Ep 71. Who Are You? (1)

 

The crowd busily fled into the deeper parts of the city towards the Mage Association. There, they could seek help – there, they could find shelter.

…From the numerous maddened mages that were slowly approaching from behind.

A seemingly random selection of mages had begun killing everyone in sight – and among them was the green-haired elf who’d led a team of agents as the city’s enforcer.

Ray found his legs slowly giving away. His heart was beating slower and slower, and half his casting began to break midway. Each heartthrob hurt more than the previous, as if his heart would burst at any moment.

And when his next victim came to sight, an eerie smile curved the elf enforcer’s lips.

Up ahead was an elderly man, struggling to rise after having been pushed over by the fleeing crowd.

One more. One more, and that would do it.

As expected, the enforcer’s hand raised itself into the air. Thin strings of air condensed above his palm, forming a swirling sphere of sharpened winds.

‘Finally…finally.’

His trembling arms powerlessly tossed the spell towards the elderly man. The sphere exploded into a dozen blades, eviscerating the struggling elder.

Following the elder’s pained cry, a suffocating throb clenched at the enforcer’s heart. The beating turned into small shudders, lightly shaking his organs from within – but this time, his body’s struggles wouldn’t prevail.

The echoes of his pulse grew distant, eventually drowning into silence. In the dimming vision, a sense of relief washed over the enforcer as the ground rapidly closed in on him.

‘…It’s finally over.’

Just like the elder he’d murdered, Ray, too, collapsed onto the floor. Heaving breaths soon faded away into silence.

But even then, the archmage that had been walking by the enforcer’s side felt nothing but despair.

Despite having no control over his own body, Gio’s senses remained intact. Unlike the others that had fallen under Felicir’s control, he wasn’t even close to depleting his reserves yet.

‘…How much longer will this continue?’

The only individual that could answer him was far, far away, watching his advance with increasing interest.

 

✧   ✧   ✧

 

Felicir stood over the roof of an enormous church, musing at the sight below. Only one of his enlisted pawns now remained standing; the first two had, ironically, lasted the longest. But the death of his pawns didn’t bother the deity in the slightest.

Instead, what bothered him was that Felicis still hadn’t appeared before them.

“I’m quite surprised she still hasn’t shown face.”

“Perhaps she isn’t in the city?”

Clyus answered from Felicir’s side, glancing over the fleeing civilians. Half of Partivine were now devoid of life; the occupants had all died in the Reaper’s onslaught, or fled their homes altogether. If the deity of mana really lived here, there was no way she wouldn’t have figured out what was going on.

And yet, Felicir remained unconvinced.

“…No matter.”

Whether his sister was here or not, the city had to be wiped out regardless. Finding Felicis had only been a stepping stone towards this goal – but there were ways to circumvent it.

The death deity glanced towards the elf standing beside him.

“You’re controlling the city’s parameters, yes?”

“Since we arrived. Nothing can get out.”

“Good.”

It wasn’t apparent, but Clyus had set a one-sided dimensional dome over Partivine, preventing anyone from exiting the city’s parameters. Even now, numerous civilians were at the city’s gates, pointlessly smashing at the invisible wall with their spells and weapons.

A satisfied grin spread across the Reaper’s lips. His gaze drifted over to Gio, halting the archmage in place to prepare their next spellcast.

“It seems the stage is set. Time to end our little hunt.”

“…Hunt?”

“A splendid tool for driving our prey into a corner, isn’t he? To reiterate your words…”

When the Reaper raised his own hand into the air, the archmage in the distance slowly raised their own cane upwards. Lengthy runes began to circle around Gio, creating a small, fiery sphere that launched itself into the sky.

After disappearing into the clouds, the sphere spanned out into an enormous ring of runes above; a hideous thundering noise echoed amongst the clouds, as if an earthquake was occurring midair.

And soon, the sound’s source revealed itself.

Emerging from the floating ring was a massive surface of stone. It rivalled the size of an entire district, its massive volume slowly surfacing right above the remaining half of Partivine – the half that everyone had been driven into.

Sparks of fire glittered around the stone surface, lighting the massive rock aflame.

Felicir’s grin widened at the sight of the meteor’s appearance. Even if she were nearby, his sister could protect herself – even from a massive spell like this.

But the same could not be said for everyone else besides.

“…An archmage is no different than a walking disaster.”

 

✧   ✧   ✧

 

Serenis sped through the morning sky; the sun had long risen during her flight. And after hours of flying, Partivine was finally coming to view.

Although the city was still merely a large speck in the distance, small bits of smoke and steam seemed to arise from its interior. Everything seemed to be just the way they were.

In appearance, that is.

The dragonlord grimaced, raising her gaze upwards. In the mass of clouds hovering over the city, she could glimpse at a large shadow hidden in their midst.

‘…Mana?’

Serenis was still extremely far away in physical distance; normally, she shouldn’t have been able to sense anything through mana sensory. But whatever was hidden amidst those clouds contained enough mana to irk at her senses, even from this distance.

And soon, the clouds began to shift and split as the shadow grew larger in size. A rocky surface then came to view, as well as the giant magic circle hovering over it.

A burning meteor was beginning its descent unto the city.

‘…A meteor spell?...Why? No, how?’

Serenis furiously gritted her teeth. Whether that meteor was a deity’s doing or not didn’t even matter in the moment; the reality was that someone, or something, was attempting to destroy the city whole. That, and the fact that Iris, for whatever reason, was not preventing the meteor’s descent.

The dragonlord immediately steeled her heart. In order to reach Partivine and stop the meteor in time, she’d have to gamble with fate in teleporting through the remaining distance – and staying alive. Even without mana constraints, the spell may very well send her body into the ground, or split it in halves between a thin wall.

Then, Serenis soon realized just what it was that she was committing herself to.

‘...It’s just a city of humans.’

Partivine was a manmade city; Serenis wasn’t its ruler, and it certainly wasn’t the dragonkin’s home. With both Serenis and Ilias gone, not a single dragon remained there.

Not even Patrick, Karas, or Light were present. The city’s remaining inhabitants were irrelevant, replaceable lives to the dragonlord.

Saving a bunch of humans had nothing to do with her current goal of eliminating divinities. It was unreasonable to risk her life for such people.

“…”

Logically, at least.

‘…I still haven’t changed.’

Serenis gripped at her heart.

In the distant past, she’d turned away just like this, time after time. Her pride as a facilitator of peace had hid her ugly selfishness. She’d clouded her own judgment to later invite horrifying consequences upon her kin.

And amongst the numerous lives that had suffered for her ignorance, one particular figure continued to linger in her mind.

- ‘Then I guess this is where we part ways…Serenis.’

“…It was then.”

That’s when her daughter had stopped calling her mother.

‘Liberate the star. Eliminate the tyrant. Free our future from shackles of divinity.’

It was a cause that had unified demonkind. It was a cause that had made their warring tribes unite as demonkin – for everyone had strived to save their future just the same.

But what drove the present dragonlord was nothing as grand. There was hardly any future left to save; with a majority of the demonkin no longer with her, their unified cause had turned hollow and meaningless.

And yet, she had to carry it forth. She had to realize its end and complete what others had sought – for in it, she sought something else altogether.

For what Serenis truly desired, was…

‘…For you…to…’

“…”

She could almost see their disappointed eyes. Hear their disappointed voice.

A violent wingbeat stopped the dragonlord in course. She took a deep breath, narrowing her gaze onto the small space between the descending boulder and the city beneath.

The dragonlord’s figure blinked out of existence, reduced to a stream of mana that was instantaneously carried forth.

 

✧   ✧   ✧

 

“Daddy, look! A shooting star!”

“…What?”

When the little boy excitedly pointed towards the sky, his father likewise raised his gaze upwards to see the source of his excitement. He first doubted the son’s words – it was still broad daylight, and it would’ve been strange to see a comet at such times.

His son’s source of unnatural excitement soon came to sight.

A gigantic mass of stone was emerging from the clouds above. Surrounded in flames of white and orange, it really did look like a star – a falling star, in its literal sense. And, thanks to its brightness, the man could clearly make out its size.

The rock’s size rivalled that of the very district she stood in – larger, even. Its massive shadow began to cast over the very markets they were standing in.

The man’s grip on his son’s hand instantly tightened. He began to pull him backwards in panic, and the boy watched him in confusion.

“Dad?”

“…We…need to get away.”

“But what about dinner? Home’s that way!”

“Now isn’t the time for that! Come here, Alf!”

The man immediately tossed aside their groceries to instead carry his son. He began to run in the other direction as fast as he could, causing the surrounding crowd of the marketplace to also look towards what he was running away from.

A massive volume of stone, lit aflame in its descent – headed straight towards the very place they were standing on.

The crowd soon fell into a huge panic, fleeing from the markets in unison. People deserted their goods, merchants their shops; they pushed and slammed against those who were too slow to realize what was above them.

But even when the entire city was falling into panic, one peculiar mage stood in his lonesome far in the distance, looking up towards the meteor he’d casted.

‘…Great Magician.’

As the stone’s surface filled more and more of his vision, Gio’s legs no longer carried him anywhere else. His body simply remained rooted on the spot, waiting for the meteor to crash down on its caster – although, when the stone would touch the ground, it wouldn’t just be him dying in the destruction’s wake.

Never before had Gio wished his reserve to be smaller – for him to be a lesser mage than he was. Ironically, the heights that he’d strived for as a mage turned out to be no different than a killer sharpening their knives.

And as a result, thousands had already died in his hands. And thousands more would, as soon as that meteor would hit the ground.

Perhaps being crushed underneath his own spell was a fitting end.

“…”

The city’s only archmage had turned against its civilians. The enforcement sector had suffered heavy losses to the Reaper himself, and for some reason, what personnel they should’ve had remaining were nowhere to be seen.

‘Hopefully…they’re simply too occupied with evacuating the civilians.’

That’s all the archmage could hope for as he stood in place, staring at the oncoming meteor. He could see various spells being fired at the descending mass then and there – doubtlessly from other mages that were trying to stop the approaching disaster.

But when the meteor continued its descent undamaged, the magics soon stopped altogether.

Gio couldn’t blame them for abandoning their efforts. Struggling to destroy it was, to his and everyone’s eyes, futile.

‘…Deity Felicis. If you are truly watching us…’

The fall only quickened over time; even when Gio could feel the air rapidly heating around him, he found himself unable to even blink.

All he could do was recite the people’s prayers within his mind. Surely, countless others would be reciting the exact same phrase towards the sky.

‘Bless us with your wisdom. Guide us, in your undying light.’

Would the deity of mana hear their soundless prayers?

Perhaps she will. Perhaps she won’t.

Perhaps someone else will.

…Or perhaps no one will.

That was the archmage’s final thought before a burst of light filled his vision.