The Forsaken Hero

”Keep going! I can feel it’s close to breaking!” Korra cried, narrowly avoiding the elemental. Before it could take its arm back, she struck thrice, tagging it yet again with a few more ribbons of mana.

”Easy for you to say. All you have to do is dodge!” Gayron grumbled.

”Hah, as if. Watch this. Armor break!”

Korra flipped over its arm, reaching at the zenith of her jump and getting a hand on it. Her soul shivered, resonating with the thick layer of water mana sheathing the elemental. It penetrated deep into its flesh, and suddenly, the faceted, almost impenetrable crystal warped like clay. Gayron lunged forward, and his sword bit deep, leaving a four-foot-long gash in its side.

Grace followed up, slipping beneath a wild flail of its arm and plunging her spear in. It sank in easily before coming to an abrupt stop. It seemed Korra’s power penetrated about a foot. into its flesh.

”Something’s not right,” I whispered to myself.

”What’s wrong?” R’lissea asked. ”We’re winning, aren’t we? I mean, not we, but they are. My as scary as we feared.”

”It doesn’t make any sense. Why would the church seal it away? Its defenses are ridiculous, but we’re all eighth-level still. Luke would be able to crush this thing in a few minutes by himself.”

”I think you’re giving him too much credit,” she said with a small smile. ”Or maybe you’re underestimating Korra. Her combat style is literally designed for this kind of fight, and she’s trained with Grace and Korra for this exact situation. They wouldn’t be half as effective if she weren’t constantly weakening its armor.”

What R’lissea said made sense, but she was wrong about Luke. Not that it was her fault. She simply hadn’t seen what he would do in the days ahead yet.

I studied the elemental, the swish of my tail audible in the muted silence my wards brought. Four eighth-level beings supported by two mages should be an even match for a ninth-level being like Soltair or even an arbiter. But this was a monster, and judging by the quality of its aura, its native strength was on a similar scale to Haven when he’d descended into Enusia.

It was strong enough to have an aura, but there was no sign reality was being rewritten around it. It just kept sucking in power, relying on non-amplified attacks and defenses to battle my friends. Just raw strength and durability, and even that was pushing our limits.

It really did look like a Shard of Omniscience.

Verity materialized again, chasing after Korra as her fists connected with the biggest crack on her chest. Korra landed and snapped her fingers, and the water dragons dove deep, weakening its armor just in time. Verity’s sword found the gap, sinking in to the hilt.

The elemental froze mid-stride, a violent shiver running through its soul. The fissures began to spread, rapidly widening in real time. Light issued out, reflecting in all the colors of the rainbow. My companions jumped back, ready for whatever happened next.

I half-expected an explosion, but the elemental simply fell apart. Chunks of crystal fell off, sinking into the shattered ground like water disappearing into sand. In seconds, all that remained was a lumpy, fist-sized chunk of unworked crystal. It burned as bright as the sun, forcing me to shield my eyes from it.

”That’s...not a core,” I mumbled, my tail going rigid with shock.

Korra said, ”What? What do you mean? It was sitting in the center. If we break that, this fights over!”

The world filled with silver, blotting out all other lights. I knew everyone else had Foresight activate at the same time, because they all suddenly stiffened with shock.

”Get out of there!” I screamed.

My warning came too late. With a dreadful, shuddering thrum, the crystal heart released its stored mana. Its aura doubled in strength, compressing the ground with its weight. My wards groaned, and with horror, I watched as my spells began to waver. Not just the Shining Aegis, but the True Nexus, Link Ability, everything.

”What’s going on? My magic isn’t working!” R’lissea cried with a panicked expression. My mana won’t stick together!”

A real aura. The elemental had finally revealed itself. Or perhaps we had done that inadvertently. Whatever its previous form was, it had acted like a shield, or a prison, for its true self. And now that we had stripped it away, we were left with unbound power.

The only good news was I recognized the aura’s effect, for I had a spell that did the same thing. Pyreforge was a sixth-circle spell that flooded an area with fire mana, making using any other attribute almost impossible. The elemental achieved this through the sheer force of its overwhelming presence, passively disrupting and eroding any magic that didn’t align with the earth element. The range was staggering, enveloping every single Fatesworn I had marked, even the ones scouting with the Night Watch a hundred miles away.

The aura grew thicker in the immediate vicinity of the elemental, forming a faint silhouette around the heart. It was visible to the naked eye, shimmering like evaporating water vapor. Its new shape was about the same height as Gayron, only half as wide and vaguely feminine. It wielded what looked like twin swords, but they were also made of condensed mana and floated a few inches away from its hands, reminding me of Kahlen’s style.

The elemental attacked before any of us had recovered, blurring toward Gayron with speed that transcended what was possible on the eighth level. Gayron barely reacted in time, throwing out a desperate fan of flames. The fire vanished as it closed in, collapsing into earth mana and being absorbed into the heart. Gayron died before he could scream, torn in half by two flashing swords. A new flicker manifested at the edge of the fan of flames, but that left him with only two.

”A second form. Of course it does,” Korra muttered, her eyes narrowed to slits. ”Xiviyah, R’lissea, what do you have for us?”

”I can’t see anything,” R’lissea said, frustrated. ”I haven’t practiced with the Oracle of Eternity enough to be able to pierce such a thick cloud of earth mana.”

I shook my head as well, though no one was paying attention. The elemental had gotten bored of hunting Gayron down with all his flickers, and had set its sights on Grace. She fled from it with desperate speed, streaking across the sky like a lightning bolt. Korra chased after them, but any time she got close enough to interfere, it was like she hit an unbreakable bubble around its body, preventing her from landing a single attack.

Its swordplay was rudimentary, but it was too fast and hit too hard to underestimate. I wouldn’t be able to follow it if I tried anyway, so I focused on that strange feeling of familiarity I got when studying it before. Seeing just the core gave me a much better idea of what it was actually doing with all of its mana.

”New plan,” I said hurriedly, wincing as Grace was clipped by a wind blade, forcing R’lissea to cast a seventh-level healing spell. ”It is like a shard. It collects all that mana and uses it, but more importantly, it naturally refines and regulates it. That’s what’s causing its aura to interfere with our spells.”

”So what do we do about it? It’s so damn fast!” Korra said.

”Seriously, and I couldn’t hurt it if I wanted to. Its wards are like nothing I’ve seen before. Not even yours, Xiviyah,” Gayron agreed.

I soul-cast a seventh-circle spell, laying down a ten-foot-wide magic circle engraved about an inch deep in the earth by raw magic. ”Ring of Sorcery!”

The spell was primarily designed to act as an aid and reduce the burden when casting multiple high-level spells at once. It didn’t fit our situation perfectly, but when the spell resolved, the mana within stabilized. It was still predominantly earth mana, but at least now anything that wasn’t wouldn’t actively fall apart.

”R’lissea, now would be a good time to start casting combat spells. Now that its shell is gone, it’s burning an incredible amount of mana to substantiate a physical form. Anything you can do to slow it down or force it to use more strength is helpful. The rest of you, try and keep it distracted. I’m going to try analyzing its ward. If I can crack it, then crushing the heart shouldn’t be so difficult.”

”Korra, switch me, then,” Verity called, teleporting in front of the elemental, ramming her sword into its shield. It didn’t penetrate, but it kicked up a ton of star-like sparks that certainly got its attention. ”It won’t matter if I’m hit, but you...you can’t die. You’re too important to Xiviyah.”

”I’m not running right when things are getting interesting!” Korra protested. She hesitated, and almost lost an arm for it. She promptly scattered, a grumbling resignation coming through the True nexus.

”If you’re hurt, let me know,” R’lissea said. ”Otherwise, I’m going to summon some toys for this thing to play with. Better some trees than one of you.”