Chapter 7: - Higher Power

  Exia punched the air and found his fists lacking. He found his body, his mind, his heart, his soul—his everything—lacking.

  He couldn’t strike Morozova like this, he couldn’t do anything like this.

  Still, he kept at it. He kept throwing fists underneath the night sky, even as the rain battered against his back, even as thunder roared angrily above.

  In his mind's eye was Morozova. Big, ugly, stupid Morozova.

  He moved as quickly as his legs could take him, tried to dodge the man’s swipe, but only got an imagined fist to the face before he could cover the distance.

  Too slow, too slow, too fucking slow!

  He didn’t want to keep the idiot here; the faster Exia developed, the stronger he became, the sooner the gorilla's job would be done here, and he could finally be somewhere he wanted—not somewhere he was forced to be.

  Forced to be by me…

  He remembered Father, he remembered Mother.

  He couldn’t do anything then. This, he could do, this, he had no choice but to do.

  How could you ever be strong enough to avenge them if you can’t strike one fucking peasant!

  Exia dashed through the garden and swung a fist. Too slow again.

  Again, again, again, again. Slow, slow, slow, slow.

  “Fuck!” He roared and the sky roared back. Warm tears danced along an already dripping face. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck, fuck!”

  Why can’t you do anything right? Why can’t you do anything fucking right! You cretin, you worthless piece of shit!

  Exia fell to his knees, he slammed his fist into the dirt over and over and over—churning up dirt, bruising his knuckles and then finally bleeding from them.

  Perfect for striking dirt…Useless it actually matters.

  He stayed there, hands on the ground, body trembling, snot fleeing his nostrils. His lungs burned, his hands hurt and he wanted oh so desperately to sleep.

  Exia got to his feet, cleaned his face of snot, and moved to strike Morozova once more.

  ###

  “Well, hello there,” Exia greeted warmly.

  “False King!” Agrikolyansky spat. He was a Wind Mage, the weakest of the trio and the one with the least head of hair. Poor man.

  Fayzulin the Fire Mage had nothing to say and only glared. But Amfitheatrof more than made up for that with his own words. “Burn! The Mage King must burn!” He was the strongest of the trio, a Fire Mage sitting at the Sixty-Seventh magnitude.

  Exia raised his hands inoffensively. “While I do understand, and sympathise with the arguments made by all three—two—of you, you have to understand that I do have somewhat of an aversion to this whole setting the Mage King on fire affair. Any chance we could settle our disagreements with a friendly round of poetic debate?”

  All three looked at each other like they’d just collectively witnessed a deer speak and were checking the others’ gazes for confirmation.

  Their eyes fell back on Exia, and the room exploded into violence.

  A shame, Exia had missed poetry.

  In the back of his mind Zcigmagus slobbered. Calm down you gluttonous bastard, you’ll have your fill. I just need some questions answered first.

  Amfitheatrof moved first, Fayzulin second, Agrikolyansky last. All three were murderously fast, all three were far too slow.

  Give me a hand, will you?

  A portal opened in his back, and out of it came a tentacle the size of a man. Stun. The limb crackled with blue lightning, and with the speed of a train and motions of an eel, it whipped forwards and crashed into Amfitheatrof’s form. Exia felt bone crunch through the gigantic limb, and then the man was flying. He crashed into Fayzulin and the two were plucked off their feet by the momentum, smashed through a wall, and carried out of sight a moment later.

  That was them removed from the fight, at least for a moment.

  Agrikolyansky—the Wind Mage—kept on coming, not even caring that in one move a three on one had turned into a one on one. Such bravery was rare, grand, and highly sought after in Mages. It might have made a difference were he facing off against a lesser Mage. Exia was no lesser Mage.

  Agrikolyansky splayed his palm out and a jet of wind tore through the room and chased Exia.

  Exia met him likewise.

  Breath of Zcigmagus: Stream

  A torrent of fire roared from Exia’s palm to meet the blast of wind. It slammed into the wall of solid air with a thunderous thud and broke through it.

  The blue fire caught the Priest, and soon the bar was covered not just in flames, but the screams of a burning man.

  The flames of Zcigmagus did not burn like mundane fire did. Neither did they burn like Gnev’s either. They emanated no heat, and instead stole warmth from everything around them. The way it burnt was something humanity had yet developed the technology to replicate. And so was the pain.

  Exia wanted to grin, he wanted to enjoy the sight, because he knew what the killer had done to him. What they had cost him. Everything. you cost me everything… However, a voice in the back of his mind nagged incessantly at him. ‘Don’t do this in my name lad. You know I wouldn’t want that.’

  Two large limbs extended from Exia’s form, they wrapped around a flailing Agrikolyansky, and with one quick jerking motion, snapped his neck. The screaming stopped, and later so did the twitching.

  There you go, free. No one can hurt you ever again. Not even me.

  He let go of the body, and it fell onto the wood with a thud.

  Zcigmagus roared in triumph and Exia felt a surge of power thrum in his core. It was ecstatic, addictive, the sensation was—speaking quite frankly—better than sex. And yet Exia had far more important things to focus on at the moment.

  He stepped out the hole he’d thrown the others through and saw that they were already on their feet. Both were covered head to toe in flames, a weariness across their faces.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he rolled his neck.

  Amfitheatrof’s flame came as an arc that cleaved through the air, Fayzulin pointed his hand to the sky and balls of fire descended from above, like falling stars.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Shell.

  His tentacles turned from rubbery elastic to plastic-hard, they crashed into Amfitheatrof’s assault—it was by far the most dangerous of the two attacks—and broke the arc of fire into ineffective sparks in the air.

  Fayzulin’s fire came raining down a moment later, bringing down orange death upon Exia. The world exploded into a sea of white lights and hot pain ran across his body while it did.

  The road around Exia was charred black, some parts of it still crackled with fire where asphalt had been ignited. But Exia was fine. He had burns all across his back, and a collar that still danced with flame, but he was ultimately fine. The heat had taken no more than a layer or two from his skin—he’d had worse shaving. What was of greater concern was the fact that the Priests had decided to leverage their numbers against his overwhelming power by attacking in tandem. They were keeping their distance too, to stay out of reach.

  It was how one fought a vastly superior Mage, and the fact that they had managed steady and cool enough heads to stick to such a tactic despite being in the face of someone several magnitudes above them was testament to their experience.

  And yet…It would mean nothing.

  Exia splayed his hands out, and covered the streets in death.

  ###

  Sasha dodged, blocked, and met a fist of lightning whenever she failed to do either.

  Scythe!

  She shot her fire out as an arc and the Mage slid to the side before meeting her with his own arc of lighting.

  His struck, slamming into Sasha’s chest and sending her reeling.

  She hurried backwards to put some distance between her and the man, and called for some help while at it.

  Chase!

  The air between her and Donchenko thickened—then erupted into flame, bursting forth in the shape of birds.

  They converged around him and right before he could strike them down, Sasha growled.

  “Combust!”

  And they did, each flame detonating like a mine and making the earth shiver.

  It was the man’s turn to reel now, eyes blinking, body covered in burns.

  Whip!

  A rope of fire extended from her hand outwards, it wrapped around Donchenko’s arm, scorching his skin, and she dragged him forwards with it.

  The Priest came stumbling towards her and Sasha met him with a fireball to the head.

  Sphere!

  It leapt out of her palm and slammed into his face, detonating as might a splash of nitroglycerin and burning like magma.

  Sasha moved to strike again, but lightning struck first, raining from above and bringing her down to her knees in torment.

  Donchenko slammed his boot into her face, and the battle was his once more.

  ###

  Exia dashed at Amfitheatrof, ducked underneath a stream of Fayzulin’s fire and wrapped a tentacle around the first man’s ankle.

  He lifted him high and brought the man down hard into the pavement, burying him deep into the earth, and dodging a jet of retaliatory fire from the Priest’s ally.

  He was focused on Fayzulin now and he weathered a ball of exploding fire to the side before he’d fully covered the distance between them.

  Exia hissed, slammed a tentacle into his head and saw the lights go out in his opponent’s eyes. He doused him in fire before he could hit the ground. The corpse burned blue the streets of Gorodlzhi, and Zcigmagus howled in triumph. More power soaked into Exia, absorbed into the greater mass of his own. This was King Exia, the hunter of Mages. The cannibal. Such was the past of any Mage to rise so high as the Seventy Ninth Magnitude.

  Finally, he turned his eyes on Amfitheatrof, who was now crawling out of the hole in the ground. He seemed to have a broken shoulder and a leg that moved awkwardly when he walked.

  He looked upon his dead compatriot with raw anguish and his attacks came at Exia with a redoubled fervour. Ball after ball of fire tore towards him, and Exia caught each with a tentacle.

  The man charged at him, spitting and roaring jittery curses as he approached.

  Exia’s tentacles leapt at him like webs from a spider, four in number, all wrapping around the man and cocooning him around their limbs. Exia actually had to focus this time, Amfitheatrof was well above the other three in power, and he could feel it from the way he struggled against his hold. Not struggled well of course, but the effort was admirable.

  When he was certain he had the man secure, Exia unwrapped the tentacle around his face. He held the Mage’s burning eyes for a moment and the two sat in agreement of the night’s silence.

  Unfortunately, it seemed that might be all they would agree upon.

  “Burn!” Amfitheatrof roared.

  Exia’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you out here?!”

  “Burn!”

  Exia sighed, he wasn’t getting anywhere—No, idiot—he was literally being told the answer. He just wasn’t listening.

  “So you’re let lose to burn, burn people, terrorise the city, carry on your deeds.” Exia rolled the thoughts around in his head. “But why?”

  “Burn the Mage King!”

  “Burn me…” Exia echoed. “But I wasn’t here months ago when you started. I wasn’t here when Morozova was… But I am now, because of your burnings. Just like you were banking on.”

  Amfitheatrof didn’t say anything. He just stared, with a gaze that Exia decided he would not pretend to begin to understand. “Burn..” the man whispered, voice soft, weak, like a pleading animal. A pleading person.

  “Locked in a cage. Let loose only to hunt. Shoved back in the moment your job is done,” Exia stated. “Do not worry. I will not leave you to such a fate.”

  With that, he killed the man. And Zcigmagus grinned.

  ###

  Sasha was going to die.

  It was a novel realisation, odd when truly confronted with, and deeply, deeply terrifying. Sasha was a Mage of the Sixty Sixth Magnitude. She had seen several battles as one, and yet not a one of those had ever brought her close to death—unless she was actively sought out and ensnared by one of the rare forces that was beyond her, she could walk away from any battle. The concentration of such forces was rarely convenient, on the strategic scale.

  But now, she was going to die.

  Death approached her hungrily. With a bloodied face, and burns along his skin, but he approached her nonetheless.

  Sasha needed to lean up against a wall just to keep herself upright. Her magic was running on fumes. The flames that danced around her skin had long since been extinguished, and the presence of Gnev was a distant thing in the back of her mind… An abandoning thing. He was leaving her to her fate, turning his back on a failed disciple and looking for one more worthy of focus.

  Donchenko was far from unharmed, his lightning was nowhere to be seen, blood ran down his arm, his chest was burnt, and she was certain he could barely see out his left eye.

  But he was in far better shape than her. And that was what mattered.

  He leered gluttonously. “You cannot imagine…the things I’m going to do to your corpse once I get those gloves off.”

  “Oh, oh, I can, I can” chirped a voice from behind. The King’s voice.

  Donchenko turned, splayed his hands out to spit lightning, but was plucked into the air by a massive blue limb before he could.

  The hands of Zcigmagus wrapped around Donchenko’s ankle and slammed him into the ground with fury. The impact churned the very earth apart and sent dirt spitting in every direction.

  The King continued, slamming Donchenko into walls, roofs, lamps, anything that looked somewhat solid, like he was a child frustrated with his toy. None of it stayed solid for long.

  When he was done, Donchenko’s limbs and bones jutted out at all the wrong angles. He was being held up by the ankle, upside down. The man wheezed as if every breath was a herculean task, and Sasha knew he was not for this world much longer.

  The King brought him close, so they could meet each other’s eyes. In the King’s was something vicious, almost reptilian. It felt like she was looking at something inhuman. Or perhaps something that lurked slumbering within all humans. “You… I looked into you. You’re different from the others.”

  Donchenko coughed blood and spasmed in agony.

  The King’s lips tilted upwards in a cruel arc and he continued. “No…no…no…You see the world clearly. No gods whispering in your ears, no clouds in your mind… You just enjoy the killing.”

  Donchenko’s wheezing grew heavier, more frantic—panicked. Sasha saw true terror in his eyes, the kind of an animal staring up at an unforgiving predator.

  “Do you want to hear a secret?” The King asked him. He gestured the dying man forwards with two fingers, and the tentacle brought Donchenko close enough to the King that his ear brushed the monarch’s lips. “I do too.”

  King Exia turned him so their gazes met once again. A solitary tentacle wrapped around the priest’s neck, fastening itself like a noose. For a moment, the pair communicated only in silence—Exia’s eyes dancing in the moonlight, Donchenko’s cowering in the dark. And then the King spoke forth death. “Entropy.”

  Sticky blue liquid oozed from the tentacles around his throat and hissed when they kissed skin. Red bubbled up from Donchenko’s flesh to bleed into the sickening cobalt. The man grunted, struggled, thrashed and soon he was flailing helplessly underneath the King’s grasp. His screams came in painful ruined cries, marked with the torment it caused him to let them out and highlighting the agony that forced him to do so anyways.

  The Priest let out a wet cough—his final sound. The tentacle coiled tighter, folding inward like a closing fist. Flesh and Bone gave like melted wax and his head slumped off his shoulders, thudding stickily to the ground.

  Sasha stared, because that was all she could do, stare. Her heart raced, her fingers were numb with terror and cold with panic. She had been prepared to die—that was the life of a soldier after all, to fight knowing each battle could be your last—but not like this. Never like this.

  The King dropped the ruined corpse and it hit the ground heavily. His cold blue eyes fell on Sasha and she was certain her heart would give from the terror it imbued. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair that there were people this powerful… This cruel.

  The Mage raised a hand. And took off his gloves. The King was all wide smiles and mischievous eyes so fast that she hadn’t even noticed the shift in demeanor; he was a monster one moment and then suddenly a man the next. “Wow Captain, you look like shit,” he snorted, tossing her his gloves. “Have you considered blocking attacks with something that isn’t your face.”