Arcana Tales: The Grimoire of Lumina

Chapter 02: The Grimoire

"Blasphemy!!! Begone, knaive! That is what you desire, isn't it? Then begone. From now on, I have no son!"

That disgusting voice was resonating on my mind during that walk, one night on the forest near the Town of Florasca.

A bitter taste ran through my tongue. The disgusted look of every men in that hall was reenacted by the tall trees looking down on me.

During those days I can lie down all day and still have luxurious food being brought by servants to my own room… but I chose to eat roasted animals seasoned by my own sweat… to eat fruits gotten by my bruised limbs gotten from climbing tall trees.

Heh... As if I wanted being his son. That maggot. He knew not what was right and what was wrong.

Actually, I was worried that time. Because no one will ever dare to oppose him whenever another twisted thought came again on his maggot-nested brain. I was worried not for him, but for my people.

I tried to wash out these thoughts from my brain by concentrating on hunting nocturnal animals.

Thud... Thud... Thud... 

Yes. Those were indeed footsteps. They came in a heavy fast pace so I started thinking they were from a huge boar or something.

I followed the footsteps. Lucky they were not from afar.

Hidden by the caress of the night forest, I took a peak at the source of the noise. I was wrong. They are from a man in a chainmail, wounded yet determined to run. He constantly peeks behind his back, as if chased by a flying knife.

I followed his peeks with my gaze. There I found three beings chasing after him. They were cloaked in black so I weren't able to see how they really looked like.

That man! He's in danger!

I rushed to aid the man they were pursuing but I was too late. He slipped on a tree root uprooted from the earth, and stumbled on the ground, wincing in pain. His pursuers took advantage of it and circled around him.

"THE-GRIMOIRE. RELINQUISH-IT-AND-YOUR-LIFE-WILL-BE-SPARED!" One of the cloaked-ones' husky voice seeped up to my bones, giving me the creeps. As I went nearer, the stench of something like a pyre of corpses came fouler and fouler.

The fallen one tried to respond with a weak voice.

"The Kingdom of Lumina... may fall but... but not its will! You... will not have the Gri... Grimoire, F-Forsakens!"

Whether his stammering was because of extreme fear or because of him being gravely wounded, I had no way to find out.

Did I hear it right? The great Kingdom of Lumina?

 Indeed. It thought it was impossible. The news of the great kingdom of Lumina falling would easily be mistaken for a joke. Even everyone was blind of what was happening inside those white walls that kingdom that was said to prosper for 300 years since it was founded would certainly have a great military strength. Wars broke out, plagues killed lives, but none of them even touched Lumina… not even once.

I switched my gaze upon the east, where a bright orange light was dancing with the stars. On that direction once lay Lumina. And that light? That was fire. The fire may be small for me to noticed only that moment but the fact that a fire from approximately a thousand myls away. The whole kingdom was set ablaze. It was too realistic to be a joke.

"THEN-WE'VE-NO-USE-OF-YOU, MORTAL! DIE!" The noisy cloaked-one raised his right arm and something happened that I thought I won’t believe. The arm, like a shadow of a fluttering mantle, gradually changed its form to a sword. He aimed at the man beneath him then he thrust it.