Erik Fors

  I am exhausted.

  My limbs ache with every breath, and my mana has plummeted to dangerous levels. All I want is to sit down, eat something hot, and sleep for another week.

  *STAB*

  The sound was sharp, like bone snapping against iron. I looked toward the noise, and blood drained from my face at the sight.

  A black pointed thing was jutting from my nephew’s chest. Another was driven through his small leg. On the ground, just a few paces away, lay his arm.

  He coughed, and a spray of blood erupted from his mouth. My heart nearly stopped.

  No. No. No! This cannot be happening. Not after we made it out.

  I pushed myself up in a blind panic, my legs shaking as I tried to reach him. Sis was faster. Her hand was outstretched, her fingers inches away from grabbing his shirt, but he was pulled backward with a violent force, vanishing into a ripple near the debris before she could touch him.

  “Sieg!!” Sis screamed, her voice raw and breaking. She jumped at the piles of stone, her silver mana flared in a desperate, chaotic burst as she hurled the debris away, clawing at the empty space where he had been.

  Sir Tavian, Sir Ashar and Blake also rushed forward, moving away the debris in a panic.

  “N-no... Sieg…” Ma stumbled, but Miss Aifa supported her fall, her staff clattering to the ground. She looked hollow, her eyes wide and glassy as she stared at the limb on the ground.

  My eyes followed her gaze to the small arm near my feet. I tried reaching out, but my hand shook… It was so little, so small. A crushing weight settled in my chest—a guilt so sharp it felt like I was the one who had been stabbed.

  We shouldn't have brought him here. He was just a child. I was supposed to be the adult. I was supposed to protect him.

  “How did that demon survive a black hole?” Miss Serena said, moving forward with her face contorted in frustration and disbelief. “Move, Valka Fors! I will open a path!”

  Sis turned, hope flashing across her face, but it was extinguished in an instant. A massive black fist burst out of nowhere and slammed into her. She was sent hurtling through the air like a broken doll. I lunged forward, catching her mid-flight and using wind magic around us, grinding our momentum to a halt before we carved a trench through the forest behind us.

  Before I could even ask if she was alright, she shoved herself out of my arms.

  Then I heard it.

  The laughter was a sound so foul and mocking that I wished I could tear my own ears off.

  The black fist withdrew, leaving behind a jagged tear suspended in the air. It looked like reality itself had been punctured. From within the rip, darkness writhed.

  Two clawed hands, each the size of a carriage, gripped the edges of the rift and began to pull. With a sickening sound of space screaming, the demon ripped the hole wide open.

  Mana pressure exploded outward. It crushed against my chest, forcing the air from my lungs.

  I looked up and saw the darkness geysering out of the rift, spreading across the blue sky like spilled ink, blotting out the sun.

  "Where is he?" Sis's voice was low, vibrating with a frequency that made the pebbles on the ground shatter. "Where is my Sieg?"

  The demon’s tongue dragged slowly across its teeth as it pulled its massive upper torso through the rift, though its lower body remained anchored to the darkness within the stream. “I ate him.”

  Gasps broke out behind me.

  I did not turn.

  My fingers tightened around my axe until the leather grip creaked. Something hot and violent climbed up my throat, choking off air.

  He said it so easily.

  Like Siegfried was nothing.

  Blood roared in my ears. The world narrowed until there was only that thing hanging in the sky.

  My Family is not prey.

  Before I could move, before I could think of how to tear it apart, Sis shot upward. A roar that didn't sound human tore from her throat as her silver mana erupted in a cataclysmic storm.

  Our feet left the ground as we were hurled backward. I saw trees snap like twigs and the earth shatter beneath the force.

  "Queeh!" Fatty screamed, desperately shielding the unconscious adventurers.

  I cast a spell, forcing gravity to anchor us to the broken ground.

  "Lady Fors, are you alright?" Miss Aifa's voice trembled as she held Ma, whose eyes remained vacant and unresponsive.

  Ma… Siegfried

  I looked up as Sis's mana began to coalesce, swirling and hardening around her head into the unmistakable shape of… horns?

  Silver horns of pure mana curved upward as her aura deepened into something feral.

  No… Don’t tell me!! She is activating Berserk? This will be a disaster. She carved out the Valka Valley without ever needing this. If we don't stop her, she won't just kill the demon, she will erase the entire dukedom from the map.

  I forced myself forward, but the pressure alone made it hard to breathe and Sis’s mana added to it…

  Suddenly, Miss Serena appeared right in the heart of the silver storm, hovering inches from Sis's face.

  "Calm down, Valka Fors! Focus!" Serena’s voice cut through the roar of the mana. “Focus. Expand your senses. See beyond this storm you’ve created!”

  Sis did not answer. The storm only grew wilder.

  Serena’s voice cut through it again.

  “His mana has not disappeared.”

  R-really? He’s alive?

  For the first time since the stab, I could breathe.

  The demon’s laughter faltered for the briefest second.

  I turned to Ma. She was looking up, her eyes wide, wet and hopeful.

  "Sieg…" Sis said. Her voice had dropped into a low, terrifying simmer. The ethereal, silver horns that had begun to sprout from her head flickered and vanished, the manic storm of her mana pulling back into a tight, controlled aura of death.

  Good. She has come back to her senses. If she had gone Berserk, there would be no Sieg left to save.

  "You speak as though discovery alters destiny. It does not. He is but a future meal," the demon hissed. It opened its massive arms wide, and the darkness began to spill from the rift and spreading across the ground.

  Then a shrill screech tears through the air.

  I look up.

  Shapes begin falling from the blackened sky.

  Darkkin. But these weren't the ones we knew. Their bodies were a sickening blend of blood-red and black, with balls of flickering fire where their heads or rings should be.

  He is creating his own variants.

  No, it wasn't just the Darkkins. Something even larger moves within the darkness.

  Massive silhouettes force their way out.

  Sky Titans, looking exactly like the ones we had seen within the dungeon.

  Their colossal forms match the twisted colors of the new Darkkin. They pull themselves free of the void like newborn gods of ruin.

  We were being surrounded on all sides by an army of nightmares.

  "Ma, take Fatty and leave!" I shouted over the rising din of screeches.

  "B-but Sieg... I C-can't leave him!" Ma cried, her voice trembling.

  A red orb materializes beside the fallen adventurers. It swallows them whole in a flash of light before turning toward Ma.

  “The command of my Great Lady is clear. Ellie, you need to withdraw.”

  Ma hesitates.

  "Lady Fors, I assure you, we will bring the young lord back. I swear it on my life," Miss Aifa said, her voice steady despite the monsters circling above.

  Ma looked at me, her eyes searching mine for any sign of doubt. I gave her a sharp, firm nod.

  If she stays, she will only get in the way.

  And if something happens to her too…

  "I will leave," she finally whispered.

  Sharp, hissing sounds came from directly above me. I twisted my body and swung my axe in a wide arc, the blade slamming into a falling Darkkins and shattering them into embers. More of them were descending now.

  Aifa helped Ma onto Fatty’s back as the bird let out a nervous, high-pitched squawk.

  "Blake, you go too! Alert the barony! Tell them to prepare for a siege!" Tavian ordered.

  Blake nodded solemnly, his face set in a grim mask, and jumped onto the bird's back. With a powerful beat of his wings, Fatty started running and took to the sky.

  “You would depart so easily? I think not,” the demon sneered. The darkness in the sky extended and coalesced into hundreds of hands, stretching out and closing in on Ma’s path to snatch her from the air.

  “Faux! Barrier!!!” I shouted.

  But the ‘Fua’ of acknowledgement didn’t come. I looked around in a hurry.

  Where did he go?

  Before I could move myself, a brilliant silver arc cut through them in an instant, vaporizing the shadow-limbs into nothingness. Sis hovered in the air directly in their path, her axe resting on her shoulder as she watched them escape.

  “Our lady will be withdrawing from the battlefield for a time. Do not let the Darkkin scatter; secure the perimeter.”

  Before I could ask another question, the red orb blinked out of existence.

  What? Where could she possibly need to go right now? We need her here more than ever.

  “You truly believe victory stands within your grasp?”

  The massive Sky Titans and the swarm of hissing Darkkin gathered around the demon like a living shroud of death, waiting for a command. The air grew cold, a unnatural chill that seeped into my marrow, making the grip on my axe feel slick and uncertain.

  “You cannot unmake me without shattering the Source itself. And when I devour it…”

  A low hum vibrates through the heavens.

  It presses against my skull. Against my ribs. The air itself seems to resonate with it.

  “I shall ascend beyond your frail understanding. Unbound, untouchable… a True Paradeus.”

  The monster’s voice echoed with a sickening confidence that made my stomach churn.

  For a moment, doubt creeps in.

  What if he is right?

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  We barely survived the last clash.

  We tore it apart again and again.

  And every time it returned.

  Stronger.

  Smarter.

  Closer to something we… I could no longer reach.

  I felt my knees weakening as the sheer weight of my failure began to sink in. We… had lost Siegfried. The thought felt like a lead weight pulling me into the earth.

  Then something cool brushed the tip of my nose.

  I looked up.

  A single drop of silver hovered before me.

  It drifted closer and touched my skin.

  My heart slammed hard enough to hurt.

  Mana flooded back into my crucible in a roaring surge. The ache in my limbs receded. Strength returned so abruptly it made me gasp.

  I looked up to see small, glowing motes of silver falling from the sky, drifting down onto all of us like celestial snow.

  Even the air felt clearer.

  I followed their path upward.

  "Humph. Paradeus," Sis said, her voice cutting through the gloom. I noticed the silver motes were bleeding directly from her aura. "You have quite meaningless ambitions."

  “How ironic. You, who deny transcendence, dare to name it meaningless?” A low, ageless chuckle followed, vibrating through the darkness. “Humanity... you never cease to amuse me.”

  My exhaustion vanished completely.

  What replaced it was not simply strength.

  It was resolve.

  “Then watch closely,” Sis said. “What I wield now was not granted by divinity. It was gained by human strength.”

  Suddenly, the sound of booming echoes erupted all around us. It didn't sound like a monster’s roar; it sounded like the ancient, deep blast of war horns. The sound wasn't fearful. Instead, I felt empowered, my strength doubling as the resonance settled into my bones.

  "With this authority of mine..." Sis started.

  The horns roared louder, shaking even the darkness in the sky.

  "I summon the Grand Spirit of War/Conflict."

  The Sky Titans sensed the shift and closed in on Sis, their massive forms blotting out the remaining light. But before they could reach her, six colossal arms erupted into existence around her.

  "Six-Arms Heavenly Raksha…”

  Arms did not descend—they manifested, bursting from the air in a flare of silver radiance. Vast, rune-scarred hands seized the charging titans mid-lunge. There was no struggle. No clash. Just a thunderous compression of force as muscle tightened—

  —and the Sky Titans shattered.

  “Kirvana!"

  Then the body followed.

  A towering, sculpted torso formed between those six arms, markings blazing across marble-like flesh as if reality itself were carving him into being. Its head forms last—smooth and faceless, save for faint luminous lines that trace where features should be, as a radiant circular sigil flared to life behind it.

  A Grand Spirit! Grand!!! That is as high as a spirit can possibly go. Even that little fox is only a high-class spirit. When did Sis ever... Wait. She once mentioned that a Grand Spirit lost to her and started following her around like a shadow. I thought she was just being arrogant, but looks like she was telling the truth.

  “You summoned me, my Queen?”

  The voice of the spirit was strong, heavy and full of reverence.

  I heard Sis's scoff loud and clear. "Please… I am certain you have been watching, as you always do. You are well aware of the situation.”

  “Oh… how fortuitous. Another offering steps willingly into my presence.” The demon’s tongue traced slowly across its lips, its gaze fixed on the towering spirit. “Shall we commence the feast?”

  “Be my guest,” Sis replied, rolling her shoulder as if this were nothing more than a spar. “This is all or nothing.”

  She swung her axe.

  A crescent of silver tore through the air toward the demon.

  The demon opened its mouth wide, the vacuum of its throat crunching the attack and breaking it apart into harmless sparks.

  Then both of them moved.

  They collided midair in a violent explosion of mana that sent shockwaves ripping across the battlefield.

  The Darkkins began circling us, and a Sky Titan led the charge, its shadow swallowing the ground where we stood.

  "Right. It's all or nothing..." Ashar said from behind me.

  He ran his hand over the top of his head, “Come out, Fire Giant.”

  His hair blazed upward as a torrent of fire erupted, a giant flaming hand materialized out of thin air, catching the Sky Titan’s fist mid-swing. Flames spiraling around him into a colossal humanoid form. A giant of living inferno rose, Ashar suspended at its core, eyes burning like white-hot coals. The fire giant grabbed the titan by the head and poured a sea of flames onto its face, forcing the monster to stumble back under the sheer heat as the giant kept pushing.

  He is capable of such a thing? It must be some sort of blood trait, seeing how his hair went on fire.

  I felt a sudden heat from above and ducked hard, a flaming arrow whistling over my head from a descending Darkkin.

  Before I could retaliate, multiple arrows struck the creature in rapid succession, forcing it to fall back in a heap of cinders.

  "They are much tougher now," Miss Aifa said, her voice tight with irritation as she reloaded her bow.

  Tavian brushed past me, he drew his sword in a powerful, sweeping slash that sent ripples of force through the air, cracking the bodies of multiple Darkkins at once. "Tsk. They have been empowered by that demon, and we don't have the Young Lord's Aethel magic to weaken them anymore."

  The reminder hit harder than any blow.

  We do not have Siegfried.

  I tightened my grip.

  I must pull my weight too.

  I leapt upward creating a point of attraction far above my hand. I began pulling all the oncoming Darkkins toward a single point, they screeched as their bodies crushed into each other, compressed into a writhing sphere of mass.

  I twisted my torso and hurled the mass at the Sky Titan that the Fire Giant was battling. The impact destabilized the titan, and seeing the opening, the Fire Giant pinned it to the ground. It constructed a massive sword of flame and stabbed the titan in the head repeatedly; each strike sent plumes of fire bursting outward as the Titan convulsed beneath the assault.

  Above us, silver and darkness clashed like colliding stars.

  The sky had become a battlefield of gods

  I noticed four Sky Titans hovering high in a geometric formation, a massive, many-layered magic square igniting between them.

  Square within squares. Unreadable words folding over one another.

  Then the beam came out of it.

  A pillar of condensed ruin dropped toward Sis.

  Before it could touch her, the Grand Spirit appeared above her, raising its arms to manifest a radiant circle that intercepted the ray, fracturing it into shards of fading light.

  “Vajra.”

  As the words left the spirit, a short metal club formed in its grasp, ribbed and crowned with prongs of blinding radiance. Lightning pillars erupted out of thin air, descending with a deafening roar that disintegrated the Sky Titans where they hovered.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  Such raw power…

  Even at my peak, I would not last a heartbeat against that spirit.

  A cry of pain cut through the roar of battle.

  I snapped my head toward the source.

  The demon’s arms had been severed, spinning away in arcs of black blood. Sis was already moving for its head.

  One of the severed arms twitched midair.

  A sphere of brown black energy condensed within its palm and closed in on her.

  The attack hit her squarely, sending her flying back into the distance, wrapped in that sickening aura.

  "Sis!" I flew in her direction, watching the ball of energy explode in the middle of the forest.

  In an instant the trees withered.

  Leaves shifted from green to sickly yellow and crumbled away. Bark shrank. Branches cracked and drooped. Grass blackened. The ground split as life drained from it.

  The air itself felt older.

  Is this entropy?

  At the center of that dead zone, Sis knelt.

  My heart pounded violently as I descended toward her with the fear that I would find her aged into an old woman or worse.

  "How long is she taking?" Sis groaned, pushing herself up. She looked exactly the same as usual, her fierce eyes scanning the sky.

  A massive sigh of relief left me.

  “How are you standing against the current of time itself?” The demon loomed over us, its voice a discordant melody of confusion and rage.

  I raised my axe, stepping forward.

  It did not even glance at me.

  Its eyes were fixed only on her.

  “Maybe time’s just not as strong as you think,” Sis replied, a smirk touching her lips.

  A sharp buzzing filled the battlefield.

  Chains of lightning burst outward, coiling around the demon’s torso and limbs. They stretched from the Vajra in the Grand Spirit’s grasp.

  With a violent motion, the spirit hurled its arm.

  The demon was dragged upward, crashing into the canopy of darkness above making the dark sky ripple.

  Then it was yanked down and smashed into the earth.

  Lightning surged through its body, blasting chunks of corrupted flesh away.

  Sis leapt and landed atop the pinned demon and drove her fists down in relentless succession, each strike shaking the ground beneath my boots.

  Why is she not going into the time stream to destroy the source? She could end this all right now. And where is Miss Serena? Don't tell me she actually bailed on us when things got real.

  Movement caught my eye. Darkness seeped from the rift, spreading across the ground like a living oil.

  A sound of crashing reached my ears, and I turned to see the Fire Giant being overpowered by a barrage of spells from two more Sky Titans. Explosions hammered its flaming frame, forcing it down.

  Moving as fast as I could, I leaped into the air and raised my axe above the head of the nearest titan. "O Unseen threads of the world—500,000 times slash!" I brought the axe down, and the sheer weight I had infused into the blade did the rest, tearing through the titan in an instant as if it were made of paper.

  The Fire Giant pushed the other one back, shoving its burning fist directly into the Titan's mouth.

  Fire detonated from within.

  The Titan convulsed as its head exploded outward.

  These Sky Titans seem much weaker than the ones I have heard about in legends. It is either because they are running on an unstable source of power or because we took out those gems earlier?

  Anyway, it's a good thing.

  If they were at full strength, we would already be dead.

  How are the others holding up?

  My attention shifted to the sharp ring of Tavian's sword as he moved through the Darkkin with disciplined precision, each swing of his sword carving clean arcs through crystallized bodies. Miss Aifa provided support from the back, her arrows finding gaps in the shifting shadows, each shot forcing the Darkkin to misstep or fall.

  For a moment, it looked controlled.

  Then something massive descended.

  I prepared myself for another Sky Titan, but a towering Darkkin landed between them, wings snapping outward. In its hands rested a greatsword nearly as large as Tavian himself.

  In the blink of an eye, it closed the distance and swung.

  Tavian raised his blade just in time, but the sheer strength behind the blow sent him skidding back across the broken earth. Arrows rained down, but the creature twisted its blade and deflected them midair with terrifying precision.

  Tavian seized the brief opening and lunged forward, but the Darkkin met him blow for blow. As they stood locked in place, neither yielding an inch.

  I noticed Tavian’s sword beginning to rust, the metal decaying even through his sword aura.

  Corrosion?

  I pulled my hand back and threw my axe, shifting the direction of gravity and increasing its weight a thousand times mid-flight. The axe tore through the Darkkin, and it crumbled into silent cinders.

  “Are you alright?” I asked as I landed beside him, my axe returning to my hand with a heavy thud.

  He gave a short, sharp nod. “I am. Thank you.” He looked down at his rusted, crumbling sword for a fleeting moment before his gaze hardened.

  “All or nothing, then.”

  “Hm?”

  He exhaled slowly and pulled his wand, which was transformed and wrapped tightly around his sword's hilt. “O spirits...”

  The air changed.

  I heard the deep, thrum of drums, followed by the high, clear lilt of flutes. More sounds joined in, weaving together into a soothing yet powerful melody.

  Wind gathered beneath Tavian’s feet, lifting him upward within a spiraling cloud.

  Dozens of spirits manifested around him.

  So many!?

  Some small and nimble, others broad and big, each formed from condensed wind. All of them carried what looked like musical instruments made of translucent air.

  Using his wand, he pointed at the small spirits carrying flutes. They answered by shooting bursts of concentrated wind at the Darkkin on the ground. Then, he pointed at two larger spirits carrying trumpets. They blew a resonant note, and four massive tornadoes roared into existence, ripping across the battlefield and pulling Darkkin screaming into the sky.

  With every motion of his wand, the melody shifted.

  Sharp crescendos became slicing gales.

  Deep bass notes became crushing pressure waves.

  Like a conductor leading a grand orchestra, he directed them one by one, using his wand like a baton. It was an astonishing, beautiful sight amidst the carnage.

  These guys... they are hella strong.

  I may have underestimated them.

  When I first heard that I… that Ebony… had defeated them all, I thought perhaps they weren’t that strong.

  I was wrong.

  "So the Captain used it after all," Miss Aifa said, landing lightly next to me. I noticed her quiver was empty.

  "He doesn't use it much?" I asked, hurling my axe to clear a path through a few stragglers.

  "It’s not mana efficient,” she replied, watching Tavian conduct the storm above. “And even though he is fond of music, he is still from a knight family and feels the need to maintain a certain image. He even says his title, ‘Knight of Euphony,’ is an embarrassment.”

  Knight of Euphony.

  I looked up for a second at the conductor in the sky.

  Fitting.

  I suppose I shouldn't have underestimated the members of the Aegis. Not just anyone would be chosen to stand in that unit.

  Ashar... Tavian... they could probably become Paladins with that level of mastery over magic and weaponry.

  "Are you also hiding some sort of secret power?" I asked, glancing at her.

  She gave a small, awkward smile. “Not exactly… I am still learning.”

  So she has something. Am I the only one without some sort of secret super power? Everyone else is turning into giants or conducting orchestras while I’m just throwing axes.

  Another thought followed.

  “Did you not use these abilities when you fought me… I mean, that Ebony?”

  "Oh, we did. The first time we encountered it. Me, Ashy, the Captain, Blake, and the other three went after that bloody armor with everything we had. But we still..." She didn't finish the sentence. The frustration on her face said more than any words could.

  That Ebony must have been truly monstrous. I suppose I can be a little proud since it was using my body as a vessel.

  Right?

  I felt something cold and oily tangling around my legs.

  “Uwaah.”

  I kicked free and leapt upward as the darkness spread rapidly across the ground.

  Miss Aifa propelled herself into the air with wind magic.

  "Khakhakha!"

  My eyes turned to the demon.

  My eyes snapped toward the demon.

  It was still being pummeled into the earth by lightning and silver fists.

  Then its body sagged, melting until it dissolved into the darkness beneath it.

  “You can’t…” its voice reverberated from above.

  I looked up.

  Its upper body emerged from the canopy of darkness in the sky.

  “…pin the darkness.”

  The darkness in the sky began to mould and shift. Hundreds of maws tore through the dark canopy, stretching in every direction, each lined with jagged teeth. Blood-red mana began to concentrate in the back of every maw, glowing like a thousand dying suns.

  The scale of it was impossible. It wasn't just aiming at us. The maws were spreading far beyond, pointing toward the horizon.

  No! Wait! It is spreading even in the direction of the barony!

  The maws widened.

  Red light flared within them.

  And the sky inhaled at us.

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