Chapter 239 - The Winter Festival V

A penguin with a commander’s hat and an eye-catching purple scarf raised his wings and puffed out his chest as he watched the battle unfold. It wasn’t going well, but neither was it going particularly poorly. While they had certainly suffered a number of casualties, especially among the regular soldiers, it looked as though Lieutenant General Deilos’s strategy would soon see their targets overwhelmed. Their newfound erdbrecher allies proved invaluable. Even without any orders, they had aided the officer’s men in encircling their targets. Two of the three were trapped in the formation, all routes of escape thoroughly cut.

The most effective member of their group had been cornered already; Sir Deilos had driven the berserker away from her allies and silently challenged her to a duel. His usual tactic.

Korind had shared a history with the man since they enlisted in the same unit some two dozen years prior, and in that time, the crocodilian berserker had lost exactly none of his bad habits. He struggled to recognize that his role was no longer that of a fighter, often jumping headfirst into the fray in favour of issuing orders. One might expect the lizard-brained fool to be condemned for such behaviour, but his aides often made up for it by taking command themselves. It was, as such, an incredible shame that they were not present for Princess Arciel’s capture.

One was cooped up at home, depressed following an unsuccessful mating season, while the other was apparently looking to swim to Vaughn. Korind surely would have dismissed the trek as a joke had anyone else been the one to suggest it, but with Kitterick, he couldn’t be so sure. She had always been something of an eccentric.

The penguin entertained a number of similar idle thoughts as he continued to observe the battle from his place on the roof. He was confident that his men were unnecessary, but they remained on their perches regardless, silently watching as the operation unfolded before them. They were not drawing many eyes—the manor’s sunroom was located within its courtyard and hidden by walls on all sides—but they wouldn’t have minded even if they were. The bloodkraken’s apprehension was sure to be announced to the public following the mission’s completion. Neither lieutenant general was certain as to precisely how the queen would frame the news, but it was to their understanding that the former princess would be used to cement her rule and earn loyalty from those that disparaged her for her blood.

Korind’s confidence remained until the princess’ party finished one of the erdbrechers. Their most impressive combatants were all back at the castle, enjoying a series of ludicrously expensive banquets at the queen’s behest, but their so-called softtusks were still powerful fighters in their own right. What surprised him more, however, was not the man’s death itself, but rather its cause. The princess was supposed to be somewhere in the range of two to three hundred. It shouldn’t have been possible for her blood magic to easily dispatch a monk near four.

“Our calculations are off.” The penguin adjusted his hat and fastened his cloak. “Move out! We’re providing backup!”

He leapt onto the glass-room and burst through its ceiling whilst charging his wings with mana, his men following soon after. The cutting spell that the princess had used to saw through their magic-resistant attire was one of an elementary make. He didn’t want to see what she could do if given the opportunity to channel.

Rather than targeting her, however, he focused his efforts on the battlemage with the strange weapon. He dropped right in front of her and blasted her with plasma claw. He was surprised to see her survive mostly unscathed, but scampered atop her weapon and prepared a more powerful spell. Alas, he never reached her.

He felt a gentle breeze against his beak, followed in the next instant by a world of pain. There was something wrong with his body. It was like someone had stabbed him a thousand times, each blade digging deeper than the last. He tried to get to his feet as soon as he noticed that the enemy was casting again, but he wasn’t quick enough to stop the spell in its tracks.

Everything suddenly turned white. The building was gone, replaced by a field of snow situated on the side of a lonely mountain. He immediately tried to counter by deploying a distortion of his own, but his magic was strangely heavy. It didn’t quite cycle through his body the way he wanted, just as how his eyes refused to do anything but droop.

When he raised his head, which refused to move at anything beyond a snail’s pace, he found that he wasn’t alone. Many of the others were there as well, trapped within the pocket of reality that her spell had defined. All of them were just like him, moving lazily, even though their faces showed clear frustration.

After looking towards the caster, who was slowly, wordlessly approaching from afar, the penguin grit his beak and redoubled his mana-channeling efforts. He kneaded it like a tough dough and concentrated on generating the impulse he needed to completely blow her away. But his prided wings failed to build a charge.

It was not as if they had lost their function. They could still store energy, but the amount that they accrued was miniscule. The changes were so subtle that they were smaller than what he had even thought possible.

His mind was the only thing that remained at its usual speed. He tried to open his mouth and bark orders at his men. He tried to explain that the spell was some sort of status condition, and they needed a countermeasure to deal with it. But the words didn’t quite seem to want to leave his throat, even as his field of vision continued to narrow.

He was afraid of letting his eyes close. He didn’t know what the enemy caster was doing, but with every passing second, he found himself more and more concerned that they would never open again, that the darkness would swallow him whole and throw him into the abyss. Despite his best efforts, however, he couldn’t stop his lids from falling. Slowly, slowly, the black curtain encroached, peaking right as he heard a deep, distorted gurgle emerge from the depths of his throat.

Everything vanished. There was a brief moment where he felt himself resolved to death. And if it had ended right then, as he formed that thought in his mind, he surely would have fallen in a manner befitting a warrior. But every conscious moment spent without light bit away at the strength of his mind. He wanted to scream. He wasn’t ready for his life to end. There were still too many things he had to do. He had to go home and feast upon the fish his mate had hunted for dinner. He needed to feed his son so he could grow big and strong. He wanted to drink with the neighbours and relish in the festivities. He didn’t want to die. Not on a mission that was meant to be so simple.

But then, just as he felt the despair clawing at his mind, he realised that the light had returned. It was just a small crack at first, a tiny view of the mountain that lay beyond. But it was still there. It was still definitely and undeniably there.

While the light had been restored, exactly as it was, the scene itself had changed. The snow was much heavier, obscuring more of his vision, and the sky was filled with floating chunks of ice. They were all around them, and from what he could see of his allies, inside of them as well.

That was when he realised that the distorted sounds were still there. Coming from his throat.

He was still saying something, but it was too deep and long to be intelligible, and he had already forgotten whatever it was that he was trying to say. The panic attack had stolen it from him. It was as he attempted to recall it that he realised something else was missing.

The girl had vanished.

He couldn’t tell if it was because the blizzard had obscured his vision, or perhaps if she had truly disappeared, but the sense of dread returned either way. He needed to know where she was if he wanted to react. He tried to crane his head around, but his neck could hardly budge. Every few moments, there was a slight change in the angle. A tiny movement that he wouldn’t have noticed had he been paying any less attention to the corners of his eyes.

It was only then that he realised he could use the time distortion to his advantage. He opened the menu to inspect his status, namely the abnormal condition that had weighed so heavily on his body. Perhaps if he understood it, he reasoned, he would be able to better keep his wits about him.

But what he found instead was something more horrifying than the infinite moment he had spent with his pupils covered.

There was no status condition.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Even though his resources were ticking down.

His health, his mana, and even his faith were being drained. His strength was falling. His agility had already hit rock bottom. A perfectly round score of zero. The display made it clear that it was a temporary reduction. Just as how a bard’s song could provide a temporary bonus. But none of that mattered.

Not while he was moving with all the speed of a lifeless rock.

“Are you afraid?”

The voice almost seemed to come from all around him, spoken by every blade of ice, every flake of snow. It sent a tingle down his spine, a slow, painful tingle. But he didn’t dare respond. Not when she spoke, nor when she appeared again, her figure faintly visible in the billowing storm. It was unclear, its extremities made hazy by the snow. The one thing he could see were her eyes. They burned like flames, emitting bright blue lights that chilled him to his core.

He was not alone in his decision, but neither was it unanimous. Corporal Jarnim made a sound, a strange sound that he could hear but not understand. It was like when he first tried to speak, a strange groan that showed no mastery over Marish or its derivatives. Something about the silhouette in the snow changed. A smile was added to her visage, a sinister, crescent sneer that forced his cheeks to clench.

“You should be.” Her voice was monotone, but somehow, he got the impression that she was laughing, basking in the joy of their inevitable ends. And that terrified him. She was like a spirit of death given form, a servant to Xekkur that thrived on claiming lives past due.

The corporal that had spoken out against her was captured in a block of ice. There was no freezing process, no transitional phase. One moment, he was thawed. And the next, encased. Small cracks spread through his prison. Korind thought for a brief moment the corporal had broken free. But then his body followed suit, shattering with his prison. And then, he vanished, leaving not a trace behind.

Korind tried to gulp as he double checked his own status. His health and mana were still dropping. But the rate didn’t quite seem as quick. Or perhaps it was, and it was his perception that had changed. He suspected the latter, based on how long it took his field of view to widen, but he couldn’t be sure with no way to keep track of time. Still, somehow, it felt like every passing moment was longer than the last, like their torture would never end.

Some of the men found escape in death. But the lieutenant general was not so lucky. He was too scared to speak up, to beg the reaper to take him. He could only sit in silent dread as his health ticked lower and lower. It went from five digits to four, four to three, and three to two.

And then, it ticked down to one.

By then, he was the only survivor. His eyes wide open all the while, he had borne witness, sat and stared while everything fell apart. He had determined, after an eternity of half-sane observation, that they had been made the subject of an ars magna. But he had no idea what it was, no way of guessing at the concept, nor any way of conveying it to his allies even if he did.

All he knew was that everything had fallen to zero. And that his health was the last thing to remain. Threatening to vanish as soon as he reached the end of the boundless tunnel.

___

After vanishing briefly from the room, Claire appeared again right as Arciel found herself the target of a headlong charge. The shadow mage, however, was unperturbed. She warded off the incoming blade with a shadowy mass and retaliated with a thrust of the wand. The raw mana that erupted from the weapon’s tip transformed into a grasping, five-fingered hand that tore her opponent’s magic-resistant cloak. Stepping forward again, she lightly brushed her magical stick against his exposed chest and cast another spell.

It looked like a harmless ruse; the attack left no marks on his equipment. And yet, the elephant collapsed where he stood, falling to his knees with his eyes wide open and his breathing shallow. He could already tell, with his massive ears, that he had lost his heartbeat, but it took ripping off his armour and pressing his hands against his chest for him to be sure.

The vampire slinked back into cover and evaded a beam of light. Her shields may have been able to deflect melee hits, but they could do nothing against an elemental counter.

Retaliation, however, was a simple order. Her spells were neither purely physical nor purely magical. And with something like heartbreaker, which was heavily skewed towards the former, she was able to easily bypass the magic mantles’ defenses.

All she had done was clot the blood in and around his chest. The cardiac arrest that ensued was caused not by her magic, but his body as it struggled to endure the consequences. His party’s medic would be able to cleanse him of the debuff if he got close enough to inspect the man, but Arciel had prepared for such an eventuality. After appearing behind a fallen couch, where only the cowering baron could see her, she raised her wand and scribbled a magic circle.

A staff would have been better suited to her needs. Whereas wands contained catalysts that bolstered one’s casting speed, staves reigned supreme in terms of improving the efficiency of one’s magic. Her signature battlestaff was exceptional even among its kind, potent enough to reduce her costs to less than a quarter. But the weapon was out of reach, planted in the ruined fortress that was their base of operations. For the time being, her wand would have to do.

Arciel poured three hundred thousand points of mana into her spell. It would likely need more, especially if they were to take Deilos down, but it was good enough a number to start; the rest could freely be supplied later on.

Shadow and blood were mingled together, drawn from her surroundings and concentrated inside of her body. For most blood mages, such was a sentence to a slow and painful death. But Arciel was a vampire. Blood was the sustenance that drove her continued existence. There was no chance of rejection; she could take as much of it as she wanted from anyone or anything, biology be damned.

It was hers to manipulate, hers to absorb, and hers to change.

She would have spoken a chant had she any extra time to cast. The words would further temper and refine her magic, bolstering its power and efficacy, but the panicked baron had already divulged her location. She could already sense three melee fighters closing in. So she tapped the magic circle and unleashed her sanguine scripture.

A platform appeared directly underneath her, accompanied in turn by a seat of red and black. It warped when she haughtily sat herself atop it and folded her legs, growing into a beautifully decorated seat carved from the very same substance as the elevated ground beneath it.

It was a throne. A throne made from the blood of her enemies and the shadows their corpses had left behind.

All those that had perished at her allies’ hands rose at her behest. Crimson bones. Stygian flesh. None of their skin was restored, but the rest of their organs were all present, oftentimes visible courtesy of their broken frames. Claire’s latest kills were entirely reconstructed. Their bodies were damaged beyond the point of recognition, but their blood remembered their forms.

One foolish sea horse, a Csargorn Brusseltail like Admiral Ray’esce, charged with a spear held at the ready. He swam through the air as freely as he did through the water, shouting something or another about releasing a respected superior’s spirit. But no sooner had he struck than he joined her ranks. The penguin he had attacked sprouted a tentacle from its gut and impaled him as soon as he closed the distance.

Another enemy chose to engage the caster. He avoided the army by running along one of the walls and leaping towards her with his broadsword drawn. He was on point; it looked like the blow was sure to land until a shoggoth appeared in his path. He tried to slay it, but was bested in the blink of an eye. The monster, like the knight that had just perished, was much stronger than it had been in life. Because every single buff in her kit was applied to all of her summons.

Deilos was the next she raised. The lizardman was still alive and kicking. In fact, he was doing quite well given the circumstances. But five copies of him suddenly sprung up regardless—she had already ingested his blood—and marched on his men.

The slaughter lasted until the real crocodile called for his men to retreat. Sir Deilos alone held the rear, facing off against his copies, whilst also juggling the cat, the moose, and even Matthias. The fighters surrounded him when he was left alone, but he confidently stomped on the ground beneath him and caved it in. The collapse revealed the city’s waste disposal system, through which the knight unabashedly fled.

“Should we chase him?” Matthias lowered his scythes and looked over at his mistress.

“I would rather we refrained,” said the squid, with a wrinkle of the nose. ”To chase a rat through the sewers is a futile effort.”

“Yeah, and plus! We’re gonna miss the thing we were gonna do tonight if we waste any more time!” Sylvia suddenly appeared in the center of the room. She was walking directly atop the corpses, but the blood never seemed to stick. Her paws left no prints, and her fur was never moistened.

“Wasn’t tonight supposed to be one of the free nights?” asked Lia. She reached for her book, but stopped short of touching it when she realised her hands were plastered in blood. “I think we might be better off chasing him down before he has a chance to think about our abilities.”

“It was,” confirmed Claire. She continued to keep her eyes on the sewer as she lowered her hood and revealed her twitching ears. “I can try tracking him, but I’m nearly out of mana.” Her ars magna had burned roughly the same amount as the squid’s. “It’d be safer to try again another day.”

“Huh!? Wait a second! That doesn’t sound very Clairey of you.” Sylvia bounded over to her mount and pressed a paw against her forehead. “Are you sick or something? Maybe a fever? Or did someone hit you in the head?”

“I’m fine,” she said, with a roll of the eyes. “Now let’s go. We need to leave before the guards show up.”

Arciel nodded when Matthias looked to her for final confirmation. They had already done enough damage. The harlot was sure to throw a fit upon discovering that her operation had failed, and they would surely be able to use it as a means of convincing neutral parties to take their side. Deilos may have seen two of their ars magnae, but the information they had relinquished was far less valuable than the confidence they had stolen from the crown.