Author's notes:

Hello and thank you for taking your time to read through my story. This is the first time I seriously try to write one of my stories, so any kind of feedback, good and bad alike, is highly appreciated. English is not my first language, but I hope my writing is clean (enough). But please, I personally hate grammatical errors, so if you spot any (WHEN you spot any!), please notify me to fix them.

Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy.

Prologue and Chapter 1 notes: The main thing I enjoy in fantasy is character building. But the first chapter is very light on it. I took the chance to first try to set the pace and the setting. But I promise, character development is what I will try to focus on as the story progresses.

*

Prologue: A company of three

Despite the thick underbrush, Arion kept his eyes on the lean, black haired, fellow who was leading their company as he darted from cover to cover. Well, lean by their definition. Southerns would probably consider him a warrior with a quick glance, but Arion could easily see that with proper, daily training, the youth's body could be much more muscled and toned, and even though he would be considered tall at one point eight meters, that was just the average around their parts.

On the contrary, the man on his right, Jared, easily kept up with their pace as they rushed forward, despite carrying the huge carcass of a baby oult, strapped with thick leather belts on his back. Towering over both of them at almost two meters, with a build more fitted for a bear rather than a human, he was even bigger than the fierce black animal on his back.

The company came to a sudden halt as Martyn raised his hand. Looking back he gave a quick nod behind him, towards the warrior and the rager that were following him, and then closed his eyes. He focused on the thin lines of mana that were enveloping him, and let his senses ride along them as they expanded and started filling the area around him. Like thin tentacles, they spread from him, splitting and thinning even more as they rushed to fill the space.

Everything had mana. From the trees, to the soil, to the tiny wildlife that thrived on the thick forest, everything lit up in his mind, like a three dimensional map giving him the exact details of everything his own mana brushed against. Apart from the two people behind him, nothing had any serious amount of mana in his immediate vicinity. He opened his eyes, waved his hand forward and started moving again.

Jared was getting kinda annoyed. “Where are all the damn animals. That's not right.” They had repeated the same thing a few hundreds of times, and yet, only once Martyn had given the signal that there was prey nearby. The baby oult was a nice and easy catch, but it wouldn't be enough to feed the village even for a day, and they were getting quite far from it. He didn't doubt the young shaman, if anything, he was one of the best scouts he had worked with, and he often had tried to persuade their elder to give him to his group of hunters full time, and not have him locked up in the smithy with the weird southern mage that was raising the young boy, but as always, the elder would just shut him down instantly.

Martyn estimated he had dashed another hundred meters or so, so once again, he halted the company and let his senses encircle a hundred meter radius around them. With his training he was confident by now that he could cover much more space than that, but it would take him some time to focus, while about a hundred meters took him only a few seconds. So he found it more practical to just do quick bursts of hundred meter scans, move towards the end of what he've seen, and repeat.

This time his hand clenched on a fist, but instead of pointing towards a direction, his hand moved towards his quiver as he opend his eyes, which still glowed white while holding his mana sense up.

His mana stream was thin enough to penetrate soil, rock and generally everything non-living almost instantly, while plants, animals, and humans, regardless of their complexity had a sheath of mana, like a shield, around them. So he had to either penetrate that, a task ranging from easily done, on targets like plants and animals, to hard on humans, to almost impossible on other mages or ragers or curve his stream around it for scouting purposes. His mentor had explained to him that the density of one's mana is directly linked to how strong one's soul is, but that natural defense can also be enhanced by training and natural phenomena. In order to directly affect one with magic, you had to bypass that protection always, and there were only two ways to do so, you either brute forced yourself in by shattering their mana by colliding your own, or, you thinned your own mana stream so much that it could slip right through that natural defence. The last method required the least amount of power, but the most amount of fine manipulation though, and it was limited to people with less amount of mana manipulation compared to you. Also, for most mages, it was much slower compared to making a thick tendril of mana and simply crushing their opponent's defenses.

Martyn's senses were focused towards the northwest, around fifty meters in front of them, he could sense the bodies of three adult great oults, but despite the usual risks that even one of those magnificent, feline beasts, with long curved tusks, that towered at nearly two meters tall and about four to five meters length, meant, all three of them were piled one atop another. Their mana shields were broken, and like an evaporating mist, their inner mana was leaking to the air. On top of the pile, there was nothing. And by nothing, Martyn could actually feel an area that was a complete void of anything, no life, no air, nothing. A single space, more than double the size of a single oulk, that should not exist. Without looking away, his hand searched inside his quiver, until he pulled an arrow covered in runes.

He started focusing directly on the black tip of the arrow, willing his mana to start forming a circle right on top of it. Martyn cursed inside him as he knew that the sigils and runes for that spell were simple enough that any competent magician could form them in a few seconds, but his unnaturally thin mana stream was far too unwielding and it always took him a much longer time to cast a spell compared to either their clan shaman, or his master, the only two mages he actually knew.

Jared's puzzled face, when Martyn didn't point towards the direction of their hunt, distorted to a visage of pure malice, his teeth grinding with each other, and a shallow breath left his lungs as the young mage pulled a black tipped arrow and started concentrating on it. He spotted the young, red headed warrior that was the last member of their trio, Arion, unbuckling his backpack and letting it silently and slowly to the ground as he was nocking up a similary runed arrow on his bow. A guttular growl escaped his lips as he himself dropped his bow and unsheathed his sword.

As Arion heard Jared growling "Demon", he looked to his right, watching the, already huge, man growing slightly larger still and his eyes flaring up with a red glow, and, like they were trying to match him, the runes on his sword flared up in flames.

Less than half a minute later since Martyn clenched his fist, he pulled back the string of his bow, and let the arrow fly towards the northwest. And like well trained dogs, Arion and Jared lept forward trailing the wailing arrow as it flew, avoiding any obstacles in its path, towards its marked target. A second latter, somewhere in front of them, they heard the explosion of the burst arrow followed by an unearthly scream.

Jared was first on the scene, noone could match the speed of a rager in his trance. He rushed towards the green demon, as he surveyed his surroundings. It was obvious that the demon had dragged and piled the three dying animals in the center of a clearing, probably enjoying watching them slowly bleed to death before he would devour them. Only half of the top animal was left, probably the place the young shaman had fixed his arrow towards, the explosion destroying half of the animal, but simultaneously launching the demon away.

The demon was trying to stand up, a process inhibited by the fact that one of its three legs was scortched, i's green flesh seared as black puss oozed from its wounds. One of its three, trunk like, arms had a deep gush in it, probably from his fight with the oults, their tusks being not just for show. It was a weird beast on all accounts, three legs and three arms positioned around its spherical, much smaller, main body, without a head or any other extermities. But its most frightening ability was that its skin could almost perfectly match its surroundings, provding excellent camouflage. Jared thanked the Gods that the demon's arrogance and sadistic tendencies deprived it from its biggest asset as it layed in the middle of the clearing, and he charged in.

The moment Arion stepped in the clearing he saw that Jared was already next to the demon, pulling his straight sword out of one of its legs. He saw the arms of the beast extending and, like a whirlwind, rotating along its main body as they fell like hammers towards Jared. The rager had already turned the flat of his blade towards the monstrous arms, and used his left hand as a brace on the blade as he used it as a shield towards the attack. Despite the man being less than half the size of the demon, the only effect of the deadly cascade of attacks was that its sheer strength forced the rager on his knees.

Before the first arrow hit the arms of the demon, Arion had already nocked another runed arrow that he let fly towards the exposed main body. The fire burst wasn't as big as a shaman's would be, but it was enough to give pause to the relentless assault of the demon, and the second explosion caused it to stagger a step behind. With one of its legs burned, and the other wounded, the demon stumbled behind, almost losing its balance, and the pause was enough for Jared to regain his footing. With a scream, the giant of a man, clutched his sword with both hands, spun it around his head, and chopped the already wounded leg cleanly off the demon, his sword searing the flesh cleanly.

"BACK" Martyn, watching just a step behind Arion, yelled, as he finished his magic circle.

Jared jumped back, as he saw a tiny bead of fire colliding with the demon's main body, before exploding in a ball of fire big enough to scorch the entirety of it. As the flames died, the demon let loose another scream, as it tried to lumber towards the three of them, another rune etched arrow from Arion on its body exploded and in the demon's confusion it was followed by a bellow from Jared as he jumped a good ten meters in the air, dropping with all his might towards it. His monstrous strength, aided by the momentum of the fall, allowing him to pierce the main body and impalling it to the ground.

The two men instantly looked straight towards Martyn who nodded “It was alone, I can't sense another Xed, or any other kind of demon, in a two hundred meter radius”

A few seconds latter, the twitching monster disolved to a thick black mist. With senses on alert, the three people watched as the mist slowly dispersed into thin air.

"At least there isn't a gate nearby" Arion broke the silence. "Also, Martyn, I'm all out of rune arrows..."

"I've made and gave to the elder a bunch of them the other day, I'm not the one responsible for distributing them you know"

“Well... yeah. But you know how stingy the guys at the council are, and since we are now like... friends and all that...”

“Friends my ass. You gave the poor kid hell for the first ten years of his life.” Jared interrupted as he finished cleaning his blade. “Now cut the chit chat. We need to build a makeshift stretcher to carry some of this food back. Arion, you help me carry them, Martyn, keep your eyes up all the way till the village, we need to know if there are any more of them. Also, why the hell did you go and blow up half an oult? We could have used that meat.”

“It was the easiest way to blow up the demon's leg. You know I can't fix a tracking spell on a demon. And I didn't want the thing to leap away and escape. Regardless, even one full grown oult is fine, and how would you carry three of them?” Martyn shrugged “We have plenty of meat either way now, maybe enough for a feast even. By the time another party comes to collect the other two oults, scavengers would probably have eaten them”

“No way any animal comes close to where a demon was for at least one day. And it would take less than half a day for a group of ragers if they won't drop their trance to be here.”

“Are you planning on killing your troups Jared?” Arion snorted. “No way you or any other rager could keep your trance up an hour, let alone half a day.”

“Hah. Let me worry about that. Normally yes. But normally, food enough for weeks don't drop on your door.”

“I'm calling your bluff Jared. Ten iron pieces you're bullshitting us.” Martyn joined in.

“Pray child that you don't see us really fighting. You've been blessed that no war or major gate had spawned the few years you are alive.”

“But...” Arion tried to continue but was quickly cut by Jared.

“ENOUGH. If we spend the troups to gather the rest of the animals or not is up to the Elder. We can carry at least one, and that's plenty already. Martyn, do your job, Arion, with me”

Martyn closed his eyes and concentrated in his surrounding as the duo started chopping thick branches to make the stretcher. By the time they were done he already had checked around half a mile around them and seen nothing, but there was no need for anyone here to know that. "Tell no one of how far your sight can reach", his Master's 3rd rule echoed in his mind. “We are clear to go”

*

“You're not holding a grudge against me, do you Martyn?” Arion was mumbling on the way back. “You know that don't you? I was just trying to awaken you. A-WA-KEN you” He said playfully. “How should I know that you would become a fricking shaman, and so, unable to be awakened?”

“Less chatting, more carrying, and let the boy do his job at peace Arion. We need to hurry up and report about the demon.”

“Grumpy old man” Arion muttered under his breath.

“Hrmf. Old? I'm just sixty you fool, that's not even middle aged for a rager. I'll be beating you up in duels till you're an old man” Jared snickered.

Both of them halted and looked back as they heard something dropping on the ground. Martyn was staring straight ahead, pale as a ghost, his bow on the ground as beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.

“No way...” He muttered as he dropped everything and started running straight ahead. Arion and Jared dropped the stretcher and followed suit.

*

Chapter I: A life's end

Jared couldn't understand what was going on. They were nearing the village, in about a mile they would reach the fields that were cleared, for safety reasons, around the village. And then, the damn child dropped everything and started running blindly straight ahead. Even if it was safe so close to the village, it simply didn't make sense. What troubled him the most thought, was the expression of pure terror before Martyn took off. Surely, he wasn't a veteran at just seventeen years old, but he had faced even a few demons before, and the child's expression was filled with more terror than even the first time he saw one of them.

The young shaman was an asset alright. Their village was never large, only one in four or five people awakened as ragers, their bloodlines thin. But ever since that southern mage came and spotted that the kid had a talent for magic, something that even their village shaman missed, things have been looking up. The village was slowly expanding, both the southern and the kid had an extremely good talent at making runed arrows, and even a few runed swords like his own. Traders were already starting to show up and their own stockpile for emergencies was rising. As all shamans and ragers, even small amounts of magic usually meant a longer life than the average person, and if he could make “a bunch” of runed arrowheads a day at such a young age, that only meant that he would grow up to be a prominent figure in the future.

That was the main reason their shaman only sent him, one of his ten captains, and Arion, who despite being annoying, was one hell of a fighter, even without any remarkable talent, as escorts to the kid when they were going hunting. An activity that took less and less time as the kid could quickly find worthy prey in a matter of a few hours.

Jared's thoughts were interrupted as the smell of something burning invaded his nostrils. With his senses, enhanced like all ragers, and the wind blowing towards them, he couldn't determine exactly how far away this burning originated, but the only thing that was in that direction was the village.

Jared, drew his sword and let his emotions overcome him. As a raging tempest, he felt the familiar burning sensetion spreading from his chest, enveloping all of his being, the world seemed to slow down a bit, as his speed exploded. His muscles strained against the loose leather armor as they expanded, and his senses became even sharper. He felt the runes on his blade pulsing along his heartbeat, his sword becoming one with him. In the blink of the eye, he had already passed Martyn and was racing towards the village. As the sounds of battle, the screams, and the scent intensified, so did his pace as well, till he was running like a madman towards his home.

For a fleeting second, before the scene in front of him overtook him, a single thought passed through his mind “We were more than a mile away from this, but Martyn...” Even in his awakened, brutal, state, he paused as the scene in front of him came into view.

The village was burning. Right outside of it, in the fields, there was a huge black tear in the air. No, not black. It was void itself, the total lack of everything. And not a tear, an ugly wound in the sky, like the very air was cut open by an invisible blade.

Around the tear, thin blue lines formed a giant circle with counless strands that were encircling the void. With his enhanced sight he could see countless runes being engraved within the circle, which was, in his best guess, made from so much condensed mana that it was visible even to the naked eye. Opposite of the tear, around ten meters away but much closer to the ground, another huge circle made of mana was forming, this one with circles within circles of itself, weird runes and symbols already dancing in the outer rims, and the inner ones were slowly filling as well. Between the circles was an old man wearing a worn out leather blacksmith's vest, and around him, ten ragers had formed a circle, like a human body shield, protecting him from a horde of small, black, dog-like, demons, Igrids, the name instantly popping into his mind, that were trying to claw their way towards the mage.

Around the small group he could see the rest of the squads.

Five warriors had circled around a Xed, showering it with runed arrows as two ragers were keeping it busy.

A little further away, three of the same type of demons were trampling over and pummelling a force of at least a dozen of his people.

Closer to him there was an Aungin. The disgusting, floating, blob of flesh, hovered about a meter over the ground. Ten ragers were around him, trying to approach it, while counltess other husks of people lay around it, dead and shrivelled. In an instant, a fleshy spike formed and launched from it towards the nearest person. Its speed so high that even he couldn't follow it. He saw a man staring with disbelief at the hole in his chest before collapsing. Almost instantly, his body shrivelled, and from within, the spike shot back towards the main body of the demon, which, as it absorbed it, grew a bit more.

A huge ball of flame that envelloped two Gruds, giant, slow moving bipedal demons that spew acid, drew his attention towards the main body of the fight. He could clearly see their shaman already preparing another spell. Around him, more than fifty ragers and about two hundred warriors were fighting, sword and bow, kicking and screaming, trying to cleave their way towards the southern mage.

But even as they were fighting against a horde of Igrids and Xeds, Jared's eyes filled with horror as he saw another, much smaller, tear appear in the evening sky. A few dozen Igrids and two more Xeds fell to the ground before it closed again. A slight pause later, the demons started rushing towards the mage as well.

For a second, Jared thought that the runes on the two huge circles stopped forming, as two rays of searing fire launched from above the mage, each one carving each approaching Xed in the middle.

“If he can kill them that easily then why...” His voice was suddenly cut as he was left speachless.

From within the huge gate, six enormous claws, three on each side appeared and tried to force the tear even more open. He saw the huge tear straining, the strands of mana around it stretching like threads trying to sew a wound. As the tear closed a bit, the claws retracted back into the void. Whatever was trying to get out of there was larger than the whole village. He glanced over towards the ten ragers that were standing between the flood of Igrids and the mage. In the distance he briefly saw another small tear opening up, more demons pooring out of it before it closed again, but at this point it didn't matter at all to him, he was already charging at full speed towards the mage, he had to keep him alive, that much he could easily figure.

As Martyn reached the edge of the woods he fell on his knees. He could see the battle, the massacre, in all of its gory glory. The ground was littered with the bodies of the people he grew up with. And an almost constant steam of black mist was slowly drifting towards a huge gate. He knew that this meant that the demons would just reform in their plane, only to appear later again, like an immortal, immoral, vile plague, sent by the Gods to devour them. There were a few smaller skirmishes, composed of few men, destined to fail, as smaller gates were already being formed above their heads, ready to refill the endless horde of demons, but the fighting was focused in mainly two fronts.

The larger force was composed of a scarce hundred of people surrounding the shaman. They were rushing from gate to gate as it was appearing, trying to destroy the biggest threats like Aungins and other demons that he had only heard in tales so far, before moving to the next gate. Whatever they were leaving alive, usually Igrids and Xeds or the occasional Grud rushed towards the second front, composed of about thirty or so ragers that were protecting his master.

Even from this distance, he could clearly see dozens of spells simultaneously forming above his master's head, as rays of fire seared through demon flesh constantly. But his eyes fell on the two enormous spells that he was trying to finalize. One of them was some kind of reinforced sealing spell. He felt like the one his master had taught him was like a children's toy in front of the complexity of this one. The second, mere meters away from the gate, was some kind of portal, but it was simultaneously like it contained spells within spells.

As the last of his stomach's contents left him for good, he saw the shadow of Arion rushing by him, running to join the shaman's group.

It didn't make sense. He knew that his master had placed countless protective glyphs and hidden spells all around the village, protections and traps to explode, seals and triggered circles. He had accompanied him when he was casting them to learn. Yet, for their force of five hundred strong people to be reduced to that, he couldn't fathom what the initial assault was.

He felt like the key to victory, if something like that could be achieved, was to let his master finish his spells, but seeing him casting so many simultaneous things, an amount of which he was certain that no one in the world could, until now, was making the progress on the two main spells a crawl.

He estimated that his master needed at least half an hour to finish the sealing spell, as for the portal one, Martyn had no clue, he couldn't even see what the other spells his master was casting were, let alone know why or how many he needed.

Clear you mind, steel your soul. No emotions. Serenity. His master's teachings echoed in his mind. But how can one be calm in a sea of demons?

You cannot cast if your are not calm. No emotions, pure logic.

Calculate calmly what you want to do, visualize it, carve the runes with your soul to enhance your vision. Make it reality.

If you are unstable, your magic is unstable.

In order to command the world, you must first command your self.

You are your own god. Nothing can trouble you.

Falter, and your magic falters. Waver, and your threads wave.

Silence the emotions within you, till you master that, even a simple spell would take too long to cast.

Martyn couldn't see the mana of the demons, if they even had such a thing, no one could. But he could easily see the mana of whatever was left in the earth around him. “I'm not strong, or fast, I get one chance, and I need to make it count” He let a breath as he tried to compose himself and expanded his mana towards the plains. The grass didn't offer any resistance as he pierced the tiny amount of mana that was enveloping it. In his mind he pictured the grass growing, becoming like thin iron spikes as it impaled his foes. He knew that Gruds and other higher demons had skin that rivaled the toughness of steel, but he felt pretty confident about lesser demons. The goal was simple, buy his master time.

He made a circle symbolizing life, an eight pointed star inside it for its eight elements. The runes started forming. Enlarge. Strengthen. Pierce. Last. It took him about ten minutes to make a circle big enough to affect the whole area he was trying to. An area as big as his whole supply of mana could affect. Two runes for enlarge, three for strengthen, one for pierce, one for durability. “One chance, one shot, one spell, one kill.” He murmured to himself as he inspected his spell for the last time.

Three hundred meters away, in a circle around the people protecting his master, the grass became alive for a split second. Like thin needles it sprung from the ground, two meters high, impaling dozens of Igrids and forming a solid wall around them.

Before he could smile in relief, Xeds launched themselves into the air, landing on his spikes, impaling themselves in the process. His puzzled expression changed to despair as he saw the rest of the Igrids using the bodies of the Xeds, which for some reason weren't disolving into mist, as bridges over his makeshift wall.

Spent, with his mind buzzing and his vision blurring, Martyn drew his sword and let out a cry. His eyes flared red, as his body expanded a bit, and he charged in.

His awakened form was childish compared to all the ragers he knew, yet his master's rules echoed in his mind

Rule number one: Never show anyone that you are a rager

Rule number two: Never, ever, try to cast a spell while awakened

Rule number three: Never tell anyone how far you can see

Rule number four: Never assume awakened form until I tell you so

Rule number five: Never...

His mind was slowly shutting down, lost in a sea of emotions and violence, tired but unwielding, as he was cleaving through lesser demons on his path towards his master.

Four Igrids launched themselves with ungodly speed towards him, their foaming mouths spelling death. He cut the first one as he rolled to the ground, his sword already cleaving the flesh of the second one. Without standing up, he launched a kick on the head of the third one, snapping its neck. As the last one jumped on top of him, he let his sword down, grabbed its head with both hands, and smashed its skull.

He let a sign of relief, his body in constant pain, spent. Most ragers could go for about an hour before reaching this state. There were even rumors about secret medicine that would allow you to go on for hours. But he himself, out of practice and without training, was only good for a few minutes before his body collapsed. He noticed that it turned completely dark. As he opened his blazing eyes, he saw a giant towering above him and looking down. The eyeless Grud opened its disquisting toothless mouth, ready to spit its acid on him. Resigned, Martyn looked at his fallen sword and willed the simplest spell he knew with his last power. A tiny circle containing just a single rune of fly and pierce. He saw his blade launching itself towards the open maw of the demon.

“Rule number two: Never, ever, try to cast a spell while awakened” Was his last thought as a searing pain enveloped his mind and everything turned black.