The assault was relentless. The Fog would often attack Rall's Lighthouse with increased ferocity, each outburst ranging from one minute to several hours. Each time a flurry of ghostly arms and mouths would mercilessly bang on the wall of light like starving beasts against the fence of a sheep farm.

But Rall withstood. He sat cross-legged on the cold ground like he had done many times on the floor of his room. He felt it shifting under him like he was getting dragged through the land by the Fog. But there was no time for idle thoughts. He closed his eyes and emptied his mind.

Time flew by without him noticing. Sometimes, the words of his fathers would break away from the shackles of his meditation - "Darkness is the safest place for a light mage."

'I don't know, dad,' Rall thought while taking a breather between the Fog's outbursts, 'it's pretty dark in here, but it does not feel safe at all!'

He laughed a little, which made him cough because of his dry throat, then he steadied himself for another round of resistance.

He had seen his father using Lighthouse in the past, effortlessly enveloping the whole village for days without breaking a sweat. He remembered village chief Thork always praising him, saying he was the most powerful light mage he had ever seen - coming from Thork's mouth, Rall had always believed his father to be incredible. Once again, he felt the gap between him and Theodore. For Rall, even having the spell cover a small two-meter radius dome around his body felt taxing, every hour burning his energy like a full day of helping with firewood at the village. He did not know that, for a light mage his age, surviving the Fog for so long was already a miracle.

Soon, ten hours passed. Then one full day. Then a whole week.

Rall felt like he should have died already. Hunger, thirst, and exhaustion raced against each other to see which one would kill the boy first, but it seemed none of them would be able to. Often he blanked out, his mind foggy and losing concentration, but every time his Fairylight would send his body a shock to keep him from falling asleep. He was running on fumes - he did not even have the energy to wonder how he was still holding onto his spell and his life.

On the eighth day, Rall's Lighthouse started wavering, each assault sending shivers through its walls. Unbeknownst to him, cracks started forming on the surface. He had already lasted more than humanly possible, and the Fog had been strangely persistent towards him. Soon, the spell would collapse.

On the ninth day, something unheard of happened. The glow emitting from Rall's Fairylight had mysteriously taken on a pale pearly hue akin to that of bright moonlight. If its former golden light inspired warmth and kindness, this pale, colorless light was cold and ominous. After the change, the Fog's outbursts had become weaker while the boy's Lighthouse had become denser and thicker, the cracks on its surface repaired as it now covered almost five meters in all directions. Not that Rall could notice it.

In the middle of the tenth day, the Fog finally gave up. During one moment of clarity, Rall noticed the scenery around him as it cleared away. He did not find the walls of his village. Then he fell onto the hard ground, eyes closed as his consciousness fled. At the same time, the now pearly walls of the protective dome faded away, leaving only a bright white wisp to linger over his body.

***

Hours passed in silence as the body of a young boy laid in the middle of a deserted landscape. While the Fog had been fighting Rall, it had dragged him further north on its beaten path. All around was a wasteland of ash and death. The Dead Plains stood between the Alcian Kingdom and the Borian Empire, a land of nobody where crops did not grow, animals did not survive.

Only one kind of people roamed these lands. They were those who avoided the authorities as much as possible, those that traded in black markets and moved illegal goods. Smugglers and slavers, thieves, hitmen, and dark artists, the Dead Plains offered them a place far from the eyes of society to conduct their illicit activities and move between nations in search of better prices for their merch or new people to swindle.

A caravan of ten carriages was moving through the Plains. From head to tail, the carriages that formed the convoy went from lavish luxury and high comfort to shabby old and creaky. The last three, in particular, did not even have a ceiling. On them, tens of young boys and girls with pure white skin and curly ginger hair were held together by heavy metal chains and thick collars. If one paid careful attention, they would discover that their ears were strangely pointy, and their eyes featured blood-red irises amid pitch-black scleras. Despite the shabby rags they wore as clothes, none of them were shivering. Some would recognize them as natives of the Northern Tundra, but most people knew them as Snow Elves.

Surrounding the caravan were twenty strong-looking men in golden armor riding intimidating dark horses. In the front was their leader, known as Sarkar Benkor - he was a dark-skinned man with a sharp nose, a well-groomed black beard, and two long scimitars crossed on his back. Hundreds of scars lined his body, and a powerful murderous intent radiated from his gaze - both served well to describe the man's lifestyle. Sarkar was one of the heads of the Golden Knives mercenary group, the third biggest in the continent and famous in the underworld for employing ruthless psychopaths who would kill their mother for money without blinking an eye. They had made a name for themselves with their skills as bodyguards, often hired by both criminal lords and powerful aristocrats. Those who knew them didn't dare stand in their way or died trying.

A particularly attentive observer would be able to notice a strange lantern-like object dangling on the side of Sarkar's horse. The Golden Knives were part of an unsurprisingly short list of independent groups who had access to portable Lighthouses, which over the years had been a great boon to their status amongst mercenaries, and the range of their activities.

At the first lights of dawn, the convoy had resumed its travel. Not even 10 minutes passed that one of the Sarkar's men noticed something shining in the distance.

"What's that?" He asked, pointing his finger to the west.

Many heads turned, following the man's finger - even the curtains from the head carriage moved, making way to the face of a noble-looking young man and his curious gaze.

What they all saw was a speck of cold white light floating in the cold morning air. It was as if a playful god had stolen a star from the firmament and put it there - the pure light radiated a sense of dignity that felt out of place in such a desolated landscape. The caravan stopped, and Sarkar sent two of his men to investigate the strange phenomenon. They quickly discovered the body of an unconscious Rall, persistently clinging to life, the mysterious light looking over him like a loyal guard dog. The two mercenaries exchanged sinister smiles, then delicately hoisted the boy on one of the horses like he was composed of the frailest of crystals.

When the young man from the carriage saw what the mercenaries found, he turned to whisper something and closed the curtains. Soon, the young man opened the door and knelt under it with his head lowered in a show of submission. A woman of sophisticated beauty walked out of the carriage, using the back of the knelt young man as the last step for her descent. She wore a lacy black carnival mask, the same color as her elegantly braided hair, held together by a strangely simple golden hairpin. The full redness of her lipstick, instead, matched with the scarlet color of her irises. She wore a crimson bandage dress which highlighted all her dreamy curves perfectly. On her feet, she wore tall black stilettos - while they must have hurt a lot when she had stepped on the young man, his expression had remained neutral like it was just a common occurrence. He had soon got up and returned to his lady's side, always staying behind her by a step.

Both the woman's and Sarkar's eyes shone brightly at the sight of Rall and his Fairylight. The mercenary was trying to evaluate the value of this newfound treasure to plan his next course of actions accordingly, while the lady just scanned the kid from head to toe with a satisfied smile.

Sarkar finished his calculations, then turned to the woman who was still engrossed in her observations. "Lady Sharyah, it seems we have something to discuss." The mercenary said, addressing the woman respectfully since she was still a client, for now.

"So it seems." She responded with a low sultry voice, her eyes still glued on the boy.

"Since one of my men has found him, we will keep the boy and auction him in the name of the Golden Knives!" Sarkar said, throwing the name of his mercenary group to add more weight to his words.

She laughed - her laugh sounded so sensual that most men would fall for her just by hearing it. Then her ice-cold bearing returned. "There is nothing to discuss. The boy is mine."

Sarkar's expression turned from amiable to threatening in a heartbeat, but he still kept his smile. "It seems I didn't make myself clear. My proposal was not up to negotiation." As he said that, the mercenaries started preparing their scimitars, donning sinister smiles on their faces. The dullness of this escorting job was about to end.

Still, Lady Sharyah did not back down. "So, you dare take what is mine?" The air around her seemed to freeze, like death itself had uttered those words. "This is your last chance, Sarkar. I take the boy, and you escort me to the Opal Palace like the original agreement. Then I cut your payment by three quarters for your insolence."

The mercenaries had slowly surrounded Sharyah and her servant. Sarkar watched as his men were in place. "Woman, know your place! We will kill you and take your other slaves too! The Dead Plains are vast. No one will ever find your corpses." As he pronounced those last words, his fist rose to the sky, then fell towards the two. His men saw the signal and pounced towards the lady like a pack of wild wolves.

"Martial Technique - Killing Slash!" The men roared simultaneously.

One aspect that made the Golden Knives feared through the underworld was their knowledge of martial techniques. After recruiting the most ruthless bastards they could find in the dirty suburbs of large cities, they would submit them to hellish training akin to that of Knights. There, they would learn to follow orders and harness their internal energy to empower their bodies and unleash their martial techniques.

Though less spectacular than the spells of mages and sorcerers, a well-trained warrior with knowledge of the techniques would be a deadly opponent for any caster at short to medium range. A Martial Master could even survive clean hits from multiple spells and deflect some weaker ones with their bare hands. Another key difference was that anyone would be able to pursue the martial path, while the ways of magic were subject to the limits of one's innate talent. Even then, nations strictly regulated the knowledge of both techniques and spells, and one would have to join a group of influence or find a willing master to learn them.

As the mercenaries were about to unleash their martial techniques, Sharyah snorted in irony.

"Fiel, take care of them." She ordered casually.

The young servant on her side nodded. He summoned a ten-meter wide circle on the ground, the inside filled with intricate geometrical shapes and ancient draconic symbols, the lines highlighted by a deep blue light.

Sharp stalagmites rose from the rough ground of the Dead Plains, impaling the bodies of most mercenaries like stony spears. Those who were hit spat blood and died a moment later, their guts skewered on the stone spikes like gourmet plates for vultures. Five of the mercenaries had been quicker at accumulating their internal energy, so they had reacted faster to the spell. "Damn! Did that bitch really use a bloody sorcerer as a stepping stone!?" One of the men exclaimed in astonishment.

The arcane powers of sorcerers came from their ability to manipulate the external energy radiated the entities of nature, whether they were the atmosphere, the ground, the ocean. Thus, their spells would vary depending on their surrounding environment. Only Arcane Masters were able to summon up elements from nothing, making them more unpredictable foes.

One in five hundred people on the continent had the talent to become an arcane sorcerer. That talent would usually manifest itself around the age of ten in a rather extreme fashion. Many sorcerers shared the story of discovering their abilities after burning their homes down and their families with it. It was no wonder then that most people regarded arcane sorcerers as sociopaths since their powers often made them nihilistic, cynical, depressed, or a mixture of the three. Some of the most unhinged criminals in history had been sorcerers! Even then, nations didn't dare waste such destructive potential - they usually employed sorcerers in their armies as part of special units of sorts. In Alcia, army sorcerers were part of the War Mage Corp - they enjoyed high pay, high authority, and little responsibilities. They mostly showed up to the battlefield, blew up some enemy soldiers, and called it a day.

Fiel's hands moved, and the circle under his feet became more intricate. Large boulders soon detached from the ground and floated around him. With a simple gesture, he hurled them towards the men at incredible speed. The spell took the youngest of the five mercenaries by surprise, and the boulder hit him straight on the thorax, breaking his ribs and puncturing his lungs - he was left to die alone, slowly losing his breath in a pool of his blood. The others either dodged or used their techniques to cut through the boulders, then they dashed towards the sorcerer. The closest they were, the higher their advantage.

"Martial Technique - Dashing Lunge!" Their internal energies concentrated on their feet, and their speed rose ten times as they lunged towards the sorcerer. Alas, that would be their last mistake.

The blue circle on the ground changed again, and the ground under the mercenaries' feet instantly lost its rigidity and became liquid. The combination of their high momentum and the loss of footing made the mercenaries tumble. As they did, stone spikes appeared from the ground. Everyone in the area heard a dreadful squishing sound - blood and organs drenched the arid floor of the deserted plains, increasing the stench of death that permeated the air.

Sarkar watched as his men died in the quick exchange. He was shocked to see the people he had trained die so quickly at the hands of just one young sorcerer. They had already fought against other sorcerers before and come out victorious, so this result was startling. He looked at the young light mage who had instigated this mess and steeled himself. He took out one of his scimitars from his back and accumulated his internal energy to the max. Fiel looked ready to unleash another spell, but Sharyah stopped him with a hand on his shoulders.

"Martial Technique - Slashing Throw!" Sarkar shouted, throwing his scimitar at the woman with inhuman power and precision. From the ground, Fiel summoned a thick wall of rock to block the flying scimitar, which remained deeply embedded in it, smoke emitting from the friction that it had generated.

While that was happening, Sarkar used the moment of distraction to jump on the horse where the Rall's body was stranded and made a run for it!

'Those subordinates of mine were so useless, but it does not matter anymore. If I sell this boy at the Opal Palace, I will be rich! SO RICH! I can buy a small country! Ahh, the smell of gold, so much fucking gold!' He thought while giggling.

Sharyah sighed. When the confrontation had started, some of the Snow Elves in the last carriages of the caravan had thought of using the chaos to escape - then they had remembered who the lady was and had given up those thoughtless ideas. They saw no reason to willingly submit themselves to more suffering.

The air around the woman's form started boiling. A crimson aura appeared around her as she whispered chants of demonic origins, a language so foul it society had deemed it taboo, prohibited from the world for almost four centuries. She extended her right hand towards Sarkar, who was already five hundred meters away.

Then she closed her fist.

The giggling mercenary felt a sour taste in his mouth - then he felt tingles all over his skin, feeling the urge to scratch himself all over - then, he started sweating profusely as his insides boiled. He heard the sound of sizzling, and he noticed in horror that his skin had started melting. He screamed in terror as he touched his face, which felt like it was on fire. Then his muscles gave in, and he was paralyzed, unable to satisfy that need for scratching that was becoming more and more unbearable. He fell violently from the horse, but he didn't notice because of the maddening pain he experienced when all the bones in his body cracked under supernatural pressure. Finally, his organs exploded, one at a time - leaving the brain and the heart for last so that he could live through the suffering for just a little longer. Blood streaked from every pore on his body. When he finally died, couldn't even let out his last breath.

The black horse, highly trained as she was, stopped when her rider fell and returned to him. She arrived at Sarkar's corpse and smelled it, stopping on the spot when she saw he was dead. Rall, still laid on her back, would never know how lucky he was to be unconscious at that moment. The horrifying image in front of him would have persecuted his dreams for the rest of his life.