The Forsaken Hero

The sky churned with ash, snow, and dancing mana as the battle raged. Gouts of fire, shadow, and light erupted between the clashing forces, consuming humans and demons alike. Screams and the clash of weapons echoed through the cavern where I hid, mingling with the deafening roar of magical attacks and ringing in my ears.

The entrance to the Core Chamber was hidden in the depths of the largest chasm, striking a snaking line across the northern edge of the shattered tundra. The demons and divine armies were divided on either side, the battle line splitting the entire gate in two. There was no sign of where The humans currently held the entrance to the Gate, but there was no sign of the forces we’d left outside.

My heart ached with worry for Sari and the others outside, but there was nothing I could do for them now. Even with the Ice Spirit controlling the Gate, none of my senses or mana penetrated to the world of Enusia beyond. We were cut off and isolated from anything that happened there, blind as a ship in a storm.

With no slight difficulty, I swallowed my fear and turned to the battle raging within the dimensional walls of the gate. The armies of the divine stood tall and bright, wreathed in protection and sun magic. But beyond their outer holy appearance, there was an underlying, if striking, resemblance to the demon horde. Both were little more than a loosely organized mass of second and third-level soldiers, their only leadership direct orders coming from the hero or apostle at their head. It was chaotic and unruly, with no clear victor in sight.

The direction they did receive wasn’t much to speak of, either. Neither Connor the Undead Hero nor Gayron the Apostle of Fire had much mind for strategy. Their means differed greatly, but both relied on their personal power to overwhelm the opposition. The lesser beings were left orderless and could only struggle to survive, much less mount any significant offensive.

It was a fighting style I could only envy, really. Even in the most desperate of times, it was all I could do to cast Fate and Protection magic on my allies and keep them from harm. Many times, without the ability to actually end a fight with my power, I was left helpless as my wards were overrun and my friends hurt or killed. It was frustrating, if not downright aggravating, especially whenever I witnessed the other heroes or apostles fight.

If only the Sun God’s curse wasn’t...no, that was fruitless. It was the only thing more constant than the ache of my soul, more permanent than the burn of the sunpurge. Dwelling on it only left me steeped in regret.

My own weakness aside, Connor, Gayron, and even Korra to some extent, were titans on the battlefield. Every one of their magical techniques devastated entire battalions and battle lines, single-handedly turning the conflict in their favor.

Connor’s undead alone made up over half the total number of soldiers, and though they were weaker than their living counterparts, their numbers grew and their power increased as the souls of the dead strengthened his heroic aura. The living humans of the divine army acted mostly as rear support, launching spells and arrows over the heads of the shambling zombie soldiers and demons. Whenever one fell among them, it would swell with the dark mist and rise, joining its allies on the front lines.

And as for Gayron? The ground cracked beneath his feet, erupting with billowing clouds of smoke and steam. His aura of fire rose and fell with his breathing, sometimes roaring wide enough to melt the eternal ice for hundreds of yards in all directions. Anything unlucky enough to be caught in it–demon, man, or undead–was reduced to a charred corpse too damaged for even Connor’s ability to resurrect. Wherever the demonkin’s sword struck, impossibly large pillars of fire rose, some licking a hundred feet or more into the air. The demons gave him as much girth as they did the Undead Hero’s ever-expanding mists, eying the rampaging apostle warily even as they fell upon the undead and mortals.

It was a brutal battle unlike anything I’d witnessed before. The might and skill of an individual were worthless before the grand scale of the gods’ and demons’ chosen champions, the strongest veteran commander worth no more than the fresh-eyed recruit. I watched with spell-bound horror as a fifth-level evolved demon was dragged down by a horde of second-level undead and torn to literal shreds. It took over a hundred corpses with it, but the tides were endless, and its struggles soon ceased.

And yet, despite the raw, primal fury of the demons and divine armies, they broke like waves against the cliffs of the Light Last Company. The main force was arrayed just outside the entrance to the chasm containing the Core Chamber. They consisted of my trusted friends and allies and the small legion of sixth-level soldiers and mages. They were the core of the entire company, the ones who had fought beside Bethiv before the unit was conscripted into the Brithlitian military.

Though their hair was gray and their skin broken by countless age-old scars, their spirits burned bright. They had fought beside each other for decades, standing as one and struggling no matter the enemy or odds. Bethiv had divided them into small units to utilize their individual power and abilities best, a tactic that now proved itself on the battlefield. Individually, they had overwhelming power, the weakest among them rivaling the strongest of the invading humans and demons.

Following Bethiv’s command, the mages released a flurry of sixth-circle large-scale destruction spells. Countless magic circles opened over the clashing humans’ and demons’ backlines, spewing fire, ice, and lightning. Hundreds died at once, massive holes appearing in the ranks of the living and undead, many refusing to close as the losses caused the battle lines to collapse.

A massive bolt of lightning cracked through the demon’s side of the tundra, arcing from scion to scion, traveling the entire length of the battlefield. Smaller arcs of electricity leaped from the smoking corpses left in its wake, spreading out while gradually losing their power until they simply made their targets jump in shock.

As over three hundred demons perished at once, I recognized the mana signature and sifted through the Last Light Company’s mages until I found Jena standing atop a small outcrop of icy boulders, a wide grin plastered across her face.

”Hope you don’t mind them a little crispy,” she said with a giggle, glancing at the being beside her.

My tail twitched in surprise as I found her talking with the fire demon Kahlen brought. Its hulking body was a good five feet taller than the slender wind mage, but neither seemed bothered by the disparity. Flames smoldered from its jagged scales, wreathing its horns in a crown of licking tongues of red and yellow.

”Not bad, Jenna,” the demon said, surprising me with the familiar use of her name. ”But can you match this?”

It stepped forward, almost protectively, in front of Jenna, and the fires streaming from its body erupted. The nearest friendly soldiers shied away from the heat, which cracked and melted the ice for a dozen feet in all directions. Mana gathered in its chest, casting a brazen glow that bled through the cracks in its scales.

With a mighty roar, the demon released a sixth-level magical technique in the form of a small, compressed sphere of pure destruction. The ball streaked across the tundra, trailing a tail like a meteor, and fell among a concentrated company of humans locked in combat with a thirty-foot-long demon serpent.

A slight shudder shook ice particles from the chamber over my head as the magical technique detonated on the surface high above. The surrounding area, including the entire squadron of soldiers and the demon they fought, disappeared in a sea of flames, the roar of which overpowered even their dying screams. My perception of the battle was without eyes, so I avoided being blinded by the explosion. Still, the unfortunate souls fighting on the surface had no such protection, and many of the nearby surviving humans stumbled around swinging wildly as they called desperately for the soothing power of their healers.

This scene repeated itself a hundred times all over the gate, each with different spells or techniques, but all with the same devastating effect. A sixth-level warrior or mage was the pinnacle of what most soldiers could hope to attain, and yet...our small company had more than double what both the demons and humans had combined. The moment a single ounce of aggression was turned toward the chasm they guarded, the offending party and everyone nearby were annihilated in an instant.

But the real danger never came from the soldiers and scions but from the two beings who led them. After a few volleys of destruction, we earned their attention. Almost an hour after the battle began, Connor and Gayron turned their attention, their eyes crackling with glowing power.

With a wave of his scythe, Connor issued the order. ”All reserves, ignore the demons. Follow my horde into the chasm; kill anything in your way. It’s time we ended this.”

At the same time, Gayron took on his demon form, a towering, twenty-foot-tall behemoth of scale, claw, and raging fire. He looked stronger than last we met, but this wasn’t a mere soul projection, but the apostle in the flesh.

”Cut a path to the core!” His roar shook the gate. ”But leave the Oracle, wherever the slut might be hiding, to me. We have unfinished business.”