Leofwynn flew at full speed, and with the Sword of Fire transformed into Flames of Darkness, she controlled what struck Grōnilubō and made her plummet once more, now toward the waters.
With each punch from the Vulcana, the sky had burning trails that blazed and smoldered, stirring mists and vapors into the Storm.
Cwenburg returned to the top of the building where Æthelflæd was, and collapsed into the Human's arms. No Aura remained in the Girl-Unicorn.
— Now it's up to you, Æthelflæd. — and Cwenburg went out.
— What do you mean? I'm completely useless! — Æthelflæd protested, but the Unicorn was already asleep.
The Human placed her friend on her back, and walked, looking around, calling for Godwyna without success.
Annoyed, soaked, carrying Cwenburg who clung affectionately around her neck, Æthelflæd circled that building trying to find some way down.
The raging waters crashed at the height of the third floor of the building, and in the back section, other buildings were seen, fallen, leaning against one another.
As Æthelflæd ran across the debris on the bridge improvised by the collapsed walls, the red trails in the sky moved away.
Leofwynn kicked the disfigured body, and she noticed, flying to the opposite side when the ashes emerged, the harbinger of the new explosion.
The sound shattered what remained of glass in the city. The buildings bathed the flooded streets with shards.
The image of fire among the clouds gave way to Grōnilubō's body, floating, flying back to the starting point, where she again expelled dark clouds, dust, and exploded twice as much.
Leofwynn, paralyzed, felt her Aura drain at an absurd speed, with the rain being enough to keep her temperature stable, however, accelerating what was necessary to keep the Seals freed.
Five thousand years after the Demon King conquered the Throne of Bones in the Black Castle...
The bloodlines still wandered through the vast expanses, and there were no grand cities.
The Black Company was part of what was a slice of an era.
Families, from many distinct races, traveling with wagons and oxcarts. They were little more than a hundred.
They spent seasons in the same area, sought fertile lands, planted and harvested, and then departed for new forests and virgin plains.
Even the Kingdoms did not yet exist as in the time of the Lolis. And peace was rarely broken.
When the young Eomer, a Human, found the Beech tree, he immediately mounted his horse and returned to the group that was crossing a hill.
Everyone stopped and, even curious, respected that only the elders should assess the problem.
They descended on horseback along trails between streams and green grassland, where the earth was dry and firm, and where no one had ever set foot before. And they went to the tree.
The Beech, part of something none of the commoners of the Black Company could imagine, had black branches, without leaves, in contrast to all the nature around it.
Even its roots were black, like the earth around its shadow, which beyond it returned to the common color of the banks and riverbeds.
Hanging, twelve Immortals. Long ears, beautiful faces, and long hair, longer than their bodies. Marks revealed tortures and a ritual with tattoos, piercings, chains, and something even more nefarious.
All the dead were pregnant.
Darson, a Caprus elder of the Black Company, argued that they should burn that.
Jolisfern, the Goldsmith Artisan, thought it best to simply move away. In silence, the Fairy Creontes argued that perhaps it would be better to bury all the dead Immortals.
Eomer questioned how they could have died if they were Immortals, and Darson explained that any Immortal could be killed, however, they never died of natural causes.
It was common for Immortals to eventually kill themselves. Suicide was a common part of their culture, however, that sight seemed like anything but a collective suicide attempt.
At that moment, one of the corpses gave birth to a girl, who fell to the ground below her hanged mother.
She cried, and was caught by the Nymph Bordalo, granddaughter of Doctor Bordalo, who by this time was already old and no longer left his bed in the carriage.
— I can nurse her, I have two, one more won't make any difference. — But Jolisfern took the newborn baby from Bordalo's hands, and she was sent back to the carriages and the people.
The elders decided to burn the tree with the corpses.
And Darson held the little girl in his arms, with the mission of putting an end to her.
The Caprus placed her on the ground, and drove his dagger into the little one's neck, and she ceased crying forever.
The Beech burned, and the cremated bodies were forgotten after the Black Company passed on.
On the ground, the baby's body attracted a Phoenix, which in the flames of the corpses made its nest, feeding on the newborn from the neck, which caused the dagger to fall to the ground, and the little one's skin to regenerate.
The Phoenix understood that it would burn the fragile creature, and did not move away, for it was already too close, however, besides being Immortal, the baby had the blood of the Undead in her, and she regenerated after burning, and so she was embraced by the Phoenix, which in its nest nursed the baby with Fire Milk.
The power of the food was so great that it burned the baby's throat and organs, and she regenerated so vividly that she grew stronger and stronger, and crawled through the forest, seeking the shadow of her Phoenix mother.
And she cried when being fed and having her skin melted, and as she grew she walked, and her power to fly was innate magic, coming from the Phoenix's own Aura, which no longer burned her, for all the child's skin was calcined inside and out.
And there was no more pain.
They flew through the skies, hunted animals and fed themselves.
They played among the clouds and laughed joyfully.
Over the centuries, without learning a single word of any language, and
without thinking like the other races, for she lived and was like the Phoenix, the first Human cities emerged, and in one of these the Phoenix
and daughter landed, and burned all who approached, for they did not know them, and did not fear them.
Thus they were hunted, and killed their pursuers, and bounties were placed on the heads of the Phoenix and the Abomination, as the girl was called in that time.
And with the new millennium, many other bloodlines built cities, and Heroes and Heroines hunted and killed the Phoenix, the last of her species, and from her ashes, cursed by a Floral Sorceress, there was no rebirth.
The Abomination was alone, and she avenged her mother, and killed many, so many that the Demon King himself rose from his Throne of Bones, for there were no more high-level Heroes at that time, or they were on the Monster Continent or had fallen facing the Abomination.
The battle lasted for so long, with the succession of rebirth and explosions devastating so many cities that the geography of the southern continent was altered.
Faced with this insoluble problem, the Demon King simply teleported her to the Monster Continent.
The Cities of the Monsters were no smaller, and soon the Abomination gained a name, Grōnilubō, which meant Move House.
And that was what they began to do, when she appeared, flying, exploding, and rising among the clouds until she burned incessantly for centuries in the same spot, the cities just moved elsewhere.
Many claimed Grōnilubō as part of their groups, but she always did the same, ignited and exploded, seeking the warmth of the mother she so loved, and this had not changed, even when the One teleported her back to the Demon King's Continent, above the city of Reefback.