The others followed suit, too terrified of Jonathan to speak in his presence. Smiling, Jonathan watched them leave, ready to make their world a better place. Or die in a ditch somewhere, either one was possible.

By the time that the others had returned, thousands of corpses lined the sides of the road, and more soldiers were coming from every direction, seemingly unperturbed that they were marching to their deaths.

“What was that with the carriage drivers?” Edgar asked as he approached.

“Some of them wanted to help out a bit, do something to break free from Granath’s control. I decided to send them off on a mission. It doesn’t hurt us, in any case.”

“Huh. Well, most of the army in this area is coming down on our heads. Do you want to fight, or flee?”

“What do you think?”

Edgar smiled.

The soldiers of Granath came sweeping in like a tide, washing across the road and surrounding the group of fighters. That was foolish. They should have run. Without even a word in exchange, they attacked, sending projectiles arcing towards the two dozen or so elites. Jonathan stepped forwards, batting some of the projectiles out of the air. Raising one arm, he channeled the pure energy of the Void to it. He wanted to see just how powerful his new skill was in the Ash Heaps, which was a far weaker place than Tartarus.

As the surging nothingness of the Void took shape around his arm, a primal sense of terror sept across the incoming soldiers, causing the nearest ones to freeze as if caught by the gaze of a god. However, the momentum of their compatriots behind forced them forwards, straight towards their doom. Jonathan brought his fist down, unleashing the Void into reality. A cone of erasure erupted forth, tearing through the Tier 1 materials and flesh like a scythe through a field of wheat. For almost a thousand feet, bodies were turned into emptiness, and the air into a vacuum. The snap of the vacuum breaking tore through the air a moment later, announcing the deaths of thousands of people. Most of the destruction had been directed around ground level, so the actual world was barely affected, save for being leveled along the path of the cone. However, with that display, the resolve of the soldiers broke, and they fled from the eerily empty patch of ground that had formed among their ranks.

“That was… quite the sight,” Edgar said after he had regained control over himself.

None of the people here had actually seen Jonathan’s new skill yet, and its range had surprised even him. It was truly worth the cost. It seemed that even the air in Tartarus was more durable than the air in the Ash Heaps, which was likely why its range had been so limited in that hellish plane.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yeah. It was a bit more dramatic than I was expecting. It seems like Tartarus is on another level to the Ash Heaps. Maybe I should have reined it in a little bit.”

“Maybe not. It certainly fulfilled its purpose,” Eva said, smiling. “None of us had to do anything. If we can simply blitz through the walls of the Ashen Citadel like this, then Granath will fall in short order.”

“I think you’re all underestimating Granath a bit,” Jonathan said, ending the discussion.

As they continued along the road, Jonathan watched the path ahead. There were still carriages on the road, but as soon as they spotted the cloud of dust rising up from behind them, they desperately pulled over to the side of the road. Edgar set up a pre-programmed message in the wind that told everyone nearby to turn around or die. Jonathan aided this with regular blasts of his aura. Along the way, more and more of the merchants pledged their allegiance to Jonathan, breaking free of their fear of Granath. Who would have thought that simply running would have such an effect?

Eventually, they were met with some resistance, after about fifty miles of running. They had been forced to lower their speed significantly in order to preserve the lives of the much weaker merchants. Jonathan’s top speed was measured in the thousands of miles per hour, and coupled with his durability, he was like a living cannonball.

A small fleet of flying ships crouched low upon the horizon, and they cracked with an aura of arcane power. With Jonathan’s immense sensory power, he could see that they were absolutely loaded with members of the Crimson Sect, the order of pet mages that Granath kept. For so many of them to be out here in the wastes showed just how much the worm feared Jonathan.

Ritual circles made out of coruscating mana and elemental energy formed around the ships as they approached, shielding them from harm. Edgar lobbed bolt after bolt of compressed wind towards the ships, but the attacks only cracked the shields, rather than breaking through. The Crimson Sect had some sort of method to combine their mana pools rather than casting individually, allowing them to create magical effects far beyond their abilities.

A moment later, one of the circles flared, and a beam of red light lanced down like the finger of an angry god. It was not as powerful as the attack that had been leveled at Jonathan and Edgar above the skies of the Ashen Citadel, but it was of a comparable magnitude. Unfortunately for the Crimson Sect, Jonathan was far stronger than he had been that day.

As the fighters behind him geared up for battle, he and Edgar defended them. A dome of wind formed over the party, tightening until it was as hard as Tier 2 steel. Jonathan stepped forward, out of the range of the shield as a dome of rock formed around it, courtesy of the Uthraki. Gazing balefully at the incoming strike, Jonathan gathered the Void to his fists, and waited. At his current speed, the beam was fast, but not too fast to track. With the use of his stamina abilities, he was able to keep up.

Raising one hand above his head, Jonathan brought it down with a sharp snap, karate chopping through the beam. A blade of nothingness traveled up the length of the attack, cutting it down the middle. The two halves were deflected to both sides, only grazing the shield instead of hitting it full on. Twin explosions of crimson light rocked the world, but Jonathan remained standing, his eyes set upon the ships.