Royal Rebel 4 ~ The Return

Chapter 67: Hollow Soul | Pt 1

"Alright, we're here," Zelda breathed as we reached the entrance of the castle, now in ruin and quiet, just as it was two decades ago. The malice still lived, growing across the walls and floors of our home. Neither of us liked being here, seeing our kingdom go into ruin, but we knew we were fighting to save it from this fate. "Elric should be in the Sanctum. That's where he's gaining his power."

"Then that's where we're gonna go." I held my hand out for hers, looking down at her, and she noticed it after a moment. She smiled softly at me as she took my hand, and then we both looked straight ahead. "This isn't our first rodeo, Zelda, we can do this."

"I hope so. I suppose now, I'm just glad the kids are safe in Hateno Village." She said, and I agreed. We began on our journey up the path towards the Sanctum, and we prepared ourselves for the end of the fight coming up. Because this was the endgame.

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"Come on, Azu! We have to keep going!" I called to the Scroll Wielder as my horse started to speed up, and the ground shook as the Talus he was battling fell to the ground. "We have to find Idalia before she gets to the castle, or else we'll be too late!"

"I'm trying my best here!" Azu yelled, shooting a bomb off to the bokoblin camp set up nearby. He detonated it and destroyed the wooden base, and he tried to speed up to catch up with me. "Elric's malice created all of these monsters! Purposely to distract us and take us off track!"

"Well then we have to stay on track!" I huffed as Arke began riding slower, and I wondered why until a small army of Stalbokoblins and Stalmoblins popped out of the ground and ran towards us. "Arke! Go that way!"

I turned away from the army, but Azu whipped Elixir's reins and had the steed rush and trample over the monsters instead. I followed his lead instead and led my horse to travel over the army, and that was a good idea until a moblin nearly whacked me in the head. I managed to duck, but just enough so I didn't get hit by it. It grazed the top of my hair.

"Watch out!" Azu called, and I huffed and rolled my eyes as I gripped the reins of my horse even tighter.

"That would have been helpful BEFORE I nearly got whacked by the moblin!" I yelled back, but then he pointed above us as a shadow began to cover our area.

"No, Ellet, WATCH OUT!" A large boulder flew down towards us, and we both quickly dashed out of the way in time for it to crash into the floor. "It's a Talus Titan!"

"Keep riding! We'll lose it eventually!" We sped up our pace, but this Talus was exceptionally fast, especially compared to a regular sized one. And not to mention it was covered in malice, and certains cracks and breaks in its body were either filled by ice or had lava seeping out.

"Ellet!" Azu called after we had been riding a while, still having to avoid the smaller monsters that threatened us and tried to attack us. "I don't think we're going to be able to outrun it!"

"Well what are we supposed to do, fight it?!" I hissed, and then I saw another shadow form as another arm of the beast's flew towards us. My eyes pleaded for Azu to listen to me, but he still jumped off his horse and let Elixir run away. Even if he could see my eyes, I doubted he would've kept running anway.

He held his hands up and stopped the giant boulder with a powerful wind shield, and it was for long enough so Arke could ride me away.

"Azu!" I tried to turn my horse back around, but he was startled by the boulder and already scared enough of the Talus. He struggled to hold the boulder back for longer, and he barely managed to push it away from him so it landed to his left. He fell to his knees, completely out of breath, and the Talus kept marching towards him. "AZU!"