Toren Daen

As I hurtled toward Fiachra far below, my thoughts raced with how to slow my descent. I was already falling with the speed of a diving phoenix, the earth eager to reclaim her child.

I focused on my fire, twisting myself so that my palms–one still holding Oath–faced downward. White plumes of mana-charged flames erupted from my hands, the force of their expulsion beginning to slow my descent. The wind ripped past my face, stinging my skin and burning everywhere it touched.

But I wasn’t afforded the time to halt my fall. A deluge of sludge from behind nearly impacted my back. I twisted just in time, putting my plasma blade in between me and the deadly beam.

The stream bisected around me evenly, but the force of the impact still continued to push me downward. A continuous hissing sound of evaporating acid blanketed my ears as the wind pressed against my back.

I was speeding up again. The stream of constant sludge was causing me to accelerate even further, Mardeth's cackles echoing above me like acid rain. I hurtled downward faster and faster, Fiachra growing closer by the second.

I need to get away from this stream, I thought, feeling a note of desperation. I need to switch our positions!

My arm burned from the effort of keeping my saber in front of my body as I thrust another hand to the side. A jet of twirling white fire as thick as my torso snaked out from my arm, threading around the stream of acid in a spiraling vortex. It slowly ascended along the steady barrage of acid, rising like the threads of a screw. Finally, it splashed against the vicar far above.

For the barest instant, the beam of acid weakened.

There, I thought, my millennia of experience catching the sudden faltering. I rolled to the side, wrenching myself out from under the constant deluge, before using my telekinesis on the stream to pull myself upward. My body groaned in protest, the sudden change in momentum causing my joints to ache and my stomach to heave, but I pushed through it with a will of iron. I accelerated as a glowing white streak, using Mardeth’s own spell as telekinetic leverage to haul myself forward.

I surged toward Mardeth, twisting midair once more to generate the pent-up torque of a whipping tornado. I locked eyes with the Vicar of Plague for the barest moment as the night sky stretched around us. My foot snapped upward, then thrust down with the condensed force of a typhoon. Mardeth hastily crossed his hands over his horn as my attack descended with the force of a nascent asura, a rictus grimace crossing his face. A gale of wind followed in the wake of my axe kick, my heel smashing against Mardeth’s forearms.

I followed through, snapping my leg downward. Mardeth catapulted toward Fiachra not far below, a crack of thunder following in his wake as he obliterated the sound barrier. He became a dark green blur as he shot through a building, before smashing into the ground.

Yet instead of flesh, he burst into a puddle of slime. Green acid splattered onto the walls and buildings all around, corroding everything it touched around a cratered epicenter.

I fell toward the wide Sehz River, throwing out wide-area telekinetic pushes to slow my fall. I exhaled a breath of steam as my feet settled evenly over the flow, a single ripple spreading over the still water as I did so. The absolute control of my telekinetic pushes allowed me to hover near-perfectly over the river.

I allowed my summoned saber to dissipate as I locked my hands behind my back, observing as Mardeth pulled himself together from what was practically nothing, sludge slowly seeping back toward a humanoid form.

When I was done with this lessuran, I’d need to return to my Hearth. To report the High Sovereign’s horrible plans. That was my purpose, wasn’t it? I tilted my head, my brow furrowing as I noticed the discrepancy in my mind. I… I couldn’t remember why I was here, exactly. I knew I needed to destroy this monster in front of me, but… everything before was a blank. I felt there was something else, but–

I thrust my hand back out, summoning another plasma blade, using the decrepit saber hilt as a focus for my lifeforce and mana. I batted aside a bullet of acid, then raised my saber in a deft flourish to deflect a few others along the flat of my weapon’s edge. I skated backward along the Sehz, Mardeth following in quick pursuit. Every time he got close, my saber threatened to remove his horn from his head. Yet he also couldn’t overwhelm me with his acid alone, so we fell into a delicate dance.

I cut sideways, forcing the vicar back a step as we danced along the river. The edge moved through the man without resistance, but only a trail of acid steam followed. Mardeth cackled as his mass expanded, bursting forth in a tide of sludge as it tried to engulf me.

I snarled as his mass blocked out the stars, then punched forward. The orange feather runes on my arms flared with power as sound mana vibrated through his mass, and then a pulse of white fire eviscerated him again. I ducked to avoid a tendril of acid that reformed as fast as I could destroy it. I blurred back along the Sehz, swiping my hand like a scything talon.

A claw of white fire followed in the wake of my attack, carving through several buildings as Mardeth dodged to the side. He grinned malevolently as he tried to ascend into the sky once more, lurching up with a cackling laugh.

I snarled in contempt. I would not allow the monster to flee again.

Half a dozen fire-coated telekinetic pulls fuzzed into existence along the vicar’s body, wrenching him back down toward the water. At the same time, I surged into the air, swinging my plasma saber in a perfect upward cut. Within the same moment, I tried to grasp the horn with my telekinetic pulls, but it radiated an aura that repelled any sort of mana not strong enough.

“How long do you think you can maintain that form?!” Mardeth cackled, barely managing to force his head to the side. I bisected his skull, the horn barely missed as my weapon passed through him with a glowing white hum.

“I grow stronger every second we dance! While every second that passes, you lose more and more mana! Your strength wanes, while mine waxes!” he laughed, the two vertical halves of his body fusing back together as if they were putty.

I thrust my hand out, layering it with a large-area telekinetic push as I hovered in the air for the barest moment. “You are a fly. Biting and gnawing at every glint of healthy flesh. Your puny wings buzz in a pale imitation of true flight.” I breathed out orange steam, the air itself straining from my power. “I will tear those wings from your wretched body.”

Then I swatted my hand down.

Mardeth’s laughs were forced back into his throat as he shot down to the river once more from the blow. I heard the low whumph of his impact on the riverbed, waves splashing along the burning shoreline.

I allowed myself to fall, the old mindset of battle threading through my mind as I shot into the river after the vicar. My unique plasma arts made me nearly uncontested amongst the asura, and they would not be bested by a simple lessuran wretch.

Yet as I entered the water, the murky, indistinct aura of Mardeth’s heartfire spread around me like sticky sap. The water evaporated and boiled around my saber as it touched the green-tinted liquid.

“This pain will make me ascend,” a seeping voice said from all sides, an uncontained misting of green mixed into the Sehz River’s depths. The Vicar of Plague had spread his essence through the water, making any attempt at locating him nearly impossible. “And you’ll struggle and thrash against the inevitable. But you cannot stop it.”

My fiery red hair–like the plasma I knew so well–floated around my head as I impassively scanned the water. Though fire burned in my chest and my limbs thrummed with mana, I did not display an ounce of that heat. That was one of the greatest lessons I had learned, taught to me by Lord Aldir himself. To master one’s inner flame.

I engaged the spellform along my lower back, concentrating a sizable portion of mana into it. I pressed and pressed, even as the lurking intent and malice of Mardeth slithered toward me like an ebon eel’s snaking grasp.

And yet even as I felt the claw of doom slowly approaching, Mardeth somewhere within the murky water, I allowed a layer of white to condense around my body. Barely restrained, the mana built and built in weave upon weave.

A voice spoke from right beside me, slithering into my ear. “I will feast on your–”

Then I let the wave erupt. Not unlike the mana arts of the pantheon race, a bubble of compressed white force cascaded outward. The water around me was blown away with the sound of thunder, a silent bubble opening for a split instant within the center of the powerful Sehz. I saw the riverbed as air rushed in to fill the gaps, water splashing along the riverbanks as a section was suddenly denied the flow.

My telekinetic shroud broke from the pushback, my limbs fracturing and compressing into themselves as the backflow hit me. Yet even as my body broke, my heartfire pulsed to heal me.

I snapped my hand out as my feet hit the riverbed, searching with my mind as much as my senses.

And I grasped the horn. My hand blackened and decayed under its touch, a gradual erasure of my cells and slow death claiming them. Not waiting a moment, I slammed a telekinetic push into the ground, surging back into the sky as the water crashed back in with the force of a tsunami.

“Wh-what?!” Mardeth sputtered in abject surprise beside me, his liquid form forced to condense once more as all the water he’d spread himself through was thrust away. “How did… what…”

“You mistake yourself,” I said cooly, raising my plasma blade. Mardeth struggled and thrashed as he saw my blade burn, throwing caustic tendrils at me and attempting to wrench my grip free. But my hand–for the moment–blocked the flow of mana from the basilisk blood crystal. “You are no asura. You are no god.” I tilted my head. “You are simply a man, flailing against Fate, foolishly hoping that the corpses of the weak will build you a stairway to Sovereignty. But that hope; that faith? That is such a human thing to have, Mardeth of the Doctrination.”

I saw the abject terror in Mardeth’s eyes as I swung my saber down, prepared to sever his hopes of godhood.

And then my heartfire pulsed, something deep and uncertain running through it. I felt, for the barest instant, that a familiar eye was looking upon me. Scrutinizing every facet of my being. Peeling me apart. I felt a jolt of true fear as my gaze snapped upward, searching frantically for the source of the attention. It couldn’t be–

Mardeth's fist capitalized on my sudden fear. It crashed against my sternum, a jolt going through my core as I was sent flying back along the surface of the water like a skipping stone. I twisted midair, ignoring the groan in my quickly-depleting mana core as I forced myself to stabilize with telekinetic pushes. My power flashed in and out as I snarled, hauling myself to my feet once more over the water.

Mardeth was breathing heavily, the influx of mana returning as my hand was wrenched from promised victory. He glared at me with deepest hate.

The constraints of this Vessel are beginning to show, I thought, thinking of a new plan. That knowing gaze had simmered away from my attention, forcing me to focus on the fight in front of me. When this was done, I could address its intrusion. I would need to.

I slammed telekinetic shoves along the water, deciding on a tactic. I blurred backward through a tunnel, a wake of water trailing behind me. The vicar, predictably, followed me straight through.

“And now you run!” he said bestially, a bit of his previous terror still clawing in his voice rabidly. “You flee like a songbird facing a snake!”

Perfect, I thought, allowing the barest upward twitch of my lips. I slammed a sound-shrouded fist into the walls around me, causing parts of the structure to cave in and collapse even as I continued to zip backward. Massive rocks splashed into the river below, causing a cascading chain even as the vicar continued to chase me.

“Do you think that caving in this tunnel will save you, little mage?” Mardeth cried, darting around the rocks as they fell. Moving in a predictable, easy-to-exploit manner.

“No,” I said evenly. “I am not the one who needs saving, lessuran.”

I threw both hands forward, focusing on my core. It was emptying at an absurd rate, my meager reserves well under a third of their already pathetic capacity.

I ground my teeth, forcing a sizable portion remaining along my palms. Plasma sputtered into existence as it concentrated in my hands.

There was a reason I did not always use plasma in combat. Once released, it was extremely difficult to affect. Plasma went in a straight, unerring line. Once you let it go, altering its course was impossible. Fire was more malleable; better for wide-area attacks and splashing all across your foe, while plasma would sear a hole straight through your opponent and anything beyond them. As I had earlier in the fight, a fire could twine and twirl in any complex shape I needed, but what I needed right now was unerring power.

A solid beam of humming white plasma erupted from my hands, the spell easily as large as my torso. It shot forward at nearly imperceptible speed, the tons of stone falling in its path not slowing it in the slightest. And Mardeth, who had barely dodged a stone five times his size, was lined up perfectly to take the stream directly in the head. He was sandwiched against the roof of the tunnel.

He had nowhere to go.

That was what I thought. Except Mardeth yelled in fury, throwing himself upward in a streak of green. My spell carved straight through his chest, burning everything there to ash. It punched through the tunnel ceiling and erupted into the night sky beyond, the heat in the tunnel nearly overwhelming.

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But the vicar had thrown himself against the earth ceiling, his body itself corroding the stone. He’d disappeared into it like a worm, his indistinct lifeforce allowing him to slither through undetected.

My breathing stuttered slightly as I skated backward, my core seizing from the sudden expenditure of mana. Sweat beaded on my brow as I struggled not to let my telekinetic supports waver.

Mardeth shot from somewhere in the dark ceiling, crashing into my disoriented form. We were thrust underwater, the vicar’s hands wrapping around my throat in a constricting vice. I could see his blackened smile as we sank lower, only part of a torso and his head remaining in the wake of my attack.

I snarled, raising my hands to grasp the sides of the vicar’s head. I pulled on the water around us, using my telekinesis to leverage my movement. We shot off along the river like a bullet, steam and green sludge traveling in our wake as we became a riptide.

Mardeth leaned closer to me, his grin leering as his body slowly regenerated in real-time. That green tether still connected Brahmos’ horn to his source of power, providing him with a wealth of excess mana reserves, while my own depleted in a steady stream.

I pulled us along a jutting tributary of the Sehz, Mardeth’s fingers tightening around my throat. My heartfire worked to heal over the damage of oxygen deprivation, but even those reserves were nearing their limits. The abuse this weak, part-asuran body had taken was absurd. How it had continued to hold out was astounding in and of itself.

I sensed the barrier well in time. I grappled with the vicar, using telekinetic pulls to give myself a better position as I wrenched his arms free. I twisted around him as we streamed through the water, pressing my shoes against his back and pulling his arms with a hand each. Tendrils of green mana launched from his back, twirling around my legs, torso, and arms even as I held him prone. The caustic decay burrowed into my body as I refused to budge, my muscles burning and my channels groaning.

We reached the blockage in the canal in barely a second. A staggering layer of debris and rock barred our way forward, an unnatural barrier in the waterway. I snarled as I used Mardeth’s body like a ram, slamming him through the stone face-first.

Mardeth’s body exploded again on impact as it was used to smash away the debris. We erupted onto the other side of the blockage, a torrent of water following in our wake as a long-clogged artery was finally released.

I rolled along the ground as I was thrown from the impact. I finally came to a stop, my body covered in caustic burns and deep lacerations from smashing through the stone. I coughed up water, feeling the damage along my body struggling to heal. This body had a far greater healing factor than the one I was used to, but it seemed even that had its limit as its excess heartfire reached its breaking point.

My body trembled as I pulled myself to my feet once more, observing the area I’d broken into.

A hundred or so lessers watched me with fear and awe, staggering back. I saw several empty cookfires, this place feeling… feeling familiar. The lessers congregated around a single woman with mousy brown hair. Streaks of grey slashed through her bun, indicating her middle age for a human. There was a single beast core in her hands.

She felt familiar. Why?

“Toren?” she whispered, her jaw growing slack.

Who was Toren? I felt I should know, but for some reason–

Mardeth slowly pulled himself together above the water, regenerating as that constant stream of mana rejuvenated him.

“And we return to where it all began, little mage,” Mardeth mocked, seeming none the worse for wear. “Back in the depths of the slums.” He cocked his head. “Do you still think it's worthwhile to defend these lessers?”

I opened my mouth to tell him off. To tell him that I would sooner see him dead than waste precious mana defending those behind me. After all, I was an asura.

But that was wrong. So, so wrong. Why was it wrong?

Mardeth raised a hand, pointing a finger at the woman with mousy brown hair not far behind me. A swirl of green appeared there, churning in a contained wave. The lessers behind me surged away with cries of fear. Only one remained, staring down the attack with admirable courage. That middle-aged woman. I could feel her heartfire trembling, but that courage…

“I see it in your eyes, little mage,” Mardeth said, keeping that churning spell primed. “You’d gladly let me strike down these ants. You know my words to be true, now. That we are their betters.”

A searing pain lanced across my skull, fire searing across the recesses of my mind. I buckled over, feeling as if something were trying to wrench itself free from my head. To reassert itself in power.

Mardeth laughed, then released his spell.

I launched myself haphazardly in its path, a smattering of fire erupting around my palm. Unbalanced as I was, the spell seared straight through my protections, nearly eating entirely through my left hand.

But behind me, Greahd was safe. The Will suddenly surged upward, no longer kept in check by Aurora’s constant influence.

She’d ripped herself backward, leaving me–Toren, and fully Toren–to work under that burden.

I– my bond thought, horrified, I almost destroyed you. Swept you away under my own weight.

It doesn’t matter, I thought back, trying to force myself to think. The Second Phase of my Phoenix Will was draining mana at an even faster rate now that Aurora’s experience and power were not taking the lead.

Mardeth cocked his head, looking… disappointed.

“Still, you throw yourself in front of them,” he said, sighing. His slippery voice violated my eardrums, same as ever. “I guess you’ll never–”

I launched myself at the vicar, my instincts demanding I continue the fight. I couldn’t afford to stand around. Every second that ticked by saw a little more of my mana evaporate under the scorching effect of my Phoenix Will. Every second made my body ache more and more, my heartfire inching closer and closer to oblivion with every wound healed.

I swiped at Mardeth with my plasma saber, trying desperately to shear through his horn. Mardeth weaved to the side, his fist smashing against my abdomen. I coughed up blood as I shot through a nearby wall, dust falling around me.

I felt another attack coming. I sent a wave of pushing force in front of me, barely managing to avoid a torrent of acid as it seeped along the floor. I jumped backward, flipping out a window and trying to use the terrain to my advantage.

Mardeth didn’t let me. My reflexes, which were once so absurdly heightened at the start of this fight, had begun to flag. Aurora’s voice, exhausted as it was, still screamed for me to turn and counter.

The vicar’s hand latched onto my face, a spread of sludge wrapping around my skull. His arm elongated to absurd lengths as it became more fluid, twisting and warping with me grasped at the end. Then he slammed me toward the ground.

I twisted on instinct, firing a beam of white plasma toward the vicar even as he cracked me against the stones. A crater ten feet wide opened under my body, earth shattering and breaking as the breath was driven from my lungs. I coughed up blood.

My beam of plasma narrowly missed Mardeth’s horn, searing through a nearby window. The monster snarled, his deep green visage rippling as something bulged underneath his skin.

Then he hurled me again, chucking me through another building. I rolled, feeling my Will trying to retreat as my reserves neared empty. My heart ached painfully in my chest, and my heartfire nearly expended.

A long, long shadow–even darker than the night around me–was cast by a looming building.

The Doctrination Temple of East Fiachra stretched behind me.

I foggily pulled myself to my feet. In my head, Aurora was quiet, sensing how we were near the end of our power.

Mardeth surged through the building, horrid acid trailing in his wake. He launched himself at me, but I was still fast enough to use telekinetic pulls on the side of the temple walls. I surged up to the top of the temple, twisting midair to prepare for a swipe of Mardeth’s sludge.

It didn’t come. Instead, a kick to my stomach sent me crashing against the roof of the temple. I rolled out of the way of a dozen spearing tentacles, the decaying mana ripping open the roof and revealing the pews far below. I surged forward, swiping at the vicar with my plasma saber.

He simply hovered back a step, before smashing me with a tendril of sludge. I raised an arm over my head, barely managing to block the attack. My arms burned as I fell to one knee, the rooftop cratering beneath me from the force of impact.

Then another tendril smashed me across my unprotected chest. I shot backward like a bullet, crashing into the tall steeple of the temple. I stayed there, embraced by the stones, for a bare moment. My hair shifted back to strawberry blonde, then settled into deep red once more as I forcefully maintained control of my Phoenix Will. The chains along my arm–which had been shifting and warping in tune with my heartfire–flickered.

I fell forward once more, toppling onto the tiles in front of me. I rested on my forearms, coughing up blood as my core and body screamed in pain. The orange highlight of my runes flared in and out as I struggled to maintain an iron grip on my Will.

“And now we are back where we started, little mage,” Mardeth said from above me. Despite the brutal combat we’d gone through, he looked none the worse for wear. The constant influx of mana that surged through his horn kept his reserves bursting at the seams, while my own had been drained from near the start. “How many times must this happen before you finally understand the truth?”

Toren, Aurora said sadly, feeling how my body was breaking down under the continued effect of our will.

I coughed, my limbs burning as I struggled to pull myself to my feet. I was certain several of my ribs were broken from that last clash, and my heartfire was too rung out to heal it over any longer. “You will never,” I coughed out, “Never be a god. Not with only Fiachra’s mana.”

“Fiachra is just the start, little mage,” Mardeth crooned, floating closer. He slowly manifested a concentrated, verdant green tendril of virulent acid. I felt it condensed once; twice, thrice over. He pulled it along behind him, preparing to finish this once and for all. “My plague will spread all across Alacrya. Aedelgard will be next. I’d like to see Seris Vritra’s face as her pretty little seaside city burns. And the Sovereigns will watch in awe as I fulfill their grand design.”

He spread his hands out to the side, the moonlight illuminating him. “Seris Vritra will die just as you will, Toren Daen. Another step on my way to ascension.”

I chuckled weakly. “You were never written about,” I said through bloody teeth. “Never even worth a mention. Not even a passing hint.”

Mardeth looked down at me with a sneer. “Alacrya will remember–”

“No, it won’t,” I said, feeling certain as I struggled to stay upright. “You will not even be worth a mention, Mardeth of the Doctrination. Alacrya will forget you. The Scythes will forget you.” I heaved for breath, my ribs creaking. I thought of all I knew about The Beginning After the End, feeling a grim smile settle across my face. Even if I were to die, I felt happy knowing that this man was not worth a footnote, either. “And the Sovereigns will never know your name. Fate deems you nothing.”

Mardeth snapped his whip, carving another hole into the roof around me. “Such worthless last words,” he said, raising his arm up high.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.

Then something in the air snapped. I looked up, seeing as the connection to Mardeth’s horn–which had always been present–fizzed away. An echoing boom rattled my eardrums, a plume of green fire erupting far to the north.

The vicar screamed, doubling over in pain as his connection to the basilisk blood crystal was forcibly shattered. His form–already monstrous–became even more hideous as those bulging spots on his body burst open in splashes of murky sludge, revealing deep recesses of rot. His mana churned and writhed in abject agony, his flying stuttering as he fell to the rooftop.

Thank you, Naereni, I thought, putting the pieces together. I’ll have to set up a noble for you to rob after this.

“You asked me what I get by protecting street rats?” I said, stumbling forward. Oath’s decrepit hilt was clenched tightly in my hand, the remains of my saber barely holding itself together after the power I’d been pumping through it. “They were the ones who destroyed your crystal, Mardeth,” I said, blood dripping from the edges of my mouth. “The ones you said were worthless. The ones you said would never rise to our power.”

Mardeth’s crazed eyes snapped up to mine, a true madness roiling inside.

“You’ll never reach your ascension,” I said with finality. “It’s been stolen from you.”

He snarled angrily, pushing himself to feet just as wobbly as my own. Without the constant influx of mana, his body seemed to be breaking itself down under the effects of Brahmos’ horn. He couldn’t hold off the corrupting effects any longer.

“If I can’t have my godhood,” he croaked, stumbling back on knees that bulged and snapped, “You can’t have your home!” he growled, shooting up into the sky in a rickety ascension. He lurched forward unevenly as he struggled to climb higher, mana bleeding from him in deathly waves.

He raised both of his arms into the sky, energy seeping from every inch of his body. Even the horn grafted onto his forehead began to release its mana, each and every bit funneled into a single spell. I braced myself against the outpour of power, stumbling as the sudden pressure nearly forced me to topple.

A massive basilisk of solid green decay slowly coalesced in the air, flying on two pairs of wings that rained acid below. Six limbs, each as thick as tree trunks, stamped the air in a maddened rage. Three sets of eyes darted about madly as the spell formed, the vicar in the air curling inward as every last drop of his mana was shoved into this final attack.

He glared the deepest hate down at me as the basilisk-shaped spell roared, the sound echoing out over all of Fiachra.

One more push, Toren, Aurora said, her mind growing close to my own again. Only one more.

I chuckled, settling my stance on shaky legs. I held Oath’s handle out to the side, drawing on my lifeforce to coalesce a vein of aether through the handle like a focus. I felt a lurching pain as I dipped deeper than I ever had before, drawing on the baseline of lifespan that I had always avoided. I gritted my teeth as the energy flowed along my veins, leaving scorching pain in its wake.

Overtop of that, I layered a telekinetic shroud, feeling my core ache as I squeezed out more power. As a final touch, white plasma engulfed the edge, humming with a comforting rhythm.

I looked up at Mardeth as his massive spell began to hurtle down toward me. The amount of mana compressed into that single spell was beyond anything I’d ever faced before. It would swallow me whole, then burst apart, washing away everything in its path. Everyone in the barest vicinity would be swept away.

Unless I did something about it.

A long, focused tube of telekinetic force appeared in front of me, not unlike the one required for the Stake of the Morning. Except this one was wider; designed to propel something other than a simple spell. My body screamed in agony as I forced myself to ignore the beginning stages of backlash. My channels rebelled against what I ordered of them, my body quaking as it threatened to give in.

I held Oath out to the side as the roaring basilisk approached me, its eyes so full of hate.

“Horizon’s Edge,” I muttered.

Then I pushed forward.

My body accelerated along the telekinetic tube of force like a bullet in a railgun. I heard a crack of thunder as my body broke the sound barrier, then nothing more. Fire burned along my features as the air heated from my sudden acceleration. My telekinetic shroud–barely conjured in time for this play of power–splintered and broke as it bore part of the overwhelming backlash. But the nature of this technique was twofold–I wasn’t just spreading the telekinetic recoil along my shroud. I was using the recoil to push me even further.

My plasma blade seared through the oncoming basilisk spell like a streak of light. To an outside observer, it must have appeared as if a burning beam had unzipped the massive aura of decay right down the middle. A sound like a hundred detonations echoed out as I ascended with purpose, the remains of Mardeth’s spell exploding outward. I barely registered the vicar crossing his arms over his head as I blurred past him, Oath flashing as I swiped it sideways.

I reached the apex of my arc in the air. I felt strangely lucid as Oath’s handle disintegrated, the final attack too much for it to withstand. It dusted away on the wind in that split instant where I was weightless in the sky.

My hair reverted back to its regular color, the burning red fading from my locks as my Will retreated back into my core. Every inch of my body seared as I began to fall back down to the earth.

And I saw as Mardeth’s smoking hands fell from his arms, severed at the wrist by my searing cut. A heartbeat later, Brahmos’ horn separated from his head as well, the base cleaved completely through.