What should have been just a few weeks to their goal, and safety, transformed into a scarily slow crawl to their destination. Long breaks in towns and cities, combined with relatively low speeds whilst inside the veil’s bubble, meant that two weeks of doing this barely amounted to any significant progress.

At this distance, if the chimaera arrived, then it would’ve killed them before a single Great sage even realised it was here. Even if a Sage resided less than a thousand kilometres away, they couldn’t travel that far in half a minute, not on their own, at least. If inside a tower, then some sort of teleportation array might save the party of seven.

But it was Icy who suffered most now. From the behemoth’s storm, the group originally thought of his ability as a mental tax… But as they saw him shake himself awake all night long and very often come to a sudden stop whenever they journeyed outside.

True fear of death.

For every waking moment, that sensation engulfed his tiny, insignificant lifeforce and smothered it out much as you would a spot of dirt.

Manus confirmed long ago that his divinity helped resist absolute differences in power, but a mental force that only existed in his mind? Not even a complete godhood could help if inactive, and Icy simply couldn’t resist the sensation of death that covered his fate. This meant one dire thing at its core, since a normal Blossoming wizard struggled to instantly kill multiple Mithril ranks and equivalent…

“It works? It works!” Everyone in the mostly silent group turned towards Mala, her exclamation not lessened in any way, “It actually worked!” They all saw the spell she cast. Whilst acclimated to what appeared, that didn’t make it any less freakish. In front of them, five layers of rings appeared and filled with runes as usual, however, the spell remained in a casting state.

Two more rings appeared, but not to raise the spell’s level.

No, that never achieved their hopes of survival.

Both new rings looped around the original concentric rings, and even then, not in a symmetrical fashion. One of these new rings contained all five layers, but the other shrunk down and only contained the middle three. More runes filled these two rings, and up close only Icy vaguely understood how incredulous those markings were. The others noticed what was odd though, and that started at the original five rings which featured runes all drawn similarly. The line thickness, the shapes, curves, and such typographical concepts stood out for a normal person to grasp similarities.

However, the two new rings ignored this. Like a document with every word written by four different people in four separate languages, it all looked horrible and impossible to read!

“Four structures? How is this thing stable?” His look of horror told enough, but Mala didn’t get time to answer. Mana poured into the seven rings, and a brilliant, pure white light escaped in the process, however, everyone’s eyes changed to shock.

The veil which left their sights in pure darkness… Stopped working. They saw a dirt road extend far in either direction, rolling plains to their right and farms to their left. “Does that mean…” Korridan raised an immediate concern which Icy missed, and in panic released a wild stream of mana into the veil.

Immediately, the world outside returned to darkness, and watched as the seven rings suddenly compressed to a single point of light. Mala gently touched it and felt how the tiny fragment of power could instantly kill any one of them if she tapped their heads. “Far too lucky, I didn’t think I’d solve it after getting the attenuation spell done,” In her head, the possibilities, after she cut down immensely on incorrect paths, appeared in the hundreds.

But its power proved illusory, as she knew it ought to fail against Icy or Raccelline.

Slowly, her finger extended and she held it steady to a degree of microns. Three simple strokes appeared in mid-air, a rune which appeared so basic and simple compared to the hundreds or even thousands on the seven rings. And she asked the group, “Now then, are we all ready?”

The rune hung in the air, completely stable. Mana poured from her body just as it did from Icy’s, but she suddenly cut it short and watched the rune shatter, released as small stars. They floated out of the veil even with Icy’s mana calling upon the world’s power. At first, he presumed the veil to be useless against Sages as proved by this situation, but deep down, through a method impossible to sense, a whisper struck his soul.

And just like the dispersed rune, it asked for more mana.

* * *

Once far away from a place any individuals might travel past, the group immediately began work but this time didn’t put too much faith in Icy’s storm. Whatever came this time would be ready for such an ability, not to mention, it left him undefended for so long that they’d all be dead before it reached master tier.

Instead, they cleared out a massive patch of land, dug out a huge cube shaped hole, and filled it with crushed stone. Icy and Mala then used various spells to transform the giant cube into a solid object, only then came the array creation.

A 20-metre sided cube of stone with its imperfections removed. But even this shattered instantly when subjected to the force dispensed by his array. To get around this, he strengthened the cube immensely. First, he created several arrays inside the cube itself. For these, he dug out precise runes and shapes as necessary, then filled them with a liquid metal alloy. A simpler one which used mithril, earthweaver, and flowstone in a specific ratio.

The first needed no explanation. Next, earthweaver was a coppery metal which formed exclusively in veins resembling giant nets, and then massively strengthened earth and stone around it. Flowstone is a far more common metal, commonly added to alloys as it substantially smoothened mana flow. Not increased, only smoothened. A lot of people don’t read carefully enough when they first see the stuff.

Altogether, the arrays Icy built simply drew in mana, strengthened the stone, and lastly collated it. This meant to break any of it, you had to break the whole thing at once. One can imagine the forces required to break a whole 20 metre long cube…

Arrays themselves can be explained rather simply too!

Three basic components exist for arrays. These are: Base, Trigger, and Effect. They worked as the names suggested.

Base refers to the array’s base, the foundational structure like a large building required. This was generally used for mana transfer around the whole thing as well as pre-processing. Some spells required elements, so the base might contain a section which transformed mana into said element. In other cases, array self-maintenance, diagnostics, and rather importantly, identification. No one wants their own arrays to harm their friends.

Triggers are basic components, but unlike the other two, are not necessary. If no trigger is created, then an array runs continuously so long as mana lets it run. Triggers can really be anything, but more complex triggers aren’t always the best.

You could use a soul-based trigger, but is such a thing required against almost everything in existence? Triggers can differ wildly in mana cost and depended on how wilful their creator felt when they created it. Naturally, the trigger can be another array that scanned for anything in a range, a very common notion.

And obviously, the Effect. The thing you want your array to do. Icy usually used a language specific to arrays for this step, and he found it easier to outright replicate the desired effects with this language. However, if you hated yourself enough then it was entirely possible to use the language to cast spells directly.

Best not to dwell on specifics since the craft grew exponentially harder to explain outside the three basic parts.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But the gist was that as long as you know array language well enough, theoretically any effect can be created by an array. Practically, you also need materials sufficiently withstood that degree of power.

The array structure opened a whole different can of worms too, technically no required or fixed structure exists! As long as it conformed to some sort of 3D coordinate system, the produced arrays tended to work fine. People just liked flat arrays because they visualised 2D with far greater ease. How things went from there differed amongst schools of practice. Some examples:

Separate the three components into concentric rings, or stack them in layers. Maybe just draw whatever you want wherever you want, or lastly, something even more insane than that previous one… Overlay the three parts on a single layer.

Icy, with limited experience, stuck with the concentric ring structure on a flat plane. The Base came first, he dug out channels as necessary and filled them in. Then came runes which controlled the Base and made sure mana never intercepted another flow, along with other basic things. When completed, he created a purely aesthetic ring around the Base, this just helped visually separate the parts.

The Trigger was a toughened soul link for on-demand activation, nothing fancy, and Icy connected it to his own. At will, it collapsed and activated the array. Due to a simple Trigger, he only had to write two small rows of runes all along the outside. This repeated the soul link over and over, and ensured that no matter where he cut it from, the signal arrived as soon as possible.

Lastly, the Effect.

So far, Icy’s array only extended out a few metres, but this last part quadrupled that size. He spent the better part of two days on it. Parts removed, filled in, even entirely re-done if unsatisfactory! It took hours upon hours for him to create the several thousands of runes in this section, but even then, four large areas remained empty.

All in cardinal directions, the most important, delicate, and powerful parts of the array came last. It’s for this reason that wizard towers for Sages were exorbitantly expensive, and most only built one with the aid of a whole kingdom’s wealth.

“It’s not here yet. We still have a day… at least a day. Mala, are you ready?” Icy called over with constant mutterings as the storm just inches away bore down on him. However, just like last time he knew that its appearance overhead only told half the story.

Once it vanished. An instantaneous change.

At that moment, the sensation of inevitable death disappeared from his mind… And entered reality. And funnily enough, he welcomed the reality. Because, just as much as he wished to live, so many stronger desires urged to stop it.

Every night, he couldn’t possibly explain how badly he wished for this single thing. The screams of souls and sighs of death broke into his dreams every night, their wails and lingering thoughts tortured his own and reduced the hours of sleep to mere minutes. Even though a stupid consideration, he regretted his choice of evolution. So desperate at this point, he might have changed the decision back then if given the option right now.

“I’m ready, are you? If you need to sleep then…” Her voice trailed off as Icy stared at her with a deathly silence. Even though he didn’t intend to attack, and what ought to be a glare lacked even that much hostility, she only now realised just how deep the infliction on his mind rooted itself. A bony hand seemed to run past her neck, but only in her mind. Just… an illusion.

But if so, what sudden gust pushed against her sleeve?

Icy broke from his trance and focused his eyes on the array, the highly focused dragon appeared calmer, perhaps activities which mentally drained him also gave a slight bit of relief. It explained why he gladly endured days of veil maintenance.

Focused on the empty spot, he repeated an explanation from two days ago, “The standard error range is 7 micrometres, because of the rune writing spell you made, we need to keep it within 3 instead. Can you manage that?”

“Must be really bad if you’re doing that. I can manage one character at 0.1 microns, and my limit was five with your requirement. 40 casts if perfect? Rather fast all things considered.” She spoke at length in case he needed time for a response, but as he instead pulled out a small rod of dark blue metal, Korridan came by to hold it.

The little rod, barely six inches in length and one in thickness, contained the cobalt stardust as well a couple other high-level metals.

Half adamantium, some starseeker bone dust, a flake of cornem metal, and some other stuff which expended almost all the white crystal coins on Icy. Almost all, he reserved a handful instead of going all out on materials.

Just the tiny bit of cornem cost them tens of thousands of crowns. To be honest, it wasn’t even a resource one bought with mere currency, they only obtained it because the white crystal of these ancient coins meant more to that seller. Their original plan used a slightly larger bit of starlite and other expensive materials.

So, for Korridan to lift it, his every muscle flared to life, they bulged and stiffened just so the rod lifted some inches off the ground. Gravity between the rod and planet actually weakened, even the air itself provided buoyancy to aid this process… The fact he lifted the densely compacted object with 10 tons of mass, as a Mithril rank, marked an unbelievable feat.

All of this, just so Icy summoned a small, wispy flame below the rod’s end and carefully transported drops of molten alloy where Mala wrote, her finger tip coated in light.

For safety, she only wrote 3 runes per cast. Each empty section required 50 runes, and every use of her abominable creation drained about 55% of her mana. Over the course of three hours, she successfully cast it seventeen times and wrote all 50 runes which Icy already overlaid with the stardust alloy. Of course, it then only required they do this three more times. Korridan struggled far less after the second section’s completion, and after the final one about an inch of the rod remained. Just this final piece alone bought them a small mansion in any city across the eight worlds. With the exception of capital cities in empires. Perhaps the only exception too.

But once Mala finished her role, all that remained was a quick connection between the four special sections and the rest of the Effect section. It took no more than ten minutes to draw the same twenty runes on each side, and it was done…But the storm was still scarily close and on top of Icy.

As it had not yet vanished, he quickly fed mana into parts of the array, and tested it flowed as intended.

Everything seemed right, but a deeper test required far more than five short minutes. Unlike the rest who quietly celebrated its success, he couldn’t find the joy to join in, at this point he heard some thoughts even whilst awake. And nothing he tried ever helped, instead he repeated in a whisper, “Just a few more hours.” Ten repetitions, twenty, thirty, and up to forty… After almost five minutes of those final thoughts which intruded on his soul, they completely dissipated and granted him freedom.

Thoughts which held together fragments of souls for minutes after death, whose accumulation in the river of souls formed the loudest voices. He never imagined such fragile parts of a remnant existence scared him to this extent. Some goodwill also existed, calm and kind-hearted gestures, but very few individuals possessed strong enough desires filled with hope or love that their thoughts remained after death. A spot of white against the sea of black may stand out, but none mattered if the sea ruthlessly conquered.

He drowned in the vivid desires for misery. They told him to kill, enact revenge, ruin the lives of those who hurt them, greedily take everything for himself, and very rarely asked him to complete any number of sickening, hedonistic tendencies.

But far too many just wanted revenge. And they got really into it…

“That’s an interesting little array. Seems rather good at suppression and… sealing, I believe. Arrays were never my forte, you see, I much preferred playing with my pets.” A voice unfamiliar to all seven appeared from the east, opposite most of the idle group, and soon revealed a robed elf with an unfamiliar face. But, this face was one that every last warrior and wizard across the continent memorised without a doubt.

Pale green skin which appeared a tad lustrous, long white hair that they realised wasn’t hair at all, a face that fit in with every other elven wizard they ever met. And if not for the single silver ring and pearl bracelet, they thought he actually came without any equipment. This robe contained a fair bit of mana and enchantments, but the clothes below lacked this property.

However, those initial thoughts suddenly ended.

Their bodies froze in place, and blood turned cold, not a single shred of mana escaped this elf and yet fear suddenly overwhelmed them. Icy and Raccelline snapped out of it first, almost instantly, then Mala and Darak not even a second later. The rest followed soon after.

However, the one in shock the most was Icy. His mind cowered at the storm which billowed and roared, its thunderous calls of doom still terrified him. Even more so that the source appeared, and he stuttered out, “Why– Why are you here?”

The elf mistook the unbelievable depth of fear for incomprehensible surprise. His reply strangely light-hearted, “So there were others too? Regardless, I think I’ll change my thoughts after seeing this array.”

“What do you mean?” Raccelline, both confused and angry, questioned the elf straight away. The past couple weeks of Icy’s horrid dreams came from him, naturally she hated him for what he caused. However, it was Icy who took a step back, several in fact, as he moved out of the array’s Base and eventually to his party outside its confines.

The storm vanished.

“How about a trade?” He smiled in delight. And with a small chuckle, followed on, “I’ll take the array, and for payment, you’ll give me your bodies. A quick and painless transaction, don’t you agree?”