The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

"Hang on. It's quite stuffy in here." Erden interrupted before the start of the tale and squirmed his way out of Oscar's robes, peeking his small head out the neckline. His short stubby legs leaped through the air and plopped onto the table.

"You must be Erden. Nice to meet you." Fred lifted his cup. "Thank you for being by Oscar's side."

"Same goes for me. I've only seen you in Oscar's memories. Nice to meet you at last." Erden tapped his antlers against Fred's cup, trotted his way over to the other corner of the table, and rested with his eyes closed, leaving himself out of their reunion.

Oscar chuckled and clinked his cup against Fred's. A storm was coming. Besides the low hum of the crystal light and under the resounding thunder battering the sky outside, they drank until their cups were empty, and the same satisfied sigh welled from their lungs, full of the scent of grapes. He hadn't gotten this drunk since the time with Avril in the Burning Valley.

Rubbing his ring, Oscar shifted his gaze from the cup to Fred and said, "So what happened?"

Fred hit his cup against the table, a loud thud after another in rhythmic pounding, until he stopped with the final clap of thunder from the storm. "After you pushed me away to the teleportation room, I ended up in the outer hall of the central palace. I ran out to the exit rooms and returned to the place from where I entered, as did everyone else. Celestina immediately ordered us all to break for our portal out of Ashen Grove."

"Time. We couldn't waste time. If any of the other three forces got out before us and received the news of success, we would be surrounded. I couldn't even look for Emily or anyone else. I just kept running. As I looked back, I saw red roots emerge out of the windows and cover the entire palace. And I knew you were gone." Fred stopped for a moment to gather his words.

"Once I made it out with the others, we were quickly ferried into the fortress airship. Then the fighting broke out. Countless cannons fired on each other, Grand Commander Ward fought and held back the other three. It was like being in a storm. Then the King Exalts arrived and–"

"I've heard about it from Susan. That Elder Saul we knew in the garden was the strongest King Exalt." Oscar interrupted and looked around the simple room, his gaze sharpening despite the drunken haze swaying about. Did Fred live here? There were no real belongings, not a pen, a book, or even a piece of cloth hung anywhere to suggest someone lived here. Dust piled in the edges and corners, never being cleaned for what appeared to be years. Everything seemed so…bleak.

Fred shouldn't have been living like this. The orange-haired warrioress, Emily, would have put Fred in line. There should have been some items, something to remind Fred of her. Yet there was nothing. He caught sight of the emptiness on Fred's left ring finger as the hand reached for the bottle. Oscar asked, "Where's Emily? I thought the two of you would have married by now."

His friend halted and then grasped the bottle, refilling his cup. Holding the wine to his lips, Fred took a while before he said, "We broke up."

Oscar moved without thinking and drove his fist into Fred's face, splattering the wine all over the table and Fred's clothes and face. The chair fell over, and Fred rolled around and slammed his back to the wall. His friend laughed and gasped out the wine in his throat. Oscar clenched his fist and crushed the bottle to stop them from drinking further.

"I knew you'd react like this." Fred ran his palm over his face to his hair, slicking it back with the wine. He smelled entirely of grapes and alcohol.

"Broke up? I didn't push you out of danger so you could drink in this filthy room." Oscar crouched and growled at Fred. "Why? You and Emily were happy."

"Because you were gone!" Fred shouted. "You saved my life, but I couldn't handle the guilt. How weak and pathetic am I? That I failed to be of any help to you. Do you know what that feels like? I couldn't look Emily in the eye without being reminded of you and my long string of failures!" Fred closed his eyes and leaned his head back, heaving his chest with heavy breaths. "She was also in the worst place. She didn't blame me, but I never stopped blaming myself. I ran away, and here we are." His voice fell to a whisper until it fell into silence.

Oscar walked away and moved to sit by Fred's side, leaning his back against the wall. He clasped his friend's shoulder and gave him a knowing nod. The guilt in Fred's words struck deep like a dagger into Oscar's heart. It wasn't his fault, and it wasn't Fred's either. It was just unfortunate. It was unfortunate that he and Fred were together in that corridor, unfortunate that they were both nearly out of time and Ein, and unfortunate that neither had the power to survive together.

"Sorry for hitting you."

"Don't be. It's what I deserve for wasting the chance you gave me." Fred said somberly.

"To continue, you got on the airship, escaped with the help of the King Exalts, then what?" Oscar asked. While he wanted Fred to rest, he yearned to know everything that had transpired since his disappearance.

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"On the airship, I told everyone what happened. Emily, like I said, fell into depression and was a mess. Serena cried endlessly through the night. Celestina locked herself in the room, not coming out until we returned to the Pavilion. The rest also barely talked. We barely talked, as if we knew we'd have to talk about you later, but no one wanted to bring you up. So we avoided each other."

"When we returned to the Pavilion, everyone else cheered and celebrated our victory. But we stayed behind. How could we join the celebrations without you? Everyone in the Pavilion knew your name now. You became a hero as Celestina spread your name to every city and town, letting them know that you were the one who plucked the Divine Essence. She even put your story in a fairy tale for children to read."

Oscar chuckled. It was very like Celestina to do that for him—what better way to remember his memory than to put it on the pages of a book?

Fred sighed, "The worst was when your master burst out of the Abyss Prison."

"The Warden? Is my master well?" Oscar asked.

"No. We don't know how your master is doing. He kept screaming and rampaged through the Pavilion. The Pavilion Master managed to lock him away, but half of the Pavilion was destroyed." Fred's words didn't shock Oscar. Aunt Rosett once said that his master somehow returned to his sane self around him. Since he was gone, it was inevitable his master would descend further into insanity.

"Is he still locked up in the Pavilion?" Oscar had to meet him. His master needed help, and he was the only one who could help him.

"No. Once the war began, the Pavilion Master let him go, and he destroyed entire armies by himself, regarded as a demon by the enemy. But he went in too deep and was captured. Last I heard, he's kept prisoner in the deepest layer of Rurin Gaols. A prison created by the joint efforts of the three empires." Fred gripped Oscar's arm and shook his head.

"Are there no plans to free him?" Oscar understood Fred's meaning–don't go there. A prison designed for people of great power like his master was not a place to be trifled with. But it was his master that was imprisoned. Oscar strained his neck and felt increasingly more uncomfortable by the second.

"No plans. Not yet. Grand Commander Ward and Forgemaster Evergold have been clamoring to attack it, but I haven't heard anything yet." Fred answered.

"What about everyone else? How is everyone else doing?" Oscar shifted topics, avoiding the unpleasant subject of his master for now.

"Emily is on the other border, a Greater Knight Exalt. Austin and Mary got married a few years ago, both Middle Knight Exalts. It was a good time, then. Everyone needed a break from the war. Now, Austin is involved in assassinations and gathering information while Mary is at a base with her aunt. Celestina became a Marshal Exalt and is leading her forces north, and Charles is with her; he's a Greater Knight Exalt. Phillip and Eleanor are married as well; they're parents now too. They don't have the time to raise him, though, as they're both leading on the battlefield. Serena is a Greater Knight Exalt and is helping to manage the budget and war expenses. She's married now as well."

"She's married?" Oscar was taken aback then he smiled. "I'm glad she moved on."

Fred laughed and said, "She thinks of how persistently she tried to pursue you and would often bang her head on the table, saying how embarrassing that was. Her husband isn't a bad person. He's an alchemist."

"A damned alchemist…I can't complain. My wife is an alchemist." Oscar reached into his space pocket and pulled out a bottle of juice. He took a swig from the bottle and handed it to Fred, who wasn't reserved about drinking half of its contents.

Once the bottle was finished, Oscar asked, "How are my parents doing?"

"Your parents…yes. Yes. You know what. Let's go see them." Fred rose from the floor and lifted Oscar along with him. Fred was giving him an odd and unnerving look. His friend's face was surprisingly calm, and his eyes stared straight into him, unlike the drunken rolling from before. "I can ask for a leave and take you to them."

Words failed to escape Oscar's mind. He wanted to speak, but a part of him deep inside his soul nudged him to silence as if the only course was to follow Frederick and not say a word. He went back out into the Spiraling Willow Forest, the trees hanging their lengthy leaves down, dripping streams of rainwater down into puddles of mud. He glanced at the Elire Mansion one more time before departing with Fred.

A report in Fred's hand bore some good news. The people in the five ships, including the one Oscar was in, had been rescued and taken to Artomos City. The citizens were settled in, and the soldiers were already put to work. Upon talking about a missing shipmaster the others were searching for, Fred peeked at Oscar over the paper and crumpled it up. The missing shipmaster could stay missing for a while longer.

Flying to their destination, Oscar was stopped by patrols almost every hour. Oscar clicked his tongue in annoyance at the twentieth time it happened but also admired the Pavilion and Empire for having good routine patrols. He withheld his irritation and endured it until he and Fred arrived at the old Greenwich City. It was good that his home village and neighboring city still counted as a part of the inner region. He wouldn't have to sneak through enemy lines to find his parents.

Oscar let out a bright smile, anticipating his dad still working on the fields of grain and his mom cooking a nice stew inside the one-room home. He could only imagine their surprise at his return. Since he was taller now, he wanted to compare heights with his dad, the ever-tall giant, still the tallest he had ever known.

However, Fred didn't turn toward the direction of his farm.

Oscar shivered. Strange. The cold winds should not affect him unless they were purposely created from Ein. He clenched his numbing hands and followed Fred until, slowly, his smile cracked and broke into disbelief. Landing gently on an old land of flat grass adorned with stone tablets and statues everywhere, Oscar shook his head and denied this was true. Fred must be playing another joke on him, quite a cruel one.

His feet crushed on fallen dead branches, and his heart sank deeper as the crows cawed. Their shrill cries came from the dead trees lining the graveyard, their talons digging into the dusty bark. The pale eyes surrounded him, cold dead eyes staring unblinkingly, only their beaks moving to create more heartstopping sounds.

Oscar stopped with Fred before two tombstones.

"Henry Terr"

"Gwen Terr"

His parents.

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