Chương 35: Chapter 88: Soul Massacre

High Warden Rother was really torn now. He wasn't even supposed to be at the academy any longer. There were a great deal of things he had to look after. Especially now that his official duty at Arcoryx Academy was done. The Enforcers had all left with Marionys Ryland. Rother was free to leave. Yet, he couldn't go. Not yet. Not when Ryland himself had asked him to look after the academy. He had said it almost as though there was something dangerous afoot.

Like if he left, some disaster or other might befall the academy. That seemed ridiculous. There were already far too many powerful figures stationed here. A few were even more powerful than Rother himself. Who in the world could do anything to the academy in the presence of its Primordial-ranked Headmaster? Yet, something about the whole situation kept him here. Some sixth sense or other told him that he was still needed here for now. For one reason or another.

He hadn't climbed to his position of High Warden without a fair amount of trust in his intuition. Not that it meant Rother could just remain lazy. He patrolled the entire academy and ensured there was nothing untoward going on anywhere. Every few minutes, there would be a message from one of his subordinate Senior Wardens, but it was never anything serious that needed his attention. They were mostly updates about the state of the city.

Rother did his best to ignore the many Rylands he spotted all over the academy and its hosting preparations. Automatons that could be transmogrified to such an insane degree was… Insane. Several times, he was tempted to head in the direction that the Enforcers had led Ryland. He hadn't caught their entire conversation, but they clearly possessed something that had piqued that enigmatic mage's interest. What could it be? No doubt, something terribly powerful.

Something that could only draw the attention of an Incarnation. Someone tapped on Rother's shoulder. He whirled around, old training sending his magic to the tip of his fingers, ready to spark out. It quickly faded when he found himself accosted by a slight woman in a heavy cloak. Rother frowned. There was something familiar about her.

"How may I be of assistance, ma'am?"

"High Warden." The voice. That voice. Rother had to hold himself back from swallowing.

"Your Eminence? What are you doing here?"

"I am here on business." The Oracle didn't remove her deep hood, likely determined to remain undetected. It was clearly working. He hadn't seen her before in the academy, and they were quite deep within.

"And as my trusted protector throughout my time in Arcoryx City, I would like you to guide me in my time of need."

"Your Eminence, none of that explains your presence at Arcoryx Academy. Especially when it seems you're here in disguise. How did you even get in here?"

"You ask too many questions. Can I rely on you or not?" The High Warden was about to instinctively answer yes, just as he had been doing ever since Oracle Vertha had arrived at Arcoryx. He had been at her beck and call, had served her every whim, all because he understood their relative stations. Rother had been almost blinded by the awe and respect he had to afford her. She was, after all, the strongest member of the New and the Old Churches. But just recently, she had fallen. Her superiority had taken a hit.

Even the Incarnation she had called upon had been rebuffed in a sense.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow that, Your Eminence," Rother said.

"This visit is not sanctioned. You are not supposed to be here." The Oracle tilted her head just enough for her hard expression to become visible.

"Are you truly going to stand against me, High Warden?"

"I am merely doing my duty. Are you going to force me to go against it?" They had a short staring contest for a while. Once, Rother might have looked away. Might have apologized for daring to act the way he was. But he was not the same he had been. Even in such a short time, things had changed. That man had changed things. The same man that the Oracle was here to see. Rother was sure of it. She sighed.

"I suspect there is something afoot at the academy. You recall my words to the Prime Minister, yes? You remember my warning?" Rother nodded.

"I recall it quite clearly. You misread Fate." The Oracle possessed enough restrain to not wince, yet he could read it in her expression anyway.

"You've changed in just a mere few weeks, High Warden. But you're both correct and incorrect. I didn't misread Fate. What it told me was true. However, I've come to believe that I merely misinterpreted when and how exactly the truth it told me would manifest."

"And you suspect that truth is about to become reality at the academy?"

"Yes. Something is already occurring at the academy." She squinted.

"And you know something about it already, don't you?" What did Rother know? Just what he had been required to do in his capacity as a High Warden, of course. Could that really be enough for the Oracle to be justified that her visions, that her reading of Fate, was coming true here? To be fair, Ryland was involved with the situation once again. And he still didn't really distrust the Oracle's judgment. So, he told her about everything.

Oracle Vertha listened patiently, but he could tell she was suppressing the urge to tell him to hurry on with it.

"The Enforcers are involved," she murmured when he was done.

"It feels as though that is tacit proof of my suspicions."

"I admit," Rother said.

"That I do not hold any goodwill towards the Enforcers."

"Then let us not wait a moment longer. We should find them. Soon. You said they are still within the academy, yes?" Rother nodded, then began leading the way.

"Your Eminence, is this truly about…?" The Oracle kept pace with him easily.

"Indeed. I suspect the Calamity I have been hunting may be born soon. As such, we have no time to waste. Let's go." Ryland had to admit that he was actually surprised. Dyron had managed to do something he hadn't expected. Had managed to take things so far, he wasn't fully prepared for it. Because for all that Ryland was ready to believe an Empyrean-ranked mage wouldn't be defeated easily, even by him, he hadn't counted on this.

He hadn't believed that said mage could turn the very piece of himself he was searching for against him in this fashion. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Yet, Dyron was doing just that. He was drawing newfound energy from the bit of Ryland he was holding hostage elsewhere. The Empyrean-ranked mage's manasoul was growing wilder with every passing heartbeat.

That icy prison keeping him locked in place had shattered apart, and now, the ground and air around him were sparking and crackling at the intensity of the magic roiling off him. His whole form glowed like a star about to turn into a supernova.

"Your arrogance knows no bounds, Ryland," Dyron said. His voice rippled, every word repeating in a magical echo that bounced off the walls and pillars.

"It is high time it got culled." Ryland didn't reply. There was a rather easy solution to the problem. He could use the rifts of [Void Seal] to grab the piece of himself and confiscate it away from Dyron. There would be a lot of broken alarms and wards, lots of people left concerned, but it would end this silliness in no time at all. But Ryland decided against doing so. Not because he was worried about the consternation he would cause in others. That was far from his mind at the moment.

Rather, he was going to let Dyron do whatever he wished. Ryland would allow his opponent to gather as much strength as he felt he needed to accrue. He would allow Dyron to grow as strong as he believed he needed to be to overcome Ryland's might. Only then would he simply crush the man even faster than he had already done.

"Stunned that your own power is about to be flung against you?" Dyron asked. His surging magic was even warping his expression into a deformed euphoria.

"You must be put down a peg. You must be brought to heel. To think that you can simply go wherever you wish, do whatever you want—"" [Silence]," Ryland incanted with his Soul Glyph of Energy sucking away all vibrations from the air. Dyron continued flapping his mouth, but no further sounds reached Ryland's ears. Blessed quiet. The Empyrean-ranked mage scowled, then began casting.

Ryland still didn't hear anything, but he could easily spot that it was still soul magic, going by the unchanged Soul Glyph of Spirit at the centre of Dyron's spell circles. A storm erupted into being. At the same time, the parts of the building within [Void Seal]'s boundaries were breaking off to join in on the maelstrom that Dyron was erecting." [Eternal Bastion]," Ryland incanted. Then he cast the spell a few times more in quick succession.

He wasn't just creating multiple barriers around himself for more protection. Just one was enough for him. Rather, the next ones were aimed at the hapless Enforcers caught in the middle of the battle between himself and Dyron. The columns and floors and ripping wind all smashed into Ryland next with zero effect. So much for dragging in the power of his own self.

When the next bit rushed in at him, he cast [Translocate] again to send them right back on top of Dyron, where half the hall crashed in with a deafening silence and a terrible amount of dust. His opponent just phased right through. Ah. So he had advanced his prowess a great deal. Although, Ryland wasn't able to tell just yet whether that was an aspect of his integral constitution, where his body was half soul already, or if it was just a high-Tier spell at work. Whatever the case, Dyron was already attacking again.

Ryland was actually starting to enjoy the silence. Especially when it seemed to be clearly infuriating his opponent. A molten beam of pure energy, magic channelled at the level of a soul, shot at Ryland. At the same time, several more souls manifested around his opponent, monstrous beings that fired themselves at him with the speed of ballista bolts. Powerful as [Eternal Bastion] was, it wouldn't be enough against attacks of that nature, unfortunately. They were made of souls themselves.

Which was why Ryland let his unleashed manasoul emerge once more. A geyser of prismatic power flared up around him. His magic was so dense, space started fracturing and time began slowing down. It took far too long for Dyron's spells to reach Ryland. But that was fine. The [Mindscape] -like effect just gave him all the more time to think and plan. The soul-manifested monsters collided with Ryland's flaring manasoul, his burning aura of magic, and simply got eradicated.

It was a slightly different story for the beam. While the point where it impacted Ryland's defence caused it to dissipate, it was a continuous stream of energy. Nothing was going to end it so easily. Dyron shouted something, but no sound emerged. Ah, it was a spell. More souls came alive all around Ryland. More replicas of Dyron himself, the manifestations of the various half-formed souls all taking on the Empyrean-ranked mage's appearance.

And worse yet, they were all preparing to fire those beams alongside the original caster. How annoying. Ryland let his manasoul flare out. The geyser he had been emitting turned into a small volcanic eruption of magic that defied any sort of ranking like Tiers. It simply sheared outwards, oblivion made manifest. Every single one of the soul-Dyrons got eradicated. Even the real one was forced to retreat quickly as his beam was rammed backwards.

"You—" Dyron choked on his own words as he found his voice working once again. Not because of anything he had done, of course. This was just the effect of Ryland's manasoul eating through the space he had cast [Silence] on and thereby wiping out all magic in that space.

"You can't be one of them! It's impossible. You can't really be an Incarnation!"

"Can't I?" Ryland said. It was now his voice ricocheting through several dimensions at the same time. He had unleashed enough of the truth of his manasoul that the Glyphs were manifesting in reality now. Symbols and sigils of mana were crowning his head, wrapping his wrists, and flaring off his shoulders in a long cape. If the power around Dyron had started breaking the environment, the sheer density of magic waving off Ryland had begun to reduce everything to minuscule iota and draw all the magic towards him.

Strands of darkness from his rifts, glimmering strings from Dyron's soul manifestation, and everything else was slowly drifting through the air towards the Incarnation. To Ryland, it all looked like lines of Glyphs. Everything did. The world was now a storm of Conceptual Glyphs again, an enormous puzzle of magic where he was free to play with the pieces. And the first piece he played with was the integral one that controlled the form of the magic that Dyron was still spewing in his direction.

"What—?" He nearly bit his tongue and then cursed. The beam he was still trying to reach Ryland with had suddenly turned solid instead of a horizontal geyser of energy. Its weight pulled it to the ground where it cracked and shattered into a blinding spray of splinters. Weight. Hmm. Before Dyron could waste even more time, Ryland cast his magic again." [Imprisoned Land]." A rift cracked open at Dyron's feet like lightning. It was too fast even for an Empyrean-ranked mage to dodge.

With a cry, Dyron was pulled straight to the ground, where packed earth was cracking and fracturing every second.

"What… is…?" Dyron could barely even speak.

"Gravity," Ryland said.

"Realm 76 is infamous for having one of the strongest gravitational fields in the entire cosmos. That you haven't already been crushed to a splatter of blood is a testament to the power of your barricade." Although, one wouldn't think there was a man still alive there. Dyron was being pulled in with such pressure, he had already cratered the ground and created a man-shaped depression. Forget moving, he was locked down worse than any petrification spell.

It was one of the reasons Ryland hadn't bothered learning a spell for petrification specially.

"It won't stop me," Dyron ground out.

"It won't be enough. Not for you. [Soul Eruption]." His manasoul flared. Powered by the connection to a piece of Ryland, and therefore powered by Ryland himself from a certain perspective, it burgeoned and surged into a greater stature with every passing second. In seconds, it had turned into a monstrous being, its size pushing against the boundary of [Void Seal]. With a roar that rumbled through multiple planes of existence, the monstrous soul assaulted Ryland.

Just as it got to within ten handspans of him, his manasoul turned into a continuous explosion." [Animus Aegis]," Ryland cast. Dyron and his supercharged soul screamed as it fought and scraped against Ryland's Glyph-constructed soul barrier. He didn't let the pointless struggle last for long. Within a heartbeat, he had identified the exact Conceptual Glyph he needed to manipulate to end this idiocy. Ryland shut off the Conceptual Glyph of Form that had given Dyron's soul a defined, aggressive shape.

The effect wasn't that different from when Ryland had influenced that beam of soul energy. Just, in this case, instead of the whole thing turning rigid and solid, the soul could no longer maintain the monstrous being it had become. All of Dyron's soul, the condensed mana that had given it shape and form, now burst apart into flickers of harmless energy dissipating everywhere. It was over.

"You're fortunate," Ryland said as he appeared before Dyron. A simple cast of [Oneself World] ensured that the immense gravity keeping his adversary trapped wasn't affecting him at all.

"I could rupture your manasoul after everything you've done, but I'm attempting to refrain. I suggest against pushing yourself any further." Dyron grunted. His voice was muffled against the dirt his face was pressed against.

"The academy… the security of the Prime Minister—" Beyond them, another crack interrupted proceedings. Ryland blinked. He couldn't remember the last time someone had broken in from the outside of [Void Seal]. It wasn't impossible. The spell was meant more to keep things inside rather than prevent anything outside from coming in. Ryland himself had often trapped his targets within [Void Seal] while remaining beyond it, only to plunge in from outside.

Which was exactly how the Oracle and her seemingly ever-present companion in the High Warden decided to pop into the midst of the battle.

"Apologies for the intrusion," she said, somewhat demurely, her hooded head shifting from one incredible thing to the other.

"But I believe we have an emergency on our hands. Anyone seen a Calamity nearby?"