Áz - The Battlefield

The Cardinal of the Blue Temple

South of the Continent, North of the Salt Desert.

Nothing made sense. When after so much pain he was finally freed from that cursed place, he was told that a lot of time had passed, and now what would he do? Who would know what to do? He didn't even know.

After starting to fly towards the City of Azzaria, told by Illye which seemed to be the closest city to Aven'Nath Deep, Kamaell passed over a forest a few hours ago at high speed. He had already passed through there, probably, the forest that was once clear full of trees and leaves with shades of orange now looked dark and full of huge dry trees with no apparent life. Time seemed to be cruel to everyone, not just him.

Nothing looked the same, nothing else looked the same as before.

The young woman in his arms, known as Noella or Noell according to Illye, seemed to be fast asleep, even with the sound of the wind rushing past them she had no sign of waking up. The muscles in his body were almost torn apart from doing something they weren't able to do yet and his left arm was crumpled and twisted but it was still possible to be saved if it was still there, he was currently using one of those strange Authorities on his body as a way to staunch her injuries and even then she only survived due to the Ritual they both performed.

When he fell into that abyss he had two authorities, he was a full Phase 5 Lord. Now his body was strange, he felt several unknown Authorities circulating within his existence and his main Authority he didn't even feel anymore. At the time he knew he was still at least the Lord of the Vultures, but his strength had dropped to Phase 4 for no apparent reason and besides what else was he? There was still no answer for anything. As he flew, he sought to understand everything that was happening inside his body.

— What are those dark marks on your arm?"Are they a curse? — Illye asked, staring at the arm she was holding.

Illye was no longer flying hanging on him, in the air she had put a small barrier and was "thrown" over her while holding his arm and being pulled by it. After they came out of the abyss, their Authority started working normally again and she thought about doing that, in addition to stopping before and with the "feathers" of his Authority along with rags from his clothes Illye stopped the bleeding from his wound. Even so, the priority was still Noella and so they were flying in a hurry.

The curse she spoke of was something arising in Áz, whether naturally or not some people during their lives acquired strange marks on some part of the body that caused negative side effects either physical or mental, either on him or those around him while they were close.

It had been almost an hour since Kamaell had said a word and he had noticed that the wounded Barrier Lord he carried with him still looked quite uncomfortable with his presence, but that didn't matter to him, nothing really mattered anymore. Even so, with her questioning, he looked down at his own arm and saw a design of six distinct marks intertwined with an empty space near the center and chuckled scornfully at what he was seeing.

— Those marks, girl, are the reason for my fall and what made me stop in that place, something similar to what happened to you two happened to me...— He replied until he stopped suddenly. — Believe me, you don't want to hear a shit story from a dead man for centuries that's nothing but disappointing.

He didn't care about himself anymore, after a while awake he thought about revenge and several other things, mainly wrapped in negative feelings, which could become his reasons to move on. But after thinking a little deeply over and over again he would give up such thoughts, not even self-satisfaction would he reap if he pursued it.

Even the revenge he might crave should yield results, but what to do when enough time had passed that even the hate wasn't worth it? Whether it was the year they were in or the realm they were in, this information alone made him feel an intense, endless emptiness.

— We are coming. — Illye said trying to break the cold atmosphere of impasse between the two, what she least wanted now is for him to go crazy out of nowhere. — That city is Azzaria. — She completed following her gaze along a winding dirt road to a small walled town.

The city he saw before him bore no resemblance to the last he had seen, walls twenty meters high and sealed gates of thick iron of the same magnitude made this city what appeared to be a frontier city.

— Hmmmm… — He muttered as he watched the city, wondering what to do.

Ignoring the city gates, he just flew in out of the blue.

People below could see them fly over the city and many soldiers seemed to run in the direction they were going despite falling behind on the way.

— What are you doing? You will be arrested if you enter such a city without identifying yourself! — Grumbled Illye, watching the commotion among the local citizens of Azzaria.

— Identification? — He asked ironically as if listening to nonsense. — Do you think I have something like that? How long do you think it would take to get in if we waited at the gate? I'm not going to them, I'm going to let them come to me, to come to me somewhere relevant where everyone can see.

As they flew and were followed by the soldiers below he was looking for a place of relevant importance in the city so he could land, if he found the town hall or some busy place it would be good enough, so in one of the directions he was looking he saw what looked like a indigo temple to the northeast of where he was.

— That temple... blue?... — He commented, changing direction and quickly coming to a stop over the temple.

Having stopped in front of the temple, he undid his wings as he slowly floated towards the entrance of the temple, stopping on the ground. Illye broke free of him and trying to get to her feet she undid the barrier that held her, but fell to the ground without strength soon after. On the other hand, Kamaell carefully placed Noella against a tree near the temple entrance and soon saw Illye lying on the ground.

— You're kind of stupid, aren't you? Lost a lot of blood, been injured for hours and still trying to walk away like nothing happened? Try to be at least a Phase 5 before thinking about doing something like this without worrying about your girl status. — He explained seeing her trying to get up, without even going to try to help.

— Your... — She tried to speak, but gave up seeing that it wasn't going to be worth it now.

The local priests who saw the three descend from the sky broke into an uproar making an equal contrast to the rest of the city that saw them arrive, a young man among the priests saw Illye wounded on the ground and soon screamed.

— It's the princess! Princess Illye is alive! — He yelled as he approached her. — She's injured, call the Cardinal quickly! Your injuries appear to be serious!

As the priest shouted, the others gathered around him, while two others entered the Temple, probably looking for the local Cardinal. The priests began to emit bluish energy like clear water from their auras into Illye's body trying to apparently heal her.

There was almost no real healing in Az, apart from the Lords of Heal, Life and Regeneration which were exceptions that Kamaell knew, as well as a few others, no one could heal another person. Even the other Lords could only heal at most through their authorities if they were strong enough to achieve this spell and this still didn't extend to others who weren't their followers.

What the priests were doing with the water was one of the ways that were popularly known as "healing", forcing the body's natural regeneration to work faster, in the long run this would make the wounded debilitated for a few weeks if successful, if not only would it be in vain. But precisely these abilities were what made the priests so precious and also what made the gods so worshiped.

— This Blue Temple, I think I've seen it before… Maybe it's the only nostalgic thing around here. Maybe not everything has changed. — Kamaell mused, looking at the temple's entrance.

The use of aura was widespread on the continent, not least because not everyone could become a lord or follower of one of them and humans were not a race gifted with natural gifts like vampires with their blood control or witches with their chaos control. .

Other priests approached Noella and sought to check on her status, but a semi-translucent dark barrier stopped them by pushing them away along with a voice. Instinctively, Kamaell defended her in the same way he had used his former top authority, but another authority eventually responded and had the same effect.

— She's not leaving here for a while, not until I have answers about what's going on and what's happened. — Kamaell said coldly as he was surrounded by soldiers in blue clothes and silver armor. He'd noticed they called Illye a princess and all their concern, yet it had nothing to do with him.

These blue clothed soldiers were local guards of the temple itself, every temple was entitled to its own guards. However, in order not to generate revolts, in addition to the main headquarters in each country and the central temple of each deity, no temple was allowed to have more than ten one-fifth of the local guard corps of each city.

As the sword-wielding guards surrounded him one of them stepped forward and asked.

— Who are you?!!! If you continue to impede our actions you will be arrested!!! — The guard yelled at him.

— I'm not deaf, and I don't care if I get arrested or not, that is... if they could arrest me at all. — Replied Kamaell coldly, angry at what had been said to him for some reason he didn't know.

— Now yours!!! Guards let's arrest him! — The guard dictated as his sword began to glow in tandem with his bluish aura.

The other Blue Temple guards also started to do the same, their bodies and their swords were taken by a bluish energy and they prepared to attack. The city guards arrived one after the other also surrounded by the same blue aura and they also surrounded him again, even being a Lord it could be difficult to face so many people like that and they knew it.

— Wait! Don't attack him! He is a lord and he helped us! — Cried Illye as she was treated and realized what was happening next door, she was afraid the worst could happen… the worst with the guards.

— What's going on here? — Interrupted a bald man who came out of the temple dressed in dark blue robes as he analyzed the situation. — You... Everyone stop now! I don't want any madness happening in front of our temple! he ordered.

Despite their fear, the guards and soldiers who were going to attack stopped trying, however they kept pointing their weapons at Kamaell suspiciously. The gentleman who appeared to be the Cardinal was accompanied by a man and a woman dressed in lace-up clothes in vivid yellow who acted as indifferent to everything that was going on around there as if they were watching a play. Approaching Illye, who was farther away, the Cardinal exhaled his concerns.

— Princess Illye, how does it feels?? It's been four days since we've heard from you since the carriage attack… — He asked with a worried expression as he bent down and checked on her condition.

— Live...still at least. — She replied, exhausted.

Upon checking her physical condition, the man breathed a sigh of relief and stood up ordering them to take her inside.

— Cardinal Jord, I'll be fine, Noella is alive too... And this man was the one who helped us. —  She replied, relieved to be with a known Lord. — And although I don't know who he is... He is a Lord too.

— I understand little one, please rest now, we will contact his majesty as soon as possible. — The Cardinal replied with a reassuring smile to her.

After hearing the Cardinal's words, Illye finally felt safe in her mind to rest, she hadn't slept properly for several days and had not been able to rest for a long time due to what had happened earlier in Aven'Nath. Having arrived safely in a city, she soon felt more and more tired and with such words she gave way to weariness as she was carried very slowly inside by the other priests.

Cardinal Jord, who a few moments ago had beamed a comforting smile at the girl, assumed a stern expression as he stood up and turned towards the man with the huge hair and the strangely feathered cloak. His appearance was practically that of a beggar, however, despite his appearance this was no reason to doubt his strength if the princess herself had already expressed her concerns, so the cardinal himself began to stare Kamaell into his eyes.

— May I know… what I should call you? — Asked the Cardinal politely after a few seconds, remembering the presence of the two people who accompanied him and waited behind without intervening.

— Kamaell. — He replied apparently indifferently and in a few seconds Kamaell guessed the Cardinal's Authority. — And spare me your politeness, which seeks to calm me down, Lord of the Rivers, just say what you want.

— Kam.. Kamaell, fine. Then I'll ask you directly... Are you an ally or an enemy of Aggron? — With a serious look he asked, but despite that there was no doubt in his eyes. He was staring at Kamaell as if he already knew his identity just by looking at him.

— I don't know… — Replied Kamaell thoughtfully, then he pointed towards Noella and continued. — I don't know the answer to that, I don't even know what kingdom Aggron is to begin with. Which side this woman is on will be my choice since I'm only alive thanks to her saving me from that abyss.

Kamaell tried to insinuate a debt to Noella in order to present his point of view to the Cardinal. Hearing this, the man and woman behind Cardinal Jord looked at each other worriedly.

What Kamaell was saying seemed strange but plausible and Cardinal Jord clearly saw the confusion in Kamaell's eyes, he seemed lost. Even so, he needed to confirm if he was telling him the truth since he was in the presence of two Agents of Truth, but from what he could see so far the Cardinal would have to wait for Noella to wake up to know the truth about him, the two people who accompanied him would not expressed no comment so at least there was no lie in what had been said.

— I don't quite understand what you're saying, but she is the Kingsguard of the Princess of Aggron and also her own cousin. We won't give her any difficulty, even because she is someone important for this kingdom. We need her to be taken away too to be treated while we call the General of the City, I don't know why an unknown lord trusts one of us so much, but I believe that You don't want to leave Noella like that, do you? the Cardinal explained calmly. — And she is in a deplorable condition, it will take a few days for a good recovery.

City General was a position of the person who commanded the city, it was always a position granted to a Phase 5 Lord who managed the city at the behest of the king.

— You have a good point… — Kamaell sighed, calming down as he walked over to Noella and took her in his own arms and carried her. — Guide me. I will not interfere with her care, but I will not leave her side.

— Ho-ho... Let's go then... Hehe… Apparently this will cause a lot in the capital. Wa — Said the Cardinal smiling as he looked at what was happening for some reason that Kamaell didn't understand as he asked the guards and soldiers to clear a path and call the city's general.

The other priests looked at them strangely, what was going through the Cardinal's mind they never understood, often it just seemed that he was joking the whole time.