In this dying realm, there was the city of Chalt. Not too ruined, just faltering. In that city was a high tiered tower called Malangri. And in that tower was a sorcerer everyone knew not to disturb so who? Dared?! Interrupt my work!
I had done it! I had done it, it was done, there was a stable sphere of anti-magic in my hands for nearly fourteen seconds before whatever idiot decided to suicide closer, forcing me to break it.
Magic poured in like a storm. The pillars came back first, then the walls, then the floor and my feet found support again. Mana was weak but, after the void, it still felt like an ocean.
Once the warping stopped I checked on the visitor. Newborn monsters would instinctively avoid death but if it was one, it was dead.
Ah. Rascal.
The orc was done reeling in the hallway. I left the room to meet him. I had to hold a moment against the wall, but just a moment. There was no time for any silliness.
His boarish face met me at a corner and he stepped back, startled, ready to strike with his axe.
"Ah! Kaele!"
And his axe fell on me.
I blocked it with two fingers, walked one step then punched him in the snout. He stumbled back and only held by the handle of the weapon I still held.
"What brings you here?" I asked.
"What do you think? The city is dying again and the master is throwing a fit."
"So?"
"You can't see it? He is down there waiting for you."
No. No I could not feel much of anything. Not only was mana lacking for that, I was hardly in a state to meet anyone. Still, I let the orc have his weapon back and walked toward the stairs. He groaned that a weakened foe should not hit this hard.
Nineteen flights of stairs gave me time to recover.
The human stood at the entrance, his whole retinue behind him. The princess held his hands. I had just emerged a kilometer away and could tell his anger.
All along the hall where the orcs used to display their trophies were now decaying trees and statues turning to rubble. But the biggest prize had survived even a king's order. Korion's skull still hung from the ceiling, facing all visitors.
Rascal walked toward the double arches of the entrance. I followed a meter behind.
They could all see the damage on my armor.
"So the decay is even affecting you, Kaele!" The human shouted while I was still a fair bit away. "Where has the proud knight gone? Or maybe he never existed!"
Was that how a ruler spoke?
I was still waiting to reach him before answering. He kept going regardless.
"The city is dying and you work on spells? You should be out there, helping me restore Chalt to glory!"
I was close enough to answer but still walked a fair bit closer.
"What is it, are you going to try and command me again? I know your secrets, Kaele! I know you are just a golem built to serve humans! Obey me!"
This would be close enough: "No."
Even if I wanted to obey, and I did, there was nothing I could do. The city was condemned, the mana drain would bring it back to ruins.
But that man had a weapon in his hand, Adhipatya, that forced all monsters to obey. He turned it on me.
"Obey me, Kaele! Restore the city!"
"No." And with that last bit of misunderstanding cleared, I kept going. "You care about Chalt, but what about Nabica? Your servants still labor for you there and the decay hits them just as hard. Does the moon not reach that far?"
"How can you resist Adhipatya?"
"I told you from the start, the realm is dying. But you had a life to live. So I cared for the realm while you enjoyed it. Now our paths cross again, help me or go back to the remains of happiness."
None of it made sense to him and how could it? From his perspective, he had done everything right. He had followed the system. He had been rewarded at every step so why?
How could the realm stay so cruel to him?
The menilis at his side clutched his arm. That snapped him out of his crisis. What mattered to him was the here and now. I could read his thought process like an open book.
"Enough excuses! I command you!" He shouted, his weapon fully brandished. "Save the realm!"
Before I could even mock such words, the room shook.
A mass crashed behind me in a plume of dust. The skull that had been hanging above, at the tremor, had broken free. But there was too much smoke around it and I could even feel it, the flow of mana in it.
The head rose first, fully fleshed. Then the shoulders, the torso, the arms. A sickening black fur covered the minotaur.
"Korion!" The orcs muttered.
I stepped back.
There should have been little to fear. He was just a minotaur. And if resurrected, he should be at his weakest. I could already feel that wasn't the case but even then, he was, like all of us, limited by how much magic remained in the city of Chalt.
Yet even in pristine condition, it was a fight I would not take lightly. And my armor was damaged.
Everyone was waiting for the moment that massive beast would bellow and charge. But it just stood there, facing a crowd of monsters and the human in their midst.
Then, with one hand, the minotaur touched the ground. Earthworks? No way. He extracted an axe from it as if it had been laying there, under the tiles, the whole time. Both of his hands held that handle, and he stepped forward.
That was one step too far. Weakness! But as simple as the spell was, my magic circle broke before me. So the monsters charged that behemoth without my support.
The beast smashed the ground in a predictable attack that still forced his foes to break up. A dozen spears hit him but could not pierce his hide. He mowed down the first attackers with ease.
The human screamed.
His princess had lunged in turn to attack. He only moved to stop her too late, watched her leap on the beast and, ghost! My spell worked just enough for her not be cut in half. She went crashing on the other side, her belly slashed.
Flurry. The minotaur did not even need to swing his axe to hit his enemies. They fell all the same while he kept pacing forward. What few attacks did hit him sizzled into nothing.
The human was running for his princess. I ran to keep myself between him and the beast, saw the creature raise his leg and smash it on the ground. In the tremor that followed, as the floor broke into a crater, my master went flying.
The axe caught him mid-flight! And I barely got there in time to intercept it. Still, it didn't completely break my arms and the weapon, after failing to hit, just broke down into pieces.
Korion was already diging out another.
"Master!" I yelled. "He is not really here! If we can expose the skull, we can win!"
How did I know?
Well you didn't just resurrect like that, be in full shape and then casually pick up weapons from nowhere. Only the skull was real. The rest, from what little I could tell, was the most insane illusion spell ever devised, and an impossibility given how little mana lingered.
The human had left me to run toward his menilis. He fell to her side, took her in his arms and checked her wound.
"Are you okay, Minette, talk to me!"
"I'm okay." She was trying to smile. Her hand could not reach his sharp jawline to rub it. "You need to flee."
"I'm not going anywhere! Not without you!"
He completely forgot about her wound as he hugged. As a monster, she could take it.
"I'll stay here, I'll defeat that thing! You don't have to fight, I am here! Don't you realize how precious you are?!"
"I'm not human..."
"You are you! That's all that counts to me!"
I was busy being pummeled while they had their moment. It was fine! The minotaur had come at me not with his axe but with bare fists and was landing them one after the other. The whole armor, already damaged, was just falling off.
"I will build you an empire, I will build you a palace on the moon itself and we will live there, away from all that violence and death! Just rely on me!"
"Oh Varun..." She hugged him in turn.
I punched back, during what brief opening there was. For however weak it was, that hit forced the beast back. Which was for the best because my arm was falling apart.
The minotaur grinned.
The human pushed me aside, walked past and brandished his weapon once more, the curved blade on the outside.
"I am doing it again." He was telling himself. "Guess I got too old to change. Everyone!" He commanded. "Stay out of this fight! It's between kings."
"You..." The minotaur thought and his grin grew mad.
The next second they were clashing, blade to blade, ripping past each other and the human avoided the axe but barely. His own polearm hit! And left a gash on the beast's side. Adhipatya thirsted for the blood of the mighty.
But the monster was faster, swinged again and his opponent disappeared. Invisibility! One hop on tha bull's arm and another to strike at the head, missing only to pierce the shoulder instead. His leg got snatched, even hidden, and he was thrown back on the ground.
They both reeled!
The axe fell on him. Portal! No! Never ever use port- okay it worked this time. The human fell backward on the hole he had opened to reappear on his enemy's back, swing around and strike! Only to be parried at the last second by the creature's arm.
I immediately noticed how that beast, while holding the pain, had used the new wound to trace a pattern. The moment they separated he contracted his muscles and the gashing black blood drew the rest. Haste!
All the human could do was block.
He went flying away, back in the crater where his body smashed against broken rocks. And while he did the beast had leapt to join him, struck where he stood and again missed only by a hair.
When the blade fell on him again the human parried, held it at bay with his polearm and saw me help his princess out of the hall. The next moment they were exchanging blows, both of them drawing blood once more.
"I've killed monsters bigger than you." The man tried to smile. "But I guess I wasn't the hero after all."
The minotaur in front of him bellowed in rage.
"So come at me with all you got!"
He failed the first exchange and both felt the gashes draw from them. They crossed again and he got the better of it this time, struck right into the charging head.
There was something magic allowed, a case where an enemy's attack could be turned back against him, adding your potency to his. That happened at this precise moment. The beast staggered back, fell on one knee and touched his exposed skull.
Then, he began to laugh. A monstrous, maniacal laughter while the whole structure around them, weakened by that strike, started to crumble.
All of Malangri slowly collapsed on itself.
I had been left behind, only to be picked up by Rascal and taken to safety. A mountain of stone, of metal, of ore, just kept falling and spreading around. Blocks larger than a house. It hurled past the canal and into it, where our ship, the Parao, was moored.
At the end of it all, the ruins of Chalt only had three pyramids left. and a human walking out the rubbles.