SL Chapter 14 A Mother''s Resolve


    The memory skipped to a scene of fiery red. Eric felt his skin soaked with sweat as temperatures around him soared. The walls of the dining room were now engulfed in flames. Flames which were even burning the brick walls themselves, as if they were flammable.


    His lungs were burning with every breath, while the breathable air was getting thin. Then there was also the fact that his young self was bawling his eyes out. He had truly been spoiled rotten, though, this might be the normal reaction. That thought passed through his mind as his body kneeled there. There was no path through which he could escape.


    While bawling, the flames upon the entrance of the dining hall parted as if they had met their master, and someone clad entirely in a dark garb, his face covered with a mask resembling a crow''s beak, entered.


    He didn''t speak, nor posture in any way, instead, the burning stick within his hands slashed down towards him. Terror struck Eric at the attack as the searing heat alone burnt away his clothes, only for his body to be pulled backwards by a force, yet the flames from the stick licked his chest, eliciting a howl of agony before  he fell unconscious. Though, he did hear a phrase, as if uttered straight into his mind.


    ''Fire spreads like the plague.''


    -----


    A chill caused his closed eyelids to tremble before fully opening. He moaned as he felt his body bouncing along. Eric felt that he was on someone''s back. Someone who was running through a dark forest.


    "Mo- Mom...?" It was a rhetoric question. The child within him had already recognized the back upon which he was being carried.


    "Shhhh... Little Eric. Mother promises you that you are going to be safe. So, please... Keep quiet, or the bad guys will take you away!" whispered his mother, eliciting a flicker of fear within the young him.


    ''She is running away... Alone. Where is father? Damn! I really want to find out everything!'' curiosity was burning within him, coupled with a bunch of other emotions, with the most prevalent one, the worry for his father, Charles.


    That was when his small nose bumped into his mother''s back and a small moan of pain escaped his lips. He couldn''t get the scenery in front of his mother, but he could sense the tense silence, the small flicker of uncertainty within her. She had stopped abruptly.


    "Come out from wherever you are. I can smell you!" She shouted. Except for the occasional small gust of wind, the surroundings were quiet. No sounds from the critters of the forest could be heard, as if they had all migrated or died.


    No one said anything back, yet Stella leaped away so fast, that the surroundings blurred. And when Eric finally managed to have his eyes catch up to what had happened, his mother was standing upon a thick tree branch.


    ''If I had been powerful...''


    "Little Eric... Mom is going to find a safe place for you. Make sure you don''t make a sound, okay! If you don''t, I will give you all the biscuits in the world!"


    "Really!" a small groggy exclamation came out of his mouth.


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    "Really! That''s a promise, okay!"


    With those words, Eric felt a premonition that this was going to be the last time he saw his mother.


    "Mother! I need you to take him as far away as possible!"


    With those whispered words, Eric felt himself being separated from Stella. A shudder passed through him even as fear threatened to take over. He could feel that something was grabbing him, yet, it was invisible.


    "Little Eric, remember your promise, okay?" Even though Stella didn''t look back, the young him swallowed whatever had been about to come out of his mouth and nodded. She then leapt down into the ground.


    Then his floating body was dragged to the side, where they vanished within a bush.


    -----


    As Eric was still worrying about his mother, Stella, the perspectives switched, with his old self now within the body of his mother.


    ''How could this have happened? This shouldn''t be possible! Unless it''s Spirit Lord shenanigans?! Or maybe, my mother somehow found a way to transfer these memories to me...?"


    Stella''s movements didn''t slow down even with Eric inside of her mind. She forcefully clapped her hands, with the sound traveling far into the dark forest, before separating them, with blue cards, with sizes comparable to playing cards, manifesting as they separated wider. When they reached twelve, they stopped manifesting.


    "Aren''t you going to come out? Or are you going to hide in the dark like a rat. Do you fear me? Well... I would expect that to be the truth." She shouted out, with her body thrumming with power. Eric could feel that this power was beyond mere adrenaline activated by excitement!


    "Why would I fear you? I have never heard of you." A figure floated out of the surrounding bushes, appearing upon the edge of the clearing, facing his mother, Stella.


    ''Is he flying? I have never seen a flying Spirit Lord!'' Though he was taken aback, he was also feeling fear. Why? Because there was this nagging feeling within him that this was most probably his mother''s last memory.


    Not to mention the fact that the man was garbed in the same clothing as the one from before, a dark robe covering every inch of him, and a black crowbeak shaped mask.


    There was a shiver, a tremor within the the ground, a fluctuation of an unknown energy through her feet, causing her to leap to the side, with a long thin rod covered spirituality stabbing upwards. Even through this darkness, through his mother''s eyes, Eric had now gained the ability to see the unknown energy. And it terrified him. There was no moon this night, meaning that they were in the dark. If it had been a normal human in his mother''s place, they would have died without even having had the chance to get a glimpse at the attack!


    When his mother''s eyes scanned around them, Eric was horrified to find that everywhere her eyes could see, there was energy in the form of a string-no, it was energy, being given off by thin strings, having surrounded her like a trap. And it must have been sprung just now, otherwise there is no way the young him would have managed to escape. Ultimately, he calmed down after feeling absolutely no ripples within his mother''s heart beat. That made him wonder whether this was truly the experience of someone who had skirted death many times.


    Abruptly, the ground in a radius of 10 meters around her vanished and she became weightless for an instant, before her feet hit solid ground. Then, she bent down, replacing her feet with her hands, with her feet raised upwards, into the air, making an acrobatic pose.


    "Are you trying to run?"


    The voice that was coming out from beneath the man''s mask was distorted, no doubt an action serving to disguise his identity.


    The darkness had even become more embracing the moment she had sunk into the ground, yet she could see well, as if it were day. At some point, the twelve cards had vanished.


    ''Five minutes... That''s all I have. I have to end this fast and go to little Eric. I wonder... Is Charles really okay?''


    ''I can feel her thoughts?!''


    She waited within the darkness of the hole, masking every single aota of her energy. Within a fraction of a second, just after she had masked her energy, multiple tips of strings plunged down from above. It seems that the man was cautious.


    ''Karmic Link!''


    Another card manifested before her for an instant, before vanishing. When the thin wires pierced her body, starting from the flat soles of her feet and continued deeply through her body, Eric felt her pain. It was something a normal person wouldn''t be able to survive!


    As the wires surpassed her heart, the card rematerialized for a moment, then vanished in a white light...


    ''Karmic ties; Reversal!''


    Then the wires, which had now reached the neck, vanished, with the man, who had been floating above, starting to plummet down. The wires had vanished, with even the wounds, the paths they had gouged through her body vanishing, as if everything from before had been mere illusion!


    ''Thankfully, it all worked out!"


    A sigh of relief made it out of his mother''s lips before the exhaustion started to set in.


    ''No! I can''t afford to show weakness here! Little Eric needs me!''


    Eric could feel the powerful emotion within that thought. And it brought him immense warmth. He hadn''t known that his mother had loved him so much!


    She bent her knees, then with a powerful leap, she was out of the pit and onto level ground. Yet, before she could steady herself, something hot slid into her back, piercing the heart and breaking through her chest to appear within her eyes. She could feel herself weakening.


    ''Wha-'' Eric was shocked as he looked at the flaming blade that had impaled his mother. Then that shock turned into rage, and he roared, yet the words couldn''t reach her. She was dying. Her attention was slipping...


    ''I-can''t LEAVE THIS WORLD WITHOUT HAVING PROTECTED MY SON!'' The inward shout silenced Eric, as with a palm, his mother destroyed the tip of the blade and she moved with such speed, that the surroundings blurred, before she stopped and rotated in place, looking over her assailant.