AO 5 Ch 6

The magic high above spun out of control, a descending tornado of lightning twisting back and forth, continuing to suck on my magic.

"Now would be a good time to do something worth gloating over," Emlyn said. 

The spinning column of lightning touched down amid the fort, vaporizing some of the stone and sending others hurtling through the air. I heard the snap as a full-grown tree was broken by one of the flying stones. 

"I don't usually agree with everything she says, but if you can do something about this, I think I would let you brag," Melida said. 

She was in the same position as I was at the moment. Her magic was still tethered to the out-of-control spell. The hold that her grandfather had on it was still present, but incredibly weak. I could only imagine he was not in great shape. 

Reaching to the connection that was sucking all of my magic, I tried to wrangle the massive spell, envisioning it moving away from us and towards Chillwind Pass. At the very least, I needed to get it away from General Trevis, who had fallen out of the air not far away from where it was touching down on the fort. Honestly, it wasn't looking good for him. 

The spell resisted every effort that I pushed towards it. It had possibly gone beyond being a spell and transformed into a natural disaster, the kind that could level entire kingdoms. Lightning spun out from the column and sliced through the air, scarring what was left of the mountain beside the pass with a deep gouge. 

My mind was almost separate from my body at present. Instead, all of my focus was locked on the spell and trying to shove it with my will. It felt like trying to push a mountain. 

Whatever this was, it was simply too large for me to push. So, the mass of magic didn't have a will of its own, but it had become self-stable and beholden to the laws of physics and magic to the point that my will was nothing more than a force. 

I tried to fly, smacking against a window. I then tried to channel my magic such that I could drive it through any addition, yet the magic I was pouring into it was like a drop in the ocean. It simply wasn't enough to have the desired effect. 

And then the stupidest idea I'd had yet entered my mind. I reached into my Soulguard, grabbing Cyam and giving him a quick apology. 

"Sorry, buddy, but we're gonna give you a little boost." 

I had on several occasions pumped the horse's soul with so much magic that he became akin to a supercharged monster. I wasn't sure what would happen if I tried to use him with this much magic, but based on the way the spell was spiraling out of control, I needed to use every option available if I wanted us to live.

Another flash of lightning hit the ground fifty feet from us, creating a scar big enough to bury a carriage. 

"Whatever you're doing, do it now," Emlyn was nearly begging me. 

If it was a less dire situation, I would have loved to take the opportunity to tease her. However, the fact that I did not only punctuated the intensity of the current situation.

I shoved Cyam's soul through the connection I had to the magic, flooding him with as much lightning magic as I could, and allowing him to become part of the spinning tornado of lightning. As soon as I did that, something happened. The cylinder of lightning shifted, bulged, and stretched as if something was trying to emerge from it. I desperately hoped it was the form of a horse, only for it to snap back into the spinning cylinder and fall off the fort towards our group. 

"Whatever you did, it didn't work the way you wanted it to," Emlyn said, grabbing me in a clear panic. Then, I felt Cyam's connection to my soul flood with lightning magic. My body locked up, and I choked on my own throat from the horror of the amount of magic suddenly entering my soul. 

I wanted to curse. "You fucking horse. Don't bring it back with you." Yet, I felt Cyam's desire to make this work. As lightning flooded into my soul, I imagined it striking the new walls heavily veined with blue steel, the magical metal capable of channeling even the most powerful of anchors' magic. I imagined that I could hit my walls and run through them, just as if Emlyn's magic would run through her sword. 

The spinning tornado of lightning grew more orderly.

A bolt shot out from it, but only shot thirty feet in the air before coiling back into the spinning chaos of magic. The spell lifted off the ground, rising into the air more like a disc and less like a natural disaster. The entire time, I was still feeding the spell magic, but at the same time, Cyam was still amid the magical anomaly, feeding it into my soul, where it spun around the walls before being fed back out. 

Like this, the loop of magic began to stabilize, and I began to exert my will, joined with Cyam's, to regain control of the spell. 

"Emlyn," I managed to speak, "I need to see the pass."

"Wait, you want to go up there?" Emlyn said incredulously. 

"Yep, I have control of this, but I need an outlet. While I have control, I need to use this mass of magic to save the fort." 

Emlyn's teeth clacked together as she grimaced and scooped me up. Then she launched both of us up amid the collapsed fort. She ran steadily as if I were a bucket of water she was afraid of spilling, which I appreciated. I would hate to spill lightning all over both of us. 

"Is this good?" Emlyn asked as she crested to the top of the ruins. From there, I could see the Garrish army. Soldiers had fled in fear, their shining helms flickering as they reflected the ring of lightning above the backs of their breastplates. Catching the light as well, it seemed even the fear that the mages had instilled in the common man was not enough for them to face this much raw magic. However, as they retreated, several forms lingered. Even though I couldn't make out his details, the one that stood confidently in the past could only be the powerful mage.

Even though I had stabilized the spell, it still wasn't going to be easy to unleash it in a focused blast. Trying to grab just a fragment of it, I launched an attack at the mage.

The hit missed by nearly fifty feet. However, I blew a chunk of a pass away, causing rocks to cascade down the cliffside and into the desert below. The mage didn't even flinch as some of those falling rocks came back up, flying at Emlyn and I instead.

I could see the indecision in Emlyn's face, but luckily the moment was broken as Aurelia leapt up in the path of one of the rocks.

Her flaming axe cleaved it in two, shielding me from the attack. Zuri's arrows of light peppered the smaller chunks, causing them to explode harmlessly before they reached me. Maribelle, on the other hand, put her short body in front of me as if she was going to guard me with it. 

"You can put him down," Maribelle said. "Sir will not take any harm while I'm here." 

Emlyn scoffed, but she placed me on my feet. "Think you can stand?" 

My teeth chattered, my body feeling like it was both freezing and sweltering hot at the same time. All of this magic coursing through me could not be good for my human form. 

"I just need a little more time," I said, gathering another spool of the lightning from the spinning disk above and slamming it down on the pass. This time it flew far behind the mage, all the way into the retreating army. As soon as it hit one of the metallic helmets, it branched into a thousand forks, suddenly charring a huge chunk of the retreating army. 

"Whoops," I said. "This is harder to aim than it looks." 

I reached out to Cyam, sending him directions as I threw the next bolt. This time it wasn't a jagged bolt zipping off haphazardly. Instead, it came out in the shape of a horse, roaring with thunder like a thousand hooves as it went straight for the powerful Garrish mage. 

But the mage waved a hand, and the entire pass seemed to bend up before him, earth blocking lightning in an explosive display. Shards of rock and dust filled my vision, but I wasn't done yet. 

Throwing three more charging horses of thunder, I sent them stampeding down to where the mage had been.

A moment later, all three charging horses were pierced by beams of light that even in the afternoon sun made the darkened sky bright once again. Those thundering horses exploded with enough force to shake me even as far away as I was. 

Maribelle grabbed my arm. "You need to finish this." 

I glanced down at her. Her eyes were full of concern. Then I felt my teeth chatter once again. She was right. This was enough magic that General Travis had been unable to handle it. I needed to expend as much of it as I could. 

Rather than continue to throw fragments of this spinning wheel of lightning that I could not control, I grabbed the whole thing out of the sky. Imagining it like a giant carriage wheel, I slammed it down in front of the fort and began to roll through it.

I struggled to control the wheel; I vastly underestimated just how fast a wheel of lightning would go. As soon as it started in front of the fort, it was already halfway down the pass, meeting resistance as the Elder Mage made a ramp out of stone to divert its path off the cliff and away from the rest of the army. 

With a force of will, I grabbed onto it like a spinning disc and slammed it back onto the pass. It flew sideways, my body straining as I angled myself to try to maintain control. The wheel tried to pull away but I held it with every muscle in my body. As it moved, every living thing on that pass was vaporized by the giant wheel of lightning until soon, I was done. 

In relief, I relaxed my control, only for the wheel to jettison away from me, sliding all the way down the pass and into the fort beyond. The explosion that resulted shook the broken edge of the pass, sending rocks falling down. The mountain range at the end of the pass shuddered, snow falling from its peaks and rocks tumbling down in the distance. 

Suddenly, free of the spell, I felt Cyam snap back to Soulgard, and my knees buckled. The bones in my body now felt like they were made of pudding.

Maribelle caught me, her life magic grounding everything still within me. I didn't have time to think for myself. I just did as she said, slamming my lips to hers. Her hair puffed up, sparks scattering off of it, even as arcs of lightning danced on the ground around us. They scattered anything remotely metallic within the ruins of the fort. The discharge and the display from Maribelle lasted about a minute before I finally felt empty of all the magic inside of me. I just rested against her, my forehead against hers, while she rubbed my back. 

"You did wonderful, sir," she said, her voice soft. "So much power." Her voice shook, and I could tell the fanciful thoughts that danced through her head. She was having sudden ideas of me crumbling kingdoms and forcing her and others to their knees. I was too weary to entertain her thoughts or the excitement that was filling her. Frankly, I just wanted to sleep. Yet, the world wouldn't be so kind to me. 

Red hair, a little too faded to be Aurelia's, moved in my peripheral vision. Aurelia's aunt had appeared with a bloody and scorched General Trevis. She held him in her arms and practically knocked Maribelle and I over. 

"Heal him," she demanded. If looks could kill, the Virel anchor would be dead a thousand times over from the scathing glare Maribelle gave her. She reached around me and touched the Elder Mage. I could feel her draw from my Serpent Sphere as she flooded him with life magic, causing the Virel to frown. 

"I thought you were an anchor, not a mage," she said. Maribelle gave her a haughty look. 

"I am the anchor of a four-sphere mage. I am the anchor of Sir, and your expectations do not define his abilities nor mine," Maribelle spoke evenly. Every word somehow felt like a threat. 

I had something witty, incredibly witty, just at the tip of my tongue. However, my mind wasn't in a state to let the perfect comment loose. Instead, everything faded into darkness, and I felt myself relax in Maribelle's arms, falling unconscious.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Missy said, a smile on her face that suggested otherwise. She was perched on a metallic parapet. I groaned and sat up.

"And how exactly is that?" I asked. "You hiding in my soul while I fight for my life?"

"Har har," Missy replied, clearly unamused. "You were quite brazen there, channeling that amount of magic. For a minute, you were more magic than flesh, almost like a guh..." She started with a 'G' before hesitating and finishing it with, "goddamn idiot."

I chuckled. "It worked though, didn't it? At least before I passed out, I'm pretty sure I annihilated everything on the pass."

"Oh, you did," Missy confirmed. "That and more. That ring of destructive lightning carried past the pass and completely destroyed the fort on the other end. The entire Garrish army is gone."

I raised an eyebrow. "Like gone gone?"

"Yes, Ard, gone gone. I don't think you'll be seeing anyone from that army ever again."

I whistled softly to myself. "I mean, I knew that I was going to do something, but completely gone?" I leaned forward, a part of me still not believing her.

"I'm not going to repeat myself. And stop fishing for compliments," Missy chided me. "You quite nearly perished, hence the idiot part."

"Well, sometimes you have to take a risk," I shrugged. Even though I couldn't actually see Missy's face, I could feel the glower that she was giving me. The goddess was not happy.

"Fine, I will be more careful.” I offered.

She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "Thank you for saying that, however, I'm fairly certain we both know you won't be."

"Hey, even if that's the truth, you could at least humor me."

"Fine, Ard, be more careful," Missy said, sounding exhausted. "For a second there, I thought I was going to have to step in and keep your own soul in your body."

I glanced around at Soulgard. The bits of blue steel embedded in all of the stone walls seemed fine, as did the city itself. "Huh, I expected it to be more smashed up," I admitted.

"To my surprise as well," Missy looked out over the city. "However, the blue steel in all of it was a fantastic conduit for the mana. A fantastic conduit for the magic. Perhaps you are actually onto something here," she gestured at Soulgard. "However, I would beg you not to make a habit of what you just did. Like I said, for a moment you were more magic than flesh. There was so much magic within your soul that it was bleeding out directly into your body, threatening to disrupt your very form."

I clicked my tongue. "That sounds bad. I will try not to do it again."

"Try hard," Missy said. "But otherwise, you have struck a blow to the King of Garrish. He will feel that a piece of his soul just died."

"Wait, it didn't like… return to him?" I asked. That's what I had expected, given things with Maribelle.

"No. It was not returned to him. You completely obliterated that body and everything else for the next mile. I was actually a little disappointed," Missy said. "If there had been a body, then there could have been a connection," she gestured vaguely.

I remembered how she had tried to attack the King of Garrish through Colin's soul, and wondered if she would have been able to do the same to one of the counselors. I had a feeling she had been hoping to do just that. I wondered if her earlier warning about the counselor had been just for the purpose of getting her medallion stuffed in his still warm blood, dipped in his still warm blood, to go after the Garrish King. For whatever reason, Missy wanted him dead.

"Well, sorry to disappoint," I said, making a small bow. "But I was just too incredible, my magic too potent for even a body to remain."

"Not even a drop of blood," Missy crossed her arms. "When I say obliterated, I mean completely and utterly removed from the face of this planet. I'm not even sure his soul remained, given how much effort he was putting into blocking that at the end. He likely burned that out anyways."

I hissed at the amount of power that must have been behind that ring of lightning, and the danger we had narrowly escaped when Cyam and I had teamed up to regain control. If that had blasted, if it had gone wild, who knows how much of Avente would have been leveled.

"Either way," Missy said, walking up and putting a hand on my shoulder, "Good job, Ard."

I felt a slight heat on my cheeks, even though this was not a real body. "Thanks," I replied quickly, before any emotion could creep into my voice. "I was just trying to save the day. But I'm happy that for once, even a goddess recognizes how incredible I am."

With that, I could feel Missy roll her eyes before she disappeared, not wanting to deal with me any longer, or perhaps having finished her checkup on me. Undeterred, I sat down and looked over my castle as my body worked to heal further.