The Forsaken Hero

The Shard of Omniscience shuddered, a conduit torn open between its infinite power and the hollow cavern of my soul. I groaned as mana suffused every fiber of my being, but the searing agony did little to fill the emptiness within me. More, I needed more. Anything to drown out the horrors of this world, to destroy the king who had taken everything I loved.

And so, even as the pain made me stagger and shudder in agony, I drank from the shard’s well. The influx of mana manifested in my aura, buffeting the air around me in a veritable windstorm. It picked at my clothes and tugged my hair out in long, crimson waves. The power grew as my soul reached its breaking point, and the vortex pushed back even Korra, who was frantically calling my name. Her words disappeared in the solemn emptiness within me, lost before I had a chance to truly hear them.

”This is madness,” Alverin said, his voice equally distant to me, though I heard it because my attention was focused solely on him

The king’s arm blurred as he drew his sword and released a sixth-level magical technique in one smooth motion. An arc of light leaped from the blade and cut toward me, seeming to sever the air itself.

Someone shouted out in warning, but I paid it no heed. The moment his hand moved, I’d already embraced the entirety of the Oracle of Eternity and slipped behind the curtains of fate. The stars thickened and the threads of fate became manifest, and the arc of light slowed until it practically crawled to a stop just feet from my chest. Luxxa and Korra, the two closest to me, had both lunged forward to intercept it, and now hung motionless in the air. Their faces were frozen in expressions of fear, both knowing they were already too slow to save me.

With the unyielding flow of mana, I wove a sixth-circle array, a shield against the enemy. ”Mirror Sphere,” I murmured, and a glistening silver shield surrounded me.

As it resolved, the spell moved through the threads of mana connecting my soul to the others in the Nexus. The process was normally instantaneous, but with the world at a standstill, the wave of mana traveling through the Nexus moved like a bead of dew dripping down the strands of a spiderweb. Slowly, similar bubbles manifested around the bodies of my allies, a final gift to prepare them for the coming storm. I could do nothing for those of the Last Light Company that wasn’t tied to the Nexus, not because I lacked the mana to add them in, but because my attention had again fixated wholly on the source of my pain. They would have to fend for themselves.”

Alverin. A demon clothed in human flesh.

His frozen visage was locked in a stare of cruelty and lust, sending a shiver down my spine. He will pay for what he has done, for all the hurt, suffering, and betrayal. The frozen impassionate ice in my chest thawed, letting a flicker of rage burn once more.

Instead of trying to control the feelings of death and destruction, I let them consume me, my grip tightening on my staff. I began weaving a new spell, drawing upon the sea of mana within the Shard, pulling every drop I could that wasn’t directly sustaining the voracious Oracle of Eternity.

Six magic circles appeared overhead, winking into existence like the evening stars. They started relatively small, mere bands around the Shard of Omniscience, but as the mana continued to flow, they began to swell, expanding until the outer circles brushed the walls of the great towers.

Suddenly, there was a presence in the Shard, a force so great its mere arrival knocked me from the curtains of fate and nearly shattered the conduit I’d drawn between us. My tail stiffened as the being turned its gaze on me, a thrill of primal fear dancing down my tail. It was a feeling I had felt but once, yet remained carved deep in my soul. This was the presence of a god.

”Hmm, I thought I sensed a disturbance. This wasn’t part of the agreement.”

The voice penetrated every fiber of my being, resonating in my skull with power and authority. This god’s voice was unfamiliar and failed to address me, simply uttering its thoughts out loud.

”No matter, by the looks of things, the experiment was a success. The generation of mana is only slightly less efficient than when beings choose to grant us their faith.” The voice hummed with satisfaction before it suddenly took on a hint of confusion. ”This demonkin...linked with the shard? How is that even possible? The only reason these mortals crafted this device at all was because I...oh. Hers is better, too. Much more efficient. Interesting.”

Its thoughts were mere fragments, flickering through my mind one after another. Images, feelings, and sentiments flowed and traveled with them in overwhelming tides, reflecting a lifetime of experience so incomprehensible I felt nauseous just witnessing it. The method of communication was higher than our own, which relied entirely on language, but equally incapable with my mind. Just trying to think hurt, a symptom which soon spread to my physical form.

Before long, my body and soul trembled with the combined strain of the deity’s presence and the scouring ocean of mana still flowing from the shard. Black dots crossed my vision, threatening to disrupt the hold I had over the developing spell. I missed the next few thoughts of the god, leaving me stunned when the presence suddenly turned hostile. My breath caught as its full pressure descended on me, threatening to destroy my soul like a crushed grape.

”I can’t have you finish that spell. The mortal Alverin is too important for our plans. It’s truly a waste to silence you now, though, with your talent, you could have...hmm?”

The god paused as a warm pulse of light erupted from my staff, washing through the air like the first morning rays. A soft, soothing voice filled the air, as gentle as a whisper but firm and unyielding. I couldn’t understand a single word it spoke, but the god’s presence in the shard recoiled.

”You’re...alive? And hiding her?” It asked incredulously. The presence in my staff said something else, and the god gave something I could only interpret as a nod. ”Very well, I shall withdraw this time. You play a dangerous game.”

And then it was gone as quickly as it came, leaving me gasping for air. I was shocked still for a single moment, my fear overwhelming my fury, but it soon faded from my mind. The presence in my staff had vanished even quicker, leaving me alone with my desire to destroy the demons.

The deity’s presence had shattered my tentative grip on the Oracle of Eternity, and I lacked the strength to renew it. Someone was shouting close to me, and the clash of steel and explosions rang in my ears, but the ever-growing storm of stars around me blotted out all but the faintest silhouettes. But none of that mattered now, all of my attention was wholly fixated on the forming array overhead, and the man who had driven me to this point.

There was a flash of light as his magical technique, now free to move again, broke through the veil of stars, but it collided harmlessly off of the Mirror Sphere. It vanished back through the stars the way it had come, but I didn’t bother tracking it after that. The demon himself, Alverin, watched in stunned silence, hand gripping his sword so tightly his knuckles whitened. He could have run at any time, yet he seemed transfixed on the wonders unfolding overhead.

The spell was only sixth circle, yet the sheer, overwhelming wait of mana contained within transcended anything I had cast before, even that of the Mana Storm that brought the Western University to its knees.

As the sixth and final magic circle slotted into place, the air stilled, suppressing the fervered shouts of the soldiers as they now sought to evacuate. The world held its breath and even the stars of fate shuddered in anticipation as the circles accelerated. The tower creaked and groaned as the mana contained within the spell began to riot, forming a swirling mass in the center, directly above the Shard.

Delicate snowflakes descended from the gate-like vortex, riding on vicious arctic winds. The stars joined in the chaos, filling the storm with glimmering pricks of light. I gazed up, mesmerized by the show, as a translucent being flickered in and out of view within the summoning circles. It was a titanic snake that, even coiled, filled the immensity of the tower. Though still insubstantial and forming, the aura that leaked from the spell broke the upper walls of the tower, tearing free chunks of masonry and sending them plummeting to the ground. The entire ceiling vanished a moment later, revealing the storm raging without the tower even more fiercely.

Freed of the tower’s constraints, the magic circles flew higher into the air, expanding further as they went. Within seconds, it covered the entire city in frozen winter, emitting a pressure that caused even the veteran soldiers of the Last Light Company to skip a breath.

I closed my eyes and let the flakes fall upon my face. With this power, I could finally destroy Alverin, the church’s army, and the demons. The thought made my heartbeat quicken, and I hastened to finish the spell. The storm of starlight and mana around me increased as the snowfall thickened.

All at once, the magic circles came to a jarring halt, concentrating all of their mana in the translucent serpent within. The titanic snake’s head moved a bit, breaking through the flat plane of the circles as though entering water. The spell shifted and groaned, struggling to support the sheer power and majesty of the elemental creature, but with a deafening roar, it succeeded in breaking through. A pulse of mana erupted from its soul, tracing a line to my own and awakening a bond that had lain dormant since its creation.

”Come to me,” I whispered, gazing up at it in pleading awe, ”Ice Spirit!”