Escalation

by Matthew Peed

  A grueling two minutes later, we made it to Ezal. She was collapsed on the ground with nearly a wall of bodies surrounding her. Right as we approached, Feuer impaled some kind of wolf monster’s head without a problem, and another body was added to the pile. I could feel the protectiveness of the weapon from ten meters away.

  We rushed in and surrounded Ezal as I made my way to check her. She was still alive, though she looked like she’d gone a little further on the path her body had started. I barely felt any energy from her, but parts of her body still seemed to be releasing flames. I tried to get close to her. However, the heat was too much for me to handle. I yelled for Bruce to come over and carry her. He would be able to resist the flames as a Fire mage.

  Ezal roused a bit as Bruce picked her up, then looked at me. “Used . . . a bit . . . too much . . . than . . . planned.” She proceeded to faint again.

  We needed to return to the fort, but the way back was getting increasingly packed with monsters. I gave the others a hard look, and they all nodded back. We formed a spear with Noir at the front. Her heavy armor as well as her deadly control of dark mana were perfect for breaching the way ahead.

  I was channeling mana like I’d never done before as I fired one gun while reloading the other. I emptied a clip nearly as soon as I finished channeling the mana into it. There was a close call when Hannah was nearly flattened by a hawklike monster that was struck from the sky by a bolt of lightning. As it fell, she swung her giant ax, which sent the corpse flying several meters.

  All of us were covered in monster blood, and quite a bit of our own, but all in one piece. I thought our luck would hold, but it seemed the fates had another idea. Just as we reached about a hundred meters from the wall, the ground in front of us started to convulse. We skidded to a stop, then braced ourselves, everyone readying their magics. Even the nearby monsters decided to start circling around us for some reason.

  Soon, the ground exploded as the head of a giant worm monster burst from underneath. I knew we were in trouble—as it was very much dead. And from what I understood of necromancy, if someone was able to get this massive thing moving, it meant they were quite powerful. The head slammed on the ground as it turned toward us, but nothing happened after that.

  “They’re quick but a little bumpy for an old man such as myself,” a voice called from inside the dead land worm.

  It made me shiver, as it sounded like whoever it belonged to was used to playing with the lives of his victims.

  We tightened our grips when we heard the voice, anyone crazy enough to ride inside something like this would be troublesome to deal with. An elderly man walked out of the mouth of the land worm as if it were a carriage, then looked at the gathered party in front of him. He had on a very nice black robe with green runes lining it. A staff made of bones tapped with each step he made toward us. The staff’s head consisted of skulls from several races that all seemed to be in anguish.

  “Now, I may consider letting you all live if you hand over the artifact that killed the Protector Turtle,” the old man said, as if scolding a group of children who had stolen from the teacher.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but that was pure talent,” I replied. I really had no other option. We didn’t have anything to hand over. While Feuer was technically the instrument, Ezal was the source of that magic.

  “Child, no mortal can channel that much power,” he said as he shook his head. I felt mildly offended, as if my intelligence was just insulted. “Not without a bit of help.” The green runes on his robe flared briefly as if in emphasis.

  “Alright, I’ll hand it over,” I said as I raised one of the pistols and slowly started walking toward him. His eyes brightened. When I was roughly five meters away, I fired the full clip, bullet after bullet in rapid succession. Much to my chagrin, a nearly solid green barrier formed in front of him. The bullets managed to crack the barrier but little more.

  “Now, that was impressive. Is that one of the gnomish air-sticks?” he asked, sticking to the interested-teacher tone.

  Having failed, I quickly jumped back to the rest of the party. I glanced back to Ezal, thankful that Feuer was floating behind Bruce’s tremendous bulk right now. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want the old man to assume anything if he saw the floating weapon. I turned back to him, “Pretty much,” I said as offhandedly as possible.

  “Child, I already know that it is not one. For children that do not tell their elders the truth, some punishment is needed,” he said.

  As if a switch were thrown, the mana density in the area intensified by severalfold. Twisted, dark shadows emerged from behind him, and the skulls on his staff seemed to grow even more tormented. It looked to me as if . . . things inside the shadows were trying to get free.

  At some unspoken command, the entire party attacked at the same time. I unloaded my other clip and fired the partially charged beam version from the empty gun. A giant blade, much like the one Ezal used, only a hundred times weaker, emerged from Bruce’s blade as he swung. Noir couldn’t use her full abilities due to the affinity issue. Instead, she focused on amplifying her sisters’ attacks. Hannah struck the ground, which caused a wave of jagged spikes to cascade toward the old man. Megan actually turned out to be a Terra mage as well, as spikes of stone formed in the air around her, then shot toward the old man.

  Two giant hands made of shadow reached from around the old man’s back, then slapped the ground. A surge of terra mana wiped out the effects of Hannah’s attack. Another set of hands, these smaller with long claws, ripped Bruce’s flame blade apart. Then a third set of hands, which were squarish and brutish-looking, took all Megan’s spikes with ease. A set of hands formed to stop the bullets as well, but they were pierced without much damage being done to them or the bullets. Unfortunately, the rounds were stopped by the barrier again.

  “I wonder how many hands I’ll get to use today?” the old man said almost longingly.

  “Fuck,” Wrakras said next to me. I could tell from his tone he knew who this was.

  “What, who is this?!” I nearly yelled at him.

  “His name is Neremyn! He is fifth on the council! We need Master to deal with this, it’s out of our league.”

  “So, someone knows of me? Of Neremyn the Necromancer of Hands? It might not sound as legendary as Helicilia the Queen of Bones, but even she would have trouble handling me,” Neremyn said, then started laughing. Again, like a teacher at a child’s joke.

  I quickly grabbed my bracelet and sent just straight panic over the link, hoping that Regan would be able to figure out the rest. I needed to think of some way to keep us all alive until he was able to get to us. I was flipping through my options in my head as fast as humanly possible when one of the hands shot forward faster than I could follow. It was one of the clawed hands, and it pierced through Megan’s stomach even with her enchanted armor on.

  “I’ll let her go back to your fort to rest first,” Neremyn said, then twitched his finger.

  The tendril of shadow flexed, then flung Megan over a hundred meters to the fort, and then some. I lost track of her as she went over the wall. Noir and Hannah screamed as they charged Neremyn. I shouted for them to stop, but they’d lost all reason from that one move.

  Neremyn, looking depressed, said, “Pitiful.”

  Two more tendrils shot forward. Noir managed to do something with her shadows to negate most of the damage but was still sent flying several dozen meters toward the rest of the horde. Hannah was much worse off as one of the giant hands hit her. It managed to grind her into the ground, digging a furrow before it picked her up by the head and tossed her toward the fort as well. I didn’t get a good look, but because of the large amount of blood on the ground, I didn’t hold much hope.

  At this rate, I am going to die. The thought seemed to cause my mind to shut down. I looked up into the sky, where the lightning arced left and right as it struck monsters down. If only I could gather all that power into myself. That idle thought brought a memory to
mind of when I’d broken through and the lightning had followed the charge of the tiny mana that was in the metal rod. Then I turned to the only one who could help right now.

  “Wrakras, think you can stop a few of those tendrils?” I asked quickly.

  “A few seconds at most . . .” he answered, no strength in his voice.

  “Let’s hope that’s enough.”

  I focused deep within myself, on my very center, where my mana pool rested. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. I thought about how I normally channeled my mana to create an arc of lightning from me to another point. This time I concentrated on reversing that process. I made my mana the opposite of the charge that I normally worked with.

  At first my mana pool had no reaction, but soon a swirl in the center appeared, as if it was being pulled into a drain, only upside down. My mana pool seemed to switch from being on the ground in front of me to being in the sky. My pool was normally a blue color that turned white when I channeled mana, but now it took a reddish-black hue. It reminded me of a thunderstorm when the sun was setting.

  Suddenly, a tremendous amount of pain flashed through my body. It was so strong that I was unable to do anything. I opened my eyes just as a bolt of lightning hit me. All its charge flowed through me into my mana pool, which was then funneled into the negative pool in the sky. Several more bolts hit me. Thankfully, the pain lessened with each hit. I wasn’t sure yet if that was a good thing or not.

  I noticed a streak of shadow that was curving in from the side, but it was intercepted by a skull on a chain. I looked up as I saw a swirl in the clouds above me. Something was about to happen. I just hoped that I made it out alive. Suddenly, the entire sky lit up as all the clouds seemed to turn to pure lightning. All of it arced toward the center of the swirl, then a solid white light connected to me for a moment before a tremendous boom echoed out as all the energy of the mana-driven storm was sent colliding into my body.

  The transfer only lasted a few seconds, then the sky was clear, the night sky looking as if nothing had ever been there. My mana pool extended as far as the eye could see, the negative pool as well. With a detached sort of awareness, I vaguely wondered if I’d damaged my mana pool doing this but seemed strangely unworried about it. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I noticed was that I was naked, my clothes having been incinerated. Again, I was strangely alright with it.

  The next thing I noticed was that I was white, as in glowing white. If someone had looked at me, they would have been able to see my body just fine, but I was creating light. Arcs of lightning jumped from my body into the air, then down to the ground or other parts of my body. I wasn’t sure why, but my hair had also grown much longer, reaching well past my waist now.

  “Well, well. That was fascinating. It looks like I’ll have to be a bit deliberate,” Neremyn said. His voice was serious for the first time.

  Without replying, I pointed my hand at him, then an arc of lighting as thick as my palm shot at him without a moment’s hesitation. Neremyn jerked his arm, and a half-dozen shadowy palms reached in front of him, each different from the last. The lightning sliced through all of them and slammed into his barrier, stopping just short of shattering the barrier and forcing him a few meters back.

  I looked around Neremyn, noting the negatively charged spots on the ground. Then, as I took a step forward like I was about to simply walk, I vanished. I appeared behind him, the fading light of an arc of lightning hovering in the air. With my palm already facing him, another arc of lightning thundered out. Barely having time to react, Neremyn yelled as dozens of sets of hands appeared around him and formed a dome of sorts. Not giving him time to rest, I started flashing around him faster than any mortal could possibly keep track of. Each time I reappeared, another arc of lightning thundered toward him.

  “Do not underestimate me!” Neremyn shouted. The ground cracked under him as hundreds, if not thousands, of hands appeared around him. It was as if another horde appeared in front of me, but I felt unconcerned, as though my mind was disconnected from the part of me that worried about my own well-being.

  I worked my hands as I continued to flash around him, the spell coming from somewhere deep in my mind. A knowledge that I knew I shouldn’t know but did. Neremyn grew more desperate, and his frenzied attacks managed to score a few nicks on my arms and legs. When I was done, I threw a ball of lightning into the air.

  There was a boom of thunder, the loudest one yet of the battle, then a dragon made of lightning formed in the sky. It was at least two hundred meters long, like a giant snake that could swim through the sky. It roared, then turned toward Neremyn and flew downward, colliding with the ground encircling the necromancer.

  The giant body started to tighten, destroying the hands that it came in contact with. The ground was turning black from the intense heat it was giving off. I flashed to a spot in the air above Neremyn, and the dragon constricted around him to less than a few dozen meters. I pulled as much of my mana as I could into a massive attack.

  I shot toward the ground, fist leading the way. Neremyn was in full panic mode now as his attacks were being repelled no matter what he did. He noticed me at the last second and created his barrier with what must have been most of his remaining mana. I collided with it, and with a roar that could probably be heard in the city to the south, I broke through the barrier, with my arm piercing through Neremyn’s chest.

  Arcs of lightning burst from him as his body burned from the heat. With the same detached awareness, I shoved my other hand into his body. The lightning flowed through him, then back to me, and I could tell with the loss of energy I was dealing with that I could likely keep this up for several hours.

  Hands of shadow grabbed at my body as I stood there burning him from the inside out. The unholy mana in his body fought but couldn’t overcome the combined strength of several hundred mages who had channeled mana into the storm. Not just Lightning mages, but Air and Water were involved as well.

  The hands slowly lost strength before they started to fade. The skulls of Neremyn’s dropped staff seemed to smile as they cracked and shattered, turning to dust. Neremyn stopped moving, so I pulled my arms out of his body. Even with the combined heat and energy, his body was still only partially charred.

  As I started to lose consciousness, I directed the lightning dragon that was coiled around me to help the fort finish the horde. A pair of arms grabbed me before I collapsed, and I turned my head to see Regan standing behind me. He wore his metallic grin as if to say he was particularly enjoying himself.

  “Now that was EPIC!” Regan said with a laugh. “Nice view by the way,” he added as he glanced down toward the rest of my body.

  The glow had already faded, so I was back to normal, only there were streaks of white that looked like currents of lightning tattooed all over my body. I also noted that my skin had a light blue tone now. “Clothes please,” I said, either too tired to care or just not worried about the fact that I was naked.

  “As you wish, Your Majesty,” Regan said with a mocking head bow, then draped a blanket over me. “What the hell did you feed that thing?” he asked a moment later as he watched something behind me.

  I looked back and saw the dragon I’d made going to town on what remained of the horde. I found out later that many of the monsters started to flee once Neremyn had died.

  “A lot,” I said tiredly.

  Chapter 19

  Regan

  The battleground was torn to pieces by Louella’s little pet. The thing made quick work of the remaining monsters on the field as it ripped, clawed, and just straight up electrocuted everything in its path. It was a good thing that when I teleported there, I moved the others away. Even the brief exposure to the sound and light had done some damage to their bodies.

  The exchange between Louella’s party and the necromancer, while brief, allowed a decent number of monsters to stream into the fort after the giant undead worm ploughed a hole through the wall. I could sense that they suffered some loses, but I
couldn’t get an accurate number from this distance. I swung my arm and threw Louella into a princess hold, as I could see that she was starting to tire just from standing.

  “This isn’t very comfortable,” Louella complained as she squirmed a bit. I chuckled and shifted my metal arms a bit. “Hey, no reason to rub it in.”

  I formed some padding on my arms to allow for some comfort. “Just enjoy the ride. I think you earned it, as well as did Ezal. You two have touched magic that I didn’t even consider possible. Makes me remember the ingenuity of humans . . . of mortals.” Just from studying the magic they’d done, I felt like I could raise my own magic to a new height.

  Louella looked around the battleground as I regarded her for a moment. Before, she had been beautiful, there was no denying that. Though, I felt that in more of a grandparent to a child way. Now, she seemed almost ethereal with her looks. Her hair had turned a platinum white and white lines were tattooed over her body that reminded me of lightning bolts. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t go as far down the rabbit hole as Ezal, but she wasn’t breathing lightning, as her body seemed to have adapted to the mana overload much better.

  Louella turned back to me, then said, “Have you managed to take care of the horde to the east yet?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah, a few minutes before I popped over here,” I said, momentarily distracted by her eyes. Her pupils had turned to a midnight blue with what looked like stars in them. “Are you sure you’re still a human?” I came straight out and asked.

  “What? Of course I am,” Louella said, confused. I conjured a reflective piece of metal, then made it float in front of her. She stared at her reflection for a good minute. “Maybe . . . maybe the same thing happened to me as Ezal?” she asked.