Guardian: The Great Beginning

Chapter Fifteen - The Ritual

Chapter Fifteen

The Ritual

Akilah's plans were abruptly halted the moment she ran into her brother at the edge of the Fairy Forest, just outside the Pixie Village. While the Pixie Village and Fairy Forest were accessible for everyone who wished to enter, the Fairies preferred their Palace's exact location to remain hidden to those who hadn't any need of knowing it, and thus Akilah respected their rules by not using Magic near the Palace. Places that had high concentrations of Magic-use were easier for creatures with similar powers to track it. Of course, this included Aharnish – and considering he didn't know exactly where the Palace was located, he had no choice but to wait for his sister at the edge of the forest. His patience had never been tested to this extent.

Aharnish was angry, livid, even, but perhaps it was just his frustration and desperation manifesting through different appearances rather than actual anger.

He hastily told her about the Ritual, about everything that had been going down – Akilah agreed to performing the Ritual, considering if her plan fell through, this would be the only way to save the day – but demanded that they secured Asura first so that whatever light was left within him wouldn't be harmed by the Ritual.

The Ritual was intended to gather all the Darkness present in Lunaria all that time and guide it to one spot in the world, with the Light then vanquishing it. If Asura were to be using Magic at the time of the Ritual, Asura's soul would be caught in the same draw and get vanquished as well – killing him in the process.

Of course Akilah didn't want this to happen to her little brother, and Aharnish couldn't help but agree. No one deserved to suffer such a fate.

Now, they had to consider how exactly they'd keep their brother safe. On paper, things were considerably easy – knock him out and keep him that way until the Ritual was completed.

But in practice, Akilah knew Asura wouldn't allow himself to be knocked out that easily. Especially not now that he was stronger and more paranoid than ever.

Regardless, they had to try. Even if Asura claimed he didn't want to be saved – deep down inside, there was still light within him. There had to be.

Akilah didn't expect everything to be forgotten and forgiven after Lunaria had been cleansed, but she did hope that things would be able to go at least somewhat back to normal.

Akilah and Aharnish decided just to go straight ahead with their plan and get Asura subdued through sheer force. They wasted no time, making way straight from the Pixie Village to the Castle of Dark. Travelling through the light grew increasingly difficult as the world around them grew darker and darker, but it was worth it if having to go through the extra effort meant saving the world in the end.

It turns out the two Spirits had arrived just in time to stop Asura from making a great mistake.

Asura found himself growing more and more powerful by the minute while the Darkness grew around him; yet, for some reason, he found himself struggling to reach his full potential. The Light inside him was resisting.

Asura knew there was only one reason; his home was still too light. The Dark simply couldn't penetrate the Magic barriers this Realm had to protect itself – but a direct Touch on the Globe by Asura would chance that.

Permanently.

Just as his hand began to hover over the part of the Globe that represented the Land of Light, Asura was knocked away from the Globe by a blast of Light Magic.