The enflamed mage casts spells with a frequency and power that overshadows every other singular effort in this war thus far. With waves of his hand he tosses around the vine infected, launching them at the walls where Eshya and Vii stand. Bolts of fire and frost come blasting by in the space between throws, as the mage roars in rage, his flesh still melting to the fires we spread to him.

Eshya dodges the magic and the flying corpses as best as she can, while Vii ducks down low, hiding behind the defences of the stone wall as she shudders in terror. Her thin frail arms grasp at the stone ground, and I desperately want to dive down towards her, and save her from this battle, but I can’t.

Shen slithers around, dodging everything as best as she can, but her body is larger than most, and the burning mages spells are spread terribly wide while leaving little gap between. The white flames and anything infected with vines are most desperately avoided, and she ends up taking a few blasts of magic just to save herself from the terrible beasts.

This magic is too dense, too powerful, and comes too fast.

It’s impossible that he has the mana to keep this up for long, but I see no sign of him slowing down.

“Retreat along the wall!” Eshya shouts, cutting the arm off of a vine infected undead as Vii summons a gust to blast it off of the wall. Her wind magic a pale comparison to what it was just earlier today, but it’s enough to nudge the unbalanced creature over the edge.

With the mages help, a number of the flaming puppets have landed atop the wall with them, and others are climbing the stone surface to join them. Those outside the city activate a number of enchanted defences, blasting themselves to oblivion, but some still make it through, the enchantments not all functioning.

A pair of the greater sort of infected grasp the edges of the wall, their long limbs now covered in stolen flesh, they stand at twice the size of the original corpses that they inhabit.

The first to peak its head up gets smashed with a bloody shield, followed up with a face full of hot dragon flames, though that does little to affect it. Our reptilian blood-mage pushes harder on his shield, eventually knocking the undead down from the side of the wall, but he takes a hit from a fire spell when he’s distracted.

The red flames char his leg, and he tumbles backwards from the force of the fiery explosion. He doesn’t stay down long, rolling back to his feet and holding his shield up towards the melting mage below.

Shen tries to engage the other of the greater infected, but she has no weapons, and using her body will spread the flames to her. She hisses and spits, while retreating back, until Eshya rushes in and cuts it’s leg off at the knee.

As it stumbles she lowers herself and kicks it in the chest hard enough to send it tumbling down to the wrong side of the wall. An enchantment activates as it scratches at the wall for a grip, blasting it apart with some invisible magic.

Eshya stomps the white flames from her boot out before any can crawl up to her skin, saving herself from infection.

Vii stumbes after them, summoning more gusts of wind to try and push aside the lesser variants of the vine ridden corpses, but with her feathers plucked her magical talent wanes. She’s tiring quickly, and I know this can’t last for long.

Before they get very far at all, the burning mage races up the tower that they left behind, joining them on the tops of the walls and chasing them faster than they can run away.

“Red. Quickly.” I message my most powerful soldier, as my trembling heart plays with the idea of letting loose the magic that I’ve saved until now. There’s no point in winning, or in living, if they are dead.

“On it.” Red replies, sending a message to her team and doubling her speed. She throws knives and kicks aside the flaming marionettes in her path, taking risks that she was hesitant to before. One of her team catches a spark of the white flame, but quickly kills it with a potion.

They move fast, but they’re too far away for their newfound speed to bridge the distance in time.

“We have to fight.” Eshya says, her hands steady as she watches the approaching figure of the overweight mage. The vine tangled dead have taken notice of the violence and are gathering all around. There are more climbing the walls around them, too many to be dealt with.

Through melting eyes, the mage glares at Vii. I’m not sure what method he’s using to observe the world around him, but I refuse to believe that his eyes can still see.

He summons a wave of fire, sending it crashing along the ground atop the wall. Eshya and the others jump over it, but Shen has to flick her tail down and rescue Vii as she stumbles over her own feet.

More magic comes after that, spells thrown with wild abandon and an intensity that shouldn’t be possible. He’s burning through his mana form, and if this keeps up he’s going to die from the shock of it, it should take less than a few minutes, but Eshya and Vii don’t have that long.

Eshya shares a glance with the others of her team, and messages are shared between them that I can’t hear. Eshya charges ahead alongside Shen and the shield wielding blood mage, while the rest stay to guard Vii and defend against the puppeteered corpses.

A wave of powerful magics, of a half dozen different effects washes out from the mage, ready to throw them off of the wall if they even survive the damage it’ll cause them. Shen, with her massive serpentine body, rushes ahead, curling around in front of the others to shelter them with her body.

The blast of frost hardens and cracks her thick scales, then the flames shatter them to pieces, blackening the flesh beneath. Blades of air, and pure magical force cut through her flesh all the way to the bone. His spells cover mostly just the basic elements, but they are powerful, fast, and overwhelming in frequency.

Shen’s serpentine body is lashed with so many wounds from that one moment, protecting Eshya and the others, that I’m sure that the snake isn’t going to survive this battle. I had meant to free it from Shen’s mind control, but I’ve been too busy with planning a war and now it’s all too late.

Raising a blood coated shield, Eshya’s ally leaps ahead of her, cutting his arm open and using his own blood to expand his shield out into a forward facing half dome. They race through the waves of magic, moving faster than Olympic sprinters.

Halfway to the mage, they’re beaten to a stop, as the magic smashing into the blood shield carries so much force as to send them stumbling back

Only a moment passes before Eshya leaps up and over the shield. Curling herself up to get ready for a jump. The moment her feet touch the outside of the blood barrier she’s sent flying like an arrow from a bow.

The mage twitches at her approach, quickly casting a fireball right in her path. Eshya raises her left hand, catching the fires and letting the blast roll over her arm, charring it down to the bone and blackening her skin all the way to her shoulder before curling around to burn at her back too.

I flinch, but she doesn’t. Her eyes focused on the mages head, she thrusts ahead with her sword, the tip glowing bright as her gathered mana circulates around a single point.

The melting face of the mage stares back at her, but even the arm raised before him is too little to stop Eshya now. Her blade sinks into the flesh of his melting arm, through to the head behind, stopping only as the cross guard sinks into his melting flesh.

It’s not enough.

Even with the sword piercing his head, where his brain should be, he moves to throw Eshya off.

“Got you.” She says, and I can feel the smile on her lips as the tip of her sword explodes inside his skull. His head pops open, splattering the area with what remains of his brains, proving that they were hidden somewhere within his head.

Thrown back by the blast of her own attack, she drops the broken sword and rolls over the frosted stone of the wall while struggling to find the right potion to deal with the flames spreading over her hands. Flames that I brought here, that I used as a weapon, are now the reason for her pain.

“Potion!” Vii shouts, running to her side. “Eshya! Eshya!”

“I’m fine.” The elf says, clenching her burning fists and heading back over to them as she realizes that she doesn’t have the potion she needs.

The healer bug from Eshya’s team has already found another, pouring it over the flames on her hands.

“Oh, thank-” Vii cuts herself short, her eyes opening wide as she stares at the corpse of the dead mage, still burning with white flames. “Run! Run! I… We’re too close… we won’t make it.”

Her voice quivers, as she gazes at the corpse lying before her. She sounds defeated, and it breaks something within me.

“What is it?” I ask, twisting my magic, preparing to cast. I know I shouldn’t. I know I can’t, but if it saves them, then I have to.

The magic is slow to shift direction. I’ve added so much power to it, and I’ve been keeping it stable for the last… I don’t know how long. The dense magic is slow to take on the new direction as I try to figure out what’s going on.

“I… He’s casting a spell…” Vii says, falling to her knees. Eshya, one arm burnt to the bone, the other red and raw from the flames, holds her tight from the side. “He’s using all of his mana. In the one spell. We’re not going to be fast enough to get away…”

The vine infected undead crawl up to the wall beside them, but Eshya doesn’t have the strength to fight them back and Vii is staring blankly at the corpse.

“I screwed up. Can I go back again? Stop myself before I messed with things?” She whispers, swaying on the stone walls.

“We’ll be okay.” Eshya says, a confident smile on her lips.

“The corpse will explode?” I ask, starring at the body. I don’t see anything but my mana sense is as good as dead right now. “I’ll annihilate it, then. That’ll deal with it.”

Vii nods slowly, staring down at her scarred and plucked wings.

“I’m casting early.” I send as a warning. This could ruin everything we’ve done so far, but I have no other choice.

I get no complaints.

The corpse needs to go.

The magical vortex cycling in my body is already more dense than anything that I’ve ever used before, and though it’s wanting to respond to my demands the sheer momentum of it is painfully slow to direct. The thick crystalline mana warps under my direction, it’ll just take a few more moments.

A flash.

A boom.

The cavern shakes, and towers crumble.

A wave washes through the lake where I float, as parts of the ceiling collapse to the ground below.

I blink the light from my eyes, and I stare down at the city, looking for my target. Looking for Vii and Eshya. For Shen. For any of the others.

The magic inside me doubles and doubles again as I stare at the pool of molten rock that fills the space where they should be. The wall has been reduced to nothingness for a 50 meter radius around that point, and everything within a half a kilometre has been levelled except for the most solid of buildings.

“There was a flash of mana before it…” Adler says, breathing heavy at my side. “They… they might still…”

There’s no chance…

Swirling emotions stir up new thoughts.

I should give up, destroy it all.

Life like this is meaningless.

Violence, begets violence, begets violence.

I’ll never know peace.

Nature cannot be beat, her violent demands will never be silenced.

Give up, let go. Find them in the next life.

Chase them.

Find them on the other side.

The thoughts pull me towards that evolution promised to me. I can become a swirling mass of nothingness. Destroy everything.

“Kyra!” Adler shakes me, but I can barely even feel her beside me. My heart pounds with destructive force, with the power to unmake this entire worthless planet.

“Nel is messaging you. Read it!” She shouts.

Adler, Nel, Red, Bessy, so many others still live. I can’t… I can’t give up. I can’t let this be the end.

I still need to protect them.

I feel dizzy, and I’m hyperventilating but I can see the world before me so clearly, and my thoughts are strangely easy to grasp onto. Yet everything around me feels fake, a pretend world. It can’t be the real thing.

The magic whirls faster and faster around my wounded heart, the crystalised magic shifting and spinning. It forms and splits and reforms again. Supressing it, controlling it, and setting it aside, I look to the message floating in my mind.

“Kyra. Keep heart. They aren’t gone… not fully. I was worried, and I did the only thing I could think to do. Kyra, I used the magical device. I have gathered your essence, Vii, Eshya, Adler. I should have asked, we should have talked about it more first, but…

“Kyra, I’m carrying your child. Eshya’s, Vii’s, and Adler’s too. It’s… I was worried, and this was all I could think to do that might make you stay. Please, don’t do anything rash. Stay with me.”

My mind empties, and I feel like throwing up. Only bile rises as conflicting emotions burn through my insides and muddle my thoughts.

I… what do I do?

I’m still drifting towards that evolution, changing into that unfeeling ball of destructive mana, but I can’t. I can’t.

While trying to save Eshya and Vii all of my mana has gathered into the magic that I’m trying to cast, but the target is gone.

No, there’s still a thousand more targets. The fires and undead that ravage the people I have left. Loekan still needs to die.

It all just feels so distant now.

“Stay with us.” Nel sends, and I focus my mind on what she said.

“Children…?” I ask. “We’re too young… I don’t know how to raise a kid.”

“It’ll be fine. You’ll be a great mom.” Nel says comfortingly. I can see the tears trailing down her own eyes as she huddles down in the corner of the room.

Is this really what I want to talk about right now? I’m not even sure myself.

At the door to where she hides, the most dangerous form of vine infected is assaulting the guards. Dozens of flaming limbs longer than I am tall, each lashing out like a whip cracking.

They can’t hold out for much longer.

All around the cavern similar disastrous scenes are playing out, but it doesn’t feel real anymore. The tension is gone, as I lose my attachment to everything. Teetering on the edge of the abyss, I try to focus my mind on what I have to do.

“Loekan?” I ask, spreading out my mind through my ‘Eye’s of the Empire” Skill. I see everything that my people see, but that there’s a quiet dark spot in my mind that has been cut loose. The tracking and tagging marks gone.

They’re gone…

This isn’t how the world should be. Such a world doesn’t really deserve to keep on going on.

But, I… I have to focus. I can’t…

“This is war.” Arduelle flashes into existence at my side. “You chose to fight for this territory, you should know the costs associated with that choice.”

“You…” I can barely find anything to say, but I don’t let her distract my focus. “You could have saved them.”

“Yes.” She replies, nodding seriously while watching me closely.

“I see him.” Shy sends, pulling me away from her.

I don’t wait another moment. The mana, while thick and difficult to properly wield, is already in motion from my attempt to save…

No, I can’t be distracted.

I fill the magic with every ill intent still burning inside me. This unacceptable world ought to be unmade, there is too much here that can’t be allowed to continue. So, I’ll destroy it all. I’ll cleanse this cavern of its monsters.

Loekan looks up towards me from this dark cavern deep below the forest. He sees my magic flowing down from the ceiling where I float, and through a thousand eyes, so do I.

The spell flows out of me in an overwhelming release, it falls down from the sky in a thousand threads, each splitting and dividing into many more. From my hand, a tree is spawned, a massive form of annihilation magic that rushes out through the city below, mincing the corpses of the dead and the vines used to keep them moving.

Through the forest, and the beasts afflicted with both the white fire that I cursed them with and the infective vines that Loekan brought to us. The creatures that haunt the Lord’s colony are made nothing as my attention falls upon them.

I seek out everything that should not be, and I pull apart the seems that hold it all together.

Loekan gazes upwards, his wizened eyes open wide as the threads invade his sanctuary. He’s too slow by a moment, but his shadow moves before him, to try and save him. The last of the enemy elites unaccounted for. The spy.

Her valiant attempt at self-sacrifice is pointless. The magic bores through her and reaches the old gremlin behind. He moves to lift something from a dirt pile on the ground before him, but his fingers fall off before he can reach it. Then his hands, then his arms.

I funnel more magic into him, until nothing is left but a pile of blood, gore, and diced bone.

Adler screams, but my own ears can’t hear her. As the last of our enemies die, and the last of the white flames are extinguished, I turn my attention to her screams and see myself through her eyes.

Black threads run through my flesh the roots to the great tree that’s grown out from my hand. As the black magic runs through my fingers, they split apart and fall. Then after my fingers, it’s my hands and then my arms.

Adler throws potions at me, as the threads unwind the seams holding my face together, the healing and destruction battle one another. As the last dregs of my power fade away, my face falls apart, sliding off of the bone, chunks of my jaw and cheekbone shaved off alongside.

As the magic potions work to seal the wounds, all that’s left of my face is seamless scar tissue.

Adler panics, as I feel the world grow hazy.

I want to be nothing.

I want it to be over.

I want peace and quiet.

I reach out for that promise of nothingness from the Abyss inside me, but there is no mana in me to respond.

“You really are too delicate.” Arduelle bemoans me, as her magic works through my flesh. “I guess I’ll have to do something about that then if I ever want you to live long enough to deal with my problems.”

“You…” I whisper, staring up at her with the new eyes she’s given me, her healing magic miraculously effective.

“Don’t stare at me like that.” She sighs, “Your pet lovers are just fine, but as recompense for my efforts in saving them you will pay attention and learn properly. You will learn how to properly respect others, and we’ll see about stabilising your… unstable emotional state. I will not have you turning into a cancer inside Frey’s body.”

“They’re alive?” I ask, unable to fully believe her words.

“They’re alive.” Arduelle confirms, and I finally slip from consciousness.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 0 units

~Mana distribution:

Category Current Max. Defence 0% 100% Offense 0% 100% Mana Sense 0% 100% Recovery 0% 100% Gluttony 0% 100% Misc. 0% 100% Efficiency 0% 100%

~Favourited Skills:

-Tag and Film

-Trapping

-Mana surge movement

-Annihilation defence

-Annihilation flame burst

-Annihilation net

-Eyes of an Empire