"Did you just consume the guardian?" Dianah furiously demanded as she stared at the dumbfounded bird. She was still repairing part of her body.
"Wasn't my fault," Diguin answered. The fairy attacked. Diguin had seen how lethal it was, and it just happened to be heading for the core. Suddenly, he was in an existential crisis, so he reacted as anyone would. He used his strongest ability: sucking someone into his void stomach.
"Quickly spit him out," Dianah demanded, "The lord will be furious if we return without it."
"Can't be helped," Diguin answered. Even if he could, he would not be able to bring someone or anything really, out of there. This was at the center of his core, the very function of his being.
Meanwhile, all the fairies were in shock. Kigen perished, just like that? They still could not believe it. Moreover, the creature responsible for this was nonchalantly speaking, as if it was talking about tracking mud or something.
Livid, all the fairies swarmed forward, attacking the two with reckless abandon. Must like Kigen, they too had gotten a boost in their abilities, specifically, the earth element. Therefore, they had become sturdier, and more forceful in their attacks.
As the group surged ever closer, Dianah waved her hands, causing the rainwater to start moving around her. A whirlwind of water formed around her, surrounding both her and the black bird.
Once the whirlwind was formed, it began to expand. Slowly, it ascended, connecting to the clouds up above. The whirlwind quickly developed into a full-blown tornado. This supercharged the wind around her, bringing about all manner of mayhem, and this was what she was after.
With a sudden lunge, several fairies were caught up in the tornado, unable to evade the powerful winds. To the humans, it looked like a tornado, but to the fairies, this was nothing less than a hurricane.
Once they were caught up in the tornado, the fairies became easy pickings for the water golem, who had a small makeshift cage prepared. By the dozens, several fairies were caught, unable to escape the snare.
Once the guardian fell, the fight in the fairies seemed to diminish. Even the top siblings, Nina and the rest, were only focused on retreating, keeping as far as possible from this threat.
Diguin, who was flying overhead, watched all this happening without producing a sound. This ability really irked him about Dianah. Her affinity to the water element made the rest of them fearful. Well, perhaps not Daudi, he was always up for a fiery exchange, quite literally.
As he watched, he suddenly coughed. At first, he did not react. He did not question how he could cough without any lungs. This was a remnant of his memories of when he was a human, when he used to smoke the pipe, and sometimes cough.
However, he began to get worried the moment he started feeling fatigued. Not just tired, but deep down fatigued, like he'd been working for several days, and he was just so drained. He wanted nothing more than to rest and get some sleep.
"Oh no!" he muttered, as he looked inwards, specifically to his core.
Most golems could freely move their core around. Some, like Dianah, had their core made up of water, which integrated with her being. If she was in a large water body, or in a deluge like this, she was simply unkillable.
The one thing that all golems could do was view their cores. As Diguin checked inside, he was shocked by what he saw.
Instead of a fairy at the end of his rope, he saw rootlike vines emanating from the hands and feet of the fairy. They had wrapped the fairy, protecting it from the particles. Moreover, they seemed to be consuming the particles.
With horror, Diguin realized what was happening. He was being eaten, consumed by these vines. Little by little, his core was being absorbed by the fairy. This was why he was getting weaker and weaker. If this continued, he would die.
Unfortunately, Diguin could do nothing about it. His elite killing move had turned on him this time. In a desperate move, the bird started clawing at its own chest, as though it was trying to remove Kigen from its body.
Unfortunately for him, all this was useless. All he managed to do was fly into the tornado, alerting Dianah of his predicament. By the time she fished him out, he was already unconscious. The last pieces of his core being absorbed by a fairy.
As she was wondering how he'd died, a fairy shot out of the now dissolving body of the black bird.
"Light! Finally!" Kigen exclaimed as he celebrated escaping from the dark tomb he'd been in. Looking around, he saw his fellow fairies sealed inside an ice box. Slowly, he looked up. Their eyes met, fairy and golem.
Rage! That was the emotion Dianah saw in those tiny eyes. The fairy looked really ticked off. For a moment, she found herself afraid of the little thing. The next moment, Kigen shot forward, heading to the golem with all the force he could muster.
Just like before, Kigen managed to leave behind a gaping hole through her abdomen. However, the rainwater was gathering around her. Kigen did not give her time to heal. Shooting down once more, he powered through the golem through, this time poking a hole through the neck.
If one fist does not work, then how about ten. If ten don't work, how about a hundred. This was an important lesson he'd learned while stuck in that black hole he'd been in a while ago.
Zip! Zip! Zip! Kigen relentlessly attacked the golem, each time punching holes in his wake. By the looks of it, he was going to destroy her faster than she could heal herself.
Dianah cursed as she took yet another hit. With Diguin's demise, things had gotten worse. The formation that the bird had set up, the one that was maintaining the rainfall, was coming apart. She had minutes.
The fairy was also too much for her. His constant attacks disrupted her, weakening her tornado spell until she could no longer maintain it. With a gasp, the curtain of water came tumbling down.
This was when the fairies saw what was happening inside the eye of the tornado. The golem was taking a beating from ... Was that Kigen? Nina was astounded. So was everyone else. They had seen their big brother perish. Now, here he was, heroic as ever, putting the hurt on the offending golem.
Some fairies looked around for the black bird, but they could not find it. All they saw was their brother, moving with greater power. Kigen had just absorbed a new golem core.
His magical abilities seemed to have undergone a transformation. His body was highly excitable, and the more he attacked, the more furious his attacks became.
Dianah realized that she could no longer hold on, and trying to do so was foolhardy. There was no way she could come back with any fairy now, so the fight was lost. With that choice made, she abandoned her icy transformation.
To everyone's shock, the ice golem suddenly disintegrated, splashing down like a bucket of water. Dianah quickly made her escape through the drainage in the forest, not relaxing until she was out in the water.
The rain dissipated as quickly as it had come about, leaving several wet fairies, a serpent and a human. Once the enemy was defeated, the fairies crowded around Kigen marveling at his miraculous return.
Both shocked and happy, all the fairies felt relieved and excited for their brother's return. Some were even crying. Up till then, Kigen did not know fairies could cry. He too was happy to receive such a welcome, and he made sure to tap each of their heads.
Only much later, after everyone had calmed down, did the council come together for a private meeting. Away from the fairies, Kigen expressed his displeasure at the seniors for not being able to look out for their juniors.
"Just because I am incapacitated does not mean that all is lost," Kigen chastised them. The human was also present but did not speak. Kigen made sure to include her in his admonishing, that way she too would step up.
Once he was done, he moved on to the real issue, "we can no longer sit still and wait for the enemy to come. They now know where we are, and they can approach the mother tree at any time. How many more of them will come next time?"
As he spoke, he could see the gravity of what he was saying reflected back in the eyes of those present. The water golem's attack had been pretty devastating for them, especially mentally. They had seen their pillar of hope killed, and many of them had been caught.
The council members, despite being the strongest, were unable, or unwilling, or just too fearful, to assist. This led to their current predicament. They could sympathize with what Kigen was saying, and they blamed themselves for running away rather than helping.
"What do you suggest we do?" Nixa asked. She too did not want to experience that kind of fear again. She also needed to remove this emotional or mental burden on her heart. Several of those captured had been members of her faction.
At the time, she had been so caught up in trying to get her people to safety, that she couldn't spare time to organize a rescue mission. Truthfully, she hadn't thought about it.
Now that Kigen had brought it up, she felt so ashamed of herself. What would have happened if Kigen had not attacked when he did? She wondered.
Around her, she could see similar thoughts on her siblings faces. They too were ashamed of not stepping up. Luita wanted to step forward and express how desperate the situation was, but who knew that better than Kigen?
"We have to go after them," Kigen said resolutely. "Otherwise, they will just keep coming back."
"But senior, we don't know where they come from," Foli stated what was in everyone's mind. Kigen wanted them to stage an attack, they didn't even know where to attack.
Looking towards the direction the two had come from, Kigen made a decision, "we will follow the river."