As the grenades forced the soldiers back and his Red Swords drove into the enemy lines. Briox forced the magic for from his astral body, cloaking reality in his will. The battlefield flashed through his mind and his grey cat leapt diving towards the inquisitor. A thrust of a blade from the Inquisitor had Briox yanking his mount aside, his mana pressing upon reality to try and slow the beam of searing light that flew by them. That was the way of a creature master, spread your mana, cover the battlefield, weaken the foes attacks, aid your allies. The Inquisitor followed a different path, their mana was condensed, solid as a mountain within themselves, a blade that can cut all before them or a mountain that cannot be broken. It limited their powers, but in return they were a piece of reality that could not be altered, their spells more "real" than other mages, their resistance to magic nearly complete.

Behind him Briox felt a Red Sword fall, the light ray searing clean through his head. Briox pushed his magic driving it into his creatures and boosting their reactions, and their healing. As he did that the grey cat lept slamming its claws down upon the inquisitor. Briox looked down his eyes wide as the Inquisitor used his arm as a shield and held firm under the strength of the grey cats pounce. He had slide backwards maybe a foot, but neither his arm nor his armor seemed injured by the cats strike. The Inquisitor looked up at Briox and smiled viciously "Its rude to interrupt, so don't blame me for being rough". As his words finished, Briox threw himself sideways off his mount, the sword of the Inquisitor driving through the animal and once it emerged on the other side emitting another light beam meant to incinerate its rider. Briox stepped forward and swung his blade, stabbing at the Inquisitor, his blade easily knocked aside and the Inquisitor lashed out at him. Briox dodged aside and then rushed in for another stab, back and forth until the Inquisitor burst forth with a blinding light, and Briox felt a brutal impact upon his torso. He was knocked back onto the ground by the Inqusitors kick and had no way to dodge as the blade swung through the air. And then they were there, a pair of Red Swords threw themselves at the Inquisitor. Briox rolled away but his mana allowed him to watch as the blade slide through the first ones sword, his armor, and the smile on the second ones face as they too threw themself forward, their blade slowing it down, but not enough to stop the Inqusitors swing from taking her head, she had seen it go through her fellow, but for the creator she went forward. Briox watched the head fall to the ground, the speed of a magi's battle making it appear so slow as he dodged another sword strike. Something inside him hurt, another death, another one of his people gone, for a second the head falling to the ground was not the Red Sword who had given her life for him, but someone else. The Inqusitor grimaced "By the Holy Emperor, your quick, how are you doing it? body enhancement? perhaps some form of temporal displacement? or illusion?" The Inquisitor asked as he casually swung his sword, cresent shaped rays of "Divine Light" tore through the mountain road and the mountain behind.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Briox dodged, retreatng as the Inquisitor followed and the mountain behind them began to rumble. The mana within his body was still strong allowing him to continue dodging for some time, but it was not a spell as the young inquisitor seemed to believe. Briox simply dodged when he felt the Inquisitor begining to attack, the aura he surrounded himself with would normally have been torn apart by the prescence of another mage with a higher concentration of mana, the inquisitors mana being totally contained may have made them nearly immune to magic, and invisible to most detection spells, but a moving hole in an aura still has dimensions. Finally the Inquisitor stopped swinging his blade wildly and Briox threw a bolt of fire at him. Briox actually had to smile at the look on his face, it was so...flabbergasted? "You threw a bolt of fire...at me?! are you an idiot!?" by the time the Inqusitor had reached the end of his sentence he was shouting. Briox laughed at him, really, he had never planned on being a combat magus, the only training he had in the ways of war were those required as the basics in case a draft was needed to hold the borders with the dark lands. The most powerful offensive spell he had was only the common fire bolt that ever apprentice magi could cast, fire magic being simply the agitation of molecules and application of energy, childs play, literally for a magi child. He had never planned to fight a war, to watch his friends and creations die, but that didn't matter, as the Inquisitor retaliated.

The Inquisitor offended swung his blade, a wall of light erupted leaving no way for briox to dodge. Briox chanted as fast as he could "Sporots if tha encoants, shoald ma frim megoc!" and then vanished into the light. When the light vanished a large chunk of the mountain was gone, the overhang above it collapsing in an avalance. Briox stood there, sweating and shaking, a shielding amulet lay on the ground at his feet cracked in no less than six pieces, the trio of, now empty, potions that would rapidly renew a mages mana lay beside it. Then the pain came, the Inqusitor stood there, an arms reach away, his sword pierced completely through Briox's heart. "Remember to tell those in the afterlife, it was i Iroglas Van Heisler who killed you" the Inquisitor smiled at finally ending the annoying magi, he had been annoying but at least it would be a tale to tell once he made it home, and a merit he could leverage for perhaps a bit of a reward. The soldiers deaths at the hands of magical creatures was simply proof of him eliminating a heretic mage, a hazard of being cannon fodder. Iroglas continued to smile as he withdrew his sword, and then his smile vanished as the magi he had run through, grabbed his arm and looked up from where he had been gazing at the blade through his heart. Briox smiled, a smile that was as much a grimace as a madmans grin "You know, Iroglas Van Heisler, this doesn't hurt as much as i thought it would". That was when Briox drove his blade upwards, into the links of the Inqusitors runed chain mail, through it, and up into his heart and lungs. The world went totally black as every drop of Briox's mana followed that massive triangular blade into the Inqusitor, and then burst out as fire. Briox only had enough time to speak, "Crossax Vandolheim, haer ma" in the ancient language, and then he knew no more.