An entire storm ran through Cira—at least that’s how it felt. Her muscles locked up and spasmed at the same time, while even her cognizance wavered, she dropped the miles of perception she careful cultivated over the last few hours so Tawny’s barriers wouldn’t fall apart in negligence. It was as impressive as it was painful to learn that the guardian could punch right through her basic barrier, but her first thought was to pull on her earth staff. With any luck, the orichalcum still held enough authority here to do its damn job as a hunk of metal.

She felt a tingle and knew she had a bite.

Phew. Any longer and I bet Tawny would have been in real trouble.

She slapped her cheeks and took a couple deep breaths. “Alright, Cira… This is no time to slack off.”

Lightning had no direct weakness or predator. It was something that always frustrated Cira and made those who wielded the element always slightly trickier to deal with in a general sense. This was admittedly the first time she was forced to face a threat of lightning on such a massive scale, though. With real, lethal force behind it.

Fortunately for her, Cira had already become lightning’s natural predator. In an attempt to one-up the necromancer, she had ended up mimicking her own lightning transmission technique using the abundant darkness she had on hand.

It was ordinarily a very risky maneuver, but she would condense the space she occupied and imbue it on a conjured bolt of electricity. Like turning herself into a magic bag made of lightning. It’s how she protected the infirmary from the Astral Witch, for instance.

When doing so with shadow, it was actually more like light than lightning, and it felt much easier to control. If her concentration slipped, she would be forced to appear, rather than get violently electrocuted and crushed.

It was quickly becoming her new favorite move for quick, short-range travel, but after seeing its reaction with real electricity, Cira decided to name it void lightning.

Again, it had nothing to do with lightning or the void, but this new ostensible element could consume the storm before here.

“And there you are.” Cira’s orichalcum staff fell from the sky with a skewered creature of pure lightning clawing away at it in futility. She let it maintain speed as she cocked back a fist roiling with her own void lightning. “That really hurt!”

It seemed to notice Cira as her fist connected. The staff continued and she followed through on the punch, leaning her whole body into it as she kicked against the waves. A crackling snarl echoed over the sea as its form fizzled, but unlike the titan, it didn’t come close to bursting.

Won’t make it easy for me, huh? Cira could only hope there wasn’t another one forming up above. She threw some more protections up before cutting her sight, so Tawny was essentially adrift up there until this was all worked out.

Cira’s fist finished its arc against the water, and she watched the sea light up like someone dropped an artifact in. Still, it seemed there wasn’t a chance the fiend would diffuse, no matter how much she charged her fist. Picking away at it with her undine powers did something, but its electricity returned with too great force for her to make a meaningful dent. Turns out, Cira was very weak as an undine.

Void lightning is the key… I know it is. This thing is just insanely powerful. It doesn’t have a core of any kind, just held together by the will of a dead man.

Cira waited for it to rise to the surface and readied her fists again. They both crackled as she took a defensive stance. A suit of armor from manifested void lightning started to form around her, but not fast enough. Seemingly as soon as she let out her breath, the fiend had gotten behind her, fist outstretched. She began to twist around, then felt a powerful force push her down through the waves.

Luckily, she prepared a barrier specifically for excessive amounts of lightning, but the sudden inertia wracked her body painfully. Her bones creaked and her neck ached. Again, Cira skewered it on her staff as she found her way back from the depths.

Even if I wanted to wear it down, it’s way too fast. There’s no way I can be faster than actual lightning… Not while fighting, at least. Something to work on, sure, but… I can’t face this foe head on. No chance.

Cira could see crackling lightning on the surface of the waves far above and was about to boost herself out when the creature appeared before her again, as if it could travel faster underwater. This was upsetting to say the least, but she wasn’t exactly disadvantaged by the sea.

The ocean which existed far beneath the sky indeed contained mana, but not a lot. It was more like the sky in areas of high pressure, or deeper in this case. Things were entirely different inside a realm conjured from scratch. The sea which was home to the island-swallowing krait, may as well have been the pools of a spring chamber.

And you wish to drag me deeper?

She waited until she started slowing down, the sea around her getting darker as she plunged ever further from the realm’s supposed sun.

Does this storm creature not yet understand the nature of my lightning? Surely, it hurts.

She decided it was better if Shadow Quill was out, and started collecting all the darkness she could. Strangely, the inherent pressure of the deep sea seemed conducive to shadow, and the onyx greedily sucked it up, pulsing with unchecked power. It was essentially full after Cira woke up, so the rest manifested as void lightning arcing up and down the haft.

It appeared again and punched Cira further down. Any other sorcerer perhaps would have to resist or be crushed by the intense pressure, but Cira reveled in it. It felt like a deep tissue massage over her entire body. Her soul seemed to burn like a spring, and the surrounding sea responded by blazing to life in bright cerulean.

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But it grew darker as Cira conducted her void lightning throughout her entire area of influence. It spread easily through her own waters. There was a school of silver fish that scampered away and a funny looking shark that bolted from the light, though some were trapped as an arcing black cage was formed.

The fiend appeared again and thrust out its fist, which was stopped harshly as it crackled against Cira’s black armor.

Not this time. Cira watched its fist fall apart on contact, like it was burning away from a mere touch. She was ready with gauntlets that crackled every time she moved the joints in her fingers and clamped a hand around its arm as darkness spread toward the shoulder like rotting veins.

One pull and she reeled back her right fist. She would never attempt turning a single body part into regular lightning, but such methods were the only way to deliver a punch fast enough. Shadows couldn’t compete in speed, but they were fast enough to catch the fiend off guard.

Her fist smashed into where she figured its eye socket would be and its face visibly trembled out of shape. Before Cira could keep going, it jettisoned its arm to escape her grasp, flashing away and out of range.

Cira brought her hand up and inspected the severed arm of condensed lightning. It did not threaten to disperse, nor did it try to rejoin with the main body. She brought it closer and took a big bite out of it.

A little jarring, but she felt her aura top off instantly, to where it was earlier at least.

Tastes terrible. Let’s save it for later.

She watched an explosion of lightning where the trapped creature met the interior of her cage. Whorls of black bolts like spiraling currents cut through the radiant sea, and its only move was to ram into it. An explosion took a shred of its power each time, but it didn’t seem to have intelligence past combat instincts.

What a strange bastardization of life. If I get a chance to chat with its creator, I will certainly give him a piece of my mind. There were levels of cognitive ability, but anything with a clear will could at least be considered a base form of sentient life—even if that will was inherited. It was amazing that the creator mage could conjure something so miraculous, but Cira was beginning to get irked at the ethics of it all.

“You should not have strayed from the surface, foolish storm fiend.” She tried to talk like Undina—through the mind.

Strangely, she got a response which amounted to nothing but anger and futility. A complicated emotion that took the wind out of Cira’s sails. This being represented not the storm, but the one who was made to endure it. Whoever created this place—Cira felt as though she had become the most recent in a long line of those who clipped his wings and beat him down.

Suddenly, it was like those emotions were reflected on her. Like she’d been allowed to feel everything the mage did in his final moments.

There was a deep, trembling pain in her aura. It was far worse than she ever endured after breaking her soul, and she swore she felt death closing in. The ache in her chest and the hopeless sense of grief brought tears to her eyes that slid off like beads of hot steel under the ocean’s pressure. The fear that perhaps this mage felt drawing his last breath burst from the fiend.

It tried moving around, attacking spots all around the barrier, and turned around frantically when that didn’t work, much weaker and with noticeably dulled movements. When the fiend appeared before Cira this time, she was already moving and stopped its fist with her palm. The gauntlet burned away at its remaining arm. It took a few steps back, looking around as if in a panic before power surged, pushing the darkness out and regrowing both lost arms. Now its form had become just a smidge shorter, and Cira found herself looking down on it.

The fear returned her way was palpable, and it shook Cira to her core. She couldn’t imagine the depths of his true feelings, only the mortal fear of finality. She knew now he had no kin—no one to take up the mantle like Gazen did.

She knew he did not pass in a state of peace like her father either.

“Not many men get to say they made it to the right place in the end.” Perhaps my father’s words were true. Could it be, this man didn’t make it to the right place? Was his death unexpected? He at least had time to make this place as he withered away. Perhaps he lacked the means to reforge his soul, or it could be he lacked the time.

Still, this sea looks untouched. For centuries, supposedly.

What is the right place to die? This doesn’t look like one. But then again, nobody wants to die adrift on a strong breeze, but that’s where Dad met his end. Was that the right place? Or was it just his home of Breeze Haven…?

It was always going to be Breeze Haven, so what made it the right place?

Did he survive just long enough to teach me what I needed to know? My father never needed me to take up a grudge, but this mage didn’t have anyone like that… like me. No one existed to take up his legacy.

Someone with such ridiculous power… Someone who conjured an entire realm with his dying breath. He had likely lived for a long time, yet everything unraveled one day all the same.

I can’t even imagine if I died today and there was nobody to continue my father’s sorcery. What if I died and that demon lived on…?

Cira clenched her fists, watching the fiend try to tear away at her cage with stray bolts from a distance.

“I understand now.” The fiend stopped fighting and turned at her words. They were spoken conceptually, or perhaps emotionally, from one mind to the other, no matter how developed. “But fear not, dead mage. Your will shall not be extinguished when I destroy this fiend.”

Shadow Quill shed its hiding place and pierced through the fiend’s chest, pulling it again towards Cira. The orichalcum staff was waiting to stab through from the other direction. It shrieked and cried into her head. A terrible, helpless cry, like she were torturing a child.

In that moment, Cira realized the other thing she noticed earlier. The weak hint of a feeling she picked up on from the titan above. Aside from the inherited will, this fiend was driven by one of the purest instincts of them all.

It just wanted to live. It knew nothing but a vague and malformed fury from long ago, and was forced to attack Cira before even being born. Giving up was something that had never occurred to the unfortunate creature. In its paltry, immature mind, Cira had to die for it to live.

“You poor thing…” Her chest tightened to realize the misfortune that was this hopeless fiend’s birth. “You were created purely of that mage’s wrath and never even had a chance at life. Don’t you know, if that raging storm above should quell today, so too will you disperse?”

Pain and sadness flooded her own mind as well, and she thrust out her palm to bring it to an end. The fiend’s face came to rest beneath her hand and void lightning formed a violent circuit between it and Shadow Quill.

“I’m sorry, fiend.” Darkness quickly spread as the energy finally relented and let itself diffuse through her resplendent waters. “You deserved better than this.”

Its cries only stopped when its form had completely dissipated. Cira took no pleasure in welcoming the residual mana as her own, but it was over.

She rose from the depths slowly, trying to count the distance. Cira had been punched easily a few hundred feet below the surface, but there was no hurry to rise. She took it slow, spreading out her sight as she went and ruminated on this depressing bout.

The storm above hadn’t left yet, but all appeared well. An occasional flash of lightning lit the sea and gentle rains fell.