“Not at all.”
Ion sits up, looking around. What welcomes him is the sight of the devil girl sleeping next to him, very soundly.
“She said that the sight of you sleeping on my lap made her drowsy. So, I think she got tired and decided to take a nap as well.”
Louir’s explanation stirs the devil. “Mm... Huh? You’re up? Finally! Let’s get going! He will suffer today!”
“Tomorrow, you mean? Or do you have a plan? We’re miles away from the capital,” Louir reminds.
“Ah, shit.”
“Where’s the raven?”
Right above you.
Ion turns to look up. He can see the bird perched on a branch.
You sure took your time, human.
“Sorry about that. Limiter Release has its toll.”
“Let’s get going. We have work to do.”
“Don’t you dare consider traveling! I’ll create a portal for you. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this damn moment!”
“This may not be the right moment to ask, but how can you Teleport us all? I can barely do it to myself.”
“Trust me, I’ve gone through a ton of shit to get here, and part of that crap was learning things like portals only two Mages have succeeded at.” She doesn’t sound pissed, but her words imply the opposite.
“Uh-huh.”
“Can we wait a bit?” Louir says, “My legs are numb. I can’t stand.”
“Didn’t you just say they weren’t sore?” Ion remarks.
“Yeah, so?”
“I don’t get it.”
“As long as you know that there is no other woman in the world who’d do a day-long lap pillow for you, that’s all you need to know.”
“I see.” Ion pretends he understands.
They can hear a tremor. It’s very silent and distant. The Titan is getting closer, and with it, the end of the world.
“Hear that? We can’t wait for your fat legs to recover. We need to act now, damn it.”
To think the Void attuner is defeated by a lap pillow... The Void speaks.
“Five minutes. Recover by then,” she says.
***
From the ruined city of Tereon, voices reach out to the shore of the lake where the apocalypse is preparing. The city is in flames. Survivors are fleeing. The Order is there as well, helping the army. They proved to be useful in the end.
Louir doesn’t care, though. All that matters is that the threat is eliminated. When the five minutes have passed, she summons a red portal near the shore.
“Jump through the portal.” The devil girl waits for the others.
Ion goes first, and Louir follows him, the raven right behind. And finally, the devil, too, goes through the portal. The dimension within the portal is like a starless night sky. It takes them a second to get to the other end of the portal. Once on the other side, the gate of Hantor welcomes them.
“How come we are out here, and not within the city? Do we really need to raze the whole city? Or what’s the plan?” Louir is confused.
“Listen, girl,” she explains, “there’s a slight problem. That bastard has done something stupid that makes it impossible for us to get in via my portal. So, do what needs to be done. We need to get into the castle of Hantor. The bastard is waiting there. Go.”
Raze the city. The bird sounds excited.
“We will raze what needs to be razed, but I won’t stray from the main objective,” Louir states.
“Yeah, and I don’t feel like killing for no reason.”
“Shut the fuck up and GO!” Ever so impatient, she yells.
Louir and Ion nod. The raven just perches on Louir’s shoulder. As they face the gate, a thunder roars behind them, red lightning that looks like a blood rupture.
One thing they haven’t noticed just yet is the highest tower of the castle. For some reason, it has changed. The tower looks dark and ominous, spanning easily over the clouds. Last time they were in Hantor, the tower was normal and barely higher than the others. Now, the whole city looks menacing as if a curse had been laid upon it.
And one more thing; if they turned around, they could see the Titan in the distance, marching onward.
The apocalypse has begun.
“It’s Louir!” A guard on the wall shouts.
“Don’t let her get near!”
“Hurry! Kill her!”
Louir is walking towards the gate, Ion Cloaked beside her. Archers are shooting, and Elementalists are hurling spells, all aimed at Louir. However, none hit her, repelled by a violet aura around Louir. Annoyed, she makes the defenders disappear by planting Void Rifts inside their bodies, causing them to collapse in on themselves.
“Ion, make the gate disappear.”
With a nod, he casts an Arcane Bomb. The way is open, but they need to get over the moat somehow. However, they’re interrupted by a single archer who survived the calamity that befell his brethren. An arrow he’s shot skewers Louir by the throat. The archer barely believes his eyes.
Lightning strikes again, tearing the sky with the red flash.
The thunder is accompanied by a spray of blood.
Louir has killed the fool.
She is clutching the arrow stuck to her throat, breaking it so that she can pull it out. She isn’t dying. Her body is a mere manifestation, not her true self anymore. She is part of the Void, an existence beyond the physical plane: astral.
One of Louir’s newfound powers is to sense living things around her, and thanks to it, she can feel Ion nearby. He has crossed the moat on his own. Louir walks over the pit, using a violet, transparent platform of the Void as a bridge.
Louir starts running upon landing on solid ground, heading to the castle that has a whole new look to it. She is expecting resistance, but that makes her smile. She doesn’t quite understand it, but violence has become a part of her. It makes her exhilarated.
It’s pouring, and with each moment, the storm grows worse. Drenched to the bone, Louir’s dark violet hair flutters beautifully. Ion can be seen faintly in the rain as the raindrops can’t pass through him. He is following her right behind. The citizens are hiding in their homes during a storm like that.
“Stop right there!” Louir runs into a group of Elementalists. “Kill her! We must defend our homes!”
Die.
Louir demands from the Void, and she is granted the power she needs. The Elementalists, who are dozens of yards away, hurl their combinations of Elementi spells. Since Louir isn’t a human anymore, the attuners utilize the worst spells they can think of.
However, they lose the sight of her. Louir appears behind them, stabbing her hand into the back of an Elementalist as if it were a sharpened weapon. She seizes the spine, ripping it out to reshape it into a Void weapon. It takes the form of a scythe, the joints glowing violet.
Die.
The Elementalists cry in horror, the sight of bloodied Louir with a scythe making them all beg for salvation. Louir swings the Void weapon, hungrily seeking for lives to take. However, after mustering the courage, one of the Elementalists manages to cut off her left arm with a Living Weapon. Pissed, Louir dismembers his legs.
The raven flies above, watching the bloodbath. With each swing, a life is taken. With each loss, terror is instilled. With each moment, the doom is closer.
Ion, on the other hand, is picking off Elementalists hiding on the roofs. He kills painlessly. If it were possible, he’d avoid any conflict, but alas, Louir can’t turn invisible like him.
Louir sprints, leaving a pile of corpses and a bunch of eerie eyes behind. Her arm is reforming, repaired by a violet flame of the Void. The rain is cleansing her of the blood, though not thoroughly. Here and there, she runs into groups of knights, and their heads are sent flying faster than they can recognize the threat.
The Marks of the Void are ubiquitous.
After a sharp turn, Louir finds herself in a mess that surprises even her. Now, she is in the plaza where merchants are usually selling their goo
ds. Dead bodies lie all around, maybe a hundred at least. Some of them are knights, some are citizens. The Marks left behind by the murderer stare at Louir, every single one of them.
We meet in Hantor, indeed. Louir knows who has done it.
Knowing the other Void attuner is ahead of her, she shouldn’t find any resistance outside of the castle. She and Ion head to the castle, ignoring the view in the plaza.
The Titan is getting closer. It’s still in the distance, but each step it takes shakes the ground more than before. Its dark figure looks like a silhouette in the storm. The red lightning flashing occasionally makes it look all the more ominous.
***
Once she gets to the gate of the castle, another view of utter annihilation welcomes her. The entrance is left open—or more like, destroyed. Louir enters the castle. The paranormal air around it makes her wonder what’s truly going on. However, she doesn’t care enough to stop. She’ll finish what she’s started, and with pleasure, at that.
“What has happened here!?” Ion exclaims, turning visible.
“The other Void attuner is ahead. We need to catch up with her!”
“Are you sure?”
“She is our ally. Trust me.”
Indeed. Trust Louir. She is your ally.
“Hmm?” Ion finds the raven’s reply puzzling.
“Let’s go!”
They enter the castle. What they want to aim for is the tall tower that spans over the clouds. He must be there, Louir reasons. She hasn’t followed them, so they are going in without her.
Louir has been to the king’s castle once before. She somewhat remembers where the entrance to the tower is, but there is no telling if the castle interior has changed along with its outer appearance. Also, for some reason, Louir senses life nearby, thanks to her newfound powers, but she can’t see anyone else other than Ion.
“Something’s not right.”
“I don’t think there’s anything right here.” Ion remarks.
Ignoring his words, Louir asks, “There are countless humans around us even now, but I can’t see them. Do you?”
“I don’t.”
“Strange. This might be a trap.”
Ion Cloaks himself in case there is one. Inside the castle, he won’t have to worry about being spotted. Nevertheless, they proceed carefully. There is a way to kill Louir and the Void, and thus Louir feels endangered.
The further they go in, the stronger the sensation of life being nearby gets. There has to be someone next to her even now. However, what puzzles her even more is that lives disappear around her. It’s the feeling she gets when she kills someone, except that she isn’t killing anyone.
“I’m going nuts.”
“How so?”
“There are dozens of humans nearby, and they’re dying on a random basis. The worst part is that we can’t see them. They are there, but... I don’t know. Something about this whole castle is off.”
“If there is something killing humans, then it has to be on our side, right?”
“Yeah, I think so. Let’s just head to the tower. I don’t think we should hang around for too long. The Titan is getting closer, you know.”
Louir leads the way. They wander around for a while before they find a path that might lead to the tower. Running through the hallways, they get to a dining hall, then to a gathering room, then to a library, until Louir admits they’re lost.
“I’m certain it was there...”
“So much for being certain,” Ion says as he rolls his eyes.
This place makes me feel nauseous. I do not like this. The raven is still with them.
***
Half an hour later, they find a double door. They haven’t seen it before, so they suspect the staircase might be there. Louir kicks the doors open, and finally, they find the bottom of the tower. When they look up, Louir swears, Ion feels dejected, and the raven just sighs.
“It’ll take hours to reach the top, damn it.”
“Please, can someone teach me a spell that allows me to fly? I’m not sure if I want to try Teleporting in here.”
“Why?”
“Because this whole place is unstable as if we were drifting. It’s hard to Teleport in here without dying.”
“Uh-huh.”
Get going. The Titan is near.
“Fine, fine!”
They start running up the stairs leading to the top of the tower. They have at least a hundred yards to climb. Lou discards the scythe to make her climb that much easier.
However, their climb is interrupted by a massive object that falls from above. Not hitting the stairs during its freefall, it crashes into the middle of the floor.
Danger, watch out.
A heavily armored knight-looking humanoid stands up from the crater it has caused. Its platings look incredibly thick, its shield and sword heavy, and the overall figure is five yards tall. It’s a magical guardian.
“I don’t think we can just run,” Ion shares his thoughts.
“No. We can’t.”
Be careful. That thing can wound your body in the Void.
“Understood. Ion, Cloak! Climb higher and provide me with assistance from above.”
“On it!”
The massive knight charges at Louir faster than she thought it can. In a moment’s notice, the sword is swung at her from above. Louir dodges, but the shield is about to hit her. The guardian is trying to slam Louir with the chunk of metal.
Louir draws power from the astral plane, Void flames erupting around her. The explosion pushes back the knight before it can hit her. Right after, Louir delivers a bombardment of Void spheres at the knight in rapid succession. The explosions resound in the tower.
The knight charges again with the shield held protectively. Louir disappears from the guardian’s field of vision, only to appear behind it. She’s stepped rather than Teleported. She bends the Void and reality to create an anomaly, through which she can warp a distance. However, its range is limited to a few dozen yards.
She won’t show any mercy. Summoning a Living Weapon of the Void, she impales the knight with the astral tool, a spear of the Void. Its length is tremendous, spanning over four yards. The knight is staggered by the spear stuck in it. Louir retreats.
The spear explodes with raw Void energy. The knight suffers immense damage. However, it isn’t defeated, not yet. It turns around, hurling the sword at her.
Ion is shooting at the knight with the Ender spell. He isn’t utilizing Limiter Release, so he won’t lose his consciousness this time. Firing the Arcane weapon, his aim is true, and the knight’s head is penetrated. However, a small projectile won’t do much damage to a massive chunk of iron.
Louir blocks the hurled sword with a shield of the Void. She’s caught off guard, however, as the knight slams the floor with its fist, causing a quake. She loses her balance, and the knight picks the sword to swing it vertically.
She recovers just in time, vaulting over the blade, landing on the wide, blunt side of it, thus riding the weapon. Once the momentum stops, she dashes on top of the blade, her right fist empowered by the Void. She punches the metal head of the knight, and the result is worth it. The knight collapses, stunned by the hit.
But still, it’s not defeated.
Ion fires the Ender countless times, aiming to destroy the head. And in fact, he succeeds at it. The head falls off, but the knight stands up anyway. Enraged, it swings its sword madly at Louir. Its recklessness forces her to block the blows one after another without allowing her a chance to counter-attack. The violet shield of the Void resonates each time it blocks a strike.
Ion gathers Louir can’t hold her ground for long and glides down to aid her. While midair, he casts an Arcane Spear, launching it at the knight from above. The spell hits its mark. He sends more to impale the knight, and he keeps at it until he’s glided down to the knight’s reach.
Once down, the knight shifts its focus on him. Ion allows it to attack, shielding himself with Arcana. However, the b
low is stronger than he’s estimated.
He is knocked backward, the Arcane Shield broken. Louir makes use of the situation. She draws the Void as fast as she can, hurling the raw power at the knight. It’s enough to stagger it for a brief moment.
That window is enough for Louir. She steps through the Void to appear below the knight. She then causes the Void energy to erupt from her, sending the knight midair.
Ion launches a spell lance at the knight while it’s still in the air. The force knocks the iron hulk against the wall, nailing it onto the wall.
Lou finishes the job by bombarding the trapped knight with a barrage of Void bolts. One after another, she keeps at it, forcing the knight to destruct.
The guardian explodes. The armor platings are blown off.
The raven, who’s been hiding above, gives his warning. You have destroyed the first layer only.
Louir and Ion stand in the middle of the floor where the crater is. They wait for the thing to appear from the pile of metal. They can hear something moving there.
“Cloak,” Louir tells Ion.
Ion obeys without hesitation.
An old man, a very tall one, crawls out of the broken armor. His age could easily be over a hundred, but regardless of that, he looks strong enough to fight.
The old man says nothing. His fists burst in flames, spelling the beginning of round two.
“Mind if I turn into an Archon?” Louir asks.
You do not even know what it means to be a Void Archon. Fire and Lightning Elementi Archons are different.
“Yes or no!?”
...Yes.
At once, Louir gathers all the Void power she can muster. A violet aura surrounds her. The old man is watching her eagerly. It can’t attack her just yet, for the aura around her erases everything around it, until the transformation is complete.
She’s been an Archon twice before. Once Fire, once Lightning. Becoming an Archon of the Elementi means that the attuner lets the Elementi itself take control over her. However, both parties must agree to the temporal condition, and only a few Elementi allow it. In the Void’s case, an agreement is not an issue.
A layer of Void flames surrounds her to serve as armor. Louir’s physical body cannot be seen through it. Where her eyes should be, glowing dots represent her sight.
Apocalyptic Life (Era Series Book 2) Page 14