Gambit Of The Living Weapon - Chapter 269 High stakes

“E- Eclipse…?” he whispered as the beast came closer to him with blood dripping from its fangs and claws.

Daren was so shocked that he ended up dropping his wand on the ground, and the moment he did so, the dark smoke that was surrounding Eclipse began to vanish and the lion suddenly started to calm down.

Leona noticed the tension between the two but her attention was quickly grabbed by a couple of voices coming from the portal that Daren created.

“Quick! I think he went this way!!” yelled a voice the seemed to belong to a young girl.

“Young miss! Wait!! You don’t know what is on the other side of this portal!!” shouted another female voice, but seemingly much older.

“Blue! Wait!! Don’t leave me alone with these guys!!” a third voice spoke after, also sounding like it belonged to a young child.

Leona kept looking at the portal and before she realized it, Ellie, Detra, and Claire jumped out of it with a shocked look on their faces upon seeing them on the other side.

“Leona!? Daren!?” Ellie shouted with her mouth wide open.

“Ellie!!?” Leona replied.

Soon, Joseph, Dia, Xadi, and Lance also exited the dark portal that Daren had created and reunited with them, but something about them seemed different, they were wearing clothing that Leona had never seen before and a couple of scars could be seen in different parts of their bodies.

“Oh! Sensei is here!” Joseph commented while bowning to his old fire magic teacher.

“Hey! How come you never bown whenever you meet with me??” Xadi complained while shaking his fur arms up and down.

“Leoooona!!” Claire screamed as she hurried to hug the fire mage. She was acting like they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

Leona never felt so much relief in her life. Seeing so many familiar faces all at once, she finally began to calm down a little bit and lose this sense of doom that kept following her around ever since she arrived on this island.

She looked at Daren to see if he shared the sentiment but he appeared to still be lost in thought while staring at Eclipse, so much so that he didn’t even notice the arrival of their allies or his own son.

He tried to raise his arm in an attempt to pet his lion but the image of the feline eviscerating Boris was still stuck on his mind and making him wonder if he still even trusted it. Daren wasn’t sure if Eclipse’s behavior was a result of his shadow magic or maybe if that was his true nature.

If it was, in fact, a result of his magic, Daren began to wonder if he should be scared of himself.

“Daren!” Leona shouted in his ear, breaking him out of his own confusion.

“Lance…? Lance!!!”

Daren rushed to Lance’s side while he continued to snore in Dia’s arms and began to hug him as if his life depended on it.

“Lance!! Lance, my son!! You’re still with me!! You’re still with me!! I didn’t lose you too!!” he cried while holding his baby boy.

Everyone began to stare at Daren with pain in their eyes as they noticed he wasn’t happy to see his son, he was happy to find out that he wasn’t that, almost as if he was used to the feeling, making them all wonder just how many people he had lost by that point.

Leona looked at Eclipse and noticed that no trace of the dark mist from before or the dark portal was there anymore. She moved to grab her wand and told herself that she would try her best to not get in a situation where Daren would need to use shadow magic again.

The image of him carrying his son was deeply warming her heart and she would hate to see that ruined by something happening to him in case he could not control this power.

Joseph then took this chance to break the silence and began to assault Leona with a barrage of questions, “What’s going on?? Why are we in a cave?? Why was Eclipse acting so weird?? Where were you all this time??  How did things go with the temple of the west?? Where is miss Evlin??”

Leona herself had many questions as well, “What about you guys?? How are you still in one piece after the temple of the east was destroyed? Where are all the other followers? Are they okay? Did you got attacked by any dragon??”

Detra and Leona exchanged a long look until the ice mage finally decided to talk, “We have much to discuss…”

The group took a few minutes to catch their breath and calm down their heads. Claire offered a bit of food for Daren and Leona after listening to her stomach roaring like a truck, and after having a little snack to ease their bellies, the team started to walk back to the temple of the north.

On their way there, the two sides began to share information about everything that happened, about how the temple had been attacked and destroyed by Knucker’s command, about how they encountered demons that had dragon abilities, about how Ellie’s group barely managed to escape from the demon of gluttony, about the battle with the demons of wrath and envy, and finally, about their meeting with Knucker himself in the castle of the king Greyart and how Ria’s power allowed them to escape with her portal but also resulting in everyone being scattered into unknown locations.

Detra also provided some information about their status. How while waiting for any news on the situation, she and the kids had been spending the last couple of months practicing their skill for the inevitable battle with the demons.

“Wait a second…” Leona gasped, “What do you mean months???”

Detra gazed at her with a confused look, “It’s just as I said… The last months while hiding and running away from the demons we all have been harnessing our combat abilities non-stop.”

“What are you talking about?? We just saw each other a couple of days ago!!” Leona claimed.

“A couple of days?? My dear lady, your group has been missing for nearly half a year” Detra explained.

Daren and Leona immediately stopped walking and looked at Detra while acting like two people frozen in time.

“A year…??” Daren repeated, “We have been stuck in Ria’s portal for a whole year?? How- What- When-”

Daren looked like he was about to pass out. He had once again been forced to travel into the future and almost had a panic attack after remembering the first time he was released from his prison as a metal statute and found out that nearly everyone he knew had already died.

“No… No, no, no… This can’t be happening again!!” Daren murmured while shaking with Lance in his arms, “Please tell me this is not happening again!!”

“Daren, calm down!!” Leona tried to say, “Everything will be fine…”

Detra gazed at her with a cold look, “I’m afraid that might not be entirely true…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Leona wondered.

“A lot of things happened while your group was missing… Our friend Knucker has been pretty busy in these last few months and has started to run out of patience with our beloved crossbow mage…”

Detra then pulled a piece of paper from a small bag that she was carrying and delivered it to Leona who just stared at it with a look of absolute loss.

“Hello, Evlin…” Leona began to read the text of the paper, “It seems that our last encounter sacred you more than I expected. I know you are probably enjoying hiding away like a scared street rat, but as you might remember, you have something I want, and I want it back…” Leona looked at Detra for a moment, “What’s he talking about? What does he want from Evlin??”

Detra shrugged, “Hell if I know… I never understood what’s everyone’s obsession with this one particular girl of all things…”

Leona returned to reading, “I grow tired of playing with you, it was fun at first but I feel like it’s time for both of us to put an end to this little tale. As such, I make you an offer, I challenge you with my demon dragons against you and your best warriors. Winner takes it all. We shall fight in a tournament two months from now on the city of Emerald Dawn, and finally, decide who will live and who will die. Bring your top seven fighters to face me, any weapon is allowed. If you manage to defeat my seven demon dragons…”

Leona paused for a moment as she read that next part.

“I shall face you myself with my real body…”

Daren looked at Detra, “Is he serious?? After all this time he expects to just end things with some silly game like this?? Why would Evlin ever accept his proposal?”

Ellie stepped forward at that moment, “Because my aunt doesn’t abandon people…”

Daren and Leona looked at each other not sure of what that statement was supposed to imply.

Ellie continued, “While you guys were away… Knucker has been using his dragons to take over every single kingdom for himself… All of the kings and queens are terrified of him, he’s pretty much taken over the world as hostage…”

Daren gasped, “What…?? But- But… How??”

Detra rolled her eyes, “What do you mean ‘How??’, dragons can only be defeated by terminal energy, and two of the only four users of that power just vanished from the face of the planet!! What were you expecting? Nobody can oppose these guys right now.”

Claire began to talk as well, “Except for Ellie, and you have no idea how much trouble we had trying to keep her from jolting into battle with the dragons… There were so many times where we had to hold her down to avoid getting spotted by them…”

Daren dropped on his knees, “This can’t be happening… Are you saying we lost? Knucker won in the end??”

“No! He did not!!” Ellie shouted, “Did you not see the invitation? He’s challenging us for a final battle! We just need to beat him and his dragons!”

“More like, we HAVE to beat him and his dragons…” Xadi noted, “If we don’t, he will kill… Well… Everyone…”

Daren stared at the piece of paper one more time, “This said we had two months until the fight… How long has this invitation been out for? When is the day of the battle?”

“Five days…” Detra whispered.

Leona began to hold her mouth to contain her desire to cry.

“If we don’t face Knucker and his demons in five days…” Detra continued, “He will kill every single human on the planet…”