The Heart Of Gaia - Chapter 12 Multiplied Disaster

*Argh!*

As the voices of my men perishing under the unbelievable strength of our enemy.

“Madame! It’s all just an illusion! M-magic to play with our minds.”

As one of my men shouted through the struggle.

“No! it’s not!” I answered.

After his remark, he died instantly with dozens of knives piercing through him; right before my eyes. Our current situation has been dire and so far we’ve sustained continous casualties from a single enemy. I casted my spells as it blasted multiple enemies away but no matter how many times I dispose of them, they only come back with double the numbers.

Right now our enemy has multiple clones of herself, from my perspective it can’t be illusions. Illusionary copies can’t emit the same amount of Corr their owner has, other than that they can also fight physically against my squadron which is impossible. We’re not losing from lack of experience, we actually overpower them with diversity of our team. We’re losing because of exhaustion,

I’ve already disposed more than a hundred copies of herself already. “How long can she do this?” I thought to myself. What makes this fight more infuriating is the fact we can’t locate her original body, even with my eyes this proves to be challenging. I saw her once but there is minimal difference between her Corr and the copies but I’m still not sure. Her strategy makes her completely invincible under these circumstances.

The only way to win is to cripple her ability or be able to locate her within the crowd.

“What’s the matter? having trouble already?”

I ignored her silly words of mockery.

Right now she’s smart enough to not use any spells in her arsenal, if she did I could expose her location by seeing the change in Corr activity within her body. If she had the ability to wipe us out she would have done it already. I’m already straining my whole being by barking orders here while casting spells one after the other at this rate we won’t even make it out alive.

“When are you going to show yourself! Coward!”

“Haha! cowardly as it may seem but it works, I don’t need to sully my hands with your filthy blood.”

“What do you want from us?! how did you know we were here!”

“I’m only here under orders. to be honest I couldn’t care less about your cause…”

She paused.

“H-how did you?”

“Birds tweet fairly honest… Especially those that couldn’t resist.” she said with a cold and menacing tone.

With her words I couldn’t possibly discern the idea of a traitor residing within the Liberators but I have to accept the possibility that we may have been infiltrated. This operation could be a lost cause. Many lives were at stake.

I casted a guarding spell on most of my men leaving them protected from most physical harm, mostly sharp impending doom was our fate. As she made use of daggers as lethal weapons, but fortunately it’s not strong enough to slice through heavy armor.

I would have instructed our scout to inform other members of the operation of our situation but he got caught and had his throat slit wide open. Telepathic communication was an innate talent that was rare among humans and training them took years. So as a result we’ve slowly backed towards the center of the city while fending off against her attacks, hopefully once there we could have her defeated and retreat as soon as possible.

I saw on the field the exhausted movements of my men, we’ve suffered a huge lost in this fight. Their feet heavily dug onto the ground as they forcefully moved. If only I could prevent more casualties… we’re already half way through the city.

“Enough! no more lives need to be lost! spare them and face me yourself!”

“Hm, a tempting offer but then again…”

As she continued to mow down more men like trees chopped down for their lumber, one by one they fell. Soon only a few of us remained. She could’ve done that earlier but why didn’t she, did she purposely do that to bathe in my despair? To see me struggle, hoping to see that they could survive…

“WATCH OUT!”

I turned around as soon as I heard. I missed what happened but gazed at the aftermath and saw my savior struggling, squirming on the ground. I knelt beside the man as he tried to converse in such a terrible state. Blood trickled down from a deep cut on his throat as I tried to cover it with my hands, I chanted to cast a healing spell.

“Have I… b-been… h-helpful?” he said breathing heavily.

Our eyes met. As his voice slowly drowned in blood, gurgling. Nearing death his eyes were filled fulfillment as though had served his purpose.

“You’ve served the Liberators wonderfully…”

“Y-you… h-have to… save…”

“Don’t speak, save your energy.”

“D-daisy… In… nomine… D-die…”

With his final breath he rested, my spell couldn’t tend to his wounds in time. Even at the brink of death they still find solace in aiding our cause, these loyal men deserved better and were struggling against the oppression.

Was it worth it? I thought hopelessly, these men had been born with dreams that were utterly crushed by the unfairness and injustice of the world. To this person that dream was in a form of another that took his heart, maybe he had hoped that one day fighting our cause would bring peace and tranquility to the future of his wife. What was the reason for these people to die… what was my reason for facing the bitterness of the world. I continued to delve deeper into my mind with emotions stirred and conviction wavering.

Here lies another life lost, over there a few meters away is the same being laying lifelessly on the cold ground and the same would happen to those standing right now. I stood quickly and ordered my men to head towards the center of the city where reinforcements waited.

“b-but… what about you Madame?!” My second in command questioned.

“Save our people…”

I stared at him as my eyes pleaded with utmost certainty. He stood and couldn’t bare to leave his squadron captain but eventually caved in. The people were the reason, without them the Liberators wouldn’t be born and with people like them alive the will to enact equity for all will live on.

I had operated many missions but the hardest part was seeing the life of people I knew being taken away right in front of me. They were sacrifices made in order to achieve a certain goal. These people made us who we are and to each of their lives had a bright future waiting for them.

I vow right now that they will not die in vain, to whom had taken their lives is responsible and equally to those that they served. We are all involved in one another, directly or indirectly, lives should have the freedom to choose their own…

“Trying to escape are we?!”

Copies of herself overflowed trying to close the gap between them and my men. I casted the largest spell I could muster with the rest of my strength and built a wall of roots that hindered their path.

After I ran towards the nearest building in order to hide my prescence with the wall as my cover, I needed to regroup with the others. “Not yet!” I thought to myself as death could be right at my doorstep… I have to survive, I have to.

“You really are infuriating!” she cried.

There! the moment she raised her voice I knew that her emotion would affect the state of her Corr. Through the walls I could see the slightly raised energy level that differentiated the original from the many clones that surrounded her, not too far from where I was hidden. Now I just needed to formulate a plan on how to dispose of this troublesome foe.

First I have to regain my strength as I’ve already depleted most of my Corr from that last spell. Hopefully she retreats after finishing her goal but from what I had observed earlier it looks like I was a part of her agenda.

“Come out! come out where ever you are!”

The countless number of Corr separated and flew into different groups away from the original, she must’ve ordered them to search for me. Certainly in her perspective my death is some form of gain, but I won’t let myself get caught. I sneaked towards the back of the ruined house I’m current in to avoid their line of sight.

I desperately grabbed at straws, what was the best way to get out of the situation. Meanwhile I found myself inside the kitchen and there I saw a silhoutte of a woman in the arms of a child. I could tell his age by looking at his Corr, he was atleast five years old.

I slowly approached the child and knelt to face him. I knelt on a crumbling piece of stone, I grabbed some of it only to realize from it’s texture that it was bread. It had a really musty smell, most likely it was expired. I threw it away as I brushed my hands clean on my chest.

“Hello…”

He didn’t answer, as if he was unfazed. I turned him towards myself as I felt his thin arms and bony hands, it felt as though he was neglected by his parents. The lifeless woman on the floor had been dead for hours already but she still had some of her Corr lingering around her body. I touched her and was shocked by how extremely skinny she was… That bread was probably the last food they had, I could only assume they had some connection because they had similar Corr characteristics.

“Is she your mother?”

He nodded as suddenly started hyperventilating, the thought of his mother dead probably sank through his head. I tried calming him down but he shook me off.

*SCREECH!*

His high pitched voice had probably alerted them, I turned and focused gazing through the walls as I saw few of them headed towards my direction. The child ran away by opening the door that led outside, I followed him in an attempt of saving him from them and escaping my pursuers. We passed through several alleyways as I tried to catch him.

“There you are!”

I heard her voice as one of the clones had spotted me. I hurried until finally he tripped as I caught him and carried him onto a tight space in between the walls. I covered his mouth as I held him tightly to prevent him from moving… I waited silently.

“I could have sworn I saw her earlier…”

I heard the heavy footsteps trudging through the muddy ground slowly paving our way. I turned towards the other direction hoping that I could escape that way, I could see the coped up path was open and slowly slid that way.

This proved quite taxing while holding a child desperately trying to loosen my grip, as I motioned my hand for a quick spell, he bit my hand as he finally fell unconscious. I finally came out on the otherside and was met by the same enemy I was trying to shake off, I momentarily lost focus when the child bit me so I clearly wasn’t paying attention ahead.

As soon as our eyes met she rushed towards me. I fired off several spells that disposed the group of clones as I ran away from them, soon enough I found myself surrounded. They surrounded me with sheer numbers increasing by dozens every second but oddly enough they just stood there until one of them came out of their group.

“Finally, I’ve found you and you have a friend with you too…” She said with a grin on her face.

“Who are you?” I hastily asked.

I thought of ways to get out of this scenario until an idea struck me. She charged towards me, thanks to my eyesight I could barely see her moving as I jumped to the side for safety. She stopped directly where I was, meanwhile I prepared a large spell while she strutted slowly towards me.

I gazed upon her as I tried to memorize details of her Corr, it was finely disguised that it was hard to discern her differently from the clones. I hid my hand behind the child as I held large amounts of Corr on a single palm, preparing for a surprise attack.

“You just don’t know when to give up. Do you?” She said confidently.

“I’m not one to lose hope easily.”

“Too bad, you’re about to die anyway.”

She finally closed the gap between us and held a dagger towards my neck. I only needed one moment to finish her off but how? right now I have no chance.

“Since you gave me such a hard time, I’ll tell you my name. Abellinda Lupus, the person who killed Cordelia Lockewood.”

I felt shivers down my spine as she said my name, I’ve not heard of her name before. Her voice was filled with contempt and hostility towards me. I kept trying to remember if I had seen her or known her in the past but my mind eluded the thought. I closed my eyes as I felt the tip of her knife slowly piercing my chest until a familiar voice echoed in the distance.

“Madame!”

The knife retreated as I felt a strong gust of wind above me. As soon as I heard Yela I saw my chance to cast the spell, I held out my hand from behind the child and blasted out everything I could.