16 Tragedy
BOOOOOOOOM!
As Malik's attack overcame the power of Dax's, the laser beam emitted from the golden silhouette behind him finally pierced through the sound barrier that had been preventing it from hitting his enemy.
When this happened, the gigantic bestial skeleton shattered, exploding into countless pieces.
While Vice's family tried their best to escape on foot, the residual attacks of this conflict still wreaked havoc in their surroundings. The laser beams were melting the ground, and the sound waves still continued reverberating through the air.
Nina had already collapsed in her father's arms, while Lauren was bleeding from her ears, eyes, and nose.
Vicente was slightly better off than them, but he was barely able to hear anything as he watched as the nearby vast expanse of green grass was being obliterated.
The laser was scorching the ground they hit while the sound waves ravaged the smaller plants in the area.
Meanwhile, when the giant skeleton in the air exploded, its fragments started raining down from the sky, forming a view similar to that of a meteor shower.
As the first few pieces of bones rained nearby, tremors started to spread throughout the surroundings.
Pieces of soil flew through the air while the impact of the fragments of bones created craters that were as large as carriages. At the same time, some of the surrounding vegetation was set ablaze due to these showers, which created a lot of heat upon impacting the surface.
Vicente observed all this with a mere glance to the side while feeling the strong gusts of winds from the area ruffling his hair during their escape attempt.
Boom!
A few moments later, his family's carriage was hit by one of those pieces of bone and exploded into countless pieces.
'Damn it! What's going on? Why were we involved in this?' He thought, sweating profusely, with a pain in his chest.
Boom!
Another piece of bone fell next to where his family was passing, forcing them to promptly change direction.
'That's not fair! Why do our plans have to be disrupted and our lives are put at risk just because of a fight from people we don't even know?' He looked up, remembering the voices he had heard before he had his ears hurt.
Meanwhile, he could see the faces of those two men. One was a middle-aged man with black hair, while the relatively younger one was blond and had blue eyes.
When Vice turned towards his fleeing family, considering sharing what he had heard and seesaw with his father, he suddenly noticed something unfolding before his eyes, something that was completely out of his control.
A huge splinter of bone that was as big as a horse crashed down directly on top of the path that his mother was following!
In an instant, Vice felt as if his spine had gone cold, causing his heart to clench in agony and momentarily stop breathing as he saw his mother and that piece of bone that was just above her.
The next instant, his mother could no longer be seen while that colossal bone fragment had sunk into the ground.
"NOOOOO!"
Andrew saw this terrible development before him and screamed with all his breath while still clutching Nina and Lauren in his arms.
"What is it? What happened?" Lauren screamed. "I… I can't see."
However, Andrew wasn't able to pay any heed to her voice while he fell to his knees, not able to even utter anything.
Everything he had in his mind and heart had vanished in that instant while the most excruciating pain someone could ever go through surged through his mind.
His sense was suddenly cut off from reality as he saw the greatest love of his life disappear right before his eyes.
His torment transcended the physical realm, the worst kind of all!
Tears welled up in Vicente's eyes as he grieved, stopping himself from moving to carefully look at the spot where his mother had now disappeared, forever.
"MOM!"
He struggled against the warrior who was carrying him, trying to get loose and run to where his mother should be.
"Let me go! Let me go! I have to save my mother!"
The warrior holding Vicente felt terrible but remained resolute and didn't let the boy go. He ignored this child's kicks and punches and continued running, sidestepping the crater where Vice's mother and the coachman had met their tragic end after being crushed to death.
"Wesley, get Mr. Fuller. We can't leave them behind!" he shouted to his comrade further ahead.
Wesley quickly turned around and looked back, doing his best to catch up with their employer.
Amid the chaos, Vicente eventually couldn't use more strength as he succumbed to exhaustion and grief. The intensity of his struggles was overwhelmed by his urge to sleep.
'Mom... Mom... Where are you? Please don't leave me...'
With that final, sorrowful thought, Vicente collapsed, his heart heavy with frustration, fear, and anger and hate towards those behind this tragedy.
...
Six hours later...
Following the battle between the powerful magicians, the group that had suffered the terrible consequences of being in the crossfire of someone else's battle finally managed to find refuge in a more peaceful location.
After hours of running on foot, the two warriors managed to bring Vice, his sisters, and their father to the vicinity of a cave, where they were now taking shelter from the previous phenomena.
After that great battle, the mana in the surroundings continued to be in turmoil for the next few hours, so even after the fight was concluded, regions in the vicinity where the battle had occurred were still suffering from the aftermath of that confrontation.
Thus, the two men now stood at the case entrance, watching the surroundings outside it, sighing as they remembered what had just happened.
"Mage Sovereigns... I never thought that they could be so strong," the less experienced of the two Generals sighed as he gazed at the gray sky and the distant lightning.
"A 4th stage magician holds immense power!" his boss replied. "And the clash of Sovereigns is not a simple matter. Surviving to tell the tale is already a great achievement for someone like us!"
"Tell that to this family..." Wesley muttered as he turned back, looking in Andrew's direction.
This man had suffered the tragic loss of his pregnant wife right before his eyes!
How painful could that be?
But somehow, he had found the strength to care for his three wounded children and was caring for the one with the most severely wounded child of them all, Nina.
Nina was the smallest. Thus, she had received the hardest hit among the three.
As for Lauren and Vice, Andrew wasn't sure how serious their situation was since he was not a doctor. But it was clear that Andrew's eldest daughter had lost sight.
On the other hand, Vicente was in a deep sleep, and no one there knew whether he was seriously injured or not.
All they could say about him was that he was in pain as he called out for his mother every few moments, and his body would shake vigorously.
"Sigh... That is going to be a long trip," Soren, the level 7 General, sighed in a low voice.
