by DB King
The rest of Cyrano’s war party wasn’t that quick to react. A blue robed mage fell apart, filleted by the hurtling metal. Two other armsmen fell as well, their torsos lacerated into reddish ruins. Their armor hadn’t helped against the revenant’s shower of metal shards at all.
Cyrano looked up as the revenant leveled its scepter at his face. Raphael was still ten paces away. Heraised his glaive like a spear, ready to throw it, but before he could loose the weapon, blue light flashed briefly in the corner of his vision.
Fenix popped into existence just in front of the revenant. He thrust one hand into the undead monster’s face and held the other over the scepter. Chain Lightning washed from the battlemage’s fingers onto the scepter and up into the revenant’s flesh. At the same time, Fenix flung a barrage of Explosive Orbs point-blank into the monster.
It reeled from the explosions and convulsed from the electricity running down the length of its weapon. Chunks of flesh fell from its frame. But still it reached for Fenix with its free hand, seeking to close its fingers around his throat.
Raphael hurled his glaive. The polearm’s blade cleaved into the revenant’s chest and emerged through the other side. Discs of ice spun through the monster’s outstretched arm, severing it just beneath the elbow. Fenix followed up with more Explosive Orbs that blasted the revenant back.
With a glaive through its increasingly damaged body. the monster lurched away from Fenix, seeking to flee, but by then, Raphael and Eliza had arrived. Raphael seized his glaive by the shaft, holding the revenant it had impaled in place.
Eliza stabbed the monster in the neck with her enchanted dagger, twisted the blade, and dragged it sideways. The dagger’s corrosive enchantment bubbled away the revenant’s flesh in the blink of an eye. The creature’s head tumbled off its shoulders. Raphael crushed it beneath his heel.
“Saved our hides, boy,” Cyrano muttered, pulling himself to his feet and helping the sole surviving member of his war party up. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We could do no less,” Raphael said. “We should go help another group.”
“Diminish their numbers while increasing our own. I like it,” the mage saved by Cyrano said. She was a mousy woman with short brown hair, and she wore gray robes as well. “I’m Ginerva. Metal Magic is my trade, though I’m nowhere near poor Captain Marianne’s level.”
Ginerva was referring to the revenant they’d just destroyed, Raphael realized. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. We’ll introduce ourselves more later.”
“We have work to do now,” Cyrano agreed, hefting his war pick.
And so with Cyrano and Ginerva in tow, the war party linked up with another group of Hell Drakes. Before long, yet another revenant captain fell beneath their combined might. They repeated the process over and over, with more Hell Drakes overwhelming each revenant captain every time.
Eventually, they destroyed the revenant Marco had been fighting. It was the last one, but Marco didn’t survived the battle. The captain lay face-first in the dirt, a gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been.
Battered, exhausted, but eager, the Hell Drakes turned their regard to Sylvia’s battle against the Pale Haunter. Elf and monster were still at a stalemate, cutting at each other with claws and blade and blistering the air between them with spells.
Sylvia hit the Pale Haunter with a globe of fire. The monster reeled back as its shadowy cloak writhed frantically in an attempt to absorb the spell and extinguish its flames. The elf tried to press the advantage, calling in her blade from up high while she charged in down low, her fists wreathed in spiked gauntlets of magical ice.
Something long and limb-like uncoiled from behind the Pale Haunter. It was a skeletal tail, multi-segmented and tipped with spikes from which a purple, hissing liquid dripped. The monster smashed aside Sylvia’s sword with its claws. At the same time, it lashed its tail into the elf. She caught the blow on her forearms. The impact shattered her conjured gauntlets, sending icy shards flying. One of the spikes sliced across the top of Sylvia’s chest, cutting through her silver breastplate and the form-fitting garment she wore underneath.
The elf hissed as she was hurled backwards. Raphael caught her in his arms, the Draconic Braziers giving him the strength to arrest her flight.
The Pale Haunter pursued, only to be met by a torrent of spells cast by every mage among the surviving Hell Drakes. Fireballs rained upon the monster, alongside Explosive Orbs and streams of Chain Lightning. Icy spikes punched into the revenant’s frame. More mundane projectiles followed. Crossbow bolts, arrows, throwing daggers, hammers, and axes pummeled the monster. One Hell Drake even hurled a sword.
“My hero,” Sylvia whispered to Raphael. She accompanied her words with a playful wink, but Raphael sensed far more gratitude in her demeanor than mockery.
“Are you alright, Sylvia?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Absolutely fine. I just slipped back there. Happens to everyone.” she replied, surreptitiously pressing down on the white top of a potion vial strapped to her thigh. It was an anti-venom, which made sense, since the tail spike with which the Pale Haunter had struck her was almost certainly venomous. Raphael saw that all of the other potions in Sylvia’s belt had been expended as well.
What an ordeal she must have gone through. Raphael glanced at the cut the Pale Haunter had inflicted on her with its tail. The elf’s pale flesh had turned an angry red around the wound, which had itself turned black.
“You only have to ask, Raphael, if you want to see more,” Sylvia said, pulling playfully at the top of her parted garment and giving him another wink. But her voice was slurred, and her eyes had become unfocused.
The potion must not have been strong enough! Raphael placed his hand over Sylvia’s cut and chanted the arcane syllables for the Minor Delay spell. Faint green light pulsed faintly as he cast the spell. He looked over his shoulder. “Gabriella! She’s been poisoned! Can you help her?”
Amidst the deafening storm of spells, Eliza alone heard Raphael’s call, probably because she was the closest and most attentive to him, since she had no spells to hurl at the Pale Haunter. She shook Gabriella by the shoulder and said something into her ear. The princess abandoned her barrage of Ice Magic, and the two of them ran up to Raphael’s side.
Gabriella knelt by Sylvia and placed the index and middle fingers of her left hand against the elf’s temple. She chanted briefly, then nodded. “Four castings of Intermediate Cleanse should do it. That’s a very powerful poison. If you hadn’t casted Minor Delay just then, she would have been dead already. Now, cover me if you can. I’m going to start cleansing her system now.”
Raphael nodded. He took up his glaive and assumed a defensive stance over the princess and the elf. Eliza stood by his side, mace and dagger in hand. She gave him a resolute nod.
The Pale Haunter had taken to the sky, weaving and swirling in a bid to avoid the spells seeking its destruction. Not that the Hell Drakes were anywhere near to achieving success. As Raphael watched, the monster was struck by one fireball after another. Explosive Orbs hammered it repeatedly in midflight. Lightning bolts and Chain Lightning lit up its skeletal frame.
But it was futile. The spells hurled the monster back, but they hardly inflicted any damage. In fact, it seemed as if the Pale Haunter was mocking them, tempting the Hell Drakes to expend all their strength because...
It would just come back in the next attack even if we managed to destroy it, Raphael thought. Looking over his shoulder, he looked for Van Heim. The captain wasn’t a mage, so he was simply standing at the ready, his blades held low.
“Captain Van Heim! Stop it! Stop wasting your spells and spell dust now!” he cried.
Somehow, the captain heard him over the clamor of magic. Either that, or he read Raphael’s lips. He nodded and swept his blades through the air. The spells hurtling toward the Pale Haunter slowed, then stopped as the Hell Drakes heeded Van Heim’s command.
The monster ceased its spiraling maneuvers and hung
in the sky. Its shoulders heaved, and a strange hacking sound emerged, ringing through the sudden silence that had fallen.
It’s laughing, Raphael realized, a chill running down his spine at the thought.
Then it spoke.
“Finally, someone’s smart enough to catch on,” the Pale Haunter said. Its voice was an eerie, rattling echo that seemed to scratch and claw at the depths of Raphael’s soul. “All this has been so much fun, you know? This place with all its spatial and temporal anomalies, the malign hatred poisoning the very essence of its existence, and the ease with which it attracts the similarly inclined, such as yours truly and all my other bony and rotting friends you’ve already met. And then there’s the spirited fight you lot put up. Bravo! Bravo! Never, and I don’t use that term lightly, never have I been so entertained.”
Before anyone could reply , the monster continued speaking. “But alas, it’s all coming to an end, at least for you. It’s obvious to me you’re nearing the end of your resources. The next cycle should see you entirely annihilated, especially now that you’ve gifted me with so many fresh, valuable assets.”
The Pale Haunter thrust its bony arms into the sky and chanted a short phrase. Black lightning crackled among its fingertips, before lancing out into hundreds, if not thousands of lesser tendrils and cascading downwards. The lightning sought out the fallen, be they the Banished piles of skeleton warriors or putrid heaps of bale-wights, the remains of the destroyed revenants, or the fallen Hell Drakes.
Everywhere Raphael looked, the dead began to twitch. A Hell Drake corpse nearby lifted its head and moaned. Skeletal claws reached for rusty weapons. Stinking ash congealed into ichor.
The surviving Hell Drakes cried out in disgust and despair. Raphael’s first thought was to summon Koshi’s bow once more and, with Fenix’s help, Banish all the undead. But he didn’t have enough Ryu-To-Ki to attempt such a feat.
Inspiration struck Raphael, then. He’d expended one of his resources, but he still had another, mana. He’d been wondering why no spell cores had emerged from the skeleton warriors or bale-wights, but perhaps such a phenomenon only happened if the monsters were truly defeated. If the undead creatures were only going to come back again and again after being destroyed, then surely they hadn’t been truly defeated yet.
But still, lying in heaps of ruins all around Raphael, these monsters had surely been bested, at least for now, and they were dead, even if their actual death happened long ago somewhere else.
Raphael shone the light of the Dragon Meridian outwards, reaching for all the fallen, Hell Drakes and monsters alike. A storm of emotions roiled before him. Pulled out of a different place and time, the skeletons and wights were mad with fear and confusion. The revenants were laden with pain and regret. Hatred for the living united the undead, but something else did, too: the overwhelming desire to be somewhere else, be it a hellish purgatory or heavenly paradise, either of which would be better than the endless torment of undeath.
“What? What is this?” The Pale Haunter snapped its gaze down upon Raphael. “You! What are you doing?”
Raphael ignored the monster. The fallen were calling to him, and he had to heed their call. He took their desire for release and filled their souls with it, drowning out every other thought and emotion. Spell cores emerged from the skeleton warriors and bale-wights. The lingering souls of the fallen Hell Drakes and revenants seeped out from their mortal bodies, taking the form of glowing white-blue wisps.
Be free. Go, and leave nothing behind, Raphael thought, as he completed the Deliverance spell. Hundreds of spell cores shattered into slivers of light. The souls of the Hell Drakes disappeared. The remains of the revenants crumbled into dust.
“No!” the Pale Haunter shrieked. Baring its claws, it streaked down toward Raphael. Sylvia’s sword hurtled out from nowhere, whistling toward the monster’s head. The Pale Haunter ducked out of the way, only for the elf to kick it in the face and slam it down into the ground, where the impact of its landing cratered the packed dirt.
Thank you. Raphael felt a soul say to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a warrior, proud and strong, smiling at him. Raphael recognized the warrior as Hotaru, the revenant captain the war party had barely managed to defeat.
You’re welcome, Raphael sent back, but Hotaru’s response was simply to widen his smile, and then he was gone, lost to the tides of eternity.
Rayne emerged from Raphael’s pocket and soared to the remains of the skeleton warriors and bale-wights. As before with the sanguine treants, the faerie dragon collected the slivers of light from the shattered spell cores upon its wings.
Well done, Magus! Well done! Rayne congratulated him euphorically as it flew, its wings laden with much more light than they’d been in Vitoria’s woods.
The Pale Haunter burst out from its shallow burial. Sylvia stood in its way, cracking her knuckles.
“We’re not done yet,” the elf snarled. “I’m going to rip your tail off and beat you to death with it.”
But the Pale Haunter didn’t attack. Instead, it watched Rayne silently as the faerie dragon worked.
After collecting the slivers of light from the spell cores, Rayne flew overhead Raphael and flapped its wings. The light fell over his shoulders and sank into his soul. Raphael looked inward. His mana had been all but depleted, but after some rest, he would have more of it to call upon. Much more, in fact. With a gasp of surprise, Raphael realized that he’d quadrupled the amount of mana he could hold in reserve. This meant that much more powerful spells were within his reach. He only had to learn them.
But more strikingly, a change had come over Rayne as well. The faerie dragon’s eyes were now a bright golden, and a new bright green crest had emerged on its head, running down the back of its neck. Rayne also seemed sleeker, its movements more sure and powerful, where before they’d been enthusiastic but bumbling.
Before he could ask the faerie dragon what these changes meant, Rayne coiled in on itself and then uncoiled. Raphael gasped at the sight. Rayne was now twice the size of a large horse, easily ranging more than fifteen feet in length and standing as tall as he did.
As you traverse the path of your destiny, Magus, so too must I change, that I might best accompany you, Rayne sent. But don’t worry. I can still become small.
The Hell Drakes muttered and pointed at the faerie dragon just before it shrank down once more. Rayne bumped its snout gently against Raphael’s cheek before swooping into his pocket.
All this time, the Pale Haunter watched silently. As the faerie dragon disappeared from its sight, it chuckled.
“Oh my. Never have I seen the like. Have I happened to chance upon a demigod before his apotheosis? Is such my good fortune? The slaughter and torment of a million-million souls is far less interesting in comparison. I would love to see destiny unfold, but if you are indeed a demigod, what better chance to savor your soul before you truly rise to your divinity?” The Pale Haunter lurched forward.
Sylvia raised her hands. Her sword danced into readiness. As one, the Hell Drakes advanced to stand beside Raphael.
Faced with a bristling wall of enchanted weapons and readied spells, the Pale Haunter hesitated. It took a step back, then shrugged in an all-too-human gesture. Its gaze burned into Raphael’s. “Or perhaps it would be more amusing instead to watch from afar. You are called Raphael by the others. That is your name, is it not? I will remember it.”
“What’s your name?” Raphael asked, refusing to look away. “I will remember it, too.”
The Pale Haunter chuckled once more. “Call me Hiranya. And now, dear Raphael, I will take my leave from this place, this veritable garden of delights you call the junkyard, for I believe I have gotten as much amusement as I could have out of it. We will meet again. I promise.”
The monster hurtled skyward and streaked toward the junkyard. Space seemed to bend and swirl around it as it crossed the border. And then it was gone, as if it had never existed. Raphael cast the light of the Dragon Meridian
after the Pale Haunter, but the monster had truly departed, riding on the waves of the strange magic holding sway over the junkyard, that it might find other realms and people to torment.
“Yeah, typical! Run away when you’re losing!” Sylvia jeered after it, shaking her fist. The elf took a few steps after the Pale Haunter, as if to pursue, but she wobbled on her feet and swayed backward. Raphael caught her by the shoulders before she could fall.
“Making a habit of this, Raphael?” Sylvia grinned at him. “Not that I mind. In fact, next time, place your hands lower, much lower, for a better... grip.”
“I cleansed the poison from your system, but the damage it’s done hasn’t been healed yet, and your body has received as much Healing Magic as it’s able, at least for now,” Gabriella chided, walking up to them. “Stop moving around like an idiot. Otherwise, your injuries will be permanent.”
“Like?” Eliza had joined them as well. Her eyes were narrowed and bright in a way that made Raphael worry. “There’s no being like an idiot for Sylvia. Can’t imitate what you already are.”
“Hey!” the elf protested. “What does that mean?”
“Case in point,” Fenix chimed in with a chortle. “Only an idiot wouldn’t understand that—“
Raphael sighed, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion as he watched Sylvia tackle Fenix and put the battlemage into an absurdly intricate leg-lock while Gabriella scolded the elf.
“Somebody get her off him!” the princess demanded to the milling Hell Drakes. “You there! Pull her away!”
“Yeah right,” a heavily muscled armsman in spiked armor scoffed. He held a massive battleaxe in his hands. “I still want to eat solid food.”
The Hell Drakes around him murmured in agreement. Van Heim approached, pointedly ignoring the writhing forms of Sylvia and Fenix.
“I don’t know what I just saw, but I have a feeling you don’t really have the time to stick around and explain,” the captain said to Raphael. “The monster did say that it was done, though? So are we still going to have more waves of skeleton warriors and bale-wights attacking Lucia? I saw what you did to these here, and I don’t think they’re coming back, but there was a lot more where they were coming.”