The Ancients

by Adam-Clay Webb

  “Glass dome!” A thick covering of glass rose up from the ground and covered Lyla and Wizard. She then touched the glass dome, and released a spasm of black mana. “Scatter!” The glass then disintegrated into millions of splinters, fired off at high speeds at the four enemies. But quick reflexive shields of high grade mana rendered the splinters useless.

  “Snake bomb!” Omichron summoned after shifting up directly above Wizard and Lyla. A bright yellow snake shot out from his hand rapidly.

  Lyla grabbed on to Wizard and shifted with him. The two looked out to where they were a second ago from many meters out. As the snake hit, there was a massive and blinding explosion that fired up a wind that stretched over a mile.

  “Behind us,” Wizard said. Lyla turned quickly, materializing an arcane sword to defend against Kha-Deva’s axe. The massive white axe tore through the sword easily, forcing Lyla to shift again. This time, she and Wizard appeared atop a quickly summoned wind dragon.

  “Sand Rush!” Lyla commanded, and the hard ground beneath crumbled and grounded itself into fine sand. The sand arose and swirled about madly, creating a powerful sandstorm. “Hang on,” Lyla said to Wizard, and swooped down into the sandstorm. Sword already summoned, she zoomed off toward the disoriented Kha-Deva. But instead of tearing through the witch’s neck, the sword moved through what appeared to be a massless image. “A clone?” Lyla asked, confused.

  “An afterimage,” Wizard said.

  “Marble Dance!” a voice rang out.

  “From above!” Wizard warned. Lyla looked up. The four sorcerers were above them, outside of the sandstorm’s range, standing on massive white dragons.

  “Adamic Art! Seize Parade!” Lyla commanded, and out of an earthquake came forth tens of swift hands of stone that extended up to the sorcerers. But the dragons easily destroyed the hands with their white fire before they could reach to their masters.

  “The Marble Dance,” Wizard said. Lyla gazed up at the horrid scene. As far as the skies seemed to stretch, there were massive boulders coming down through the clouds.

  “Is this magic?” Lyla wondered aloud.

  “Don’t let their size fool you. Those things are very fast,” Wizard said. “They are meant for you to constantly shift around. Use the wind dragon to escape them instead.”

  “Flame Coat!” Buddah-Ki called out, and stretched his hands upward. A layer of fire covered the entire sky immediately, and the massive stones were now shrouded in flames.

  “Get ready,” Wizard said.

  “Descend!” Kha-Deva commanded. With that, the massive boulders swooped down at them with great speed.

  “So fast!” Lyla gasped. But her control of her wind dragon was nothing to be scoffed at. As the massive, fiery boulders were fired down at them, Lyla made quick escapes. Each boulder that plunged into the earth made a small quake and created a crater. “They’re aimed at us!” Lyla realized. Even the stones from the distant skies were a problem, as the boulders were not randomly falling, but they all directly headed toward the looping, rocketing wind dragon. The entire ground was by now in flames, and the air was humidly hot. With tense focus, Lyla guided herself and Wizard through the treacherous scape of hell.

  “Infestation! Snake Rally!” a voice from the skies called forth.

  Wizard hissed. He appeared even more worried now.

  “Watch the marbles, Lyla,” he warned. As Lyla made another near escape, she saw a yellow snake burst forth from the massive boulder she had just parried. The snake swiftly wrapped itself around the wind dragon and glowed a blinding yellow.

  “Shift us!” Wizard said. Lyla grabbed Wizard and shifted with him, appearing on another then-summoned wind dragon some distance off. She gasped, seeing a frightening and brilliant explosion out where she had just shifted from. The explosion was enough to obliterate tens of the close-by marbles. “Omichron’s snakes detonate,” Wizard said. “He has somehow merged his technique with Kha-Deva’s.” Lyla realized that the detonating snakes were bursting forth from many of the descending boulders, creating much less space to move around.

  But the snakes were much faster than the boulders, even too fast for the wind dragon to escape. Each snake had hundreds of tiny wings cased in black mana. In a few seconds, the new wind dragon was blown to bits, Lyla escaping with Wizard narrowly with a perfect spaceshift. She appeared on yet another wind dragon, as the ground was covered in flames.

  “My mana is dwindling, and we haven’t landed a single attack on the enemy!” Lyla said. She grabbed on to the wind dragon they were on tightly, and black mana coated it. This dented her mana heavily. With an upgraded speed, the dragon could now escape the swift snakes, albeit quite narrowly at times. Still, Lyla found that she had to be spaceshifting every now and then, when the incoming marbles and snakes were just too well-coordinated. As the dragon flew them about with great speed, she also summoned hands of stone from the ground to crush a few of the infinite snakes.

  “I’m going at them!” Lyla finally resolved, and commanded her dragon to fly upward to where the enemies were.

  “Lightning Break!” a command rang out.

  Wizard’s eyes widened. A bolt of crisp, white lightning, moving at a speed that made even spaceshifting too slow a response, bolted down out of Zazen’s right hand. Lyla stared up at the approaching bolt. She knew that shifting would take too long. She gasped as it crashed down on them. Wizard, standing on the dragon’s back, held out his hand toward the bolt and caught it.

  Lyla was in total shock. Wizard closed his fist, and the bolt disappeared.

  He absorbed it? Lyla wondered.

  “You’ve done well,” the wizard told her. A thick cloud of black mana appeared about him.

  “Embracing Shadow!” Wizard commanded, stretching his hands out. His arms fidgeted a little, and every marble lost its motion, encased in a black cloud of arcane mana. Lyla looked about at the frozen boulders. The snakes too were covered in the shadowy glow and had lost their motion. As infinitely as the dimension seemed to stretch, the falling boulders were now still, at Wizard’s command. “Kazaku!” Wizard commanded, and with as much speed as they were falling, the boulders were fired upwardly. The four enemies shifted about constantly as the barrage of boulders were aimed directly at them.

  Lyla jumped on to one of the boulders, being taken up with its majestic speed. It took her toward Omichron. She had already readied a black sword in her right hand. Omichron shifted away, but only to be dodging the attack of the same Lyla. As he shifted again to give himself some space, another Lyla was there, invisible wings of wind keeping her up.

  “Clones,” Omichron figured out.

  Wizard, more than impressed, watched as she used her mana clones to keep Omichron on the defensive with high level close combat. “Even clones too…” he mused, wondering what else the woman had up her sleeves.

  “Lightning Break!” Zazen reclaimed Wizard’s attention. Wizard held his hand out toward the approaching bolts; he was now standing on a giant black crow that he had summoned. Again, Wizard caught and absorbed the lightning, but this was only to be a distraction. His body froze up as he felt a light-swift presence behind him. Buddah-Ki plunged his sword through Wizard’s back. As blood pooled out of Wizard’s chest and back, his body glowed brightly. Buddah-Ki tried to jump away, but his feet were glued down to the crow’s back by a black tar that he had just now noticed.

  Lyla looked on in marvel as Wizard’s body exploded more mightily than Omichron’s snakes, ripping both Buddah-Ki and the crow to nothing. Her eyes then flashed to the quick movements that caught her attention from another direction. She laughed. Wizard was there battling Kha-Deva with black swords.

  “Exploding mana clones,” Lyla mused. “I’d never even thought of that one.”

  Massively powerful spells and elemental attacks dismantled the battleground, but in the end, only two remained standing. Lyla, somehow even with mana to spare, stood beside Wizard. They looked about at the mangled world. Not even ash was left of thei
r enemies.

  “We did it,” she said, sounding quite relieved. But Wizard’s face was now even grimmer. As he assessed the massive scale of the battle’s aftermath, it seemed to him a microcosm of the first war. Before he could sink too far into thought, however, the trap dimension slowly lost its fabric. They found themselves standing at the edge of Orenda again. The trap dimension was overcome, and the barriers were gone. Wizard sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a moment.

  “Wizard,” Lyla’s voice came. The man looked out, seeing what appeared to be two men in the distance.

  “Come,” he said to Lyla, and the walked up to the two figures who stood between them and the ancient city.

  Lyla, upon reaching close enough, stopped suddenly, making Wizard stop as well. “These two…” she whispered. The wariness in her voice concerned Wizard.

  “Who else could possibly know of the city? Who the hell are they?” Wizard asked, mana already flaring about him. But as his eyes met the eyes of Shade, he felt a sudden hollowness.

  “Son of Oga,” Vis and greeted. “And Lyla, the elemental arcanine.”

  “The one on the left is Vis,” Lyla said to Wizard. “He has the most powerful mind in the world, and his knowledge borders on omniscience,” she said, no slight reservation in her voice.

  “Hn?”

  “I have watched these two since their beginnings,” she told Wizard. “We should avoid fighting them at all costs,” she warned.

  Wizard glared at Lyla. “Do you forget who I am, girl?”

  “We too wish to avoid a conflict here, if possible,” Vis said.

  “He can cast illusions,” Lyla said to Wizard.

  Wizard snickered. “You should by now know that such petty tricks have no effect on me,” he said confidently. “And the one on the right – who is he?”

  “A sorcerer’s worst nightmare,” Lyla said.

  Wizard’s brows furrowed. Indeed, he felt a strangeness that he couldn’t quite understand as he looked at Shade. He even wondered if this feeling was fear, a fear that dug beneath his surface.

  “That one is Shade,” Lyla said. “A complete anomaly, even without setting foot into the city, he has ascended, as the gods have.”

  “…Ascended? Past the seventh?”

  “Yes. And he has reached an unprecedented class of power – antimagic.”

  Wizard stared at Shade in wonder. None of this made sense. “You mean to tell me… I, the son of Oga, have not ascended the seventh grade… yet a mere arcanine has?” There was a real bitterness in his voice.

  “We did not come here to show our abilities,” Vis said. “As you know, Kizer and your father are about to launch an attack to destroy the world.”

  “Yes,” Wizard said. “But this does not concern me.”

  “I’m afraid it does,” Shade said, and made a step toward the two. Lyla took a step back immediately, feeling her mana suffer under Shade’s presence.

  “Help us destroy Kizer and Oga, and we will allow you two into the city,” Vis said. “You have our word.”

  These words seemed to strike Wizard very sharply. After almost stuttering, he finally spoke. “Allow? Do you two have any idea who I am?” he asked. At this, black mana roused about him madly, but neither Shade nor Vis appeared to be concerned about that.

  “Wizard, we all want Oga and Kizer dead,” Lyla said.

  Wizard glared at her. “Regardless,” he said. “Not even those you call gods can in any way govern me. I will destroy Oga, but on my own accord. These two, they must know their place!” he suddenly raged, and the mana around him became even wilder. Lyla, seeing that Wizard was not about to negotiate, roused her seventh grade mana as well with a hiss.

  “Calm yourself,” Shade’s unruffled voice came forth. At that instant, Wizard felt a dangerous impression upon his mind as Vis got to work. Vis grabbed his head immediately, the strain of trying to break through Wizard’s mind triggering a near unbearable pain.

  Wizard glanced down at his shoulder as he felt a hand grip him. Shade was behind Wizard and Lyla, grabbing on to their shoulders.

  His mind is quite resistant, Vis thought, just letting go of his head, the pain easing. But if I can cast illusions even for moments at a time, that should be enough.

  While Wizard was trapped in a dream that managed to last only half a second, Shade got into position. As the anti-magician grabbed on to Wizard and Lyla, their magic was eaten up. Wizard gasped in disbelief. His flamboyant black mana had dissolved into nothing. Lyla felt a numbness in her body that she had never before experienced. Wizard too was pretty much dumbfounded.

  “Come with us,” Vis beseeched. “A battle against Shade and me cannot end in your favour.”

  “Insolent,” Wizard spat, then clenched his fists. As he struggled to drag his mana up from what felt like well below grade zero, a faint yellowness appeared about him, even while Shade was still holding on to him.

  “Hn. Persistent,” Shade muttered. Wizard’s mana climbed up through the grades until it became a rich purple. But that was the roof of his power it appeared. As his purple mana raged hotly, Shade had to take a few paced back.

  “It is impressive that your mana can still operate at all,” Vis said. “But without your black magic, this fight is pretty much already decided, don’t you think?” Black mana casually appeared about Vis.

  A purple sword appeared in Wizard’s left hand. With the tight constraints on his mana, he was quite limited in what he could do.

  “Lyla, you kill the one behind us,” Wizard said. “I’ll kill this one.” And with that, he ran up to Vis. But of course, such unsophisticated attacks would not work against one like Vis. Wizard’s blade ripped though only the dark cloud that Vis’ shift left behind. The adept arcanine appeared beside his ally and grabbed his shoulder, shifting with him immediately so Lyla’s sleek glass sword would not touch him.

  Lyla and Wizard looked up at the appearing men. They had appeared on a small dragon.

  “Crude elemental attacks and pre-arcane magic are not enough for any real fight,” Vis said. “Please accept our terms. This might be your final chance.”

  Wizard scowled at Vis. “Final chance you say? How insolent!” Wizard held his hand up to cast a spell, but then he realized that his mana was now gone entirely.

  “Wizard, I can’t move!” Lyla panicked.

  “What? What kind of technique is this? Paralysis?” Wizard was baffled.

  “Summoning. Terror of Zaga,” Vis said, a frightening power in his voice.

  “What the hell kind of summoning is that?” Wizard wondered aloud. At the appearance of the ghastliest thing Wizard had ever seen, he shook with absolute fear. Lyla was also struck by a sudden trauma. In the skies were two massive eyes, glaring down at them with horrific darkness.

  “Wh—what the hell is that, Wizard?” Lyla struggled to mutter. Suddenly, two holes appeared in the sky below the pair of piercing eyes. From the cosmic portals shot out two massive hands, so massive they could grab small planets.

  But somehow, Wizard’s look of fear was suddenly gone, and replaced by what was almost a smirk.

  “Commendable,” Wizard said to Vis. “But too elaborate.”

  “Wizard?” Lyla asked.

  “We are in a shared dream,” Wizard replied.

  That thought had somehow never crossed Lyla’s mind. But even still, the fear she felt did not subside. Wizard calmly moved his fingers to his temples.

  “What are you doing?” Lyla asked.

  He just closed his eyes. The fabric of this false word began to disintegrate.

  Vis suddenly collapsed to his knees, grabbing in his head. He clenched his teeth tightly, struggling to rebuild the vanishing illusion.

  “Vis, what’s happening?” Shade asked. Vis released a muffled cry of strain, and he fell entirely, even rolling off the high dragon.

  “Vis!” Shade called out to him.

  Before Vis landed, the illusion subsided completely.

  Wizard looked up at the enem
ies who stood coolly on their dragon.

  “So you have somehow repelled my mind entirely,” Vis said.

  Shade looked over at his partner.

  “To be honest, I expected no less from the son of Oga. I can no longer entrance him,” Vis said to Shade. “I am not sure how he did it, but he has also sealed me off from the woman’s mind.”

  “Your ability is admittedly beyond what I could have reasonably expected,” Wizard said. “But now that I have nullified your mind’s power, how will you stand against us?”

  “Indeed you have escaped my illusion, but the dream served its purpose well,” Vis said.

  Wizard’s face wrinkled.

  “I read you to be more observant than this,” Vis said. “Haven’t you noticed yet?”

  It took Wizard only a moment later to realize it. “What have you done? What is this?” He sounded almost in a panic. He looked about in wonderment.

  “What are you talking about?” Lyla asked.

  “It is invisible, but there is a powerful seal around the city,” Wizard said.

  “That’s right,” Vis affirmed. “While you were straddling about in my dream, Shade and I set up a very peculiar seal around your beloved city. Guarding the city is a veil of anti-magic. You think Oga’s eight grade seal was difficult to break?”

  “I will admit that I had underestimated you two,” Wizard said almost resignedly. “This seal you have created about the city, you have somehow woven the residue of Oga’s eight grade mana into it, using both the strongest grade of magic and its reverse element to form an infinitely strong bond… a truly unbreakable seal.”

  “What?” Lyla mused. “A seal stronger than Oga’s?”

  “You are perceptive indeed,” Vis said. “So now you realize…”

  “To break the seal, I must first remove one of the elements… Either that anti-magician or Oga must be destroyed for the seal to become penetrable.”

  “Incredibly brilliant,” Lyla mused under her breath.

  Wizard smirked. “If you two were around in the time of the first war… who knows how things would have turned out?”

  Lyla looked over at Wizard, wondering what he really meant, saying that.