Voyage Of The Villainess

'I will never disappoint you, Malaya.' Hyun Jae started chanting with resolve deep in her heart.

"Goddess of Light, Lumiera. I ask thee to purify thy land covered with darkness."

Waves of light erupted from Hyun Jae.

The magic circle where the people were being sacrificed was now dimming.

"What are you waiting for? All of you stop her!" The witch screamed and the flames of anger flickered all over her body. 

---⚓⚓⚓---

"How beautiful." Malaya glanced up as she clapped her hands three times, completely impressed. Together with Iris, Dorris, and Elred, they also looked at the sight in the sky.

The thick and dark clouds were starting to clear up as well. Revealing the vast starry night skies.

"Hey! As I remember, that's our signal, am I right?" Iris asked as her spear materialized on her right hand.

"Yes. That's our signal. It's now the time.

"Malaya grinned as she brought out her talisman from her bag. Then she turned towards Dorris.

"Dorris, you have used up your teleportation twice now right, I think it will be better if you go back to the ship with him." Malaya gestured to the unconscious Kayden. "That would be a better choice for now." 

"Wait, what Milady?" Dorris was surprised by what she heard. "I can fight as well. I promise I won't be a burden to any of you. Let me prove to you that I can help the team."

Malaya leaned closer to Dorris to whisper something. Then she moved a step away and patted her right shoulder. 

"Let's see each other again, after all this."

Dorris pursed her lips as she clenched her fists. "Alright, take care then Milady and all of you." She walked towards Kayden and started chanting. Soon they were enveloped with her magic circle. Before they disappeared she gave Malaya one last look.

"Take care as well, Dorris," Malaya said and both Dorris and Kayden disappeared in just a second. 

"I can sense that she truly wants to help us. What did you whisper to her?" Iris asked.

"Some words of advice to reassure her," Malaya said casually. Then she handed two talismans of teleportation to Elred and Iris.

"If your lives get endangered, use that to escape. That's for your own safeness."

"And what about you?" Iris raised a brow. 

"Don't worry  I have plenty of that to me now, so I'll be fine."  Malaya simply said. She glanced at her left wrist that was still continuously throbbing with pain.

When she raised her head, Iris' face was close to her which made her step a few steps behind.

"Whoa," Malaya said, a bit surprised. " That was too close, huh. What?"

Iris with two arms on her waist looked at Malaya. "Is something that matters?"

"No," Malaya replied, maintaining her calm. "Let's go now."

They started to remove the cloaks of the people they knocked out.

---⚓⚓⚓---

On the road, they stealthily moved. 

"Are we there yet?" Iris asked.

"Will you just be patient? You keep asking me the same question. Anyways just this one turn and we will be there."  Malaya calmly said yet a little bit irritable on her reply. She stopped before turning into the left corner of the street. She checked first if there were any people there. At the point when she saw that the region was clear she signaled to her allies to go and make a move. They kept walking some more until they reached a dead-end.

After glancing and observing the surroundings, Malaya started to press a brick in the middle. Then to Iris and Elred's surprise, the dead end wall began to split into two.

"What is there?" Iris asked.

"Another thing that will surprise the enemy." Malaya said. "Follow closely behind me."

*Boom!* 

Before they could enter the bricks, all of them glanced up. They could still see Hyun Jae emitting her light above. But there was someone trying to get close to her.

Since they were a bit far away, they couldn't see it clearly. But they could get that it was trying to break the barrier Hyun Jae created for herself. Soon lightning emerged from the skies. And more explosions from the sky occurred. The crown prince started to show himself and stopped anyone who was trying to get near to Hyun Jae.

'Hang in there, Hyun Jae.' 

"Stop staring, we need to move now. Let's go," Malaya said. She picked a small bottle on her bag containing blue liquid. She shook it up and down and the bottle started to emit light. 

She gestured for Elred and Iris to follow behind her. And as soon as the three of them entered, the wall behind closed. 

With the light bottle she had in Malaya's hands, they started to walk towards the stone walkway. It took them a half an hour for their walk.

"I don't know what we are doing but are we going to some underground place?"

"Close." Malaya just simply replied and didn't say anything or entertained her question after that. Iris seemed to sense her seriousness so she chose to didn't ask anything either and stealthily followed behind Malaya. All of them were quiet and focused on their destination.

Soon, Iris could hear the sounds of rushing water. 

The three stopped when they reached the end of the tunnel. 

"What is this place?" Iris asked a bit perplexed. " I never seen this before."

There was now a small clear pond in front of them. Then in the middle there was a small waterfall coming from within the crack of a stone. Malaya continued to walk in a small bridge connecting to the falls.

"Hey, are you out of your mind? That's the falls!" Iris stopped when Malaya vanished within the falls.

"She couldn't hear you anymore. Let's just trust and follow after her." Elred who was behind Iris strode forward and disappeared into the falls as well.

Though still skeptical about it. "Alright fine." Iris rolled her eyes and she did not have anything to do about it but to follow after them.

When she thought she would be drenched from the falls, strangely it was like there was some sort of barrier surrounding her that prevented the water from coming to her.

When she walked past the falls, the next thing Iris saw greatly shocked her.

"Wait, is this what I think it is?" Iris asked. Bewilderment was clearly expressed in her face.

"Yes." Malaya simply answered as she looked ahead. "This is the lost city of Hellarez, the Heloz that we couldn't find earlier, when we first arrived here."

"This was completely ridiculous. I can't believe that city was only found inside the wall?" amazement and curiosity was written on Iris's face. 

In front of them, there was a massive gate between two huge stone bricks. On the right brick, it contained the characters for Helos and on the left was the characters for the City.

"How in the world, the city get here?" Iris kept asking the same question and  amazed and curiosity was still visible on her face." Hey! I was just amazed, okay?" she said when she saw Malaya stare at her.

Elred narrowed his gaze. "With the last survivors of the mages of the GeZo countries, they teleported the city here to escape the eyes of the empire. The emperor upon finding that some of his enemy disappeared didn't want anyone to find this. He wanted everyone to believe that he had a complete victory in the war that was why he hid this fact. Upto this day, then Hellarez was still secretly monitored by his people in case that the remaining people who escaped would show themselves once again."

Both Malaya and Iris glanced at him.

"Yes, he's right." Malaya said in agreement with Elred. "And the one he assigned to lead these discrete monitoring is Oliver."

"I see, so I'm the only one who didn't know about this." Iris carressed her chin. "And it means that's how Oliver and the cult seized control of the island without the emperor knowing." Iris nodded her head in understanding.  "Everything becomes clear now to me."

"Although, I'm not surprised if within this group, most of you were so aware of everything that even I don't know." Elred looked at Malaya. "I'm quite curious as to how did you know all of this?"

A grin emerged from Malaya's lips. "A little spy told me everything."

The ground began to tremble as the gate started to split into two.

"Who's there?!" A booming voice echoed throughout the place.

All of the three of them looked ahead. When the gate was completely opened, it revealed people wearing black armors and they were holding different kinds of weapons in their hands.

"Thankfully, Oliver wasn't able to completely seize control of the island, since he still hadn't found out about this city that was lying beneath his fortress." Malaya whispered that only Iris and Elred could hear.

"The Sun is my enemy." Malaya removed her hood and curtly bowed with her hand  on her heart.. "I am Malaya and I'm here to seek for your cooperation."

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