“...in! Levin!”

Levin jolted awake, eyes snapping open to reveal Mei’s towering form just a few inches away. He gasped, instinctively trying to pull back and get away, but his weakened body barely moved. As he came to his senses, Levin realized that this was not a giant monster trying to eat him, just a giant monster trying to wake him. He relaxed, releasing the tension in his body as he looked up at Mei and her usual cheeky grin.

Nearby, he saw the unconscious form of Pilip lying on the ground near him. Right next to what was left of one of Cho’s wings. He pushed the image of Cho’s shattered form from his mind, instead thanking the stars that he was even alive.

“I thought you were the grim reaper for a second,” Levin said.

“You know the grim reaper isn’t a match for me,” Mei said, straightening up a little and offering her hand. “Come on. There’s still work to be done. We need you out there.”

Levin tried to lift his arm up off the ground, but he could only get it up a few inches before collapsing back down. He breathed heavily, even that small exertion pushing him to his limit.

“I can’t move.”

“Figures.” She reached down, scooping Levin up into her arms. Cradling him with ease, she set up out of the central rune array’s cavern and back towards the surface.

Levin frowned. “‘Figures’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I always knew you weren’t fit for combat,” Mei said with a chuckle, bounding up the stairs.

Levin sighed. "What is it you need me for?"

“To save the others. Jess nearly burned to death. Yotti has a concussion. Miki broke his ribs. Kana is okay. But Nano is still missing.”

Mei burst out of the underground staircase and into the ink storage room, and immediately rushed through.

“Wait!” Levin said, and she slid to a stop. “Grab the ink up there. Fifth row, second from the right. It’s labeled ‘Tears of Dew.’ Take them all.”

Levin didn’t bother trying to point towards it in his condition. Mei reached up, Levin rising up as well, and plucked several vials from the wall, then began to run out towards the exit once more.

“This heals people?” she asked, eyeing one of the bright teal vials.

“It’s the most potent healing-element ink on that shelf,” he said.

The large double doors leading from the Smoke Hall to outside were already wide open, and Levin began to shiver as the night air hit him. But before Mei could get outside, a figure suddenly appeared in the doorway, silhouetted in the moonlight.

“Mei! There you are!” Takt shouted, voice hoarse.

“Use this!” Mei said, handing over the vials of Tears of Dew to Takt.

Takt was gone a moment later, a gust of wind following in his wake. Mei turned in a different direction and set off, splitting away from Takt. Levin’s toes curled from the cold as they blasted through campus.

“Don’t you want to see them?” Levin asked, craning his neck in the direction Takt had gone.

“They’ll all live,” she said. “It’s not them I’m worried about.”

Mei leaped up into the air, soaring high and landing on one of the remaining intact pieces of Inuvik Academy’s wall. Levin gaped at the destroyed structure, but the mountain looked even worse – beneath them, the forest of Mount Inuvik burned like a heavenly torch illuminating the dark, the light stretching all the way to Inuvik City. There would likely be few asleep in its stout wooden walls on this night.

“That fire is out of control,” Mei said, and Levin thoroughly agreed.

The first victims to the heat and smoke would be the mages themselves, having lit the fires in their own vicinity before being rendered unconscious by Levin’s trap. After that it would come for the Mage Hunters, and many of them would become trapped on the mountain as the fire spread. Not to mention the freed slaves streaming out from the mines. The casualties would almost certainly be in the hundreds at least.

Levin strained his arm, trying to lift it into the air against the painful ache and fatigue of his body. He only struggled for a moment, as Mei took his wrist in her hand, lifting his arm for him and allowing Levin to focus on his task. With his outstretched hand, he formed a seal, calling upon the central rune array.

The conquered steward of Inuvik Academy responded, drooping its light down like tens of thousands of tiny hands that reached out to smother the flames. The flames died down all at once over the mountain, fading away over the course of a few seconds and returning the night to a surprisingly peaceful quiet.

“Nice,” Mei said, nodding to Levin. “Better than I expected.”

“Thanks,” Levin said, withdrawing his arm.

Mei stood there in silence, surveying the area. Levin nestled further into her arms – his embarrassment at the situation was outweighed by how surprisingly warm and comfortable Mei’s large frame was. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed several teal-colored lights springing to life near the fallen gates at the front of campus.

Mei turned to face the lights, and Levin watched as three healing runes each two dozen feet in diameter sprang to life, Uki and Takt standing in front of them. The worst of the Mage Hunter wounded had been piled inside, many of whom were unconscious – such as Jess. Kana sat over her, and Yotti and Miki lay down on the ground beside her, bathing in the healing light.

Above him, Levin heard Mei breathe a sigh of relief.

They continued to watch in silence. A few minutes later, a cheer erupted from the forest as a swarm of archers emerged, carrying with them the bodies of Mage Hunters and mages. At their front was Nano, bow slung over his shoulder, dragging with him the unconscious body of Captain Kodan.

Shouts of victory began to spread, especially as even the worst of the wounded amongst the Mage Hunters began to open their eyes and climb back to their feet. Uki continued to direct the relief effort, and Levin thought she looked decades younger. Though perhaps it was just the distance.

“Then again, with her ability, she might really have extended her lifespan quite a bit with this stunt,” Levin thought to himself.

“El-e-ment,” Mei said slowly.

Levin looked at her quizzically, so baffled he lost his train of thought. “What was that?”

“I didn’t know that word. When you said ‘healing element’ earlier,” Mei said.

Levin was startled – using his Y-Link to translate had become such second nature to him that he hadn’t even realized they weren’t speaking Mei’s native tongue. He had known she was getting much better at the local language, but Levin had been holed up brewing inks for the past month. He was surprised to find out she had advanced this far.

“That’s the word that describes types of magic, right? Like fire-element, or water-element? I think Takt used it once,” Mei said.

“That’s exactly right. I’m impressed, Mei,” Levin said.

“Tease me and I’ll end you before the Chaos does,” Mei said.

“I was being serious!” Levin protested. “I have to rely on my Y-Link for everything. Unlike you, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything on my own.”

“It’s all because Uki is a great teacher.”

“Remember when you almost took my head off for saying you had to learn the language?”

“Ha! I do. Sorry about that,” Mei said.

“You also slapped me with a piece of raw meat before that.”

“I won’t apologize there. You deserved that one,” Mei said with a chuckle.

“I suppose I did,” Levin said, smiling even though it made his face hurt.

Mei didn't respond, and Levin strained to look up at her. Her smile was gone, replaced by a stiff expression. When she next spoke, it was quieter than before.

"Will you really be able to survive?" she asked.

That's what that look in her eyes was – worry. Levin didn’t know what he looked like after his struggle against Pilip, but he had the appearance of a sick elderly man even before the fighting began. Bolt had taken a lot out of him, more than he expected. Even if he could feel his strength beginning to return, just like after Field, Levin was sure that using it had eaten into the remaining time he had left.

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

"I don't know."

“Then we should get started.” Mei bounded off the wall, bringing a fresh rush of cold air into Levin’s face.

She landed in a jog, carrying Levin back into the center of campus, leaving behind the celebrating Mage Hunters and healing runes. Levin gazed up, beyond the peak of Mount Inuvik, into the cloudless night sky dotted with stars. A foreign sky.

But beneath that, the Academy’s nighttime light source danced and wove like a bed of snakes in the air a few feet above Mei’s head. Levin stretched his arm out towards them, squeezing his fingers into a hand seal. The threads of light responded, rushing towards Levin’s hand and swirling around it in a fluorescent tempest.

“Hey!” Mei cried out, suddenly blinded by the swarm.

Levin smiled, releasing his hand and causing the light to snap back into place. If he looked at it just right, it was almost like the Academy’s lights were the stars in the sky – his very own night sky. One he had won for himself.

Mei headed past the statue of Panai, arriving at the Smoke Hall. “This place was the most important, right?”

“Yes,” Levin said. Then he took a breath, gathering his strength. “Okay. Set me down.”

Mei raised an eyebrow but did as he asked, bending down and lowering Levin to the ground. He landed on his feet and rose unsteadily, keeping a hand pressed to Mei’s arm. Then he steeled himself and set off, putting one foot in front of the other to step into the Smoke Hall.

For now, his strength was still returning, approaching how it had been before using Bolt. He grew steadier as he strode across the bright, empty hall, heading straight towards the back. He walked past the corridor leading to the central rune array, not even sparing it a thought. He already knew everything that was down there.

Instead he continued forward, straight through the Smoke Hall. At the very back was the largest tower on campus, the residences of Panai, Eliya, and Hann. The double doors to the first floor had been left wide open, and Levin could envision the Smoke ranks rushing out in a panic when the attack had begun.

Multicolored flames decorated the interior in myriad hues, framing three golden thrones elevated atop a few steps. Levin ignored them, walking around the dais, heading for a plain door in the rear. Mei squeezed into Panai’s seat.

There was only one place that would contain the greatest treasures of Inuvik Academy – the area accessible only to the Smoke rank lords of Inuvik Academy. Former lords. Levin made a seal with his hand, and the most secure door on campus slid open for him. He strode in.

The door led to a staircase that wrapped around the inside of the tower's outer wall. There were two directions – up and down. Levin intended to thoroughly search the entire Academy, but he wanted to go through the most valuable locations first. So he headed down, figuring that the Smoke ranks had lived upstairs and kept all their treasures below ground. Plus, it would be much easier going down than up in his current condition.

The staircase was wide and gently sloping, the complete opposite of the tight spiral that led straight down to the central rune array. Even underground it curved along with the shape of the tower’s wall above, and Levin made one full rotation around before arriving at the bottom. He heard Mei’s thundering footsteps following behind him.

The cavern that housed the central rune array had the appearance of a natural cavern with a tunnel opened into it, but the underground space that Levin stepped into now felt completely artificial. Curved, smooth stone walls wrapped around a short hallway, opening up into a perfectly cubical room.

Levin walked through the hallway, noting three iron doors set in the walls – two on his right, one on the left. A quick peek inside one revealed a small chamber covered from floor to ceiling in flaming orange runes, giving off a heat that could be felt as soon as Levin creaked the door open.

“These must be their meditation chambers,” Levin thought, moving on.

He was far more interested in the room just before him. The chamber’s walls themselves had been inset with rows of square alcoves, ranging from a couple feet in width to over a dozen in the far wall. They were clearly shelves for the treasures of the Academy, but Levin noted with some disappointment that most were empty.

But not all. The dim lines of inactive runes glowed in all directions, drawing Levin’s eye to every wall and corner. But the most eye-catching was in the largest recess, centered in the far wall across from Levin.

It was the largest display shelf in the entire room, containing a single massive staff hung diagonally across, over six feet in length. Levin recognized it from Panai’s statue in the center of campus – but the bronze version outside had painted black lines, clearly meant to be a rune. This staff had the carved troughs leftover from being engraved, but no ink.

“So what are you even looking for?” Mei asked, strolling into the treasure room behind Levin.

“I need a few rare supplies for the Source-removal procedure, but I’m sure Hann had those somewhere,” Levin said as he looked around the room.

None of the raw materials he was expecting to find were here. But that was fine – this clearly wasn’t a place they were stored. Instead, Levin was mostly looking for anything that may give him a flash of inspiration, something he hadn’t considered before. Of course, he had no idea what form that may take.

“I’m not sure if removing my Chaos Source will be enough to survive. I don’t think just taking it out will put my body back the way it was…”

Levin trailed off. His gaze latched onto a deep, shadowed recess, one of the few holes that had something in it – a large glass jar, scribbled with a small rune. But as he examined it, he realized it was far from an ordinary container.

It was about the size of his entire torso, for one. Levin would need to wrap his arms around the jar just to pick it up. And strangely, it had no top. The entire jar was a single piece of glass, with no discernable difference between the top and bottom, and no clear way to get anything in or out.

There wasn’t anything inside. At least, that’s what Levin thought at first, until he looked closer. Pressing his face up against the container, he could faintly make out a tiny black speck, floating within the very center of the jar, suspended in the air.

There was a small bronze plaque set into the base of the recess, with a string of text carved into it.

Dragon Source – Death element, infant.

“Mei… I think I know how to keep myself alive.”

***

Uki stayed in Inuvik Academy for half a day. There was a wealth of combat-oriented runic artifacts and pills that the mages had never gotten the chance to use in the blitzkrieg, and Uki, along with the surviving Hunters, laid claim to as many as they could in half a day. Any raw materials, and the Smoke rank’s treasure chamber, were left for Levin to ransack.

Uki left behind a few men and women who had light injuries to assist Levin in the task. It took several days, but they eventually managed to gather everything of value within the Smoke Hall. At that point, Levin declared he had everything he needed and holed himself up in Hann’s runesmithing lab.

Levin would set out for the Chimera cave lab a week later with a small entourage of horse-drawn carriages and several crates of inks.

Meanwhile, the majority of the Mage Hunters swept out through the countryside. Uki wished to strike while the iron was hot, even if it meant leaving the Academy undefended. Her strikes were carried out with brutal efficiency, targeting the farms operated by the small mage families and organizations that littered Trurok. They were hitting the same types of targets the Mage Hunters had always struck at, but at unprecedented scale.

Unlike the likes of Inuvik Academy or the Great Clans, these groups were lucky if they had more than one early-stage Wisp rank. Almost all of them had been subservient to Inuvik Academy or the Lightning Corp, providing harvests in exchange for protection. Of course, those formerly under Silla had all been without that protection for over a month, not that it had been needed during the calm before the Inuvik raid.

But now the storm was here. With runic artifacts even stronger than what Levin had provided in hand, none of these places could hold onto their slaves for long. Any scraps of unified mage resistance were dealt with swiftly by Mei or Takt, and the flames of war burned through Trurok like a brush fire in a drought. Only the Great Clans stood unaffected – for now.

Many began to submit as soon as Mage Hunters forces drew close. It was largely a self-preserving choice, because as long as they released their slaves, Uki was lenient. She never intended to wipe out every mage in Trurok – not only was it a fool’s errand, it would have been needlessly cruel. Magic could never be stamped out, but with the balance of power favoring warriors, it could be twisted to the common people’s advantage.

That didn’t spare the Inuvik battlemages, however, who were all executed. Starting with Kodan, Vulle, and Poa, they were strung from the gallows in the center of Inuvik City for all to see. The remaining Wisp ranks and acolytes had little choice but to submit to Takt and Uki after that.

Even Pilip surrendered willingly. At Levin’s request he was the only mage allowed to continue runesmithing, but under a constant guard watch. The healing runes he could make were incredibly valuable to Uki’s war effort.

Only Lieutenant Yojim and his battalion – who had been deployed throughout Trurok on the night of the attack – were left to fight for Inuvik Academy, and those forces met Mei and Takt in an open field two weeks after the Academy’s fall.

It was a slaughter. The final battlemages of Inuvik Academy had likely counted on one of the Great Clans interfering, but no Smoke-tier help came. The Chensu Clan had quickly brokered an agreement with Uki, so of course Yojim found no help there – if anything, they would have aided Takt and Mei. But neither Mumik Lillwu nor Mintar Grinn were willing to risk annihilation for Inuvik’s scraps.

The Grinn Clan reluctantly agreed with the Mage Hunter’s demands, and released their slaves. They retreated from Trurok’s affairs into their rune array-guarded territory, focusing fully on expeditions into the Ascraeus Mountains. Uki worried they would become a grave threat someday, but she had more pressing matters for now.

It was the Lillwu Clan that provided the greatest resistance. Their Chimera pits required massive amounts of food to keep the beasts inside complacent, and slave work was essential for producing that food. But worst of all, Chimeras were unstable and dangerous, each one a predatory beast stuffed inside the body of a human. Even one of them being released into the countryside could result in dozens or hundreds of civilian casualties.

So it would be a stalemate born of mutually assured destruction while Uki worked out all the necessary contingency plans. But that was fine – they now had far superior firepower on their side, especially since the number of Karmic threads she could call on had replenished and then some in the wake of their victories. The complete liberation of Trurok would only be a matter of time.

And then, finally, finally, she could transition into the last phase of her plans. The dream she had held ever since she had Awakened, ever since she had lost her orphanage. Ever since Silla, her own son, had been corrupted by the allure of power that magehood brought.

She dreamed of a new Trurok. The fields the Lillwu devoted to their foul monstrosities would go to the people instead. The vast plantations growing magical resources would be torn up, replaced with wheat and corn, cows and sheep, turning Trurok into a land of plentiful food. The former slaves that had fled to the far outskirts of Trurok to escape the mages could move back to the land, bringing their families to a bountiful and peaceful place.

Because Trurok was bountiful, no matter how much the mages scorned it. It couldn’t grow the powerful, energy-infused plants that mages prize, but the food was second-to-none. Until now, it had taken only a small fraction of the shining, rolling fields to feed the entire population of Trurok. Under Uki, all that wasted territory would be put to food and new villages, giving new lives to the poor and hungry while weakening the long-term potential of mages.

And then, only then, could warriors truly rise. Uki could envision the start of a new martial tradition beginning with Takt, one that would eventually see warriors of his caliber as common as strands of grass. But even if such a future were to pass, it would take generations.

Uki intended to spend the rest of her life nourishing those generations.