En’yen Yagul, the High Arcanist of Ferilyn, could finally rest. The Command Sergeant Major of Lan’el had engaged in a tedious and prolonged battle against him for hours without end. The prowess of the soldier was to be admired, lasting for hours with very limited mana.

Alas, there are walls too high to surpass. And the difference between the eleventh and twelfth star was one of those.

He decided to spare the electromancer’s life, even if the soldier was rebellious, an eleven-star mage was too scarce of a resource to let him die. Especially with the winds of war swaying around. Yagul’s benevolence would be admired, reinforcing even more his public image. At this point, he wouldn't even be the one proclaiming war, but the angry masses. En'yen was well aware that a ruler couldn’t rule without their people.

The random healer hadn’t received his mercy, though.

Invoking the right to become the head of a new Noble House was a death sentence. It was synonymous to declare that you wanted to usurp the High Arcanist’s position. The healer, whose name he had already forgotten, was competent for someone of his age, a student of the academy!

It pained En’yen that he had to kill an individual with such a prominent future. A High Arcanist couldn’t be allowed to pardon a usurper. Reaching the eleventh star was prodigious, but he knew for a fact the healer would plateau there, no matter their promising future.

Unlike all the previous stars, the twelfth star meant something else.

A change.

Yagul turned back to return to his throne and open the gates of the Audience Hall again. He could only currently think about how much of a nuisance would be to fix the broken wall. That wasn’t normal glass he had broken with the leyline, but countless inlaid enchantments in perfect craftsmanship.

Then reality fractured.

A chill went down Yagul’s spine, he immediately stopped mid-step and hurriedly turned to look at the broken glass wall.

“Impossible...” A whisper escaped his mouth as he saw the white glow underneath the Arcane Sanctum.

A reborn healer flew before him, his very soul rippling through the fabric of reality. He instantly comprehended what had happened, yet he couldn’t accept it.

The twelfth star should only be his!

*** *** *** ***

True affinity had given me a comprehension of the Soul element I could have never thought of. An instinctual knowledge that didn’t make any sense yet allowed me to do the impossible.

My body shone in white as I raised through the skies, ascending the Arcane Sanctum by will alone.

The High Arcanist looked at me with an unsure expression. His body, mind, and soul lingered with arcane. Were those the effects of the leyline or his twelve-star spell?

Reality crackled.

“You fool!” En’yen shouted in anger, his body defying gravity as it rose. “You don’t know what you’ve just done!”

“I do.” My voice lingered with calmness uncomfortable even to me. “We are now playing on the same field.”

It was a bluff.

Mystic’s Apotheosis was without a doubt the most expensive spell I had ever casted. It instantly drained half of my soul mana pool. My colossal mana pool. But the trade in power was more than worth it.

Mystic’s Dominion empowered my soul spells and soul. But Mystic’s Apotheosis was a step beyond. It gave me intrinsic knowledge of the workings of soul magic, instantly obtaining mastery in the field and optimizations I failed to see before, just like my increased affinity.

The synergy was astonishing.

Every breath was charged with overflowing knowledge. At this instinctual level, it could no longer be called magic.

The High Arcanist didn’t reply back, instead, he shot at me nine Leyline Beams. Three times the amount he did before. His Arcane Providence did also boost his magical prowess.

I flew backward with unfamiliar ease. The corporeal plane felt like an ocean in which water presented no resistance. The image of Eygaz floating in the spiritual plane was Recalled to my mind.

I wasn’t as great of a flyer as Marissa, but the speed was insane for something passive as this, not even a spell, this flight cost me no mana. I simply did it.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t fast enough.

Defying all preconceptions of magic, Yagul’s Leyline Beams curved mid-air, ever-so-slightly. As a leyline walker, I guess it wasn’t surprising for him to manipulate a spell that imitated leylines.

Three Leyline Beams hit me.

They tore through my body with ease, yet all of them missed my vital points. Instead of regenerating like before, my flesh didn’t mend but instead got substituted by a spiritual filler that recreated my body. It was automatic, and even after casting Regeneration, my body didn’t heal.

It was already... healed.

I didn’t let my current status distract me from returning the attack, casting ten Requiems as I did before. They weren’t empowered by any words of power, but my true affinity and Mystic’s Apotheosis were more than enough.

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En’yen reacted fast, spellcasting nine more Leyline Beams.

Our spells collided mid-air in a standoff. Both were beam-type spells, and both could be sustained. The last rogue Requiem impacted the High Arcanist, but he had managed to spellcast another eleven-star barrier like before, blocking my spell even on the spiritual plane.

His spells were so powerful and concentrated they made singularities.

I poured mana into our standoff.

I was running critically low. My first Resurrection consumed all my physical mana pool, my first Requiem consumed ten percent of my spiritual, the onslaught of ten true Requiems consumed twenty percent, then Mystic’s Dominion a fifty.

Zero mana remaining on my physical mana pool, fifteen percent on my spiritual mana pool after counting the other diverse expenses like Regeneration and whatnot.

But these ten Requiems, with true affinity and Mystic’s Dominion... they were way cheaper.

Five percent.

Ten spells of the tenth star, expensive ones at that, for a twentieth of my mana pool. Zero-point-five percent per spell.

Fucking mental.

More and more mana was poured into our standoff, the ripples of clashing mana echoed through the surroundings, small cracks beginning to appear in the reinforced walls of the Arcane Sanctum.

Nine percent.

That was my current total mana. And it was decreasing.

En’yen seemed to also suffer losses in his mana pool as he once again diverted the leyline toward him, the branches of mana enveloping him. The leyline walker wouldn’t run out of mana. But he was rapidly killing himself with this much contamination to his body. One couldn’t just tolerate this much raw mana, how was he even standing, I couldn’t understand that.

Seven percent.

But I also had a way to counter mana depletion.

Six percent.

Through Mystic’s Apotheosis, I contacted my active Phylactery Bonding spell, which at the same time connected with my phylactery but at the heart of the Houtz Imperium.

Five percent.

Establishing a solid link between my phylactery-capacitor and my soul was hard, my mind and soul were occupied on the standoff. I didn’t have enough room to even breathe.

Four percent.

The High Arcanist suddenly stopped pouring mana and moved to the side, instead he now rushed to me, charging a powerful magic. How was he able to even spellcast when he was sustaining nine ten-star spells?

I flew high into the Violet Sky, that was the opportunity I was waiting for. If he decided to follow me, he would be too far away from the leylines.

Then my Soul Sight lost track of him. I only sensed a whisp of arcane mana before he appeared before me. Teleportation? How? Arcane shouldn’t have...

My thoughts were cut off as he unleashed his spell.

The shockwave knocked me to the ground.

Instantly.

My body flew around three hundred meters from sea level to the floor of the Arcane Sanctum’s Plaza in a single second. Resurrection activated again.

Two-point-one-nine-seven-two-two-four-five-seven-seven-three-three-six-two-one-nine-six percent.

Connection established.

My soul didn’t fill with mana, the pseudo-transformer on my phylactery hadn’t had enough time to convert all the mana from the Lan’el leyline into my own. But I could tap into it without reserves.

I casted what felt like hundreds of Regenerations as the Resurrection had been flawed, keeping me alive rather than fixing my whole body. My body turned whiter and translucid, more like a spirit than a living being.

I shot twenty Requiems at the High Arcanist.

My bottleneck with this spell had been the cost, not the casting time or the required computation. Ten percent of my original soul mana pool disappeared, but for the phylactery, that was a drop in the bucket.

Soul magic was already one of the more efficient types of magic. I knew that since I was a child. Other affinities manifested the magic through the corporeal plane, meaning they had to materialize as expensive constructs. Soul magic didn’t possess such hard limitations.

And now I had a true affinity, perfect affinity as some may say. Hundred percent of mana efficiency. Add to that Mystic’s Apotheosis that gave me insights on how to use mana, then I was dealing with one of the cheapest types of magic, plus the most optimized it could be, plus a seemingly endless reservoir of mana.

This was no longer a fight of attrition.

But of willpower.

And I was the most stubborn here.

En’yen moved at impossible speeds, that wasn’t the flight of an arcanist. It was as if the enclosed space of the Audience Hall had been limiting him before and now he could show his true skill.

He dodged the Requiems with staggering ease, some did manage to hit, yet his defenses were more powerful than my ten-star spells. That didn’t stop me to shove more at him. The High Arcanist responded in kindly, throwing a barrage of his own with Leyline Beams.

Although I could easily Resurrect, it would be foolish to waste mana when I could just dodge to the side.

The empowered ten-star arcane spells impacted against the plaza’s floor, shattering rock as if it were glass.

I needed a better offense.

I couldn’t use my tendrils, as I had to keep my soul in a singularity to maintain Mystic’s Ascension, but at the same time...

Yes, it is growing.

My affinity and my twelve-star spell boosted the growth of my already rapidly increasing soul. Limited tendrils sprung from my translucid body, yet these were far more concentrated than the ones I had used before.

Yagul evaded my tendrils as he collided into the ground at breakneck speeds, the man was, of course, unfazed. Arcane sparks glittered around him, showing faintly his passive defenses.

But I was worried. The last time he engaged in melee combat was because he...

I flew high up without giving a second thought, shooting tens of Requiem as I moved, most of them outright missing.

En’yen didn’t talk. He just looked at me with a focused expression. He was out to kill me.

As he chased me through the skies, the High Arcanist changed his spell choice for Leyline Missiles, the ten-star version of the spell with a similar name. More expensive and less powerful than Leyline Beams, but with a greater area of impact. Ferilyn’s skyline filled with explosions as En’yen unleashed a barrage of missiles.

This one I couldn’t dodge.

The damage, unlike the beams, was minimal. Resurrection didn’t activate, but I had to use several Regenerations, turning my body whiter and whiter. But the knockback of the explosions was colossal.

My body was thrown at high speeds into a random channel as most of the Arcane Missiles exploded at my back.

The water did nothing to mitigate my fall, not even a millisecond passed since I entered the water and hit the bottom of the channel. The force of the impact that my back broke alongside the stone underneath the channel. I rapidly got out, casting even more Regenerations to restore my body.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw a sight that filled me with dread.

Two students with confused and horrified expressions observed me next to the channel.

“Stop!” I shouted at En’yen.

The High Arcanist unleashed a bigger barrage.

I wasn’t fast enough. The Leyline Missiles flew at supersonic speeds, and even if I did catch up to them, I could only cover the students with my body, there wasn’t enough time for me to fly them out of danger.

Either way, I tried.

Everything moved at an agonizingly slow speed as I flew toward the two students. I tried to dispel the barrage, but the Leyline Missiles were complex spells and I no longer had access to my Arcane affinity. I couldn’t dispel a single one, let alone the whole barrage.

And then, fire.

In a violent cacophony of explosions and arcane lightning, the Leyline Missiles exploded in the channel.

Yet all that noise was eclipsed by two clear metallic notes. A cold feeling thundered my soul, a cacophony sang.

Ding, dong.

A bell tolled through the mayhem. I knew what it meant.

The River of the Damned had come to claim their souls.