Rebirth of the Phoenix God

This was the very first time for Fen to fly on his wings in the direction of what used to be the Gizadian Empire. Even in Kinar, doing something like he was performing right now bore a lot of risk with some adventurers acting stupid and taking him for some kind of monster. Thankfully, the main successor of the old mercenary kingdom had way more mercenaries than it had that stupid rich-people looking for the thrills, making the risk of being attacked in the skies somewhat manageable.

Sadly, that wasn't the case for the former imperial lands. Even with the insane speed that allowed the young man to basically cut the otherwise many days worth of distance into just a quick flight taking a little over an hour, randomly popping out in the skies bore a lot of dangers.

After all, no matter how many faults and drawbacks one could attribute to the centralised and tyrannical system of the empire, lack of arcanist wasn't one of them.

'I guess this should be more or less enough…'

Thinking to himself, Fen finally extinguished the fires of his wings, instantly losing both his acceleration and the force that kept him high in the air. This was the only way that Fen found out to stop his insane drive through the air once his speed crosses a certain threshold.

The roaring of the air accompanied the freefalling body of the arcanist as the air that he used to propel himself forward quickly dampened his speed. In just a few moments, what used to be a bolt cutting through the air at an insane speed now turned back to a man's body, quickly losing his attitude.

"Dang it, I overshoot quite a lot…"

Noticing the icy cover on the ocean below him and complete lack of ground no matter how much he strained his eyes in any of the directions, Fen had no other choice but to materialise his catalyst once again, forcing his body to come to a complete stop, both in terms of vertical and horizontal speed.

"I wonder how far did I go…"

The fact that the young man could still tell that it was an ocean way below his feet instead of a uniform clad of ice meant that the land couldn't be that far. With his mistake noticed, Fen quickly turned around his axis, before swinging his wings to gain some speed once again. 

This time, the journey wasn't all that hard to complete outside of the fact that correcting the mistake of his previous timing took him twice as long as reaching his initial deacceleration point. 

In just two hours, the coast finally appeared before Fen's eyes. From that point on, locating Akhaz was a no-brainer, as all the young man had to do, was follow the coastline. Soon enough, the otherwise barren lands of the extreme south turned into a huge, generally round lake, still decorated by small tiles of ice floating above it. 

"If I'm above the Icy lake… Then the Akhaz should be right there…" 

Recalling the general outline of the geography in the area where he used to live, Fen turned his eyes slightly to the west. Given how the young man was positioned directly in the middle of the single channel that connected the great imperial lake with the southern waters of the ocean, the remaining distance that he had to travel was something that he could gauge with just his memories and random guessing alone.

And soon enough after correcting the initial course of his flight, Fen finally confirmed that his guess was right once the outline of the city appeared far on the horizon. Lowering the altitude of his flight, Fen made sure to make a large flank around the city, before finally decreasing his speed and landing in the same forest where he once met with the local queen of the monsters.

"What the heck did happen here…"

Slowly descending down to the level from which he could just jump down, Fen finally touched the ground with his very own legs. But instead of rejoicing that the arduous part of the tasks of visiting south was finally over, the young man's mind was fully occupied with the state that the forest was currently in.

Or rather, the state that the ruins of the forest were. 

It was hard to notice even a single unharmed tree. The vegetation, once lush, was now on the verge of dying. While all of those things would only contribute to the birth of a new, even greater forest once the fallen pieces would decompose and serve as nutrition to the next generation of the local vegetation, for now, this place was nothing more but a grim reminder to how some kind of power got unleashed on the inhabitants of this place.

"I guess the queen's plan fell short on her expectation."

Visiting this strange monster that he once met in this place was one of the auxiliary tasks that Fen gave to himself. Now that his power was way above anything that he could ever imagine to be capable off back when he first met the local monster's resistance, the young man hoped to receive some answers from that arcana based being, but from the looks of it…

The queen that he met in this place, was no longer amongst the living.

"Hey, what are you doing out there? It's a forbidden area!"

Before Fen could even get over the fact that the beings that he once knew were now gone, a human voice reached his ears. Turning around towards its source, the young mercenary saw a small patrol of barely five people freely moving on the nearby road, as if the threat of the forest was no longer in place.

Given what happened to it, it was only normal that people would grow used to the fact that the local danger was now gone. But what they couldn't know, was the emotional state of Fen once he realised that the monsters that he last met when they were about to show their resistance, were no more in this world.

"..."

Instead of replying to the patrol's question, Fen simply resurfaced his catalyst, before swinging his wings at the same time as he gently jumped above the ground. The force generated by the air that he pushed aside instantly gave him a short burst of speed, allowing him to crash his body against the unsuspecting group of people.

HIt.

Smashing his fist right into the soft belly of the nearest human, Fen sent him flying. The rage-fueled by the feeling of loss was directly influencing the fires that raged in his veins. Or rather, his rage already reached the point where even his veins were decomposing from the flesh to a fire construct itself!

"ATTA…"

Before another soldier could even shout the order, his teeth were sent flying by a timely kick. But as soon as the third potential enemy learned what it meant to have his insides squished by Fen's fist, the young mercenary's anger managed to somehow subsidise to the levels he could control.

"What the heck happened here? Did you guys lost your minds as soon as I left this Ancients-forsaken place?"

Shouting his remaining anger directly into the face of the last two remaining patrolmen, Fen could see their own anger mixing with the confusion created by his question.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Only after the man noticed that the three of his comrades that received Fen's beating were still amongst the living did he bother to respond rudely to Fen's simple question.

"Oh, I think you have yet to learn what you are supposed to do when the betters than you are asking a question…"

Once again resurfacing his catalyst, this time in its full glory, Fen placed the blade of his burning sword right on top of the man's shoulder. Swinging his head forth first, the man attempted to back off, quickly stopped by the hot feeling right on top of the skin of his throat.

"Sir… Please… I have a wife and two lovely kids…"

Hearing those words, Fen felt a strange tingle in his soul. Even though he was no stranger to killing or blood, it was the very first time when the young mercenary used his power to bully others. All the other times, his fires were unleashed only in the situations where the murder was required by the laws of the war and conflict, making it slightly easier to bear the emotional burden of it.

"Can't you be any more original? Eh, sorry about that. Seeing this forest devastated like this… It made me… slightly too angry for your own good. So I will ask once again, what the fuck has happened here? I know that monsters of this place attempted to push back against the people who bothered them, but that's the extent of my knowledge about this place. Speak if you want to live."

Most likely noticing that previously wrath-filled face of the foreigner that attacked them now seemed to be a bit more composed, the soldier looked to the side before answering with hesitation.

"Sir… If you are speaking about the apocalypse… The monsters uprising was successful. Nearly half of the city was devastated. With the royal forces and envoy retreating instead of helping to defend this place… You could say that the sacrifice of those monsters was what pushed everyone that lived through those dark days into an uprising against the empire."

Noticing how keenly Fen was listening to his words, the eyes of the man whom the young man was interrogating lit up with hope. 

"So that's what happened…"

Taking a moment to digest the fact that his hopes at learning a bit more of the details of his bloodline from the monster queen was most likely no longer possible, Fen had to shake his head for a rather long time to get rid of his sentiments. After all, he came here to deal with the diplomatic matters, so doing that was still his priority.

"Anyway. I'm Fen of the Galvat mercenary group, currently stationed in the city of Gauna, lord of the city of Shataz. I came here because of Hekarion's summons. Would you mind bringing me to that old friend of mine?"