Valerian, The Legendary

101 Breathe.

Valerian was very careful during the whole process, but he forgot to take one thing into account. The crown of the big tree did not allow him any cover. He thought he could first see where the enemy was and then he could cast a few binding spells to take control of the situation.

However, the pair of silver eyes locked with his own, made him enter a state of numbness. His body had lost all control, and his remaining sanity was crying that shit had gone wrong and he was doomed.

The enemy on top of the crown found that the tamed beast was looking at something and when they followed its gaze they spotted a listless Valerian hanging from the side of the trunk.

“Ashira, someone came finding us.”, said a man wearing beast pelts.

Valerian could hear muffled sounds and his vision was extremely blurred to see what was happing in front of him. Ashira on the other hand was a man with buffed muscles and sharp eyes, however, he was not a warrior or a mage. He was just a strong man.

Valkyrian warriors were arrogant and never went out for scheming tasks, they believed in destroying things and snatching them with force and brutal power. This was way more humiliating for their enemies.

Ashira said, “Bring him up.”

The man who was speaking to him earlier took out a wooden flute and began to play it gently. The tamed magical fox reacted to the sound as if she was a puppet. The fox stepped back from the edge and Valerian followed her. The control was not smooth, because the resistance of a human was higher than a beast.

The brain was more active and could try to persist against mind control, although, with great effort. Valerian still had a vague sense of his body and surroundings, so he knew that he was climbing up.

.....

Ashira looked at Valerian and said, “A child, and that too, someone who looks like a doll.”

Other than him three men were also present and they were laughing at this comment. Ashira said, “Let us have him jump down from here and kill himself. I can see that he is able to resist it. Want to bet on how long will he persist?”

The two men agreed, and they set their quotas for food. They did not have anything valuable to bet within the forests. They instructed the charming fox to have Valerian move and jump off the edge.

However, the silver-haired boy was desperately trying to fight against mind control. He was standing two steps away from the edge of the tree, under great magical pressure from the fox, he took a step forward and the Valkyrians cheered. They were all looking forward to this drama.

...

Inside his brain, Valerian was still able to think clearly, his consciousness was not affected, but his actions were controlled. As he was thinking, suddenly a deep voice rang in his mind, “Breath.”

For some unknown reason, Valerian found himself compelled to do this and he inhaled deeply. As soon as he took this breath, he lost the last shred of consciousness. Meanwhile outside, things have changed and they changed drastically.

...

Valerian was already an inch away from stepping into the void and uniting with his parents when he took a deep breath. The Valkyries felt threatened and they all stood up with their gazes trained on his back.

They watched as the boy tilted his head to the side and put his foot back on the wood. Then they saw him turn around, his gaze fell on them. His eyes did not contain any malice, but it was making the people shiver with fear. Valerian watched as they dropped to their knees. As if he lost interest in them and turned to the charming fox, that was already prostrating in front of Valerian.

The whole persona of Valerian had changed. He was like a god who descended from the heavens and was observing the stupidity of mortals. The Valkyries were shaking, Ashira said in a shivering tone, “Please forgive us, your excellency, we did not know you were magical. Forgive us.”

It was not that the Valkyrians were easily scared, on the contrary, they would all choose to die than the bow, but this child in front of them had struck fear in their hearts. The reason they called him magical was that Valerian’s eyes had changed.

Instead of a circular pupil, they now had vertical slits, while his throat was covered with a gentle trace of scales, and his hands had become talons as if a dragon’s paw. The Valkyrians were afraid of his sudden changes. They thought they have provoked a dragon’s offspring.

Sometimes dragons changed into human forms and came out to indulge. It was rare, but there have been a few cases of human and dragon offspring. Valerian, however, did not say a word and kept looking at the Valkyrians begging in front of him. He took a step forward, and the Valkyrians jumped off the edge in fear.

Yes, they were fearing that if Valerian caught up to them he might eat them alive. They followed their tradition, to suicide if they are ashamed to face the enemy. However, as soon as they jumped off the crown, Valerian fainted as well.

The charming fox did not dare to move at all, as she was scared for her life and the suppression from this boy just a blink ago was still too much for her to handle.

...

Vertex and the people were searching for the enemy inside the city. The sun was coming up and the chill from this calm was making them anxious. There were a lot of things that could happen, what if the enemy suddenly decided to command the people to kill themselves? Or if they ask the civilians to turn against the soldiers things would be a mess.

Vulcan suddenly stopped in the middle of the road and said, “Everyone, we can deal with this situation.”

Vertex asked, “How?”

At this moment, they were all so anxious that any means that could help them was acceptable. Vulcan said, “The charming fox hates the heat. We can simply heat up the air in the city. Vertex, use your flame sparrow to fly low and have it use flame magic to heat things up. The soldiers will form a layered parameter inside the city and pay attention to the place where the civilians start to panic first. The irritation will make the beast lose its control. Go, we do not have much time on our hands.”

Vertex did not waste any time and he moved along with Quies and the rest. The soldiers also spread around the city. The populace of the city was twenty thousand people, while there were seven thousand soldiers guarding this city. It may sound like this was not a big army, but this was just a forward post, a point captured by the enemy. This much security was enough.

Soon, Vertex had the soldier control the flame sparrow and heat up the environment. The magical beast was more than happy to spread the ember from her wings and fly around at the fastest speed possible.

The heat was quickly picking up, and Vulcan had asked the wind mages to control the hot wind and not let it escape. The wind mages were all standing on the walls, and they were more than happy to do this. The soldiers below were all starting to sweat. They used such an elaborate method because they could not set the city on fire.

The sparrow flew for just ten minutes before a soldier alerted everyone about the situation. In the western zone of the city, the people near the graveyard were getting very anxious and there were odd situations. Vertex and Vulcan reached over quickly but Quies, who was sitting on the back of the flame sparrow was even faster.

He flew over and jumped down without waiting for the bird to land. Quies landed in front of the house where the soldiers were gathered. He asked the captain on duty, “Are they inside?”

The captain said, “Sir, only this house is staying the calmest even though the other houses had some activity happening inside them.”

Quies nodded and unsheathed a short sword from his waist and his figure flickered. He did not want to waste any time waiting for the others. The captain watched his actions and said, “Sir, they have a magical beast inside.”

The old warrior said, “Well, it is just a suspicion that they are inside, however, what you say is also right. If you do not hear my loud voice, they take it as if I have been charmed and inform his highness when he arrives.”

The captain nodded and Quies moved inside the house, but he was making loud noises as he searched the place. The building was two floors tall. Suddenly, the loud voices stopped. The people outside, all grasped their weapons, and their eyes were trained at the door of the house. Something was about to happen.