2 : 262 : 19 : 53 : 29

The wall parts in front of me. I come out to the wide open terrace, where magic lights dance, and the golden sorcerer awaits with his gallery of hostages.

“I’m back.”

“That was awfully quick,” the wizard remarks, reasonably suspicious of someone clearing the gods’ legendary trial in under a quarter hour. “And the core?”

I raise the glossy metal sphere on my palm. “Feast your eyes on this babe.”

“Give it to me.”

I put my hand down.

“You first, buddy. Let my friends go and I'll let you fondle my balls all you want.”

A cold, wrathful light is lit in Yaoldabath’s eyes. “You are not in a position to make demands, tool! Give me the relic! Or I will shred your friends to ribbons in front of your eyes, and tear the core from your still-warm corpse!”

“Well, I’d stay in my pants, if I were you!” Before he can make good of his word, I move the orb to my side. Bright rings of warm light appear revolving right under my hand. “I know warp magic too! The gate’s easy enough to pry open, if I don’t have to worry about passenger safety—or where it ends. From this point, there are about 16,812 potential exit nodes around the planet. One wrong move and it's gone! Are you sure you want to go looking? Here I thought you were in a hurry!”

Yaoldabath glares at me under a leaden, murderous silence, and I know saying sorry isn't on his mind. There are busy calculations going on under that brow. Can he kill me fast enough before I drop the core? Is the risk worth taking? He looks for a stealthy way into my head, to take control of my body, but I’ve beefed up my mental resistance for years to ward off granny’s spy games. It would take him time and effort to get in. Too much of both.

“Come on!” I push him. “Two small people for a cosmic orb? What does it matter to you? I get you’re not very used to it, but is it really that hard to compromise a little?”

Looking like someone who just drank a glass of lemon juice mixed with raw egg, Yaoldabath raises his hand. Then Lieselot tumbles onto the floor, human again, dazed, cold, and trembling. The cursed nails bolt out of Zandolph’s limbs and the monolith she’s pinned on crumbles to dust. The thick ebonite chains wrap like snakes around her figure, holding her still, but she’s a good deal easier to transport now. I take out Thirteen’s Data Blocker amulet from my pocket and toss it to Lieselot.

The wizard holds out his hand once more. “The core...?”

I meet his stare unflinching, my hand still on the edge of the wormhole.

“You haven’t freed them yet. Send them outside.”

Positively pissed, the wizard waves his fingers once more. Space curves. Both Lieselot and Zandolph are gobbled up by a cloud of darkness and vanish. I shortly pick up the redhead’s blazing mana signature again, from a solid distance. They’re on the surface, on the Pillar’s stairs. That hardly puts them out of his reach, but far enough to give them a running chance. It'll be morning soon. Guess it's fair enough.

“Thank you,” I tell the villain with a nod and close the Gate. “And who says it doesn’t pay off to have manners?”

I toss the core to him.

Not blinking, Yaoldabath catches the metal sphere, weighs it briefly on his palm, and makes it evaporate.

His face, if possible, even darker and grimmer than before, he growls,

“Where is the core?”

“Oh?” I pat my pockets, pretending to be astonished. “Was that one not good? I'm so sorry! Maybe you’d like this one instead?”

I take out another core from my back pocket and throw it at him. He makes no effort to catch it and it vanishes upon touching his armor.

“Take these too, while we're at it. Here, here! We’ve got a campaign! Buy ten, get twenty.”

I keep throwing more and more shiny orbs on the floor at his feet, like a broken baseball pitching machine.

Did you know this? If you compress waveforms far enough, they begin to resemble particles. But though they hold some characteristics of solid materials, able to trick even the eye of a veteran conjurer, they’re still nothing but photons caught in a fixed shape. As such, they lack mass and momentum. However, I can consciously simulate the relevant physics, similarly to the Chain of Light. Since the core doesn't emit mana in a dormant state, you can only tell the difference on contact.

A cool trick, huh?

Yaoldabath stomps the floor with his heavy heel and makes the illusory cores vanish all together.

“WHERE IS IT!?” he howls at me, now in open rage.

Guess I should let him know.

Feeling almost sorry for the guy, I answer,

“I have no fucking clue. I tossed it already.”

As expected, he’s not loving it.

“You have made a very foolish choice!” the wizard declares and rises off the ground. The fury he’s kept bottled up comes pouring out in a flood of mana.

I load up my fists. “Bring it, fruitcake!”

“You would presume to battle me?” he yells, rising higher and higher. “I have mastered all of the eight arcane elements! Fire!”

Before I can think about my own plan of attack, he’s launched his own.

The floor below me starts to glow red. It’s not a decorative visual effect. Heat intense enough to reduce reinforced stone to glowing, rubbery paste burns under my soles. It’s not even a proper spell. He’s merely increasing the vibration rate of particles in a fixed area. The most elementary form of fire magic. If he thinks he can humble me that easily, he has another thing coming. I have just the right medicine for this.

“Freeze!”

I point my palms at the floor and put out the rising heat with a shower of ice-aspected mana. The floor hisses and shizzles like a nest of pissed off vipers under the conflicting temperatures. I paint the ground around me with a thick layer of steaming ice, but it begins to immediately melt. I have to apply the frosting again and again, but the temperature only keeps rising.

“Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!”

Sharp tongues of flame break out through the emerging gaps in the ice layer, spitting up boiling water and embers. The area I can keep frozen shrinks steadily.

Soon the ice is no longer melting, it’s sublimating on the spot. I find myself standing in a whirlpool of steam and fire and can’t hope to suppress it anymore. I have to cast Frost directly on my own body, to not get burned to crisp in an instant. But even that is only a temporary fix. The heat rises. It rises with no apparent limit. The ice shielding bubbles and boils on my skin. My internal temperature is rising. My clothes are smoking, my hair starts to catch fire. All the oxygen is burned up, I can’t breathe. I'm losing this.

“AAAAAAAhhhh—!”

All of a sudden, the fire fades.

The ground cools down, wind blows, stinging on my raw, blistering hide. I can breathe again. I gasp for air and cough because of the smoke I inhale on the side. But I'm alive. Yes. It’s too soon for me to die.

The show has only just started.

“Earth!” Yaoldabath calls out the second element.

The still steaming floor under my shoes starts to rise. A thick pillar of rock shoots up, throwing me high in the air. I find myself standing on the palm of a bulky giant hand. Six blocky fingers detach from the base, rising and coiling around me. The fist is closing. I’m going to be crushed! I try to slip away, jump off, but my feet sink into the flat palm, like it’s made of quicksand. I can't get away!

I conjure the Shield of Ice and extend it over myself like an umbrella to hold the tightening fingers apart. I’ve come a long way with the barrier, but have I come far enough? The giant hand is large enough to close both me and the shield inside it, and then the grip tightens.

The pressure builds up steadily. My shield starts cracking. I pour more mana into the barrier, but I can't make it omnidirectional or equally strong throughout. The areas with less mojo give in right away, fissures stretching along the frosty surface. I patch the holes as quickly as I can and reroute power to where the pressure is heaviest—but the fist squeezes harder and harder. Soon my shield is nothing but a wide web of cracks.

I can't hold it! I’m going to be crushed!

Right before the shield shatters, I dispel the top part myself and punch a Shockwave directly above. The pressure blast breaks off the stubby middle finger and I wriggle up through the crack as the fist closes. My leg is almost mangled, but somehow, I get away and climb on top of the knuckles, feeling like a rodent. But it's too soon to relax. The fingers blend into the palm and new fingers extend out from the sides, faster than before, and the game of cat and mouse starts over from the beginning. I have no stamina for another round. I’m trapped. The tons of stone pour on and bury me.

Then the rock hand turns to dust and vanishes.

It’s still too early for me to die.

“Water!” Yaoldabath calls out the name of the third element.

Instead of dropping back to the floor, I sink into a pool of water.

A large semishere container without borders has appeared out of nowhere, floating in mid-air.

It's about six meters in diameter, a third of it filled with clean, fresh water. And I'm trapped inside. Oh shit, I can already tell where this is going. I feel along the walls and search for a way to escape with my senses, but there are no openings in the boundary. It’s a perfectly closed fish bowl. Then more water starts to pour from nothingness above me.

Fuck, I knew it.

The tank is steadily filled.

The torrent of water pouring in throws me along the smooth, round sides of the tank, spinning me around, around, around until I lose all sense of direction. Forget coming up with a counterspell, I have a hard time just finding a non-wet spot for my nose and mouth. Soon the sphere is filled to the limit, with not a bubble of air left. I hold my breath and fire Flashpoints randomly around, but there’s too damn much water. Even at point blank range, I can’t muster enough oomph to pierce through the walls.

Am I just too damn weak?

All I achieve by flailing around is waste what little oxygen I have left. The steadily accumulating carbon dioxide burns like poison in my lungs. I give up on shooting and float limp, trying to save air as seconds run by, the urge to inhale growing unbearable. Oh, damn it all, I can't hold it! I'm dead.

But no, not yet.

It’s still too soon for me.

The sphere suddenly ruptures and all the water pours away.

“Guaah—!” I suck in oxygen into my aching lungs, my head throbbing and cough and gag.

But how come I’m not falling down? There’s nothing holding me.

Somewhere above, I hear Yaoldabath’s voice name the fourth element: “Air!”

Oh, great.

I can’t see it, but I can feel it.

I don't even need my Third Eye, I can sense it on my skin. The very air in the cavern is moving, circling around me like a pack of invisible beasts. I float in the deceptively calm eye of a hurricane. When I least expect it, one of the aerial beasts takes a sharp turn, parts with the rest, and accelerates. It comes lashing at me like a whip.

I cast a tattered shield to deflect it. Parried, the wind hound goes by and seamlessly rejoins the swirl.

Not long after, another airy tentacle whips at me from below. And another. And another. Another, another, another. Each one comes a little faster than the one before it, until I fail to block in time. A part of the wind brushes my thigh, tearing through cloth with pure friction. It feels like being rubbed with a strip of sandpaper and hurts like a bitch.

Who would’ve thought air could be so hard?

They keep coming. I ward off the windlashes the best I can, but they find openings. And each time I take a hit, my reactions become delayed, allowing another one to land in succession. Soon it’s just me getting smacked around, my clothes ripped, skin torn, muscles bruised, and bones creaking. Right as I'm about to pass out from the agony, the whipping finally ends.

After all, it would be too soon for me to die now.

The wind has stilled, but there is dangerous, growing tension in the air.

A weird smell. What is it?

Ozone…?

“Lightning.” Yaoldabath’s unhurried voice calls the name of the fifth element.

That asshole, he’s totally enjoying this. Not that I can blame him. I’d probably enjoy this too, if it were the other way round. Hell yes, I would! But I know the elemental chart too. I can guess what he’s going for. And if you think I'm resigning that easily, you have another thing coming!

I push my beaten, bleeding body and conjure Light chains to ground myself. Light alone doesn't work as a conductor, but the chain has my blood, sweat, and stone dust from the air all over it. I use the illusory shackles to weave a makeshift Faraday’s cage and reinforce it with mana—right on cue, as a massive light arc comes down from the ceiling and drives a few million volts of electrostatic energy through my abused figure.

The makeshift rigging doesn’t fully spare me, but it’s still slightly better than tanking the full brunt with my very mortal body. The chains explode by the force of the current and my consciousness takes a timeout, my awareness wiped clean white. But somehow, when the smoke clears, I find myself lying on the floor, steaming and sparky and my hair a downright mess, but somehow alive.

Thank god I didn’t wear a wool sweater to this date.

So. What’s next?

I’m too rattled and dizzy to think ahead anymore.

“Space!” Yaoldabath calls out the name of the sixth element.

Oh yeah, that.

I guess he will flatten me with the force of some hundred Gs, and start preparing the shield. I don’t know if my basic barrier can insulate gravity flow, but I don’t have a lot of other tricks either.

My expectations are subverted, however.

An unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach makes me forget about the shield. Right as I wonder what's wrong, my feet detach from the floor, and I start to rise up in the air, entirely robbed of weight.

So that’s his take on it!?

I anchor myself to the floor with another chain before I can fall into the ceiling and break my bones. For a while, I dangle upside down, congratulating myself for the ease of success. Then the floor disappears. My disconnected chain is released and I fall anyway. I drop directly up and steel myself for the pain—except the ceiling has vanished too.

We’re not in the Pillar’s basement anymore, but outside.

I watch the rusty desert distance itself from me at a staggering rate, my escape velocity doubled every passing second. The frayed island of Dali-thú-Dalinnéa shrinks into the blue of the sea as I shoot across the atmosphere. The little sphere I call my home planet slips away from under me and spins off into the void.

My hapless self goes plummeting into the boundless black abyss of space patterned only by the faint twinkle of distant stars. I was never a huge fan of cosmic horror. Words can’t describe how awful feels. It’s an experience land-dwellers weren’t meant to even fantasize about and for which neither gods nor nature prepared us. I’m launched into the uncharted outer fringes of our painfully lonely system and cover my face, close my eyes, and scream.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH...!”

Then I notice something weird.

In space, no one is supposed to hear you scream. But I can hear my own voice just fine. My eyes covered under my palms, I notice better the cold wind on my cheeks. Though there should be no air in space any more than there's sound. Our space trip is only one big illusion.

You fucking got me, you son of a bitch. Hope you're fucking proud of yourself.

I look up. I’m standing on a transparent, flat plane in open space. Even knowing it’s fake, the depth of the cosmos is still terrifying to look at. I’m stiff with instinctive dread, but suck it up. The wild ride is not over yet. Ahead, high above, the sorcerer spreads his arms and calls out the name of the seventh element.

“Darkness!”

Little by little, the glitter of stars starts to go out, swallowed by an expanding shadow. I don't want to see it. I want to close my eyes again, but can’t, out of the fear of missing the enemy’s next attack. I can only stand there and watch our universe be swept into oblivion.

Soon there's only pure black left. The wizard in the golden armor is the only star left, shining in the middle of the nothingness. I stare at him, ready for anything. What is he doing? What kind of attack is this? I don’t understand.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Against the light the villain gives off, I then see it.

It has started to rain. Small, dark flakes of something fall from above. It’s like black snow. The droplets look damn unhealthy, but there’s no way to dodge them either. There are too many and you can barely even see them.

I look down at my hands and arms. I’m not melting or burning. The black stuff passes straight through me, and it feels like nothing at all. It’s not poison? Shortly, my Third Eye has finished its analysis and tells me what the deal is.

“This is…?”

The flakes aren’t matter.

They’re—information?

Compressed packages of unzipped definitions. Incredibly dense data forms. When I touch them, the contents are expanded and flood my awareness. I can’t help but process it. What is the info about? Rocks. Sand. Water. Seawaves. The physical properties of matter. It's the island landscape, expressed in ones and zeroes. Only trivial things. Utterly inconsequential things. The most pointless things you wouldn’t normally spare any thought for.

I’m being bombarded with the true nature of reality.

Not only shallow surface level observations our limited senses give us, but the whole show, without filter. Awareness of infinitesimal details, of levels of existence that escape the scope of bodily receptors. The solid surface we people build our everyday lives on is dissected and laid wide open, the underside of the coin set up alongside. Every angle. Every shadow. And it's only now that I realize how damn frail it all is, so fragile, so woefully close to collapse at all times.

I got it all wrong. This is poison, alright.

For someone sensitive to information like me, there couldn’t be a more toxic attack. It's my number one weakness.

I can’t shut it out. I have no defense against this. I can only take it in, every byte. My poor melon is speedily DDoS'd by a volume of data that far exceeds the measure of a mortal ego. All the channels overloaded with a billion voices speaking at once. The crawling of a gorillion insects. The flapping of a myriad wings. The blinking of a zillion eyes. Centiseconds that feel like years.

And let me tell you—it feels horrible.

Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorriblehorrible excess acuity; layer severance in effect, protocol interruption; ṙ̸̞̦͙̆̈̚e̵͓͍͔̞̓͜v̵̨̔͗͝e̶̬͇̲͍͕͋̆͒̆ṛ̴̖̺̿s̸̡̫͚̃̽̿̎̀á̶̠͐͐͐l̵̠̃͑̓̽ ̴̢̚i̸͙̫͕̹̔̋͗̾̊s̶͈̜͓̟̓͋̓ ̷͈̫͔̟̹̊͠͝ȋ̴͙̩̎m̸̢̀͋̐͋͝p̷̪͇̝̭͘̕̕ͅǫ̸̋s̶̩͖̣̀̈͂̒̽s̸̢͓͍͙͔͌̎́͠͠ị̶̓̽b̷̢̢̈̅̀l̷͙̯̖̩͍̊͒e̷̖͍̠͒̃̄ͅ…

I feel sick.

I want to vomit, but there’s nothing in my stomach. I cough up some gastric juices and collapse into a miserable bundle, shielding my head in vain with my arms. Make it stop. Stop, stop! Stop it! Enough! That’s enough! Just fucking kill me already! You’ve made your point, what are you waiting for!? You sick bastard!

At last, silence falls.

The black snow has stopped.

High above me, as if to answer my voiceless prayers, Yaoldabath speaks. Speaks in a voice resounding and powerful and passionate, brimming with an almost religious zeal, naming the final element that will grant me the ending I desired.

“——Light!”

The shine surrounding his figure intensifies, burning through my retinas. The darkness is overpowered, pushed aside, to be effortlessly replaced by a powerful incandescence that devours everything. The light pours on me with a calm, irresistible might, and paints me with its colorless glow.

This is—light?

It’s funny.

I’ve lived all my life in the light of day, but never once spared a thought to what it actually is.

Now, light is the only thing that exists here—and it’s so beautiful I want to cry.

Trapped in the play of photons is the unshakable equilibrium of existence. The truth no lie can distort.

It’s neither hot nor cold, but both in equal, perfectly balanced measure.

It’s in constant motion, but at the same time entirely still.

It’s harder than diamonds, but also softer than a feather.

Sharp, but also smooth.

It’s violence itself, but always at peace.

Heartless as a strict father, loving as a gentle mother.

Ever present and within reach, but at the same time already gone. New and old.

Everything that was and everything that will be.

The beginning of everything, and the final end.

Life—and Death.

There comes Yaoldabath’s deathblow.

He holds out his bare palm, as if to hand over a gift. A dazzling ray of light bursts out of his hand and then it’s already over. No physical being can outrun the speed of light. You don’t need to be Einstein to tell how stupid it would be to try. I close my eyes and take it on, let the particles that comprise my mortal shell be dismantled and carried away into the remote reaches of existence.

But…

“…”

I’m not coming apart.

Seconds crawl by, but my heart still beats with a steady rhythm.

Clearly, this wasn’t part of the plan.

“What…?” The wizard grunts. “What is this? How—how are you doing that…?”

He's not messing around anymore. This should be his finisher. I should’ve been destroyed instantaneously, and not be here to monologue about it. But I’m not going anywhere. I open my eyes and watch the scrapes and bruises and burns fade away, the skin patched and smoothed. My cells drink in the light and my almost exhausted power comes back to me with intensity I’ve never felt before.

“You—!” Yaoldabath gasps. “You’re not human! Who are you—what are you…!?”

You’re asking me? Aren’t you the guy who made me?

All right. I’ll tell you then.

I stand back up, look at the wizard, and point out the one critical mistake he’s made.

“Guess what, bitch——I’m the Warrior of Light!”

With this much pizzazz at hand, I think I can pull it off. The trick I fumbled at back in Buckinworth and screwed up royally. The biggest, meanest spell there can be. The apex of the Light element, its final form. I didn’t have the chops for it then. If Vys hadn’t stopped me, it would’ve only burned me out. But I'm a different gal now. Everything’s different now.

I link up with the photons the wizard’s been spraying around with such a glee. Magically generated light and natural light aren’t the very same, but it doesn’t matter. As long as it has the physical characteristics of light, it's free game. I hold all the keys.

I reel back the scattered lightwaves and put them in shape. I pack them in the guise of nice thin blades, stack rows upon rows, and array them in circles around the cocky bastard, covering every conceivable angle. All the space around us is soon crammed full with white-burning edges, bright enough to blind, condensed sharp enough to cut, hot enough to sear.

The ritual structure laid out, the gazillion blades pointed at the foe, I set them off with my voice.

The finishing touch, the sounds that give reality to that spell, my absolute finest, the sum of everything I am, its name.

“ULTIMATE END!”

Yeah.

I really ran out of imagination there.

It doesn't matter what it's called! As long as it has a name.

Anyway, with that, the fight is over. As established, outmaneuvering something coming at you at a notch under 300,000 km/s is beyond a corporeal being, even if he's a clever space elf. By the time the signals from the wizard's optic nerves reach the decision-making center in his brain, every last one of the swords of light has already landed a hit. And the curtain is drawn on our play.

The illusory space melts away and we’re back in the vault under the Heaven’s Pillar.

I savor the feel of a firm ground under my feet again—and then fall flat on my face.

I really gave it my all this time. Every last ounce of mana in me has been wrung dry and most of my vitality along with it. What little is left is spent to keep my heart and lungs in action. Though my wounds are gone, I’ll probably die soon anyway.

But dang, was it worth it.

I punched out a guy so far out of my weight series. I can do with a double KO. Imagining the songs they'll write about me, I close my eyes and relax.

The big bad finished, the world is safe.

Everyone I know and love can—

——Ka-chang!

The clatter of a metallic boot interrupts my happy thoughts.

I peel the eyelids back.

Ahead on the wrecked platform, Yaoldabath is still standing. Standing and conscious.

How? Who the hell tanks a tornado of lightsabers with his face and lives?

The guy looks like he went through a lawnmower hell, but I can still sense distinct vitality in his battered, charred body. He’s hurt, but not as hurt as he rightfully should be. His armor is bent and broken in many places, but that it still resembles a whole suit of armor is the biggest wonder of the day.

I suppose the costume's not just for the bling factor.

Gold has superb mana conductivity. Outfits made of the stuff tend to have the downside of being impractically heavy, but emiri are made of sterner stuff. Those plates of gold are knit thick with protective wards and rituals that boost the wearer's arts. The enchantments on Hume’s gear were Yaldie's handiwork too, but the commissions he’d do for others obviously don't compare with what he keeps for himself. That armor's protective rating is likely on par with a nuclear bunker.

And toughness isn't his suit's only good point. In front of my dumbstruck eyes, Yaoldabath’s wounds begin to regenerate at an unreal rate.

“’Warrior of Light’…!” he groans when his vocal cords are working again. “What does that even mean!?”

Gritting his teeth, he drags himself over and plants his boot on my defenseless head.

“Be proud of yourself, ‘Zero’. It has been twenty-six thousand years since I was last wounded in combat. Perhaps you were not the defective product I thought you to be. Alas, your best wasn't good enough. And no one will ever know what you did here.”

“……”

Guess that’s that then.

Well, personally, I’m decently happy with just knowing I did it.

Even if I couldn’t score a clean win, or even mutual destruction, I did give the finger to this overpowered asshole. Not half-bad for an seven-year-old nobody, right? Having to lose the ball was pretty bad too, but as long as it's in one piece, the world has hope. I’m sure someone will stumble on it and put it back to where it belongs, sooner or later. My job here is done.

I close my eyes, a content smile on my face, and wait for my end.

Then another voice cuts in.

“——But someone already knows.”

It’s a voice I don’t recognize. The deep voice of a grown man.

Someone comes along the bridge towards us. Only one person. I don’t sense any magical energy, so it can’t be any of the dragons. In fact, I sense nothing at all. I hear the voice and the footsteps, but otherwise it’s like there’s nobody there. But I’m not imagining it.

Yaoldabath gives the guest a quick look—and staggers back with a start.

“You…!” he gasps.

“Oh goodness, you look terrible, Lan Dao” the stranger speaks, amused. “Did one small human give you so much trouble? You must have neglected the basics again. That’s what you get for a big head.”

I strain my neck to look back, and see a tall emiri man. Not a knight in shining armor, he's dressed in only an airy, pale green silk robe with floral patterns embroidered, a gray hooded jedi cloak over it. Like he only just got out of bed and was on his way to hotel buffet. His hair flutters long and silvery, cleanly combed back, and he doesn’t look very old—a little younger than Master Endol. A man tall and robust. But it seems he's not your average senior citizen on an afternoon stroll.

Something about that harmless-looking chap makes Yaoldabath lose his shit like never before.

“How—why are you here!?” he stammers, exceedingly flustered. “Erekhigan!”

“And which of your questions should I answer first?” that man, apparently named Erekhigan, answers composedly with a smile. “How? I walked, of course. How else? As to why? In case you wished to know the reason I’m here, that'd be because our Lord Commander expressed a firm desire to know how fares her newest toy—ahem, her dear servant, that is. And if you instead wished to enquire why am I here, specifically, then the answer should go without saying. After all, there are precious few even among our esteemed kind with the necessary ‘clout’ to tread the land of wyrms.”

“Well, you come too late, old man!” Yaoldabath jeers. “This fool has lost the core! As long as the tower is out of commission, I have achieved my purpose here! Victory is mine!”

“The core?” Erekhigan repeats. “Oh, perhaps you mean this?”

He raises his right hand out of the baggy sleeve, and on his wide palm rests—a smooth metal sphere.

I can share Yaoldabath’s flabbergasted reaction.

“On the way here, I happened to spy something shiny on the ocean floor and saw it prudent to recover,” the strange man explains with a smile. “Littering is not very nice, you see. But I believe we may forgive our little friend for her mischief, just this once. Yes, I’d say she’s done better than well for herself.”

The story is seven kinds of incredible, but the result is plain enough to see. It's not an illusion of light. He has the real core.

“And, what comes next?” the man asks. “Perhaps you'd like to spar with me, like in the good old days when you still called me teacher? Certainly, I don’t mind at all. But is that a good idea, in your present condition? I'd hate to hear a grown man make up excuses for losing. Fairness is my second name.”

“Curse you, Erekhigan…!” Yaoldabath snarls, almost mad with rage.

He points his hand up at the ceiling and dislodges a handful of the hefty building blocks sticking out. As pooped as he looks, he still has enough vim to crack tons of rock with telekinesis alone. The damage done, not waiting to see what happens, he speedily casts another Gate of Shadows and leaves in a hurry.

The heavy boulder rain comes down on our heads.

I still can’t move, or do anything to save myself.

Erekhigan makes no move. He stands still and gazes up at the approaching slates with a face of fatalistic patience. When death is but a meter away, I draw a breath and brace myself to be squashed with a lot of noise. But before that happens, the debris turns into a cloud of glowing, lime green butterflies, which scatter about and flutter off into nothingness.

What the hell was that?

Are you telling me magic can do that too?

As if nothing worth mentioning went down, the man comes over to me.

“My, it is quite some ritual you’ve used,” he observes. “And far beyond the capacity of your vessel. I am rather surprised you yet live, little one. Thankfully, a straightforward case of mana deficiency is still easily remedied.”

Erekhigan picks me up by the collar like a stray cat, and sets me up on the ground. Before I can fall over again, he gently smacks my back.

“Oof!” I take a step to fix my balance.

Yes. All of a sudden, I can move again.

Through that simple contact, he infused me with some of his own mana, to the point that I feel like a kid after eight cans of Monster.

But the feat's nothing comparable to an energy drink, and more like a magical blood transfusion. Treating somebody this way expects that you can not only identify the patient’s spiritual characteristics at a glance and gauge exactly how much juice they’re missing, but also that you can freely modify your own mana to match theirs. Both unattainable dreams to human mages.

Really, who the hell is this guy?

“Better?” he asks with a fatherly smile.

“A lot better.”

“Very good. As to your unvoiced question, I would be Erekhigan. A healer by trade—and a Sage. An old friend to the Commander, as well as to Master Endol, whom I believe you know. An old man on a stroll, nothing more remarkable than that.”

Uhh, sure.

“Also, pardon me,” he continues, “but though it was not part of my assignment, I shall be holding onto the core for the time being. It is a rather important relic, after all, and it wouldn’t do to misplace it again.”

“Did you really scoop it up from the bottom of the sea?” I ask.

Erekhigan chuckles. “Goodness, no. Sensing the shift in the prana vein and intercepting the material transfer was quite a bit easier to achieve. We had a lot of luck, that’s all. But I didn’t want to bore our friend with the details. He’s never had much patience, even when he was still only a fledgling student of magic.”

I struggle to process the concept.

“That guy was your student?”

“For a time,” he answers. “Long ago. When he still had his own name. Oh, he didn't learn his dark arts from me, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not a sorcerer, it was an innocent biology class. But let us not dwell on the past now. This is hardly the place to reminisce. If you are quite done with your business in old Crulea, might I suggest we return to the Cradle for your report? Speaking of characters without the virtue of patience, I fear our Lord Commander is one.”

“Huh?” I blink at his suggestion. “But…I thought the Commander and I were through?”

Didn’t she say I’d have no place in the Dominion anymore?

Erekhigan answers me with a half-apologetic smile.

“Her eminence enjoys her games of testing others. But she is also very reluctant to let go of those, who manage to win her approval. You are one of such people, Ms Zero. And you are not banished, far from it. It would be rather poor PR to exile a hero. As a matter of fact, the paperwork is underway to promote you Court Wizard of Osgonnoth even as we speak. You should look forward to the good news in the nearby future.”

“Sweet.”

He puts his big hand on my back and guides me on, and when I look again, we’re walking down the stairs outside the Pillar.

Warping without a Gate? Some kind of quickstep technique? This went so far outside my doctorate and way too fast.

But I’m starting to see why Yaoldabath was so scared of this dude. It’s not like Erekhigan has no power. He has simply reached a state of such complete harmony with himself and nature that there’s no longer any distinction between them, no friction between the person and the world. If you don’t have the eyes to see, he’s almost invisible. We're really pandering to the Chinese now, huh?

Ahead in the desert, I see Lieselot trying to pry Zandolph free from her chains. She’s already got one arm out. Even from the distance, I can hear their angry squabbling.

I have to stop and turn to Erekhigan again.

“Hang on a second. Am I reading this all wrong, or did we just win this?”

Is this author even capable of good endings?

“I suppose that would depend on your conditions for victory,” he answers reservedly. “But you did survive a duel against an immortal master of magic with an overwhelming disparity of skill and experience, and protected one of the towers securing our life on the planet.”

Then his face melts into a smile.

“Yes. I believe words of that nature are appropriate. You have every reason to congratulate yourself, young miss. It has come time for your hard work to bear fruit. The fact that I’m here now, and the core of the Heaven’s Pillar is safe, is all thanks to the road you paved for us.”

I slowly turn to face the desert and the rising morning sun.

Then I raise my fists high up to the sky and yell loud enough for the whole island to hear me,

“AHAHAHAHAAHAHA, FUCK YEAH! EAT THAT, ASSHOLE! THE SCORE’S NOW 2 - 2!”

And you thought this was going to be The Empire Strikes Back!

Yeah. I believe I’ve earned that brewski now.

0 : 196 : 22 : 54 : 03

Another long night comes to a close. The cramped lounge of The Brooding Mule has gone quiet. The stories are told. The round tables stand empty. A lone waitress lifts up chairs on the tables, so she can mop under. Behind the register, master Penlann counts his coins, tired but content as only a barkeep can be.

The last of the regulars is at the door, steps half out. Then pauses, looks back. The man hesitates for a beat, but alcohol has clouded his judgment and blurred impulse control. Why not? He looks across the lounge and raises his voice in a question.

“In the end, you never told us what happened to Zandolph’s sire. Why did the bad guy go to so much trouble to capture him alive? Was it only insurance against the other dragons? Surely there was more to it than that?”

I, seated at the counter, freeze in the middle of raising my pint.

“...”

I put the ale down, let the dregs slide back to the bottom of the glass, and push it aside. I lean to rest my head against my crossed arms, pretending to have passed out. Like that, I lay quiet and still, until the curious questioner gives up and the sound of the door announces his exit. Even after silence is restored, I don’t move for a long while, just to be safe, and wait for my anxiously beating heart to settle.

Don’t ask me about that.

Never ask me about that.

TO BE CONTINUED