Alarms screeched as the ancient city of Magincia shook violently.

“What in the infinite hells was that!?”

“…is something wrong, sir?” A feminine voice responded, its source looking up at the cursing man sleepily.

The man ignored his Golem companion, however, and tossed the covers onto both it and the secondary unit still rousing itself from its simulated slumber. As he shot out of bed and reached down to grab his robes, he cursed again as another tremble ran beneath his feet, making him stumble over a golden tray covered in emptied decanters that had fallen on the floor. Kicking through the bottles, he slammed his hand onto the communications glyph in his chambers.

“High Magus Reghis, report in!” He commanded, and the glyph flashed brightly before an image of a smartly dressed woman appeared. Her stern features furrowed as she took notice of his slovenly appearance, but she made no comment of it. She was used to it.

“The autonomous Governing system is reporting mounting instability originating from the Core, Archmagus. Source is unknown and divination arrays are throwing back pure static.”

“What’s the Council’s feedback on the situation?” He asked, throwing an arm into a sleeve. The defensive enchantments woven into its threads took hold immediately with a crackling snap.

“There's been no response from the other Archmagi, sir. They’re…unaccounted for.”

The Archmagus froze mid-dress as he stared at his subordinate. His eyes, hardened by the cruelty of time, narrowed disbelievingly.

“That shouldn’t be possible.” He muttered. An unknown attack? And mid-jump too? That’s too convenient, he thought, before clarifying to the woman, “Is this an attack on the City or a dimensional anomaly?”

“Unknown, Archmagus. However, casualty reports are mounting rapidly. Whatever’s happening—it's spreading rapidly through the city. Estimations give us less than 5 minutes.”

Fuck. “Understood, High Magus. Establish a Telepathic link and engage in temporal acceleration with me. On my mark—go.”

He closed his eyes, feeling his Mana flow through his body as he ritually lowered his defenses and silently cast a series of spells. A tendril of energy sought him out, sent by the High Magus casting out a Telepathic link, and he latched onto it. Instantly, her mind entered his own, though despite his lowered guard it ran through a brief moment of turbulence. A second later, however, his Greater Haste took effect as they finished synchronizing.

‘Link established successfully, sir.’ She projected, her mental voice momentarily clouded by static. ‘Though I see you’re still as paranoid as ever with your defenses.’

He scoffed. ‘Just because a spell’s beneficial or coming from a friendly source doesn’t mean you should allow it in without all due caution. I’d hope I’d have taught you that much as an apprentice, High Magus.’

He did his best to lace his projected thoughts with good humor but was shocked to find her own had a whiplash of disgust. It was odd—not what she really thought of him, he knew he’d earned that long ago—it was that she wasn’t the type to let her emotions show. Even with the difficulty of doing so through Telepathy, it was her specialized field after all.

What is—he cut off his own thoughts as his mind, working faster than lightning put the pieces together. Beneath her revulsion, was a welling sense of terror. She was afraid—and it was beginning to seep into his mind as well. He felt her hands trembling as his own started to mirror them.

‘You truly think the threat’s that serious?’ He asked with a scoff, feeling an affirmative response from the woman.

‘Yes, I...please be careful, Sebastien.’

He froze where he stood. She didn’t.

‘What did I tell you about using my mortal name, girl?’ He snapped. ‘Just focus on keeping me appraised of the situation and don’t let your emotions control you. Understood?’

‘…of course, Archmagus Manastorm.’

He felt her emotions clamp down in response to the reprimand, and she immediately flooded their link with an array of scryed images, illusory maps, navigational reports, and statistical figures ranging across the board. He took it all in stride, spinning up dozens of parallel lines of consciousnesses within his mind to sort through the information faster, but hesitated before leaving his chambers.

He...hated the feeling of intimacy a shared connection like this brought. It reminded him of too much. I owe her though, he thought bitterly, I shouldn’t let her stew on this. I should be encouraging, right? He let out a mental sigh.

‘Hey—Don’t worry, High Magus, just stay safe. I’ll take care of everything.’

I always do, he mused silently, feeling her gratitude flow through the connection as his feigned confidence soothed her. He tried to draw on it for strength as he focused on the reports and prepared for what was to come, his hand reaching out to grab his weapon on his way out. But he paused once more to turn and look at it.

The Everbright Nova Blade laid haphazardly on the floor, flung down like cheap silverware between the bottles of ambrosia scattered about. But, despite his youthful features—frozen in time to capture him in the prime of his youth—a shadow of dread twisted the ever-present cocky grin into a scowl. The old man beneath the mask peeked through and he stopped hesitating as he called the blade to hand. It was still sheathed—sealed away as it awaited the one and only time it could be used. His grip tightened around the ornate casing of oblivion energy isolating the cursed sword, a separated space containing the remnants of a collapsing universe, and he had but one thought.

Is this the day everything burns away?

The city rocked again. An action which it distinctly should not have been doing despite being a flying city, especially while traveling across dimensions.

Cursing under his breath, Archmagus Manastorm continued racing through the streets. Under normal circumstances, he would have utilized a Teleportation spell, but the cities defenses were on high alert. Attempting to bypass space now would have seen him folded back onto himself a few trillion times before being shoved into a black hole. As such, he was forced to book it on foot.

Even still, he blurred through the streets, leaving microbursts of wind in his wake. As he traveled, he did what he could to stabilize damaged Mana conduits, repair overloading spell rituals, and keep the city together. But his options were limited in his accelerated state and despite his speed…

He could tell he was running out of time. The city was dying even faster than the High Mages’ prediction.

The golden halls and structures were cracking. Enchantments back from the dawn of the Founding were showing signs of Mana shearing, and the Orichalcum alloys that formed the foundations were disintegrating. It was like the city was falling apart at the seams, paradise falling to ruin like some twisted spirit vision sweeping the city.

And he still had no idea why.

‘High Magus—any word on the other Archmagi?’ He mentally asked his subordinate. ‘I can’t hold this whole damn city together on my own!’

‘I’m not sure, sir. Trying to get anything through is a nightmare. The autonomous infrastructure isn’t responding! It's like the Governor lost rationality trying to respond to the disaster, it…Wait, something is…oh by the Throne you can’t be serious! You damn machine—brace for emergency stop!’

“What!? Oh, you’ve got to be sh—”

The Archmagus was hurled forward, his feet tearing grooves through the reinforced metal of the floor like puddy, before slamming through a solid wall, and impacting the one beyond. The momentum compensation systems had already been struggling, and an unannounced stop like that would…

‘The damn city is going to tear in half!’ He projected, but his irritation was cut off by a scream.

His former apprentice was barely holding on. He felt the straps binding her in place pressing against her, the spells attempting to reinforce her position vibrating from the intensity of the force trying to tear her apart. Her ribs cracked and she struggled just to breathe as her training barely saved her. But he also felt the lump in her throat and the tears stinging her eyes as her blurred vision took in the numbers on the console in front of her. She was gritting her teeth, her mind screaming no.

The casualty report was skyrocketing, nearing total annihilation of the billions of souls under the threshold for survival.

‘This shouldn’t…this can’t happen.’ She mentally babbled before her mind shut down. He couldn’t blame her—no one would have authorized such a maneuver without a citywide notice. Without proper bracing half the population had likely been killed instantly, including…her family, he recalled. Right, mortals have those.

There was still time, though. They were both in an accelerated state, so anyone in an open space would still be alive. At least…for the few microseconds it would take their bodies to finish flying as the city came to a stop.

There isn’t enough time, dammit! He mentally cursed as he tore off the metal cocooning him, and the Archmagus glanced briefly back to see it first hand. Citizens, even if they were of the lesser ranks, were being flung about. Still slower than him, ironically, but nonetheless on inevitable trajectories towards the resolute structure of the city that had sheltered them. That would now kill them.

But he could save them. He knew the right spells—and with his acceleration he could get to hundreds of thousands if he poured his all into it, moving as though time itself were standing still. But…the city itself was at risk, wasn’t it? And he was only one person, and temporal manipulation was not his specialty. Such an endeavor would drain his Mana reserves severely, and he hadn’t even found the true threat yet.

And dealing with threats? That was his specialty. So…his mind made the calculations.

Life. Life was…cheap. Billions in the city would die even if he did help save a scant few million. He knew what he had to focus on.

An overwhelming sense of disappointment flooded the link in response to his decision, drawing his attention. He cursed at the distraction and came to another calculated conclusion. A part of himself balked, the small, distant, human part, but he quarantined his connection to the girl. While their link remained active, it communicated to one of his parallel minds, devoid of emotion as it relayed only viable, strategic information she still fed him. Nothing else mattered right now, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted when he found his enemy.

As he hunted for the threat, he ignored the small, internal voice admonished him for being the very picture of a cruel and indifferent Magi he’d detested as a boy. The boy that still hated him, even buried as deep as it was. The boy that counted every corpse lining the gilded roads as he ran onward. The boy that screamed at him as the cries of the damned filled his ears as their souls were recycled back into the system. The boy that cried as he arrived at the heart of the city, knowing it was finally too late to save them.

But as the boy went quiet, the Archmagus smiled. With his arrival near the City’s Core, he finally caught sight of his first clue as to what was happening. His smile didn’t last long as the sight of the threat made his skin crawl with revulsion.

A black mold was growing. It spread rapidly across the surface of the damaged buildings, even to his accelerated senses. Clusters of growth were gathering around hundreds of malfunctioning rituals, feeding off of the wildly venting Mana in the air. Devouring the pure energy that should have burned out anything trying to tap directly into them. It was an impossible sight.

Raw, uncontrolled Mana was dangerous and unpredictable. It was pure chaos. It had to be funneled and converted into something usable or it would consume you. He’d know—he was a master of the Arcanum of Quintessence. A master of pure, chaotic energy. It was how he’d earned the right to ascend to the Council of Magincia. It was how he’d earned his title as the Arbiter of Mana’s Wrathful Maelstrom.

It was why he was called Archmagus Manastorm. No one else had ever managed to wield raw, wild Mana like him. No one, save the black malignancy destroying his city.

Drawing on techniques imbued across a dozen internal magical sections of his soul, he attempted to appraise the strange material across all possible spectrums of reality, both euclidean and otherwise. But then—every single one of his internal warning systems went off full blast. He flinched back screaming when pain, something he hadn’t experienced in eons, wracked him. Instinctively, he found himself clawing at his face as he reeled, but as he drew his hands back he saw them covered not just in blood, but in…

Black mold.

“Wha…what is this? How—ugh!” He grunted as he fell back. His internal defenses were firing off, distorting the air around him. They should have easily overcome even the most magically potent contagions—and yet whatever was afflicting him seemed to care not at all. It was devouring him through his Mana reserves. From the inside out.

He realized then—it had infected him the moment he’d tried to analyze it. Putting the pieces together, he knew it could follow magical connections. No matter how ephemeral or distant they were.

“A material that feeds off of Magic itself? That doesn’t make any damn sense.” He cursed, slamming a fist against a golden wall. It fractured, and mold raced through the jagged cracks to latch onto his hand.

He grimaced in horror at the hidden mass, before shouting in fury as he tore his hand free of the pulsating material wrapping around his body. Grunting in pain, he tore free of tendrils growing around his legs attempting to entrap him. Suddenly, he felt the malignancy attack his acceleration spell and begin to go even faster as it tapped into his temporal acceleration, practically synchronizing with him. Utilizing the very magic it was eating.

Impossible, he thought. But it was yet another ridiculous notion that he had no choice but to accept as struggled to reach the Core of the City, stumbling like a neophyte Magus. Each and every one of the improvements to his body's grace and agility was breaking down. Like his millennium of training and achievements meant nothing. His one saving grace was the mold struggling to gorge itself off of his prodigious Mana pool.

But as he reached the several stories tall gateway that led to the inner sanctums, a series of sectioned-off and overlapping spaces…he hesitated.

What if he brought the contagion past the stronghold’s protections? What if, in trying to find the source, he led brought its very destruction?

As he debated, he flipped his vision over to a wide-ranging spatial scrying spell. It was spotty from interference from the mold, but it allowed him to spot the mass leaking from behind the elaborate doors. While focusing, he sensed beyond—to the overlapping chambers inside as space flickered, struggling to fixate on a singular point.

It was malfunctioning. Brewing a paradox as the overlapping physical materials were grinding into each other as space labored to not collapse in on itself. Worst of all, it meant the infection had already penetrated past the last threshold.

“So much for caution then,” he muttered, shoving the massive gate open. Stepping inside the darkness, he reached up and grabbed the chaotic dimensional energies, forcing it into a tunnel that led him towards the city’s Core. A soft, undulating mass softened the sounds of his footsteps before a final stride brought him into the control room. His bloody, tendril hollowed eyes bulged as he stared at the massive mystical ritual arrays that governed the city’s entire experienced reality.

Mold covered everything. The ancient arrays beneath hummed with hostility, trying in futility to fight off the infection as flashes of light sparked and Mana vented out, desperate to escape, only to dissolve mid-flight. Lines of the malignant material spread out, and as the Archmagus traced their paths, he saw a disturbing pattern.

All the mold was leading out directly from the giant, spherical Core hovering in the center, like the heart of a star. And standing at the central console next to it, that provided a real-time image of the city, and the multitude of failing systems was an unexpected sight.

“Archmagus Trieaties?” The Manastorm asked. “I thought all the other Archmagi were missing. How did you...?”

Archmagus Manastorm’s voice fell silent as the other Magus turned away from the controls to face him. Archmagus Trieaties wasn’t human, but that wasn’t unusual in Magincia. Tall and slender, the being spread its six-fingered hands apart in a welcoming gesture, before bowing its inverted, pyramidal head mockingly. The six beady eyes, three to each side of its face resting just beneath the broad, flat section of its triangular skull, narrowed with glee as its wide, toothy maw broke into a smile across its more narrow face.

“Ah, Archmagus Manastorm! I was hoping you’d make it,” they said, their high-pitched voice grinding in the Manastrom’s ears like gravel. “While it’s a pleasure to see you again, it does appear you look rather worn down, I’m afraid.”

While Archmagus Manastorm would have happily replied with a sarcastic quip, his voice caught on his lips as he realized something. The Archmagus of Alchemical Wonders was fine. Despite the contagion covering everything nearby, there wasn’t a single splotch on the alien. In fact, the mold nearby was actively avoiding them.

Between that and how calm they were acting—it didn’t take a genius to figure out where the malignancy had come from.

“You bastard.” The Manastorm cursed, his voice, inadvertently laced with an actual curse, caused spores to begin attacking his tongue. He spat out blood and glared at his so-called colleague.

“Ah, my dearest apologies,” The tall alien, the Trallucian, said with a sneer, “but it looks like you don’t have much time left. If you’d like—I’d be willing to accept an…unconditional contract of servitude from you in exchange for your life. Or, what will be left of it I suppose.” It followed its statement with another wide-brimmed smile.

“Un—!” The Archmagus Manastorm coughed up more blood, though not entirely from the spores. “I’ll see you fry for this. Boil, disintegrate, you…!”

“By all means, my friend, blast away.” Archmagus Trieaties laughed. “Let’s see how long you can last.”

Enough, he thought. This was the moment the Archmage had been waiting for. The enemy he’d sought. It didn’t matter if it was a betrayal. The city had seen it before and would see it again. But it was still his job to deal with this.

So he would.

The air immediately filled with a wild burst of arcing plasma. It spun around the Manastorm, crackling with unrestrained power. It was a dangerous opening spell to start with, especially given the potential collateral damage as the air ignited and the room’s temperature jumped by several thousands of degrees, but the Archmagus wasn’t feeling patient. He could fix collateral damage. He’d passed an entire city of it. So, he jumped at the chance to use one of his most powerful spells, boosted up to an extreme that could have burned away a fire elemental.

He expected to incinerate the contagion and everything that wasn’t shielded nearby. He expected the consoles to sag in the heat, for the Core to shine like it had when it was young. He’d ignited atmospheres with this spell before, rendering entire planets barren for the rest of time.

But he greatly underestimated the voracity of the contagion.

Swimming along the current of the storm circling him, the black spores began to multiply. They consumed his spell as it was cast. He realized too late that the contagion hadn’t just been feeding on his Mana, but had mutated with it, just as it had with his acceleration spell. On his way to the Core, it had had plenty of time to grow in strength within him. He felt the tendrils begin to dig beyond his body. To dig into his soul as his Mana reserves drained in an instant and the spell that could end worlds fizzled out.

Screaming, he tried to shut himself off before malignancy penetrated any deeper within. Blinking through the growth that had consumed and replaced his eyes, he gazed with flickering Mana vision down at his hands. They’d turned black and shriveled from the plague coursing through him.

And someone…was screaming? A girl?

“Is that all?” Archmagus Trieaties said with a snort. “I remember a time when our spats would last entire city cycles. And you lasted, what, three microseconds?” The alien broke out into a lazy chuckle.

“I…this can’t…” The Manastorm faltered, choking on blood and spores. The illness was clawing at his innards. He felt himself breaking—falling apart. His spells, dissolving at the seams, and…his hands trembled. Her…hands.

Then, he finally heard her. He heard her as the spell sectioning his mind began to break down from the mold. She was screaming.

‘High Magus?’ He projected. ‘...Elisia?’

The screaming had come to a bloody end. With a labored whimper, her thoughts drifted into the darkness. Gone, as the void took her soul, and the last thing he shared with her was her final, wheezing breath. Reaching out too late.

The mold had spread to her through their connection, he realized. His mind, now recalling what he had locked away for the sake of focus, now held in perfect clarity her screaming, her begging as he ignored her. Like he had all the others. Pushed aside when she’d needed him most. Again.

“No…” He whispered, falling to his knees as his lower legs snapped like twigs, too weak to support him any longer. One decaying hand tightened as he latched onto the grip of the blade at his side. He had to draw it—now. He had to cast his last spell. The final contingency. He could see the wariness in the other Archmagi’s eyes, the one thing the traitor couldn’t control. Couldn’t prevent.

But if he drew it? It would consume his soul as fuel to pierce the void sheltering the blade, a nothingness so complete even the blasted, magic-devouring mold hadn’t managed to touch it. And then…nothing—nothing would survive the unleashed destruction. Even if the contagion was resilient, it still needed something left to feed on. And the final contingency had only one purpose: to destroy a Realm in its entirety. To wipe out a universe.

To destroy the City of Magincia.

It was a simple contingency. A protocol to ensure the greatest of the Seed cities, one of ten created by the First, would never fall into the wrong hands.

This was his duty. His greatest responsibilities as an Archmagus. His job was to safeguard that final line.

But if he did this, any chance of resurrecting…her, or anyone else, would be gone. Everyone would be dead for good.

But if he didn’t, a sociopath would control the most powerful City still functioning in the known Multiverse. And, assuming it hadn’t already done so through the magical navigation systems, the contagion would likely spread to other Realms. How many millions would die? How many Billions? Trillions?

But his life. His city.

Her.

But what of the lives of untold masses? He could be callous, yes, but even that seemed too much. And he knew Archmagus Trieaties wouldn’t even blink at such a death toll. The madman had enslaved entire worlds for the sake of magical experimentation. Sure, the council had sanctioned it, but if the Manastorm didn’t draw his damn blade right now then they would all die. And then countless more to the traitor’s uncontested tyranny.

But he’d never see her again if he did this. He’d die bitter and alone, and with his soul consumed, he wouldn’t even have the chance to reincarnate. No second chances. All his ambitions would come to end—his life ending to save people he owed nothing to.

High Magus Elisia Reghis would have told him to do it. And Sebastian, the orphaned boy that would grow to become the Archmagus Manastorm would’ve agreed in an instant. There would’ve been no question in his mind. It was why he’d forged this blade, a terrifying act that had also had the council of Magi’s approval. So that in the time of greatest need, he could make the ultimate sacrifice. To be the hero he’d dreamed of being as a boy.

Only now? As a man? A man who’d lived for millennia? Who’d tried so hard to become a master of the arcane? Who had reached heights he never could have imagined as that young boy, who had fallen in love, only to ruin it?

Who had purged hundreds of worlds in the name of progress?

The old man he had become spoke with finality. This was the weapon of last resort. There would be nothing left. Of anything. No one would even know he’d saved them. He would be a forgotten hero. A nameless fool in the myths of worlds that had yet to be born.

So, the boy he had been died for good as bitterness consumed him even faster than the contagion ever could. Because in the end…he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t draw his blade.

He didn’t want to die forever. He didn’t want to be the hero. He didn’t want his life to be in vain. In the end, he became the weak-willed Magus he had always hated most.

The Archmage of Alchemical wonders smiled as he realized the one foe who couldn’t overcome, gave him the victory. In his defeat, the Archmage Manastorm mumbled.

“How did you do this? How?”

“Oh? You won’t beg for your life or take my hand in servitude to survive? Trusting it all to reincarnation are we?”

The Manastorm spat blood on the floor in response. Archmagus Trieaties shrugged, the armored segments of its body, hidden by his robes, clicking noisily before they chuckled.

“Very well,” They said, before pacing slowly around the room, walking over the spongy masses as if to make a point. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to, what do you humans like to call it? Monologue? This ingenious material—”

“Don’t bore me you overgrown beetle. Tell me what the hells you did!”

A blast of telekinetic force smashed into the Manastorm in response. He screamed when he hit the wall, not because of the force of the attack—he could take a literal meteor to the face and not have cared—but because his armored spells that absorbed the blow created another vector for the malignancy to dig into his flesh. It felt like knives crawling up his spine, taking pounds of flesh along the way.

“I will miss you, most of all.” The Alchemical Miracle said. “After all, you inspired me to make this particular little concoction. I trust you didn’t miss the similarities to your own specialties, yes? Still, perhaps when this is all said and done and I’ve ascended the Throne of Magincia, I’ll resurrect you. As a Remnant, of course—I wouldn’t bother with attempting to control you at your full power.”

The Archmagus Manastorm coughed up black blood with a laugh. “You…you’re destroying everything our Ancestors built! You think you’ll have anything left to resurrect? You’ve gone mad you damned fool.”

“Oh my dear friend,” the Alchemical Wonder tisked with an echoing clicking sound. “Magincia will be rebuilt under my rule! It won’t even be hard. All the systems to safeguard the resurrection of the city still exist, I ensured it before I began, once again drawing inspiration from you. Specifically that little sheath of yours. Void energy is quite the material, isn’t it? But I digress. All I need to do now is relax and wait for all you fools to finish dying. Then, I’ll kill the contagion where it began and begin the restructuring. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

The alien laughed in a way that the Manastorm felt should have been deep and booming, like the villains of stories he’d read as a kid. Instead, it was annoyingly high pitched, with a gravely nature to it. He’d always hated the sound of it.

“Damn you…damn…” The Manastorm struggled, feeling the last reserves of his strength giving out. His ambitions were coming to an end. All he’d worked for wiped away by some cheap concoction. His only hope in some far-off reincarnation, assuming the other Magus didn’t entrap his soul. It was all dwindling, falling into darkness as the unbridled fury over being bested grew. Grew to the point where he couldn’t hold it back. He couldn’t go quietly into the night.

Damn them all. He reached into the darkness, and something reached back. A memory of a void that he had made a deal with. And even without Mana, the last of his life force paid the price for one last spell.

“I won’t let a bastard like you ascend the Throne…” He spat blood again, struggling to stand on shattered legs. He met the alien’s eyes and glared.

“A petty sentiment,” the other Archmagus sneered, “but ultimately meaningless. Do try not to hold onto this grudge in your next life, alright?”

The flat-headed being chuckled, turning away in arrogance, dismissing the broken husk that was the Manastorm with a wave of his hand. But the dark energies gathered within before Sebastian cast one last spell. The long-standing cocky grin on his face sloughed off with his flesh to reveal the grinning skull beneath.

Sometimes a simple trick is all you need. He’d tried to teach Elisia that.

“Blessing of the Wind,” He whispered, before the malignancy breached his inner soul, ending his life.

The Archmagus of Alchemical Miracles sighed in annoyance. “Truly? Your last act of defiance is a low-grade spell? And what, perchance, are you even hoping to accomplish with such a weak bolstering effect on your—”

The Archmagus paused, frowning. This time, it was the Manastorm’s turn to laugh. And he did, a long and raspy sound echoing out as his flesh melted rapidly, falling off in chunks. His corpse hit the floor with a wet plop moments after, subsumed into the pulsating growth that eagerly welcomed it.

“You...you cast it on me?” The Alchemical Miracle looked about bewildered. “A low-grade support spell? No, that's…no, this is…no!”

The alien began to panic when it noticed on the edges of its robes…spores had begun to collect. Areas where the contagion had begun to use a new vector.

The change was rapid. Adaptation despite the precautions the Archmagus had taken, using the new spell as an anchoring point to analyze the protections that had stifled it. The Alchemical Miracle blinked in disbelief, remembering a time his old colleague had once told a story to a new group of students of a duel gone wrong. The time an opponent had used a haste spell to trick the Manastorm into slamming into a wall and knocking himself unconscious. So very long ago, and yet, from then on the paranoid Manastorm had never once allowed beneficial spells to affect him without deliberate consent. He’d even warned the other Magi against the potential dangers of leaving oneself open to support magic.

And the Alchemical Miracle had laughed at him like all the others had. The irony, now, wasn’t wasted on them.

In desperation, Archmagus Trieaties dug into their pockets and began to unfold a piece of paper. They didn’t dare use a spell, as they knew that would mean instant death. Instead, the alien poured a powdery substance over its robes as its segmented hands trembled. It brushed at pre-treated fabrics, trying to re-coat them with the mundane mixture of anti-bacterial agents and fungicide. The remedy the Archmage had created alongside the very plague they’d engineered.

But it was growing resistant. It died, sloughing off only to hold on stubbornly and grow back. It was beginning to dig into the Magi’s Mana, a source of energy they’d painstakingly trained the all too clever malignancy from attacking. But it took so little time to begin to use the Alchemical Miracle’s own immunity against themself, just as it had twisted the Manastorm’s burning power against him. And now, they watched, in horror, as their pet creation, the tool by which they’d planned to ascend the Throne of the City of Magi, adapted. Mutated. Evolved.

They bore witness as the Manaphage was born.

“No. No! It can’t…no!” They spun around, tearing off their robes trying to get the infected material off, but it was already spreading across their chitinous skin. The Archmage cursed, clawing at its shell, but to no avail.

“It can’t end like this! I worked so hard—I.…Dammit all! Initiate the emergency quarantine protocols and Hells take us!”

They’d prepared their own final contingency. But would it be enough?

The Archmage didn’t know, but they screamed in pain as the city around them began to shake. The ancient machinery whirling to life as it began an emergency warp and—