by TurtleMe
“No!” Madam Astera screamed, trying to pry herself away from me.
“Now…” Elijah held out a pale hand. “Come—with—me.”
My gaze shifted from Jast’s corpse to Madam Astera, then to Nyphia’s and Herrick’s prone forms.
He would just keep killing them one by one until only I was left, but if I went with him… Desperately, I grabbed the blade of Madam Astera’s sword and held it to my throat. “Don’t!”
Surprise flashed across Elijah’s face but was quickly replaced by a confident smirk. “You’re not going to kill yourself.”
I pressed the edge of the blade against my throat until I drew blood.
This was a dangerous gamble, one that could get us all killed, but I knew I couldn’t go with him—I knew something far worse than death might happen if I did.
“Stop.”
I held the blade in place, keeping my expression firm despite the sharp pain radiating from my self-inflicted wound. I can’t go with him, I can’t go with him, I repeated to myself, a mantra to harden my determination. Still, fear bubbled up in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to die now. I didn’t want to die.
The hand holding the blade trembled. The edge of the sword lowered, just a fraction of an inch, breaking contact with my skin. Instantly, a thin spike shot through Madam Astera’s sword, knocking it out of my hand.
“I’m sorry to risk your life like that, Tess, but I’ve waited too long,” Elijah said sincerely as he walked towards me.
I fell back and scrambled desperately away from the man that was once Arthur’s friend. What had happened to him?
Elijah flicked his wrist and another black spike shot up from the ground, impaling Herrick. I closed my eyes, but couldn’t escape Nyphia’s horrified screams as she watched her friend die.
Why was I so weak? Because of me, everyone here was going to die, and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was just like the battle in the Elshire Forest—all of those deaths had been caused by me. I opened my eyes again to see the world spinning and tipping. I felt like I was underwater, like I was drowning. The only noise I could hear was my frantic heart beat and my own short, desperate breaths.
Then a storm of golden-white light rained down on Elijah. Clouds of dust enveloped the entire area as trees fell and the ground crumbled.
Through the dust, a dragon as black as the starless night sky approached. Moments later, I could make out an all-too-familiar figure with a head of long auburn hair, holding someone. Faint golden markings glowed just beneath his eyes as he appeared. A mixture of emotions washed over me as my vision darkened: embarrassment, guilt, but most of all, relief.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not even able to hear my own voice, then the darkness took me.
ARTHUR LEYWIN
Within Static Void, I dropped Nyphia—who I had practically pried away from Herrick’s lifeless body—and scooped up Tess’s unconscious form. Slinging Tess over my shoulder, I snapped my fingers to get Nyphia’s attention.
“Help Madam Astera onto my bond,” I ordered, nodding my head at Sylvie, who was walking quickly towards us.
Nyphia, who had been staring at me blankly, snapped out of her daze and leapt to the task. She slung Madam Astera’s arm over her shoulders and helped her up onto Sylvie.
“What is this?” Madam Astera marveled as she climbed onto my bond’s back. Her right ankle was bleeding profusely.
Wordlessly, I handed Tessia up to her and made sure all three of them were secure before I withdrew Static Void. I ignored the fatigue around my mana core and jumped onto Sylvie’s back and we took off, flying high into the cloudy skies.
How easy would it have been if I had full control over aevum like Lord Indrath? I could’ve kept time frozen as I took everyone to safety. Of course, if I had the powers of an asura, things would never have escalated to this point.
‘Are you okay? You held that aether art for much longer than you’re used to,’ Sylvie asked, her concern emanating onto me.
I’ll be fine. Like before, in the ancient shelter, I had felt more in control and less drained while using Static Void. Perhaps it was the training I had done with Sylvie, or perhaps the time spent in the aether rich atmosphere, but I seemed to have finally taken a step forward in my mastery over the aether art. Were you able to get a close look at that Alacryan though? From those black spikes and the pressure he gave off, he was at least a retainer, and one we haven’t seen before.
‘I wasn’t able to make out his face either,’ she answered. ‘But he’s already approaching us.’
I sensed it too. We had climbed above the thick blanket of clouds and had traveled several miles, but I could feel the Alacryan’s presence not too far off.
Madam Astera was the next to sense our enemy’s approach. She jerked back, her face pale and expression grim.
She and I both knew that as soon as we landed, a battle would be inevitable—but that didn’t matter. I just needed to hold this person off until Madam Astera and Nyphia could get Tess through the portal safely. With the artifact she and I had, the portal would take us to the shelter where the rest of our party was waiting.
‘We’ll make it back,’ Sylvie assured me. ‘We’re much stronger than we were last time we fought a retainer.’
Considering that I had barely managed to wound a Scythe out of sheer luck, and I didn’t even have the blade with which I had accomplished that feat, I couldn’t help but feel a lingering doubt. Still, there were people waiting for me.
We continued flying in silence. Nyphia was doing her best to cope with the loss of her friend, trembling as she clutched something in her hands. I found myself staring at Madam Astera’s back as she held onto Tess. I didn’t think I’d meet the old soldier again after seeing her briefly at the battle of Etistin bay, but I was glad to have found her. She was exactly the type of soldier we needed now—
A sharp influx of mana behind us snapped me to attention. I whirled around, conjuring a dome-shaped barrier of ice. Several black spikes slammed into the ice barrier with enough force to shatter it. Drawing water-attribute mana from the dense clouds below us, I conjured a second frost barrier, but the barrage of black spikes continued unceasingly.
Sylv, dip lower into the clouds, I conveyed while manipulating the dense clouds to cover our movements.
‘Got it. We’re almost at Telmore City.’
We picked up speed during our descent, giving me enough time to prepare an attack. I readied a barrage of ice shards and released them in the general direction of the approaching Alacryan, using wind magic to propel them even faster and cause them to spin.
My spell punched dozens of holes through the clouds, and through one of them I could just make out the black dot that was our pursuer, unfazed by my attack.
Immediately after, the black dot multiplied and I found myself facing another two-dozen black spikes the size of spears.
Faster! I snapped, unwilling to waste any more mana right now when a battle on the ground seemed inevitable. I could only pray that there wasn’t another retainer or Scythe waiting for us by the teleportation gate.
Finally, after speeding down through an endless expanse of murky gray, we burst through the cloud floor. Below, the city of Telmore suddenly appeared, its buildings and the ground they were built on fast approaching
Even with the wind buffer I had cast around us, Madam Astera and Nyphia had to clutch tightly to Sylvie’s back spines to keep from falling off.
‘Arthur! Help me with the landing!’ Sylvie mentally yelled as we approached the paved clearing in the middle of Telmore City. My gaze shifted back and forth between the approaching black spears and the ground.
“Hold on!” I roared as I ignited Realmheart and cast a powerful updraft just in time for Sylvie to spread her wings.
Simultaneously, I cast another barrier of ice over us as the black spears began raining down from above. This time, though, the spears burned right through the ice barrier.
Curling my hand into a fist, I
dispelled the frozen barrier over us, shattering it and using the updraft to redirect at least some of the black spears.
I could barely make out the screams and shouts from the people below as they scattered.
Suddenly, Sylvie let out a cry and we jerked to the left and started spiraling out of control. She’d been struck in the right wing. I could feel her trying to shrug off the pain, trying to regain control of our descent. She began to coat the wing in mana and use vivum to close the wound, but we were growing perilously close to the ground. If she couldn’t slow our descent fast enough, we would crash into the pavement like a meteor.
I watched in growing horror as we plummeted toward the ground, still going much too fast. Just as it seemed all was lost, a green light emanated from around me.
Tess was awake and back up on her feet; the light had spread from her and onto Sylvie as green translucent tendrils of mana shot out from underneath us, embedding themselves into the ground and buildings around us.
Most of the translucent vines ripped apart as they tried to counter the speed of our fall, but we were definitely slowing down.
Trusting Sylvie and Tess to handle the fall, I focused my attention back to our pursuer, who was speeding towards us like an ebony comet.
Utilizing both fire and water, I conjured a blast of steam towards our enemy in order to obscure his vision, then released an arc of lightning. The blast of steam served as a powerful conductor for the electricity, creating a lightning-cloud that lit up the darkening sky in brilliant flashes of gold.
At the last moment, Sylvie cast a barrier of mana around us, and with Tess’s beast will slowing our fall, we were able to land on the ground without being crushed like bugs.
“Let’s go!” I snapped, picking Nyphia up by her waist as Tess and Madam Astera hopped off of Sylvie.
Madam Astera had enveloped a thick layer of mana around the wound on her right ankle to keep it from bleeding. It was only a temporary solution but a smart choice considering how little time we had.
“I can run!” Nyphia said, pulling free of my grip.
I let her go and we all began racing towards the podium only a few hundred feet east with Tess and Madam Astera leading the way. Sylvie changed into her human form and followed closely behind me, and I kept Nyphia right in front of me.
Tess glanced back over her shoulder at me as we ran. It was only for a split second, and no verbal exchange was made, but the face she made as she looked at me lingered in my mind.
There were Alacryan soldiers lined up in rows between us and the teleportation gate, but they weren’t the reason that every hair on my body stood on its end. I glanced back to see black fire burning away at the lightning cloud. My eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the black fire, the same power used by the Scythe I had fought in the castle.
Below it, a man stood on the ground where we had landed. With Realmheart still active, I could see the horrifying amount of mana coagulating, not just around him, but on the ground below us as well.
Could I risk using Static Void once more? It would take a minute, maybe more, for our entire group to make it to the portal without the help of mana. I wasn’t confident I could encompass all of us for that length of time. I glanced at Nyphia and Madam Astera. Could I abandon these two and lessen the burden?
“Arthur!” Sylvie shouted, urging me to do something—anything.
I cursed under my breath, but I made up my mind.
I used Static Void, but only on myself, then whirled around, digging my heels into the ground and dashing towards the Alacryan, frozen where he stood preparing his devastating attack.
Once I was right in front of him, I would drop Static Void and dispel his magic. As I sprinted toward him, I examined this enemy. He wasn’t a basilisk of the Vritra Clan, that much was clear, but he seemed much too powerful to be a mere retainer. Then I realized, and my concentration wavered, and Static Void shattered.
He seemed momentarily surprised by my sudden appearance just a few yards away from him, but it passed in an instant, replaced by an arrogant smirk.
His arms lowered, but the umbral energy still swirled around his hands as Elijah greeted me. “Long time no see, my dear old friend… Grey.”
251
Not Alone
My breath caught in my lungs and I stumbled to a halt. Elijah, who had been taken by Draneeve during the invasion at Xyrus Academy, was alive and standing in front of me.
“Elijah? W-what’s going on? How are you…” my voice trailed off as our eyes met. This was definitely Elijah, but everything about him seemed just a little off. His hair, his skin, even his age seemed slightly wrong. It was his eyes most of all, though. In them, I couldn’t find any sign of my friend.
With a sneer, Elijah leapt back, his arms swirling with a black aura.
I responded in turn, igniting Realmheart Physique to its fullest extent. From what I’d seen so far, his spell formations were almost instant. If I was going to get out of this alive, I needed to know where and how his spells were going to form beforehand.
I could see my bangs turn white while golden runes began pulsating on my skin. In Realmheart, with the otherworldly power of an asura coursing through my veins, I felt myself calming down—becoming detached from my emotions.
With a thought, I withdrew the only sword I had left in my dimension ring—the remaining sword of the pair that Senyir, Trodius’s daughter, had given me.
The golden sword slid out of its scabbard with a soft hum. Tightening my grip around its handle, I faced Elijah. A whirlwind of ash-like mana moved in spirals around his hands, ready to be unleashed.
I need to stop him. I’ll pry the answers out of him after that.
I dashed forward, closing the gap between us in three steps. I aimed for his midsection but a black spike erupted from the ground between us, parrying my swing.
“Why are you doing this, Elijah?” I leapt to the side, repositioning myself. I didn’t let him rest. The physical training I had done with Kordri kicked in and my feet blurred in a series of complicated footwork maneuvers designed for sharp directional changes as I cut and thrust at every part of Elijah’s body with the golden blade. I even swung with the steel sheath, wielding it like a second sword.
“After what you’ve taken away from me, how can you ask me that, Grey?” Elijah replied, his voice seething with anger.
His eyes couldn’t keep up but the spikes, which appeared almost before I could decide to attack, seemed more like an automatic defense system than a willful conjuring. Meanwhile Elijah cautiously backed away, his face tense but controlled as he continued preparing a spell.
I could see through Realmheart the form that this massive spell would take, which only put pressure on me to move faster and hit harder. My initial plan was to confront him in close combat in order to conserve my mana and to exploit his weakness, but as our clash dragged on, I realized it wouldn’t be as simple as just distracting him until the others could reach the portal.
Even while integrating elemental mana into my blade, the black flames swirling around his hands ate away at my weapon and my mana, continually growing larger after consuming my attacks. I was able to slice through the black spikes that seemed to endlessly appear and protect their master, but not without my blade sustaining damage as well.
With a blast of black fire, Elijah propelled himself back, putting distance between the two of us while I struggled to discard my outer robe, which had caught fire. A trail of the ash-like mana accumulated in a path from where Elijah now stood all the way to the portal. My friends and allies all stood in that path as they sprinted toward the lines of Alacryan soldiers.
Sylvie, I called out in my mind, sharing with her the path of Elijah’s spell. I felt a jolt of panic as she understood what it meant.
“Damn it, Elijah,” I whispered. Dropping the steel scabbard on the ground, I imbued more mana into the golden sword and swung at Elijah.
Crescents of mana, dozens of them, carved through the air towar
d Elijah, leaving thin gouges in the ground where they passed.
Elijah was forced to release his attack prematurely. The ground began to crack and crumble along the path of the spell, and massive chunks of stone and earth rose up into the air around us. Thrusting his palms forward, Elijah unleashed a score of obsidian spikes from the ground and the large chunks of stone floating in the air. Like the inside of a massive tunnelworm’s mouth, rows and rows of sharp fangs shot out, tearing apart my spell.
Sylvie’s mental signal let me know the group was a safe distance away, allowing me to focus entirely on Elijah.
Realmheart allowed me to see where the spikes would shoot out from and even how large they were before the spikes even manifested.
I infused my body with electricity, stimulating and forcibly enhancing my reflexes. I tuned everything out and focused solely on the path leading me to my opponent.
Now.
Blood pumped through my limbs and the muscles in my legs and core tensed. I pushed off with my back foot, feeling the paved ground beneath crumbling from the force. I shot forward, trusting my instincts to take me to the exact location that I wished.
Like a well-orchestrated performance, a black spike shot out from the ground just where my feet were, giving me another foothold to push off from. Despite the seemingly random pattern in which the black spears exploded out from the ground, I was always at the right place at the right time.
I weaved through the jungle of black fangs, and more and more spikes shot out in all directions as I neared Elijah.
Stabbing my golden blade forward, I released a bolt of lightning that glowed black under the influence of Realmheart Physique. Three black horns jutted out in front of Elijah, conducting and redirecting the blast of lightning. The black tendrils of electricity spiraled down the thick black spikes that Elijah had conjured, destroying the ground.
