Dasai
Dasai and Marin would never have been picked for the Academy War if not for Alari. Dasai was great academically, but his magic was lackluster. Marin was magically powerful, but ‘took too long to use that power.’ Alari’s insistence carried weight. She was the top student not only at Fire Kite Academy but also throughout the Isle of Magic. He still couldn’t help but feel that their loss in the Academy War, and Lakin’s death, was his fault. If someone stronger had taken his place, then maybe they could have protected Lakin. Maybe Alari would have had the support she needed to win, like she was meant to.
There was a reason they called him the Idiot Genius of Fire Kite Academy. What was the point of high test scores at a magic school if your techniques were this limited? He could create a fairly realistic copy of himself while slipping into an imperceptible state. But being useless and imperceptible still didn’t make him much of a magician.
But weak or not, Dasai River had always told himself that he was willing to die for his friends. He’d always believed that he’d take a blow for Alari or Marin any day of the week. Even though he was a coward, he liked to think he was a coward who would die for his friends. As he hung there, moments away from death, he took solace in the fact that it was true. Alari would live. She had to. Someone had to tell Marin how cool he’d been. She wouldn’t believe it otherwise. He tried to laugh, but blood came out instead of sound.
And then his world turned black.
Sen
He mentally detached himself from Dasai’s limp body falling to the ground as much as he could. In a way, he found Dasai’s act inspiring. It had been a long time since Sen faced down a threat like this. An opponent that could pose an actual threat to him? He hadn’t experienced that since fighting Garlon.
“Do you know who I am?” Sen asked.
The flesh golem turned at his words. It tilted its head, the giant mouth moved from its back to its belly and tilted slightly too. “Tell me.”
“That girl upstairs. The power you sense in her? I gave it to her. It’s only a fraction of what I’m capable of.”
Orttha rose, propping himself up on the shelves. “Sen…be careful.”
Alari crawled forward. He hadn’t realized it before, but her leg was clearly broken. Despite the flesh golem still looming over Dasai, she crawled for the body as fast as she could. She had to be in incredible pain, but she moved. It inspired Sen further. “I’ve only ever had a few friends in my life,” Sen continued. “I’m used to fighting alone. It wasn’t so people didn’t get hurt, not necessarily. It was just because nobody could keep up.”
The golem leaned on the table and rested its head on an arm, listening intently. It was…weirdly invested in Sen’s words.
“I want to show you. I want you to see who I am. I’m going to put my life on the line. If you kill me, you can have all my power. But if you lose, your fate will be horrible. Are you willing to take that chance?” Sen didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and aimed his palm at the doorway.
“Temporal Hell - Eternal - Maxima.” A black gateway to another world opened. A place where they could fight without risking the others.
The flesh golem turned to stare at the portal. It winced. “Don’t tell me what to do…” it whispered.
It wasn’t talking to Sen. It was talking to someone else. It’s master, perhaps?
The mouth in its stomach licked its lips. The creature nodded and headed for the portal, disappearing inside.
Sen stopped and looked at Dasai’s wound. The shade flame within the wound would keep it from healing. That was the problem with demons. Their magic prevented restoration and kept the soul from being recovered after death if you died from a shade flame-infected wound. It meant that Total Restoration wouldn’t work. The flesh golem had intended to seal Alari’s fate. Instead, it had sealed Dasai’s.
Being able to so effectively steal the power of a demon was yet another reason this flesh golem had to die. An execution Sen had taken upon himself to ensure. As he walked toward the portal, a book fell behind him. He turned and looked at Orrtha. “Something to read,” he said.
A moment before he walked through the portal, Alari screamed at him.
“Save him! You’ve got to help Dasai! Please!”
“I can’t.”
Alari shook her head. “I’ll give you Flamesaber.” Her sword erupted into flames in protest. But then…oddly enough, it quieted. As if offering its own consent. A magic weapon of that caliber to save someone?
Sen shook his head. “I told you, I can’t.”
He stepped through the portal, and it closed behind him.
White runes covered the ground. They were the only thing separating the two opponents from falling into an endless, space-like void. Temporal magic relied on structure. Break those structures, or lose access to the door that lets you move between realities, and you could be lost forever. He’d tested the concept plenty before building a home within one. Even fighting in a temporal world like this was dangerous. Too much power and you risked destroying not only the door but the very platform on which you stood. Leaving you to fall through space for an eternity.
Sen eyed the disgusting creature before him.
“Dunet!” the Flesh Golem said.
Sen glared at him. “What?”
“Dunet! I think that will be my name. After I kill you. Dunet.”
[He’s approaching level five hundred forty.]
Sen nodded. “Dunet, do you know why I brought you here? Into an isolated space like this?”
Dunet frowned. “To fight! Room too small.” He smiled, as if proud of himself for getting what he thought was the right answer.
Sen chuckled. “I brought you here because when I’m in a place like this, I feel like nobody’s watching.” He remembered those days when he ravaged hordes of demons in the Shadow Hell continent. Taking revenge for the way they’d treated humans. Demons didn’t need food, and the resources they did need to survive were readily available. They subsisted wholly on natural shadow magic. They had the most efficient bodies in the entire world. Yet, like outside cats, they hunt for sport rather than to eat. They raid other species just for the thrill. Sen was sixteen when he made a god submit to his will. He’d spared the villages. He killed only warriors, and he honored surrender. But if he was being honest with himself, he loved when the demon warriors refused to surrender out of some twisted sense of pride. He got to punish them. Those years were dark for him, and when he reflected on them later in life, he decided that wasn’t someone he wanted to be.
But it wasn’t someone he’d forgotten. Sometimes, evil beings needed punishment. They needed to suffer.
“Why did you name yourself?” he asked.
Dunet grinned. “They’ll tell stories about me. They’ll dread me! All over the world, children will scream and women will weep. Men will abandon their families to save themselves. I’ll become a god.”
Even his ability to communicate was improving rapidly.
Sen shook his head. “No. You won’t. You’re going to die here, and the only person who ever heard your name is going to purge it from his memories. I’m going to turn you into a stain on the ground, and then forget you ever learned to speak.”
Dunet snarled. “No! Dunet wins.”
Sen laughed. “Say your name as much as you want. You’re the only one who will ever utter it.”
Dunet charged him.
[Are you sure about this?]
“Will it work?”
[Yes. But probably too well. There’s a chance neither of you walk out of here alive.]
Sen nodded. He was too angry to care. “Soul Bind Maxima.”
Dunet stopped and scrabbled at his chest. Sen winced as he felt a similar feeling.
If you were magically inclined, you could feel if someone gripped your soul for resurrection. But there were other spells that operated in the same way. Sen had guards against malicious uses of such magic. But he could always release them. Especially when a spell required mutual ensnarement.
“What did you do?” Dunet asked. He could feel something was wrong, but didn’t quite understand it.
“I’ve tethered us to this place. Do you know what happens if we die here now?
Dunet shook his head. “What?”
Sen smiled. “Our souls would be trapped here forever. I wasn’t sure if you had a soul. But it seems you do. That’s good. This barrier beneath us.” Sen pointed at the white runes that formed a hex circle. “It protects us from the void out there.” He summoned a replica of himself. The replica walked to the edge and extended a hand beyond the runes into space, and the hand melted down to the bone in an instant. The bone then slowly crumbled to dust.
The replica pulled its hand back in, and it regenerated. It bowed toward Sen, then disappeared as he released it.
“If you die here, you’ll be trapped. When that doorway closes, you’ll burn like that for eternity. Your soul can’t escape because we’re in a different plane of existence. Isn’t that horrifying?” Sen grinned.
[Master, you risk that fate yourself as well.]
Sen ignored Tutor.
“Let me out,” Dunet demanded.
“If you kill me, the door will open on its own. That’s the only way to escape,” Sen said.
Dunet snarled. Something poked out of its shoulder, and Dunet reached up to grab it. He slowly pulled as the object formed. When it was complete, it was a hard spear made of flesh. It looked disgusting. One end looked like a sharpened claw; the other had a tuft of hair on it that matched the golem’s ponytail. “Then I'll kill!”
“Get ready, Tutor,” Sen said.
Dunet charged again, swirling his spear overhead to strike Sen.
Sen slashed his hand into the air on his right, opening his main temporal space. It was risky doing so, and he felt both worlds destabilize from their connection, but he had no choice. He was going to end this fight here and now, and the creature was getting stronger every time he hit it with magic. Under the control of his mana, the bombs he confiscated from Tonka floated out from the temporal space, along with the modern mana core he’d stolen from the underground area where he’d run into Alari. He closed the portal and grinned at Dunet. Sen charged forward as well. The bombs flew around him like seven spheres of magic. The mana core hovered beside him
Sen stepped into Dunet’s range, and the spear came flashing down.
“Hybrid Stat Burn Maxima!” Sen yelled.
The technique wasn’t one he enjoyed using. It was a temporary sacrifice of two hybrid stats to enhance another. A status update flashed across his screen.
[Status Change]
Name: Sen Locke
Class: God of Magic
Level: 5
Strength/Mana Aggression: 114 — > 0
Speed/Mana Encapsulation: 123 — > 0
Magic: 149
Constitution/Mana Protection: 108 — > 345
Mana Points: 999,999,999+
For sixty seconds, Mana Protection was his highest stat. Afterwards, he wouldn’t have access to his hybrid stats for an hour. Neither of those numbers mattered. He only needed to survive the next fifteen seconds.
The spear crashed into his shoulder and cut through skin but stopped abruptly. His constitution was too high. He activated the mana core and directed his magic into the seven bombs floating around him. They closed in on him and Dunet.
The explosion rocked the temporal world.
When he woke, he was floating. Above him, stars stretched into an endless abyss. So he’d failed. He’d trapped his soul for eternity. The sensation was a lot more peaceful than the replica’s demonstration had made him believe. His brow furrowed at that. No, he would be in pain if he died here. Then what… He turned in the air and saw he wasn’t too far from the white rune circle. The circle was cracked and threatened to give out at any moment, but it was holding…for now. Pieces of Dunet floated around. As expected, his constitution hadn’t been nearly as high as Sen’s. There wasn’t any need for a high constitution stat when you could instantly regenerate most wounds. He turned his attention toward the door. A long crack ran through it. It wouldn’t work anymore. Unfortunately, you couldn’t open a door from within. If the link was broken, that was it.
Luckily, he’d planned for that.
It took a few minutes, but eventually, a new door appeared. Orttha’s head popped through a moment later. “Did it work?” He looked around and saw Sen floating and let out a relieved breath. Then he noticed the cracks on the ground. “But the book says that’s very bad!”
Sen nodded. “It is.”
“Then we should—”
“Leave? Yeah. I’m with you.” Sen scattered his senses and saw the mana core still floating beyond the edge of the white rune. He reached out with a thread of pure magic, ignoring the burning sensation as the extension of himself traveled beyond the barrier, and pulled it toward him. That little baby was too valuable to leave behind.
He swam through the air as if he were in water, careful not to touch the runes until the last moment. Orttha dipped back out of the door, and Sen stepped halfway through. He could feel Dunet’s soul trapped within the runes. The flesh golem had died. But as promised, his soul was still anchored here. Sen felt whole again. The spell that tethered both of them had released him as soon as his opponent died. The anchor would keep Dunet conscious. Sen stared down at the rune and smiled. “You sealed your fate when you threatened my friends. Remember that. Dwell on it for eternity. You fool that thought he could contend with the God of Magic. Purge Memory Maxima.” In an instant he’d forgotten the creature’s name.
He felt the nameless soul roar. Then Sen lifted a hand and cracked a smile.
“Fireball Maxima,” he said, releasing the spell before stepping through the portal and closing the door behind him.
The rune shattered as the door closed, releasing that soul into an eternity of pain.
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