Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:47

Charo Street, 7th Circle, Royal Capital Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Olivia Pine Fredirin.

The thing observed us with its one remaining eye, this simple act making my skin crawl, my muscles tense, and my mana to flow erratically. It took all of my willpower to not move, to not attack the corruption before me, to not turn and flee.

And while I locked my body down, my attention had wavered, I had not even noticed that the thing in the guise of a woman had turned fully toward us, even having begun to lift its weapon.

“You! Name yourself!” One of my cousin’s guards had noticed however, and yelled out to the thing.

But he did not understand what was before us. Just like with the other Elementals, no one seemed to understand what they were, how wrong they were, how corrupt they were.

And yet, the thing halted in its movements for just the slightest moment as it considered what he said. Still, it was only for a moment, and then it resumed its seemingly hostile movement.

“Stay your hand!” The same guard yelled again, but the thing ignored him and even took a step towards our group.

But, that one moment of hesitation was enough for me to realize it wasn’t as mindless as the Elementals we had been fighting.

“I said stop! If you-”

“Wait.” I cut the knight off and stepped forward towards it.

The corrupted thing did not stop as I stepped forward, it did not alter its movements at all.

“By the Covenant of the Planes, I ask for parley,” I spoke in the ancient, arcane tongue that once spread throughout the multiverse.

My words, a mixture of hissing, growling, singing, and normal speech, could only be understood by those who already knew the meaning behind them. Anyone who did not, would find it impossible to make sense of what I just said, to remember the sounds, to try and copy them. Even a single word, repeated, would sound different each time, it would defy any attempts at leaving a record. A listener could not even remember the words once they were spoken.

My companions all stopped and threw odd looks at me, but I paid them no mind, my attention was focused on the aberration of nature before me. The thing stopped at my words, but other than tilting its head, it did nothing else.

“By the Covenant of the Planes, I ask for parley,” I asked again.

This time, the thing lifted its other arm, the one made of ice, and began feeling around its face. It explored both of its ears before turning to the front of its face, it ran frozen fingers over its throat and then moved to its mouth. It peeled back its lips, pushed around its tongue, moved around the cheeks, and then even tore out one of its teeth.

“By the Covenant of the Planes, I ask for Parley,” I repeated for the third time.

The thing watched me as I spoke, it’s eyes taking in my every movement even as I attempted to make each of those movements as obvious as possible. Finally, it seemed to have a moment of clarity, and it drew in a ragged breath, something it had not been doing since it first appeared. At first, it choked, the blood leaking from the scratched interior of its mouth and missing tooth did not help, but after a few breaths, it mastered how to breathe.

“Byyyyy… bbbY.... BY!... bY… ThE… coVEn… CoVenANt… of… ThE… PLaNeSSS, I Grrrr-GrANt pARleY…” The thing struggled to speak, but its words could be understood. “bY ThE CoVenANt, nA-nAMe… yoUR… yOURselfff”

Its words were difficult to understand due to its lack of experience using a human body to make sound, but it was enough. Enough that I could understand it, and enough that it could understand me, which was all I needed to use this ancient language to try and negotiate with it.

A long time ago, when this language was more widely used, a grand spell was woven into it, that allowed any two sides who could both understand it, to forcibly come to a discussion. Unless the Elemental before me had never learned this language, or was completely mindless, the magic in the words would force it to talk to me.

All of this was an ancient way to try and avoid conflict between the most powerful beings, and it seemed to have worked to some degree, just like it was working right now.

“I Am Olivia Pine Fredirin. I ask for your name.”

“KeLLhuS, EmiSSary of sTiLL FRost.”

My hands, already clenched into fists, tightened further still at the thing’s words. I had already suspected it, but knowing what this thing was, it still increased the pressure on me.

“Greetings, Kellhus, Emissary of Still Frost.” Despite my unease, I still followed the ancient protocol for this meeting.

“Grrrr-GreatinGS, OlivIA pINE FRedirin.” And the Elemental Lord before me did the same, following the rules perfectly.

Still, an Elemental Lord... This was a calamity for Arvas, and likely the entire Fredirin Kingdom. I was unsure what heights the mortals of this world had reached, but from what I had seen so far, an Elemental Lord should be beyond them. Maybe, if the entire Kingdom fought it at once, they might be able to prevail, but such a concentration of forces would be largely impossible.

From the understanding I had acquired since I had woken up here, this Elemental Lord will likely be able to sweep through the entire Kingdom, if it desired to do so. In fact, it should be able to sweep through the entire planet, nothing would be able to stand against it. And that presumes that the planet itself doesn’t collapse under the weight of the Lord’s Mana. Most likely, within days the planet will break apart and the chunks will be absorbed into the Elemental Plane of Water.

A Lord could step upon only the strongest of worlds, and this one, while pretty decent, was not strong enough to host such a powerful being.

“Cur-CurIOUs ThAT a moRtaL-aL knoWS This toNGue aND knOWs of ThE CoVenANt.” The Elemental Lord, Kellhus’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. “whiLE I haVE giVEn pARleY, yoU mu-muST spEAk.”

“Why are you here?” I decided to ask the most important question first.

“HEre? whY am I HEre? WhEre is HEre?” Kellhus instead asked in confusion.

“Here?” I, myself, was confused at its confusion. “This is a material world.”

“It… iS…?” It looked around bewildered for a second, “It iS… whY am I HEre? ThEre is LiTTle wATer, LiTTle iCE.”

“Then…” I was getting even more confused by Kellhus’s behavior, “How did you get here?”

“I… I am an AsPEct. I waSss insPEctinG a Di-disTURbanCe. An OpEninG in ThE bARrier to a wORld. BuT… ThE bARrier waSss wICKed, cORruPt. I waSss… I waSss drAwN in, trapPed! cuT of FroM mY mAin BodY!” Kellhus’s tone stayed neutral, but it got louder and it was clear it was agitated.

However, none of its agitation mattered to me.

This thing was not an Elemental Lord itself, but only an aspect of one. A Lord could divide their will into portions, allowing multiple bodies with their own mind to work on multiple projects at once. Aspects were powerful, holding a portion of the main body’s strength, but they were nothing compared to the main body.

“And that body? It is a mortal’s, is it not?” I asked.

“YeS, mY BodY waSss deStROyed wHen I waSss drAwn in. ThiS BodY waSss SUitaBLe.”

With that, I was able to confirm that while Arvas would take severe damage in the process, defeating the Aspect should be possible for the people who had remained within the castle. My only current concern would be that that was where Pamela and Timothy had been taking shelter. That said, there was nothing I could do about it now, and they would also be safest there, I knew that the castle would be the last place to fall if it came to that, and it would not. The elites within would move out well before the rest of the city was destroyed and the castle threatened. I knew that the King, my grandfather, has a powerful bodyguard by the name of Xavier, who was reportedly over Rank 10. He might not be enough to face this aspect himself, but with support, he could surely destroy it.

“Then I would like to ask you to allow me and my companions to withdraw peacefully. Otherwise we will be forced to fight, and while weaker than you, with your body being unstable, you should avoid a fight now.”

“nO.” Was the simple reply.

“Why?” I frowned, not understanding why Kellhus would want to fight.

“ThE mAGiC of ThE CoVenANt PReVeNts me fRom attACKinG yoU nOw, buT ThE AuRA of cORruPtioN aROUnd yoU is tOO stROnG, I neeD to CLeanSe it.”

My frown deepened at that, but it made sense. The Elemental itself was so corrupted that to its own senses, anything else would seem corrupt in turn.

But, it was also a problem. Because I understood exactly how overwhelming the sensation to destroy the source of this unpleasant feeling was. The only reason I did not attack it was due to the fact I would not win.

“We have no conflict between us.” I tried to reason.

“YoU havE deStROyed mY breTHRen, a conFLiCT yoU stARted.”

“...” I couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

“ThE lesSEr spaWN aRe of no cONcerN, buT yoU deStROyed onE of mY chiLdreN. ThiS bodY I hAVe taKEn deStROyed anOTHer, anD onE mORe waS deStROyed bY ThE lesSer MortALs reCENtlY.”

Elementals could be logical to a fault, but they also operated from a different base than most other things. In Kellhus’s mind, the people here needed to be destroyed, thus, they should be destroyed. If they resist, that was, to the Elemental, illogical and irrational. That other Elementals were destroyed in the fighting, was not excusable, Kellhus did not give us the right to self-defense, and no amount of reasoning with the Elemental Lord would change its mind. The fact that three Greater Elementals had been killed had likely cemented its stance.

Still, to think that the original owner of the Lord’s body had destroyed a Greater Elemental herself, she must have been someone of some import.

“By the Covenant of the Planes, I offer compensation for favor and grace.”

“bY ThE CoVenANt of the PLaNeSss… yoU mAY preSEnT yoUr oFFer.”

“By the Covenant of the Planes, I require time to present my offer, time to discuss it with my companions.”

“GraNTed.”

Without another word to the Elemental Lord, I turned back to the others, who all looked confused at the conversation we were having.

“Lillian,” I said while ignoring their questioning gazes, “We need to get far away from that thing, do you have any magic items to help?”

“I… I do not know? What is it?” she started out panicked, but calmed quickly once she began talking, “And I think I recognize it?”

“It is…” I hesitated, unsure how much I should say, but then decided on just the minimum for now. “It is an Aspect of an Elemental Lord.”

“A what?” My cousin voiced her confusion and the others all showed equally puzzled expressions on their faces.

“An Elemental Lord is a step above a Greater Elemental, but that is only an Aspect of one, and a weakened one. It should be… well, still very powerful.”

“Then… we need to outrun it?” She asked, probably not really understanding what I had explained.

“We can’t fight it. It is, at least, three or four times more powerful than the Greater Elemental we just fought.”

And that, caused everyone’s confused expressions to morph into panic and fear.

“I… I do not know… I have a wand that can allow a person to fly, but the speed is not that fast,” she said hesitantly.

“How fast?”

“Maybe… a normal person’s running speed?”

“Not fast enough,” I rejected that without a thought. “Anything else?”

“Um… I have a ring…” She said and then lifted her hand to show a small, bland metal band on her pinky finger, “It can be used to cast a recall spell…”

“But…?” I prompted knowing there was more to it than that.

“It can only be used by one person…”

“I see…”

“And it will teleport the user into the basement of my family’s house, but still…” My cousin said as she removed the ring from her finger and then handed it to me, “I want you to use it.”

Lillian put the ring into my own hand, and for a moment, I was at a loss.

Certainly, securing my own safety was the best option. Ula was one of my soldiers, and while I personally liked the woman, she was a soldier. I would not want to abandon her if I could help it, but if I must, I would. As for my cousin, I was still unsure what to do with her, my prior deliberations on the topic were left incomplete when the Elementals attacked, and by now, not only had she shown her worth, but she had begun to… grow on me. Leaving her behind, that was not something I wanted to do if I could help it.

As for her two guards, I couldn’t care less about them.

But, I also had to consider where the ring was going to take me, which was right into the depths of the Quarry Family Estate. The estate might not be that heavily guarded right now with the current situation, but would definitely be trapped and magically warded. I could probably escape, but that was not a risk I wanted to take.

Unless I had to.

“I will keep this for now,” I said as I stored the ring into one of my pockets, all the while ignoring the two knights who looked as if they were about to explode, “But, we need to consider alternatives. We can not fight that, and we seemingly can not run, can we hide?”

“Well…” My cousin seemed lost in thought for a second before suddenly coming to a realization, “I have this!”

Lillian reached into a pouch on her hip and withdrew what appeared to be an hourglass. But instead of sand or water, it was filled with a shimmering green dust.

“This can be used twice. When the dust goes down the first time, it will turn red, and then on the second, it will disappear entirely. It takes sixty minutes for the sand to change places, but while the sand is flowing, it creates a nearly impenetrable barrier, we can hide in it for that time, and maybe someone will come by to help? Or the Elemental will leave?”

“Hmm...“

That could work, but I wasn’t sure if Kellhus would leave, or if anyone strong enough to fight the Elemental Lord would arrive, at least not without it creating a lot of destruction first. But, my real concern, was that the impenetrable barrier would not live up to its name, a magic item can only store so much magic, nothing made by mortal hands could ever be unbeatable or unbreakable, and I feared that my cousin did not really understand what we were up against.

But, we had no choice.

“I need to say something to the Elemental, but when I speak, I will have my hands clenched into fists, when I release them, activate that magic item,” I instructed.

“Okay!” my cousin said excitedly. “Oh, the barrier will enclose us, but it’s small, so we all need to be close together.”

“Then, everyone get near me,” I said as I turned back to face the Elemental Lord.

“My apologies for the wait,” I said to Kellhus, and momentarily paused as I felt four bodies huddle right behind and beside me, “We have come to an agreement on what to offer.”

“MaKe yoUr oFFer.”

“I offer nothing,” I said as I unclenched my fists.

As my words echoed out across the empty street, a mist-like barrier that barely obscured vision spread out from behind me, stopping only a few inches in front of me and about two feet above me.

My cousin was right, it was small.

“It’s active, the Elemental won't be able to reach us.”

“Good,” I responded, but then frowned as I saw the Elemental’s lips move and realized I couldn’t hear it any longer, “It seems that this blocks sound too.”

“It does, it blocks everything. Magic won't go through it at all, it even blocks underground, and because air can’t get through, the item makes its own air… I think enough for five of us…”

“So we can not get a message through either?” I asked.

“No, nothing. Well… Sight can go through it, so we could motion to people, but nothing else ca-”

My cousin froze mid-word as the barrier shook, a great blast of icy air smashed into the barrier making the mist like structure waver.

“Wha… Th-that took off about a minute of time!” She said in a panic as she looked at the magical hourglass.

“So we have around fifty-eight minutes left?”

“B-but how can its attacks damage the barrier like that?”

“Just be happy that we can tell it's happening. In the worse case scenario, it can keep doing that, and we’ll be forced to use the magic item a second time.”

“That… the item needs to recharge, it only takes five minutes, but still…”

“Then… we need to buy time…” Ula spoke for the first time since we left the cellar, luckily the dire situation seemed to have cleared her mind, and she no longer wanted to eat me.

But what she said… could we buy time against an Elemental Lord? Even just a weakened aspect of one?

No… After thinking about it, we could not. The other four people would die once it focused on them, and I, in my current state, would be hard-pressed to even stall for one minute, let alone five.

What to do…?

If only Michael was not still within my heart, I would be able to fight more freely, then I would be able to not only stall, but maybe drive Kellhus away.

Again, as I pondered what to do, the barrier wavered, and I heard my cousin exclaim that we had lost another minute. That was two minutes lost in about half a minute of time, at this rate we would have less than thirty minutes in here, maybe even less than twenty.

If Michael’s soul being within my heart was the problem, then I just needed to remove it. But, the crystal was fused to the tissue of my heart, I could not just tear it out, not without severely damaging my heart in the process. And I could easily sense that the crystal was not yet ready to be removed naturally, it still had a day to go.

But… that might be my only option. I could speed the process up.

If I focused entirely on cycling my mana into the crystal, I could reduce the time. But just that, was not going to be enough. I simply could not cycle enough mana through my body fast enough, not without damaging my body with the force of my own mana.

Which meant, I needed to further strengthen my body first, and the only way I could do that in a short time, was to convert my mortal body into something that was more in line with my soul, in essence, becoming part Outsider.

This was my long-term goal in the first place, but I would have originally spent much time, years even, first reforging my body to make it as strong as possible. If I did it now, while I could increase in power later on, it would be more difficult to do so.

And, I would be trapped in this body, the body of a child. Once I converted the parts I needed too in order to cycle my mana, my growth would slow to a crawl, if it didn’t stop entirely.

The barrier wavered again, and I had no more time.

“Everyone, I need to meditate, do not bother me while I do, but alert me when there are only five minutes left,” I said and then abruptly sat down in the little space I had, and then closed my eyes.

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Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:55

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

Tunnel vision could be a real problem for some people.

“I… Don’t understand what it is doing…” An adjutant mumbled in confusion.

Experts tended to look at everything through the lenses of their expertise, a craftsman will try to solve a problem through their craft, a merchant will try to use money, a general will try to use military might, a mage will try to use magic, and so on.

It can be a dangerous mistake to make. A merchant looks at everything through the lens of how much profit it can bring, the costs versus the benefits. It is really easy for a merchant to assume others do too, that they all think the same. But sometimes, the appeal of benefits is far less effective than an emotional appeal.

General Merrick’s adjutants were all trained in the military arts, and they viewed the world in that way. Maybe not always, but right now, in the middle of a military conflict, they were locked into that one mindset. And due to that, they were baffled by the Fragment’s actions.

For ten minutes now, the Fragment had done the same as the spider-like Greater Elemental, stood still and used ranged attacks. Unlike the Greater Elemental that threw massive chunks of ice that smashed through the army’s lines, the Fragment fired off a volley of frozen spears every fifteen to thirty seconds. These spears then rained down upon the entire army.

Also unlike the Greater Elemental’s thrown attacks, the chunks of ice that smashed through the defenders, the Fragment’s attacks were almost completely blocked, inflicting very little damage upon the army.

“You know, it is pretty simple,” General Merrick said.

“It is?” An adjutant replied while everyone nearby turned to look at the General

“The Fragment is no smarter than a regular Elemental, and its overriding goal is to kill as many things as possible. So it could lumber forward slowly and crash into our line, or it could stand back and shoot ranged attacks over the entire army. Which do you think is best?”

“Well, of course, the ranged attacks would seem like the best idea,” The adjutant answered, “But since we knew what we were facing, we brought proper defenses.”

“Right,” The General agreed.

All Elementals are capable of using ranged attacks, at least that was the theory. No one could tell exactly what the differences was between two different Elementals, so while some tended to use ranged attacks more often, it was assumed that all could. Regardless, enough of them would use ranged attacks that defenses against them were not only worthwhile, but were vital. Any army lead by a general with half a brain would know to defend against ranged attacks when facing humans, against Elementals, it was even more obvious. And since the Elementals would be limited to only magical attacks based off of their Element, I was even easier to set up the proper defenses.

The entire army was protected with heavy shields that would deflect the shards of ice, but beyond that were the magical defenses. Large-scale barriers were the final defense, but walls of wind could blow the smaller shards away and destabilize the larger ones. Firewalls would turn the small ones into water and the larger ones would be weakened and dulled, and while they didn’t have many of them, walls of lightning could shatter any ice-based projectiles.

The reason why the army was able to so quickly blow away the mist created from the Light Throwers was because this army, in particular, had a huge amount of wind mages.

The absolute front line that came under direct fire suffered, but the bulk of the army was largely protected. Not perfectly protected, that was close to impossible.

“So why does it keep… Oh!”

“You understand? The Fragment is too stupid to recognize the failed results of its previous attack. It views the situation, decides it can do more damage with a ranged area of effect attack, and then lets loose with all those spears of ice. When it fails to do any real damage, it doesn’t notice.”

“I see… And I feel… sort of dumb now.”

“Hmph…” The General had to stop himself from laughing, “Well, it is easy to miss that. Still, have we heard anything from Techno-artillery position 4 and 5?”

“Yes, sir!” A different adjutant said with a salute, “Position 5 has received the spare fuel rods from position 4 and is in the process of reloading. It should be ready to fire in minutes.”

“So that gives us two Light Throwers able to fire?”

“Yes, position 4 will likely not be able to complete repairs anytime soon.”

“We’re also low on fuel I take it too?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Each Light Thrower only brought an extra set of fuel, and we lost the stockpiles from position 1 and position 2 when they were destroyed. Position 5’s was destroyed too. Position 3 used its own to reload, and position 4 sent theirs to position 5. 4 still has their unused fuel currently loaded, but the weapon is offline and those fuel rods have already synchronized with it and can’t be used elsewhere.”

“Then, once position 5 finishes reloading, have both fire simultaneously...” General Merrick said, but then stopped as he thought about something else, “Have each weapon set to five pulses.

“Yes, Sir!”

The General had held back from firing, even when position three had finished refueling, he ideally wanted all three of the remaining Light Throwers to fire at once, but since position 4 was now out of commision, the remaining two would have to do.

The Fragment was currently having very little effect on the battle, it’s presence was likely sapping morale, and some of its ranged attacks were slipping through the defenses. And those defenses would not hold forever, but for right now, it could be ignored to an extent.

But, he was afraid that should it suffer damage, or even perceive itself to be under attack, it would alter its behavior. It could not learn from previous experiences, but it could react to the current situation. So seeing that it was not doing anything important, he had issued an order for the army to likewise ignore it, which was not hard since it was outside of the range of all of their potential attacks aside from the Light Throwers.

And now, he was going to attack it. As such, he needed to make sure it was destroyed in one attack. A five pulse attack would contain a huge amount of destructive power, enough that it would destroy the Fragment even if only one attack was on target. Even if it survived, there would be enough fuel for each weapon to fire a follow-up attack with four pulses, and if that was not enough, he was not sure what to do.

But, he still was concerned, the Light throwers have proven to be rather unreliable so far, if one failed, even if it did not explode, it would be a massive problem.

“Sir! Both Techno-artillery positions report that they are ready to fire.”

“Then blow the whistle.”

After giving his orders, he touched his glasses again and his vision went black. The whistle sounded, and he waited.

Two bright lines cut through his darkened vision, and then there was a bright flash and thousands of glowing flickering lights, and he knew something had gone wrong.

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Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:57

Royal Army Western Line, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Guardian Knight Carla Redwood.

“Carla, are you alright?” Pammy asked as she crouched down and pulled Carla up from the ground.

“Ye-yes, what happened?” She asked, dazed.

“That stupid weapon they’ve been using, it must have hit too close to us, we got caught in the explosion.

Carla looked around and could barely see anything through the mist created when the beam of light fired. They had just left the front line to go out and cut through the Elementals, but they were near enough that they should have been able to see the nearest platoon. But all she could see was a broken shield, a single dead soldier, and the top half of a bear-shaped Elemental.

“They’ll blow the mist away in a second, but I think we need to fall back,” Pammy said, tension in her voice.

“Your arm, are you okay?” Carla asked, just now seeing how her friend was cradling her arm.

“A chunk of something hit me, pretty sure it is broken. We’ll deal with that later, something must have gone wrong and we need to move.”

Carla could only nod as she regained her bearings. Whatever had exploded had thrown her off of her feet and into the ground. She wasn’t hurt, but the impact had left her stunned.

“Are you two okay?” Abby’s voice rang out suddenly as she appeared through the mist.

Pammy was about to respond, but she froze upon seeing their fellow knight. Or more accurately, she froze when she saw how Abby’s arm was wrapped around Lala’s neck as she drug the crying woman forward.

“Wh-what happened?” Carla asked.

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“Her spear broke,” Abby said with a shrug, a shrug that shook Lala’s body since she was still being held by the larger woman’s headlock.

Sure enough, Lala was holding both parts of her spear, the wooden shaft had broken clean in half. There was only a few inches of wood below the spearhead, and then the rest of the shaft was held in her other hand.

“My… spear… my spear…” Lala mumbled in disbelief.

“She used it to block a shield that got sent flying,” Abby explained, “It would have taken her head off if she hadn’t, but the spear couldn’t handle it, and snapped right after.”

“My… spear…”

“She’s been like that since, I had to drag her here to find you two. Pammy, is your arm okay?”

“It’s broken,” She said with a sigh, “but I’ll get it fixed once we fall back, we shouldn’t stay here.”

“Yeah, let’s do… Oh, the wind, the mages are blowing the mist away.”

As Abby said, a huge gust of wind blew through the battlefield, cleaning away the mist that the beams of light had kicked up for the fourth time now. Carla was now able to see the area around them, and whatever the weapons had done, they had devastated the area before the front line.

A few of the farthest forward platoons suffered some damage, mostly being knocked over while a few truly unlucky ones took a direct hit, it seemed and were reduced to a pile of bodies. But the Elementals took the brunt of the attack, nearly everything up to one hundred feet out was damaged or destroyed.

“Pammy, Lala can’t fight right now, and you’re injured, so you’ll need to drag her back,” Carla ordered since she technically outranked her friend at the moment, “Abby and I will stay and prevent the next wave from overrunning the front.”

Pammy frowned, she clearly did not want to leave just the two of them behind, but she knew Carla’s words were right. The next group of Elementals would reach the front soon, and the forward groups were in severe disarray, the Elementals might have taken the most damage here, but that would change if they overwhelmed the defenders and broke into their lines.

“Fine, but be safe.”

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Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:59

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

“What happened?” General Merrick muttered as the wind once again blew, clearing away the mist that the Light Throwers had created.

Hundreds of Elementals had been destroyed in that attack, but the Fragment was completely unharmed. If it wasn’t for the devastation left behind, he would have assumed that both weapons had missed, but that clearly wasn’t the case.

“General… I think…” His adjutant said even as he leaned forward while squinting towards the battlefield.

“What is it?”

“There… seems to be a small layer of fog around the Fragment.”

“So?”

“It was always there, but I think we just thought it was nothing special, but if I look closer, it looks like it isn’t just a fog, and is a layer of ice shards, very small ice shards.”

At his adjutant’s words, no one spoke, but several other people either joined him in squinting as they leaned forward, or grabbed spyglasses and used those to look out towards the Fragment.

“He’s right! It is surrounded by ice.”

“How could we have missed that?”

“Well… they are small…”

“So!” The General’s voice stopped their chatter, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Sir, I think it is a defensive measure, a barrier. Siege weapons would be able to get through it, but not normal arrows, and as for magic, I guess it depends on the spell?”

“He’s right,” Another one of the General’s adjutants, this one with a background in magic, said, “Any spell that detonates on impact won't be able to get through that, and then most other spells do not really have that much penetrating power. Wind blades, flamethrowers, water sprays, they won't do anything.”

“And if we try the Light Throwers again?” The General asked, even if he already knew the answer.

“No good, Sir. I doubt even if we fired a full ten pulse shot, that those would get through. Maybe if we fired all five Light Throwers one after another at max power, but…”

“General Merrick, if this Humble One may say something?” Ambassador Zhou An suddenly said.

“Go ahead, Ambassador.”

“This is just this Humble One’s thoughts, but, the Fragment should not be able to create that ice cloud without limit. Even if it requires little effort, it should still require some time, so if your mages were to either deplete it, or push it away, then, might the Light Throwers find an opening to strike?”

“That… might work?” The General shot a glance at the adjutant who had already spoken about magic.

“The theory is sound…” That adjutant said as he seemed to momentarily become lost in thought.

“The question is, could we manage to do that? And then have the Light Throwers follow up?” Another adjutant asked.

“I think so… but…”

“But, what?” The General asked.

“Our mages won't be able to put out enough power at this range. They’d need to be much closer.”

“I see…” General Merrick said before he let his gaze wander over the battlefield, until he suddenly realized something. “The Pine Family’s forces should be able to cut through the Elementals and get close enough.”

“But they’re still engaged with the other Greater Elemental.”

“Yes… Pass them a message, tell them what we need them to do and then ask them to try and speed things up. And offer them any help we can.”

“Yes, Sir!”

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 03:02

Royal Army Center, 14th command post, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Commander Eslan Tale.

“Understood,” Eslan Tale, commander of the Pine Family forces replied without looking at the messenger, his gaze never leaving the Greater Elemental that was rampaging near the front lines, “We won't personally need help, but any reinforcements that can be sent to the front would take some pressure off of us.”

“Yes sir, I will see that it is done.” The messenger saluted and then was gone.

“Hmm…” The elven commander only hummed to himself, the frown he wanted to show never appeared on his face, only a stoic look that revealed nothing as he watched the unchanging battle.

Eslan Tale was a learned officer, he had spent many years of his life, a long life by human standards, short by elven ones, studying tactics and strategy. He had an attention to fine details, but he could also see the big picture. In many ways, he was an ideal staff officer.

But, he had little real experience.

He had led small groups on small excursions that ended in small skirmishes, he had set up patrol routes and accurately read what small, two-bit opponents would do, but he had never fought in a large battle like this, never commanded a group of elites like he was now.

“Have Sir Jop, Sir Tolvald, and Lady Gisele report to me,” He ordered.

“Yes, Sir!”

From early on in this battle, he had realized he had made a mistake.

His objective in the battle was first to minimize Pine Family loses, and the second was to showcase their might.

The Greater Elemental was a powerful foe, little more than an animal, and he knew they could defeat it. He had planned to slowly box it in, to surround it and distract it, and then have his mages bombard it and destroy it in one go.

It was a strategy he had used many times in the past when hunting.

But, the Greater Elemental was not an animal. It did not tire, it’s stamina did not wane, it did not even slow down.

More importantly, it had no self-preservation instincts. It defended itself, but that was it. His plan of boxing it in, using groups of soldiers to block its path and direct it where he wanted, had not worked. The Greater Elemental simply did what it wanted.

Realizing that mistake, and realizing that the Greater Elemental was willing to just ignore the Pine Family and attack the front lines, he was forced to quickly change his strategy. Now, the Pine Family was barely engaging the Greater Elemental, less than half of them were chasing after it in the hopes they could attack it from behind, while the remaining forces were supporting the front and closing the gaps that the Greater Elemental left behind.

But, this too was not working. They were locked in a stalemate, slowly whittling each others strength down. The Greater Elemental occasionally received some attacks while his forces were slowly tiring themselves out and while the front line was suffering light damage. Because he had no way of telling how much damage the Greater Elemental had really taken, he could not be sure which side would fall first, but it did not matter. Both sides would be able to hold out until the end of the battle, and then with the help of the main army, the Greater Elemental would fall.

This was, however, not an acceptable turn of events.

The Pine Family had deployed an impressive amount of troops that had awed the other factions, it was a great boost for the family he served.

However, if they spent the entire battle failing to kill a single enemy, would they not look like fools? They would have no other achievements in this battle, nothing else to fall back on. Worse, the Greater Elemental was dealing some damage to the frontlines, each soldier that lost their lives, some degree of responsibility would fall onto the Pine Family.

Eslan Tale knew that that was just the harsh reality of war, but that was one thing, and politics was another. After the battle ended, their detractors would fall into two camps, one that would mock the Pine Family’s incompetence, and the other that would claim that they had intentionally held back to conserve their own strength, that they were cowards who let the regular army feel the brunt of the Greater Elemental’s might.

The Pine Family’s reputation, already low, would fall even lower. And as for Eslan Tale, while he served the Pine Family, his own reputation was considered good, so such a mark on his record would be unbearable.

“What is it Eslan?” came a raspy voice.

Tolvald, the Pine Family’s Rank 7 druid had seemed to materialize right out of thin air, but Commander Tale knew that he had just taken the shape of some bird previously, and had just reverted to his humanoid form, the form of a pale skinned and hairless old man.

Behind him was Sir Job, the family’s Rank 7 Elementalist, and so was Lady Gisele, the Rank 7 Arcanist.

“Command gave us orders, they need our help with the Fragment.” He stated.

The three of them showed various frowns, but they said nothing since each of them were smart enough to know that there was more to come.

“We do not need to kill it, but create an opening for the army’s own weapons to finish it. There is a cloud of ice around it,” He gave them each a second to glance at it and see for themselves, but none of the three took it, “And we just need to blow a hole through that.”

“I see, that will require us getting pretty close,” Sir Jop spoke up.

“Yes, and to do that, we need to finish our current opponent” Lady Gisele added.

“Easier said than done,” Tolvald said, “The stupid thing won't stay still.”

“The army is going to reinforce the front so we can focus on it, but we have one chance. What do the three of you think?” He asked.

“Well…” Sir Jop trailed off as the three of them shared a glance.

Commander Tale let them think, because currently, he too was at a loss. Rank 7 might be a huge increase in power over Rank 6, and neither of the three were newly promoted, they each were at the middle of their Rank. But while Rank 7 was extremely powerful, not all Rank 7s were the same.

Lady Gisele was an Arcanist, but she specializes in research and theory, and the spells she was most comfortable with were utility spells and barriers. If they needed to fireproof the Greater Elemental, or communicate with it at long distances, or let it fly, she would be a great help, but in a fight, she was less than ideal.

Sir Tolvald was a druid, and his magic focused on affecting living things, of which the Elemental was not. It was immune to poison, to disease, to fatigue, to having it’s flesh injured. Sir Tolvald was limited to hitting it with dirt or sending golems made of mud at it.

And then, Sir Jop was the only one of the three that really focused on combat, but he was more of a duelist, his spells were designed to fight other humans, they were fast and accurate, but lacking in power. Worse, he specialized in water magic, which was by far the least useful element to use in this scenario.

“I can create an oversized Icicle spell, that should smash it to pieces, but I’ll need some time, the spell will take a few seconds to cast, and then the attack will be slow. It will kill it if it hits, but getting it to hit…” It was Sir Jop who spoke up first.

“Well… this old man could maybe hold that snake down for a few seconds, but, I’d need to be out of the way before your attack lands. And, even the attempt will leave me exhausted, I’ll be out of the fight after.”

“You can?” Lady Gisele asked in surprise.

“Aye,” Tolvald confirmed, “I have some big things I can turn into, but I can only hold those forms for about half a minute, then I’ll be done for.”

“If you could just hold it down to the ground, I think I could bind it to the earth. I was able to bind its arms, but since it has no legs, there was nothing I could do to keep it in place, it just slithered away and then the first spell would wear off.”

“If the two of you can restrain it, can you Sir Jop finish it off?” The commander asked.

“I think so.”

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 03:06

Charo Street, 7th Circle, Royal Capital Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Olivia Pine Fredirin.

“Um… Cat, there are only five minutes left.” Ula’s soft voice along with her gentle shaking brought me back to awareness.

“How long has it been?” I asked, even as I still tried to finish doing what was needed.

“Less than twenty minutes…” Was Ula’s pained response.

I frowned.

Ula’s words, they only confirmed what I had already known, I had run out of time.

I hadn’t finished refining Michael’s soul, not only that, I hadn’t even transformed enough of my body so that I could accelerate the refinement process safely.

But I could not fight with his soul within my heart.

“Um... “ Lillian began to say as another wave of energy crashed into the barrier, “There is only three minutes left.”

If I fought without being able to use most of my power, I would have no chance.

And since that was the case, I could only remove the crystal now, no matter how much it would damage me.

“I will need any potions and healing supplies we have in a second,” I stated but did not listen to what anyone else said.

My mind was focused on my mana, the flow of it as it circulated within my body. Just an hour ago, the flow was mostly similar to any other humans, the mana traveled along with the blood, from the heart to the brain, then through the organs, to the extremities, and then back to the heart. Mine was slightly different, the amount of mana collected near my heart was greater, the connection from heart to brain was faster and smoother, and pools of mana were able to form and stay within my body.

But things had just changed, in my arms and legs the flow was the same, but not in my chest. As I converted some of my organs into something beyond mortal, there was no longer a distinct flow within my chest, all of the organs, muscles, bones, and tissues within were able to absorb mana directly. If a detailed examination were given, my entire chest would appear to be functioning as a heart.

I pulled the mana from all across my body, condensing it into one area, my heart. With each beat of the muscle, my mana acted the same. When my heart contracted, my mana was pulled in, when my heart expanded to push out blood, the mana went out with it. At first, it beat at a normal rate for me, fast for normal humans, but it quickly sped up. Two hundred beats per minute, three hundred, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and then, eventually nearly a thousand beats per minute.

The organs in my chest, partially converted, were just barely able to handle this, but the rest of my body could not.

The blood vessels in my arms and legs ruptured almost immediately, and, even while I diverted some of my focus to repair them, they instantly broke down again. Under my leather armor, my skin was turning purple and black as blood was welling up under the surface. The process of constant destruction and repair along with the erratic mana flow was ripping apart the surrounding tissue too, my ligaments, tendons, and even muscles were snapping and tearing, and I could not be bothered to deal with them. Very quickly the damage spread to my nerves, and I lost all sensation in my limbs.

That, however, could be repaired easily enough after I was done. The organs I had not sufficiently converted, they were going through the same process, and they would be much, much harder to fix.

Both of my kidneys failed at practically the same time, I had barely converted them at all, and they were torn asunder. My stomach ruptured, sending bile that mixed with blood up into my mouth, my intestines broke apart, nearly half of my liver ended up gone, and some of the smaller organs ended up completely destroyed.

But it was enough.

I felt the crystal, now completely refined, slid out of my heart. Unlike when I forced it in, it was now a part of myself, and I could manipulate it with my mana just like I could my own hand or foot. I simply pushed it through the wall of my lung, the tear swiftly sealing itself, and then I forced it up into my throat.

“Are you okay?!” Ula yelled in a panic as she saw me spit out a flood of crimson blood.

“I’m fine,” I responded even as I slid the crystal that had come out with the blood into my pocket, it bumping into my other cousin’s ring in the process, “how long?”

“Less than a minute,” Lillian said, unease clear in her voice. Whether that was from the impending collapse of the barrier, or seeing my state, I did not know.

“I will keep it occupied for five minutes and draw it away in the process. You need to try and either hide, or run. After five minutes, if you are still around, I will come back, if not, I’ll run myself.”

I looked at the abomination, Kellhus, who had remained exactly where it was when we were speaking, fifty feet down the road from us. I was confident I could hold it back for five minutes with the current level of power I could show, but I was not sure my body would hold up for that amount of time.

“Will you be okay?” my cousin asked.

“I can at least run if I need to now,” I said, and then I pulled the ring from my pocket and gave it back to the small girl, “Here, you keep this.”

I could tell she was protesting, I could tell that Ula did not seem happy either, that her two knights were happy, but I did not pay attention. I had my final preparations to do.

The blood within my body had repaired what could be repaired, reinforced what could be reinforced, and then it slowly seeped through my skin, flowing down my body and soaking into my armor. I could not see it myself, but I know my eyes had turned black and red again, back to how they usually were. As the pupils stretched from small dots to slits that ran from top to bottom, I could suddenly see more than I could before. The mana in the air, previously something I could just sense, was now visible.

A film of blood appeared in front of me as I raised my hand after seeing Kellhus begin to draw mana for another attack.

I braced myself, and waited.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 03:08

Royal Army Western Line, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Guardian Knight Carla Redwood.

“Hmm… something is up.” Abby Redwood suddenly said.

Of course, Carla was able to tell that herself, the magic attacks landing near them, formerly sporadic and infrequent, had suddenly increased in intensity. The nearby Elementals that would only occasionally suffer a small hit if they got unlucky, were suddenly being blasted apart.

Still, the rain of magic attacks was aimed twenty to thirty feet away from the two of them, so while they could tell the attacks had picked up, the exact damage being inflicted could not be determined.

But both of them would have to be blind to have not noticed the nearly three platoons of additional soldiers that had rushed forward to reinforce them. And these men and women weren’t simple fodder either, they were elites of the army. Probably each of them was an upper-level Rank 3 or maybe even somewhere in the early stages of Rank 4. They all held high-quality equipment too, it didn’t compare to what the Pine Family’s knights used, but for a regular soldier, it was high-quality stuff.

“Yes, I wonder what is hap-” Carla began to say, but a loud roar echoed throughout the field and cut her words short.

Both knights swiftly turned their gaze towards the source, where a massive brown scaled wyrm was lunging into the Greater Elemental. Two snake-like arms shot out, biting time and time again into the wyrm’s body, tearing through the scales and sending acidic green blood flying. The wyrm paid the bites no mind as it coiled around the Greater Elemental’s body, it’s own claws raking the icy being as it’s fanged maw bit down on the shoulder. The two struggled, but it was the wyrm that came out on top, as more superficial wounds were inflicted upon its body, its blood oozed across the Greater Elemental’s body, pitting and burning it.

“That must be Sir Tolvald…” Carla said surprised.

That Sir Tolvald could transform into different animals was well known, that he could transform into a forty foot long wyrm, that was not known.

“I wonder why he didn’t do that from the start?” Abby questioned.

Carla would have answered, but she had no idea. The two of them, along with the soldiers nearby, watched in awe as the giant wyrm wrestled the Greater Elemental to the ground.

And just as it did that, there was a bright red flash, and then the wyrm was gone, but whatever was the source of the red light had remained. As they watched, unsure as to what was happening, a massive shard of ice suddenly appeared in the air over the red light.

“Shit, that Elemental is doing something,” Abby said.

“No,” Carla shook her head, “I think that is Sir Jop’s magic.”

The ice shard begun to rotate in the air, it’s spinning picking up speed to the point where the snow in the air was blown away.

At once, the icicle shot forth, smashing into the ground where the source of the red glow was. A great shock shot through the ground, bouncing several of the soldiers around as they lost their balance.

“Huh, I wonder if they got it?”

Carla said nothing, she just stood still and watched. The impact had kicked up a great deal of dirt and snow which was now obscuring their vision. But as the debris started the settle, they could see that the red glow was gone.

Without warning, the ground a hundred feet away from them suddenly erupted, snow, mud, frozen chunks of dirt, even some unlucky soldiers, were sent flying into the air. This cloud was even larger than the one kicked up by Sir Jop’s spell.

“Fall back!” Carla yelled, a sense of unease suddenly passing over her.

From the eruption of dirt and ice, the Greater Elemental barreled out, it was missing a huge chunk of its chest, as well as one of its arms, and it was covered in mud, but it was very much alive, and very much charging straight towards them.

“Scatter!” Abby shouted, and the surrounding soldiers ran in every direction possible.

Carla knew that the Elementals, even a Greater Elemental, could not get angry, they had no emotions, no mind at all. But as she watched the massive Greater Elemental in the shape of a headless lamia charge forward, she couldn’t help but feel that it was enraged, that it was furious.

The Greater Elemental moved quickly despite its size, or maybe due to its size. Regardless of how, it was already upon them, and those that hadn’t gotten out of the way were either knocked flying, or were ground to paste under its serpentine body.

Carla held her shield out and braced her body. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground and mana flowed through her body, a layer of yellow light glowing around her as she waited.

And it was a short wait, one second the Greater Elemental was still several feet away, the next a solid wall of ice was in front of her, and then the next, she felt light and numb, her feet could not feel the ground, and she could only see the night sky as her vision grew dim.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 03:09

Charo Street, 7th Circle, Royal Capital Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Olivia Pine Fredirin.

There are many different styles that one could use to fight. Some like to watch their enemy like a predator and aim for their weak points, others prefer to rely on speed to strike and retreat, others depend on their powerful defenses, others strike with the intent to win in one blow, others let the enemy strike first so that they can land a counter. There are uncountable ways to fight.

In the past, I preferred to go all out, to overwhelm my opponent. Every strike aimed to crush the enemy. I would batter down any defenses, I would knock away any attacks, I would attack and attack and attack so that no counter could be sent, no one could run, I furiously advanced, through any obstacle, through any defense, through any attack. I crushed my enemies from the front. There was no honor, no dishonor, my attacks would be sent towards any opening I found, no area, no method, nothing was off limits, anything to smash my opponent into the dirt. It might have been inelegant, but it was efficient, a surefire way to take apart my enemy.

It was a style that not many could use, it required a high degree of speed to keep the flurry of attacks coming, a high degree of power to make the attacks count, a high degree of defense to weather anything that was sent your way, and a high degree of awareness to always keep track of the target and their weaknesses and openings.

Not many used it, but it was a style that fit perfectly with me, and it was what I tried to use when fighting the Greater Elemental earlier. I might have lacked strength, but I never let up my attacks, I attacked furiously and relentlessly.

I am not so prideful to think that I was the best fighter, or even that I was the best with that particular style. But, I knew it well, knew it extremely well. And my experience and knowledge was telling me one thing right now.

I was going to lose.

Kellhus used the same style. The Elemental Lord relentlessly advanced towards me, every attack was an attack with all of its power, every attack came in with the intent to kill. A flurry of blows, each aimed at taking my life. The only reason I had not been defeated yet was due to my small size, the fact that every time I blocked one of its hits, not only was I damaged, but I was blown backward. I dodged or deflected its sword, but as for its legs, knees, fists, and elbows, while I tried my best to dodge those too, many of them I simply couldn’t. I did my best to block, only a few hits managed to break through my defenses, but that was still too many. Even the blows that I did defend against, that landed on my own arms or legs as I guarded, were damaging my body to a great extent.

Two minutes we fought, three more I had to hold out for, and I did not think I could do so.

But what was really bothering me now, was that I had this feeling suddenly, that something was wrong. In my past, when one of my siblings had been hurt or killed, I always had a feeling right before it happened. A sinking feeling in my stomach, a sense of unease that permeated my being.

Kellhus closed the distance again, its sword flying in a horizontal backhand arc trying to cut me in half, but I jumped back and barely dodged it. It stepped forward after me, his right fist, a limb made of ice, was sent straight out towards my head. I ducked the blow, pushed off the ground and tried to leap sideways, but somehow an armored foot was sent at me. I curled both of my arms in front of me, and the foot smashed into my forearms, my bones cracked, but since I was again sent flying, the damage was mitigated. I smashed through the wall of some building, stone and mortar falling down around me even as Kellhus followed me in.

Another slash, another knee, another fist, another elbow, the attacks kept coming in. Again, I was sent flying, breaking through the back of the building into a different road, and again Kellhus followed.

I was losing, but I could not focus my mind. Something was wrong.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 03:10

Royal Army Western Line, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Guardian Knight Abby Redwood.

“Shit! Shit! Shit…” Abby Redwood cursed as she drug her friend and fellow knight through the snow.

Her arms were looped under Carla’s armpits as she pulled her away from where she had landed after getting hit by the Greater Elemental, a trail of broken and dented metal plates that were formerly armor, mixed with blood, showed that she had been pulled nearly forty feet.

“Hey… Hey! Carla!” She yelled as she stopped dragging her and tried to wake her up.

Abby removed the bent helmet, revealing a blood-caked face. Carla’s nose was broken, a large gash across her forehead was leaking blood, and even more was welling up from her mouth. On occasional cough was the only sign that she was still alive.

“Shit! Damnit!”

Abby felt around Carla’s neck, trying to check and see if she had any broken bones there, but the metal plate that protected her throat made it difficult to tell. Still, she was confident enough that she tilted Carla’s head to the side and then, using her finger, scrapped as much of the blood from her mouth as possible. Seeing that things were as good as they were goint to get, Abby stopped and then reached into a pouch on her belt and withdrew a small metal flask.

“Come on… Drink this…”

She tilted the flask into Carla’s mouth, but most of the faintly glowing red liquid ended up overflowing her lips and running down her chin. Even less of it went down her throat once she started coughing again.

Soon the flask was empty, but Abby withdrew another one, and this time she first poured a bit of it over her friend’s face, the blood from her nose and forehead wound was making it hard to tell exactly what was happening.

By the time she had brought the half-empty flask back to Carla’s lips, the bleeding on her head had already slowed. Carla again coughed as Abby tried to feed her the potion, more blood had welled up in her mouth in that short moment of time. Abby was a pure fighter, but she knew basic first aid, so she also knew that the blood coming up from Carla’s throat indicated some form of internal injury.

But that was obvious right now.

Carla’s armor was crushed, the breastplate was split open down the center, shards of the metal had snapped the underlying chain mail, cut through the leather under that, and then dug into her flesh. Her armor was little more than scrap metal now, and her body was not in much better of a state.

Abby tried to pull away some of the fragments of Carla’s armor, but gave up when she wiggled one of the pieces and her friend gave a pained groan as blood seemed to almost squirt out of the cracked armor. Abby’s third potion was then poured directly into the opening in the armor, directly into Carla’s chest. This wasn’t exactly a good idea, the potion would try to heal the wound, but ideally, a wound needed to be cleaned out first, or at least, the large foreign objects needed to be pulled out, otherwise the healing tissue would grow around them leading to all sorts of problems.

Still, there was no time.

A fourth potion was poured over the wound, and then Abby took the fifth potion and drew it into her own mouth, before bending down and bringing her lips to Carla’s bloodstained ones, and trying to force the potion down her throat that way. She wasn’t sure how successful she was, but Carla’s breathing became slightly less labored and the coughing was softer.

Carla was still dying, but she managed to buy some time. Not enough to get her to a proper medic, but enough to try something else.

Abby rooted through Carla’s pouches, the injured knight had her own potions, but the flasks that contained her healing potions had been crushed along with her armor, the life-saving fluid had already drained into the mud. The remaining potions had various beneficial effects, but besides a single potion to restore stamina, the rest were useless right now.

Abby poured the stamina restoring potion over Carla’s wounds, the effect would be reduced greatly without ingesting it normally, but she had no great hope for the potion regardless, and she lacked the time to force feed it to her friend like she had the healing potion. Still, it was better than nothing.

As an afterthought, she poured a water breathing potion onto her friend too. She wasn’t sure if it would work, but if it helped Carla breath even while coughing up blood even a little bit, that would be enough.

Giving up on the potions, she moved towards the pouch that held her friend’s magic scrolls.

The Pine Family was extremely generous when it came to outfitting their troops. Even the run of the mill guards had decent quality chain shirts and sharpened weapons. For the more important warriors, not to mention the Guardian Knights that were charged with protecting the members of the Family themselves, they had a large pool of resources that they could use. Potions were a part of that, but potions, while easy to use, were vastly inferior to actual spells, so most of the more important members managed to learn the basics of spell casting so that they could use scrolls.

Abby however, did not. It wasn’t as if she did not try, but she was not really motivated to learn, and the arcane arts did not come east to her at all. Still, she could usually trigger the activation of a scroll, and she knew enough to figure out what a scroll did most of the time.

“Messenger Spirit… Mend metal… flare, I think… antidote this one looks like… cold resist, why would she even have that?” Abby struggled to read the arcane words on the scrolls as she went through them trying to find something useful. “Ah, this might be a healing scroll!”

The scroll in question had words to indicate it was a curative spell from the light element, which was probably a healing spell of some sort.

Abby carried no scrolls herself, she could barely use them and as such, her resources were spent elsewhere. Since she couldn’t reliably use scrolls, she invested in some simple magic items, and the magic crystals that powered those items, could in a pinch, be used to power a scroll.

Ripping a crystal out of one of her magical items, she placed it in the center of the scroll, pushed the scroll down onto Carla’s chest, and then crushed the crystal.

“Activate!” She yelled to herself as much as she did the scroll.

The scroll glowed, and then a white light seeped from the parchment into the injured woman under it. But then, nothing happened.

Abby frowned, but then threw away the now blank and brittle parchment and resumed going through the remaining scrolls. She had hoped that scroll was a healing scroll, but it could have just as easily have been a restoration scroll, or something to cure a curse or disease. It would make sense for Carla to carry various curative scrolls, and sure enough, Abby found another scroll that was from the light element and seemed to be used for some type of healing purpose.

Ripping out another magical crystal, she placed it on top of the scroll and then placed the scroll on top of her friend.

“Activate!” she yelled again.

The scroll glowed white again, and the glow then seeped into Carla’s body, and again, nothing seemed to have happened. But as Abby threw away the second blank and crumbling piece of parchment, Carla’s eyes fluttered open.

“Carla! Are you okay?” Abby said as she rushed forward and helped her friend tilt her head and spit up more blood.

“Wh-... what… ha-...happen…” Carla’s voice was weak and faltering as she failed to make a complete sentence.

“Carla! Which of these are healing scrolls?” Abby asked, holding up the various scrolls in front of her face.

“Th...that...one…” Carla choked out as she tried to point at one of the scrolls. But her arm barely moved. The larger heater shield strapped to her arm was bent completely in half, and the arm behind it was snapped and crooked, her hand hung limply at her wrist, the elbow itself was torn open with a bone sticking out under the chainmail, and even her shoulder seemed to be dislocated.

“This one? Water…?”

The water element was the second best element when it came to healing. While light healed faster, water healed more completely, but also slower and slightly less effectively. Still, Abby did not hesitate as she broke open another magical item and extracted the mana crystal that powered it.

For the third time, she placed the crystal at the center of the parchment, and then pressed the two down onto Carla’s chest.

“Activate!” She said.

But nothing happened.

“Come on! Activate!”

And again, nothing happened.

“Activate! Activate! Come on! Activate!” She yelled over and over.

Stopping temporarily, she broke a second magic item and added its crystal to the first.

“Activate! You fucker! Activate!”

Finally, after several attempts, the scroll glowed a light blue, and again the glow seeped down into Carla’s mangled body. Carla grimaced in pain as her torn flesh started writhing as it tried to mend itself. But, it was clear that the scroll could only do so much.

“Carla… I need to get you to a proper medic, so just hold on.” Abby tried to reassure her friend as she stood up and got ready to start dragging her again.

“Wa-...wait…”

“What is it?”

“Ne-...neck...lace…” Carla said as she brought her uninjured right arm and tried to remove her neck guard to no avail.

“Necklace?” Abby asked confused, but didn’t stop to think as she returned to Carla’s side, after all, it was possible Carla had a magic item in the form of a necklace that could help right now.

But, the neck guard that probably helped save Carla’s life, was now just as broken as her breastplate, the bent section was pushing into her collarbone, a bone that looked as if it was broken, and Abby couldn’t remove it.

Instead, she went through the front of the shattered armor. She healing scroll has mended enough of Carla’s flesh that Abby could wipe away some of the blood to see what was happening. Carla’s chainmail was split in the center, the rings simply snapped apart, so she was able to lift that up easily enough. The leather armor bellow was more intact, even if it was torn up pretty badly. But, Abby’s dagger, serrated specifically to tear through tough materials like leather, was able to easily cut through it.

Underneath the leather was a simple cotton tunic, soaked slick with blood. The right side of Carla’s chest was oddly flat and unmoving, an ominous sign that seemed to indicate her right lung had collapsed. As for the left, if it wasn’t for the two pieces of bone, Carla’s ribs, that had cut through her skin and were sticking out a half inch, it would have looked mostly normal.

But Abby only glanced at the injuries before spotting a single necklace, a simple silver chain that held a red crystal pendant.

“Uh, what do I do with it?” Abby asked.

She had only enough training to sense magic from an active source, for an inactive magical item, she couldn’t tell it apart from a simple nonmagical item. And the necklace around Carla’s neck, as far as she could tell, it was just a normal necklace, the crystal looked a bit like it was alive, but that was it.

“Br-break… the...cr-crystal...” Carla wheezed out.

“Yeah, okay,” Abby said as she squeezed the crystal between her fingers, but the stone did not even crack.

She tried squeezing it even harder, eventually, she even tried crushing it with her entire hand, but it was to no avail.

“Hey, Carla, I can’t break it,” Abby said as she looked back towards her friend, but Carla didn’t respond.

She had fallen slack, her eyes had closed as her breathing, already labored, began slowing down.

“No, no, no. come on Carla! Stay awake!” she yelled as she tried shaking the injured woman awake, “Shit! What do I do?”

She was out of potions, out of scrolls, and Carla wouldn’t survive long enough to get to a medical tent.

“I need a healer!” Abby yelled towards the surrounding soldiers, even as she kept trying to crush the crystal.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 03:11

Jenus Street, 7th Circle, Royal Capital Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Olivia Pine Fredirin.

Kellhus launched an ungainly kick, a straight kick that morphed into a roundhouse halfway through. The move might have been awkward, but it belied its power. As I ducked under it, the shockwave released from its foot cracked the shutters and tore the door from the hinges of the house behind me. If the wall had not been brick, the house itself might have collapsed.

Pivoting from his kick, Kellhus slashed downward with his sword. My head that had been there a fraction of a second ago was already gone, his sword sliced through the pavement, adding another deep gash through the stone, but doing nothing else.

Using the momentum from my dodge, I flipped across the ground away from the Elemental Lord in the human body. Kellhus immediately went to chase, but the instant it took a step towards me, four thin spears of blood shot out from between the stones and flew towards its chest. I had hidden them there as I escaped, knowing they would do nothing but buy myself a second at best.

As I expected, while Kellhus halted his movement, he simply sent a burst of his mana into the air, and my spears of blood were no longer connected to me, no longer able to use my mana to compete with the Elemental Lord’s, so they instantly froze and shattered. As the crimson shards still floated in the air, Kellhus was already charging towards me as I continued to back away.

Just about a minute left.

Whatever I was sensing, whatever left me with that sense of foreboding, was still there, still gnawing at my mind, begging for my attention. But, I simply could not spare it a thought and had pushed it from my mind almost entirely. With my mind fully focused on the fight, I was able to dodge more and my blocks were smoother, I was even able to proactively try and delay the Elemental whereas before all I could do was try and maintain my life.

I was even able to divert some of my attention towards observing the Elemental Lord, and I had discovered something that might almost have been a weakness.

Kellhus was an Elemental Lord, an incredibly powerful one, its title, Emissary of Still Frost seemed to have a decent amount of power to it. But, it was still an Elemental. Elementals were made up only of their element, they had nothing else, they were nothing else. Just a chunk of their base element, ice in this case. They had no organs, no bones, no muscles, and no joints, just ice.

But right now, Kellhus was controlling the body of a human woman. A body with an internal structure was something it was unused to. To be honest, when I had first fused the two parts of my soul and became Olivia Pine Fredirin, I had, at first, required a great deal of concentration to get my body to move right, and I had the benefit of having a former body that also had a skeleton.

Unlike my own circumstances, Kellhus did not care for the wellbeing of his host body, so he was making movements that were undoubtedly damaging the body, likely heavily. If the burden of housing a Lord Level being didn’t destroy the body first, it would likely fall apart within a day or so just due to the stress it was being put under. In fact, that the body was holding up so well was a testament to the power of the original owner, whoever she was, she must have been quite strong. Of course, she managed to kill a Greater Elemental herself, despite the fact she was already missing an arm and most of a leg, so that by itself spoke volumes of her skill and talent.

Despite that, some of its movement were awkward and delayed, and while it did not care if the body was damaged, some movements were simply impossible. The elbow joint only allowed the forearm to bend inward, but if it was willing, and it was, it could dislocate the joint and send the arm outward, bending the joint in the reverse. However, without completely destroying the joint and some of the surrounding bones, it could not make the joint go left or right, only forward and back.

This caused some of his movements to be delayed just slightly, and it caused others to have a pause after they were completed, this was just enough for me to avoid an outright defeat.

Once again, Kellhus closed the distance all too quickly, its crystalline right arm swung towards my head as if it wanted to claw off my face. I leaned back, its clawed fingers stopping merely two inches away from my nose, but even then, I was not unscathed. The force of its attack left the thin cloth that made up my mask in tatters, the wind dug trenches into my skin, more blood dripped out, soaking into the already slick remains of my mask. If not for the fact that I could draw my blood back into my body, and the fact that I could rapidly replace any lost blood, I would have long since bled to death.

Kellhus spun with his swipe, turning his back to me and using the rotational force to send an elbow that would have shattered my body had it hit. But, this was one of his more awkward moves, and the elbow came nowhere close, in fact, the opening he left gave me enough time to leap back. And I did so just in time, seeing that his elbow was going to miss, the Elemental Lord released another burst of freezing air.

Those bursts did not really hurt me, but they did sap my stamina, and more importantly, they temporarily slowed me down. The only solid hits I had taken had come in while I was temporarily slowed from that mana attack.

Again Kellhus charged, and again I retreated. It attacked, I dodged, it advanced, I ran. Only thirty seconds now.

Thirty seconds seemed like too long, but it was also too short. Yes, I wanted to disengage from this fight, and in that way, thirty seconds was an eternity. But on the other hand, I needed the capacity to break away from the Elemental Lord, I needed to get away, regroup with the others, and then let Lillian reactivate the magic item. Considering that the longest time I was able to stay away from Kellhus’s attacks was three seconds, I wasn’t sure how I would manage that.

I ducked under another wild swing, sidestepped a punch, and then just barely dodged out of the way from a shoulder tackle that shattered the building behind me. I anticipated the burst of cold mana and met it with a shield of blood, a sword thrust towards my head just grazed me, but still drew blood, the thrust then turned into an elbow strike that brushed past me with enough force to send me tumbling to the ground. Kellhus tried to capitalize, jumping forward and bringing its ice-covered right leg down as it tried to stomp me into paste. Without any grace or finesse, I rolled out of the way of the descending leg, but as the ground was crushed and smashed into a new crater, I was once again sent flying.

I turned myself in the air and brought my feet down on the side of another building’s wall, and then without hesitation, launched myself off, just in time to avoid the Elemental Lord’s follow up attack that left the building little more than rubble.

Again, we fell into our roles, Kellhus attacking, and I avoiding.

Fifteen seconds now.

There was one opening I had noticed. Only one, and I had avoided using it so far. Kellhus was slowly learning from this fight, the awkward moves that came frequently were now coming only once every ten to fifteen attacks. Luckily, I had gotten used to his speed and power at the same time, so I was still managing to hold on. But sooner or later, they would be gone entirely, and then I would have no hope.

But this different opening, I had not made use of, because I needed to save it until the last moment.

Kellhus was in the body of a human, using the body of a human. It was constrained by the limitations of that body. The woman it had taken over, was dead, her corpse was animated by Kellhus’s magic, she did not need to eat or breath, and as long as Kellhus did not will it, she would not freeze or burn. But, the physical makeup of the body was still there, the structure of the body’s bones was still hindering the Elemental Lord.

And more importantly, Kellhus was using the body’s one working eye as a source of vision. I could tell by the minute movements as the lifeless eye followed me, I could even see the lens move as I got closer or farther away.

He was, of course, using other senses to track my movement in addition to normal vision, so even if I destroyed that remaining eye, there would be no real effect. In fact, he might even become more dangerous since he would be forced to rely on sensing my mana, which was vastly superior to simple vision.

But, he was still using it at this point, and if I could just temporarily blind him, that would create a real opening that I could exploit to do something.

Ten seconds.

A backhand slash that I jumped over, a simple straight punch that just barely missed me as I flew through the air thanks to the Elemental Lord’s unstable footing, and then a second backhanded slash right as I landed, that cut across the edge of my shoulder. Even though only the absolute tip of the blade touched my armor, the leather was still split apart and a half an inch deep gash was cut into my shoulder. It would have gone deeper if not for the bone.

Seven seconds.

I backflipped away, waiting for the wound to seal itself. The Elemental Lord’s cold mana would seep into any cuts, slowing the healing process, a cut like that should have healed nearly instantly, but here it would take at least a second.

Kellhus tried to tackle me again, and mid flip I dropped to the ground and scurried out of the way. The Elemental Lord skidded to a stop, tried a completely wild slash with the sword that came nowhere close to me, and then released the burst of ice mana again.

Five seconds.

The wound healed, but I was unable to defend against the cold air blast. Luckily, Kellhus’s wide swing left it so off balance that it was only able to attack after the slowing effect had already worn off. Kellhus knew this, so it held back until I kicked off the ground, leaping back up to my feet, only to see a powerful thrust heading towards my chest.

I ducked forward, the blade sliding across my back, leaving a deep cut across the entire length, even cracking a few of my ribs in the process. Ice mana infused this wound just like the others and based on the size, it would take three seconds to heal this one.

But that was the least of my worries, The Elemental Lord’s icy fist was launched towards my ducking form, and I could do nothing but take the attack. I crossed both arms, coating them with blood to strengthen them while I even went so far as to create a film of blood like those that I used to block the bursts of ice mana.

The fist went through the film as if it wasn’t even there, even my superior senses could not notice any decrease in the speed of the attack. I heard, and then felt, both arms crack. The force was then transferred to my chest, at least ten ribs broke, and then I was blown away through the air.

Three seconds.

I tumbled through the air, focusing my mana on repairing my arms first. By the time I smashed into a tile roof and bounced past that building into another road, I had managed to set the bones and was already working on mending them. By the time I had landed on my feet on the next road, the bones were mended and I was back to working on the cut on my back, the ribs would be next.

One second.

I paid a heavy price there, but I bought two seconds while Kellhus chased after me. I hadn’t intended to let it hit me, but it had worked out well enough.

Kellhus charged, it was only ten feet away when both of us caught movement off to the side.

An arrow, with a glowing blue stone in place of the arrowhead, came flying.

Kellhus acted with perfection, the arrow coming from its left was neatly intercepted with its sword, the arrow, and the blue stone, were shattered. But, the effect of the blue stone still happened, a burst of electricity surged through the dead body the Elemental Lord was using, and then promptly did nothing.

The body was dead, dead and frozen, and that small amount of mana in that magic stone would have done nothing to Kellhus regardless. But even then, it still surprised it, distracted it.

A burst of wind then flew past me and crashed into the Elemental Lord’s chest, but besides tearing off the few remaining scraps of metal and cloth, leaving Kellhus topless, the blast did nothing.

But both attacks were little more than a distraction, the second of my cousin’s two Guardian Knights flickered into existence a few feet from the Elemental’s right side, directly in his blind side.

This was my opening.

I broke into a sprint, charging straight towards the Elemental Lord.

The knight’s sword was easily caught within the frozen right hand of Kellhus, but it released it even before his swing was complete, using the magic item that let him teleport a short distance a second time as he retreated twenty feet away from the Elemental Lord.

Whatever that magic item was, it was a good trump card. Kellhus had sent a burst of ice mana towards where the knight was when he caught the sword, but the knight was nowhere near there when it hit.

Distracted by the three incoming attacks and its own miss, Kellhus almost did not notice that I was already within range. For the first time, I sent my own attack towards the Elemental Lord’s knee.

Kellhus had learned its lesson well in regards to its joints, it knew that if my attack landed, I would shatter the knee joint and its mobility would fall. It would be little more than a nuisance, it would be able to force the limb to work just like I was with my own damaged body, but considering that the Elemental Lord was unable to kill me in peak condition, it knew it could not let that happen. With both arms otherwise engaged, Kellhus could only lift its leg, trying to meet my strike with its knee.

But, my strike was a feint.

I raised my body from my downward crouch, pivoted, and slid even closer into Kellhus’s space. Before the Elemental Lord could react, I looked up, and spit a mouthful of blood into its face. There was no magic in this blood, no trick to it, it was simple, normal, blood.

But, it splashed into its eye, robbing him of his vision.

That was not going to be enough, and in that fraction of a second, where Kellhus was distracted, off balance, confused, and blind, the only true attack I had launched in this entire fight, crashed into the stomach of the reeling Elemental Lord.

I heard the lower ribs crack and snap, and I felt the icy cold organs rupture under my strike. None of this would really hinder the Elemental Lord, but the important part was that the force of my strike sent Kellhus skidding backward.

“Fall ba-” I started to yell, but I never was able to finish my words.

Kellhus, who remaining standing even as its feet dug two trenches through the ground as it slid backward, suddenly turned pure white. I felt the huge mass of mana surging within its body, and I instinctively raised the strongest defense I could.

The skin on my arms exploded outward as a great flood of my own blood gushed outward, forming a thick protective bubble around my body. The films I used to block Kellhus’s other attacks was only slightly thicker than a hair, but this was closer to an inch thick, and denser.

Still, almost immediately, my connection with the blood was lost as it froze solid, the crimson shield turning white as it was covered in a layer of frost. That same layer of frost covered me only a moment later, the ice mana rampaging around within my body.

Before I could react, the frozen shield of blood shattered, blown apart as a volley of ice shards tore through it. The Elemental Lord has released these attacks in a burst around its body, the surrounding buildings were torn apart, reduced to gravel and splinters. I noticed that the Guardian Knight who had attacked Kellhus with his sword, had his frost-covered body shattered into shards, much like my blood shield when it was hit.

And nine of those shards impacted my body.

One dug into my left thigh, another blew through my right shin, blowing apart the bone and leaving the limb a mangled heep, another cracked into the right side of my hip, shattering the bone, another sliced into my stomach right at my belly button before coming to a rest at my spine, another crashed into my lower ribs on the right, a sixth dug into my right breast, slicing through my lung, before blowing out of my back, a seventh slammed right into my sternum, an eight landed just under my elbow on my left arm, severing everything below the joint, and the final one cut halfway through my neck, just barely missing my vertebrae and leaving me with a massive gash that would have put even me in danger of bleeding to death if not for the layer of frost that instantly sealed the wound.

“A Do-domain?!” I stuttered bewildered, blood bubbling out of my barely intact throat and splashing onto my frozen lips.

I lifted my head and looked at Kellhus. The Elemental Lord’s avatar was now in the center of a clearing, nearly two city blocks, everything within one hundred feet, besides myself, was obliterated in the attack. The rubble, the street itself, was all covered in a white frost. A powerful wind had picked up, with Kellhus at its center. The frost suddenly started to shimmer a light blue, as if wet, and as I looked on, I realized that was exactly what was happening. I could only look on in grim shock as Kellhus lowered the temperature enough that the very air was turning into liquid.

Certainly, a Domain, but how could an avatar use a Domain? Especially a damaged one such as this?

“We need to move,” Lillian’s remaining Guardian Knight said as he suddenly blinked into existence next to me.

I could see he had a gaping hole in his shoulder and another deep gash on his leg, but the distance from Kellhus must have allowed him to avoid most of the projectiles. He wasn’t fatally injured, but he was heavily hurt.

Despite his wounds, he leaned down and hugged me, and then we blinked out and in of existence, putting fifty feet between us and the Elemental Lord in a heartbeat. We did this two more time in rapid succession.

But I could only stare shocked at Kellhus.

Yes, some powerful Lords class beings could create avatars with enough power to manifest their Domain. But it was rare. Not only did the Lord in question need to be shockingly powerful, but they also had to be willing to put enough power into the avatar, and should the much weaker avatar be destroyed, most of the energy fed to it would be lost, greatly weakening the Lord if they put too much in.

Was Kellhus just that powerful? Or had he for some reason put an enormous amount of power into this one avatar?

Lillian’s guard suddenly collapsed and passed out, his skin extremely pale. Whether or not being in that close proximity to Kellhus, even for that short period of time, or if that teleporting ability was just taking a lot out of him, I wasn’t sure, but he was now in a critical condition.

“Ac-activate!” I heard my cousin say as suddenly the cold lessened slightly and the familiar magical barrier popped up around us, “po-potion, where are my po-potions?”

“Do-doesn’t ma-matter,” I choked out, “how much ti-time is le-left?”

“Fi-fifty… se-seven mi-minutes.”

Not even fifteen seconds, and we already lost three minutes. Kellhus was currently doing nothing, and he was two hundred feet away. I wouldn’t be surprised if the barrier failed immediately once he made a move.

We were going to die.