“Thanks for the food!” Everyone said.

Everyone went back to their original shelter area, in case the construct’s maker decided to look at the area where his construct had been destroyed. After all had a good night of sleep, Elany cooked up a sort of victory feast for their victory over the construct.

The party packed up after breakfast and prepared to get going.

“Alright, let’s get out of here!” Elany practically shouted.

“Let’s!” Eric agreed, not minding Khes’s unhappy expression

“bump”

“Don’t be so glum. You can always come back later.” Aileen said after lightly punching him in the shoulder.

“Mhmm.” Khes replied as his expression turned into a shy sort of smile.

With the construct out of the way and with Khes and his dragon keeping all the undead at bay, they began moving quickly.

A day passed. In the evening when Elany and Aileen got to sleepy, Reylor and Eric gave them piggy-back rides, each respectively. Of course, neither Reylor nor Khes needed sleep, and Eric said it would only be a minor discomfort to miss a few nights of sleep; so they continued on day and night, stopping only for meals and once every few nights for Eric. The Darkness energy gradually began to thin out, which told everyone that they were finally nearing the end of the region.

*** *** ***

“Ahh, fresh air at last!”

“I agree, Elany. It’s nice to be out” Eric said

“But it’s so cold!” Aileen exclaimed.

“Haha, you’ll get used to it. All of us have enchanted gear, so no worries about survival.”

“But it still feels cold…”

“Phoenix skin, stage 1!”

“Ahh, so warm! Thank you Lucy!”

Stepping out of the region, the five were met with a gust of cold air and a blinding landscape. It was a tundra of sorts concocted from a surplus of ambient ice magic, or maybe the abundance of ice magic was because the place was cold—no one really knew. Either way it was quite cold.

“Well, would you look at that?”

“What is it, Reylor?” Elany asked.

I can already see a settlement.

“Oh, nice. Maybe that means we can sleep in an actual building this time!”

“Maybe.” Reylor flashed a smile.

“Roooar!”

“Bye Sarah”

“Sara? She had a name?” Aileen asked Khes.

“No, I gave that one to her. It wouldn’t be right to call one of my commanders by ‘hey you, you with the big wings and stuff’”

*snicker*

“Hey, I’m just respecting the ones who have helped me.”

“You’re weird” Aileen gave his shoulder a light push.

“Hey!” Khes shot a glance her way, but wore a light smile.

A short while later they neared the town gates.

“What is this?” Lucy asked, extinguishing her flames.

They approached the gate, which had been opened just a while before, but this wasn’t the strange thing. There were two rows of people, one on either side of the gate, forming a path to an elderly man at the end. The people who formed the rows consisted almost entirely of women, children, and old men. Furthermore, they were all bowing on their knees with their faces to the icy ground, save for the old man at the end.

“What do we do?” Elany asked Reylor.

“Aileen, prepare to put up your barrier in case anything weird happens. Other than that, let’s see what they have to say.”

They walked through the path created by the prostrated villagers. When they came to the end, the old man bowed as far as his old bones would let him and spoke.

“Please good sirs, help us! We saw from afar that you are mages, and to have come from that place of darkness and terror, you must be powerful, therefore please, PLEASE help us! Help us!”

“What is the issue?” Reylor calmly asked.

“The beasts have attacked us! They are terrible monstrosities that can regenerate themselves, if even their head is cut off! They cannot be defeated by ordinary means, but we are but ordinary people, and we do not have that much strength. Usually there are only one or two that come at a time, but something has changed, and they are attacking our sister city directly! If you do not help us, they will fall, and after them, us! So please, please help us!”

“The shade,” Reylor whispered under his breath, to which Lucy nodded.

“Where is this other city?”

“Directly to the South. The road should take you directly there.”

“No need” Reylor said.

“Void sight” “Location marked”

“Open!”

“Vwerr” A spatial gate opened, and they rushed through, leaving a dumbfounded town head behind.

“Vwerrooorr” They stepped out to see a city, far larger than the one they came from. Reylor had teleported them to the front of the city, so they also stepped out to a scene—of carnage. The steel of weapons rang against the solid claws of wolves and Ice bears, as they were known in that area. The cries of myriad wounded called out for help, as they mixed with shouts of pain from those who were still standing.

The warriors of the city numbered in the hundreds, but the hoard of shade beasts numbered in the ten thousands. It would have been a losing battle to begin with, but since the bodies had to be brought to the fire to be burnt, things were all the more grim.

“Huh?” “Mages?” “A-a-a-are y-y-you fr-r-riendl-ly?” The terror stricken guard asked.”

“Yes we are. This here is Elany; she is a holy mage, so bring her to where you keep your wounded. Treat her well.”

“Uh, y-y-yes s-sir!”

“Aileen, help the field medics and transports. Eric, Lucy, Khes—it’s time to hunt”

“Ember Matrix”

“Infernal fires, wall of hell, tier six IGNITE!”

“Kabam!”

It was as if a curtain of pure red arose, sectioning off most of the shade from the warriors, granting them time to deal with the enemies at hand.

“Light of the moon, shine of the stars, enchant!” Eric dashed around the battlefield, enchanting the weapons of any warriors who had a moment to breath. Also adding the message “Don’t slice their heads—stab them.” Why was this? Of course because a headless creature was of little use to a certain dark mage…

“Clunk” A shade wolf slammed against Aileen’s barrier “Keep moving! They’re not going to get through my barrier and we need to save all we can!” “Yes ma’am!” several men replied.

Reylor had instructed them all to keep the shade busy, and buy him some time. Meanwhile, he began collecting mana, using a technique called overfilling. For a short time, one could increase the capacity of their mana core by ten or even twenty times by compacting the mana within. This could not be held for long, and if it wasn’t released instantly the mage would likely die from the force wanting to be released, but in some instances this could be used to utilize extremely powerful spells.

“Roar!” an ice bear rose up from the ground, this time with completely black fur but empty eyes. It began moving among the battle field, shredding wolves one by one. Of course this wasn’t the only instance like it—there were other ice bears and many more wolves, as well, laying waste to the shade hoard on this side of the barrier.

Meanwhile, from the other side of the wall of fire, words echoed over the whole battlefield in an ancient tongue.

“From the aether we came and to the aether we return.

The existence which once was will not be forever.

The cries of life shall be silenced, the light fade from their eyes.

I call out to all yet to none.

Let silence fill the earth.”

“Huh? What’s going on?” A warrior shivered, and he was not alone. Every intelligent life form within one hundred miles of Reylor paused as they felt a chill run through their bones.

The wall of fire also began to die down, as Lucy severed her connection with the wall of flame, with eyes filled with fear. She knew the cause was Reylor, and so she shouldn’t be afraid, yet… There was something terrifying about to happen.

“Let life be death, and death give not way.

Hearken to me gods of the abyss, and make records,

For the lost are many and the saved are few,

As the end draws nigh.

Arcane Art: Void Decimation.”

Silence. It felt as if time had frozen, yet everyone could still think. The region was completely dried of its ambient mana—so much so that the very temperature seemed to rise by a few degrees, but that was just to be replaced by another chilling sensation, as strange winds seemed to snake their way through the encampment, locking on to various targets as if the winds had their own consciousness.

Still, Reylor alone was able to move or even speak.

The winds died down and the space was still again—everything seemingly frozen.

“Release.”

“Thump” “Cough, cough”

Each man felt a pulse run through their very souls, while Reylor dropped onto a knee and coughed out a bit of blood.

“Reylor?” Lucy slowly asked. “What was that?” She still spoke slowly, with little emotion as she struggled to pull herself out of a daze.

He motioned to the battlefield, which she looked out at.

She couldn’t bring herself to say another word.

The shade—bears, wolves, and anything else unlucky enough to be added to the army were literally disintegrating before her very eyes. No, that was not merely dissolution; this was complete and entire destruction. Not even an ounce of residue would be left as the very matter they were made of literally returned to pure aether.

“Reylor!” Elany ran out of the city in a panic “What just… Happened…” Her words also slowed down as she saw, though struggled to grasp what was before her. Not a single shade was left. Not a single pelt or a stain of blood from those recently slain remained. Having seen what state the battlefield was in before, she was left with a sense of awe.

“Hak, cough”

“Reylor!” She quickly made her way through the dumbstruck crowd and the now open field to where he was.

“Lay back!” She commanded, to which he complied.

“Light of the saints and oath of the heavens, greater restoration!”

A warm light enveloped his body and was slowly absorbed.

“Chink!” Reylor managed to switch to his spatial energy core and circulate the paltry amount that remained.

He stood up, though unsteadily.

“What the heck were you thinking!” Lucy scolded. “Given enough time we could have taken out the rest together without such consequences!”

“I. Wasn’t going. To. But…” He pointed in a direction to the southwest. “Prae… Pref.” His head started spinning, and both Elany and Lucy move to catch him before he fell.

“Pray? Pref? Wait… Are you trying to say there are Praefectii out there?” Elany guessed.

Reylor nodded his head. “Go, take… me.” He paused to catch his breath again.

“Hang on, take a moment we have time,” Lucy spoke. “Huh? WOAH! Ok, ok, we’ll take you over there.”

At mention of waiting, Reylor’s deep blue eyes turned completely black, except for red slits, like a cat’s, but terrifying. At her relent, Reylor’s eyes relaxed back to normal as he hung on to Elany and Lucy’s shoulders.

“Eric, Aileen, Khes, Get over here!” Lucy called out.

Broken out of their stupor by Lucy’s call they rushed over.

There are Praefectii in that direction, and for some reason Reylor seems to think it’s urgent that we get over there quickly, so let’s go!”

Eric went over and picked Reylor up. “Let’s go!” he echoed back, and he started to run.

A few miles later—

“Oh my word. I understand now.”

There it was—the last thing any of them wanted to see.

Another construct.

The strange thing was that it was on its side, with runic lines flashing all over it, signaling that it was full of magical energy, but something was not working.

And then they saw the next shocking development. Not too far from where it had fallen was a building, apparent a target of the construct. Once they adjusted their eyes, they noticed another thing—people. A group of eight or so people with snow-white hair and veins that also emitted a white glow.

Surrounding the construct were glassy splinters—evidence of their futile attempts against it.

“Four… Teen. Minutes”

“You are saying it’ll be back up in fourteen minutes?” Eric asked

“Yes.”

“Fourteen minutes, guys. Let’s get going!”

They ran up to the construct, placing Reylor by its head, as they had seen him dance around it in the previous fight.

“Anyone have an extra sword?” Lucy asked.

After a moment of silence Reylor pointed to his own longsword.

“I guess it can’t be helped,” she said before drawing his sword.

“You guys work on that arm, while…” Reylor shook his head and crawled onto its chest and pointed to an area and motioned for Elany to come over. “Me?” she asked pointing to herself

“Heal” he replied, pointing to the area

“Heal!” Elan cried out, as a soft white glow emanated at that point and Reylor put his ear to the construct’s chest.

He crawled over to a different part.

“Heal!”

*point*

“Heal!”

*point*

Finally after about five rounds of this, he moved to a point at the construct’s lower left abdomen.

“Crystal” he said, pointing, before staggering back to the constructs head and placing his hand on it.

The construct immediately changed from a dark purple to an almost blueish color.

“Well, then. Here goes nothing” Lucy muttered.

She picked up Reylor’s longsword and held it with the tip pointing down at the spot Reylor had pointed out.

“Get back, and Aileen, protect Reylor” Lucy almost growled.

Aileen nodded and went over to where Reylor was, making a barrier just big enough to envelop both of them.

“Phoenix skin, Tier 6”

“Whoosh!” Her body was enveloped with an armament of fire, burning extremely hot and so bright that everyone who was able doubled their distance from her.

“Wrath of hell and rivers of hate, course through my veins

Grant me the fire of cleansing and the filth of blood.

Shildwell Art: Sword of Cremation. Tier 7.”

“Woah, get back!” Eric yelled, practically dragging Elany and Khes back.

Reylor’s sword disintegrated in Lucy’s hands, leaving a pure fire elemental sword behind. It was so hot that one literally could not see it, but could tell where it was only by how it distorted their vision. At this point Lucy’s hair turned semi translucent as well, and her eyes turned completely white. She looked like an enraged goddess come to take vengeance on the world, though that was not the case.

Aileen Closed her eyes, focusing all she had on holding the barrier up, as it threatened to crack for merely being within twenty yards of it.

Lucy slowly lowered the sword down, piercing that insanely hard construct smoothly.

“Cr. Crr.” Aileen’s barrier began to crack

“Sh-sh-sh-shink” At the last moment a wave of crystal seemed to condense just in front of her, giving enough reprieve for the barrier to mend itself. The mass of crystal kept melting but was replaced just as quickly, as the Praefectii fought to keep them both alive.

The sword kept descending, until—

“Bam!” The crystal inside the construct exploded.

Lucy let go of the flaming sword, and it immediately dispersed. She then recalled her phoenix skin. Her eyes turned to their dark red, and her hair stopped glowing. And she fainted. Aileen released her barrier and passed out, as well.

The Praefectii rushed over to pick up Lucy and Aileen, as well as escort Reylor. Khes, Eric, and Elany followed as they were brought into the white building, where they found more Praefectii. Not just one or two, but over twenty Praefectii, lying on beds, apparently in comatose states. Had they been any later, there would have been carnage, as the few who were lucid would not have had nearly enough time to evacuate anyone, and then they would likely have just ended up as shade food.