— You've always been incredible. — Blith said as he rose from the crater where he had been thrown by Æðalsegrith. — By any chance, is your Mistress an Alada named Burna?
— Burna? — replied the Alada in the air, watching the naked Immortal amid the dust carried by the wind. — That is a sacred name among our kind, the Mother of Griffins, but no. I had no Mistress or Master. Everything I know I learned out of necessity.
Curiously, Blith looked around at the devastation of fire turning the clouds dark, and at the chunks of asteroids still spinning around the planet at high speeds, like shooting stars, and forgot that he had started that conversation.
When he looked back at the Alada, Blith recognized her as his own mistress, another Alada, dead for millennia:
— Burna! — he smiled, and flew toward her. Æðalsegrith assumed a defensive stance, but sensed no hostility from the one she faced. — I can fly now too. It's been so many years, and your heavy hand on my head didn't help on this journey. Where have you been? And why did you stop answering me?
Blith looked at Æðalsegrith with expectation.
The Alada didn't know what to say.
— I took on an apprentice, but this world always shows its worst. So many wonders could be built with the fantastic. And in the hands of the wicked, they prefer to turn everything to dust.
Gradually, Blith remembered enough to realize that Burna had been dead for a long time, and pulled away from his enemy.
— I think I mistook you for someone else.
— It seems so. Why don't you give up? I have a job to do. And one loyal to one of mine is loyal to me as well.
— I can't let you... — the reason for the fight escaped the Immortal. Until Æthelflæd's smile returned to his mind. — Kill that loli? Why don't you give up?
— One day, on the Monster Continent, the fighting ceased, the groups united, and they chose ten of the strongest. It was called the Grim Axis. I am number four. We were promised peace, and the death of the Demon King. It's not just for my life — I must fulfill my duty for all those imprisoned on the Monster Continent.
— You're already here, aren't you free? And the others, can't they follow you? Or is it that loli who keeps those above Level 20 away across the ocean?
— Stop provoking me, you old man! The Demon King's powers hold countless secrets — everything bearing his aura must disappear, or he will never be fully defeated! — Æðalsegrith lost her patience and attacked Blith, but he dodged and grabbed both of her iron staffs.
They fell and opened a new crater, now with Blith above the Alada, surprised, motionless before the aura of the Demon King's Butler.
— What are you?
Blith thought, but found no answer. For an instant, something ancient within him was revealed — and it was the presence of a terrible assassin.
Æðalsegrith accepted her own death and released the iron staffs, closing her eyes.
Blith's right hand descended to Æðalsegrith's forehead, but the Butler merely gave a small flick on her forehead.
— Children. — said Blith and stepped away. With each step, the earth around him levitated before an aura older than any living name. — In Burna's time, there was honor among Aladas — those who defeated them became their masters. Does that still exist, or do we live in times where dishonor is the law?
Æðalsegrith, who had lived breaking laws, believing in nothing but herself, ignoring the teachings that had driven her from her home, knelt.
— You must fight for justice, until your last day. And if that means death, what end could be more beautiful? — Blith prophesied, and commanded. — Go, get out of my sight. There's an entire world in need of help.
Æðalsegrith's wings beat and she flew away, with Blith heading in the opposite direction, also airborne.
Wyrsæberht was number one of the Grim Axis, and Ealdyrm was number two. They found Blith among the clouds above the Demon King's Castle.
— Both of you are rotten. The mortal heart touches the Aura, and transfigures it in its own image and likeness. It seems dialogue won't work here. — Blith increased his own aura and flew against number one.
Wyrsæberht was a Nymph with a haughty body. She wore no garments. She had deep red eyes, very dark, like her long hair. On her face, disdain and judgment.
Ealdyrm was a Floral, a crown of thorns framed by her verdant hair. Her skin like flora, green. When she breathed, the leaves on her enormous chest revealed the interior of her mossy flesh.
The blows soon made the Demon King's Castle tremble. Inside, Æthelflæd ran outside and caught glimpses, Blith darting back and forth, defending against Ealdyrm's punches and kicks, until he struck her, pushing her away, and fought Wyrsæberht, also in endless sequences of blows until they vanished from the human's sight, only to reappear meters away, like phantoms, like flashes of light, for they were the three Auras in verdant tones.
When Æthelflæd thought to run, she realized there was nowhere to flee.
She would only put more people in danger, and she hated herself for it.
Until Blith began to stand out, with kicks that struck Ealdyrm at times and Wyrsæberht at others, hurling them far away, carving the forest floor around them with the crashes of their bodies breaking tree trunks and dragging earth and rocks into fissures multiplying in the shadows of the beeches.
Ealdyrm was savagery, she transformed her legs and arms into branching extensions, striking dozens of times simultaneously.
Wyrsæberht was the opposite, graceful, as if in a dance, each blow linked to the next, in an endless combo of overlapping hands and feet, a waltz in the air, where force served only to evade the next touch of fingers and toes, a body that moved without a single error.
The only way to push Wyrsæberht away was through brute force, with Blith's aura exploding in the air and driving her back, the speed of the old Immortal fueling the kicks that brought the Nymph down.
With both in craters in the forest, Blith brought his hands together and closed them, drawing the aura into his Immortal body.
The Nymph noticed first and pulled away, followed by the Floral, who only understood that a spell was being conjured when she turned her body and moved opposite to Wyrsæberht.
The farther they were, the greater their chance of survival.
— Listen to the North Tower, become what you were born to protect. What is life that does not safeguard but the hatred of that which will always have defeat between its hands with nails and shards of glass! This is the sky's answer against the earth. — lightning engulfed the old Immortal, and spread like halos across sky and earth, expanding from Blith's body. — The vow of...
But it was too late, Blith fell, poisoned, without realizing that the Floral, in a scentless attack, had envenomed him from before he ever landed the first blow on her.
For her part, the Nymph was also vomiting blood, fallen to her knees. It wasn't the first time they had won this way, but Wyrsæberht had never grown accustomed to being so close to death.
As he fell, Blith's stomach was pierced by the Floral's branches, and his blood bathed the earth in the Immortal's farewell.