Trinity of Magic

For a brief moment, the shadows around the hidden entrance seemed to stretch and deepen. Then nothing. No explosion. No clash of steel. No cries of battle.

At last, a single voice broke the silence.

“Mission accomplished.”

David’s words echoed in his mind.

Zeke released the breath he had been holding. Only now did his shoulders ease. As long as the commander had lived, victory had never been guaranteed.

That was not fear speaking. It was an honest assessment.

The Legion’s mental network was a fearsome weapon, and the commander had been its linchpin. Zeke had gambled everything to remove the commander from the board. His delayed entry into the battle. Every misdirection. Rhea’s sacrifice. All of it had served a single purpose: to isolate the commander from their troops.

The Legion soldiers were already formidable when backed by healers. With a commander directing them, they became something else entirely. Like putting wings on a tiger. On even ground, they were nearly impossible to defeat.

That was why Zeke had chosen to overturn the board instead of playing by its rules.

After he had sprung his trap, that same commander had gone from an asset to a liability. With their death, the battle split wide open. Formations were breaking apart. Orders overlapped, contradicted, then ceased entirely. Troops scattered. One Archmage flailed, the other desperately restraining Rhea, who had long since ceased to be a threat.

It would take a miracle to restore order from this chaos.

Zeke’s face split into an easy grin. What remained now was exactly what he did best. Cleanup.

It was quite ironic that Zeke now considered a battle against two Archmages nothing more than a chore. Yet that was exactly what it had become. Given the current state of the field, they had little chance of turning things around.

Now, the only question was how best to deal with it.

“David. New assignment: catch the tail of the rat hiding underground.”

“…On my way.”

David would be a nightmare for that particular opponent. Contrary to appearances, Earth Mages could not survive underground. They needed air like anyone else, which meant ventilation shafts when diving beneath the surface.

And that created an opening.

“Zelkara, take the Bloodguard and attack the scattered forces. Make sure they do not find their footing again.”

“Understood.”

“All remaining forces, advance directly toward Rhea. Your priority is to get Raileh there as soon as possible.”

“Understood!”

Multiple voices answered at once. Raileh, Elder Tiger, Elder Dragon, Ash, and Gravitas. Along with the forces they commanded, they were already moving in a straight line toward the Titan. The moment they reached her, resistance would collapse.

The elven healer would not need more than a few minutes to return the Titan to fighting condition. Once that happened, without the Archmages to block her, Rhea would tear through the scattered Legion troops like an enraged bull through a colony of ants.

That left only one enemy unaccounted for. The Wind Mage, who had so far been desperately trying to reenter her former camp.

She had already ceased her futile struggle and now hovered just outside the Alexandria’s reach. Her eyes were locked on the scattering troops below. It was likely she already understood what it meant.

She was too late. Her commander was dead. That left her on her own, forced to decide what to do next.

But would Zeke give her that chance?

At his silent command, the Alexandria began to move.

The Wind Mage noticed at once and darted back, trying to open the distance. She knew all too well that she could not allow herself to fall into the Alexandria’s sphere of influence. But she had miscalculated.

The spatial engine was a deceptive piece of engineering. Because it created no visible momentum, advancing only through incremental teleportation, the ship barely seemed to move at all. That impression was false. The Alexandria, like the Reaper, was among the fastest airships ever built.

This was a fact the mage was about to learn.

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“Begin firing again as soon as we are in reach.”

Instead of pulling away, the Alexandria gained on her. Even at full speed, the mage could not escape.

A dozen lightning bolts tore free from the ship’s underside.

Just before they struck, the woman vanished. For a fleeting instant, even Zeke lost track of her. Only for that instant. His gaze snapped to her new position a heartbeat later. She had reappeared several hundred steps ahead.

The Alexandria adjusted course immediately, already closing the gap once more. The pattern repeated itself. Each time they were about to catch her, she slipped from sight for a breath, only to reappear farther ahead.

Zeke recognized the spell.

[Windtanz].

The signature art of the Windtänzer family. Near-instantaneous movement. The pinnacle of speed and agility. It was the very reason Rhea had never been able to catch her tail.

Now, that same lifeline had become a trap.

It was the only thing keeping the woman alive, forcing her to invoke it again and again until her mana finally ran dry and she plummeted from the sky.

A grim fate for an Archmage.

...But a fitting reward for the torment she had inflicted on Rhea. Those who lived by the sword should always be prepared to die by the sword.

Zeke felt no mercy.

He did not know when the act of taking a life had ceased to trouble him. Perhaps it had happened gradually, worn down by repetition. Or perhaps his heart and mind had simply come to accept what was inevitable. Whatever the cause, the truth was simple. Today, the thought of letting his enemies live unsettled him far more than the thought of watching them die.

As he observed the fleeing Archmage, the hundreds of panicked Legion soldiers, and the bloodbath unfolding below, an unexpected calm settled over him.

For a fleeting moment, he recognized that this certainty would have terrified the man he once was.

He dismissed the thought just as quickly.

Any observer might have judged this as the actions of a bully. A stronger force trampling the losers without mercy.

Zeke was too far removed from such sentiments to care. In war, there was no right or wrong, no honorable or dishonorable, no just or unjust. There was only winning or losing.

To pretend otherwise was to close one’s eyes to reality.

The Legion had gutted Rukia, turned its citizens into puppets of their own destruction, and reduced its forests to ash. To show them mercy now would be nothing more than a denial of that reality.

Just as he reached that conclusion, the fight on the ground reached its crescendo. Zelkara tore into the rearmost Legion formation with unstoppable momentum. There was nothing they could do against her might.

Through daily use of the Mana Purifying device, her physical body had reached a frankly frightening level. No one below the Archmage rank could hope to contend with her anymore. Slowing her down was the best they could hope for, and even that would have required impeccable coordination and luck.

Two things the Legion lacked today.

The advantage of Akasha’s coordination showed itself in the way even individual squads supported one another. It was like an intricate machine, each cog linking seamlessly with the next.

Watching them carve through the scattered Legion troops was like witnessing a work of art.

At the same time, his other forces reached Rhea. Raileh did not waste a moment before infusing her full power into the exhausted Titan. At her touch, Rhea’s wounds closed at a speed visible to the naked eye. Her breathing steadied, the rise and fall of her chest growing more relaxed.

Moments later, Rhea pushed herself to her knees, earthen bindings falling away like dried twigs. Then she rose to her full height and, with a roar that shook the ground itself, announced her recovery.

To her allies, it was a sound that inspired boundless confidence.

To their enemies, it was the death knell. Zeke could see the will to fight drain from the Legion. There came a point where will alone was no longer enough.

Even the fleeing Wind Mage paused in her frantic escape. Her grim expression twisted further as her eyes darted across the battlefield. She looked at her allies being slaughtered, the Earth Mage playing cat and mouse with David, and finally at the towering form of Rhea, who glared up at her with murderous intent.

Zeke could read the decision on her face before she acted. It was the look of someone who had come to terms with reality. She whipped her head around to face him, silver hair fluttering wildly. For an instant, no longer than a blink, she stared in his direction.

Zeke felt as though she was looking directly at him, despite the impossibility of such a thing.

Then she vanished.

This time, she did not reappear a short distance away. She was simply gone.

She had fled, abandoning the fight even if it meant condemning her allies to death. Zeke nodded inwardly. It was the first correct choice she had made that day. He did not pursue her. Though it was theoretically possible to exhaust her to death, the odds were negligible if she fled without restraint.

And it would have meant abandoning the battlefield.

The risk was not worth the reward.

Less than a minute later, the earth grew still as well. The second Archmage withdrew. Zeke allowed it without regret. From the beginning, the chance of keeping either of them here had been slim. If a powerful Archmage chose to flee, stopping them was difficult even for him. That was doubly true for those with Wind or Earth attributes.

But what held true for those two did not apply to the rest of the Legion.

Hundreds still remained. For them, this forest would become their final resting place. Not a single one would escape.

Already, the ancient woods were slick with blood. Imperial natives and converted half-elves fell side by side, indistinguishable in death. The Bloodguard showed no mercy to either. That alone was reason enough why Zeke would never field the elves himself. They would hesitate when faced with their own kin.

Zelkara did not. The Bloodguard did not.

To them, it made no difference who stood before them. As long as Zeke pointed, they asked no questions.

The Alexandria ground to a halt above the battlefield, and Zeke watched in silence as the battle entered its final act. What remained was little more than a powerless thrashing, the last reflexive struggle of an enemy that had already lost the will to fight.

In a civilized war, this would have been the moment of surrender. Prisoners would be taken. Ransoms negotiated. Lives spared in exchange for coin.

This was not that kind of war.

He would not allow it. He would not let them walk away at any price. Not after what they had done to this land and its people. For their crimes, there would be no mercy.

No reprieve.

No slipping of the noose.

Zeke watched in silence as his forces carried out their grim work. Hundreds turned to dozens, and dozens to none. Only when the last of the Legion drew their final breath did he avert his gaze.

Thousands lay dead at his feet. On this day, the Legion had suffered. Suffered by his hand. Of all the battles since the start of the war, this day marked the single greatest loss they had endured.

...For now.