The Solar General paced around the front of the phalanx, eyeing Bart and his glowing spear.

     “Oh, I merely caught tale of how you planned to escape me. My name will forever go down in every history book across the planet! Conquering an entire world twice, well, how could I ever say no to that?” The General spoke, his voice deep, masculine, and authoritative.

     “You won't get past us,” Bart said, gritting his teeth even harder, feeling them begin to chip slightly from the exertion as he willed his body not to leap at this man and claim his life.

     “Oh, I believe I will. Did you really think that some scout with a whistle was causing a volcano to grow? That was just an alert for me.” The Solar General gave a wicked smile as the two-story hill from earlier began growing even faster, molten-hot lava leaking through tiny breaks in the earth.

     A stray glob of glowing liquid metal landed on Bart’s left gauntlet, forcing him to quickly take it off and throw it away. Lava leaked from the various pores as they broke open from the stretched earth, spewing the planet’s deadly lifeblood.

     This display of power caused the civilians to panic. All of them rushing up the stairs into the Palace of the Elders. Many of the children still human as they ran on shaky legs into the place of their salvation; having completely forgotten about the unfortunate souls from before when faced with the power of nature itself.

     The Trolls and Gnomes and other reborn got deep into the foyer, falling over between mages as their mana was violently taken from them to feed the silver orb. The humans met a much more unpleasant fate, clutching their chests as each of them fell forward, their small amount of mana in their bodies quickly taken by the gluttonous spell. Soon, the collapsed humans stopped moving entirely as their bodies quickly aged to dust.

     The few who did not make it inside lay groaning on the steps as the other civilians had trampled them in search of salvation. While the Militia Members threw away their burning and melting weapons, many of them went into a panic and broke the phalanx formation.

     “See how they run from me? They know that I am the rightful god of this world.” The Solar General said, laughing.

     “Sure, they run. But there will always be someone who stands up. Who says never again, Who says ENOUGH!” Bart screamed the last word as he jabbed his spear forward, the mass of eldritch magic flying from it and slamming directly into the center of the Solar General.

     The tyrant fell back, clutching his stomach as the now five-story leaking volcano stopped growing and started to look like it was going to collapse in on itself. Bart smiled, speaking quietly to himself, “I… I did it?”

     The Solar General slowly pulled himself out of the collapsed house he had been thrown into. Standing, his armor was completely gone in the front, giving a direct view of his muscular, untouched, glistening abs and chest. “You little wretch. I just had that armor commissioned and then killed the artist! I will never get another set like it!”

     The rest of the defenders shook a little, knowing that the Solar General’s armor is always heavily enchanted. They knew it would take a blast of magic capable of blowing a hole in a mountain to break it, yet the man himself was unharmed.

     Several of the militia members dropped their weapons, kneeling as they accepted their fate as non-High-Elves. Bart, however, gripped his spear harder.

     “Now then, I might actually let some of you live, I do need pets. Let me through, I have a prize to claim.” The Solar general said as he walked casually to the now entirely crumbled left defensive line.

     Bart quickly ran over to them, but the Solar General, faster than humanly or inhumanly possible closed the gap and grabbed the Troll by his throat.

     Adopting a kind face and a chiding tone, “Did you really think that would work you brute? I swear, it really is true, other races just aren’t as smart as us.”

     “Glrk grubble,” Mark said, reaching for the hand and trying feebly to pull it free from his windpipe.

     “What was that?” The Solar General said, his smile growing wider as he loosened his grip.

     “I said you aren’t a race, you ugly little slug.” As Bart finished the last word he spit directly into the Solar General’s face.

     The High Elf gripped his throat harder, partially crushing his throat as he threw the man into the side of the palace causing the ashes that had blown up there to be tossed into the air as a cloud. Again, in a shorter time than it took to blink, the Solar General was upon him again, grabbing him by his throat.

     Bart gripped his spear, having barely held onto it through the attack and slammed it into the unprotected belly of the Solar General. The green glowing magic let the legendary metal slip a mere two inches deep into his flesh as it began rotting from the eldritch power.

     The General Threw Bart again, this time to the other side of the top of the stairs, making him lose grip on his weapon and breaking his left arm.

     Summoning up all of the remaining mana in his body and then pulling on even more power, the non-mage cast a spell he had only seen once before. When the raids on his mother’s home city had caused his father to sacrifice himself. Bart could feel his own soul being pushed into the power of his spell.

     “Soul-Wall.”

     Nothing visible changed, however as the Solar General turned and tried to walk inside of the foyer to the palace, an invisible wall sprung up, stopping him from setting foot within the door.

     “What is this?” The General said in mild annoyance as he raised up his right hand, using his left to cauterize the rotting wound. Five small needlelike flames appeared in his hand as he pressed them to the invisible wall. However, nothing happened, as he pressed the flames to it, they merely disappeared, the mana to create the ability absorbed by the wall.

     The Solar General stomped quickly over to Bart, lifting him by his neck again. “WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU WRETCH?! MY PRIZE IS RIGHT THERE!”

     Bart, barely able to speak as blood dribbled slowly out of his mouth, “If you’re so powerful, why don't you go get it?”

     The General roared, slamming his captive into the invisible wall over and over again, causing blood to leak out of the Troll’s mouth at a much faster rate as he coughed it up. Soon, the Troll fell unconscious and the General tried to walk inside again, only to be rebuffed. Confused, having expected like most spells for it to be removed once the caster was unconscious, turned his head to look at the limp form in his clutches.

     ***

     Five Minutes Earlier (to those outside), inside of the Palace of the Elders.

     Zippy watched as fire rained from the sky, destroying homes and lives. His vision was not that of his own body, he saw everything from the perspective of the silver orb. The grand artifice had an even grander view of the destruction of the Troll people.

     From this new perspective, Zippy saw things differently. The first thing to clue him into this change was when a group of young humans along with a couple of others ran inside of the foyer of the palace. Zippy watched as in a short time, the nonhumans were brought low, their power being absorbed by the silver creation.

     However the humans… It took far, far longer for the humans to fall to their knees. It looked as if they were merely standing still for an eternity before falling forward and then subsequently a second eternity for their bodies to be reduced to ashes.

     Zippy saw as the streets of the city ran on their own unique clocks. Certain streets had time sped up, where the chase between predator and prey was almost comical. Other streets were slow, anything that stepped onto the thoroughfare was nearly frozen in place as it moved at less than a tenth of the time surrounding the area.

     Oh no, That’s how they got here so fast. It’s not that they made a day’s trek in minutes. It’s just that minutes to us was a day outside… How did that ever happen? How did none of us notice? Zippy thought to himself as he tried to run, tried to warn his son and the people outside that the rules had changed.

     Zippy, however, was rooted to the spot, his consciousness hijacked by his own creation, forced to watch from on high as a ball of molten hot metal slowly slammed into his son’s defensive formation.

     NO! They’re being picked off!

     Zippy watched again as the riders of the High-Elven-Empire circled the palace defenders with unmatched speed. Or, it would have been speed, had the time surrounding the palace not been exponentially slower.

     As Bart gave slow-motion orders to his soldiers a group of cavalry entered the area of slowed time. The cavalry rushed the reformed defenses only to be impaled on the ends of their spears, unable to break through.

     That’s my boy!

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

     A cold shiver shot up what would have normally been Zippy’s spine as he felt a bright, scorching aura make its way through the city at normal speed, which was currently far faster than the defenders could know.

     Within minutes to the defenders, but in reality hours, the Solar General lazily walked into the time-aura of the palace, becoming just as slow as the rest of the defenders.

     Zippy watched in horror as so many rushed up the stairs in fear. Yet he had no way of stopping those running to their doom in slow-motion. Again, the human’s energies were sucked away into dust while the reborn fell to the floor, unconscious from the powerful mana-drain happening in the room.

     Something then changed. The outside was no longer moving in slow motion, It was going far faster. Before Zippy could even mentally scream out to his son, Bart had blown a hole in the Solar General’s armor, started rotting away his flesh and had already been thrown to the side, battered and bruised.

     That was when he heard it, the forbidden spell of his one love.

     “Soul Wall.”

     Zippy’s heart sank, while the spell was not forbidden for fear of harming the caster, it was for the simple fact that the only way to remove a soul wall is to wait it out. And when the Solar General figures this out… Zippy could not complete the thought, tears ran freely from his true body as he turned his back on his son, choosing to honor his wishes.

     Zippy focused on the artificial spellform. Channeling the continent's worth of mana through the size of a small rock; he created veins, capillaries, nerves, muscle, all of it out of pure mana. Once the mana was circulating in the right way, mimicking a biological lifeform Zippy looked up from his work.

     The Solar General was slamming his boy, his son’s face over and over against the invisible unmoving wall. Zippy felt anger, rage, HE bellowed a scream that his own body, and then everyone inside the foyer echoed.

     “A curse upon you Solar General, a curse! May you never know rest again, may the Deities of sleep never welcome you to their bosom. May the food you eat taste of the ashes of your slain and may all water dry upon passing your lips.”

     The words echoed past the soul door, directly into the Solar General’s ears. He let out a scream of impotent fury as no one inside the palace could hear his voice. The power of a spell is directly proportional to the amount of mana used, which in this case is incalculable, and the number of souls casting it. The Solar General, equipped with this knowledge began beating at the open area, slamming his fist against the invisible wall.

     Opening his hands he let out massive geysers of fire, hoping to torch the ancient magical wood, yet the palace held. This was not the first tyrant who had tried to burn it down, unfortunately though, it would be the last.

     The Palace’s colors started fading from green to brown as countless millennia passed for the structure. The mana holding it together was nearly entirely siphoned off, then the last of the humans who had made it inside floated away into dust.

     Suddenly, Zippy’s consciousness was back in his own body. Looking up at the silver sphere as if praying to one of the gods before their fall.

     Light burst forth from the silver sphere as Zippy looked away, back to the clear door blocking the foyer.

     The Solar General pointed directly at Zippy, directly at his old college dorm-mate. He held aloft Bart’s broken body, barely breathing and yanked off the trolls helmet. Grabbing him by the hair he yanked hard, baring Bart’s neck directly at Zippy.

     The Solar General pulled out his blood-caked, rusty, scratched, and partially broken long-sword. Having no more of a care for his tool than a first-year farm-hand mucking out the stables.

     With his dull red-rust covered blade he pressed the tip to the trolls windpipe. Giving a wink to Zippy and the widest most cruelly beautiful smile, he drove his blade down hard.

     The sword caught one or two times as the Solar General drove it down through the trolls dying body, impaling him from above. Zippy let out a silent scream, crying his eyes out but no sound would escape his mouth.

     While Zippy watched the carnage of the last of his family, the silver orb changed. Two large metal rings began circling the orb, one ring inside the other, spinning at a ninety-degree angle. Soon, the flat end of the rings spread and kept spreading as the palace itself rotted away above the orb.

     Organic eyes spawned on each of the rings, inset into them like some abominable hybrid of flesh and jewelry. As the rings spun, during one rotation the orb disappeared completely, upon a second it was replaced with a glowing mass that felt like looking into the sun when gazed upon. Countless heads of beasts, animals, people, mythical beings, and long-extinct creatures replaced the glowing orb with each spin of the eye-lined metal rings.

     Suddenly, the rings stopped, both of them parallel to each other, as the orb and the heads were gone. The eyes each shot out a beam of black light that anchored the rings in place as a colorless portal appeared in the center.

     On the other side stood an office, or a study, there are many people inside wearing fancy clothes with strange devices.

     Zippy looks to see his creation in all of its glory, his tears flowing freely as he bites his bottom lip hard enough to cause blood.

     The black-light tendrils not anchored to the ground begin reaching out to the collapsed mages, pulling them into the portal like the gentle tendrils of a Kraken.

     Soon, or immediately, as time had completely frozen on the outside, Zippy was pulled inside as well.

     ***

     The world was going dark. It was hard to focus or look at things.

     Everything feels cold.

     Everything is cold.

     Bart lifted his aching head up one last time, a bloody tear dripping down his face as he watches the silver orb his mother had made evolve and pull the small Gnome into the future. Hopefully to a better future.

     With the last of his energy, Bart willed the Eldritch power to flow through him. He felt the side-effect of the portal, he felt his mana, all mana in the world being sucked into the gaping hole in reality.

     Bart let his body be consumed with eldritch fire, forcing the Solar General to drop him as the green flames wrap around the once beautiful, immaculate hands. After pouring disenchanting water on his hands and looking at them; the Solar General screamed in impotent rage. His beautiful porcelain-like hands had been permanently coated red from the curse of the Eldritch.

     The charred form of Bart lay resting on the ground, a smile on his desiccated face. The mana, no the ability to even create mana was being stripped from the land and from the entire planet. Even the reborn would not be able to generate more, as mana did what it always did.

     The receding mana changed the world around it, only the most ancient and dedicated scribings keeping the truth of the past as entire areas of territory burnt and razed by the solar General were transformed and changed. The history itself is rewritten, the Solar General’s legacy being lost to time.

     The Solar General watched, no, felt his ability, his power be plucked from his existence as he watched the divine portal wink out into nothingness.

     ***

     The inside of the timestream is a confusing place. As the one hundred and sixty-two survivors of the past glide through the shapeless void of gentle orange. Held together by a large round disc with a large dome the people watched the scenes of history unfold before them.

     Zippy, however, had noticed an odd scene. He needed to get right to the edge of the disk, but the distraught mother had no care of falling off into the ether, not anymore.

     That’s when Zippy saw it, a red tinge surrounded a scene, unlike the others. With horror Zippy watched as he saw the Solar General come out of a portal and on the other side, waiting for the beast was… Him. In the background, several dragons flew high in the sky as a beast forgotten to ancient texts stood beside the small form of himself.

     With a horrifying realization, Zippy understood this scene, unlike what the others were seeing, this would be from the future, his future.

     A fire lit itself inside of Zippy’s soul, not only would the small Gnome have his vengeance, he would give the world some as well. The coldness that had overtaken Zippy’s mind and soul broke and the man wept.

     He wept for his time, lost to the machinations of the Solar General. He wept for his son and his horrible end. He wept for Firsthaven, the Palace of the Elders, and he wept for Juranina, his home town that had met the same end.

     Pulling himself onto his feet he stood on the disc inside the timestream. He scanned the scenes above, below, everywhere for any hint…

     Then, he saw it…

     Another scene surrounded by the same red aura… Zippy is there, with others… A large woman and… a few other people, it was hard to make out as almost all the people were covered in shadow.

     In the center of these people, a small lantern lay on the ground, old and worn but not broken. In the middle of the group, seemingly flowing out of the lantern a small red form of pure mana was weeping.

     The question barely escaped his lips as he stared in amazement at a being of legends, unseen for half a millenia, “A genie?”

     Suddenly, the disc came to a grinding halt, forcing all of the passengers to fall over or into each other.

     A door appeared at the far end of the disc, in the direction they had been traveling. The portal was completely white and without color, the inside of the portal looked like the same confusing study Zippy had seen through the other portal.

     Deciding that since it was his creation that he had better go first, he did just that…

     ***

     Two Months Later…

     Zippy sat at the table in the ready room, used to being called in for all matters magical. The humans, while little more than children to him, were genuinely impressive. After giving the 162 magical refugees vaccines, that would be non-magical inoculation, they had been given warm clothes, food, and the most comfortable beds. Still, as the leading magical researcher, he was the voice of the Magi when it came to the United States govt. at least.

     Zippy tiredly flicked the pencil back and forth on the table, bored from the conversations about random people going through the rebirth, and how it might ‘scare’ the others around them.

     What a load of hooey, they’re so afraid of differences. Oh well, we knew there would be consequences to leaving the past in the Solar General’s hands… Still, I had been hoping that his influence would have degraded over the years. Zippy thought to himself.

     “So, we’ll be ready to take out Barthol…” Zippy misheard the colonel speak.

     Zippy, jumping slightly out of his seat directly on the table, “What did you just say?”

     Colonel Hasenfeffer sighed, “I said, after we get the people off of the mountains, we will be ready to take out Barthel. A small segment of the Appalachian mountain range took off into the sky and we have no idea how long those mountains will be up there. We have word from their mayor so we know everyone is alright but we do not know for how long. Rescue operations are currently being drawn up, afterward, we will destroy the mountain so it cannot drop at an inopportune time and hurt civilians.” Finishing his speech that he felt was so rudely interrupted.

     “Well, if that is the only plan of action, I see no reason to…” The lead general began as Zippy held up his own hand. Pausing, she let him add his own commentary.

     With a smile nearly crossing his entire small, round face, “I have a second proposal…”