Wyll staggered backwards into Karfice, clutching at his arm and screaming for dear life, a shrill shriek which pierced Karfice’s skull in a rather uncomfortable manner. Although it was a little hard to see what exactly happened, judging from the copious amounts of blood streaked across Wyll’s cloths, the ground, and just about everything else in the area from his panic, it was safe to say his arm was no longer fully in tact, which also meant…
The ground cracked and shifted, listing down towards the black abyss which had just swallowed most of Karfice’s friends whole, “Come on, no time to waste!” Karfice shouted, awkwardly grabbing Wyll by the collar and dragging him kicking and screaming down the rest of the hallway.
From his hand, Karfice sent out a small tendril of ice crawling across Wyll’s skin, coalescing around the stub on his arms and locking, sating the incessant bleeding for at least the moment. All around them, the chaos burned on, the whole structure collapsing and falling into nothingness just as they reached the other side, turning sharply into another long corridor.
“He was…right there…” Wyll moaned, tears pooling from either eye.
“I know-I…know…” Karfice choked out, taking turn after turn through the winding maze of never ending hallways, vaguely following the direction Wyll had been taking them. “But right now-”
Ahead, the ceiling began to glow a red hot hue, a light sharp enough to slice through the darkness even as far back as they were. Karfice skidded to a sudden stop, watching as a massive chunk of the ceiling, easily some hundred feet wide, erupted in building flame, the heat burning away stray strands of hair atop of Karfice’s head.
“FiNe. If YoU wOn’T cOmE tO mE. i’Ll CoMe To YoU,” a twisted and strangled sound emanated from the blazing hearth before them, and from that hearth did a single lone figure emerge, black outline bold against the brilliant light all about them as he stepped forth, stray licks of fire clinging to his skin like a torn cloak.
His body, much like the others, was twisted in ways inhuman, limbs and ligaments itching bending far beyond their natural order, and in places they never ought to. But unlike the others, this one walked with a particular bounce in his step that no mere shambling zombie could mimic.
“Wyll, who is this?” Karfice whispered, but Wyll didn’t respond, the light in his eyes flickering in and out.
Of course, the students here weren’t used to actually fighting for their lives. An injury as severe as that one would send even the strongest men into shock without the proper experience and mental fortitude that came with years traveling the plains.
“A rEaL sHaMe To ThIn My ReSoUrCeS lIkE tHiS . . . I’d HoPeD tO kEeP aLl ThE tEaChErS oN tHaT gRoUnDsKeEpEr, BuT yOu’Ve FoRcEd My HaNd . . .”
Well it sounded like Yissle was still alive, at least for now, but if he was fighting against the other teachers, there was no guarantee he’d live much longer. He was strong, surely, but standing against 13 grand magus at the same time? Surely impossible, even for him.
What to do? What to do? Karfice shifted back as the fire master walked slowly forward, the wall of flame shooting past Karfice along either wall and blocking the route he’d come from. If he fought now…no, even if he did, there was no way he could protect Wyll and Mar in the state they were in. He needed to run, but the only route he had was…worth a shot.
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But just as Karfice shifted his weight, preparing to leap to the side and straight through the wall, praying it took him where he needed to go, the teacher raised his hand, the wall of fire behind him condensing into a single dazzling mote of pure fire the size of a marble.
Even from where they stood, Karfice could feel the unbelievable pressure emanating from the mote, a well of pure fire so dense as to nearly transcend fire itself. Even the ground below the man began to melt from the sheer adjacency, a spell somewhat reminiscent of the zenith cast Leo had used back in Zerital–Inferno. A single touch from that would be fatal even to Karfice, and he wasn’t moving nearly fast to dodge, a sitting duck waiting way out in the open. The man’s form smiled, crooked teeth splaying apart to show the clear joy this monster took in its bastardization of human strength. In an instant, the man was atop them, glimmering spark of fire inches from Karfice’s face
A crack, no larger than the pinkie toe on a newborn's foot, appeared in the wall next to them. To the untrained eye, with the world collapsing around them, it didn’t seem of any importance, just another layer of destruction added to the puddle. After all, with all the screaming echoing through the falling building, sounds of stone crashing into the earth far below, why would anyone pay attention to the goings on of a single man?
“Duck…” Wyll groaned.
Karfice plunged straight downward, falling prone as Yissle exploded from the wall, hand outstretched towards them, eyes blazing with a fury hotter than the sun itself. Before the man could even react, Yissle slammed his arm into his face. Karfice watched as the man’s face bended inward, bone yielding to Yissle’s unyielding touch, ripples of skin flowing like water across the man’s face.
In one swift motion, Yissle planted his feet just beside Karfice’s head, the ground splintering from the sheer pressure with which he braced himself, following the single strike through all the way to its climax and sending the teacher’s body sailing through the opposite wall with a tremendous boom, the air vibrating from Yissle’s strength.
To say he was in awe would be an understatement. Karfice looked up at the man’s glimmering, bloodsoaked form almost as one would a king–a god–his tensed muscles like sliced slabs of mountains stitched onto the form of man. Karfice rolled backwards to his feet, managing to pull Wyll and Mar along with him as another figure crashed through the ceiling, diving at Yissle to no avail.
He quickly side stepped, taking two perfectly placed paces backwards, easily dodging a sudden burst of shadows emanating from the man's body and blocking the shadowed assailants' daggers with two swings of the unfathomably massive greatsword he suddenly held, one which he swung as if it were nothing more than a paper weight. He redoubled his effort, planting both hands on his sword and swinging it with unmatched vitriol, plowing the flat of the blade into the stomach of his attacker, sending them flying back the way they came, towering waves of stone mesas following in tow.
Yissle locked eyes with Karfice, hard expression not softening in the slightest as he nodded further down the hallway, disappearing after a moment's hesitation without so much as a word. Gods, it was like it ran in their blood.
Karfice resituated Mar over his shoulder and awkwardly cradled Wyll in his arm, managing a quick stagger through the last couple of turns, now that the fire had been cleared. Just as Yissle had indicated, there it was, a colossal hole in the stone floor wide enough to fit several bathtubs in the ceiling and floor. In fact, each and every single floor had a single hole leading straight down from what looked like the top of the Academy to the bottom.
Next to him, the wall began to peel away, entire chunks ripped out by shadowy tendrils as the light surrounding Karfice began to show the first signs of weakness, a flickering, almost imperceptible. Looks like they were out of choices. With the booming screeches of the shadows overhead, Karfice dropped down the hole, sliding down a sheet of ice to slow his descent slow enough to save them, but not so slow as to be consumed by the wall of darkness crushing down after them.