How long had it been since magic had crashed over me in a titanic wave? This was the silhouette of a human and I was so lost right now!
No time for that!
"Featherweight!"
Trying to cast a spell in this overwhelming environment was trying so sing in a maelstrom. Magic circles would not even form but between the hand symbol and my call I was still able to cast it just as the ground returned under our feet.
The human had not even realized where he was that that very ground disintegrated under his feet.
Luckily the spell caught him and slowed his fall just enough for me to catch his arm before he had been swallowed by the abyss. We were now some four hundred meters above the red sands and while the fall would not have hurt him, there was a murderous shadow lurking.
I pulled him back in the ocher chamber where he got a few seconds to recover from his fright.
With his presence the temple had regained its former glory. Red mirrors on the colonnades brightened the frescoes on the walls and ceilings. The antique portal on its platform had collapsed, leaving only a broken arch.
He turned around, lain on the sandy carpet. Brown skin, dark flowy hair and a sharp jawline gave him the allure of a warrior, yet there was only fear in his eyes.
At his feet the hole had finished to close, the floor pristine once more.
I felt the vibrations all around, got up and dragged him to his feet, nearly threw him to the door.
"Run!" Was the word I never got to yell.
The next moment he was tumbling outside, on the ocher bridge while the gigantic skeletal maw swallowed me whole.
Was that damned wyvern seriously attacking?! When the human was at his strongest!
Its teeth closed shut and while they were nowhere near me, they still cracked against my armor. At the same time his soul leech hit me hard!
My arms punched once then twice to break free of its cracking skull. The skeletal beast staggered before its white beams flowed from the ribs and crashed all over me, and past me to the bridge, breaking it piece by piece.
The human was running for his life! Escaping just by a hair while I stopped the massive claws slashing from above. The entire red tower was breaking and reforming around us.
Holy spears! It would not hurt him but gave me just enough breathing space to cast a warhammer from the sands. Our two strikes crossed each other.
He got the better of it! And I was sent flying across the wall, into the air, through another tower and past it. The human! My armor stopped me in mid-air and pushed me back into the fray.
That man saw the whole tower explode before him, along with half of the sky castle it was attached to. Before him stood the skeletal wyvern and his lethal breath, reality warped all around. I did not know which one was the more threatening and did not intend to find out.
"Get away from him!" I yelled.
Clones! The four me crashed on the beast to hammer it and make it slam in turn against the remnants of the collapsing castle. I landed near the human who fell back at my sight.
To him, I was a living armor of silver and marble with a badger helmet.
Probably impressive. Probably not that friendly to his taste.
"Human!" I shouted. "What's your name?!"
"It's... It's Varun!" He almost pleaded.
"I can't hold Calisle for long! Fight or flee but don't just stand there!"
I knew he had already seen it. Through the mayhem and confusion, his eyes had caught what all else missed, that mythical human system. Numbers and words for them alone, with powers attached.
Whatever power he was willing to use, I needed it or we were both dead.
"That monster uses anti-magic!" I warned him. "Cut his flow and he..."
I was cut short by the pain. A second clone had been crushed in the beast's claws. I might as well have but ripped in half.
"What's happening?!" The human panicked when he saw me kneel.
"Never mind me! Fight!"
And that was the last of my clones annihilated. But I still wasn't done. Portal! With what little time I had where that monster would not stop me I brought to bear a half-dozen fire tubes loaded with oil and fired them one after the other.
The rays bended and warped when approaching the beast, seemingly missed him and yet it reeled! Low-mana weapons truly worked best on that horror.
He answered with another white beam. Shield! The dark sphere above my armored hand crackled and resisted the discharge. The beam washed all around us!
"Moon!" The human finally woke up behind me. "I call upon you, listen to my voice! Let the cosmic mirror shine once more, release your sight for all to see!"
There was no time for a ritual! I could feel the whole ocher structure break down under our feet! The iron of my armor starting to melt!
"Cast the realm asunder, I command you!" And with a dramatic gesture, the man yelled: "Dispel!"
Dispel?
Dispel?! He had cast a spell to remove magic from a beast the reveled in anti-magic!?
Or wait... I watched the bright sky open in a vortex, the selene lens appear in its middle and strike. That could work! An invisible ray blasted the air, nearly wiping out the flying castles all around. We could not hear the skeleton scream, but even in silence just its wriggle told us all.
Yes. With how much power the human had, such a surge in anti-magic could only cause a sudden magic sickness. Now that monster choked in its own strength. Its bones started to crack, to break. The whole body shattered.
Once it was over, with the vortex fading overhead, the human fell to his knees.
"Is it over?" He begged. "Ah, I thought I was dead!"
I got up, ignored the ache that was holding me back and approached the broken bridge. It was reforming before my feet.
The whole red ruins, after being ravaged by this battle, was slowly regaining its shapes. Sand flew around in vast streaks to fill the walls, to fix the glass, to raise the roofs.
This was Nabica, the endless tomb.
With the presence of a human and the mana he brought, the city was rebuilt. Soon it would be crawling with monsters but for the moment it meant that I could finally access its records.
"Varun, was it?" I walked back to him. "Follow me."
"Yes, sir." He was still panting. "Thank you so much for saving me sir! Thank you! Pardon me but, could I ask you what's going on?"
That man watched me summon a sandy platform and get on it. He hesitated to follow but embarked finally.
"I summoned you to save the realm. Ask no question." I stopped him. "You are in Nabica, one of the ruins left by humans when they departed."
While practical, it felt terrible to sense the vibrations for kilometers around. I had to focus on so many things at the same time.
The platform was taking us to the four bells tower. The man was on his four, fearing to fall from such heights. He marveled at the castles all around and at that floating tower.
"The realm suffers from a mana drain. Everyone is dying. As this realm's savior, you are here to end it."
"You want... me? To save the world?"
"Just follow me. It will be enough."
We had reached the tower, passed the pillars and to its main stair. I took the time to look around once more but all seemed quiet. All the monsters were being born far below, near the ground. They would take time to climb.
"We have little time."
He kept pace with me on the stairs: "Are we in danger?"
"Yes. That monster, Calisle, will come back."
More accurately he had never been there in the first place. I still struggled with the notion of anti-magic not being a spell but a magical state, but with that knowledge dearly acquired I had lost all illusion about those fights.
We were breaking mirrors, nothing more.
The room above was a vast planetarium. The ocher walls were cut by a black dome of obsidian on which the humans of old had etched cosmic rotations. The movements of stars and the moon alike.
They were golden threads superimposed on each other in an intricate pattern.
That was where the pain finally forced me to stop. I fell against the wall and waited to recover.
"Sir, are you hurt? Sir!" The human panicked.
"I am fine. Look around for records, see what you find."
He was still hesitant but left to rummage through the old pillars and altars, not even knowing what he was looking for. I was curious to see if his system would help.
A few minutes and nothing. That man was trying to decipher runes meant to observe the stars. I let him do while using the sand around to slowly repair myself.
Under the armor, I was still just a clay golem after all.
"Ah!" The human fell on the ground. "Help me!"
Before him a caparace had appeared. The insect, with his massive chitin shell, was glimmering in a thousand lights. He had chosen to show itself. Those monsters were otherwise like ghosts.
Had he really been born in this room? Or had he already made his way here from the ground? I didn't care, walked up to it to shield the human.
Not that there was any danger, that insect with his tiny legs was as good as harmless.
"This is a caparace." I explained. "They nest near records. This one may show us what we seek."
As if to answer me, the monster fretted before running on the pillar and in a leap reaching the far wall. There, another one appeared, then another.
Their agitation seemed to awaken the patterns painted all around. A golden light spread and, around the central alter in the room, rose the stelae.
We said: The calamity is upon us! Tell us where it is from! The moon said nothing.
Intact records. Nabica was really something else. But that was its strength. No matter how battered, no matter the destruction, it had been weaved in such an intricate way that as long as one part remained, all would rebuild.
It had collapsed under the mana drain and was now revived like nothing.
We said: Even the stars are falling! Is it a curse? The moon said nothing.
"What... is all this?" The human approached.
His sheepish attitude was getting old. But I could already tell from the way he glanced and the nervousness in his hands that he was ambitious. Once reality would settle in his mind, that human could prove as potent as any other.
If not stronger than them all.
"Who was talking to the Moon?" He asked.
"No one. This was an observatory." A small part of it. "They simply recorded their observations."
I was not interested in how the humans of old had failed against the mana drain.
We said: Under six orders, the cosmic ceiling would fall. How could it support chains for twenty-one? The moon said nothing.
Fascinating, but still not what I needed. I moved to the next stele.
We said: With a ceiling of anti-magic, the realm prevails. We should do the same. The moon said nothing.
There. In those few words the humans had packed all their knowledge in anti-magic. Centuries of studies that culminated in a frantic few days where they sought the best way to insulate themselves from the realm.
Anti-magic had been part of their answer. A natural barrier that should have stopped even a curse. And here was the thing...
If the records of Rajlin were right, the humans were still in this realm. Their refuge insulated from the drought, with a colossal amount of mana in it. So they had found such a barrier.
And if they had, so could we.