The Roamer

Chapter 33: Declaration

“Who the hell are you?!” yelled the lord of this city at Aeolus, with a type of sadness that could not be expressed with words on his face. Aeolus simply smiled at him, and then replied to him after a bit.

“ I’m the guy who took down the commander of Antegria!” Aeolus yelled back, with the insane expression spreading even further on his face. The lord simply stared back with anger, clearly not comprehending what Aeolus just said.

“So you’re telling me Felix is… gone?” the lord said back, a wistful look spreading on his face. Aeolus began to retract his mad face, as he realized that this lord and the commander might have some sort of relation with each other. The lord began tearing up, and Aeolus began to feel somewhat terrible.

‘Why… why does he think he can cry after everything he’s done to this city?!’ Aeolus screamed within his mind, not understanding why this was happening. This city's upper level were the terrible people, not him! So why was he the one on the receiving end of the guilt?

“No, it’s just emotions. I haven’t refined myself to a good enough point, I’m still too naive. To think that I’d feel bad for an enemy who is a terrible person…” Aeolus said to himself, convincing himself to feel less pitiful for humanity. Indeed, there were definitely going to be times in life that you would feel terrible for an enemy.

“Now then, I declare this city free of slavery, and any who dare to rebel against my order can go see their dead parents!” Aeolus roared throughout the city, silencing everything. Even the wind seemed to have silenced, but it was just Aeolus using the affinity of wind to stop the moving wind.

“Dad, are we really free?” some really, really young brat asked a man with a beard.

“Son… this is just a terrible prank, don’t get hopes up.” the man said, but it was obvious that even he had something shining within his eyes.

“Why would I be lying? I beat down the commander of this damned Antegria, and now there’s nothing standing in my way!” Aeolus roared angrily, not understanding why these people doubted their freedoms so much. He really did free them, so what was there to be afraid of?

Meanwhile, the lord was just crying during this whole situation, and Aeolus did not confront him at all.

“This… Pangaea is going to fall into disorder soon.” the lord said after crying for a bit.

“What do you mean by that?” Aeolus asked the lord, confusion on his face.

“Pangaea is always prepared for a rebellion. In the case of a city being conquered, all other cities are to send in their strongest forces to claim it back… while utterly destroying it and most of the people within.” the lord of Antegria said, wistfulness in his eyes. At that moment, Aeolus realized the seriousness of this situation.

‘This… the city is going to have a full on assault coming at it soon?!’ Aeolus hollered within the depths of his mind, beginning to regret many things. If only he had begun to conquer cities when he was stronger, he could be more confident in holding off all those forces.

However, he did not have that strength. He could not even hold down the commanders, even though he had all those soldiers. How would he survive the commanders, along with those soldiers of theirs? He would be utterly decimated.

“Exactly how much days until that invasion comes?” Aeolus asked, a serious tone spreading through his eyes.

“If we are to look at it from other cities perspectives, they should arrive in about five days…” the lord said to Aeolus, and Aeolus comprehended just what he was going to do.

‘I’m going to escape from here within these five days, along with as many people as I can bring.’ Aeolus thought to himself, confidence stemming from within. If he couldn’t even save innocent people from a mere fight, and he had so much time, what could he do?

“If I can’t fight them head-on with strength, I’ll fight them with tactics.” Aeolus said out loud, and fascinated the lord of Antegria. Just how was this brat supposed to fight at all, whether it be strength or tactics? The opponents were people who had both strength, along with tactics.

“Damned lord of Antegria, prepare the citizens for evacuation. We’re going to flee Pangaea for now, to a land that I know all too well.” Aeolus said, while smiling sweetly like a little brat. The lord of Antegria realized what Aeolus meant, and began smiling as well.

“However, do not expect yourself to continue being a lord once we arrive at the destination, as you do not have the power to compete with the people of the land we’re heading to.” Aeolus said, which made the lord immediately retract his smile.

‘I’m going to be lowered to the status of a god damned peasant?’ the lord asked within his mind, still comprehending what he just heard. He then slowly descended into anger, until he hit the point of supreme madness. He began to punch towards Aeolus, but Aeolus percepted all of it.

He caught the punch, and stared right into the lords eyes.

“Just because I can’t compete with the incoming assault, it doesn’t mean I can’t compete with you.” Aeolus said, killing intent putting fear into the lord of Antegria. He immediately calmed himself down, and began to apologize.

“I’m sorry young master, it was rude of me to do such a thing!” the lord yelled, tears filling up his eyes. Aeolus simply threw him away, but a simple throw for Aeolus was enough to kill a normal human. The lord went flying for tens of miles, and didn’t stop until he crashed into the ocean.

“The brat threw me in the direction of the ocean for this…” the lord realized, but once again calmed himself down. If the brat could throw him this far so easily, he could probably sense him from so far away as well.

--- sequence 2 ---

‘Now that he’s out of the way, let’s start evacuation.’ Aeolus thought to himself, bringing out all of the undead. All of the undead were to start with the weakest of people, and end with the strongest people. By the end of it all, maybe everyone in this city would escape Pangaea.

Just like that, for four days and nights, the undead continuously flew from Pangaea to Regalia, the land which he now referred to as, the abyss. They had evacuated most of the people since they were powerful and flew so fast, but there was still a quarter or so of the people left.

“Master, only a day remains until the invasion, and so many people have yet to be transported. I fear that we might not make it in time…” one of the undead said, wariness in its voice. In reality, they didn’t even know if they had a day, and they could invade right now.

“Don’t worry about that, just continue to evacuate people until the invasion begins. At that time, we will stand tall and proud and fight against as much of the cities as possible to save this city and its people.” Aeolus told the undead, comforting it a bit. In reality, it didn’t do much, since the undead could sense his real emotions, and he was being cautious too.

‘At most, we got six hours until the invasion begins. At that time, we have to stop transporting people, and hide them somewhere.’ Aeolus said in his mind, explaining the plan to himself once again. This time, he was not going to mess up like he did in Regalia, and save as much as possible.

In reality, he had figured out that there was a huge underground to this city, almost as big as all of Pangaea. The issue was that, even if he hid all the people there, since it was so big, other cities should have found out about it as well. If they were to send people down there, there could be a huge massacre against the people of Antegria.

Aeolus stiffened at the thought, but realized that this was the only choice he had. He would leave the undead with the people of Antegria while they were escaping using the underground, and he would have to stay at the surface, stalling all the invading cities.

‘Not only do we have to worry about the surface, we have to worry about the underground, so I have to split off from most of my undead…’ Aeolus thought to himself, and stress began to kick in immediately. He calmed himself down though, thanks to the affinity of wind.

“We’ll worry about this more once the actual invasion arrives.” Aeolus said out loud, but mostly, to himself.

“Of course, my master.” Kline replied, respect in his tone. No matter what happened, the undead were forced to stick with their masters, so he’d always go with the masters decision.

Just like that, a few more hours passed, and they had evacuated around two thousand more people. However, they suddenly heard loud horns. Aeolus realized them as war horns, and began to prepare.

“My undead, escort the city’s people to the underground, and stall for as much time as possible!” Aeolus roared, while taking out twenty of the undead he had, including Kline. However, he kept the illusionist to himself.

“Yes, my master.” Kline said while kneeling, and stood up. It took all of the undead and the remaining citizens with itself, and fled to the underground. Meanwhile, Aeolus stood tall and proud at the surface, with the last seven undead remaining with him.

‘Our goal is to stall for as much time as possible, no matter what. Right now, every citizen is underground, and only we are still remaining.’ Aeolus explained the priorities of this mission, and all the undead understood clearly. This was a do or die situation, and they had to stall for as much time as possible.

“If we manage to stall for more then ten minutes, we’re going underground as well. If we don’t, well, we’ll be dead.” Aeolus explained out loud this time, while not being so optimistic. For once, the undead showed emotion, but it was misery, misery at the fact that their leader was pessimistic.

After five more minutes, they saw a huge wave of enemies coming in, ranging in the tens of thousands. Aeolus began to sweat, as he knew that they couldn’t fully take on this wave. Besides, even if he did somehow take down this wave, this was just a single wave, out of multiple cities.

“Undead soldiers, lets lower the stalling time to five minutes?” Aeolus turned back and joked, trying to raise the morale. However, the undead were slowly thinking of deserting, even though it was impossible.

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ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Favorite food: da asian stuf!

Anyway, on a more serious tone, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience! If you could also somehow get others to read this novel too, I would be pretty grateful!