“Don’t say your final prayers just yet, fresh green shoot. We passed an ironwood tree just a hundred meters back on the trail. It may be possible for us to create a shelter from it.” Said Blue.

“From a tree?” Kari asked incredulously.

“You’re welcome to stay here and complain until you die, human,” Blue replied sarcastically, hopping out of Kari’s front pocket on her spider-like metal legs. “There’s no time to lose!”

Elwin chased after Blue, scooping her up as he flowed by on his wave of dirt, moved by his Gift.

Seeing this, Kari snapped out of his shocked stupor and sprinted desperately after his two companions.

As he ran, only a single thought ran through his mind:

How much time had passed since Empress Lucina had given her warning?

Kari came to his companions fifteen or so excruciating seconds later, barely able to catch his breath.

The Ironwood tree that Blue had in mind was smaller than most of the forest surrounding it. It was probably ten meters high at most, with a thick trunk and shapely branches, most comparable to an oak tree in shape. It was covered in the most vividly dark brown bark, with fresh green spring buds lining its branches.

Blue was already directing Elwin on how he should manipulate the ironwood tree’s limbs to suit her vision, both by voice and a holographic diagram. The two elves couldn’t have been more than a few seconds faster than Kari, but already he could see the geometrically harmonic structures of a complex magic circle being built.

The Ironwood was a special tree of exceptionally tough wood. The wood itself was even smelted and forged into weapons, much like metal commonly was in the technological continent of Crassia.

“Stand inside the circle. I suggest you make yourself useful like Elwin is.” Blue said, seeing Kari arrive next to them in a sweaty mess.

“The wood is pretty tough to move on my own. It’s got a lot of non-organic impurities in it.”

Using his Gift, Kari assisted Elwin’s efforts, finding that the Ironwood contained a significant amount of water, just like every other living tree. Kari helped as best he could, moving the water inside the tree to make its extremely tough structure more malleable.

Blue demanded that they weave roots and branches into the structure of her magic circle. The boys hurriedly placed reagents in the necessary positions.

The young elven boy was surprised to see the ease and pace at which Blue’s vision was coming together. He would later realise that the great pace of their effort was largely due to the fact that the arts of magic and enchantment shared some common aspects. It shouldn’t have been too surprising to Elwin, as both arts communicated with ADAM to draw upon his godlike powers.

With Kari’s help, Blue’s magic circle was done in seconds… but their shelter was still far from finished. The trunk of the tree had been carved out and stretched to fit Blue’s design, and at present, it only partially sheltered the three of them. There was still an awful amount of empty space around them.

Elwin began shaping the excess parts of the Ironwood into a shield, bending its tall trunk down, folding it over them with a great creaking and groaning. Kari naturally assisted him. The two of them didn’t need to exchange words, they instinctively knew what needed to be done. The trunk was spread, its mass being reshaped like wet clay, forming a roughly spherical shape around them. Their surroundings darkened as sunlight struggled to make its way through the mass of bent bark, limbs, and leaves.

True to Elwin’s artistic vision, their shelter’s exterior was like that of a great hand cradling a fragile baby bird.

Elwin worked on the finer, easier-to-manipulate parts of the Ironwood, such as the twigs and leaves, fusing them together. The skilled craftself was not wasting even a gram of workable material. He was determined to make their shelter as airtight as possible.

In the meantime, Kari sent a considerable amount of water spraying out of the surrounding forest. He gathered as much water as he could, shaping it into a refractive barrier held in place by the power of his stasis bracelet. The human reasoned that if the ion cannon was like the Angels’ weapons, then it could be bent away like light.

At this point, the only source of light inside their shelter was the sterile blue glow from the lights of the elven priestess’ orb, and the warm orange glow of Kari’s stasis bracelet. The noise of their uneasy breathing filled the cramped space, echoing off the walls, sounding far louder than it probably was. Even the wailing of Wraith’s Ravine was muted, barely audible through the thick ironwood surrounding them.

“…Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” Blue counted down.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Kari and Elwin’s muscles seized up in preparation for the unknown destruction that awaited them.

…But nothing happened just yet.

“I suppose that the Incandestine forces, though disciplined, aren’t the most punctual.”

More than a minute had passed; The attack could happen at any moment now, so it was fortunate that their Gifts did not require line-of-sight between them and their targets. Both Kari and Elwin continued to improve their defences from the safety of their dark cradle.

Having shaped the tree’s trunk, branches, and leaves, Elwin had gotten to work moving its roots below ground, stabilising the new structure the best he could, and strengthening the earth below them by compacting it.

Sounds of the chaos, previously being monitored by Blue without broadcast, suddenly made their way through her speakers.

“How is she still fighting? The nullifiers are fully operational!”

“Aim for the left shoulder!”

“She’s got some kind of Aegis! Nothing is reaching her!”

“Find out where are all the bombs coming from, the devil’s not carrying anything!”

The cold voice of Lucina cut through the chatter.

“The ion cannon is charged. To all who remain outside the safe zones. We will never forget your sacrifice… just as we remember Her.”

Kari flinched as he remembered to extend the use of his stasis bracelet to include their entire shelter just in the nick of time.

“Close your mouths,” Blue warned.

And at once, blinding light pierced through the thick walls of their shelter, turning the otherwise dimly lit sphere far brighter than day. It was so painfully bright that even through eyes closed so tight that the facial muscles seized up with pain, Kari and Elwin seriously worried that they might go blind. Kari threw his face into the crook of his elbow in an attempt to protect his searing retinas, but he didn’t even notice a shadow.

Next, a thunderous, deafening roar assaulted their ears and beat into their bodies like a flurry of physical blows. It was so loud that neither Kari nor Elwin could even have a coherent thought. The two of them were knocked around their shelter… Or perhaps, was their shelter being knocked about through tremors in the earth that was being so mercilessly punished?

The air surrounding them, and the ground beneath their feet grew unbearably hot. A metallic taste began to fill Kari’s mouth before he mistakenly took a breath in. The breath turned into a gasp of pain as hot air, as if from an oven, scorched and desiccated the inside of his mouth and throat. After that, he clamped his mouth shut and dared not even to breathe.

The light faded, the deafening, all-consuming roar fell silent, and the rumbling beneath their feet all subsided… and Kari dared to carefully open his eyes. Slowly. Barely a crack at a time.

Finding that his eyes weren’t painfully protesting at him any more than usual, Kari finally opened them fully, blinking in a futile effort to wet them.

Kari unscrewed his flask and with his Gift, wet his eyes and throat with uncomfortably warm water. He felt his hot, bone-dry clothing beginning to dampen with a sudden sweat as the pores on his skin opened up again.

Kari offered Elwin water, which the elf gratefully accepted. It was only then that he had noticed that his stasis bracelet was glowing red. A colour he had never seen before.

Elwin noticed the change too. He coughed. His throat still felt strange. It seemed that he too had made the mistake of breathing in.

“Your stasis bracelet was overloaded. It deactivated itself before too much power was drawn through the spirit’s seal. You won’t be able to use it again for a while until the micro-enchantments repair themselves.” The enchanter explained.

Kari noticed the elf’s hair was all sticking up straight on end, before raising a hand to his own head and realising that he was very much in a similar state.

“We continue to live! Based on my readings, you shouldn’t have sustained any permanent damage. Good job. Though, my spell seems to have run out near the end there… we got lucky that the bombardment ended when it did.” Blue said, just as Kari noticed that the magical circle beneath their feet had lost its telltale lustre.

Kari hesitantly placed a hand on the walls of the shelter, which had been slightly warped by the heat. It was still hot. He noticed a burn on his wrist, and scorch marks on his clothes, where he had touched the walls as they were tossed about.

“Is it safe to go outside?” Elwin asked. His own fair voice sounded distant; as if his words were spoken by another person. Some part of his mind hoped that the hearing damage wouldn’t be permanent. An elf’s hearing was important.

“It should be safe to look.” Replied Blue.

Kari was sensing a distinct lack of moisture outside their shelter.

Elwin hesitantly pulled the weave of ironwood apart. As he pushed through towards the outside, it became more difficult. He realised that the branches had become welded together, the wood and water burning away to leave behind the metal that gave the ironwood tree its strength.

But, finding a way forward, Elwin continued to tear their shelter open from the inside, like a bird hatching from its egg.

With the shell breached, both Kari and Elwin blinked. It was both due to the bright sunlight and the unbelievably dry air, pouring in from outside their shelter.

Through the crack which Elwin had made, the world was an alien landscape.

They could see that their immediate surroundings had been completely cleared of all vegetation. Only massive ripples of upheaved dirt and the odd boulder could be seen, visibly cracked by the violence they had endured.

Lava cooled in patches around them.

Elwin widened the gap he had made in their shelter, peeling the roof away and leaving them standing, surrounded by its uneven, grey metallic fragments.

They turned their gazes eastward… Myria Bridge still stood. Barely. It had been melted in places; other parts were outright blown apart, missing entirely. Even as the three survivors watched, unstable chunks of its grey runestone cracked, slid, and fell into the abyss below. All of its intricately rune-laden surface details had been destroyed… and the ravine’s haunting wail was now a scream that threatened bloody murder.

Distant, supernatural lights flickered in the misty depths below the bridge.

“…I am definitely not going across that bridge,” said the timid Elwin with a sudden supply of great resolve.

“Neither am I. Let’s get out of here.” Said Kari, turning to leave, or at least, to begin finding a safe path northward.

But as he turned, a figure, wearing a mask painted with ominous red eyes, dressed in white burial bandages and covered in a white cloak, suddenly appeared in front of them… accompanied by the smell of something burnt.

The figure patted down the smouldering tips of their black hair.

“A GHOST!” Elwin fearfully shrieked.