“Nobody has unlimited mana, no matter how powerful they are. Everybody runs out sometimes, though I guess for some it might take a long time indeed.” - Phillia ver Gradstadt, better known as the “Everlasting” Archmage, circa 692 FP.

The battle between the mad king – who was pretty much rendered immortal by the absurd amount of Life mana coursing through his form – and the two Unliving women – who were effectively immortal themselves due to their nature – raged on for hours, with some parts of the Royal Palace crumbling as a result.

Those damages were mostly Kino’s doing, as neither the mad king nor Aideen had the sort of power to damage such a large building. On the other hand, void magic could not care less whether it was devouring flesh and bone or solid marble and remained just as effective throughout. Kino had good control over her magic, but on the occasions where the mad king surprised her and landed a strike, it still caused her to lose some control which resulted in collateral damage.

Fortunately said collateral damage often included the mad king as well, which prevented him from capitalizing on the situation.

It was a hard stalemate between them. Neither side managed to do anything permanent to the other, due to the nature of the combatants. Both sides did horrible damage to each other – Aideen and Kino did far more damage to the mad king than otherwise, though, due to their better experience and skills – to no avail, as their opponent just got back up as if nothing happened moments later.

After another hour of intense battle had passed, however, Aideen and Kino started to feel the effect of the long battle. Their mana pools were abundant compared to the vast majority of people, but they couldn’t match the unprecedented density of mana within the mad king, which was on a level that Aideen had only ever felt from Grandpa Aarin before this.

While the mad king used more mana then they did with his reckless wild flailing and constant need to heal his injuries, he also had far more mana to spare than they did. As such, the attrition from the ongoing high-intensity battle took its toll more on Aideen and Kino than on the mad king, as they soon felt their mana running low.

Kino was the first to notice the problem as she had relatively less mana than Aideen. The girl had the talent and potential, but she also had far less time to grow, and a person’s mana pool generally grew with age and usage. Kino was only around eighty by that time, which was a far cry to Aideen who was well over three hundred already.

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“How long will we need to hold him?” Kino asked with some worry in her voice after they momentarily pushed back the mad king once more. The battle was a grueling and tiresome affair, and Kino, being less experienced than Aideen, had been the one on the receiving end of most of the mad king’s attacks so far. While she wouldn’t die from them, it didn’t mean that the pain didn’t bother her, even if Aideen could fix her up in seconds.

“Until we can somehow put him down and keep him restrained,” replied Aideen through gritted teeth as she blocked another strike from the mad king. The mad king had wizened up and started using chunks of his palace as weapons instead of using his body, which made it harder for Aideen to block him while also damaging the man at the same time. “Whenever that is.”

“I get that, but I’m also starting to run low on mana,” said Kino as she used a slender slice of void mana to turn a hurled chunk of marble into pieces that hit the ground to her left and right. “It’s been hard to regenerate my mana pool with how much I’ve needed to use it so far,” she complained. The high intensity of the battle was a constant drain on her mana, something neither of them could ignore.

Naturally, the two talked in the Lichdom’s tongue, which they guessed to be one that the mad king doesn’t speak in. It was a pretty valid guess, given how the man had only spoken in the local Vitalican tongue so far.

The way that Kino started to dial down on her offense failed to escape the mad king’s perceptions, however, and after another round of attacks, he started to increase the intensity of the battle and mocked them to their faces.

“What is it, peasants? Are you running out of mana already? I have not been entertained long enough yet! There is still so much to my godly power I have yet to make use! Please do better than this and play along with me a bit longer!” said the mad king in a sarcastic tone as he lifted a marble pillar as thick as his torso – one that Kino cut down by accident – and swung it like a massive club.

Kino responded wordlessly as she formed another thin strip of void magic that sliced the marble pillar into two pieces, but even that failed to prevent the end of the cut piece from clipping her on the side hard enough to break her arm – and likely part of her ribcage – in the process. Meanwhile Aideen was thrown back as she had to block the cut piece that still flew towards her from the leftover momentum of the swing, her weight as good as a feather compared to the massive chunk of marble.

Aideen managed to prevent the massive pillar from falling down on her, but the impact still threw her to the ground, flat on her back. Before she could rise up, the mad king had leapt and landed on her, his heel striking hard against her breastbone and shattering it effortlessly, driving her down against the ground under his weight.

“You are fools to have gone against this blessed lord, mage! With the blessings of Vitalis upon me, I am invincible! This world shall soon be mine!” ranted the mad king as he stepped down harder on her.

It was at that very moment that a sound seemed to echo from every direction at once all around them.

“No, you do NOT possess my blessings.”