The Ancients

by Adam-Clay Webb

  The angel then turned to Lex. The boy felt an invasive pressure as this being of light entered his soul. The ghostly Lex stood on the same plate of ice that Yuki had made, meanwhile the angel levitated above the water.

  “Old man…” Lex said.

  Bengushi looked up at the sky. There was the tiniest glimmer of light struggling from behind the eclipsing dark moon.

  “I may be too late,” Bengushi said, then cast his hand down to where the cage was buried deep under the sea of blackness. The world trembled as the now-glowing cage was forced up toward the surface. Then, there was a cry like from hell. Millions of ghastly black streaks swarmed toward Bengushi. But the streaks were burnt to clearing mists as they reached near the angel’s holy aura.

  Ignoring the attackers, Bengushi channelled his focus into lifting the cage, but somehow, it could not break the surface of the water. The ghostly Lex only stood there. He felt himself disappearing completely. It was a strange feeling, like waking up from a dream, but waking into an even deeper one.

  Bengushi looked up at the now dead-black sky worriedly. “Too late indeed,” he muttered ruefully. He relaxed himself, accepting the futility of his attempt. The attacking darkness also settled. The ghostly Lex had now completely disappeared.

  “Old man,” Bengushi heard a voice – a voice with such menace that it made the angel’s light quiver. Bengushi went down and stood on the water, facing the new Lex. This Lex was a body of darkness, much like Maximo had appeared to Lex himself.

  “I have failed you, Lex,” Bengushi said. “Even so, you can still fight the darkness. Your will, Lex – even now, it can reverse this possession.”

  “Possession?” Lex’s voice was almost too sinister for Bengushi to bear. “This, old man, is the ultimate transcendence… I can feel it, Bengushi… the power to destroy everything. This entire universe is broken. All realms must be cleansed. All life must cease to exist. I will create the perfect universe – a universe of nothing. Where there is no life, there can be no evil.”

  “And what of your life?”

  “I am dead, old man. My life has been traded for absolute power.”

  “This is not you, Lex.”

  Lex folded his fists and there was a great quake in the dimension. “You have seen it Bengushi – the inherent immorality of life. All life breeds evil and strife. Not even you angels are exempt. After all, even you were a filthy human not so long ago, weren’t you? I will end it all. I will bring about an unbreakable peace – a perfect stillness.”

  “And what good is peace with no one to enjoy it?”

  “If you feel the need, do fight me, Bengushi.”

  “By all logic, seeing how far gone you are, I should destroy you here and now. Leaving you would be a carelessness that would put all existence at risk. But the truth is… I could never bring myself to do such a thing. By entering this lower realm, I have given myself mere moments in which to live. In my final moments, I will help you defeat the gods. My faith in you is unshaken even now, young Lex. I know that you will somehow overcome this darkness. You are a protector, Lex – not a destroyer.”

  “Grandfather?” Clover muttered in confusion. There was a golden glow around her. Ben had healed her completely from where he stood between Lex and Oga.

  The angel gave her a wink and a smile. Then, regaining his seriousness, he faced Azar and Viknor. “Azar, get everyone off this island.”

  Azar nodded, then swiftly made shifts to get Clover and Lex away. Oga stood and faced Bengushi confidently.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Oga said. Bengushi’s brightness by now had covered the entire island, but Oga was not affected by this powerful light. Mixed in with Ben’s expansive aura was Oga’s anomalous magic.

  “Angel Blade!” Bengushi summoned. A sword forged by ancient hands appeared in Bengushi’s grasp. Oga snickered, making Bengushi wonder if he had any idea just how powerful angelic weapons were.

  “I had planned on using this against the boy as a last resort, as I can only use it once more; but it seems I will have to use it here. Admittedly, even my magic would have some trouble competing with your holy light… I must say, for a mere angel, your light is quite boisterous.” He snickered again. “I suppose the only way to defeat light is with greater light,” Oga said with a proud smirk.

  Greater light?

  “Blade of the Cherubim!” Oga summoned.

  Bengushi stepped back in disbelief. “Impossible… That means… You were the one…”

  “Yes. I am he who destroyed Glacia,” Oga said. “Only defeating Kizer could have made a greater accomplishment.”

  “How--” Bengushi felt his light fading. His time on earth was already at its close. “I suppose it doesn’t matter at the moment. You may have a superior weapon, but you are just a wizard. Just how well can you wield that sword?”

  “We shall see.”

  Oga, despite having the Blade of the Cherubim, did not take Bengushi lightly. They both crouched in readiness. Then came the decisive instant in a momentous flash. The wondrous dazzlement covered the whole earth, but who was left alive to see it?

  The alluring yet ghastly brightness was more like dreamy fireworks to the two expiring men who huddled themselves against the rocks. The lights lit up the familiar beach until it looked like a strange heaven, and the sea was like golden, smelting glass. Vis pulled down his hat over his eyes a little.

  “Fate has told me a final joke,” Vis mumbled. “As the skies light up, the prophetic boy has reached the pinnacle of darkness… We have done our part, Shade. You have done well… Shade…” Vis turned his head sadly and looked over at his only friend, whose chest was finally still. “Yes, Shade… My eyes did see even this.” Vis closed his eyes and released a deep breath.

  While Clover, Lex and Viknor gazed skyward at the clearing brightness, Azar’s eyes panicked over the several crystal balls before him.

  “Lord Azar, the island has disappeared!” Ruben informed, but this was quite obvious.

  “Yes. The clash of light wiped out the island in the sky. One single clash of angelic power… Such ridiculous power.”

  “But what of Grandfather?!” Clover enquired, running to Azar and Ruben.

  “More critically, is Oga still alive?” Viknor asked them.

  “There is some movement in a nearby--” Lex’s swift flight shook the place and startled away Azar’s words.

  “Lex!” Clover called after him, but Lex and his just-over-a-thousand wings were already miles away.

  Lex hovered above the ocean, peering down at a sinking body – he might have detected it even without his new level of perception, as there was a bright light flickering about it that lit up a large area of the ocean. Not bad, Bengushi. His eyes were not black. Instead, there was an infinite emptiness within them. The dark aura about him persisted nonetheless. Lex conjured up a dense sphere of darkness in his hand. His wings stretched out behind him and he zoomed down toward where the unconscious Oga was sinking slowly.

  He shrieked as a vile current struck him and flung him skipping across the water. He quickly recovered and skated back on the surface of the water. His wings readied themselves to make another quick burst of speed. His body shook and his vision was overtaken by a flashing redness. Then he felt a familiar coolness enwrap him, and the red lightning dissipated. His vision reached to his immediate left as he felt his father’s presence.

  Lex smirked. “You sages are quite persistent, aren’t you?”

  Both Lex and Yuki were now standing on a plate of ice.

  “No more persistent than Oga, I fear,” Yuki said, and Lex looked before him. Standing on the water were the two gods who were the cause of all the chaos. Oga was slouching over unbecomingly. A smoke of brightness rose from him. His clothes were crisp and tattered, and his hair was ruined with burns. “That angel’s attack has somehow pushed Oga into a state of vulnerability. His very magic was burnt up by the holy light. Kizer too has been weakened by this angel’s touch.” Lex noticed that i
ndeed a thin air of smoke was also coming from Kizer’s chest, where Bengushi had touched him.

  “And the angel? Did he survive?”

  “No, but he did give us a tangible chance at victory.”

  “And where were you all this time?”

  “Of all my father’s powers, his red lightning is most worrying,” Yuki said. “A proper hit from that and not even my Sage Ice will be able to undo the damage. His lightning is faster than your darkness, so you must--”

  “What the hell do you know of my darkness?” Lex asked.

  Yuki glanced over at him. The sage knew that Lex had been consumed, but worrying about that he knew was also meaningless.

  “You… Kizer… Oga… This world… My darkness will consume it all,” Lex declared. He smirked a little.

  “I see,” Yuki said, then turned his attention back to the gods.

  Kizer made a forward step. Oga slouched still, panting, grateful for a moment to recover a little.

  “How troublesome you have become, Yuki,” Kizer said. “But I did know from the very beginning that you would not be strong enough to sever the ties between yourself and your son.”

  “Yet you have not destroyed me. I wonder what that says about you, father,” Yuki said.

  “The time for sentiments is long gone,” Lex said. Lex’s wings readied themselves, but then the sound of an approaching dragon caught his attention, as well as the others’. The dragon lowered itself beside Lex and Yuki until it was almost touching the water.

  “Lex and Sage Yuki, leave Oga to the rest of us for now. Deal with Kizer, somehow. We must handle them separately,” Azar said. Viknor and Clover were also on the dragon.

  “I alone with deal with Kizer. God of Elements he calls himself… Heh…” Lex said. “I will take him where there are no elements.” With that, Lex vanished at a speed none could fathom. Kizer also disappeared.

  Oga looked about wildly. “Kizer?! Where the--”

  “You should focus, Oga,” Yuki said. “I think you’re on your own now.” Yuki’s chill filled the place. Viknor, Azar and Clover scattered themselves in shifts, surrounding the enfeebled Oga.

  Oga roused his mana, but the limits of his magic was a power that was far less frightening than he would have hoped.

  “Black magic?” Viknor said, then laughed wildly. “This is what you are reduced to, ‘God of Magic’”? he mocked. The old wizard roused his purple mana wildly. Clover’s blue magic coursed through the air also, and Azar’s red magic added yet another colour to the mix.

  Oga sighed deeply. Together, these four are… He hissed. Yuki’s ice will confound my shifting. I supposed I’ll just have to hang on until Kizer finishes with that boy.

  “Abingush!” Clover started.

  Kizer felt his body rip through space at a speed that was capable of bending time. Then, there was a hard landing, but a landing that even Kizer could not quite grasp the intensity of. The god of magic looked up into Lex’s unsettling eyes. His peripheral vision showed him that Lex had plummeted him into what seemed to be a grey desert, forging out a wide crater. But it was the sight behind Lex that frightened him. Impossible… In the distance was earth.

  Chapter 39: Dance of Gods

  Kizer and Lex stood facing each other in the massive crater that Lex had used the god’s body to dig into the moon.

  “Hurry and come, pitiful Zagans. Let me purpose your wretched darkness…” Lex said, staring out into the abysmal cosmos. He could feel more strongly than ever the approach of the Zagan army.

  Without Oga’s magic, I cannot stay here for very long, Kizer considered. The ‘earth’ here is certainly different from the one back home, but I think I can make it work for the moment. Kizer clenched his fists and a quake rippled across the surface of the entire moon.

  Lex’s dark aura engulfed everywhere in sight, casting a darkness that rendered Kizer’s vision almost useless. Kizer shifted his foot to command the ground, but that was far too slow. Lex was already upon him with an unimaginable speed. Cracks riddled the moon’s surface as Lex’s fist struck the god of elements. As Kizer zoomed back uncontrollably, his eyes gaped at the sight of something he had only seen Juventus create.

  The Black Sun? In a second’s tenth?! But as his eyes surveyed the distance, he noticed that there were seven or eight of these spheres coming down. He looked about for Lex, but the boy’s speed made him essentially invisible.

  “What the hell is that?!” Viknor blasted, pointing up to the sky. What appeared to be a black meteor was tearing down from the direction of the moon.

  The panting Oga, mana bordering on dismal purple, was still in the midst of the enemies who he saw by now to be too much for him to handle alone. He too beheld the approaching dark sphere.

  “A stray attack from the boy,” Oga marvelled, blood drooling down from his cracked lips. The fighters on the earth beheld yet another of these spheres coming down. “At this rate, nothing will be left of this planet, even after you defeat me.”

  As even more of these ominous spheres showed themselves within reach of earth’s atmosphere, an even more terrible sight troubled the onlookers.

  “This is…” Oga’s words could find no completion. There was the noise of a cosmic thunder as the moon was ripped in two.

  “If you fools want to live to kill me, lend me your magic,” Oga said.

  “You heard him!” Viknor snapped them out of their panicky daze. Azar, Clover and Viknor rushed over to Oga and grabbed him, bestowing upon him the remains of their magic in a moment of desperation and inhibition. Oga’s body jerked as he made a final push, reaching for probably the last time the bridge, but at this point, crossing the bridge was impossible for him.

  “Young witch, you are not ready yet, but the scent of your magic… It reminds me of a level I once dreamed of reaching.”

  Clover’s eyes gaped.

  Oga held his arms up toward the approaching calamity. Exhausting every morsel of magic within him, Oga used a defence that he had never dreamed would have been necessary.

  “God Art! Guardian Shield!” he commanded, and a barrier of eighth grade magic was erected about the globe. Then, there was an instant of hell. The first of the stray tera bombs struck the barrier, and the world quaked. Islands sunk and continents were split up. Oga clenched his teeth as he struggled to maintain the shield. There was total darkness. No light spell could have lifted it. Everyone but Oga crouched down helplessly.

  Then came the second hit, and the quake worsened. Even though the barrier was miles beyond the earth, the mere force of the blasts was enough to bring titanic wreckage to the planet.

  “The shield won’t hold for yet another hit,” Oga said. “This world is finished.”

  “Don’t sound so weak, father,” Wizard said, and grabbed on to Oga’s shoulder, strengthening him by a small fraction, but by enough so the next sphere would not shatter the barrier.

  It took minutes, but the earth finally settled, and the darkness cleared. Oga had almost collapsed to his knees, but even in such a time, he had to maintain some gracefulness. He scattered his eyes around, but the shifty Wizard had already vanished. Surrounding Oga were the world’s last defenders, and in this strange moment, maybe he could have even been counted among them.

  No-one had enough strength left to make another step. All they could do was gaze up at the skies, whose moon was by now fragmented into countless bits. What appeared to be a bolt of colourless, but somehow perceptible lightning tore down from the shattered moon and hit the earth somewhere.

  The gaspers struggled to stand their ground.

  “I must stop them. They will destroy the world,” Yuki said, and made a few staggering steps, but only to fall on his hands and knees. He grabbed on to his head with his left hand. There was no more icy must about him.

  “Even the Ice Sage is useless now,” Viknor muttered. “It appears there is nothing we can do but hope for the best.”

  “What best?” Azar asked with a hopeless laugh. “No-one is left t
o save anyway.”

  Then there was a sudden emergence in the midst of them. Clover stepped back cautiously as Kizer came up from under the earth, looking like hell.

  With a kind of speed that only Vis’ mind could have made total sense of, Kizer and Lex had clashed thousands of times, the dense power of their battle revealed to the watchers in what they perceived as a singular explosion and the fracturing of the moon.

  No part of Kizer was still whole. He crouched, blood dripping down from him in the quickly expanding pool.

  “K—Kizer…” Oga could barely speak.

  “He is different, Oga… He…”

  Everyone looked up as the winged demon descended and landed before Kizer, who still seemed unable to stand. They knew it was Lex, but none could recognize the look in his eyes. Clover stepped back and clung to Azar when Lex looked at her. Her heartbeat raced.

  “What the--” Viknor spun slowly and beheld the incredible sight. In the distances around them, what appeared to be about a dozen mountains – or probably entire islands – rose up to the skies.

  “Here will be the grave of all of us,” Kizer said menacingly. “I could never have imagined that you would end up wielding such power, young Lex… Yuki, your son is quite something, isn’t he?” Kizer clenched his teeth in strain. A groan screeched from him as he tried to overpower the black ice that wrapped itself about the massive pieces of earth in the air.

  “Yuki… Is this your doing?” Kizer asked.

  But Yuki hadn’t even the strength left to respond. Lex, with his arms folded, somehow commanded black ice to arrest whatever those things were that Kizer was about to cast down.

  Azar looked about in awe. Eventually, all of the mountains were covered in black ice, and Kizer lost control of them. The place shook as they all fell back to earth.

  “What manner of power is this?” Kizer wondered.

  “Kizer… We have lost,” Oga said.

  Lex held a hand out toward the slouched Kizer and made a slight smirk. “Is this really the limit of gods?” he mocked.