on her face.

“This is… unexpected. So you want to unite the same team which killed him, in order to keep him in check? You do realize, that we did not really kill him, but he let us do it? He can slaughter us like sheep if he wants.”

“He can not at the moment. He has to train right from the beginning.”

“Then what use is he? You and I both know, that this world has no time in order for him to become strong once again.”

“His use is his extensive knowledge. Right at this moment he is the only one, who knows how to stop the eaters. Listen I know, that your main goal right now is revenge, but look at it from a different angle. He nearly immediately knew, that you are a fairy blessed by the goddess, so he might know a few tricks, which will help you grow stronger faster. You could kill two flies with one fireball: Help to save the world and become stronger at the same time.”

For about two minutes everything was quiet between the two of them.

“How do you know, we can trust him?”

“He is our only chance. We have to trust him. Also, he seems to be absolutely fanatical to fulfill his duty.”

“So you think, he isn’t planning anything?”

“Oh, believe me, he is planning something. He has already taken control of one of the three great mage families.”

Fai smiled as she heard this. This situation was quite funny for her.

“How so?”

“First he made us believe, that he has the qualifications to be the worldmage, then he gave Neln the way to open the sixth gate of magic. Should Neln succeed in this… Although he is already one of the leaders of the Keliar family, he has not the absolute authority, but should he open the sixth gate of air, then he will become the sole ruler of his family.”

“But at the same time Neln could teach the method to other mages and then others will open their sixth gates magic. Then Neln’s position will become shaky once again.”

“Neln is unable to teach the method to others. He can only use it, but he has not real grasp on it.”

Right in the middle of the battlefield Fai started to chuckle.

“I like him more and more. Alright, let’s give it a shot. After the battle, I’m on my way. Say hello to Celia.”

And with this, the connection broke.

Solana was panting as she stood in the middle of the room. Sweat was floating down her face. She used a lot of magic to contact these three people.

She looked for Neln and found him lying in his bed, with his face twisted in pain. When Solana wanted to call out for him a panicking knock on the door was heard. Neln immediately woke up from his meditation and left the room. He did not know, how many people Solana has contacted already and did not want to disturb her.

Solana smiled, as she understood Neln thought’s and prepared herself to contact her granddaughter in order to tell her, that she will be away for much longer, than anticipated. As soon as she started to concentrate the last bit of her magic into the circle under her feet, she heard Neln’s angry voice from behind the door.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, HE’S GONE?!?!”

A bad premonition rose up in Solana.