MAGUS INFINITE

The armies of the Conclave and the Academy, reinforced by every Arcanist, Adept, and Acolyte they could muster, took full advantage of my paralysis. Spells rained down on me like a storm of light and fire, each one tearing through my flesh, and every one of them was a fresh wound that the cold vitality struggled to seal.

Of course, the Adepts and Acolytes could not hurt me directly with their spells, but they were mostly used as Anima Batteries, with massive formations and fortresses pulled from these people’s souls and forged into spells potent enough to tear into me.

The unmaking lances carved deep trenches into my body, and the rot and corruption spread through my channels like wildfire.

But I did not feel the pain, not really; I could not feel anything except the weight of the memory clawing at the edge of my consciousness. The girl with the black hair, the fox with four tails, the blue eyes that were so bright, so familiar, so impossibly precious.

I was trying to remember a name.

It was there. I could feel the shape of it, a small word... a bell-shaped word, and every time I reached for it the cold moved it further off, and this was all because the army was tearing into me, and more of the cold was flooding into my body, denying me the chance to think.

As the injuries increased on my body, I stopped deliberating on the changes happening to me, as the face of the girl was a hook in my consciousness. For a while, it was almost as if I was going to be killed, as massive tumors filled my body, struggling to seal up the wounds that were piercing through me.

”I need...” I whispered, ”I... I... need to think. I need... Arrghh!!!”

Under the bombardment, I held my head with my arms and screamed; the internal war happening inside me was tearing me apart. My cries of pain rose into the heavens, under the cheers from the armies in the distance.

Suddenly, arms burst from tumors across my torso, my back, my thighs- a dozen, two dozen, each one growing from a wound they had made, each one reaching for the skies and tearing apart the spells that were thundering across my body.

Rage filled my mind, and the presence of the girl and that fox vanished. ”Why can they not let me think... They should all become a part of me, worshipping me with their cries and adoration.”

A hundred arms spread out of my body, and I bloomed like a flower of pale flesh and red lightning. The earth shattered for miles as I leaped towards the army ahead... I will give them death, so I could finally find silence.

∞

I fell across the army, red spears of death on my arms, and I slaughtered in all directions, and I could feel that Death was delighted.

”Oh, look at you,” she breathed, all through me, warm and proud. ”Look what we are making. Do you see how much better this is, Beloved? A body built for me, by them, out of every wound the world could give you. Every hurt, a new hand to gather with. You are becoming what you were always going to become. You are becoming mine, all the way down, in the flesh now as well as the soul. I want...”

”Silence!” my thoughts thundered in my head, and for a moment it was as if Death itself was shocked. ”Let me think in silence!”

Her voice was warm, but I did not need to be pampered or told of my purpose; what I wanted to know was why my dead heart felt so much pain when I looked at the face of that girl.

Even as I butchered everything in front of me, I made sure that I did not move near the area where that girl was located. Still, it did not take long for the remnants of the sneaky mages to see that I was not attacking a part of the battlefield, and they began to move towards that area.

”Fools... all of them. I also had the inheritance of a mage.”

I plunged my spears into the earth and raised all of my arms, and threads bloomed out of all of them, thousands... hundreds of thousands... millions. I should not be able to do this, but my storm had spread across a quarter of the continent, and the souls screaming inside of it had reached a hundred million and were still growing, making my present size reach three hundred feet, and the vitality I could draw from the field of skulls to be almost limitless.

They hissed as they moved through the battlefield like massive snakes, tearing and crushing every single opposition around me for miles, until finally, there was silence.

The threads retreated back into my body, and in the midst of this devastation, only one figure remained alive, and she was clutching the small silver fox to her chest like a protective talisman.

All my arms folded across my body, layering upon it like armor, and I slowly walked up to the child, the earth breaking underneath my tread. Behind me, the chains of blood were now so thick it was as if I was connected to an ocean of blood that led to the storm in the sky.

I was a mile from her when I saw her flinch, and I realized that the coldness of death around me was sapping her vitality, and if not for the presence of the strange fox on her arms, she would be dead.

I paused, and then drew this coldness into me, and with a force of will I began to shrink. The voice of Death was speaking, but I pushed her aside; I wanted silence. She tried again and again, but I held her at bay, and oddly that seemed to please her, as she gave a sultry laugh inside my soul.

”All roads lead to me, Beloved, and soon you will see this truth.”

I stopped a hundred feet in front of the girl; my body had shrunk to eighteen feet, but I could not get any smaller. My body had changed on a fundamental level; too much of what I had been had been torn away by the spells of my enemies, and what took its place was no longer flesh as I once knew it.

A hundred arms across my body moved, as they held me closer, and I looked at the girl who was staring at my face with fascination and horror, and I slowly went on one knee in front of her; she flinched, but finding strength in her little mortal heart, she steadied herself and did not run from me.

”Why do your tears make my heart ache?”