Chapter 10: Tau King Shauta

Kana's voice overwhelmed me to the point that I could not hear the sounds of birds or even our own footsteps anymore. A day had passed since our detour with Keraha and ever since the new day began, nothing but complaints escaped Kana's lips. Despite Seria trying to calm her down and talk to her, Kana kept complaining on how far away Grakqarak is. Kana's ramblings began to get on my nerves as we continued trekking through Grand Flores and it did not seem like she would be quiet anytime soon.

"Ugh, Grakqarak is so far! Feels like I have been walking for days!" Kana complained as she slowly flew in the air next to me, keeping up with my brisk pace.

"Um, it's only been a day and you're not really walking…" Seria piped up.

"Then it feels like I've been flying for days! So exhausting…" Kana continued to rant, lowering her head to get the point across that she was tired.

"Alright Kana, we get it. We all know you're tired so quit complaining. It's quite distracting." I stated, feeling a bit vexed at Kana's words. I knew Kana loved to talk, but I never knew she loved to complain so much. If I knew she was going to do nothing but making disgruntled statements, I would have left her with Pungjin.

My thoughts were interrupted as I heard some nearby rustling. I quickly stopped and looked around, trying to pinpoint where the rustling was coming from. Apparently Kana did not notice me as she kept floating forward, griping about everything. Grubeck and Seria saw me and tilted their heads in curiosity, "Something the matter? You see something?" Grubeck curiously asked as he adjusted his glasses slightly.

"Yeah, I thought I heard something…" I said, pausing for a few moments, waiting for whatever was in the undergrowth to jump out at us. I let out a breath of relief as nothing happened and it seemed that the rustling had stopped, "Guess it's nothing. We should continue onwards."

Just as I thought everything was clearing up, dozens of red goblins jumped out of the bushes, giving us their usual wicked smiles. These goblins had small flames dancing around their fingers, which gave me the impression that they had the ability to control fire. Kana quickly looked up and around her, completely awake now that these goblins had us surrounded. As I should have expected, both Seria and Grubeck moved in closer to me, hoping I would be able to protect them once again. I clenched my fists and glared at the goblins. They outnumbered us, but I had confidence that I would be able to take them.

I was getting ready to launch my assault on the goblins when I heard a familiar laugh echo throughout the area; it was the same exact laugh I heard from Keraha. I turned around only to find another woman floating in front of us. She was dressed similar to Keraha, but wore red instead of blue and her eyes shone a ferocious yellow. Like Keraha, she carried a wooden staff within her hands and a cruel smile plastered upon her face. I remember Grubeck mentioned her the other day; she was probably Binoche, Keraha's sister.

"Tremble fools! For I am Binoche of the flame and I will turn you all to ash for trespassing in my territory!" The woman called out to us as flames began to slowly dance around the end of her staff.

I sighed at Binoche's words, I really did not want to fight her as I still wanted to get to where Shauta was so I could beat him and end my training. It looked as if Binoche was not going to give me any choice, so there was only one thing left for me to do. I quickly ran over to Binoche and before she could react, I planted my left fist into the right side of her face, hurling her across the forest floor. Snarling at me, she quickly got up and began hovering above the ground like before. Her menacing eyes glared at me with furious intensity, showing off her anger.

"You..! How dare you! You'll burn for that!" Binoche roared as she pointed her staff at me. A large fireball formed at the tip of her staff and quickly shot towards me. Unflinching, I quickly formed a ball of air with my hands and hurled it at the fire. As soon as the air collided with the fireball, the fireball quickly dissipated as Binoche looked at me with shocked eyes.

Not wasting a single second, I jumped towards Binoche and slammed my right foot into her left side, causing her to fly into a nearby tree, smacking it with a loud thud. The goblins surrounding us kept giving each other worried looks, looking afraid as if Binoche would actually lose. Binoche continued to growl at me as she got back up to her feet. I was quite surprised that she able to still get up after getting hit those two times. Much to her credit, I had to say that she was definitely built of tougher stuff than her sister.

Binoche continued to glower at me as she slowly rose up into the air. Her scowl quickly turned into a wicked smile as she flew higher into the air and pointed her staff straight ahead, far above our heads and fired a few fireballs into the depths of the forest. Kana looked questioningly at the direction of the fireballs and scoffed at what she believed was Binoche's attempt to fight me, "Ha, you idiot! We're down here! You completely missed us!" Kana mocked.

Binoche returned to ground level and continued to smile at me. I had no idea what she was planning and her smile was beginning to make me feel a bit uneasy, "You're much stronger than I thought, so let us settle this later when I'm more prepared." Binoche stated.

Her words surprised me, I half expected her to continue charging at me until I finally beat her into the ground. Even so, I still did not want to let her go since I did not know what sort of trouble she would cause for me if she was allowed to roam free at the moment. It seemed as I had some support as Grubeck kept calling out from behind me, "Finish her! Don't let her escape!"

I knew what I had to do and quickly charged at Binoche. She simply smiled and with a wave of her staff, a huge wall of fire separated us. I stopped right in my tracks, not wanting to singe my body as Binoche quickly vanished from the scene and the goblins scurried off in various directions figuring since Binoche could not beat me, they did not stand a chance. Despite being surrounded by ever so flammable trees, the fire died down quickly and nothing really caught on fire. I was curious about this, but there were a lot of things about this forest I still did not understand and would be probably best to leave it that way.

I sighed and returned back to Grubeck, Seria, and Kana and shook my head slightly at the event that just happened, "Geez, his forest is filled with nothing but people and creatures who want you dead… guess I shouldn't have hoped for this to be a peaceful journey." I commented as I began walking past them, eager to continue marching forward.

"Why didn't you finish her? You should have!" Grubeck stated as he looked at me, then at the area where Binoche fled then quickly at me again with a wild expression.

"Why, what's the point? Did you see how Archnir fought her? She's nothing compared to him! If she appears again, Archnir will beat her with no trouble at all!" Kana gleefully announced, seemingly impressed by my strength.

"It's not that… it's just that it's trouble for her to wander loose around the forest. We don't want another huge fire to happen here…" Seria said timidly as she was the first to begin following me as I walked off.

"Oh, so there was a fire here long ago? Did she cause it?" I asked, curious at Seria's statement.

"Um, no, she didn't. Nobody knows what caused it. It was this huge fire that decimated almost all of Grand Flores and wiped out almost all of the elves. It destroyed our homeland and the once proud capital of the elves was quickly burned down." Seria continued in her timid voice, as if she was afraid to recall such events.

There was one thing she stated that bugged me, "Wait, our homeland? Is there something you're not telling us?" I asked, curious as to what Seria meant by stating that fact.

Seria was taken aback from my words, as if she had no idea what I was talking about, "Wait, what? Did I really say that? Oh, I'm sorry… I don't know why I said that, it just slipped…" Seria mumbled timidly.

"Really now?" I asked suspiciously. Seria definitely knew more than she was telling us and I wanted to know everything. Why did she state 'our' since she was clearly human and not an elf? Seria did say she had amnesia so perhaps it had something to do before she lost her memory. I sighed and continued walking, hoping that everything would become clearer as time went on.

"Well, in any case we should find this Binoche after defeating Shauta so we can prevent another huge fire since you all say it was quite catastrophic!" Kana exclaimed.

Just as Kana finished speaking, a large bull-like creature standing on its hind legs and carrying a huge axe burst through the foliage ahead and charged right at us. I saw the creature hurling itself at us and quickly grabbed it and hurled it several feet away, causing it smash into some large bushes, "Those are taus! We must be close to their base!" Grubeck announced, his voice shaking slightly.

Several more taus came crashing through the foliage and into the area, grunting and brandishing their large axes towards us. They did not hesitate for a second as they swung their axes with great might, trying to cut me down. I dodged the axes with ease and whenever I saw an opening, I took it by grabbing any tau nearby and hurling it at others. There were so many as they kept charging into the area and I was confused on why so many were here. It suddenly dawned on me; the fireballs Binoche fired earlier into the forest were actually a signal for the taus to come over here. She had counted on them to see the fire and charge in our direction.

I did not have time to think now; I needed to concentrate on defeating these taus and defending myself. Much to my horror, I heard one of the taus call out to me, "Stop fighting against us! If you keep fighting, we'll kill your friends here!" I turned towards the direction of the voice with great worry and saw a few taus holding Grubeck, Seria, and Kana with their axes pointed at them.

Damn, I should have been protecting them and not just fighting for myself! I thought angrily to myself as I angrily glared at the taus holding my friends captive.

Grubeck and Seria were compliant with the taus and did not struggle against their captors, but Kana struggled with all her might and tried pointing her gun at them, but they had a firm grip on it. Kana kept hollering at them, but all her words were all in vain as the taus did not seem to care one bit.

"What's your choice? Give up or we'll kill them!" The tau roared at me.

I looked around trying to think of what I could do now in this sort of situation. Only one option came into my mind and I did not hesitate to take it. I jumped up into the tree branches above and ran across them away from the scene, leaving everyone behind. Seria and Kana looked at me with shocked expressions as I left them in the hands of the taus.

I'm sorry everyone, I'm just not strong enough… if I keep fighting now, you'll only get killed… please forgive me as I must go and think of a plan to rescue you all first. I thought bitterly to myself as I ran off. I hated the thought of doing something as despicable as running away, but what other choice did I have?

"So you're running away again… when your friends are about to die you just flee." A sinister voice rang throughout my head. It was just like the voice I heard in my nightmares; it was the voice of Bakal.

"Heh, not that I should be surprised or anything. You did run away from me and your brothers after all. You're leaving your friends to die at the hands of your enemies, just like you did with me." Bakal's voice cackled.

"I'm not running! I just need to formulate a plan! Now get out of my head!" I yelled while still charging blindly through the trees.

"You could have taken them and rescued your friends, but you didn't. You're nothing but a weakling Archnir. You'll never be special if you keep running." Bakal's voice continued to taunt me in my head.

I could not take it anymore; I did not want to hear this voice berate me any longer as it was finally starting to get to me. Tears began to slowly swell up within my eyes at the thought of being weak and at the thought of running away. What was I doing? I should not run, but instead I should stand up and fight. Then again, here I was running from everything like I did when I time traveled with Kana. Just as these thoughts began to penetrate into the very fabric of my fragile mind, an unforeseen tree branch popped up out of nowhere and smacked me right in the face, sending me plummeting down to the ground with a loud thud. Everything then began to darken as the voice within my head began to fade off into nothingness.

My consciousness began to return to me as my eyes struggled to open. A huge green blur in front of me began to slowly focus and take the shape of the hundreds of trees surrounding me. A bit dazed, I sat up and scratched my head, wondering what exactly happened.

"Ah, you're finally awake. You've been out for about an hour." A voice said. I quickly turned to my left and saw a man sitting against a log. The man was tanned all over and wore a grey sleeveless shirt, which revealed his large muscles. He had a red cape draped around his shoulders and a large sword attached to his back. The man had dreadlocks pulled into some sort of ponytail and a sly expression on his face.

I glared at the strange man, wondering just who he was and whether or not he was an enemy. The man leaned back on his log and chuckled a little after receiving my glare, "Ha ha, don't worry, I'm not an enemy if that's what you're thinking. I just saw you passed out in the middle of the forest floor and decided to sit here and wait until you came to."

"Who are you?" I asked sternly. I still did not trust this man as he could be lying to me for all I knew.

"I'm Gabriel and I'm a treasure hunter. I wander all across Arad looking for anything of value. What about you?" Gabriel asked as he leaned in closer and looked me over, "You're a dragonoid, right? Quite a long ways away from Sky Tower, aren't you?"

"Erm, actually I didn't come from Sky Tower." I began, but stopped myself shortly. I did not want to reveal so much information to this man I just met.

"Oh really? Where you from then?" Gabriel asked as he continued to look me over inquisitively. I did not answer his question as I only stared at the ground at my feet, "Ah, it's alright. You don't need to tell me if you don't want to. It ultimately doesn't matter where we all came from, right?" Gabriel leaned back against the log and laughed to himself again.

I sighed and continued to stare at the ground; I felt so ashamed at myself for running. Was the voice right? Was I really just a coward and I was only saying I would come up with a plan as an excuse to run away from a situation that seemed hopeless? My thoughts were shaken from my head as Gabriel began talking to me once more, "Looks like you've got a lot on your mind. Need to talk it over with someone?"

I shot Gabriel a glare, which he only responded with a sigh, "Guess not. Why divulge personal information with someone you just met, right? But you know, talking about things really eases up the chest, even if it's talking with someone you just met." Gabriel pointed out.

I do not know why, but Gabriel's words stuck to me as I timidly looked at him reclining against the log, "I just… I ran away from a fight I probably could have won while my friends were captured…" I began speaking. I did not know why I suddenly felt like saying everything to this man. For some reason Gabriel emitted a strange calming aura around him, which seemed to make me feel like I could tell him anything.

"Oh-ho! Now you decide to talk!" Gabriel said as he sat back up after I grabbed his attention with my words, "Well, why aren't you going back and fighting then?"

"I… I don't know. I guess I'm a little afraid." I said timidly, still wondering why I was telling Gabriel all of this information.

"Listen here, in order to fight for something you truly want to protect, you cannot be afraid, or at the very least not show any fear." Gabriel began explaining to me with a stern, yet calming voice, "If you simply run away, then there's doubt somewhere in your mind about protecting them. It's up to you to clear all doubt and stand up and fight. Are you afraid that you're weak; that you'll lose? None of that matter if you're trying to protect your friends or something important to you."

I looked at Gabriel as he spoke. He was right as I was putting my own silly fears ahead of my friends. Even back in Empyrean, I put my weakness before my duty and fled from the invaders, which would result in the end of Bakal's life. This was not the time to be constantly worrying about my own faults as I had other people to protect. I stood up triumphantly from the forest floor and looked in the direction I originally came from.

"You're right. I need to save them. Why am I wasting my time here, worrying about my weakness? I need to overcome it in order to save them. Thanks Gabriel, you allowed me to see that." I said with confidence. I do not know what came over me just now; it felt like a newfound power was surging throughout me.

I was about to head off when Gabriel let out a loud laugh, "Ha ha, you're welcome. I didn't expect my words to have such a profound effect on you! By the way, I didn't catch your name."

I turned to look at Gabriel, who was smiling eagerly at me, "I'm Archnir."

"Archnir, huh? Well, guess I'll be seeing you sometime in the future then. I highly doubt this will be the last time we meet." Gabriel stated with satisfaction, "Oh, before you go, there's one more thing I should probably tell you. Be careful around these parts at night. There's an area close to here that's teeming with ghostly horrors at night."

I smiled and nodded, "I'll try to keep that in mind. Thanks Gabriel and I hope that we do meet again someday." I said with a smile as I took off into the forest.

I needed to find where the taus were stationed, as they no doubt had some sort of village or base somewhere within the forest. I jumped high into the trees and ran along their thick branches towards the direction I originally came from. I needed to enter discretely or else they might actually kill everyone.

After running through the branches for a few minutes, I came across a large open area within the forest with several small huts within the clearing. I stopped and looked around and made out several taus walking around the village. No doubt my friends were being held in one of the huts and it was only a matter of time until I figured out which one they were in. I looked below me and saw a single tau standing guard around the village's perimeter, brandishing his large axe, looking for intruders.

I quickly and quietly made my way down to the tau and wrapped my arm around his neck and covered his mouth with my free arm, "Quiet. If you make any noise I'll snap your neck." I whispered to the tau. The beast's neck was extremely muscular, but I had confidence in my strength that I would be able to pull off that kind of feat with no problem.

"You! You're the one who ran away earlier!" The tau exclaimed quietly. To my relief the tau actually listened to me and did not try to struggle against my grip.

"I want my friends back. Where are you keeping them?" I asked sternly as I constantly looked around the area, hoping no more taus would come close and spot me.

"They're in that hut over there." The tau said as he pointed to a hut deeper within the village, "Now unhand me!"

I let the tau go, only to give him a quick jab to the neck, causing him to fall over unconscious. I dragged the tau's limp body into the forest before heading out into the village. Thankfully there were not many taus walking around and I had an easy time actually getting to the hut the tau pointed out. I reached the hut and slowly began walking towards the door after making sure there were no taus in the immediate area. Just as I reached the door, a huge tau burst through the door, with his head and horns pointed directly at me. I quickly jumped out of the way as the tau dashed forward and quickly stopped before colliding with another hut.

Unlike the other taus, this one had black skin and flowing red hair, as all the other taus usually had grey or tan skin with no hair at all. This tau was missing part of his right horn and golden skull ornaments handing from his ears. The tau brandished a huge axe as he turned to face me and snarled, "So you must be the one that escaped earlier. You fools have no right to enter our territory! Not after what happened all those years ago!" The tau angrily roared at me.

I did not quite understand what the tau meant, but he seemed to be a tau of great importance, just by looking at him. I took a quick looked behind me inside the hut he just ran out of and saw a large metal cage with Seria, Grubeck, and Kana inside. I noticed Kana was missing her large gun, guessing that the taus managed to remove it and placed it somewhere within the hut.

"I am the great Tau King Shauta! I will not allow your kind to cause trouble here! The penalty for your trespassing is death!" The tau shouted at me as he charged at me, swinging his axe wildly at me.

Shauta was faster than the taus I encountered earlier, but I still had an easy time evading his blows. Other taus within the village began to gather around, watching the fight between Shauta and me. It seemed they just wanted to watch and let Shauta fight, which was fine by me as it meant less opponents to worry about. I managed to grab Shauta's arm and hurled him to the ground with a loud thud. Shauta got up and merely shook it off. Due to his huge muscle mass, it seemed that I would not be able to take Shauta down as easily as I was able to take down all the other opponents I faced with Grand Flores.

Shauta kept swinging his axe and charging at me whenever he got the chance, trying to impale me on his horns, but I did well in dodging his assaults. I took advantage of any openings I saw and grabbed or hit Shauta whenever the chance arose. It did not help that Shauta's body was so burly that it was tough to land a blow that actually hurt him. Every chance I got, I took a quick glance into the hut where my friends were being kept. They were eagerly watching the fight, hoping I would prevail.

I already landed several blows onto Shauta and not one of his attacks had hit their mark. I could tell I was slowly wearing down Shauta, but our fight was quickly interrupted as flames began appearing around the village. Taus began running frantically around the village, yelling out, "The red witch is here! She has come!"

I quickly deduced that this red witch was none other than Binoche who had come to cause havoc in the village. It was my guess that she was going to try and snuff me out while I fought Shauta. Shauta did not let the burning village detour him from our fight as he continued to attack me, trying to land a hit.

More flames erupted around the village, engulfing huts and turning the entire area into an inferno. Binoche shortly came into view, flying above the huts and looking down upon us. She smiled wickedly at me as she watched me fight Shauta. Much to my horror, I then noticed the hut that my friends were being held in was on fire. In the brief moment of realizing that I needed to rescue my friends now was the moment Shauta actually hit me with his axe, causing a shallow slice across my chest. I jumped back in the nick of time and hurled myself towards the flaming hut. Shauta hurled his axe at me and it caught my scarf, pinning it to the burning hut. I struggled to pull my scarf free, but the axe had pinned it down very tightly, making it not budge an inch when I tried pulling it.

Taking advantage of my helplessness, Shauta lowered his head down so that his horn was pointed directly at me and charged. I quickly jumped in the air, over Shauta as he smashed right into the hut, causing the whole wall to collapse. My scarf was freed and I managed to land back down onto the ground as Shauta emerged from the wreckage and grabbed his axe. The collapsing of the whole wall caused the fire to spread even quicker throughout the hut, throwing Kana and Grubeck into a fit of panic. I saw that Kana noticed her gun had fallen onto the floor right outside the cage and was attempting to grab it. I would have gone over to help her if I could, but Shauta refused to let me pass as he continued his barrage of axe swings.

Binoche hovered overhead, laughing at me as I kept trying to land blows on Shauta, hoping one of them would take him out as time was of the essence at the moment. The fire was spreading quicker throughout the hut and I needed to get there now if I wanted to save anyone.

"Why don't you just stand still?! You're making this much harder than it needs to be!" Shauta roared at me, while he kept swinging his axe at me as I dodged every blow.

"Sorry Shauta, but I have to end this now." I said as I hatched an idea that I hoped would take Shauta out.

I formed a ball of compressed wind within my hands and hurled it at Shauta's feet, hitting him and causing him to fall forward. I followed the attack up with a quick dash forward as I kicked Shauta in the chest with all my might, propelling him into the air. I jumped up into the air and tried wrapping my arms around Shauta's body. Manipulating the wind around us, I flipped us upside and began spinning around as we plummeted towards the ground. Before Shauta could react, I planted him headfirst into the ground with a large explosion of dirt and grass. I jumped out of the dirt cloud and saw Shauta lying down, unconscious and utterly defeated.

A fireball quickly hit me from above and I quickly danced around, causing the flames on me to quickly disappear. I looked up to find none other than Binoche who was still smiling down upon me. Binoche's fire did not bother me that much as I was used to getting burned by Ashcore during our training sessions. Besides, Ashcore's flames felt hotter than Binoche's. I quickly glanced at the burning hut where my friends were being held in and dashed towards it, as rescuing them was first priority.

Binoche cut my path off by creating a huge wall of fire in front of me. I stopped short and glared at Binoche who was smiling at me as she slowly floated down to ground level, "If you want to rescue your friends, you'll have to get through me first! You better hurry, or else you'll all be ash!" Binoche cackled.

"Like I'll let that happen! You're going down!" I yelled at Binoche. I could feel the anger swelling up within me. I had no time to lose, as my friends would all be burned to crisps within a matter of minutes if I did not do anything.

Binoche laughed at my words and hurled a few fireballs at me. I countered and hurled compressed balls of wind at the fireballs, dissipating them. I quickly saw an opening and charged at Binoche and delivered a quick kick to her left side with my left leg. Binoche tumbled across the ground and quickly got back up and pointed her staff at me, launching another fireball. To my surprise, it was not just a fireball she formed, but actually chunk of rock covered in flames. The rock hit me in the chest, pushing me back quite a distance. I flinched from the pain of having it slam into me and feeling it burn my chest, but I grabbed the rock and hurled it away into a hut next to me. I quickly looked at the flames dancing on my torso and patted them, quickly putting them out.

Binoche took to the air once more and smiled and pointed her staff at me, while shooting more flaming rocks. I could not use my wind in order to get rid of the flaming rocks so it left me no choice but to dodge. I kept dodging as Binoche laughed at me, "What's the matter? I thought you were going to take me down! I'm waiting!" Binoche called out.

I was having trouble trying to find an opening, which I could jump up and attack Binoche through the rain of flaming rocks. My mind raced furiously trying to figure out a solution to this problem as I was constantly running out of time. I then suddenly saw Kana fly up in the air above the hut and point her gun directly at Binoche. I felt so relieved that Kana actually managed to get her gun and free herself, which meant Seria and Grubeck were probably safe now as well.

"Hey Binoche! Take this!" Kana called out as she aimed her gun directly at Binoche.

Binoche noticed and tried moving out of the way as Kana fired a large laser directly at her. Binoche's face twisted into an expression of shock and anger as Kana's laser missed Binoche, but hit her staff, causing it to shatter. Seeing this as my chance, I jumped up into the air raised my foot up above Binoche. Before she had a chance to react, I planted my foot right in Binoche's face, sending her straight down to the ground. I stepped off of Binoche's limp body and looked up at Kana who was still hovering above the hut and gave her a thumbs up, signaling the end of the fight.

With extreme haste, Kana flew over to me and gave me a huge hug, crying slightly, "Oh Archnir! I thought you had abandoned us! I was so worried that you would not come back!" Kana wailed.

"Don't worry, I'm here now. Everything is alright." I said as I patted Kana's head gently. I looked around us and saw the flames growing bigger, "Um, we should do something about this fire… I assume Grubeck and Seria made it out safely though."

"Of course they're safe! Also, don't worry, I have this fire under control! Melvin added some cool things to this gun of mine!" Kana said happily as he patted her gun. Kana flew up into the air pointing her gun directly at the flames surrounding the village. Water then shot out of the barrel, putting out the fire that was currently engulfing the village. Kana flew around the entire area, putting out any fires she saw and quickly returned back to me with a large smile on her face, "Pretty handy, huh?"

"I'll say. You're a lifesaver!" I said with a smile. Kana chuckled and blushed a little at my words. Seria and Grubeck timidly emerged from behind one of the huts and approached us.

"About time you saved us! I was about to be turned into a crispy goblin if you took any longer!" Grubeck scolded me.

"Don't worry, don't worry. I was just simply trying to figure out how to rescue you all. It worked out in the end, didn't it?" I said with a small laugh.

"I'm just glad that you returned to us. Both of you saved us." Seria said as her eyes shifted between me and Kana, "I'm so happy that both of you were ready to save us without a moments thought."

Kana blushed even more at Seria's words and I gave Seria a big smile, "Well, now that this is all over with, let's beat it before the rest of the taus return here." I said, as I looked around the area, observing all the damaged huts from Binoche's flames, "Oh, that's right, I did come in here for something, didn't I?"

I walked over to Shauta's limp body and his axe, which had implanted itself into the ground next to his body. With a grunt, I pulled the hefty axe out of the ground and raised it above my head. I swung the axe down and cut Shauta's other horn off. I dropped the axe to the ground and lifted up the horn, which was surprisingly heavy despite only being a few feet long.

"Alright, I'm ready to head back. What about you guys?" I asked as I walked back to the group.

I noticed Seria was over by Binoche's body. Seria quickly got back up and ran over to us, holding a grey orb similar to the one we found Keraha carrying, "What's that? Another strange magical orb?" Grubeck inquired, trying to stand on his tippy toes in order to see the orb.

"Yes. Just as I thought, this thing was corrupting Binoche as well." Seria stated, as she looked it over carefully within her hands. Seria then looked at me and handed it over, "Could you carry this for me? I don't know why, but I feel strange if I hold it for too long… besides the other orb you're carrying doesn't seem to affect you."

"No problem." I said as I took the orb with my free hand and looked it over. It looked exactly identical to the other orb and was emitting that same strange aura that felt so familiar. Perhaps visiting this Siusha person Seria mentioned earlier would shed some light onto what exactly these orbs were. I quickly pocketed the orb and hefted the large horn onto my shoulders.

"Alright, let's be off. It's a long way back to Hendon Myre!" I said as I then took off walking out of the village.

"Finally, I'll actually be able to get some decent rest! This whole adventure has been so exhausting!" Kana complained as she followed close behind.

Seria and Grubeck gave out a small chuckle as they too followed us. This whole journey through Grand Flores was exciting and I could only guess what other adventures Arad had in store for me. If anything, Grand Flores only raised more questions that I needed to answer. Looking back at what happened earlier with my encounter with Gabriel, I realized that I was still too weak mentally and needed to become much stronger. I hoped that in due time I would become strong enough to correct what happened within the past and carve my own path forward. Until that happened, I could only imagine what was in store for me.