Underworld - Book 7 - Chapter 46

Aeris found no need to help the others in their retreat. They were moments from Sanctuary already. She needed to rally everyone to either leave via the northern Outer Perimeter, or the Moreerie Grove. It would be safer to do so in the open space of the Cavern Level with the canopy of the forest to escape to. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck fleeing through narrow tunnels with a wall of man-eating meat chasing after them. Because of the original plan, she expected to find them there, but then she found everyone atop the southward facing towers. Everyone.

She found Neper, the long-nosed man who was helping with their city’s construction and didn’t stop before she appeared before him.

It was so sudden that several people started channeling their mana.

“Why are you here? Why hasn’t everyone already left?” she demanded.

“Hello, Mistress Aeris,” the man replied. “We’ve received word from the Illuminated Cathedral. They are just minutes from joining us.”

“Then why didn’t you inform them about the Colossal? They should be running. Not coming here.”

When the man didn’t immediately reply, she saw it in his face. There was something he was hiding.

One of the younger girls next to the man said it for him. “The First Spear is coming. He will kill the Colossal.”

An older girl shushed her, but Aeris saw it in Neper’s face.

“Who is the First Spear?”

The man swallowed to wet his throat before answering, “Cassian Gallus. We didn’t know he was coming, but it’s true. He’s a high-ranking officer and is capable of killing the Colossal. He’s hunting it now.”

“What do you mean he’s hunting it now?”

“They’re coming from the south.”

Aeris spun back the way she had come. The Colossal was only five miles out. It could be here in moments, yet they were just hanging out here as if they were certain this Cassian would stop it and he wasn’t even here yet. It comforted her more than it should have, but this wasn’t a group of fools. The people that had come with the Whitfield’s were far more acquainted with death and the dangers of the Underworld than she was. It meant that they trusted this man to a ridiculous level.

That was only one of her worries. She thought of her husband. “Which way are you facing,” she mumbled to herself.

“I’m sorry?” the man asked.

“Did you at least tell him that Elorion would be summoning Scorching Sun?” she admonished.

“We mentioned that he was fighting it but… you’ve returned. Do you mean he hasn’t failed?”

“Failed?” She shook her head. She didn’t say it at the time because she didn’t think it would be helpful, but she didn’t doubt that he could do it. That he would do it. She wouldn’t have left him otherwise.

She didn’t fully understand it herself, but she was far more sensitive to the magic of this world than she had been before her transformation. After her Ascension, she was even more convinced. If she would’ve told El why he wouldn’t have believed her. She’d felt this before.

When he was working to create his Scorching Sun, what she sensed was similar to what she felt when she was in Xaphan’s presence. It was like he was a Primordial, but it was distinctly different. Yet it was this same instinct that had told her that Xaphan could be trusted. So when he’d walked away, it had put everything she was growing to believe in doubt. Had she misinterpreted her instinct’s meaning? Instead of trust, did it just mean that he wouldn’t harm them? But Liulfr had been trustworthy. So was Master Khaba and she got similar feelings from them. Even Sister Nava.

She glanced over to the other most south facing tower where Olivia, Russ, and the rest of Sanctuary were. If this group from the Illuminated Cathedral wasn’t willing to leave, then she’d just let them stay.

She began to fly off before she stopped midflight. She was human, at least in part. But she was also a Wind Wisp. Why was she even giving them a choice?

Flying back, she summoned the wind, and it heeded her call. There were several screams as she pulled more than fifty people off the top of the tower and lifted them into the air.

“What are you doing?” a woman cried.

“I’m not willing to leave you here just because you believe someone is coming to save you when I can do it myself. Is there anyone left below?”

She let Neper drop and he escorted a few children and an olde woman who she unceremoniously swept into the air with her wind. There were more screams when she pulled them behind her and flew to the next tower.

Her friends had been watching. Skyler and Olivia were standing on the ramparts and addressing the others. She didn’t hesitate to pull the lot of them into the air as well. Zorik squealed, but not in fear. The Water Incubus was flapping his arms like wings as if he hadn’t flown all his life before evolving.

Queen Degima had the opposite reaction. The strange fire orb eating woman was embracing herself with her arms and trying to stay absolutely still.

They weren’t the only nonhumans among their ranks. Elorion’s golems were there. Nite Nite had returned when the Colossal was spotted, and he was instructed with Vitalios, Geros, and Solethros to protect the others. The non-militant golems were here too, but they weren’t as formidable.

She flew the militant golems over and commanded them, “Protect your master’s retreat.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Nite Nite and Solethros removed themselves from her wind’s control and darted off. She dropped off the other two. And so a mobile sun with personality, a shadow golem that could take any shape it wanted, a chromed-out humanoid, and a Life golem that looked just like her husband raced away.

Seeing Olivia’s gaze, Aeris answered her unasked question. “We have plenty of healers with the people from the Illuminated Cathedral here. If it comes to it, they’ll be able to slow it down just as much

It was then that a giant bat flapped its way over with a dangling Debra in its grasp.

“Do you have her if I drop her?” Mel’s voice sounded through mind-speak.

She tilted her head when looking at him before saying, “Yes…”

The pastor’s wife was immediately caught up by her wind and rushed over.

“Why hasn’t everyone fled?” Debra called out.

“Neber said that they received message that a Cassian Gallus is almost here, and he is hunting the Colossal,” Aeris replied.

The always composed woman’s eyes widened. “This. This is bad.”

“Bad? How? Does he mean us harm?”

“No. The part about hunting the Colossal is true. The First Spear should be able to finish it before Sanctuary is completely destroyed. He will hold this over your heads in order to control your husband, and the rest of Sanctuary. He’d try to even if circumstances were different, but this will give him all the leverage he needs.

“My brother lied to me. He’s not even trying to hide his intentions. Cassian Gallus is a military leader with over two centuries of experience and a high-ranking official of the Catholic Church. He will establish his authority with a rod of iron.”

The wind around Aeris grew turbulent. He sought to rule her husband, and take over Sanctuary? “How will he do that when he’s about to run face first into the Scorching Sun?”

The woman floating in the air beside her looked optimistically skeptical. “Can he?”

Despite misreading Xaphan, she chose to trust her instincts. “I believe so. And this Cassian is approaching from the south.”

They both glanced back to see the monstrosity that was towering over the walls of the necropolis even from miles away as they flew toward the north.

***

I’d learned the hard way that my Astral Body wasn’t compatible with nuclear fusion. As I touched Artificial Sun’s core with an index finger, my HP took a hit. Light Eater was absorbing the light energy that flew past me which helped to keep me in a healthy state. It didn’t just improve my mana regen.

Light Eater

You absorb light in the area to replenish your health and mana.

The reason why the Phantom Lynx hadn’t killed me despite doing extensive damage was because my ability replenished my health to such a degree.

It was saving my life even now. I was literally creating nuclear fusion with my bare hands. It didn’t even hurt, but I was convinced it was what was happening on the atomic level that was causing me damage. I seemed immune to the heat and the pressure. That shouldn’t have been enough, but the light energy being produced by this reaction was even greater than what had been in the reflective spire. I’d thought Light Eater had a limit. It seemed its real limit was based upon the amount of electromagnetic radiation present.

Despite using my actual finger to create the reaction to keep the process as efficient as possible, it wasn’t enough. One finger at a time, I added to it. Each time my HP dipped lower. With two fingers from each hand and my thumbs, the reaction had grown to a degree I’d only glimpsed when using the focal lens.

Would Light Eater scale if I pushed it even further. Admittedly, I was only it back. I was absorbing everything flanking me and behind, but I fear if I started to absorb the light energy in front of me than I’d be undermining what I was trying.

Adding two more fingers to the surface area of the golf ball-sized core, I watched as almost 20 million of my 21.2 million HP disappeared in an instant. Light Eater responded an instant later and my HP filled to the brim. The math wasn’t adding up.

Was the size of the core too small or too large? Did I need to use more intense lasers, or maybe more less intense ones. The reaction was right there. Light Vision didn’t lie. The worst part was that I was almost sure just another step and I’d reach fusion ignition. That it would become self-sustaining.

The Colossal had me surrounded on both sides and it was no longer playing around. The bulk of it was still in its rear. That’s what came for me next. It had swallowed one of my balls of nuclear fusion and chose not to do so again directly. Instead, it blew up a mass of itself, sending a semi’s worth of half dissolved corpses flying at me at the speed of a bullet.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t have to move. The intensity of Artificial Sun’s light vaporized most of the disgusting attack’s mass before it even reached the core. What little reached it became fuel.

It wasn’t appropriate to pronounce this the ultimate defense, but I made a mental note of how effective it was. I just wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.

I had to make a decision. Death was not an option. I could always just flee, but I was so close. I could feel it.

So why didn’t I run? If it was so dangerous then why couldn’t I stop? I wanted to save those that I could and to have a place to call home. I wanted to keep my word to Aeris. To live and grow old with her. But if I couldn’t protect her then I knew that was impossible. We’d exist at the whims of the powerful. Our only freedoms would be those they allowed. As significant as that all was for me, there was more.

The first real taste I got of what magic made possible was when I caught a glimpse inside Lord Darius just moments before his death. There had been euphoria. Ecstasy as I was immersed in his mana. But that was just a feeling.

It was the nature and workings of magic itself that dazzled the imagination. It wasn’t just predetermined spells I got to play with, either. Magic had rules just like natural laws, but it could also be manipulated. There were so many possibilities, and now that I knew that natural laws and the magic realm could complement each other. They could work together to manipulate even the stars themselves. It was almost too much to handle.

Despite my doubts, the reason why I continued pushing this spell was because I believed I could cast it. I wasn’t just a Grandmaster Light Mage. While in my Astral Body I was a being of light. As the lich had taught me, I needed to give it everything. That was always his answer. But it wasn’t just the casting of Scorching Sun that needed my full attention.

Even if it was illogical, I opened Light Eater to absorb to energy coming right at me and in every direction. I felt the improvement in my mana regeneration. That wasn’t everything.

I used a segment of my mana to flood my Solar Form with Life Mana. It wasn’t nearly as effective as it would’ve been if I had less of my mana refined to Solar, but it still helped.

The Colossal had decided to not just attack me with one explosion from its mass, but multiple tendrils had risen up and were flooded with mana. They were about to crash into me.

I smiled. Cupping the core of my Artificial Sun in my palms, I completely engulfed it in Laser.