Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—

The elves were not all the same.

One side of the conflict was composed entirely of the tall and refined pale-skinned elves we had known for so long. Elegance was their birthright, and even in combat and death, it remained by their sides.

The other side was mainly composed of Elves made of muscles. They were slightly shorter than the elves of the Great Woodland and had tanned skin, but they more than made up for the difference with the width of their shoulders.

Intermingled with the bulky elves, whose skin was colored light violet. They were a head and shorter than the other elves but significantly faster and more nimble.

The High Elves' — those of High King Areekails race — faces were twisted with sorrow, while the purple dark-skinned elves had looks of scorn and fury. While the two races of elves fought viciously with each other, the muscular elves fought with herculean force, shattering the ground with stomps and swings of the arm. Despite their evident strength, their swings had little conviction, acting more as obstacles for the other two forces.

Then the vision vanished, and we were left blinking at the once more empty land. Our only option was to follow the High King with an uneasy silence up to the citadel.

As we approached, we noticed the elves we traveled with were spreading out into the wasteland, gathering below the figures who stood on the battlements, leaving the remnants of the first legion alone in our journey.

Eventually, we climbed to the roof of the central domed roof of the citadel. Where we walked to the railing and looked northward.

To the horizon, spreading out between the walls the citadel anchored, was a broken city. Stone towers and buildings were everywhere. And moving on the ruins, all were what looked like swarming ants.

It was millions upon millions of beastmen. Enough to cover the world.

Then the High King spoke his words heavy with regret.

**********

I stood on the deck of the faintly rocking barge staring at the molten stone falling from the sky. My face was blank, but every childhood dream of being a knight bubbled up from the depths of my mind.

Through my years of service, I had seen knights practice and fight plenty of times. But this was different.

This was a childhood hero come to life, fighting forces that only existed in the oldest stories, forces that no one — but the beastkin apparently — could bring to life.

The Molten Man fell from the sky, chunks of liquid rock trailing behind his form like stars burning in the roiling clouds above.

A blue dome flickered to life around the tower barge on the southern side of the Rush, but it was a pale imitation of the last shield as it was hardly tinting the area within blue. It was like a sheet of paper compared to a book.

As the burning rock struck the barrier, the flair of blue mana that rose up in opposition to the rock was barely enough to ruffle a strand of my hair.

And before the burning armor around Brackus could sink more than the length of its forearm into the blue shield — but was still multiple feet — the shield shattered. This time there was no explosion of energy before it all surged inward again.

The superheated fist ripped apart the barrier, leading the way for the rest of the smoldering figure to smash onto the barge's deck. Even with a gaping hole, the blue dome held for long seconds before breaking into slivers of shimmering power that dissipated into blue sparks.

While the shield was failing, the Molten Man, covered in his burning armor, crashed to the deck on the close side of the tower in the center.

The barge was forced several feet into the water before bobbing back up, sending out a wave that pushed back the ice migrating down the river and rocking the boat under my feet.

Like the impact of a multi-ton burning rock was nothing, the tower barge remained undamaged. The most I could say happened was the blue glow that bled from the wood pulse brighter for an instant before falling to a slightly lower output of light than before.

Brackus stayed where he crouched for a second, his right knee touching the wood while the other pressed into the golem's chest and his right fist planted next to his foot. As he started to rise, five chest-sized water tentacles rose from the boat's sides.

Now that the barge's deck was no longer covered by a nearly opaque blue shield, I saw it no longer had a wild melee raging across its surface. All of the knights had gathered on the far side of the boat, with a line of warrior beastkin fighting them. A circle of five azure-glowing beastkin, with a shining ring around their feet, stood between Brackus and the tower. The poor bastards.

Head snapping left at a movement, I was surprised to find the northern tower barge and all its occupants were a couple hundred feet closer as our ship moved into the center of the river.

I hadn't even noticed that my perspective of the fight was changing with how focused I was.

Looking around, I saw the others had taken up positions around the sides of the ship, as three knights, two of which were wounded, were now in the center of our boat.

On the northern side of the river, I saw the line of barges was even more broken up than ours. Two knights were racing along the sinking boats and drifting boats, heading towards the melee happening on the northern tower barge.

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If the sun was out, I grimly thought, the river would be running red. Leaning over the railing, I looked down, spotting the beastkin bodies flowing on the water's surface and still clinging to a chunk of ice even in death.

"Booong!" a deep reverberation echoed off the walls of the Triad.

Whipping around, I turned in time to see the Molten Man pull back his arm after trying to strike the five beastkin. Around their bodies, this time far darker than the last two, was another blue dome.

My vision of the dome was obstructed as the water whips lashed forward and twisted around the smoldering figure. One looked like it was a spear as it surged forward into the golem's chest, while I saw the others locked onto his arms and legs.

It was only for a moment, but I saw the water spear splattering against the stone as the restraining tendrils coated the limbs. Then the river was filled with a sizzling hiss as the water burst into steam, flowing over the deck.

From the sides of the boat, I saw the base of the water tentacles sucking up the river's water as their ends were continuously evaporated.

Seconds passed one after another, with the hissing water never stopping. Suddenly, the crack of breaking stone sounded, followed by another bong, but this time was not nearly as strong as before.

All at once, the steam shrouding the ship surged outwards as a crackling thrum sounded.

Ducking and covering my face with my arms, I felt a momentary cold breeze before I was wrapped in an intense clammy heat.

Moving my arms after the wind passed a second later, I looked at the tower barge.

Standing on the deck was no longer a bipedal molten figure vaguely resembling a man. In its place were chunks of stone.

Gone was the heat radiating off its surface, and the orange glow of liquid stone was nowhere to be seen.

For the most part, the figure was still whole. Laying on the deck at the feet of the stone golem, I could see pieces that were once part of his arm and chest, along with other lumps of stone that I could not tell where they once belonged.

Forcing my eyes off the broken figure, I looked at the beastkin huddling at its stone feet.

They were still covered in a dome, but it no longer appeared nearly as strong as before. And from the movements of the beastkin, they looked wounded or, at the very least, tired.

The waving around of their arms no longer seemed as sharp as before.

With a splash, the tentacles collapsed into the river.

Before a spark of hope that they had run out of mana could ignite in my chest, a fist like the one that had started this portion of the battle rose out of the water.

It wasn't quite as large as the last, but it didn't need to be. All the water fist needed to smash was a lone stone statue instead of the gates to a millennia-old fortress.

After it towered twenty feet above the deck, the liquid fist stopped growing and started its descent.

At that moment, the stone statue exploded outwards. It wasn't all of the statue, as the feet and one arm were still standing, but most of the chest and right arm shot to the side with a shower of stone.

The watery fist crashed down on what was left behind, smashing it to rubble, but I could not help the smile on my lips. The attack was too late.

Instead of a thirteen-foot hulking figure, Brackus was now hardly larger than his normal size. The extra mass still came from stone, but this time was different. The ratio had shifted.

Before, it was lines of cherry red and patches of gray stone. Now it was lines of gray stone surrounded by cherry red pools. Clutched in his right fist, or what he just made his right arm into, was a lance of churning stone.

The lance wasn't the weak heat that merely warped the air around the rest of his body. The farther down the length of the spear one looked, the lighter and brighter the color became. At the tip, I could swear I saw a blinding white, but I could not fully look at it to find out, and it stung my eyes.

Brackus's new form road the wave of water that broke free from the fist as it impacted the statue. He slid ten or more feet before coming to a stop, the water lapping at his ankles sizzling to steam, curling around his glowing figure.

He stood still for a moment, his body radiating potential power. Lance leading the way, he charged forward.

The water hand tried to interpose itself between Brackus and the beastkin, but it could not close the distance fast enough. Because the Molten Man had angled his eruption and slid from the wreckage to place the beastkin between him and the water arm.

A flash of azure light signaled the contact between his spear and the beastkins' shield, covering my vision in white brightness.

By the time the spots cleared from my vision, the Molten Man's spear had seared its way out of one beastkin's chest and into another.

He didn't even bother to use the tip of the lance as he just swung it to the side, the flesh of the beastkin sloughing away in puffs of smoke. Now that he was within arms reach of the beastkin, they were as helpless as infants before an adult.

Grazing the side of his spear against the chest of one beastkin, it sank into its flesh like a hot knife through butter. As he whipped the spear away, half of the poor creature's chest was gone as if it had evaporated.

As the lance was performing its deadly work, his arm snapped out, and a blob of molten metal shot out of his fist, impacting the chest of a third beastkin. The beastkin fell to the ground screaming in agony, clawing at what was left of its chest.

In an instant, three of the mage beastkin were dead, and the fist of water collapsed as it moved, spilling over the deck.

Clouds of steam rose around the burning figure as he strode forward.

One of the remaining beastkin tried to flee to their still-fighting comrades, while the other formed a water sword and charged.

Neither decision matters.

As I opened my eyes from a blink, I saw one figure with a spear through his chest and the other with a fist.

Like there was some unseen signal, the bodies fell to the ground simultaneously. And the light blue glow covering the deck vanished.

The nearly evaporated water around Brackus's feet held back the heat for a moment, but that was all.

From one moment to the next, fire clawed out from his feet, like a forest fire taking root in the dry grass of late summer on the grate plains.

Then the Molten Man moved, leaving burning steps of fire, appearing at the back of the beastkin pressing the knights still on the ship. Swinging his lance, his burning through their backs, severing their line.

The fight over, and his fire firmly taken hold of the tower barge, the Molten Man leaped into the air, streaking towards the other tower barge as the knights mopped up the beastkin and gathered at the railing.

With a lurch, I felt the boat under my feet move as we quickly traveled the distance to the tower barges, stopping in the open river between the two. When we arrived, the knights on the burning tower barge leaped across the distance.

The lines of boats were broken, one of the tower barges was quickly becoming a burning wreck, and the other was beginning to smolder; a relieved smile came onto my face.

The beastkin might be pressing the walls hard, but after this clusterfuck, they had to pull back and regroup, at least for tonight.

We held back the first assault. I thought after long minutes had passed, as I watched the fire on the barges consume everything.

"Crack! Cracacaca-boom~!" Like a god spoke, and his voice echoed across the world, the light of heaven fell from the sky, and all I could hear was the screams of the air before everything went silent.