The Forsaken Hero

After watching Luxxa and the other knights hold back the demons, I held no worries for their safety. They were as skilled as the demons, which was impressive for mortals in Enusia, and an entire level stronger than the best among their enemies. They would be fine.

Korra, on the other hand, worried me, so I shifted my perspective to her once more. Her fight with Gayron dragged her into the midst of the demons, though none of them dared interfere. The Apostle of Fire’s aura rose and fell with every one of his enraged grunts and cries, devouring everything within a hundred yards.

Korra alone stood among the licking flames and hissing ice, wreathed in a soft aura of watery blue light. It was a fifth-level art that incorporated aspects of fire shield with the Crawler’s defensive ability, potent enough to withstand even the seventh-level apostle’s aura.

The two exchanged blows in a blurred flurry of fist and claw. Every stray attack carved canyons in the tundra, decimating any demons unlucky enough to be in the way. Gayron was faster and stronger, yet Korra remained just out of his reach, dancing beneath his vicious claw and tail swipes, using his own size to hamper his ability to reach him. She never stopped moving, lashing out with seemingly harmless punches and kicks on his legs and torso.

She seemed calm and in control, but my heart raced every time the demon’s claws narrowly scraped by her head. Gayron was just like the other heroes, relying purely on his apostolic strength and blessings to overwhelm his opponents. But against Korra, who had trained for hours every day, he seemed no more than a child swinging a stick for the first time. The only reason it was tense at all was the difference in the level of their souls. A single mistake and he would catch her, then it would all be over.

The moment I feared came quickly. Korra leaped backward, flipping gracefully mid-air, but stumbled upon landing, caught on a small divot. Gayron’s clawed foot melted in the ice just seconds before. The apostle was on in her in an instant, his spined tail sweeping toward her with the strength of a mountain. Her eyes widened as the air crackled and hissed as he injected mana into the flaming spikes at its tip, a battering ram capable of breaking any gate.

”No!” I cried, gripping the Gate Core tightly in my hands.

As before, a pulse of mana surged through the ice spirit, channeled directly into the gate. The tundra reacted violently, shooting several frozen monolithic spikes at the apostle’s tail. He grunted in surprise, and his soul flared with mana, infusing even more power into the attack and pushing it into the lower realms of the seventh level.

The sheer force of the technique broke the air, releasing multiple sonic booms that rocked the gate, culminating in a tremendous explosion of steam as it collided with the ice pillars. It lost much of its momentum, but continued on to strike the off-balance Korra. Her shield flared upon impact, cracked, and then shattered. Her body flew out of the spreading cloud of ice shards and steam, slamming into the face of a nearby ice formation. Her eyes flew open, blood breaking between her lips, and a small cry escaped her.

The entire mountain shuddered, deep cracks snaking out from where her body lay embedded in the ice. I was frozen in disbelief, staring through the core at Korra as her body dislodged and crumpled to the ground.

”Korra...?” I whispered hoarsely, unaware she couldn’t hear me. Everything slowed down, the battle disappearing into the background. Why wasn’t she getting up? Why wasn’t she breathing?

Gayron snorted and folded his arms. ”Pathetic. All that blusters, yet she up and dies in a single attack. Now then, to finish this–”

He paused and glanced back at Korra, lying motionless on the ground. It was then I realized her soul was still bright, and the watery aura continued to swaddle her, shielding her from the demon’s aura. No sooner had I made the realization then her chest suddenly rose with a shallow gasp, and her eyes opened. She blinked several times and struggled to her knees, wiping the trail of blood from her lips.

”Damn it, that hurt,” she muttered and rubbed her head. ”Let’s not do that again.”

Tears blurred my eyes in relief, and I held back a choked sob. She was alright. Korra was still alive.

”Persistent slut,” Gayron said, tone steeped with disdain. ”But you’re only sixth-level. What in the hells possessed you to think you could beat me?”

”Twenty minutes,” Korra replied, getting to her feet. ”That’s how long it took you to hit me even once. You have all of that power, but you don’t have the skills to use it. Pathetic.”

She coughed again, removing more blood from her lungs, and took a shaky step forward. Gayron tensed and gathered mana in his soul. His aura flared with the accumulation, spreading out another hundred feet and igniting an unlucky group of curse demons.

”It won’t matter once you’re dead. You’ve barely scratched my scales, and that was on your sneak attack. Now that I know about your weird magical techniques, you can do nothing to me. I could lie down and take a nap, and you wouldn’t be able to break through my armor. You’re just a fly buzzing about, waiting to be crushed.”

”Perhaps.” Korra shrugged, looking utterly unconcerned with the fact she very nearly died. ”Or perhaps not. Let’s find out.”

Gayron roared, and the two clashed together, exchanging a dozen blows in the blink of an eye. Growing more confident in my influence over the gate, I tried interfering with Gayron’s movement but found it impossible to keep up with their speed. I was as likely to trip Korra as the demon, but a fumble like that would be fatal for her and only an inconvenience for the apostle. It simply wasn’t worth the risk.

Instead, I tried to split my attention, hoping to aid my allies defending the chasm itself. With a thought, I turned a blood-soaked field into razors and impaled an entire squadron of second-level scions. Their screams tore through the battlefield, mingling with their blood spraying through the air, but they vanished just as quickly, like flowers wilting in the summer heat. Their frantic spasms slowed one by one until the last limb twitched still, the light fading from their souls.

My hand shook slightly as the reality of the moment washed over me. It wasn’t the first time I’d killed. No, my hands were stained a red that could never be washed away, but this was personal. Yet this was truly the first time I’d actually killed something. It wasn’t an accident, or even indirectly, but by my own hand. Or mana, at least. Alright, it wasn’t even my mana; it was the spirit’s, but I was the one directing it.

A sharp pinch in my soul made me yelp, and my consciousness fled back to my body. Distracted by the rush of emotion, it seemed that I’d misdirected Astral Breath again. It had been several hours since I began, and I’d finally worked my way down to the innermost depths of my soul, where my true essence lay. This was the core of my soul, the focal point of my abilities, mana, and soul bonds with Fable and the Ice Spirit.

My soul differed slightly from Fable’s here. He had his own essence, after all. Some differences would be inevitable. I would need every bit of my skill, knowledge, and luck to complete this part, or the rest would be in vain.

But how could I when my friends fought for their lives above? It was dangerous to split my focus, but after a moment of hesitation, I tightened my grip on the stone and returned to the surface. The battle had transformed in the minutes I spent repairing my mistake, with thousands more dead strewn across the tundra. Surprisingly, it was the armies of the divine and demons who had been pushed back, their assaults futile against the might of the Last Light Company.

The humans were in full retreat, Connor having disappeared from the battlefield. They had wiped out the demon guard holding the gate’s entrance and were slowly funneling rank after rank back to Enusia. Thousands of dead lay in their wake, most at the hands of the demons, but many had been slain by the Last Light Company.

With their retreat, Bethiv directed the more part of his forces to the other side, supporting Korra against the demon hordes. The scions suffered catastrophic losses against our mages and were all but extinct, leaving only a few powerful evolved demons fighting for their lives. But they were outnumbered and under-leveled, rapidly dropping one by one until only a single battle remained.

Korra and Gayron, locked in a duel to the death, remained the last ones fighting. We had almost won.