Fleeting Memories

Chapter 19: How long has it been?

It was absolute darkness. Not a single ray of light entered into the retina of my very eyes. I felt like I was drifting alone in the middle of a sea, isolated and floating above the salty azure gray body of water that had a depth beyond thousands of meters below.

But that silence was quickly broken as the Spirit King of Light sounded its voice within my head.

"Erica! Erica! Wake up!" It sounded away within my head; the voice somewhat becoming more and more annoying as my wobbly state of mind continued to float along the waves of the imaginary sea I was in.

"Wake up... I said wake up you dimwit!" It said at last and before I knew it, my eyes snapped open to see the irritated spirit crossing its arms while staring directly at me.

Before me, the fog far far above me that blocked out both the sun and the skies covered us all overhead; the roof establishing a darker atmosphere that made it seem like you were indoors.

I sat upright, putting a hand to my face, and upon rubbing my eyes, there I noticed the three discussing something before turning to find me wide awake now. Maxel rushed to my side first and grabbing hold of my hand, he faced me with a look of concern.

"Are you alright? You only just woke up three minutes after we all did... There's still some time left before we need to leave, so try recuperating a bit, there's no hurry at the moment..." Maxel said while he checked me for any injuries after I had passed out.

"Looks like the girl's awake now, quite spectacular timing there. We had already wrapped up everything at this point..." Raymond said with a smile as I looked at him in utter confusion.

"What do you mean everything's wrapped up... What just happened..." I said and just as I did, I suddenly then came to notice the scenery sitting right before me all this time.

Countless dead and grotesque monsters lay in waste before my very eyes. It was certainly a surprising sight and as I stood up, I could see countless more beyond the simple glimpse I managed to catch just then.

They were all the black magician's work, that was for sure as every single one of the lying corpses emitted an aura that gave away their origin. To add to that, the chimera-like features of a few of them put the nail in the coffin that they were also of no mere natural descent.

With sufficient rest, I walked on over to the already perished monsters, and upon doing so, I found that much of the wounds that covered their bodies were largely of the same and to add to that, they seemed to have died in no more than three hits with how severe each strike brought.

They were swift and painless strikes, attacks that contrasted greatly with the previous bunch back where Emily had fought. But for only three people taking care of monsters, I could barely beat, their strength was truly astonishing...

"You guys managed to kill all of these creatures in the span of three minutes...? Really, who's the monster here, I can't tell at this point..." I said jokingly while surveying the ambush attempt they fended off without even as so much break a single sweat.

"When you've been training non-stop for as long as we've had, it isn't as impossible as you may think it is... That being said, it seems like that Lich had set a trap here and if we didn't manage to wake up as quickly as we did, the monsters that were waiting for us here would've killed us all..."

"Yet, to still think that he sent such little amount, it's odd he had set up such a small force as a means of taking care of us... Something's really off about this..." Maxel pondered as he glanced over all the piles upon piles of dead monsters.

"He could've been in a hurry, yet I highly doubt someone as calculative as him would have trouble managing himself... Either that or..." Alfred added and while I listened to them talk, I spotted something moving just within the edge of my peripheral vision.