The Blades' Wrath

Flames. Smoke and flames. They defied the sun overhead, attempting to mask out its glory in the forest, the source of the chaos. Trees vanished within the wall of smoke that ran over them, the fire following it consuming them. It looked as though the two were competing, seeing which could destroy the forest first. One thing could not be denied - both of them moved swiftly. So quick and so hot was the fire, the crackling and snapping of burning trees was evident even from a far distance away.

The forest was a neglected part of the landscape, left to be shifted and shaped by Mother Nature. Therefore, no firefighters came to aid in quenching the blaze – it had been simply left to rage onwards until it collapsed, having exhausted its fuel. There were no other human beings for miles around. This would’ve been fine if the fire was of natural causes – such fires leave behind ashes whose nutrients held fuel the growth of a new forest. However, this inferno was not normal. No blaze of its size and intensity could possibly be. Neither was this a beneficial fire – it left no ashes behind. Nothing but the cold hard earth was left in its wake. Towering columns of smoke cascaded where what had once been trees. It was like the fire was dissipating the entire forest, dissolving it, consuming it. The blaze threatened to remove the entire forest, and perhaps the lands beyond. It had to be stopped.

The young man walked ahead, holding in his left hand the golden hilted sword. He stood in the middle of the forest, awaiting the oncoming, towering wall of smoke. The wildlife around him quivered, running and dashing away from the flames, though he noticed that many of them did not run fast enough. The unlucky ones were captured by the smoke, left awaiting their demise by asphyxiation or fire. Those others who were lucky enough to escape were in a state of pure terror. The trees let forth parades of fleeing birds, and the ground rustled and quaked with the movements of every woodland creature from mice to deer. Some were sneaking among the dense foliage and leaves while others charged straight ahead with wild abandon. Many of these creatures did not bother to go around him. Some almost ran into him, though he dodged before they could do so. He was not hated by the wildlife, though they did not respect him much either. The man was treated as one of their own – a denizen of the wilderness, though still entirely human by nature. Their behavior, however, did not concern him. If he got his way, they would all survive this tragedy. An unnatural tragedy of epic proportions.

He was pale in skin color. The irises in his eyes were green, and his blonde hair was neither unaffected nor hampered by the intensity of the blaze. The metal of the sword gleamed brightly, valiantly. The edges were intensely sharp, and the nobility and power of the weapon outshone the terror in front of him. The sword seemed to imbue warmth, rather than coldness, and he felt energized when he wielded the blade. It was no wonder to him that the blade was named “to endure” in its native language. After all, this blade was indestructible, and it was to be his saving grace; he knew this well. However, could it surpass the one that was ruining the landscape? This he was not entirely sure of, but he had no other choice. For the sake of everything in the woodlands, and for the people living beyond the boundaries of the forest, this invasion had to be stopped. His expression was that of determination, of persistence, of life. Unconquerable life.

He marched ahead, the wall within a few feet of him. However, not a speck of dust nor any of the ashes left a mark on his black outfit. It was simply whisked away, charging ahead of the main blaze, preparing to incapacitate more victims for the ritualistic sacrifice to this being who thought it had more control over the land than Mother Nature. This man was about to show that being otherwise. He raised his sword in the air, and charged, running towards the rapidly approaching wall.

As the sword and the wall collided, the sword flashed a brilliant blue. The color seemed to emanate from the blade, stretching outwards to receive the dull gray of the smoky wall. Where they collided, the wall was rent asunder by the force. A region of space, large enough for the young man to fit through, was rendered available by the blade. It sliced through the gray smoke as the young man charged ahead, cutting and ripping the smoke into pieces. Behind him, the smoke filled up the space where he had once been, but only came within mere inches of him before it curled back in disgust. The power of the sword matched the rage of the suffocating smoke, the remnants of the forest produced by the all-consuming blaze. The smoke did not touch the man, and this gave him comfort. For now, he was safe, and he found that he was entirely unharmed, despite the stifling air and the ferociously hot temperatures of the surrounding area. He did not feel them at all. Despite that, while he had no claustrophobia, the small conditions in which he was stuck, the smoke crowding around him only driven away by the blue sword, intimidated him. This was certainly beyond the power of one of them. The way the wall traveled, how fast it moved, the way it and the flames complemented each other…this had to be the work of more than one of them, and this made him nervous. They’d had arguments in past times, but this was unlike anything he had seen before. What was going on? What was he doing? Was he throwing himself into unnecessary danger?

Then again, he’d been in worse. He’d almost died more than once before in his extensive lifetime. He could stand this.

The smoke vanished, replaced by a raging swarm of fire and embers. It did not tower half the height of the smoke, but was equally detrimental to the progress of the man, for it ripped apart the landscape, stripping the land of water and life and turning it all into smoke. The trees were destroyed from the top downwards, turning into the same mysterious fog. Where the blue blade touched the flames, the fire dissipated, sizzling as though it had been touched by water. He walked slower, viewing the collapsing landscape around him. The smoke all but obscured the sun, hiding it from his view. The thick clouds of it hung in the air like a stifling blanket, fueled further by the raging blaze, some portions dispersing to provide a nuisance for the surrounding landscape in the former of more towering walls. All around him, trees fell to the ground, burning alongside shrubbery and foliage. The land seemed utterly destroyed, and, ahead, he could see the cracked earth that was the remnants of the onslaught. It broke his heart, seeing the way that the land had been devastated, further knowing that he could’ve prevent such a tirade from happening.

However, he grew assertive. That was in the past – he had made many mistakes in the past. Now he was here to fix them, and his first objective was to learn what was responsible for the flames, and exterminate the threat. He didn’t want to kill anybody, but, if things were as bad as they appeared…

“Why hello, my old friend. I see you have not come with Veillantif. Have you so readily abandoned your old life? What a pity.”

That was the voice he dreaded to hear. There was no denying it - he heard it, and he couldn’t be wrong.