Chương 1321: 1351 - Halorian Campaign VI

Pain, both his and Maia's, shot through his entire body. Anger flowed even more freely. Desperation outpaced both. Antipatra wasn't letting him go, and Eirenaios struck another blow on Maia, and there wasn't much the river nymph could do about it. With a silent roar, Leon spun around to face his dogged opponent and let his towering wrath dictate his actions. Black fire replaced silver-blue lightning, and it spilled from his body so thickly that it must have seemed like the Void itself had woven a shroud around him.

Antipatra's red fire was consumed in Leon's conflagration, devoured in an instant. Through the fire, Leon noticed her spear waver slightly, perhaps from fear at his display, and he lashed out. A tongue of black flame slammed into her, hurling her away. Leon then turned and shot in Maia's direction as Eirenaios wrapped his fingers around Maia's neck, brought her close, and swapped his hammer for a thin, straight dagger, the blade glowing white hot.

But Leon was far from his river nymph wife, too far for his fire to help. Switching back to lightning proved an almost heroic ordeal as his wrath demanded he bring doom to his enemies, but he managed, and with a swing of Iron Pride— The blade clanged on a spear—Antipatra's spear, thrust in his way to stop him from saving his wife.

The woman herself looked hardly worse for wear—her armor was scuffed, and the red scales beneath the Adamant were a degree or two less lustrous, but the magic flowing through the armor hadn't lessened at all. If anything, the amber-colored gems were glowing more brightly than before. The spear exploded almost in his face, and it was his turn to be thrown backward.

He cried out in frustration, his fury building ever higher, as Eirenaios began digging his dagger into a tiny gap in Maia's armor, seeking any way to strike at her directly, any way to let in his magic and ravage her body from within. Such was the only true way to kill a post-Apotheosis mage, after all. Leon lashed out, his lightning once again replaced with Doomfire. Antipatra blocked, her weapon holding strong despite her power abating before him. She pressed against him, and the amber gems flashed with light.

Leon felt his power suddenly flicker within him, enough that Antipatra crashed into him, driving out any air in his lungs. He recovered almost immediately and struck with Doomfire, but she weathered the strike too well and landed a strong blow against his cuirass. Leon felt the impact rattle his entire chest, but the greater blow came when he realized his magic had halted its flow in his body. Pain already wracked his form, but this was far worse.

His eyes began to sting from the pain, but his wrath and desperation were too great to waste on tears. He tried to blink away the stinging, but it remained even as he summoned a scalpel of bright fire over his right wrist. He dragged it across his chest, disrupting the rune that Antipatra had inscribed there with her last strike, causing it to dissipate and release his magic from its bindings. Power flooded through him for barely a second before Antipatra was on him again, pressing, pressing, pressing.

He felt Maia's pain as the dagger worked its way into her side. He felt her power fluttering, her effort to save herself having little effect, let alone outright success. He felt such pain that his vision began to darken and he stopped paying attention to how his magic flowed within his body. He shouted himself hoarse as he fought back against Antipatra, the Void carrying little of it beyond his helmet, desperately fighting to reach his wife.

She struggled in Eirenaios' grip, not giving up, but no longer having much ability to fight back. So, Leon did the only thing he could do. He focused on Antipatra and let his fear, pain, and hate billow around him unabated. He let himself go. He spared himself no thought, nor did he allow his human nature guide him. The only thought that remained in his mind was to kill Antipatra, and then Eirenaios, and save Maia. There was no room for anything else in his mind.

All else was consumed in black fire—black fire, and slowly building red-orange light.

There was no air in the Void, but that was no great obstacle to Daryun. He was a wind mage, and a post-Apotheosis mage to boot; his magic functioned even in the Void—better even, as there was no air to push through. He could feel a maelstrom of power from Leon's direction, but he was focused entirely on his opponent. He had to move quickly; one of his Queens was in danger. Thankfully, his enemy hardly seemed that accustomed to fighting.

Fire poured from him like rain from a hurricane, but with deft thrusts of his spear, Daryun cut through it all. He punched a corridor through the fire, charging through with the certainty that his Adamant armor, forged by his King, would prove its worth. His faith was vindicated when he slammed into the other eleventh-tier mage, hurling him back with great force. But Daryun thrust his spear again so quickly that the other mage hadn't left his range.

But as his spear drew close, the amulet around the mage's neck flashed with blue light, and his spear glanced off a perfectly spherical shield of blue light. Undaunted, Daryun attacked again, putting greater and greater pressure on the shield, not letting the mage go. Every strike brought a thousand wind blades down on the shield, striking it from every side, seeking out any weak spots, and digging into the magical sphere to make some.

The mage's eyes were wide, and Daryun imagined he was regretting his decision to come to battle with only his clothing and a few pieces of gold rather than good armor and weapons. He visibly gritted his teeth under the pressure that Daryun had put him under. He twitched as Leon's aura surged, but Daryun was steady and struck the shield until his spear found purchase.

He dug in, his wind acting like hundreds of microscopic blades spinning and grinding along the head of his spear, allowing him to push deeper into the crack he was making. And then the shield shattered, the mage shouted in fear, and Daryun's spear, with all the force he'd been putting behind it to break through the shield, was driven into his chest with all the power of a falling star. The mage's eyes widened in shock, and Daryun didn't miss the opportunity.

The mage was torn apart from the inside by wind, turning him into nothing more than a cloud of red floating in the Void. Breathing hard, Daryun almost lost himself to the thrill of victory. A glance upward, however, revealed that his job wasn't yet done. A powerful mage had Queen Naiad in his grip and was sinking a dagger deeper into her side. Leon was locked in battle with Antipatra, and the sight chilled Daryun's blood—Leon fought like a man possessed, hardly sparing any attention to block.

His form was almost lost in the vast amount of black fire he was conjuring, while Antipatra—likely thanks to her gear—showed a remarkable ability to survive it. Her armor was practically glowing at this point, and the amber gems in it blazed like stars plucked from the heavens and embedded into her cuirass and helmet. Leon's armor was looking almost hellish, with a thousand cracks in his helmet, through which Daryun could see red-orange light glimmering.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. A terrible aura was building around Leon, one that had Antipatra seeming more and more desperate, but Daryun trusted his King and turned back to the Queen.

'One good charge,' he told himself.

'That one's stronger, but you don't have to win; you just have to get you both to safety.' Without a second thought, wind gathered around him, and he charged. He thrust his spear forward, the blood of his previous opponent thrown off by his speed. His spear shone with power, and a hundred great birds of barely visible wind formed behind him, beaks and talons outstretched.

'You kept me alive,' he thought.

'Let me show my gratitude!' The twelfth-tier mage hardly had time to look up before Daryun was upon him. He slammed into the mage hard enough to separate him from Naiad, though his dagger remained lodged in Naiad's armor. Daryun began a storm of strikes, seeking to push his enemy as far away as possible. Said enemy didn't take long to right himself, however, and soon, a pair of flaming fists burst from his body, interrupting Daryun's storm and sending him blasting away.

Daryun barely had time to face his new enemy again before he was struck by one, then ten, then twenty, fifty, a hundred blasts of fire, each one shaped like flying fists. Daryun felt every hit even through his armor. Such was the strength of the onslaught that he could barely move. Soon, the fire was so continuous that he could hear laughter as it wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides and overpowering his aura.

Like a fiery whip, he was yanked toward his opponent, the laughter halting in favor of speech.

"You do not possess the same bestial stench that others around you do," the voice in the flames said.

"This makes you nothing less than a traitor, and a most vile one at that, as you have not just betrayed a country or a family; you have betrayed your entire species!" Daryun gritted his teeth so hard he thought they might crack, and barely managed to choke out his response.

"King Leon is not human, for he has shown me inhuman grace. He gave me a reason to live, even when he should not have done so. I will not shame myself by giving anything less than everything I have in return for that grace!" His power pulsed, and with the aid of his spear—and undoubtedly his opponent's desire to keep talking instead of fighting—he forced away his fiery fetters.

With a brutal thrust, he sent a spike of razor wind crashing into the other mage, hurling him back, even if not doing much to outright damage him. The other mage looked surprised, his emotions open for Daryun to see thanks to his open-faced helmet. And then he was surprised again when a beam of light struck him from the side—Zhang, Daryun's closest brother-in-arms, shot out from the debris field, the evidence of brutal fighting all over his armor, and joined in Daryun's desperate defense.

Gratitude ran thickly through Daryun's heart, but even as wind and light interwove to resist fire, when their twelfth-tier opponent made his move, there was little they could do against it. A shell of white-hot fire formed around him, then detonated, sending a wave of white fire to meet Daryun and Zhang's combined power. He could feel his battle brother strain as he tried to cut through the oncoming wave with light pouring from his long lance, and Daryun matched his effort with wind from his spear.

They had managed to space themselves so that Queen Naiad was behind them, but she'd fallen unconscious and couldn't move or defend herself from the fire. Neither of them was going to move out of the way and leave her defenseless. So, acting almost in concert after years of training together, called upon all their magic, and even their origin power, and cut through the fire. Fire parted around them initially, blasting past them but not reaching the Queen miles behind them.

Asteroids around them were obliterated under the three mages' power, but even then, neither Daryun nor Zhang moved. The fire moved closer, slowly pushing through their attempts to resist. And then, the fire that had pushed past them curled. Daryun shouted in alarm as he realized what was happening, but he couldn't move quickly enough to stop it. The parted flames suddenly slammed shut behind them, and they were lost within the white inferno.

Blood thundered in her ears, drowning out all thought, allowing her no distractions. She didn't try to resist this, as she could afford neither thought nor distraction. She moved as fast as her eyes registered another blast of black fire; if she hesitated even a moment, she knew that she would die. Leon Raime had shown his true colors: he had devolved into the exact kind of beast that she had to defend humanity from.

Her dragonscale armor was doing well in defending her from Doomfire, but even it had its limitations. Her Adamant, however, with its Heartwood amber, was proving the greater defense. She had never felt braver with the image of the Great Lord watching over her from her cuirass. She pushed back, trusting that the monster before her did not have endless power. But every time she did, some great reserve would flow from him, and she was hurled back by or had to dodge a gout of black flame.

She supposed she could count herself lucky that it wasn't black lightning, but she was disturbed greatly by whatever was happening within Leon's armor. She hadn't landed a blow to his head since he'd first tried to disengage, and she'd given chase. The cracks that were spreading across his helmet were not her doing, and the red-orange light shining from within his helmet sent shivers down her spine.

She strained against his mad power, against this nightmare from the Primal Age, desperately trying to kill him before… whatever was behind his helmet could be seen. She roared until her throat bled. She thrust her spear again and again, her fires snuffed out by Leon Raime's Doomfire. She fought and fought until she realized that he wasn't even using his own sword anymore and was relying entirely on his own power.

She screamed, bloody drops hitting the inside of her helmet, as with her only coherent thought, she inscribed a simple rune and wished with all the might she had left for what she wanted it to do. And she almost cried in relief as Leon's fire suddenly parted, giving her one chance. A thrust of her spear, nothing but her power behind it, both magic and origin. Leon, animal that he was, charged.

Her spear struck true, breaking through his cracked helmet and impal— Light poured from the broken helmet, terrible and bright. Redder around the edges and brighter orange within his helmet, she was transfixed by the sight and froze in place. She saw inside his helmet, and despair the likes of which she had never felt before slithered through her whole being. She made eye contact with the monster. The source of that baleful light was his own eyes, practically burning in his helmet.

She hardly even realized that her spear, thrust into his helmet, had disappeared. She lost herself utterly in that light, her eyes locked onto Leon Raime's. A terrible whine reached her ears, though it was something that she felt more than heard. Her armor was peeled away, and she felt the light touch her skin. She felt it unmake her; her skin was unwoven, and the blood, muscle, and bone beneath ceased to be.

Her eyes were taken swiftly, but she still saw that malevolent light, that all-consuming power that became her entire existence. And then she was claimed by the sweetest, softest darkness, and she thought no more.

Eirenaios felt that he should've been triumphant, that he was about to inflict such a blow upon his enemies that they could not recover. But he'd kept an eye on Antipatra's duel with their great enemy even as he fought against the pair of Strategoi who'd thought to try and save their beastly companion. He'd thought many unkind things about them, but he'd stopped as they were lost within his white-hot flames. They had fought well enough to earn some respect, even if they had sided with the enemies of humanity.

But as he turned his head to see with his own eyes what his magic senses were telling him, he felt nothing but pure, unadulterated terror. Some fell light shone from Leon Raime's broken helmet, flickering slightly as it consumed Antipatra. The top half of his Basilissa was stripped away, her armor above her chest dissolving in that malignant red-orange light. The skin of her face was next, peeled away in a wave of power.

Muscle and bone were next, and then the rest, leaving his Basilissa floating in the Void without a head. That foul light continued pouring from Leon Raime's broken helmet for several more seconds, until he tossed Antipatra's headless body away. As the light died, he turned in Eirenaios' direction, and Eirenaios did the only thing he could: he retreated as fast as his power could possibly carry him. He abandoned all thought of finishing off the mages caught in his flames, or the beast he'd almost ended.

He saw the two Strategoi emerge from his fires injured and near death. He saw Leon Raime appear in an instant beside the monster he'd nearly killed. And he saw Antipatra floating in the Void, her aura ragged and barely clinging to her body. But he just flew away, desperate to escape whatever terrible power had shone from Leon Raime's helmet.