With a flick of his hand and a glance to the side, an avalanche of molten rock and carbonized organics blasted away from him.

The area around him was devastated. The water had been immediately evaporated in the comet’s heat and the that cleaned the land were baked alive and turned into their most basic components.

The loveless ground began to soften in his presence. The slag that bubbled along the surface rapidly cooled as he stepped out of the crater.

In the last second of the attack, he had allowed himself to become one with the wetlands around him and sunk into the deepest reaches of the natural world’s influence.

It welcomed him like an old friend and held him in its bosom while the world above them when from a lake of lava to one of desolation.

The sights were nearly soul-crushing. What had he sacrificed his life for?

All of the years of effort and determination were wiped away by an invading god and its cronies of death.

He had known they were going to attack them one day but the scale was far beyond anything he was expecting.

Their borders had expanded far into the dwarven kingdoms and human kingdoms that refused to align themselves with nature. They holed themselves in their castles and fortresses made from the earth they so despised and tainted.

Regardless of the sterile land those coward kings tried to make, nature always found a way to creep into their places of refuge and take back what was rightfully the domain of Hekate and Ceneotl.

The old lessons from the Embermount School of Magic had never left him. He channeled the winds of magic through him and into the earth, returning the world to what it always should have been. A swamp, ever spreading out from him as the epicenter.

For as far as his mana sights allowed him to see, the world was black and devoid of life and he needed to change that. He conjured a cane from thin air and eased his old salamander spine by habit alone.

The facade of a wise old amphibian was one he upheld to earn respect outside of the amphibian holdings. The only real indication of someone of his age was the lack of colors that painted his body.

The bright yellows and rich browns had long since faded into the mottled appearance all the younglings knew now.

A swipe of his hand sent out a burst of mana to search the surroundings high and low for anything that could have survived. Every living component that shaped the world into what it once was had been deleted from existence.

The bacteria, insects, fish, and all other lesser beasts played a part in forming the cascading chains of cause and effect. They allowed the earth to reach an equilibrium and the infant races could see beyond their own hubris.

Rage boiled in the salamander as his mind traveled around without physically moving.

The old pipes that drained away the water from the constantly flooding areas were barely intact. The massive mud citied with sprawling lakes and underwater attractions was flattered down to the final commode.

His fears were actualized as he allowed his sight to travel over the vernal pools. Every spot that held the possible savior of the planet was gone in much the same way.

The meteor shower had flattened everything.

His years of work and following the words of oracles amounted to little more than a smiting from some heathens.

He was certain that this was the time that he would see results and not just another failed civilization.

It was not an easy thing to do, setting up the infrastructure and facilities to accommodate everything his people needed and it had cost him untold years of his life.

His own students had overtaken him in training their magics.

He felt for their connections as every last one was gone. The founder’s link to him had all been wiped out early in the attack and the confirmation did little to help his sour mood.

‘Is this the third attempt? Fourth? I definitely got better at it, just need to air out some kinks and streamline the process.’

He looked into the distance and saw some signs of scavengers coming in to inspect the damage that was caused.

‘Perfect conduits for my anger.’

The world answered his call, sending waves of nurturing life into the barren land, turning everything around him into the beginning stages of a swamp.

The entire fortitude of a healthy wetland was unnecessary to end the lesser creatures that sought to invade his old home.

The muck turned sour and rotten as all oxygen left it anaerobic and caustic. A tidal wave of the substance came pouring over the world in a tsunami of power and will only someone at his level could manifest.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In one second, the massive wall of earth was listening to every beck and call of the salamander, the next it was rushing away from him at blinding speak in a rush to flee from him with every inch of energy they could collect.

The connection of the particles fought the outside influences that tried to bring his wave down and turn it into harmless soil.

He had long since mastered the control of the building blocks of a swamp that gravity and concentration gradients were simple to overcome. Another side effect of the most advanced classes he learned from in school.

The salamander watched as the flood ripped through the small army that had been sent to survey the damage. They didn’t even have time to react as the wave came far faster than any of them could have expected.

Not even the weapons were left as they became one with the muck and were ground into their most basal components.

‘Hmm. I suppose that made me feel a little better.’

With his anger abated and nothing left to do with the barren land, he merged with the richest soil he could find.

A deep vein of mana-rich mud called to him, as he thought about where to travel next.

He would need to start anew. The land he had called home for the recent past was just not worth the time investment to fix.

He looked in the direction of his birthplace and a long-neglected wetland. All that was left to populate the place were instinctive and dull kin that survived through cannibalism and their most basal desires.

They offered the best stock he had ever seen. A testament to how he became such an influential figure in the last few hundred years.

His first tries had used established bloodlines of amphibians from civilization scattered across the planet. They fell to greed, ambition, and hubris. The most recent one had started with the most vicious, tough, and tricky kin he could find in those swamps and it had paid off immensely.

He would need to stop back there and stock back up but first, he would need to head to the school.

‘She will be quite worried if I don’t check in soon.’

His mind raced back and forth between thoughts as he allowed the mud to encase him and sling him into the far-off distance.

The lack of order and alteration made underground travel the fastest way he could move. The calming sensation of feeling earth blow past his skin soothed his nerves as he rocketed towards his old stomping grounds.

The mud funneled him to the rich pumice-filled lands of Embermount.

He saw light again as he came up from the soil right under the massive statue that was dedicated in his likeness. The finest swamp he ever created welcomed him home as it merged with his senses.

The new students had taken good care of her in his absence, but now the edges that were held back by formation set in place to avoid spreading it pulsed with life as they tried to overcome them.

His mere existence breathed life into the land.

“Venerated senior!” A call off to the side of a startled youngling drew his attention.

He looked back to the edges before drawing his power back deep inside his flesh.

“Apologies. I just thought she would like to know I returned.” The other mage bowed his head as a blinding mana signature entered his sight.

His cloudy eyes tracked her as she touched down on the mud before him. It refused to soil her despite coming to direct contact.

The respect the natural world had for his master had long since overcome its own will.

“Awwww. Little Quetinctol is finally visiting his old master. Took you long enough.” The figure before him pinched his slimy cheek as he shrunk under her gaze.

“Master, please stop. I am hundreds of years old. I graduated a long time ago. It is unbecoming of someone of your stature.” He pleaded with everything he had for the toad to stop.

“But I was so worried. Your connection faltered for a while there and I saw what happened to your old students. Truly a shame.” She let him go and looked far off into the distance at something he failed to see.

“Yes, well that was definitely unexpected. I was not expecting an act of a god to be called down on my head. If it wasn’t for Hekate and Ceneotl preventing my death, I might have been done in on the spot.” The salamander nodded his head in her direction as she turned her sight back to him.

The toad before him was clad in the strongest scent of mana he ever felt. She had not let his absence dissuade her from continuing to strengthen herself. It was apparent that she was only growing sharper with time.

If he wasn’t so intimately familiar with her, she might have been indistinguishable from the wetland they all stood on.

Her skin was a mottled pattern of pale, muddy grays and silky greens. Her eyes were bright and strangely distant from her corporeal body despite all of the attention he could feel placed over him. She showed none of the age Quetinctol knew she held.

“Nonsense! You can not listen to those charlatans. You should focus on yourself more and less on that stupid prophecy. How do you let your students overtake you in strength? You sure haven’t done that with me!”

He looked at the old monster bubbling with power.

“Those prophecies have always been right. Well, they are always sorta right. So what If they are just a little off? I feel like I am almost there. Just a little more and I will succeed. I can't stop now.”

The toad crossed her arms and sat on her back legs.

“That can wait. You will help me with some tests for a little bit. No ifs, ands, or buts.” She grabbed his arm and began to pull him away from the wetlands.

“/you aren’t my mom.” He grumbled quietly in protest.

“Of course, I am not. I am way more important than your mom. I taught you everything you know about magic. You would have died hundreds of years ago if it was not for me.” She continued pulling him away before looking back at him one final time. “What is with that oath on your soul? What did you do?”

She squinted at him with unhidden distrust, fearful of what a powerful oath could mean for whatever deal spawned it. He flinched back under the gaze before looking inwards to search for the thing she was talking about.

Plain as day, shackles over his power. He thought of what could have put them in place before remembering the stupid oath he took out on a bet.

He said he would hear one of his many students talk eventually.

‘Who was it? Eggo? Egoom? No, Egosum? That was it.’

He felt butterflies in his stomach as he thought about the repercussions of the intact oath.

“He is still alive. The only other survivor of the civilization. One of my newest students is still alive somewhere. The last oracle was right. Hah, take that! I knew this was going to be my best try yet!” He stuck his finger at her in triumph before turning around to rush away.

Mid step, he was flung back into his master's arms and held in her iron grip.

“That doesn’t change anything with me. You are still helping me out.” She dragged him along to her study while he kicked and squirmed for release.