Phantasia: The Princess Knight

Chapter 22: Devils And Gods

Loeri stayed by Alicia's side until she finally woke up an hour later. Alicia's eyes slowly opened. She rubbed her head and looked over at Loeri. "Loeri what happened?"

"You stupid human! How could you even try to eat a magic core!? You almost died!" Loeri yelled out, her little beady eyes welled up with tears. Loeri jumped into Alicia's lap and nuzzled her nose into Alicia's stomach.

Alicia smiled and hugged Loeri. They had only been together for a few days but it seemed that they had known each other their entire lives. "I'm sorry Loeri, I did not know that would happen. Originally I thought I would not be able to bite into it. I will never do that again."

"Humph! Better not..." Loeri flapped her little wings and flew up to the top of Alicia's head and found a comfortable spot to relax.

Alicia looked down at her now spotless clothes and skin. "Loeri how did we get all clean?"

Loeri who was about to take a deep breath choked on air by Alicia's question. "Ahem It happened when the Magicules were going crazy after you passed out."

"Oh I could have sworn Master Berlin showed up..." Alicia's head was somewhat foggy all she remembered clearly was the pain that shot through her whole body and then fainting.

"N-No it was just me this entire time." Loeri wished she could tell Alicia the truth about Berlin but she had already promised and Berlin also said she might be in danger if she knew.

After talking a bit longer the two went to find a place to stay for the night. They were able to find a small cave not too far off from where they fought the horned wind python. With Alicia's newfound speed with wind magic, she was a lot quicker than before as she traversed the forest. When Alicia first entered the cave she was surprised to see that it went back fairly deep. She used detection magic to inspect the inside of the cave. She did not detect any demonic beasts inside but she did seem to pick up on something else.

"Loeri are you able to sense what is deep within this cave? I am picking something up but it does not seem to be a demonic beast." Alicia asked.

"No, I do not sense anything dangerous. We can go check it out and see." Lorie replied.

"Okay! Let's go!" Alicia created a flame in the palm of her hand and walked deep into the cave.

The Cave was very dark and damp. The sounds of water dripping from the stalagmites could be heard all around. Alicia continued on until she came to a peculiar sight. She had come to what seemed to be a dead end but the wall seemed to be rippling like water. Alicia being curious as she was, reached her hand out and touched the wall. To her surprise, it felt like she was touching the surface of a lake or pond. It was cool to the touch and almost felt wet but her hand did not get wet at all.

"Loeri do you know what this is?" Alicia asked.

"If I am not wrong this is a barrier from the fairy race. But they are supposed to have disappeared ages ago! They have not been seen since the War of the Devils." Loeri answered.

"War of the Devils? Loeri how do you know all of this?" Alicia found that Loeri was very knowledgeable. She seemed to know everything except the forest she was in.

"We dragons are born with the knowledge of our ancestors. So we are the ones to ask if you need to know certain things. It's just some areas are not known since this world changes over the course of time. Otherwise, I would not have been sitting in that barrier all this time." Loeri could tell what Alicia was thinking. So she made sure to explain it all.

"Then what was this War of the Devils?" Alicia knew there were many races in this world. She found out from Berlin that this world was called Phantasia. And Phantasia had many sentient beings. Some that were no longer around and some that had just surfaced. Among them were the Fei, Elves, and Dwarves and many more. There were also the demonic beasts that normally stayed deep in the forest. But she had never heard of devils.

"More than ten thousand years ago there were very strong beings that lived here on Phantasia. There were two groups. The good side, which were the Gods race and then there was the bad side, the Devils race. The Gods gave birth to the other humanoid races. Some created by accident and others were created on purpose. The only humanoid race they did not create were the humans. The Gods did not enslave these new races, they gave them an area to grow their own communities almost as an experiment in a sense. The Gods were worshiped by not only the new races they created but by humans as well. They saw them as beings of great power and even built churches to worship them.

"One day, one of the Gods went crazy and started a massacre in the world below. He bathed in the blood of those he killed and when the Gods stepped in to capture him he was somehow able to slip away. Ten years after his disappearance he re-emerged but he no longer looked like he had before. This fallen god created many humanoid creations that feasted on the blood of others. They were very powerful. These were the first devils.

"It was unknown how he did it but he had created millions of these new devils. The gods and the humanoid races, banned together to fight against the devils. In the end, only half of the devils were wiped out and the fallen god disappeared along with the rest of the devils. It was a dire time for both sides as a lot of gods and half the humanoid population disappeared. The gods also disappeared after the war.

"Five years after that was when the first demonic beast appeared, areas deep in the forest started to become a breeding ground for these new demonic beasts. They are called demonic beasts because of their aggressive nature. That is the story of the War of the Devils."