The Seventh Spirit

by Adam-Clay Webb

  Azar reappeared a little behind the boy. “Abingush!” the prince cried, sending a quick burst of mana at the enemy. The boy was flung forcefully from the red cloud made by the blast. Azar shifted again as where he stood suffered the impact of another of the massive shadowballs. He reappeared a few meters before the boy, who was just skating back on his feet, his wings steadying him. Azar quickly forged in his hands an orb of fire and one of mana. Time to end this. Quickly, he slammed the spheres together. Without even seeing the boy move, Azar felt a nasty impact in his chest. He flew back quickly, and his spheres had disappeared. He landed and rolled, still in a state of utter shock. Such speed! Almost instantaneously, a massive black sphere appeared in the hands of the little boy. The place shook and the ground cracked as the ball grew more enormous and dense. Is that thing trying to make a shadow shell?! Azar almost panicked.

  His eyes widened as he saw the black ball fly off toward him with great speed. “Anam Draug!” the prince commanded, not seeing it fit to use so much mana shifting around. A quaking explosion with the sound of thunder suddenly occurred. A pulse of resulting energy struck and shook and dented the steel cabin a few meters away. Hardly conscious, Azar flew back nearly a quarter mile before landing on his back, skating back on the slippery, bloody grass. From where he lay unmoving, he saw in the distance the boy surrounded by darkness. He struggled to his feet slowly, lunging over a bit, suffering pain in every part of him.

  With no hesitation, the black eyed boy moved toward Azar. Azar shifted back a few meters quickly, leaving behind a cloud of waste red mana, frightened at the boy’s unworldly speed. “Huh?!” Azar stared in confusion as he reappeared.

  ***

  “Send more forces to where the prince is, Oga, quickly!” Kizer commanded, sounding quite keyed up.

  ***

  Confusion wrinkled Azar’s face. Still glaring at him was the black-eyed boy, but he was in an unfamiliar trap, and seemed to be bound tightly. Thick streaks of wood that had burst up from beneath the boy’s feet wrapped him up securely like long snakes. Also, thick, spiky vines had wrapped themselves around the boy, the long and poisonous spikes puncturing his flesh at many points. Azar looked to his left and right. Dressed in skimpy green tunics and boasting long and slender green hair were four impeccably beautiful women, probably the prettiest girls he had ever seen, each of them holding a hand out toward the boy. Extending from the ground just before each of them were three spiked green vines, which led to the entangled boy. Azar looked directly past the boy and saw an old man wearing long white hair, hair longer even than Blade’s. His hands seemed relaxed by his side.

  “The boy of the prophecy – I know he is in that room,” the man said.

  “An enemy of Trium is an ally of mine,” Azar greeted. “I am keeping him protected until he is ready to fight. I am the prince of Magma Town,” he introduced. For a jiffy, Eden saw the Magmalian soldiers that ripped his people to threads.

  “Well then, you shouldn’t be bothering yourself with this. Go on – we’ll take it from here.” They all looked up at the skies. Descending in a swarm, in a massive host, were hundreds more enemies. The entangled boy uttered a loud cry. Dark energy quickly orbited him, shredding the wood and vines. In another shriek, he pushed his hands out, and a pulse of dark energy pushed everyone back violently. The women landed properly, skating back on the grass, motioning their hands upward, sending tens of vines with deadly poisonous thorns at the descending demons.

  “So these people are real,” Azar said to himself.

  “Go, young prince! We will take good care of these weaklings and guard the boy!” Eden assured, raising his arms to the height of his shoulders, summoning from beneath the earth a meter and a half behind him two massive trees, deadly purple vines wrapped around their branches, ready to do his bidding.

  “I’ll be back!” Azar promised, then disappeared in red mana as the winged beasts finally reached the ground.

  Marco watched in awe as shadowy figures swiftly and constantly darted into the vial, each shaking it slightly. The four sorcerers were still chanting faithfully, slowly releasing mana to support the whole process. “The scale of this war is unreal,” the army man said to himself. “Even I, the most skilled swordsman in the entire army, am useless against these demons… This is all a horrid nightmare that found its way into reality…” He looked down at the meditating Lex, not fully understanding what was happening inside him. What the hell’s taking this kid so long? “Isn’t he supposed to be saving the world from these beasts?!” he blasted. “What am I saying? How could the power of a single boy possibly be great enough to counter this nightmare mankind is up against?”

  “He will…” Marco and the other guard, who was trembling and sweating in a corner, looked over at the waking Zen, who was positioned to sit up against one of the walls. “He will save us… He will save us all…” the girl muttered faintly but insistently.

  “Private, you go check on the prince!” Marco ordered, hearing the chaotic battle and the loud, unfamiliar voices outside, feeling the place shake every now and again.

  “Y—yessir!” the man answered nervously, and stood and opened the door. The solder uttered a scream as one of the demons, hosted in one of his former allied soldiers, bolted by and grabbed him, flying up with him quickly. The demon tore him in two savagely. Marco quickly ran up to the door and slammed it shut, bolting it shakily.

  ***

  Asuri was still making blood rain on the ice, standing in his tower of rapidly spinning snow. The snow reached up to his waist and spun about him faster and faster, gathering even more snow and creating a dangerous twister that he moved about, freezing enemies it touched even barely. Three of the demons formed a little cluster in the air, gathering together dark energy to form a highly destructive sphere. Asuri saw the dangerous gathering, but couldn’t divide his attention enough to tend to it. With vigorous gesticulations, he was taking down stubborn enemies, driving thick icicles through them and freezing them in prisons of ice.

  “Father! Look out!” Icilda warned, fright and fear in her voice. One of the demons was holding the massive shadow shell. It grew denser as natural energy was drawn to it.

  “Icilda!” a friend of hers screamed, a woman a few years older than her and one of the few remaining villagers. The woman pushed the distracted girl out of the path of a devious shadowball. Icilda looked in the direction of the saving hand with a pale gasp, seeing the sphere of dark energy, the shadowball, sever and amputate the girl’s arm at the elbow with no resistance. Icilda froze up and shivered, and watched the girl fall to the ground, blood gushing from her. The daughter of Asuri flung herself from her unhelpful haze and rushed down to the woman who saved her.

  “Amy!” she called out, grabbing the severed elbow, freezing the massive wound quickly to stop blood from escaping. She folded her left fist tightly, condensing the ice energy into an icicle, and turned and darted it at the attacker. The black-eyed woman slapped the playful projectile from the air and headed fast for the two girls. An iceball slapped her from the left, flinging her to the snowy ground, imprisoning her rapidly. Icilda looked at Artaco, who had saved her, then back down to her crying friend, a very pretty woman. Icilda saw the girl’s eyes dilate suddenly as if she were frightened. “Amy?!” Amy flung Icilda off her forcefully with all the strength she had left, her eyes moist with acceptance and certainty. Before even landing on the snow, Icilda saw what her friend’s eyes became wide at. An angry-looking man with black eyes headed downward to the helpless, hopeless Amy. Icilda watched with wide eyes as the man drilled an irreparable hole in Amy’s belly, covering the corpse with his landing wings. It was a nightmare.

  The girl slowly tilted her head and looked up, seeing the deadly black sphere approach her father. Asuri pulled ice to his defence quickly, hugging himself with a quick movement. Snow moved from everywhere and covered him, tuning instantly to thick ice. The black sphere went down at the powerful man. The impact was incredible, like nothing the girl ha
d ever seen. Ice was shattered and the man rocketed to the ground, blasting up snow as he landed with great force. He was buried deep into the soft snow. Icilda looked back down at the cold, lifeless, bloody body of her friend. She didn’t even see what had happened to the woman’s killer. Then, with tears flowing harder and thoughts getting darker, and fears becoming more existent, she stood and ran to where her father had landed.

  “Father! Father!” the girl cried, digging up the snow hurriedly. She grabbed his body and dragged it behind a small mound of snow. Screams and blasts plagued the background.

  “Icilda! Where are you?!” she heard the voice of Artaco call distantly. He sounded like he was in deep, deep trouble. The girl stared down at her bloody father. His clothes were all ripped apart, and black mist rose from his entire body.

  “Ice…” the man struggled to say, unable to sit up. The crying girl held on to her father’s face. She could see, but could not accept that his life was fast slipping away. The chilly hands of death were grasping tightly to him, and their grasp, far more often than not, was final. “Run… Save yourself… Preserve this race…” the man implored, then uttered his final breath.

  Icilda watched as the breath left him and quickly vanished into the cold. “No! Father!!” she yelled, falling down and hugging him tightly. “Father, wake up! Father!!!” She closed her eyes and tears fell down her face onto her dead father. She opened them, and suddenly, an anger that she had never felt before rushed through her spirit. “I will kill you all!” the daughter of the Ice Sage declared, standing, facing quickly the few enemies that remained. Artaco stared at the beauty’s eyes speechlessly. A blue glow crept along the girl’s already blue irises.

  “That light,” Artaco thought under his breath, remembering the image of her father’s eyes when he had obtained that sudden burst of unusual power. The blue glow finally lit the girl’s irises in entirety, and she uttered a powerful cry.

  With tense muscles and tight fists, the Icemaker raised her hands from her side, straining as if she was lifting hundred-pound weights. A mass of snow rose up before her at her command. She squeezed her fists until her nails sunk into her palms. She pulled her arms back then flashed them forward. The snow turned to sharp, glasslike pieces of ice that glistened, suspended in the air before her. With impressive rapidity that came from no form of training, the girl flashed her hands back and forth, her fingers together, pointing straight ahead. As she shoved her hands forward repeatedly, sharp blisters of ice sped off at malignant speeds. With much accuracy, she sent the cutting ice at the enemies that were still alive, spinning and finding those who tried to escape, making their dodging useless.

  With the aid of the Icemakers that remained, enemy numbers fell quickly, until only one skilful black-eyed dodger remained. The man set his hands to summon a shadowball, but the Icemakers would allow no such thing. The remaining Icemakers, except for Icilda, attacked with their ice energy, freezing him in a very thick block of ice. No more enemies were attacking, but Icilda’s rage was not yet quenched. She stooped, pressing her palms against the snow to her left and right. She stood and raised her hands, leading up two tall, narrow piles of snow. She tightened her fists and the snow changed to solid ice.

  Glaring at the frozen enemy ahead with clenched teeth, with swiftness and precision that she did not have before, she flashed her hands over the very top of the lengths of upward ice, barely grazing them each time. As she slid her hands over the ice, extremely thin discs sharp as swords darted off, bashing through the prison of ice, cutting through the frozen host. The ice shattered as the body inside was minced like meat. With another roar, she flung her clenched fists upward, and thick, long spikes of ice were called forth from beneath the snowy earth, blasting through two more blocks of ice easily, running through two bodies that were already frozen solid.

  The blue glow faded from the girl’s eyes and she fell to her knees, weak. Artaco ran up to the crying girl. The two remaining Icemakers beheld the sorrowful girl; they were Crank and Fross. They were cousins of roughly the same age. All around them was the cold, bloody scene of mayhem, a scene that would never lose its vividness in their minds, a picture that would change everything about them.

  ***

  “Should I finish the Icemakers?” Oga asked. Kizer looked at them from the crystal ball, an almost sad expression on his face.

  “No… They do deserve to live a while longer… More importantly… send down the second wave.”

  Chapter 37: Black and Red

  Azar finally reappeared in Zakashi Village. No… He looked around at the scene of wreckage and mangled corpses. It seemed the entire village was wiped lifeless. Scattered about the burning, wrecked houses and bloody streets were numberless bodies and swords – bodies of men, women and children alike. “Hm?” He heard the familiar sounds of fighting in the western distance. He ran quickly to the sound’s direction. Finally, what he was running towards was in sight. A massive, heated battle was going on around what appeared to be the village shrine. The skilful Zakatian swordsmen were defending and fortifying the shrine against the black-eyed killers. Mounted on the roof of the large and beautiful building were eight archers delivering helpful headshots every now and again, and every once in a while, some unhelpful ones. Blade slashed through another enemy, swiftly turning to behead yet another.

  “Abingush!” the last remaining sorcerer commanded, destroying two more of the monsters. Azar noticed that the black-eyed fighters noticed him. Also, for a brief moment, his eyes met Blade’s, but there was no time for greetings.

  Azar summoned up some of the last portion of mana left in him. This should do the trick. He smirked confidently, though he knew this spell was likely to drain his mana pool completely – it was even costlier than spaceshifting. “Edanerg Elit!” he commanded, flinging the red mana in the midst of the brawl. Loud screams filled the air immediately, and there was a blinding explosion of light, which wiped out quite a number of enemies. While the spirits were destroyed, those possessed fell fainted, saved. Azar moved his hands from his face, looking around. “Still so many,” he hissed. “I’m low on mana now so I’ll have to dive in,” he told himself, drawing his swords. He tightened his grip and drained his last amount of elemental energy, coating the swords with roaring flames.

  ***

  “This is it, Lex,” Maximo said. Lex and his partner stood side by side, each looking to be in worse shape than the other. Lex had cracks and holes all over him, and found it a daunting struggle to remain standing. Before them was an even less hearty looking character though. Maximo’s other half was kneeling on the white floor, his head down, his energy completely exhausted. Maximo was almost just as weak, but his ice-making partner made the difference. “Freeze him. I’ll finish him off with what I have left in me.” Lex took a step toward the kneeling figure; black mist rose from it and it uttered a constant low groan. Finding each step just a little easier than the last, Lex pressed on toward the kneeling spirit.

  “You will help us save the world,” Lex said, lowering his hand toward the spirit upon reaching, touching the spirit’s lowered head. The thing found a little energy, that had probably just built up, and raised his hand, grabbing Lex’s wrist with a loose, shaking grip. “It’s okay…” Lex breathed, now pitying the spirit. “You too are Maximo…” The spirit let go of Lex’s hand and his low groan ended. Lex carried on, gripping the spirit’s head and releasing ice energy without holding back. In a second and a half, the black spirit, Maximo’s balance, was encased in a thick slab of ice.

  Lex cleared the way as Maximo built up a huge sphere between his palms. It grew and became more dense by the moment, until he felt it was enough. He hesitated for a moment, then sent it at the ice. Lex shielded his face from the explosion, from the tiny bits of ice than flew in every direction. The boy, the manifestation of his ice-making power, watched keenly as the thick, eerie darkness flowed into Maximo. Maximo floated up a bit, much like Lex did when the vial was first opened to him. The place shook,
and there was a great wind as dark energy orbited and delved into Maximo. Finally, Maximo fell to the floor with a seemingly impossible force that shook the whole dimension. Lex gazed at Maximo. The demon roared terribly with long-awaited fulfilment, and eight wings shot out from his back.

  “Huh?!”

  Maximo seemingly teleported before Lex, as he had at his disposal a new speed which he had missed grievously. Standing before Lex, the now more majestic and more powerful-looking being rested his hand on Lex’s shoulder firmly with a more defined face and a confident smirk. There was a new energy, a new aura emanating from him. What looked like black fire surrounded him, flowing gracefully. “Now we stand a chance against my brothers,” Maximo assured, sounding quite certain.

  “What is it, Max?” Lex asked, frightened by the sudden change of expression on Maximo’s face. The face that just a while ago reflected power and confidence was now pale with worry.