He could only watched as his home empire engulfed in flames. Tears ran on his face witnessing the results of his failures.

Out of the ground, several wooden crosses emerged from with burned rotting corpses nailed on each and every one of them. The dead stared at Marius with their rotted eyes in despair.

"Why won't you save us!"

"You were suppose to protect us all!"

"You promised!"

"You were our protectors! Why did you let us DIE!"

The corpses screamed at Marius with words, reminding him of his failures. Marius fell on his knees and covered his ears to blocked the horrifying voices.

Then, a figure appeared in front of him. Marius looked up and saw a centurion with black armor and a terrifying steel mask.

Fear soon gripped Marius as he could not do anything but stared at the angry centurion holding a bloodied gladius.

The figure then grabbed Marius by his hair and pressed the tip of the blade on Marius's throat, "You... Caused... This..." said the blacked armored centurion with a demonic voice as he ran his blade throught Marius's neck.

Marius woke up from his hellish nightmare, covered in cold sweat. He looked around and saw a tent with Raphtalia and Filo sleeping underneath it. And not far from the tent was the wagon with Naofumi sleeping inside.

Letting out a heavy sigh he went back to sleep, hoping the nightmares won't return.

Raphtalia knew Marius was having a nightmare after her sentitive ears heard his fainted cries. She looked at Marius who' sleeping on his bed roll away from her sleeping spot. The demi-human couldn't helped but felt bad for Marius. Having a terrible nightmare but no one around to comforted him.

But, does he need comfort? She remembered how he nearly killed her if it weren't for Filo saving her. And why master Naofumi still kept him around baffled her. Even with the slave crest on him she still afraid what he might do when the time comes to remove the slave crest.

"But I am Naofumi's sword," she thought, "I will not let anything happened to him. And if you want to harm my master, I will not go easy on you like last time." she cluthed her sword beside her before going back to sleep.

There was only silence during their journey. Naofumi and Raphtalia were seating next to each other at the driver's seat while Filo pulled the wagon to their destination.

And every five minutes or so, Raphtalia would turned around and glanced at Marius incase he's up to something while behind their backs.

Marius sat at the very back, watching the view of the forest. He has his masked on and one thing Raphtalia noticed was that the eyes of the mask were alway pitch black. As if Marius's eyes would disappeared everytime he wore his helmet with the mask on.

Soon, they reached a small village. The wagon stopped and Marius could hear Naofumi talking to what sounded like an elderly man. He then saw the elderly man running down to the village clinic after saying something about a Heavenly Fowl, but Marius paid no mind to it.

While Naofumi and Raphtalia helped around the village clinic, Marius was tasked to guard the wagon alongside Filo. As each minutes passed he grew bored.

"Who's going to rob this wagon in a middle of a ghost town?" Marius thought.

A loud thumping noises got closed to Marius and something pecked on the topside of his helmet. He slowly turned his head and saw Filo, in her filolial form, looking at him with serious look.

"What?" said Marius, completely annoyed.

"I'm keeping my eyes on you. Just making sure you're not trying to escape." said Filo.

"Thank you, witch. I would've probably escaped if it weren't for you." said Marius in a sarcastic tone.

"I'm not a witch!" Filo exclaimed.

"Then what are you? A shapeshifter? Were you cursed?" Marius glared at Filo but his mask hid his current expression.

"I'm a filolial."

"Right." Marius muttered before he walked to the other side of the wagon, leaving Filo behind.

But Filo just kept followed him around the wagon, which frustrated Marius more. "Will you stop following me." said Marius trying hard not to lashed out.

"I'm keeping an eye on you, remember?" said Filo still on Marius's tail.

Far away, Naofumi saw the two of them walked in circles around the wagon, "What are they doing?".

The stench of rotting flesh grew stronger the closer they were to the dragon's carcass. All three wore white cloths on their faces to help masked out the smell but the horrible stench still peirced through their noses.

Marius, however, was used to this smell. Having witnessed many deaths and fields of rotting corpses. Dragon or not, they all smell the same when rotted.

Filo, however, was still eating a large basket of fruits they've brought along despite the horrible stench in the air. If anything, it made the gluttonous bird more hungrier.

As they got closer, the blood of the dragon started to moved, dripping back inside the carcass. Soon, the carcass regenerated the missing bits of flesh of its body and the horrifying creature soon rised up from the dead. It roared a thunderous roar and all three were shocked seeing the carcass just sprang back to life.

Naofumi and Raphtalia retreated, leaving behind Marius who just stood there facing the zombie dragon. After he mustered enough courage he charged towards the dragon to fight the creature head on.

"You better give me a warrior's death, beast!" Marius threw the shovel he was carrying like a javelin at monster, penetrating deep into the dragon's chest before drawing his sword and charged into battle.

"I HATE DRAGON!" Filo jumped over Marius and kicked the dragon's head with full force. Marius saw this and ran even faster towards the dragon.

The dragon, now shifted its focus on Filo, unleashed its poison breath. Naofumi blocked the attack with his shield, protecting the girls behind him. With the creature distracted, Marius climbed on the top of the platform where the dragon stood and started slashing his blade at the dragon's limbs.

The dragon tried to grab and stomp the centurion harrasing it from below but Marius always managed to dodged the dragon's hands. Filo then continued her attack on the dragon, relentlessly delivering blows after blows at the dragon's upper parts while Marius attacked its limbs in a random order to confused the monster. While the other two watched as the filolial queen and the centurion ganged up on the zombie dragon.

"FILO!"

Naofumi called out for Filo but that was a fatal mistake as the dragon snatched Filo in mid-air on its jaws then swallowed its whole meal. Blood burst from its jaws and dripped to the ground infront of Marius. He looked up and saw no signs of the large bird

Naofumi and Raphtalia were distraught after losing one of their precious member.

"Filooooo!" Raphtalia called her name in vain.

"Good riddance." Marius scoffed. Finally free from that annoying bird. But the dragon soon shifted its attention to Marius and lifted up its claws to crushed the lone warrior. Marius rolled away from the crushing claws and as it touched the ground Marius jumped on top of the dragon's hand and stabbed deep into its flesh.

The dragon screamed in pain and lifted its arm up with Marius still holding onto the dragon's hand until it reached the same level as the very top of the dragon's head.

Marius jumped off from the hand an landed on top of its head and started slashing and stabbing on the creature. The dragon swayed its head violently and it threw Marius to the side.

Then, something caught the dragon's eyes and it moved its head to faced a new threat. Recovering from the throw, Marius slowly got up while ignoring the intense pain of hitting the hard ground.

Naofumi approached the dragon, consumed by hatred. The dragon lifted its claws and smashed Naofumi with its full might, the impact that caused shockwaves around the site. But Naofumi blocked the attack with ease. Showing no signs of difficulty.

His shield glowed red and strange markings started to appeared on his entire body as Naofumi yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Master Naofumi!" Raphtalia ran towards her master but a strong burst of energy staggered her a few feet and it pushed the dragon away.

Marius sank his sword on the ground and braced himself. The energy blew dust and debris around Marius as he covered his eyes with his arms.

Once the dust was settled, Naofumi's shield suddenly burst into flames and the shield hero's eyes glowed red, and his face carved a sinister grin.

The dragon whipped what remained of its tail at Naofumi but with the burning shield he blocked the attack.

"Now burn"

The dragon's tail caught fire and it burnt through its flesh, and the dragon roared in excruciating pain.

Raphtalia grabbed hold of Naofumi to stop his rage, letting the fires burnt her aswell. Soon, Naofumi woke up from his blind fury and Raphtalia, after she sustained several burnt damage, collapsed beside him. Realizing what he had done, Naofumi frantically tried to heal Raphtalia with the Fast Heal spell while pending off the dragon's attack.

As the dragon was distraced, Marius yanked his sword from the ground and charged towards the dragon. But the dragon suddenly roared in total pain before it collapsed and shook the ground on impact.

Marius ceases his running, wondering what killed the zombie dragon. Then, the filolial bursted out of the dragon's belly and rolled towards Marius, who was too shocked to see a massive wet mass covered with rotten guts coming towards him.

The female filolial accidently crushed Marius under her weight before getting up to looked at her master.

"Well, it took me a little while but I'm out!"

She then heard a loud muffled voice underneath her.

"GMMM! OFMMMM! MMMMM!"

She got up and saw Marius covered in the dragon's rotten fluids, breathing heavily after being suffocated by the heavy weight. Marius got up on his feet and glared at the filolial.

Marius sheated his sword then walked away from the carcass, "I'm washing these off." he walked pass Naofumi and the still injured Raphtalia.

"Should we stop him?" Raphtalia asked.

"Let him be. As long as he's not trying to escape." said Naofumi, as all three of them watched the centurion walked off the site with rotten fluid still dripped all over his body.

After washing all of his armor parts and his clothings, Marius took a dip on a small lake not far away from the carcass site. His body bruised from the fight with the zombie dragon when the monster threw him to the ground, amongs the various scars from past battles.

He let his body submerged underwater with his head sticking up, watching the sky above.

Suddenly, a large filolial dashed into the air where Marius was facing. It dived into the lake and made a huge flash.

"Not again"

Marius sighed as he got up and saw little bubbles coming towards him but he can clearly see who it was by the clear water.

"RWAAAAARR!"

Filo emerged underwater in her human form, her arms raised above her head imitate a monster to scare Marius. But it hardly even faze the warrior.

Marius glared at Filo with his arms crossed, "Was that all?" he then noticed the same slave crest on Filo's chest.

"Did I scared you?" Filo waited gleefully for an answer.

"No." Marius continued washing his body, ignoring the little girl.

"You're no fun! Mmf!" Filo turned around with her mouth pouted.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Filo approached Marius again.

"Hey! Wanna play!"

"No." Marius glanced at Filo then got out of the water to put on his cloths and armor. Leaving behind a pouting filolial all by herself.

As he finished putting on all his armor, Filo flashed water on Marius. Marius looked at Filo, now in her bird form, looking back at him with a grin.

Marius growled and left the lake behind, still wet but no longer covered with rotten guts.

"By the gods, how long must I endured this?" he though to himself, still mad at the filolial.