The bombardment of the city had stopped, which was on the surface a very good thing. No more explosions, but it was what came after the silence that Chris feared. Now they would march in with soldiers and mages to clean up the rest of the city, take a few prisoners and loot what little was left. Chris did not know how long it had been silent for, but he rushed outside new staff in hand and froze. He could feel the mana, even over one hundred meters below the epicenter.

Chris reached out with his will and touched the mana, ‘Holy shit..that's from one mage’ The amount of power thrumming in the air above the city was colossal, the mage casting this must have been doing so for a couple of minutes, hence the current silence. Looking closer with his will Chris tried to discern the purpose of the spell. There was no way to outrun the radius he could only try to prepare. The nature of the spell meant It covered a huge area spreading out the energy of the spell.

As he looked into the spell Chris could see the air heating up and mana emulating fire. Very inefficient use of power, this was where his knowledge of physics would prevail. From what he could tell the spell forming above the town would spew forth a huge lake of fire in a gigantic expanding wave. The only danger from this spell would be the heat and heat needed a medium to travel through. He could prepare for that. The spell would take another perhaps 30-45 seconds to begin its fiery descent, already the air was shimmering almost ready to burst into brilliant flame.

Chris reached out with a wave of magic gripping the air in a sphere around him stilling the air in a shell, he then pulled the air in and pushed more air out creating a thin vacuum shell around him. This would stop conduction and convection dead, now he had to find a way to deal with heat radiation. Drawing some of the rare moisture from the air he spread the vapor in the inside of the vacuum space of his shield and froze it into tiny snowflakes, this created a shimmering white barrier that would reflect the heat radiation back outside the shield while keeping the inside even cooler.

From the outside, the shield looked like little more than a slightly transparent slowly swirling white dome around an indistinct form. Chris walked back inside the shield following him. Should someone throw a pebble at him the shield would do nothing to stop it, but by his calculation, it should provide him almost complete heat immunity. He looked through the shimmering white at the blacksmith, ‘he could be useful, and I do owe him for the materials’

Chris created an opening in the shield and spoke to the burly man, “Hey, come in”

The blacksmith looked up, paused for a second and then heaved himself up, walking into the dome. It sealed up behind him becoming seamless once more. They stayed inside the building as it would help block the small force of pushed air from the spell. This would make the shield easier to hold.

They did not have to wait long, even inside there was a flash so bright it lit the room and created huge spots in their eyes, then there was the huge roar of heat and fire, like liquid heat it poured throughout the city, flowing around objects vaporizing anything that was not masonry or metal. Inside the shield things were calm, yet despite the shield neer 97% block rate the inside began to heat up, there was an easy solution as Chris simply stilled the atoms within the air recooling it within moments. The fire and heat seemed to last for an eternity, boy and man stood in silence... Waiting.

POV - Outside the city: Random Servant

Jacob looked at the city and could see the heat gathering above it, to his left the mage responsible. The mage was old, wrinkled and indifferent. The robes he wore made of fine cloth yet simple in design. The real wealth was his gold jewelry, each finger adorned with a ring, one huge ring with an intricate pattern, and smaller gold rings set with a myriad of gemstones. His arms had bangles and chains looped around them, more precious stones embedded in them, earrings and piercings coating his face. This was the epitome of wealth and one of the most powerful mages on the continent.

He was currently casting his personally created spell, rated at the 7th Tier, [Vermillion Nova]. Jacob had seen this spell cast before, none would survive. The city would flash burn, the air turn to choking fog...Unbreathable. It would not even burn for long, all fuel in the city be it wood, flesh or bone would be gone within 30 seconds leaving a smoldering ruin. Then the legions would march through the ruins looking for survivors and loot not that there would be much of either if any.

The sky turned while and the rain of fire began, consuming the city.

Chris and the blacksmith looked at the black walls fo the city, heat radiating from everywhere, Chris constantly held the air still creating a barrier against the heat, he had dropped the snow reflection layer to allow visibility. Holding the small layer of air still was taking such a small amount of mana he could do it indefinitely.

Chris looked towards the blackened corner that the blacksmith had been hiding in and sent a blast of cold air to cool the stone. “Thank you” The huge man spoke softly before going to sit down back in his spot.

Chris walked out the door, preparing to face the ground troops. His thoughts were filled with spells he could use to kill and maim as he walked down the street an aura of cold emanating from him.

Then a mere 20 minutes later when the city had partially cooled he heard the thumping, boots on stone crunching soot. As they rounded the corner, a squad of roughly 50 men marched forward, they all wore heavy plate armor and they spotted him. There was a haunted order and they marched forward faster to meet him, swords flashing.

Chris grimaced, his face contorting for the first time in a facade of anger. He reached with his will and griped two, three-meter diameter discs of air and began to rotate them in opposite directions. The soldiers on the street paused, the hair on their bodies standing up on end. By Chris they would have felt the effects even stronger, his hair was beginning to float. Chris did not require a chant to cast his magic, his will was ironclad will controlled his magic with precision, no he spoke to instill panic into the enemy, to tell them the end was coming. To. make. them. know. Fear.

[Channeled Magic ‘Verum Fulgur’]” - True Lightning.

The words spoken in a language unknown to Chris, ripped involuntary from his lips, for though he did not know it, only a truly complete spell could be thus incanted.

As the last words left his lips he willed electrons from the atoms in the air creating a negatively charged path of ionized air between him and the soldiers. Then the power snapped, lighting ripped forth in a crackling ark of blinding light, traveling in a split second to the soldiers it struck. The men were placed close together, more than close enough for the lightning to arc between them. A few had shields but it was rendered ineffective, the lightning simply arcing through their shields and cooking them alive in their armor. Those that were further from the initial impact zone only had their hearts stopped by the power, those closer were smoking in their armor the smell of flesh and ozone sharp on the air.

Chris grinned a thin grim smile, so much destruction for such a small amount of power expended. He estimated that the spell was on par with a 3rd Tier spell, but would only be classed as a 2ns Tier cost.

Chris felt a presence of mana that interrupted his thoughts, a mage was approaching. He looked up and saw a robed figure walking through the body of the soldiers. There was a frown on his face as he raised his hand, heat and flame condensing in it. Chris tilted his head and grinned, raising his hand and beckoning to the mage. A sneer of anger appeared on the mages face, easily visible from 20 meters away.

“[Fireball]” The chant was short and barked as the ball of place crossed the distance towards Chris. He didn't bother chanting, he had not been idle, there was a wall of absolute 0 air suspended 3 foot thick between him and the spell, the air would have been liquid if he had not held it. As the fireball reached the wall the fireball tried to heat the air fighting against Chris's grip keeping it at absolute 0, the spell appeared to just fade barely making it an inch into the wall.

The mage roared and let lose a veritable fountain of fire towards Chris, he just stood there and let it come, a smirk of his face.

“[Triple Fireball] [Flamethrower] [Furnace] [Fire Lance] [Pyroclasm] Die you bastard..ha...ha ahhhhh’

The mage looked up breathing hard as the last of his flames faded against the invisible wall. Chris tried not to show it but that display had taken more mana that he would have liked to stop, the sheer volume of fire that he had to stop had taken a lot of energy to cool down.

He could end it now because he could see the fear on the face of the mage. He knew Chris would be his end. “I will show you what a real fireball is”

Chris reached his hand up palm upward, and the mage down the street flinched, he gripped the air and filtered all of the water into his hand from the surrounding 10 meters creating a liter of water floating above his hand. Confusion marred the face of the mage, how did water make fire. Chris then ripped the water molecules apart, throwing the oxygen away and only keeping a hyper-compressed ball of hydrogen gas in his palm, almost invisible. He drew from the staff in his hand and rings on his fingers and began to rotate the mass of hydrogen in a donut shape, faster and faster, with no friction on the air around it broke supersonic speeds. Then he began to heat it, making the atoms vibrate faster and faster. He then took some of the superheated hydrogens and slowed it just a bit, instantly the whole mass exploded with heat, fusion, Chris has birthed a small star in his hand. The elements in the mass kept having energy pumped into the system by combining heating the whole mass and separating the molecules to form a spinning ball of plasma.

“[Plasma Bolt]” he did not feel the completeness of the spell as with the lightning and he knew why he had sunk most of his mana into this spell and it was inefficient for the destruction it would cause.

The bolt of blue-yellow plasma shot across the distance in less than a second and hit the mage in the stomach, and vaporized a huge hole in his center splashing out and searing the flesh of most of his body, he combusted. His robe went up in flames and a startled gurgling scream sounded from his burned lungs.

Chris walked over to the body, still smoking among the now cooling armored guards. It was a grim sigh but stored something in his chest, he had won, now standing victorious.

There was a thwump, and Chris was knocked forward. As he looked down he saw a 3-foot long shard of ice protruding from his stomach.

Just before his vision faded he saw a man decked in gold walking towards him, hand stroking his beard in contemplation.