Sunlight streamed through the dust-choked air of Gorath's Hollow, illuminating a scene of devastation. The acrid tang of blood mixed with the ozone sting of lingering mana and the pervasive, unsettling wrongness of the cursed mana saturating the space. Two discordant Orange-Core signatures pulsed like corrupted hearts deeper within the shattered keep, their chaotic energy leaking instability into the very atmosphere.
Rifi moved first. A streak of purplish-white lightning crackled across the rubble-strewn courtyard, his body visibly shimmering with the dense, volatile power saturating his muscles – a necessary risk against foes like these. His senses, fully unleashed, mapped the carnage: fallen Sergia and Esquiliana, fading embers of spells, and ahead, the blazing, unstable beacons of their targets. No time. The Sergia are breaking.
Brann hefted his gravity-condensed hammer, the unstable Orange energy grating against his own dense field. "Ugly power," he growled, his usual grin absent. "Feels like it's gonna blow any second."
Velen pressed a palm against a collapsed wall fragment. "Their control is slipping – I feel their chaotic mana seeping into the stone itself. We should exploit this weakness; it might not last." He met Rifi's gaze. "Direct assault?"
"Only way," Rifi confirmed, lightning visibly coiling around his forearms like captured storm clouds. "Brann, disrupt the left. Velen, shield the Sergia, create space. Alin, brace us." His eyes locked onto the chaotic signatures. "I take the right. Fast."
Alin's voice, strained but steady, echoed from the breach entrance behind them. "Remember proximity! The closer you are, the stronger my reinforcement. Shields active. Go!"
They burst into the wide inner courtyard before Gorath's Hall. The scene was apocalyptic. Shattered stonework from the breached inner walls littered the ground, mingling grotesquely with the bodies of fallen mages from both sides. Sunlight glared off shards of glass-like formations and pooled blood. Directly before the imposing entrance to Gorath's Hall itself, a dwindling knot of Sergia defenders fought with desperate fury. At their center, their Red-Core commander radiated fading crimson light. His armor was crumpled, one arm hung limp, yet he parried frantically with a flickering short sword of fire mana – a guttering candle in the storm.
Opposing them, radiating sickly-bright, unstable Orange auras, were the Esquiliana commanders.
The one on the left moved within a shimmering heat haze. Beneath it, Rifi sensed dense earth mana unnaturally fused with fire. The air around him warped like thick, old glass. His deliberate steps seemed to momentarily solidify debris underfoot into smooth, dark surfaces. The Glass Mage.
The one on the right commanded a vortex of compressed air and razor-sharp grit. Sand and stone fragments screamed around him in a deafening maelstrom, propelled by hurricane-force winds. The Sandstorm Mage. His movements were jerky, uncontrolled, the cursed power causing spasms as raw energy lashed out, scoring deep grooves in the stone.
Rifi didn't hesitate. Target: The Glass Mage. Eliminate the bigger threat first. Even though the Sandstorm mage wielded two elements, the Glass Mage's unique fusion screamed unpredictable danger.
Rifi dropped low, muscles coiling like springs saturated to their limit with dense lightning. The next instant, he vanished. He reappeared mere moment later behind the Glass Mage, a purplish-white lightning blade conjured and thrusting blindingly fast towards the base of the spine – a strike meant to paralyze, to kill.
Contact.
But his blade met… wrongness. Not flesh, not yielding energy. A pane of pure, dark obsidian-like glass had formed instantly, encasing the mage's back and torso. Rifi felt a terrifying sensation – part of his lightning grounded uselessly, the rest diffusing. His conjured blade fizzled out, its focused Orange-core energy skittering harmlessly across the glass surface like static before dissipating.
Impossible!
The Glass Mage didn't flinch. He turned with unnerving fluidity within his heat-haze aura. His eyes, glowing with a sickly, pulsing orange light that flickered like a dying ember at its edges – the unmistakable mark of the cursed stone's stolen power – met Rifi's for a split second. No surprise, only cold assessment lived within that corrupted glow.
Then, a flick of his wrist.
Rifi sensed the mana shift – not an attack at him, but around him. Air solidified. Transparent, incredibly hard walls of glass snapped into existence, forming a perfect, suffocating coffin around him in less than a breath. Simultaneously, the stone floor beneath his feet liquefied into searing molten slag.
Instinct screamed. Rifi poured even more denser elementless mana into the air clinging centimeters from his body, forming a thick shild – a desperate reinforcement against the coming storm.
The glass prison imploded with crushing force. The sound was horrific – a thousand panes shattering inward. Jagged shards, superheated and magically hardened, ripped towards him like bullets, propelled by the implosion and the slag's heat.
CRACK-THOOM!
The impact hammered into his shield. Kinetic force slammed through him, absorbed and dispersed by the dense mana saturating his body and its immediate boundary. Most shrapnel deflected or shattered against this invisible defense.
But the force was overwhelming, concentrated. His formidable reinforcement buckled under the stress at several points. Dagger-like shards punched through these localized failures, tearing into reinforced flesh and armor. Had his spirit been weaker or his control less precise, the breaches would have been fatal.
Agony ripped through Rifi's left shoulder and thigh. He hissed, stumbling back to gain distance, lightning flickering erratically as pain disrupted his focus. Blood welled instantly. Alin's water mana surged from the rear – a cool pressure staunching the flow, numbing the worst pain – but the damage was done. His left arm felt leaden, sluggish.
He neutralized my lightning effortlessly. The realization hit harder than the glass. This wasn't just unique mana; it was a lightning counter.
Across the sunlit courtyard, Brann roared, slamming his hammer down towards the Sandstorm Commander. The gravity shockwave cratered the ground, but the commander rode his swirling vortex upward, avoiding the hit.
He retaliated instantly – a focused beam of compressed grit screaming through the air. Brann snarled, hefting his hammer not to strike, but as a focal point. The air thickened violently around him, warping light. The grit beam hit this invisible distortion and detonated – not outwards, but inwards – crushed into a dense, compacted lump of inert stone under impossible gravity the instant before impact. The concussive thump of compressed air hitting his personal field still sent him skidding back, boots grinding stone.
Velen had already thrown up layered earth barriers around the struggling Sergia defenders, shielding them from stray grit blasts and destabilizing the ground under the Esquiliana troops. The Sergia Red-Core leader sagged against a broken pillar, gasping, his fire sword dimming. "Hold... the line!" he rasped, defiance battling exhaustion.
The Glass Mage advanced, his heat-haze intensifying. Ground vitrified under his steps, forming slick, dark glass that cracked and reformed instantly. "Lightning is meaningless," he stated, voice unnervingly calm despite the writhing power within. "Lightning is just energy. Glass... contains." He raised a hand. The air shimmered, solidifying into a dozen floating, razor-edged glass shards, each humming with condensed energy. "And shatters."
Rifi forced his breathing steady, ignoring the throbbing pain. Lightning attacks were useless. He needed something else. Lightning enhances. His mind raced. His body, reconstructed after Brimstone Mountain, was the perfect vessel, capable of containing denser power than ever. He would show this bastard the difference between earned strength and borrowed corruption.
As he focused, excess lightning crackled across his armor, earthing itself violently into the stone beneath him. He channeled the raw power inward – into his legs, his core, his good arm. Muscles corded, tendons singing with contained force. He became a coiled spring of bio-electrical energy.
The Glass Mage flicked his fingers. The humming shards shot forward.
Rifi didn't dodge. He exploded forward. He met the first shard head-on, his enhanced right fist lashing out – pure, lightning-fueled kinetic force.
CRUNCH!
Magically hardened glass shattered. Rifi plowed through the spray, ignoring stinging cuts on his face and neck, eyes locked on his target. Another shard aimed for his chest – he twisted, letting it scrape off his armored shoulder. The glancing impact staggered him mid-stride, costing precious momentum, but he didn't stop. He closed the final meters in a burst of crackling speed, unleashing a furious barrage – a lightning-enhanced kick aimed at the knee, a driving elbow towards the ribs, a hammer-fist descending towards the collarbone.
Yet every blow met a defense as fluid as it was solid. Where he struck, the Glass Mage's body seemed to flow. Obsidian-like panes snapped into existence, deflecting the kick and elbow with jarring impacts that vibrated up Rifi's limbs. The hammer-fist connected, but instead of bone, Rifi felt his fist sink into suddenly liquefied glass that surged around his hand and forearm like thick, viscous tar. It absorbed the kinetic energy, sucking the force from the blow before instantly solidifying again, trapping his limb for a microsecond and forcing him to wrench it free. Before Rifi could recover, another pane formed, slamming into his chest and shoving him back several steps.
More shards materialized instantly, streaking from all angles. Each time Rifi shattered one with a crackling fist or forearm block, a fraction of the defensive lightning reinforcing his limbs diffused at the point of impact, leaving a microscopic vulnerability in his bio-electrical armor. The Glass Mage exploited each flaw with chilling, machine-like precision. Shards sliced deeper through these momentary weak points, drawing fresh lines of blood, forcing Rifi into constant, micro-adjustments that bled his offensive rhythm.
Worse, the very ground became the Mage's ally. As Rifi tried to regain the initiative, the stone beneath his leading foot softened into searing molten slag. He barely yanked his boot free before it sank, the heat blistering the leather. A heartbeat later, the rock where he planted to push off superheated, forcing him to leap aside as his sole sizzled. Each evasive maneuver cost him ground, momentum, and focus, keeping him perpetually off-balance. He was forced into a desperate dance between offense and defense, his attacks landing with minimal impact against the Mage's fluid defenses, his own body protesting the relentless demand for explosive speed.
Alin's water mana flared brighter from her position near the breach, a visible pulse of effort as she simultaneously reinforced Rifi's straining joints, knit Brann's bleeding gashes, and bolstered Velen's defenses. The sheer strain of maintaining long-range healing and enhancement on three fronts at this intensity forced her another step closer – dangerously within the Glass Mage's reach.
The Glass Mage's cold eyes flicked to her. Shards abruptly changed trajectory, streaking towards her head.
"Oh no, you won't!" Rifi snarled. He pushed his body to the brink, lightning flaring, intercepting the projectiles in a shower of sparks and glass just meters from Alin.
"Heh," the Glass Mage sneered, conjuring another wave. "How much longer can you keep that up? Your lightning stands no chance, City Lord's dog."
Rifi knew he was right. His muscles could handle the dense mana, but his heart was the bottleneck, straining to pump oxygenated blood fast enough. Full power could only be sustained for seconds before fading – seconds the Glass Mage's formidable defenses could easily outlast.
A glance confirmed the dire situation elsewhere: Brann bleeding heavily, Velen's face ashen with near-total mana depletion against the wildly lashing Sandstorm Mage. No time.
'If the heart can't keep up... then I don't need it.' The thought wasn't cool, it was desperate. Rifi focused inward. Lightning danced through his muscles, his bones, his very cells. As he shattered two more incoming shards, the air around him quickly changed. His chest stopped rising. A faint, continuous sizzle-hum emanated from his skin as his entire body began directly absorbing oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide, supercharged by crackling lightning. Steam, tinged purple-white, rose from his overheated form.
A fierce, almost feral grin split Rifi's blood-streaked face. He exploded forward again. This time, his speed nearly doubled, tendons screaming under the strain. To the Orange-core Glass Mage, he became a near-blur.
The Mage's eyes widened – the first true crack in his composure. He threw up both hands. A thick wall of layered, prismatic glass surged up between them.
Rifi didn't slow. He blurred. Lightning detonated from his feet, propelling him across the rubble-strewn ground with terrifying speed. He bypassed the wall entirely, reappearing almost instantly beside the Glass Mage, his enhanced fist already a piston driving towards the mage's exposed flank.
The Glass Mage barely registered the shift. Cold calculation flickered into panic as he pivoted, desperately solidifying the air beside him into a dense pane.
SMASH!
Rifi's fist connected with the still-forming barrier. It diffused his lightning, but only for a mere microsecond, spiderwebbed under the colossal force, then shattered. The Glass Mage staggered back, a choked grunt escaping him. A glass sliver cut Rifi's knuckles to the bone, ignored in the relentless assault.
The Sandstorm Commander roared, sending a concentrated blast of grit towards Rifi's exposed back. Velen, face contorted with effort, slammed a hand down. A thick earthen barrier erupted just in time, absorbing the barrage with a sound like grinding teeth. "Focus on your fight!" Velen yelled, voice raw.
The Sergia Red-Core leader seized the moment. With a final surge of his dwindling fire mana, he hurled flame under the feet of the pressing Esquiliana troops. Not lethal, but chaotic, scattering them and buying his legionaries precious breathing room.
Rifi pressed his advantage ruthlessly. Inside the Glass Mage's guard now. No more traps, no more distance. It was brutal, close-quarters savagery. Even with his left arm mostly useless, he became a whirlwind of enhanced strikes – punches, elbows, knees – each blow carrying the amplified force of lightning-enhanced muscle and Orange-core resilience. He didn't aim for finesse; he aimed to break.
The Glass Mage defended frantically. Panes of glass snapped up to block, but Rifi shattered them one after another, each impact jarring the mage, forcing him back and leaving internal injuries with each blow. Molten slag patches appeared under Rifi's feet, but his enhanced speed and reflexes this time let him dance clear or stomp the liquid glass solid before it could burn deep. Sweat poured down the Glass Mage's face, his breathing ragged. The cursed power within the Glass Mage flared violently – a visible, sickly orange pulse that warped the air around him like heat haze. It wasn't just desperation; it was the stolen energy rebelling against its vessel as it was accumulating more and more internal injuries. Nearby shards of his own glass vibrated violently, then cracked with sharp snaps, crumbling into useless dust. The stone's instability wasn't just a weakness Rifi sensed; it was physically tearing at the Mage's control, fracturing his constructs from within.
Seeing the flicker of uncontrolled power, Rifi saw his chance. He feinted a massive right hook. The Glass Mage instinctively threw up a thick, multi-layered pane. Rifi abandoned the punch, dropped low, and drove his lightning-enhanced shoulder like a siege ram into the mage's sternum.
CRACK!
The sound wasn't glass. It was bone. The Glass Mage's eyes bulged, air blasting from his lungs. He flew back, crashing through a half-collapsed archway. Yet, Rifi sensed it – the mage was still moving, scrambling, trying to escape. A glass-covered decoy shimmered into existence nearby.
Rifi charged past the illusion without a glance. His lightning-enhanced right hand plunged like a spear into the rubble where the true mage cowered. A wet, tearing sound echoed, followed by silence.
Rifi stood panting... A faint pulse of cooling relief – Alin's water mana – washed over his ruined hand, staunching the worst of the bleeding instantly. Blood still dripped from countless cuts and his ruined right hand, his left arm was numb, lightning still flickering faintly under his steaming skin. The victory was hard, painful, earned.
He turned. The Sandstorm Commander, seeing his partner fall and sensing the Sergia regrouping under Velen's weakening barriers, let out a howl of pure, unhinged rage and fear. His sand vortex whirled into a frenzy, lashing out indiscriminately. He was no longer fighting; he was a cornered beast, the cursed power visibly tearing him apart, movements spasmodic.
Brann stepped forward, hammer raised despite his wounds, grim satisfaction on his face. Velen, his face gray with exhaustion and his hands shaking, poured the dregs of his mana into reinforcing the earth barriers. The Sergia leader pushed himself upright, his fire sword flickering back to life, a desperate spark of hope in his eyes.
The immediate threat of the Glass Mage was gone. But the Sandstorm Commander, unstable, desperate, and saturated with stolen power, remained.
Rifi wiped blood from his eye with the back of his wrist, his gaze locking onto the raging vortex. His chest remained unnaturally still, but the air around him crackled faintly with the energy of his cellular respiration. When he spoke, his voice emerged not as breath, but as a distorted crackle, layered with the snap-hiss of miniature lightning discharges:
"Now," the word sparked and sizzled in the air, sharp and charged, "we finish this."
Lightning coiled intensely around his body, mirroring the storm forced through his unmoving vocal cords.