The Forsaken Hero

I stared at the hulking, twenty-foot-tall demon for a long moment before shifting my gaze back to Gayron. Their souls were identical, but not in the way that Fable’s was a copy of mine. It was as if the soul was a spring, and both the demon and demonkin bodies were streams flowing from it. The same soul, manifest in two locations at once. Before I could ponder this strange phenomenon further, I noticed the demon hadn’t been idle in the smoke. Six magic circles spun rapidly beneath its clawed feet, resolving just a second after it had been revealed.

”I didn’t expect you to catch on so quickly,” Gayron’s voice boomed from the demon’s massive form. ”But it’s too late! Hell Spear!”

A titanic gout of flame roared from his hand, forming a crude spear as it streaked toward me. It was only sixth-level, something I could safely allow to strike my wards, but a prickle of unease told me there was more to this attack than met the eye. At first glance, it seemed identical to the magical technique he used to strike Fable moments before, but if that were the case, why waste precious time casting an actual spell? Curiosity gnawed at me, and I decided to let the spell hit the Mirror Sphere without intervention. A heartbeat before impact, the spear split into twelve smaller lances, fanning out to bombard the area around me in a wide arc.

The spears struck in rapid succession, each unleashing a mid-sixth-level explosion. The wards around me flared with golden light as the inferno washed over them, Adaptive Resistance easily nullifying any mana they couldn’t safely absorb. The flames consumed a hundred-foot radius centered on me. While undeniably dangerous, I was much more bothered that the towering walls of fire effectively isolated me from the rest of the battlefield.

I took a deep breath and gathered my mana, trying to lock onto Fable’s soul without sight, when a tingling in my soul caused me to pause. I whipped around just in time to see a dark silhouette break through the curtain of fire. In the brief seconds since the fire erupted, the demon had somehow closed the distance, lunging at the Blade Ward with its serrated claws. Golden sparks erupted from the contact, but even using a sixth-level magical technique, the demon was held at bay.

I leveled my staff at the demon, but before I could utter a spell, my wards shuddered violently, and I stumbled forward. Glancing back, there was nothing but the glowing veil, but the Blade Ward was now fractured with a resounding crack. A brief glimpse with the Oracle of Eternity revealed the magical residue of a seventh-level technique.

”Wha—?” I spun around as the demon struck the Blade Ward again, panic constricting my chest. What was going on? I could sense Fable was still fully engaged with Gayron’s demonkin form, so there was no way he had enough mana left to launch another attack. What in the world was happening? The demon’s soul abruptly flared with enough mana for a seventh-level technique, but when it discharged, nothing happened. Its claws attacked again, relentlessly wearing down the Blade Ward. What happened to all that mana? A chilling realization struck me a second later as another attack landed from behind. Thin, black lines spiderwebbed across my wards, confirming it was another seventh-level assault. Blade Ward was only a fifth-circle spell, and even with the reinforcement from the Canyon Crawler’s defensive abilities, it could only withstand so much punishment. Another hit like that would shatter it, leaving me defenseless. ”Dispel Magic!” I unleashed a wave of discordant energy into the ground, banishing the roaring inferno and clearing the air. My breath hitched as I finally spotted the second attacker: another towering demon incarnation. ”Surprised?” the demon taunted, launching another clawed strike at me. ”I’m impressed you’ve lasted this long, but how much longer can your spells hold out? Can you really withstand the combined might of two of me?” The relentless assault of the two demons steadily wore down my wards, leaving them riddled with cracks and flickering like a dying candle. Another few seconds, and they would shatter completely. But that was only if things continued as they were, and I had no obligation to let that happen. Just as the Blade Ward reached its breaking point, I raised my staff. ”Blade Ward!” Gayron’s grin faltered as another bubble of golden light surged around me. ”What? But replacing barriers is impossible! How can you—” ”Elemental Spirit: Earth.” His shock morphed into panic as I unleashed the sixth-circle spell. The magic circles blossomed around me, rapidly expanding until they occupied nearly a third of the battlefield. They swept beneath Gayron’s demonkin form, causing him to stumble backward and giving Fable an opportunity to send him flying with a powerful blow. He landed hard, coughing up a trickle of blood, before shakily regaining his footing. ”What the hell? You didn’t even chant!” the demon closest to me roared, his voice a thunderclap of frustration. I shrugged, a small smile playing on my lips. I’d long since abandoned chanting for even my most powerful spells, but this went beyond that. While he’d been relentlessly attacking, I’d been carefully crafting this spell. It was the first time I’d ever managed to successfully soul-cast a sixth-circle spell. It hadn’t been elegant and left me feeling completely exhausted, but the results were undeniable. ”Damn it,” he cursed, parrying another flurry of vicious swipes from Fable. ”I’m not losing to this!” His soul blazed with a blinding light, creating three beacons on the battlefield, one emanating from his incarnations. They all charged towards me with a feral roar, ignoring Fable, who swiftly leaped to my side. ”Phoenix Wing!” the demonkin cried, slamming the sixth-circle spell into my wards. The Mirror Sphere reverberated with the toll of a bell, reflecting the attack back at him. One of his demons took the full force of the blast head-on and emerged grinning. I couldn’t help but shake my head, suppressing a pang of disappointment. Fire demons were immune to fire. Of course they were. But the blast of fire shot past the demon, shaking the ground when it finally detonated. This time, I had a clear view of what was happening. My heart skipped a beat as the flames abruptly imploded, sucked into a single, concentrated point. Over the next few seconds, the ball of energy expanded and coalesced into yet another twenty-foot-tall demon sharing Gayron’s soul. As Gayron continued his frantic assault, more and more attacks were deflected or missed their mark. In each case, a new demon was born, rising from the ashes of the explosion to join the fray. Fable battled valiantly alongside me, absorbing much of the heat with his shimmering silver coat, but many attacks still managed to slip through his defenses. The attacks came thick and fast, breaking my spells almost as quickly as I could cast them, but slowly, over the precious seconds it took for the Elemental Spirit to manifest fully, I noticed a subtle shift. A touch of lethargy here, a slightly weaker technique there—Gayron was slowing down. It wasn’t as apparent when there were only two or three of him, but now that nearly a dozen demons cluttered the battlefield, the weakness of his ability was exposed. Gayron only had one soul, one pool of mana to draw from. To overpower my Adaptive Resistance, he had to resort to seventh-level spells, draining his reserves rapidly. His magical techniques, relying more on physical attacks, fared slightly better, but in reality, he was fighting a losing battle. It was his soul against mine, a war of attrition he couldn’t win. Even if he could unleash five attacks for every one of my spells, his explosive power was no match for the ruthless efficiency and sheer resilience of my wards. I could deflect almost anything he threw at me with simple fifth-circle spells, while he had to expend significantly more energy to even make a dent in my defenses. But even if Gayron wasn’t weakening by the second, the battle’s outcome was inevitable. Just a minute after his first incarnation appeared, the giant magic circles beneath us vanished. The air shifted, filled with an oppressive, almost suffocating sense of presence, causing Gayron’s incarnations to falter and retreat. His tail twitched nervously as he looked around, sword clutched tightly in his hand. The ground shuddered violently, wrenching and twisting beneath my feet like ocean breakers. Before I even registered that I was falling, Fable lunged towards me, gently curling his body around mine and bracing me from every side. His fur scraped against my sunpurge, bringing tears to my eyes, but it was nothing compared to the potential consequences of the fall. Just then, a titanic fist erupted from the ground, sending another wave of tremors through the earth. An unlucky incarnation standing in its path screamed as the earthen fingers closed into a fist, crushing him into ash. Gayron’s soul flickered as the incarnation died, losing a significant portion of his remaining mana. Upon seeing that the incarnation’s death caused no lasting damage to his soul, I smiled faintly and waved my hand. ”Kill them all.” The colossal earthen hand descended upon a cluster of three demons. Technically, they possessed the strength of a seventh-level warrior compared to my only sixth-level elemental. But that was only when they were reinforced with mana, which was currently in short supply in Gayron’s soul. Their screams were abruptly silenced as the spirit crushed them into oblivion, Gayron’s soul flickering again, its reserves dwindling. I glanced at Gayron’s main body, the demonkin. He was frozen, shellshocked, as the elemental hand relentlessly pursued his remaining incarnations, one demon after another perishing in its grasp. I let him squirm for a moment before calling above the crash of earth and crackle of fire, ”Have you had enough yet?”