BOOM!

Ash and Ashton’s castle shook violently as it hit something incredibly solid, rocks rained down from above and a loud screeching sound assaulted Ashton’s ears.

Startled by the noisy impact, Ashton awoke in a daze, incredibly confused and shocked before a large piece of rubble hit him in the gut, winding him.

After a brief moment of pain Ash flooded his body with adrenaline and he leapt up into action, desperately trying to dodge oncoming rubble from above as he ran towards Central Tower.

Fittingly named, Central Tower was the largest tower of their castle and stood over fifteen storeys tall, directly at the centre of the castle.

Ashton’s reasoning behind his destination was simply that they’d constructed the castle in such a complex and overly detailed way that the only way to see its entirety from the inside was from Central Tower’s uppermost floor.

“You’re going to have to be a bit faster…” warned Ash as the castle groaned, its weight was no longer evenly distributed.

“Eh? Why!?” shouted Ashton, had he not been communicating through his mind then Ash would not have heard him over the sound of stone crumbling and crashing to the ground.

However Ash did not answer as he simply didn’t need to, it presented itself to Ashton.

A large crack smashed its way down walls and into the floor, branching off into several directions before another ear-splitting boom sounded and the crack split open, exposing the empty abyss below.

Ashton gasped as he ran towards the hole, it was over a metre wide and he was no longer running completely horizontally anymore.

Instead it was as if he were sprinting up a hill, one that was getting exponentially steeper.

Ashton no longer attempted to dodge the falling debris and left it up to Ash to prevent any collisions, proving to be a good choice as the rocks were batted away with incredible force, the stone disintegrating on impact.

Arriving at the hole, Ashton jumped with all his might, desperately flapping his arms to gain just the slightest amount of height to make the now eight metre gap.

Predictably, he failed miserably, he couldn’t make a nine metre gap, not in his old world and certainly not in this world either, thus he plummeted towards the unknown depths.

Luckily he did have one thing going for him, and that was Ash’s magical ability since he floated back up to the hole and set him back down on the ground.

“Come on, we don’t have all day, get to the top already!” yelled Ash as Ashton sat on the floor in relief.

Responding to Ash he awkwardly rose back up and continued to run towards the Central Tower, looking back to find the entire Southern section of their castle to have dropped away into the abyss.

Tremors ran throughout the building still and Ashton could feel the castle was beginning to tilt downwards, in fear he ran onwards.

Arriving at the Central Tower Ashton ran up the everlasting winding stairs, cursing his own design choices while he tripped over constantly, still not fully adjusted to his aged body.

Roughly three quarters of the way there another boom, the loudest yet shook the castle and bit of fragmented stone rained down on Ashton, blowing him backwards into the wall.

Rocks rushed down the stairway like a waterfall as the upper section of the tower collided with something hard and caved in over Ashton.

Another crash tore into the tower, knocking the section of concrete stairs above Ashton right over top, mincing his limbs and pulverising his lower body.

Darkness washed over Ashton again as the intense pain rattled his brain and he was forcibly sent unconscious once again.

********

“WAKE UP!” screamed Ash in desperation.

Ash’s noisy screaming roused Ashton from his sleep and he groaned, mumbling nonsense as he longed for more sleep.

For some reason his entire body felt incredibly heavy and he was covered with something wet and sticky.

After of few seconds of coming to his senses, Ashton remembered what had happened earlier and attempted to get up right away only to smack his head into a rock hard object inches from his head.

“Ash what happened, why am I like this? Can’t you give me a little help here?” asked Ashton before bursting into a fit of coughing, the air was barely breathable.

“Oh sure, just leave everything to me shall we?” snapped Ash. “Well SORRY, I can’t at the moment! I was too busy reconstruction your body again and again as you were pulverised by all of this rubble here, so how about you just give me a second so I can gather some more energy.”

“Eh? Oh… um, sorry… I-I didn’t know… ummm, what do you m-mean by pulverised?” mumbled Ashton.

“I mean… that we’re lucky to be alive seeing as the tower came down on top of us and pulverised us. I kept healing you over and over because the weight on top was too much and the moment I healed you, everything broke again until I managed to get you in this little pocket of space,” recounted Ash grumpily.

“I see… t-then what do we d-do?” murmured Ashton.

“WE, don’t do anything. You can wait a sec while I gather some magical energy to move this shit off us seeing as I only just finished saving our lives a dozen times over,” Ash stated.

Unsure of what to say, Ashton lay there in silence, barely making out the debris inches away from his head until familiar little golden orbs floated in through the cracks and entered his body.

Seconds later, dust, dirt and small rocks rained down onto Ashton as the larger chunks of stone were levitated into the air and tossed out of the way.

For the first time in three years he saw land and sun once again, looming over above, staring back down at him.

A large cliff face towered above him on his left and the sun, twice as large as he remembered beamed down on him, showering him in warm sunlight.

The wonder and nostalgic joy of land and sunlight was cut short however, as he jolted downwards suddenly, the mass of land he was laying on was incredibly unstable.

“Ashton, get off that thing right now! It’s not going to last much longer!” Ash yelled.

“R-Right! …Off w-what exactly… I don’t know what we’re on, a-and how do you?” questioned Ashton.

“It’s our castle, we’re lying on the ruins of our castle and it’s shifting downwards, barely hanging on to the cliff so get off of it right now, and I can see it cause magic and stuff,” Ash explained quickly.

After another sudden jolt Ashton leapt up and ran up to the cliff face, standing on a tower of broken stone and metal, unsure of what to do next as the cliff was too flat and there was nothing to hold on to.

Seconds passed and dozens of small golden ovals burst into existence up along the cliff face, exploding apart into hundreds of tiny golden orbs that surged back towards Ashton’s chest.

Several loud crashes came from beneath him and Ashton clung onto the cliff, hanging onto the new holes that had been carved into the rock.

A minute passed and Ashton calmed down, beginning to doubt whether anything would actually happen to the castle ruins.

As if to disperse Ashton’s doubts the heap of metal and stone groaned before crumbling apart, falling off the side of the cliff and dropping away into the dark abyss below them.

As they hung there, watching their efforts of the past three years fade away into the distance Ash grumbled, “It’s not like I like it in the first place or anything.”

********

Embers slowly spiralled upwards through the air as Ashton laid his head on crusty, blackened grass.

Hours passed and the fire still burned brightly throughout the night, the charcoal logs at its centre refused to perish under the intense heat.

Yet even with the pleasant heat of the fire, it barely fought off the icy winds digging into his skin as he shivered in his sleep, perhaps dreaming of the horrid climb from earlier.

He was thoroughly worn out, his muscles screamed in pain every time he rolled over to the side and the surrounding decayed grass was drenched in his sticky sweat.

Ash appeared to have gone to sleep earlier which Ashton still wondered why he needed such a thing in the first place, especially at such a time when his magic could really come in handy, he could have even make him a decent bed to sleep in or something.

Surrounding their temporary ‘camp site’ was a small copse of trees with bark the colour of the abyss; pitch black.

The grass was shrivelled and as dark as the trees and the entire area was littered with skeletons that looked like they were made of charcoal.

SCREECH!

An incredibly high pitched scream swept across the forest, waking both Ash and Ashton.

Before either of them could react, a stone bladed spear arced through the air towards Ashton leaving him little time to think, let along dodge.

Instinctively he dived forwards, yet the spear was merciless and sank into Ashton’s thigh, shattering his femur, pinning him to the ground.

Ashton broke out into agonising screaming as he tried to pull back with no thought, the spear digging deeper into his thigh.

“Quit your yapping! I need to focus so I can actually do something!” barked Ash over his screams.

Ashton’s screams turned to a soft whimpering and the surrounding grew noisy, bushes rustled all around them and the sound of many feet scurrying around from all directions could be heard.

Putting the pain out of his mind, Ash tried his best to focus and draw in magical power before any more attacks.

The copse was illuminated by thousands of golden orbs yet they wouldn’t come to Ash, they refused to, he was to emotionally unstable.

Ashton’s intense pain and fear crept into Ash’s state of mind, affecting his own train of thought.

Pain surged through both of their minds once again as Ashton attempted to remove the spear from his thigh, yet it stubbornly remained in the ground.

A low whistle could be heard as another spear soared towards Ashton, straight towards his head.

Unable to relocate, Ashton tried to knock the spear out of the air with his hand, failing tragically.

The spear firmly embedded itself through Ashton’s outstretched palm and pierced his forearm.

Ashton’s hand bent back unnaturally as it was pinned down to his forearm and his back arched in pain as he wailed in agony underneath the beautiful night’s sky.

Noise erupted around them, foreign words could be heard as well as deep growls, everything growing increasingly louder, the tension building up and up and up, before… silence.

Ash had gathered himself, putting Ashton’s shrieking and crying out of his mind completely, solely focusing on gathering magical energy.

Golden orbs drifted towards Ash and he prepared for any incoming attacks.

The sound of Ashton swallowing the bile that was building up in his throat was the only thing that could be heard in the silent forest.

For what seemed to be almost ten entire minutes the intense standoff of mental tenacity continued before a deep growl erupted from Ashton’s left.

A shadow leapt towards Ashton from his left so quickly that he’d barely perceived him at all, luckily Ash was prepared.

Moments before the creature pounced upon Ashton, its menacing head toppled off, falling directly into Ashton’s lap, its body crumpling to the ground a metre away.

A pair of dull, blood red eyes stared right at Ashton and his horrified face reflected back at him, the deep red blood splattered across it was there too.

Ashton quickly tossed the head away in horror, it crunched as it hit the floor and both Ash and Ashton got a good look at their enemy.

It was a goblin, the most simple and well known fantasy creature, seemingly not usually too much of a threat.

Yet in real life, with its leathery dark green skin, beady scarlet eyes, bumpy, potato like head, moles, scars, acne, weird growths and thick black hair it was incredibly haunting and far from fantasy, or simple.

“Hey! Get it together, look around!” shouted Ash.

Fearfully, Ashton obeyed, he desperately searched around for any sign of the enemy, yet it appeared he needed not to as a loud horn resonated throughout the ‘camp site’ and countless grunts and growls echoed throughout the forest.

A wave of naked green bodies surged from everywhere, dashing towards Ashton with mad looks in their blood red eyes.

Ashton shrank down in fear, yet Ash let out a roar of stubbornness and a wave of golden light flooded towards him like a tsunami.

Orbs oozed from the trees, the grass, the rocks, the skeletons, the soil and even the goblins themselves.

Ash continued to drain the energy from everything, the trees rotted, the grass crumbled, the rocks shattered, the skeletons disintegrated, and the soil broke apart into mana itself, while the goblins slowed down all of a sudden, fear in their eyes.

Yet Ash continued, unaware of his surroundings and he soon hit his limit, and he did it very quickly.

An intense feeling of danger assaulted him from every sense of his being and the air around Ashton began to ripple, it was as if space itself was being torn apart.

The goblins sensed the impending danger and fled away, deeper into the woods to take shelter.

Ashton’s eyes widened, their veins bulged and burst, filling the eyes with blood.

The pores of his skin spewed blood, his muscles tore, tendons snapped, organs ruptured and bones cracked under the fierce pressure of the magic.

Both Ash and Ashton passed out, no longer able to handle the pain.

A deep blue wave of pure mana erupted from Ashton’s body, exploding outwards, vaporising everything it came in contact with.

In all directions, as far as you could see, the forest was devastated, completely wiped from existence.

Nothing was left behind by the fleeing goblins or the kilometres of forest surrounding Ashton.

There was… nothing.