Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 9 | Day 9

I can barely stop my hands from shaking thanks to habit after I’m fully set up on the large branch of a tree. But the sight of the cliff through the scope still has me taking in a cold breath of air. One that quickly leaves me as I also register the sight of an open portal and a few dozen magicians camped outside of it.

“Cadet Fox reporting in,” I mutter into the comms while examining the ranks and Classes of the magicians, “thirty-one magicians currently spotted outside of the portal with the minimum Classification being Class C, and the maximum being Class B. Awaiting for further orders.”

Several seconds pass in silence as I keep watch on the magicians, using them as a way to keep my mind off of our current location before a response comes in on the comms.

“Hold your position until we advance, wherein you must retreat back to base,” I hear a voice that I wasn’t expecting respond. The same voice – that belonging to the commanding officer of our vanguard forces, Colonel Milson – continues a few seconds later, “the rest of the cadets are already falling back, but we need you to stay for a little longer.”

Before I can ask anything about why they’d want me – a Class E magician – to stay on the front lines while the other cadets have already left, the line goes dead, and I can’t get it to connect anymore.

“Shit,” I mutter, “this is the doctor’s doing, isn’t it?”

It only takes looking up above the magicians at the portal barely a minute later to get my confirmation thanks to the sight of an enormous portal opening above the mountains. Then, coming out of a second portal just beneath the first is the doctor with his usual expressionless face on display.

I quickly turn my attention back to the magicians at the cliff, just to find them all going on alert at the doctor’s appearance before turning again to look at the Republic forces to find them doing the same.

Guess no one was privy to the doctor’s actions beforehand.

The doctor is still wearing that very same black and white lab coat over his purple suit as he always is, but surprisingly, he doesn’t have the lab coat buttoned up this time. And that makes me realize just why it’s always buttoned up.

Because on the underside of the lab coat is some sort of portal.

Has he seriously been wearing some sort of magi-tech lab coat all this time?!

Suddenly, my comms beep again, reconnecting to the Republic forces as a voice comes through the line to all of the soldiers, “Doctor Leodmir Archeron, the only Class S space magician known to have ever existed, has appeared on the battlefield armed and ready for battle. It is highly recommended to retreat as quickly as possible if you value your lives.”

The connection then cuts off almost immediately after they finish speaking.

Do I recognize that voice…?

I pull my sniper rifle over my shoulder before beginning my climb down the tree while trying to remember where I recognize…

Oh. The Healer General.

Guess he isn’t in the doctor’s pay books like the colonel is. Or maybe the colonel was just being threatened?

Either way. Same result.

“You’ve all interrupted my experiment,” I suddenly hear the doctor’s cold, emotionless voice echoing throughout the entire mountain range with so much impact that it knocks me down the rest of the way to the ground from the tree. “Take your punishment and be gone.”

Just a few seconds later, I hear explosions beginning to erupt from all around the mountain range. And when I look up, all I can see are purple flames for as far as the eye can see. Flames burning down the trees. Flames burning down the Class B and C magicians who can’t seem to do shit to stop it. And purple flaming rocks shooting down from the enormous portal above us in every direction.

Hmm. Well, shit.

How is he even making flames? I’m pretty sure a space magician shouldn’t be able to use fire.

Unless it’s somehow possible to do it by messing with space itself? These flames are purple after all, which is part of the color of spatial magic.

Then again, he could’ve just used space magic to grab some burning rocks from somewhere.

I look around my surroundings, just to find flames everywhere, cutting off any possible escape route I could use. Then I look up again and find a purple flaming rock shooting straight towards me.

Huh. Guess he’s going to act like he killed me after all.

I close my eyes in expectation of being teleported out any second now, but all I feel is the heat growing stronger and stronger as the rock continues shooting towards me. Eventually I open my eyes to find it almost here, and I still haven’t been teleported out yet.

Are you fucking kidding me? Is he really going to blast me with that rock?!

My answer comes quickly as it impacts the ground where I’m at and a pain worse than anything I’ve ever felt before flashes for an instant followed immediately after by everything going dark.

The sky, where the Leodmir is floating

The doctor emotionlessly watches the forest scattered across the mountain range burn along with most of the soldiers and magicians within it, only to glance off towards the West, where he senses an approaching Class S magician.

‘So that chairman brat is finally coming?’ Leodmir thinks to himself while putting his hands in his pockets. ‘Took him long enough.’

He then glances down at a particular crater, where nothing can be seen but charred ground and the remains of the purple meteor the doctor had tossed at Nathan.

‘That should get rid of his academy uniform,’ he thinks while watching tiny specks of blood begin to appear out of seemingly nowhere before joining together. This process continues for a few minutes, all of which the doctor is watching with more interest than he’s shown for the massacre he had just conducted. However, after a couple more minutes, he turns his head with a frown to the side and speeds over to meet with the approaching Class S magician so that he doesn’t discover Nathan.

The outer base located over a kilometer South of the Pass.

“The ID you are trying to contact no longer exists.”

The words echo through the small corner that Nathan’s team had taken for themselves after arriving at the base. But none of them are happy for having survived. Instead, they can all be seen staring off at the burning mountains with dread on their faces.

“No… he can’t be dead!” Amelia eventually shouts before trying to rush over there, only for Aidan to hold her back. Initially, she fights him; trying to get out of his arms to rush over to the mountains. But after a little time passes, she eventually gives up and collapses into his arms while crying.

Not even a second later, Aidan starts crying with her.

Meanwhile, Cyria can be seen staring off at the purple flames with an empty look in her eyes.

Nathan

It’s dark.

That’s the only thought I can really think of for I don’t know how long.

I can’t feel anything. I can’t see anything. I can’t even hear anything.

It’s almost as if I’m in some sort of void where I’m the only thing that exists.

That is, until the pain registers.

A mind numbing pain that has me wanting to scream. But I can’t scream for some reason.

The pain continues for what feels like an eternity before I finally regain my sight, followed soon after by my hearing and my other senses. And the first sight that greets me is that of a flaming forest from within a purple crater.

I find that I’m naked for some reas-

Oh. That’s right.

That fireball or rock or whatever probably incinerated my clothes along with me.

My eyes widen sluggishly as I think about my sword and rifle, only to close again at the realization that they’re probably gone.

I continue lying here for a few minutes before opening my eyes and attempting to get up.

It takes a lot of effort at first. Almost as if I were a newborn trying to move for the first time. Except with the muscles to do so.

But as soon as I finally manage to climb to my feet, I find a portal opening right beneath them.

“Shit,” I mutter a lot quieter than I had planned to as I find myself falling into the portal, just to reappear on the other end of it, still falling until I land on my butt on what seems to be dead grass. Before I can gather my bearings though, a bunch of stuff falls on my head after me. And when I look to see what it is, I find one set of clothing that looks like some sort of black outfit made of simple enchanted leather, what looks like an improved version of my sniper and my sword, and a map. One that looks rather worn down and is probably outdated.

But what catches my attention more is the groaning and clacking of something that I hear around me. That and the place that the map is a map of.

I raise my head to find myself in a meadow full of dead trees, grass, zombies, and skeletons.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I mutter.

The doctor dumped me into the Kingdom of the Fallen.