Chương 497: BECMI Chapter 496 – ALL the Magic

In Zanzyr, Overmagi fell from the sky, smoking and scorched, their Buffs and personal Wards having exploded upon them, many of the more paranoid blasted to colorful dust and ash by their own magicks going wild, and mortal magical items sizzling and burning out. Unless they had magic to stop their falls, they did not survive the drop to the uncaring ground that followed.

Those that managed to remain conscious Teleported away as quickly as they might, unaware that they were fleeing into the middle of an even greater catastrophe. The great Cityward over Zanzyr shattered with the Pulse, like all mortal magic not within a Pyramid Domain did, but the spellcasters of Zanzyr hadn't been so girt in magic as their Delphan attackers, and largely came off better than their attackers had.

They were also not slow to race out of the city, make sure all of the Delphans left behind were dead or died, and then use whatever powerful magic they could to make sure those Overmagi would never return to life again!

The fireball of the plunging asteroid's impact blew through two worlds, the destruction on Tarterus too much to contain, especially with a great Hierarch of Entropy lighting off en vivus in his home Realm. Not all of it could fit through the Gate to Tarterus, and what remained was more than enough to do its horrendous job in southern Zanzyr. The fireball towered miles in the air, seething and crackling with wild and hostile magicks.

Transposed dimensional physics assaulted both locations at once, the outer shell of the asteroid around the Gate still hitting the ground on Nown, and the result was greater than an H-bomb going off. The mushroom cloud blew miles into the air, raging with magical and Elemental energies. It would spread over the mountains of the Neros Alpes mountains and nearby Iendyl and Fuireze, the rain of destruction and fire forming a circle of death for scores of miles, basically killing everything beneath it…

just at a moment of massive magical burn-out, if not No Magic. Fueled by the collapsing and destruction of Immortal Realms, the manafield of Nown was actually sucking in a whole bunch of additional power, undoing the damage of the Week of No Magic entirely with the great generosity of a lot of Immortals who hadn't thought they were in a giving situation, lucky them!

Weather-controlling magic from Erendyl and Umbravie heartlessly pushed the effects of the mushroom cloud west and away from the two elven kingdoms Belle and I were in. Fuireze would take the brunt of the ash storms that would follow, although the majority of the cloud's power would be expended in melting icecaps, mudslides, forest fires, and blackened landscapes in the Alpes mountains there, accompanying the great avalanches and crackings of the earth that followed the smashing wave of impact.

All of Iendyl was basically set ablaze and pelted by the heated ash storms, and Fuireze fared no better. Its cities died even as its citizens fled the smoking ash, or buried themselves in their cellars and waited for a salvation which might never come. Nown heaved and watched mortals disappear from the broken lands of the Delphan magocracy under waves of wild magic that maybe weren't so wild.

Their initial destination was the Hollow World, Immortals attempting to bring the millions of Delphans to a sanctuary where they could be saved, at the cost of isolating them from the upper world and freezing them forever into cultural stagnation. Nown didn't agree, and bent those destinations elsewhere. The Immortal Magicks upon the Hollow World had cracked and shattered in that Pulse, too, and Nown itself had other ideas on what it wanted for those cultures sheltered too long within it.

Most assuredly, the lands and mass of the Delphan lands stayed right where they were, and if tsunamis ripped across them and buried their existence from mortal and Immortal eyes for now, that was all within plans. It could always bring them back up, after all…

"Get up." My words were uncompromising and direct. Exhausted Shaden, most of them stripped of Valences to add to the magic that was blowing the impact cloud west and away from us and Erendyl, looked up in surprise to see me standing there.

"This is not the Underdark, where you have only enemies all around you.

"You chose to move to this land, and now is the time that you act, and prove yourself to be more than your ancestors were or considered themselves to be. One way or another, you chose to be citizens of Zanzyr as you rebuilt a land for yourself, to be part of something greater, and now you prove it." I gestured twice, and Mass Floating Disks rippled and appeared around me, waiting and ready for them.

"The people of Fuireze are now being assaulted by fire and ash, plagues which our own magic is sending their way. We will take responsibility for these actions and we will do what we can to alleviate the suffering of those afflicted by it. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Get on board the Disks. We are going to Fuireze to save who we can, because you know in your hearts that nobody else is coming to save them.

"We are Shaden, and we are more. They think they are doomed, and we will bring them a new day!" The Church of the Morning had a lot of followers here, even as the Shaden took tiptoe steps toward considering the philosophy and teachings of Corellin. Our own traditions were older than that of the Elven Immortal, however, so his words didn't have any true draw on us. We had not caused this disaster, but we certainly hadn't made it any better, and it was too true that everyone had their own problems right now.

Nobody was thinking of humanitarian help for others in this mixed-up nation. Nobody was, and nobody could, save we elves. Grim-faced Shaden pulled themselves onto the Disks, grabbing what emergency supplies they could spare as they did so. I indicated that more would be available as the Markspace roared to life and reserves were gathered for disbursement in Eismark.

Erendyl was already moving to pour into the lands of Iendyl as the initial ash rains were shoved west and away, also aiming to succor those lands despite them ignoring her warnings. Firestorms, ash rains, and earthquakes had ravaged the place, the impact angle directing much of the initial flaming rubble from the impact in Iendyl's direction and inundating the whole Principality with fire and ruin. It wasn't going to be pretty regardless, but if we didn't act now…

the powers of Entropy would be seeing this as a massive chance to act, so what could be saved should be saved, what was dead needed to be vivified, and what needed to be destroyed should be fed to the Land. Umbravie's and Erendyl's reputations in Zanzyr would reach great heights with this act of mercy, while the Principalities of Fuireze and Iendyl were basically no more, with the loss of their cities, populations, most of their nobility, and their Princes.

At the very least, no one stepped forward to claim the title of Prince of the ruined lands… Unbeknownst to many, newer Divine eyes were now watching this act of Hope, and they approved. The Church of the Morning would soon find a great many adherents here, and the Shaden were not reluctant at all to remove those who thought to prey on the weak during this moment of strife.

The treachery inherited from Siricil and the arrogance of Delpha would be buried in the dirt and ash as a new mindset came to the ashlands of Zanzyr in the wake of the Wrath of the Immortals.

The waves came, swallowed them, and darkness took them all. Yet they found themselves struggling, thrashing to life, clawing forwards through the waters and onto the shores there, alive and not dead and damned by the rising seas and shattering earth. The survivors pulled themselves up along miles of shores and beaches, praising the fact they were alive again, that the Immortals had spared them of the disaster… and then they began to look up. Up towards a sun, more white than any they had ever seen.

Up into great bands of rainbow sky advancing towards them in reds and oranges and yellows, the heavens a greenish hue about them, sweeping towards blues and purples as it extended past them and out beyond into a black void. They gaped as they looked about at countless shattered skylands spread across the skies… just as the population of the Empire of Delpha was now scattered across those countless skylands and the windbands of an ancient, magically powerful world.

"Meandrel," the most educated of them whispered in awe, the shaken wizards who had survived the erupting Pulse of Magic and found themselves still alive. The Delphan exiles had returned home at last, but this time to find themselves scattered across multiple windbands and skylands, their High Council of Overmagi shattered and broken, and with little but their own hands there for them to work with to recover themselves!

Shattered, broken, and having to rebuild themselves up from nothing without great numbers of archmages to buttress them, the scattered and disparate skylands of Delpha would chart new and largely individual courses as they rebuilt themselves. On the opposite side of Meandrel, the Remnants watched the Return of the Exiles, and considered their own preparations for what the refugees would try to attain in the future.

The dimensional fluxes were still in effect, and without Immortal Power, Teleportation and Summoning were still nigh impossible without proximity to planar gates. That meant that airships traveling the winds between skylands would be the only way for those places to connect and trade once again, a rebuilding process that would take centuries… but something the Remnants now had a lead on, as not a one of such ships had made the trip with the Delphans.

By the time the Delphans rose up and started to explore and expand, the Remnants would have their own solid strength to defy them, if that was what was needed to happen…

The Core of All Magic hummed and beeped, lights blinked and changed colors. Viewscreens displayed interminable graphs and charts and fluctuations, and leads and conduits extending off the massive magitomic furnace sparked and glowed with energies that were neither magic nor scientific, but a weird amalgamation of both. The place was awash with energies and radiations that would rapidly kill most mortals, and doom them with even a short exposure, but all that did was keep non-mortals away.

A staggering form leaned over a console, pushing buttons and studying the results with a shaky hand, trying to discern what was going on, what had happened, and what had gone wrong. Another sure hand danced over the console opposite him, and the robed, bearded figure straightened upright in shock.

"Grandmaster Nathanael Jean-Arc, once the Immortal Thaum," the slightly green-tinted fellow with glowing green eyes in engineer's overalls across from him spoke to him. Ignoring his shock and suspicion, the unknown Immortal went on, "Allow me to introduce myself. My mortal name was Jorg Turmalez, formerly Chief Engineering officer of the Federation Starship Barhund, whose Engineering Department and power core you are currently standing within.

"I am more recently known as the Immortal Tek."" Once the Immortal Thaum," Jean-Arc repeated in whispered horror, looking down at his hands. No Immortal Power there. He had his body, built to Immortal Standards, but the Immortal Power was gone. The radiation around wasn't going to kill him, he'd built his body sturdier than that, but he no longer had his power...

"Yes. All the Immortal Power in and around this place was sucked away when you triggered your Pulse of Immortal Wrath. That included the Power that was within you. Given how closely you attuned yourself to this place, the process didn't kill you… but you have no Immortal Power now, and if you try to claim it again, the Core will likely devour you immediately."