Upon seeing that their attack had failed, the Crimson Sect members began to move restlessly. Jonathan could see the dismay on the faces of some of the weaker members, and the disappointment on the faces of the stronger ones. What he did not know was that this was because of what they were about to do, rather than the failure of their attack.

Without warning, dozens of the mages began to drop to the deck of the ships, their blood torn out of their bodies and into the air. A shimmering ball of vital fluid formed in the middle of the sky, pulsing with an angry red light. Soon, only three of the mages were left, tasked with directing the blast. Jonathan could taste the power in the air, even from over two miles away, and he started running. Whatever was coming next, it would be devastating. His jaw tensed. He had been underestimating his enemies.

The stone shield came apart in an instant, as well as the wind shield, and the others began to run with Jonathan. A weaker set of shields formed around them, covering their retreat. The air began to heat up as the sacrificial array hummed to full power, and a blinding light blossomed into life behind them, as if a second sun had come into being.

The ball of blood had transformed into a sphere of pure energy, tightening in on itself by the second. About thirty seconds later, after they had run miles, the ball loosed its charge. Jonathan spared a glance backwards as a shockwave of light rippled outwards, erasing the ships from existence and tearing across the ground. Jonathan spotted a portal forming around the remaining mages before the attack went off, likely transporting them back to the Ashen Citadel.

He turned around, guarding the rear, and summoned the Void. Thrusting his hands forwards, he sent a wave of devouring nothingness into the air. As the attacks collided, he found the Void, for the first time, losing. It was not because of its potency, but rather because of the sheer amount of power behind the dome of expanding light.

Jonathan snarled and triggered Smite, girding himself in a layer of protective Divinity. The Void formed beneath his feet, and he dropped through the ground, trying to get out of the way of the blast. In the end, it was ultimately futile. The ground was vaporized before the attack, and for the briefest of moments, it looked like he was staring at a star. Then the wave hit, and he knew no more.

Jonathan woke some time later, in terrible agony. His armor was melted around his body, fused to his skin and bones. His gauntlets and his storage device, which seemed to be somewhat warded against harm, were the only things left in usable condition. Massive wounds criss crossed his body, and he felt as if an entire third of his flesh had been burned away. Jonathan simply lay there, waiting for his natural healing to kick in. As his bones slowly knitted back together, he exuded the Void from his body, separating his ruined armor from his skin. The suit was almost useless now, having taken a strike beyond its capabilities.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

With a snarl of rage that quickly turned into a storm of coughing, Jonathan stored it, leaving him completely naked. He covered up his body with a shroud of the Void, both to preserve his dignity, and to cover up the burns that marred his form. His allies lay strewn across the ground, which had turned to glass under the heat. Many of them were clearly dead, but a few still held a spark of life. Edgar, Eva, and the Uthraki were still breathing, but the rest were nothing more than burnt husks of charred flesh and bone, dead in every sense of the word.

Jonathan fell to his knees, both out of physical weakness, and out of emotional anguish. He had expected for his power to be enough to deal with any problem that they might face, but the combined power of the lives of a hundred Crimson Sect members was beyond anything he had expected. The ground was baked into glass for miles in every direction, and the epicenter was sunken into the earth for what looked like half a mile.

Jonathan’s feet crunched on the glassy surface of the ash as he stumbled towards his fallen friends and allies. All of them were either unconscious, or dead. Edgar was the closest, and the man looked like a strip of dried jerky, left out in the sun. His flesh was crisped and browned, and the only thing that had saved him was his wind elemental abilities to divert heat. Otherwise, with his low physical stats, he would have been dead a dozen times over.

Eva lay next to him, presumably having been protected by her boyfriend, as she was still breathing as well. A large dome of rock stood a few dozen feet away, with a massive hole in the front. The comatose forms of the Uthraki lay within, their ruddy flesh torn and tattered from the force. While they had a resistance to fire, they had no resistance to the blastwave itself.

Finally, the deceased lay in a rough semicircle, their glassy eyes, with those who still possessed eyes, staring up at the heavens unblinkingly. As Jonathan passed, he closed their eyes for the last time. Some of them were nothing more than piles of ash, lying on top of the dark hued crystalline residue of the explosion.

“Shit!” Jonathan shouted in a sudden explosion of rage. He slammed his foot down on the ground, cracking it for dozens of feet in every direction. Then the rage left him, and he was filled with a sense of emptiness. How had everything gone so wrong, so quickly? However, as he dealt with this emptiness, he eventually found a target for his rage. The source of all of his ills in this realm. Granath.