A bolt of Void laden lightning shattered the air and slammed into the Seed, ripping into its body and sending energy coursing throughout it. The Seed wailed in pain. Its body bulged unnaturally, like it was boiling beneath its skin.

“It’s forcibly drawing in more energy. I don’t think so,” Henry growled. He planted the axe in the ground and extended his hands. “Forget keeping my energy concealed.”

Void thundered through the air, warping around Henry. Dozens of eyes materialized around the monster, snapping open and firing beams of vibrant purple energy into its bubbling body.

Seams carved across the monster as its skin split apart. Lashing green tendrils erupted from within it, writing around on the ground. Henry’s hands glowed with energy as he pulled more and more Void through himself.

Damien could feel it rushing through his body and into Henry, but he’d drawn so much of the power into himself that he could barely feel his reserves dropping. Thick chains of heavy black metal materialized around the Seed, binding its body and struggling to contain the lashing monster.

The chains pulled it downward, snapping its legs like brittle twigs and forcing the creature to the ground.

Sylph grabbed the axe and pulled it from the ground as Henry’s eyes narrowed, increasing the intensity of the beams burning into the Seed. Hissing purple magic arced off his body, crackling in the air around him.

The Seed screeched as Sylph raised the axe. A green shield erupted around its entire body, trying to fend off their collective attacks.

“Shatter,” Damien commanded.

The Corrupted magic smashed into pieces as an invisible force slammed into it, washing it away in a flood of Void. The Seed thrashed, shattering several of the chains and lurching upward – right as Sylph brought the axe crashing down into its chest.

A sickening crunch echoed through the clearing as the weapon slammed home, digging deep into the beast’s center. It wailed one last time with enough force to throw Sylph back into Damien, leaving the axe lodged in its chest.

Its hollow eyes locked with Damien’s for an instant. A flicker of green energy flashed beneath them. Then it collapsed back, the chains rattling as they grew thicker and bound it even further.

Henry stepped forward, grabbing the hilt of the axe and pushing it deeper. With a final, grinding crack, the Seed fell limp. The chains slithered back into the ground and acid burbled up from the huge wound around the axe.

Its head lolling to the side, the Seed’s body melted away. The axe thumped to the dirt, and Henry quickly grabbed it before the growing puddle of acid could envelop it entirely. Silence fell over the clearing once more, broken only by Damien and Sylph’s heavy breathing.

“What in the Eight Planes was that?” Damien asked. Void energy still permeated his body and sizzled in his tattoos, but he ignored it. “The Corruption can draw that much power from each other? Even when they’re this far apart?”

“So it seems. That was… not good,” Henry said. “It nearly bloomed before we killed it. That could have been very bad.”

“Didn’t it seem a little too easy at the end?” Sylph asked. “I was kind of expecting more. Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“Damien and I were both using a lot of Void magic, and this is our home ground,” Henry replied. “I’d expect the Corruption to be crushed beneath that, especially since it was still a Seed. That said, it really did seem like Damien blew its defenses apart at the end. It was able to keep me at bay. Why did a single spell from him take it out?”

“That’s a good question,” Damien said, squinting at the puddle of acid as it sank into the dirt. “Maybe it ran out of energy to draw on?”

“Possible. I was restricting its access to the rest of the Corruption, but it wasn’t completely severed. Either way, we should figure this out elsewhere. The other Void creatures in the area are absolutely going to be drawn here by the amount of power Damien and I just used. The last thing we need is to fight against them while everyone else is handling the Corruption.”

Damien nodded. His staff warmed slightly as his thoughts turned to forming a portal back to the Mortal Plane. A new spell provided itself to him, the broken runes materializing in the air without his request.

“Damien?” Sylph asked. “Are you making a portal back?”

“I – they just appeared,” Damien said with a frown. “You can see them? I thought I was hallucinating.”

“They’re there,” Henry said, his many eyes squinting at the rune circle. “It’s a portal spell – a long range one, not just a path back to the Mortal Plane. When’d you learn that?”

“Just now, apparently,” Damien said.

The grass beneath their feet rippled and a distant presence tickled the back of Damien’s mind. He exchanged a glance with Henry.

“They’re coming,” Henry said. “The spell looks fine. Use it.”

Damien extended his hand and the runes shifted closer to him. His fingers touched them, and a small spark of Void energy leapt from within him and into them. Wind rushed past him as a gray and black portal twisted open before them.

“Go, quickly,” Henry said, shooting back into Damien’s shadow. Sylph grabbed the axe before it could fall, and she and Damien stepped into the waiting portal. As soon as Damien entered it, he released his grip on the staff, not wanting to maintain his connection to the Void any longer than he needed to.

Cold energy rippled around them as they pierced through the Planes. Light bloomed and the two stumbled as they were deposited on the cobbled grey stone of Blackmist’s streets. Damien turned his eyes up, the wave of nausea passing so quickly that it might as well have never even been there. His vision remained in grayscale for several seconds before color finally found its way back.

The streets were empty, but Damien could hear distant thunder of spells. Sylph sent Damien a concerned glance.

“What’s going on with your skin? Are you still using Void magic?”

“I’m not using it, but I drew in a lot to kill the Seed.” Damien looked down at his hands. The Void-infused tattoos still covered his body, though they’d stopped hurting. The Void waited patiently within his core and throughout every part of his body, infused so deeply with him that he struggled to tell where it ended and where he started. “Actually, I’m not sure if this is ever going to go away.”

“That doesn’t sound good. Is it going to have even more negative effects?”

“No clue,” Damien said.

Henry?

“Equally as unsure,” Henry said from Damien’s shadow. “It’s not like I’ve ever had a chance to observe something like this ever before. His body doesn’t seem unstable, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s no worse than what I did to you with the Corruption.”

Sylph let out a small sigh and nodded. “Good. We should probably go see if we can find Whisp and the other professors. I can hear them fighting the Corruption.”

A tendril rose from Damien’s shadow and reached into his belt, pulling out Delph’s book and offering it to Sylph.

“Here,” Henry said. “Stick the axe back in this. Best not to leave it lying around until we really understand how it works. Delph wouldn’t have kept it in a book if it was wise to leave it out.”

Sylph flipped the book open and touched the axe to it. There was a soft pop and the axe vanished, appearing within its pages. She tossed it back to Damien, who slipped it back into its sack and pulled the drawstrings shut.

***

The fight was not going well. Damien and Sylph found the temporary base camp that the defenders of Blackmist had set up with little trouble. Dozens of large tents had been set up in a large square.

Many of them were taken up by wounded mages. Even from just a glance, it was clear that there weren’t nearly enough healers to deal with the number of hurt men and women. Any wounds that weren’t immediately life-threatening had been left to be treated by more mundane means.

Whisp was in a large tent near the front, a small diorama of Blackmist and its surroundings set up on a table before her. Dozens of tiny lights flickered around it in a variety of colors.

She paced around the tent, drumming her metal clad hands against her thighs and muttering under her breath. Whisp spotted Damien and Sylph as they approached, keeping a wide berth from the injured mages to avoid interfering with the healer’s work.

“You better be coming with good news,” Whisp said. Her eyes lingered on Damien’s tattoos.

Well, she definitely recognizes that these are Void runes.

“The Seed is dead,” Damien said. “How long have we been gone?”

She let out a relieved sigh. “Good. It’s been a day since we last spoke, and the last thing we needed was another problem. Are you and Sylph able to continue fighting?”

“We’re in good shape,” Damien confirmed. “Are things going poorly in the fight?”

“This is no fight. Look at this,” Whisp said, tapping the diorama. The colors on it changed, reducing to just two. A massive sea of green covered the ground around Blackmist, only held back by a thin line of purple. “I’ve never seen this many monsters in one area in my life. Not even on the Frontlines.”

“Eight Planes,” Damien breathed. “Each of those lights is a Corrupted monster? There are thousands. How are we holding the line? Are the Professors really that strong?”

Whisp snorted. “According to Delph and Dredd, they’re significantly below average in strength compared to many of the other monsters they’ve seen. The students and professors have actually been doing a good job at holding the horde back, but there’s only so much Ether to go around with the Corruption chewing it up.”

“What about the other colleges?” Damien asked.

“They’re not getting hit nearly as hard as we are,” Whisp replied. “From what I’ve heard, there are only enough monsters attacking the other locations to keep them from reinforcing us. We’ve evidently got something the Corruption wants.”

“Is it the artifact we got from the Crypt?” Sylph asked.

“No idea.” Whisp shrugged. “We don’t have the manpower to worry about it right now. Everyone that can still fight is on rotation, holding the Corruption back for as long as possible until we can get reinforcements. The battle at the capitol is going well, and the Queen has confirmed that backup will be coming.”

“That sounds like a good thing,” Damien said, cocking his head to the side.

“It would be, if they arrive on time,” Whisp said dryly. “I’m not holding out hope.”

“How bad are casualties?” Sylph asked.

“Minor across the board, though we’ve had some losses. The Corruption doesn’t seem to be concerned with actually killing us. It’s just pushing us farther and farther back. None of the students you were training with have been killed. The Queen recalled Stormsword and Yui as soon as we all got back to Blackmist.”

“I knew he was here,” Damien muttered.

“He was keeping tabs on you for the Queen, the shifty bastard,” Whisp said. The diorama blinked, several of the lights on it turning red. Whisp cursed. “My break is over. I don’t like you, Vale, but keep your eyes out. You and Sylph. The Queen looks far into the future when thinking about the kingdom’s safety. This war isn’t the end of us, as far as she’s concerned. Don’t forget that – and get your assess to the fight as soon as you’re able to. We need the bodies.”

Whisp floated into the air and shot off, heading toward the blinking lights on her diorama. Damien watched her go, the frown on his face deepening.

“She’s saying the Queen might try to do something to you,” Sylph said.

“Yeah, I gathered as much,” Damien said. “I’d like to think that Stormsword wouldn’t sell me out, even if he knew the truth about Henry, but I’m not dumb enough to believe that for a second. I’ll just try to avoid her. Once the war is done, we can slip away and not have to worry about it at all.”

The lights on the diorama blinked once more. Damien leaned over it, studying the shifting sea of green that covered their surroundings. The green lights consistently blinked out wherever they met the purple ring, but more always emerged from the edges to take their places. The purple lights remained mostly steady, only occasionally going out. Several of them moved to and away from the model of the base camp at the edge of Blackmist.

“I don’t think it matters where we show up. The Corruption is everywhere.” Sylph’s brow creased and her lips pressed thin. “I’m not sure how much use I’ll be against something like this, though. There are so many, and I don’t have any good way to get rid of a lot of enemies at once.”

“Just keep Damien alive,” Henry said. He writhed up Damien’s back and his wings unfurled, casting a shadow over the diorama. “He likes putting himself in situations where he can get killed. Let us take care of the rabble while you just make sure the rabble doesn’t take care of him.”

“I can do that. The sooner we get there, the more people we can save.”

Runes gathered before Damien’s eyes as the Void suggested another spell. The corners of his lips curled up and he nodded. “Let’s end this before Second can do any more damage.”