Melissa´s Archway

20. Melissa´s Archway

My right-hand hurts, I can feel the magic flowing through my body into my right hand easing the pain, but it still hurts. The magic flows from my right hand to Martins leg and is healing it but he still looks like he is suffering.

Marie is next to Martin holding his hand and crying, Alice is next to me with my sword and shield asking how I am doing, Luna is with the half owl female who is still on the ground crying.

The grand mage is near the body of the villainous half owl person looking at it and examining it. I think I’ve regained enough energy to stand up. I get up from on top of Martin and keep healing both of us.

Martin tries to stand up too, but he almost falls as he puts weight on his other foot, Marie catches him, and Martin can get up thanks to her.

“That was a strong enemy.” Alice says from next to me.

It was the strongest we have faced if we exclude the old guy who trained us and the undead one we just ran away from.

We just nod and walk to Luna.

“How are you holding up?” Luna asks us when we get close to her.

“My hand is broken and will take a bit time to heal, same with Martins foot.”

“Thank you for saving me and our village.” A quiet voice comes from next to Luna.

The half owl girl stands up and bows to us while still crying.

I feel a bit happy inside and I don’t feel the pain anymore.

“Do not worry about it, we are happy to help.” I say with a smile.

“Do you think you could lead us to your village, so we could rest and take care of our wounded friends.” Luna asks the girl.

“Yeah, follow me.” She says while wiping off her tears.

“Let’s go grand mage.” Luna says to the grand mage that is still near the body.

We follow the girl through the woods, Luna talks to the grand mage during the walk, rest of us say nothing and soon we reach a place where there is a bigger tree than normally and near it there is a thick area of trees.

Before we get close to the tree area many half owl people come out with angry looks.

“Alna, why have you brought these strangers here, what happened to the guards?”

“These people saved my life and yours too, one of our own had gotten weird powers and was slaughtering our people and they stopped him.”

“That is absurd, the must strangers have tricked Alna to make her lead them here.”

This isn’t going well, I must convince them that we aren’t enemies.

“There is a great evil that is trying to kill all the races, we are traveling to various places to try to prevent that happening.” I try to convince them as I step past the girl.

“Melissa watch out!” Alice screams from behind me.

I look behind and see the girl jump in front of a black ball that is coming towards me.

The ball becomes larger and then it disappears with the girl, I can see a black and purple ellipse near the big tree and the statue looking thing is coming from out of it.

I stand there shocked, did she die? Just like that? She died because she saved me? What? Wasn’t I supposed to be here saving others?

“You little ants have become problematic.” The statue speaks in a hollow voice.

My focus shifts to the statue and become furious.

“You killed her!” I yell at it.

I run towards him with tears flowing out of my eyes, I clench my fists and start making fireballs on both hands.

“Melissa don’t!” Luna screams.

I ignore it and keep running towards the statue, the statue makes six black balls and shoots them off toward me.

I remember that the fireballs wont help with the black balls, so I just keep running towards them, six black daggers flies to the balls and they disappear.

I throw my fireballs at the statue and it blocks them with his hand and as it does I jump at it and crash into its waist. Someone else jumps at it too and I look to the side and see Alice, then another to the other side and I see its Ryan.

The force knocks the statue into the ellipse and we get transported into the cold dark underground room with the four pillars, the spheres are still there but there are less of them this time and the big sphere is there too still.

“What have you done?” Asks the statue with loud hollow voice.

“What have you done!” I scream at it while getting off on top of it.

“Melissa, here is your sword and shield.” Alice says quickly.

I take them and grip them tightly.

“Let’s go through a sphere again, we can’t beat the statue thing yet.” I say loudly and fast.

I am angry and sad, but I still know that we cannot beat that thing and one false move will get us killed. We need to escape here and come back later to deal with it. At least the half owl people are safe now from it.

I hear a loud crash and look back, I see Ryan burrowed into the rocky wall, he is bleeding and not moving. 

“I cannot kill all of the problematic ants now.”

“Ryan!”

I run towards Ryan and there are black balls coming toward us, I keep running and when they are near to me I throw my sword sideways at them again.

Three of the balls that are in front of me disappear with my sword and I get to Ryan. I start healing him, but he is unconscious, I put my hand to his mouth to see if he is still breathing. I feel a weak breath on my hand and sigh with relieve.

There is another loud crash and I look back, Alice´s battle hammer is on the ground next to the statue and Alice is burrowed on the wall next the statue.

“Alice!” I scream.

I start to run off to her, but something grabs my hand, I turn back to look, and Ryan pulls me next to him and presses his lips to mine. I stand there stunned.

He pulls back his face and I breath deeply.

 “Go to Alice and get her out of here through a sphere. I will buy you the time.” Ryan says with a quiet voice.

He comes out of the wall shakily and can barely stand. There is no way he can do anything against the statue. I am the only one who can move properly out of the three of us. I should be the one buying him time.

“No, you get her out of here, I will buy you time.”

“I love you Melissa, I cannot leave you to die here.”

I see the black balls coming toward us.

“If you love me then get Alice to safety, that’s the only thing we can do now. Sorry.”

I stop healing Ryan and start running toward the statue, when the balls are close to me I throw my shield into them and pass the barrage of black balls.

What can I do that will affect the statue? Alice probably hit it with her battle hammer and there was no visible damage, I hit it with two fireballs and nothing happened.

Only thing I have that could work is my healing magic, or I could try to divert his attention by running around it and dodging the balls. No, he could just throw out one ball at Ryan and Alice and then it would over for them.

All I can do is hope that my healing magic will damage it. I am almost at the statue thing, it is steering me with its red eyes. I hate this thing, I start gathering mana from the surrounding area. I notice how easy it is to do here.

I gather a large amount of it and then focus on changing it into healing magic inside my body. I let the magic flow through every part of my body and start gathering on my hands.

My hands start to glow with a bright green color and the glow keeps getting bigger and bigger.

The statue takes a step back and sends dozens of black balls toward me, I start dodging them but there is a walk of the black balls in front of me and I can’t dodge it without stopping my charge.

A few black daggers fly past me and make me an opening, I run with all my might past the balls and jump at the statue. I grab its waist bones and the statue starts screeching with a high pitch voice.

The statue falls on its knees and keeps screeching. I can see Ryan walking shakily toward Alice, I smile and feel happy that I could do something about the statue thing.

Just as I think that a black thing comes from behind the statue thing and envelops both of us inside it. I grab its bones tightly and it screams again. The black thing starts closing in on us and I can feel the pressure from it.

It comes closer and closer and soon its close enough to touch me, tears roll down my cheeks and I grip tighter and tighter to the bones.

I don’t want to die, I do not want to die yet. It starts to touch my leg but then my armor starts glowing. It glows bright green and forms a layer around me.

The black thing pushes on the layer and the layer sticks to my body. The layer isn’t stopping the black thing, but I feel a bit better to have it there.

It keeps coming closer and closer and it is crushing me into the statue thing, the pressure keeps getting bigger and bigger and I can feel the armor cracking.

I hope they got away safely. My consciousness starts to fade, and I can hear a large crack in the distance. I am swallowed by the darkness. 

Chapter nineteen. Epilogue.