Wanwan dashed forward, his fur waving with the wind and snow. Right in front of him was the Longrass field, burned by the reddish-black flame that Sol emitted. Even from this far he could feel the heat singeing his fur.
Sol screamed once more. A huge shockwave of sound, air, and heat followed before he dashed in Wanwan's direction, eyes fully open with a golden trail that almost lit the darkness of the storm.
"WAN!!" Sol! Stop! I don't want to do this!
The call was left hanging. Sol stopped right in front of him, right arm open, claws ready, reddish-black flame dripping like liquid from his open palm. Wanwan knew what this entailed. Fire was the weakness of all Garms, and for Snow White Garms like him, it was going to be worse.
Sol swung his right arm towards him. A massive claw of flame cut the Longrass, cauterizing the stalks instantly. Wanwan reflexively jumped high and curled himself into a ball, managing to slip between two flaming claw projectiles and land feet first onto the burning Longrass field. His paws were burning, but he knew he could not stop here. He pushed forward with what he had.
"WAN!! WAN!!" Sol! Get yourself together!!
"GET..." Sol clutched his head again, seemingly in pain, his single horn, shining with a reddish-golden hue, seeming to grow longer with each passing second. "...AWAY..." He screamed his lungs out, a scream so loud its wave disturbed the river's flow. Above, rocks started to fall from the cliff on the face of the mountain. Wanwan knew that a landslide was imminent, and in the middle of a snowstorm like this, it would almost guarantee that they would die here. "...FROM..."
Sol jumped straight upward and used both of his hands to slash at his own previous place, igniting everything underneath him. "...HERE!!!"
"Wan?" Get away from here? "WAN!! WAN!!! WAN!!" WHAT ABOUT YOU, YOU DUNCE! YOU'RE STILL HURT!! LET US HELP YOU!!
"Arf!" He won't be able to listen to you. One of Wanwan's littermates managed to get to Wanwan's position in the middle of the burning field. It was Skafl, the second oldest, the one with the wounded ear. The other three were coming.
"Wan?" How come?
Skafl stood beside him and tried to explain. "Arf! Arf! Woof!" It's similar to how the Rimelord is always angry and kills everything it encounters. "Arrrrrrroooof!!" Something about how power corrupts the mind. Mother might know more.
"Wan!" Mother is not here! Wanwan returned his focus back to Sol, heaving and panting heavily in the middle of the flames. Weirdly enough, the flames seemed to be hurting him as well. Wanwan could see Sol's skin start to singe and smoke. "Wan..." He's killing himself...
"Barrrrk!! Bark bark!! Bark!" Then why are you standing here! I thought he's your friend! Hrida, the firstborn, the female sibling with heterochromia, finally caught up to them, the other two close behind.
"GRRRRR!!!!" ARE WE DOING THIS OR WHAT? Fonn, the fourthborn, the male sibling with the sharp eyes, stood just behind Wanwan.
"Woof! Woof!" Let's get this over fast, and then we can help the girl! Drifa, the thirdborn female sibling with the short tail, arrived last. With her, the five of them were together once again.
Wanwan, the fifthborn, the youngest, the biggest of the litter, stepped forward, still looking at Sol, who was clutching his head in pain. He let out the longest howl that he could muster. All of his siblings followed suit before dashing in four different diagonal directions toward Sol, ready to strike as a unit.
That howl was a desperate call. If worse came to worst, if push came to shove, he hoped that she would hear them and perhaps help them through this predicament.
"WAN!!" SOL!! Wanwan's eyes gleamed, the ruby-like shine returned to him, his chest mane started to emit a mist of white-bluish flame. "WAN!! WAN!!" BRACE YOURSELF!!
He dashed forward with a speed he never knew he could achieve, leaving a white-bluish trail.
"Woof!!" Hrida!! He called to one of his sisters, the one with the heterochromia. Hrida heard this and disappeared, dashing towards his direction with utmost haste.
Sol saw this and readied himself once again, two hands open, claws ready. The reddish-black flame burned everything around him.
"Wan!! Wan!!" Diagonal! Only for distraction! Wanwan moved in a zigzag pattern, giving Hrida an idea of how to follow. Hrida understood it instinctively and followed her youngest brother with ease, forming two white-bluish diagonal patterns that streaked through the burning Longrass Meadow towards Sol. "Woof!!" Skafl!! Ambush him!!
Skafl, the other littermate with the imperfect ear, heard this loud and clear and moved himself perfectly right behind Sol's back. Sol noticed this. He knew that this would be a pincer maneuver, but he had to choose which to parry. It was five against one.
Sol jumped towards Wanwan and Hrida and slashed with both claws. Massive reddish-black streaks tore through the air towards the two Garm pups. Both curled themselves into balls of white fur and took the huge heatwave like champs before unfurling themselves and using the momentum to kick Sol, both in the chest and head, throwing him backwards for Skafl to follow.
Skafl was ready, his chest flaring with a small amount of white-bluish aura. He jumped, the Garm pup streaking upward like a shooting star and spinning, spreading bluish mist-like flame near Sol's body.
"...!!!" Sol took the hit directly. The flame was not hot. In fact, it was the opposite of hot. The flame was as cold as ice.
Wanwan, still in hang time with Hrida, saw an opportunity. "Woof!!" Drifa!! Tackle him!!
Drifa ran sideways to make sure that she positioned herself well, then buried all her paws into the ground and growled, baring her knife-like fangs. The same bluish-white mist flame escaped from the sides of her mouth. And then, a huge dash.
She disappeared and only reappeared right next to Sol when he was about to hit the ground, face first. But Drifa had another idea. Her tackle hit Sol in the left torso critically, launching him sideways towards the face of the mountain.
The impacts in this one particular battle vibrated through the roots of the mountain. This one, in particular, was enough to cause the rocks to start tumbling down.
The landslide was coming. Wanwan noticed this first and decided to issue a command.
"WAN!! WAN!!" Siblings! Full speed towards the house!! I will make sure that Sol is safe!! He dashed forward towards Sol, still reeling from the improved teamwork of the pups.
"Woof!!" Siblings!! With me!! Hrida, the firstborn, took command and streaked towards the house. The others followed suit.
Wanwan could feel the vibration of the earth with each step that he took. The landslide was coming, and it was coming real fast. He had to get there and snatch Sol away, no matter what it took. He could see Sol struggling to breathe. The intensity of the reddish-black Flameveil around him had also dimmed a bit. He was exhausted. It was Wanwan's chance.
Sol used everything he had to lift his head and look forward, and opened his eyes.
What he saw was darkness.
—
Nia stumbled a bit, but she managed to keep her momentum forward. She was already almost halfway towards the house when she noticed the four littermates of Wanwan joining their brother to fight against Sol.
A claw-like heatwave went past her. She was pushed by the force of the wave and fell down, buried underneath Longrass and snow. She was lucky she had fallen into the gap between the claws. She would not be able to heal the Old Chief if she healed herself...
...Not without any Act of Remembrance, that is.
She shook her head. Her previous Act of Remembrance still took a heavy toll on her body. A second Act of Remembrance would put her into an exhaustion so bad it might lead into a coma. No one knew when she would wake. She still had a mission to follow. She had finished the prerequisites for that mission, but she still needed to get to a safe spot before she could rest.
She stood up and looked towards Sol and the five pups, who were currently using their teamwork to combo Sol in the air and send him downwards with a massive crash.
Sol... Nia clutched her chest, still very worried about the boy, but she knew that the Old Chief came first. Sol was just too dangerous now. Way, way too dangerous, just as the Head Priestess of her Order would warn her.
She could still remember how the Bibliotheca looked that day. The sky was red, as if it was bleeding. Her Head Priestess, the Mother Archivist, had called her to The Labyrinthos to ask her about something...
...That something was Sol.
—
—
"Your mission, Nia, is to find him. He will still be a boy at this time, perhaps your age. But know that it will be a very dangerous mission. He holds the strength to tear this world apart, just like his namesake. Heck, it's even a thousand times worse than his namesake. You will know it when you meet him." The Mother Archivist closed the thick book with a black and golden cover and put it back into the massive bookshelf of the Bibliothecos Aeneia, the Great Library of Aeneia, one of the Four Great Libraries of the World, and the only library where The Lumen Octavum, the Eightfold Light, was kept safe.
Her wrinkled hands shook a bit, yet she was still able to get herself down the library ladders safely. "The war will start anytime, and know that it will be the last war this world will ever see. That is why you will need him, for your path will not be visible without him by your side."
The Head Priestess walked past her towards another big dark brown wooden table with multiple scrolls and tomes still open. "Your Vow, recite it, girl."
"Huh? Oh? Vow? Uh..." Nia looked toward her with zero thoughts inside her head, startled. She followed the Mother Archivist closely and let her emotions be obscured by her veil while remembering the Vow of Memory that she had recited when she was ordained. "I bind my... being, my health, my... will? And my memory to the Eighth..."
She looked at the Mother Archivist with very, very worried eyes, trying to fish for confirmation. "Book..." The Mother Archivist shook her head.
"Tome..." The Mother Archivist winced with both of her eyes.
"Scroll..." The Mother Archivist grabbed a book and prepared to smack Nia on the head. It was a pretty thick book. It was going to hurt.
"Aaaaaaaaaaa... Light?" The Mother Archivist sighed and put the book back on the big mahogany table.
It was a very long sigh. The longest sigh the Mother Archivist had ever sighed.
The Mother Archivist looked at her, clearly very concerned. She could not believe that this was the girl who was going to be transported to the Nether Ward to find the key to prevent the Final War from happening. There were hundreds of other girls in the Bibliotheca to choose, those who were smarter, faster, and could remember more things than the girl who was standing in front of her right now.
Nia. A novice, born under a snowstorm to two parents who clearly did not want her, as she had been left abandoned on the stairs of the Great Library. She had proved to everybody in the Order that she was a klutz, an airhead. She thought about food all the time, dozed off in the silent prayers at dawn, and also dozed off often at the evening study.
She also could not recite the Lumen reliably, she did not know how to maintain the Well of Memory, she was not fit to be a Witness nor a Custodian nor a Librarian. A failure, in many ways.
Yet the Lightveil that she wore on her head clearly chose her as its bearer. Somehow she was the only one, out of the hundreds, even thousands of Daughters of the Eighth Light, who was able to use Act of Remembrance in order to summon a book of spells, and out of all books to be summoned for purposes of spellcasting... it had to be Lumen Octavum, the Eightfold Light itself.
The Mother Archivist looked at Nia's emerald eyes with worry. Even if she was a klutz, an airhead, or someone who dozed off all the time at the silent prayers, she was still one of her daughters. Her hand had been the first hand that lifted Nia when she was still a baby, up from the stairs of the Great Library, away from the snowstorm. She could not help but think that from the start, this girl was chosen to do this. How cruel could fate be? For a girl like her...
She touched Nia's chin and lifted her head up slightly. "Are you sure you are up for this?" In her heart, the Mother Archivist hoped that her answer would be no.
"Uh... Yes?" Nia fixed her veil and hood that framed her face and covered her hair. Her Lightveil was always crooked somehow. Perhaps it was because of her hair's volume, or perhaps it was just sized wrong. Nia wondered whether an artifact of divine power could be sized wrong. "I'm sorry, Head Prieste... Mother Archivist, I don't know how to answer that question. But I think I should answer with yes."
Nia's attire was no longer plain gray with a simple white veil like the other novices. For this particular purpose she had been ordained as a Priestess, which enabled her to wear the white robe, with light green and golden colors strewn over the white.
The other woman, the Mother Archivist, looked like she was in her two hundreds, hunched over, already old and wrinkled like a dried plum, and wore something different altogether. A darker outer cloak, almost ink black, made from a thick material like a mix of wool and cotton. The inner dress itself was made from something softer, with lighter colors. The Mother Archivist usually wore black on black, yet on this particular day somehow she wore a white inner dress, which was out of the ordinary.
"He is a demon, Nia." The Mother Archivist led her towards a chair and gestured for her to sit. Nia sat there neatly. The Mother Archivist went back to her position behind the table and opened a bigger tome. "Their kind preys on us. His hunger, sooner or later, will surface. And when that moment comes to pass..."
The Mother Archivist went silent for a moment.
—
The snowstorm raged.
Nia made it to the Old Chief. He was terribly wounded, but he was still alive and awake, just biding his time, trying to recover himself slowly.
Both of her hands were opened. This would be the last healing that she would be able to do, at least for today. "Benefica." She truly hoped that this would make a difference.
—
The silence in the Labyrinthos was too dissonant. Nia swallowed and braced herself to ask.
"Then... what should I do when that moment comes to pass, Head Pries... Mother Archivist?"
The old woman looked at her straight in her emerald eyes and opened her mouth.
"You have to make sure, child..." The Mother Archivist conjured a dagger out of thin air and nudged it towards her. The dagger floated towards Nia. "...that your heart is still yours."