So, yeah, here this is, a week and a half late. Sorry about that, I just... put down— Put down the pitchforks! It was an accident, I swear!
So, yeah, I contracted writer's block, and then I got very sick. And then once I got better, I still had writer's block. As a result, the chapter is a bit rushed and unpolished. I'll get to fixing it at some point. Probably. But I thought that you'd waited long enough for it already, so enjoy!
Chapter Ten: The Adherents of the Revenant King
"Woah~" came another voice, carrying a tone of light reverence. "You really beat the Starlight Scripture all on your own— so cool! They're totally the strongest unit of the entire sect, you know?"
There were three of them in total, complete with the familiar priestly robe attire. Their features weren't masked, though. Two of them were female, with one male situated to the left of them.
"Who are you?!" demanded Erza, raising her sword as a discernible aura kicked up a wind around her. Talk about a strong presence.
"Gyohohoho, don't you know?" said the male. "And we went to all the trouble of inviting you in, too!"
"I get the strangest sense that I'm going to regret asking this," I said, "but you wouldn't happen to be the villainous people in charge of this whole operation, would you?"
"We are all at the behest of his Majesty." said the middle female. "Everything must be done for the sake of—"
"—Zeref-sama?" I interrupted. "And I thought Grimoire Heart was fanatic about the guy, but damn."
"...who?" said the woman. "Am I supposed to recognize the name of someone as unimportant as your 'Zeref'?"
There was a brief silence.
"You mean you're not a Zeref cult?" I said. "More than that, you don't even recognize his name? Have you been living under a rock for... Oh, right, you kind of have been. I guess that just makes you a normal cult, then. Don't worry, you're still plenty creepy."
"Hey, that's mean!" said the other woman, pouting heavily. She was far younger, perhaps even younger than Erza and Mira. "We invited you in, even let you witness our Soul Call, and you still—"
"That is enough, Valerie." admonished the first woman harshly. Her voice seemed to echo eerily throughout the cavern.
"Ah-ahhh, my apologies, High Priestess-sama!" said 'Valerie,' abashed.
"Steel Make: Quicksilver Phantom." I said, forming the magic appropriately around me. A liquid metal blob emerged from the air, something vaguely resembling a mouth afixed to one end. "We don't have time for idle chatter. If you're going to fight us, do so now. If not, let us pass."
"Oh, straight to the business, huh?" said the robed man. "Gyohohohohohoho!"
"Okay, one more laugh like that, and I swear one of us is going to be reduced to a bloody pulp and it ain't gonna be me," I said.
"If you're so certain you want to fight us, go right ahead," said the older woman. "I feel I should warn you, though, that the Scripture heads are a minimum of twice as strong as their collective unit."
"Oh, you mean twice as strong as those ninja-henchmen from before?" I said. "You might make me sweat a little!"
Without warning, I found a short wakizashi slicing towards my neck, in the grip of Valerie. How the hell had she moved so quickly?! Teleportation?
"That's my Scripture you're talking so dismissively about," said Valerie. "You'd better apologize quickly, or I'll definitely kill you."
Wait, hadn't she just been praising me for taking those guys down? There was something seriously wrong with this girl.
A simple mental gesture was all it took for my Steel Make creation to descend like a gelatinous goop over my assailant. With a surprisingly girly shriek, she dropped her weapon and leapt backwards. My Quicksilver Phantom engulfed the blade within its swirling mass, dissolving it into base materials and absorbing the metal.
"Years of isolation in a forest has caused me to develop conversational dysfunction, so I am incapable of apology," I deadpanned. "Thank you for the sword, though. It was delicious."
"You're so creepy!" she complained. "Why can't you be like the normal people and just plead and beg, mou!"
I coated myself in a layer of Lightning Magic, more a defensive measure against further close combat than anything else. Something about this entire situation was tickling at the back of my mind, setting me on edge. There was something wrong with it all, but Ijust couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was.
"Allow me to rephrase my earlier proclamation," I said. "Please get out of our way within the next ten seconds, or I will begin to attack you without restraint."
There was a moment of calm.
It was the older woman who attacked first, crouching as her hands fell into a familiar position, clasped together by her side. I often used the same form myself for two certain magics, though hers had much fewer flaws than my own.
"Night Make: Field of Thorns," she said airily. I'll admit, out of all the forms of Molding Magic, I certainly hadn't expected that. Could something as vague as 'night' even be considered a proper element anyway?
Apparently so, if the way pitch black spikes rose from the earth in rapid succession was anything to go by. And then, as though a switch had been turned on, the Night Make creation suddenly lit up with tiny white pinpricks of light. Stars and nebulae swirled through the darkness, drawing my rapture at the resplendence of it.
But only for a moment or so. As the pikes continued to jut up from the ground at an ever increasing rate, all three of us took to the air. Erza requipped into her Black Wing Armor, Mira morphed into her usual battle form, and I shifted from Lightning Magic to a full Storm Drive. We all hovered in the air and prepared our various counterattacks.
From Erza, it was a rain of steel. From Mira, it was some dark-themed spell I couldn't name. As for me, I sent my magic into assuring us a defense— in the most irritating manner possible.
"World Severance: Blender," I said.
I know, I know, naming that one hadn't been one of my brighter moments, but it just seemed to fit.
The original idea behind World Severance was to send tiny blades of specialized magic to disrupt intangible things, such as spacetime, instead of just slicing through objects. By using a thin but wide blade, I could form a barrier. By using a small spike, I could draw lines in the fabric of the universe. By throwing hundreds of haphazardly formed blades out as quickly as possible, I could turn the entire terrain into a confusing mess of distorted space.
It was as much a disadvantage for my comrades as it was for the enemy, but I could sense each blade of magic, and thus knew which areas to avoid. Many of Erza's swords were frozen in midair, ruining the effect of her barrage. Mira's spell still hit true, though.
"Sorry, guys," I said, realizing my error a bit too late. "I may have accidentally distorted all of space and time around us beyond any hope of recognition."
"What?!" said Erza, but our conversation was cut off by a strand of dazzling Night Make Magic trying to whip at me. I dodged, flinging myself to the right.
"Steel Make: Chain Link," I said, letting the magic flow. An array of gleaming, silver chains stretched from one side of the cavern to the other.
Our three foes seemed to be using the veritable forest of spikes below to their advantage, hiding from our vision. But hopefully, this spell would help to draw them out. The true power of the Chain Link was in its deception. At first glance, it would be seen and dismissed as a static Steel Make creation. It was anything but.
Writhing like some sort of mad serpent, the chain was cast about in the air. In several places, it was caught in spacial distortions, making it seem as though it was attached to invisible floating hooks. This did little to interfere with the spell's purpose, though, as the iron links snaked through the maze of Night Make Magic below.
"Gate of the Flood!" I said, screaming the incantation out of principle. The spell was very energy-intensive, after all, and some release of passion was granted.
It was, technically speaking, my 'most powerful' spell in water magic, though it was far from my deadliest. Its nature was fairly basic, as I could barely put shape to that much magical power at once, but it fulfilled its purpose well enough: to create as much water as possible in the shortest amount of time.
As the name suggested, the ground became flooded with water up to shoulder height (high enough to drown me), though it was quickly dispersing in the vastness of the cavern. I had to act quickly if I wanted this to work. I sought out the nearest part of my Steel Make creation and grabbed on tightly to one of the metal links.
The thing about Steel Make magic is that it allows the caster to do more than manipulate the physical shape of the steel they create. With enough practice, it was a simple matter to change other properties as well— concentration of iron, hardness, phase of matter, ductility, luster, and conductivity.
Needless to say, I had manipulated that last property to the extreme end of the spectrum. With my Storm Drive still activated, electric current raced from my hand, through the chain, and into the water. I must have spent out a good third of my magical energy, but damn if it hadn't been worth it.
I continued pumping electricity for as long as I could before I eventually cancelled my Storm Drive, supporting myself in the air with Flight Magic alone. The entire spell combination had taken roughly ten seconds.
In that time, Erza had called forth another barrage of weapons, floating telekinetically around her, and Mira had prepared some form of lightning spell, except that (like all of her spells) the lightning was a dark purple. Both of them seemed frozen in shock. They quickly recovered, however, each flying beside my panting form.
"Take that, ya bastards," I said, my hands on my knees.
"Brian!" said Erza, worry lacing her tone. "What on earth was that?! What were you thinking, using such power-intensive spells one after that other?!"
"Oh, relax, I still have... a good amount of magic... left," I said, still panting. "Just... give me a minute... to recover."
Without a word, Erza grabbed me by my waist and hauled my over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I was about to show my displeasure at this, but I stopped myself from protesting. There were more important things to do here, and I really did need a minute to allow the rest of my magic energy to rise to the top of my ethernanos container. There was a price for releasing so much magic all at once, after all.
As the water cleared from the area, the three figures of our enemies could be seen standing plainly atop a platform of Night Make Magic. Well, all three were there, but they did look particularly worn, and the male one... He wasn't going to be getting up any time soon.
"Ara, ara," said the older, nameless woman who I was beginning to think was in charge of this entire operation. "That was some pretty dangerous magic, don't you think? Little boys shouldn't be playing with things like that."
Her voice seemed to echo louder than it should have in the open space.
"Beautiful women shouldn't be running secret underground cults either!" I shot back, grinning stupidly.
"Oh, High Priestess-sama, look what happened to Cillian," said Valerie disappointedly. "He's all fried up."
"Hmm, how shameful," said the 'high priestess.' "If he couldn't keep from falling to such a spell, then it must surely be his Majesty's will. Perhaps he can be of use as another sacrifice."
"Okay!" chirped Valerie, giving a cheery salute and seemingly unbothered by her comrade's demise. "Hey, does that mean I get control of his Scripture? Does it? It does, doesn't it?"
"Peace, Valerie, we will discuss it later," said the other woman, a hint of exasperation bleeding through.
That seemed to be Erza's cue to attack, as she released the full might of her second barrage. This time, she was mindful of the gaps in space from my Severance Magic, where many of her blades still hung, frozen in stasis. She was also a bit more strategic as well, instead of relying on sheer firepower.
The impact points were carefully calculated, instantly forming a circle around the edge of the platform to cut off retreat and then quickly spiraling in to form smaller and smaller circles, cornering them in open air. It would have succeeded too, if the high priestess hadn't formed a dome shield with her Night Make. When the barrage ended, she launched the shield at Erza, forcing her to dodge with me still hanging from her shoulder.
"Arc of Legends: Muramasa!" said Valerie, and a katana materialized in her hands. Its blade that gleamed like the eyes of a cougar stalking its prey. I shivered involuntarily at the sight of it, thinking that my magic reserves weren't recovering quickly enough to deal with something like that.
With Requip Magic, there was always a telltale flash of light and a very distinct noise. With Valerie's blade, the weapon seemed to have formed out of billions of tiny particles in the air and was eerily silent. And then there was that incantation. Without a doubt, this was one of those— a Lost Magic.
"Quench," said Valerie. Her voice implied slaughter the way a saxophone implies jazz.
There was a burst of something, and a flash of hazy red. Then, Erza fell towards the ground, struck. Her armor was shattered to pieces and she was bleeding heavily from her stomach. In a quick bout of idiotic inspiration, I grabbed onto her arm and threw her up into the air with all of my might, aided by a gust of Wind Magic.
But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and I was sent racing towards the ground at a heightened velocity. Erza, having enough time to get her bearings, requipped into Heaven's Wheel and came chasing after me. I had enough time to cushion my fall with wind, but not enough to support myself with a Flight spell.
My fall was thankfully saved from being terminal, but I still landed hard and at an awkward angle. I heard a jarring crack from my right ankle and had to bight my lip to keep from crying out. Damn that psycho! What the hell had she even done to Erza anyway?
"Gather the soul, repair the soul," I began, gritting my teeth. "All life that shines in the earthen depths," I waved Erza off, gesturing for her to return to the battle. "With such desperation, show me thine ill-wrought mercy. Oh Soother of Flesh, I am the bearer of the crest. Manifest in peace absolute. Raise the head and lower the feet. Gleam on, Vitae Adflo."
A soft glow engulfed me, and I felt myself loosen as all of my aches and pains were soothed. My ankle mended together again, but I was once again depleting my reserves. At this rate, I might actually overtax myself and have to rest for a day or two to build up more magical energy.
It only took a few seconds, but when the lambency faded, I was in pristine condition. My muscles were rested, my skin healthy, my eyes sharp. I was ready to continue.
After all of that intense magic, I'd have to focus on less intensive spells from now on, or I'd exhaust myself after a minute or so. That meant illusions, transformation, weak elemental magic, and a few other tricks. Otherwise, I just knew I'd get carried away and deplete my reserves.
Despite her wounds, Erza had flown into the fray with renewed fervor. Nothing could keep that woman down, I swear... She seemed to focus on fighting against the Valerie girl, who was still clutching that creepy samurai blade. As far as I could tell, neither held the upper hand, but then I was hardly a master swordsman.
Mira's form was different now. Instead of the usual dark purple and green scales, she was now coated in a rough layer of sky blue, and her wings were also feathered instead of bat-like. I vaguely recalled something about it being a powerful form that Makarov had forbidden her from using, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called.
"Grand Summoning: Gate of the Wilderness!" I yelled, projecting my voice with magic. For a split second, everyone's eyes fell on me. I fell into a horse stance, clapping my hands together in front of me as though in prayer. The more dramatic this was, the better.
Channeling a small amount of magical energy, I began to shape the light particles around me into images. Outlandish monsters began to spawn from nowhere, letting out roars that totally weren't sound waves manipulated by my own magic using Voice Enchant. Eventually, it seemed as though the area was covered in a blanket of fur and claws and tentacles, among other accessories.
But for mages of this caliber, illusions weren't going to cut it. It would distract them for maybe a few seconds before they realized what they were. I had to convince them that the monsters were real.
Thankfully, both of them would have to spend most of their attention on their opponents, so I might be able to have some sleight of hand pass their notice.
"Wood Make: Runic Formation 2," I murmured, taking care not to let the spell catch the notice of the enemy.
Out of all of my runic Wood Make creations, these were the least taxing to create. They essentially just released raw magic in the form of a semi-concentrated beam, like a magic cannon. However, to make this many of them, I would have to break this new rule about not straining myself.
With an extra bit of concentration, Molding Magic creations didn't necessarily have to be formed next to the caster, much the same way the stance didn't need to be used for simple spells. Instead, one could form the creations behind, for example, a large rock, and therefore keep it in reserve for later use.
In my case, I wanted to form these inside of the illusion monsters. All of them. That was a grand total of one hundred seventy three cannons.
I felt myself fall to the ground on one knee from the strain, beads of sweat dripping down my face and neck. Nonetheless, I completed it. Each monster had a magic cannon hidden inside of it, charged for twenty five shots each.
"Now, my beasts, shoot down the enemy!" I proclaimed, pointing emphatically at the two cultists and make certain that they heard me.
As though in response to my calls, I let loose the cannon fire, opening the maws of my fake beasts to make it seem like some strange breath attack. As planned, the enemy was put on the defensive, both of them, though they were quick to counterattack.
Every time a surge of Night Make Magic smashed into a monster or a blade flew through the air at them, I let the monsters 'die.' So long as they were convinced that their attacks were actually killing off my 'summoned beasts' one by one, then they would continue to do so, wasting their own time and leaving my allies advantaged.
As it was, Erza and Mira wasted not a moment to go on the offensive. I distinctly heard the words 'Blumenblaut' and 'Soul Extinction' before various booms and crashes enveloped the cavern amidst flashes of spell fire. And throughout it all, several hundred meters away, the cult members still continued with their creepy ritual, heedless of the battle.
It seemed Erza was beginning to make ground against Valerie, who was slightly preoccupied with hurling various bladed weapons at my illusionary constructs. The Titania got in a good slash or two, leaving her opponent scrambling for defenses against both her and the magic cannons.
On the other hand, Mira didn't seem to be making much progress against the 'high priestess,' whose Night Make Magic was scarily efficient at destroying my illusion monsters. I could scarcely keep up with her pace and show them as being gored or smashed to death.
Added to that, all it took was a single shield and none of the She-Devil's hits would strike true. Not even her Soul Extinction (and believe me, it was a spell worthy of awe) had managed to break through.
"No, this isn't enough," I muttered. "But what can I do with my magic energy nearly depleted like this? Wait... do I still have—?"
Molding Magic creations would always take an amount of magic energy proportionate to the size and complexity of the structure, when the spell was cast to make them. However, when it came to Dynamic creations, the amount of energy needed to give them mental gestures and commands was so small as to be completely negligible. I currently had two such creations: the Chain Link and the Quicksilver Phantom— neither had actually been destroyed by enemy attacks.
In other words, I had two remotely controllable avatars with their own special characteristics. The Chain Link was long enough to fight at range or defend from all directions, even if broken into several pieces. The Quicksilver Phantom was a liquid-like gel, and it had a theoretically impossible acidity capable of dissolving both material substances and ethernanos particles.
With Erza seeming to fare against Valerie as well as she was, it was Mira's opponent who I needed to make a strike at. However, as soon as I struck, she would retaliate against me directly. The only things keeping me safe were that I looked too drained to fight and that they had two other foes to battle before they could deal with me.
Luckily, I had two different creations to play with. From a logical standpoint, I should use one to attack and one to defend against the counterattack. The question was: which one for which role? The Chain Link was without a doubt the more versatile one; the Quicksilver Phantom was only a blob of acidic, metal goop, and it couldn't change form too much unless I poured extra magic energy into it.
Weighing the pros and cons of each situation, I summoned the Chain Link to my side while simultaneously pulling the Quicksilver Phantom towards the High Priestess of this odd cult. Like a serpent, the chain coiled rapidly around me, forming a defensive layer. The Phantom continued to propel itself at Mira's combatant.
I hadn't expected anything else, but my Steel Make creation was repelled with a spiked shield which the enemy mage then launched as far away from herself as she could. But I only let a victorious smirk cover my features. A spiked shield? The greater the surface area, the quicker the corrosion of ethernanos. And with an element as odd as 'night,' the only explanation was that everything was made almost entirely out of raw ethernanos.
It took only a few seconds to dissolve the shield to dust, and then the Quicksilver Phantom was once again flying at the High Priestess. Mira had capitalized on the distraction and pressed her advantage, leaving her opponent unable to counter me directly. This was it!
"Gáe Buide!"
The lance came rocketing towards me like a bullet. The light of my enormous illumination spell gleamed wickedly off the edge of it. I rose my Chain Link around my body for protection, but the blade sliced straight through it without so much as a loss of momentum.
For an instant that seemed to last forever, I froze. The world around me dropped into slow motion. I could feel the deadliness of the lance like a thick miasma in the air. I caught the beginnings of horror slowly being etched onto Erza's face. The blade had come from Valerie, it seemed.
A clash of steel on steel met my ears, and I came to realize that I wasn't skewered. In front of me was a familiar redhead in a cheetah print outfit, the blood red hilts of two falchions in her grip. She'd deflected the the projectile with her blades after speeding ahead in her Flight Armor.
But with such a revealing outfit, I could clearly make out the deep wounds she'd received earlier, and they did not look to be getting any better. In spite of the angry red slashes across her torso, though, I couldn't perceive any pain or weakness in her stance.
Snapping out of my haze, I exerted my control over the Chain Link and had it rise up and strike at Valerie. As strong as Erza was, there was simply no way for her to last very long with such heavy injury to herself.
Both of the severed halves aimed for two targets each— the two ends of the first half for her legs and the two ends of the second half at her wrists. Surprised, the cultist successfully slashed away the chain set upon her sword hand, but I managed to wrap my steel links around her other wrist and both of her legs. Quickly, I pulled her legs and her arm behind her back with the chains, where it was awkward to try to reach with her blade.
Erza swung one of her falchions in an arc at inhuman speeds, assisted by her armor's (I use the term loosely) unique properties. In a flash of steel, Valerie was disarmed, her katana skidding across the stone floor.
I felt her magic flare up again and knew that she was preparing to summon another weapon with her strange Lost Magic. Another mental command and her only free arm was also ensnared, effectively preventing her from wielding any weapon until such time as I saw fit to release her.
"You thrice damned shukhat!" raged Valerie. "I am Valerie Gabrielle Amelia of the Wiegand Clan; the blood of the ancients runs in my veins! I will not be trussed up like livestock!"
I wasn't quite sure what a 'shukhat' was, but I felt the distinct impression that it was not terribly flattering.
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "You're the noble heir of whosie-whatsit, I get it. Now keep quiet while we take down the last remaining person here who can actually pose a threat."
She made one last cry of wordless outrage before Erza introduced her fist to the young woman's face. She slumped over, unconscious. Panting heavily, Erza too fell to one knee. She brushed her hand against one of her injuries and grimaced.
Then she requipped a bundle of white cloth from her private dimension and began to bandage her wounds. I would have gone over to help her with it, but I didn't know the first thing about how to properly bandage wounds, and Erza seemed perfectly capable of doing it for herself.
Instead, I turned my focus towards Mira's battle against the high priestess. Neither combatant seemed to gain the upper hand, nor did either of them appear to be running low on magic energy. Why on earth had I used all of my most intensive spells at the very beginning of the battle? Best to think on that later; the battle wasn't over yet.
"Ressurection!" I called out, amplifying the sound with Voice Enchant to ensure that it caught the notice of the last remaining enemy.
Now, I manipulated my illusionary constructs to 'return to life,' sealing up wounds and reattaching limbs. I did not do this to the handful of illusion-monsters whose cannons had been destroyed, but most were still intact.
This distraction wouldn't hold up for very long, though. But while it did, I commanded the Quicksilver Phantom to also strike at her from where it lay in a pile of malformed and slightly corroded Night Make Magic.
Maybe if I overwhelmed her enough, we could get some hits past that impregnable defense of hers. At the very least, she was unable to directly retaliate against me with Mira throwing punches and spells her way every second.
It was sudden and unexpected, but the high priestess simply collapsed to the ground in a heap, her back facing the open air. Mira and I both paused for a short while, unsure of how to proceed. That hadn't been due to any of our spells, she'd just fallen to the ground out of nowhere.
A magic circle lit up with an ominous, dark purple glow on the woman's back. She began to spasm uncontrollably, strange contortions wracking her body. Fearing a self-destruction spell of some kind, Mira and I both paid heed to get as far away from her as possible.
The effect was a bit more anticlimactic than that, though. Her body simply dispersed into particles of light, leaving her robes empty on the cavern floor. All of her Night Make creations were dissolving as well. I turned my gaze to the left, where I saw that Valerie was under the same effect.
As the two of them broke into tiny flecks of energy, those same little motes flowed like a river stream in the air— directly towards the center of the massive ritual several hundred meters away, which it seemed had now ceased.
Over a thousand people dressed in robes and masks were kneeling in an enormous circle around something glowing in the center. Shivers raced down my spine at the silence in the cavern. This was wrong.
That was when it happened. The entire mass of cultists who had participated in the ritual, each and every one of them— they all burst into particles of light, all sucked towards the center as though it was a vacuum. A dark pressure seemed to weigh down on the very air in here.
"Erza... Erza! Mirajane!" I screamed. "We need to get out of here!"
But I didn't move, and neither did they. It was like some force had rooted me into the ground. But it wasn't so much that I was physically unable to move. Rather, I just couldn't seem to summon enough willpower to actually go through with it. Not even a single leg. I could only assume it was the same with the other two.
The silence was deafening now. Whatever had been twisting in the center of the ritual was now completely still. And that was when the first sound began to suffuse the air around us. It was rhythmic, a strange windy noise blowing in and out, in and out, in and out.
No, that was impossible. There was no way.
Breathing.
That was the sound. It was unnaturally loud, like the breath of a mighty dragon, but it was breath nonetheless. The ritual's purpose became clear to me now. Whatever was in the center, they had brought it to life, suffusing it with enough raw energy that it outmatched even the might of your average Wizard Saint.
I felt a distortion coming from the center of the ritual, a bend in spacetime. The newly living entity vanished. But then another tear in spacetime opened up right before us, spitting out what I could only presume was the same being.
The figure was garbed in long, flowing robes of black velvet and purple satin, with a crown of gold resting on its head. Everything about it was skeletal, like the remains of a person dead so long that not even the barest trace of flesh was left. Clutched in its left hand was a silver scepter with a red jewel at the tip. Everything about this unnatural creature was covered in dust, and I had no doubt that it was absolutely ancient.
A series of disjointed hisses filled the cavern, and I knew almost instinctively that the thing before me was laughing. This undead abomination took a single step forward and then, to my horror, it began to speak, the sound like the crackling of firewood.
"Ssssooooo," it drawled, "everything has come to full completion."
"What— what are you...?" said Mira, voicing my thoughts.
"Aaahhh, the little humans are so grown up," it said, almost wistful. "It truly has been so long since I have walked the earth. Oh, but it would be remiss of me not to introduce myself."
There was utter quiet for a few short moments.
"I am Ish-bosheth, king of Ka Na'an. If the language has not changed too much over the last thousand years, I am something which is called a 'lich.'"
"Lich...?" I echoed, unable to stop myself. The ultimate form of undead from RPGs— something like that actually existed in Earthland?
"You poor souls, you must be so... perturbed. And you haven't even realized yet that you have been utterly defeated."
"Are you so sure?" I said, my rashness coming to show itself when talking to an enemy that clearly had us backed against a wall.
"Ever since I felt you in my domain, you became my beautiful pawns," said the lich. "A Black Field has been erected for a period of four leagues about this place. Through it, your minds were laid bare before me. A few suggestions to the brain was all it took: to seek me out before help would arrive, to bring along your youngest, to find no suspicion in the disappearance of my adherents. Even the very battle you just fought, the use of all your most draining spells from the beginning. Did you truly believe that these were your own choices?"
That... that was insane! Did he mean to say that for the past few days, we'd been mind controlled? I was an excellent sensor with over a year of practice fighting against fear compulsions and the like from magical monsters. I should have felt the presence of a force trying to meddle with my mind!
"Of course, these influences no longer afflict you," it said. "Awareness has always been the downfall of Mind Magic. It matters not, though. As I said, you are defeated utterly. I will take for myself the three of you now, before returning to the world."
Exactly thirteen seconds later, my consciousness left this world and moved on to another. I believe it's a phenomenon most people refer to as 'death.'
(A/N): And on that happy note, I would like to assure all of you that there is plenty more planned for this story. It's not over next chapter. I promise.