The Lone Wanderer

Initially, Owain thought that he was mistaken.

Perhaps the scythe had been created by the dead Blue along with the other weapons and he had just missed it earlier. It wouldn’t be the only construct shaped like that, though the dull grey colour of both its crescent blade and cylindrical shaft didn’t look anything like the silver gleam of the swords and axes that had slaughtered his relatives.

Unlike the blood-soaked tools that surrounded him, the scythe didn’t even register in his Mana Sense, making it appear more like a mundane weapon that some low-born traveller had forgotten in the woods a very long time ago. Still, its location would have been way too coincidental, and Owain was certain that it hadn’t been there during his brief chat with his would-be murderer.

As if to settle his doubts once and for all, the mysterious weapon suddenly moved.

It didn’t dislodge itself with the sound or effort that would typically accompany such an action, but merely phased out of its wooden prison, its colour fading as it spun away and disappeared into the dark sky.

Owain was too exhausted and in too much pain to keep fighting, though he couldn’t contain his curiosity entirely. Summoning the last of his strength from Phoebe-knew where, he climbed up the nearest tree, nearly falling on his butt a couple of times in the process.

His Yellow core gave him nine times the strength of a Red even without a boosting art, making it relatively easy to carry his body up the trunk despite his fatigue, though the fact that he could only use one of his hands without crying out in pain delayed him somewhat.

Cautiously sticking his head out of the lush canopy of a tall pine that the encroaching flames had yet to defile, Owain made sure to scan his surroundings in all three dimensions this time.

The Blues, Violets, and even the two patriarchs had stopped fighting, everyone gazing upwards just like him. He had no idea whether anyone had seen what had happened to the man with the crooked nose, but they had all clearly sensed that something was off.

Even the fights on the ground seemed to have slowed down, the deafening cacophony of the war having shifted. There were fewer explosions or loud impacts, though there was no erasing the crackling of the spreading inferno, nor the agonized shrieks of the wounded.

A spiralling pillar of smoke shot down from the churning sea of clouds, right before a powerful pair of wings flapped with enough strength to scatter it and reveal their owner. It was the largest bird that Owain had ever laid eyes upon: some kind of grey crow with wings wide enough to comfortably hug a small house!

‘A Blue beast…?’ he estimated with uncertainty, though he couldn’t sense a drop of mana inside the giant monster’s frame.

Of course, his confusion didn’t last long. Owain wasn’t privy to the strategic discussions between the grownups in his House, but he hadn’t lived under a rock. Every teenager on Remior knew enough to put two and two together: let alone one as deeply connected to the newcomer as Owain was. This was none other than the person he looked up to the most in the world.

Sure enough, it wasn’t difficult to spot the cloaked figure standing atop the bird’s head, his boots hidden beneath the plumage of his avian mount. The man seemed wholly unbothered by the crushing air pressure that would have certainly ripped even a Green apart, the frigid gales merely causing the ends of his immaculate grey robes and neatly tied black hair to flutter wildly behind him.

Owain’s cousin sported a calm but solemn expression as he scanned the ravaged forest, an emotion flickering within his unassuming grey eyes that Owain couldn’t quite put his finger on from so far away. Lifting his hand, the newcomer casually caught an object that appeared from seemingly nowhere, resting it over his shoulder with the tip pointing up.

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It was the same scythe that had just saved Owain’s life!

‘How did he even spot me from so far away?!’

Owain shook his head. A better question was, how the hell had his cousin managed to slaughter a Blue from that distance? Without the bastard even noticing anything? Percy had made it look as effortless as swatting a damn fly!

Instinctively, Owain reached into his pocket with his good hand, clenching a wooden ocarina that he had treasured for over a decade. He was too busy training to play it nowadays, but he had spent countless hours teaching himself how to use it as a child: especially when he hadn’t had playmates around. Recalling how his parents still winced whenever they saw it, he let out a chuckle.

However, not everyone reacted to Percy’s arrival with as much joy, relief, or pride.

A purple flash swallowed the entire forest as something extremely large and fast shot toward the crow. Owain barely managed to close his eyes in time to avoid being blinded, though his vision was still consumed by white as a bolt of mana bigger than a house and probably powerful enough to obliterate an entire town reached the creature.

The ensuing shockwave nearly knocked Owain off the branch, a ringing sound stabbing into his skull as two warm trickles rolled down the sides of his head and neck. Thankfully, the heat from the explosion hadn’t made it far enough to threaten him, otherwise he could only imagine his fate.

Fighting through his disorientation and slowly recovering his blurry vision, he tried to pinpoint where the attack had been fired from. It wasn’t very difficult, since there weren’t many mages in the forest who were both capable and willing to unleash such devastation on his cousin.

Sparks of electricity and wisps of fire still coiled wildly around Machaon’s hands: further proof that he had just launched a spell far deadlier than any he had used against Archibald. The latter’s clones leapt by the dozens to prevent Lord Asclepius from producing a second blast, but the only true White on the battlefield was too fast and hovering too high for the minions to catch him.

Owain ignored what the patriarchs: or anyone else: were doing, forgetting to even breathe as he studied the giant cloud of smoke that had yet to clear. Countless large objects rained down from the bottom, leaving thick gaseous trails in their wake.

Owain’s heart sank as he identified them: a giant beaked head that had been split in three pieces, a semi-intact talon accompanied by its fragmented counterpart, along with several other chunks of the crow’s torso and wings. Before it even reached the ground, the mangled flesh shattered completely into fine powder that scattered in the wind. If a Blue beast with a second core had failed to survive the blast, it was doubtful that a human mage of an even lower grade would have fared any better.

Before Owain had the chance to even process what his cousin’s demise might mean for him and his loved ones, something changed again.

Howling winds blew from the north, causing the cloud of smoke to sway to the south and nearly clear up. A chill spread across Owain’s skin, freezing solid every bead of blood or sweat that he had shed over the past hour, and soothing his burns slightly. It reminded him a little of the suffocating domain that had held him against the mud earlier, but this one was far, far stronger, yet didn’t restrict him in any way.

The raging inferno that had turned about a third of the Whistling Woods into ashes and had been working its way through the rest of the forest suddenly receded, the building-sized flames shrinking to pitiful campfires that nearly went out completely. The world itself appeared to lose some of its colour, along with its brightness.

A murder of crows cawed from seemingly everywhere, even though every mundane bird and critter in the area should have long fled from the apocalyptic battlefield, or paid the price. They were accompanied by a chorus of shrill cries that sounded like an army of people scraping their nails against just as many chalkboards.

The strangest detail of all, however, was a faint melody that the louder, gloomier sounds failed to drown out. It was as if the whistling pines themselves: the few that were still standing, at any rate: had joined the symphony, their cones singing in tune with the crows and winds.

It was a gentle, consoling song, reminding Owain that the sun would rise again tomorrow, no matter what atrocities Machaon: or a thousand Machaons: committed. That his House would live on so long as a single person with Avalon blood survived this battle.

And that his cousin wouldn’t be brought down so easily.

As the smoke finally cleared up, Owain realized that there was someone floating there, still alive and well. The bird was gone, and its rider unrecognizable. His tidy clothes had turned into a bunch of rags, their ends constantly tearing and regrowing as they mixed with the blizzard of ambient mana raging around him. It was impossible to tell where the man’s robes ended and his boosting art began.

Percy’s face had disappeared within the shadow of his hood, where a pair of pale orbs now burned softly. This time, Owain had no trouble recognizing the emotion oozing out of his cousin’s eyes. Resonating with his domain, it shook Owain’s mutated bones, the tree he was crouching on, and even the very air he breathed…