I let my body move itself with the use of Levitation, I didn’t have enough strength to do it myself. I had to use mana from my soul as my physical mana pool had become… weird. It was as sluggish as my mind.

I could think well, it just… was slow. Every thought needed too much energy to fulfill itself. I wandered towards Marissa’s soul which had been now eclipsed by the unstable crimson flash of the hemomancer. It seems she was giving him a rough time.

My eyes were closing intermittently, unable to keep them open after the adrenaline left my system. My arm BURNED. My arm’s blood vessels throbbed in pain and glowed in mysterious light. Weird how it was only happening to the affected extremity rather than my whole body.

The pain was maddening but more maddening was how calm I was. Right now, I wasn’t thinking with my half-operative mind, but with my unscathed soul. Benefits of being a mystic, I supposed. You could just relegate your decision-making to your immortal self.

My body was on the verge of collapsing every second I marched through the dark and cold tunnels. If it wasn’t because of the control that Mystic’s Dominion had over my body, I would already be laying on the ground, Levitation or not.

While on the move, I casted various spiritual healing spells on me. Unsurprisingly, the wounds in my arm were unable to be healed. There was too much lingering interference from the leyline to be able to mend it with my measly pseudo-healing regeneration. At least, I could fix the nosebleed and the lesser concussion I had caused to myself when I had tried to mana-weave the leyline. But those were the lesser of my problems.

Spiritual healing also allowed me to soothe the pain through my soul, which was what made the difference. If I didn’t have such magic my nervous system would have probably shut down from the overload of pain, maybe even outright killed me with the shock.

And yet… the pain was there. My soul was mostly unaffected by the leyline, I was sure about that. It was just that the mana affliction was so vast, the quantities of foreign and toxic mana that my body had handled, that not even my soul at full power combined with Mystic’s Domain was able to calm the stimulus from my burnt wounds.

Then I was reminded of something. I had been far too distracted with the pain that I forgot the number one rule when working with huge quantities of mana: mana poisoning. Since I was a child, I was aware of the effects of outside mana on one's body, yet when it mattered the most, I had forgotten about it. Or actively decided to do so.

I quickly spellcasted Purify, the enhanced version of Cleanse, from my soul. It seemed to work up to a certain point; the pain originated from the alien mana receded. But when I tried it for a second time, there was no further effect. Nor for the third, nor the fourth. Had my body developed some immunity in this short span? Or were the lingering effects too powerful to be dissipated by an eight-star spell?

Mystic’s Dominion pseudo-spellcasted True Recall by reflex, to show me memories from eight years ago, back on the outing at the Arcane Sanctum. Kashar, Ferilyn’s only elemental, had spellcasted Disruption Field, a ten-star spell that could negate the effects of a leyline. The most powerful leyline in the nation. Perhaps, if I had learned that spell, I would have fared better in this situation.

My train of thought stopped as I began seeing cuts on the tunnel walls. Firstly, they were shallow, but then the amount augmented, and they became deeper. I gave an oomph to my Levitation speed. This was clearly Marissa shooting Ikail on sight, and then energizing her onslaught as he ran away.

Then the marks became covered with blood. The magenta imprints were too plentiful and deep to be splashes of Marissa’s blood, so that alleviated me.

I was feeling less and less pain. I wanted to believe that it was thanks to my healing abilities and the purification of mana, rather than my whole body becoming numb to pain and ceasing to operate.

Ikail’s soul suddenly got more condensed and began running away as opposed to standing still as he did for over a pair of minutes. Did he recover his sanity? I couldn’t care, I flew straight forward.

The control of my physical mana pool returned slowly, which allowed me to pour even more mana into the spell. I was hovering so fast across these narrow corridors that I was almost scared thinking about the possibility of crashing.

“Eh?” I unconsciously mumbled as I noticed, upon a sea of deep magenta of two tinges, in a faintly illuminated corridor, a familiar body lying on the ground.

“No… no.” I rushed to her. Thousand cuts across her skin. “I’m going to heal you alright?” I pour every single drop of soul mana into her, yet her wounds weren’t recovering. “Why? Why doesn’t it heal? I just healed myself. Why doesn’t it heal?”

The pain inside me grew hotter and hotter. It wasn’t my arm, for that, I could no longer feel it. All pain had disappeared. “No…” The heat was localized in my very soul. My only sacred place. “No…” Bolts of violet energy assaulted my very existence. “This can’t be happening…” Why doesn’t it heal? “Come on, Marissa. Wake up. We have an evildoer to chase, don’t we?”

Why isn’t she healing?

My soul pained me more and more and more and more… an oppressive hammering, never slowing, only getting faster and faster. My very self being torn to shreds…

“Come on, wa-“ Then it finally clicked. “Marissa, where’s your soul? You can’t live without a so…” Ha… ha… ha… “Ha ha HA!” I couldn’t handle my laughter, the hammering becoming more intense, faster, deeper, endless… The beckoning of the underworld got louder and louder, just like a few minutes prior.

Silence.

I got up. My arm only a phantom pain now. No need for Levitation to move myself. My mind finally got clearer, as if it had been obfuscated all this time, and my eyes opened.

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“You…” I looked at the crimson ink on the horizon. “You…” My soul reverberated at the word. “You...” The cacophony of the river, now present in me. “You!”

The last straw. My arm shone even brighter. The dim light of the blood vessels became a brightness rivaling that of stars. No longer pain. I felt sharper than ever, stronger than ever.

But above else… beyond the concentrated arcane energies cycling my body, beyond the essence of the Damned flying around… beyond all else…

My soul ignited.

**********

He had done it. There had been some bumps along the road like the pesky air mage, but finally, after so many years, his revenge would be enacted. The leyline would falter, the dome would fall, and then, his revenge would become true. Justice would be served.

Sure, there would be some casualties, but they would be justified. Their lives were given to a right cause; they would rest in peace unlike those who had been taken away by those hateful flying reptiles.

For that, he wouldn’t rest until every ellari had their death justified.

As a matter of fact, he felt better than ever at the notion of death coming all over those draconids. Ikail felt rather sluggish as of late, but his mind now felt sharper than ever.

“Hmm?” He mumbled after getting out of the tunnel, the setting sun blinding him, though not as much as the leyline did. “Shouldn’t the leyline have exploded by now? That was what the woman said. Did she lie to me?” The moment that thought crossed his mind; his blood began boiling. “Did she dare lie to me?” He exclaimed in rage.

In the end, the feigning masquerade of sanity didn’t nullify his madness. He could feel the blood inside him trembling. “Did she take away my revenge?” His eyes became bloodshot. “They had already taken everything from me, and now she takes my revenge?” His voice elevated to the point of shouting. “Can’t I have anything?” One would wonder how there was still air in his lungs after producing such sounds without breathing.

Maybe because of rage, perhaps for lack of oxygen, his temples had become a ridged terrain as his blood vessels popped up.

“No, stop.” He told himself. “Calm down, deep breaths.” He inspired deeply, filling his body with air. The motion was repeated countless times, this wasn’t his first time doing so. “I just need to check if the bomb is still there and set it up again.” He continued his monologue. “Maybe I forgot to set the trigger.” He took a step inside the tunnel once more. “Was there one?”

As he said so, his world became white as a beam of pure violet energy shot through his stomach. Pain filled him as the concentrated mana cauterized his wounds instantly. One second the beam was there, the next gone. The pain didn’t disappear with it, though.

“Ough…” Air escaped his lungs, or what remained of them. Then he saw it, the violet-white-clouded abomination in front of him. White and violet mana leaked everywhere; concentrated sparks as powerful as the beam that just hit him.

Run.

That was his most primordial instinct. The aeromancer had given him a tough fight, and he had yet to recover the lost blood. Even then, he doubted he could win against the mana amalgamation in front of him at his peak.

‘What in tarnation is that?’ He thought as he morphed into a pool of blood from the thing. ‘It’s like the leyline itself had come towards me.’ He had fought arcanists before, even the powerful Sergeant Major Kalyd herself in military sparring, yet this was the first time he ever felt such danger oozing from an opponent. Such a thirst for blood.

His only alternative was to run away and gather forces, then when he was healed, he could go on and look at what happened with the device given by the woman.

He shifted back to his normal form, having regenerated all his wounds, and grew wings with the measly blood he had left to get away as fast as possible from there. With a jump, he elevated into the skies.

You. Are. Not. Running. Away.

His body suddenly paralyzed, also losing control of his blood as his wings collapsed into puddles and he fell headfirst on the ground. He looked back at the figure out of the corner of his eye and then noticed. It had not spoken; it had slammed the words into his very being.

Ikail lurched forward from his blood puddle in a frenetic motion. Like a pressured spring, he shot with lots of speed toward the amalgamation to hit him.

He didn’t know what that creature had done to his body, but you couldn’t puppeteer the physical self of a Body practitioner. It just wasn’t possible.

The hemomancer transformed his fist into a gruesome spike, aiming for the head of the creature. Yet before he could blow its head into smithereens, his arm disintegrated.

A wave of pure arcane mana threw him to the ground, the pressure on his body growing stronger. The military man circulated body mana across his body viciously, but it didn’t have any effect. ‘HOW?’ He wondered in rage and confusion in his mind as he found difficulties moving his mouth.

The thing was more dangerous than he had thought. He tried to fight against his yoke, but every attempt was fruitless, only wasting his stamina. The last blow had wasted a lot of his blood. His reserves just being on the bare minimum to survive.

The amalgamation of white and purple took a step forward. Then another. And another. It took all the time in the world as the grasp became tighter and tighter.

Death. Is. Too. Merciful. For. You.

The being’s ragged voice continued to assault him, striking him true, more painful than the magic that was restraining his body. An infinite myriad of tendrils assaulted him, each stronger than the last. Whether they were white or purple, they burned.

“W-why?” He asked. He was the one who was going to free the ellari people. The one who was going to enact revenge on the fallen. Why was this happening to him? He was supposed to correct the damage done to the world!

A chuckle.

What he got for an answer was nothing more than a chuckle from the shrouded figure. But he did wish it was just a burst of normal laughter. He wished.

He felt his soul tremble at the cacophony emitted by the thing. A thousand voices in one place. A thousand attacks in one voice. Every tendril vibrated on the same frequency, threatening to cut his very being.

‘Maddening…’ he thought.

It was becoming harder to feel, harder to hear, harder to… think.

No. Rest. For. The. Wicked.

The cacophony now said in a language he didn’t understand, yet he got the message. And it horrified him. He knew what was going to happen. He wanted to refute it, yet no words came out of his mouth. He wanted to cry for help, yet air no longer flowed through his lungs.

Then it got closer and closer, and closer!

‘No… get away…’ He was having trouble putting on coherent thoughts, let alone shouting them aloud. Magenta liquid poured from his body, and unable to control it no more. A big puddle formed below him, his body no longer maintaining any cohesion, and dissipated into blood itself. The being looked over him.

I would tell you to repent for your sins…

The voices now merged into one, the cacophony stopped to reveal a calm male voice talking. A brief glance of sanity in the maelstrom of death. Though that didn’t mean it was any better. From a thousand needles puncturing into his very being, now a drill was tearing straight through it.

…but I would be lying.

The tranquility of the voice didn’t correlate with the violent onslaught provoked by it. The fabric that defined himself was being torn to shreds.

There is no repentance for people like you.

When the damage was too high and threatened to end his existence, the creature just wove him back to the living once more effortlessly. Only to tear him apart once more.

You may never know of the cold embrace of the river.

Father… Mother… I have failed…

His last thought, his last insight of wisdom, was when he noticed that he was no longer attached to his body, but in the grasp of the creature. There was no escape.

In the end, there only laid a bloodied carcass, more bone than flesh, to be found.