MAGUS INFINITE

I got to my feet, as warm waves of power were slowly filling me up, my Anima Depth and Celestial Marrow were rapidly regenerating, but I had less than ten percent in the tank with my Anima regenerating faster than my marrow... with a sigh of regret, my body shrank to its normal size; now I no longer towered over the demon.

It would take perhaps an hour to completely regenerate my entire marrow, much too long, but the demon was already diminished, and what I could feel from it was no longer the darkness of the Sovereign, but its pure demonic power... it would seem that the Soul Flayer had shed the layer of darkness when it discovered I was no longer affected by it.

I could no longer see the anchor on its skin. After assuming control, the Soul Flayer must have pushed this weakness deeper into its body.

A ripple of power emerged from it, and the demon sighed, ”You were right,” it said, even when the knot of flesh on its face possessed no mouth, but the words arrived anyway, somewhere behind my eyes. ”The old fool’s coat never fit, and yet I have been fighting you with his hands.”

Something in the mass in front of me unfolded. ”Will you like to see mine?”

Then it came at me.

∞

In the moments before the demon reached me, I sent a message to the Hollow Avatar.

”Give me everything you know about Soul Flayers.”

The response was immediate, flooding my mind with data that took my soul a fraction of a second to tear apart and understand.

”Soul Flayers are parasites, and their true strength lies in their ability to borrow the strength of their host. Everything you have faced so far has been the Sovereign’s power, filtered through the demon’s will. Now that it has shed the darkness, you are fighting the demon itself; however, this makes it even more dangerous for you.

A Soul Flayer would only gain the ability of their host if they fully consume them, but the Sovereign still fights, and so you do not have to worry about fighting his darkness, but this means that its weapons will attack your mind and soul. Our merged souls, your link with a Heavenly Beast, in addition to Mortal Shell and Endurance, will reduce the damage we suffer, but the base of a Sovereign’s body hosts the Soul Flayer, and this means that the possibility of our defeat is almost certain.”

I barely had the chance to fully digest the words from the Hollow Avatar when the Soul Flayer vanished in front of me, and Storm Sense displayed that it had appeared behind me, and I began to turn when I felt a wave of pain and weakness sweep through me.

My mind slowly replayed what had happened, as I had caught a bare glimpse of something passing through me and tore a chunk of my Anima from my body. The Soul Flayer had dematerialised, taking a wisp-like form that had passed through my body.

I turned around to see the Soul Flayer peering at me with what I would like to think was astonishment or perhaps horror. That was because its twisted right arm that had swept through my body and attacked my soul had been twisted even further, as if it had placed its hand into a woodchipper.

My soul was not the normal soul of a mage; it was welded with the Hollow Avatar, and my Anima Depth was different, now almost Celestial in nature, and then there were my channels, all 10,008 transformed by Cor Telluris.

If I were a normal mage, the attack by the Soul Flayer would have ripped their souls in two, but I had only been hurt. However, a frown crossed my face as whatever Anima I had regenerated was lost, and the Soul Flayer would not give me the chance to regain it as it attacked again.

This time, I was ready. Storm Sense had already mapped its trajectory, and I became Lightning Incarnate for a fraction of a second, letting the demon’s wisp-form pass through empty air. I rematerialized ten meters away.

I may not have any Anima, but with Storm Bearer, I was not helpless, as my body became a Storm Source that could endlessly produce lightning essence. I would not have access to abilities like Soul Forge without Anima or be able to write Inscriptions, but I could still fight.

The demon reformed, its twisted body coiling like a serpent. Its yellow eyes fixed on me with a blazing hunger, ”Your soul will be mine.”

Without warning, it attacked again, but this time I was ready and became lightning, and used Stormstep to move farther away, but I could not run far, because I had created a field of battle with my Inscription that gave me an advantage, if I left it, I would enter areas in the facility that was filled with the essence of darkness, and my only advantage would be lost.

What I needed to do was give myself enough time to regenerate Anima, so I will be able to fight, but the Soul Flayer did not give me that time; it was faster than the lightning I had become, and I could only send out a field of lightning around me, but the Soul Flayer passed through the field before piercing through my body.

I felt it tear through my channels, ripping at my Anima like a starving beast, and whatever reserves I had gained were erased, and I was forcefully pulled out of my lightning state. I came up coughing blood.

While being in a depleted Anima state could no longer instantly kill me, it did not mean I could exist like this for long, and every time the Soul Flayer passed through me, it was stealing my vitality too, and leaving grievous wounds in my cells. Even the marrow that was regenerating inside my bones had vanished.

It was killing me with a million tiny cuts, one cell at a time.

The demon reformed behind me, its twisted arm smoking, the flesh peeling back from the bone. It had taken damage from the contact, but it had taken more from me.

”Again,” the demon said. ”And again. Until there is nothing left.”

And it did what it said, again and again, even as I tried to gain enough distance and observe how it moved.

Each pass tore a piece of my Anima from me, and each time, the demon’s arm grew more damaged. It was burning itself to hurt me, and it did not care.

I was losing. I could feel it. My Endurance could not keep up with the demon’s assault, and I was running out of time. The Hollow Avatar was silent in the deep, calculating, waiting for an opening that had not yet come... maybe the chance would never come, as my body could no longer take the damage and I collapsed to my knees.

[ Anima Depth: 89 (Adept) — Crystallization: 96% → 97% ]

”Ah,” it said, distant and content. ”You taste like the day I found you. Frightened, and oh, so interesting. So much of you, mage. So much more than a boy should have.”