Lostrifar Astrideus

Lostrifar restored the lower half of her body before the shock of her plunging blood pressure rendered her unconscious. Such a lapse in focus would result in her immediate death; therefore, it was unacceptable to leave the injury be, even if there were other uses for her mana that seemed more urgent.

She raised one of her regrettably small hands and ten percent of her mana flowed through her Channeling, releasing a wave of supercharged plasma easily capable of incinerating a city. The beast that had nearly killed her was caught in the blast, along with a dozen of its lower-tier companions. She grinned in satisfaction when only half of them died, the rest protected by the tier ten that was her true target: She had finally forced it to use its aspect.

With its nearly impenetrable defenses momentarily inaccessible, she had a slim window to wrap her aura—infused with her Aspect of Genesis—around its body. Her power dug into its skin even as it Teleported away. It escaped, but not before the true damage was done. The beast screeched in impotent rage as every facet of its strength was returned to the moment of its birth. Before it could recover, she appeared at its side and sunk her fire-wrought hands into its chest. One of which was covered by the glove she and the enigmatic Jiran of Feylon crafted.

Her own specialized version of Mana Siphon, Mana Tear, ripped the beast’s energies from its manapool. It was then sucked through the glove where it was forced to match the colors of her mana, thereby, making it hers. What couldn’t fit in her manapool was wound into her Mana Cord—a gift from her first acclamation. Simultaneously, Love of the Sky enveloped her arms in the meaning of wind itself. Jiran had told her how the creation of wind was nothing more than moving air due to differences in pressure. She used that concept to create thousands of rings around her limbs which were still buried in the beast's torso. Each ring held enormous quantities of pressurized air and when she released them outward, the tier ten was diced into too many pieces to count.

With its mana depleted and the efficacy of its skills reduced by her aspect, there was no coming back for the tenacious Graymin. The tornado that formed due to her unleashed technique rampaged around her, sending the swarming tier eights and nines hurtling helplessly while shredding their bodies.

Teleport brought her to the limp, disfigured form of Sagrinar who was falling after receiving the surprise attack that had begun the skirmish. Revivify flowed through her channels and into him, bringing him back to life. As his eyes fluttered open, she fed him just enough mana to fulfill his role, should they immediately be set upon again. Her aura went to work dismantling the Graymin foolish enough to remain in range while she gazed at the remarkable formation covering her hand. Feeling the supple material that could somehow effortlessly contain vast quantities of mana, her thoughts were once more dragged back to her conversation with the boy.

Did I lay it on too thick? Did he see through my act? Even if he did, I'm way too cute to resist! He'll definitely play with me more in the future. It certainly is fun messing with the promising youngsters. Mother above knows I’ll do anything to relieve the monotony at this point.

Sagrinar coughing blood reminded her she wasn’t alone. He wiped his chin, watching her suspiciously, “You won again… Monster,” he croaked.

She snorted, directing her gaze to the emperors’ intense battle far to the north, “So rude. I'll forgive you this once, since you're having a bad day.”

Sagrinar chuckled weakly, then winced, “Dying twelve times is indeed a bad day.”

“Fifteen,” she corrected, withholding the smile that threatened to pull at the corners of her lips.

He looked at her with a deadpan expression before giving up on breaking through her stony exterior. Sagrinar once more triggered his aspect as they waited far above the horde. Their job was to attract any tier tens, and his Aspect of Obsession was a perfect beacon to draw them in. The only problem was that they often arrived instantly and from too far away to predict. Starting each engagement on the back foot was tiresome, and dangerous, but at least it wasn’t boring.

As he swept his senses over the vast horde, his voice was tinged with exasperation, “How can they have so many tier tens? They should have easily wiped out the empire long ago. Why withhold such forces until now?”

“We've clearly been underestimating them,” Lostrifar agreed, “After seeing this army, I'm certain they have been using us as a farm. I get the sense this isn't their best, merely what they could scrap together upon short notice.”

“That unpopular opinion is all but a certainty now, isn't it?” Sagrinar stood up straight, now fully healed, “Is Pierro still alive?”

Lostrifar stretched her aura into an elongated shape and swept it across their surroundings, “He's still with the other rankers.”

“Are any of them…”

Lostrifar nodded sadly, interjecting his unspoken question, “Several of the Will-less are no more.”

Sagrinar's features twisted as he clenched his fists, “A bad day indeed.”

A massive explosion caused them to look far to the north, well beyond the range of their meager battle for survival. A wall of energy a hundred kilometers high married the ground to the sky. The shockwave released from that cataclysmic attack decimated millions of beasts and wiped a swath of mountains from existence as it traveled beyond sight.

Luckily, the king had once more aimed away from them. Undoubtedly, in an attempt to eradicate one of the emperors. Lostrifar squinted, seeing five more of its eyes were still closed. Each time one of them opened, a similarly powerful blast would be released. Since those attacks carried such an unfathomably large quantity of mana, she assumed the king used a similar mana-storage technique to hers. Upon seeing the telltale signs of all three emperors resuming the fight, they breathed mirrored sighs of relief.

“Most of its eyes are open now,” Lostrifar commented, chewing on her lip.

“And we're still alive,” Sagrinar finished her thought, finally allowing the smallest fraction of hope to flicker in his heart.

“Don't jinx it!” She snapped, annoyed he would be so foolish. There was no way any of the others could survive one of those blasts, and she only gave herself a fifty-fifty chance. Despite her usual aloofness, she cared deeply for her old friends and the thought of any of them vanishing from her life was heart-wrenching.

Long since used to her personality, Sagrinar continued as though she hadn't yelled, “On that note, do you really believe what Lenton said about Jiran’s curse?”

She narrowed her eyes, unsure of why he was bringing up the boy again after she had told him not to an hour ago, “Yes. I followed his advice and I suggest you do the same. That's likely the reason you keep dying while I remain completely unscathed…”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

It wouldn’t do his mentality any good to know how close that last fight was.

Sagrinar’s eyes snapped to her in mild surprise, “Since when did you become superstitious?”

She exhaled sharply through her teeth, “You know I'm not the type to leave a perfectly good tool unused just because I don't understand how it functions.”

“Tool? That's not what it looked lik—”

“If you want me to bring you back the next time you die, I suggest you not finish that sentence.”

Jiran of Madra

“Your idea of bringing the People to the Valley of Melodies was spot on,” Jiran praised Mayalyn.

Her ears twitched at the compliment, not at all matching her words, “That is hardly worthy of such acclaim. Our hunters are here, and the chances of our deaths are not negligible. If you were to die, the Peoples’ cubs and mothers would be trapped in a land which would soon be overrun by Graymin. It was merely logical to remove them from such a vulnerable situation. It is not as though I foresaw them being attacked by the very empire we were supposed to be allied with.”

Jiran’s eyes hardened, “These traitors are not a part of the empire. When this is over, I’ll be—”

His words cut off as a truly ludicrous sight greeted his eyes. A gargantuan shadow swept from the northern mountain pass to the city in the south. It traveled at a speed a normal human eye would have no chance of tracking, but for an ascender, it crawled across the land. The shadow was born from an object so large it blotted out the sky, spreading darkness and despair to every sapient creature foolish enough to glance up. It was only thanks to his current distance from the battlefield that Jiran saw the object clearly, for surely those fighting directly beneath would be unable to grasp the reality of an entire mountain hurtling through the sky above them.

Jiran pulled Mayalyn through the air. Gases ignited beneath them, propelling them far too slowly to make a difference. The enormous projectile cleared the pass and the new wardwalls before it slammed into the four-kilometer-wide city wall. Stones, formations, and soldiers were crushed with utter impunity. An expanding wave of force billowed outward from the demolished fortifications, dealing untold damage to the soldiers stuck in the wave of sand. All save the very furthest edges of the city walls fell in a matter of moments. Of the city itself, hardly a single structure remained standing.

Luckily, the shockwave wreaked just as much chaos amongst the Graymin. In addition to being blown away and buried, their path was now blocked by a literal mountain of debris. Still, these were creatures with enough strength to hurl their dense bodies dozens of meters into the air with each jump.

There was no need for words between Jiran and Mayalyn. Before they even arrived, he had begun pushing elemental lightning into her body. She released it in a steady stream that he collected into a crackling ball ahead of them. With a press of intent through the framework, the ball leaped away at a startling speed. It crashed into the front waves of Graymin at the far eastern side of the city as they attempted to infiltrate the now massive gap in the empire’s defenses.

Countless whips of current raced through their ranks, connecting them with cerulean chains that spelled instant death. A moment later, a second ball of lightning impacted the ground further to the west, turning even more of the beasts into kindling and blocking yet another access point into the ruins of Melathon. But the breach was several kilometers wide and there was far too much space for Mayalyn and him to cover alone.

Jiran could see the dwindling manapools of his people winking out one after another. They were buried under so much weight and rubble that even a tier four would struggle to free himself. Fury clawed at his guts as he passed over them, unable to stop his desperate attempt to lace the entire breach with balls of lightning. Due to the surviving citizens and soldiers, he couldn’t risk using a more destructive gravity ball or one of his new weapon formations.

The three minutes it took for Dokkuun to arrive felt like hours. He didn’t come alone. Two dozen tier sevens accompanied him. They spread out, their new spears and swords wreaking havoc amongst the jumping and scrambling beasts. Mayalyn pointed to an area thick with the monsters before tucking into a ball. Jiran nodded, placed his hand on the bottom of her feet, and hurled her as hard as he could with his mana, strength, and aura. Her body nearly became a bolt of lightning as she hurtled through the air and exploded into their midst.

Jiran didn’t see her land. He was far too busy tearing through rubble to pull out survivors. The city had long ago been evacuated; still, there were plenty of volunteers, soldiers, and support regimens remaining. Mana Omnis gave him a massive advantage in finding them. Surprisingly, Markhiss showed up, his shadowy figures locating several people that he quickly saved. By the time Jiran pulled out the last, Olive had managed to reorganize the Imperials into a ragged defensive line. Just an hour ago, seeing his people fighting side-by-side with the Forkara would have been heartwarming. Now, it was only barely enough to keep them alive.

He moved toward the largest clump of blazing manapools, finding Olive, Mayalyn, Knife, Dokkuun, that stupid general he didn’t know the name of, and even the Aahmra. Olive was shouting while busily scratching at a map, her voice strained from the frustration of being unable to communicate. When she sensed Jiran’s aura, she looked over her shoulder in relief.

“What’s the situation?” His voice was harder than he meant it to be but none of those gathered seemed to mind.

Olive was in full battle-princess mode as she responded succinctly, “Rook variants have begun appearing within the horde. They’re also infiltrating through the mountains east and west, which should be impossible with all the traps. They must be losing thousands but they aren’t stopping. The soldiers I have stationed there are being overrun.”

The solution to at least one of their problems was obvious and Jiran was quick to snap an order, “Dokkuun, send half of your tier six and seven warriors to the mountains east and west of the battlefield. Stop the Graymin from circling behind us. You’ll be facing tier sixes, but expect sevens as well. Stay in groups. Do not pursue if they flee. The mountains are full of tier ten and eleven traps.” Dokkuun saluted and blasted away on a gust of wind.

“With the absence of the higher-tier Forkara, our line will struggle to stall the rook variants,” Olive pointed out.

“Knife, relocate half the Unbroken to plug the new gap,” Jiran’s command had her scrambling to obey, and at Olive’s shout, a nearby tier six mercenary picked her up in his aura. “I’ll thin them out until the Unbroken are in position,” Jiran knew the battle would quickly become impossible if the Graymin were allowed to repeat their previous attack. He asked the question on all of their minds, “How in Mother's shadow did they throw a mountain?”

The moment he spoke it, the answer came to him and Olive at the same time, “The missing rooks.”

“How many of them must it take to throw a mountain? Two hundred thousand? Three? How are we going to deal with that before they do it again?” Olive’s expression became more pained with each word, hopelessness creeping into her psyche.

Jiran remained calm, and his hand gently landed atop her shoulder, instantly soothing her frayed nerves, “I can deal with them.”

“No!” Mayalyn growled, “Not alone. Do not be needlessly reckless!”

This time, Jiran stood his ground, firmly shaking his head, “I won’t bring anyone below tier seven as they would only slow me down. I have no intention of fighting them fairly. You know better than anyone the range and power of the new weapon formations. Besides, the rankers should have cleared out anything above tier seven on their way north. I’m the best, no, the only one who can do this. And the faster I am, the safer I am.”

Mayalyn stomped her foot, sending cracks through the rocky rubble. She threw her head back, flexed every muscle in her body, and released a furious but short scream that contained all of her bottled up frustration at being too weak to accompany him. In the next moment, her arms were around his neck and she was whispering in his ear, ”Return to me soon, my Aajiran.” The kiss that landed on his cheek was lighting fast and before he could respond, she stormed off toward the nearest fighting with her claws extended and murder in her eyes.

I will. Love you too.

When Mayalyn was out of sight, Jiran found Olive watching him with furrowed brows, “Are you sure?” She questioned softly, clearly just as unhappy as Mayalyn, though expressing it in her own way.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me. In the absolute worst-case scenario, I have a pretty good backup plan that should at least get me out alive. I’ve left a few surprises behind to protect your rear, in case it takes me longer than I think to get back. If that worst-case happens, can I rely on you to get my allies back through their portals?”

“O-of course!” Olive saluted, “You can always count on me!”

“I know,” Jiran had done his best the entire conversation to shove down his boiling anger. He gave her the warmest smile he could muster before turning to the horde. With nothing left between him and exacting his vengeance for the dead, he let that fury rise to the surface and leaped into the air.