“Boy,” The voice resounded throughout my soul, “We’re leaving the mountains today, to search for a weapon worthy of you.”

“And where would that be?” I truly had no idea what kind of weapon I would be looking for.

“To my knowledge there should be a sword in a labyrinth that is extremely overbearing and can only be wielded by someone who it deems worthy, otherwise it could kill you from the backlash.”

“Labyrinth? Possible chance of death after conquering it? My favorite.”

It had to be known that even the most powerful contractors would steer clear Labyrinths. It was crawling with daemons. The natural enemies of mythical beasts. They would grow in Labyrinths at an alarming rate and would get more and more powerful as time went on. Daemons were particularly nasty beasts. Every once in awhile they would leave the labyrinths and attack nearby towns. Slaughtering the people, razing the buildings, and even dragging some unfortunate girls back into the darkness.

These heartless creatures are what Exidium fought for countless years, and eventually made all of the dark realm submit to him. Might makes right with daemons. Much like the way things are in the kingdom. Exidium was deemed the strongest in the dark realm after killing many, many daemons. He had no intention of becoming the strongest, only to survive.

“For now, use your wings without the armor to get out of the mountain range. Start by heading northwest of here, I estimate it’s around a few hundred miles away.” I made my wings appear as instructed. They were black dragon wings that gave off the feeling of superiority. I then headed in the appointed direction at an alarming speed. Without my armor on my speed while flying is at least 100 mph. Almost twice what I can go with my armor. Of course I couldn’t sustain that speed. Most of the time was spent around 70 mph.

The sights I saw were breathtaking. The world was calm. The mountains were imposing and the rivers running uninhibited. The forests were peaceful and the animals unhindered by human civilization. It almost made me forget that this same world was being eaten away at by corruption by humans.

It was a few hours before I came across a small town. It’s population was at most a couple hundred, whereas the capital city numbered in the hundred thousands, and was probably closer to the millions. As I closed the distance between me and the town, I noticed that some of the structures were on fire.

There was something happening to the town, and it wasn’t good. I increased my speed to hopefully minimize the damage to the town. I then smelled blood. They were being raided by bandits. The closest labyrinth was still too far away for there to be a raid from daemons. Other humans would be the only other answer.

When I was a couple hundred feet away from the village, I saw a man, bruised and bloodied beyond compare, standing in the way of 3 bandits. Behind him was his wife and young daughter. She couldn’t be more than 8 or 9. Out here there were no contracted beasts because there was no church to create a link to the spirit world. The people were naturally weaker, and if some soldiers defected and became bandits, they could effortlessly kill common villagers.

As one of the bandits was about to stab the man and then take his loved ones, a white figure flashed by, and all 3 bandits were beheaded. I had no idea what did it but I still tried to make it there in a timely fashion just in case it wasn’t friendly. I didn’t want to see another family broken apart like mine was. The three bodies fell in a bloody mess before I could take another breath.

The man collapsed before I got there, but the white figure reappeared and knelt next to the man and placed its hands on his chest, and then the wounds began to disappear. I began to recognize who this figure was as the black hair was fluttering in the wind behind her pure white wings and armor. It was princess Lux.