"Or it could destroy us! This. This. This thing you've made. This machine. You have no idea what course it will decide. What if it decides humankind has run its course?"
Gronardul Osqulo - Grand Inquisitor of the Praeseon Empire
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"What did you do? How did you do that?" Alicia asked, glancing between Symon and her glowing orb.
Symon cleared his throat. "Uh. Hi?" His voice was hoarse, and his words had a lot of air in them, as if his vocal cords were hanging by a thread. They probably were. Even if Alicia gave him a numbness pill, the feeling was still extremely uncomfortable.
"Um. My name is Symon." He said, reaching out to shake her hand.
"Alicia." She responded but left him hanging. "Now, what was that?"
Symon knew exactly what she was asking about of course, spells didn't often change without their caster's input.
But he couldn't answer truthfully. If he did, and word got out, then he would become a person of interest to powers he really did not wish to meet
So, he lied. He told her he had a unique ability to transmute nearby spells, even ones not of his own making.
Why would he do something like that? Naturally because his death happened from a transmutation gone wrong. When he woke up it only made sense to test his transmutation power, and what better spell to test it on than the simple and harmless Whispering Glow?
Of course, the lie would fall apart eventually, as soon as they reached civilization in fact. With how popular of a spell Whispering Glow was, it would only be a matter of a couple days before nearly every person on the planet who used the Central Astricon would know something had happened to it. Every magic tower in the world was probably in an uproar already.
What would Alicia do when she heard of this? Naturally she would realize it was Symon who had changed the spell on a global scale. So, she'd sell him out, there would be quite a bounty on any information related to the whole incident after all.
After that, higher powers would chase him down. Powers whose interests would vary from wanting him dead in order to maintain the status quo, to those who would want to contain him, and hoard his knowledge for themselves.
The more he thought about it, the more troublesome it was. He couldn't just run away either; the people who hunted him would have tracking abilities which far eclipsed his ability to evade.
He needed a plan, a way to get far away from here while also delaying Alicia. Alternatively, he could do something to entirely prevent her from leaking any information...
There was always murder.
No no no. Symon shook the thought from his head. Putting aside that her combat abilities likely made that impossible, it wasn't something he was willing to do.
How could he delay her then?
“Someone’s coming” Alicia suddenly said.
Symon looked to where Alicia was watching but couldn't see anything. Though it would be strange if he did. Guardians had trained their bodies to be superhuman. Someone of Heron class such as Alicia could imbue themselves in mana to far eclipse the physical capabilities of any human back on earth. They could be faster than a cheetah or stronger than a gorilla. They could enhance their eyes to be sharper than a hawk’s and ears more sensitive than a rabbit’s.
This ability was closer to an enchantment than a spell. It was woven into their DNA, a biological magic which Symon couldn’t access in the Astral Realm. All he could do was direct his mana into it.
His body had some measure of this capability, but not to any great extent. When he directed mana to his eyes his vision was a bit sharper but remained in the domain of a regular human's 20/20 vision. It seemed the prior occupant of this body had not been a warrior. Or maybe death had degraded his capability?
Soon enough, a new face broke through the vegetation. He was panting heavily and had to wipe sweat from his forehead. He looked to be in his late twenties. Brown hair, brown eyes, light skin that looked like it did not often see sunlight. He held one large staff and had a dozen wands attached at the hip. He was the spitting image of a support mage in Symon's eyes.
“Darrius? Where is everyone else?” Alicia asked.
“Separated” he answered between panting breaths. “We were ambushed by a Fenrir. It got Erwin. Badar might be gone too.”
Alicia paled and Symon felt a shiver run down his spine. Fenrirs were indomitable creatures of at least Lima-Class. What was one doing here? They were supposed to be rare in this part of the world.
“What’s your Guardian Class?” He asked them.
“Heron.” Alicia answered.
"Splitting up was the best option then." Symon comforted them. "It would take a Klasen-Class team at a minimum to take it on."
"How much do you know about Fenrirs?" Alicia asked.
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A probing question? He wondered.
“Enough to know we should get as far away from here as possible.”
“Agreed.” Alicia said with a resigned sigh. “There’s nothing we can do for them now. The best we can do is search for Tarrin Town and hope we meet up with them there. If anyone else survived that’s likely what they would do. That, or..."
A spell circle manifested in the air before her, a gust of wind with explosive power shot out between them, throwing Symon and Darrius to the ground.
The air roared. The ground shook. The Fenrir landed roughly just outside engagement range.
"It's here!" Darrius yelled in a panic. "Shit! What do we do? Do we split up?"
The Fenrir stalked them in a circle just outside engagement range, searching for an opening to strike.
Alicia glanced at Symon for a minute before focusing back on the Fenrir. "Can you buff a spell to the point that it can take that thing out?"
Could he? Symon didn't think so. A four-class gap was no minor leap.
"Darrius, cast any buffs you can on me!" Alicia ordered. "Symon! Now's not the time to hold anything back!"
"It'll only work if you cast something that uses the Akashic Records!" He shouted.
"I don't know what that means!" She yelled back.
"Just spam the strongest attack spells you have and I'll pick one!"
"I don't have the mana for that! You'll have to pick one before it's cast! Darrius! Cast a calmness spell on me! We can't afford to misfire!"
"Spirit of the skies, bring peace to the soul, quiet the mind, and rest within the heart. Veil of Aetherial Peace"
Following Darrius's spell, dozens of spell circles began manifesting in front of Alicia, though she was careful not to activate any.
Luckily, the Fenrir made a minor retreat behind the trees, seeming to estimate Alicia was actually capable of unleashing a bombardment of all the spell circles she had manifested.
"Fuck!" Symon said. He was hoping to recognize more of the spells than he did, worse, some he didn't even know what school of magic they originated from. Between them all, none had a chance of even scratching a Fenrir.
Just when he was beginning to give up hope, and the Fenrir began cautiously approaching ever closer, that's when he saw it.
Wrath of the Black Storm
"Why the fuck do you know that one!" Symon yelled. Though at the same time, he did not hesitate to pour his energy into it. He half expected the spell to reject him, considering its origins, though surprisingly that did not happen.
This time when he entered the astral realm, Symon found the strongest chain of mana that he could and aggressively followed it. He followed it through a path which skirted the shadows of the astral realm, it slithered and snaked, and as he progressed along, it actively responded and receded before him.
The weave of connections and energy masquerading as a spell soon abandoned any semblance of an inanimate form. At the periphery of his awareness, a darkness stalked his advance, a presence which he would not be able to discern if wasn't looking for it.
Suddenly it exploded inward, spikes of black malicious mist devoid of energy attacking like spears in a thrust from all directions.
It was an attack that Symon knew by instinct no ordinary person could resist. And yet, for him, he was as comfortable in this space as he was physical reality. More than that even, Symon was a master of this domain, a rational mind in an irrational space. He twisted the space in on itself, traversing a non-Euclidean fabric which was formed of his own imagination.
His opponent missed, and with it, he could clearly trace it to its origins.
On one side was the spell, Wrath of the Black Storm. It was attached to Alicia's soul through a malignant growth which had burrowed itself within her, a parasite in the astral realm.
Alicia was under demonic possession.
Symon struck while he had the advantage, severing connections like a hot knife through butter, weakening the hold of the parasite. Though it was embedded deep, and for every blow he dealt it, it began rebuilding another.
More and more Symon pulled on his own energy, the once bottomless well of power receding quickly to his touch. He pushed on, drawing on so much of his power that the fiber of his being began to wither.
He had no choice. The stakes couldn't be higher. The entity he was dealing with, if he didn't stop it here, only an eternity of suffering would await him on the outside.
At the same time, he checked on the outside world, diverting his attention despite the strain it put on his sanity. The Fenrir was close now. Dangerously close. He didn't have time.
With a final push borne of desperation, Symon finally restructured the spell. Optimizing its connections outside of Alicia's soul as best he could before total exhaustion of his soul forced his consciousness back into the physical world.
A pitch black and malicious fog poured out from the spell circle. It creeped forwards swiftly, though silently.
Although the spell looked harmless by initial appearance, beneath the surface was something sinister. It was a spell created in the image of the Demonic Black Fog that ravaged the continent of Novae Terra.
The Fenrir did not hesitate and charged straight into it. The fog smoothly slipped around the Fenrir's fur on a cushion of air
An instant later it turned as hard as steel, it continued forward, carrying with it a great force of momentum that tossed the Fenrir aside so easily as though flicking away a bug.
The Fenrir yelped. It was thrown into the trees. The collision was so powerful it shook the earth.
It continued to whimper and spasm on the jungle floor as it fought the terrors conjured in its mind by the spell ravaging its soul. It tore through the earth and bounded uncontrollably. It tore through the trees as though they were no more than reeds in a field.
Time passed in slow motion. Dread swelled up in Symon. Tearing away at his sanity as he slowly circled the motionless Alicia.
She turned, facing them with a broken, ghoulish smile that only shown on half her face.
"Father knows where you are." She spoke.
"You are not needed." The other half of Alicia's face blankly stated. The spear she held shot out, faster than Symon's eyes could track it. It obliterated Darrius's face, turning it to a red mist, piercing so quickly that the rest of his body stayed motionless for a moment, before collapsing.
"Let's have a chat with father. Shall we?" The ghoulish side said. It had a cheerful, almost innocent tone which sent a shiver down Symon's spine.
A sphere manifested around them in a color not seen with the eyes but felt in the recesses of the mind. It was a cloud of shifting space.
An Interdiction was taking place.