MAGUS INFINITE

The power that slammed into me was something I could not resist, and I was thrown backward, my body tumbling through the passage, with the remnants of my domain flickering and dying.

I hit the cave wall, bounced, and rolled to a stop at the entrance, gasping, my ears ringing. I was in pain for a few seconds, but whatever was suppressing me inside that cave was gone, and my body quickly stitched itself together from whatever damage I had taken inside that cave.

My breathing was rough for a few seconds as I lay in the dirt, staring up at the grey sky, and I felt the cold thing in my chest grow heavier. Whether it came from just rage or loss, I could not tell.

What I knew was that I could not enter the cave or investigate what that crystal was, or whatever was beyond this cave. I could remember the vision clearly; there was a Caelith hare, and unlike the rest, it was golden, but I was still wondering what connection I had with this Caelith, and why it had been in my dreams even as a child.

The mountain had rejected me; that was what it felt like, but it was not as if it had not given me the answers to the puzzle, but once again, it all fell to power.

The soul of an Arcanist had only taken me so far before I could no longer hold against the pressure, but would I be able to resist that pressure at the peak of the Arcanist Tier, or what would happen when I became a Sovereign?

I pushed myself up, my body protesting. My channels were still aching, and I could feel the residual pressure of the cave’s rejection lingering in my soul like a bruise.

A warm presence snapped back into my soul, and I smiled as the Moon Fox appeared above me and pressed her nose against my jaw. ”Elric?”

”I’m fine,” I said as I looked up at the sky, at the distant flashes of power where the Sovereigns were still fighting. I could see now why the morning was so dull, and it was coming from the smoke that rose from a continent burning to ash.

I could not enter the cave, and I could not reach the mystery that lay within, but there were other mysteries, other powers, other ways to grow stronger.

I had the loop, and this was enough. I had been given another impossible World Quest to stop the continent from falling, and if I could somehow succeed in the first one, then I would be able to repeat that feat again... I hope.

My domain surrounded me, and I floated back to my feet. Looking at the cave entrance, I made a promise.

”I will be back,” I said to the darkness inside the cave. ”When I am strong enough, I will come back, and I will find out what you are hiding.”

The cave did not answer; I don’t expect it to, even if it was somehow capable of doing so. Why should it reply to a failure like me? I had so much to answer for... so much to prove.

I turned away and looked up at the heavens. I would need to return to Caelith Mourne, to open all seven Earth Gates, but before I did that, I needed to fully understand the depths of my powers, now that I was an Arcanist.

To do that, I had to fight, and my opponents would be every damned Arcanist that the Conclave had. If the Sovereign of the Stars was their god, then they should start praying to him to give them the strength to stand against me. I am going to tear through their ranks until they know what it means to burn a world... even if it means that I had to kill every single mage in the Conclave!

The fox could read my mind, and she did not try to talk me out of it; she simply said, ”I’m with you.”

I looked at her, and I felt something that might have been warmth.

”Then let’s go, follow me... to kill.”

I became Lightning Incarnate, and I rose into the sky. I looked once at the remains of my village before it became a speck in my eyes.

∞

The wind tore at me as I climbed, the air growing thin and cold. The distant flashes of Sovereign power lit the clouds from above, and I could feel the weight of the war pressing down on the world like a fist. But I did not rise toward the heavens. Not yet. I was not ready for Sovereigns. I needed to climb a different ladder first.

I turned my gaze toward the horizon, toward the distant glow of a city that was still burning. There would be Conclave mages there, and if I was not wrong, there may also be demons.

The Arcanists in the sky were too spread out, and it would take too long to hunt them individually, but everything would change if they were the ones hunting me instead.

And the quickest way to draw them to me was to slaughter every Acolyte and Adept of the Conclave on the ground. There was no way they would allow a rogue Acanist to decimate their lower ranks in such a manner.

A part of me wanted to rebel against this thought, but the cold in my heart drank that voice, and it was not long before I saw my first target.

I descended, my body a bolt of lightning cutting through the smoke-filled sky. The ground rushed up to meet me, and I landed in the middle of a battlefield that was not yet finished.

It was a small engagement, perhaps a few hundred mages on each side, but it was enough. I saw the blue and grey of the Academy’s forces, and the black and crimson of the Conclave. I saw the bodies, the blood, the spells that were still flying through the air.

I did not hesitate, and I struck like lightning. Stormstep carried me into the heart of the Conclave formation, my body appearing in a flash of silver light. The mages around me barely had time to react before my threads were among them.

I did not use spells or my Domain; the impact of my spells as an Arcanist was yet unknown, and I did not want friendly fire. I used threads and my speed, and I moved through them like a ghost.

The first one fell before he knew I was there. The second, the third, the fourth... the fifteenth.

I cut through them in a blur of motion, my threads finding throats and hearts with surgical precision. The Conclave mages tried to rally, tried to form a defensive circle, but I was already inside their ranks, and I was not slowing down.