Chapter 64: Snow and Ice (1/2)

The city lay in flames. A beacon of light in the gray and white landscape. Ilea rushed closer on the ground, quickly reaching the walls and blinking beyond. She jumped up the closest house and looked over the city.

Fires were still burning all over the place but it didn’t feel to Ilea like they had started recently. Corpses of guards and adventurers littered the wall behind her and the streets below, interspersed by civilians and non combatants. Looking over into the next street she saw monsters feasting on the dead and even some wild animals doing the same.

[Goblin – lvl 22]

A brown bear roared at some of the small green creatures who immediately scrambled and ran away to another street. Ilea ignored either and blinked into the next house beyond. The inside was eerily untouched, she heard nobody and with her sphere couldn’t make out anything moving except the light snow that still fell outside, hiding the bloodied streets below.

She looked around the room and then continued on her way. She still knew where Roland had lived and so made her way there slowly. Two streets further she came upon five Nazarks going through a house. She would’ve let them be but found there was someone hiding in the basement.

Blinking behind the first monster a Taleen dagger appeared in her hand and she stabbed right through the beast’s skull.

[Nazark – lvl 52]

She quickly walked through the place, not alerting any of the loud and angry monsters. One by one they fell until she stood over the last of them, some of their blood had sullied her armor. Ilea quickly blinked down into the basement right behind the person hiding there, an armored woman in her teens.

[Warrior – lvl 42]

Ilea held her hand over the woman’s mouth and calmed her down as she struggled to get away. “I’m not your enemy.” was all she said and the woman calmed down a moment later. She had a nasty cut in her side which Ilea quickly healed, still holding her mouth shut.

“I have some questions and then I’ll leave you be.” the woman nodded nervously and Ilea let her go. She banged against the wall behind her as she turned around to look at Ilea. The black and bloodied armor and icy eyes behind her horned full plate helmet didn’t make the friendliest first impression. Ilea didn’t care in the slightest though.

“Elf’s came and destroyed the city?” she asked.

The woman nodded quickly “Yes! There were so many of them, I thought they only attack in groups of three or four normally...they came in the night four days ago and I just barely managed to hide away. They herded a lot of monsters in front of them and destroyed the gate to let them in...a Nazark got me badly but you healed me thank you!! I don’t know what I would’ve done down here, I’m sure they...” Ilea put her hand back on the woman’s mouth.

“Thanks, that’s enough.” Ilea blinked out and heard the woman from below ask for her help but then look around confused at the disappeared healer. Ilea closed her eyes slowly and rammed a Taleen sword she had summoned into the wooden floor before blinking to the next house.

‘So they came in force, same time as Dawntree...’ she looked around the streets. Dozens of corpses both of humans and monsters littered the ground. She stood in another street and moved one of the corpses only to find a dead elf staring back at her. ‘Not invincible...’ she thought and continued.

‘They left already then...maybe I’m the first to find the city in this state...’ she thought, ignoring some goblins and nazarks who were fighting over a shiny sword they had found. Tragedy for many would mean very successful days for others, especially in war.

Ilea ignored the dead with cold eyes, moving on through the city. Soon she came up on Roland’s house. Nothing was moving in and around the house and her sphere already told her of some of the things that had happened inside. Blinking into the living room she found Samantha’s dead eyes staring back at her.

Slowly kneeling down, Ilea closed the woman’s eyes and moved her body into a more peaceful position. She quietly moved through the house and repeated the gesture for all the other people she found dead, the icy wind of winter blowing through the house the only other noise besides her silent work.

In the end she had moved all the corpses into the living room and looked at them each before closing her eyes. Her wings spread and all her buffs activated as she stood there with closed eyes and bowing her head. “Rest now and find peace.” she whispered. Not an eloquent prayer or something deserving of the people she had known here but it was all Ilea could give.

She left the house soon after and closed the door behind herself. Roland and Lily were the only ones she hadn’t found and she had a hunch where they could be, should they still be alive. Ilea stopped a couple steps from the house though and looked around. ‘No father should see this.’ she thought and blinked to the next house. Looking through some places she found some beds and even stacks of hay which she all moved to Roland’s house, stacking them inside.

Having done that she jumped to a nearby house and grabbed a massive piece of burning wood. A loud groaning went through the room as the wood fought against her strength. With a snap it came loose and Ilea moved it to the stack of beds and hay she had prepared, setting it on fire.

She stood outside and looked on as the fire took hold, first gradually and then in an outright inferno as the wood was consumed. The fire was crackling and pieces of the house were falling when Ilea heard someone landing behind her, the snow crunching in the process.

“Ah humans...so very...emotional.” the elf said and Ilea turned around. Tears were running down her cheeks as she locked eyes with him.

[Mage - ??]

“That armor? Where did you get that??...” he asked but didn’t seem very surprised “No matter, you will die like all of your kind here have.” he gestured around himself while walking, smiling brightly at her and showing his sharp teeth.

“You cannot hurt them anymore demon.” she said to him, her mind was calm and her hands were steady.

“Demon?? You DARE insult me like this...you will suffer...they are dead already, yes. RAPED and DEFILED as you all should be...but you...you will suffer...humiliating me with such a long hunt for something...so WEAK.” he said, every shouted word brought with it magic that froze the ground around him.

“Stop talking Demon.” she said as her buffs came to life.

“AAAAH!” the elf shouted as a lance of ice formed above Ilea and rushed down. She blinked to the right and ran through the side streets, some wolves immediately rushed away at the explosion of magic behind her.

“Not here...” Ilea whispered as she ran through the streets, feeling the magic behind her. She dodged to the right as she came up on a small square, the lance of ice impacted a shop beyond, exploding into thousands of tiny shards.

The elf came out from the street and faced her, wrath and joy playing a gruesome play on his face. “Running is POINTLESS hu...” Ilea blinked in and punched the elf, releasing all her spells in the process. The monster was thrown backwards and impacted the side of a house, breaking through stone and coming to a stop on the stone ground.

“YOU DARE!!!” he shouted as he got up, his claws extending from his fingers. The blow didn’t seem to have damaged the elf at all.

“Stop talking.” she said as he advanced again, an armor of ice forming around his body while spikes came from all sides to pierce the healer. She blinked around and jumped from house to house to avoid the magic that relentlessly advanced on her.

“HAHAHAHAAAAAA DIE HUMAN!!” the elf was controlling his magic as Ilea grabbed bricks from a nearby house and threw them at him. The impacts didn’t even crack his armor of ice but it certainly helped to piss him off.

“Insolent...BITCH!!” another brick hit the elf right in his face, his head moving backwards a little at the impact.

‘I’ve gotten better at throwing hmm?’ Ilea thought as the annoying elf continued to spew insults at her while ice impacted around her. She noticed that wherever she was the air and ground would freeze slowly so she kept moving through the houses and streets. The elf followed her into the latest house and she blinked in to punch the man, cracking his armor and sending her destructive mana inside.