An excerpt from “A Treatise on the Nature of Language Translation” by Unknown Author

Whether people realize it or not, the fact that Genesis is able to translate languages into that of the speaker is nothing short of a miracle. Somehow, it is able to take the words and meanings attached to them and almost perfectly match them up to the language of the listener instantaneously. Unique and significant words are translated just enough that they can be spoken in the listeners language while still imparting the fact that the word is ‘foreign’. Some scholars, such as Bine the Lesser, refer to this phenomenon as the ‘Greatest Aspect of Genesis’.

The ground thunders as the Butchers run toward me, their massive size slamming into the ground with each step. Their talons dig into the ground and fling dirt around them as they move, making the charge seem unrestrained and unstoppable. Holding my staff parallel to my body, I engage Effortless Presence and begin to cast. My willpower is tested as I simultaneously conjure three Chilling Winds, originating them from above to crash down upon the beasts. Wind and frost rip out from above me, tussling my hair around as I'm caught in the periphery, and rush down to buffet against the lumbering creatures. Just as before, the beasts only marginally slow down but scream in pain as the frost begins to form on their controlling fungi.

With the Butchers distracted and mildly slowed, I turn around to run towards one of the trees and begin to climb up it, the three uses of Mana Infusion having lowered my health to just above the limit of Effortless Presence. My climb is a massive gamble as I’m not sure if the fungus is poisonous or alive but luckily it seems to barely react to my presence as I reach the upper branches and get away from its reach. The branch, emaciated and barely able to hold my weight, is just high enough to give me perfect vision of the beasts that once again barrel towards me.

Using my positioning in the higher ground, I close my eyes and extend my hand as I begin to gather the Mana for Freezing Beam. It takes me a second of slowed time but I open my eyes when it has finally completed, waiting in an almost anticipatory state, and let it loose at the closest beast. A concentrated rod of Ice and Mana, condensed by spiraling winds, erupts from my hand. The elevated position allows me to perfectly see the fungus stemming from the Butcher’s brain and the beam hits it directly.

I watch as the fungus instantly darkens and pulses. The Butcher thrashing and screaming in death throes, the fungus shrivels up and dies, with the frost created by the beam splitting around the head and fusing to the ground. The beast dies as soon as the fungus turns black, its body trapped by the ice, but the other two Butchers barely notice their brother die. They reach the tree after a few seconds and rear up on their hind legs, long tails providing balance while their sharp claws strike the tree. Each claw seems to move with an unstoppable force as they use their leverage to increase their strikes.

A sharp crack breaks through all the noise of battle and I feel the tree begin to tip over, barely able to hold onto the emaciated branch. The feeling of falling creates a pit within my stomach, the sensation not unfamiliar to that of a roller coaster dropping. In the seconds before I crash into the ground, however, I activate Mana Infusion and jump forwards, throwing myself forward and rolling all over the ground. I tumble over the ground, feeling tears rip open on my face, friction burns form on my arms, and twigs and leaves stabbing into my legs. About 40 feet from the tree and the Butchers, I manage to finally slow down enough to stand up and look back at my opponents, now slowly lumbering towards me.

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Anger at Albasalas and those goddamn Butchers begins to envelop and that’s when I realize that Effortless Presence has been wiped away, my rapid retreat costing me too much Health. Fear trickles inward as I come to terms with combat without my most powerful skill. A quick look at my status reveals that I have 40% of my health left and about 80% of my Mana. I’ve never been this low in a real battle before and the anger continues to rise upwards, merging with the fear and converting to outrage. I drop my weapon, a quarterstaff helping against human sized opponents but useless against beasts this size without draining my entire Well for a single strike.

Without the benefits of Presence I’m unable to think through all the different options and weigh them, forced to go with my gut instinct. Well, go big or go home.

I raise my hands to eye level and point them outwards towards the charging Butchers. I let all my anger and outrage take control as I take my Mana from my Well and cast another Freezing Beam. Flying from my hand, I direct the beam towards their feet for the first three seconds, the ice forming outward from the point of impact, encasing their feet and the ground around it. They try to break free but the ice is too rigid and strong, keeping their lower bodies locked in place. The beam then goes upward and I use everything I have left to hit both of their heads. After another 4 seconds the beam sputters and then ends, all of my Mana drained from the attack.

I fall to the ground, panting in exhaustion. A headache begins to form around my temples, a dull pressure that makes the tiredness feel more pronounced, but I manage to get back on my feet after a few seconds. Resting in battle leads to death, a lesson that both Faul and nature taught me well.

Only 10 feet away from me, the first Butcher is clearly dead, the ice forming around his head to completely cover the fungus and killing it with cold. The second, however, continues to mildly struggle. The ice followed a similar pattern but didn’t completely encapsulate the fungus, allowing a small portion on its lower neck to remain exposed to the temperate climate of Helldarvin. I watch, from a safe distance, as the fungus continues to pulse in darker and darker shades of purple, obviously dying from the proximity to the cold but refusing to let go.

The Butcher’s head manages to move ever so slightly until its eyes are staring at me. While they had been the eyes of an unthinking beast just minutes before, now they are filled with a strange intelligence. That intelligence seems to be enraged though, the facial features of the creature morphing into a strangely understandable countenance of anger. In its dying spasm, its mouth opens and it attempts to speak, bodily features not allowing it to mimic speech entirely.

“Rruugghh whhhllll uuuuuu caaaa”. With those final words, the fungus goes entirely dark and the beast dies.

While it’s impossible to know for sure, it sounded like Albasalas was telling me to ‘run while I can’. Obviously my theory that it is a thinking being was correct and apparently it doesn’t like me very much. Well I plan to kill it, so that does kind of make sense.

I let myself smile at my victory and look around at the battlefield, frost covering everything as if a violent and sudden winter had just descended onto this field and this field alone.