Fourteen holy warriors, fighting for what? A holy cause? To put down a heretic like me? Fourteen lives cut short to bring my grandson back.

Calix reeled his mana wires back in.

He stepped over the corpses at his feet to reach the hook he had embedded into the enforcer.

The man had fought valiantly with his mace and shield. But the old Calix had always been sleeping still under the water and killing two score paladins was a fine warm up.

No matter how calm or how far buried he was with peaceful days, killing is still the simplest way to resolve things in this world.

Calix pulled the large hook from the man’s ribcage. It was easily three hands spans across and nearly 50 lbs of mana enriched steel.

It was a terrible day when I hooked that leviathan. This hook has always been a bad omen.

Calix slipped the hook into the loop of his belt alongside its four friends.

They wrecked my boat. Ethan and I can walk home.

He dropped the tattered boat, it had served as a decent shield with his mana infusing it. Calix returned to pick up his grandson’s urn from the desk.

Ethan will live. Nothing else matters.

Calix covered himself with a layer of mana and disappeared completely.

Now where is the archpriest? Time is moving quickly again.

Calix strode to the double doors at the back of the room. They led him to the sanctuary. He peeked inside but the place was empty.

He shrugged and turned to a side door he knew led to the cloisters below.

The door swung closed shutting out the massacre behind him with a solemn groan.

Calix rushed down the tight spiral stairs, his shoulders touching one wall then the other as he hurried.

He stepped into a light spell as he flew out the door. It blinded him and the stun affect ended his invisibility.

“Hold him!” A priest shouted.

Calix was beyond needing his eyes to see. His mana sense flowed out across the floor. It pooled like water around the ankles of five priests.

The priests wrapped him in golden chains of mana.

Feels like three casts, all rank one.

“Where is the-“ Calix tried to ask but a wave of light bolts and one crossbow bolt bounced off his mana coating his body.

“Enough!” He shouted.

His mana wires unwound and looped around hands and necks and feet, pulling the priests down to the floor. They struggled to breathe in the mana infused air down there. It felt like drowning.

“Where is the Archpriest?” He shouted.

“Repent heretic scum!” A priest shouted and used his free hand to cast another light bolt.

Calix looped a mana wire around the offending hand and cut it off.

“Now that is uncalled for.” A priest with a golden sash and tall hat said from the adjoining hallway.

Finally an Archpriest.

“Archpriest. Please see reason. This all could have been avoided if they had brought me to you in the first place.” Calix said.

The archpriest read a notification Calix couldn’t see. He swiped it away and looked up at Calix. His demeanor shifted dramatically.

“A heretic in our cloister?” He said.

The archpriest loosened the sash of his robes and slipped the left shoulder off first, then the right, revealing his beefy arms and chiseled abs. He tied is robes around his waist and took a wide stance.

“I don’t want to fight you. I need you to resurrect my grandson.” Calix said.

“Any offspring of a heretic are cursed. I would never resurrect such spawn. Prepare to die.” He said.

His punch was faster than Calix’s eyes could follow, but the light mana infused punch sent a spectral echo of his fist across the room.

The spectral fist parted the sea of mana Calix had released across the floor. Calix’s mana crested into a wave and deflected the attack. Another spectral fist and a spectral foot flew across the room and Calix deflected them too.

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The archpriest had not been standing still, he had been rushing towards Calix as he cast his light mana infused spells.

“Stop attacking me. You need enough mana to resurrect my grandson.” Calix said.

The archpriest closed the gap with Calix and delivered several punches. Calix threw up his arms in a cross block.

Each punch landed a fraction of a second apart, leaving fist shaped dents behind.

He needs mana, not fists.

Calix’s mana wires uncoiled out. The looped around the archpriest, but he stepped back in a flash of light before the wires could catch him. He opened a folio and pulled out a slip of black paper with symbols on it.

He’s calling for an executioner!

Calix pulled out a hook and his mana infused wire looped and tied itself around the eyelet. He swung the hook out with his wire and sliced through the black paper talisman before the archpriest could activate it.

“Damn you!” The priest snarled and flipped the folio over to tear out another black talisman.

Calix owed after him as the archpriest fled down one hallway and then another. He looped another hook yet the archpriest was able to deflect both hooks while retreating.

Calix was able to slice through this second black talisman as the archpriest burst through a door into a broad courtyard filled with paladins training. He tumbled to the ground but rolled into a sprint.

“Heretic! Heretic!” He shouted and heads turned to look at the two men.

There’s only one enforcer, these paladins cannot hold me back.

A tall man in the heavy black plate armor of an executioner stepped through the gate opposite Calix. His head was shaved bald, even his eyebrows had been removed. He carried a long war mace, 3 meters long and 500 lbs. His armor bore the dark signets and bindings of an executioner and the purification scrolls of the church. Those scrolls would detonate him if his demons took over.

What’s he doing here? I destroyed the talismans!

There were 50 meters between them. The only person moving was the archpriest. He stumbled strait towards the executioner.

“Heretic! He killed everyone upstairs!” The Archpriest wailed.

Is it my bad luck that one happened to be here?

“His sins will be absolved.” The executioner growled.

He lifted his helm onto his head and the enchantments clicked into place. He immediately unlocked his first binding and demonic mana enveloped him.

I don’t know this one, he’s new. I need to tear him down before he can ramp up his spells. What affinity does he have?

The giant man tore up the courtyard as he broke into a sprint. Paladins scattered else they would be collateral damage.

Either he is stronger than me, stronger than my conviction to bring Ethan back, or he isn’t.

Like most fights between high level opponents, it was settled in less than a minute.

Calix brought all four of his hooks to bare, as well as his cleaver and fillet knife. That took him all of 2 seconds, but that was all the time he had before the juggernot of a man had closed the gap and was swinging his war mace.

His reach is still not as far as my own. But damn he is fast.

Calix nearly took the next swing of the mace to his face, except he was able to sink a hook through the man’s arm and pull the mace off course.

The executioners health bar and stamina bar popped into Calix’s view and both were ticking down steadily from the bleed effects of the hook.

Then Calix was inside the man’s guard and cleaving through the straps between the plate armor trying to open up a gap that he could sink a hook or his fillet knife into.

“Burn.” The executioner wheezed as he grasped the hook in his arm. Fire burst from the vents in his armor and he directed it with his fist to melt the hook.

What a lucky catch.

Calix sunk two more hooks into the executioner and cleaved off the man’s finger before the Paladins could join the fray.

Calix’s mana flowed out in a whirlpool, the water in the air bent to his will, cups tipped over, barrels burst adding their water to the growing storm.

The water was only up to their ankles, but it still pulled the charging paladins off course.

“Wet mage!” One paladin screamed.

“Burn!!” The executioner roared, his fire spread from his gauntlets to envelop his mace. He charged through the waves, now as high as his knees. His plate armor steamed and sizzled as the two types of elemental mana clashed.

Too little too late.

The executioner reached Calix in the middle of the whirlpool. The water was only a few inches deep here.

“Die Heretic!” He roared.

Wires of mana burst from the waves. Coated in tendrils of water and sporting those massive hooks.

“Leviathan.” Calix whispered.

The executioner was dragged into the waves and torn limb from limb in moments. Paladins screamed as they drown around him, the water was stained red.

Plate armor and water, they never had a chance.

Calix pulled the water towards himself and it solidified into a red avatar of a leviathan. It walked on countless tentacles, it’s one large eye staring out from its shell at the drowned paladins around the room.

I don’t know which elemental affinity of mine was more offensive to them, the water they drowned in by the boatload, or my self taught light affinity.

“Fisherman!” The archpriest begged. “Spare me. By the light. Have you not had your fill of death?”

“Resurrect my boy and then you can bring your garrison back to life.” Calix said. “I’ll leave without any trouble.”

“Yes! Please leave us be.” He nodded vigorously and dropped to his hands and knees. “Resurrection!”

A magical stone altar, white alabaster and shaped like the columns on the front of the temple rose up out of the floor.

Calix placed the urn of his grandson’s ashes onto the altar. A wire of mana wrapped around the arch priest’s neck.

“No tricks priest.” He said.

He summoned the altar, if he tries anything fishy I’ll end him. It will be tough to complete the ritual without his mana but I might be able to.

“You have my word.” He said straining against the wire. “I’m no heretic!”

They both placed their hands on the alter and poured light mana into it.

The language of angels whispered around them, and arcane symbols lit up across the alter.

Come back to me lad.

A column of light enveloped the urn and increased in intensity, blindingly white, until it blinked out and Ethan was laying there.

“Ethan, wake up lad.” Calix said.

The room was quiet as Ethan stretched and rubbed his eyes. He was wearing the white drapery of the angels, and he tried to sit up but the billowy fabric confused him.

Calix scooped him up into a hug.

“You are alive. I’m sorry for everything.” He said.

“Papi.” Ethan said as tears came to his eyes. “Where are we?”

Calix loosened the wire around the archpriest and dragged the man off into the corner.

“Where am I?” Ethan said looking around at the unfamiliar faces, the avatar of the leviathan winked at him.

He took in the white washed walls covered in blood. His eyes went wide as they settled on his grandfather covered in gore.

“Papi? What are you doing? Are you hurt?” Ethan cried. “Have you been fighting again? You promised mother you wouldn’t.”

“It’s time for us to go home lad, I’ll tell you about it once you are safe.” He said.