“Go on ahead without me, kid.”

“What?” The kid was staring at me, eyes wide like I had said something crazy.

“I said go on without me. The Pond is just up this path; you’ll find a small cave opening. It’s in there.”

“What about you?”

There it was again, that look like he was worried for me.

I smiled, my teeth growing sharper by the second.

“Well, I guess it’s time I finally show off a bit.”

The kid looked between me and the path ahead. I could see the resistance in his face.

One more push.

“Kid, each one of the mages is likely the caliber of at least a fourth ring sage. You haven’t even reached the point of a single ring Sage. Do you really think you can help me at all?”

That did it. I could see his face harden as he made a face he often made when trying to mask his emotions.

“Fine!” The kid shook his head, turning away from me quickly. “But you better be here when I come back.”

“Sounds like a deal.” I turned my back to him, facing the oncoming enemy mages.

One…two… bah, numbers are tricky.

After several tries at counting them up, I figured there was something like fifteen or sixteen of them.

Tough but manageable.

While it would still be another minute or two before they reached me, I couldn’t let them catch me with the kid by my side. As far as I knew, no one had connected us past the Eorial girl. Plus, I hadn’t lied about what I told the kid. Each of the mages would be a significant threat; him being around would only slow me down.

Well. I looked back over my shoulder, watching as Rook disappeared over the crest of the oversized hill we had been traveling up. Nothing to do but wait.

“You there.” The first of the mages had finely reached me, disembarking off horseback. “You are Imako Regul, are you not? Whisper of the woods, the Dark Knife, culler of magic?”

“Why yes, those would all be titles or names I’ve held at one time or another.” I said with a wolfish smile.

“You are hereby sentenced to immediate execution for your crimes, most notably, for being a danger to humanity.”

“A little extreme, don’t you think?” I said with a tone of mock hurt.

“Silence Void Mane.”

“Well, you’ve done it now.” I sighed, standing up from the stump I had found and sat at. “As a general policy, I don’t let those who go throwing around my identity about so willy-nilly live, on principle, you see. The name Void mane always inspires stories of terror and horror, and really I want nothing more than to relax when I can.”

The enemy mage said nothing more as his fellow mages hopped down from their horses, pulling on white fingerless gloves.

Tough crowd.

Well, the easiest way to deal with a tough crowd was simply to soften them up.

Preferably by dismemberment, but I had no real preferences.

Feeling my form begin to flicker and flow like a living shadow, I began to walk towards them slowly, before speeding up, until finally, I was sprinting.

“Here it comes!” The captain of the mages yelled out, but it was too late. I was already on him, my hands clad in savage claws digging into the sides of his head. I leaped free as his head exploded in a shower of gore, several of the mages recoiling at the sight.

“I- what is that?”

“Magic.”

“But you’re not using any commands.”

“For something this simple? Of course not. Anyways, I don’t use magic the same as most do.”

Humans were bound, handicapped, and unable to freely control the depths of magic without the words of power they relied on. I may look human in this form, but I was anything but.

I was a magical beast of the highest caliber and all but the highest forms of wild magic I could call upon without uttering a word, magic flowing freely from my intention alone.

I was flying towards another of the mages, but I could already feel the disturbance of the mana in the area as it swirled and relocated itself.

Well, that’s to be expected.

Tethering magic. I wasn’t privy to how, but the central empire had found a way to bind the mana cores of a group of mages together. When one died, that mana would be distributed to the rest.

Or, in simpler terms, with each death, they would individually grow stronger.

Speed, need more speed.

I felt more form ripple again, and the world appeared as if it were suddenly dunked in a vat of ink, everything appearing in a million differing hues of grey and black.

“Scortar!” One of the mages shouted. The word sounded muted as a black steel stalagmite shot up from under me. I flipped through the air with reflexes a human body could never have replicated. The mage who had made the mistake of attempting to skewer me through found his efforts rewarded by my jaws snapping through his throat, leaving him to drown in a pool of his own blood on the ground.

Next.

The mana distributed again like a pulse flaring out from the dying mage, each growing steadily more powerful.

“Scoess!” I heard the word of power a split second before I was suddenly yanked through the air. The mage had conjured forth a vacuum to my right, where I was pulled towards as the air around it rushed to refill it. It was a clever instant use of Scoess, acting as a magnet for a split second.

Clever wasn’t enough to beat me.

The vacuum that appeared was canceled out a moment later as I conjured my own magic, one of my specialties.

In the human tongue, it was the fusion of Scorz and Kinzar, Scorzar.

Burst.

Failing to be pulled as far as they intended, I narrowly avoided another spear of black steel that shot through where I would have been. I flicked a hand, or rather a paw; it was sometimes hard to keep track of my current form towards the closest of the mages. A lance of fire shot forward, but the mage was the first of the group to survive an attack from me, flicking his own wrist upwards.

“Aultar!”

A wall of greyish-looking semi-solid mix shot upwards, intercepting my fire. I noted the mage. They were particularly quick on their feet. Had they risen a simple wall of earth, my fire would have scorched through as hot as it was. Instead, they had conjured forth a wall of hydrated quicklime to use my own heat to harden and reinforce it.

“Kintar!”

“Renzar!”

“Kinzar!”

I was suddenly caught in a sandstorm, three of the mages combining their magic into one swirling vortex of tiny particles that rapidly shredded through me.

Two can play that game.

I reached within myself, drawing forth mana as I felt it collect and coalesce into something more significant.

“KinAulorz!” Even to my own ears, it sounded strange to hear human words be spat out from my wolf maw, but I couldn’t help it. As a magical beast, I could wordlessly use all but the highest forms of magic.

But composite magic was one of those highest forms.

A wave of liquid fire rushed out from me, swallowing up the cheap imitation of the composite magic RenScorzar. The wave of liquid fire didn’t end there; it continued sweeping out before it washed over three of the remaining mages, who began to scream in agony. They beat at their bodies in frantic desperation, but the fire could not be beat out, texture like a burning gel that clung to everything.

“Watch out! It’s capable of composite magic!”

I grinned, my fangs poking out from my maw. The magic I had cast was powerful; it took a hell of a lot more out of me than the base strands of magic would have when used individually, but it felt good to watch unease and fear spread through the mages.

You could read a report and hear the rumors, but seeing composite magic in flesh and blood was unnerving, downright unnatural.

At least, it was in the modern Haerasong where great efforts had been made to squash out the powerful magics of the past.

Culler of magic. Hah, if they even understood what real magic was like.

I had transformed the area into a hellscape, but the fight was far from over. There were still one… two… several mages left, and as with every last death, I felt the mana flow from the bodies of their compatriots.

A few more, and they will border on the fifth ring.

“Behind me!” One of the mages shouted, and I watched the group crowd behind a single mage, the woman raising her hands towards me, which were beginning to glow an uncomfortable bright light.

No words. Kin magic, then.

The world turned back to the everyday shade and hues of color as I transformed back into my human form. Without knowing what her kin magic was, I wanted to be able to respond with my full magical capability, including composite magic, and speaking was always harder to do in my wolf form.

I waited several more seconds, readying my own defenses when I felt my eyes twitch as I realized I had been had.

She wasn’t readying offensive magic. She was layering some form of defensive magic over them.

Damnit.

I waved my hand towards the gathered group, sending a chain reaction of burst magic towards them, but when the explosion of kinetic energy hit the group, it dissolved away in a golden glow surrounding them.

“Have to make things more difficult, don’t you.” I growled, watching as the mages spread back out, about as many left as I had fingers.

“Of course, foul beast.” The woman snapped a finger toward me. “In the name of the Holy who watch, we will cleanse the world of your vile contamination.”

Holy. A glow that protects. Light magic it is.

“If you wish to test ideals against me, be my guest.” I smirked at the woman, readying a hand as I drew power forward. “But do not trust so highly in things which may not protect you when it matters.”

The woman opened her mouth to respond, but a lance of ice was launched behind her, shooting toward me as fast as an arrow. Surprise passed through me as I saw the lance flying towards me.

Really, attacking someone mid-conversation?

Then the world shifted black and white, then back again as I stood one stride length away to my right, the lance missing me.

“Well, I do believe I should show you why exactly we are called Void Manes.” I grinned my most unsettling grin, enjoying the moment of unease that passed through the crowd as I raised a hand.

“ScorlousBral.” I whispered the word, and from the few who saw what I muttered, I could see the confusion on their faces.

Wild magic was formed based on the words of powers, different spells, and elements assembled from differing prefixes or mixes of words. Five basic elements, each with a set of elements created by connecting them with the other elements. Those more advanced magics, deviant magic, could be further heightened by forming them with a third element, creating composite magic.

Regardless of what level one could draw on wild magic, it didn’t change the five basic elements.

Scorz.

Frecezz.

Aulous.

Rentar.

Kinzar.

Except, there wasn’t just five,

There was a sixth, an element that couldn’t be touched by humans.

Bral, the magic of magical beasts.

Shadow.

And I, as a Void Mane, the elevated form of a Black Mane, was especially adept with it.

From below the gathered group, a swamp of living shadows opened, tendrils of pure darkness shooting out and lashing around arms and legs and anything they could get a hold of, smashing through the golden light that the mage with the light kin magic had created.

The mages struggled, fought, and flailed, but to no avail, the darkness dragging them further and further in. It wasn’t until the last second that I saw several mages look at each other, understanding their fates; they bit down hard on something before they fell limply into the shadow swamp.

What was-oh.

Rather than be swallowed up together, they had ingested some sort of toxin, dying and, in the process, freeing their mana to be sent to another.

While his fellow mages sank beneath the darkness, one remained, stepping free out of the living shadows as if he were dislodging his feet from a small patch of mud.

“Your sacrifices won’t be in vain.” The main bowed his head low as the dark swamp closed back up, the two of us remaining within the still burning area.

“That’s one way to gain power.” I whistled as I felt the waves of mana rolling off from the man. He was nearing the levels of a high six-ringer, much more mana, and he would have broken through the realms of the seventh ring had he been a properly trained Sage, not merely a mage overflowing with mana that wasn’t his own.

“Is that all you think about, beast? Power, the food chain? Those people were my friends. Do you even understand what friends are? Family?”

His words struck me like a hammer, and suddenly I felt myself flare up with anger.

“Friends?” I scoffed, spitting at the ground. “Family? Do you believe that you, pup, are one to lecture me about friends and family? When it was you, your empire that rose hot off the heels of the fallen Sages, that was responsible for the deaths of all those that I loved?” I shook my head. “No. You do not deserve even the right to think of lecturing me!”

I flicked my hand out, and a ball of fire shot forward, a dense encapsulation of my sudden flaring rage.

The man raised his own hand, a bubble appearing around my ball of fire, extinguishing my rage and anger, gone as if insignificant.

“AulScorzar.” The man was staring me dead in the eye as he uttered the word. “I did not believe myself to ever be one to reach the heights of composite magic, but now I am here, and I must do what I must to ensure such a dangerous, rabid dog such as yourself is put down.”

“KinScorlous!” I snarled, hundreds of droplets of acid shooting forward like a swarm of angry bees.

“ RenScorzar!” A blast of sand collided with my storm of acid, negating each other as I shapeshifted, dashing around him as I blipped in and out of existence, slipping through shadows like doorways.

The man seemed to relax, pressing the tips of his fingers and thumbs together as if in prayer.

“For the light cast aside the darkness!”

As if I was being yanked out of the shadows, I found myself cast out from the darkness I had been in.

He even has that woman’s Kin magic.

“You may believe what was done to you, your family, wrong, but it was for a better world. Haerasong will be a land free of the evils of higher magic, of magical beasts. The first land of this world which is free from such sins.”

I’d been alive since near the beginning of the empire of Haerasong that had risen after the fall of the Sages. Dedicated to the eradication of such evils that the Sages had once represented, that was what the empire stood for.

Or that was what they preached. Had that been the case, I reckon magic and magical beasts would have been wiped clean from this continent hundreds of years ago.

But that didn’t change that the man before me seemed to honestly buy into what he was preaching.

“You’re blind.” I coughed, shifting back to human. “But it isn’t my job to deal with educating you.”

“As if you will have the chance.” The man pulled a sword free from his side, raising it towards me.

Well, wouldn’t Rook love to see this.

“Our holy purpose is so great that even the Sages of old, reborn as they may be, will perish once more.”

Conceited.

I wasn’t going to win in a fight of magical endurance, I had burnt through far too much of my mana, and the man was basically bursting with it.

“And you, a vile beast from the ages long ago, are merely a relic of times better left forgotten. Surrender now. You are near the end of your mana reserves. If you go quietly, I will at least give you a quick death.”

I slid one foot back, raising my clawed hands in front of me, a relaxed but ready stance.

“Foolish.” The man shook his head before raising a hand. “Frezar.”

I felt as if I had been dunked in a tub of sap; my movements slowed.

“While I may not be as physically superior as you ordinarily would be, you have drained through too much of your mana to resist my influence.”

Frezar. Deviant magic of Frezess and Kinzar, against those who lacked comparable amounts of mana it, could be used to slow if not outright stop their movements.

As was being done to me now.

“Try me.” I grit my teeth, motioning him to come at me.

“It is your funeral.” The man shook his head as if disappointed in me. After which, he shot forward, his blade sweeping towards my head.

Amateur.

Even slowed as I was, I managed to deflect the strike of my claws, parrying the strike as my left hand shot forward, intending to stab through his heart. Slowed as I was, the man stepped back and out of my strike range, raising an eyebrow as if surprised I had even fended off his attack.

“You think I spent over a thousand years just to die to a pup of a few decades?”

The man let out a war cry as he charged forward again, a two-handed downward swing that I slipped to the side of, using minimal movements to compensate for my lack of speed as the magic continued its oppressive hold on me.

Time to try something new.

After another heated exchange, I skipped back several steps, watching the man.

“What, have you finished already?” Even after I gave more resistance than he initially anticipated, the man felt in control.

I didn’t answer, breathing in deeply instead as I felt mana drawn into my body from my surroundings.

What order did he do it in again?

My mind flashed back to when I had watched the kid, not even a proper mage, utilize mana in a way I hadn’t seen since…

Well, ever. The tome I had given him was meant to inspire him to discover how to hide oneself from the flow of mana, to harness it in the simplest terms so that the Living Tome wouldn’t notice his presence, making it an easy target.

Instead, the boy had gone and decided that it was too easy. Treating his body like a set of individual mechanisms, he had used mana to maximize its capabilities. I had likened it to the Integration a Sage would achieve upon reaching their fifth ring, but while it was similar, it wasn’t the same.

For one, even a magical beast like myself could do it.

“Prepare yourself.” I smirked as I let out a breath, the mana settling into my body nicely as I felt a heat wash over me.

“Don’t kid yourse-” The words were silenced as the mage frantically blocked my strike off the side of his blade, his eyes widening in surprise at my sudden speed, confusion as he realized the magic weighing down on me hadn’t mistakenly been released.

“How?” The man questioned me, his eyes searching for understanding.

“Inspiration, something your little ‘empire’ lacks.” I laughed. The feeling rushing through me was intoxicating. “Dance with me.”

My left arm came zipping out from beneath him, slamming as a fist into his gut and launching him back where he crashed against an unburnt tree with a cracking sound, the trunk splintering.

“What, have you finished already?” I repeated his own words back to him, mocking him.

The man scrambled to his feet, flailing as he flicked forward a shaking hand.

“Scorz!”

Rather than avoid the beam of fire, I let it reach me before casually flicking it away with my bare hand.

“Inner magic?” The man seemed even more shocked. “B-but magical beasts can’t use Inner magic!”

“You’re right.” I smiled as I walked over, kicking the fallen man in the ribs and across the clearing made by my earlier explosion of liquid fire. “I’m not using Inner magic.”

And I wasn’t. Unlike humans, magical beasts were interwoven with mana in their very flesh and blood; it ran through us. As a result, we had a natural resistance to magic, but it was vastly outpaced by the magical growth of powerful mages.

Except now, my entire body was kicked into overdrive. My natural resistance to magic had been heightened with it. Even the magic thrown around by someone with the attacking potency nearing that of a seventh ring Sage was ignorable.

“S-stay back!” The man held up his hands, but I grabbed him by the collar of his uniform, holding him up before me.

“What was it you said before? That it was ‘my funeral’? I believe it is time to treat you to those very same words.”

The man’s eyes were filled with terror, and a moment later, they widened even further in sudden surprise as my hand slammed through his chest, bursting out the other side holding his still-beating heart.

“For thousands of years, the world has changed at a glacier’s pace, but now I see it. Change is coming. And it will all come back to the kid one day.” I tossed the man aside, his already lifeless body falling to the ground like a ragdoll.

“Now, which kid that is, that’s the question.” I huffed, collapsing a second after.

Oh. So this is what he means by ‘ruptured body.’

The pain was intense and debilitating, but I’d experienced pain before.

Hundreds of thousands of times, I’d experienced pain before. This was just another notch in the book.

Separating my mind from the body’s aches, I stared up at the sky above, wondering, contemplating.

I had taken the kid on as a gamble. What he didn’t fully understand about himself was that his body was developed intricately as if sculpted to meet the demands of an artist, not just outside but inside as well. The same reincarnation spell that had given life, or rather re-given life, to the Sage Above All in a body that could utilize every element of wild magic, was the exact reason for his unique body.

It was just that the spell had likely been developed for use on a tenth ringer, a Sage of the caliber of the Sage Above All. The boy was meant to be the vessel for the apprentice of the Sage Above All.

And if they were an apprentice, chances were, they hadn’t been a ten-ringer.

The result had been while the blueprints were there, the boy himself had been handicapped because of it.

But.

But there was a chance, maybe it was slim, but a chance that he could regain the functionality of some level of magic.

A chance, a gamble, on change. I was sure the world was heading for something major. The rebirth of a Great Sage made that obvious.

But just maybe, I could throw a pebble into that oncoming storm and shake things up just an ounce more.

A chance.

But I’d take any chance to bring this world down to its knees.