“I can make one for you,” Gaia said still not quite understanding what a nuke was but knowing better by now than to ask, “as it stands it would take most of your mana simply to create the area.”
Taylor held up a hand, “that’s ok the nuke should be something I can do with almost no mana.”
Turning to look at Taylor, Gaia says “if this spell is as destructive as you say and uses little mana then you should never-“
“Never use it or teach it to others, yeah I know.” He interrupted, “honestly sometimes you act like I’m not smart enough to know when something is dangerous.”
“Well to be fair,” Gaia sighed, “in my eyes you’re nothing more than a newborn.”
“Yeah I get that, but I’m 27 years old, still somewhat young I suppose but I’ve always been pretty smart.” He rambled off, “besides this is one of the more tame of the spells of mass destruction I have in mind.”
Gaia stood, mouth agape for a moment, “this spell can supposedly destroy a multiple tens if not hundreds of miles of land and this is tame?”
Taylor grinned at him, “well if I can get the theory straight in my head magic kinda helps fill the gaps in the science. I have spells in mind that could destroy the planet if not the universe. Have you ever heard of a strangelet? Maybe a black hole? Or if I make a fire hot enough it would light the atmosphere on fire, or I could use magic to change the entire atmosphere to something not breathable, there’s many ways I could destroy everything honestly.”
“D-do you have weapons like this where you came from?” Gaia stammered both scared and in awe of the sheer level of destruction presented to him by a single mortal.
“Only the nukes, the rest is only hypothetical.” Taylor waved a hand, “it’s not like we’re actually trying to destroy a planet yet.”
“Yet?” Gaia questioned.
With a sigh Taylor explained, “we’d barely made it off planet last I knew. There’s no reason we’d have to know how to destroy a planet anytime soon, unless we were contacted by a hostile alien race. Now can you explain how to make that space? I don’t want to have to give you a lecture on the history of human space flight and the ideas of what is in space if I can help it. That’s a huge task to be honest.”
“Okay,” Gaia resigned, “focus on a large area, however large you need it to be. But be warned, don’t go too big as you will be using your mana to more or less halt the movement of all the particles of the entire area so as to make sure there’s no real damages.”
“So I’m basically putting a whole area in stasis” Taylor said as he selects the area north east of them for about a five mile cube, “I think I can handle this much.”
Entering a deeper state of mana synchronization he just called phase two he was able to physically feel mana and his sensitivity to it increased ten fold. Using this he spread his mana slowly to fill the whole area like a gas and used it to constrict all movement at the smallest level possible.
I’m the area he selected all noise stoped. No more bugs crawling, no more animals running. The leaves and the air itself ceased to move.
“Well done.” Gaia said sounding genuinely impressed, “I thought it would take you at least a few days to get it.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Yeah well here comes the dangerous part,” Taylor said through gritted teeth, “I need you on standby, if things go wrong can you move the explosion way way in the air? Like I’m talking a good 30 miles or so up”
“A matter displacement spell should suffice for that” Gaia said calmly.
“Good, then here goes nothing,” and he closed his eyes.
Focusing on the space I the exact middle he pulled atoms together piece by piece to make a small clump of plutonium about the size of half of his pinky nail. Around that he summoned a sphere of another material. What? Did you think I was going to explain how to make a nuke? Sorry I won’t be out on a government watch list for this thank you very much.
The sphere around the nuke causes the matter inside to go critical, very quickly losing its form and causing an uncontrollable reaction. Even with the stasis magic in place the bomb still goes off and the explosion is starting to expand at a rapid pace.
Not being able to react in time Taylor just watched as a bright light appeared, well as a flash shines through his eyelids anyway and just as suddenly disappears. Looking up he watches a mushroom could form in the distance. It’s still thirty or so miles above ground but it’s absolutely massive nonetheless.
Gaia stared at the explosion with a slight look of disbelief, “the explosion isn’t dangerous to me nearly as much as whatever that explosion did to the surrounding air.” He said just barely loud enough for Taylor to hear, “it literally killed the mana.”
“Mana can die?” Taylor asked surprised.
“It’s the only way I can explain it,” Gaia said still staring at the cloud, “it’s no longer usable and if anyone were to try to use the mana in that spot they would-“
Before he could finish a large figure appeared in the sky and flew into the cloud, a bright flash of purple energy appeared and the figure began to fall.
“Well that would happen” Gaia said, “you may want to go get them, they may still be alive if they’re who I think.”
Starting his spells up he jumped into the air toward where the figure was going to land, and the closer he got the more distinct the figure became. Large body, wings, a tail. Was that a dragon?
With a thud that shook the ground it landed hard throwing dirt and leaves into the air. Taylor slowed to a jog and as he approached it it began to shrink. The tail becoming shorter and the wings retracting into their back, the horns shrinking and the body as a whole becoming smaller. It now resembled a Dragonborn from dungeons and dragons.
It had yellow scales and was completely unclothed, he supposed it made sense seeing as getting big like that would destroy any clothes they had on them. Oddly enough she, yes she, had breasts, indicating her sex and that dragon breast fed? Odd to say the least, but who was he to judge when he had never seen a real dragon before.
Next to her was a bag that seemed to have fallen with her, embroidered on the side was the name Melody and an insignia of some sort. Entering mana synchronization he looked at her to see the man’s burning bright within her, but mixed in to the beautiful blue glow he was familiar with was a dark purple burning away at the mana.
He grabbed her up in a princess carry and hooked her bag on his arm and ran back to Gaia as fast as he could. He didn’t even bother using magic to cross instead boosting his physics speed to its max and running across the water.
“Gaia, something’s wrong with her mana! I don’t know how to help her!” Laying her down he tossed the bag to the side and looked at the old man as he knelt next to her.
“This dead mana seems to be be eating her own mana,” he mused, “I’ll have to extract it and try to convert it back to Norma mana again to help her.”
Reaching out his hand over the center of her chest Taylor watched as tendrils of the odd gold energy snaked out from Gaia and seemed to grab the purple mana and rip it away from her. She started to scream and thrash around in pain.
“Hold her, I need to concentrate. I’ve only done this once before.” Gaia said with the strain of the task visible on his face.
Putting his experience as a guard at the hospital on earth to work he held her leg down and decided to use Magic’s to create golems of himself that would mimic his own actions. They each grabbed an appendage and held it in place, either holding her down with weight on her lower thigh and upper shin or her upper and lower arm on either side of her elbows.
She still thrashed harder than anyone he had to hold before and her scales were cutting his hands but he didn’t care at the moment. “Fucking he’ll that hurts” he grunted.
He watched as Gaia molded the purple mana into a ball and it slowly turned blue again. Once it was finished he pushed the mana back into her body causing her to relax and fall back asleep.
“What was that?” Taylor asked releasing his magic and falling back using mana to stitch his wounds closed and forcing the healing process to take place in the span of only one second.
“Mana decay,” Gaia panted, “mana by nature is unchangeable, but there’s the odd occurrence where someone meddles with magic in such a way that causes this dead mana to exist. If you come into contact with it, it will begin to eat your own mana turning it into more dead mana. Doing this will kill you in the most painful way possible.”
Okay that answered that question but Taylor still had another thing on his mind. He went over to the bag opening it to find a few items but he found the one he was looking for, a long white sundress. All he needed was some sort of clothing. Walking back he propped her up and put the dress on her and layer her in the recovery position.
“Who is this? And how did you know her?” Taylor asked Gaia.
“She is Melody,” Gaia answered a tinge of sadness in his voice, “and she is the last dragon in this world.”