Fidelis carelessly put Nevigne down, almost dropping her on the stone surface. He leaned on the trunk of one of the tree statues and began panting like an animal.
"Are t-they... gone?" he asked between heavy breaths.
The high elf quickly scanned their surroundings and found no signs of the insectoids or their ships. "Yes, we lost them," she answered.
Fidelis drew a heavy breath of relief. "It's been a while since I got this worked up."
The fallen archangel had been running for the past ten hours in this labyrinth-like stone forest. To escape the crafty overgrown cockroaches, he had to circle around the forest instead of directly heading to the end of it.
"Good job, Fidelis. You're pretty fast," Nevigne remarked.
Fidelis only gave her a look of disappointment.
Once again, the sun was beginning to hide below the horizon, casting a nightmarish darkness amidst the giant petrified forest. The hour when the hellish creatures arose to feast on the weak had come.
As soon as the sun had disappeared completely, giving way to the starless night, an unearthly howl marked the beginning of the competition. The competition that decided who was full, and who was food.
The three-headed hellhound's howl was followed by growls in the shadows, wings flapping in the distant sky and disturbing silence in between.
And then, Fidelis heard a different kind of growl... which came from Nevigne's stomach.
"What are we gonna do now?" he asked her.
Nevigne had just finished healing the wound in her leg, leaving not even the tiniest scar. She then got up and answered: "We hide for now. It's too dangerous to move in the dark."
He then pointed a finger at her stomach. "I'm talking about this. Do you need something to eat?"
Nevigne shook her head. "No worries, I have enough mana to keep myself alive for the next three da—" her sentence was interrupted by her stomach growling, "—ays..."
Fidelis wordlessly crossed his arms.
"Okay, I haven't eaten in months," she revealed, "or is it years..." she mumbled to herself, trying to remember the last time she'd eaten. "Anyway, there's nothing we can do for now. We need to wait until the sun rises."
Nevigne could no longer see what was in front of her, not even Fidelis. The forest was too dark and they only knew they were safe because the sounds the monsters produced were coming from a great distance. The silence scared Nevigne more because those were the instances that she genuinely didn't know where the dangers were.
The two decided to sit on a huge rock nearby, their backs facing each other. Nevigne summoned a small fire floating at the tip of her finger to serve as a candle.
She rested her forearms on her touching knees and hung her head low, letting her long white hair cover her face.
"Go to sleep," Fidelis said, gazing in the darkness. "I'll keep watch. Then I'll wake you up when it's my turn."
Nevigne responded immediately. "No, I'll keep watch. You can sleep all night."
Fidelis glanced over his shoulder.
She continued. "Sleep isn't a rest for me at all."
She heard a light chuckle behind her.
"Then we can sit here all night," he said. "I myself don't find sleep appealing."
Nevigne blankly stared at the ground without uttering a word. At nights like these for over five hundred years, it was only her and the repeating scene of God killing her comrades. It was only the silence and the memories of her friend's faces when they saw her break every single promise. That utter disappointment in their eyes that they kept saying aloud.
Fidelis's words cut through her thoughts.
"Considering we just made ourselves the most wanted criminals in the Muratian army, we need to leave this continent as soon as possible. What's the plan?"
Her head jerked up. After a moment of silence, she responded. "You're right. This place is where one of the major scavenger bases is located, so they have relayed our information across colonies by now."
"So where's our next stop?" Fidelis asked.
Nevigne put her wooden staff across her lap and dropped her hand. "We'll have to steal one of their ships."
Fidelis shifted and laid on his back, using his palms to cushion the back of his head. He gazed at the distant skies beyond the stone canopy where several lights moved across.
"And fly where to?" he asked.
Nevigne fell silent and thought for a while.
"I was... a professor... back in the day," she said.
Fidelis remained silent and listening.
"I think, maybe... I should teach again."
She decided that the first step in valuing herself again was to reawaken the self she had valued in the past.
Thousands of years ago, before heaven lost its mind, Nevigne was a renowned teacher in several prestigious royal academies. She used to raise excellent and powerful mages across generations, the strongest ones in the world.
She loved her job. Imparting her eons of knowledge to dedicated students gave meaning to her ridiculously long life.
"Ah, so you're that famous elven professor," Fidelis responded.
"In the northern continents, there are many thriving human settlements hiding from the insect scavengers and demonic monsters," she said, sliding her hand along her arm for warmth while the other was extended to provide light.
"I see," muttered Fidelis. "Well, there is an active Muratian base up ahead. If we infiltrate their data center and erase all information about us, it'll make our travel easier. We'll also take one of their ships."
A sharp breath escaped Nevigne's lips, her gaze was fixed on the sandals on her feet.
Their conversation carried on through the evening.
***
Nevigne watched Fidelis's peaceful sleeping face with great disgust. They had only been talking for half an hour when he suddenly stopped responding. She turned only to see him completely passed out on the rock.
She sighed. "Well he's tired, alright," she muttered.
Perhaps, the conversation about their plan was so mundane that it bored him to sleep.
Nevigne began to wonder what a powerful archangel would consider an exciting adventure. Back in his glory days, Fidelis might have engaged in things incomparable to this pointless journey.
Nevigne took a deep breath. "Another pointless endeavor. It would seem that I'm good at those," she muttered.
Come to think of it, everything Nevigne had done all her life had been pointless. The work she poured into teaching those students, the knowledge and power she gained over the years, the battles she had fought and the lives she saved — they all amounted to nothing.
Even this stone forest was a complete failure.
While submerged in thoughts that consumed her every single night, Nevigne heard — no, she felt something approaching.
She stood up and raised her staff.
"About time," she mumbled. The red orb glowed like a bright fire illuminating the whole clearing.
She didn't find the intruder in front or behind her. It didn't walk.
The creature was up above, clinging on the trees by penetrating the stone trunks with its sharp claws. The one-eyed ape tilted its head and produced a sound that, albeit foreign, could be unmistakably interpreted as excitement. Its mouth was opened wide, salivating and showing its bloody teeth.
Then, in the deepest darkness beyond the towering stone trees, several bloodthirsty eyeballs glowed with malice.
"Demons that hunt in groups..."
Nevigne took a deep breath and charged for the next spell.
"Great. I needed a distraction, too."