Toren Daen

I didn’t even see the next attack before it blew me away. I smashed through one of the stone pillars, obliterating the rock from the force. My telekinetic shroud shattered around my ribs as the blow impacted, and my vision winked in and out as the stone crumbled over my body.

I wasn’t even lying in the stones for a second before a hand speared through the rubble, latching onto my leg. It gripped hard enough to make my bones creak, then yanked me from the stone.

The colossal tree demon held me upside down with a single arm, which was easily twice as long as I was tall. Its wings were spread wide, and instead of slouching as it had before, it stood at its full, horrible height. Dust fell from my body as I hung.

I swung my hand upward, a burst of fireshot leaving my palm in a flare of white. The spells peppered the creature’s face, flashes of orange bursts popping in pockmarks as my solid flame burst over its skin.

The wooden monstrosity tanked my fireshot like the solidified fire was no more than dust. For the first time, I sensed a hint of intelligence in the creature’s gaze as it intentionally took my attack head-on. The only sign I had damaged it was slight darkening around its four red eyes. The creature snarled, raising its other hand and clenching it into a fist.

Oh, shit, I thought, seeing what was coming. I felt my eyes widen as the beast reared back, ready to punch my prone form.

I used my telekinetic pull on the creature’s fingers, trying to wrench them apart just a little. If that monster’s fist hit me while I was held fast like this, it might rip off my leg. I pulled and pulled as the creature seemed to revel in my panic.

Just in time, I added an extra force of power around the demon’s grip. The wooden fingers loosened just a fraction.

And then the fist hit me square in the sternum, right over my core. I felt my vision go white as I screamed, my body rocketing away. My foot pulled free of the monster’s grasp, the weakened grip allowing it to slip free. Instead of ripping my leg off, I felt it wrench out of its socket.

My body skipped on the dirt as I rolled. I skidded for a few steps, my body finally coming to a stop at the base of one of the ritual stones.

It took a moment to fight through the pain. It was hard to think. My vision swam, thoughts coming in spurts. I coughed up a mouthful of blood, the crimson liquid dripping down my chin and staining my leather armor.

Something in my chest is definitely broken. At least a few ribs, the clinical part of me said distantly. Your hip popped back into place almost immediately after it was wrenched out.

That… that was good. I thought so. It was kind of hard to think. I looked up at the sky.

The blackened clouds were condensing, a crack of lightning crossing the sky. The world became dark as if it were night, the encroaching storm blotting out the light. Soon rain would fall, bringing with it the tide of demons.

I need to end this fast. Before the rain falls, I thought.

I groggily pulled myself to my feet, stumbling when putting weight on my leg. My hip had been dislocated a second before, and a deep gash still marked my thigh.

The demon was making a sound as it watched me from afar, somewhere between a tree crashing to the ground and a rustle of leaves. The reddish veins that traced their way under its white wood skin flashed with each sound.

It was laughing at me, I realized after a bewildered second. The monster was playing with me like a cat does its food.

Okay, you bastard, I thought, pulling myself up straight. You want to play dirty? We can play dirty.

I looked inward, my mind feathering against my core.

“Are you certain, Contractor?” Lady Dawn asked, sensing my intent.

I am.

“So be it,” my bond said.

I let the Will meld with my mind, feeling the rush of knowledge and insight as it thrummed through my veins. It felt like a warm, mellow sugar rush. The energy wasn’t jittery or bursting: instead, it was steady and constant. The first phase of my Phoenix Will bolstered my understanding of mana manyfold, a drop of the Asclepius Clan’s millennia of practice injected directly into my mana channels. It was a mother’s warm embrace, pushing me forward.

And suddenly, I understood. I remembered all that had slipped my thoughts from when I had released the Will a day ago.

A small orb of deep red plasma appeared in my hands. I used the vibrations of sound mana to agitate the fire mana particles, causing them to heat to a point where the particles did a pseudo-ionization.

The red chain tattoo on my left arm shone a bright crimson through my sleeve, seeming to superimpose itself over the sleeve, a projection of power seeming to float over the fabric and leather.

I looked up at the beast. The pressure it exuded felt like a paltry breeze against my skin, not worth noticing. A plume of red heartfire danced in the monster’s chest. And beyond this clearing, a million more flares of lifeforce marked each and every tree.

I took a step, limping slightly as I trudged forward. The monster took a single step back, pushed by the pressure I exuded. Thunder rumbled overhead.

The mana swirled at my implicit command, the rune on my lower back a tether of warmth.

“It fears you, Toren Daen,” Lady Dawn whispered into my ear, a phantom touch of her hand on my shoulder. “Show this monstrosity why that dread is deserved.”

My telekinesis rune latched onto Oath and Promise, which I had dropped when the first blow had flung me into the stone pillar. They were forty feet away, nearly double my usual telekinetic range.

But now, I saw how the rune dipped and weaved through ambient mana. I knew how my intent spread across the atmosphere, conjuring spells and pushes and pulls.

Oath and Promise moved in an outline of white, both weapons hovering by my head.

“Come on, beast,” I hissed, pointing at it with a finger. “Mock me again.”

It screeched, throwing its unwieldy limbs to the side. Its wings flared, a reddish tint to the connecting skin I hadn’t seen before. Then it moved toward me at absurd speed, seeking to blitz me as it had before.

But my eyes stayed locked on the lifeforce burning in its chest. It couldn’t hide that flame from my sight.

I fired a beam of deep red plasma from my finger, the laserlike blast trailing a thin line of heat to the accelerating monster.

It lurched to the side, barely avoiding the plasma. It punched a coin-sized hole in its wing membrane, making the beast shriek in defiance. It continued to charge toward me, its colossal wingspan casting a long shadow in the dirt.

I flipped over the monster as it swiped at me, avoiding the blow. My torso hurt as I moved, but the refreshing warmth of the Will allowed me to push through.

I built up a quick burst of telekinesis, shoving my spell against the creature’s face. Its head cracked back, a shower of splinters spraying from where I’d attacked. Oath and Promise whizzed around me, deflecting another of the beast’s attacks in a shower of sparks.

I pressed my palm against the tree demon’s sternum, a buildup of plasma in my hand.

“Payback, bastard,” I whispered, letting my spell detonate as I thrust my palm forward.

A plume of red plasma flung the twelve-foot monstrosity across the clearing, skipping against the ground twice and spraying dirt. But the monster flapped its wings, quickly getting itself under control.

I looked up at the sky, squinting my eyes. I probably only had a minute or two to end this.

The creature, thinking I was distracted, began to flap its wings. The creature soared toward me, even faster than when it ran.

It didn’t make a difference. As it neared me, I sent Oath and Promise forward, spinning the metal to shear at the monster’s leg. The blades cut right through the short appendage, throwing off the tree demon’s balance.

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As it neared me, swinging its arms at me frantically, I weaved to the side, building up a telekinetic push and a sphere of plasma along my knuckles. Then I swung my fist at the monster’s face, trying to destroy its head. Because it had been flying toward me in a horizontal position, my attack was perfectly poised to add another exploded cranium to my ever-growing list.

This will be it, I thought, my fist traveling toward the monster’s four beady eyes.

My leg, however, betrayed me. When I tried to plant my foot, twisting with the power of a contained gale, my leg–already dislocated once and with a deep cut in the thigh–shifted to the side, unable to handle the forced weight.

My fist hit the creature’s shoulder instead. The eruption of my blow went off like a grenade, splintering white wood and blowing a hole as large as my head in the beast’s collar. It hit the dirt, writhing there for a moment.

And then the rain began to fall. I looked at the sky, alarmed. My estimates had been off significantly.

I looked at the forest around me, watching as the red fires in each tree gradually dimmed, sparks investing themselves into the multiple glowing fruits on their boughs. When the fruits dropped from the white, grasping hands of the trees onto the dead grass of the forest floor, the parent plant withered, curling in on itself and greying.

So that’s why they wither, I thought with a macabre sense of wonder. Their lifeforce transfers to their fruits, allowing them to propagate and spread beyond their bounds, but they sacrifice their own vitality to do so.

My brief distraction allowed the boss demon to recover, pulling itself from the muddy dirt. The raindrops seemed to rejuvenate it, the hole in its shoulder slowly knitting back together as it stood tall once more. Its leg was slowly recovering from the stump as well, but that was noticeably slower.

It spread its wings, shrieking at me before launching into the sky. The monster had some sort of intelligence: it clearly recognized fighting me face-on was a death sentence, so it instead took to the air.

It flapped its batlike wings, glaring at me with undiluted malice from up above. The rain cascaded down its wings, a faint outline in the thunderstorm. It screeched at me, a familiar attack forming around its maw. Sharp needles accented with red lines shot toward me in a flock, swarming toward me with deadly precision.

I planted my feet as the stream of projectiles approached, using a pull of telekinesis as they grew near. I latched onto the flow of needles, turning around as I moved my arms in tune with the flow. The attack, held in a centrifugal force by my telekinetic pull, moved with me as I rotated before I threw the entire attack back at the monster in the sky.

I wouldn’t have been able to do that without the Will supporting my understanding of ambient mana. It was a complex redirection of force that would’ve taken all of my concentration before, but now Lady Dawn supported my thoughts.

Though I briefly saw the boss demon plummeting from the sky with a deathly howl, I didn’t get a chance to see the effect of the redirected white splinters in detail.

“They come,” my bond alerted me. “The beasts of the forest seek your blood.”

A quick glance showed the horde approaching me at speed, the tide seeking to overwhelm me and tear me apart.

Oath and Promise settled over my shoulder, hovering statically. I raised my hands, drawing my fingers over the edges. They glowed with a brilliant white light as I infused the steel with spells, before sending them off with a wave of my arms.

The blades shot off in opposite directions, then rotated around me like the arms of a compass. Their blades dug into the wet mud, and wherever the steel scored, a wall of fire erupted. The flames tall stood in defiance of the downpour, burning bright despite the deluge. I was surrounded on all sides by a barrier of fire that stretched twenty feet into the air.

And then the horde struck. Some of them threw themselves at the fire, charred corpses slumping out the other end. Others tested the blaze with their hands, losing their limbs in the process in shrieks.

But I was safe from the horde, at least for a few moments. I refocused, spotting the downed aether beast. Its wing membrane had been shredded by my return salvo, but it was reknitting itself slowly. The flesh regrew like paper, slowly closing the gap until it was impossible to tell the injury ever happened.

That was when the beast within began to wake. I felt it there, stirring under the burning sunlight of my will. Massive coils of flesh and scale slowly shifted, pressing against the confines of my mind.

I stumbled, feeling my grasp on my first phase shift. My glowing red tattoo dimmed.

“Do not let your focus wane,” Lady Dawn’s voice feathered across my ear and through my mind. I grasped those words, holding on with two metaphorical hands. I heaved, hauling myself back to a stable state of mind. The trembling of my Will subsided as I reasserted control.

Just in time for a fist to crash against my jaw. My body twisted with the blow, sending me spinning across the clearing. My telekinetic shroud held against the strike, but crystalline cracks shot through with red stretched across my jaw.

And I was soaring straight toward my barrier of fire. I could sense things dying as they threw themselves at the flames, their charbroiled corpses tumbling out the other end. It was a constant, immense drain on my reserves.

And if I was sent out of that barrier, I would die.

I pulled on the ground in front of me with telekinesis, abruptly changing my momentum. My feet slammed into the ground, the tremor sending a jolt up my leg and causing it to buckle. I dug a short furrow in the dirt as I skidded, but I was inside my barrier.

The corpses continued to pile in, the tree demons ravenous for my flesh. The fire was beginning to waver, the endless waves of bodies and torrential rain battering at its mana.

I exhaled steam from my mouth, refocusing on the tree demon boss. It was hovering in the air a distance away, watching me as my telekinetic shroud slowly repaired the damage it had done.

I would finish this now.

I started by sending forth a dozen balls of solid plasma, aiming for the creature’s wings once more. Unwilling to be damaged in the same way, the monster threw up a thick wall of white wood, attempting to block the attack.

My plasmashot moved through the material like it wasn’t even there, searing the monster’s wing. Instead of the membrane, however, the solidified plasma cut straight through the supporting wood. The beast fell from the air for the second time, hurling a large spear of white wood that grew from its palm.

Lady Dawn breathed suggestions and options to me in that split second. I could try and redirect the spear, as I had the barrage of projectiles from before. That probably wouldn’t work. I could throw an attack to meet the spear in midair, canceling it out. I could simply dodge out of the way.

But my bond’s advice pushed me closer to an answer. As I internally proposed the idea, she ratified it and spurned me onward.

All of this happened in less than a second.

I pulled on the spear as it approached, using it to accelerate my momentum forward. I flipped sideways over the spear, which bristled with sharp splinters and reddish lines. I had to weave around another two projectiles, one coming worryingly close to my already wounded leg.

I grit my teeth. I needed to distract it. Keep it off balance so I could move in for the kill.

Oath and Promise came at the beast from the side. It threw up its arms, trying to ward off the weapons with barrages of needles that sprouted from its palms. The weapons snaked around the streams like buzzing flies, darting in like wasps to sting and buzz away.

The creature roared, clearly feeling panicked as I closed the distance. I was overwhelming it from every angle: it couldn’t focus on me, or my blades would reap their due. It couldn’t focus on the blades, or I would snuff out the fire in its chest.

“Its legs are short and weak, Toren Daen. This creature knows nothing of balance or grace,” Lady Dawn said from within my mind. Her voice; her emotions, her everything felt closer than it ever had. My mind was a ship, coasting on the vast ocean of her thoughts.

I understand, I replied. The words were a formality; simply a way to convey promise. I could see my bond’s idea in her mind, projected as if it were the world’s most detailed painting.

I jumped when I got close enough, vaulting over the monster. It was faced to the side, trying to push away Oath, whose blade had erupted with fire. When it saw me near, it tried to turn, flaring its slowly regenerating wing, but it was too late. As I passed the apex of my arc, I thrust my hand out behind me. Two telekinetic effects engaged: I pushed on the back of the towering tree demon’s knee, while simultaneously pulling on the monster’s face.

I yanked my hand down, flaring my pull. The monster’s screech cut off as its knee buckled and my telekinetic pull slammed the back of its head into the mud. Water and sludge burst as the creature did an impressive imitation of a scorpion, its back bending in an awkward way.

My attention was briefly distracted by the way the beast’s heartflame flickered. A small, trembling mote of the fire separated from the source, traveling along the creature’s prominent, reddish veins. And then those embers coalesced around the face, which had a prominent gouge from my rough telekinesis.

The damage began to heal as the sparks reached the head, snapping me out of my awe. Oath returned to my hand. I funneled my mana into it, and the edge burst in red plasma. Under the grim darkness of the thunderstorm, my blade burned with the same color as my tattoo.

The monster swiped at me from the ground, trying to gore me with arms twice the length of my body. My plasma-edged Oath intercepted the attack, searing through the limbs in an easy sweep. The monster screamed its defiance, a thin tendril of wood erupting from its mouth. The plant tried to gore me, but Promise streaked from the side, cutting the tendril in two.

My next attack severed the monster’s head. There was no spray of red sap: my blade cauterized where it cut.

I watched with bated breath as the heartfire in the beast’s body snuffed out. There was something terribly final, watching a living creature’s vitality drift away in such an intimate manner.

“And it is done,” Lady Dawn said. I found it strange how such pointed thoughts simply punctuated my bond’s actual emotions. How could a person be so in tune with another?

But it was then that my barrier spell finally failed. A wave of tree demons as tall as I was barreled through the finally breached wall of fire, beady red eyes and burning wood calling for death.

And the basilisk within reared. It wasn’t just agitated by the light cast by my Will. It sensed the bloodlust all around me, pressing in like a tide. It relished that; drew on it in a way I didn’t understand.

It almost opened an eye–

I shoved the Will away from me in haste, feeling my bond’s mind drift away from mine. It left a yawning emptiness in its place. I stumbled toward the portal, my legs trembling from exhaustion and pain. Oath and Promise sheathed themselves at my side as I worked up the mental effort to slam my telekinesis against the ground.

The tide of monsters drew closer as I rushed for the portal, tripping and kicking up dirt as I went. Forty feet, thirty feet, twenty, ten-

The portal was so close, and yet the monsters were hot on my tail. I had to duck as one of the monsters threw another at me, the mess of twisted limbs nearly bowling me over.

Instead, I used the monster as a springboard, launching myself in a burst of fire and telekinesis toward the portal. The last thing I saw as the purple enveloped me were the hateful eyes of the aether beasts.

And a single lamp designed to mimic those of my previous life beside the portal frame where I had missed it before.