“Oh. That’s really not good.” Agitha said as they reached the gate and saw the desperate scene before them. “That’s a gorger, a fat one at that.” The monstrosity towered over the forty foot wall, and had just turned its attention to the company of twenty armored riders that were attempting to attack it from both sides with long lances.

“Hey!” She shouted hoping her voice would reach them. “Keep riding away from the city. You’re just gonna get eaten and make more work for me!” She waved her arms as she began running toward the scene. She quickly made the gesture to break the enchantment sealing her power as she ran. After that she undid the clasps on her chest armor. “Better not play around.” She told herself as her exploding aura immediately drew the attention of the ravenous toad headed fiend.

Merissa was near the gate, at least fifty feet from the charging Agitha, and more than a hundred feet from the gorger demon yet still the demon’s aura was for more menacing. Not only that, its sheer mass was causing the ground to heave with each step. It was all but ignoring the horses and soldiers upon spotting Agitha.

“It’s drawn to mana more than meat.” She realized aloud.

Agitha was glad for the attention. As she closed to within forty feet or so she took a short hop, bunching her legs under her and focusing her mana into them. As soon as she touched the ground she explosively leaped toward the demon’s head like a bolt of lightning, creating a small crater and releasing a shockwave through the air as she vanished from sight, moving too fast for the eye to follow.

The gorger demon had just cocked its head to aim one of its boulder sized eyeballs at the new feast of mana when suddenly everything on that side went dark. Two parallell swords pierced the massive orb as a wild eyed elf crashed in at astonishing speed. The force of the impact staggered the demon and it roared in pain and fury that was all but alien to the supreme creature. Agitha yanked her blades free and began furiously slashing the eye, trying to do enough damage that it wouldn’t regenerate right away.

A huge clawed hand came flying toward her and she deftly dove away, digging one sword into the rubbery hide to halt her momentum. The claws slammed the creature in its own already injured eye and it howled even louder.

“Stupid, stupid fat frog!” Agitha giggled as she rebounded back in to continue stabbing and slashing at the mutilated eyeball.

Merissa’s mouth was hanging open. Was it possible that the monster could be beaten? Even this far away Agitha’s taunts and laughter could be heard accompanying the furious demon’s shrieks of pain and outrage. A realization occurred to her then.

She had been judging based on total mana alone but that was misleading. While the creature certainly had at least twice the mana as Agitha, it was also using it to fuel hundreds of times the mass. She was pound for pound on an entirely higher level. As hard as it was to imagine, if nothing changed it seemed an easy victory for the formidable elf.

The gorger demon had other ideas however. It instinctively drew upon its knowledge of innate demonic magic from its home plane. A coating of acrid slime suddenly appeared over its entire body and Agitha felt herself slipping and burning every place it touched.

“Forgot about that part.” She lamented as her prized enchanted swords immediately began to rust and dissolve. She tried to kick away from the monster’s head, intending to regroup and perhaps lead it further from the city. The suction from the slime on the bottom of her feet stuck fast, holding her as a terrible claw crashed in from behind her. She barely had enough time to channel all of her mana into defense as she was batted like an insect toward the city wall at terrible speed.

In an instant she impacted the wall fifteen feet off the ground and just to the side of the gate. It offered little resistance and she punched directly through it and the barracks behind it, and into the street beyond that in a cloud of dust and rubble.

The demon didn’t immediately leap after her, instead focusing its great power into healing the terrible wounds it had sustained.

Merissa rushed around the corner to where Agitha had landed, fully expecting to find nothing more than a broken corpse. Instead she found the elf woman on her feet and shaking her head as if to clear it.

“That fat bastard. My favorite swords...” She growled as she stalked toward the gate. Blood streamed from her now broken nose, and she seemed to be favoring her right leg.

“We should just evacuate!” Merissa practically begged. Struggling against the sickness of being so close to the fuming elf’s aura.

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“It would catch me either way.” Agitha informed her. “I’m too damn tasty. We really need holy magic here to stop the regeneration and deal any real damage.”

“Then what do we...?” Merissa trailed off as she sensed yet another absurd mana source approaching from the south. “Another one!?” She cried in disbelief, but when she turned she was even more confused.

The big innkeeper carrying someone, running fast towards them. Behind him were the two waitresses from the inn and a short woman that Merissa didn’t recognize. The mana seemed to be coming from the person being carried, but that was simply not possible.

Agitha turned, equally surprised. and met them halfway.

“Kel, everyone! You all have to get out of here, it’s a gorger demon. I’m barely even slowing it down.”

“Bait was attacked by a mana lamprey and he’s got a broken pearl in his chest!” Kel cut her off, catching his breath after the hard run.

“He what!? Oh this night just keeps piling on doesn’t it?” Agitha was exasperated “Put him down, we have to think and have no time.” As if to accentuate the point, another roar resounded nearby.

“Mana is building in him rapidly! If it isn’t dispersed or contained he’s going to take out half the city.” Merissa observed. She had backed away several paces just so she could speak without being sick from the overwhelming pressure.

“We won’t be able to seal this much of it in time. If he knew some high level magic maybe he could drain it that way.” Merissa offered.

“Any magic.” Rin suddenly said. “I once read that sometimes novice magic users with excessive mana have spells that go out of control like a baby viper that can’t control how much venom it releases. It very rarely happens because mana increases along with experience but if he really has an overflow of mana then any spell could drain alot of it.”

“Do we have time to teach him one in this state?” Merissa looked doubtfully at the squirming delirious boy as she asked.

“I taught him a cantrip today.” Rin answered. “If he can focus enough to cast it maybe it would work?”

“What cantrip?” Agitha asked her.

“Candlelight.” Rin replied quickly. “He was able to cast it but he didn’t have enough mana. I now see that was because this pearl had soaked up all the mana in his body.”

“Candlelight?” Agitha smiled. “Of all the spells, he learned that one today.” Agitha knelt down beside Zell, where Kel was gently cradling his head as he squirmed and gasped.

“Bait, you useless little weakling troglin turd! Look at me right now!” Agitha shouted as she roughly smacked him in the cheek.

Zell’s eyes flared open as though he had briefly detached from the pain wracking his body and he stared clearly at Agitha.

“Focus on me. Don’t you dare close your eyes or look away. You want to hunt like your mom? You want to be strong? Right now is when you do it. When I say ‘light’ then you focus right on my head and cast the spell Rin taught you! Got it!?” Agitha gave her orders as only she could.

Zell gritted his teeth and shook but he nodded, not daring to even blink.

Seconds later, everyone heard a tremendous thudding sound followed by a long whooshing sound like a giant catapult missile soaring through the air.

“LIGHT!” Agitha roared just before the titanic gorger demon landed with an earthshaking crash just sixty feet away, destroying several buildings and causing a cloud of dirt to engulf the area.

Zell focused on the back of Agitha’s head, ignoring the looming horror of the giant demon beyond her. He shakily raised his hand as waves of pressure threatened to burst every cell in his body. The demon was attacking now. It’s mouth, large enough to gulp down a carriage and both horses in one bite was wide open and from it, two tongues with glinting barbs were rocketing toward Agitha like ballista bolts.

Zell focused. He imagined a light brighter than the sun hovering over Agitha’s grey mane of hair. He imagined lighting the world with his spell. He imagined all the pressure in his body draining into that one single word. At the moment the first syllable left his lips, the twin tongues reached Agitha and a moment later she was simply gone.

“Viata!” Zell gasped and then he knew no more as merciful blackness closed over him.

Agitha watched the tongues coming with a focus that perhaps no one else in the world could match. They were traveling faster than crossbow bolts, but to her in that moment they seemed almost lazy. At the moment when they would have skewered her she dropped and twisted, grabbing one stabbing tongue in each gauntleted fist. Hopefully the kid had cast the spell, but worst case she’d give this gross bastard one hell of a stomach ache before she died.

Everything went dark for a long moment. And she was certain that all was lost. Then she sensed it. A light, barely perceptible at the edges of her closed eyes but growing more intense.

“Get in the barracks, they have a basement!” Kel shouted. “Quick!”

Kel hoisted the unconscious Zell over his shoulder and kicked in the heavy wooden door without hesitation. The other four followed him quickly with no other better ideas.

Merissa went in last, pausing just a moment to look back at the rampaging demon. Except it was no longer rampaging, it had stopped moving altogether and was standing still, looking down with one eye at its own belly where an odd glow was coming through. Its veins and bones could be seen as darker images against the illuminated flesh.

“Go go go go!” Merissa shot past the others and raced down the stairs. “The spell worked!”

Though none could witness it due to the blinding brilliance of it, the gorger demon, a creature of unspeakable darkness was utterly destroyed by the weakest of cantrips in that instant. Fueled by immeasurable mana, the light of the sun itself had been born inside its belly.

When the others peeked outside minutes later, in the demon’s place stood a shining titanic skeleton of obsidian, still standing like a terrible monument. On the ground beneath it was a collapsed elf woman, with the brightest candlelight spell ever cast still hovering just above her head.