Overwhelming. Excruciating. Agonizing pain.

Eyes bleary, I focused on Noel as she approached me with another silver bubble forming in her hands. Panic filled my heart. I thrust forward, pushing against the floor, but I only managed to stumbled backwards. My instincts kicked in and I used earth magic to whack my body back like a pinball. The earth magic blew the wind out of my lungs and added another dull pain to the sharp one coming from my leg. The sudden jolt made me choke on the blood in my mouth, so I went through the air coughing and spluttering blood but with no air to push anything out.

My lungs were on fire as I fell to the ground. I rolled over to the side so I could have a good view of Noel and sure enough, she still had the silver bubble in her hand. At least from this distance, I could use magic hands, motion, and earth magic to avoid it. The bigger problem was the pain threatening to overwhelm my rationality and make it impossible for me to concentrate and use magic.

I gasped for air and prepared my magic. I ripped some of the fabric from my clothes and used it to tie up my wound for a bit to stop the bleeding. I added pressure with magic hands while focusing on a single thread to use for some quick stitches. I had developed a little bit of first aid magic, although I had never had to use it for something like this, especially not on myself. I pressed a magic hand between my teeth, bit down, and cauterized some of the worst parts of the wound with fire magic. Tears filled my eyes, and Noel noticed that I was in so much pain that I couldn’t respond to her.

And so she shot forwards at breakneck speeds, holding the silver bubble in front of her body.

Her sudden change in gait caught me by surprise. I suppose a part of me was expecting her to wait. To not want me to be in so much pain. To not actually want to kill me.

It didn’t make sense, I know. The rational part of me knew she had already tried to kill me multiple times. She was an Ikon of the Immortal of Madness, for goodness’ sake, of course I couldn’t trust her. And yet, a small part of me looked at that familiar face, the first face I’d seen in this world and with whom I had spent so many adventures and struggles, and it made me make a minor but severe lapse in judgment.

The scent of searing flesh, the piercing sting of pain, the dull ache in my chest, and the wearying fatigue nestling into every joint in my body, all came together to make me want to stop. To make me want to just call time out and take a breather. A break to recollect my thoughts. Yes. That was a good idea. What a wonderful idea it is, to take a quick break.

I focused most of my remaining energy, took some gasping but steadying breaths, and let Noel get right up next to me. With the silver bubble growing larger in my bleary eyes, I shot myself forwards using magic hands and motion magic, ducked under Noel’s outstretched hands, and connected to her with my shoulder.

Despite her terrifying speed, my sudden motion, and the quick reaction of her hand as it swung back towards my neck, we stalled. Frozen entangled in a jumble of limbs and spells and messed up emotions. Even Noel’s silver glow froze at one intensity instead of flaring up or dimming down like it usually did.

The pain in my leg was gone. The ache in my chest, the flame in my lungs, the dizzying array of irrational emotions that cluttered my head, everything was cleared up for a moment. If I could’ve let out a breath, I would have. Instead, I let out a figurative breath of relief in my head, calming my emotions and trying to figure out what to do next.

The good thing about ‘still life’ magic was that I could keep Noel occupied for a little bit. I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t treat my wound, I couldn’t really improve my situation at all, but I could prevent it from getting any worse. And if I was lucky, I could stall long enough for Kelser or somebody else to leave the gates and come to my aid. I wasn’t sure anyone but Kelser could get through the silver glow, but perhaps they could at least pull her off me and prepare to treat my wounds.

The down side was this magic was burning through my magic like crazy. I had practiced this spell many, many times, which had improved its efficiency a little bit by increasing my ‘wisdom’ but the ‘knowledge’ behind this spell was so inefficient, there wasn’t much I could do to really make a dent in its energy consumption. I had other motion stalling spells now, ones that were based on classical, Newtonian physics, but those weren’t able to completely stop motion altogether.

I had frozen myself in an awkward position. My shoulder dug into Noel’s abdomen, making her loom over me like the lip of a cliff. I couldn’t see her face, but I could just make out the silver bubble that was held up by her hand and shooting towards my neck like a bullet. The reflection on the bubble showed a wide-eyed little elfin Cas, blood dribbling out of his mouth like drool, and a glowering Noel with eyebrows arched forward and silver eyes harboring a somber but resolute light. It was only when I saw the reflection of her eyes up close, that I finally recognized that something was wrong with her.

That immediately made me feel better. There had been no signs, apart from the silver glow, that Noel was under any kind of influence. From what I knew, it was the Immortal of Evil that did mind control, not the Immortal of Madness, and Noel had mind control resistance magic anyways. Clearly, the Immortal of Madness had found a way past her defenses and brought her under his control. If I could somehow break that control, perhaps I could rescue Noel and save my own hide in the process.

But for that I needed help. In my head I kept repeating the same words over and over again: come on Kelser! That little red haired kid better stop whatever he was doing and come save me. What was taking him so long anyway? I’d already knocked out Bain Rusta, if the traitors inside had been controlled by magic, they should’ve been released by now. Judging by their mechanical actions and unthinking, brute force tactics, I assumed the traitorous demons and fairies were being controlled. The few who weren’t should have been swept aside already. Why wasn’t he here yet?

Wait a minute.

I felt my heart drop.

I’d concluded that Bain Rusta had been converted to the Immortal of Evil’s side while he was inside the city. It would be strange for somebody to become an Ikon in such a short amount of time. At least, it didn’t seem like the Oracle had become an Ikon that quickly. Bain Rusta hadn’t been very powerful either. I assumed the Oracle had been weak because she was given a bit of the Immortal’s ability of foresight. But all Bain Rusta had was the red glow in his eyes. What if Bain Rusta wasn’t the Ikon after all?

A chilling screech filled the air. It was a familiar sound, but perverted into something sinister and foreboding. It was the sound of the gates of the capital opening up, but it also sounded like long nails were scratching the metallic surface, clawing at it to try to get it to open.

I steeled my resolve, prepared my mind, and let the still life magic fade.

Multiple things happened at once.

I continued my trajectory of slamming into Noel’s body but went even faster thanks to my pumping adrenaline, the pull from a magic hand, the acceleration from motion magic, reduced drag from air magic, and a good grip on the ground with balance or gravity magic. I also summoned a bunch of magic hands to hold Noel’s hand back, stalling the silver bubble just long enough to destabilize Noel’s balance with magic and have her fall face first towards the ground.

But Noel had been scheming during the pause as well. Her other hand grabbed my clothes and tried to stop me from moving away. I also felt another force on the other side of my body, trying to grasp my leg to hold me back. Noel had brought out her own magic hands, although she probably wanted to catch me off guard when I was a little more tired and couldn’t just plow right through them with a little bit of effort.

And at the same time, a loud crash echoed through the air. A deep, ominous thumping sound filled my ears, throbbing to the sound of my heartbeat and the piercing pain that flared in tandem with the two. I tumbled away on the ground like a can kicked down the road, but managed to steady myself in the distance.

Once steadied, I could see a grimacing Noel, silver bubble still hovering near her hand, with a bit of my clothes in the other. The silver bubble also had a bit of fabric on it, and a soreness in my back made me suspect the bubble had lightly kissed the surface of my skin too.

On the other side, a cloud of red mist spilled out of the gate of the capital city. The source of the thumping sound came into view through the mist. Columns of stomping people filed out of the city gates. Fairies, demons, even humans, all came out with their weapons held to their sides, marching forward with a blank, red glare in their eyes. The army of red eyed people split apart in the middle, and a small group strode forth.

Elders Kezler, Brol, and Mann paced forward, the many human magic users coming up right behind them. The hovering spirits of the Senate appeared as well, their eyes also a fiery crimson. And in the middle came a new but somewhat familiar face. The face belonged to a young demon man, his eyes red, his body stiffly straight and muscular. His tail also jutted out at an extreme angle and in a straight line, rather than in the relaxed, curvy style that most demons’ tails seemed to have.

His face reminded me of someone, and that helped me figure out who he was without any need for an introduction. This must be Kol’s brother, Prince Alek Izlandi, the exiled prince of the Izlandi Kingdom.