Chương 78: B2 Prologue

The tribe was as busy as always. Barbarians bustled around, some ready to leave the tribehold to hunt, others to train or spend time with their loved ones. They were towering hulks that carried more physical might than most Knights could ever dream of, and that was why they were feared so much. A fireball exploding in their faces still hurt, yet those muscular men and women were not that easy to kill. Ava experienced that ferocity first-hand.

She walked around the tribe, steps slow and deliberate, trying not to mind the fact that she was the only human in sight. Ava was not the only human in the tribe, but the others were in the chieftain's hut or nearby, trying to stay out of everyone's sight. They were the ghosts of Tribe Taskur. However, Ava did not hide even when her instincts told her to avoid those mindless savages by all means. But what then? Would anything change if she stayed like this – too afraid to reveal herself? To change?

She shook her head slowly, her brilliant eyes drifting across the tribehold. Her gaze flicked to the training ground where the young warriors of Tribe Taskur fought. It was the same as every day, yet Ava doubted she would ever get used to the scenery. Heads bashing into each other made her skin crawl, although the sound of bones breaking only made it worse. It sent chills down her spine, filling her with nausea. The Barbarians smiled through the sounds that nearly made her empty her stomach whenever she passed by.

Their smiles were too bright for the grotesque sight unfurling before her. Terrifying. Deadly. That was how the youngest of Tribe Taskur's warriors looked to her, and it only confirmed why the other humans were hiding from them. One wrong move and the Barbarians would snap their necks. As terrifying as the sight was, Ava had grown more familiar with it ever since the last Rite, the first in several years. A Rite that promised change, starting with freedom. Her freedom.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Ava was a free human – the first of her kind – and she still couldn't quite believe it. It shouldn't have been possible, but here she was, standing in the middle of the tribehold, no longer having to fear the Barbarians' wrath. She could leave and make her way back to the Alliance to tell them about the Barbarians, their numbers, their strength, and the way they thought. No one would stop her now that she was free.

To make that happen, she would first have to survive the Devil's Lair, and that… that was impossible. Alone, she was merely a Mage Apprentice. Her channels had been burned all those years ago and had only recovered recently, but she was still too weak. Memories of the burns and how they came to be flooded her mind. Snippets of the dark days from all those years ago surfaced. It had been a long time, but the darkness was still in her heart.

Her Master was killed right before her eyes, a simple demonstration of the Alliance's power devolving into a bloody disaster. Even now, it was hard to understand what the baron and the chancellor of the Bluefire Academy thought when they sent them to the Devil's Lair. Did they really think they would be able to enter and ransack the dark forest without any repercussions? A heavy sigh escaped her lips as the memory snippets fizzled out.

One man had defeated them all, the crushing force of his blade tearing through flesh and magic alike. Ava stared at that very man, her breath hitched. She diverted her gaze to the younger man beside the monster of a man, barely suppressing a full-blown panic attack. The young Barbarian standing beside him was none other than the monster's son, yet he was nothing like his father. He was… weird. He was two heads taller than her, yet still shorter than the chieftain.

His muscles were not as bulky as most Barbarians', but compact instead. With a little bit of work, he'd probably look like a tall human knight. Well-trained and equipped with sharp senses. He was weaker than the chieftain as well, of course he was, yet the way mana bent to his will was all the more terrifying. Ava blinked furiously, her panic fading with the gust flowing past her. Maybe, the young Barbarian was exactly what she needed to make it out of the tribe and forest. He was the one who freed her after all.