All were amazed, they would never have believed that a man could propose himself as a champion.
Was it even allowed?
- What are you talking about?" exclaimed Helmir, "are you out of your mind? You don't have time to participate in this, and above all, you don't have the right. I think...
- No, absolutely not! I'm not going off the rails! I'm going to help this kid become a queen.
The Fairy did not expect it. He was once again taking her side. Why did he insist on defending her? To want to help her? However, every time he defended her, she felt a warm feeling go through her heart.
- Don't be impertinent, vile human, interposed Mathgen, already that we have the immense honor to support your presence within our prestigious kingdom, don't make yourself comfortable with us, son of Adam! Do you think a human has the right to be the august champion of one of our princesses?
The queen threw a lightning bolt at the Supreme Commander's feet.
- ENOUGH! I do not remember to have authorized you to speak for me, reprimanded the queen Audisélia.
Then she turned to the Hero.
- This is not the way to formulate this kind of request, and especially not to me, Audisélia specified, but as I have a right of veto on all aspects of this company... You can express yourself to me. And in a more serious way, it seems that you challenge me. Say your name, the name of your ancestor and the reason why you want to be the champion of this princess.
Great shouts of protest were heard throughout the throne room.
It was intolerable that a human could intercede in honor of one of their princesses as if they needed those damn torturers in their ranks. Moreover, to be in charge of protecting one of the jewels of the kingdom, however despicable it might be - by their standards of beauty - was an infamy.
- My Majesty," Sawyer intervened in the tumult, whispering, "did you not hear that this boy had no parents and that he had no patronymic, no baptismal name like the wingless fairy? Knowing his reason would be more than enough knowing that he had no noble Faerie parents anyway...
- We are going to follow the protocol all the same, she answered him of a low and extinguished voice by sending it back with a backhand.
Then she demanded silence from the crowd. They had been taking far too many liberties lately in discussing her decisions - basically, they were opening her up too much.
- Just because I only have a few months left before I "resign" doesn't mean you can afford this kind of insubordination. Remember, I can send you to the Paths of the Dead with a single flash of lightning. Now, boy, do as I say.
The human took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, and then exhaled loudly.
- I, human without name, new hero of the legend, son of Sister Elena Barros, I present myself as the new champion of the princess without name, he proclaimed proudly while beating his chest at the level of the heart making a flurry of blood.
The Hero spat out a spurt of blood at the same time, but remained upright. The pain and the backlash of the spell were felt, he was close to fainting.
However, no one had any interest in his blood accidents, except the fairy who was concerned, she came to his aid and cast a healing spell on his chest and wiped, with one of her personal handkerchiefs, the blood that was coming out of his mouth.
The rest of the audience was stunned by this unexpected statement, if it was false, it would be a real outrage to pretend to be this illustrious figure of Fayiera Terra and his head would fly, but if it was true...
The only one who spoke up was Globox who could only say:
- No kidding...
For the bodyguard and best friend of the queen, this was the worst situation he could have faced. It went even further than that: his two most dangerous assumptions had come together in one! For him, either he was the new hero and he was chasing a usurper, or he was indeed Elena's son and he had an infinite resentment against the new hero as Audiselia would have had when she heard the news of her friend's death. Not that Elena's son was the new hero!
What happened next was going to be out of his control. The most powerful, most destructive, most dangerous and most unstable fairy was awakening.
In his skull a siren sounded, warning of imminent danger, his survival instinct ordered him to flee as far as possible, but he could not, he should not! This was not due to the fact that his legs were numb with fear, but to his duty and the promise he had made to his late father. He wanted so much to jump out of one of the windows of the throne room, even if it meant breaking one of the stained glass windows, and fly away from this place that was about to become a place of death. Could he stop this carnage before it happened?
Sawyer had faced many enemies, many evil individuals, but none more or as threatening as the angry Queen of Sylvania. She was the nightmare of their enemies and a ticking time bomb that lay dormant in the kingdom.
Although he loved her with all his heart and soul, he was extremely afraid of her.
Why did you have to die, Elena?" he lamented, "and why did your son have to cross Audiselia's path?
At that very moment, he wondered why he was the only one to notice the coming catastrophe.
It was as if space and time had stopped the moment the boy had revealed his true identity, many feelings had mixed in the brains of the witnesses of this "fortuitous" proclamation. The queen remained motionless, she did not say a word, as if the words of the young man had broken the gears that made her function, making her stop thinking.
This did not bring anything good, generally speaking...
- Uh... Selia... Calm down, it's not that child's fault, he doesn't...
The queen turned to her guard and said with a wax doll smile, a face void of emotion and glassy eyes:
- Honestly Sawyereli, what the hell do I care?
She began to speak in sentences that were barely understandable, it smelled more than bad...
- And you know that I have only one word, Sawyereli.
Twice she called him by his nickname, while he hated it...
While the ministers and advisors had tons of questions to ask the successor of the previous legendary hero, the air in the room was flooded with electricity, the limbs and hair of the queen were electrified, the horses of the royal stables were panicking, even those of the plebeians were screaming in terror. The babies started to scream, crying loudly under the stunned eyes of their parents, the water of the lakes, rivers and fountains stirred, the sky that was always clear suddenly darkened under the stunned eyes of the magicians who were struggling to keep it cloudless. Lightning bolts began to rain down on the houses of the kingdom's subjects, whether they were nobles, plebeians or invisible, setting them on fire. Strong winds were blowing in all corners of the kingdom, making the weakest beings fly away without any hope of reaching the ground. All these disasters left no respite for their victims who were overburdened by all the problems that arose in front of them.
But in the throne room, no one was aware of what was going on outside, far too busy with what was happening in front of them. The queen closed her eyes, stretched her arms to the back of her body and then brought them back, smashing the armrests of her royal seat with her fists, sending an unprecedented electric shock through the room. This discharge was so powerful that it shattered almost all of the stained glass in the room - well worth the worry.
The Hero shielded the Fairy from this discharge, suffering it instead. There was as much tension in this one as in an energy station.
After she had passed, the queen took the sword embedded in her royal throne, and descended the stairs leading to her seat, which were breaking under the pressure of her steps. Reaching the ground, she prepared to attack the Hero, putting the sword to her chest, putting her hand on the pommel of her weapon. She was going to run at him and thrust her blade into his spine without even taking into account that the Fairy was in front of the Hero.
Presenting the coming danger, the Fairy shouted to the Hero:
- SAVE YOURSELF!
As soon as he heard these words, he acted unconsciously in a short time: first he threw the Fairy away from him, then he put on the glove while turning around, the armor covering his whole body. He barely had time to see the fairy-queen spinning in his direction when she thrust the tip of her blade at him, violently skewering him against the wall, with the help of her sword and sending a bolt of lightning shattering the wall against which she had impaled the Hero and cracking the queen's weapon.
They had before their eyes the undeniable power of their leader, few people could have survived such a blow, armor or not. And their vision confirmed, after the dust had settled, their apprehension: the Hero seemed unconscious. His back was stuck in the wall, his body sunk in an impact crater created by the queen's attack; only his arms and legs were showing. His mouth was wide open, drooling blood, and his eyelids were drooping from the pain.
- If you are indeed what you claim to be, you are the most pitiful person ever," spat the queen.
The Hero's eyelids gradually reopened. He coughed up the blood that had accumulated in his throat. He grabbed the cracked part of the sword and broke it into a thousand pieces.
He had just broken the legendary sword of the fairy kings with the strength of his hands alone.
He lowered the breastplate of his armor, intertwined his fingers, put his thumbs against each other and then pressed them into his chest.
- Fifty percent," he whispered.
He closed the breastplate and stood guard.
- What do you intend to do in front of me? she provoked him, you who do nothing but spit your guts since your arrival here. It is not because you are able to break an iron stick that you have any chance against me. Give up and I promise to kill you quickly.
- You're crazy, I swear. What did I do to you to make you change your behavior so much and take it out on me?
- You were born from the guts of the wrong person!
Audisélia sent him lightning blades with the broken blade of her sword that the Hero dodged by rolling on the side, but as soon as he had finished his series of rolls, the queen flew in the air and swooped down on him, he narrowly dodged her sword which sank into the ground.
- Do you really think that running away from me is the best solution?
- Shut up, I'm thinking! replied the Hero.
His enemy was far too powerful. Even at fifty percent of his power, it wouldn't be enough. By the time the adrenaline ran through his body, he would be skewered. He would have to use Ymir at full power. The Hero reached down and called out the name of the cursed sword on the floor below. As the queen resumed her assault, restoring her sword with electricity, the weapon pierced the ground, landing in the hero's hand, he was able to counter the queen's thrust, bringing his sword up to stop the point of her blade.
- I saw you fighting with a sword, it was pitiful! With your miserable level with the sword, you don't have a chance against me, a cheap hero. Besides, what will you do to counter my magic, you who are devoid of it?
- You talk a lot for someone who wants to kill me so badly," said the Hero.
He pushed her back by kicking her in the stomach and threw himself on her by trying to slice her from the bottom to the top, but the queen dodged by making a simple side step. Wallowing on the ground, he spun around to slice her abdomen, the queen bent her stomach to avoid the blow.
They stared into each other's eyes, staring into the whites of each other's eyes, before launching into a sword fight, blade against blade. Audisélia could observe through their exchange of blows that the hero's strength was gradually increasing, but also that one of his eyes had a golden yellow sclorite and that the other had become a cobalt yellow color but that his eyeball was injected with blood. She had never seen this in her predecessor, nor in the legends she had studied. Although this eye intrigued her a lot, she confirmed with the shiny one that it was indeed her friend's successor, and that she was therefore definitely dead.
Schrödinger's cat box had just been opened.
- Why did you have to exist? she lamented.
- Yes, I am often told that when one comes to the doors of one's own end, says the Hero.
But the queen was no longer listening to him, she was lost in her thoughts. How could she follow his movements when she was no longer concentrated? She had a sad look on her face that disconcerted the Hero. He threw himself back, feeling that he was losing the battle.
With her head down, tears began to flow down the cheeks of the fairy queen.
- I can't... I can't... I can't accept that she had you with someone else and that you are her replacement! I'm going to execute you here and now so that the mistake that you are no longer exists.
The Hero had already heard these harsh words against him, they had not affected him for a long time, he had lived with them since he was a child. But hers seemed different, she seemed to reproach him for something that did not concern him directly, his illness, his exactions or his appearance. The more he thought about it, the more he understood what she was getting at, and it was making him angry. To put so many people in danger for that... That was what was really pitiful! He could hear the screams of the civilians who were being subjected to their queen's irritation. If she wanted to go after him, so be it, but she shouldn't put innocent people in danger because she was incapable of reasoning like an adult.
- But none of you will intervene to stop them?
It was rare to see Helmir troubled, but the queen's anger was not unknown to her, she herself knew that it was not good to be in her way in this state, but to let it grow so much would cause more damage than reason.
- Whoever interferes in our confrontation will be pulverized! declared the queen to everyone's attention.
The intensity of the electricity emanating from her intensified and she lashed out at the boy, raging the blade of her reconstructed sword at the young human's armor. Whether she was on the ground or in the air, she hit him with her legs and her fists, wounding him all over, scarifying his face and peeling off his hood little by little.
At the end of her assault, she kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying away.
- You are far too weak to face me! You don't deserve to be the new hero who will fight the Nemesis. Or to have Elena's armor for that matter. Why did it have to be a worm like you who is her son and her successor? she cried, I intend to take your life away from you as I took it from her...
She didn't have time to finish her sentence when the Hero returned to the charge in a jump, propelling himself with the force of his foot and shouting:
- But you're going to shut up, your big mouth!
Shocked by the vulgarity of the Hero, she wanted to slice him in two to punish him for his arrogance, but he would not hear of it. Seeing the queen's blow coming, he teleported behind her, once the blade almost reached her forehead and gave her a right in the jaw before sending her against the wall where the stained glass windows showing the misfortunes of the kingdom were located with the same kick she gave him earlier. Above her was the laughing face of the Felon Witch who was enjoying the fire and destruction she seemed to have caused in Sylvania.
One could see all the rage and anger that tore at his "face" through his eyes. In the fury of his blow, he proclaimed with fury:
- Because you think you're the only one mourning his death?
Audisélia touched her cheek which had taken the blow, she felt a hot liquid obstructing her nostrils, she touched it and looked at her fingers, she realized that it was her own blood flowing from her nose.
For the first time in decades, the queen had been injured. Never, ever, since she had been in power, had she been damaged, especially with such violence.
No one could believe their eyes. No one known to date had succeeded in attacking her in this way under her leadership. It was unthinkable.
Sawyer saw in the boy's eyes that he was judging their ruler. The same look of judgment that their dead friend would have worn if she saw Audiselia in such a state. He was undeniably Elena's son.
The Fairy was blown away by the strength of the boy she had had under her tutelage. He was even more impressive than when he had faced his killer.
She walked up to him and asked:
- But who are you?
- Are you blocked or what? replied the Hero curtly.
The Hero turned to her and said with a falsely reassuring smile:
- I am your new champion: the hero of the legend!
The Fairy would have liked to believe him but... she couldn't, since he had taken possession of this evil sword, his appearance had started to change, with this black and red fluid that crossed his face, his teeth that were sharpening, this black horn that was pushed on the top of his head that had a yellow line that crossed it to its tip and this smoke or steam that escaped from every pore of his body... He looked more like a demon than a hero. An uncontrollable fear had invaded his body.
The Hero turned back to the Queen and stretched the Darkness back to her hair and then removed her hood so she could fight to the fullest of her abilities without fear of being judged for her appearance.
- Take your true form, Arm of the Titan Ymir.
The blade of the sword turned to dust and its handle became black and long. A new blade was born from the handle, it had a crystal blue color, was three times as thick as the old Ymir sword, it was spiked on its edges, the middle of the blade turned black and scarlet inscriptions were written on it.
The Hero twisted his wrist holding his weapon to put it across, facing him, so that it was in a guarded position.
- I hate to take on this role but you are preying on far too many innocent people across this realm that you are supposed to be protecting, so I won't repeat myself: stop right there because it's not Fate that won't allow it, but me.
The queen, on the floor, with her back to the wall, was seething, growling with anger.
Is she really being fined by a kid?
She was absolutely not going to let such an outrage to her person pass.
She was not going to let the offspring of a stranger with whom Elena had fornicated live while hers never had the chance to be born.
She would do everything in her power to rip his heart out whether he was the hero of the legend or not.
After all, that's what she was designed for.