The Forsaken Hero

Borealis and the high inquisitor blurred together in a flash of steel and feathers. The demon was small and nimble, releasing bursts of ice mana with every lash of his talons. Thick reams of ice crept over the wall and floors where his attacks missed, only to be melted by arcs of fire from the inquisitor’s sword.

The inquisitor shouted and unleashed a barrage of heavy, two-handed slashes. His blade trailed thick ribbons of dancing fire, leaving lines that lingered in the air. The inquisitor moved through them with ease, but whenever Borealis approached one, it flared with seventh-level fire mana. The attacks seemed random at first, but as the ribbons accumulated, Borealis grew more hesitant, taking fewer opportunities to attack.

I frowned, my tail twitching. What was he doing? The inquisitor was clearly wearing down, so why wasn’t he striking at his weakness?

Only then did I notice the pattern. Every swipe of the inquisitor’s sword filled in a gap, slowly building a cage around the demon. In the narrow confines of the corridor, it proved a web that restricted Borealis’s only advantage–maneuverability.

Borealis surrounded himself with ice mana and surged toward a gap, but the inquisitor’s sword was already waiting. The two collided in a massive explosion, shaking the keep’s walls. Dust rained from above, and though stronger wards reinforced the keep than the cathedral, I covered my head instinctively, forgetting my ward would protect me should it actually collapse.

My head snapped up as another clash shook the building. Borealis now flapped helplessly in a cage of sunlight. There was still room to maneuver, but with his options so limited, the inquisitor predicted his every move, his sword ready to intercept.

Frustration welled up in the Nexus as Borealis narrowly dodged another series of attacks. The inquisitor’s mastery of fire mana perfectly countered the ice demon’s power. Ice’s elemental vulnerability to fire wasn’t near as extreme as the demon’s weakness to sunlight. Still, combined with the reach a sword provided and powerful magic items, the inquisitor came ahead with a distinct advantage.

I clenched my hands, trying to keep up with the fight, but my senses were so slow I barely followed half the moves. Sometimes, the two would blur for several seconds at once, only reappearing to gather their mana for another exchange.

There was a flash of light followed by a shockwave, and Borealis went flying. The inquisitor appeared behind him, sword outstretched. Thick rivulets of blood scattered from the blade, hissing as they made contact with the fire wreathing his body.

Borealis collided with a ribbon of light, setting off another explosion. He screeched in pain and tumbled into another, then another. I screamed and ran forward, only to freeze as the inquisitor appeared before me. His sword slashed across my wards, leaving a thin crack in its wake.

”Surrender, filthblood!” he shouted, brandishing his blade. ”I won’t show mercy again!”

A light thump behind him caused my heart to lurch. Borealis lay in a crumpled heap of feathers. Thin lines of burns laced his wings, and a deep laceration cut from his leg to his neck. For a moment, he was motionless, causing my blood to run cold. Then, his chest rose slightly, and a fresh trickle of blood announced his heartbeat.

The inquisitor lashed out again, sending more cracks spider webbing through my wards. At last, I turned my attention to him, eyes blazing gold as I began to gather mana. Borealis’s blood stained his blade, his flames hissing like the spells the inquisitors had seared my flesh with at the Divine Throne.

Spurred on by my rising mana levels, the Oracle of Eternity thrummed deep in my soul, overlaying his menacing figure with a shadow. It lunged forward, blade piercing my wards and burying itself in my shoulder. I winced as the phantom pain faded and the vision broke apart, my tail twitching in agitation.

As his sword descended, beginning the strike I’d foreseen, I grabbed my staff in both hands and released the seventh-level spell from my soul. It erupted in a burst of gold and green light, forming thick currents of mana that lashed out with the frenzied force of a hurricane. The inquisitor grunted, born back by the sheer pressure generated by the abrupt appearance of so much mana. His sword carved a line into the ground by foot, missing me by a few inches.

”What madness is this?” he choked, shielding his eyes with a raised gauntlet. ”How can one spell have two attributes?”

I held my staff high, shivering as the mana rebounded, flooding my soul with strength. It scoured my soul like raging floodwaters, igniting the scars left by the false soul binder. Tears gathered in my eyes, and I bit my lip, barely holding back a whimper.

The pain intensified as Celestial Grace penetrated the Nexus. My eyes widened, and braced myself against the wall, screaming as my consciousness evaporated. Pain filled every corner of my being as my soul struggled to support the immensity of mana required to propagate the effect across hundreds of evolved demons. It wasn’t supposed to work this way! The Nexus should have rejected any spell too strong for it to safely replicate!

The tide of agony continued until, suddenly, my senses returned. The pain lessened, allowing me to collapse against the wall. My chest heaved, and tears blurred my vision, but my body felt stronger and lighter, and my soul more stable. Ribbons of Fate and Life magic wound through every thread of my being, fortifying me against the powers raging within. Gradually, as Celestial Grace suffused the far reaches of the Nexus, the pain faded completely.

I wiped a glob of blood from my lips and straightened, taking a shaky breath. The inquisitor hid behind a hastily erected ward, straining to withstand the pressure emanating from my soul.

”Regenerate,” I said softly, soul-casting the sixth-level life spell.

An unbearable itch spread across my body, flaring up most intensely on my back and tail. The angry red scars closed, taking the constant, dull ache with them.

A surge of green light rose behind the inquisitor. He turned, grimacing, as Borealis rose into the air on wings of glimmering crystal. Green sparks danced across his body, replacing feathers and knitting together the cut on his chest. His aura transformed, breaking through the limits imposed by the seventh-level.

The inquisitor shifted his stance, placing several floating fire ribbons between him and the bird. I frowned and stretched out my hand, releasing a burst of mana.

”Dispel Magic.”

The wave of discordant mana scythed through the seventh-level magical technique like a knife through butter. The ribbons collapsed in an explosion of sparks, dissipating before Borealis as he surged forward, coated in a raging layer of ice mana. Frost swept across the ground in his wake, cracking the stone as it replaced the inquisitor’s fiery chains.

The inquisitor’s sword seemed a heartbeat behind his movements from moments before. Borealis slipped under his guard and struck him directly in the shoulder. A terrible scream tore into my ears as the man was thrown down the corridor, blood arcing after him. Borealis beat his wings once and disappeared, releasing a sonic boom as he chased after the inquisitor. He caught him right before he struck the wall at the end of the corridor, diving from above and slamming him into the ground. The impact cratered the ground, sending tremors radiating through the keep.

I watched fascinated horror as the demon’s claws sliced through the seventh-level body without a hint of resistance, tearing him open from the navel to the neck. The inquisitor’s screams echoed through the hallways as blood sprayed in every direction, beading on Borealis’s feathers like dew.

In a final, desperate attempt, the inquisitor channeled the last of his mana into his sword. The blade flared with fire, evaporating the ice creeping over the corridor. He drove it upward into Borealis’s chest, a vicious light in his eyes.

I covered my mouth, barely holding back a scream, as the technique exploded, enveloping the corridor in a blast of fire. It swept over me in a tsunami of fire, but with the distance and poor efficiency of a magical technique, lacked the power to overcome Adaptive Resistance.

Above the roar of the explosion, came the sharp crack of breaking steel. I ran blindly through the curtains of fire toward the noise. Tears streamed from my eyes, evaporating the moment they left my face.

”Borealis!” I cried.

At last, I stumbled upon the motionless body of the inquisitor. He was charred black, his armor torn to shreds. His blood was caked onto him, evaporated by the intense heat. Beside him lay his sword. What was left of it, at least. The blade was shattered midway to the point, leaving steel fragments scattered across the ground.

I came to a sudden stop, staring at the glittering bird perched triumphantly upon his chest. He was...okay?

I fell to my knees beside him, pulling him into a hug. He squirmed in protest, squawking vehemently, but allowed me to feel through his feathers for any sign of injury. There was a small bead of blood on his chest, but the wound had already healed.

”You...a seventh-level technique...and it was fire?” I stammered, staring into his icy blue eyes.

He puffed his chest and extended his wings in a victorious show of dominance. I sighed and shook my head, sweeping up in my arms again and holding him to my chest.

”Don’t scare me like that again,” I said sternly, nuzzling his head with my cheek.

He squirmed half-heartedly but quickly settled down and began cooing softly. I smiled and stroked him a few more times before getting to my feet and looking around. Fire filled the corridor, incinerating anything not made of stone. But even that glowed faintly, causing the air in the corridor to shimmer like in a fireplace. From the breadth of the mana saturating the area, the explosion might have reached half the keep. If anyone didn’t know we were here, they certainly did now.