Tale Of The Half-Blood Wizard

"I Azalea alright?" I was wondering, trying to reach the prison room as soon as possible, But even running, it felt so much farther than usually. "Naar is with her, right?" I was hoping Yoru was also with her. At least they could help each other when bad things happen. 

Once I arrived in front of the prison door, I saw the Elder standing in front of Falak. It seemed they had not noticed my presence because I just stood still and stiffly due to confusion. I turned to gaze at Antonie's body lying on the floor. Meanwhile, slowly the head part that had been separated from his body started to reconnect. 

"Go, go away!" Azalea yelled at me. Her body went full of horrible wounds. I saw Naar and Yoru lying not far from her. "Hurry up, Tha!

Before even understanding what the current situation was like, Falak lunged at us. The Manji's body melted into grains and sand as they hit the walls. When the creature's attack was aimed at me, Kerberos jumped up and attacked it immediately, while Manji formed a guard and attacked the Elder. 

Although the Elder was like a middle-aged man, he moved very agile and managed to dodge the slash of the Manji's swords. Meanwhile, On the other hand, Antonie woke up with his head intact. He smiled mysteriously when seeing me. I did not know what to do.

It happened in a blink of an eye when suddenly I could see nothing but the darkness around me. The Manji's stood by my side and Kerberos in front of us. 

I looked around again, the atmosphere now had changed. We were in a forest I had never been to before. The fire was shot from the sky. It was from a bird that breathed out the fire. He flew above us, his wings spread out wide like a tongue of fire.

"Keep the Manji away from the fire!" Kerberos said. 

"Go! Go away from here!" I shouted at the Manji to warn them, but they were still. "Please, I beg you," I begged. The next second they turned into grains of sand.

Kerberos stayed alert by my side, while the bird flew circling above us, spitting out fire nonstop. The trees started to burn and the temperature started to rise. I did not see anyone else but both of us. 

"We will die if we stay here," I whispered. 

"This is just an illusion," Kerberos warned. We have to kill that bird to free ourselves," he added, "When there is an opportunity, you must cut the head off, then I will take the head away as far as possible," I nodded to understand the instruction, "Why is the tubby taking so long?" he grumbled. 

Now I got confused after listening to his grumble. "Mickey?" I confirmed it. 

"Yes, Miss. He will be here." Kerberos replied, his expression was disbelief. 

We could not just wait and did nothing when the bird kept breathing out fire and burnt everything around us. Therefore, Kerberos took me away from that place and from that animal. 

I did not know how long we had flown away but we finally felt that we were lost. When we were trying to find the way out of the forest, we would go back to our previous place. "Are we lost?" I asked Kerberos when I saw the bird was getting closer again. 

"Illusion only tricks our eyes, but the width of the area and other things closely related to illusion, so it was always made in high precision." I was trying to digest the explanation from Kerberos. 

"If so, we need to find the way out of the prison,," I asked. Kerberos nodded. "Are there other ways to dismiss this illusion?" This time he shook his head. 

Kerberos took me running, but it looked like everything was the same. After some time we finally saw something like a tunnel. "Over there!" I said and pointed to that tunnel. 

Following my direction, Kerberos ran to a seemingly endless tunnel. We kept running and running to reach its end until we finally were outside the prison room. 

The thick fog went down and filled up the room, limiting our sight. Kerberos blew that smoke away, and we could see clearly what was in front of us, people who were previously in front of the prison room were standing in front of us, including my father. 

I was just quiet in confusion. Antonie was among them and he smiled his sly smile at me, then laughed. He pointed at me, mocked me, "Look at your daughter's expression," He spoke to my father, "She is still confused with all o this." He added.

I said nothing and looked at him expressionless although honestly, I was still unable to understand the whole thing at the moment. I turned my gaze to a swirl of jet-black grains of sand that suddenly came on my side. It was Manji. I knew it. 

"THIEF." Screamed the Manji's. I wondered why they always said that word and turned to be brutal anytime they saw Antonie. 

I didn't know for how long, but my father had been standing there with them. He, then, walked toward me, "Don't make things get harder," he spoke in a flat tone. 

"So, It is all about. You are involved, too? All the things that happened are just dramas that you have created?" my voice rose. "What exactly do you want?" He stood still, and that made me more fed up. 

"You have made my childhood and my brother's life really hard. You keep hurting my mother. But that does not seem enough for you. You still make us have a hard life. To the worst, you don't realize it! What exactly are you?" I told him everything so that he knew how bad he was in my eyes. "Not even a glimpse I put you up as a role model," I was really disappointed

Father wanted to hit me, but I held his hand. "It is not that easy to hurt me! I am not a kid anymore." I said angrily. 

We stared at each other when suddenly hundreds or perhaps thousands of snakes were on the floor. They were crawling so fast toward us. One of Kerberos' heads blew out the ice breath, and in an instant, those snakes were frozen in place. Another head blew fire breath. It burnt down half of them. 

"Thief!" said the Manji in unison. They charged forward, attacking Antonie with a large sword formed of grains of sand. "Thief!" they shouted that word again and again with every slash they made. 

Antonie, with great agility, always managed to dodge every slash directed to him. I could not stand still because they fought each other to protect me. One crazy idea popped into my mind when I saw Yoru's bow lying beside him. 

I ran toward the bow of Yoru as fast as I could. It seemed the Elder realized my movement. Then he looked like he was about to cast a spell. But it was too late. I managed to reach the bow and the arrow. But the second after I grabbed them, my body shot up and something threw me against the wall. 

In a very short gap of time, when my body was lifted again, immediately I released an arrow and shot it toward the Elder. He stumbled into the dark prison's hole behind him, into the underworld with an arrow pierced through his forehead.

Antonie, who saw it, hurriedly chased after the Elder. He jumped into the prison pit, and the Manji's did not leave him out of their sight. They followed him, "Thief!" they said again before their body melted into the sand and flew after the man.

Meanwhile, I landed badly. My head hit the floor very hard, and the bow in my hand fell off and was thrown into the prison pit. Kerberos helped me to stand on my feet, and suddenly everything went silent. We just stood still and looked at each other, not knowing what had happened. 

"I swear I did not mean to," I said. There was an alarm in me that directed me to move spontaneously to defend myself. 

"He won't die so easily. Don't get relief too early," Azalea tried to get up with her numerous wounds all over her body. I tried to help her but my gaze fell on the pit where the Elder and Antonie were in now. For a second, I was hoping Falak woke up and devoured their body. 

A deafening sound broke the silence. Antonie's scream from inside the prison pit made my father panic. He wanted to run away, but Kerberos managed to stop him. 

It did not take long for the screaming to finally stop, and it went quiet again.. My eyes did not move from the prison hole, afraid that they might show up from the hole and attack us, or the Manji's, who also did not come back.