The Forsaken Hero

”Niece!” Kirla screamed, throwing herself at Kahlen. In her fury, she smote his arm, and in a burst of mana, hewed it off at the elbow. The blade demon growled in anger, slinking back and upward, taking to the air. Silver blood dripped from the stump until it stopped altogether, sealed by his regeneration.

”Marge! Heal her!” Rochelle screamed.

The Rabbitkin ran to the fallen archer’s side, dropping to her knees. She pressed her hands into her blood-soaked tunic, summoning the power of life. Niece twitched, her limbs spasming, but before the magic took hold, Luxxa swung her sword. A wave of power shot out, striking Marge from behind. She was sent sprawling, tumbling over Niece and slamming into the cliff face. Niece jerked once more, and then went still.

”Why you! We’ll kill you!” Jill growled, launching arrows in rapid succession.

They struck Luxxa hard. She caught the first on her shield, but her arm buckled and collapsed. The next deflected off her breastplate, leaving a shallow gouge in the steel, while a third punched through a gap in her armor caused by Kislee’s crushing pincer, disappearing into her stomach. The arrow detonated, exploding out of her back. Fragments of blood, bone, and shattered steel painted the ground. Luxxa staggered forward, clutching at her stomach, a pained whisper slipping from her lips.

”No!” I cried hoarsely.

That earned a slap from Rochelle. ”Shut up, slut!”

Kahlen streaked to Luxxa’s side, throwing his swords at Jill and Kirla, and catching her as she collapsed. He stuffed his remaining hand in the wound, flooding it with mana. The blade demon knew no life magic, but he managed to plug the wound. Her eyes rolled back as she lost consciousness, succumbing to the pain.

”Enough of this! Grab the girl, and let’s get out of here,” Jill cried.

Rochelle’s mana wrapped around me in fiery red tendrils, slithering around my arms and legs. They burned like smoldering coals, blistering my skin and charring the tattered rags that remained of my dress. I cried out in pain, but she ignored my cries, lifting me into the air. The rest of Alex’s party retreated. Kahlen growled in frustration, fighting between chasing after me and saving Luxxa. His silver eyes met mine across the meadow. I held it a single heartbeat before giving a small nod. He gritted his teeth and lowered his head. His swords retreated, and he picked up Luxxa, rushing her over to Gith and Jenna.

”No!” R’lissea’s cry rose above the battleground. ”Xiviyah!”

Kislee had cornered her against the mountain face. She was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and a broken rib protruded through a ragged hole in her dress. The forest lay in heaps of melted trees and toxic biomatter, her elementals reduced to slag. The apostle hadn’t fared much better, with rends and tears across her carapace. Blood still trickled from the hole in her side, and her exposed skin was pocketmarked with acid burns. She shook off the vines clinging to her, gathering what remained of her power.

”This goes far enough, hero,” she hissed. ”This fight was inevitable. Nothing can stop the hordes.”

”I don’t care about your fight, I don’t care about the hordes!” R’lisea cried, her voice breaking. ”I care about Xiviyah! Last time, I...it doesn’t matter who you are, or how powerful. I won’t stand by and do nothing this time. No one’s taking her ever again!”

Light exploded out of R’lissea, shooting into the sky in a glorious pillar. My soul was constricted, my eyes dull, but her mana manifested as visible shimmers of light radiating out across the dark meadow. Life Mana surged out of the ground, rising out of tainted forests, slain demons, the flesh of the living, and the veritable marshes of poison. The Death Blossoms that snapped and ate at her and Alex suddenly stilled.

She rose into the air, a beacon of defiance against the night. Her wings, made of pure life energy, unfurled, pulling in the swirling storm of mana around her. The very earth shuddered beneath the weight of her surging aura, so intense that Kislee stumbled back a step, her chittering faltering.

The clash of steel and the roar of flames ceased as Alex and Hag turned, their attention captured by the sudden, terrifying spike of mana. Even the remaining Death Blossoms seemed to hold their breath, their jaw-like flowers frozen mid-snap. The entire battlefield, for a fleeting moment, was silent, held hostage to the Life Hero.

And then R’lissea unleashed it all. Eight magic circles surged across the sky, and a terrifying pressure sized the meadow. Even us, up on the ridge and away from the battle, shivered. I fought for breath, coughing another mouthful of blood. A spell I’d only seen once before, on the day R’lissea broke into the eighth level. Aboreal World.

I didn’t understand it. That spell granted one mastery over the land, and unfused the region with life magic, but what benefit could that possibly grant her here? Growing crops or regenerating a forest hardly mattered now.

The spell resolved in a ninstant, a full minute faster than it should have. R’lissea’s aura increased tenfold. She waved her staff, and the world trembled. I stared in disbelief as elementals clawed out of the marshes, forming from the miasma itself. They charged recklessly toward every threat in the meadow before fully forming. Tall, thin beings with oily, glistening ski andjagged claws. Each brimming with a twisted compound of R’lissea mana and Hag’s own power. Hundreds of beings, outnumbering even the demons, and each at the peak of sixth-level.

But it didn’t stop there. It was as if Enusia itself answered her call. Withered trees grabbed demons, crushing them in their branches. Those too far from the battle tore their roots from the ground and hurled themselves at our enemies. The mountains broke, collapsing upon the packs of infernals roving around the meadow, obliterating hundreds in seconds.

Violent shudders ran through the Death Blossom’s roots. As one, they turned from R’lissea, reorienting on the demons. They slithered forward, taking on a new life and mobility of their own, even more like serpents than when they followed Hag’s will. A half-dozen demons disappeared into their petals, and before anyone had really realized what was happening, three of them lunged at Hag and Alex.

The fire hero cursed, brandishing his sword in a flaming arc. He sliced through the stem of one, but his flames died as they tried to crawl across its fibrous body. It held so much life mana that the instant the sword had cut through, the stem had already started to burst. It snapped down without missing a beat, and blood spread. Alex screamed in pain, torn off his feet as the plant monster whipped him back and forth, gripping his arm in its jaws. It finally released him, hurling him into a puddle of poison with enough force that it broke the meadow in half.

The other Blossoms pounced on Hag, catching her completely off guard. Her expression shifted from shock to hatred, and finally, fear, as thorny vines lashed across her flesh. Her talons fared even worse against the Blossoms. Her poison seeped deep through their cells, but they didn’t blacken or die. Instead, they grew stronger, thicker, bigger. Absorbing every art and technique she threw at them and returning it twofold. In seconds, she too had been flung across the meadow. Unlike Alex, she twisted mid-air agilely and landed on her feet, but quickly disappeared beneath a torrent of poison elementals. Their slashing claws cut deep into her skin, turning the toxic marshes black with her foul blood.

”What the hell are these things?” Rochelle asked, ducking as a poison elemental reached us, throwing a stream of toxins directly at the mage’s head. She chanted a fire spell and erased it with a flaming javelin, but the effort left her panting.

More elementals lunged toward us, but Alex’s other companions reached us at that moment, cutting through them with some difficulty. They didn’t die easily, and often ignored wounds from arrows and swords, simply flowing back together like water.

”Where the hell is the fire hero?” Kirla shouted. ”Why is he still fighting? We have the slave already! We need to go and get Niece help!”

Marge carried Niece, giving her infusions of life magic, but even I could see it was already too late. I didn’t need the Oracle of Eternity to see the light had faded from her eyes. I could also see Alex was already attempting to retreat, but neither Hag nor R’lissea’s magic made it easy. For every enemy he cut down, two more took its place.

R’lissea wasn’t even focused on him. Kislee had renegaged her with every bit of her remaining strength. She moved faster than I could follow, faster than R’lissea should have been able to handle, but the land itself flowed to her defense. Elementals rose from nothing, great beings of stone, trees, and poison erupted from the ground whenever she attacked, raking her shell with claws and pummeling her with fists. She crushed through them easily, but their numbers were endless, and they were only growing stronger.

With another wave of her staff, R’lissea cast a seventh-circle spell. ”Verdant Confluence!”