by Weiqi Wang
‘Halgon?’ Soarame barely understood what had just happened, and he could not believe what he saw — one moment Kardiac was running to save Halgon, and the next, Halgon had disappeared and a dragon had appeared in his place.
So… Halgon was… a dragon? This was a bit too much for tired brains to cope with. Right now was not a good time to think anyway, because Max’s next attack was about to launch.
‘Hoaw!’ Halgon fought with all his strength. In dragon form, he could power up to Expert level, but it was still weaker than Max. Facing the next round of firesnakes, Halgon only had time to summon an icearmour on the surface of his body, with his wings covering his body and upper claws covering his head.
The look of a small dragon covering its big head with its short little hands actually looked quite funny, but no one on site could bear to enjoy the scene. They heard the painful roar of the dragon and the scary, fizzy sound of his skin and scales getting burnt. After all, the firesnakes were not easy to deal with, even if it was the body of a dragon and it was armed with icearmour.
‘Go to hell!’ With a savage laugh, Max was about to make his last strike and finish this stupid dragon, which had come out of nowhere. Halgon’s transformation into a dragon was his final secret ace card; he almost used this in the beetalbull nest but luckily Soarame saved him from doing so; that’s why he was always grateful and had been taking different risks to help Soarame since then. However, luck had deserted him today. Halgon finally had to show this incredible secret of his; but even so he couldn’t make the situation much better.
‘Ahhh!’ At this critical moment, Max suddenly screeched, looking at his right arm in horror — his right hand suddenly broke apart from his body and dropped to the floor!
Max was stupefied. He stared at his missing hand; his wand had been in that hand and because of that, his next attack was cut off and Halgon got a short break. Looking around, bewildered, Max saw a mad Soarame with his newly purchased wand in hand. His friends being in danger had roused Soarame into craziness — his hair stood on end, the magic wand in his hand was drawing something at an indistinguishable speed to naked eyes, and the incantation he was chanting was so fast that even Rodka couldn’t follow.
Windblade! It was Soarame’s best magic, windblade, that had caught Max off guard!
Halgon fell down to the ground, bruised and battered; but seeing Soarame injure Max, Halgon revealed a hint of a smile in the corners of his dragon eyes.
Meanwhile, Soarame was surprised too — he didn’t expect his windblade to work because he saw that Max was wearing some kind of defensive magigear that easily blocked Sachastain and Halgon’s attack. Why did his attack work?
Max was still in painful shock. According to Soarame’s Libral Emblem, he was a Grade-2 Water! Why was he casting windblades?
Soarame swung his right hand rapidly and instantly ten windblades of every size whistled toward Max. This time Max saw it clearly; those were indeed windblade spells. Not only that, those windblades were at least of Adept level!
A Water student? Of Grade 2? That was the funniest joke ever! Max rolled on the floor to dodge them and picked up his magic wand with his left hand. His great pain was telling him that everything was real, but glancing at his right hand on the ground, Max still felt that this was a bad dream — how could a Novice Water boy cut off his arm with a god-damn windblade?!
With one hand lost, Max knew that his plan was completely broken. Even if he got what he wanted, it would not make for all the mess; this gamble today had turned out to be a miserable failure. And he wouldn’t even be able to cover it all up; he had to flee right after he’d finished this.
‘God-damn brat, you must die!’ With Max’s voice, several firesnakes rushed towards Soarame, trying to engulf him. So far, Soarame was the only one that had injured Max — not Rodka, not Halgon, not even Sachastain! How does this kid deserve to hurt me and stay alive! If I hadn’t tried to save the energy of the magigear… Thinking of this, Max swore that he would burn Soarame to ashes.
‘Soarame!’ Everyone was frantically worried, but none of them could really help now. The firesnakes were much faster and they had caught up to Soarame already!
‘Boommm!’ The firesnakes ran into Soarame and a blast ensued. The flames burnt down the wall in just a few seconds and this broke the sound isolation seal that Max had set up on the building. Now, for the first time, people in the city heard the noise and noticed the building on fire at the same time.
‘Soarame!!!’ Sachastain and Rodka were devastated. Halgon, Kardiac, Omifo and Alicey were all comatose, so they didn’t even see what was happening.
‘I’m okay!’ Just as the two of them tried to make a desperate strike, Soarame’s voice sounded from above —
‘Soarame? You… can… fly?’
A moment ago, the desperate Soarame had roared, seeing the firesnakes coming toward his face. His eyes went black as the roasting of the fiery heat surrounded him. He seemed to see his soul breaking away from his body, rising up to the sky. After all, Max was way too strong for Soarame.
No, I’m not dying like this… I haven’t seen dad and mom yet! Soarame was not resigned at all to death coming; the next moment, Soarame heard his friends crying and became aware that it was not his soul that was rising up, it was actually his body itself.
‘You must be kidding me!’ Max was also staring up, as dull as a goose. As far as he knew, the flying spell was of Expert level and totally different from cyclone, which simply lift stuff up and drop it soon after; even the graduating students from Libral could hardly manage to fly. Soarame himself didn’t understand what had happened either; he’s still an Adept, how did he manage to fly without even learning it?
But this is real! I can fly! Soarame woke up from the confusion and moved his body while floating in the air. Wait, what’s this?
Soarame suddenly noticed a dim ray of green from his chest — it was the token from his master.
Master’s token, it saved me! Soarame had a strange feeling that the green light was somehow shining into his mind ocean, so that he was feeling unprecedentedly refreshed and robust. In the next second, he dodged the attack from a firesnake — Max had already started attacking again. Although Soarame didn’t know how he learnt to fly, all that he needed to know was that he no longer had to die.
‘Resurgence!’ Sachastain muttered, his voice was shaking due to the overwhelming overjoy. ‘It’s a resurgence, that’s what it is!’
To a wizard or a warrior, resurgence means someone has a breakthrough and levels up in an act of extremely strong will — usually in a situation where he is about to die or lose something the most valuable in his life. Rodka and Max had also heard of resurgence, but they had never witnessed it. After all, Rodka was too young and there were never any situations like this on campus; Max had always tried to hide and avoid hands-on confrontation against powerful rivals — this battle was perhaps the only exception.
However, Sachastain was very different — he had actually experienced resurgence himself and learnt the shadowcape spell, by which he survived in the end. It was a grey and painful night when Sachastain resurged, and he never wanted to recall that night.
During resurgence, the person can sometimes learn a new skill by which that person survives, but not always — resurgence rarely happens; most of the time people fail. In Soarame’s case, he was really lucky to get help from the token during the resurgence, and learnt to fly because he had a gift in Wind. Relying on his instinct, Soarame soared to the roof of the building, where he had more space to dodge the firesnakes. The firesnakes made hot pursuit of Soarame, but Soarame’s small figure and nimble moves allowed him to dodge them all. Soon enough, the firesnakes burnt through the roof, so Soarame could finally get out of the building from the top!
‘Look! What’s that?’ Some people had already noticed the fire at MagiMax, so they had tried to get help from the city; now more people observed Soarame flying out of the building with smoke all over his body.
>
‘That’s a kid!’
‘He’s flying! He’s a wizard!’
‘With moving flames chasing him!’
‘What the heck is going on?’
The longer the fight lasted, the braver Soarame became and the more skilfully he flew. Max’s breath became heavier and heavier — he could no longer win the fight. Watching Soarame soaring in the clouds, Max finally admitted his total failure. He was already tired due to controlling the magimen for the sale, since even before the battle started, and now he finally could not take it anymore. Summoning and controlling the firesnakes was costing him mind power every single second. If he didn’t try to flee soon, he would be in deep trouble once the city force arrived.
‘Screw you all! Go to hell together!’ With a wan laugh, Max called back the firesnakes around Soarame and made one last attempt to kill everyone on the floor.
‘No! Stop!!!’ Soarame was puzzled for a second before he realised Max’s intentions, but it was too late for him to do anything now.
‘Clang!’ Right then, the wall of MagiMax was broken from the outside and something freezing broke in through it.
‘What the hell…’ Max was about to react, but found that everything had disappeared in a large wave of steam and vapour. Sachastain and Rodka were also stunned to see their friends and themselves covered in the vapour, not sure what had just happened. The question was answered soon enough; a big shining ice-chunk in dragon’s shape came out of the vapour, and dashed towards Max with freezing temperature.
Icedragon? Max panicked — the kids’ helper has arrived! Max hurriedly controlled all the remaining firesnakes to run into the icedragon, creating a huge blast of vapour that covered the entire building.
‘Who’s that?’ Sachastain yelled. ‘Help the kids, please!’
‘There’s a criminal wizard called Max, the owner of the shop!’ Rodka yelled too. ‘Catch him before he runs away!’
‘Hello?’ Hearing no response, Sachastain yelled again. ‘Anyone there?’ Sachastain struggled to stand up with the help of his broken sword and moved carefully in the massive vapour. All that he could hear was Soarame, from above, asking if everyone was safe.
After a while, the vapour gradually dissipated and everyone was relieved. Until now, no one knew what was going on and who had come to their rescue. But the good news after all was that everyone was alive, including a naked Halgon.
‘What’s going on?’ Rodka asked. ‘Who was that and why did he ignore us?’
‘I don’t know. Whoever it was, he saved our lives and perhaps he went for Max.’ Sachastain took a deep breath. ‘At least we survived, didn’t we?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Soarame looked over through the air and saw a group of people in uniforms running towards them. Meanwhile, Max was nowhere to be found, so they were finally safe.
‘City force! What happened?’ The uniformed group arrived and started to help. Sachastain and Rodka hurried to dress Halgon in a gown from MagiMax.
‘Soarame, you were insane!’ seeing that the situation was under control, Rodka punched Soarame in the shoulder. ‘That was damn awesome! How did you do that?’
‘Yeah, I got really lucky.’ Soarame was also full of joy. ‘It’s mainly you guys and Halgon’s work, though. Will Halgon be okay?’
‘He’s badly burnt, but he won’t die, so don’t worry.’ Sachastain was not sure what to say about Halgon. Soarame was right; if not for Halgon, they would not have made it so far. Thinking of this boy, Rodka was also totally lost for words. No wonder Halgon was always cautious about everything and always preferred not to be known by the public; his secret was really way too big and scary.
Sachastain was the most heavily injured person; he had taken a frontal attack from a wizard who could summon firesnakes, and had saved the kids. If he was not injured he would have had a chance to beat Max one-on-one, or at least he could have escaped for sure; but then all of the kids would have died. Soarame and Rodka were greatly thankful to Sachastain for his heroic action and asked the city force to take him to hospital immediately. Just when they started to tell the story to the city force, a number of dots emerged in the sky. Soon enough, the dots flew over and Soarame could see that it was Principal Gazbell Raymend and some teachers from Libral.
‘What! Max did this?’ Gazbell was shocked after hearing the story — Soarame intentionally hid Halgon’s part. Gazbell blamed himself for not paying enough attention to Soarame — even though Scankeen had told him not to treat Soarame in any special way, it didn’t mean that he should watch him die. However, how could Gazbell know all this? The Institute of Libral was built in a different space that was connected by a magic array inside a hill, so Gazbell could not even see the firesnakes in the sky of Cylone City.
‘Wait a second.’ Gazbell suddenly noticed something and walked into the broken building. There was some special kind of energy waving around, which was invisible if one was not highly sensitive.
‘What’s this?’ Gazbell closed his eyes and focused on feeling the energy that remained from the battle. ‘Does Max have some special magigear?’
‘He had a really high-ranking defensive magigear.’ Rodka instantly answered. ‘It blocked the attacks from Sachastain and Hal… uh, I.’
‘What does it look like?’ Gazbell seemed to suddenly become aware of something.
‘It was some kind of a crystal plate, but we are not sure. When it worked, it made some kind of transparent shield that blocked everything.’ Rodka tried to elucidate all the details. ‘It made Sachastain’s sword stick, my dagger stick, and also bounced my body away from it. Only Soarame’s windblade got through it.’
‘The windblade got through it?’ Gazbell was excited in the beginning, but frowned when he heard this. ‘Windblades can get through it?’
‘I think it’s because Max didn’t expect it, so he didn’t trigger the gear.’ Soarame cut in. ‘Because I did shoot other windblades and they all got blocked.’
‘That makes sense!’ Gazbell’s eyes shone. ‘He was saving energy for that magigear because he’s not powerful enough to use it. I’m almost sure that’s what happened, but it’s a shame that I can’t see it with my own eyes to confirm it.’
‘Sir, if you want I can try painting it out for you to see.’ Soarame spoke up. ‘I feel I can do it right now.’
‘You can? Now?’ Rodka knew what Soarame meant — the dream-painting, so he immediately asked for some ink and canvas and let Soarame try. Although Soarame had only succeeded once so far and it was during the dream, thanks to the token from his master he had a strong intuition that he could do it awake right then; although he didn’t know what exactly had happened to him.
‘This is impressive! I didn’t know you were so talented!’ Soon enough, Gazbell marvelled at witnessing Soarame’s unique mind-painting; he got even more excited upon seeing the diamond-shaped crystal plate hanging on the chest of a bald man —
Indeed, that’s it! That’s it! Gazbell’s breath became heavier as he checked the details of the crystal plate on the paper. ‘Thank you so much Soarame, and all of you; you did a great job! I’ll let the teachers send you back to school, and I will visit you later.’
‘Unbelievable…’ seeing Soarame and his friends leaving, Gazbell took a deep breath. Soarame’s accident made him feel guilty and worried; but now that he was safe, Gazbell’s attention was totally captured by the unusual energy and Soarame’s painting of Max’s defensive magigear. He really regretted that he was not aware of this whole thing until now; otherwise he could easily have protected Soarame, thrown Max into prison, and dealt with the even bigger matter of that magigear —
‘It was indeed the Mercy of the Demiurge… Unbelievable!’ Gazbell was totally shocked after he confirmed this with Soarame’s help. ‘That person was Max? How is this possible?’
MERCY OF THE DEMIURGE
The battle was over, so Soarame and his friends could leave safely. Everyone was covered in ash and had bruises and burns all over, but fortunately t
here were no fatal injuries; Halgon had suffered the worst injuries, from the firesnakes. Dean Romboton and Dean Akex arrived at the hospital and tried to take the best care of the kids; after all, they actually had some responsibility for this entire episode, after ignoring the students’ request in the first place. The good thing was that this whole mess seemed to be over — at least for now.
The next morning, Soarame and Rodka woke up in the hospital and found that they were surrounded by their friends; it was a big crowd. Everyone was there, including their classmates, and all of Dileys’ crew. Omifo, Kardiac and Alicey had woken up before them; so the only one who was still unconscious was Halgon.
‘Soarame, you are up!’ Seeing Soarame awake, the crowd burst into cheering. ‘You guys are heroes now!’
‘Emm… What?’ Soarame didn’t get it, still clouded from sleep.
‘Yes, especially you, Soarame!’ Kardiac boomed. ‘I heard everything about the battle from the Principal. He’s putting us on the front page of the campus newspaper!’
‘You were there, why did you have to hear everything from the Principal?’ One of the other students asked, confused.
‘Hmmm, good question.’ Kardiac puffed up. ‘I got hit by six firesnakes, so I must have lost part of my memory.’
‘Poochee!’ Catheray couldn’t help laughing out loud. Everyone was chuckling and nobody bothered to pursue the matter further.
‘What are you laughing for?’ Kardiac was not happy. ‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Kardy, you were not even burnt!’ A little girl just had to say it.
‘You call this not burnt?’ Kardiac pointed at his hair — half of it was gone due to the firesnakes.
‘He did try to save Halgon, using his own body.’ Soarame cut in and spoke for Kardiac. Omifo and Alicey also nodded hurriedly, backing up Soarame’s claim.
