Chapter 42: Archonte

“Children! Hurry! Run to the settlement! You have to tell the adults to light the smoke signals!”

“But, Archonte, what are you going to do?!”

“I’m staying behind to stop these creatures.”

The children looked at the old man, their faces full of worry.

“Ha! Don’t underestimate me!” Thaelor exclaimed, raising his thin arms. “These old bones still have some fight left in them.”

A few nervous smiles appeared on the children’s faces.

“Good! Now run! Quickly!”

The children looked at one another for a few seconds, still hesitant, but finally broke into a sprint.

“If my son were here, he could have transported them to the settlement in an instant… Saelith inherited his talent, but she still has trouble with long distances, and she cannot use her magic on more than one person at a time.”

Thaelor made his way to the top of a hill, where he could see hundreds of thousands of green creatures of different sizes running in his direction.

Like them, they were most likely a race transported to this world, but on a completely different scale.

“To think I only came here to tell a few children I had stumbled across during my walk not to play so far from the settlement… And now I find myself standing before this.”

The Archonte interlaced his fingers and stretched his hands forward, cracking his knuckles as he prepared to channel his magic.

“There is no other choice. I would rather not introduce myself in this manner, but that is clearly an army in full rout, and I know what happens to villages caught in the path of one.”

Thaelor raised his hand, all five fingertips glowing with a bluish light.

The old man curled his fingers beneath his thumb and released them all at once, discharging the tension he had built up in them. The lights on his fingers flashed, and in the distance, five orcs each lost a leg, fell to the ground, and were crushed beneath the rest of their companions.

“I only hope I can buy enough time for Lord Nereziel or Lady Avelle to return to the settlement.”

***

“Orcs? And some goblins…”

Nerez stopped in his tracks. On the outskirts of the settlement, they had come across a group of five green creatures.

The creatures were running toward them in terror, and apparently, that fear was not unfounded, because in the next instant, a slash of spatial magic struck all five.

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The torsos of the two orcs were cleanly severed from their lower bodies, while the heads of the three goblins, which happened to be at that exact same height, were cut off just as cleanly.

Beyond the creatures now lying lifeless on the ground, Osvel could be seen with his sword drawn, panting from exhaustion.

“It’s an attack that reminds me of Aren’s,” Nerez murmured to himself. “Though it isn’t the same. Osvel seems to have severed space with his sword; Aren’s Severance was more absolute. I saw it divide the very existence of whatever Oath’s Edge cut.”

Nerez and Cerys carefully lowered the two visiare they had been carrying to the ground.

“Ugh!”

Well, Nerez did. Cerys just dropped Ily.

If Osvel was this far from the settlement, that meant the worst of the danger had already passed.

“Lord Nereziel! Sae! Ily!” the sword prodigy exclaimed when he saw them approaching.

“What happened? Why are there orcs and goblins in the valley?”