Rebirth of the Phoenix God

"Are you really sure about that?"

Holding on to Fen's naked arm, Orhsa once again protested against his looming departure. With how dealing with the cleaning up after their little conquest sapped their strength and time for days, it was quite a hit for her when after just a single night they could actively spend together, the young arcanist would already prepare to set off.

"This is our best bet. Without the backing of Kinar, we are easy prey to anyone who could bother to reach our borders. And while asking me to convince the entire council might a be little too much, I think that bringing the news to our dean might suffice. From what Victor told me, he still holds one of the seats in the council and could singlehandedly push our agenda there. That's why I need to reach his ears before any of the rumours will."

No one could ever underestimate the value of the first impression. With two weeks already passing ever since the population finally understood what was going on, it was only a matter of few more days before the news would somehow reach the academy back in Gauna. And that was the main reason why it was Fen that had to make the trip.

There simply was no time to send a standard messenger.

"I know, I know… I just… Being an unofficial noble and governor of the city… It looked way different than what it proved to be. You could say, that it's… it's not what I expected this situation to be."

Moving her arms up, Orsha pulled Fen's face into her supple chest, blocking all his potential protests with her soft skin. 

"Just remain like that for a moment…"

Whispering softly to the young man's ears, Orsha continued to hug him for a long moment like that, before her arms finally relaxed. Freed from her hold, Fen straightened his upper body, before grabbing Orsha by her waist and pulling her closer.

With his lips attacking the plump reds of the girl, the two of them connected in a long, deep kiss before phoenixian arcanist decisively pulled away from his partner.

"I'm sorry, but I really have to go. We will have as much time for our fun as we will want once I will get back."

Caressing Orsha's soft head for a moment, Fen finally managed to force himself away from the girl. Grabbing the letter crafted by the four of the new rulers of the province and stuffing it into a special pocket made on the inner side of his clothes, the young man made sure that said pocket was properly closed and secured.

"Wait a moment…"

Right before he could move past the opening of the tent in order to prepare for the launch, Orsha's voice stopped him in his track. Turning his head to the back, he could see the nimble body of the girl crashing around the tent, only to find some kind of light blanket that she used to cover her charms.

"I want to see you fly away."

Smiling gently at the young man, Orhsa made sure that her improvised clothing was tightly knotted in place, before following the young man steps.

"What are you waiting for?"

Stunned by her sudden decision, Fen could only stare at her mischievous smile when she passed by him with a nitpicking remark on her lips.

"You little…"

Thankfully, the two of them weren't on such strict terms for the young man to take her sneaky attack seriously. Shaking his head with a light smile, Fen followed after the girl, all the way to a small clearing in their camp. 

"I will be going then."

Nodding his head to the girl, Fen invoked his catalyst. In one moment, his body blurred, covered by a strange barrier of flickering light, making it seem that he was submerged in some kind of thick fluid. Spreading his wings to the side, Fen waited for a fitting gust of wind that could carry him. Once the tips of his wings started to flutter, the young man bent his knee a bit, before snapping his fingers and bringing them down as forcefully as possible!

With his jump, push away and a suddenly appearing, violent gust of wind all working together to make it happen, Fen's body quickly raised to the skies. After overcoming the initial drag and the stinging feeling of his eyes caused by the resistance of the air, Fen momentarily levelled up his ascend, stalling his flight and hovering still above the ground.

Judging the distance that separated him from the ground as satisfactory, Fen looked around to confirm the positions of the orientation points. High in the skies, he could no longer follow most of the hints that he grew to recognise on the ground as a hunter. Right now, instead of being on a lookout for the roads, moss on the trees or even the general way in which the vegetation developed, Fen now had to focus on stuff like small mountains and rivers. 

This was the element that took the most of the time during his preparations. With how far they were from the home, Fen had no other choice but to completely memorise several maps of the area that wouldn't be of any use for anyone standing on the ground. Those maps that he could now recall at even the slightest wish to do so only made some sense for someone capable of walking through the hight skies.

"Okay, let's not dawdle on this any longer."

After confirming the initial direction with several different sets of the orientation points, Fen angled his wings, allowing to turn the stall into a gentle glide. Lowering the angle of his descend the quicker his movements were, Fen waited for the moment where roughly half of his height would be exchanged for speed, before suddenly swiping his wings behind.

With the added burst of momentum, the young phoenixian quickly gained even more speed. After just a few more swings, he was unable to speed up just by moving his wings around anymore. And this was the point when Fen started to increase the thickness of the fires that made up his catalyst.

This was something that Nadia suggested to him during one of their missions. While having huge wings might help a lot to push against even more air, what would happen if he made them smaller but thicker?

Just by recalling the events that followed soon after… Even so high up in the air, bursting through the distance like no other being would be capable of in this world, Fen still couldn't stop the blush from appearing on his face.

'At least, I got to learn something back then…'

That lesson that his pathetic attempts after Nadia's suggestion brought was the reason behind his desperate need to confirm the exact direction he was supposed to fly towards… and how the young arcanist was doing everything to gain just a bit more speed…

After all, the speed itself wasn't a problem. It was the moment of gaining it at once that could lead to some hilarious and disastrous problems for the young man.

'Okay, let's do it!'

Prompting himself in his thoughts, Fen pulled his flames even closer together, finally reaching the breaking point. But not the breaking point of his catalyst, but the air all around him.

Once the young man felt the slightest pull on the wings that he coated around his body to reduce the area that the air could drag him with, counterintuitively… he spread his wings as wide as he could!

In an instant, a huge explosion covered his immediate surroundings… But by the time the air turned hot enough to become potentially unpleasant for the young man, he was already too far away to even notice the fireball that his change left behind in the air.

With his wings spread as far as he was capable off, instead of pushing against the air… they were igniting the air before them, only to expel the fire on the backside of the wings. For some reason, not only did that practically negate all the drag of the air, but it also brought an insane explosive momentum for every second that his wings continued to burn through the air!

With this insane boost to his speed, Fen could no longer keep his eyes open. Just the pressure of the air alone would be enough to initially squeeze his eyeballs, only to push them deeper into his skull later on. Relying just on his memory alone, Fen counted the seconds that passed ever since his increase of momentum, before suddenly expanding his wings while lowering their intensity at the same time.

Only after his catalyst was no longer capable of keeping up the process of burning the air, Fen's body seemed to crash against some invisible wall. Holding on while his body seemed to be torn by its momentum and the air resistance that was doing everything to stop him, Fen toughen up the worst part of this ending part of the jump.

Finally capable of opening his eyes, Fen used his newly regained vision to level his flight parallel to the ground, making sure he was too high from anyone on the ground to pose any threat to him. And then the young man realised that he made a small mistake in his calculations.

Considering how he basically travelled across the entire country within just a few seconds, appearing just a few kilometres further than it was planned shouldn't be considered as a problem, especially given how he could only rely on his guts to put a stop to his insane flight.

The one thing that changed the reality of the situation was that not only his drastic deacceleration was quite an eye-catching spectacle, but he also finally managed to regain control over his precise flight directly above the Gauna city!

His height was way more than enough to ward off any random attackers. But the same couldn't be applied for the defences of the capital of the damned Kinar republic!