The Guardian

Chapter 251: Everyone

Aurora infused her sword with her red aura and slashed with all her might.

The red aura was fast and bloody, cutting part of the approaching abomination and before it reached her side, an arrow flew and pierced deep into the wound, knocking her down.

Aurora surveyed the surroundings.

Several corpses were scattered among the trees and the ground. The grotesque abominations were the most numerous.

Those creatures were S-rank, but their lack of intelligence and cunning made them easy prey for assassination.

Sometimes such monsters didn’t even dodge, but that didn’t mean they came out of such battles unscathed.

Aurora had some superficial wounds on her body and they were quickly closing up thanks to her fighter’s constitution. She was regenerating it quickly.

Unlike before, when she was alone, this time being in a group reduced the burden and consequently the wounds.

Aurora approached Marius and Cedric, who was using his nature magic to spread roots and tear weak creatures apart.

“There’s no one else around,” Dan reported, and focusing his gaze on the forest in the distance, he pointed. “Apparently, Urfin’s group is doing an exceptional job.”

That was the only way to call it... Their group was on the right side and it was Urfin’s group, who was in the middle.

Even though they were at a considerable distance from each other, light could be seen in the distance in this gray darkness.

For the monsters, such light was attractive to follow.

“Do you need healing?” Cédric asked as he saw that Marius had been dazed.

He had noticed her superficial wounds and had also noticed that Marius was distracted without healing her, that was why he asked.

Marius opened his mouth, but then closed it and cast a small healing spell before Aurora could refuse.

It was a light spell, and Aurora noticed how her wounds closed faster.

“Are you tired, or can you keep going?” Aurora asked, concentrating on the mission and looking at the corpses, she muttered. “The next place will be the cliffs we will use to collapse the whole area with creatures in it... As it is going to be far, the number will increase and we all need to be in the best condition.”

They had checked the area to prepare the battle plan with no problems or mishaps, and the next area was an ideal place to take down several creatures.

They had prepared for that spot, just as Urfin had prepared to go to the wooded area.

The terrain had to be used to accomplish the mission, and now they were about to do it.

Still, the priority was to verify that everyone was in the best possible condition, as everyone’s support was needed.

“I’m fine,” Cédric said, and Dan nodded at his side.

For the last time Marius also nodded, albeit a little late.

“If so, then let’s go,” Aurora said earnestly.

She did not wish to be left behind in supporting others.

******

Marius looked deep into the cliff.

It was like a deep wound stretching off into the distance, the end of which could not be seen, even if he concentrated hard enough.

Now they were in that cliff area and it was Dan who stood at the edge of the cliff near the precipice, waiting for the enemies.

The idea was to lure the creatures to that spot and collapse it so that they would all fall deep into that crevasse.

They had artifacts to fly or, in Aurora’s case, her boots created platforms to keep her up, but not all monsters and creatures had that same ability, which made it a good plan.

The cliff was large and stretched into the distance, so they could use this trick quite a few times.

Adding that he had a wand capable of casting the ‘earthquake’ spell at the level of an S-rank earth archmage, it was a perfect plan.

Too perfect...

Marius observed his companion who were hidden in some vines he had created with his nature magic.

He was the former vice leader of the guild, ‘The Custodians’, the guild he currently led.

Why did Cedric survive?

Marius asked himself that question in his mind and his heart felt like it was bleeding out.

Surviving was the least of it, but the worst was... Why did he change?

Cédric Garreau was an arrogant and extremely ambitious bastard who, together with the now dead former leader, managed to put the guild ‘The Custodians’ in the highest position in Romania.

It was to the point that they had some control in the politics of that country.

They did a lot of dirty and illegal tricks... Political assassination, eliminating their competitors and even accusing politicians of crimes they did not commit or using the secrets of other guilds in their favor.

Cédric was the main mind for such affairs and he was so ambitious that he didn’t care about the methods and was only interested in the results.

This meant that he made deals with demons to achieve his goals, and for Marius, it was perfect.

Such tactics managed to bring the guild The Custodians to the first place in terms of prestige, power and authority.

But now, after appearing and showing that he was alive, he wanted to change... That arrogant and ambitious bastard who had secretly ruined hundreds of lives wanted to change by revealing all his misdeeds.

Marius tried to hold the rancor so that it wouldn’t come out, and he succeeded.

Still, inside he was burning.

Of all the things that could have happened... Why did he survive?

If Cedric had stayed dead, then things wouldn’t have to get to this point and there would be no problem.

Reveal the secrets? Pay for his misdeeds?

He was a stupid idiot who only thought of himself, then, and now it was the same.

When he paid for his misdeeds, not only himself would suffer, but many guild members and especially Marius.

He had taken the leadership of the guild The Custodians surfed between politicians who wished to bring them down and other guilds who wished to eliminate the guild, keeping dirty deals, all so that now this idiot would come wanting to be a good person.

“Are you all right?” Cédric asked earnestly as he noticed his gaze was on him, when Marius nodded, he pointed. “Well, you have to keep your focus. Aurora and Dan will be the main forces, but you have to know when to move.”

His tone was bossy, as if it was actually like before when he was leading the guild and where he commanded everyone.

Did he change?

No, he hadn’t changed. He was still the same bastard aiming somewhere else.

Still, Marius did as he always did to survive in such environments.

“I understand,” He replied in a subservient tone.

Hiding behind a mask and hating all people was his best tactic, and it worked perfectly, just as it did now.

“The monsters are coming.” Cédric muttered earnestly, feeling the earth tremble.

Dan, at the tip of the cliff, also stood ready with several arrows in his quiver and after a few minutes from the wooded area, Aurora came running.

It was not at such a fast speed, but it was fast enough to attract the creatures and monsters.

From the forest the monsters began to come out in large numbers, attracted by that young woman wanting to destroy everything in their path.

Some grotesque abominations were among them charging as they crushed their companions.

*BOOM*

Arrows flew by Dan, living up to his title, ‘Swift Burst’.

These arrows were not simply fast, but powerful enough to penetrate the flesh of monsters, and sometimes they were destructive.

Some arrows were magical, creating elemental explosions, freezing or burning the ground and monsters.

Other arrows had tremendous penetrating power, piercing several creatures at the same time, and they all traveled fast.

Then, when Aurora reached where Dan was, she stopped and turned around.

A translucent, colorless aura surrounded her sword and she swung her sword, creating a deep slash that split the air and the creatures next to the trees farthest away.

“GRAAA!”

The battle began and Aurora moved, swinging her sword with a green aura that struck all the enemies it was aimed at.

For his part, Cedric moved using his nature magic as hidden as he could to trap the monsters and give him time to be killed by the duo.

First, they were going to take out as many monsters as possible before collapsing part of the cliff.

Marius took a deep breath and also moved by performing two strong spells on Dan and Aurora that helped them increase their reflexes and reaction speed.

Now he could understand the reason why Urfin had selected that young lady as the leader, her strength was remarkable.

Aurora had a great speed that sometimes seemed to ‘blink’, but her strength and endurance were not far behind, being able to resist onslaughts from abominations and using her sword to create powerful cuts in a simple way.

As if that wasn’t enough, her sword aura was strange, with multiple types, allowing her to attack overwhelmingly fast and accurate and even defend herself.

Her red aura was able to pierce through the flesh and skin of creatures with some ease... She was too strong an opponent and even though she looked young; she had experience and strong instincts.

A very difficult opponent.

The battle continued and Marius continued to cast his spells on Aurora and Dan, who were the two main attacking forces.

The noise, the grunts, the smell of blood and corpses attracted more monsters and among them, several S-rank abominations.

Since the final part where Dan and Aurora were had shrunk, the battle was only possible with a few enemies, but the monsters wanted to devour the two and didn’t mind trying to climb over the corpses

“It’s time,” Cédric muttered as he hurried.

Marius took a deep breath and moved forward to accompany Cédric closely until they reached the back of those abominations.

The first thing Cédric did was to bend down to touch the earth, managing to make it tremble as the roots rose up to attack the abominations from behind.

On the other side, Aurora and Dan used their ‘blink’ to move away into the emptiness of the cliff, waiting their turn.

Marius watched Cedric’s back with his wand in his hand.

The plan was going perfectly, and it was possible that they would finish it successfully.

Then the next thing would be to meet up and go to the portal to get out of this place, but once they got out Cédric would reveal everything and everyone in the guild would go to prison... Marius included in the list.

Would he accept it? Would he accept this stupidity?

No.

Since the guild members on the expedition did not return, Marius had been working in the guild and had even been making deals with demons and even helping them commit crimes.

If he was investigated, it would reveal his relationship with Demon Lord Pezak, with whom he had worked helping him to bring the goblins avoiding the authorities.

No, not only that, but it would be revealed that in some way he was part of the demonic attack perpetrated by Arminius Petra and in which he ended up with many innocent people dead.

No matter how much he hid using all kinds of artifacts, the one who helped Pezak to take the goblins was Marius and everyone would find out when a thorough and meticulous investigation would be carried out.

Would he leave this place to end up locked up?

No... He would at least try to live well and if he had to get his hands dirty for that, he would.

Pulling out his wand, Marius first looked at Aurora and Dan, who were attacking the abominations to incite them to jump and cast his most dangerous spells hidden in a healing spell.

Covering damaging spells in healing was his specialty, and that he did.

The first spell caused profound dizziness and disorientation, at the same time, unbeknownst to both of them, he was trying to cause as much organism failure as possible.

The second one accumulated with the ‘beneficial’ spells he had cast earlier, causing reflexes and reaction speed to fail because of the continuous effect.

Healing mages were fearsome and now was the test, as both Aurora and Dan staggered into the air.

“What... UGhh...”

Before Cedric could react seeing the two attacking members shaking in the air strangely, Marius, with his wand of earth magic, expelled an S-ranked spear from behind piercing through Cedric’s chest, killing him on the spot.

In the distance, he could see Dan vomiting blood as one of his organs suddenly failed and unlike the archer, Aurora resisted and revealed a look full of disbelief.

By her look she was half dazed and half recovering. Maybe the failure in her senses was too high, but the fact that she was still conscious showed the strength of her body.

However, Marius didn’t care and using the spear that had pierced Cédric sent his body into the monsters that ended up tearing him apart.

“Grrahh!”

With the snarl of the beasts and monsters ripping the body to shreds, Marius pointed his wand back at the duo in the distance and cast all of his saved spells.

The first were rock spears that Aurora, with her light blue aura, tried to defend as she struggled to escape the effects on her body, but then came a mighty rock that hit with a great force.

When a strange white aura was surrounding the body of both, Marius finished his other spell in secret.

It had all been as fast as possible.

“GRRAHAHHH!”

The roars of the monsters and abominations turned sinister as Marius caused those creatures to enter a state similar to ‘night frenzy’.

His spell was to enhance the instincts, generating an overdose of adrenaline that drove the monsters mad, leading them to go into a frenzy.

The spell was the best method for a last hurrah and now the affected monsters leapt towards Dan and Aurora.

One hit the fighter, sending her slamming into the wall on the other side and another caught Dan in mid-air.

They had methods of flight, but now that their senses were either dulled or overly stimulated and the difficulty in reacting was enormous.

The monsters began to leap in pursuit and Marius, without stopping, cast his best spell on his wand... Earthquake.

“GRahh!”

*BOOM*

The monsters that were about to attack him fell as the cliff broke, sending huge boulders crashing down to hit the monsters and the fallen duo.

Not holding back, Marius flew to the other side of the cliff and used that same spell again until his wand was completely exhausted.

The millions he had spent for the wand were worth it today... At that thought, Marius laughed.

“Haha...”

Looking deep into the cliff where monsters could no longer be seen and where debris began to fall in a terrifying manner, as if it could bury all that were falling, Marius laughed with glee.

“...”

Then came the realization that this was the beginning... And he sighed at the fact that there was still a more difficult part to go.

Maybe the situations of those two were iffy, but he was done with who his target was and that was that.

He did it as fast as possible and in the best way, managing to hit the three by surprise, but there was still one more to go.

******

The expressions of the group were totally and completely serious.

Night was coming, and the silence at the meeting point was eerie.

“You haven’t been able to contact them?” Adala asked Alros who was trying to call using the communication crystal.

“No, Cédric had the communication crystal, but it’s still not responding...” Replied Alros with a serious expression.

The silence grew more terrifying and in the middle there was a rustling of a bag of chips.

Urfin looked at Alice, whose expression could not be deciphered, and even though he knew Aurora better, he knew that young woman was slowly upset.

Everyone made clear the schedule for leaving the missions and meeting at the rendezvous point, trying to arrive at a certain time before dark.

The first fifteen minutes after arriving were understood, but now that they were taking more than half an hour was giving the feeling that maybe... Things didn’t go well.

However, Alice was slowly losing her cool to the situation, and that she was playing with the bag of chips, making it crunch, only showed that her mental state was not good.

At that moment, sounds started to be heard from far away and monsters started to arrive, chasing a figure.

Everyone’s expressions changed, but Alros and Amanda reacted quickly by heading forward to take down the monsters.

Theodore approached Marius, who had severe wounds on his body.

Blood was all over his clothes, and his expression was pale and fearful.

“What happened?” Alice asked with a cold expression and voice.

There was surprise in the group at her question. It was clear she didn’t care about Marius’ condition and only cared about one person in that group.

“Everyone... Have died.”