Fantasia
Arc1: Battle of villages
Chapter3: Ardneria collapses
And so Luffine the sage of Ardneria engaged in a fight against Ramusus the young sage of Sumeria, started by few weapon clashes, but it seems that both of the combatants were equal, each move was countered firmly; a slash from Ramusus is guarded by Luffine's hammer, the latter passed some of his magic power to his weapon making the sledge grow larger, to deliver a heavy blunt to the Sumerian king, but his reflexions were sharp that he turned himself into mist before being hit.
"Not bad, kid" Luffine complimented his foe.
"You too…for an old man" Ramusus said, then he sheathed his rapier, "Now why don't we let go of this old style and act seriously!" he added before clapping his hands that started to glow in blue shining aura.
And in a flash the young sage released a volley of ice lances that surrounded the older one, who covered himself in a red sphere of magic power, which caused the ice to evaporate in mere seconds.
Ramusus didn't miss the chance and used this moment to attack the old sage with an ice charged fist, the punch pinned Luffine to a pillar nearby, and the water king approached his defeated foe insulting him:
"Aged flame eater! Say hi to father on the other size!" as he pulled his rapier then rapidly returning it "No…not yet I still need you" and so he grabbed the fire sage from the collar, suddenly he smelled some strange scent similar to that of sulfur, making the body of Luffine explode.
The smoke is lifted, and from it Ramusus emerged, with few flips he regained his balance, and turned to see that his enemy didn't get hurt.
"You used an explosive lava clone, heh…how deceiving!" the young warrior said.
"It pains me to hurt an old friend's son like you, but this is the end lad!" Luffine said as he started to draw a magic formula –similar to his clan's symbol- in the air, causing a huge fiery rock sphere to materialize above the water sage.
Just before the collision, Ramusus casted a freezing spell that destroyed the fire magic, but he wasn't aware that he was surrounded by a strong magic barrier created earlier by his enemy while he was distracted.
"This is your last chance lad, I don't want to see blood in the last days of my life, please give up! Don't make me regret doing this to my dear friend's son" Luffine said.
Ramusus smiled a little bit, then he materialized some waving blob, "Have you noticed?" he said then added: "I inherited almost everything from my father, except his sense of justice!" before summoning a young woman inside that blob, she was around seventeen years old, with flowing black hair, and handsome face, wearing a long scarlet red dress and a noticeable ruby as a necklace.
"Yera!" the old sage shouted.
"Some indeedly beautiful granddaughter you have here uncle Luffine, alas she is about to be incinerated by her grand-daddy's spell, or is she?" the water sage said with an evil grin.
"Release her now! This battle is between us two!" Luffine shouted with anger.
"I never liked fair play myself especially with someone of a different tribe!" said Ramusus calmly.
"Don't you dare lay your dirty hand on her!" the enraged sage threatened.
But Ramusus pulled a small ice dagger and pointed it to the hostage's neck saying: "Things don't go like this uncle, you should say something like please, I'll do anything to release my dear Yera".
The old sage calmed down and leaned his head a little bit asking: "What is it you want? Is it the land?".
"Land?" Ramusus asked, "Hahaha…you think I came here for this stupid piece of land? How naive!" he added with a smirk.
Luffine closed his fist tightly asking: "Then why would you sacrifice your clansmen like this?"
"Yusseir's Judgment, that sums my goal of attacking your land!" the water sage answered confidently.
"Idiot!" Luffine shouted at his enemy, then he added: "Asking for such powerful monstrous magic is forbidden, this spell is entrusted to our tribe for a millennium by the great Zheinian brothers, I can't let that magic fell into the wrong hands!".
"Wrong?! Let me get this correct, you say that low flame eaters like you deserve that powerful magic more than the noble clan that's directly descend from the younger brother!"
And within his hesitation on either give the magic or not, the silence was broken by Yera's shouting at her old man: "Gramps! Never! Never give these bastards our treasure, it's a symbol that we are righteous and they are the one who have to bow before us! It's our prid…" before she was choked and passed out by water released from the water mage's hand.
"She had a quite strong personality, she'd make a great maid for me" Ramusus said before turning toward the old sage: "Now either it's your Yera, or Yusseir's Judgment, you choose in three, two, time out!" the Sumerian leader said as he pointed his dagger to the girl's neck.
"Yera!" the old man shouted while running toward his granddaughter, but a water copy of Ramusus has materialized behind him to lock his head in a water sphere, that made him vomit an orange liquid from his mouth: "What in blazes is this?!" Luffine asked.
"Oh that is called water element's version of magic crusher, it forces all the magic energy in your body to leak…literally, leaving you nothing but an old geezer!" Ramusus explained his technique.
Luffine started to loose his balance as he kneeled trying to catch his breathes, his enemy delivered a powerful kick that made him fall unconscious.
And so the water sage grabbed the old man from the collar and raised him in the air, casting a hologram projecting spell that can be seen from the village where the Ardnerian were watching their leader getting defeated.
"Hear my words low beastmen! Today is a great day for Sumeria! Today we witness the fall of Ardneria and rise of the new rulers of both the sea and the land! Bow before your new king low flame eaters!" were Ramusus' words announcing the slavery of the Ardnerians.
"What the hell?! We ain't surrendering to those fish suckers!" Roné shouted.
"Ronél my boy I believe we have nothing we can do!" Rocux said while pulling his sons back.
Juan on the other hand felt so much fear witnessing the ragons descending from the ice golem, destroying houses, taking prisoners of anyone they find; women, kids, old people, only a small group of beastmen managed to escape in order to come up with a proper plan to restore their land back.
Two days passed, Rocux and some fighters of Ardneria were gathered in a camp near the northern borderlines of their village, attempting to organize a rebelling force:
"I believe if we gathered all our fire magic we'll manage to destroy their ice golem, and with this their village we'll collapse on the ground, making an opening to us" a beastman suggested..
"It's no use" Juan said in a shy accent.
"What are you talking about li'l boy? our fire magic always was the best offense against their ice!" the beastman asked the young man.
"I know that but their golem is molded with their sage's magical flow, so no matter how much we attack it will restore itself automatically leaving us opened to be attacked" Juan explained his opinion.
"The kid's right, we should think of something more clever than just our regular hit and run" Rocux added.
"Then we should take some hostages, I'm sure there're some ragons we can defeat at our village and with them we can exchange for our families!" another man suggested.
"That won't work too" Rocux said.
"Truly, we've seen that he was ready to blast his men with ice cannon if lord Luffine wasn't there to save us all, he doesn't think of his clan as we do" Juan added.
Suddenly a fire burst exploded in the sky Juan recognized it to be his brother Roné's sign so he headed toward it as quick as he could, and there he met his brother who captured and tied a young male ragon.
-He was tall as it with all his clan, long black hair combed like a braid, a rectangular face with small dark eyes, pointy nose, with a noticeable small vertical scar on the right cheek, he was wearing, a necklace made of pearls and shark teeth, a tight short dark blue shirt that only covers his chest, a tight short dark green pants covered with a piece of black cloth that goes down from his waist to reach the level of his knees, marked with his clan symbol.-
"Bro! Bro! I caught this bastard trying to spy on us!" Roné said to Juan while trying to catch his breaths.
"Really? He doesn't seem to be that sort of people" Juan said while looking sharply to the ragon.
"Dude! Your bro's right! I came here to help you!" the ragon said while trying to free himself, but he was punched by Roné who threatened him by setting fire on his fist.
"Calm down Roné, maybe he really wants to help us" Juan calmed his brother.
"Blah! C'mon Juan! you can't be that sissy!" Roné yelled at his brother.
"Juan?...are you Juan Rocux?!" the young ragon asked.
"Yes that's me, do I know you?" Juan asked as well.
"Dude it's me Zolu, Zolu Kura!" the ragon answered revealing his identity.
To be continued
