Chapter 35: The Mage
Each checkpoint fell much the same.
Each had a leader. Each had a lieutenant that proved to be slightly more challenging than the others.
It didn’t matter.
Cole killed them all.
The city blurred into a sequence of barricades and muzzle flashes, of shouted threats that died in throats that turned to ash. Stacked cars. Scrap walls. Painted signs warning trespassers. Men with patches and rifles who thought the end of the world had made them kings.
Cole walked through them.
Rage burned in his chest, but it was a subdued flame. Quiet, yet steady and sure, ready to face the winds that came. It simply sat there and fed him, a constant heat behind his ribs.
He felt nothing for the lives he snuffed out.
None of them begged, though some did scream. Some tried to run. They didn’t get far.
All Cole could see was small skeletons and a cage with tiny, scared faces. The way the bars had looked in that garage. The way the runes had pulsed. The way the children had gone pale.
He didn’t see these thugs as men. He saw the mechanism. The chain that led from Wrath hands to demon hands.
He was breaking the chain.
Most of what he faced was guns. The Wraths loved guns. Guns were simple. Guns made weak men feel powerful.
And in the old world, guns would’ve mattered.
Now, they were noise.
“Ashen Aegis.”
Bullets stopped dead in the air, hanging, then fell to the street with soft clinks that somehow felt louder than gunfire.
“Edict: Disarm.”
Rifles dropped. Pistols skittered across pavement. Men stared at empty hands.
“Choir of Verdict.”
Authority blanketed the area, and bodies hit their knees. Some fought it harder than others. Some were stronger, higher level, better conditioned. All of them buckled eventually.
Then the Crozier hummed, and shadows sharpened.
“Black Halo Lance.”
And it ended.
Ash.
Step.
Ash.
Step.
Every so often, he’d come across someone using skills, spells, actually making use of what the System offered. The first time it happened, it almost startled him. It reminded him these weren’t just thugs with guns anymore. The System was turning everyone into something else.
A bolt of air slammed into his shield. It hit Ashen Aegis with a concussive thump, the invisible barrier rippling.
Cole lifted his gaze.
A tall woman stood behind a wrecked SUV, rough looking robes hanging off her frame. Her hair was tied back tight. Her face was contorted in concentration, hazel eyes burning with hate. One arm was extended, fingers splayed, and the air around her hand shimmered faintly.
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She shoved again, and another strike of compressed air hammered into Cole’s shield.
Cole leaned on his staff, almost bored as he killed her.
Cole could feel her moving mana. He couldn’t touch the stuff himself, but he’d started to recognize the effort it took. The way the air tensioned when someone gathered power. The way their breathing changed. The way their eyes narrowed.
He was discovering that using mana was a bit of a handicap.
He could cast his spells with a thought and a word.
Others needed to actually wield mana, and as he had learned with Alina Park, mana could be tricky to get ahold of. Tricky to hold onto. Tricky to shape.
It cost her.
The woman behind the SUV looked like it was costing her too. Sweat slicked her forehead. Her jaw trembled. The moment her concentration slipped, her spell would fizzle, and she knew it.
Cole didn’t give her the chance.
“Edict: Disarm.”
Her focus broke. She blinked, startled, hand twitching.
Cole followed with the familiar end of the loop.
“Black Halo Lance.”
Her shadow rose and lanced through her. She collapsed into ash in a single breath.
The air bolt she’d been shaping died mid-formation. Wind sighed through the street, suddenly normal again.
Cole stepped over scattered weapons and kept going.
The further he pushed into Wrath territory, the more fortified it became. More bodies. More barricades. More confidence that if they added enough obstacles, he’d get tired. He’d run out of whatever magic he was using. He’d finally bleed.
Cole didn’t even breathe hard.
He only stopped once, just long enough to look at a wall where someone had painted WRATH in red. Under it, someone had scrawled something else in uneven letters.
PAY UP OR GET BURIED.
Cole stared at the words for a second, then kept walking.
Eventually, he came to the main compound.
It was an old industrial lot with a big fence line and welded scrap reinforcing it. Cargo containers stacked into makeshift walls. A gate that looked like it had been ripped from somewhere else and bolted into place.
The gate was bigger.
The guards were mostly the same.
They saw him coming and raised their guns.
Cole killed them before they could even say anything.
“Ashen Aegis.”
The first volley of bullets died in front of him.
“Choir of Verdict.”
Bodies dropped.
“Black Halo Lance.”
Ash rose.
The gate area became silent in seconds, except for the distant alarmed shouting from inside the compound.
Cole stepped through.
Chaos erupted as he strode through the gates. Wrath members scattered. Some ran for cover. Some ran for better angles. Some ran because their courage broke and their brains screamed at them to flee.
Cole killed, stopped hostile bullets, disarmed and brought people to their knees. His spells were a loop, simple, but effective.
There was no artistry to it. No flourish. He wasn’t showing off.
He was sweeping a room.
Extermination.
Any hostile spells he did face, he erased with Null Hymn.
A red flare of something came toward him from behind a forklift.
“Edict: Null Hymn.”
The spell unraveled with a gentle pop and a faint echo of melody, like a hymn sung through a closed door. The caster jerked as if someone had yanked a cord out of their spine.
Then Cole’s shadows did what they always did.
Some had patches that protected them.
Those patches flared red when his lance struck, and the first time it happened inside the compound, a man survived and staggered backward, screaming, clutching at his chest, surprised he was still alive.
Cole didn’t chase him immediately.
He watched the patch dim. Watched the protection burn out.
Most of the time, it was a one and done thing.
No one had escaped so far, but Cole wasn’t looking to kill every Wrath member. He just wanted to kill enough that it wouldn’t matter if a couple survived.
Their organization would be broken.
Their fear would outlive their leader.
Cole walked deeper into the lot, ash thick underfoot now. It clung to his boots. It swirled around his ankles when he moved. It settled on the scrap walls and the stacked containers, turning the compound into a graveyard colored in gray.
Notifications flickered in his vision. Experience gained. Minor skill progress. Small numbers.
Cole wiped them away without looking.
They were irrelevant.
There was only one thing in this place worth seeing.
And then he heard footsteps on metal.
Cole turned slightly.
A set of steps led up to the second level of a container stack, a makeshift platform that overlooked the yard. A man strode up them like he had all the time in the world.
He wore a nice suit. It didn’t belong out here, and that was the point. It was a statement.
His features were sharp, but on the plainer side. The kind of face you might forget if you passed him in a grocery store. His hair was neatly combed.
But his eyes were filled with wrath.
He took a drag of a cigarette, regarding all the ash around him.
Then his gaze settled on Cole, who leaned on his Crozier, calm as a man waiting for a bus.
Smoke curled from Devin’s mouth. He exhaled slowly.
“So,” Devin said, voice smooth. “You must be the mage.”
Cole didn’t answer.
Devin’s eyes flicked over him, taking in the staff, the calm posture, the ash dusting the ground around him.
“I guess you’re looking for me,” Devin continued, and he smiled faintly, as if this was an inconvenience he’d expected. “Nice to meet you.”
He lifted the cigarette in a small, mocking salute.
“I’m Devin.”
