Camilla had no strength left in her body. It took everything she had to lift her head, but when she saw her bare lower body, she knew that what had happened was not a dream. She really had been almost killed, but somehow she managed to claw back her life.
She didn’t know what the catalyst had been, but she could guess that it had nothing to do with that flugel she saw in that meadow. There had been a dark pulse of magic that revived her, and it came from her heart.
With that in mind, Camilla clutched her chest, feeling her heartbeat, sensing the gem next to her heart. Kagriss’s core. Not only was it completely fine, but the magic she felt from it was livelier than ever. Magic far beyond her current reach emanated from it, and when she looked to the side, she saw the chains that Kagriss manipulated, fending off that unspeakably powerful skull king.
In an instant, it all made sense.
“So it was you that saved me, Kagriss. Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arm around Kagriss’s neck and tried to pull herself up. However, Kagriss pushed her back down, the worry in her eyes clear.
“Don’t move. You’re still weak,” she said. “I’ll take care of the rest, so just sit tight and wait for me.”
Camilla smiled at her words, but she shook her head. Yes, Kagriss had gotten stronger, but there was still a sizable gap between her and the skull king. Any mage could tell.
Even putting aside the difference in raw power, there was also the difference in experience. Kagriss had evolved for barely a minute, but it’s been almost a millennium since the skull king reached his current height, even if he had spent most of that time slumbering away in the heart of the dark fortress.
There was also the warning that Kagriss had given Camilla about evolving too soon.
Even now, the shockwaves of magic that swept through the air and shook her insides proved Kagriss’s words.
A juggernaut embodied, the skull king was slowly making his way through the layers of defenses that Kagriss had set up. Even as the rings of chains around the two of them rose up to attack and entrap the skull king, the giant skeleton simply powered through it with brute force where he could. And where he couldn’t, he simply dismantled the magic forming the chains with his own skillful manipulation of mana.
Bits of pieces of dark chains flew through the air before faded away in wisps of black smoke.
Although Kagriss didn’t show it on her face, she couldn’t hide from Camilla the worry she felt and the immense pressure she was under as the skull king came closer and closer.
Camilla couldn’t just watch as a battle was being fought around her. After regaining a little strength, she pushed Kagriss’s hand off her chest and sat up again. “I won’t let you fight alone. Together, we can beat him, and it will end.”
Kagriss sighed and reached to retrieve the box she had hidden, but Camilla shook her head. Now wasn’t the time. Judging by how close the skull king was, she wouldn’t have enough time to unlock the seal before the skull king reached them. Only now did Camilla realize how naive her earlier plan with Kagriss had been.
“What are you going to do?”
Camilla shot Kagriss a bright grin, or as brightly as she could with blood staining her teeth. “Just watch; you’ll see in a moment. But before that, I’ll need you to buy me some time.”
“I can do that.”
“I also need you to get a decent distance away from me, because what I’m going to do is going to be very dangerous to people around me…”
Kagriss pouted. Camilla could tell that she was reluctant and that she wished to protest, but in the end Kagriss held it all down and nodded. Leaving behind even more rings of chains around Camilla as a last layer of defense, Kagriss retreated away from the pedestal.
Immediately, the pressure on the skull king fell away and he gained momentum, smashing his way through the chains. He hesitated for a moment as he had to choose between Camilla and the retreating Kagriss, but in the end he shrugged and continued toward Camilla.
“What’s wrong? You saved her, but now you’re going to leave your friend behind to die?” he asked. “Is she too much of a burden?”
Kagriss shot him a death glare and extended her hands, creating a sight between her fingers with the skull king in the center. “I trust her, and in the meantime, I won’t let you take another step closer.”
Chains broke out from the ground without warning. The skull king jumped aside, but there were just too many to avoid completely. Soon, chains were wrapped tightly around his hands and legs, all trying to pull him down and keep him in place.
Kagriss took a deep breath and focused on her struggling target. A dozen black stakes formed behind her, pitch black, long, and sharp. With a thought, the stakes shot forward with blinding speed, stabbing into their target and impaling the skull king. The king staggered but remained standing even against the chains’ continuous downward pull.
His eyes burned and a horrible grinding sound came from his mouth as he ground his teeth in anger. “You… dare! Don’t underestimate me!”
As more and more stakes fired toward him, he dodged the ones aimed at his head with a jerk of his neck. With titanic strength, he took a step forward, ripping the chains that restrained him up, creating fissures in the ground.
At the same time, black mist gathered around him, eating away the magical chains with his own power. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, ant!”
Kagriss gritted her teeth and sent more magic the way of her chains, trying to prevent the chains from breaking, but with each move the skull king made, her face grew a bit paler. The black stakes that were in the process of forming behind her fell apart as she dedicated all of her concentration in trying to slow down the skull king’s unstoppable advance.
“Milla, whatever you’re doing, please hurry…”
She didn’t want to admit it, but she could not beat the skull king alone.
Back at the pedestal, the destination of the skull king’s march, Camilla managed to get to her feet, having finally recovered enough strength. Her armor, a mere burden on her magic to maintain now that it was all but destroyed, was gone, replaced by a simple dress to keep her decency.
With her hands on the pedestal and her eyes closed, golden mana began to move from the stone into her body though her arm.
Camilla bit down, clenching her teeth and tried to not scream as fire filled her veins. “Don’t resist… How can I not resist something like this? Easy for her to say!” Of course, although she complained, she did not fight against the encroaching holy mana. It would be the power that will allow her to finally defeat the skull king.
Her flesh smoked and charred as black lines crept up the length of her arm. It reached her shoulders then her neck, and crawled up her face. It spread over her whole body like a painful tattoo that culminated in a pair of angelic wings that marked her forehead.
A new yet familiar voice appeared in Camilla’s mind. “We meet again… things are worse than I expected.” It was the flugel that had been trapped inside the pedestal.
Camilla grimaced. “What are you doing here?”
“Even if you have the power, you don’t have the means to use it. Once again, relax and do not resist. Please accept my first and last gift to you.”
Still confused about what that flugel wanted to do, Camilla closed her eyes and relaxed, taking down all defenses both physical and mental that she might have had up. Light poured into her mind, and with it, a fading whisper. “This will be the last time we meet. It was a pleasure to meet you and I’m sorry that you had to go through all this. I can’t even ask you to forgive her…”
Again with the “her.” But Camilla had no time to think about stray thoughts.
The black lines all over her body suddenly glowed golden with holy mana. With that radiance, the air within the entire tower began to move. All of the holy mana began to move, gathering around Camilla, forming a blazing armor over her body.
The air itself seemed to be burning as flames sparked to life and died away without rest. The chains around her melted away in an instant and only the pedestal and the lock embedded in the stone remained unharmed.
“This power!” the skull king gasped. He put up a hand as a shield against the light and took a step back, the unstoppable juggernaut’s advance suddenly halted. “Just who are you, and what is this?”
In the middle of that infernal, in that eye of the flaming hurricane, Camilla looked at her hands and the golden lines running down to her fingers. The lines burned. They hurt more than anything she had ever experienced, but the pain was distant, as if there was a wall between it and her.
She held her hand out and the shattered sword sitting abandoned in the rubble came flying toward her. It landed obediently in her hand for a moment before it melted down into golden blood. Yet more blood poured from a wound on her finger and joined with the sword to forge the weapon anew.
“Milla, are you alright?”
An undead in the middle of a holy fire was cause for worry, so Camilla couldn’t blame Kagriss for being concerned. She smiled.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that this power won’t last very long and I’m going to die soon after.” She paused as her voice began to choke up. “There’s no other way that I could see, and I can’t believe I’m throwing my life away after you gave it back to me. I’m so sorry, Kagriss…”
Kagriss shook her head. “No, neither of us will make it out of here alive, so as long as we can stay together at the end, it’s fine with me. I won’t ask any more questions since you’re on a timer, but in that case, let’s finish up before your time runs out!”
“Okay!”
The fires around Camilla burned even brighter. The air shimmered from the heat and the stone around her began to melt into a soft, glowing goo despite the element not being the flame element. The holy magic was just that intense.
The skull king could not stand it anymore. “Don’t ignore me! Answer my question!”
At last, Camilla looked at him. “Who I am doesn’t matter. What does is that I’m here to pass judgement on you for two reasons. First is the flugels that you forced to the brink of extinction. That’s one, and second is all the humans and cities you have destroyed thus far. I was once a human and it’s my duty to avenge them.”
“That’s it?” the skull king scoffed. “That’s your purpose, to avenge those ants? What a joke. You should be ashamed of yourself for attaining power for such a useless purpose! Power is to conquer! To dominate! Sooner or later, this land will be…” He froze. “Be… no. It will be mine!”
In response to the skull king’s roar, Camilla sank into a half-crouch, ready to propel her forward. Two blazing wings sprouted from the back of her armor, almost like a flugel’s wings. At the same time, the inside of the entire tower began to glow and grow hotter as the great power within the tower was finally harnessed.
