The ball of magic started to fall down, like a meteor burning up in the night sky, ichor evaporating into rings of smoke, and its golden chains glowing the mysterious green only found in the deepest forests of Teotlcan.

  As the ball started its dive, the two Archsages let go of their respective magics keeping them afloat, falling alongside the fireball.

  Behind Archsage Livia were manifested the 5 devils, subservient to the whims of the horrifying woman.

  They made a ring of evil, one that spun behind her back like the hands of a clock, creating the omen of the reckoning that would be befalling upon the city.

  Archsage Andrew’s staff glowed a deep, dark green, mana being manipulated into a mission as it seeped into the golden chains around the fireball.

  He imbued soul into the fireball, giving it awareness of its purpose, and consciousness to carry out the will of Rodric.

  With the peak mastery of their respective magics, the two Archsages were perfectly in sync, just for a brief moment, and the ball of terrible, profane fire compressed upon itself.

  The red, burning exterior of the fire ate itself, consuming its very neighbours to burn an unholy heat, one that threatened to burn the very barriers of reality.

  It created a deep horrible blue, then purple, then a godless white, descending upon the city with the elegance of a snowflake.

  It had one purpose. To destroy.

  The burning white magic trailed a thin line of ozone behind it, creating a metallic odour that could only be described as the smell of lightning.

  With a tap of his staff against the air, Archsage Andrew finished channeling the last of his magic into the fireball. He formed two platforms of metal, stopping him and his colleague from falling further.

  And he watched as a demolition unfolded in front of his eyes.

  ???

  The Fae Queen noticed the shifting currents of the winds outside, clearly created by the disruption in the flow of mana that the foolish Commission mages were creating.

  She had no incentive to expose herself to the Commission.

  Her true body was still back in Her divine kingdom, keeping its structure afloat and hidden for the time being.

  The blessed human, Aurelius, had to stay in the room where they were situated, at least, until the orb did its job. It would be too much of a hassle to create another place with enough wards to keep a Djinn’s contract at bay.

  It was fortunate that Tona’s contract had only been notarised by an archmage, rather than another troublesome Djinn or something of the sort.

  If it hadn’t, She would have had to actively invade the Commission facility for the boy, or plan out some troublesome course of action.

  It was still annoying that She would be stuck here until her liches managed to return with enough souls for Her to turn Aurelius into Her weapon.

  Sometimes, She almost missed her Fae children. All so loyal, so twisted, and so useful…

  The Fae Queen squinted out of the window, where the disgusting human tower could be seen in the distance.

  It seemed that they were warding their building for some reason… And quite a sturdy one too…

  Then, She felt it.

  Hell was about to descend upon the city.

  ???

  The fireball slowed as it approached the very tips of the highest buildings of the city.

  It seemed to be working against an invisible barrier, appearing to struggle to break through its elastic veneer…

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Whoosh.”

  Across the city, a layer of green flames appeared, creating a ceiling of unimaginable heat.

  The fires curled around each other, its translucent flickers letting the darkness of night through in the briefest reprieves of its unending ocean of fervor.

  Thin golden threads as thick as a strand of hair, glowing the same eerie green as the fire it emerged from, fluttered down, a silken gown draping themselves against the buildings of the city.

  The threads seemed endless as it produced itself down onto the metropolis, each fibre only identifiable by the sickly green glow that engulfed each one.

  “Shiii”

  Strange creaking, screeching and scraping sounds akin to nails against a chalkboard started to create a chorus of inanimate pain across the sprawl.

  The strange strings of gold simply ignored the existence of matter in its wake, fluttering endlessly from the spindles of fire that produced them.

  It cut glass effortlessly, leaving a nearly invisible line of obsidian as it continued its journey to slice through the frames that held the windows.

  Concrete simply crumbled against the heat, and brick didn’t even register the threads, allowing the wires to carve out their predestined path against its rough surfaces.

  Wood caught fire within milliseconds of contact, creating beautiful spots of vermilion to sprout across the buildings.

  Vague explosions went off as gas pipelines, and flammable items started to catch on fire, each one seemingly stifled slightly by the still-acting power of the Tower’s magic barriers.

  Empty streets were suddenly full of life, as rubble started to slip from the foundations that had just held them.

  The threads met the soil and cobblestone ground, ignoring its existence as it left glowing patches of lava, burrowing underground like a strange kind of larva.

  Within seconds, the million buildings in the city had been sliced up, falling to its knees under the influence of a single spell.

  The sound of falling stone, breaking glass and waterfalls of rubble decorated the landscape, and the pressure of destruction kicked up an unimaginable amount of dust into the air.

  The city was returned to rubble, its once visible streets and skyline now unrecognisable in the hazy dust of a ruined land as bakeries, shophouses, residential complexes fell

  The creepy strings of gold, loosely draped across the outlines of buildings just moments before, pulled taut. And with a yank, it let the layer of fire, burning in its indiscriminate ocean, started to descend.

  This ‘layer’ simply extended itself down, creating a pillar the radius of Tlacualtzin down to the ground.

  Where it met the debris clouds, it simply vaporised the dust, creating a rain of lava onto the grounds of the city.

  The fire stretched across the horizon, becoming more and more translucent as it reached the ground, and clearing the night air in its fiery heat.

  “Boom.”

  A deep, frightening noise rang out as it made contact.

  And all remaining buildings fell under the influence of gravity, down and out onto the earth it had once all come from.

  Corners of buildings were still visible from the wreckage, peeking from the devastation created within the span of a mere minute.

  This was the power of magic.

  And in this unrecognisable pile of debris stood 2 buildings.

  The Tower of Trust, of course.

  And an unassuming hotel…

  ???

  “Overkill.” The Queen muttered, Her words muted against the horrifying scene of destruction unfolding before Her eyes.

  Aurelius sat, sobbing from the remnant pain of the orb fusing with his skin.

  The orb had started to stretch his skin now over itself! It was actually moulding his damn hand in the shape of the sphere!

  He would not even have noticed the falling buildings outside the window if it weren't for his dust allergy.

  The strings of destruction didn’t quite touch the Hotel building, instead seemingly phasing into the building and reappearing out of the building without damage.

  Even the debris around the building couldn’t affect it, instead causing rubble to be phased into it, and shot out at an impossible angle.

  The only way to even see any damage was through the windows.

  But unfortunately, it seemed that dust didn’t quite count to the building’s wards…

  “Koff, koff, koff.”

  As the dust swept across the room, Aurelius was racked in coughs, a thin layer of particles coating his lungs as they invaded the room from the hole in the window.

  Aurelius couldn’t quite… cover his mouth or nose, and that meant that his mucus and spit started to fly out in a gray, coagulated mass of stickiness onto the carpeted floor.

  The Fae Queen just glanced back, shooting Aurelius a curious glance of disgust…

  ???

  “A hotel?” Archsage Andrew muttered.

  “Tona’s” Livia replied curtly, surveying the damage that their spell had inflicted.

  This darkened Andrew’s complexion quite a bit, as he mulled over those words.

  Wordlessly, Andrew tapped his staff on his metal plate.

  The noise reverberated across the city, echoing eerily against the ruins.

  With a snap of her fingers, Archsage Livia sent thin lines of gold crawling and sprouting from the rubble.

  And following these eerie golden lines were countless pieces of rubble and stone, coalescing and crawling upon themselves under the command of Archsage Andrew.

  Each of these stony figures rose from the depths of the rubble, imbued with a mission by the archsages.

  These golems flexed their newly formed ‘muscles’, crawling their way up from the rubble, joining with one another in their shared purpose.

  Thin lines of fire still burned all throughout the wreckage, sending unbearable heat down upon the hellscape they had created.

  The two Archsages had just crafted, with loving power, the perfect terrain for a showdown against the abominable enemy of humankind.

  This would be the grave of The Fae Queen.