Chapter 218: (4/30): The Grand Ceremony

“We can’t go on like this. At this rate, we’ll be cornered against the forest in the south.”

“Has the ambassador replied yet? Did those bloodsuckers change their mind yet?”

“Even if they do change their mind, what are you planning on doing, Trist? Are you suggesting that we abandon our homeland?!”

Holed up in one of the last bastions, driven to their border with the vampires after years of grueling war, the remaining members of the flugels army planned the fates of the last survivors of their race. 

Victory had never been a possibility, for even if they destroyed an entire undead army, a few days later that army will be remade anew. For all their efforts, all they managed to do was delay their extinction by a few years.

In a small room, a dozen flugels gathered and argued one last time.

The room grew louder and louder as the commanders shouted over each other, fighting to be heard over the din. As they became more and more worked up, the mana emanating from their bodies became hotter and hotter, making the room into an oven, yet none of them seemed to notice.

“Your bloodlust is clouding your mind, Liora! If we don’t leave now, we won’t get the chance to!” Trist shouted. He was a stout flugel with short, stiff hair, and he stood in front of a table along with two others.

In reply, a female flugel with waist length hair slammed her gloved hand on the table and a sharp crack rang out as the table nearly buckled under the force. “I’d rather die fighting than run away like a dog with their tail between their legs!” Liora snapped back.

The remaining commanders rallied behind the two feuding leaders, while a third faction formed in the middle, although that third faction leaned toward the female flugel’s opinions. 

“Even if we wish to escape, where can we go?” Garza, an old flugel that headed the neutral faction, asked. “You young ones may not realize, but I’ve lived through multiple wars. There is a deep-seated animosity between almost every race, and as our only neighbors, we have clashed often with the vampires. There’s no reason to believe that they will change their mind at the last moment.”

“Kuh…” the stout flugel gritted his teeth, unable to refute the old flugel’s words. Of everyone here, there were only two that he would not go against unless he really had to. One was that old flugel, Garza, whom everyone respected for his age, skill, and experience.

The other was their leader, who currently sat quietly in the back of the room watching them quarrel. Trist spared a glance over at her and she looked back. She raised her eyebrows in a question, and the stout flugel shook his head.

“I think that we should retreat into the forest,” Trist said. “I don’t believe that we should give up unless there is no option left. They may change their mind, since even they cannot be cold blooded enough to see an entire race wiped out!”

As the leader of the faction that believed they should stay and fight, Liora scoffed. “Where is your pride? Will you go over and beg them for help?! Well, you can do that, but I’m going to make my stand. Perhaps I’ll even buy you time!”

“Hush! What we do is ultimately up to our leader’s decision,” the old leader of the neutral faction said, peeking at the flugel sitting on the throne. “So, have you come up with anything?”

“...are you done?” a calm, quiet voice asked.

The three flugels nodded.

“Very well,” the leader said. “So to summarize, Trist, you want a way that will allow the flugels to survive.”

Trist nodded. “I think of nothing but the continuing of our race! Even if it means my own death a hundred times over, I am willing to sacrifice myself to further that!” The sound of his gloved fist against his chest plate rang out.

Liora rolled her eyes and harrumphed. “Just trying to prove that you’re not a coward.”

“Liora.” The moment the leader spoke, Liora stiffened and lowered her head. “Don’t fight amongst yourselves. You’re comrades and brothers and sisters in arms first and foremost. Do not forget that. Now, Liora, you believe that the pride of the flugel should come first, even if it means the end of us as a race?”

“Yes! Although I can’t speak for everyone, we believe that since we will lose and be wiped out in the end, then at least our defeat should be one that we can be proud of!”

This time, it was Trist who rolled his eyes, although he kept the leader’s words in mind and did not say anything. The leader merely glanced at him but did not scold him. 

Finally, the leader turned to Garza, the oldest one of them all. Her voice softened with respect, losing the pride that she had kept when talking to Trist and Liora. “And Garza, you wish for us to survive, but since you do not think we will be able to, you favor Liora’s opinion?”

Garza nodded. “It’s simply what’s realistic. We have never suffered such a heavy defeat before, and in our past wars, there was always hope for victory and always room for defeat. Never before had annihilation seemed so imminent and inevitable.”

“I know what you mean. To think that our race will fall under my watch…” the leader sighed. 

“It’s not your fault!”

The leader shook her head. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. After taking into account all of your opinions, I believe that none of those are the best choice. I’ve consulted with the prince and the council of elders, and they agree with me.”

Garza looked up at the mention of the council. “You don’t mean…”

“I propose that we gather as many people as we can and try to perform the Ceremony of Apotheosis. Are there any objections?”

As soon as the suggestion came out, the room exploded into conversation, but even though there was a lot of noise, there were no voices of dissent. Eventually, the leaders of each faction calmed down and the leader repeated her question. “Any objections? Comments?”

Liora shook her head. “No…if it’s the Ceremony, then…we have no objections.”

“Very good. Trist?”

“I am…not naive enough to believe that the vampires will definitely grant us refuge. If there is a way to survive that does not involve relying on the uncertain goodwill of another enemy, then I will naturally take it.”

The leader nodded in satisfaction and turned to the final voice. “Garza?”

The old flugel shook his head. “No, this is as good a choice as any if the alternative is extinction. Serves them right. But… who will you give the key to? By nature of the ceremony, we…” 

“...I have someone in mind.”

Although Garza still looked hesitant he nodded. “It was rude for me to ask. The ceremony was never meant to be undone anyway. A miracle to undo a miracle.” Although he faced the leader, Garza looked at Trist as he spoke.

Trist flinched, but he closed his eyes and accepted Garza’s words. “Yes…”

At dawn, when the sun was just peeking over the horizons, the remaining flugels gathered around a hastily constructed tower. The last remnant of the royal family, a young prince, stood at the top, while the elders and the surviving commanders surrounded the tower in an impenetrable defense.

The leader of the flugel army looked around and her heart seized when she realized just how little of her people were left. There were perhaps a thousand remaining, if that. Of course, there were more that had managed to escape, but considering relations between the races, they would not last long if they were found in another race’s territory without a proper reason.

Wherever they were, she hoped them well. The ceremony will wipe away their damning identities and allow them to rebuild anew.

“Let the ceremony begin!” the prince’s thin and immature voice called. He held the scepter of the royal up high and caught the sunlight on its polished surface. Of all the sources of holiness in the world, the most powerful was the sun as the origin of all life. One last time, the sun will grant their race its blessings.

With the script in front of him, the prince began to chant.

He was too young. No child should have as heavy a responsibility as him, but here he was, using a chant as a substitution for skill. Using his chant as a guide, the commanders and elders weaved the magic that grew and grew until it encompassed all of the gathered flugels, who all knelt facing the tower, their heads bowed.

When the spell was complete, the scepter glowed a pure white light and shone upon all those gathered. The leader of the flugel army opened her eyes and looked at her hands that had begun to turn transparent under the white light. 

Not only that, she turned into a cluster of white sparkles that joined the others in spiraling toward the hovering scepter that shot a column of light into the sky. The prince was nowhere to be seen, and soon, the clearing was empty.

The light faded, and the scepter fell to the ground, breaking and turning into dust that blew away in the wind that followed.

High up in the heavens above the clouds, the magic spread over the peninsula, with a few traces arcing toward a select few locations in the lands of the other races. However, most of it remained over the peninsula where it rained down.

Apotheosis. To become a god.

A spell that sacrificed in order to elevate,  ensuring that those sacrificed were never forgotten. A spell that was originally meant to honor individuals was twisted and weaponized to destroy the invaders of the land.

All over the peninsula, the undead faded as the very earth that had flourished under the warmth of the flugels rebelled. Realizing that something was wrong, the invaders retreated back to their strongholds of the dead, but most were too slow. The mana from heaven and earth entered their bodies, ripped out their strength, extinguished the seeds of darkness within them, and carved into their minds the legacy of the flugels.

To the few flugels that remained scattered over the lands, the magic erased their wings and changed them. Some grew longer ears, others became smaller, and others still gained the rounded ears of their mortal enemies.

Those rounded-ear non-flugels maintained a fraction of their strength of old, the rest having been exhausted in the grand magic.

Meanwhile, the invaders that holed up in their bastions were sealed within by a great barrier, until over the years, they became as dark as the beings that served them, their minds broken by the magic they wielded.

And so, the chapter of the flugels came to an end.

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“It’s quite ironic, isn’t it? For the very people that you were on the verge of defeating to become your gods. Well, not yours, per se…” Victoria laughed.

“Not mine…so we’re not really humans?” Camilla asked. “I know Kagriss isn’t a human, but what about me?”

“Your ancestor was probably a flugel-turned human,” Victoria replied. “Those always had stronger magic than the pale imitations that the real humans were capable of, even if it’s not complete.”

“But why are we still so weak compared to you?” Camilla sighed. It was only when she and Kagriss managed to gain the powers of a lord-class undead that she came close to reaching Victoria’s heights.

Luckily, Victoria had an answer as well. “It seems that humans are truly a different breed, as expected of beings from a whole other land.” She looked mildly impressed. “While the rest of us choose to specialize or not in a particular kind of magic, the humans seemed to have taken that to an extreme degree until their bodies became only capable of one type. That’s why no other race has the distinction between mages that fight up close and those that fight from afar.

“Besides, the Ceremony of Apotheosis crippled your magic, so it’s no wonder you’re weak. Although...” Victoria paused to think. “I’m not quite sure, but I believe that if the ceremony is undone, that magic will be returned to you.”

“So undoing this ceremony had been your goal all along? You’re the person that flugel entrusted the key to!” Camilla shouted as she realized who she was talking to.

Victoria blushed as she nodded and Camilla stared at the pink color on Victoria’s face in shock.

Kagriss pinched her arm. “To think she still thinks of a crush she’s had since a thousand years ago…”

“Well, it’s hard to get much better than someone that presides over the army of an entire race. Even the vampires do not have a united army, so there is no equivalent.”

“Don’t worry. I’m satisfied with someone whose greatest achievement was the commander of an order.”

Camilla glared at Kagriss and pinched her back before she nudged Victoria out of her girlish blush.

“So what does undoing the ceremony mean anyway?”

At the question, the blush on Victoria’s face disappeared and she frowned. A heavy atmosphere descended on them as Victoria’s foul mood made itself known through her impressive mana.

“...Victoria?”

Victoria swallowed and licked her suddenly dry lips. After repeating that several times, Victoria answered.

“When all five keys are gathered in the key slot, all flugels will return to their former glory. As every human has a fragment of the flugel race within them from that grand magic a thousand years ago, the flugel race will return in one fell swoop the moment the ceremony is undone.”

“...every human? Does that include former part-humans like me… and former flugels like Kagriss?” Camilla asked. “And…what exactly is the process?”

Victoria hesitated and for a long time, she said nothing. When she did speak, it was in a voice so quiet that Camilla almost didn’t hear her.

“Holy light will fall on everything, and…” she trailed off, leaving the room in grim silence, the conclusion clear.