The Beginning After the End: Book 7: Divergence

by TurtleMe

  The Scythe’s mana-sword grew, elongating and splitting into several individual beams and transforming into a many-tailed whip of black energy. She lashed out at the construct, which dissipated where the whip touched it. In the same motion, she swung the whip in an arc toward our end of the cave.

  Each tail of the whip straightened and became a spear. The spears, each a glowing beam of black light alive with purple fire, flew away from her in fan pattern, punching through any obstruction, even the walls of the cave.

  I rolled out of the way of one spear and conjured a curtain of increased gravity between the Scythe and my team, hoping to force the spears off course. I watched with horror as they passed through the curtain without slowing, then lost sight of them as they pierced the crates and columns where the others had taken cover.

  Before me, the magma-snake, now barely half its original size, lost its form, becoming nothing more than a puddle of cooling lava. The glowing Alacryan howled in victory.

  Twisting gravity around him, I turned the room on its side. His feet slipped out from under him and he slid across the rough floor, scrabbling for a handhold, until he plunged into the pond. The water hissed and popped as his super-heated flesh was submerged.

  Hornfels’s and Skarn’s golems lunged toward the remaining Alacryans. One smashed the lightning-thrower with a huge fist and kicked at a second. The woman crumpled and one of the shields holding Kobel dematerialized. The second golem swung its axe at the mage shooting bullets of black energy, but a shield appeared over him, deflecting the attack.

  The golem slid its axe along the panel of mana, turning the overhead blow into a crossing cut that bisected the shield-conjurer. Several black bullets punched through the golem as the surviving mage scrambled backward, but it wasn’t enough to stop the axe from falling on him a second time. No shield appeared to save him.

  Though I didn’t see her do it, the Scythe had reformed her mana-sword. She pointed it at each golem in turn and released two rays of black light. Where the beams impacted the golems, they burst into five foot spheres of dark purple energy that disintegrated everything they touched, obliterating both constructs.

  Seeing her third target, I shouted, “Kobel! Down!” and flew toward the Scythe, forming a huge granite hammer in one hand. Kobel, who had just dispatched the ice-spear mage, jumped aside, but it was too late.

  The black beam hit him square in the chest, but, unlike with the golems, the beam glanced off, exploding ten feet away and killing the last two Alacryan soldiers.

  I barely had time to register Kobel’s survival as I closed with the Scythe, driving my granite hammer, which I’d shrouded in mana, into her protective barrier. I felt the shimmering shield eating away at my mana. Still, I struck again and again and again, each time feeling the drain on my mana core.

  Kobel appeared from behind her, flinging his volcanic glass blades at her back. They disintegrated on contact with the barrier. Skarn and Hornfels charged in on stone constructs similar to giant wild boars and drove into the barrier with granite lances.

  The Scythe gave us just enough time to make it clear that our attacks were ineffective, then waved her hand. Her shield broke apart into dozens of motes of black and purple energy. The motes settled over Kobel, Hornfels, and Skarn like snow, then drifted inside each of them. All three collapsed, their magic turning to dust, leaving them entirely exposed.

  The horned demon smiled down at me and her weapon faded away. Uncertain, I flew back several feet, hovering in the air. She waved toward the ground and then floated down until she was once again standing. I did the same, though I did not lower my weapon.

  “Enough,” the Scythe said matter-of-factly. “We are done here for the moment. You’ve run out of time.”

  “What did you do to the others?” I demanded, refusing to take her bait.

  “The battle at Etistin is going poorly. Even now you may be too late to intervene.” She regarded me sadly. “This fight is over.”

  “Mica can do this all day, lady. What did you do to them?”

  The Scythe frowned at me, the most emotion I’d seen on her face since the battle began. “Cursed them, like I cursed the boy who led you here.”

  Screaming like a mana beast, I lunged forward, driving my hammer at her skull. Her mana blade flashed, slicing through the haft of my hammer. Using Gravity Hammer, I tried to smash her to the ground, but she conjured a mist of the dark energy around her, nullifying my spell again.

  Desperate, I followed up with a straight jab into her nose. Perhaps she hadn’t been prepared for such a mundane attack because the punch connected, snapping her head back. Snarling, she pushed and the mist boiled through me, sapping me of my strength.

  Chest heaving, I fell to my knees. “Cheater.”

  Wiping a thin trickle of blood from her nose, the Scythe regarded me, once again calm. “I’ve left you just enough mana to fly yourself and your friends out of here. If they are not more than twenty miles away in the next hour, the curse will activate and they will detonate. If they come within twenty miles of this place within the next week, the curse will activate and they will detonate. After one week, the curse will fade. Now go. Your friends need you.”

  With no other choice, I dragged the prone forms of my companions onto one of the stone slabs I’d conjured earlier, tied them down with ropes from one of the destroyed tents, and hefted the makeshift litter using a small amount of mana to lighten the bundle.

  “Why?” I asked simply.

  The Scythe, who had watched this happen with an air of mild curiosity, shook her head, her long amethyst hair flowing around her. “We each have our part to play in the coming conflict, even if we do not yet know what that will be.”

  Frowning, I turned and flew to the fissure, passing Tetra’s fallen form. I used a portion of my remaining mana to grow a stone sarcophagus around her. I’m sorry, Tetra, Jasper, Oberle. I failed you.

  238

  Remembrance

  ARTHUR LEYWIN

  “Caden, report back to General Varay. She’ll be in charge of the battle at Etistin,” Bairon ordered, gesturing the soldier away. He met my eyes for a second before he nodded. “The rest of us will head straight to the castle.”

  Sylvie transformed back into her dragon form and we immediately took off. I manipulated the air around us, turning the winds so they blew at our back, and we flew toward the castle with all speed.

  I tried to remain level-headed, trusting that Elder Hester, Elder Buhnd, and Virion were enough to deal with whoever had intruded. But the black and red flames billowing in the distance were an ominous sign… What if it was a retainer—or even a Scythe? My mother, my sister… They were supposed to be safe at the castle.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Sylvie assured me, but she couldn’t keep her worry from leaking into me.

  I continued manipulating the wind, cycling mana through my body as well, preparing for a fight. Glancing back, I could see Bairon and the other mounted soldiers slowly trailing behind, unable to keep up with Sylvie, but we didn’t slow down.

  Please, everyone be okay, I prayed, and then the castle was upon us.

  The barrier protecting the flying fortress from the sky had been destroyed, allowing the raging winds to fan the dark flames.

  Sylvie easily blasted a hole in the closed loading dock door and we landed inside. A thick cloud of oily black smoke filled the loading dock, obscuring my vision. Thankfully, the layer of mana I had enveloped myself in kept the harmful smoke from entering my lungs.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Sylvie, who had turned back to her human form.

  Taking no chances, I ignited the dragon will inside me. Under Realmheart, my vision became monochrome, except for the ambient mana around me, which stood out like thousands of multi-colored fireflies amidst the gray smoke. With my enhanced vision and unparalleled mana acuity, it would be impossible for any enemies to sneak up on us, even through the heavy smoke and fierce winds shrieking through the openings of the damaged castle.
/>   Staying close, we began our search of the collapsed rooms and dark hallways of the lower floors. We inched through the fractured floors, sidestepping any debris that had been either dislodged from the walls or fallen from the ceiling. Crashes echoed from above and even around us while the howling winds made it almost impossible to listen for any sign of a battle that we could assist in. The only thing we could do was search each room carefully, taking it one step at a time.

  ‘Over here,’ my bond called from an adjacent room.

  Inside, I found Sylvie on the ground, hunched over what seemed to be a person partly buried underneath a mountain of rubble. My chest immediately clenched and panic clawed at my stomach, but Sylvie reassured me that it wasn’t anyone we knew.

  After we shifted some of the rubble, it became clear that the unfortunate elf had been one of the few remaining guards at the castle.

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose, embarrassed and frustrated at how fragile my current mental state was. After taking a moment to compose myself, I inspected the corpse. Through Realmheart, I was able to tell that the fallen mage had died by fire, but I couldn’t see any burn marks on the guard’s uniform. I lifted away a section of cloth and chain-mail to examine the flesh beneath.

  ‘What is it?’

  “There aren’t any burn marks.”

  “He died from fire?” she said aloud, surprised.

  Hearing another crash in the distance, I got up. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

  We continued down the hall, scouring every room in the lower floors, searching for anyone that might still be alive. All we had found were corpses, all burned to death, yet bearing no wounds to show for it.

  ‘I don’t understand. Perhaps it’s a fire that burns from the inside?’ Sylvie suggested.

  It doesn’t matter at this point. All we need to know is that our opponent uses a fire that doesn’t actually burn the victims physically, I sent back, lifting a fallen wall that blocked our path.

  With the stairs nearly unusable from the destruction, Sylvie and I climbed up through the levels of the castle via the many holes in the ceilings and floors. Despite my Realmheart Physique’s ability to spot even the smallest fluctuations in mana, we were tense. My chest contracted in anxiety every time we found a corpse, and I felt a burst of shame at my relief each time we verified it wasn’t anyone we knew well.

  After searching several floors, Sylvie and I came across signs of a large battle. Intricate spears of stone jutted from the floor and walls and earthen golems lay shattered on the ground.

  ‘This…’

  Yeah, I know, I interrupted, signaling for her to keep close.

  Because of the mana coalesced into the rock spears and conjured soldiers, it took a while to finally find the source of the spells.

  I knelt down in front of the elderly dwarf, my hand on his neck, trying to find a pulse. He stirred at my touch and let out a harsh cough.

  “Elder Buhnd!” I exclaimed. I fashioned the ground beneath him into a chair, sitting him up so he didn’t choke on his own blood.

  I turned to my bond. “Sylv!”

  “On it.” She hunched down, laying her hands on my mentor’s chest. A soft light emitted from her palms, passing through the dwarf’s clothes and skin.

  After ten painstaking minutes of life aether being transmitted into Elder Buhnd, we finally got another reaction.

  “Elder Buhnd—hey, come on, stay with me,” I said gently, patting his cheek as the dwarf furrowed his brows.

  “Arth...ur?” His eyes opened but shut again after a few seconds.

  “Yes! It’s Arthur. What happened? Who did this to you?”

  He let out a pained groan. “You gotta… get out of here, kid.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Buhnd!” I snapped, my nerves getting the better of me. “Tell me the situation. I need to know what we’re going up against.”

  Buhnd tugged on my tunic, pulling me close. “Listen, you fool. The castle, the Council—it’s finished. If you want to do something for Dicathen, then run! Stay alive.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll be careful, but to do that, I need to know what happened. Was it a retainer? A Scythe? What sort of magic could do this?”

  Feeling Buhnd’s grip loosening as his strength left him, I turned to my bond. “Sylvie, what’s happening? Why isn’t he getting better?”

  Sylvie’s arms trembled and beads of sweat dripped down from her face. “I don’t know, but I can’t keep this up.”

  I took a step back, inspecting the injured dwarf. Like all of the other corpses we had passed, his body was riddled with motes of red mana. The wisps of purple that Sylvie had emitted into his body were currently combating whatever fire spell was eating away at his life, but the aether wasn’t healing him. No, it was keeping the spell under control, but the fire spell seemed able to multiply and was spreading fast.

  My frustrated boiled out of me as a guttural yell, and I smashing one of the stone spikes that Buhnd had conjured. Kneeling back down in front of the dying dwarf, I grabbed his hand.

  Once Sylvie stopped emitting her healing magic, Buhnd would start dying again, and my bond knew that as well.

  Buhnd put his large hand over mine, squeezing it gently. “I-it’s okay.”

  Though it seemed to take every ounce of strength he had left, Buhnd pried open his eyes once more and turned his gaze to Sylvie. “Little asura, can you keep this up for just another minute? I—I think that’ll be enough to tell you what you need to know.”

  My bond nodded, her brows furrowed in concentration.

  Ignoring the tears rolling down my cheeks, I pressed my forehead against Elder Buhnd’s. “May you be at peace, wherever you are.”

  The concept of religion had always eluded me, both in this life and my previous one. But as more of my loved ones died, I found myself wishing that I was wrong, that there truly was an all-powerful god and an afterlife where everyone I knew would be at peace, waiting for the rest of us. At the very least, I hoped that they would meet a similar fate as I, reincarnated into a different world to live a new life. If that was the case, though, I hoped they would be spared the memories of their past life.

  “I’m sorry, Arthur,” my bond whispered, putting a hand on my back.

  I shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”

  After spending a few minutes conjuring an earthen tomb worthy of an individual such as Elder Buhndemog Lonuid, the two of us moved on.

  My dwarven mentor had told me what little he knew about our opponent, which Buhnd had confirmed to be a Scythe. Apparently, he wielded a smoky black fire that corrupted whatever it came in contact with. It seemed like another deviant form of magic, like the black metal spikes that Uto was able to conjure or the black poison the witch was able to use.

  Elder Hester and Kathyln had left for the Wall before the Scythe had infiltrated the castle, but Alduin and Merial Eralith, along with Tessia and my family, were nowhere to be found when all of this had happened.

  It was somewhat of a relief that they weren’t here, but another part of me was even more anxious. Questions filled my head: If they did escape, where did they go? How did they know that they would be attacked? Or was their timely disappearance just a coincidence?

  ‘I know it’s hard, but you shouldn’t think about all of that right now.’ My bond was worried, and I could feel her doing her best to keep me in the moment. ‘Take this one step at a time. We’ll get through this together, Arthur.’

  I gave her a terse nod. I was grateful that she had been with me throughout everything that I had gone through. I couldn’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t had her at my side, and she knew that.

  The idea of someone knowing almost every thought and emotion that crossed my mind would’ve been disconcerting to me if I didn’t realize how grateful for it I was. Maybe it was just because it was Sylvie, and not someone else, but I was thankful for the link that I had with her.

  ‘Arthur!’ my bond called out.

  Yeah, I know. I
saw the mana fluctuation nearby. Even without Realmheart, it’d be impossible not to sense the power being brought to bear.

  Bairon’s currently engaging with the Scythe, I thought, seeing the deviant magic move through the atmosphere.

  ‘What should we do?’

  I’m going in. Stay behind and cover me with mana shields.

  I withdrew Dawn’s Ballad from my dimension ring and coalesced mana through my limbs. I could feel the warmth as the runes running down my arms, legs, and back glowed with golden light. Strength steeled every fiber of my body as I dug my heel into the floor.

  I knew that using Burst Step would strain my body, but with my experience fighting against Agrona’s personal soldiers, I knew that I had to end it fast if I wanted any chance at winning.

  ‘Okay. Go!’ Sylvie signaled, layering mana around my body.

  I willed the mana to flow down my legs, timed to the millisecond to maximize the burst of strength that I’d receive.

  The world blurred around me as I took a single, mana-enhanced step, and my eyes and brain struggled to collect, translate, and sort the influx of images. If my reflexes weren’t heightened through the usage of internal lightning magic, I would be more likely to kill myself by running into a wall than actually hurt my enemy.

  Ignoring the searing pain that ate away at my lower body, I dashed forth, honing in on the towering Scythe.

  No!

  I slid to a halt, my body groaning in protest at the sudden cancelation of Burst Step.

  The jagged tip of my teal sword hovered inches away from the Scythe’s throat.

  I stared at the Scythe, a flurry of emotions emerging as he looked down at me with an amused expression.

  “You’ve grown.”

  I heard Bairon’s voice scream at me from behind but couldn’t register what he was saying over the blood pounding in my ears.

  I tightened my grip around Dawn’s Ballad, unable to pry my eyes away from the piercing red glare of the Scythe standing in front of me.